The Project Gutenberg eBook, Happy House, by Betsey Riddle, Freifrau von Hutten zum Stolzenberg

HAPPY HOUSE

The BARONESS

VON HUTTEN

HAPPY HOUSE

BY

The BARONESS VON HUTTEN

AUTHOR OF "PAM," "PAM DECIDES," "SHARROW," "KINGSMEAD," ETC.

NEW YORK

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1920,

BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

TO MISS LILY BETTS

my dear lily: We three, one of us in a chair, and two of us upside down on the grass-plot, have decided that this book must be dedicated to you, in memory of how we did not work on it at Sennen Cove, and how we did work on it here. So here it is, with our grateful love, from

Your affectionate
Richard, and Hetty, and B. v. H.
PENZANCE

CONTENTS

HAPPY HOUSE

[CHAPTER I]

Mrs. Walbridge stood at the top of the steps, a pink satin slipper in her hand, looking absently out into the late afternoon. The July sunlight spread in thick layers across the narrow, flagged path to the gate, and the shadows under the may tree on the left were motionless, as if cut out of lead. The path was strewn with what looked like machine-made snowflakes, and a long piece of white satin ribbon had caught on the syringa bush on the right of the green gate, and hung like a streak of whiter light across the leaves. Someone inside the house was playing a fox-trot, and sounds of tired laughter were in the air, but the well-known author, Mrs. Walbridge, did not hear them. She was leaning against the side of the door, recklessly crushing her new grey frock, and her eyes were fixed on the gate in the unseeing stare of utter fatigue. Presently the music stopped and the sudden silence seemed to rouse her, for, with a deep sigh and a little shake of the head that was evidently characteristic, she turned and went slowly into the house.

A few minutes later a brisk-looking young man in a new straw hat came down the street and paused at the gate, peering up at the fanlight to verify his whereabouts. Number eighty-eight did not seem to satisfy him, but suddenly his eyes fell on the gate. On its shabby green were painted the words, very faded, almost undecipherable, "Happy House," and with a contented nod the young man opened the gate and went quickly up the steps. No one answered his ring, so he rang again. Again the silence was unbroken, but from somewhere far off he heard the sound of laughter and talking, and, peering forward into the little hall, he took a small notebook from his pocket and wrote a few words in it, whistling softly between his teeth. He was a freckled-faced young man with a tip-tilted nose, not in the least like the petals of a flower, and with a look of cheery cheekiness. After a moment he went into the passage and thrust his head into the open drawing-room door. The room was filled with flowers, and though the windows were wide open, it smelt close, as if it had already been full of people. The walls were covered with pink and white moiré paper, whose shiny surface was broken by various pictures. Watts's "Hope" in a gilt frame dominated the mantelpiece; a copy of "The Fighting Téméraire" faced it, and there were a good many photographs elaborately framed, grouped, like little families, in clusters. Between the windows hung an old, faded photogravure of "The Soul's Awakening," and "Alone at Last" revealed its artless passion over a walnut chiffonier laden with small pieces of china. The young man in the straw hat, which was now pushed far back on his sweat-darkened fair hair, stood in the middle of the room and looked round, scratching his head with his pencil. His bright eyes missed nothing, and although he was plainly a young man full of buoyant matter-of-factness, there was scorn, not unkindly, but decided, in his merry but almost porcine eyes as he made mental notes of his surroundings.

"Poor old girl," he muttered. "Hang that 'bus accident. I wish I'd been here in time for the party——" Then his shrewd face softened as the deeper meaning of the room reached him. It was ugly; it was commonplace, but it was more of a home than many a room his journalistic activities had acquainted him with. By a low, shabby, comfortable-looking arm-chair that stood near the flower-filled grate was a dark-covered table on which stood five photographs, all in shiny silver or leather frames. Mr. Wick stood over the table tapping his teeth softly with his pencil, and moving his lips in a way that produced a hollow tune. "So that's the little lot," he said to himself in a cheerful, confidential voice. "Three feminines and two masculines, as the Italians say. And very nice too. Her own corner, I bet. Yes, there's her fountain pen." He took it up and made a note of its make and laid it carefully down. There was a little fire-screen in the shape of a banner of wool embroidery on the table. "That's how she keeps the firelight out of her eyes when she's working in the winter. Poor old girl. What ghastly muck it is, too—— Good thing for her the public likes it. Now, then, what about that bell? Guess I'll go and have another tinkle at it." He started to the door, when it was pushed further open and the owner of the house came in. Mr. Wick knew at the first glance that it was the owner of the house. A fattish, middle-aged man in brand new shepherd's plaid trousers and a not quite so new braided morning-coat.

"Hallo! I—I beg your pardon——" the new-comer began, not at all in the voice of one who begs pardon. Mr. Wick waved his hand kindly.

"Oliver Wick's my name," he explained. "I come from Round the Fire for an account of the wedding, but I got mixed up with a rather good 'bus smash in Oxford Street, and that's why I'm late."

"Oh, I see. Want a description of the wedding, do you? Clothes and so on? I'm afraid I'm not much good for that, but if you'll come into the garden I'll get one of my daughters to tell you. Some of the young people are still there, as a matter of fact."

Mr. Walbridge had stopped just short of being a tall man. His figure had thickened and spread as he grew older and his hips were disproportionately broad, which gave him a heavy, clumsy look. In his reddish, rather swollen face were traces of what had been great beauty, and he had the unpleasant manner of a man who consciously uses his charm as a means to attain his own ends.

"Come into the dining-room first and have a glass of the widow," he suggested, as he led the way down the narrow passage towards an open door at the back of the house.

Mr. Wick, who had no inhuman prejudice against conviviality, followed him into the dining-room and partook, as his quick eyes made notes of everything on which they rested, of a glass of warmish, rather doubtful wine.

"I suppose Mrs. Walbridge will give me five minutes?" the young man asked, setting down his glass and taking a cigarette from the very shiny silver case offered him by his host. Mr. Walbridge laughed, showing the remains of a fine set of teeth artfully reinforced by a skilled dentist.

"Oh, yes. My wife will quite enjoy being interviewed. Women always like that kind of thing, and, between you and me and the gate-post," he poured some champagne into a tumbler and drank it before he went on, "interviewers don't come round quite as they used in her younger days."

Mr. Wick despised the novels of the poor lady he had come to interview, but he was a youth not without chivalry, and something in his host's manner irritated him.

"She has a very good book public, anyhow, has Violet Walbridge. You mustn't mind me calling her that. I shouldn't call Browning Mr. Browning, you know, or Victoria Cross Miss Cross."

Walbridge nodded. "Oh, yes, they're pretty stories, pretty stories, though I like stronger stuff myself. Just re-reading 'L'Assommoir' again. Met Zola once when I was living in Paris. Always wondered how he smashed his nose. Well, if you're ready, let's come down into the garden where the ladies are."

The garden of Happy House was a long narrow strip almost entirely covered by a grass tennis court, and bounded by a narrow, crowded, neglected herbaceous border. As he stood at the top of the steep flight of steps leading down to where the group of young people were sprawled about in dilapidated old deck-chairs or on the grass, Mr. Wick's quick eyes saw the herbaceous border, and, what is more, they understood it. It was a meagre, squeezed, depressed looking attempt, and the young man from Brondesbury knew instinctively that, whereas the tennis court was loved by the young people of the family, the wild and pathetic flowers belonged to the old lady he had come to interview. Somehow he seemed to know, as he told his mother later, quite a lot about Violet Walbridge, just through looking at her border.

The sun was setting now, and a little wind had come up, stirring the leaves on the old elm under whose shade, erratic and scant, the little group were seated. Three or four young men were there, splendid, if rather warm, in their wedding garments, and several young women and girls, the pretty pale colours of their fine feathers harmonising charmingly with the evening. At the far end of the garden a lady was walking, with a blue silk sunshade over her shoulder. As the two men came down the steps Mr. Walbridge pointed to her.

"There's my wife," he said. "Shall I come and introduce you?"

"No, thank you. No, no, I'll go by myself," the young man answered hastily, and as he went down across the lawn he heard a girl's voice saying laughingly: "Reporter to interview Mrs. Jellaby." The others laughed, not unkindly, but their laughter lent to Mr. Wick's approach to Mrs. Walbridge a deference it might otherwise not have had. She had not heard him coming, and was standing with her back to him, her head and shoulders hidden by the delphinium-blue sunshade, and when she turned, starting nervously at the sound of his voice, he realised with painful acuteness that delphinium blue is not the colour to be worn by daylight by old ladies. Her thin, worn face, in which the bones showed more than in any face he had ever seen, was flooded with the blue colour that seemed to fill all the hollows and lines with indigo, and her large sunken eyes, on which the upper eyelids fitted too closely, must have been, the young man noticed, beautiful eyes long ago. They were of that most rare eye-colour, a really dark violet, and the eyebrows on the very edge of the clearly defined frontal bone were slightly arched and well marked over the temples. When he had told her who he was and his errand, she flushed with pleasure and held out her hand to him, and he, whose profession is probably second only to that of dentistry in its unpopularity, was touched by her simple pleasure.

"My Chief thought the public would be interested in the wedding. He tells me this daughter—the bride, I mean—was the original of—of—one of your chief heroines."

Violet Walbridge led the way to an old, faded green garden seat, on which they sat down.

"Yes, she's the original of 'Rose Parmenter,'" she helped him out gently, without offence at his having forgotten the name. "I wish you had seen her. But you can say that she was looking beautiful, because she was——"

Mr. Wick whipped out his notebook and his beautifully sharpened pencil, contrived a little table of his knees, and looked up at her.

"'Rose Parmenter'—oh, yes. That's one of your best-known books, isn't it?"

"Yes, that and 'Starlight and Moonlight.' They sold best, though 'One Maid's Word' has done very well. That," she added slowly, "has been done into Swedish, as well as French and German. 'Queenie's Promise' has been done into six languages."

Her voice was very low, and peculiarly toneless, but he noticed a little flush of pleasure in her thin cheeks—a flush that induced him, quite unexpectedly to himself, to burst out with the information that a friend of his sister—Jenny her name was—just revelled in his companion's works. "Give me a box o' chocs," Kitty will say, "and one of Violet Walbridge's books, and I wouldn't change places with Queen Mary."

Without being urged, Mrs. Walbridge gave the young man details he wanted—that her daughter's name was Hermione Rosalind; that she was the second daughter and the third child, and that she had married a man named Gaskell-Walker—William Gaskell-Walker.

"He belongs to a Lancashire family, and they've gone to the Lakes for their honeymoon." The author waved her thin hand towards the group of young people at the other end of the lawn. "There's the rest of my flock," she said, her voice warming a little. "The tall man who's looking at his watch is my other son-in-law, Dr. Twiss of Queen Anne Street, Cavendish Square. He married my eldest daughter, Maud, four years ago. Their little boy was page to-day. He's upstairs asleep now."

As she spoke one of the girls in the group left the others and came towards her and Wick.

"This is your daughter, too?" the young man asked, a little throb of pleasure in his voice.

"Yes, this," Mrs. Walbridge answered, taking the girl's hand, "is my baby, Griselda. Grisel, dear, this is Mr.—Mr.——"

"Wick," said the young man. "Oliver Wick."

"You've come to interview Mum?" Miss Walbridge asked, a little good-natured raillery in her voice.

The young man bowed. "Yes. I represent Round the Fire, and my Chief thought that the public would be interested in an account of the wedding——" His eyes were glued to the young girl's face. She was very small, and, he thought to himself, the blackest white girl he had ever seen; so dark that if he had not known who she was he might have wondered whether she were not the whitest black girl—her hair was coal-black and her long eyes like inkwells, and her skin, smooth as vellum, without a touch of colour, was a rich golden brown. She was charmingly dressed in canary-coloured chiffon, and round her neck she wore a little necklet of twisted strands of seed pearls, from which hung a large, beautifully cut pearl-shaped topaz.

"I came to tell you, Mum," she went on, glancing over her shoulder at one of the upper windows, "that Hilary's awake and bawling his head off, and Maud wants you to go up to him."

Mrs. Walbridge rose and Wick noticed, although he could not have explained it, how very different were her grey silk draperies from the yellow ones of her daughter. She had, moreover, sat down carelessly, and the back of her frock was crushed and twisted.

"It's my little grandson," she explained. "He's always frightened when he wakes up. I'll go to him. Perhaps you'd like my daughter to show you the wedding presents, Mr. Wick."

Oliver Wick was very young, and he was an ugly youth as well, but something about him held the girl's attention, in spite of his being only a reporter. This something, though she did not know it, was power, so it was perfectly natural that the little, spoilt beauty should lead him into the house to the room upstairs where the presents were set forth. His flowery article in the next number of Round the Fire expressed great appreciation of the gifts, but there was no detailed account of them, and that was because, although he looked at them and seemed to see what he was looking at, he really saw nothing but Miss Walbridge's enchanting little face.

"Do you ever read any of Mum's novels?" the girl asked him at last, as they stood by the window, looking down over the little garden into the quiet, tree-bordered road.

The young man hesitated, and she burst out laughing, pointing a finger of scorn at him.

"You've not?" she cried. "Own up. You needn't mind. I'm sure I don't blame you; they're awful rubbish—poor old Mum! I often wonder who it is does read them."

As she finished speaking, the door into the back room opened, and Mrs. Walbridge came out, carrying the little boy who had been crying. His long, fat legs, ending in shiny patent leather slippers, hung limply down, and his towsled fair head leant on her shoulder. He was dressed in cavalier costume of velvet and satin, and his fat, stupid face was blotted and blurred with tears. He looked so very large and heavy, and Mrs. Walbridge looked so small and old and tired that the young man went towards with his arms held out.

"Let me carry him down for you," he said. "He's too heavy——"

Griselda laughed. "My mother won't let you," she said gaily. "She always carries him about. She's much stronger than she looks."

Mrs. Walbridge didn't speak, but, with a little smile, went out of the room and slowly downstairs. Her daughter shrugged her shoulders.

"Mum's not only superannuated as to novels," she announced, smoothing her hair in front of a glass; "she's the old-fashioned mother and grandmother. She won't let us do a thing."

Her bright beauty had already cast a small spell on the young man, but nevertheless he answered her in a flash:

"Do you ever try?"

She stared for a moment. In spite of his journalistic manner and what is really best described as his cheek, Oliver Wick was a gentleman, and the girl had instinctively accepted him as such. But at the abrupt, frank censure in his voice she drew herself up and assumed a new manner.

"Now that you've seen the presents," she said, in what he knew she thought to be a haughty tone, "I think I must get back to my friends."

He grinned. "Righto! Sorry to have detained you. But I haven't quite finished my talk with Mrs. Walbridge. I'm sure she won't mind giving me a few tips about her next book. Our people love that kind of thing—eat it."

He cast his eye about the pleasant sunny room, and then, as he reached the door, stopped.

"I suppose this is your room?" he asked, with bland disregard of her manner.

"What do you mean?"

"Well—different kinds of pictures, you know; brown wallpaper, and that's a good Kakemono. Hanabosa Iccho, isn't it?"

Miss Walbridge's face expressed surprise too acute to be altogether courteous.

"I—I don't know," she said. "I know it's a very good one. Mother bought it for Paul—that's my brother—he's very fond of such things—for his birthday and at Christmas—his room is being painted, so some of his things are in here."

The young man looked admiringly at the grey and white study of monkeys and leaves.

"I've got an uncle who collects them," he said, "and that's a jolly good one. I suppose that Mrs. Walbridge goes in for Japanese art too?"

"Poor mother!" The girl laughed. "She doesn't know a Kakemono from a broomstick. Paul found that one at some sale and asked her to give it to him."

They went slowly down the stairs, the girl's pretty white hand sliding lightly along the polished rail in a way that put all thought of Japanese art out of the young man's active mind. He was going to be a great success, for he had the conquering power of concentrating not only his thoughts but his feelings on one thing at a time; and for the moment the only thing in the world was Griselda Walbridge's left hand.

[CHAPTER II]

Happy House was a big old house with rooms on both sides of the door, and a good many bedrooms, but it was old-fashioned in the wrong way, like a man's straw hat, say, of the early seventies. It was inconvenient without being picturesque. There was only one bathroom, and the passages were narrow. Most of the children had been born there, indeed all of them except Paul, for the prudent Mrs. Walbridge had bought it out of the proceeds of her first book, "Queenie's Promise"—a book that is even now dear to thousands of romantic hearts in obscure homes. Paul had been born in the little house at Tooting Bec, for there it was that the Great Success had been written. In those days might have been seen walking under the fine trees of the common, a little dowdy figure with a bustle and flowing unhygienic draperies, that was the newly married Mrs. Ferdinand Walbridge, in the throes of literary invention. But just before the birth of Maud Evelyn the removal had been made; the hastily gathered, inexpensive household gods had been carried by the faithful Carter Paterson to Walpole Road and set up in their over-large, rather dwarfing shrine. Those were the days of limitless ambition and mad, rosy dreams, when Ferdinand was still regarded by his young wife much in the way that Antony Trollope's heroines worshipped their husbands a short time before. The romantic light of the runaway match still hung round him and his extraordinary good looks filled her with unweakened pride.

They hung up Mr. Watts's "Hope," the beautiful and touching "Soul's Awakening" (which, indeed, bore a certain resemblance to Walbridge at that time), she arranged her little odds and ends of china, and her few books that her father had sent her after the half-hearted reconciliation following Paul's birth, and one of the first things they bought was a gilt clock, representing two little cupids on a see-saw. Mrs. Walbridge's taste was bad, but it was no worse than the taste of the greater part of her contemporaries of her own class, for she belonged body and soul to the Philistines. She hadn't even an artistic uncle clinging to the uttermost skirts of the pre-Raphaelites to lighten her darkness, and, behold, when she had made it, her little kingdom looked good to her. She settled down light-heartedly and without misgivings, to her quadruple rôle of wife, mother, housekeeper and writer. She had no doubt, the delicate little creature of twenty, but that she could "manage" and she had been managing ever since. She managed to write those flowery sentimental books of hers in a room full of crawling, experimental, loud-voiced babies; she managed to break in a series of savage handmaidens, who married as soon as she had taught them how to do their work; she managed to make flowers grow in the shabby, weed-grown garden; she managed to mend stair-carpets, to stick up fresh wallpapers, to teach her children their prayers and how to read and write; she managed to cook the dinner during the many servantless periods. The fate of her high-born hero and heroine tearing at her tender heart, while that fabulous being, the printer's devil, waited, in a metaphorical sense, on her doorstep. But most of all, she managed to put up with Ferdinand. She had loved him strongly and truly, but she was a clear-sighted little woman, and she could not be fooled twice in the same way, which, from some points of view, is a misfortune in a wife. So gradually she found him out, and with every bit of him that crumbled away, something of herself crumbled too. Nobody knew very much about those years, for she was one of those rare women who have no confidante, and she was too busy for much active mourning. Ferdinand was an expensive luxury. She worked every day and all day, believed in her stories with a pathetic persistence, cherishing all her press notices—she pasted them in a large book, and each one was carefully dated. She had a large public, and made a fairly large, fairly regular income, but there never was enough money, because Walbridge not only speculated and gambled in every possible way, but also required a great deal for his own personal comforts and luxuries. For years it was the joy of the little woman's heart to dress him at one of the classic tailors in Savile Row; his shirts and ties came from a Jermyn Street shop, his boots from St. James's Street, and his gloves (he had very beautiful hands) were made specially for him in the Rue de Rivoli. For many years Ferdinand Walbridge (or Ferdie, as he was called by a large but always changing circle of admiring friends) was one of the most carefully dressed men in town. He had an office somewhere in the city, but his various attempts at business always failed sooner or later, and then after each failure he would settle down gently and not ungratefully to a long period of what he called rest.

When the three elder children were eight, six and three, a very bad time had come to "Happy House." Little had been known about it except for the main fact that Mr. Walbridge was made a bankrupt. But Caroline Breeze, the only woman who was anything like an intimate friend of the household, knew that there was, over and above this dreadful business, a worse trouble.

Caroline Breeze was one of those women who are not unaffectionately called "a perfect fool" by their friends, but she was a close-mouthed, loyal soul, and had never talked about it to anyone. But years afterwards, when the time had come for her to speak, she spoke, out of her silent observation, to great purpose. For a long time after his bankruptcy Ferdie Walbridge walked about like a moulting bird; his jauntiness seemed to have left him, and without it he wilted and became as nothing. During this three years Mrs. Walbridge for the first time did her writing in the small room in the attic—the small room with the sloping roof and the little view of the tree-tops and sky of which she grew so fond, and which, empty and desolate though it was, had gradually grown to be called the study; and that was the time when Caroline Breeze was of such great use to her. For Caroline used to come every day and take the children, as she expressed it, off their mother's hands.

In '94 Mrs. Walbridge produced "Touchstones," in '95 "Under the Elms" and in '96 "Starlight and Moonlight." It was in '98 that there appeared in the papers a small notice to the effect that Mr. Ferdinand Walbridge was discharged from his bankruptcy, having paid his creditors twenty shillings in the pound.

Naturally, after this rehabilitation, Mr. Walbridge became once more his charming and fascinating self, and was the object of many congratulations from the entirely new group of friends that he had gathered round him since his misfortune.

"Most chaps would have been satisfied to pay fifteen shillings in the pound," more than one of these gentlemen declared to him, and Ferdie Walbridge, as he waved his hand and expressed his failure to comprehend such an attitude, really almost forgot that it was his wife and not himself who had provided the money that had washed his honour clean.

Caroline Breeze, faithful and best of friends, lived up three pairs of stairs in the Harrow Road, and one of her few pleasures was the keeping of an accurate and minute record of her daily doings. Perhaps some selections from the diary will help to bring us up to date in the story of "Happy House."

October, 1894—Tuesday.—Have been with poor Violet. Mr. Walbridge has been most unfortunate, and someone has made him a bankrupt. It is a dreadful blow to Violet, and poor little Hermy only six weeks old. Brought Maud home for the night with me. She's cutting a big tooth. Gave her black currant jam for tea. Do hope the seeds won't disagree with her....

Wednesday.—Not much sleep with poor little Maud. Took her round and got Hermy in the pram, and did the shopping. Saw Mr. Walbridge for a moment. He looks dreadfully ill, poor man. Told me he nearly shot himself last night. I told him he must bear up for Violet's sake....

A week later.—Went to "Happy House" and took care of the children while Violet was at the solicitors. She looks frightfully ill and changed, somehow. I don't quite understand what it is all about. Several people I know have gone bankrupt, and none of their wives seem as upset as Violet....

November 5th.—Spent the day at "Happy House" looking after the children. Violet had to go to the Law Courts with Mr. Walbridge. He looked so desperate this morning that I crept in and hid his razors. He dined at the King's Arms with some of his friends, and Violet and I had high tea together. She looks dreadfully ill, and the doctor says she must wean poor little Hermy. She said very little, but I'm afraid she blames poor Mr. Walbridge. I begged her to be gentle with him, and she promised she would, but she looked so oddly at me that I wished I hadn't said it.

November 20th.—Violet has moved into the top room next the nursery to be nearer the children. I must say I think this is wrong of her. She ought to consider her husband. He looks a little better, but my heart aches for him.

February, 1895.—Violet's new book doing very well. Third edition out yesterday. She's getting on well with the one for the autumn. Such a pretty title—"Under the Elms." It's about a foundling, which I think is always so sweet. She's very busy making over the children's clothes. Ferdie (he says it is ridiculous that such an intimate friend as I am should go on calling him Mr. Walbridge) has gone to Torquay for a few weeks as he's very run down. Mem.—I lent him ten pounds, as dear Violet really doesn't seem quite to understand that a gentleman needs a little extra money when he's away. He was sweet about her. Told me how very good she was, and said that her not understanding about the pocket money is not her fault, as, of course, she is not quite so well born as he. He is very well connected indeed, though he doesn't care to have much to do with his relations. He's to pay me back when his two new pastels are sold. They are at Jackson's in Oxford Street, and look lovely in the window....

November, 1895.—Violet's new book out to-day—"Under the Elms"—a sweet story. She gave me a copy with my name in it, and I sat up till nearly two, with cocoa, reading it. Very touching, and made me cry, but has a happy ending. I wish I had such a gift.

January 13th, 1896.—Just had a long talk with poor Ferdie. He is really very unlucky. Had his pocket picked on his way home from the city yesterday with £86 15s. 4d. in his purse. Does not wish to tell poor Violet. It would distress her so. He had bought some shares in some kind of mineral—I forget the name—and they had gone up, and he had been planning to buy her a new coat and skirt, and a hat, and lovely presents for all the children. He's such a kind man. He was even going to buy six pairs of gloves for me. The disappointment is almost more than he can bear. Sometimes I think Violet is rather hard on him. I couldn't bear to see him so disappointed, so I am lending him £50 out of the Post Office Savings Bank. He's going to pay me six per cent. It's better than I can get in any other safe investment. He's to pay me at midsummer. N.B.—That makes £60.

February 12th, 1896.—Paul's birthday. Went to tea to "Happy House." Violet made a beautiful cake with white icing, and had squeezed little pink squiggles all over it in a nice pattern. She gave him a fine new pair of boots and a bath sponge. His daddy gave him a drum—a real one—and a large box of chocolates.

February 13th, 1896.—Ferdie came round at seven this morning to ask me to help nurse Paul. He was ill all night with nettle-rash in his throat, and nearly choked, poor little boy. I've been there all day. Susan told me Ferdie's grief in the night was something awful. It's a good thing Violet does not take things so to heart. Odd about the chocolate. It seems it's always given him nettle-rash.

September 4th, 1896.—Darling Hermy's second birthday. Her mother made her a really lovely coat out of her Indian shawl. I knitted her a petticoat. Dear Ferdie gave her a huge doll with real hair, that talks, and a box of chocolates, which we took away from her, as Paul cried for some. Ferdie had quite forgotten that chocolates poison Paul. He was very wonderful this evening after the children had gone to bed. He had made some money (only a little) by doing some work in the city, and he had bought Violet a lovely pair of seed-pearl earrings. I suppose she was very tired, because she was really quite ungracious about them, and hurt his feelings dreadfully. There was also some trouble about the gas man, which I didn't quite understand. But afterwards, when I had gone upstairs to take a last look at the children, they had a talk, and as I came downstairs I saw him kneeling in front of her with his head in her lap. He has such pretty curly hair, and when I came in he came to me and took my hand and said he didn't mind my seeing his tears, as I was the same as a sister, and asked me to help influence her to forgive him, and to begin over again. It was very touching, and I couldn't help crying a little. I was so sorry for him. Violet is really rather hard. I suggested to her that after all many nice people go bankrupt, and that other women have far worse things to bear, and she looked at me very oddly for a moment, almost as if she despised me, though it can't have been that....

September 30th, 1896.—Have been helping Violet move her things back into the downstairs room. Ferdie was so pleased. He brought home a great bunch of white lilac—in September!—and put it in a vase by the bed. I thought it was a lovely little attention.

July 4th, 1897.—A beautiful little boy came home this morning to "Happy House." They are going to call him Guy, which is Ferdie's favourite name. He was dreadfully disappointed it wasn't a little girl, so that she could be named Violet Peace. He's so romantic. What a pity there is no masculine name meaning Peace....

[CHAPTER III]

Mr. Oliver Wick's ideas of courtship were primitive and unshakable. On one or two clever, ingenious pretexts he visited "Happy House" twice within the month after his first visit, in order, as he expressed it to himself, to look over Miss Walbridge in the light of a possible wife. That he was in love with her he recognised, to continue using his own language, "from the drop of the hat," "from the first gun." But although he belonged to the most romantic race under the sun, Mr. Wick was no fool, and whereas anything like a help-meet would have displeased him almost to the point of disgust, he had certain standards to which any one with claims to be the future Mrs. Oliver Wick must more or less conform. He didn't care a bit about money—he felt that money was his job, not the girl's—but she'd got to be straight, she'd got to be a good looker, and she'd got to be good-tempered. No shrew-taming for him—at least not in his own domestic circle.

One evening, shortly after his third visit to "Happy House," the young man was standing at the tallboys in his mother's room in Spencer Crescent, Brondesbury, tying a new tie over an immaculate dress shirt.

"I'm going to do the trick to-night," he declared, filled with pleasant confidence, "or bust."

Mrs. Wick, who looked more like her son's grandmother than his mother, sat in a low basket chair by the window, stretching, with an old, thin pair of olive-wood glove stretchers, the new white gloves that were to put the final touch of splendour to the wooer's appearance.

She was a pleasant-faced old woman, with a strong chin and keen, clear eyes, and when she smiled she showed traces of past beauty.

"Well, of course," she said, snapping the glove-stretchers at him thoughtfully, "you know everything—you always did—and far be it from me to make any suggestions to you."

He turned round, grinning, his ugly face full of subtle likeness to her handsome one.

"Oh, go on," he jeered, "you wonderful old thing! Some day your pictures will be in the penny papers as the mother of Baron Wick of Brondesbury. Of course I know everything! Look at this tie, for instance. A Piccadilly tie, built for dukes, tied in Brondesbury by Fleet Street. What's his name—D'Orsay—couldn't do it better. But what were you going to say?"

She laughed and held out the gloves. "Here you are, son. Only this. I bet you sixpence she won't look at you. She'll turn you down; refuse you; give you the cold hand; icy mit—what d'you call it? And then, you'll come back and weep on my shoulder."

Mr. Wick, who had taken the gloves, stood still for a minute, his face full of sudden thought.

"She may," he said, "she may. I don't care if she does. I tell you she's lovely, mother. She'd look like a fairy queen if the idiots who paint 'em realised that fairies ought to be dark, and not tow-coloured. Of course she'll refuse me a few times, but her father'll be on my side."

"Why?"

"Because he's a rather clever old scoundrel, and he'll know that I'm a succeeder—a getter."

The old woman looked thoughtful. "I haven't liked anything you told me about him, Olly. But, after all, he has paid up, and lots of good men have been unfortunate in business."

The young fellow took up his dress-coat, which was new and richly lined, and drew it on with care.

"Oh, I'm not marrying into this family because I admire my future father-in-law," he answered. "I haven't any little illusions about him, old lady. It's his wife who's done the paying, or I'm very much mistaken. She's an honest woman—poor thing."

There was such deep sympathy in his voice that his mother, who had risen, and was patting and smoothing the new coat into place on his broad shoulders, pulled him round till he faced her, and looked down at him, for she was taller than he.

"Why are you so sorry for her?"

He hesitated for a moment, and his hesitation meant much to her.

"I don't know. She never says anything, of course. She seems happy enough, but I believe—I believe she's found him out——"

"God help her," Mrs. Wick answered.

The young man remembered this episode as he sat opposite his hostess at dinner an hour and a half later. The dining-room had been re-papered since he had drunk that glass of luke-warm wine in it the day of Hermione's wedding, and his sharp eyes noticed the absence of several ugly things that had been there then. Stags no longer hooted to each other across mountain chasms over the sideboard, and one or two good line drawings hung in their place.

"How do you like it?" Griselda asked him. "Paul and I have been cheering things up a bit."

"Splendid," he replied promptly. "I say, how beautiful your sister is!"

Griselda's rather hard little face softened charmingly as she looked across the table, where the bride was sitting. Hermione Gaskell-Walker was a very handsome young woman in an almost classical way, and her short-sighted, clever-looking husband, who sat nearly opposite her, evidently thought so too, for he peered over the flowers at her in adoration that was plain and pleasing to see.

"They've such a jolly house in Campden Hill. His father was Adrian Gaskell-Walker, the landscape painter, and collected things."

Mr. Wick nodded, but did not answer, for he was busy making a series of those mental photographs, whose keenness and durability so largely contributed to his success in life. He had an amazing power of storing up records of incidents that somehow or other might come in useful to him, and this little dinner party, which he had decided to be a milestone on his road, interested him acutely in its detail.

By candlelight, in perfect evening dress, Ferdinand Walbridge's slightly dilapidated charms were very manifest. On his right sat an elderly lady about whom Mr. Wick's apparatus recorded only one word—pearls.

Next to her came Paul Walbridge, looking older than his twenty-nine years—thin, delicate, rather high shouldered, with remarkably glossy dark hair and immense soft, dove-coloured eyes. He looked far better bred, the young man decided, than he had any right to look; his hands, in particular, might have been modelled by Velasquez.

"Supercilious——" Wick thought, and then paused, not adding the "ass" that had come into his mind, for he knew that Paul Walbridge was not an ass, although he would have liked to call him one.

Next Paul came the beautiful Hermione, with magnificent shoulders white as flour, and between her and her mother sat a man named Walter Crichell, a portrait painter, one of the best in the secondary school—a man with over-red lips and short white hands with unpleasant, pointed fingers.

"That fellow's a stinker," Wick decided, never to change his mind.

Next came the hostess, thin, worn, rather silent, in the natural isolation of an old woman sitting between two young men, each of whom had youth and beauty on his far side.

Then, of course, came Oliver himself and Grisel. Next to Grisel, Gaskell-Walker, the lower part of whose face was clever, but who would probably find himself handicapped by the qualities belonging to too high, too straight a forehead; and next him, consequently on the host's left, sat Crichell's wife. Young Wick could not look at her very comfortably without leaning forward, but he caught one or two glimpses of her face as Walbridge bent over her, and promised himself a good look in the drawing-room. She was worth it, he knew. A soft, velvety brown creature, a little on the fat side, but rather beautiful. It was plain, too, that the old man admired her.

Mr. Wick studied his host's face for a moment as he thus completed his circle of observation, and so strong were his feelings as he looked at Mr. Walbridge that quite unintentionally he said "Ugh!" aloud.

"What did you say?" It was Mrs. Walbridge who spoke—her first remark for quite a quarter of an hour—and in her large eyes was the anxious, guilty look of one who has allowed herself to wool-gather in public.

Wick started, blushed scarlet, and then burst out laughing at his dilemma.

"I didn't say anything," he answered. "I was only thinking. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Walbridge."

Her worn face softened into a kind smile, and he noticed that her teeth were even and very white.

"It is awful, isn't it," she said, "to—to get thinking about things when one ought to be talking? I'm afraid I'm very dull for a young man to sit next."

"Oh, come, Mrs. Walbridge," he protested, "when you know how they all lapped up that article I wrote about you."

She bridled gently. "It was a very nice article." After a minute she added anxiously, her thin fingers pressing an old blue enamel brooch that fastened the rather crumpled lace at her throat: "Tell me, Mr. Wick, do you—do you really think that—that people like my books as much as they used to?"

"You must have a very big public," he answered, wishing she had not put the question.

"Yes, I know I have, but—you see, of course I'm not young any more, and the children—they know a great many people, and bring some of them here and—I've noticed that while they are all very kind, they don't seem to have—to have really read my books."

"Don't they?" said Wick, full of sympathy. "Dear me!"

She shook her head. "No, they really don't, and I've been wondering if—if it is that they're beginning to find me—a little old-fashioned."

What he wanted to say in return for this was: "But, bless your heart, you are old-fashioned, the old-fashionest old dear that ever lived!" What he did say was: "Well, I suppose lots of people think Thackeray and Dickens old-fashioned——" But when Grisel turned just then and fired some question at him, he felt a weak longing to mop his brow. It had been a narrow escape, and he would not have hurt the old lady's feelings for worlds. Something about this faded, exhausted-looking little old literary bee touched the young fellow in a quite new way.

"Gosh!" he thought; "now if it was mother, she wouldn't let people think her old-fashioned; she wouldn't be old-fashioned. My word, wouldn't she just sit up at night and write something to beat Wells, and Elinor Glyn, and the rest of them into a cocked hat!"

Grisel, in white—white that would have done very well, he thought, in Grosvenor Square or St. James's—was in her best mood that night, and as they talked he felt himself slipping lower and lower into the abyss—that pleasant abyss on the edge of which he had hovered so many times before without letting himself go.

It was then that the question of Bruce Collier's book rose. It was Crichell who brought up the subject, and as he described the book he enthusiastically waved his peculiarly white hands, which Mr. Wick thought, with some disgust, looked as if they were on the point of sprouting into horrid white tubers like potatoes in a dark cellar.

"The finest book I've read for years," he declared. "Magnificent piece of work."

"Walter's quite mad about it," his wife put in, leaning forward and making motions with her hand and throat like those of a sunning pigeon. "He dined with us last night—Mr. Collier—and he's an extraordinary creature. Never touched a drug in his life, yet he knows all about it—and as for the other things——" she shrugged her shoulders and laughed. Her husband shook his fist at her.

"Now, Clara," he said, "curb that tongue of yours, my dear, or you'll shock Mrs. Walbridge. Have you read the book, Mrs. Walbridge, 'Reek'?"

The little writer shook her head. "No, I haven't very much time for reading. I've just read 'The Rosary.' What a delightful book it is!"

Grisel stretched her hand across Wick and took hold of her mother's.

"Never mind, darling, you shan't be teased, and you mustn't read 'Reek.' I shouldn't dream of allowing you to."

Walbridge, in whose handsome, swollen eyes a new little flame was showing, looked up from a whispered talk with Mrs. Crichell and smiled at his wife.

"No, darling," he agreed, "I can't have you reading such books. It would ruin your style. I'm sure Mr. Wick agrees with me, don't you, Mr. Wick? Mr. Wick is a great admirer of your books," he added in an insufferable way.

She didn't speak, but Wick saw her thin lips quiver a little, and hastened to answer:

"I'm only a business man, Mr. Walbridge, and know nothing at all about literature, but I know this much—I bet the chap who wrote 'Reek' would give his eye-tooth to have Mrs. Walbridge's sales!"

Hermione Gaskell-Walker raised her heavy-lidded eyes and smiled at him gratefully, as she murmured, "Darling mum," and, stimulated by his success, Mr. Wick ended the conversation by saying firmly, as Mrs. Walbridge caught the eye of the pearl lady: "Filthy book, anyhow; not fit to be read by ladies——"

Some hours later a not very crestfallen young man sat in the small dining-room of 11, Spencer Crescent, Brondesbury, and ate poached eggs on toast—he was always ready for poached eggs—and announced to his dressing-gowned and beslippered mother that the lady of his choice had rejected him.

"Couldn't dream of it," he announced cheerfully, reaching for butter with his own knife in a way only permissible at such out-of-hour meals. "She pretended to be surprised, you know, and then, when that didn't work, she tried to assume that I was mad. Pretty little piece, she is, mother. Dimples in her lovely face she's got, and eyes like two little black suns, shining away——"

His mother coughed drily. "You don't seem remarkably cast down," she observed, rubbing her nose with her thumb—a broad and capable thumb, "and here was I wasting my tissue in an agony of fear about my broken-hearted boy."

He cocked his head as little snub-nosed dogs do, indeed, he all but cocked one ear, and his eyes twinkled.

"You and your tissue, indeed! You don't think I thought she was going to jump down my throat, do you? I'd hate a girl who took me first time. I like being refused—looks well. I hope she'll refuse me three or four times more."

"If she could see you eat poached eggs in your shirt-sleeves, with all the varnish off your hair, she'd go on refusing you to the crack o' doom," retorted the old lady.

Then they went to bed, and in five minutes the rejected one was snoring comfortably.

[CHAPTER IV]

"Roseleaves and Lavender," Violet Walbridge's last novel, was selling pretty well, but a few days after the dinner party the author left her house about half-past eleven, mounted a No. 3 bus, settled herself in the prow and travelled down to the Strand in answer to a rather pressing invitation from her publishers.

It was a fine October morning, with a little tang in the air, so windless that some early falling leaves left their boughs with an air of doubt and travelled very slowly, almost hesitatingly, towards the earth. All the smoke went straight up into the sky, and several caged birds on the route were singing loudly outside their windows. The bus was full of people, more or less all of them of the type who made Mrs. Walbridge's public, and there were, without doubt, several girls sitting almost within reach of her who would have felt it in the nature of an adventure to meet the author of "Queenie's Promise" and "One Maid's Word." It is interesting to think that there are fewer people who would genuinely thrill at the sight of George Meredith, if he were still alive, than would thrill at having met such a writer as Violet Walbridge. But no one knew who the little, dowdily dressed woman was, and her journey to Charing Cross was uneventful. God, who gives all mercies, gave the gift of vanity, and Mrs. Walbridge, although very humble-minded, was not without her innocent share in the consoling fault. More than once she had given herself the pleasure of telling some casually met stranger who she was. Once her yearly holiday at Bexhill had been given a glow of glory by the fact that she had by chance found the chambermaid at the little hotel, engrossed to the point of imbecility in "Starlight and Moonlight." Delicately, shyly, she had made known to the girl the fact of her identity, and the reverence, almost awe, of the poor ignorant servant in meeting the author of that splendid book had made her very happy for many hours.

Another time a working man in a train had been quarrelling with his wife for the possession of a torn copy of "Aaron's Rod" (a book which Mrs. Walbridge privately considered a little strong), and as she got out of the train and the man handed her down her holdall, she had thrown the exciting information of her identity into his face and run for her life, feeling herself akin to Dickens, Miss Ethel M. Dell, Robert Louis Stevenson, and all the other great ones of the earth. But these splendid events had never been frequent, and of late years they had almost ceased to occur. And as the little lady got off the bus at Charing Cross and blundered apologetically into a tall, rosy-faced girl, who clutched The Red Magazine to her breast, she wondered wistfully if the girl would have been delighted if she had told her.

Messrs. Lubbock & Payne, publishers, had their offices in the Strand, and Mrs. Walbridge's appointment was for half-past eleven. She felt a little nervous and depressed as she went up in the lift, for Mr. Lubbock was a very imposing man, whose fine bay-windowed waistcoat always overawed her a little. However, it was probably the glory of the golden autumn day that had got on her nerves. She was always sad on such days, so she tried to look bold and successful as she passed Wheeler, the old clerk, Mr. Lubbock's right-hand man, whom she had known for a quarter of a century.

Wheeler, however, did not respond to her remarks about the weather as he had once done, and when she had waited nearly half an hour her depression had grown still greater, and she was finally ushered into the inner office with hands and feet icy with fear.

Harrison Lubbock, a large, abnormally clean-looking old gentleman, with a ruff of silky white hair round his polished scalp, greeted her kindly, but without enthusiasm.

"I've asked you to call, Mrs. Walbridge," he began at once with a pronounced glance at the clock, "on a little matter of business. Mr. Payne and I have been talking things over of late—business matters you understand—and we have come to the conclusion that there are one or two of our authors to whom a few words of advice might be of use." He paused, and she looked at him anxiously.

"I see," she said, her face growing a little paler. "I—I'm one of those authors?"

He bowed, and the soft folds of his beautifully shaved double chin dropped a little lower over his high collar.

"Yes, yes, quite so. You're a very old, shall I say, client?—of ours——"

She would have liked to reply that at that moment the word patient might be more applicable to her, but she dared not, and after a moment he went on:

"I think we may say that we are very old friends."

This was awful. She was no business woman, and she had little knowledge of the world, but even she knew that it meant danger, in an interview avowedly a business interview, when friendship was invoked. She stammered something, and he went on:

"Your books have sold—sell—very well, on the whole. We have done our best for them, and, as you know, the cost of publishing and advertising—particularly advertising—has nearly doubled since the war."

Again he paused, and this time she bowed, being afraid to say that she knew conditions were such that her percentage on sales had gone down, while the sale price of her books had gone up to seven and six. She noticed Mr. Lubbock's sleeve-links; they were new ones and very neat, of gold and platinum. How she wished she could buy a pair like that for Paul! In the old days her envy would have been for Ferdie. Mr. Lubbock cleared his throat, fitted his fat finger-tips neatly together, and began to be sprightly.

"Amazing how the output of books of fiction has increased of late years, isn't it? Dear me, I can remember when 2250 would have been considered a big output, and now there are so many good writers, so many excellent writers, Mrs. Walbridge, that we are forced by competition and market conditions to bring out nearly three times that number. I wonder if you have kept up with the new writers," he went on after a pause, "Mrs. Levett, Joan Kelly, Austen Goodheart, and so on—and Wanda Potter. Wanda Potter's last book sold over a hundred thousand."

"I haven't read any of them, I'm afraid. I've so little time——" She tried to smile and felt as if her lips were freezing.

"Just so, just so; exactly what I was saying to Payne. 'Mrs. Walbridge is a very busy woman,' I said to Payne. 'She hasn't time—she can't be expected to have time—to read all these things, so it's quite natural that—that——'" He broke off, and taking up a little bronze figure of a poodle, that served as a paper weight, he examined it carefully for a moment. "I'm sure you understand what I mean, Mrs. Walbridge," he said at last.

She was looking at the corner of his polished mahogany writing table; she was looking at two carefully jointed bits of wood, finely grained and smoothly welded together, but what she saw was "Happy House"; Ferdie and his new cedar cigar chest yawning to be filled; of an unpaid tailor's bill; of his annual cough (Ferdie coughed himself regularly to Torquay every autumn); she saw Paul and his new edition de luxe of Swinburne, and the Rowlandson "Horse Fair" he had taken her to see in King Street, St. James's—the "Horse Fair" that was to cost "only eighteen guineas." She saw the little sea-green frock that hung in the great Frenchman's window in Hanover Square, the little frock that would look so beautiful on Grisel. She saw a vision of a hecatomb of roasts of beef and saddles of mutton, and oysters, and burgundy, that she was longing to offer up to her family gods. She saw the natural skunk coat she had been planning to give to poor dear Caroline for Christmas. She saw the new bathroom, on which the men were already working, that was to be Grisel's. Then these things passed away, and the corner of the table again appeared, and Mr. Lubbock was saying, in that kind, dreadful voice of his: "I feel quite sure that you understand our position, Mrs. Walbridge, and, after all, the reduction is not of very great consequence."

Before she could speak the telephone bell rang. He took up the receiver and bent forward, politeness and courtesy expressed in every line of his big figure as clearly as if the telephone had been a person he was speaking to.

"Oh—oh, yes, is that you, Payne?" she heard him say. "Yes, what an odd coincidence, she's here with me now!" and Mrs. Walbridge knew that it was no coincidence; that they had planned it all out between them, and for a moment she had a wild idea of flight. She would run and run down the narrow, dusty stairs and out into the street, and not hear any of it said. It seemed that she could bear the reduction of her money, but that she could not bear it discussed by these two men who held not only her, but "Happy House" and everybody in "Happy House" in the hollow of their hands. But she dared not move, and presently Mr. Payne came in.

Mr. Payne was a little, yellowish-pink man, who looked like a weazel. He had lashless and browless blue eyes, and his nose was sharp and his teeth looked very sharp. He was brisk and brusque in his manner, and he dashed at the subject of the smaller price for the next book with an abruptness that was only one degree more bearable than Mr. Lubbock's smoothness.

"Yes, yes," he declared, shaking hands rather violently. "I knew you understood, Mrs. Walbridge, didn't I, Lubbock? 'Mrs. Walbridge is a business woman,' I said, 'and of course she'll understand that the war has changed things very considerably, to say nothing of the—of the—ah—inevitable march of time.'"

"I was telling Mrs. Walbridge," Lubbock joined in, "that I thought it would be a good plan for her to read some of the new books. Haven't we got Wanda Potter's 'Rice Paper'? Excellent story, excellent—and sells well." He called up someone on the telephone, and smiling into it, working his rough eyebrows genially, he gave orders for someone named Briggs to get Miss Potter's last book for Mrs. Walbridge. "Wait a minute, George. What other ones would you suggest? Oh, yes, and Mr. Goodheart's 'New Odyssey.' Useful book that," to Mrs. Walbridge. "You take them, with our compliments, and just—just go through them——"

Mrs. Walbridge had risen and stood before the table, her hands clutching very hard at her shabby leather bag.

Mr. Payne was about to speak, when something in her face stopped him. They had known her for years. They had treated her very well, and they had made a great deal of money out of her. But both of them felt at that moment that until then they had never quite known her. Her face was very white, and her immense hollow eyes were full of almost unbearable misery. But it was the bravery of her that struck them both.

"Do I understand," she said quietly, "that you mean that I am old-fashioned—too old-fashioned?" They did not answer, and she went on, not realising that they both felt that she had turned the tables on them. "You mean that my books don't sell so well as they did because they are not up to date, because I'm—old."

"Good gracious, Mrs. Walbridge," broke in Mr. Payne, with the horrid facetiousness of well-meaning vulgarity, "what an idea! We simply mean that because you are so busy you have not had time to—how shall I say it?—to keep exactly up to date. But a lady with your gifts and your great experience is not going to pretend that she finds any difficulty in changing this——"

She bowed. "Thank you, Mr. Payne. I think I understand. My new book would have been ready in a few days, but if you can give me an extra fortnight, I'll go through it again and try to—to modernise it a little."

Then she said good morning, and went quietly out.

Mr. Lubbock let himself heavily down into his swivel chair.

"Dear me," he said, being a man of unblemished vocabulary, "that was very unpleasant, Payne."

Mr. Payne lit a cigarette. "It was beastly," he retorted, blinking rapidly through the smoke. "Upon my word, it's quite upset me. Poor old thing! She'll never be able to do it, Lubbock. Never in this world. By God, it's quite upset me! I'll have a pint of champagne for my lunch."

Violet Walbridge had a little shopping to do. She had to go to Sketchley's to get some blouses that had been cleaned for Griselda; she went to Selfridges for a paper box of opened oysters for Paul, who was at home with a cold; and she had two bills to pay in Oxford Street. When these things were done, and she had bought a bunch of chrysanthemums from a flower-girl, she took her place near the kerb and waited for her bus. And then it was that the malicious gods struck her their final blow for that day. Two young women stood near her, laden with parcels, cheerfully talkative. One of them had been to a dance the night before; the other one's baby had a new tooth, a very remarkable tooth, it seemed, and both of them were in a state of pleasant turmoil and fret about frocks that they were having made. Mrs. Walbridge listened to them innocently, standing first on one foot and then on the other to rest herself, her various parcels hugged close under her arms, the oysters borne like a sacred offering in both hands.

"Dear me," one of the young women said suddenly, "it's after one o'clock!"

Mrs. Walbridge started, for one o'clock was her lunch hour, and her husband was very particular about punctuality in others.

"I meant to pop in to the Times Book Club and get something to read," declared the mother of the baby with the new tooth, "but it's too late. Have you read that thing 'Reek'? I've forgotten who it's by—somebody new."

"No. I've been down for it for days and days, but I can't get it. I've read a splendid new book, though—Wanda Potter's 'Rice Paper'—awfully clever, and Joan Kelly's 'Ploughshares.'"

"I had an ulcerated tooth the other day," answered her friend, "and couldn't go out, and sent Winnie to Boots' with a list of books, and they were all out, so that nice red-haired girl—you know—picked out some herself and sent me, and guess what one of them was. Violet Walbridge's last one—'Rosemary and Lavender'—or something——"

The other one laughed. "Oh, I know. 'Sage and Onions,' George calls it. Awful trash—can't stand her nowadays."

A bus arrived at that moment, and the two young women going on top, Mrs. Walbridge crept inside, and sat crushed between two large uncomfortable women, her face bent over the oysters.

"'Sage and Onions,'" she kept repeating under her breath, "'Sage and Onions'——"

Ferdie was very much annoyed because she was late for lunch, and called her very selfish to be out parading the streets doing idiotic errands when she ought to be at home.

[CHAPTER V]

"Lord Effingham" was the book on which Mrs. Walbridge was at work, and she sat the greater part of the next three nights reading the books that Mr. Lubbock had given her, with a view to freshening up her nearly finished novel. She could not read during the day, because she had too much to do.

The plumbers had played havoc with the house in getting the new bathroom in, and the cook had to leave even more unexpectedly than cooks generally leave because her only sister was marrying and she had to go home and look after her mother. This domestic complication is familiar to many, but it didn't make it any easier for Mrs. Walbridge. Nor did things improve when Maud Twiss and her husband went for a second honeymoon to Ireland, leaving little Hilary at "Happy House."

Mrs. Walbridge loved her grandson; but he was a querulous, spoilt child, and at the best of times his presence was upsetting. Now, with no cook, with plumbers and the dreadful necessity of modernising "Lord Effingham," the little boy nearly drove her mad.

One morning, about four weeks after her interview with Mr. Lubbock, she was sitting in her little attic at the back of the house, surrounded by closely written sheets of foolscap into which she had red-inked her desperate efforts at enlivening—Lady Tryx, the heroine, had started on a new career of endless cigarettes and cocktails, and a hitherto blameless housemaid, who at first had been dismissed by an unkind countess on a charge of theft, was now burdened with an illegitimate baby; but even this failed to brighten up the dull level of decency that was so discouraging to the publishers. Violet Walbridge was a failure at illegitimacy and lawless passion, and, what was worse, she knew it.

It was cold up in the attic, for there was no fireplace, and something had gone wrong with her oil-stove. Paul had promised to see to it before going to the City that morning, but he had forgotten, so his mother had to put an old flannel dressing-gown on over her ordinary clothes and wrap her aching feet in a shawl. Her hands were covered with red ink, for her cheap stylographic pen leaked, and her pretty black hair, wavy and attractively threaded with white, was tumbled and loose.

She was utterly discouraged and unhappy about the book. "Lord Effingham," with ridiculous perseverance, insisted on pursuing his so blightingly blameless career. Her effort had put the book, such as it was, completely out of shape, and she could have cried with despair as she sat there staring through the curtainless window at the sky. Her burden was so very great, and it made it worse, although she had always prided herself on keeping her secret, that no one knew how utterly dependent the whole household of "Happy House" was on her books.

Her husband had an office and regarded himself as a business man; Paul worked in a bank, and poor Guy had been called up and was in France. (He had been with some stockbrokers in the City.) But none of them had ever contributed anything serious to the upkeep of the house.

Paul's salary was small, and his mother considered that the poor boy really needed all that he made, because he was one of those people who are very dependent on beautiful surroundings. He was a poet, too, and had written some charming verse, most of which was still unpublished, but every line of which was carefully copied in a vellum covered book someone had sent to his mother one Christmas from Florence.

Somehow that morning her mind was full of the now long absent Guy. Guy was the troublesome one. They were all tabulated in her mind—Hermione being the beauty, and Maud, "my eldest girl," while Paul was artistic.

There had been scrapes in Guy's early days (he was only twenty-one now). Certainly his tendencies had been inherited from his father—full grown cap-â-pie tendencies they were, sprung whole, it seemed, from Ferdie's brain, as Pallas Athene sprang from her father, Zeus's. The boy was fond of billiards and devoted to horses, and there had been a time—a very tragic time—when he had shown signs of being too fond of whisky and soda. But that was past. Twice he had been home on leave from the front, and he had undoubtedly improved in many ways.

A year ago there had been an Entanglement—(Mrs. Walbridge thought of it with a capital in her mind)—with a young Frenchwoman in Soho, but that too seemed to have died down and now that the war was certainly going to end before long—this dreadful war to which we in England had so dreadfully become accustomed—he would be coming back. She sighed, for Guy's return would mean an even severer strain on her resources. He was rather a dandy and fond of clothes, but he had grown and expanded of late, and would need new things.

She looked down with something very much like hatred at the impeccable "Lord Effingham," whose persistent virtue and the wholesome tendencies of whose female friends were such drawbacks to her living children.

She struggled on and wrote a few pages, realising that the interpolations she had made were as clumsy and damaging to her story as were the red ink words that expressed them to the fair sheets of her manuscript.

Presently she heard footsteps, and a familiar little cough, coming up the stairs. It was Ferdinand coming, she knew, for a talk with her about his visit to Torquay.

"Dear me, Violet, why can't you write downstairs like a Christian," he began fretfully, turning up his coat collar and plunging his hands into his trouser pockets. "All this affectation of needing quiet and solitude for such work as yours is simply ridiculous."

She glanced up at him without moving. "I'm sorry, Ferdie," she said gently, "but indeed it isn't affectation. I really can't work when people are going in and out, and poor little Hilary is so noisy."

"Poor little Hilary! Damn nonsense! I slept very badly last night, and had just got nicely off this morning about half-past nine, when he came into my room and waked me—wanted my boot-jack for a boat, little beast!"

"Oh, I am sorry—I told him he mustn't disturb you. I'd just gone down to show Jessie how to make the mince——"

"Jessie's cooking is abominable. I don't know why you haven't got someone by this time."

When Ferdie's indignation had died away, he began again.

"What I want to know is about my rooms at Torquay. Has Mrs. Bishop written?"

"Yes. Her letter came this morning. I've got it somewhere here"—she rummaged about, but failed to find the letter. "I must have left it downstairs. She says she can't let you have the front room, because some general has got it and is going to stay all winter."

"Damnation! Just the kind of thing that always happens to me."

The clear morning light, falling undiluted from the sky, seemed to expose his mean soul almost cruelly, and his wife turned her eyes hastily away. She had known him now, as he really was, for many years and yet somehow the memory of what he had once seemed to be, what he had been to her, in her loving imagination, came back to her with painful force, and smote her to the heart.

"She says there is a very nice room at the back——"

He rose impatiently, waving his beautiful hands, on which the veins were beginning to stand out ominously.

"Oh, of course, you would think it delightful for me to have a room at the back. Nobody but you ever does appreciate beauty, views or anything of that kind. When am I to go?"

"The room will be ready on Wednesday. But, listen, Ferdie, if you think you can't bear it, why don't you write to Mrs. Bishop yourself and ask her to look out something for you? You see, she knows you, so she'd take more pains than if I wrote——"

A smile that she knew and hated crept round his mouth. "Yes, that's possible, she might," he answered. "Nice little woman, Mrs. Bishop, and although she is only a boarding-house keeper, she knows a gentleman when she sees him."

At the door he paused. "Well, I'll go and write to her. I suppose you've got some money, my dear? I paid my last cent to the income-tax man the other day. I'm sure you needn't have declared all that money to them, Violet——"

"I only told them the truth, Ferdie."

It was an old quarrel, this about the declaration to the income-tax people, and one in which he was always beaten, so, with a shrug, he went downstairs.

After a moment he called, his musical voice hoarse with the effort: "Violet—I say, Violet, have my new shirts come?"

"I—I didn't know you had ordered any, dear——"

"Oh, didn't you? No, I may have forgotten to tell you. Well, I did. Thought I might as well get two dozen while I was about it. Things are going up so."

There was a little pause and then she said, "I hope you got them at that nice place in Oxford Street?"

He had begun to whistle, but now he stopped and snarled out, "No, I didn't then. I suppose it's my business where I order my own shirts? I got them at my usual shirt-makers in Jermyn Street."

Mrs. Walbridge went quietly back into her little study and sat down.

That afternoon she went by Underground to Oxford Street and from there walked in a cold grey rain to Queen Anne Street, where her daughter, Mrs. Twiss, lived. Doctor Twiss lived in one-half of a roomy old house in Queen Anne Street. His waiting-room and his consulting-room were at the left of the door, those on the right belonging to a fashionable dentist—but the rest of his rooms were two flights upstairs, the dentist, who was a rich man, occupying the whole of the first floor.

Mrs. Walbridge paused before she rang at the upstairs door, for she was very tired, and her usually placid thoughts seemed broken and confused. Maud was her eldest daughter and in some ways the most companionable, but she was a selfish woman and devotedly fond of her husband and little boy, so that she had scant room for anyone else in her life.

"If only Maud would be sympathetic," Mrs. Walbridge thought, as she finally rang.

"Mrs. Twiss is in the bedroom," the maid told her, "she ain't very well to-day. I think the sea voyage upset 'er."

Mrs. Walbridge nodded to her and went down the narrow rose-walled passage and knocked.

Mrs. Twiss was lying down on a divan at the foot of her bed, reading.

"Oh, Mum," she cried, without getting up, "how sweet of you to come so soon! How are you, all right? We've had the most glorious time—Moreton's put on four pounds and never looked better in his life."

Mrs. Walbridge sat down and looked round at the pleasant, familiar room. There were plenty of flowers about and piles of new books, and all the illustrated weeklies, and on a little Moorish table close to the divan stood a gilt basket full of chocolates.

"You seem to be having a comfortable afternoon, my dear."

Maud laughed.

"I am. I expect we shall have a pretty bad time when we begin to count up—travelling is fearfully expensive now—Moreton had to send home for an extra fifty pounds. So we're taking it easy to-day. He's gone to the hospital, and we're dining at the Carlton and going to see 'Chu Chin Chow' to-night."

There was a little pause. Mrs. Walbridge was very unaccustomed to telling bad news; being told it was more in her line. But she was in such distress that she had thought she must tell Maud about Lubbock and Payne. It would have done her good just to talk it over. But now, when she tried, she found she could not.

"Caroline had taken Hilary to the Zoo when your telephone message came," she began, "or I would have brought him along. He's been very good, Maud, and his appetite is splendid. I got him a bottle of cod liver oil and malt, because I thought his little ribs stuck out a bit when I bathed him——"

"Oh, the pet! I'm longing to see him! We've brought him all sorts of presents. Oh, Mum, I was going to get you a sweet little bracelet of old Irish paste—you know—a thing in four little chains. But at the last minute Moreton found we had spent so much that I had to give him my last fiver. So you'll take the will for the deed, won't you?"

"Of course, darling, how sweet of you to think of it. I'm glad Moreton is so much better," Mrs. Walbridge began after a moment, "I hope he'll have lots of patients this winter."

Maud's fair face clouded. She was a big, handsome woman, though less shapely in her features than her sisters, and already showed signs of being very fat in a few years' time, although she was only twenty-eight.

"I hope so, too," she grumbled. "Things are really awfully serious. I believe all the tradespeople put their prices up when they hear this address."

"I suppose it wouldn't—I suppose it wouldn't do for you to go and live in a cheaper house?" Mrs. Walbridge faltered.

Maud sat straight up in her horror and dropped a half-bitten chocolate on the floor.

"My goodness, mother, what a perfectly poisonous idea! Why, it would ruin Moreton after having begun here. Of course we can't."

She came and sat down on a stool near her mother and leaned her head on her mother's knees.

"I'm longing to see Hilary," she repeated, playing with a bit of her silk dressing-gown nervously. "And I have something to tell him, Mum—he'll—he'll be having a little sister in the spring."

Poor Mrs. Walbridge sat perfectly still for a moment, her hand on her daughter's silky brown hair. Another baby, another duty, another worry, and she would be the only one who would really suffer, although Maud and her gay, well-meaning young husband would talk a great deal about their responsibilities.

"Mum," Maud said coaxingly. "Darling, you've got a new book coming out, haven't you? Don't go and buy Paul any more of those nasty Japanese things; those monkeys make me sick anyhow. Be a lamb, and let me have a hundred pounds to see me through, will you?"

There was nothing particularly imploring in her voice, for she was quite used to asking favours of her mother, and repeated favours always turn into rights sooner or later. When her mother didn't answer, she screwed round on her stool and looked up.

"Why, Mum," she cried, "what's the matter? Why do you look like that?"

Mrs. Walbridge kissed her. "Nothing, dear, I'm tired. I've been working very hard."

She rose and her big daughter scrambled to her feet, laughing merrily.

"Oh, you old pet! Was it working hard at it's psychological masterpiece? Anybody'd think you were what's-his-name, who wrote 'Elektra'!" She laughed again, pleasant, full-throated, musical laughter, that yet cut her hearer to her sore heart.

"Don't—don't laugh, dear," she said gently. "I know my bodes are awful rubbish, but——"

Mrs. Twiss stared and took another chocolate.

"Oh, darling," she murmured. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. We all love your books. Well, you'll let me have the hundred, won't you, pet? We're going to name her Violet."

The little sad face under the old-fashioned, pheasant-winged hat softened a little. "I'll do my best, dear," she said. "Now I must go. Give my love to Moreton."

[CHAPTER VI]

It was about a week after Mrs. Walbridge's visit to Mrs. Twiss that Griselda went to the play with old Mrs. Wick and her son. Greatly to the girl's astonishment, Mr. Wick turned up two or three days after her decided rejection of him, and his manner had shown nothing of the traditional depression of the refused young man. Indeed, he seemed particularly gay, and had brought her some sweets—sticky balls rolled in wax paper, that he told her were the best sweets on earth.

"My mother made 'em," he said. "She's great at making things. These ones are a sort of nougat. You try one—you'll see——"

The uncouth looking sweetmeats were indeed delicious, and the two young people sat at the top of the stairs leading to the garden (for it was one of those odd, lost summer days that wander along through our island winters like lonely strayed children), and munched and talked, and talked and munched, in as friendly a way, Griselda thought, as if he had never mentioned marriage to her.

"I don't like your frock," he said suddenly, speaking with difficulty, for his mother's sweets were sticky. "You're too dark for blue. Makes you look yellow."

"Well, upon my word!" The girl was full of innocent airs and graces; little affectations blossomed all over her, and perhaps they were only the blossom of future graces. But somehow, this odd reporter person, as she called him to her mother, clutched at these premature flowerets like a black frost, and she found herself being as natural as a little boy with him.

"You are polite," she remarked.

He smiled from ear to ear.

"No, I'm not. I'm very rude, but it's true. You ought to wear green and brown, or yellow or white. Imagine a buttercup dressed in blue serge!"

Everyone likes to talk about himself or herself, so for a moment Grisel enjoyed herself thoroughly, as they gravely discussed the different kinds of flowers that she might be said to resemble. Then he invited her to go to the play, and when she refused demurely, he chuckled with delight.

"Oh, now you think I'm the ignorant young man," he retorted. "You think I don't know that you couldn't go with me alone. (Of course, so far as that's concerned you could—all the smart girls, dukes' and earls' daughters, do)—but I have not invited you to. My mother's coming with us."

"Your mother?"

"Yes. Naturally she's anxious to meet you."

She looked at him innocently, her eyes like black-heart cherries with the sun on them.

"Why should your mother wish to meet me?"

"Oh," he answered. "Don't you realise that I'm an only son?"

"What's that got to do with it?"

He looked at her gravely, his flexible lips steady as iron. "Most mothers want to know the girl their son's going to marry, don't you think?"

Before she could help it, she laughed. "But her sons aren't going to marry me."

"No, but her son is. I am. Oh, yes," he went on before she could speak. "We shan't be married this winter, of course, but in the spring we shall. You may choose a nice month. It'll be a proud day for you, my dear, and jolly lucky you'll be to get me!"

She rose and refused another sweet. "No thanks, we must go in now. I've got a lot to do. My father's not very well, and I may have to go down to Torquay to look after him if he doesn't get better."

"Miss Walbridge," he spoke in a voice that to her was quite new, and when she turned, looking at him over her shoulder, something in the dignity of his face forced her to turn completely round and wait.

"Don't think me a perfect fool," he said. "I can't help teasing you. You—you're so little and so young. What I'd like to do would be to lift you up on my shoulder and run round and round the garden with you, and scare the life out of you, but I daren't do that, so I have to tease you. Besides, you know," he added very gravely, "it is true that I love you, and I mean you to marry me."

Mrs. Walbridge, who was in the dining-room packing some bottles of home-made beef-tea to send to Torquay, could not help overhearing the rest of this conversation. She never forgot it, or the young man's face as he finished speaking to Griselda, who suddenly seemed more responsible, more grown-up than her mother had ever seen her.

"Please don't say anything more about that, Mr. Wick," she said gently. "I like you very much—we all do, even my mother, who's so old-fashioned—but I can't possibly marry you."

The four young eyes stared into each other for what seemed a long time, and then he drew back courteously to let her pass.

"I'll not say anything more about it for three months," he declared. "I promise you that."

Thus the arrangement about going to the play had been made, and when the evening came Mr. Wick drove up in a taxi and carried his prize off to the box at the theatre, where he had already installed his mother.

When Grisel came home she went up to her mother's room, slipping out of her frock and putting on her mother's shabby old dressing-gown, that she declared to be a perfect disgrace, and sat on the foot of the bed describing the adventures of the evening.

"She's a perfect old dear, Mum," the girl declared. "Very large, not exactly fat, you know, but big. Very little hair, brushed quite flat, and done up in a tiny bun at the back, and the most beautiful manners, like some old-fashioned duchess. Like an old duchess in one of your books, Mum—that kind—not like a live one——"

"I see," murmured Mrs. Walbridge. "How did you like the play?"

"Oh, it was very pretty. Mary Grey looked perfectly beautiful. She's such a dear, but I wish she had sung. They liked it awfully, but somehow I never understand Shakespeare's plays—never quite know what they are driving at, I mean. The place was packed, and I saw lots of people I know. The Murchisons were there, and Dickie Scotts, and that awful Pellaby woman, covered with pearls and jewels. Johnny Holden came up just as we were leaving, and told me that he had seen Guy. He's only just back. He said Guy's awfully fit, and has done some very good caricatures. He says there's going to be an armistice as sure as eggs is eggs. The Hun is a dead man according to him. And, oh, Mother, you'll never guess—Oliver Wick went out on the 28th of August, 1914, and was all through the Big Push and the retreat from Mons. Fancy his never telling us! Johnny mentioned it. He was wounded there—during the retreat. One of his fingers is quite stiff. I never noticed it, did you?"

Mrs. Walbridge shook her head. "No, I never did. So he's been out?"

"Yes, and he only had one leave all the time. He was invalided out last year—there's a bullet somewhere inside him still. His mother says she thinks it must be in his brain. She does adore him, Mum."

Mrs. Walbridge was silent, for she envied this other woman, not exactly her son, but her love for her son. Her own boys were very dear to her, but one quality was lacking in her love for them, and that was adoration. For although she was only a fourth-rate novelist, she had the sad gift of unswerving clear-sightedness, and no merciful delusion blinded her when she looked at her own children.

Grisel had stopped brushing her pretty hair, which lay like two wings over her young breast, framing her little quick face, and bringing out its vivid whiteness. She was sitting with the silver brush on her knees, and in her eyes brooded an unusually deep thought.

"You like him, my dear, don't you?"

The girl started. "Who? Oh, Oliver? No—I mean——" She rose and put the brush on the dressing-table.

"How nice that you call him Oliver," commented her mother, in a matter-of-fact voice. "I like him, too. I think he's a delightful young fellow. So boyish, isn't he?"

Grisel came to the bed, her momentary embarrassment scattered to the winds by the sober sense of her mother's words.

"Yes, he's a dear," she said simply, "but his mother's a perfect pet, and she's coming to see us. You'll love her, Mum." At the door she turned. "Good-night, Mum darling. Don't worry about your old book. It's sure to come out all right. What did you say the name of it was?"

"'Lord Effingham.'"

The girl stepped back in surprise at her mother's tone. "Why, good gracious, Mum, you spoke as if he were a real man and you hated him! I hope he isn't one of the modern horrors, like that dreadful man in 'Reek.'" She ran back to the bed and gave her mother a little stroke and shake. "I couldn't dream of allowing you to write horrid modern books about beastly real people," she said protectingly. Then she went to bed.

The next morning a telegram arrived from Torquay, saying that Mr. Walbridge was no better, and asking his wife to come down and look after him. She had expected just such a wire (for he was one of those people who always become ill when they are bored or lonely) and she had already arranged to send Grisel down.

The girl liked Torquay and had two or three friends there, and it would be a pleasant change for her. Besides, her mother thought, if things were going to be really bad, it would be better to have the children out of the way.

So Grisel, much pleased, and not at all worried about her father, went off, and for several days after her departure Mrs. Walbridge worked uninterruptedly in the deserted drawing-room. The weather had changed, and it was intensely stormy and wet, so there was something pleasant in the shut-in feeling of the firelit room.

Paul, now the only one at home, was, of course, at the bank all day, and most evenings he either dined out or went out immediately after dinner. He was a silent man, very preoccupied with his own thoughts and possessed of the negative gift of taking no interest whatever in other people's affairs. He scorned curiosity with all his heart, and never suspected that curiosity is very often only an expression of human interest.

Of late, too, his mother had noticed he had been even more silent and absent-minded than ever, and she wondered if he was having a love affair. She dared not ask him, however, and so the long days and longer evenings passed in almost unending hard work for the little writing woman, and finally she arrived at a certain amount of success with the troublesome "Lord Effingham."

Her book was entirely changed. Such atmosphere as it had ever had she had destroyed, and, very proud of the illegitimate baby she had introduced into its innocent pages, she one night packed up the manuscript and ran out to a greengrocer in the neighbourhood, where lived an old man who sometimes did errands for her.

Old Mr. King was at home, and would be delighted to go round the next morning at half-past nine to take the very valuable parcel safely down to Messrs. Lubbock & Payne.

She thanked the greengrocer's wife, who was the old man's daughter, and, putting up her umbrella, went out again into the wet.

It was a shiny black night, full of storm noises and unceasing rain, and when she reached "Happy House" Mrs. Walbridge stood for a moment under her umbrella, leaning against the little green gate, where the name was now almost illegible, and looked about her, breathing more freely in the thought that the book was done; for good or evil; that she had done her best by it, and that if it failed, it must just fail.

She felt more cheerful now that "Lord Effingham" was off her hands. Things must improve, she thought.

The political news was much better; the armistice might be signed any day, and perhaps when Guy came back he would, after all, be helpful to her.

Ferdie was better. She had had a letter that morning, and little Grisel was having a happy time with her friends. There was to be a dance, and she had written for her new white satin frock to be sent down.

"I must go to Swan & Edgars and get her a new pair of satin slippers," she thought, as she went up the steps, and opened the door with her latchkey. "Fancy the little minx dancing her last pair through the other night!"

She went down into the kitchen and made herself a cup of extra strong cocoa to drink in bed. Cocoa in bed with a book is a very cosy thing.

The boys had always thought her a frump, and Guy in particular hated her old black velvet evening gown, and, now that he had been in Paris and seen all the smart clothes, he would despise the black velvet gown more than ever. If only she could have some kind of a new evening frock. Grey would do. Iron grey would wear almost as well as black. She set down her cup of cocoa with a little sigh. Ridiculous to think about that kind of thing when she only had one hundred and eighty pounds in the bank.

Then she read a few pages of "Thomas à Kempis," turned out her light, and lay still in the dark waiting for sleep.

[CHAPTER VII]

Paul's room was a large one at the back on the second floor. It looked into the elm tree, and was very pleasant and quiet.

A few days after Mrs. Walbridge had sent the manuscript of "Lord Effingham" to her publishers, she was in Paul's room, helping him hang a new picture that he had picked up at a sale. His mother thought it a very ugly picture; in fact, she thought it not nice, but she said nothing, for her opinion was of no value to him, and she knew it.

It was a sunshiny day, and the naked boughs of the old tree stirred and made odd little noises as the east wind attacked it in gusts. The shadows of the branches danced across the dull green walls and made the gleams of light on the picture glasses die and come to life again in a way that gave the large room something the air of a glade in a wood.

Paul, in his shirt-sleeves, stood on a pair of steps hammering a nail into the exact spot in the wall that he had decided on after long measurement and reflection.

"I do hope you're wearing your thick Jaegers, darling," his mother said, as she took the hammer from him and held up the picture.

"Not yet," he said. "I'm going to put them on to-morrow." He hung up the picture and backed gravely off the ladder, looking up at it, a smile of pride and satisfaction softening his over-delicate, rather supercilious face. "A little gem, Mother, though you probably don't think so," he announced good-naturedly. "Bruce Collier wanted it. He's got a fine collection."

"Bruce Collier," Mrs. Walbridge pursed her lips thoughtfully. "I've heard his name. Who is he, Paul?"

"The chap who wrote 'Reek.' Crichell was talking about him here one night in the summer. There's the book an the table. He gave it to me."

She picked the book up and opened it. "What beautiful paper," she said slowly, "and I love the print, Paul."

He nodded. "Oh, yes. Nares publishes him. Now I'm going to put the Kakemono here, Mother." He indicated a blank space on the wall near his writing-table. "Will you get it? You won't be sorry to have it out of the girls' room, will you?"

She went obediently towards the door, and at it she turned.

"You'll be surprised, dear, but, do you know, I have got quite used to those monkeys, and really like them now!"

He looked up from filling his pipe and smiled at her, his narrow face—a face of a type so often seen nowadays in very young men—too small-featured, too clean-cut, too narrow in the brow, too lacking in the big old British qualities, both good and bad, and yet full of uncreative cleverness—lighted by whimsical, not unkindly, astonishment.

"'Violet Walbridge confesses to a passion for Honobosa Iccho,'" he declaimed, as if quoting a possible headline. "No, no, Mother darling, that won't do. You must stick to Marcus Stone. Trot along and get it, there's a dear."

She trotted along and got it, and brought it back, carefully rolled on its stick.

"Grisel will be sorry to find it gone," she said, as he hung it on the nail and let it slowly slide down the wall. "She loves it."

"She loves it because Wick knew about the artist. Imitative little monkey, Grisel."

His mother stared at him. It was on her lips to say, "So are you—so are you an imitative monkey," for she realised that these new artistic tastes of his were derived from some model and not from any instinctive search for a peculiar kind of beauty. Instead she only said, referring to an old pet name of her own for her children, "Yes, one of God's apelets, and so are you, Paul."

He had backed to the far side of the room and stood surveying the effect of the Kakemono with much satisfaction.

"Yes, dear," he murmured, without listening to her. "That's very good, just there. The light catches it just right."

As he spoke, Jessie, the maid, came in, still straightening a hastily tied-on cap and apron.

"A gentleman downstairs to see you, sir."

Paul nodded.

"Oh, Mr. Crichell! We're going to the Grafton Galleries together to see that 'Moonlight in the Trenches' fellow's pictures."

"Please, Mr. Paul, it ain't Mr. Crichell." Jessie was still standing by the door.

"Oh, who is it?"

"I don't know, sir. Not at all a nice gentleman. I wouldn't leave him alone in the drorin'-room if I was you."

The girl left the room, and Mrs. Walbridge sat down suddenly. Paul's face had changed, and she was frightened.

"Look here, Mother," he said, "I'm afraid it's a brute of a fellow on business. I told him I'd kill him if he came here, but"—the young man waved his long, nervous hands helplessly—"he's come, you see."

Her big hollow eyes were fixed on him with a strained, unwinking stare.

"Oh, Paul," she whispered, "what is it?"

He moved irresolutely towards the door, came back, took up his coat and then threw it on to the divan under the Rowlandson "Horse Fair."

"Look here, Mother," he said, "I must get him out of the house. Suppose you go and tell him—tell him that I'm not in. Perhaps you'd better say that I'm out of town."

"Is it a bill?" she asked tonelessly, without moving.

"No—that is—not exactly. The fact is, it's a money-lender. Alfred Brock put me on to a good thing in the City, and it—it went wrong somehow, so I borrowed fifty pounds of this chap—Somerset's his name—and I—— But go and tell him I'm out. I'll explain it all to you afterwards," he broke off nervously.

She walked to the window and stood looking out, and he thought she was crying.

"Don't, Mother, please don't," he exclaimed. "It's quite all right. I shall have the money next week, and the brute's just got to wait, that's all."

But she was not crying, and that was not why she had turned her face from him. And what she saw, oddly enough, as she looked out into the empty boughs of the elm tree, was the face of old Mrs. Wick, whose picture young Wick carried in his pocket, and had once shown her. "What a happy woman, what a happy woman!" she was saying under her breath. After a pause she turned round.

"I'll not say you're out, Paul, and I won't say you're away. I'll see the man, and I'll tell him you'll pay him next week."

Across his white face flashed the wild impatience of the man who, knowing that there is for his ailment only one remedy and that a desperate one, is offered some homely, perfectly inefficacious substitute.

"Don't be a——" he broke out. But she went downstairs without heeding him.

The man stood in the middle of the drawing-room, looking round at the homely furniture. Being what she was, Mrs. Walbridge had, of course, expected a florid and bediamonded Jew, instead of which the man was a stocky, red-faced, snub-nosed Englishman, who approached to her innocent ideal of a prize-fighter.

"Good morning."

At her voice he whirled round and about awkwardly.

"Sorry to trouble you, m'm, I'm sure," he began, grasping the situation with what to her seemed marvellous quickness. "Young gentleman had better come down hisself."

"My son——" she began.

But he waved her into silence with a small, roughcast looking hand.

"No good sayin' he's out of town, ma'am, or even spendin' the day on the river, 'cos he ain't."

Mrs. Walbridge looked at him, a slow wave of understanding creeping to her brain.

"I wasn't going to tell you that my son is out, or away," she returned quietly. "He's upstairs. He's extremely sorry, but he will not be able to pay you your—your little account until next week."

The man stared at her in honest surprise, and then his red face melted into rather pleasant curves of irrepressible laughter.

"Well, I'll be—I'll be blowed!" he cried, slapping his knee. "Did he send you down to tell me that? My governor will laugh at that."

They talked, this ill-assorted pair, for about half an hour, and then the man left the house very quietly, bowing at the door with real respect to the lady who had so amused him. He had heard of Violet Walbridge all his life, and vaguely remembered having read "Queenie's Promise" when he was about sixteen, and had the mumps, and to think that she should be like this! Very much "blowed" and inclined to being damned, as he told his wife later, he disappeared out of Mrs. Walbridge's life.

She went upstairs, and found Paul walking up and down the room, smoking cigarettes furiously, his neglected pipe on the mantelpiece.

"Lord, Mother, what an age you've been!" he cried, petulantly. "Was it Somerset himself?"

"No, this man's name was Green. He tells me, Paul, that they have applied to you several times; that the money was due last week."

He nodded sulkily. "Yes, it was. If Alfred Brock hadn't been a fool, it wouldn't have happened. Brock shall never see a penny of my money again."

"He told me," his mother went on, her hand on the door handle, "that he knew you had a collection of pictures and things, and he—he was going to make you sell some of them."

"The swine! Poor mother," he added carelessly, "a nasty half hour for you, I'm afraid. What did you say to him to make him go?"

Mrs. Walbridge looked curiously round the room as if she saw it for the first time. The Rowlandson, the Kakemono, the exquisite little Muirhead, the French pastel that shocked her; the beautiful adjustable reading-chair, with its lectern-like bookrest; the fourteenth century Persian prayer rug; the odds and ends of good china on the mantelpiece. All these treasures, so dear to Paul, that she, in her innocence, had regarded as inexpensive whims, had received a new value through the odd medium of Mr. Green.

"I didn't say much to him, Paul," she answered slowly. "I—I paid him."

She went out and closed the door. The young man took a hasty step towards it, then hesitated and went back to his arm-chair. It was jolly decent of her. He'd thank her and give her a kiss for it at tea time. He must think of something graceful and appropriate to say. Meantime he was chilly and uncomfortable, so, leaning forward, he lit a match and set fire to the coal-heaped grate. "Jolly decent of mother," he thought, leaning back to watch the glowing of the fire. "Those absurd books of hers really are pretty useful, after all."

It was pleasant that evening to have a long letter from Grisel, and Mrs. Walbridge, who had been busy since Mr. Green's departure in getting off a basket of beef-tea, home-made potted meat, and red-currant jelly, to Torquay, and who had been bound by an old promise to take tea with poor Caroline, found the letter when she came in, and as Paul, after his hurried thanks, had gone out for the rest of the day and evening, she changed into her warm dressing-gown, and settled down to her supper tray in the drawing-room, with a pint of ale and a nicely browned sausage, and Grisel's letter.

Grisel wrote a peculiarly delightful hand, each letter small and well-shaped, and nearly as clear as print. She was also fluent and had a certain gift for description, so that her letters were a real treat to her mother. This one, written on several sheets of beautiful pale grey paper with "Conroy Hall" in one corner, promised to be an unusually delightful one, for it contained, she saw, glancing through it, a full description of the ball at which her daughter had worn the new satin shoes she had sent her from Swan & Edgars.

"Darling Mum," Griselda began, "I haven't written for several days because I've been having such a good time that there wasn't a minute for anything except frivoling! You'll gather from this that the poor old Dad is better, and his headaches have gone. I don't think it was anything but liver myself. And he's been hob-nobbing with some old friends who have turned up at one of the big hotels—I forget which.

"I came here the day before yesterday to stay with Elsie, and I've never had such a good time in my life. Fred has put an awful lot of money into the place and furnished it splendidly, so it's really wonderful. He's like a little white rat, it's no good concealing that, but then he's like such a very nice white rat, and he adores Elsie, and thinks nothing's too good for her. They've lived like fighting cocks all through the war. How they get the food I can't imagine! Of course, they make their own butter, and have swindled the Government like anything, which, of course, is great fun.

"Elsie has just had a lot of new clothes from London, and really looks a dream, although she's as fat as a little pig. Of course, they've done a lot of entertaining of wounded for years now, otherwise I don't think they would have known there is a war. Elsie says she's awfully glad there's no Vere de Vere blood in Fred, or he would have minded things more. He really is a typical nouveau riche out of a novel (not one of your novels, darling).

"Did I tell you how glad I was that you've got 'Lord Effingham' into shape? It'll be a relief to your poor mind. I found 'From Sunlight to Shadow' in the library, and have been reading it, and I think it's perfectly sweet. I really did enjoy it very much. It reminded me of Rosa N. Carey. How I used to love her books when I was a kid!

"We have no men-servants here, but Fred's going to get a dozen or so as soon as the Armistice is signed. Meantime there are swarms of lovely footmanettes, too pretty for words, in violet frocks and lace caps and aprons. They all look as if George Grossmith had drilled them, somehow. One rather expects them to burst out into song, but they don't.

"Well, the ball was a great success. I'm writing in bed. It's after lunch. We danced till after five, and I was such a belle, Mum! All the girls down here seem to be six foot tall, and many of them have that new uniform-walk—I'm sure serving in different corps made the women's feet all spread; they are big and thick about the ankles, too—so I appeared as the old-fashioned Christmas pantomime fairy, done in white and gold. That's what Fred said. My frock really was as good as anybody's, you darling. Hundreds of beautiful youths rolled up to contend for the honour of a dance. It really was fun after the over-femaled parties we have been to lately, and I felt like Queenie, or that girl in 'Touchstones,'—the cruel one who broke hearts. Oh, Mother darling, what a noodle you are not to know that it's the man who does the heart-breaking nowadays!

"Lady Sybil Ross was here with her twins. They looked just like partridge eggs, they're so speckly, but they're nice girls; but they treated me as if I was a little doll of some kind, as if they were surprised that I could talk and walk, being so small as I am. Fanny Ross has been engaged three times, and each time the man has been killed at the front. Isn't it awful? But I couldn't help laughing. There didn't seem to be any reason why she should stop being engaged to one after the other for ever, and it doesn't seem to hurt her in the least.

"Father came last night, of course, and you would have been proud of him; he looked such a beautiful old pet. Of course, his diet and the water wagon have done wonders for his looks. His eyes are as clear as a child's—or were the first part of the evening, but rather fell off towards the end (off the water wagon, I mean!) Of course, he was quite all right, you know, but he was very genial and his eyes a bit swimmy. Poor old Dad.

"Did I tell you that Clara Crichell's here? She's staying with her mother, who has taken a house, and she and Dad had the time of their lives together. She's very pretty, but towards the end of the evening she looked rather like a squashed tomato, I thought. Seriously, I think she's quite crazy about father. I'm so glad you're old-fashioned, darling, and that I don't have to chaperon you too. A frisky young mother is an awful responsibility for a girl, and I should hate to have to ask anyone's intentions about my Mamma!

"I've just had the most scrumptious lunch—heavenly sweetbreads in little paper boats, and eggs done in some wonderful French way, and grape-fruit salad, and a sweet little carafe like a scent-bottle, full of some divine white wine. I love having my meals in bed, and I adore having a maid to look after me. If I marry a rich man, never again as long as I live will I put on my stockings myself, I swear it!

"Well, I went to supper with an awfully nice boy (I forget his name), who urged me to marry him and share his pension as a 2nd Lieutenant. I've danced my new shoes to ribbons—war satin, of course—and the next evening frock I have must be black, darling. Lots of girls younger than I are wearing black, and it's so becoming.

"I had a ridiculous present from Oliver yesterday—four beautiful giant kippers tied up in blue ribbon. Of course, he thought I was at Mrs. Bishop's, but wasn't he a goose to send me kippers?

"By the way, I've a serious beau—a most charming old man, Sir John Barclay. He's perfectly delightful. Quite old and frightfully rich. Snow-white hair and the most lovely tenor voice. He's staying in the house, and, though I say it as shouldn't, is my slave. He sang 'The Banks of Allan Water' the other day, and made me cry. Such a sweet, young-sounding voice it is. He sent me the loveliest flowers this morning. Really, it looks very much as if he was going to offer himself and his worldly goods to me! I hope he doesn't, because he really is a dear, and he looks as if he might mind being hurt.

"How are you, dearest? You must enjoy being all alone. Do eat enough; don't live on toast and tea, and don't let Jessie forget your hot bottle.

"Dearest love to you,

"Grisel.

"P. S.—When you send me a new pair of slippers, please send me a pair of stockings too, as there are simply no soles left in my last pair."

[CHAPTER VIII]

Mr. Wick, on his way to "Happy House" one very wet afternoon, in the beginning of November, gave way to pleasant dreams. He knew that the lady of his affections was still in Torquay, for he had had a letter from her, but she had bidden him go and see her mother, and collect one or two books that she wanted, and send them down to her.

"I'm rather worried about Mum," she had written, "without any particular reason. I wish you'd go and take a look at her and let me know if everything's all right."

Mr. Wick, who had had a serious conflict with his chief a few days before, and come out with streaming colours, was feeling very happy, in spite of the pouring rain and the dreadful uniformity of the wet-November-afternoon faces about him. He was one step farther on towards his goal, which was nothing less than becoming a great newspaper proprietor and running the political world from a swivel chair somewhere in Fleet Street. And it was very sweet to him to be sent in this intimate way by Griselda Walbridge to inspect and report on her mother.

And now, under the shelter of his dripping umbrella, he was finishing a book, which he had read conscientiously, though with incredible swiftness. Since his meeting with Griselda, he had taken the trouble to look through half a dozen of Mrs. Walbridge's books, and could see (for he was unconsciously a very good critic) what the secret of their success was.

"Very slow," he explained to his mother. "Nothing much happens and there are the same people in all of them, with different names. She always has pretty names for the girls, and the men are usually swells. Kind of book a woman could read while she's knitting, or boiling the clothes, or bathing the baby, without either losing the thread of the story or scamping her work."

But this new book, he realised, had lost that easy quality. There were pages of undigested realism scattered through it; several of the stock characters were missing. There was, for instance, no faithful old family butler, no sinuous foreign adventuress. (The innocence of Violet Walbridge's adventuresses was prodigious, in spite of the desperate epithets she showered on them) and there was a superfluous infant, nameless, and as unnecessary to the story as it was to his mother, whose presence was as inappropriate as that of Gaby Deslys at a Quaker meeting.

"That baby puts the lid on," the young man thought, stuffing the book in his mackintosh pocket and feeling in the other pocket for the safety of the treasure he had put there. "She'll bust the whole show if she goes on like that. She can't do the new stuff, and her old patients won't stand such strong doses as this."

As he got off the bus his mind was engaged with wondering whether Mrs. Walbridge had any fortune apart from her pen.

"Strikes me that Paul is something of an objet de luxe," he reflected, as he turned off Albany Street. "Bank clerks oughtn't to go messing about with stockbrokers, and that fellow Brock is a bad egg. When I've married Griselda, pretty pet, we shan't have very much to do with Master Paul. The other one, Guy, the soldier, looks a decent lad. I like that photograph."

As he reached the house his pace slackened and over his shrewd journalistic face came an odd softening as if for a moment his very thoughts had stopped using slang. The green swing gate with its half effaced words touched him anew. The more he knew of Mrs. Walbridge and her family, the greater seemed the pathos of the name of her house.

"I suppose she named it that years ago when she was young," he thought gently. "I suppose she kept the paint fresh at first, and then later it didn't seem worth while."

A very modern product was this Oliver Wick—the kind of a man that could not have existed a quarter of a century ago, when young men were either gentlemen or cads, as the saying went. He had set out to make a great fortune and he was going to make it. He was conscious to his finger-tips of his powers and his gift of observation and of managing inferior minds. His habitual language was a jargon composed of journalistic, sporting, and society slang, yet his mind was open to the most tender impressions, his sharp little eyes always ready to soften to a tear, and he loved and read poetry with avidity.

Now he stood for a moment in the pouring rain, touched to the quick by the pathos of the shabby little gate of the unsuccessful, overworked old novelist.

He found Mrs. Walbridge sitting by the fire in her expressionless drawing-room, reading. She was so engrossed in her book that, after a hurried greeting, she at once began to talk of it.

"Oh, Mr. Wick," she cried, forgetting to ask him to sit down, which, however, he promptly did, "have you read this?"

He glanced at the book. "Yes, it's the book Mr. Crichell talked about that night at dinner here." After a second he added a little awkwardly, "I—I wouldn't read it if I were you, Mrs. Walbridge."

She closed the book and drew back in her chair with a little flush.

"I—I've nearly finished it. Everyone's been talking about it, and I found it in my son's room."

He was silent for a moment, for he did not know quite what to say to her, to this old lady whose literary stockpot produced such a harmless and uniform brew.

"Reek" was not important enough to be called strong meat; it was just a thoroughly nasty book whose author dwelt lovingly on obscene side-issues of ordinary life, and in whose three hundred odd pages of closely printed matter there was not a word, nor even a suggestion that could help or even cheer for a moment any conceivable reader.

"Disgusting rubbish," he declared after a moment. "My old mother read the first chapter and marched down with it in the tongs and put it in the kitchen fire." He chuckled at the vision of the old lady's slow progress down the narrow passage, with the tongs held straight out before her. "That showed my young sister Jenny what she thought of it!" He paused and then went on very quickly, with a little flicker of colour in his thin, white face, "You won't let Grisel read it?"

Mrs. Walbridge shuddered. "Dear me, no. Not that she would understand it," she added slowly.

There was a pause and the young man watched the firelight playing over the hollowed, haggard face with the deeply-lined white brow, and the tired violet eyes. It came to him suddenly how very pretty she must have been in her youth—her youth, so long ago, and before he was born (he was twenty-six). And then she said slowly, in a hesitating voice:

"It's such a stupid book. It's so badly put together and the people aren't real."

If a six months' old baby had sat up in its cradle and quoted Plato to him the young journalist could not have been more surprised. That Violet Walbridge, of all people on earth, should criticise the construction of a novel by Bruce Collier! Bruce Collier, who was undoubtedly the head of the new school of writers, and about whom most serious critics wrote columns in the morning papers. He stared at her in frank, almost open-mouthed astonishment, and she went on without apparently noticing his emotion, and speaking modestly, but with a sureness that he had never observed in her before.

"You see, if Swithin Cleveland had been in the ruins that time—you know—he could not possibly have written that letter to Sophia."

"Why couldn't he?" stammered Wick.

For a few minutes he listened to her soft, rather unmodulated voice, as she unfolded her ideas to him, and then suddenly he jumped up and slapped his knee.

"By Jove," he shouted, "you're right, you're right, Mrs. Walbridge, and not one of them—the critics I mean—has seen it!"

He tramped up and down the room, talking rapidly, brandishing his arms in a characteristically ungraceful, but expressive way.

"Why don't you write an article about it? I'll make my chief print it in one of his decent papers. Not that—not that," he broke off stammering hopelessly, "Round the Fire isn't very good in its way, you know—but I mean in Cosmos or The Jupiter."

Mrs. Walbridge laughed softly. "Don't apologise for Round the Fire," she said. "I think I know exactly what it is."

He sat down again. The wind was whipping against the window with a delightful crackling noise. The corner by the homely hearth in the dim, inexpressive drawing-room was very pleasant in its way, and he liked, he very greatly liked, the old-fashioned lady in the shabby grey gown—the lady whom, if he had to stop the stars in their courses to accomplish it, was going to be his mother-in-law. He had always liked Mrs. Walbridge; he had always known that she held qualities that in a mother-in-law would be shining ones, but she had a personality a little too like this drawing-room of hers, too like the old mirror that hung over the mantelpiece and was a little cloudy, a little obscure, and now, behold, something had breathed on the mirror and it had cleared! Like a flash he saw the future. Himself England's greatest newspaper king, in a great, fine, romantic old house somewhere—St. James's Square for choice, failing that, Manchester Square might do—and by his side was his lovely little blackest white girl, and beside her, in subdued grey velvet and lace, the perfect mother-in-law, perfect because, not only had she been capable of producing a wife fit for the greatest man in England, and of being herself gently and quietly and modestly impressive, but she possessed that great blessing to a man in the position that he would be in, a keenly critical mind, and the mind would be, he felt, in a way his, because he had discovered it. He was sure that no one in her household or among her friends even suspected Mrs. Walbridge of such an astonishing possession.

"Look here," he said at the end of half an hour or so, when they had discussed Mr. Collier's rather putrescent masterpiece pretty thoroughly, "I suppose Grisel's told you that I mean to marry her?"

"She's told me that you'd asked her."

"Oh, that's nothing," he waved his hand impatiently, "asking her, I mean. I have asked her two or three times, just for the sake of form, you know. But she's got to do it sooner or later. I'm in no hurry."

"Dear me," murmured his hostess, a little frightened by the novelty of his point of view.

"Yes. You mustn't think me cheeky or—dashing, you know," he protested gravely. "I'm not really. I only mention it now to you so that you would understand what I'm going to say."

"Yes?" She spoke very gently, and her eyes were kind and benign.

"I was going to ask you," he said, his manner suddenly changing to one that impressed her, unconsciously to both of them. "I was going to ask you if you don't think you could do something to modernise your style a little. Just from the business point of view, I mean."

He saw her wince, but kept on, with benevolent ruthlessness.

"I've been reading over some of your books since I met you, and I like 'em, and I quite see the reason for their popularity." He broke off shortly, and asked her, his head cocked on one side, his lips pursed fiercely: "How are your sales now, compared to what they were, say, ten years ago?"

Mrs. Walbridge took up the poker and bent over the fire. He knew she was doing it to hide her face, and moved slightly so that he could keep on looking at her, for he meant to have the truth, and knew that this truthful lady would not hesitate to lie to him on this occasion.

"About the same, I think," she said in an undertone, poking the fire destructively.

He took the poker out of her hand, and by pointing it at her, forced her slowly back into her chair.

"Oh, come now," he protested. "Honour bright—man to man, you know—business——"

There was a pause, after which she said: "Well, then, if you put it like that, no! my sales have been growing less for some years now, slowly, until—until quite lately. My last book was really almost a failure. Don't," she added, clasping her thin hands and bending forward a little, "don't mention this to Grisel, will you? They none of them know. I—I didn't like to worry them."

The young man rose and walked to the window, saying: "Oh, hell!" under his breath.

"Of course I won't tell Grisel," he almost shouted from between the lace curtains; "but doesn't your husband know?"

"Oh, no—no. They none of them do. It would only worry them, you know."

"It must worry you, doesn't it?"

Neither of them noticed that the young man, who might so well have been one of her younger children, was behaving quite as if he were what he had destined himself to be, a powerful and experienced king of journalism. And she, who had written books while he was crawling on his nursery floor, sat before him with folded hands, answering his questions with the simplicity and lack of reserve of a child. For once he had broken her barriers down, he realised how the poor thing was relieved and glad to talk about her troubles.

Thus it came that she told him all about that dreadful interview with Messrs. Lubbock & Payne, and of her struggles with "Lord Effingham."

"I've modernised it," she said, with hopefulness that made him want to cry, "but it didn't seem very good to me. But then I don't suppose one's ever a very good judge of one's own work——"

"Then one ought to be," he thrust in brutally. "Every man and every woman ought to be the best judge of his or her work. Any other kind of talk's nonsense. You ought to know your best book. Don't you? Because if you don't, I can tell you."

She trembled as she looked up at him. "I know you're going to say 'Queenie's Promise,'" she said feebly.

He shook his head. "Well, it isn't, then. It's the 'Under Secretary.' I read that through from start to finish in the Underground the other day, and it's—it's got the makings of a real good story."

At this moment the door opened, and Jessie brought in the tea, and by doing so changed these two bewitched people back to their real selves, and the millionaire newspaper king found himself once more only a young reporter, and the trembling literary aspirant at his feet became, as at the wave of a wand, again the tired, once mildly successful old novelist, his hostess and potential mother-in-law.

They were both embarrassed for a few minutes, and then, as they drank their tea, Mrs. Walbridge found herself, to her great though gentle surprise, telling him what she instinctively called the story of her life.

"My father was a solicitor," she said, "in Lincoln's Inn, and we lived in Russell Street. It's a boarding-house now. I went past it the other day on my way to the Tube, and it brought it all back so clearly! My mother died when I was a child, and one of my aunts brought me up. She was very old-fashioned, and rather an invalid, so as a child I saw hardly anyone but her and my nurse, and once in a long while my father. For years I never read anything but Miss Yonge's books, and Edna Lyall's, and The Girl's Own Paper. My aunt was very particular about my books."

"She must have been," growled the young man, trying to eat his toast silently, so that he could hear.

"I never went to school, but had a series of governesses, all very sad women. Most governesses seem to be sad, don't they? And all oldish, and not in very good health. I was allowed to read Sir Walter Scott's poems, and one or two of Dickens as I grew older. But I never liked Dickens; he writes about such common people. I loved Bulwer, and my aunt allowed me to read several of his. My aunt died when I was sixteen, and six months after her death my father went to Mexico on business, which would have made him a very rich man if it had turned out as he hoped. One of my old governesses came to stay in the house while he was gone. Her name was Miss Sweet, and I liked her because she was sentimental and had a soft voice, and wasn't at all particular about dates. Then it was that I wrote my first book—or not quite then, for I was nearly eighteen, but my father was still away."

She hesitated for a moment. She was allowing her voice more scope since the gloom had thickened in the quiet room. The young man did not move, for he feared to disturb her.

"It was a caretaker in the next house which had long been empty that put the idea into my head. She was an old woman with a niece, who lived with her, and the niece was very pretty. The story was a dreadful one—a tragedy, and the girl committed suicide. I can't quite tell you," the quiet voice went on, "what it meant to an ignorant girl, sheltered as I was, to be plunged into the midst of such horrors. Poor old Mrs. Bell waked us up in the middle of the night when it happened, and I went alone, as Miss Sweet had a bad attack of asthma."

She shuddered, and reaching to the back of a chair, took from it and wrapped round her shoulders a little old red shawl. On and on went the quiet voice, telling the story with a kind of neat dexterity and absence of the overburdening adjectives common to such narration.

Wick was amazed and filled with pity at the thought of what life had been to this woman to reduce her powers to the deadly level of the tales that she poured out regularly every autumn.

"It was a dreadful business, as you see, but somehow after the first it didn't frighten or upset me much, though it made poor Miss Sweet quite ill. Afterwards we went down to Lulworth Cove for a change, and it was while we were down there that I wrote the book. I was very happy then. Your work," she added, with a touch of innocent vanity, "not being creative, you may not realise what writing a book really is, but it's very wonderful. I used to sit on the rocks and scribble away by the hour. I think it was very good too, and I was proud of it. And the day after we got home, in the autumn—we had been called back by a telegram saying that my father had reached Liverpool—I packed up the manuscript on the dining-room table and addressed it to Mr. Murray. Someone had spilt a little black currant jam on the tablecloth, and as I arranged the pages I managed to smear a little of it across the title, and I remember getting cold water and a bit of cotton-wool and washing it off, and then drying it before the kitchen fire, and mending the spoilt letters with a very fine pen, so that it would look nice. 'Hannah' was the name of it. Not a very good title, but that was the way it came to me," she added softly, and her voice trailed away into silence.

The darkness increased suddenly, and the firelight made a lake of colour on the hearthrug, the only colour left in the room.

"Well," Wick asked hoarsely, "did John Murray publish it?"

She laughed. "John Murray never saw it. I left it on the hall table that night, and was going to register it myself in the morning. When my father came in late he noticed it, and opened it."

"Well——?"

Somehow he never forgot the feel of the room at that moment, or the chill sound of the next words as they fell on his waiting ears.

"He burnt it." After a little while she went on: "He was horrified by it. I suppose it was not very proper, written by a young girl, and he had never known that I understood about such things, but of course I did, after the adventure of poor Kitty Bailey. Ring the bell, will you, Oliver? It's growing very dark."

He rang, and while the lamp was being brought he knelt on the old hearthrug and mended the fire. In a few moments the crude, unlovely room was piteously bright, and the mystery had flown.

"Weren't you very angry?" Wick asked, as the door closed on the maid.

"I? Oh, no. It was he who was angry—my father. I think he was too hard on me, but it didn't matter very much. It was probably very badly written, though at the time I thought it was good."

Wick held out his hand. "Well, I must be off. Thank you so much for telling me, Mrs. Walbridge. Did you go on writing at once then?"

Her thin, small-boned hand quivered in his as she answered:

"Oh, no. I didn't write again until—until after my marriage."

They stood looking very kindly at each other, the old woman and the young man, and then she said suddenly, as he took up his hat and stick:

"I don't know why I told you, except, perhaps, that it happened, the burning of 'Hannah,' I mean, thirty-five years ago to-day. I was thinking about it before you came."

As he hurried through the rain towards the 'bus, the young man counted back.

"That makes her fifty-two," he said. "I thought she was older than that."

As he squeezed into the crowded interior of "everybody's carriage," as de Amicis calls it, a feeling of great pity swept over him. "How it must have hurt," he thought, "for her to remember it like that."

[CHAPTER IX]

The Gaskell-Walkers returned from their very long honeymoon a few days later and spent the night at Happy House, their own house being not quite ready for them.

It having rained without ceasing for a week at the Lakes, the young man had taken his bride to North Devon, where he had hired a car and they had spent a delightful time tearing over the country as fast as they could go, which happened to be Mr. Gaskell-Walker's higher form of enjoyment. He had made notes of the distance traversed each separate day, and to Mrs. Walbridge's bewildered mind, it seemed as if they had been nowhere, but had spent their time going from or to different places. However, her pretty daughter was in blooming health, and displayed her airs and graces in an artless and becoming way like some pretty bird. Wracked with worry, almost unbearably anxious about her new work, on which subject her publishers had maintained a silence which looked ominous. Mrs. Walbridge gave herself up to delight for a few hours in watching the happiness of these young people and hearing their comfortable plans for the future. She had never seen the house in Campden Hill, but Hermione had been taken there shortly before her wedding, and was delighted with everything about it. The drawing-room was apparently the only drawing-room in London that was over twenty feet long, and the art treasures, about which the young woman talked vaguely, but with immense satisfaction, seemed to be various and valuable.

"There is a whole room full of Chinese dragons," Gaskell-Walker told her at dinner, "wicked-looking, teethy devils of all sizes. I used to be awfully frightened of them when I was a kid."

"And the loveliest Indian screens, mother, you know, that dull, crumbly-looking wood, inlaid with mother-of-pearl."

Mrs. Walbridge had no idea of the exact income of her son-in-law, but she knew that the young couple intended to keep three servants and that Billy was partner in a fairly prosperous, though new, stockbroking firm in Throgmorton Street. He was not so sympathetic to her as Maud's husband. Moreton Twiss was young and full of boyish high spirits and a kind of innocent horse-play, that even the arrival of Hilary had in no wise quieted; and for some reason his untidy black hair and twinkling eyes were dearer to her than the correct smartness of the more conventional Gaskell-Walker.

Gaskell-Walker was ten or twelve years older than the other man, although he had married the younger daughter, and being extremely short-sighted, he wore pince-nez, without which his mother-in-law had never seen him. She was one of those people who prefer eyes to be unglazed. However, everything pointed to happiness being in store for Hermy, for she and her husband were very much in love with each other, he rather more than she was, which her mother felt to be as things should be. And the little dinner was very pleasant, Paul being at his best, which was very good, so good that he rarely produced it for family use, and Hermy, being a daughter for any mother's eyes to rest upon with pride, in her pretty sapphire-blue frock, with the charming diamond pendant her husband had given her for her wedding present, blinking on her lovely bosom.

"What news from Guy?" the bride asked, as they lingered in the old-fashioned way over their walnuts and port.

"I had a beautiful letter from him only this afternoon. I am going to show it to you. He's very well and seems to have made some nice friends amongst the officers."

Gaskell-Walker laughed. "Trust Master Guy to make friends," he said, cracking a nut with care, his over-manicured nails flashing as he did so. "Easier to make than to keep them in his case."

"Like the Governor," commented Paul carelessly.

"Children, children," Mrs. Walbridge glanced with anxious eyes from the one to the other, "I do wish you wouldn't speak of your father so—or Guy either, Paul, if you don't mind."

Gaskell-Walker bowed courteously. "I am sorry, Mrs. Walbridge," he answered, plainly meaning what he said, "I was only chaffing. We always tease the brat about his new intimate friends, and I didn't mean to say a word against him."

"Is father really better?" Hermione put in, smiling at her mother over the top of her glass. "I hear he is carrying on anyhow with Clara Crichell. Who was it told us so, Billy?"

"Oh, shut up, Hermy," put in Paul with a glance at his mother, who, however, had paid no attention to the remark.

It was a peculiarity of Mrs. Walbridge's children that, while each one of them individually was capable of hurting her a dozen times a day, not one of them could bear one of the others to inflict the slightest scratch on her.

"The kid's having a grand time," Paul went on to his sister, "with Fred and Elsie Ford. Balls and dinners every night and adorers by the dozen, so Archie Pratt told me. He had been down there—he's a cousin of Elsie's, you know. He says the kid's the success of the place. Seemed rather smitten himself, I thought."

"I loathe Archie Pratt," murmured Hermione, "he smells of white rose and is always talking about biplanes and monoplanes."

"He is an A1 airman," put in her husband, "they say he is down for a D. S. O. for that Italian business. By the way, Paul, I hear the Armistice is most certainly going to be signed next week."

Paul nodded. "Yes, according to the paper it is, but some of these duffers will probably put it off."

"No. I have it pretty straight. It really is going to be. The Hun cannot possibly hold out any longer. It's funny the way they cling to that figure-head of the Kaiser. But his nerve seems to be completely broken. He won't be able to stick it out."

Mrs. Walbridge pushed back her chair. "Guy says they expect it to be signed on Monday or Tuesday—the French expect it, I mean."

"What is Guy going to do then?" asked Gaskell-Walker, as he opened the door.

His mother-in-law looked at him vaguely. "Do? I don't know. I suppose he'll go back to the City. Mr. McCormick promised to take him back, but I don't know—he hasn't said anything about it. I'll get his letter."

They went upstairs to the girl's room, for Paul had long since established his æsthetic inability to sit in "the mausoleum," as he called the drawing-room, and there, among the pretty modern knick-knacks and pictures, the mother read her soldier son's letter.

It was a good letter, unoriginal and typical in its lack of grumbling and rather artificial cheerfulness. The writer called his friends and comrades by odd nicknames, vegetable and otherwise; he gave the details of the food, and the delights of sleeping in a bed once more after eighteen months of trench life. Then at the last there was something over which Mrs. Walbridge hesitated for a moment—something which was plainly very important to her. Billy Gaskell-Walker got up.

"I'll just go down and get a cigar out of my coat pocket," he said kindly.

But Mrs. Walbridge stopped him. "No, no, Billy, don't go," she said, "I'd like you to hear because you are going to be brothers now." She could not tell him that it was Paul before whom she had hesitated to read the more intimate part of the letter.

Paul sat at the far end of the room, reading a newspaper, his smoothly brushed hair gleaming over the back of Grisel's favourite chair.

"Of course, you know that Guy has been rather foolish," his mother went on after a pause, putting on her spectacles again. "But he is only twenty-one, after all, and that's not so very old, is it?"

Curiously enough the stranger, the man who was nothing to her or to her boy by blood, understood her better and was closer to her at that moment than either her son or her daughter. Gaskell-Walker drew his chair a little nearer and took his cigarette out of his mouth, a queer little unpremeditated act of homage which she noticed and for which she was grateful.

"A man of twenty-one," he said slowly, "is not a man at all, he's only a child, and Guy is so good-looking, he's so full of what women call charm——" he broke off with an expressive shrug, and after smiling gratefully at him, and lowering her voice a little that she might not disturb Paul's study of the Evening Standard, his mother-in-law went on with the letter, reading in a low, moved voice:

"'Dear old Mum, I shall be awfully glad to get back. I've been thinking quite a lot lately and I can see better than I used to what a selfish young cub I've always been to you. Of course, it's your own fault that we're all such pigs. You've been too good to us!'—That," the reader broke off to say, "is ridiculous.—'But then I've just sort of taken everything for granted. It's been part of nature that you should sit up in the little garret room, slaving away at writing books to do things and buy things for us. It never struck me before that you don't have much of a time, but it does now, and when I come back I'm going to try to be a little more decent to you. It isn't that I didn't love you——'" Her voice fell still lower and she shot another nervous glance at the back of Paul's immovable head. "'I always did—we all do, of course. It's just possible that we're all selfish without meaning to be and I've been the worst, because, of course, Paul has been working for years and has no time to do very much, and it's different with the girls. But I'd give something nice now, when I think about it all out here, if I hadn't always been such a hound about going upstairs for you and down to the kitchen and little things like that. Your poor old feet must have been pretty tired sometimes chasing about doing things for us, and in future I'm going to do the chasing.'"

"Bless him," put in Hermione lazily, "he's a good child. We must kill the fatted calf for him when he comes home. Billy, we'll have a beautiful party——."

Gaskell-Walker nodded. "Bravo, Brat," he approved gently. "We mustn't tease him any more. Perhaps," he added thoughtfully, "I might get him a job in Throgmorton Street. Don't think much of McCormick, anyway.

"There's a little more," went on Mrs. Walbridge, who had not listened to this conversation, but was bending over her letter, partly, it struck her son-in-law, to hide her eyes, "it's about—about that poor girl—you know."

Paul turned round in his chair and rested his chin on its black satin back.

"Francine, you mean"—he laughed with a little sneer, "what about her? The youth seems to be making his soul in earnest, but I have my doubts as to whether the lady will be satisfied with the rôle he offers her."

"Oh, shut up, Paul, you're a cat," Hermione almost snapped, in her unusual vehemence. "Unless, I am very much mistaken you liked the girl yourself till the Brat came along and wiped your eye."

"Shut up, you two. Go on, Mrs. Walbridge," interrupted Gaskell-Walker. "The girl's no worse than most young fellow's first adventure. Go and chew your bone on the mat, you two, if you've got to squabble. I want to hear what the Brat says."

After a pained look at her elder son, Mrs. Walbridge went on with the letter, Paul walking ostentatiously indifferent to the piano and turning over the music on top of it as she did so.

"'I know you have been worried to death about my silly scrape with that girl, but it really wasn't so bad as you all thought. I can't tell you about it in a letter, but I will when I see you and then you'll see that I wasn't quite such an ass as most people imagined. Anyhow, I straightened it all out the best way I could before I went back after my last leave, and I know you'll be glad to hear that I didn't treat her badly.' That's all he said about her. Then he asks about his bullfinch—we've not told him it died—and sends his love to everyone." Her voice shook a little as she read on. "'Tell old Paul I'm awfully glad to hear he's doing so well, and hope he'll soon be able to get out of that cursed bank. I wish he'd write to me, letters are a great boon out here. Give the girls each a kiss and tell Billy that a little stick won't do Mrs. Hermy any harm, when she goes through her manners at home!' Isn't it a very nice letter, Billy?"

"It is indeed, Mrs. Walbridge, there's good stuff in the Brat, and for one, I'm going to do my best to help it come out. He'll have a good time at our house—we both like entertaining, and I've done pretty well this year, and it'll be nice for him to have a cheery place to go to, full of young people. We must get some pretty flappers to amuse him, Hermy, and then he won't want to go wasting his time in silly places."

Paul turned. "I rather think," he drawled, "that we haven't, in spite of all these virtuous plans, heard the last of the excellent Francine. Good-night, Gaskell-Walker." He left the room, closing the door very softly behind him.

"I do wish," snapped Hermy, "that Paul would slam the door when he's furious, like a Christian. That cat-footed way of his drives me mad."

A little later Mrs. Walbridge accompanied her guests to their room, where everything had been prepared for them with the most minute and loving care.

"There's the cold milk, Billy, on your side, and Hermy's hot milk is in the thermos. The windows are open at the top about a foot. Is that right?"

Hermione kissed her mother, who, after a minute's hesitation, kissed her again.

"That's poor little Guy's kiss," the elder woman said. "Oh, Hermy, I'm so glad he's coming home."

Mrs. Walbridge then held out her hand to her son-in-law. "Good-night. Billy, it's nice having you here. You've been very kind about Guy. It has made me happy."

Gaskell-Walker peered closely into her face, for he had taken his glasses off. He was a selfish man, and not particularly tender-hearted, selfishness after forty having a tendency to grow a thick membrane over the feelings. But something in her face touched him.

"Good-night, dear Mrs. Walbridge," he said gently. "Will you allow your new son-in-law to kiss you good-night?" And he bent and kissed her on her soft cheek.

[CHAPTER X]

At half-past seven on the morning of Armistice Day Caroline Breeze, who was an early waker, but a late riser, was sitting up in bed reading. Her small, high up flat was very comfortable, and the good old woman had only to cross the room to light her gas-ring and prepare her morning tea. This she had done half an hour before, and was now propped up against many pillows with a pleasantly furnished tea-tray on her lap, bread and butter in one hand, which she dipped shamelessly into her tea, as she read, with avid, dreamy eyes, a new novel.

Miss Breeze was about sixty, and of irredeemable plainness, being the victim of that cruel form of indigestion that makes the nose red and the eyes watery. Her sparse grey hair, the front part of which was by day covered by a front of grey glossiness with but few pretences at concealment, that now hung, carefully brushed, on the foot of her bed like a bloodless and innocently come by war trophy, was screwed up on top of her big square head. She wore a little flannel jacket of the wrong shade of pink; her eiderdown, her window curtains, her wallpaper were pink, all too, of that pathetically wrong shade, but being comfortably colour blind, or taste blind, she knew nothing of this, and regarded her room as a bower of beauty and charm. The book she was reading was intensely interesting; there was in it a most cruelly treated companion, a revolting lap-dog that had to be taken for walks in the park, and a handsome nephew who ground his teeth in moments of emotion, and had designs on Rosamund (that was the governess's name). So engrossed was the good lady that presently she allowed her bit of bread and butter to soak too long in the tea, and as she raised it to her mouth it disintegrated, and fell with a horrid splash on her jacket.

"Oh, dear, how disgusting!" the old lady said aloud, laying down her book and removing the tea-soaked and buttery bread with a knife. "I do hope it's going to end all right."

When she had rubbed the front of her jacket vigorously with her napkin, she took up the book, and with a furtive air turned to the last page. This habit of looking at the end before she got to it was one of which Miss Breeze was very ashamed, but she was so tender-hearted that when she saw in the story any signs of possible tragedy, she really could not resist taking a hasty glance at the ending, just to see if things were all right. If they were she went back to the tale with undisturbed zest, and undiminished excitement over the intervening troubles of the heroine. But if the author had been so foolish as to allow death or misunderstanding to blight the life of her heroine, Caroline Breeze closed the book and never opened it again.

She had just resumed her reading, when a ring came at her door. The postman did not ring, and she did not receive telegrams, so she was startled, and sat staring owl-like through her glasses towards the door. The ring was repeated, followed by a quick tapping of ungloved fingers on the panel, and she heard a voice:

"Let me in, Caroline, it's only me."

"Good gracious. It's Violet!"

Slipping the tray from her knees to the little bamboo table at the side of the bed, Miss Breeze wrapped the eiderdown round her, and scuttled across and opened the door. She kissed her guest and they both went back into the warm bedroom; for the fire in the little drawing-room would not be lit until just before Miss Breeze got up, and lying in bed in the morning was her one self-indulgence.

"My dear, take your hat off and sit down in the comfortable chair. Whatever has brought you here at this hour?"

"Trouble," answered Mrs. Walbridge simply, doing as she was told. "I want you to do something for me, Caroline, it's a favour. I've very little time, so I can't explain. I must have some money."

"Money!" Miss Breeze had known Mrs. Walbridge for many years, but she had never suspected that her friend had money troubles.

"Yes, I must have some at once, and I want you to—to pawn these for me."

Opening her bag, she took out a little old case into which she had crowded her two or three old-fashioned diamond rings, and two pairs of earrings, one of seed pearls, the other of pale sapphires clumsily set in diamond chips and thick gold.

Caroline Breeze had never been inside a pawnshop in her life, but she did not protest against the horrid errand.

"I'll get up at once and go," she said. "What do you think they ought to give me?"

Mrs. Walbridge, who was very pale, and whose eyes looked larger and more sunken than ever, shrugged her shoulders helplessly. "I haven't the slightest idea," she said.

"What's that book?" she added sharply, the crimson cover of her friend's novel catching her eyes.

Miss Breeze's face, already so red and white in the wrong places, turned a deep bluish colour of extreme embarrassment. "Oh, it's—it's just a book," she stammered, laying her hand on it. "I—I thought I'd like to read it, just to see if it really is good."

Mrs. Walbridge, who had risen, held out her hand.

"Let me see it, Caroline," she said quietly, and Miss Breeze gave it to her. "I thought so—Beryl J. Bell. I've seen it advertised. Jones & Hayward advertise a great deal. Is it—is it good?"

Mrs. Walbridge's voice shook a little, and Caroline Breeze turned her eyes away.

"Nothing extra," she answered in a voice that tried to be indifferent. "I suppose they spend a lot of money in advertising her."

Forgetting her hurry, Mrs. Walbridge sat down again and looked eagerly through the book. There was a long silence, a flutter of pages being the only noise in the quiet room. Caroline Breeze's faithful heart ached for her friend, and in her wisdom she said nothing. But Mrs. Walbridge spoke after she had closed the book and laid it down on the bed.

"I suppose you know," her voice was very quiet and the colour had died away from her face, leaving the shadows and lines in it deeper than ever. "I suppose you know that 'Lord Effingham' is—a failure?"

Caroline made a dreadful grimace, rumpling up her nose and protruding her thick lips two or three times rapidly, a way she had when she was embarrassed or distressed.

"Oh, no," she protested, "not a failure. I've noticed that the critics don't seem to like it quite so much as the others, but——"

"Don't. It's a failure, Caroline, and it's right that it should be. I tried to change it, to make it more modern, and I've spoiled it completely. It's neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring."

"Oh, Violet!" Poor Miss Breeze's watery eyes overflowed a little, the tears did not fall, but spread awkwardly, scantily, over her rutted cheeks, and made her plain face even plainer. "I love your books, and I love this one too. If they had let you alone it would have been sweet."

"Yes, but they didn't let me alone, and they were right not to. They weren't unkind, they were right."

There was something innocently pathetic in the little figure by the bed. The plain old felt hat was on one side of her head, and in the strengthening morning light she looked a really old woman—an unhappy, hopeless old woman.

"I'm old-fashioned, Caroline—out of date. That's what it is. These new people—that woman for instance, Beryl J. Bell—she's young, she believes in her books, her mind isn't tired like mine. I know." She rose and moved nervously about the room, speaking in a quick undertone. "I've always known that my books aren't very good of course—not like Hichens, I mean, and Mrs. Humphrey Ward, and Arnold Bennett—but they were good of their kind, and people did like them, I know they did. I've had letters from people I've never even heard of, showing how much they liked them, and how they had helped them. But now they're old-fashioned even among old-fashioned ones. That's it." She stood still to utter the saddest of cries. "I'm old, Caroline. I'm old."

Poor Caroline Breeze burst into loud snuffling sobs, and rising from her bed, her skimpy nightgown clinging to her bony legs, she embraced her poor friend, and tried to comfort her with love and lies. Violet Walbridge did not cry. She was never a tearful woman, and at this moment was far past such a show of feeling.

"Get back into bed, dear. You'll catch cold," she said gently, patting her friend's bony shoulder. "I must go now or they'll miss me. Come to lunch when you've been to the pawnshop. It's good of you to go. I know I ought to go myself, but somehow I can't, with my own things, and I thought it would not be so bad for you, because you can tell the man that it's for a friend."

This idea she cherished, poor innocent lady, as one of great originality, and to Miss Breeze as well it appeared valuable. But even now, grieved as she was for her friend, it never occurred to the faithful Caroline that the financial situation of "Happy House" could possibly be one of more than temporary tightness.

Mrs. Walbridge never talked of money matters and for all Miss Breeze knew might have a regular income quite apart from her books. So the kind old maid's assumption was that one of the boys had got into a scrape, and that Mrs. Walbridge wished to help him without her husband's knowledge. For, in spite of the fact that Ferdie Walbridge, on the strength of having once paid back ten pounds of his original loan from Miss Breeze, had on several occasions borrowed further small sums of her, to avoid, he said, bothering poor Violet about trifles, Caroline still cherished her pristine belief that husbands were superior beings, who ought not to be troubled by small matters by their wives.

As the friends parted Caroline ventured one question. "There's another book sold to Lubbock & Payne, isn't there? On that last contract, I mean."

Mrs. Walbridge shook her head. "No, this is the last of the three. I—I dare say I shall hear from them shortly."

Caroline Breeze went back to her room, and dressed and prepared to go on her, to her, so strange and adventurous errand.

No one saw Mrs. Walbridge come home, and the morning dragged along with its usual round of dull duties, until about half past ten, when Miss Breeze arrived, her long queer figure, in her tight-fitting jacket edged with strips of shabby mink, and her oddly rakish hat decorated with a scrap of gold lace and a big bunch of pink roses.

"I've been, dear," she burst out eagerly, as she came into the attic room, where her friend sat at her work-table, "and I've got fifty-two pounds. Isn't it splendid?"

Mrs. Walbridge's face fell. "Oh, thanks—that's very good," she said, "and I'm so grateful to you, Caroline."

"It wasn't a bit like what I had expected," Miss Breeze explained, unbuttoning her jacket, and pulling out her cherished lace frill. "I rather thought there would be little pens, you know, like the ones in Dickens, with a young man leaning across a counter. But it was exactly like a shop and there was a very nice little back room, and such a polite man, a Christian. He said the diamonds were very good, but small, and he didn't seem to believe me when I told him it was for a friend. Wasn't it odd of him?"

Mrs. Walbridge nodded. She had taken up a pencil and was making some notes on an old envelope, "twenty-six, thirty-six," she murmured. "Are they really signing the Armistice to-day?" she asked a moment later, looking up.

"Yes, I think so. The streets are crowded, everybody seems to be waiting for something. I don't see why they don't sign the peace at once, and not waste time over an armistice; it would be far simpler."

Mrs. Walbridge rose. "Let's go downstairs, dear," she said.

But at that moment a sudden ringing of bells filled the air—bells from all sides, bells big, bells small, bells musical and bells harsh. The two women stared at each other.

"That must be it," Miss Breeze cried. "I thought they were going to fire off cannon."

Mrs. Walbridge went to the little window and opened it. The sun was shining, and the sky was as clear as if they looked at it from some empty moor. She stood and looked up.

"Thank God," she said. "Now all the sons and brothers and lovers will be coming home—those who are left——"

"And husbands," agreed Miss Breeze, clasping her hands.

As the cannon began to roar, Violet Walbridge turned and looked at her friend with a curious expression in her fine eyes. "And husbands," she added softly.

While the two women were having their simple lunch the house door burst open and Griselda came running in, glowing with colour and happiness, looking the picture of youth and beauty, in a little close-fitting fur cap and stole of the same kind of fur. The Fords had motored her up to town to see the celebrations and to go to a ball at one of the big hotels that night.

"Oh, mother," she cried, "aren't you glad it's over—the war, I mean?"

She sat down at the table, and leaning her chin in her hand, watched the two women as they pecked at their bread and cheese.

"Aren't you surprised to see me? We only came up on the spur of the moment. Fred said it was a historical event, and we ought not to miss it, and he telephoned through and got rooms. The prices are perfectly fearful, but he really doesn't care what he spends. So here we are. They sent me up here in the car."

"Where," asked her mother, in an odd, dry little voice, "did you get those furs?"

Griselda, who had taken off the stole, glanced down at it carelessly. "Oh, this. Elsie gave it to me. Fred gave her some heavenly sables the other day, so she didn't want these any more."

"I gave you my beaver set."

The girl glanced curiously at her mother's face. "I know you did, dear, and it's very nice, of course. But beaver doesn't suit me, and besides it's very old fashioned."

Mrs. Walbridge started at the last word, and her wedding ring struck sharply against a glass.

"Old fashioned?" she said. "Yes, I suppose it is. Well, come upstairs, dear, and take your things off in my room. Jessie's turning yours out to-day, but it'll be ready in a little while."

Griselda caught up her stole and threw it round her shoulders. "Oh, I'm not staying," she explained carelessly. "We're at the Ritz. It's only for two or three days, so I thought I wouldn't—upset things here—and besides, Elsie wanted me. Sir John Barclay is motoring her and me back on the day after to-morrow——"

"Who is Sir John Barclay?" asked Miss Breeze interestedly. Grisel laughed.

"Try to bear it, Caroline," she said, "but he's not young and handsome; he's old. Very nice," she added, patronisingly, "but really old. White hair and all that. Isn't it a pity, for he's as rich as Crœsus—copper in Africa it is, and sheep and cows in South America. I wish he'd adopt me as a favourite grandchild." As she spoke a long, throaty honk of a motor horn was heard. "That's Peters. I promised Elsie I wouldn't be late, and he's reminding me. We're lunching at the Carlton with Sir John, so I really mustn't be late. Good-bye, dears."

She kissed both the women and they all three walked to the hall door together.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you," the girl went on, as she opened the door. "Dad says he's going to stay on for another fortnight. He says his health's better, but really and truly he's having the time of his life and is a thoroughly gay old dog. Oh, yes, and he wants you to send him some new pajamas—only two or three pairs, and you're not to send him mauve ones. Rather naughty of him to be so particular, isn't it?"

"Griselda!" Mrs. Walbridge's voice was very stern, and the girl made a funny little face as she ran down the path.

They watched her get into the big car, and waved their hands to her as it bore her quietly away.

The two women went back into the house and sat down in the drawing-room. The fire had gone out during the excitement of the morning, and the room looked more than ever unlovely and uninhabited. Mrs. Walbridge stood for a moment gazing down at the five photographs.

"Dear Grisel is having a splendid time, isn't she?" asked Caroline warmly. "How nice for her to have such rich friends."

Mrs. Walbridge did not answer. Her eyes were still fixed on the pictures of her five children.

[CHAPTER XI]

A week later Mrs. Walbridge received a letter from her publishers. It was a very kind letter, for, after all, publishers are human beings, and Mr. Lubbock and Mr. Payne were really sorry to hurt their poor little client.

"'Pon my word, it really makes me feel quite miserable," Mr. Lubbock had told his partner, with perfect sincerity, as they drew up a rough draft of the letter for Miss Borlays, their most confidential secretary, to type.

Mr. Payne nodded in agreement. "Poor old thing, it'll be an awful blow, and I half suspect," he added, "that she supports that rascally, good-looking husband of hers by her earnings."

"There are a lot of children, too, Payne. I've forgotten how many, but a great many," added Mr. Lubbock, smoothing his impeccable waistcoat. "Poor little woman. I wish we didn't have to do it. Of course, she has grown absolutely out of date, and this last book is disastrous, positively disastrous."

However, after some discussion, the two men decided, for the sake of old times and long friendship, to accept one more book from Mrs. Walbridge.

"We'll buy outright," Lubbock suggested. "What do you say? Give her a cheque for five hundred pounds and let her deliver the manuscript when she likes. That'll let her down a bit easier."

Mr. Payne nodded. "Five hundred pounds is a lot of money," he protested feebly. "We shan't sell as many copies either after this last mess. However, we'll do it."

When they had finished the rough draft and sent it in to the efficient Miss Borlays, the two men went out to lunch, and had a bottle of Clos Vogeot to console themselves, both for what was practically a gift of a large sum of money, and also for their sincere sympathy with that poor little superannuated scribbler. After his third glass of the excellent and mellowing wine, Mr. Lubbock even recalled to his friend how very pretty Mrs. Walbridge had been twenty years ago.

"I remember thinking I had never seen such eyes in my life," the good gentleman murmured reminiscently, "and I was only just married in those days, too."

The letter was less of a blow to Mrs. Walbridge than might have been expected, for, when faced with absolute ruin, an unexpected five hundred pounds comes very nearly like manna from heaven. Her relief when she had cashed the cheque and actually had the notes folded away in her shabby little old bag was so great that she had to struggle to keep the tears from her habitually tearless eyes. She did not go straight home from the bank, and restraining herself with a violent effort from rushing in to thank Mr. Lubbock and Mr. Payne—a course which she knew would be extremely distressing to them both—she did an unjustifiable but very forgivable thing. She went to Peter Robinson's and spent twenty-seven pounds nineteen and sixpence on a muff and stole for Griselda. This she had sent straight to her daughter, and, sitting at the counter in the shop, she wrote a little letter on a bit of paper out of one of her notebooks.

"My darling," she said, in her beautiful, clear writing, "here's a little present for you. I can't bear you to accept things from anyone but me. Explain to Elsie Ford, and I'm sure she'll understand your asking her to take back the beautiful furs she so kindly wanted to give you.

"When are you coming back? I don't want to cut your pleasure short, but you've been away for a long time now, and I miss you. Oliver came to see me yesterday, and he has a box for 'Roxana,' and wants you and me and a friend of his, a young man, to go with him on Thursday. Guy will be coming back any day now, and Christmas is near—and in fact I want my baby very badly.

"Your loving mother,
"Violet Walbridge."

This note she pinned on the muff, and herself folded the soft paper over it as it lay in the box. The girl who had sold it to her was very sympathetic and pleasant, and promised that it should go off that very day. When these things were accomplished, Mrs. Walbridge went on to Campden Hill, where she was lunching with Hermione.

Hilltop Road, Campden Hill, is a blind alley, beautifully quiet, with grass growing between the cobble-stones that pave it. It is a quiet, sunny, tree-sheltered place, with five or six engardened houses on either side, the smallest of which belonged to the Gaskell-Walkers. Even now, in November, a few scraggy roses and some brown-edged hydrangeas still garnished the sodden garden, and Mrs. Walbridge noticed with pleasure, as she went up the path, that the painters were evidently out. The door and windows glittered steadily in the glory of new bottle-green paint, and the windows themselves had lost the hollow-eyed look incidental to houses where the housemaids are not yet settled down to a religious respect for their blinds.

She was a little late for lunch, but Maud was the only other guest, and, as Maud was very hungry, they had not waited for her, and she found them sitting cosily over curried eggs in the pretty dining-room. She had not seen Maud for about a fortnight, and was pleased to find her looking well and rosy. Hilary was at the seaside with his Grannie Twiss, and Maud and Moreton, she was told, had been having a high old time doing the theatres.

"We are praying," the young wife added pleasantly, "for bubonic plague, or cholera, or something. Poor Moreton's only had three patients since we got back, and one of them only had neuralgia from his tooth, and Moreton had to send him across the passage to Mr. Burton to pull out a few. That," she added, reaching for the salt, "was rather bitter."

Hermione, looking radiantly pretty in her smart trousseau coat and skirt, was full of simple news about her husband and her house and their plans.

"Billy's not forgotten his promise about the Brat," she said, after a while. "He's asked Mr. Browning, his partner, you know, and he says he thinks they could make some kind of a place for him—for Guy, I mean."

"That's very kind of him. I haven't heard from Guy for over a week. I suppose he'll be coming any day now, bless him."

Then she was asked and told news of Paul, and this information was given and accepted rather coldly, for Paul was not a favourite with his brother and sisters, and their interest was only conventional.

"I believe he did rather well in something; I forget what, copper or something, last week," Mrs. Walbridge explained. "He's bought a lovely teapot with flowers all over it, and a picture—a water-colour of Venice that he says will be worth double what he paid for it in a few years."

"Grisel's having a grand time," one of the young women exclaimed towards the end of the lunch. "Elsie Ford is jolly good to her."

Her mother's delicate eyebrows stirred a little ruefully. "I don't like this new custom of taking presents from one's friends," she said.

"Nonsense, mother. Everybody does it, and Elsie's so rich it doesn't matter to her what she gives away. Do you remember how we despised her for marrying Fred Ford, Hermy?"

Hermione nodded. "Yes; he was dreadful in those days, wasn't he? There wasn't a decent 'o' in him. Real cockney."

"She's toned him down a lot, though," put in the other, "and he has a trick of picking up smart slang—really good slang, you know—that makes him quite possible. When's the kid coming home, mum?"

"A few days before Christmas. I had a letter from her yesterday. They are doing a lot of motoring, which, of course, Grisel loves. There's an old gentleman named Barclay who is very kind to her," she said.

Hermione Gaskell-Walker burst out laughing. "You'll be having the kind old gentleman for a son-in-law if you don't look out, you innocent old pet," she said, lighting her coffee machine, and blowing out the match. "Elsie told me—I met her the other day in Harrod's when she came up for that special performance at His Majesty's—that the old man was crazy about the kid, and," she added with satisfaction, "rolling—simply rolling."

Her mother looked bewildered. "Rolling——?"

"In money, dear. He's extremely rich—cattle, I think, in Argentina. She always was the best-looking of the three of us, so it's only fair she should make the best match."

Maud interrupted her indignantly. "Best match, indeed! An old man like that. How sickening of you, Hermy. I wouldn't give up Moreton for all the millionaires in the world."

Mrs. Walbridge patted her hand. "That's right, dear," she murmured, and Mrs. Gaskell-Walker looked a little ashamed of herself.

"You needn't think I'm not fond of Billy, for I am. He's absolutely perfect. I was only speaking from the worldly point of view, and it would be funny if the kid should burst out into a title, and millions, while Moreton is hunting illusive patients, and Billy worrying himself dead on the Stock Exchange."

After lunch Mrs. Walbridge was taken over the house, which was very comfortable and full of things that she supposed must be beautiful, although to her they were for the most part grotesque, if not ugly. The mattresses, and such homely appurtenances, were oldish, she found, and rather shabby, but everything downstairs was imposing, and that, Hermione thought, was the chief thing.

"By the way, mother," the young wife burst out as they came down the steep staircase, "what about that Wick man? There's not going to be any trouble with him, I hope?"

"Trouble?"

"Yes, with Grisel, I mean. Billy took a fancy to him rather, and asked him to come and see us, so he turned up the other Sunday for supper. He's very nice. We both liked him, but there's something very odd about him, don't you think?"

Maud laughed. "It's only that he says all the things that most people only think."

"I like him," Mrs. Walbridge announced firmly. "I like him very much. Did he say anything to you about Griselda, Hermy—or to Billy?"

"No, not exactly. But when he talked about the future, and he always does talk about the future (I never knew anyone who seemed to have less use for the past, or even the present), he seemed to assume that she would always be there, with him, I mean."

"He's asked her to marry him, and she's refused him."

"Really? He doesn't seem much cast down by it. I never saw a more cheery person in my life. Billy says he'll be a great success some day."

Maud went part of the way home with her mother, and asked her again for the loan. Mrs. Walbridge hesitated.

"I don't quite see how I can, dear," she said behind her muff, for they were in a bus. "My—my last book has not sold quite so well as the others."

Maud nodded. "I've seen some of the notices. Awfully sorry, dear. By the way, why don't you try to brighten up your style a little? They're awfully sweet and all that, but they are a little old-fashioned, you know."

"I—I tried to brighten up 'Lord Effingham,'" her mother faltered, and Maud laughed with kindly meant amusement that cut deep.

"'Lord Effingham' really was the limit. That baby was most shocking. We blushed for you, Moreton and I. Moreton says he thinks you don't read enough of the new stuff. Oh, I don't mean really good stuff, like Wells and May Sinclair and that lot, but the second-rate ones that sell so well—Mrs. Llovitt and Austen Goodheart, and so on. This Bell woman, too—what's her name?—Beryl J. Bell. I don't think her book is really better than yours, but every second person one meets is reading it."

Before they parted she returned again to the question of the loan.

"If you possibly can you'll let me have it, won't you? We really are rather at our wits' end. Everyone is so dreadfully healthy just now, and the rent is pretty bad—quarter-day coming. I do want some pretty things for little Violet. I should hate her to wear Hilary's left-offs."

A little smile, that was almost whimsical, touched Mrs. Walbridge's flexible lips.

"My children all wore each other's left-offs," she said softly, "and it didn't seem to hurt them. Grisel looked very sweet in your long robes. However, I'll see what I can do, darling, and I can let you have twenty-five—only don't mention it to Paul, will you?"

She changed buses at Oxford Circus, and after waiting a long time on the corner, she gave up trying to force her way into the overcrowded buses (for she hadn't the gift of crowds) and walked home. It was nearly tea-time when she reached Happy House, and after a hasty cup of tea she went up to her little attic study and sat down to work.

When Paul came home at dinner-time he was not unreasonably annoyed to find his mother still writing.

"Do come down," he called. "Dinner's on the table, and I'm hungry."

When she appeared, he looked with distaste at her ruffled hair and ink-stained finger.

"Really, mother," he exclaimed irritably, "I do think you might manage to be in time for meals. It's disgusting to a man to get home and have to wait for his food."

"I shan't be a minute, dear," she said. "I must just wash my hands and brush my hair."

"Oh, bother your hands and your hair; come along. I'm going to the play—gallery—with Bruce Collier, to the Coliseum, so I shan't have to dress, but I've very little time."

Mrs. Walbridge was a careful housekeeper, but things will go wrong sometimes in every house, and this was one of those occasions for her. She had a new cook whom she ought, she knew, to have superintended, but the call of her book had been too loud and she had forgotten all about dinner. The soup was lumpy and luke-warm, and the leg of mutton quivering and purple. Paul watched it as she cut the first slice (she always did the carving), and threw down his napkin angrily.

"Raw meat—that's really too much! I'll go to the club and get a sandwich."

Tears rose to her eyes. "Oh, Paul, I am sorry, very sorry," she cried, "and I don't wonder you're annoyed, but don't go. Let me make you a Welsh rabbit."

He shook his head and rose. "No, no. I'd rather go."

"I—I—it was my fault," she went on. "I got so interested in my book that I utterly forgot dinner."

At the door he turned and looked back at her pitilessly.

"Your book! If your books were worth while there'd be some excuse for artistic absent-mindedness, but considering the stuff you turn out, I shouldn't think such mundane details as soup and mutton need be so infinitely beneath you."

Mrs. Walbridge sat still for several minutes, staring at the closed door, a strange look on her pale face. Presently she rose, the look in her eyes intensifying, almost solidifying, to one that would immeasurably have astonished her son if he could have seen it. Lighting a lamp, she went quickly upstairs to her little writing room, and, unfastening the buttons of her right sleeve, freeing her wrist, she took up her pen and began to write. Day had begun to light her square of sky when she crept down quietly to bed the next morning.

[CHAPTER XII]

A few days before Christmas Ferdinand Walbridge and his youngest daughter came home. It, was over two months since his wife had seen him, and she was very much struck by his look of health and youth.

"The sea air has done you a world of good, Ferdie," she commented gently.

He shot a quick glance at her out of marvellously cleared and unswollen eyes.

"Torquay agrees with me," he answered shortly; "always did."

Then he told her with genuine pleasure—for, like so many men with whom selfishness is almost a disease, he liked spending money, and was rather generous than otherwise—that he had made a good thing from a tip in copper, given him by a friend in Torquay.

"Sir John Barclay," he explained. "Grisel will have written you about him."

She nodded. "Oh, yes. The kind old gentleman."

"Exactly, the kind old gentleman." He laughed. "He and I are very friendly, and, as I say, he put me on to this thing, and I cleared a couple of hundred pounds."

She was about to ask him if he couldn't manage some of the quarterly bills with part of the money, when he cut the ground from under her feet by taking from his pocket five five-pound notes and handing them to her.

"That's just a little present for you, old girl," he said, "to help you out with Christmas."

Before she had finished thanking him, the house door had banged behind him.

Grisel had not arrived yet, as she was coming by car with the Fords, who were spending Christmas at the Savoy, and Mrs. Walbridge ran out and bought some flowers to decorate the girl's room.

She had not forgiven Paul for the episode of the underdone mutton. He had hurt her many times before, but he had never so thoroughly disgusted her, and her indignation, that she knew to be justified and fair, was in an odd way a strength to her. She had worked for hours every day on her new book, and was behindhand in consequence with her Christmas plans, but Grisel must have flowers. She spent nearly three pounds of the twenty-five her husband had given her at the beautiful shop in Baker Street, and then, because she was afraid of crushing them, took a taxi home, and was met by a look of cold raillery by Paul, who was letting himself into the house with his latchkey as she drove up.

"I hope Lubbock & Payne are paying you well for the new masterpiece," he said, as she came up the steps laden with flowers. He was surprised at the look she gave him in return.

"Your father made me a present this morning," she said quietly, "and if I choose to buy flowers with some of it that doesn't concern you, my dear Paul."

Up in the girls' room (as the upstairs sitting-room was still called, although only one girl was left) she had half an hour of real pleasure, filling vases with water and arranging flowers to the best advantage. She was passionately devoted to the pretty things, but for many years now had had to give up buying them, or trying to keep growing things in the house. Growing plants need care and time, and Mrs. Walbridge had little leisure for such delightful attentions.

But now Grisel was coming home, so she felt perfectly satisfied in spending such an enormous sum of money as nearly three pounds on adorning the girl's room.

Her husband had not known at what time the Fords and their guest would reach London. They would, no doubt, lunch on the way, and as Sir John Barclay was coming up with them, they would probably stop to explore any old churches they might pass. He had a passion for routing about in chilly, romantic old churches.

"Fond of arches, and architecture, and flying buttresses and things," he added, with the pleasant disdain of one to whom those chaste joys make no appeal.

So, when the flowers were arranged, and the blinds drawn down, and the fire lit, Mrs. Walbridge went to her own room and put on her only afternoon dress. It looked very shabby, she thought, as she stood in front of the glass. It had never been much of a frock, and she had worn it and worn it and worn it. It was of black silk, of some thin, papery kind that looked cracked in a strong light, and the sleeves were very old-fashioned, with something wrong about the shoulders. She sighed a little, and then gave her pretty curly hair a last smooth of the brush and went downstairs.

She was a little anxious lest one of the children might notice the absence of her rings, and the seed pearl earrings, which, being one of her husband's very few gifts, were a part of her immemorial gala attire; she was almost sure that he would notice their absence, and she felt that she would die with shame if any of them knew about the pawning.

The new cook had produced some unexpectedly tempting-looking cakes, and Jessie, much elated by her reinstatement as a one-job woman, was waiting in all the glories of new cap and apron, to open the door to Miss Griselda, while the mistress, in the dreary drawing-room, sat down by the fire to wait for her daughter.

She was lost in thought over her new book, which was engrossing her very deeply. She heard a sudden knocking on the glass panel of the house door, and jumped up and ran to open the door, flinging out her arms and crying:

"Oh, my darling!"

"Thanks, Mrs. Walbridge. I like being called your darling. You might kiss me too, if you don't mind. It's Christmas time."

Oliver Wick laughed cheerfully as the little lady started back in fright. "That's what I call a nice warm welcome," the young man went on, following her into the hall and hanging up his hat.

"Then she hasn't come? May I come in and wait? I've really come to see her, you know, but I've got a very decent excuse—a note from my mother, saying how delighted we shall be to dine with you on Christmas Eve." He produced a letter and followed his hostess into the drawing-room, carrying something that looked like a small hatbox with great care.

Mrs. Walbridge read the note and expressed her satisfaction at its contents.

"What have you got in that box," she added.

"Flowers for Grisel," he answered promptly. "Beauties. Just look." He raised the lid of his box and showed her an enormous bunch of closely packed Parma violets. "Aren't they lovely?" he asked, beaming with pleasure, "and won't she love them?"

"She will indeed. Let's go upstairs and put them in water, shall we?"

And thus it was that when Griselda Walbridge reached home after having stayed nearly two months with the Freddie Fords at Conroy Hall, Torquay, she found Mr. Wick awaiting her with a curious air of belonging to the household as much, or even more, than she did.

"You're fatter," he said, looking at her critically, his small eyes shut as if she were a picture and he an expert, "and you've got that nasty red stuff on your lips. Oh, fie!"

Mrs. Walbridge watched them happily, as she leant back in Hermione's favourite old chair by the fire. There was something in this friendly, busy youth that she loved. He gave her a safe feeling, and she decided, as she watched his sparring with her daughter, that she would be glad to see Grisel safely married to him. He was poor, she knew, but she had unconsciously accepted his own ideas about his future, and knew that his poverty was merely a temporary thing, and that he was headed straight for power and wealth. Besides, power and wealth were not things that she had ever greatly valued.

Grisel was thinner, she went on thinking. She looked taller in her beautifully fitting chestnut brown skirt and chiffon tan blouse. The girl had changed. She looked more grown up, more of what her mother innocently characterised as "a society girl." Her manner, too, was different. She seemed at once a little bored and excited about something.

She had opened her dressing-case and taken out a variety of little belongings and was darting about the room like, her mother thought, a swallow, settling these things in their old places. A handsomely framed photograph of her father (his gift on her last birthday) she put on the mantelpiece, and turned with a little laugh.

"Isn't Dad looking splendid," she said. "He's been motoring a lot, you know, and it's done him a world of good."

"Oh, I didn't know he went with you," her mother observed, surprised. Grisel took a little silver and enamel cigarette box out of her pocket and put it on the table.

"He didn't go with us," she answered carelessly. "The Crichells had their car, you know, and he and Clara used to knock about a bit."

"Surely, my dear, you don't call Mrs. Crichell by her Christian name?"

"Don't I? I call everybody by their Christian names—everyone does. The old ones hate being 'Miss-ed'—reminds them of their age, you see. Even Elsie's mother hated being called Mrs. Hulbert, but, of course, I wouldn't call her Pansy! She really is old. Must be as old as you, dear, though I must say she doesn't look it."

Oliver Wick glanced quickly at Mrs. Walbridge, but looked away in relief, for he saw that she was untouched by the girl's careless remark, and he realised with a pang of satisfaction that her sensitiveness lay far from such matters as age and looks.

"Did you see much of that Mrs. Crichell?" he asked, as she sat down and lit a cigarette. She laughed.

"Yes. I know you hate her, but she's really not so bad, and Mr. Crichell and she entertained a good deal. They had an awfully nice house there."

"I don't hate her," said Oliver Wick quietly, "but she's vulgar, and too idle and empty-headed to be much good, or happy. Women like that are always on the edge of making beasts of themselves, even if they don't do it."

"Oh, a Daniel come to judgment!" she jeered. "You seem very wise, this afternoon."

"Yes," he answered drily. "I'm always rather sage on Saturdays. Friday's pay day, you know, at my shop, and nothing makes a man feel so wise as money in his breeches pocket. You," he added, "have, on the contrary, gained chiefly in folly, I should say."

She laughed. "Have I? I'm not at all sure of that."

There was something thoughtful in her voice and face, and her mother looked at her wonderingly.

Oliver's face was imperturbable. "Who's the man?" he asked, and she actually jumped, so that her cigarette fell out of her amber holder to the floor.

"What d'you say?" she asked, as she picked up the cigarette. "Who was the what?"

"Man—the man you're contemplating marrying?"

All that there was of the new and the strange in Griselda seemed to her mother to flower in her answer to the young man's question.

She threw back her head and laughed, her pretty throat shown to the best advantage as she did so. Then coolly looking at Wick from under her lashes in a consciously attractive way, she drawled:

"I'm not going to tell you his name, though you're perfectly right, oh shrewd young knight of the fountain pen."

Wick was shrewd, but he was also very young, and Mrs. Walbridge felt a little pang of pain as she saw how white he had grown and what a smitten look had come to his face. After a second he rallied, and lit a cigarette, but he had been badly hurt, and his face showed it as he said, with a laugh:

"That's a phase all attractive young girls go through—trying to make up their minds to marry some rich man they don't like, before they have the sense to settle down with the handsome object of their true affections."

"The object being you, I suppose?" she retorted.

"Grisel, Grisel," her mother protested gently. "You really go too far, my dear."

The girl laughed. "Poor mother. You're longing to tell me it isn't womanly, aren't you? But it's very kind of you to have brought me the violets, Oliver, and I'm glad to see you, and all that——" She held out her hand carelessly, with something of the air of a stage queen, "but I'm dining out, and must have a talk with mother before I dress, so I'm afraid you must go now."

He rose at once, apologising nervously and sensitively for having stayed too long, and Mrs. Walbridge went down to the door with him. He was very slow in getting into his coat, and she purposely did not look at him. She knew he was suffering, and she had an absurd feeling that he was hers, that she had written him—that she knew exactly what he was going through, and what he was going to do.

Then he opened the door and turned round, grinning broadly and holding out his hand.

"She got the first one in that round, didn't she?" he asked. "Never mind, I'll get her yet, the young minx! Oh, my word," he added, relapsing suddenly into helpless, conscious pathos: "What a little beauty she is! My knees feel like wet tissue paper."

Before she could speak he had bent and kissed her (for though he was not very tall, he was taller than she), and was gone into the darkness.

[CHAPTER XIII]

The Christmas Eve dinner party was rather a large one. Hermione and her husband could not come, as they were obliged to dine with relations of the Gaskell-Walkers. But the Twiss's were there, and Mr. and Mrs. Crichell, and Paul and the Wicks, and, to Griselda's joy, the great Bruce Collier honoured them with his presence. She knew that this condescension was due to his having once met her coming out of the house when he was on his way to see Paul.

Walbridge had, as usual, helped by spending all his available money on things of a showy and convivial nature. The quarterly gas bill was still unpaid, and he was having serious trouble with his tailor, but he had sent in a case of champagne, and a box of the best cigars money could buy, and all sorts of impressive, though unnecessary dainties, such as caviare, pâté de foie, brandied cherries, oysters and so on, besides a fifteen-pound turkey, which quite put out of joint, as Grisel expressed it, "the pope's nose of the poor little eleven-pounder mother had bought for the occasion."

Ferdie had been very fussy and tiresome ever since he came back from Torquay, and at the last minute, distrustful of the new cook's powers, he had insisted on getting a woman in for the Christmas Eve dinner. The permanent cook wept all day, and went through the usual procedure of reproaches and threats, but she finally quieted down, by the help of a bottle of port, and the dinner really was excellent.

At the last minute the table had had to be redecorated, because Ferdie had been seized with a desire to have orchids. Mrs. Walbridge sat patiently by and watched him remove her time-honoured design of holly and mistletoe and smilax, and then arrange the lovely purple and mauve things that she now saw for the first time in her life without a shop front between her and them. She dared not ask the price; she dared not offer to help him, for he was extraordinarily irritable, and in spite of his look of renewed health and youth, moved to violent invective by the slightest word or suggestion. She watched him now as he darted from side to side of the table trying the effect of the different clear-glass vases, full of the expensive flowers that his wife privately thought so much less lovely than roses or sweet peas.

He was looking very handsome, and had certainly renewed his youth in a way that made her feel, as she raised her eyes to the glass that always hung opposite his place at table, that she looked older and more dowdy than ever. And yet there was something in his face that displeased her, and seemed to give her an odd kind of warning. After a while she rose and went quietly to the door.

"Where are you going?" he asked sharply.

"I'm going up to write a little."

"Oh, rubbish! Go down to the kitchen and make sure that everything's all right. That's far more important."

"I've been down to the kitchen," she answered gently, with something in her eyes that disconcerted him. "Everything is all right, and as you are going to arrange the seats I'm going to write for a while."

She went upstairs and closed the door, and sat down before her work-table, where her lamp always stood nowadays filled and trimmed, with a box of matches by its side.

Old Mrs. Wick, rather imposing in grey, with some fine lace, and a cap, and a handsome old brooch of Irish paste and black enamel, necessarily sat on Ferdie Walbridge's right at dinner. Mrs. Crichell, very handsome in jade green velvet, sat on his left, as she had sat, Oliver remembered, from his place on Mrs. Walbridge's left, that night in the early autumn, when he had first dined at the house.

Oliver was very proud of his old mother, and with good reason, for her plain, strong face was by far the most arresting, apart from the mere fact of superficial beauty, at the table. His little sister too, whose soft red hair foamed over her head like scarlet soap-suds, bore the proximity of three very good-looking young women remarkably well. She was plainly by far the most intelligent of the four, and once or twice when the celebrated Mr. Collier laid down the law with even more than his usual cocksureness, little Jenny dashed in, as her delighted brother thought, and wiped the floor with him. He was a pretentious, posing man, Mr. Collier, disposing of such writers as Thomas Hardy and Meredith with a few words of amused contempt.

"Hardy has talent," he said, screwing his glass in his eye, and studying Griselda's charming face with relish. "Of course, he writes well, but he's very old-fashioned, and far too long-winded. There's not one of his books that would not be better for a little judicious paring down."

"And who," put in Jenny Wick's high, clear voice, "whom do you suggest as a parer?"

Collier glared at her, and Paul who, for some reason, had hardly taken his eyes off his red-headed vis-à-vis, gave a sudden laugh, although he had had no intention of doing so.

"I like your sister," Maud Twiss said pleasantly, turning to Oliver, and speaking in an undertone. "She's a dear little thing."

"Isn't she," he answered, "very like me, don't you think?"

And Maud, who knew him less well than the other members of the family, was a little disconcerted, and blushed. She looked very handsome when she blushed, and Crichell leant across the table to her, waving those white hands of his in the way that was so singularly distasteful to Wick. Once more the young man was reminded of things sprouting in dark places, and then his quick imagination improved on this crude vision, and he seemed to catch a glimpse of blind sea-worms writhing in some sunless cavern.

"When are you going to sit to me, Mrs. Twiss?" the painter asked. But Twiss, who sat the other side of Jenny, leant over and answered for his wife.

"Never, Mr. Crichell. She's no time for portraits."

Paul, who disliked his younger brother-in-law, sneered at this, and Maud saw him.

"I saw you yesterday, Paul," she said, without lowering her voice. "You didn't see me, did you?"

He turned to her with a little snarl. "Yesterday? No, I didn't."

"I thought not. I was lunching at the Piccadilly Grill with Elynor Twiss."

Paul didn't answer, but he turned to Mrs. Wick and made some unimportant remark to her. The old lady was amused by the situation, and she did not like Paul, whereas Maud struck her as a kind, pretty young woman who ought to be aided and abetted in her attack on a disagreeable, pettish-minded brother.

"No," she returned, in her sonorous voice, "I never did. Do you often go to the Piccadilly Grill, Mr. Walbridge? I was there with Oliver the other day."

Paul was furious. He didn't mind bear baiting, but he did object to being the bear, and Oliver, who knew his mother and her wicked ways, and who had also caught a pained look in Mrs. Walbridge's eyes, leaned across Maud and made a sign to the old lady. The sign consisted of slipping the forefinger of his right hand down into his collar and giving it a jerk as if he felt a little breathless. Mrs. Wick laughed. She loved teasing, but this was an old signal used only when Oliver felt that she really had gone far enough. So she nodded good-humouredly at her son and let the subject of the Piccadilly Grill drop.

After that the dinner went on pleasantly enough, and Mrs. Walbridge saw with pleasure that Ferdie really seemed to be enjoying himself. Mr. Walbridge, like everybody else, had the qualities of his defects, and he was a very good host.

Mrs. Wick was old and plain, and did not interest him in the least, but she was his guest, and he was charming to her—charming, that is, as far as a man may be said to be charming to a woman who is not at all charmed by him. Pretty Mrs. Crichell, on his left, talked a good deal to Moreton Twiss, who admired and took pleasure in her beauty, as every man ought always to admire and take pleasure in the beauty of any pretty woman. To do them justice, most of them do.

Grisel, of all the people at the table, seemed the least amused, Wick thought. Mr. Collier plainly admired her, but she seemed to derive less satisfaction from this circumstance than might have been expected, and he knew that she had never liked Crichell, who sat on her right. When her brilliant little face was in repose, it had a new look of fatigue and boredom. Wick watched her constantly throughout dinner, for he was hampered by no wish to conceal his admiration, and he came to the conclusion that she was not only preoccupied, but worried about something. He wondered if Walbridge knew the cause of this worry, for the girl turned more than once towards her father, and looked at him in a way that puzzled her observer.

They went upstairs for coffee, the girls' sitting-room being not only larger and pleasanter than the drawing-room, but the piano also being there, and when the men had come in and Oliver made a bee-line for Grisel, he found that she looked even more nervous and tired than he had thought.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Tired. Besides it's very warm in here."

"Come and sit by the window."

She obeyed him listlessly, and they sat down in the window seat that looked down over the little path leading round the house to the kitchen door.

"I do wish," the girl burst out suddenly, "that mother wouldn't have the Crichells here."

He stared at her. "But I thought you liked her. Why do you call her by her Christian name if you don't?"

"I don't say I don't like her. I saw you looking at his hands at dinner. Aren't they beastly?"

"Horrid. Has he done anything—anything you don't like?"

She shook her head. "Oh, no. But I—I wish they hadn't come."

As she spoke Wick's sister began to play, something very modern, of which he could make neither head nor tail. But she played brilliantly, and with what seemed almost unequalled facility, although he knew what hours of daily hard work went to its perfection.

Grisel leant back in her corner, and shut her eyes for a minute. She was really pale, and looked seriously troubled and puzzled. He turned and watched the listening group round the fire. Mrs. Crichell lay back in a low chair, her beautiful arms hanging loose over its sides. She was really lovely, the young man thought—as lovely, that is, as a woman of forty could possibly be, and Mr. Collier evidently agreed with him, for his eyes were fixed on her. Crichell had taken up a magazine, folded back the last page, and was rapidly sketching Maud Twiss, who sat looking away from him and did not see what he was doing. Twiss had gone to the telephone and Paul stood near the piano, watching Jenny, as her red head bobbed funnily over the keys as she played.

Mrs. Walbridge had left the room, and Walbridge stood leaning against the door in a pose often drawn by du Maurier in the eighties.

"I say," Wick whispered to Grisel, hoping to make her laugh, "your father is most awfully good-looking. Perfectly splendid to-night, isn't he?"

She gave a little pettish start. "Oh, do be quiet," she snapped. "If you knew how sick and tired I was of having father's good looks drummed into me——"

She rose and marched over to the chair her mother had left, and sat down, staring at her father, as if she disliked him intensely.

Wick sat still, feeling very much injured, for, after all, most girls would like to hear their father praised—at least, most pretty girls. Of course, if she had been plain, he reflected gravely, one could understand her being so shirty.

As Jenny stopped playing, Mrs. Walbridge came back into the room, and approached Mrs. Crichell.

"I'm so sorry," she said kindly, "but someone has just telephoned to your husband from his mother's house and asked if he's not going on there."

Mrs. Crichell unfurled her fan, which was of black feathers like some big wing. "Dear me, how tiresome!" she said. "He's having such a good time, sketching Maud, and she doesn't even see him. Walter," she called.

Crichell turned. "Yes?"

She gave him the message, and he rose without any comment. "You'll let me take this magazine with me, Mrs. Walbridge?" he asked.

Maud turned and stared at him. She was a little annoyed, but plainly thought the matter not worth making a fuss about, and Mrs. Crichell rose and took up her gloves, and gave herself a little shake more than ever like a sleek pigeon that has been sitting in the sun.

"Oh, need you go too?" Mrs. Walbridge asked, hospitably.

She hesitated. "No—I don't know—Walter, what d'you think?"

"I think," he said coldly, "you might as well stay where you are. My mother is not well," he explained to his hostess, "and she's quite alone."

Ferdie Walbridge came forward. "Have a whisky and soda before you go, old man," he said warmly. "I'll bring Mrs. Crichell home in a taxi. We want her to sing for us; we couldn't think of letting her go yet."

Crichell stood with his back towards Oliver Wick, and he had clasped his hands behind him in a way he had. Wick did not catch what he said in reply to this remark, but noticed his hands move, and again thought of the writhing of the unpleasant sea-worms.

When her husband had gone, Mrs. Crichell sang, accompanying herself; or rather she cooed little Spanish and Mexican ballads, the words of which no one present could understand, although their meaning was made fairly clear by the extreme eloquence of her face and gestures.

"That's very clever," old Mrs. Wick commented to Moreton Twiss who sat near her.

"It's very nearly wonderful," the old woman insisted gently.

Twiss looked at her, his good-looking, blue-chinned face rather critical. "Oh, well, if you admire it," he said, "I've nothing more to say. Personally I don't. In fact," he added, confidentially, leaning forward, "I can't bear the woman, so probably I'm unfair to her singing."

Later in the evening Jenny Wick accompanied Paul, as he sang some old ballads full of a kind of academic gruesomeness. He had, singularly, a delightfully warm baritone voice, and sang well. His rendering of "Lord Edward My Son" was extremely fine, and little Jenny Wick was delighted, and they arranged to meet during the holidays so that she might show him a lot of queer Basque songs that her father had collected years ago.

Mrs. Wick and Mrs. Walbridge had a long talk before the evening was over, and though they were intensely reserved women in different ways, the observant Oliver saw with delight that their attitude showed promise of a real friendship.

When he said good-night to Mrs. Walbridge, he invited her to kiss him, but this she refused to do, patting his cheek instead.

It was late, and the Twisses and Mr. Collier had gone long since. Mrs. Wick and her daughter and son left at the same time that Mrs. Crichell and Mr. Walbridge started out on their hunt for a taxi, for none had been on the rank when they telephoned.

The Crichells lived in Hamilton Terrace, so the walk would not be very long, and when finally at the corner a belated taxi did draw up and showed signs of being willing to accept a fare, Mrs. Crichell refused to take it.

"I really live only just round the corner," she said kindly to the old woman, "and it's a long way to Baker Street. Do take it, Mrs. Wick."

So the three Wicks said "Good-night," and got into the taxi, and the other two walked on.

"Well, mother," the young man asked, putting an arm round each of his companions as he sat bodkin between them, "did you enjoy your evening?"

"I did, son," she returned. "What a queer world it is! To think that all of us will be just a handful of churchyard mould, somewhere, in a few years' time."

Jenny burst out laughing. "And may I ask which of the guests to-night struck you as being particularly mouldy?"

But Mrs. Wick was serious. "Don't try to be funny, Jenny," she answered gravely. "It really struck me that it is strange, when you come to think of it, how important we all feel, and what rubbish we all are." After a minute she added, with apparent irrelevance, "That Violet Walbridge of yours is a fine, brave little soul, Olly. I like her."

"I knew you would. And what," the young man added, "did you think of your future daughter-in-law?"

"She's very pretty, but—you'll be annoyed with me for saying so—but I should like her better if she were more like her mother."

The young man gave her a little squeeze. "Her mother's twice the woman she is, of course. But then, on the other hand," he added, "she's young, and has plenty of time to improve."

The cab had stopped at Baker Street Station, and as he jumped out and turned to help the old lady, he added, "You wouldn't like me to marry Mrs. Walbridge, even if she was free, would you? She really is a little too old for me!"

[CHAPTER XIV]

The day after Christmas—a day spent by the "Happy House" people at Campden Hill, where, also, Maud and her husband and little Hilary were present—Violet Walbridge achieved the business talk with her husband that she had had in her mind ever since his return, and which, in some way difficult to define, he seemed to be trying to escape. It was late, in the afternoon of Boxing Day, and the others had gone to a matinée, and he was to dine with the Crichells and go to a play in the evening. He was resting. He seemed to rest a good deal lately, she noticed, and when she had asked Grisel that morning if it seemed to her to mean that he was not feeling quite well, the girl had surprised her by laughing in a new, harsh way, and giving her a hasty, unexpected kiss.

"It's only a beauty cure, darling," she said. "Can't you see that? He takes more care of his looks nowadays than any woman, except perhaps Clara Crichell."

"How do you mean, dear?" For Mrs. Walbridge was singularly ignorant about such matters, and in all her life had used no more subtle cosmetic than ordinary cold cream, and water and soap.

"Clara! My goodness, I've seen her having it done. A woman comes to her every morning of her life—a Mrs. Bryant here in town, and a Frenchwoman at Torquay, and they rub grease into her face and knead it and flap it with wet cotton wool, and tap it with litch bags full of dried leaves and herbs soaked in something. Oh, it's a wonderful business." The girl tossed her head with the contempt of her nineteen years for such devices. "I don't like her much, mother," she added, suddenly, with a change of voice, turning to the glass and doing something to her smooth hair.

Mrs. Walbridge nodded. "I know. I don't think I like her much either. But she's very pretty. People enjoy meeting her, and your father seems to have taken a fancy to her."

Griselda had said no more, but when the lady's name came up on Boxing Day between Ferdie and herself, Violet Walbridge remembered what her daughter had said. Her husband had had a sleep, she knew, but when she heard him moving about over her head, as she sat in the drawing-room sewing, she rose, folded her work and went upstairs. He was sitting in front of the dressing-table pouring some yellow liquid over his hair with one hand, while, with the other, he rubbed. The room smelt of orange flowers.

"Ferdie," she began, sitting down near him, "I want to have a little talk with you."

He frowned and set down his bottle. "Oh, dear me," he protested. "I do wish you'd let me alone. This is holiday time. No one wants to talk business at Christmas."

But she was firm, and put on her glasses, and opened the little notebook she had brought with her. "I'm sorry," she said, "but we really must settle matters. I'm sure I don't like it any more than you do, Ferdie, and, besides, what I have to say is—is very unpleasant, and difficult for me."

He stopped rubbing his wavy hair, which stood up tumbled all over his head, giving him an absurdly boyish, helpless look. "Don't tell me this cook's going to leave!"

She shook her head. "No, it's worse than that. I've been worried for a long time now, but I didn't like to trouble you, because you weren't well—and then—the holidays, and Grisel coming home, and all. But I really can't put it off any longer."

So she told him, as he sat there at her little old dressing-table wrapped in a fine, new, brocaded dressing-gown, that he had bought, he said, in Torquay, but which, nevertheless, she had seen, in folding it that morning, had been made by Charvet in Paris. He looked (although the simile didn't occur to her) like a rather battered Greek statue—rather injured and scratched old statue, not quite free from mould, and the effects of damp and sun, but the lines of him were splendid, and the late afternoon light very favourable.

She told him—and after the first he listened without comment—about the gradual decrease of her sales, and her slowly coming to realise that this was the result not only of the change in the taste of the younger generation, but of her own basic old-fashionedness.

"I tried, you know, to brighten up my style in 'Lord Effingham,' and I failed."

He looked at her oddly, as he sat with his chin on his breast. "I know," he said, not unkindly. "I was sorry about that. Of course, we're none of us as young as we used to be, Violet."

She was considered by her family to be unobservant, because she rarely mentioned the little things she saw, but she had always seen a good deal, and now she did not miss the satisfied little glance he gave to his face in the mirror. He felt, she knew, that he himself was the exception to that horrid rule about growing older, and for a moment she felt the ageing woman's exasperation at the greater stability of men's looks. Her exasperation, however, was very mild, and quite kindly.

Then she showed him Messrs. Lubbock & Payne's letter, and explained about the five hundred pounds.

"How much have you got left of that?" he asked.

"Exactly two hundred. There was the quarter's rent, and the man called twice about the gas, so I had to pay him, and the piano bill came, and then there were your pyjamas, and Melton came himself about your last suits, and was really rather unpleasant, so I paid him twenty pounds on account. Then there was a little matter in which I had to help one of the boys."

She waited, expecting him to make some disagreeable remark about her eternal ability and willingness to go to the boys' rescue, but to her surprise he said nothing, and sat with folded arms, listening in silence.

"Grisel had to have one or two things," she went on, after a moment, "and then I wanted to help Maud get her things for the new baby, and Guy wanted ten pounds, poor boy. I've written it all down here. I'll leave it with you, Ferdie. And then Christmas, you know, was rather expensive, and I don't," she added honestly, "seem very clever at getting things cheap." Still he didn't answer, and something in his silence gave her a little sensation of fear. "Are you listening?" she asked timidly.

He rose and walked about the room, the tassels of his dressing-gown trailing after him, his head down. She had expected him to scold, even to rail at her, and she had gathered up her courage to meet such a scene, but this queer silence, and the unmistakable look of pity in his face were harder to bear than any amount of reproaches or anger would have been.

She suddenly felt very old, and very tired, and very helpless. She had been independent and self-reliant for over a quarter of a century, ever since, in fact, she had first found out what her handsome husband really was. But now at this crisis she wanted—she longed for some kind, strong person to take the reins out of her weary hands and drive the coach for her for a while.

"You mean then," he said at last, "that if this new book fails, you—you won't be selling any others?"

She hesitated. "If this one should be good they might make another contract," she said. "I don't know. I'm afraid it's very bad, although it seems to come to me easily and quickly.

"But what are you going to do?" he asked, turning round and looking at her, still with that grave, disconcerting kindness that seemed so far off, as if it had nothing to do with him. She made a little gesture with her hands.

"I don't know, Ferdie. What do you think we had better do?"

"I think," he began slowly—then his face cleared. "There's the telephone bell," he cried. "It's—it's a man about a speculation. I'll just go down and see." He hurried downstairs. When he came back he was smiling, and had an almost silly aspect of happiness.

She caught her breath. What if, after all, now, when she had failed, Ferdie was going to be successful and make up for all her years of struggle! "Is it all right?" she asked.

"All right? Oh, yes." He sat down again and began to comb his hair, parting it with infinite care, skilfully avoiding, she noticed, the thin place at the crown.

"I'll think all this over, my dear," he said hastily, as the clock struck half-past six. "I must dress now. We're dining early. By the way, I hope you aren't encouraging any nonsense with that journalist fellow—with Grisel, I mean."

"Oliver Wick? I shouldn't know how to encourage or discourage," she answered, "even if I wanted to do either. Times have changed since our day, Ferdie."

"My God, yes; they have indeed!" he agreed. "But there must be no nonsense about her marrying that boy. I thought she seemed a little lackadaisical and dull since we got back, and I heard her talking to him on the telephone this morning. It would be a great pity to throw her away on a little nobody like him." This was one of his ducal moments, and she never protested against his assumption that he belonged to the great ones of the earth. So she said nothing, and when he had come back from turning on the water in the bathroom, she got up, knowing that he wished to be alone.

"Do you think—do you think you can think of something?" she asked, as she reached the door. "I was wondering if you would mind if we let the house and moved to some cheaper one."

"No, no, no," he burst out. "We'll do nothing of the kind. That's perfectly impossible."

A little touched by his unexpected vehemence, she smiled back at him.

"I didn't know you cared so much for poor old 'Happy House,'" she said.

"Run along, my dear girl. I must dress. Don't bother your head. Things will turn out all right. If I'm not very much mistaken, Sir John Barclay is going to ask Grisel to marry him. If he does, she'll be the luckiest girl alive."

Mrs. Walbridge stared at him, her face a sudden, distressing red. "Oh, Ferdie! But he's an old man!"

Walbridge, who had reached the bathroom door, drew himself up, playing shoulders and chest, and his fine, big, muscular throat. "Nonsense! He's only fifty-four. I'm fifty-four!"

She nodded and said no more. He was fifty-five, but that didn't matter one way or the other, she felt.

As she went downstairs the telephone again rang and she answered it. It was Grisel, apparently in a great hurry.

"Mother, darling, I've just met Oliver, and he says he's coming to the house this evening—and I don't want to see him."

"Why, dear?" her mother asked, looking gently and kindly at the telephone.

"Well—I can't go into it on the telephone—I'm telephoning you from the Underground. Sir John Barclay is here. He was at the play too, you know, and I'm dining with him. Yes, alone. Yes I am, mother. No, I don't have to dress, we're going to a grill-room somewhere. Oh, please don't fuss!" The girl's voice was irritable and sharp. "Do you understand? Tell Oliver I can't get back."

"I shall tell him," Mrs. Walbridge said firmly, "that you're dining with Sir John Barclay."

Grisel made a little inarticulate sound, and then her mother heard her sigh impatiently. "All right. Just as you like. It doesn't matter, but for goodness' sake don't let him stay late. I must go now, darling. You'll make it all right, won't you? Good-bye."

She rang off, and her mother stood looking at the telephone as if it were a human being, as most people have found themselves doing at one time or other.

She dined alone, not even seeing Walbridge before he slipped out while she was in her attic-room writing. Very soon after dinner Oliver arrived, and although he said little and insisted on being very merry, telling her some ridiculous stories, she had an unhappy evening. She had tried to avoid telling him where Grisel was, but it had been impossible, for there was something uncanny about him, he was such a good guesser, and as soon as she had explained that Griselda was out, he had known all about it.

"Dining with Sir John Barclay, I suppose, in some grill-room," he said shortly.

"Yes. He seems," she added, "to be a charming old gentleman."

"Oh, the devil! Old gentleman indeed!" he went on, without apologising. "I saw him to-day as they came out of the theatre. I knew where they were going, you see, and managed to get round there just as the play was out. He's a fine-looking man, and a gentleman, and I'd like to wring his neck."

"Surely," she said, not insincerely, for her husband's impressions were, she knew, not always very accurate, "why shouldn't an old man—for he is old compared to Grisel—like to take a pretty girl out to dinner?"

Wick cocked his head on one side, and deliberately shut one eye in a way that would have been vulgar if he had been vulgar himself.

"No, no, Mrs. Walbridge, that won't do, that won't do at all," he said, in a way that made her laugh. "You know as well as I do that Grisel's a minx. She's trying to make up her mind to marry Sir John Barclay because he's rich and she doesn't want to see me because——" he broke off suddenly and his voice changed to one of great softness, "she's almost half in love with me already."

Mrs. Walbridge clasped her hands and looked at him nervously. "I don't think that's fair," she said, "to say that about a young girl."

"Oh, my hat! Anything's fair to a man who's fighting for his life—and that's me. Oh, yes. I know it sounds absurd and anyone but you would laugh at me. But I am fighting for my life, and what's more," he said with finality, rising as if to emphasise his speech, "I'm going to win. I'm going to get her. She's a spoilt, selfish, mercenary little minx, but I love her and I'm going to change her into an angel."

Mrs. Walbridge did not like to have her baby called mercenary, and spoilt, and selfish. Perhaps she liked it less for knowing that it was true, but the young man swept away her protests by further invective, and finally she was bound to admit that the girl's long stay with the rich and luxury-loving Fords had not done her any good. Wick smiled, and looked at the clock.

"Done her good! It's nearly ruined her. Most men would give her up in disgust since she's been back this time—but not me. I'll go now, or she'll be coming in."

They shook hands and as he got to the door he looked round with a comical groan. "If only," he said, "if only she wasn't so easy to look at."

[CHAPTER XV]

Griselda, during several days, was hardly at home at all. The Fords were still in town; she had lunched one day in Queen Anne Street, the next at Campden Hill, and nearly every night the Fords fetched her to take her to a play or a party.

Mrs. Walbridge could, of course, have forced the girl into a confidential talk, but she was not of the kind who do force people to talk against their will, and it was very plain to her that her daughter was avoiding her, although the girl was oddly enough at the same time full of little sudden bursts of affection and unusually generous in the matter of little passing hugs and kisses for her mother.

Mrs. Walbridge was less troubled than she otherwise would have been by this preoccupation of her daughter, owing to the fact that she herself was very much taken up with the new book she was writing. She had made several attempts, for she felt weighed down with gratitude to her publisher in sending her the cheque before the book was written, and she had rather lost sight of the fact that this, kind though it was, was in reality a douceur to sweeten the hard fact of her dismissal from their list of authors. She had begun and destroyed several novels before she got really started, and now this new one was filling her mind day and night, although she felt grave doubts as to whether it was going to be good. It was dreadful to her to reflect that the book might turn out as much of a failure as "Lord Effingham" had been, and thus cause pecuniary loss to Mr. Lubbock and Mr. Payne. So she worked day and night, her pen flying over the paper in a way that roused Paul's grave doubts as to the results of her labour.

"You can't possibly write a book that way, mother," the young man said one day when he had come up to her study to have her mend a glove that he had split. "You ought to see the way Collier writes. Works for hours over one bit, and weighs every word."

Mrs. Walbridge said nothing, for it would not have been any good, she thought. She did not express her conviction that the result of Mr. Bruce Collier's word-weighing was hardly worth while, but, as she stitched at the glove, the young man, who was in a good mood, went on, not unkindly, to encourage her, as he expressed it, to take more pains with her work. He did not know that her contract with Lubbock & Payne had come to an end, with no prospect of renewal. She had not again referred the matter to her husband, and he had not mentioned the subject to her. She was living in the curious isolation of a writer engaged in congenial work. She was deliberately allowing her mind to rest from pecuniary cares for a few days, in order that her novel might progress satisfactorily.

"You ought to work regularly," Paul explained. It was Sunday morning, and he looked very smart, turned out as he was for a luncheon party after church parade. "Collier does. And I met Miss Potter, who writes about mediæval Constantinople—her books sell enormously—and she told me that she writes as regularly as she eats her meals—two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. That's what keeps her brain so fresh."

Mrs. Walbridge, who had read one of the books in question and did not consider it remarkable for mental freshness, stitched silently, and bit off the thread with her sharp little teeth.

"My dear boy," she said, "when you were children I wrote every afternoon for four solid hours. I couldn't write in the morning because I had to help make the beds, and do the marketing, and wash and dress you all, and get some of you off to school and others out for a walk with either poor Caroline, or Fanny Perkins. Then I had to cook your father's lunch myself, because he always had a delicate stomach; and when was I to do any work in the morning to keep my brain fresh?"

Paul was surprised. His mother so rarely defended herself, and he felt under the mild humorousness of her manner, a distinct appreciation of the fact that he had made rather a fool of himself by his admonition. Feeling more like a son, and less like a superior being than he had felt for some years, he drew on the gloves with a little laugh.

"I daresay you are right," he admitted. "I didn't realise all that. But whatever you did in those days you're certainly not writing like that on this book. Twice now when I've come in very late I've seen the light under this door, and you're looking very tired."

She was very tired, and her eyes filled with tears at the unexpected sign of interest.

"Will you be back to lunch? Oh, no. You told me you wouldn't. I'll walk over and get Caroline. A little fresh air will do me good."

He frowned. "Where's Grisel? I've not seen her for days. Doesn't she ever stay in nowadays?"

"She's lunching at the Henry Twisses with Moreton and Maud."

"And where's father?" He glanced sharply at her as he spoke. She took up her pen and pulled a hair off its nib.