LAST ADVENTURES OF THESE CHARMING PEOPLE

May Fair

By
Michael Arlen
Author of “These Charming People,” “The Green Hat,” “The London Venture,” etc.

BEING an Entertainment Purporting to Reveal to Gentlefolk the Real State of Affairs Existing in the Very Heart of London During the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Years of the Reign of His Majesty King George the Fifth: Together with Suitable Reflections on the Last Follies, Misadventures and Galanteries of These Charming People

Among which Episodes May be Found

THE REVOLTING DOOM OF A GENTLEMAN WHO WOULD NOT DANCE WITH HIS WIFE

THE BATTLE OF BERKELEY SQUARE THE ACE OF CADS

THE GENTLEMAN FROM AMERICA

TO LAMOIR

THE GHOUL OF GOLDERS
GREEN

THE PRINCE OF THE JEWS

THE THREE-CORNERED MOON

A ROMANCE IN OLD BRANDY

WHERE THE PIGEONS GO TO DIE

Jacket Design by Edmund Dulac

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY Publishers New York

May Fair
———
MICHAEL ARLEN
By MICHAEL ARLEN

• May Fair
• The Green Hat
• These Charming People
• “Piracy”
• The London Venture
• The Romantic Lady

May Fair

BEING AN ENTERTAINMENT PURPORTING TO
REVEAL TO GENTLEFOLK THE REAL STATE
OF AFFAIRS EXISTING IN THE VERY HEART
OF LONDON DURING THE FIFTEENTH AND
SIXTEENTH YEARS OF THE REIGN OF
HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE THE FIFTH:
TOGETHER WITH SUITABLE REFLEC-
TIONS ON THE LAST FOLLIES, MIS-
ADVENTURES AND GALANTERIES
OF THESE CHARMING PEOPLE BY
Michael Arlen

NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
Copyright, 1925,
By George H. Doran Company
Copyright, 1924, 1925, by The Consolidated Magazines
Corporation [The Red Book].
Copyright, 1925, by The International Magazine Company,
Inc. [Harper’s Bazaar].
Copyright, 1924, Everybody’s Magazine.
MAY FAIR
—B—
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CONTENTS

MAY FAIR

PROLOGUE

I

ONCE upon a time in London there was a young gentleman who had nothing better to do one afternoon, so what should he do but take a walk? Now he did not set out as one on pleasure bent, but with an air of determination that would have surprised his friends, saying between his teeth: “I have always heard that walking is good exercise. I will try a bit.” However, he had not walked far before circumstances compelled him to abate his ardour, for it was an afternoon in July and quite warm for the time of the year.

Eastward our young gentleman strode, by Sloane Street, through Knightsbridge, across Hyde Park Corner, he strode even from Chelsea to Mayfair; for he was by way of being a writer and lived in Chelsea, whereas his people lived in Mayfair and understood nothing.

Now while we are about it we may as well add that the young writer’s father was a baronet who had for some years been a perfect martyr to bankruptcy, and had called his son to him on this afternoon to impress upon him the fact that in future he, the young writer’s father, could not and would not be a victim to his, the young writer’s, extravagances. So much, then, for the young writer’s father; but with himself we must continue yet a while, although what this tale is really about is a hand and a flower.

For that is what he chanced to see on the afternoon we tell of, a hand and a flower; and since it was inconceivable that the hand could belong to a man, so white and delicate it was, he put two and two together and decided that it could only belong to a lady. Further, there was that about the droop of the hand which fired him to think of it as the hand of an unhappy heart. While as for the flower, it was scarlet, and of the sort that anyone can buy at any florist’s by just going in and saying: “I want some carnations, please, but not white ones, please, thank you, good-day.”

Now the sun was so high and bright over London that day that the voices of Americans were distinctly heard rising above the polished tumult of the Berkeley Hotel, crying plaintively for ice; and when at last our young writer came into Mayfair he was grateful for the cool quiet streets, but being still at some discomfort from the effects of the heat on his person, he thought to turn into Mount Street Gardens and rest a while beneath the trees.

This, however, he was not to do that afternoon; for it chanced that he had not walked far towards that pleasaunce when, at that point of the pretty quarter of Mayfair where South Street becomes North Street and Grosvenor Square is but a step in the right direction, he was drawn to admire a great house that stood in a walled garden. Quite a country-house this looked like, and right in the heart of the town, so that our young gentleman thought: “Now I wonder whose house that is. Ah, to be rich! Or, at least, to be so attractive that rich people would take one to their hearts on sight!”

In this wise relishing the deplorable charms of money, he had stared long over the wall at the house in the garden had not something happened which instantly gave his fancies a prettier turn: for what should he suddenly espy through the curtain of leaves but a hand drooping from one of the upper windows, and what should he espy in the hand but a scarlet flower?

Now that made a delightful picture of innocence, of dreaming youth and fond imagining, and not at all the sort of thing you see every day, especially in Mayfair, where motor-cars grow from the cracks in the pavements and ladies recline in slenderness on divans, playing with rosaries of black pearls and eating scented macaroons out of bowls of white jade.

Presently a policeman happened by, and the young gentleman thought to turn from the wall and greet him in a friendly way with a view to further conversation.

“And what,” he asked, “is the name of the lady who lives in the house with the garden?”

“Young sir,” said the policeman severely, “that will do from you.”

“I beg your pardon!” said the young writer with spirit.

“Granted,” said the policeman severely.

“But this is absurd! I am an honest man and I have asked you an honest question.”

The policeman unbent his expression so far as to say, with a significant look at the great house in the walled garden: “Young sir,” said he, “there danger lies for the likes of you. For the likes of her is not for the likes of you.”

“Oh, nonsense!” cried our young gentleman. “This is a free country. This is not America!”

“Is it swearing at me you are?” said the policeman severely. “Now move on, young man, move on.”

“I will not!” cried our hero.

“Well, I will!” said the policeman, and walked away, while the young gentleman turned away from this unsatisfactory conversation just in time, alas, to see the scarlet flower drop from the white fingers; and the hand was withdrawn.

Now such was the effect of the hand and the flower on the young writer’s susceptible mind that he quite forgot to go and see his father, who thereupon cut him off with a shilling, which he sent to the young writer in the form of postage stamps. But the occasion was not without some profit, albeit of the spiritual sort, to the young man; for that very night he dreamed he was kissing that very hand, and who shall say that that was all he dreamed, for surely he is a sorry young man who cannot kiss more than a lady’s hand in a dream.

II

The Court Chronicles of the Grand Duchy of Valeria report the following conversation as having taken place between the reigning Duke and his consort. That the conversation took place in London is undoubtedly due to the fact that the Royal Duke and his Duchess were at the time on a state visit to that capital, with a view to taking a turn around the Wembley Exhibition.

“We will give a ball,” said His Highness the Hereditary Grand Duke of Valeria. “In fact, we must give a ball. And everyone in London will come to it.”

“Why should they?” said Her Highness.

“Now try not to be disagreeable, my dear. I have no idea why they should, but I am positive they will. They always do.”

“But, Frederick, what is the matter with you to-night? Why do you want to give a ball, since you cannot dance? Upon my word, if I danced like you I should be ill at the very idea of a ball! So be sensible, my love, and go to sleep again.”

“Now try not to be unpleasant, Ethelberta. You do not seem to understand that people in our position must every now and then give a ball. That is undoubtedly what balls are for, that people in our position should give them. I have worked out the matter very carefully.”

“Then you are quite wrong, my love. Balls are for something quite different. I assure you that I have also worked out the matter very carefully. Balls are for English people to give, Americans to pay for, and Argentines to dance at.”

“Now try not to be tiresome, my dear. It will seem extremely peculiar in us not to give at least one ball while we are in London. The Diplomatic Corps will not fail to remark our ill-timed economy. Do you forget that we are Royalty?”

“Fiddledidee!” said the Duchess.

“Now,” said the Duke, “try not to be——”

“Bother Royalty!” said the Duchess. “I’ve never got anything by being Royal except to be treated like a village idiot all my life. And now you want me to give a beastly ball, at which I shall have to dance with a lot of clumsy Ambassadors. Frederick, I tell you here and now that I will not give a ball. And if you want to know my reasons for not giving a ball, they are, briefly, as follows.”

They followed.

“Whereas,” said His Highness, “my reasons for wishing to give this confounded ball are not entirely social. Our daughter——”

“You are not going to pretend, my love, that the happiness of our only daughter is influencing you in the least! You will not dare to pretend that, Frederick, considering that ever since we have been in London you have kept the poor child locked in her room.”

“You know very well,” said the Duke hotly, “that we both decided that in the circumstances——”

“Well, I think it’s most insanitary,” said the Duchess, “keeping the poor child locked in her room day in and day out! In the end all that will happen will be that she will lose her figure and no one will marry her at all and then where are we?”

“Ethelberta!” cried His Highness, leaping from the bed and looking sternly down at her. “I did not think you could carry levity so far. Woman, would you compromise with our honour and the honour of Valeria?”

“If there was any money in it, my love, I would of course ask your advice first, as you know so much more than I do about selling things. I really don’t know where we would be now if you hadn’t been so clever about our neutrality during the war. Now, my love, stop being silly and get back to bed. You look too ridiculous in those bright pink pyjamas. What the Lord-in-Waiting was doing to let you buy them I can’t imagine!”

“Ethelberta,” said His Highness sternly, “understand this! We are in England, at considerable expense——”

“Naturally, my love, if you will buy pyjamas like that!”

“—— to avenge a mortal insult to our honour. Woman, would you have our innocent daughter be spurned by the villain who seduced her?”

“These are strong words!” said the Duchess.

“I feel strongly about it,” said the Duke.

“And anyhow, she can’t be as innocent as all that,” said the Duchess thoughtfully, “now. I know girls. Oh, dear, what fun girls have!”

“Ethelberta, this English lord must die!”

“All English lords must die, my love, in due course. It is a law of nature. Now come back to bed.”

“I have worked the matter out very carefully, and that is why I am giving this ball. We cannot kill this coward out-of-hand by hiring some low assassin, for he is, after all, a gentleman. And besides, in this confounded country,” His Highness continued warmly, “you cannot fire a revolver without every policeman in the neighbourhood wanting to know why you did it. Therefore, the ball.”

“What, are you going to fire revolvers off at our ball? My love, are you sure that will be quite safe?”

“My idea is that the noise of the ball will screen the rattle of musketry. For that purpose I shall engage the most violent saxophone-player in the country. I have already taken advice on that point. The firing-party will, of course, be in the garden. So now, Ethelberta, you understand why we must give this——”

“Oh, give your rotten ball!” said Her Highness sleepily.

III

The red carpet stretched from the doors of the great house in the walled garden to the broad pavement where South Street meets North Street and Grosvenor Square is but a step in the right direction; and up the red carpet walked the flower of England’s quality and fashion and the loftiest dignitaries of the Church and Press. Came, too, all the circumstance of diplomacy and the first among the burgesses. Decorations were worn. Art and literature were represented only by a painter with a beard who had forgotten to wear a tie, a young reporter with a boil on his neck, and a rugged novelist with a large circulation who liked hunting. Came, too, all the first actors of the day, talking about themselves to each other and thinking about each other to themselves. All the most intelligent young ladies of Society were present, murmuring hoarsely to each other: “One really cannot understand how one can come to a party when one might be reading a book by Maurice Baring.” Footlight favourites by Royal Appointment. Astorias and his band of the Loyalty Club were engaged to play. The reception given to the honourable company in every way accorded with the ancient dignity of the Grand Duchy of Valeria. The guests passed between two lines of the Hussars of Death or Honour, brilliant in white uniforms with crimson facings, epaulettes of gold and cloaks of black gabardine lined with ermine, under the command of Baron Hugo von Müsselsaroffsir. Champagne by G. H. Mumm.

Not among the last to arrive was my lord Viscount Quorn, a young nobleman whose handsome looks and plausible address were fated to be as a snare and a delusion to those who were not immediately informed as to his disordered temperament and irregular habits. Yet, although many a pretty young lady had lived to regret with burning tears the confidence she had been persuaded to misplace in that young gallant’s code of chivalry, not a man in England could be found to impugn my lord’s honour; for was he not renowned from Ranelagh to Meadowbrook for his incomparable agility, did not Australian cricketers wince at the mere mention of the name of Quorn, and did any soldier present on the high occasion we tell of wear pinned across his breast braver emblems of gallantry in war?

With him to the Duke’s ball came his boon companion, Mr. Woodhouse Adams, a gentleman whose claim to the regard of his familiars was based solidly on the fact that he knew a horse when he saw one; yet so great was his reserve that what he knew when he did not see a horse was a secret which Mr. Woodhouse Adams jealously guarded from even his most intimate friends. On this occasion, however, as they walked up the red carpet to the open doors of the house in the walled garden, Mr. Woodhouse Adams appeared to be unable to control a particular indignation, and presently spoke to the following effect:

“If you ask my opinion, Condor, I think you are putting your jaws into the lion’s head.”

“I gather,” said Lord Quorn, whose nickname took the peculiar form of Condor for reasons which are quite foreign to this story, “that you mean I am putting my head into the lion’s jaws. It may be so. But I tell you, Charles, that I am in love with this girl. At last, I am in love. And I am not going to miss the most slender chance of seeing her again—not to speak of my desire to take this unrivalled opportunity of paying my respects to her father with a view to a matrimonial entanglement.”

“You’re not going to do that!” incredulously cried his friend.

“Almost at once,” said Lord Quorn.

“Gentlemen’s Cloak-Room on the left,” said a Hussar of Death or Honour.

“Am I speaking to milord Quorn?” asked a page bearing a salver of gold.

“You are, boy.”

“Then I have the honour, milord, to be the bearer of a note to milord from my mistress, Her Select Highness the Princess Baba.”

“Well, don’t shout the glad news all over the Cloak-Room,” said Mr. Woodhouse Adams.

“Go tell Her Highness,” said my lord to the boy, “that I shall beg the honour of the first dance with her.”

“Milord, I go!” said the page, and went.

“I don’t like that boy,” said Mr. Woodhouse Adams.

“This note,” said Lord Quorn, “touches me very nearly.”

“Good Lord, Condor, she doesn’t want to borrow money from you already! Gad, my father was right when he told me on his death-bed never to have any financial dealings with Royalty. His exact words were: ‘It takes four Greeks to get the better of a Jew, three Jews to deal with an Armenian, two Armenians to a Scot, and the whole damn lot together to withstand the shock of Royalty in search of real-estate.’”

“My friend, there is but a line in this letter, yet I would not exchange this one line for all the rhapsodies of the poets. For in this one line,” sighed Lord Quorn, “the Princess Baba tells me that she loves me.”

“No girl,” gallantly admitted his friend, “can say fairer than that.”

“It is certainly very encouraging,” said my lord.

“Gentlemen’s Cloak-Room to the right!” said a Hussar of Death or Honour.

“Thank you, we’ve been,” said Mr. Woodhouse Adams.

“This way, messieurs!” said Baron Hugo von Müsselsaroffsir. “His Highness the Hereditary Grand Duke of Valeria will receive you at the head of the stairs.”

At the head of the stairs, indeed, His Highness was receiving his guests with all the circumstance of Royalty. He held great state, this puissant prince who had so notably enriched the land of his fathers by an heroic neutrality throughout the war. He wore the blue cordon of the Order of Credit and, over his heart, the Diamond Cross of Discretion. He said:

“How do you do, Lord Quorn?”

“Thank you, sir, I am very well,” returned my lord.

“And you, Mr. Woodhouse Eves?”

“Adams to you, sir,” said that gentleman. “But otherwise I am well, thank you.”

“Lord Quorn,” His Highness cordially continued, “I am really most pleased that you could accept my invitation.”

“You do me too much honour, sir. And may I take it that your courtesy in selecting me for an invitation for your probably enjoyable ball is a sign of your gracious forgiveness?”

“You may, Lord Quorn.”

“Then I have the honour, sir, to declare myself, without any reserve whatsoever, to be your Highness’s most obedient servant.”

“And I, sir,” said Mr. Woodhouse Adams.

“Gentlemen,” said His Highness, “you are very kind.”

“Your condescension, sir, but points our crudity,” protested my lord. “May I, however, further trespass on your indulgence by asking to be allowed to enroll myself as the humblest among your daughter’s suitors?”

“We can talk this matter out more comfortably,” said His Highness agreeably, “in my study. Ho, there! Ho, page!”

“Altesse!”

“Conduct milord Quorn and Mr. Woodhouse Eves to my study, and see to it that they have suitable refreshment. Lord Quorn, I will join you not a moment after I have received my guests.”

“I’m not sure I like this study business,” said Mr. Woodhouse Adams as they followed the page through many halls and corridors to a distant part of the house in the walled garden. They passed through marble halls radiant with slender columns and crystal fountains, through arcades flaming with flowers in vases of Venetian glass, beneath sombre tapestries of the chase after fabulous beasts, by tables of satinwood and cabinets of ebony, jade and pearl: until at last they were conducted to a quiet-seeming door, and were no sooner within than what appeared to be a regiment of Hussars of Death or Honour had pinioned their arms to their sides.

“This is outrage!” cried my lord with very cold eyes.

“Gentlemen, you are under arrest,” said an officer with moustachios whose name the chronicler has unfortunately overlooked.

“We’re under what?” cried Mr. Woodhouse Adams.

“And you will await His Highness’s pleasure in this room,” said the officer with moustachios, but he had no sooner spoken than the Duke entered, followed by a lean young officer with pitiless eyes.

“Altesse!” saluted the Hussars of Death or Honour.

Not so Lord Quorn. “Sir,” cried he, “this is outrage and assault on the persons of King George’s subjects. Do you forget that you are in England, sir?”

“Silence!” thundered the officer with moustachios.

“Silence be damned!” cried Mr. Woodhouse Adams. “Your Highness, what can this piracy mean? I wish to lodge a formal complaint.”

“Sir, take it as lodged,” said His Highness graciously, but it was with lowered brows that he turned to address my lord.

“Lord Quorn,” said he, “it was my first intention to have you shot like a dog. But I have suffered myself to be dissuaded from consigning you to that ignominious fate at the intercession of this gentleman here. I present Captain Count Rupprecht Saxemünden von Maxe-Middengräfen.”

“Oh, have a heart!” gasped Mr. Woodhouse Adams.

But Lord Quorn, being a much-travelled gentleman whose ears were hardened against the most surprising sounds, merely said: “How do you do?”

“Such information, sir, is not for scum!” snapped the lean young officer with the pitiless eyes.

“Were I to hit you once,” said Lord Quorn gently, looking at him as though he smelt so bad that he could readily understand why the dustman had refused to remove him, “your mother would not know you. Were I to hit you twice, she would not want to. Think it over.”

“Your differences will soon be arranged,” sternly continued His Highness. “Count Rupprecht has very properly put before me certain reasons which give him an undoubted right to be the agent of your destruction. The course of this night, Lord Quorn, shall see you as a duellist. And I can only hope that you have some knowledge of swordsmanship, for Count Rupprecht Saxemünden von Maxe-Middengräfen is the first swordsman of Valeria.

“I may add, Lord Quorn, that his engagement to the Princess Baba will be formally announced immediately after your interment, which will take place in a corner of the garden. That is already arranged. Also your death will be accounted for to the authorities in a satisfactory way. Mr. Woodhouse Eves will, no doubt, act as your second. I will now leave you until such time as the ball is at its height, when there will be little chance of any of my guests being distracted by the ring of steel in the garden. Au revoir, milord. You will yet find that to deflower a maid is a dangerous sport. Count Rupprecht, your arm to the ball-room!”

“Altesse!” saluted the Hussars of Death or Honour.

“And what a mess!” sighed Mr. Woodhouse Adams.

“I’ll have to kill that boy,” said Lord Quorn thoughtfully.

IV

The dance was not yet at its most furious: the dowagers had scarcely begun nudging each other the better to point their risqué tales of the days of good King Edward: Cabinet Ministers had not long been exchanging doubtful Limericks with jaded dexterity: when the following events happened:

Anyone penetrating to a secluded conservatory leading from a corner of the ball-room might have espied a young lady sitting at her ease on a bench of cedarwood beneath the dusty and unbalanced-looking growth which is sold in civilised countries as a palm-tree. The languid young lady’s air was that of one who is forlorn, of one who is sad, of one who is so bored, yet decidedly that of one who would not for worlds have her dolour interrupted by the general run of humanity, such as perspire without suavity and go poking their tedious noses into corners of ball-rooms, saying: “I say, will you dance? I say, do dance!” Woe and woe to such youths, for they shall instantly be answered by the magical words “Missing three” and their persons shall be enveloped in forgetfulness forever.

Secure in her solitude behind a screen of plants and flowers, our young lady had quite evaded the eye of even the most relentless dancer but for the whisper of her white dress through the leaves. It should further be noted that not one among all the flowers in that flaming conservatory was more beautiful than the flowers of Cartier, Lacloche, Boucheron, and Janesich, which graced the young lady’s slender forearm in the guise of bracelets of diamonds, emeralds, black onyx, pink pearls and sapphires, all wrought upon platinum in divers tender designs. Her throat was unadorned but for a double rope of pearls, while two captive emeralds wept from the tips of her ears. Her hair was tawny, and it glittered like a swarm of bees. As for her eyes, they were more than adequate to every occasion, men being what they are.

But no sudden intruder could have been more surprised to see the Princess Baba sitting alone—for it was she—than was the Princess Baba herself to see, by the merest hazard of a glance over her shoulder, the curious phenomenon of the hands, the feet and the person of a young gentleman forcing himself into the premises through one of the conservatory windows.

She said, sighed, cried: “Oh!”

The intruder said something denoting astonishment, confusion, and grief; while his appearance was notably devoid of that air of calm which is the mark of your perfect rogue or practising philosopher.

“Well!” said the Princess Baba. “To come in by the roof!”

“Sorry,” said the young gentleman. “Sorry.”

“Sir, what can this mean! It is not by saying ‘sorry’ that one is excused for housebreaking!”

“Madam,” begged the youth, “won’t you please allow me to explain?”

“And he calls me ‘madam’!” sighed the Princess Baba with vexation. “Now I ask you, young man, do I look like a ‘madam’?”

He said: “You look divine. You are beautiful.”

“Attractive I may be,” said the young Princess, “but beautiful, no. For, look at it which way you like, I’ve got a turned-up nose.”

“We are all as God made us,” sighed the young gentleman.

“By no means,” said the Princess Baba, “for some people are charming and some are not, and what does God know of charm? It is dreadful to lie awake at nights thinking that God lacks charm. Yet the word is never so much as mentioned in the Bible.”

“As for the Bible,” said the young gentleman, “it is nowadays the fashion among rich men to say that it makes the most delightful reading in the world. Perhaps one day I shall have the time to read it too. In the meanwhile, may I sit down?”

“But this is most unusual!” cried the young Princess. “To come to a ball through a window! May I ask, are you a burglar? You certainly do not look like a burglar. Explain yourself, sir!”

“I am a poor writer,” quoth our young friend. We, of course, knew that. But the Princess Baba was surprised, protesting: “Oh, come, that must be nonsense! For, firstly, you are rather a dear, and so you can’t be poor; and, secondly, you are quite well-dressed, and so you can’t be a writer.”

“Your nonsense suits my nonsense,” said the young gentleman. “Thank you.”

“Know, Sir Author, that I am the Princess Baba of Valeria.”

He rose and knelt and said: “Princess! What have I done!”

“Rise, my friend. Men no longer need to kneel to Royalty.”

“Princess, what shall I say! Oh, what have I done! How can I apologise for this intrusion!”

The young Princess cried: “Why, here is an idea! You might begin by kissing my hand. I assure you that that is quite usual. But oh, my friend, you must please not kiss my hand while you are kneeling! That will never, never do, for a man who is kneeling before a woman has her at a great disadvantage. Provided, of course, that the woman has a temperament. I am, unfortunately, full of temperament. My father is very worried about me.”

“Princess, this is not the first time I have kissed your hand.”

“Oh!” sighed the Princess Baba, and the young writer did his part like a man and a cavalier, whereupon she said: “You have a very pretty way of kissing a lady’s hand, Sir Author. And I had been told it was a lost art in England!”

“All the arts were lost in England by our fathers, Princess. Youth is just rediscovering them.”

“Young man,” said the Princess severely, “do you think it quite wise to be so full of self-confidence as all that?”

“Princess, forgive me! But I am so poor that I have to be full of what costs me least.”

“And may I ask what was that idiotic remark you just made about this not being the first time you have kissed my hand? Why, you had never so much as set eyes on me until a moment ago!”

“I have kissed your hand in a dream,” said the young writer gravely, and then he told how one afternoon he had seen her hand and in her hand a flower, and how he had woven such a web of romance about that hand and flower that he had never a wink of sleep from night to night.

“But you must sleep!” cried the young Princess. “Oh, dear, and so you are miserable, too! Ah, the misery of vain desire, and oh, the misery of delight cut short! But you certainly must get some sleep to-night. You can’t be allowed to go about kissing women’s hands as prettily as you do and getting no sleep for your pains. Now wait here a few moments while I go and get you some aspirin.”

But the youth dissuaded her, asking her how she could have the heart to put an aspirin between them when he had dared all the legal penalties for trespass for the sake of speech with her, nay, even for sight of her.

“Well, I think you are very bold,” sighed she, but he humbly protested that never was a man less bold than he by ordinary, but that the fires of chivalry had burned high in him at sight of her hand at the window, for, said he, could any but an unhappy heart sit with a hand drooping out of a window on the only sunny afternoon of an English summer?

“There is certainly something in that,” said the young Princess, and then she told him how miserable she was and how miserable she must always be, for her heart was engaged in a battle with superior odds. And she made him sit beside her on the bench of cedarwood, telling him of her father and mother and the gay Court of Valeria, “which is so gay,” she said, “that some of the most respectable ladies of the Court are goaded into getting themselves divorced just for the sake of the peace and quiet of being déclassée.”

And she told how it was to this Court that one fine day there came an English lord with the very best introductions and such very excellent white waist-coats for evening wear as were the envy of every cavalier in Valeria.

“Like this one of mine?” asked the young gentleman, for is he a proper man who will not belittle another by claiming an equal degree of eminence in the sartorial abyss?

“That is not the point,” said the Princess Baba, “but the point is that my Lord Quorn, for such was my lover’s name, was the handsomest man I ever saw, and I loved him and he loved me and I lost him and he lost me. That may seem a very reasonable combination of events to you, who are young and cynical, but to me it was a matter of the utmost wretchedness. My friend, know that this English lord had to fly for his life, for a jealous lady of the Court had gone to my parents saying he had seduced me.”

“The liar!” cried our hero.

“Oh, it was quite true!” sighed the Princess Baba.

“The cad!” cried our hero.

“I can’t agree with you,” said the Princess Baba. “I adore him. I adore him. I adore him. And, oh, I am so very unhappy!”

He rose and knelt and said: “Princess, mayn’t I be of some use? Can’t I help you? Please command me, for I would die for you.”

“At this very moment,” she sobbed, “he is very probably either dead or dying, for how can he hope to survive a duel with the best swordsman of Valeria, Captain Count Rupprecht Saxemünden von Maxe-Middengräfen?”

“It certainly does sound rather improbable,” said the youth dismally.

“And when it is all over and my lover lies dead—ah, how can I even say it!—my betrothal to his murderer will be formally announced.”

“What, you are actually to marry a man with a name like that!”

“Yes, isn’t it dreadful!” sobbed the Princess Baba, whereupon the young gentleman rose and stood before her with respectful determination, saying that he for one could not bear the idea of her marrying Captain Count Rupprecht God-knöws-what von Whät-not, and would therefore do all in his power to preserve life in the person of Lord Quorn, since the same was so delightful to her.

“For even at the risk of your grave displeasure,” said our hero, “I must tell you, Princess, that I like you frightfully and shall never again know delight but in your presence.”

“Now you are making love to a breaking heart!” pitifully cried the Princess Baba. “So this is chivalry!”

“Princess,” said he firmly, “I do but owe it to myself to ask you to make a note of the fact that I love you. And it is because I love you that I will do all in my power to save Lord Quorn.”

“But, my friend,” said she with very wide eyes, “however will you manage that?”

“I am just thinking, Princess. But shall we, while I am thinking, dance?”

“What, you would have me dance while my love lies bleeding? I had thought my confidence was placed in a more understanding mind. Ah listen, oh look!”

And with a cry the Princess tore aside the flowers that screened the conservatory windows and both looked down with eyes of horror on the figures grouped in the garden below. Within, the rout was at its height and the saxophone ever raised its frightful cry to the glory of the gods of Africa. Without, was silence and the ring of steel.

“Oh, I can’t bear it, but I can’t bear it!” sobbed the young Princess, holding a cry to her lips with a handkerchief plaintive with scent. The antagonists in the dark garden were plain to see, the whiteness of their vests moving dimly in the darkness; and the tall figure of Lord Quorn was seen to be forced back against a tree-trunk, so that there could be no doubt but that he must presently be run through.

“Oh, have I to watch him die!” cried the young Princess, and was suddenly made to stare incredulously at the youth beside her, for he had whispered in accents of triumph:

“By Heaven, I’ve got an idea, a marvellous idea! You want to be happy, Princess? Then come with me! Come, we will dance through the crowd to the door and then we will see about my plan.”

“But what is it, what is it, why do you keep me in such suspense? Ah; you are cruel!” sighed the Princess Baba. “But you certainly do dance very well. Oh, how I love dancing! When I was very young I used to dream that I would like to be loved by a fairy prince with finger-nails of lapis-lazuli, but lately I have dreamed that I would like to be an exhibition-dancer in a night-club. But are you sure this is the nearest way to the door? It is so very crowded that I can’t see it, but how well you guide, almost as well as you kiss a lady’s hand! But quick, quick, to the door!”

“I am doing my best, Princess, guiding you through this crowd. It is amazing how generously middle-aged people dance these days, denying their elbows and feet to no one who comes near them.”

“But my lover dies—the door, the door!” cried the Princess Baba.

“And by Heaven, through it!”

“And now your plan?”

“Ah, you may well ask!” laughed our hero.

V

The tall figure of Lord Quorn lay crumpled and inert where he had fallen against the tree-trunk. Only his eyes retained the magic gift of life, and they looked upon the scene with sardonic resignation. Who shall describe what thoughts then passed through the dying gallant’s mind? He was mortally wounded.

Count Rupprecht lay stretched on his back a few yards away, the grass about him soaked with the blood that flowed from his pierced lung. He was dead. Above him stood the Duke, silently. Mr. Woodhouse Adams was on his knees beside his dying friend.

“You got him, anyhow,” said he. “He’ll never know Christmas from Easter again.”

“Fluke,” sighed Lord Quorn. “I always had the luck.”

“Luck, do you call it,” cried his friend, “to be killed!”

“It is better to be killed than to die,” said Lord Quorn faintly.

His Highness called grimly: “Ho, there! Ho, page!”

“Altesse!”

“Boy, go call my chaplain instantly.”

“Pester me with no priests, sir, I beg you!” cried the wicked Lord Quorn. “I was born without one, I have lived without one, I have loved without one, and I can damn well die without one.”

“Then has death no terrors for you, Lord Quorn?”

“Why, sir, I go to meet my Maker with the best heart in the world! I have lived a perfectly delightful life in the best possible way. Can Paradise show a more consummate achievement! Or must one have been bored to death in this world to win eternal life in the next?”

“Then, page,” grimly said His Highness, “go tell the Princess Baba the issue of the duel. Do not spare the truth. Count Rupprecht lies dead in defence of her honour and the honour of Valeria; and Lord Quorn will shortly be answering to God for his sins. And further tell the Princess that she is permitted to say farewell to her lover. Begone!”

“Thank you very much,” sighed Lord Quorn.

But the page was not gone above a moment before he was returned, saying breathlessly:

“Altesse, I bear this message from the Platinum-Stick-in-Waiting. The Princess Baba was seen leaving the house a few minutes ago in a hired vehicle, and with her was a young gentleman with an unknown face and utterly devoid of decorations. Her Highness left word behind her with the attendant of the Gentlemen’s Cloak-Room to the effect that she could so little bear to await the issue of a duel in which her heart was so deeply engaged that she had eloped with one who would understand her grief.”

“Good!” sighed Lord Quorn into the livid silence.

“What’s that you say!” snapped the Duke.

“I was merely thanking my God, sir, that I die at last convinced of the truth of what I have always suspected, that nothing in this world means anything at all.”

“Except, of course, dogs and horses,” said Mr. Woodhouse Adams, and that will do well enough for the end of the tale of the hand and the flower, which is called Prologue because nobody ever reads a Prologue and how can it be to anyone’s advantage to sit out so improbable a tale without the accompaniment of a Viennese waltz?

As for our hero and his darling, there are, naturally, no words to describe the happiness they had in each other. It was not long, however, before the young writer ceased to be a writer, for there was no money in it; but with what his young wife made by selling the story of her elopement for to make a musical-comedy they opened a night-club in Golden Square called Delight is my Middle Name and lived happily ever after, the whilom Princess Baba making a great name for herself as a dancer, for she was all legs and no hips and her step was as light as her laughter and her laughter was as light as the breath of Eros.

In conclusion, may he who is still young enough and silly enough to have told this tale be some day found worthy to be vouchsafed that which will make him, too, live happily ever after in peace and good-will with his heart, his lady and his fellows; and may the like good fortune also befall such youths and maidens as, turning aside for a moment from the realities of life, shall read this book.

I: A ROMANCE IN OLD BRANDY

I

TALKING of dogs, no one will deny that dogs make the best, the dearest, and the most faithful companions in the world. No one will deny that even very small dogs have very large hearts. No one will deny that human beings are as but dirt beside dogs, even very small dogs. No one will deny that all dogs, large or small, are more acceptable to the Lord than foxes, rats or Dagoes. That is, if the Lord is a gentleman. No one can deny that. No one, anyhow, dares deny that. Let us be quite candid. A man who does not glory in the companionship of dogs is no fit mate for any woman. That is what Valerest said. A woman who glories in nothing else but the companionship of a dratted little beast with two unblinking black eyes is certainly no fit mate for any man. That is what Valentine thought.

Valentine and Valerest were sat at dinner. Valerest was the name of Valentine’s wife, and she was a nice girl. A pretty maid waited on them. Valentine and Valerest were silent. The pretty maid left them.

Valerest said: “Any man who does not like dogs is no fit mate for a woman.”

Valentine thought as above.

“I really don’t see,” said Valerest bitterly, “why you are so sulky this evening.”

Sulky! Ye gods and little fishes, to be moved by a profound and sorrowful anger—and to be called ‘sulky’! O God of words and phrases, O Arbiter of tempers and distempers, to sit in silent dignity and resignation—and to be called ‘sulky’! Verily, what a petty thing one word can make of martyrdom! Wherefore Valentine raised his voice and said: “I am not sulky.”

“Well,” said Valerest, “you needn’t shout.”

Valentine said: “I never shout.”

A situation was thus created. The pretty maid came in with the sweet in the middle of it. Valentine and Valerest were silent. Mr. Tuppy was not. Mr. Tuppy said “Yap!” Mr. Tuppy lay on a mouldy old cushion, and the mouldy old cushion lay on a chair, and the chair was beside Valerest. Dear Mr. Tuppy, sweet Mr. Tuppy! Tuppy was a Chinaman, Tuppy was a dog.

“The pretty darling, the mother’s tiny tot!” sighed Valerest. “And does he want his dinner then, the mother’s rabbit?”

“Yap!” said Mr. Tuppy.

“Isn’t he a darling!” cried Valerest.

“Charming,” said Valentine.

“Well,” said Valerest, “you aren’t very gay to-night, I do think!”

It could be asked, need Valerest have said that? Again, it could be asked, need Valerest have said that brightly? Valentine, at that moment, appeared to be engaged in spearing a boiled cherry, which formed part of a fruit-salad. It would not appear, therefore, that Valentine was engaged on anything very important. Indeed, there will not be wanting those to say that Valentine’s attention might well have been diverted to something more “worth while” (an American phrase meaning money) than even the most notable fruit-salad. They will be wrong. For there is a time in everyone’s life when even the most homely fruit-salad, even one unspiced with Kirsch or liqueur, can be of such moment that everything else must, for that time, go by the board. Therefore it must at once be apparent to even the most impatient reader that The Romance in Old Brandy must be delayed for at least another paragraph while impartial enquiry is made into the fruit-salad of Valentine Vernon Chambers.

Ever since he was so high Valentine would always eat a fruit-salad according to certain laws of precedence. Not for worlds would he have admitted it, but that is how it was. He liked the chunks of pineapple best, so he kept the chunks of pineapple to the last. Strawberries he liked next best, if they weren’t too sloppy, so they came one but last. As for grapes in a fruit salad, they are slippery and sour, and Valentine thought it was no fit place for them. After strawberries, he was partial to cherries. While first of all he would demolish the inevitable bits of banana. Cream he never took with a fruit-salad.

It will therefore be seen that, as he was then only at the beginning of the cherry stratum, the fruit-salad future of Valentine Vernon Chambers was one of exceptional promise. But it was not to be. Even as Valerest spoke, brightly, he couldn’t help but cast one furtive look at the chunks of pineapple. Nor were the strawberries sloppy. But queer depths were moving in him that evening. From the chunks of pineapple he looked across the table at his wife, and Valerest saw that his blue eyes were dark, and she was afraid, but did she look afraid? Valerest, Oh, Valerest!

“Yap!” said Mr. Tuppy.

“There, there!” said Valerest, and she kissed Mr. Tuppy, and Mr. Tuppy loved it.

“By Heaven, that dog!” snapped Valentine.

Valerest said: “That’s it! Vent your bad-temper on poor little Mr. Tuppy!”

Valentine looked at Valerest.

“I see,” said Valentine quietly. Very quietly. “Oh, I see!”

And worse. Much worse. Very quietly.

“I suppose you think,” said Valerest, “that because I’m your wife you can say anything you like to me. You’re wrong.”

“I think,” said Valentine, “that because you’re my wife you ought to behave like my wife. And I’m right.”

And then he left the room. And then he left the house. And then the house was very still.

Valerest, sitting very straight in her chair, heard the front-door slam. She listened. Through the open window behind her came the sound of manly footsteps marching away down South Street. She listened. Away the footsteps marched, away. Then a taxi screamed, and the incident of the manly footsteps was closed forever.

“Well, that’s that!” said Valerest.

“Yap!” said Mr. Tuppy.

“Mother’s rabbit!” said Valerest absently.

“Mr. Tuppy,” said Valerest suddenly, “this can’t go on. You know, this can’t go on.”

“Yap!” said Mr. Tuppy.

“I’m not a chattel,” said Valerest. “To be used just as a man likes. I will not be a chattel.”

The pretty maid came in.

Valerest said: “Come along, Mr. Tuppy. I’ve got a headache. Bed.”

II

Valentine walked. When he had been walking for some time he realised that he was achieving the impossible in combining an excess of motive power with a minimum of progress, for he found himself walking in a direction exactly opposed to that in which his destination lay. He corrected this, and presently stood before a house in Cadogan Gardens. The houses in Cadogan Gardens wear a gentle and sorrowful air, and Valentine grew more depressed than ever.

Now, years before, his guardian had said: “There may come a time, Valentine, when something happens to you about which you will think it impossible that anyone can advise you. But you may be wrong in thinking that. Try me then, if you care to.”

Valentine’s parents had died when he was very young, in one of those marvellously complete accidents arranged by any competent story-teller when he simply must deprive a child at one blow of a mother’s love and a father’s care. Valentine’s parents, however, had in some measure protested against their simultaneous fate, and Valentine’s mother had lived long enough after the accident to appoint Mr. Lapwing her boy’s sole guardian. Mr. Lapwing was the senior partner of the city firm of Lapwing & Lancelot, merchants. And as, quite apart from his regard for Valentine’s parents, he was wealthy, a widower, and childless, it can readily be understood that he eagerly accepted the trust. Although when it is said that he accepted the trust it is not to be implied that Mr. Lapwing tried to take a “father’s place” with the boy. Mr. Lapwing, like so many childless men, knew all about his place with any boy. He was without one theory as to education, but acted merely on a vague idea that the relations between parents and children, whether it was the Victorian one of shaming the joy out of children or the Georgian one of encouraging the joy into vulgarity, had gotten the world into more trouble than anything in history since the fall of Lucifer from Paradise.

On this evening, twenty-four years after he had first entered the house in Cadogan Gardens, Valentine stood quite a while before the door and wondered how he was to put It. It, you understand, was very difficult to put. A disagreement between a man and his wife remains indissolubly a disagreement between a man and his wife, and only a man or his wife may solve It. Indeed, Valentine had already solved It. He detested compromise. A divorce was, undoubtedly, indicated. Undoubtedly. So undoubtedly, indeed, that Valentine would not have dreamed of putting It to Mr. Lapwing at all had he not thought himself bound in honour to ask his guardian’s advice “when something happens to you about which you will think it impossible that anyone can advise you.”

III

Mr. Lapwing was cracking a nut. He said gloomily:

“Hullo, Valentine! Did you ring up to say you were coming round? I didn’t get the message.”

“I came,” said Valentine, “on an impulse.”

Mr. Lapwing said: “I see. Well, sit down, sit down! I don’t want you towering over me while I am trying to digest my food. Or is it one of those impulses you have to stand up to?”

Valentine said: “If you really want to know, I don’t care if I never sit down again. But I will, if only to show how well you’ve brought me up.”

“Now I don’t want any cheek,” said Mr. Lapwing.

“Cheek!” said Valentine, and he laughed, and the way he laughed caused Mr. Lapwing to look sharply up at him.

“Cheek!” said Valentine. “If you knew as much about cheek as I do, sir, you would think I was talking like a courtier.”

“Oh, sit down, sit down!” said Mr. Lapwing.

Now a gentleman called Mr. Lapwing can neither need nor merit any further description. Mr. Lapwing looked in no way different from the way that a Mr. Lapwing should look. Thin, tiresome, bald, boring, gouty, gloomy. We see him for the first time at that end of his dinner when he would sit a while at the table and stare with conscious absent-mindedness into space, after the manner of any English gentleman who is not averse from a drop of old brandy after his meals. Mr. Lapwing’s was an old-world palate, and he enjoyed above all things a drop of old brandy.

The dining-room of the house in Cadogan Gardens was large, austere, dim. From where Valentine sat at the oval polished table, in the light of the four candles which played in shadows about his guardian’s thin lined face, the severe appointments of the room were as though seen through a dark mist. Mr. Lapwing was not only a connoisseur of polite stimulants but was known to many dealers as a formidable collector of Meryon’s etchings; and the sombre fancies of the young Frenchman’s genius peered at Valentine from the dim walls, as they might be old mocking friends uncertain of recognition.

Mr. Lapwing said gloomily: “Port, Valentine? Or Sherry?”

“Brandy,” said Valentine.

“Drat the boy!” said Mr. Lapwing. “Fountain! Where are you, man? Oh, there you are! Give the boy some brandy.”

Mr. Lapwing was old enough, but Fountain was older. From the dimness he emerged, to the dimness returned. Fountain was very old. Mr. Lapwing said: “Go away, Fountain. We don’t want you. The brandy, Valentine, is at your elbow.”

“Thank you,” said Valentine.

“The difference between beer and brandy,” said Mr. Lapwing gloomily, “is that it is not unusual to pour out a full glass of beer, but it is damned unusual to take more than a drop of brandy at one time.”

“Depends,” said Valentine, “on the brandy.”

Mr. Lapwing said sharply: “That is very fine brandy.”

“Good!” said Valentine.

IV

Valentine at last made an end to the muttering noises with which he had tried to put before his guardian the state of acute disagreement that existed between himself and Valerest. Mr. Lapwing finished his brandy, rose from the table, and thoughtfully took a turn or two about the room.

“Well?” said Valentine.

“I,” said Mr. Lapwing absently, “can tell you a much better story than that. Any day.”

Valentine flushed. “I didn’t tell you about this, sir, so that you should make a guy of me.”

Mr. Lapwing said gloomily: “Keep your hair on. When I said that I could tell you a much better story than yours, I meant, naturally, that my story is complete, whereas yours, you will agree, is as yet far from complete.”

Valentine muttered something about his being quite complete enough for him, but all Mr. Lapwing said sharply was: “Here, no more of that brandy! That brandy is too good to swim in. But if you want to get drunk, I will ring for some whisky.”

“I don’t want to get drunk,” snapped Valentine.

“Good boy!” said Mr. Lapwing vaguely, and continued pacing up and down the dim, long room, while Valentine sat still and thought of his past life and found it rotten.

Suddenly Mr. Lapwing said, in that irritatingly exact way of his which was never quite exact: “You, Valentine, are twenty-nine years old. Valerest is twenty-two——”

“Four,” said Valentine.

“Very well. And you have been married just over three years——”

“Nearly five,” sighed Valentine.

“Very well. You, Valentine, want a child. Valerest, however, does not want a child just yet. Your argument is a sound one: that if parents wait too long before their children are born, by the time the children grow up the parents will be too old to share any of their interests and pleasures——”

“That’s right,” said Valentine sourly. “Valerest and I will be a pair of old dodderers by the time they’re of age.”

“Exactly. A very sound argument. Whereas Valerest——”

Valentine snapped: “She doesn’t even trouble to argue. She just sits and grins!”

“Exactly. She is much too deeply in the wrong to argue. When nations are too deeply in the wrong to argue they call on God and go to war. When women are too deeply in the wrong to argue they sit and grin. And I daresay that the way you put your arguments gives Valerest plenty to sit and grin about.”

“My God,” said Valentine, “don’t I try to be reasonable!”

“Listen,” said Mr. Lapwing, and then he told Valentine that he had been married twice. Valentine was amazed. He had not known that.

Mr. Lapwing said: “I was very young when I married my first wife. Even younger than you, although even then I knew a good brandy from a poor one. And I was very much in love. As, if you will not think an old man too ridiculous, I am still. Of course, she is dead now.”

Valentine was listening with only half a mind. He had still to get over his surprise that his guardian had been married twice. There are some men who look as though they simply could not have been married twice. They look as though one marriage would be, or had been, a very considerable feat for them. Mr. Lapwing looked decidedly like that: he looked, if you like, a widower: but decidedly not like a widower multiplied by two——

Mr. Lapwing was saying, from a dim, distant corner of the room: “In those days I was a very serious young man. I took love and marriage very seriously. And when we had been married a couple of years I discovered in myself a vehement desire to be a father: a natural enough desire in a very serious young man. My wife, however, was younger than I: she loved life, the life of the country and the town, of the day and of the night, of games and dances. You see what I mean?”

Valentine snapped: “Don’t I! Just like Valerest.”

“Exactly. At first,” said Mr. Lapwing, and his face as he slowly paced up and down the dim room would every now and then be quite lost in the shadows. “At first, I indulged her. To tell you the truth, I was very proud of her service at tennis, her handicap at golf. But there are limits.”

“There are,” said Valentine. “Valerest is already in training for Wimbledon next year, and I hope a tennis-ball gets up and shingles her eyelashes. And she’s got to 6 at golf. Pretty good for a kid who looks as though she hadn’t enough muscle to play a fast game of ludo. But that’s right about there being limits. There are limits! And I’ve reached them.”

“Exactly,” agreed Mr. Lapwing’s dim voice from the distance of the room. “I had reached them too, Valentine. And, I am afraid, I grew to be rather unpleasant in the home—as you, no doubt, are with Valerest. One’s manner, you know, isn’t sometimes the less unpleasant for being in the right.”

Valentine said: “I don’t know about pleasant or unpleasant. But a fellow must stick to his guns.”

“Guns?” said Mr. Lapwing vaguely. “Were we talking of guns?”

“I merely said, sir, that one must stick to one’s guns.”

“Of course, yes! Decidedly one must stick to one’s guns. Very proper. Well, Valentine, I too stuck to my guns. Like you, I thought they were good guns. My young wife and I grew to disagree quite violently about her preference for being out-and-about to rearing my children: until one day, after a more than usually fierce and childish argument, she left my house—this house, Valentine—and never came back.”

From the shadowy distance Mr. Lapwing was looking thoughtfully at Valentine. But Valentine’s eyes were engaged elsewhere: he was seeing a picture of Valerest stamping out of his house, never to come back. It was, Valentine saw, quite conceivable. He could see it happening. It was just the sort of thing Valerest might do, stamp out of the house and never come back. And the picture grew clearer before Valentine’s eyes, and he stared the picture out.

“Well,” he said at last, “that’s the sort of thing that happens. It’s got to happen.”

Mr. Lapwing said: “Exactly.” His face was in the shadow. Valentine, fiddling with a cigarette, still staring at the picture in his mind, went on:

“I mean, it’s inevitable, isn’t it? A man can’t go on forever living in the same house with a woman who laughs at the—the—well, you know what I mean—at the most sacred things in him. And she’s got a dog.”

“I know,” said Mr. Lapwing. “Mr. Tuppy. Nice little dog.”

“Bloody little dog!” snapped Valentine. “Look here, sir, when things have got to the state they have with Valerest and me the crash has got to come. Just got to, that’s all.”

Mr. Lapwing said gloomily: “Of course, there’s love.”

Valentine thought profoundly about that.

“No!” snapped Valentine. “That’s just where you are wrong, sir. There was love. Certainly. But they kill it. They just kill love. I mean, I know what I’m talking about. Some of these young women treat love as though it was a naughty little boy who should be made to stand in a corner except as a great treat once in six weeks. I’ve thought about this a lot lately. Valerest has just gone out of her way to kill my love.”

“Sex,” said Mr. Lapwing thoughtfully.

“Sex?” said Valentine.

“Sex,” said Mr. Lapwing dimly. “Sex becomes very important when a man is—er—deprived of it. When he is—er—not deprived of it he becomes used to it, and it ceases to have any—er—importance at all. Women don’t like that. Women——”

“Damn women!” snapped Valentine.

“Women,” said Mr. Lapwing, “can be very tiresome. Wives can be intolerable. I have been married twice. England and America are strewn with good men suffering from their wives’ virtues. It is damnable. When a woman is faithful to her husband she generally manages to take it out of him in some other way. The mere fact that she is faithful makes her think that she has a right to be, well, disagreeable. The faithful wife also considers that she has a right to indulge in disloyal moods——”

“Disloyal moods!” said Valentine thoughtfully. “That’s good.”

“Fidelity,” said Mr. Lapwing, “can cause the devil of a lot of trouble in the home, unless it is well managed. Fidelity needs just as much good management as infidelity. I am telling you this,” said Mr. Lapwing, “because I think fidelity is beautiful and I hate to see it made a mess of. I draw from my own life, from my first marriage. I stuck firmly to those guns which you so aggressively brought into the conversation. A year or so went by. Then her parents approached me and suggested that we should come to some agreement, either to live together again or to arrange a divorce on the usual lines. They were good people. Their argument was that we were both too young to go on wasting our lives in this shilly-shally way.

“By this time, of course, the matter of my quarrel with my wife had faded into nothing. There remained only the enormous fact that we had quarrelled and that, since neither of us had tried to make the quarrel up, our love must obviously be dead.

“I referred her parents to her, saying I would do as she wished. She sent them back to me, saying she was quite indifferent. A divorce was then arranged by our lawyers; and I was divorced for failing to return to my wife on her petition for restitution of conjugal rights. The usual rubbish.

“To be brief, it was not long before I married again. But now I was older, wiser. I had tasted passion, I had loved: to find that passion was yet another among the confounded vanities that are perishable.

“Valentine, I married my second wife with an eye to the mother of my children. I married sensibly. I have, as you know, a considerable property; and I continued to desire, above all things, an heir to my name and a companion for my middle years. That I have a companion now in you—and in Valerest—is due to the infinite grace of God: that I have not an heir to carry on my name is due to my own folly.

“My second wife was of that type of woman whom it is the fashion of our day to belittle as ‘matronly,’ but from whose good blood and fine quality is forged all that is best in great peoples. The difference between my affection for her and my passion for my first wife is not to be described in words: yet when she died in giving birth to a dead child you will easily understand how I was grieved almost beyond endurance—not only at the shattering of my hopes, but at the loss of a gracious lady and a dear companion.

“I was at a South Coast resort the summer after my second wife’s death. One morning on the sands I struck up a great friendship with a jolly little boy of three, while his nurse was gossiping with some of her friends. Our friendship grew with each fine morning; and the nurse learnt to appreciate my approach as a relief for a time from her duties.

“You will already have seen, Valentine, the direction of my tale: the irony of my life must already be clear to you: nor can you have failed to see the pit of vain hopes that sometimes awaits those who stick to their guns. As my young friend and I sat talking one morning, or rather as he talked and I played with handfuls of sand thinking how gladly I had called him my son, he leapt up with a cry of joy; and presented me to his father and mother.

“My first wife had grown into a calm, beautiful woman. Yet even her poise could not quite withstand the surprise of our sudden meeting after so many years; and it was her husband who broke the tension, and won my deepest regard forever, by taking my hand. From that moment, Valentine, began for me, and I think for them both, and certainly for the boy, as rare and sweet a friendship as, I dare to say, is possible in this world.

“People like ourselves, Valentine, must, for decency, conform to certain laws of conduct. The love that my first wife and I rediscovered for each other was not, within our secret hearts, in our power to control: yet it did not need even a word or a sign from either of us to tell the other that our love must never, no matter in what solitudes we might meet, be expressed. Her husband was a good man, and had always understood that our divorce had not been due to any uncleanliness or cruelty but to what is called, I think, incompatibility of temperament. So that until she died soon after, the three of us were devoted friends and constant companions.

“And that,” said Mr. Lapwing from the shadows, “is all my story. More or less.”

Valentine sat very still. Mr. Lapwing paced up and down. Silence walked with him.

Valentine muttered. “I’m sorry. It’s a dreadful story. Good Lord, yes! May I have some more brandy, please?”

“It’s not,” snapped Mr. Lapwing, “a dreadful story. It is a beautiful story. Help yourself.”

“Well,” said Valentine, “call it beautiful if you like. It’s your story. But I should hate it to happen to me.”

“There are,” said Mr. Lapwing, “consolations.”

Mr. Lapwing paced up and down.

“Consolations,” said Mr. Lapwing.

Valentine said: “Oh, certainly. I suppose there always are consolations. All the same, I should hate to be done out of my son like that. For that’s what it comes to.”

Mr. Lapwing was in a distant corner of the room, his face a shadow among shadows. He said: “Exactly. That is why, Valentine Chambers, I said there are consolations. My wife’s second husband was Lawrence Chambers.”

Valentine said: “Oh!”

Mr. Lapwing touched him on the shoulder.

Valentine said: “Good Lord, I might have been your son!”

“You might,” said Mr. Lapwing. “Easily. But it has come to almost the same thing in the end, hasn’t it? Except, perhaps, that I have not a father’s right to advise you.”

Valentine said violently: “You’ve got every right in the world to advise me! Considering what you’ve done for me all my life!”

“Then,” said Mr. Lapwing, “don’t be an ass.”

Valentine saw Valerest’s mocking eyes, heard Valerest’s mocking laugh, and about his mind walked Mr. Tuppy with his old, unsmiling eyes. He muttered: “But, look here, Valerest will just think I’ve given in!”

“So you have,” said Mr. Lapwing.

“Well, then,” said Valentine bitterly, “it will all——”

“She’ll grow,” said Mr. Lapwing. He was tired. “And, Valentine, she has got more right to be an ass than you have. Remember that. There’s no use being sentimental about it, but they put up with a lot of pain, women. Remember that. And——”

“But look here,” said Valentine, “if I——”

“Oh, go and make love to the girl!” snapped Mr. Lapwing. “And forget that a clergyman ever told you that she must obey you.”

V

The state of Valentine’s mind as he ascended the stairway of his house is best described by the word “pale.” He felt pale. What made him feel pale was terror. It was past one o’clock in the morning. He had thundered out of the house at about half-past-eight. And the house was now as still as a cemetery. The conclusion, to Valentine, was obvious: the house was as still as a cemetery of love. He saw Valerest waiting, waiting, waiting for him to return: he heard the clock striking ten, eleven, midnight: he saw Valerest flush with a profound temper, hastily pack a few things and—stamp out of the house, never to come back!

Within the bedroom all was dark, silent. Very dark it was, very silent. Valentine stood just within the doorway, listening very intently. He could not hear Valerest breathing. There was no Valerest to hear.

“Oh, God!” cried Valentine.

“Yap!” said Mr. Tuppy.

“Oh, dear!” sighed Valerest from the darkness. “What do you want to go and wake me for when I have to be out riding at eight o’clock!”

Valentine said: “Valerest, thank Heaven you are here! I got such a shock.”

“Here?” said Valerest. “Shock?”

Valentine switched on the lamp by the bed. It was Valerest’s bed. Valentine’s bed was in the dressing-room. That is called hygiene. Our grandfathers never knew about that.

Valerest stared up at him with sleepy bewilderment. Her curly hair was all over the place. Valentine made it worse by running his hands through it. Valerest said severely:

“Valentine, what are you talking about? Why shouldn’t I be here? And where have you been all this time? Why do you look so pale? Have you been drinking? Why did you get a shock?”

Valentine said violently: “I love you, Valerest.”

“Yap!” said Mr. Tuppy.

Valerest laid the tips of her fingers on his eyes, and she passed the tips of her fingers over his lips, and she said: “But I hate you!”

“You just wait!” said Valentine.

Valerest pulled at his ears with her fingers and defended her attitude with irresistible logic. She cried: “I don’t want to love anyone! I don’t want to love anyone! I don’t want to love anyone! I want to be free!” And she bit his ear.

Now there are writers who would think nothing of ending this chapter with a row of dots, viz: ... The author of this work, however, while yielding to no one in his admiration of a dexterous use of dots, cannot but think that the increasing use of dots to express the possibilities of love has become a public nuisance, and that the practice should be discouraged by literary-subscribers as dishonest, since what it really comes to is selling a dud to readers just when they are expecting something to happen. There are undoubtedly occasions, as when a writer is plumbing the bestial abysses of illicit love, when a judicious sprinkling of dots must be held to be proper, in the interests of decency and restraint. Yet even then it is to be deplored that the exploitation of dots so readily lends itself to the artfulness of suggestion. And the author of this work, which is written throughout under the government of marital virtue, cannot think that it is his part to hold his pen while he asks himself whether he shall dot or not dot. Has mankind, he asks himself, lived through all these æons of time only to find now that it cannot serve the decencies without the artificial aid of dots? Must, then, our dumb friends be neglected, while we needs must resort to these bloodless dots? For dogs are infinitely superior to dots as a means of describing the indescribable. The writer is, of course, referring particularly to Mr. Tuppy. Poor Mr. Tuppy.

“Yap!” said Mr. Tuppy. “Yap, yap, yap, yap!”

“What are you doing to Mr. Tuppy?” cried Valerest.

“Nothing,” said Valentine. “Only putting him out of the room.”

“You’ve kicked him, you beast!” wailed Valerest.

“Only once, sweet,” said Valentine; “for luck.”

“I hate you!” she cried.

“I love you!” he whispered.

“Darling!” she sighed. “But remember I have to be out and riding at eight.”

“This is no time to talk of dogs and horses!” cried Valentine, and Valerest was so surprised at such blasphemy that—Oh, well, dots.

VI

As Valentine left the house in Cadogan Gardens Fountain entered the dining-room. Fountain was very old. He had been kept up very late. He was tired. He drooped across the room.

“Shall I shut up now, sir?”

Mr. Lapwing said: “Yes, do. But just give me a drop of that brandy first, will you?”

“Yes, sir. The candles are burning low, sir. Shall I remove the shades?”

“Fountain!”

“Sir?”

“How long have you been with me?”

Fountain stared at his master. Very old, Fountain was. “Why, sir, I was with your father! I’ve known you ever since you was born—as you know as well as I do, sir, if I may say so.”

“Ah! But did you ever know, Fountain, that I had been married twice? And that my first wife had divorced me?”

Fountain lost patience. He said severely: “I never seen you like this before, sir. Not all these years. I don’t know what you are talking about, that I don’t. You married twice! Once was enough for you, sir, if you will permit an old man the liberty. And you divorced! I never heard of such a thing! I’d like to see the woman fit to divorce a Lapwing, that I would! I never heard of such a thing.”

“Ah,” said Mr. Lapwing. “Well, have it your own way, Fountain. But it made such a thundering good story that I was near believing it myself. All in a good cause, Fountain: to teach that boy a thing or two. One likes to see children happy, Fountain. And his mother won’t mind, not she. A good sensible woman she was, if on the plain side. And, d’you remember, Fountain, she always wanted a drop of romance in her life? Well, she’s got it now, poor dear. But her son will appreciate it for her, won’t he? And just give me another drop of that brandy, will you? That’s very fine brandy, that is.”

“The bottle,” said Fountain bitterly, “is empty, sir.”

“Drat that boy!” said Mr. Lapwing. “Comes here looking for romance and laps up all my brandy!”

II: THE ACE OF CADS

I

THEY tell a tale of high romance and desperate villainy, how one night the dæmon of wickedness arose from the depths and faced his master Capel Maturin, the pretty gentleman whose exploits have made him known to all London by the engaging title of Beau Maturin, the ace of cads. The tale begins in bitter darkness and its direction is Piccadilly, not the shopkeeper’s nor the wanton’s Piccadilly but the sweet sulky side where the pavement trips arm-in-arm with the trees of the Green Park and men are wont to walk alone with the air of thinking upon their debts and horses and women. There and thus, they say, George Brummel walked, to the doom that awaits all single-hearted men, and Scrope Davies, that pleasant wit, Lord Alvanley, the gross, D’Orsay, the beautiful and damned, and latterly Beau Maturin, who was a very St. George for looks and as lost to grace as the wickedest imp in hell.

But here was no night for your beau to be abroad in, and a man had been tipsy indeed to have braved those inclement elements unless he must. Yet one there was, walking the Green Park side. Ever and often the east wind lashed the rain into piercing darts, as though intent to inflict with ultimate wretchedness the sodden bundles of humanity that may any night be seen lying one against the other beneath the railings of the Green Park. But the deuce was in it if the gentleman in question appeared to be in the least discommoded. His flimsy overcoat flung wide open and ever wider in paroxysms of outraged elegance by the crass wind, and showing an expanse of white shirt-front of that criss-cross piqué kind which is one of the happiest discoveries of this century, and his silk hat rammed over his right eyebrow as though to dare a tornado to embarrass it, he strode up from Hyde Park Corner at a pace which, while not actually leisurely, seemed to be the outward manifestation of an entire absence of interest in time, place, destination, man, God and the devil. Nor was there anything about this gentleman’s face to deny this superlative indifference to interests temporal and divine; for, although that of a man still young enough, and possessed of attractions of a striking order, it showed only too plainly the haggard blasé marks of a wanton and dissipated life.

It was with such epithets, indeed, that the more austere among his friends had some time before finally disembarrassed themselves of the acquaintance of Capel Maturin. A penniless cadet of good family, Mr. Maturin, after a youth devoted to prophecy as to the relative swiftness of horses and to experiments into the real nature of wines, had in his middle thirties been left a fortune by an affectionate uncle who, poor man, had liked his looks; and Mr. Maturin was now engaged in considering whether three parts of a decade had been well spent in reducing that fortune, with no tangible results, to as invisible an item as, so Mr. Maturin vulgarly put it to himself, a pony on a profiteer. It was a question, thought Mr. Maturin, which could demand neither deep thought nor careful answering, insomuch as the answer was only too decidedly a lemon.

At a certain point on Piccadilly Mr. Maturin suddenly stayed his walk. What it was that made him do this we shall, maybe, never know, but stop he did. There were witnesses to the event: the same lying at Mr. Maturin’s feet, huddled against the railings of the Green Park, a heap of sodden bundles with hidden faces; and it had wanted the attention of a physician or the like to decide which of the five or six was of the male or the female of the species.

“It’s a cold night,” said a husky voice.

Mr. Maturin, towering high into the night above the husky voice, agreed that it was a cold night.

“Ay, that it is!” said a woman’s cracked voice. “Cold as Christian charity!”

Whereupon Mr. Maturin exhorted her to thank her stars that he was a pagan and, withdrawing his hand from an inner pocket, scattered some bank-notes over the bewildered wretches.

“Oh! Oh!” they cried, but caught them quickly enough, not grabbing nor pushing overmuch, for there was maybe a couple or so for each. And when, with the bank-notes tight and safe in their hands, they stared their wonder up at their mad benefactor, it was to find him staring moon-struck at a point far above their heads, while across his face was stamped a singular smile. It should be known that Beau Maturin had in his youth been a great reader of romantic literature, and now could not but smile at the picture of himself in an ancient situation, for is not the situation of a penniless spendthrift, with that of a man in love, among the most ancient in the world?

A policeman, his black cape shining in the rain like black armour, approached heavily: the august impersonality of the law informed for the moment with an air of interest that had a terrifying effect on the suddenly enriched wretches, for the law does not by ordinary recognise any close connection between a person with no visible means of support and the Bank of England.

“Good evening, sir,” said the law to Mr. Maturin, who, returning the greeting somewhat absently, was about to continue his walk when an anxious voice from the ground whispered:

“’Ere, sir, these are fivers, sir!”

“I beg your pardon?” said Mr. Maturin.

The law, meanwhile, had taken one of the bank-notes from a reluctant hand and was examining it against the lamplight.

“These ’ere, sir,” said the law impersonally, “are five-pun notes.”

“True,” said Mr. Maturin. “True. Lovely white angels of the devil. Good-night, constable.”

“Good-night, sir,” said the constable, replacing the bank-note into an eager hand; and Mr. Maturin, for long devoid of common sense, and now entirely devoid of money as well, continued his walk in the rain. His direction, or such direction as his feet appeared to have, led him towards the

pillared arcade that protects the entrance of the Ritz Restaurant from the gross changes of London’s climate; and it was as he strode under this arcade, his steps ringing sharply on the dry white stones, that it was distinctly brought to his notice that he was being followed.

He did not, however, turn his head or show any other sign of interest, merely dismissing his pursuer as an optimist. Mr. Maturin’s, in point of fact, was a nature peculiarly lacking in any interest as to what might or might not at any moment be happening behind him; and one of his favourite mots had ever been, whether in discussion, distress or danger, “Well, my friends, let’s face it!” There were, of course, not wanting those who ventured to doubt whether Beau Maturin had so readily faced “things” had he not had such a prepossessing face with which to conciliate them. “Ah,” Mr. Maturin would say to such, “you’re envious, let’s face it.”

On this occasion, so absorbed was he in absence of thought, he allowed himself to reach the corner of Arlington Street before swinging round to “face it.”

“Well?” said Mr. Maturin.

“’Ere!” said the other sans courtesy. “You do walk a pace, you do!”

“I am sorry,” said Mr. Maturin. “What do you want?”

“Want!” said the other. “I like that! What do I want! Jerusalem!”

“If you want Jerusalem,” said Mr. Maturin severely, “you should apply to the Zionist Society. They would be company for you. It must be very depressing for a man of your size to go about wanting Jerusalem all by yourself.”

That the pursuer had no evil intentions, at least to one of Mr. Maturin’s stature, had instantly been obvious. He was a small seedy-looking man in a bowler-hat of some past civilisation: his clothes sadly reflected the inclemencies of the weather, but had the air of not being very valuable, while the coloring of his face was that of one who had not in recent times suffered the delightful but perilous purification of water; and, as he stood panting beneath our gentleman, his expression was one of such bitter disgust that Mr. Maturin, being able to account for it only by the continued action of acid foods on the liver, thought it but right to advise him not to take so much vinegar with his tinned salmon.

“Am I,” snapped the small seedy man, “talking to Mr. Chapel Matcherin, or am I not?”

“More or less,” Mr. Maturin could not but admit.

“Orl I knows is,” snapped the small seedy man, “that you was the gent pointed out to me as yer left that club in Belgrave Square. Gent told me to give yer this. ’Ere.”

Mr. Maturin quickly opened the envelope, which was addressed to his name, and drew from it a folded sheet of note-paper and a folded bank-note. The small seedy man looked bitterly surprised and hurt.

“Money!” he sighed. “Money! ’Ow I ’ate money! And me carrying it abaht! I like that! Me!”

“You’re still here?” said Mr. Maturin.

“Still ’ere!” said the small seedy man. “I like that! Still ’ere! Me!”

But Mr. Maturin was giving his full attention to the note-paper, the while the folded bank-note depended tantalisingly from between the knuckles of two fingers. The small seedy man stared at it fascinated.

“If I’d known!” he sighed bitterly.

The letter addressed to Mr. Maturin ran thus:

“Enclosed Mr. Maturin will find a bank-note, which is in the nature of a present to him from the correspondent: who, if he was not misinformed, this night saw Mr. Maturin lose the last of his fortune at chemin de fer. Should Mr. Maturin’s be a temperament that does not readily accept gifts from strangers, which the correspondent takes the liberty to doubt, he may give the bank-note to the bearer, who will no doubt be delighted with it. The correspondent merely wishes Mr. Maturin to know that the money, having once left his hands and come into contact with Mr. Maturin’s, interests him no further. Nor are there any conditions whatsoever attached to this gift. But should Mr. Maturin retain some part of honour, which the correspondent takes the liberty to doubt, he may return service for service. In so remote a contingency Mr. Maturin will find a closed motor-car awaiting him near the flower-shop in Clarges Street.”

Mr. Maturin thoughtfully tore the note into several parts and dropped them to the pavement. The folded bank-note he, very thoughtful indeed, put into an inner pocket.

“’Ere!” whined the small seedy man.

“Tell me,” said Mr. Maturin, “what manner of gentleman was the gent who gave you this?”

“Bigger than you!” snarled the small seedy man. “Blast ’im for an old capitalist, else my name isn’t ’Iggins!”

“I am sorry your name is Higgins if you don’t like it. But why,” asked Mr. Maturin, “do you blast the gent who sent you after me?”

“I like that! Why hell! ’Ere he gives me two bob to go chasing after you to give you a bank-note! Two bob! You couldn’t offer two bob for a bloater in Wapping without getting arrested for using indecent language. And you’re so blarsted superior, you are, that you ain’t even looked to see ’ow much it is!”

“Why, I had forgotten!” smiled Mr. Maturin, and, producing the bank-note, unfolded it. It was a Bank of England note for £1,000.

“It’s not true!” gasped the small seedy man. “Oh, Gawd, it can’t be true! And in my ’and all that time and me chasing orl up Piccadilly with it to give away!”

“Well, good-night,” said Mr. Maturin. “And thank you.”

“’E thanks me!” gasped the small seedy man. “’Ere, and ain’t you even going to give me a little bit of somethink extra so’s I’ll remember this ewneek occasion?”

“I’m very afraid,” said Mr. Maturin, feeling carefully in all his pockets, “that this note you have brought me is all I have. I am really very sorry. By the way, don’t forget what I said about the salmon. And be very careful of what you drink. For what, let’s face it, do they know of dyspepsia, who only Kia-Ora know?”

“’Ere!” whined the small seedy man, but Mr. Maturin, crossing Piccadilly where the glare of an arc-lamp stamped the mire with a thousand yellow lights, was already lost in the shadow of the great walls of Devonshire House. In Clarges Street, near the corner, he came upon a long, closed car. The chauffeur, a boy, looked sleepily at him.

“I believe you have your directions,” said Mr. Maturin.

“And I’ve had them for hours!” said the boy sleepily. A nice boy.

II

We live in a world of generalisations, which the wise never tire of telling the foolish to mistrust and with which the foolish never tire of pointing the failures of the wise. There is one, for instance, that lays it down that a bad conscience is a sorry bedfellow. Yet Mr. Maturin, whose conscience could not have been but in the blackest disorder, immediately went to sleep in the car: to awake only when, the car having stopped, the young chauffeur flung open the door of the tonneau and said:

“If you please, sir!”

Mr. Maturin found himself before the doors of a mansion of noble proportions. From the head of the broad steps he looked about him and recognised the long narrow park of trees as that of Eaton Square. A voice said:

“Come in, Mr. Maturin. A wretched night.”

“Thank you,” said Mr. Maturin. “It is.”

Within, in a vast hall floored with black and white marble, he found himself faced by an old gentleman who, as the small seedy man had said, was even taller than himself. Mr. Maturin bowed. The tall old gentleman said:

“It is good of you to have come, Mr. Maturin. I thank you. I must confess, however, that I expected you would.”

“It is a rare pleasure for me, Sir Guy, to do what is expected of me,” smiled Mr. Maturin.

“You know me then! You recognised me to-night at your—your club?”

Mr. Maturin smiled at that. It was, let’s face it, a low club. But, what with one thing and another, he had had to resign from all his others. He only said:

“Naturally. Who does not know you, Sir Guy!”

The deep old eyes seemed to pierce the younger man with a savage contempt. “In coming here to-night, Mr. Maturin,” said old Sir Guy, “am I to understand that you are serious? You have, as you may know, something of a reputation for having made an art of misbehaviour.”

Mr. Maturin delayed answering while he thoughtfully considered the ceiling of the great hall, which was so high as to refuse itself to exact scrutiny. At the gaming-club that night he had immediately recognised the formidable old gentleman; for the great lean height, the sabre-wound across the left cheek, the mass of loosely brushed white hair and the savage blue eyes under bushy white eyebrows, were the well-known marks of Sir Guy Conduit de Gramercy, a seigneur of a past century who made no secret of the fact that he disdained any part in this. For a passing moment Mr. Maturin had wondered what the proud old gentleman was doing in those depths; but now, revealed as the donor of the magnificent note, he could not but suspect what had brought Sir Guy down from his contemptuous seclusion. Sir Guy’s descent, however, was far from pleasing to Beau Maturin, for it always offended that man as much to see pride humbled and the mighty fallen as to watch the lowly being exalted and the humble getting above themselves. Mr. Maturin was not a religious man; but he was decidedly one who had what he called “let’s face it, a code of ethics.”

“Why, I’m serious enough,” said he at last. “I take your gift——”

“Ha!” snapped the old gentleman.

“In the spirit in which you give it, Sir Guy.”

“And what the devil can you know of that, sir?”

“Nothing, nothing!” said Mr. Maturin peaceably, and without more ado old Sir Guy led the way into a wide, dim room lined with many books in rare bindings, for here was a small part of the famous de Gramercy library. From the shadows a lady emerged. Very beautiful this lady must have been in her youth, but she was no longer young and now a sad, gentle dignity was the flower of her personality, half hiding, while it half revealed, the lovely dead graces of her youth. It was plain to see, however, that she was not in her best looks this night, for her eyes were as though strained with some pitiless anxiety; and, distantly acknowledging Mr. Maturin’s bow, she retired again into the shadows of the room, for it is only in the East that vanity dies with youth.

Said old Sir Guy: “I believe you have met my daughter-in-law. She and my granddaughter are staying with me for a few days.”

From her shadows Mrs. de Gramercy spoke swiftly, almost breathlessly, as though she would at all costs and quickly be done with something she must say:

“Mr. Maturin, I have tried my best to dissuade Sir Guy from taking this step. I feel there must be a way of effecting our—our wish other than one which must offend you so deeply——”

The voice of the old gentleman fell like a bar of iron across the poor lady’s swift light speech. “Eleanour, you will kindly leave this to me, as you promised. And Mr. Maturin is, I fancy, past taking offence at the truth.”

“That depends on the truth,” said Mr. Maturin in a reasonable way. “So far, I am quite mystified.”

“You lie, Mr. Maturin. You are not mystified.”

“Very well, sir. I lie. I am not mystified.”

Said Mrs. de Gramercy in distress: “I think, then, I will leave you, since I can do nothing——”

“You will kindly stay, Eleanour. Surely you see that the occasion needs the authority of your presence!”

“Yes, please stay, Mrs. de Gramercy,” Mr. Maturin begged. “For if I am called a liar by my host while you are present, Heaven only knows what I may not be called when you are gone. Please stay. And, if I may, I would like to congratulate you on a very beautiful and talented daughter.”

Quivering with passion, the gigantic old man raised an arm. Mr. Maturin did not move. He was lazy, and disliked moving.

“Mr. Maturin,” the old man whispered just audibly, “you are an unbelievable cad! You are the—sir, you are the ace of cads!”

“Father, please!” the lady begged from the shadows, but in return Mr. Maturin begged her not to be distressed, protesting that the insult was not so pointed as it first appeared, whereas it would certainly be provoking to be called the deuce of cads, which in the degree of degradations must take a place near that of being run over by a Ford car. “But please continue, Sir Guy. Your last words were that I am the ace of cads. I would beg you not be constrained by any such small consideration as my presence in your house.”

“Sit down, sit down,” said a hidalgo to a hound, but it was Sir Guy himself who sat down, while the other remained standing before the fireplace. Mr. Maturin, for all his forty odd years of self-indulgence, had still a very good figure, and he liked to be seen at his best. He has, in point of fact, the best figure of any man in this book, and should therefore be treated with some respect. Mrs. de Gramercy, a shadow of distress, sat in a deep chair away in the dimness of the room. And the thousands of books around the oak walls lent a fictitious air of dignity to an occasion which must have embarrassed any but a grand seigneur and an ace of cads. Sir Guy, with a perceptible effort at calm, addressed Mr. Maturin:

“As you may have gathered, sir, I want you to do me a service——”

“Only a great brain like mine could have divined it, sir.”

“Mr. Maturin, would you not provoke my father-in-law!” spoke the lady sharply, and was as sharply told:

“This is men’s business, Eleanour. Now, sir! My son, this lady’s husband, was killed in the war, as you may know. The best men were killed, Mr. Maturin. Fate is not very generous to fine men in time of war. You, I believe, were years ago cashiered from the Brigade for drunkenness in a restaurant?”

“I assure you, sir, that the provocation was more than I could bear,” Mr. Maturin explained with a gravity becoming in one faced by such a misdeed. “I am, you must know, very musical. Perhaps you would hardly think it, but I undoubtedly have a musical flair. And in that wretched restaurant the orchestra would insist on playing Mendelssohn’s Spring Song! Now I put it to you, Sir Guy—and to you, Mrs. de Gramercy, if I may—could a man bear Mendelssohn’s Spring Song over dinner? Yet I bore myself with a fortitude which some of my lighter friends have since been kind enough to think remarkable. I begged the conductor to cease, once, twice, and thrice; and then, you know, I wasted a bottle of wine over his head. I was hasty, let’s face it. But the provocation!”

Dimly spoke Mrs. de Gramercy from the shadows:

“Father, I believe Mr. Maturin has a D.S.O. with a bar.”

“Mr. Maturin,” the old gentleman said, “I apologise if I have seemed to reflect at all on your courage. Such men as you are, I believe, frequently very courageous——”

“Only when drunk, Sir Guy. In which such men as I are very much the same as other men. Were you, may I ask, ever in a trench before an attack?”

“My fighting days were over before Omdurman, sir——”

“Oh, dear, dashing Omdurman! Illustrations by R. Caton Woodville! You will agree with me that one didn’t need the stimulus of alcohol to turn machine-guns on to a lot of septic-looking niggers without even a water-pistol between them, even though they were devils with assegais, darts, catapults or boomerangs. But the Germans needed fighting. I remember——”

“That will do, Mr. Maturin. Your modesty takes as singular a form as your manners. My son, I was saying, was killed in the war, and his son and daughter were left to the charge of their mother. My grandchildren, Mr. Maturin—heirs to an ancient name and a fortune which must, by decent people, be taken as a responsibility rather than as a means for self-indulgence. I have never agreed with that principle of privilege which demands respect for ancient lineage and great fortune: such things alone are merely baubles; and without the dignity of some office and the ardour of some responsibility they can be of no value, but rather of grave detriment, to serious minds.”

“Oh, quite,” said Mr. Maturin.

“I wished my grandchildren to be brought up to a lofty conception of the duties of their station. My son had, quite rightly, a great regard for the strength and good-sense of his wife, and left her as their sole guardian. I, who have a no less regard for my daughter-in-law, was content with the situation; and, with my mind at rest, continued to lead the very retired life to which my years entitle me, even had I been able to endure the manners of a generation of which, Mr. Maturin, you are such a polished example. Thus, it was only lately that I heard of my grandson’s folly. My grandson, Mr. Maturin! Or must I call upon you to strain your imagination before you can realise that there are still some men in this world to whom the honour of their name is dear!

“I was as displeased as I was surprised when I heard that my daughter-in-law had lately met you at a ball at Lady Carnal’s. The Carnals of my day were more discreet in their introductions. In my day, sir, such fine gentlemen as you were not so easily enabled to corrupt youth by your companionship. Such men as you, sir, used not to be received in decent houses. Nor had good people yet become inured to the habit of going to balls in the houses of parvenu Americans and grotesquely rich Jews, to mix with bankrupts, card-sharpers, notorious adulterers and Socialist politicians. In some such house you must have met my grandson; and, Mr. Maturin, I must grant you the quality of attraction, little though I myself may be privileged to feel it, for with your good looks and casual airs you seem to taint every child you meet. You corrupted my grandson, Mr. Maturin! You flattered him by treating him as a grown man, you taught him to gamble, to dissipate, and, worst of all, to think uncleanly. Both my grandson and my granddaughter, as you were aware, have fortunes of their own from their mother’s father—and by God, sir, you played the devil with that wretched boy’s money, didn’t you!”

“Why,” Mr. Maturin smiled, “the boy enjoyed money for the first time in his life! Until he met me, Sir Guy, he had only worried about what he was going to do with it.”

“And did he, Mr. Maturin, enjoy the money he lost to you at cards? It is not for nothing, I have gathered, that you are spoken of as the best picquet player in London. That wretched boy would, I am sure, give you a certificate——”

“I should be even better pleased, Sir Guy, with a cheque for what he owes me.”

“You shall have it. Eleanour, my cheque-book! A flower in hell, Mr. Maturin, would not be more lonely than a debt of honour on your person.”

“Quite,” said Mr. Maturin, thoughtfully folding the cheque. “Thank you very much.”

“I have dealt with the boy,” old Sir Guy went on in a low voice, “as you are no doubt aware; and he is now expiating his folly and, I hope, regaining his health and self-respect, with some hard work on my Canadian property. At our last meeting he defended you to me. He remained, you understand, a gentleman even after his connection with you, and he couldn’t but speak up for one who had been his friend.”

“He was a good boy,” said Mr. Maturin softly. “I liked that boy.”

Sir Guy rose to his full lean height. The two men faced one another. “Mr. Maturin,” the old gentleman said, “you have corrupted my grandson. You have plundered the best years of his life. Have you anything to say?”

Mr. Maturin said: “If you don’t mind, sir, I will reserve my defence. Isn’t there still worse to come?”

Sir Guy stared, as though he was seeing him for the first time, at the elegant figure who stood with his back to the fire, warming his hands. The savage old man was, so far as it was possible for him to be, nonplussed. Always a great reader of those memoirs and belles-lettres that tell intimately of the lives of gentlemen of more careless and debonair times, the anatomy of galanterie, scoundrelism and coxcombry, as exemplified in the Restoration gallants and the eighteenth-century fops, had interested old Sir Guy’s leisure; but never had he thought he would be faced by one so completely unashamed, so bad, by one who could wear the evil dandysme of his soul as nonchalantly as a monocle. Sir Guy again sat himself at his long, burdened writing-table and played thoughtfully with a paper-knife. For the first time in his life he was faced with the humiliation of not knowing what to do: for here before him was a man, an incredible man, to whom such ancient words as honour, loyalty, betrayal, were without meaning. Beau Maturin would take such words, distort them with a slanting smile, put false feet to them, and send them tripping away on the wings of a merry laugh. Merry, for what could shame such a man from his gaiety? And Sir Guy realised now that he had made a mistake in sending Capel Maturin the bank-note. He had sent it to arouse the man’s curiosity, thus to ensure his presence at this interview, from which the old gentleman still, though grimly, expected the best issue; but, more particularly, he had sent that bank-note as an earnest of what he might be prepared to do for Mr. Maturin if he would help the de Gramercys to bring about that blessed issue. But now Sir Guy realised his false step. A thousand pounds more or less did not matter very much to him; but did they matter so very much, he could now reflect, to that pretty, penniless gentleman? Money, to be sure, could not be of the first importance to so complete a cad as Capel Maturin: he had spent his own considerable fortune quickly enough, and, they said, generously enough: it must, thought Sir Guy, be the little cads to whom money really appealed.

The old gentleman’s voice, when he continued, was more subdued, less proud. And has it not been already remarked that Mr. Maturin did not like to see the descent from pride to humility? which, had he had any part of virtue, he should have taken for a sign of grace, even as it is written in the Scriptures. But maybe he did not notice the slight tremor that played in that proud old voice before it could be subdued, for at the moment he was intent on examining his patent-leather shoes, which were exquisite examples of Lobb’s later manner.

Sir Guy was saying: “My grandson, you corrupted. My granddaughter, you have sed——”

“Dear!” cried Mrs. de Gramercy.

Mr. Maturin was quite silent, examining his shoes.

“Perhaps that was too harsh a word,” the old gentleman conceded—he conceded!

“It was,” said Beau Maturin softly. “Much.”

Now Sir Guy’s voice was so low as to be barely audible, while his eyes were as though enchanted by the monogram on his paper-knife.

“I was carried beyond my intention, Mr. Maturin. I apologise, to you and to the child’s mother. But I have had a day that I would not wish for my bitterest enemy. I am very old, Mr. Maturin. Peace, comfort, heart’s ease, have lately assumed an importance which only a few years ago I would have disdained to allow them. Was it essential to you, Capel Maturin, to pilfer my granddaughter from me?”

“But why do you say ‘pilfer,’ sir? Am I not allowed to be like any other man, to make love?”

“Men,” said old Sir Guy, “did not, I thought, make love to young girls. Bankrupts, I am sure, should not. And a man who has been a corespondent in two notorious divorce cases—he cannot! Mr. Maturin, it is not that I wish to insult you wantonly, but——”

“I quite understand, Sir Guy. Let us, after all, face the facts.”

“Yes. My granddaughter has just come of age—and, incidentally, into her fortune. You, I believe, are forty or so——”

“Ah, those confounded facts! Forty-seven.”

“I must say they become you very lightly. But, even so, there is a grave disparity of age between you and the child; and, Mr. Maturin, there is an even graver disparity of everything else. By Heaven, man, how could you, how could any man like you, have so blinded yourself to all the decencies of life as to put yourself in the way of a girl like my granddaughter!”

“I’m positively damned if I know!” murmured Mr. Maturin. “But these things happen. They just happen, Sir Guy.”

Sir Guy at last looked up from the shine of the paper-knife; and pressing down with his knuckles on the writing-table as though to steady himself, said: “Mr. Maturin, to-day I have had the greatest shock of my life. My granddaughter told me she was going to marry you.”

“A brave girl!” said Mr. Maturin softly.

The old gentleman’s voice trembled. “Man, you cannot be serious!”

“I can be in love!” said Mr. Maturin coldly.

“Love!” cried the lady in the shadows.

“More,” said Mr. Maturin, “I can love. I did not know that until quite lately. I did not know that when I was young. I get quite rhetorical when I think of it. I did not know, Sir Guy, of this beautiful thing lying in wait for me, Capel Maturin—to love, without fear, without shame, even without hope, without desire——”

“Without desire!” cried Mrs. de Gramercy. “Mr. Maturin, aren’t you exalting yourself?”

Mr. Maturin suddenly looked old and very tired. He said: “I did not speak the exact truth a moment ago. I knew when I was young that I could love. I suspected it. I have awaited the moment for many years. Of course, I have had to kill time meanwhile. I must inform you, Sir Guy, that when I was born a sunflower looked over a wall in Elm Park Gardens. All the gardeners in the neighbourhood were astounded. No sunflower has ever before looked over a wall in Elm Park Gardens. It could only have meant that I would love—one day. And the day has come, I love.”

Sir Guy said: “You blaspheming poseur!”

“I beg your pardon,” said Mr. Maturin, “for speaking the truth about myself. People are not used to hearing others speak the truth about themselves. It shall not occur again.”

The voice of Mrs. de Gramercy rose bitterly from the shadows: “Love! What, dear Heaven, do you mean by ‘love,’ Mr. Maturin?”

“Love,” said Mr. Maturin, “is one of the few diseases of the liver which cannot be cured by temperance or an apple a day. That is merely a suggestion.”

“A vile one!” said old Sir Guy.

“Sorry,” sighed Mr. Maturin.

“Mr. Maturin,” cried Mrs. de Gramercy, “how dare you, you of all men, talk so glibly of love! For you were right just now, when you spoke in jest. For men like you love is no more than a fine word for a physical distemper.”

“Mental,” said Mr. Maturin. “Quite mental, I assure you.”

“It’s a passing mood, it doesn’t last! Oh, the lives that have been crucified in the name of love! And now you would crucify my little Joan’s!”

Sir Guy said with savage calm: “Come, come, Eleanour, not so dramatic! You will make the man shy. Mr. Maturin,” Sir Guy went on with a perceptible effort, “I cannot stop the girl from marrying, as you know. She came of age to-day, and from to-day has her own fortune. But, man, is there no way in which we can appeal to your—your generosity! I pay you the compliment of thinking that you are not intending to marry Joan primarily for her money. Am I right?”

“I don’t know. You see,” Mr. Maturin rose to explain seriously, “these things get awfully entangled. To-night, as you saw, the cards ran very badly against me. And as I came away from the place I was so annoyed with myself that I emptied my pockets of the last penny I had. I was intending to begin life entirely afresh from to-morrow. With your daughter, madam, if I may say so. For I am like any other Englishman, Sir Guy, very sentimental about money when I haven’t any and not in the least romantic about it when I have. And so I thought I wouldn’t bring the taint of what money I had to my life with Joan. You must allow me, Sir Guy, and you, Mrs. de Gramercy, to respect and love Joan.”

“And I almost believe you do!” said Sir Guy savagely. “After your fashion. But fashions change, Mr. Maturin.”

“And so do the moon, the stars, the clouds and dancing; yet, let’s face it, they are eternal and everlasting. Sir Guy, I would wish to marry your granddaughter if she were penniless. Why should I not marry her because she is not penniless? What is this spurious humbug about honour that covers the middle and upper classes of England like verdigris: that a poor man may not with honour marry a rich woman, that a poor girl can only “sell” herself to a rich man? Can a man or woman not be loved, then, because he or she is rich? Is that what our religion means when it says that a rich man shall not enter the kingdom of heaven? Was it for that, then, that the late Charles Garvice devoted his life?”

“A moment!” Sir Guy begged wearily. “I am to understand from this rigmarole that you hold Joan to her promise?”

“Mr. Maturin, please!” sighed, as though involuntarily, the voice from the shadows.

Mr. Maturin lit another cigarette and inhaled it. “Wasn’t Joan,” he asked, “at all swayed by your arguments against me? They must have been cogent enough, I fancy.”

“Like the boy,” Sir Guy said with sudden gentleness, “she defended you. You have some magic for youth, it seems. They admit your faults, but do not hold them against your character. But I have observed that it takes grown-up people to condemn caddishness. Children will overlook it.”

“True,” said Mr. Maturin. “You see, Sir Guy, children like people for what they are, not for what they do.” He turned to the dim lady. “I fancy,” he said, “that you have both got hold of the wrong end of the stick. I mean, don’t you see, that it’s not really much use persuading me to give Joan up. I mean, it wouldn’t be much use if I did.”

“How, sir!”

“Mr. Maturin, I don’t quite understand.”

“Well, let’s face it, we must persuade her to give me up. Otherwise,” said Mr. Maturin with an air of conviction, “if I were to break my promise to her she would guess that it was at your persuasion—you might indeed insinuate that you had paid me off, but she wouldn’t believe it—and you would be faced for the rest of your days by an accusing girl. And that would be beastly for you.”

There was a heavy silence: which fled sharply before a rattle when old Sir Guy, with a gesture of distaste, flung his paper-knife on to the table.

“Do I understand you to be caring for my old age, Mr. Maturin?”

“Neither your youth nor your old age are of any interest for me, sir. I am merely suggesting that if I were to give up Joan without her consent she would make a martyr of herself. Her very name will encourage the idea. Mrs. de Gramercy, I am sure you understand me.”

“But,” the lady cried gladly, “does this mean that you will give Joan up? Father, I knew he would. Oh, I knew!”

Mr. Maturin said quickly: “You have misunderstood me. I will not give Joan up.”

“Bah!” snapped Sir Guy.

“But,” said Mr. Maturin.

“Bah!” snapped Sir Guy.

“But,” said Mr. Maturin, “I will persuade Joan to give me up.”

“Oh, thank God, thank God!” breathed the mother.

“For,” said Mr. Maturin, “it is, as you say, a deplorable connection. I see that. Besides, when the sunflower looked over the wall in Elm Park Gardens nothing was said about my being loved, only that I should love. And how much more fitting, Sir Guy, for a lady to disown a cad than for a cad to disown a lady! Let us be reasonable.”

The taut old gentleman seemed almost to smile. “You are a dangerous comedian, Mr. Maturin. And how will you effect this finesse?”

“Is Joan awake? Splendid! The practice of love grows easier every moment. You ought to try it, Sir Guy. Do you mind if I now make a small speech? It is about girls. Girls are by nature hero-worshippers. When they are not they dress badly and write novels. There is, however, some nonsense abroad to the effect that there is a ‘modern’ girl. How one detests the word ‘modern!’ Disbelieve in the existence of the ‘modern’ girl, Sir Guy. Girlhood is an ancient situation, is exalted by ancient joys, suffers ancient sorrows, reacts to ancient words. There is no modern girl except on the tongues of certain silly people who find an outlet for their own lewdness by ascribing it to other people.”

“And what is the point of all this, sir?”

“It is that no girl, Sir Guy, ancient or modern or what-not, will cease to love a man because of any of the ordinary accusations you can bring against him. There is only one which will destroy her love. You may call her man a cad, and she will smile, and if you repeat it she will get bored. He may be a burglar, but she won’t cease to love him, for is not the world a den of thieves? A poisoner, and she may still love him, for are there not many whom it would be good to poison? A coward, and she may not despise him, for girls are not necessarily fools and brave men can make uncommonly dull lovers. A card-sharper, and she may excuse him, for does not God Himself play with loaded dice? But verily, I say unto you, prove that man guilty of a deep disloyalty and at that moment her love will be as distant as your youth, Sir Guy, and as dead as mine; for disloyalty is the only bedfellow love will certainly reject. Will you call your daughter in, Mrs. de Gramercy, and I will tell her a story? Perhaps it will interest you, too.”

“Call her, Eleanour,” said old Sir Guy. “I fancy Mr. Maturin will have no difficulty in persuading her of his ineligibility on those grounds.”

“True,” said Mr. Maturin. “True.”

III

Now, at last, the occasion is complete, the parts of the comedy all filled: the persons of the play bear themselves with becoming suspense: and the scene is richly set with age, dignity, devilry and youth, one and all essential to the true spirit of comedy.

The grandeur of distress, the lofty silence of disdain—there is the girl’s mother in her shadowed chair and Sir Guy Conduit de Gramercy at his writing-table, the light of the shaded lamp by his elbow laying a rich gloss on his thick white hair. The indifference that masks the depths of emotion, the faint mockery, the deep gravity, and the cunning candour of love——there is Joan de Gramercy coiled in a chair near her mother, a girl with those cool eyes that dare a man to surprise in them any secret that they will not, in their own good time, completely surrender to him.

Mr. Maturin, handsome Beau Maturin, is talking. He generally is. A talkative man, let’s face it.

“Joan,” he addressed the girl’s eyes, “your mother and your grandfather have objected to our engagement. We guessed they would, you remember? Just lately, in fact, we’ve been guessing nothing else. Unfortunately for their authority, however, they are not in a position to prevent it. Now, Joan, we have had quite a long conversation in here, a little about you, but considerably more about me. That I am as God made me is a truth your grandfather will not for a moment admit. He is convinced that I am a good deal worse. That I am in love, your mother is unkind enough to doubt. She is convinced that I am suffering from a physical distemper. And so, just as you were not swayed by your guardians’ arguments to-day, I have not been swayed by them to-night——”

“How, sir!” cried Sir Guy hotly. “Are you——”

“I am talking, Sir Guy. But, Joan,” continued Mr. Maturin, “they insisted that I could cure you of your attachment to me, if I wished. I pointed out that I had already put myself before you as a man whose character contained certain grave flaws; and that you had, while deploring my recent and second bankruptcy and my only too frequent lapses from the strictly moral code, chosen to believe that there is still some good in me, and had therefore remained by your decision to become my wife. Your mother and grandfather, however, have dared me to tell you the complete truth about myself and yet hold you. Joan, did I think for one moment that I would lose you in this way, I frankly admit,” said Mr. Maturin emphatically, “that I would not put my hand to any such quixotic folly——”

“After all,” said Joan de Gramercy, “the past is dead.”

“My point exactly, child. And that is why,” said Mr. Maturin, “if only to satisfy your mother and grandfather of the inevitability of your choice and of my complete faith in your love, I have decided to do what I will do. Listen, Joan——”

It was Sir Guy’s stern voice that fell on the room like an axe.

“You live up to my description of you completely, Mr. Maturin. You are indeed the ace of cads! For now you are betraying your word of a few minutes ago.”

“I do wish you wouldn’t interrupt,” said Mr. Maturin warmly. “I am embarked, let’s face it, on a suspension-bridge of very doubtful strength and you keep on trying to upset my balance with sweeping comments on my character. My tale, Joan,” he continued into the middle air, and spoke from this moment on with his eyes fixed absently in the shadows of the books on the shelves opposite, “my tale has to do with many years ago. Now I have been and I have done many things in my time; and have become one of those men of whom it is vaguely said, ‘He could write a book about his life,’ which of course means that I have done everything in my life except write a book. At the time I speak of I was a subaltern in a Guards regiment; a mode of life which, it may distress you to hear, Sir Guy, bored me in the extreme. As, however, the small allowance my father gave me was contingent on my retaining my commission, and as even the smallest allowance is better than a poke in the eye, I endured in patience the while I gave myself up to the pleasures of the town. You must not for a moment think,” protested Mr. Maturin with feeling, “that I am trying to belittle the gentlemen of the Brigade, for better men than I have tried and failed at that game: nor that I am a slave to malice, for as you know I was later expelled from their company: but truth compels me to confess that my companions of those days were notable rather for the correctness of their appearance than for their learning, while their charm was of that static, profound sort which no one could call ingratiating and a certain kind of primitive badinage was held among them to be the superior of wit. And as time went on I came to be esteemed among the lighter sort for those qualities of the tongue and mind that are calculated to send any man, in due course, headlong down the crooked path.

“But I must tell you I had one very great friend among them. This was a man who had everything I had not: a simple frankness, a plain but almost painfully honest bearing, and a heart like gold; which was then, of course, more evidently in circulation than it is now. I cannot imagine how a boy of that sort could have loved and admired me; but he undoubtedly did, and to a singular degree, so that I was frequently enabled to borrow money from him almost painlessly, for he was heir to a great fortune, with which went a great name; although, to be sure, he was often as hard put to it as I was to fit a morsel of caviare to a piece of toast, for his father had ideas about real estate quite contrary to ours.

“My friend became engaged to a beautiful girl. What she saw in the boy, I do not know. Women are, let’s face it, odd. That she loved him, I was instantly certain. Even my youthful cynicism could not ascribe to her the mean calculation of a fortune-hunter. That he loved her, madly and madly again, he frequently made clear to me in those broken and inarticulate periods that are the hall-mark of all honest Englishmen in love: and which, being often quite inaudible, have earned for Englishmen a delightful reputation for restraint. But let us not generalise when we can so profitably be particular.

“We were at that time in the barracks that guard the frontiers of Chelsea: my friend and I in adjacent rooms. Our ways of life, however, were at that time vastly different; for as I was passing through a financial void I would, with that resignation which no one can deny has been my one consistent virtue, go early to bed every night: whereas my friend would return night after night at about this hour, having escorted his betrothed home after a play and a ball; and night after night, as he prepared himself for bed in the adjoining room, he would softly whistle a tune. Thus, you understand, he expressed his happiness; and killed it, for the walls were thin and the tune intolerable.

“It was Mendelssohn’s Spring Song; and, Sir Guy, I have already told you,” said Mr. Maturin with a glance at the old gentleman, who was listening with every mark of attention if not of approval, “how my distaste for that composition led me, some months after the time I speak of, to a hasty action. But what that same distaste caused me to do to that boy was not done hastily.

“One day I borrowed a sum of money from him. He, poor boy, was so absorbed in his happiness that he scarcely noticed the third zero which, having seen how readily he had already attached two, I persuaded him to add to the primary numeral on the cheque. Whereupon, with his full permission, and a thousand pounds of his money, I prepared to make myself agreeable to his fiancée.

“He trusted me implicitly, that boy. And who,” Mr. Maturin asked dreamily of the middle distance, “who will tell the tale of the ramifications and subtleties and intrigues of the next few weeks, how I used every art on that beautiful girl, how she came to believe in my love for her—and maybe I believed in it myself—how she came to look wearily on the honest but plain features of her fiancé, how she came to suffer his inarticulate periods with a doubtful smile; and how finally—though he had long since ceased to whistle the Spring Song—she broke her engagement to him, and had certainly become my wife but that I was at about that time expelled from the Brigade and was never, until quite lately, a marrying man. That is all; and, I think,” said Beau Maturin softly, looking round at the chair which had until a moment ago been occupied by the figure of Joan de Gramercy, “quite enough.”

Sir Guy was silent: his thin long hands clasped nervously together on the surface of the writing-table, he stared fixedly at a point on the carpet. Mrs. de Gramercy was silent. Mr. Maturin examined, for quite a while, the points of his shoes. At last he murmured: “Well....”

Sir Guy said, as though to himself: “That was a very dreadful story.”

“Wasn’t it!” Mr. Maturin agreed gravely. “Well, good-night, Mrs. de Gramercy. Good-night, Sir Guy.” And he strode towards the distant shadows by the door.

“A moment!” the old gentleman seemed to awake. “Mr. Maturin, my daughter-in-law and I have to thank you. Good-bye.”

The tall shadow by the door, as though on the impulse of a sudden memory, seemed to touch the outside of his breast-pocket. “Oh, by the way,” he said, “I will, if you don’t mind, keep this bank-note. Your house owes it to me. Good-bye, good de Gramercys!”

Through the silence of the house the two heard the steps of Beau Maturin on the flags of the hall, the closing of the front-door, the faint echo of his passage down the square. Sir Guy was staring bemused at the still, distant figure of his daughter-in-law.

“What did he say, Eleanour? that our house owed him that money? What on earth did the man mean?”

“What he said,” the shadow whispered, and then it laughed, and old Sir Guy jumped from his chair with the queer shock of that laugh.

“Eleanour!”

As she came towards him he took her hands in his and looked intently down at her. Her eyes were very, very tired. She said: “I am very tired. I will go to bed now.”

Old Sir Guy held her hands very tenderly. “But what is on your mind, Eleanour? Why did you laugh in that dreadful way?”

She opened those tired eyes very wide. “Oh, surely, dear, I am allowed that—to laugh at your having called Beau Maturin the ace of cads!”

Old Sir Guy said sternly: “Yes, you are tired, Eleanour. You are not yourself.”

“Poor old gentleman!” she tenderly, bitterly, smiled up at him. “Poor old gentleman! Dear, like all your generation you have been wrong about everything in ours, but everything! Oh, you have been so wrong about what was good and what was rotten in young people! Wrong about your son, about me, about Beau Maturin——”

Sir Guy snapped with savage impatience: “You will kindly explain, Eleanour, what all this fantastic nonsense is about.”

“Of course,” she said thoughtfully, “there was a certain amount of excuse for your son Basil. I made it rather easy for him. You see, dear, Capel Maturin lied. As usual, you might say. Well, yes. He just told the story the wrong way round. You know, I was once engaged to be married to Mr. Maturin. And he introduced me to his best friend, Basil de Gramercy. Oh, dear, why did you give your son such a very small allowance? Whereas to be able to seduce his best friend’s fiancée he needed money. But Capel Maturin had done very well on the Derby that year, and Basil easily managed to borrow a thousand from him, for no one, let’s face it, could ever call Beau Maturin mean with money. And one day Mr. Maturin, who used to whistle the Spring Song to himself because he and I both loved it, suddenly found that I preferred Basil’s prospects to his good looks. I don’t suppose you can even yet realise, dear, the exquisite revenge that Mr. Maturin has had of me and of your house to-night. He intended, obviously, to marry my daughter: how, you might say, could I have borne that? But I tell you I could have borne it infinitely better than the memory of this night. Here I have sat, a faded woman, while Capel Maturin, fresher and more handsome in bankruptcy than ever I have been in success, having won my daughter’s love, killed it out of pity for you—Oh, not for me!—with a tale which, however he had told it, does me very little honour. And, for pity’s sake, for your sake, he spared you your son. I should not have told you now; I have done wrong, but I had to. Even the old, dear, cannot be allowed to be wrong about everything all the time! But don’t look so sad! Why do you, why should you, look so sad? After all, the de Gramercys have had everything they ever wanted from me and my daughter—and the ace of cads certainly hasn’t! Good-night, dear.”

III: WHERE THE PIGEONS GO TO DIE

I

NOW it is as much as their jobs are worth for the authorities responsible for the amenities of the town not to employ a man on the clear understanding that every once in a while he climbs to the very top of Lord Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square to cleanse away such refuse as might have collected about the immortal sailor’s feet. And it is to the good man who undertakes this perilous task that we owe a piece of information which cannot fail to interest gentles and simples. He tells how he never but finds numerous pigeons lying dead about the feet of our sailor hero. Sometimes there will be not more than a score or so, sometimes there may be close on an hundred, and he relates on oath how he once removed, in a bag which he takes up with him for that purpose, the bodies of pigeons to the number of one-hundred-and-thirty-four: among which, he tells with awe, there was the corpse of a pretty white dove.

That was on the evening of the first of May of the year of grace 1924, and the reason why the good man tells with awe of the dove among the pigeons is because it was on that very evening that he was vexed by a strange phenomenon. The facts may interest the curious.

The prodigious number of the dead pigeons had kept him at his task much later than usual; and as he picked up the dove he chanced to look up at Lord Nelson, who stood at that moment in the light and shadow of the sun as it set beyond Admiralty Arch, and the good man fancied that the stern face of my Lord Nelson frowned.

Unseemly though it is to doubt any man’s word, the sceptical sort may be permitted to question whether the fellow was at that moment seeing straight, and whether it was not the fanciful light of twilight that had set him thinking that Lord Nelson had indulged in a passing frown.

But to more kindly folk the good man’s fancy will not present such marvellous features when they know that it was on the evening of that first of May that Miss Pamela Wych came upon an event beneath Lord Nelson’s eyes that completely changed the course of her whole life.

II

The clear cool eyes of Miss Wych were clouded that spring evening. Miss Wych was thinking. All about her the London of Oxford Street marched and screamed and hooted, but Miss Wych walked unheeding, alone as a tulip in a wild garden. The London of Oxford Street was like a soiled silk handkerchief waving frantically to the evening sun but the genius of thought draped the young lithe figure with a rare calm dignity. Now Miss Wych was nearly always calm, for such was her nature. But she was not always dignified, for dignity comes very rarely to youth, dignity is a gentle blossom that grows with the years, and when dignity comes to youth it comes always unconsciously, it is fleeting, frail, sad. We are not speaking of the dignity of anger, but of the dignity of sorrow. Miss Wych was sad that evening.

All that day, whilst she was at her allotted tasks in the millinery department of Messrs. Come & Go, Miss Wych had been saying to herself: “I must think. I will think this evening. One doesn’t think nearly enough. I will think a lot this evening. I will walk home, thinking. I do hope it keeps fine.”

That is what Miss Wych had thought, for she was very conscientious in the fulfilment of her duties in the millinery department, and she always did her best not to intrude her private concerns into her service of Messrs. Come & Go. Not that either Mr. Come or Mr. Go could possibly have noticed it if she had, since her service was but an atom among the service of one thousand and five hundred employées; for Messrs. Come & Go’s was advertised as the largest store in London, and why should anyone doubt the verity of such beautiful advertisements as those of Messrs. Come & Go, which tell unceasingly of the divers bargains that can be bought for next to nothing by Mr. Everyman and Mrs. Everywoman merely by entering within and being smiled at affectionately by either Mr. Come or Mr. Go in person, and all delivered at Mr. Everyman’s door within twenty-four hours in plain motors. Anyone can see by their advertisements that Mr. Come and Mr. Go have got all other men beat on philanthropy, and how they manage to live at all is very puzzling, but no doubt they have private incomes of their own and don’t rely on making any money out of their store.

Miss Wych had never so much as set eyes on her great employers, but she would wonder a great deal about them, and she would wonder particularly about the great men’s youth. Now Miss Wych admired success above all things. Those clear cool eyes looked at life, this teeming chaotic life in which she was an atom of service, and as she looked at life a prince in shining armour of gold and sapphire stepped forth from the boiling ranks, brave with triumph, flaming with youth, indeed a very prince of princes. And the name of this prince was Success. That is how Miss Wych thought of success, like a glorious lover. She loved success, like a glorious lover. And once upon a time she had tried to win him for herself, Miss Wych had once tried her fortune on the stage, but unfortunately the glorious lover had looked very coldly on her, for, as the producer had said: “Miss Wych is a nice girl but a bum actress.”

The gentle circumstance of evening transmuted the trumpeting and soiled machines on the road into shining caravans, but never a glance at these wonders did Miss Wych give. Of the passers-by, one and all hurrying to the assault of tubes and omnibuses, maybe one here and there forfeited his place through looking twice at Miss Wych. Miss Wych was a very pretty girl. Her eyes were grey. Her nose would have looked absurd on anyone’s else face, because it was so small. Her face was as white as the moon.

Since she had made up her mind to walk to her boarding-house in South Kensington she did not join the people waiting for omnibuses at the corner of Marble Arch and Park Lane. They who had been in such haste a moment before now waited so quietly, so uneagerly, as though they didn’t care whether they were going home or not. The stillness of Park Lane seemed to Miss Wych very refreshing after the din of the panting hosts of Oxford Street. She walked in the broken shadows of the Park railings. A young man on a black horse cantered by, looking as though he had bought the world for tuppence and wanted his money back. Now and then an omnibus rolled by, rolled on, and on, and on, the red-and-white monster born of man’s divine gift for making his life intolerable. A young lady with a bright red hat in a little silver car tore by like a jewel in a hurry. Huge limousines sped, sped swiftly by, like shining insects whispering to Miss Wych of a grander world than the world of Miss Wych. The people in Hyde Park walked slowly to and fro listening to each other. When the sun lit their faces they looked brown and gold and copper-red, but otherwise they looked tired. Through the railings the sun fell in bars of gold about her feet and kissed the dark hair that waved over her ears, so that the dark hair shone in a way that was a wonder to behold. Miss Wych, of course, was always wishing that her hair was fair, but she was quite wrong about that. The thoughts of Miss Wych as she walked roughly: “The sun is sinking, if it only knew it, into Kensington Gardens. The sun is sinking, if it only knew it, into Kensington Gardens. The sun is....”

And a voice at her shoulder said:

“Excuse me! Please excuse me. I say, you must excuse me!”

Miss Wych thought: “And such things can happen in sunlight! O our Father, why won’t You watch Your world more carefully!”

III

Miss Wych walked on, in the broken shadows of the Park railings. And her eyes were turned to the sun, which did not know it was sinking into Kensington Gardens, for what else was there to look at? Then a bird flew across Park Lane and sat on a window-sill, and Miss Wych looked at that.

“Please,” said the voice at her shoulder. “You see, Miss Wych, I must. For I can’t bear it any more, honestly. Don’t be beastly to me, please!”

Miss Wych thought: “This is a fine thing, being spoken to by strange men! I suppose I look common or flashy or something, else he wouldn’t dare. What shall I do, oh, what shall I do? What do women do?”

“Look here,” said the voice at her shoulder, “I can’t keep this up any longer. I’m no good at speaking to people I don’t know. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” said Miss Wych.

“Oh, you’ve spoken!” cried the voice at her shoulder.

Miss Wych thought: “Oh, oh, damn!”

Miss Wych said: “This is very extraordinary behaviour. Please go away.”

Miss Wych had intended to say that icily, but in point of fact she said it very shyly. There was a girl who worked with her in the millinery department of Messrs. Come & Go who said: “When I don’t like a boy I just give him the Once-Over and he’s Off.” Miss Wych envied that girl. But she called up her courage and tried to give the stranger the Once-Over. The stranger, however, did not go Off. The stranger was a lean young man with deep dark eyes that seemed to whirl with the trouble that was in him.

“You see,” he said, “it’s like this, Miss Wych. I had to meet you somehow. But how? I did not know what to do. And so I did this. Miss Wych dear, will you forgive me?”

Miss Wych thought: “There are times when one must placate the devil. This must be one of those times.”

Then Miss Wych discovered a most extraordinary thing. She discovered that she was looking deep into the stranger’s dark eyes. She flushed as red as a tennis-court.

“This is terrible,” she said bitterly. “Terrible! How dare you speak to me! Please go away at once.”

“I can’t,” said the young stranger. “I would if I could. But I just can’t. I’m sorry.”

Miss Wych thought: “He says he’s sorry, the beast!”

“You are mad,” said Miss Wych indifferently. The sun walked in fire and glory, but the world was dark, the world was dark, and bold bad men walked the streets for to be offensive to maids. The young stranger, for instance, did not go away. He said desperately:

“If you will give me just one look you will see that I don’t mean to offend you.”

“That may be so,” said Miss Wych bitterly, “but you do.”

“You only think I do,” protested the lean young man. “That’s all it is, really.”

Then Miss Wych discovered a most extraordinary thing. She discovered that she was walking slowly, slowly. Instantly she walked on quickly.

The lean young man sighed: “Oh, dear!”

Miss Wych said breathlessly: “I don’t even know your name! And how you have got to know mine I really can’t imagine! But you don’t look wicked. Please don’t go on being nasty! Please! Won’t you go away now?”

“Pamela Wych,” the young stranger whispered, “Pamela Wych, Pamela Wych, Pamela Wych, how the devil was I to meet you except by daring this? Further, you are my fate, and what sort of a man would I be if I were to leave my fate in the very second of finding it?”

Miss Wych thought: “This is getting serious.”

“That is all very well,” she said reasonably, “talking about fate and big things like that. But when you take it as just behaviour you can see as well as I do that it is all wrong. Sir, there are things one can’t do, and this is one of them, and so you must please go away at once.”

“That is the one thing I can’t do,” said the young stranger desperately. “You see, although you won’t show me your face I can see the tip of your ear peeping out from your hair, and it is as red as a rose.”

Miss Wych thought: “This can’t go on. How would it be if I called a policeman?”

“It is red,” said the profile of Miss Wych, “for shame that a man can so insult his manhood.”

“Oh, I do wish people wouldn’t talk like those small leaders in The Daily Mail!” cried the voice at her shoulder. “I’m not insulting my manhood. I am living up to it for the first time in my life.”

Miss Wych said fiercely: “Go away, go away, go away!”

“Dear,” said the young stranger, “listen to me. You must listen to me. I am not playing.”

Miss Wych thought: “Our Father which art in Heaven——”

They were in the Park. How they had come to be in the Park Miss Wych could not imagine. Over Kensington Gardens the sun was marching to eternity with a cohort of clouds and colours.

“No,” said the lean young man, “I am certainly not playing. Miss Wych dear, this is not a ‘pick-up’——”

“It’s piracy!” said Miss Wych contemptuously.

“That’s right,” said the lean young man with the eyes of trouble.

“You say you aren’t playing,” Miss Wych bitterly complained, “but you are upsetting me very much. A little chivalry, sir, would help you to see how terrified I am.”

“I am terrified, too,” said the young stranger, “of this happiness. It can’t possibly last, can it? It’s too enormous.”

Miss Wych thought: “He’s gone mad!”

“I really don’t know why you ask me,” she panted spitefully, “whether it can last or not. How should I know? And it’s perfectly absurd, what we are doing. It is perfectly absurd. I don’t know you, you don’t know me, and that’s that. Anyone would think we were babies!”

“But that’s just what I am! For,” said the young stranger, “I am exactly one week old.”

Miss Wych thought: “And he talks like it!”

Miss Wych said: “Really! How interesting.”

“I am one week old,” the stranger said, “because it was exactly a week ago that I first saw you. And you needn’t laugh!”

“I’m not laughing,” said Miss Wych.

They were sitting on two chairs in the Park. How they had come to be sitting on two chairs in the Park Miss Wych could not imagine. The sun was red in the face with trying to get to Australia through Kensington Gardens.

The young stranger said: “Now!”

His eyes were deep and dark and shy, and Miss Wych thought: “He is one of those unhappy young men. There are a lot of them about. He is probably used to burning people with those eyes of his. But he won’t burn me.”

The lean young man was saying: “Miss Wych, may I tell you something most important? I love you.”

“That is what you say,” said Miss Wych, and was surprised at herself, for she had intended to say something quite different.

“Love,” said Miss Wych severely, “is a shy word. It should not be thrown about just anyhow. That’s quite apart from it’s being cheek.”

The lean young man’s eyes burnt angrily, and he said: “I have been in hell for a week, and you talk to me of cheek!”

“Well, it is cheek,” said Miss Wych sulkily.

Now because the young stranger’s deep dark eyes were whirling with the trouble that was in him Miss Wych suddenly thought to close hers tight, for she did not want to let herself be sorry for him. She thought: “If this is what they call Romance—well, oh, dear, give me a nice bus ride in a hurricane! It would be much less uncomfortable.”

“One day,” the voice was saying, “I happened to go with a friend into that shop where you work, and I saw you, and my life fell down like a tin soldier with a broken leg. That was a week ago, and since then I haven’t picked it up, I haven’t known what to do. I have often heard that a man can go mad with love, but I did not know before that a man could go sane with love. All the people in the world who are not madly in love, Miss Wych dear, are in some degree insane, for it is insane not to have a proper perspective of life, and a proper perspective of life is to be quite certain that the world is well lost for the love of one person. It is insane to work from grubby birth to grubby death with never an attempt to chain a star, with never a raid on enchantment, with never a try to kiss a fairy or to live in a dream. Dear, only dreams make life real, all of life that is not touched and troubled by our dreams is not real, does not exist. I could not have lived until now if I had not dreamed that one day I would meet you. I have worked, I have been what is called successful, but always I was under the spell of a miracle that was to happen, and when I saw you I knew that miracle had happened. I just wanted to tell you that. I believe in miracles and magic and my love for you. That is my testament. And if it is cheek to say I love you, then cheek must be as beautiful a thing as chastity. And now I am going away, for your eyes are closed, and that must be because my talk of love bores you. I have tried the impossible, just to be certain that nothing is impossible until one has tried it. And I have learnt another thing: I know now that when I am not looking at you I shall be blind, when I am not listening to you I shall be deaf, and always I shall find no delight in the world but in thoughts of you. And now I will go away.”

Miss Wych opened her eyes and said: “Don’t go away.” That is all she said, but it was quite enough for the lean young man, who caught his breath and threw down his hat and pinched himself. Now all the colours in the world and in the heavens had met over Kensington Gardens in a conference to discuss ways and means for putting the sun to sleep, and a few of them came quickly and lit Miss Wych’s face as she said:

“There is something very silly about me. It has landed me into a lot of trouble in my time. I always believe what people say. I believe in fairies. I believe in God. I believe that moonlight has a lovely smell. I believe in men.”

“Please believe in me!” said the lean young man.

“But why shouldn’t I!” cried Miss Wych with wide eyes. “What a funny world this is, isn’t it? We always believe people straight away when they say beastly things to us, but we don’t if they say lovely things——”

“We will change all that!” the young stranger whispered.

All this while the world was standing quite still as a special treat for the sylphs and spirits, so that they could dart about the sky and never lose their way back to the friends who had stayed at home. It was curious, Miss Wych thought, how she could feel the silence of the world. It was as though the wings of a darting bird brushed her cheek, scented her thoughts, sang in her heart. It was as though the world was still with reverence. Before her very eyes a fairy tripped over a blade of grass, and Miss Wych thought: “I must be dreaming.”

“Talking of cheek,” said the lean young man.

“Yes?” said Miss Wych.

“Look here,” said the lean young man, and you could have blown his voice away with a breath, “if I have the cheek to ask you to marry me, will you have the cheek to say yes?”

He had a stick with an ivory top that was as yellow and cracked with age as an old charwoman’s face. She looked at it for a long time, and then she looked at him.

“Why,” she cried, “your eyes are wet!”

“I know,” said the lean young man fiercely. “And I don’t give a damn. For the love of God, am I such a fool that I wouldn’t be crying for the happiness of knowing you are in the world!”

“Well,” said Miss Wych, “I shall probably be crying myself at any moment. But first of all I must tell you a story.”

“Won’t you marry me instead?” pleaded the young stranger.

“I will tell you a story,” said Miss Wych gravely, and she began at once.

IV

“I was born,” said Miss Wych, “in a small town in the north of England which would have been the ugliest town in the world if there hadn’t been uglier ones all round it. My mother died when I was quite young, and when I was nineteen my father died; but I did not mind being alone half so much as you might think, because I was very ambitious. So, with the few pounds my father had left, I came to London to try my fortune on the stage. I had an aunt who was once an actress in Birmingham, and that was why I thought first of all of the stage. And people said I was pretty.

“In that ugly town there was a boy who loved me. His name was George and he was a clerk in an auctioneer’s office, but he wanted to be a farmer. When my father died George asked me to marry him, but I said I couldn’t do that and explained about my ambitions and how I would first of all like to have a try at being something in the world. You see, it isn’t only grown-ups who have dreams. Besides, George was poor, and however would we live if we did get married?

“He came to see me soon after I had settled in London. I told him I was studying acting at the Academy of Dramatic Arts, and also I told him that I loved him. Of course, I wouldn’t have told him that if he hadn’t asked me. But I thought I did. I was only nineteen and a bit, and he was so strong and serious, and as fair as you are dark, and when he was almost too serious to speak the tip of his nose would quiver in a lovely funny way.

“That was the last time I saw George, but this evening I am to see him again. You see, that was on the first of May five years ago, and George and I swore a great oath. George said he was off to America to make his fortune, but that in five years to the day he would be waiting for me at the Savoy Hotel at eight o’clock to give me dinner and hear me say that I would marry him. We chose a grand place like the Savoy Hotel because of course George would have made his fortune by then. George added that he had no ambitions for himself, he wouldn’t mind being just a farmer, but that he would work for me. I said that was a very good idea, for men should be ambitious and imperious, marching into history with clear heads and brave thoughts and clean eyes.

“I said I would keep myself free for him. I promised him that just as he was going away, and you should have seen how happy his eyes were and how the tip of his nose quivered! And now I have to see him in a few minutes’ time, and what shall I say to him?

“I was a failure on the stage. I am a failure even as a girl in a shop. I am a failure in everything but my dreams. My childish ambitions have withered, and you would think I had learnt such a lesson that I wouldn’t have any more, but now I have the largest ambition in the world. I would like very much to be happy. That is why I have been wondering all to-day and for how many days what I would say to George this evening. You see, I wasn’t really in love with him even when I made my promise, I knew that in my heart even then. My promise was just one of those important-looking flowers that are wrung out of the soil of pity. And my business in life from now onwards, dear stranger, will be to keep that hidden from my husband. But of course I will get used to disenchantment, just like everyone else, and the time will come when I will wonder at myself for talking to you like this, and the time will come when I, like everyone else, will die with the sick heart of one who has never fulfilled herself. And now I must go, for it is close on eight o’clock.”

“Of course,” said the lean young man thoughtfully, “he might, for some reason we can’t tell, not keep his appointment. And then——”

“And then, and then, and then!” sang Miss Wych, but she added gravely: “But oh, he will! George is a good man and a determined man. Failure or success, he will be there.”

The fires burnt low in the west. They walked towards the gates of the Park. Miss Wych counted four stars in the sky.

“Love,” said the lean young man, “knows every emotion but that of patience. Mayn’t I come with you, Pamela Wych? Mayn’t we go together to this George man? Could he do anything but release you?”

“That wouldn’t be fair,” said Miss Wych. “That wouldn’t be fair at all. Oh, yes, George would release me. But life is not so easy as that. It’s all very nice and easy to talk and dream, but aren’t there duties too? I will go to George and tell him I am ready to marry him. I must do that. But maybe he won’t want to marry me. And then——”

The clock at the Park Gates stood at ten minutes to eight o’clock; and on this strange enchanted evening, said Miss Wych, she would indulge in the extravagance of a taxicab. The lean young man stood by the door and said good-bye, and he said also: “If that George man isn’t there, I shall know. Or if that George man isn’t worthy of your loyalty, I shall know. And I will come to you again.”

“If!” sighed Miss Wych. “If! If the world was a garden, and we were butterflies! If the world was a garden, and God was kind to lovers! Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye!”

V

There is an eminent school of thought which insists that there is no such thing in this world as chance. Therefore we may take it that ever since the beginning of creation there was appointed one small wind to lurk nearby the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square for the purpose of blowing an empty paper-bag under a horse’s nose.

The horse belonged to a van, and it was probably bored with the van. It gave a kick at the paper-bag. It missed the paper-bag. “Woa!” cried the driver of the van. That got on the horse’s nerves, and it bolted.

Two men cried: “Ho! Woa! Oi!” An old man selling newspapers by the steps of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields said. “No ’orse can’t bolt far with an ’eavy van.” The driver of the van cried: “——!” An orange-and-banana merchant leapt for his life from the horse’s hooves, and his oranges and bananas fell as manna upon Trafalgar Square, and many little children ran together and gave praise. A large handsome limousine was coming at a good pace up the slope from the Strand. It had to swerve to avoid running over the orange-and-banana merchant. As it swerved it crashed into the side of an ancient taxicab that was bustling round the corner. The ancient taxicab overturned. There was a scream of smashing glass, and the two wheels of the taxicab revolved plaintively in the air.

“Bewty!” said the old man selling newspapers, for he was a connoisseur of accidents. The limousine had stopped. The horse was walking on quite calmly now. A little boy picked up the paper-bag, blew into it, and made a noise. A lot of people came to look at the taxicab.

“Stand back, there! Stand back!” cried a young policeman.

The driver of the taxicab crawled from underneath the wreck. There was blood on his face, and he was so ugly that he looked like several sorts of animals at once. He stared at the chauffeur of the limousine.

“Wotcherdothatfor?” he asked bitterly.

“Come on now, lend a hand!” said the young policeman sternly.

A tall, fair, serious-looking young man had alighted quickly from the limousine, and with him a young lady in a chinchilla coat.

“My, there’s a girl underneath!” she sobbed in a faint American accent.

“There was!” said the taxi-driver bitterly.

“Good God, she’s pinned there!” cried the tall, fair young man.

“George, and on our honeymoon!” sobbed the young lady in the chinchilla coat.

“Come on now, give us room!” said the policeman sharply. “Now then, sir, just help me lift this wheel off the young lady.”

It was the lean young man who was helping the policeman. He had followed Miss Wych. As the tall fair young man and his young wife in the chinchilla coat pressed forward through the crowd, the lean young man looked up at him, and his face was very stern. The tall fair young man looked back with bewildered, wretched eyes.

“Don’t say she’s dead!” he whispered.

“Now, sir,” said the young policeman, “I’ll keep this up while you bring her through sharp as you like. Now!”

The lithe young body was broken and still. The crowd pressed round.

“She’s dead orl right!” said the orange-and-banana merchant.

The last flames of sunset over Admiralty Arch lit the peering faces, and they looked as impersonal as gargoyles. Some took off their hats.

“Oh, she’s dead!” sobbed the young lady in the chinchilla coat.

“Such a pretty young lady!” said the taxi-driver bitterly, wiping the blood from his face.

The lean young man and the young policeman knelt beside the still, broken body and tried to find life where no life was. The orange-and-banana merchant took off his hat. The policeman’s helmet fell to the ground and rolled a little way down towards the Strand. The tall fair young man held his silk hat in his hand. The lean young man looked up at him through a blinding mist of tears and stammered: “Aren’t you sorry, aren’t you sorry?”

“George,” sobbed the young lady in the chinchilla coat, “why is he looking at you like that?”

“Blessed if I know!” stammered the tall fair young man.

“By gum, look at the cop!” said the orange-and-banana merchant.

The lean young man darted a look at the policeman kneeling beside him, and he saw that the policeman wept, and he saw that the tip of the policeman’s nose was quivering.

“She died,” stammered the lean young man, “while keeping her promise to you. But you had failed her.”

“I’ve failed at everything in every country,” said the young policeman. “And now I’ll probably get the sack from this job too for crying on my beat.”

“’Ere, give ’im back ’is ’elmet,” said the taxi-driver bitterly. “A cop without a ’elmet don’t look natchral.”

“And who’s goin’ to give me back my oranges and bananas?” said the orange-and-banana merchant. “Isn’t there no justice in this world, that’s wot I want to know?”

IV: THE BATTLE OF BERKELEY SQUARE

ONE morning not long ago a gentleman was engaged in killing worms in the gardens of Berkeley Square when it was forced on his attention that he had a pain. The pain, which was offensive, was on his left side, but thinking at first that it was no more than a temporary stitch brought about by the unwonted exercise, he dismissed it from his mind as a pain unworthy of the notice of an officer and a gentleman and went on killing worms according to the directions on the tin.

This was a large tin; and, held at an angle in the gentleman’s right hand, a white powder issued therefrom and covered the blades of grass, whilst with his left hand he manœuvred a syringe in such a way that a brownish liquid was sprayed upon the ground.

An entirely new and nasty smell was thus brought into the world; nor did there appear to be any such good reason for it as is generally brought forward on behalf of a novel smell, such as industry, agriculture, the culinary necessities of certain foods or the general progress of civilisation. Mean, however, though our gentleman’s physical position was, for he needs must bend low to the end that not a blade of grass might escape his eagle eye, mentally he took his stand on a lofty ideal; and, dismissing the stares of passers-by as unworthy of the notice of an officer and a gentleman, continued to misbehave according to the directions on the tin.

The chemist who had sold him the tin and the syringe had sworn a pharmaceutical oath to the effect that, on sprinkling the grass with the powder and spraying it with the lotion, not a worm in Mayfair but would instantly arise from the bowels of the earth and die. Nor was the chemist’s prophecy in vain; for the powdering and spraying had not been going on for long, when behold! a multitude of worms arose and passed away peacefully. So great, indeed, was the massacre that a Turkish gentleman who was passing by stood at attention during a five minutes’ silence, but that is quite by the way and has nothing to do with George Tarlyon’s pain, which was growing more offensive with every moment. Thinking, however, that it could be no more than an attack of lumbago, and therefore dismissing it from his mind as a pain unworthy of the notice of an officer and a gentleman, he went on killing worms because he wanted to stand well with a pretty girl he had met the night before at a party who had said she was a Socialist and that there were too many worms in Mayfair.

Major Cypress now enters the story, and the fact that this is a true story makes it so much the more regrettable that therein the Major is presented in a tedious, not to say a repellent, light. Poor Hugo. About a year before these happenings he had entered upon matrimony with Tarlyon’s little sister Shirley, and he loved her true, even as she loved him. We will now talk a while of Hugo and Shirley.

Shirley was a darling and Hugo had no money above that which he earned, which was nothing, and that is why they lived in a garage in the Mews behind Berkeley Square, had breakfast late, went out for dinner and on to supper. Not that the garage wasn’t delightful. The garage was charming. Shirley herself had supervised the architects, builders, decorators and plumbers, and by the time rooms had been added, kitchens hollowed out, bathrooms punched in—by the time, in fact, the garage had been converted into a house, it had cost Hugo more money at rates of interest current in Jermyn Street than the lease of a fine modern residence in Berkeley Square. Poor Hugo.

Every morning at about this hour he would emerge from the garage into the Mews, pat his tie straight in the gleaming flanks of the automobiles that were being washed to the accompaniment of song and rushing water, pass the time of day with a chauffeur or two, and walk into Berkeley Square where, in the pursuit of his profession, he would loiter grimly by the railings of the gardens until the clocks struck twelve. The word “profession” in connection with Major Cypress doubtless needs some explanation. Hugo’s profession was the most ancient in the world bar none, that of an inheritor: he was waiting for his father to die. This was a cause of great distress to his mother, as it must be to everyone who likes Hugo. But, as Mistress Moll Flanders says, I am giving an account of what was, not of what ought or ought not to be.

All doctors are agreed that waiting has a lowering effect on the mind, but this morning Major Cypress looked, as has been stated, even more depressed than usual. And long he leant against the railings watching his brother-in-law’s extraordinary behaviour before opening his lips: when, a noise of a friendly nature being created, he waited patiently for an answer, which he did not get. He then tried to attract Tarlyon’s attention by making a noise like money, but in vain.

“George,” he shouted at last, “may I ask why you are behaving in that peculiar way?”

“You may,” snapped Tarlyon, and, approaching him with a look of absent-minded savagery, cast a little of the powder over his breeches, squirted him with the syringe, and continued with his labours. Poor Hugo.

“George,” said Major Cypress, disregarding the man’s rudeness, “I am depressed this morning. Guess why.”

“Hugo,” said Tarlyon bitterly, “I would be depressed every morning if I were you. Now please go away at once. These worms aren’t rising half so well since you came. And I have a pain in my left side.”

“A pain, George? I thought you looked sick, but I didn’t like to say anything. What sort of a pain?”

“A hell of a pain,” said Tarlyon. “It gets me when I breathe.”

“I don’t wonder,” said Hugo. “I too have a pain. And it gets me when I eat, drink, breathe and sleep. George, my pain is in my heart.”

“I don’t want to hear about it,” snapped Tarlyon, “and I hope it gives you such a swelling in the feet that you can’t follow me about like a moneylender after a dud cheque.”

“George, I am not, and never was, a moneylender. I am, by the grace of God, a money-lendee. But to return to your pain, I shouldn’t wonder if you had pneumonia. You have been very liable to pneumonia ever since you took that bath on Armistice Day. And merely from the way your face has all fallen in I should say pneumonia, quite apart from the fact that your breath is coming in painful gasps.”

Tarlyon threw down the worm-killers and joined his friend. “I believe you’re right, Hugo. It hurts me to breathe. I must have pneumonia. What treatment would you advise?”

“Pyjamas,” said Hugo. “Nice, new, amusing pyjamas. You will be in bed at least six weeks with the violent form of pneumonia you’ve got, and it will be a comfort to you to think of your new pyjamas.”

“Suppose I die,” Tarlyon muttered.

“I am supposing it, George. The pyjamas will then, I hope, revert to me.”

Together they strode up the narrow defile of Berkeley Street towards Piccadilly, two men of grave mien and martial address; and, although it was a bitter December morning, neither wore an overcoat, which is a polity of dress calculated to reveal, by the very action of a lounge-suit on the eye on a bitter morning, the hardy frame of ships that pass in the night and the iron constitution of publicans, wine-bibbers, chaps, guys, ginks, bloods, bucks and beaux. Nevertheless, such was the stress of the distemper within him that George Almeric St. George Tarlyon threw away his cigarette with a gesture of distaste and said: “Hugo, I am in pain. It gets me when I breathe.”

“Try not to breathe,” said Hugo. “In the meanwhile I will tell you why I am depressed. My wife——”

“Hugo, I am very hot. I do believe I am sweating!”

“You look awful, George. You have probably a very high temperature. Presently you will break out into a rash owing to the unclean state of your blood brought about by your low habits. You can’t breakfast all your life off a gin-and-bitters and two green olives and hope to get away with it. I was telling you, George, that I am depressed because my wife is presenting me with an heir.”

“It’s just cussedness, Hugo. I shouldn’t take any notice. Women are always the same, forever letting one in for some extravagance. Just take no notice, Hugo.”

“George, you don’t understand! She is in terrible pain, and I can’t bear it, old friend, I simply can’t bear it.”

“I’m sorry, Hugo, really I am. Poor little Shirley. But I am feeling very ill myself. Call me an ambulance, Hugo.”

“Pyjamas first, my honey. Ah, here we are! Ho there, Mr. Sleep! Ho there, Mr. Sluis! Shop!”

For by this time the two gentlemen had arrived within the establishment of Messrs. Sleep and Sluis, gents’ shirt-makers, which is situate where the Piccadilly Arcade swoops falcon-like into Jermyn Street to be as a temptation to mugs in search of a manicure. Mr. Sleep was a small man with a round face who was a tie-specialist and Mr. Sluis was a small man with a long face who was a shirt-specialist, while both were accomplished students of masculine lingerie in every branch and could, moreover, as was told in the adventure of the Princess Baba, build a white waistcoat about a waist in a way that was a wonder to the eye. By Royal Appointment, and rightly.

“My lord,” said Mr. Sleep, stepping forward two paces and standing smartly at ease, “what can we do for you this morning? These new ties,” said he, “have just this moment come in. They are delicious.”

“Mr. Sleep,” said Lord Tarlyon, “you know very well that I detest new ties. I can think of nothing more common than wearing a new tie. Observe my tie, Mr. Sleep. I have worn it six years. Observe its rugged grandeur. Where is Mr. Sluis this morning?”

“My lord,” said Mr. Sluis, stepping forward three paces and bowing smartly from his self-made waist, “what sort of pyjamas do you fancy?”

“What varieties have you this morning, Mr. Sluis?”

“We have many, my lord. Pyjamas can be used for various purposes.”

“You shock me, Mr. Sluis. I am not, however, going to Venice just yet. I merely want some pneumonia pyjamas.”

“In crêpe-de-chine, my lord?”

“Your innuendoes are amazing, Mr. Sluis! Far from being that kind of man, I have always adhered to the iron principle of once an adult always an adult. The very manhood of England is being sapped by these vicious luxuries, as one glance at my friend Major Cypress will show. Away with these crêpe-de-chine pyjama suitings! And I take this opportunity, Mr. Sleep, of crying woe and woe to the pretty and the effeminate of our sex, for their lack of manly sins shall surely find them out and the odour of their overdrafts shall descend to hell. For my own pyjamas, a homely quality of antiseptic silk will do very well. I will have half-a-dozen suits in black silk.”

“I say, George,” said Hugo, “black is very lowering. Mr. Sluis, make them a lovely pale blue with a dash of maroon. They revert to me, you see.”

“Black, Mr. Sluis. I fight Death with his own weapons. Send these pyjamas at once, and put them down to my account.”

“Certainly, my lord. You will have them at once.”

“Gentlemen,” said Lord Tarlyon, “I have had forty years’ experience of owing money and never yet met with such simple faith as yours. I am touched. Let me assure you that my executors will repay your courtesy, if only in kind. Good-day, Mr. Sleep, and you, Mr. Sluis. Don’t, by the way, send these pyjamas to my house, as the bailiffs are in, which is why I went out in the dewy dawn and caught this pneumonia. Send them to Major Cypress’s.”

“But you can’t have pneumonia in my place!” cried Hugo. “If you should die it will depress my wife, and that,” said he indignantly, “will have an effect on my unborn heir’s character.”

“He will be lucky, Hugo, if he has a character at all, from what I know of you. Mr. Sleep, and you, Mr. Sluis, you might telephone to some doctors to come round instantly to Major Cypress’s garage, as there will shortly be a nice new pneumonia of two cylinders on view there. Hugo, call me a taxi at once. I cannot have pneumonia all over Jermyn Street.”

“I don’t care where you have it,” said Hugo bitterly, “so long as you don’t let the last agonies of your lingering death disturb my wife. Here’s an idea, George! Why don’t you go and have pneumonia at Fitzmaurice Savile’s place near by?”

But Tarlyon was not without a keen sense of what was proper to a stainless gentleman: he put generosity, when he thought of it, above all things: and protested now that he could not very well seek Fitzmaurice Savile’s hospitality as Fitzmaurice Savile owed him money and would think that he, Tarlyon, was taking it out of him in pneumonia.

“Well, lend me a fiver, then,” said Hugo desperately, but he hadn’t a hope. However, he need have had no fear for his wife’s comfort, for never was a sick man quieter than the last of the Tarlyon’s, the way he lay with closed eyes among the damp dark clouds of fever, the way he would smile now and then as at a joke someone was whispering to him from a far distance, so that the nurse said to the doctor: “I never saw a man appear to enjoy pneumonia so. You would think,” said she, “that he was hungry for death. He is not fighting it at all, doctor. Are you sure he will not die?”

That is what the nurse said to the doctor, and the doctor looked grave and punched Tarlyon in the lungs with a telephone arrangement, but Tarlyon took no notice at all, still smiling to himself at the thought that in his life he had done every silly thing in the world but die of pneumonia in a converted garage, and maybe he would presently be doing that and the cup of folly be drained to the dregs. And every now and then Hugo would come in and take a glass of the iced wine by Tarlyon’s bed and look depressed, saying that Shirley was in pain and that he couldn’t bear it.

Then one day, or maybe it was one night, Tarlyon seemed to awake from a deep sleep that had taken him to a far distance, and from that far distance what should he seem to be seeing but two shadows bending over his bed and the calm shadow of the nurse nearby? Now he tried to speak, but he could not, and from the far distance he could hear one of the shadows saying: “You called me in not a moment too soon, Dr. Chill. Lord Tarlyon’s is an acute case of appendicitis. Weak as he is, it is imperative that we operate at once.”

“Right,” said Dr. Chill.

Now Tarlyon recognised the shadow that had spoken first for Ian Black, the great surgeon, and a great friend of his since the distant days when he had operated on Tarlyon’s unhappy dead wife, Virginia, she who had lived for pleasure and found only pain. And Tarlyon spoke out in a dim voice and said:

“Ian Black, much as I like having you about you must not operate on me for appendicitis in this house, which is but a garage. Remember I am staying with Hugo, and I came to stay with him on the distinct understanding that I was to have only pneumonia. Not a word was said between us about appendicitis, and I am sure that Hugo would be annoyed at my abusing his hospitality, so will you kindly put that beastly knife away?”

But at that very moment Hugo came in and took a glass of iced wine and looked depressed, saying that his wife was in terrible pain and that he couldn’t bear it and that the whole garage was strewn with doctors murmuring among themselves; but as to a spot of appendicitis, said Hugo, poor old George could go ahead and make himself quite at home and have just what he liked. Whereupon Tarlyon at once closed his eyes again, and then they put something over his mouth and he passed away, thinking, “That’s all right.” But it could not have been quite all right, he thought on waking suddenly, for although he could not see very well he could hear quite distinctly, and the voice of Dr. Chill was saying:

“My dear Mr. Black, I am sorry to have to say this, but I certainly do not consider this among your most successful operations. My patient’s pulse is entirely arrested, and I am afraid there is now no hope. Are you sure, Mr. Black, that the coroner will think you were quite wise to operate when he was in so low a condition? And I am sure,” says he, “that you are not at all wise to sew up that wound with the sponge still inside.”

“Oh, shut up!” says Mr. Black, for the same was a short-tempered man much addicted to over-calling at bridge.

Tarlyon did not hear any more before he went off again; but when he awoke this time he did not feel the sickly after-effects of chloroform, he did not feel anything at all except that he was very weak and had a tummy-ache. The room seemed much lighter, too, than when he had seen it last, and many more people were in it, and then he heard a squealing noise and thought: “Good God, where am I?”

And he tried to speak but could not, he tried hard but all he could achieve was a sort of mewing noise similar to the squealing noise, and then the blood simply rushed to his head with rage, for there was Hugo’s tiresome face bending over him and there were Hugo’s tiresome eyes simply running with tears.

He tried to turn his head away in disgust at the loathsome sight, but could not move, and then he went almost raving mad, for Hugo was trying to kiss him! Tarlyon tried to swear and failed for the first time in his life, whereupon he made to raise his hand to catch Hugo a clout on the ear, but all he did was to pat Hugo’s cheek, which the foul man took for a caress encouraging him in his damp behaviour. But in raising his hand Tarlyon did at least achieve something, for he saw that his hand had changed considerably during his illness, it must have, for it was now a frail and milk-white hand with a diamond ring on the third finger, so that he thought in despair: “Good God, I’ve died under the operation and been born again as an Argentine!”

Hugo never left the bedside until at last the doctor got him by the scruff of the neck and, with silent cheers from Tarlyon, hurled him from the room. But even as he went through the door he turned his repulsive face towards Tarlyon and blew him a kiss, and then the fattest nurse Tarlyon had ever seen shoved a bundle under his nose and said in an idiotic voice which he supposed was meant to be cheering: “There, there, my dear, it’s a little boy you’ve got now. Isn’t he a duck, fat as a peach and all!”

Bits of the bundle were then pulled about and Tarlyon was shown what he considered was the most depressing little boy he had ever seen, with its face all wrinkled up and an entirely bald head of an unpleasant colour. Tarlyon’s first impression was that the little boy must have been drinking too much to get that colour; and he tried to wave the bundle away, but he was quite helpless, he could not move nor utter, and the fat nurse shoved the wretched little boy’s bald head against his mouth so that he simply had to kiss it as he had not the strength to bite it. Meanwhile everyone in the room was smiling idiotically, as though someone had just done something clever, so that, speechless with rage as he already was, he became doubly speechless and thought to himself: “This is what comes of having pneumonia in a garage!”

Not for minutes, it seemed not for years, was the full terror of what had actually happened revealed to him. He must have been making a face of some sort, for the fat nurse brought a mirror and held it to him, saying: “There, there, don’t fret. See how well you look!” And the face that Tarlyon saw in the mirror was the face of his little sister Shirley, a pretty little white face with cheeky curled lips and large grey eyes and a frantic crown of curly golden hair.

Tarlyon tried to stammer: “Some awful mistake has been made,” but not a word would come, and for very terror at what had happened he closed his eyes that he might, even as though he verily was Shirley, sob in peace.

It was for Shirley more than for himself that he was distracted with grief, for he realised only too well what must have happened. Shirley, the poor darling, must have been having terrible trouble in childbirth—and all for that foul Hugo’s wretched heir with the bald head—while he had died of pneumonia-cum-appendicitis in the next room. His soul having left his body—while Ian Black and Dr. Chill were still arguing about it—he had, or it had, wandered about between the two rooms for a while and then, while Shirley wasn’t looking, had slipped into her body and expelled her soul into the outer darkness.

That his supposition was only too accurate was presently proved beyond all doubt. Hugo had managed to sneak into the room again, and when Tarlyon opened his eyes he looked at Hugo beseechingly for news, whereupon the wretched man at once kissed him. But Tarlyon must have looked so furious, even with Shirley’s pretty face, that the fat nurse at once stopped Hugo from clinching again; and when Tarlyon again looked beseechingly towards the wall of the room in which he had had pneumonia Hugo nodded his head cheerfully and said: “Yes, he’s dead, poor old George. Doctor said he would have lived if he hadn’t been such a hard drinker. Poor old George. They are embalming the corpse in Vichy Water at the moment.”

Tarlyon lost count of time, of days and nights, he lost count of everything but the number of his discomforts and fears. He spent hours with closed eyes enumerating the terrors in store for him as a woman, as a pretty woman, as Hugo’s wife. It would be no use his saying that he was not really Shirley but her brother George, for people would only think he was mad. Of course he would divorce Hugo as soon as he was better; it was too revolting to have Hugo’s face shoved close to his own on the slightest provocation. Heavens, how well he now understood the many ways in which men can infuriate women! And then, chief among the terrors of his new life, must be the bringing-up of that awful baby with the bald head. As it was, he was seeing a great deal too much of it, the fat nurse would always be bringing it to him and pushing it at him, but as to taking it into bed with him Tarlyon wasn’t having any, not even for the look of the thing when his mother came into the room. For one day his mother did come, and she in deep mourning for his death, and she stood above him with sad eyes, and as she held the wretched baby she whispered: “Poor George! How he would have loved his little nephew!” Fat lot she knew, poor old mother.

But always it was Hugo and his repellently affectionate face who was the last straw. One evening he managed to get into the room in his pyjamas, in Tarlyon’s pyjamas, in Tarlyon’s black pyjamas, and saying to the fat nurse: “I must just kiss her once,” furtively approached the bed. But Tarlyon was ready, and now he was just strong enough to lash out at Hugo as he bent down——

“Oi!” said Ian Black’s voice. “Steady there, you Tarlyon!”

Tarlyon said something incredibly wicked and Ian Black said: “You’ll be all right soon. In fact you must be quite all right now, if you can swear like that. But don’t land me one on the head again with that hot-water bottle else I’ll operate on you for something else. And I haven’t left a sponge inside you, either. Hullo, here’s Hugo with a smile like a rainbow!”

“I should think so!” cried Hugo. “Chaps, I’ve got a son! What do you know about that?”

“Everything!” gasped Tarlyon. “He’s bald.”

“Bald be blowed, George! All babies are bald. In my time I was the baldest baby in Bognor, and proud of it. He’s a wonder, I tell you.”

“He’s awful!” sighed Tarlyon. “Go away, Hugo, go away! I’ll explain later, but at the moment I am so tired of your face. And in future,” said he sharply, “don’t dare to try to kiss Shirley more than once a day.”

The rest of this story is not very interesting, and nothing more need be said but that Tarlyon nowadays makes a point of advising a man never to kiss his wife without first making quite certain that she wants to be kissed, which is quite a new departure in the relations between men and women and one to be encouraged as leading to a better understanding and less waste of temper between the sexes.

As for the bald baby, he now has some hair of that neutral colour which parents call golden, and four teeth, and Hugo shows off his scream with pride. Hugo and Shirley think he is marvellous. Maybe he is. Maybe all babies are. But it is certain that all women are, by reason of what they put up with in men one way and another. That is what Tarlyon says, and if he does not speak on the matter with authority then this is not a true story and might just as well not have been written, which is absurd.

V: THE PRINCE OF THE JEWS

THIS is the tale of the late Rear-Admiral Sir Charles Fasset-Faith, K.C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O. This distinguished torpedo officer was advanced to flag rank only last June, having previously been for two years Commodore of the First Class commanding the —— Fleet. Throughout the war he was attached to the submarine service; and for the vigilance and fearlessness of his command his name came to be much on men’s lips. His early death, at the age of forty-five, will be regretted by all who knew him. He never married. This is also the tale of Julian Raphael the Jew and of Manana Cohen, his paramour.

One summer evening a gentleman emerged from the Celibates Club in Hamilton Place; and, not instantly descending the few broad steps to the pavement, stood a while between the two ancient brown columns of the portico. The half of a cigar was restlessly screwed into the corner of his mouth in a manner that consorted quite oddly with his uneager English eye; and that, with the gentleman’s high carriage, might have reminded a romantic observer of the President of the Suicide Club. His silk hat, however (for he was habited for the evening), was situated on his head with an exact sobriety which would seem to rebuke the more familiar relations customary between desperate gentlemen and their hats; and he appeared, at his idle station at the head of the broad steps, to be lost in peaceful contemplation.

The Admiral made thus a notable mark for any passing stranger with a nice eye for distinction: he stood so definitely for something, a very column of significance, of conduct. Unusually tall for a sailor, and of powerful build, his complexion was as though forged—it is the exact word—in the very smithy of vengeful suns and violent winds: his pale dry eyes, which would, even in a maelstrom, always remain decidedly the driest of created things, in their leisure assumed that kindly, absent look which is the pleasant mark of Englishmen who walk in iron upon the sea: while short brown side-whiskers mightily became the authority of Sir Charles’s looks.

The hour was about ten o’clock, and the traffic by the corner of Hamilton Place and Piccadilly marched by without hindrance. The din of horns and wheels and engines, as though charmed by the unusual gentleness of the night, swept by inattentive ears as easily as the echoes of falling water in a distant cavern. The omnibuses to Victoria and to the Marble Arch trumpeted proudly round the corner where by day they must pant for passage in a heavy block. Limousines and landaulettes shone and passed silently. The very taxis, in the exaltation of moderate speed, seemed almost to be forgetting their humble places in the hierarchy of the road. Every now and then figures scuttled across the road with anxious jerking movements.

“A fine night!” sighed the commissionaire of the Celibates Club. His face was very lined and his old eyes clouded with the stress of countless days of London fog and London rain. “A taxi, Sir Charles?”

The Admiral cleared his throat and aimed the remnant of his cigar into the gutter. “Thanks, Hunt, I think I’ll walk. Yes, a fine night.”

Omnibus after omnibus tore down the short broad slope from Park Lane and galloped gaily across the sweep of Hyde Park Corner. There was half a moon over St. George’s Hospital, and the open place looked like a park with the lamps for flowers.

“The buses do speed up at night!” sighed the commissionaire.

“Don’t they! But see there, Hunt!” Sir Charles, suddenly and sharply, was waving his cane towards the opposite side of the road, towards the corner by the massive Argentine Club. “See that man?”

The commissionaire with the lined face followed the direction of the cane.

“That constable, Sir Charles?”

“No, no! That Jew!”

The commissionaire, mistrustful of his ancient eyes, peered through the clear night. He sighed: “God knows, Sir Charles, there’s Jews enough in Mayfair, but I can’t see one just there.”

The Admiral thoughtfully took another cigar from his case. His eyes were of iron, but his voice had lost all its sudden sharpness as he said: “Never mind, Hunt. Just give me a light, will you?”

But, as he made to walk down Piccadilly, to join in a rubber at his other club in St. James’s Street, Sir Charles did not let the dark lean man on the other side of the road pass out of the corner of his eye. The young Jew crossed the road. That did not surprise our gentleman. He walked on and, once on Piccadilly, walked at a good pace.

The Piccadilly scene was seldom crowded between ten and eleven: cinema-theatres, music-halls and playhouses held the world’s attention, while the night was not yet deep enough for the dim parade of the world’s wreckage. Sir Charles would always, at about this hour, take a little exercise between his clubs in Hamilton Place and St. James’s.

He had passed the opening of Half-Moon Street before the young Jew caught up with his shoulder. Sir Charles walked on without concerning himself to look round at the dark, handsome face. Handsome as a black archangel was Julian Raphael the Jew. Sir Charles vaguely supposed that the archangels had originally been Jewish, and it was as a black archangel that the looks of Julian Raphael had first impressed him. It was altogether a too fanciful business for the Admiral’s taste; but he had no one to blame for it but himself, since he had originally let the thing, he’d had to admit often, run away with him.

“Well?” he suddenly smiled over his shoulder. There was, after all, a good deal to smile about, if you took the thing properly. And it had needed more than a handsome Jew to prevent Sir Charles taking a thing properly. But Julian Raphael did not smile. He said gravely:

“When I first saw you, Sir Charles, I thought you were only a fool. But I am not sure now. You show a resignation towards fate unusual in your sceptical countrymen. It is scepticism that makes men dull, resignation that makes men interesting. It is a dull mind that believes in nothing: it is an interesting mind that expects nothing and awaits the worst. Your waiting shall be rewarded, Sir Charles.”

The Admiral walked on with a grim smile. He was growing used to this—even to this! They passed beneath the bitter walls of what was once Devonshire House. The beautiful Jew said softly:

“You have a broad back, Sir Charles. It is a fine mark for a well-thrown knife. Have I not always said so!”

Our gentleman swung round on the lean young Jew. A few yards from them a policeman was having a few words with the commissionaire of the Berkeley Restaurant about a car that had been left standing too long by the curb. It was Julian Raphael who was smiling now. Sir Charles said sternly:

“Am I to understand that you are trying to frighten me with this ridiculous persecution? And what, Mr. Raphael, is to prevent me from giving you in charge to that policeman? You are, I think, wanted for murder.”

Julian Raphael’s black eyes seemed to shine with mockery. “There’s nothing in the world to prevent you, Sir Charles, except that any policeman would think you mad for asking him to arrest air. Not, as you suggest, that he wouldn’t, in the ordinary way, be pleased to catch the Prince of the Jews. May I offer you a light for that cigar?”

And as Sir Charles lit his cigar from the match held out to him he was not surprised to find himself looking into the ancient eyes of Hunt, the commissionaire outside his club in Hamilton Place. His walk up Piccadilly, his talk with the young Jew, had taken no longer than it takes to light a cigar. This was the third time within a fortnight that the Admiral had been privileged to see his old enemy, to walk with him and talk with him; and his awakening had each time been to find that not more than a couple of seconds had passed and that he had never moved from his station.

Sir Charles abruptly reentered the club and, in the smoking-room, addressed himself to his old friend Hilary Townshend.

“Hilary,” said he, “I have a tale to tell you. It is very fanciful, and you will dislike it. I dislike it for the same reason. But I want you, my oldest friend, to know certain facts in case anything happens to me in the course of the next few days—or nights. In my life, as you know, I have not had many dealings with the grotesque. But the grotesque seems lately to be desiring the very closest connection with me. It began two years ago when I officiously tried to be of some service to a young Jewess called Manana Cohen. God help me, I thought I was acting for the best.”

There follows the tale told by Admiral Sir Charles Fasset-Faith to Mr. Townshend.

The Admiral’s Tale

About two years ago [said Sir Charles], during one of my leaves in London, young Mrs. Harpenden persuaded me to go down with her to a club of some sort she was helping to run down in the East End.

There were then, and for all I know there are now, a number of pretty and sound young women doing their best to placate God for the sins of their Victorian fathers by making life in the East End as tolerable as possible. Of course, only once a week. Venice’s idea in landing me was that I should give the young devils down there a rough lecture on the Navy in general and the Jutland fight in particular—that kind of thing.

So there I stood yapping away, surrounded by a crowd of amiable and attentive young men and women. In a room nearby poor Napier Harpenden was trying to get away with only one black eye from a hefty young navvy to whom he was supposed to be teaching boxing. Across a counter in a far corner Venice was handing out cups of perfectly revolting coffee. She had all the bloods at her call that night, had Venice. In one corner Tarlyon was teaching a crowd Jujitsu, and in another Hugo Cypress was playing draughts with a Boy Scout—it did one good to see him. And there, in the middle of all that, was the old mug roaring away about the silent Navy.

I was just getting settled down and raising laughs with the usual Jack Tar stuff when—well, there they were, a pair of them, quite plainly laughing at me. Not with me, mark you. You’ll understand that it put me off my stroke. However, I did my level best to go on without looking at them, but that wasn’t so easy, as they were bang in front of me, three or four rows back. I had spotted the young man first. He was the one making the jokes and leading the laugh, while the girl only followed suit. Both Jews, obviously, and as handsome as a couple of new coins. Smart, too—the young man too smart by half.

You could tell at a glance that they had no right in the place, which was for very poor folk, and that they had come in just to guy. At least, that devilish young man had. He had a thin dead-white face, a nose that wouldn’t have looked amiss on a prince of old Babylon, black eyes the size of walnuts, and a smile—I’ll tell you about that smile. Hilary, I’ve never in my life so wanted to do anything as to put my foot squarely down on that boy’s smile. Call me a Dutchman if they don’t hate it even down in hell.

The girl wasn’t any less beautiful, with her white face, black hair, black eyes, fine slim Hebrew nose. Proud she looked too, and a proud Jewess can—and does—look any two English beauties in the face. But she was better, gentler, nicer. They were of the same stuff, those two young Jews, the same ancient sensitive clever stuff, but one had gone rotten and the other hadn’t. You could easily see that from the way, when she did meet my eyes, she did her level best to look serious and not to hear what her companion was whispering into her ear. She didn’t particularly want to hurt my feelings, not she, no matter how much her man might want to. Of course I could have stopped the lecture then and there and chucked the young man out, but I didn’t want to go and have a rough-house the first time I was asked down to young Venice’s potty old club.

It will puzzle me all my life (or what’s left of it, let’s say) to know why that diabolically handsome young Jew took such an instant dislike to me; and why I took such a dislike to him! For that was really at the bottom of all that followed—just good old black hatred, Hilary, from the first moment our eyes met. But I want to give you all the facts. Maybe the girl had something to do with it even then—the girl and his own shocking smile. You simply couldn’t help fancying that those gentle eyes were in for a very bad time from that smile. Decidedly not my business, of course. Nothing that interests one ever is, is it? But, on the other hand, the young man went on whispering and laughing so all through my confounded lecture that by the time I had finished there was just one small spot of red floating about my mind. I don’t think I’ve ever before been so angry. There’s one particular thing about people who sneer that I can’t bear, Hilary. They simply insist on your disliking them, and I hate having to dislike people more than I can tell you.

They began to clear out as soon as I had finished. The young Jew’s behaviour hadn’t, naturally, made my effort go any better. He needed a lesson, that bright young man. I collared him in the passage outside. Of course he and his young lady were much too smart to hurry themselves, and the rest of the lecturees had almost gone. Inside, Venice had given up poisoning her club with coffee and was trying to bring it round with shocking noises from a wireless set.

I can see that passage now. A narrow stairway leading up to God knows where. Just one gas-jet, yellow as a Chinaman. The front-door wide open to a narrow street like a canal of mud, for it was pelting with rain, you could see sheets of it falling between us and the lamp on the opposite side of the road. A man outside somewhere whistling “Horsey, keep your tail up,” and whistling it well. Radio inside.

Our young Jewboy was tall. I simply didn’t feel I was old enough to be his father, although he couldn’t have been more than three or four-and-twenty. And he liked colours, that boy. He had on a nice bright brown suit, a silk shirt to match, and not a tartan in the Highlands had anything on his tie. His young lady’s eyes, in that sick light, shone like black onyx. It struck me she was terrified, the way she was staring at me. I was sorry for that, it wasn’t her terror I wanted. And where I did want it, not a sign. Then I realised she wasn’t terrified for him but for me. Cheek.

I had the fancy youth by the shoulder. Tight. He was still laughing at me. “This lout!” that laugh said. I can hear that laugh now. And, confound it, there was a quite extraordinary authority to that boy’s eyes. He wasn’t used to following anyone, not he.

I said: “Young man, your manners are very bad. What are you going to do about it?”

I was calm enough. But he was too calm by half. He didn’t answer, but he had given up smiling. He was looking sideways down at my hand on his shoulder. I’ve never had a pretty hand, but it has been quite useful to me one way and another and I’ve grown attached to it. I can’t attempt to describe the disgust and contempt in that boy’s look. It sort of said: “By the bosom of Abraham, what is that filthy thing on my shoulder?”

I said sharply: “I’m waiting.”

The girl sighed: “Don’t! Don’t, Julian!”

As though, you know, he might hit me! Me!

Well, he might! I said: “Careful, young man!”

The girl whispered almost frantically: “Let him go, sir! Please! You don’t know....”

I comforted her. I said I could take care of myself. She wasn’t, I fancy, convinced. The way she looked at a man, with those scared black eyes!

But our young friend wasn’t taking any notice of either of us. He was busy. All this, of course, happened in a few seconds. The Jew had raised his hand, slowly, very slowly, and had caught the wrist of my hand on his shoulder. I felt his fingers round my wrist. Tight.

“Steady, boy!” I said. I’d have to hit him, and I didn’t want to do that. At least, I told myself I didn’t want to. That young Jew had strong fingers. He simply hadn’t spoken one word yet. His conversation was limited to trying to break my wrist. My wrist! Then he spoke. He said: “You swine!” The girl suddenly pulled at my arm, hard. His back was to the open doorway, the rain, the gutter. I caught him one on the chin so that he was in it flat on his back. His tie looked fancier than ever in the mud, too. The girl sort of screamed.

“All right,” I said. “All right.” Trying, you know, to comfort the poor kid. She was rushing after her man, but I had my arm like a bar across the door. She stared at me.

I said: “Listen to me, my child. You’re in bad company.”

“She is now,” a voice said. The young Jew had picked himself up. He looked a mess, fine clothes and all. I thought he would try to rush me, but not he! He just smiled and said quite calmly: “I’ll make a note of that, Sir Charles Fasset-Faith. Come on, Manana.”

But I wasn’t letting “Manana” go just yet. The poor kid.

“What’s his name?” I asked her.

She stared at me. I never knew what “white” really meant until I saw that child’s teeth.

“His name?” I repeated. Gently, you know.

She whispered: “Julian Raphael.”

That young Jew’s voice hit me on the back of the neck like a knife. “You’ll pay for that, Manana! See if you don’t!”

By the way, it isn’t just rhetoric about the knife. It was like a knife. But I’ll tell you more about knives later.

“Oh,” she sobbed.

“Look here,” I said to the devilish boy, “if you so much as——”

He laughed. The girl bolted under my arm and joined him. He just laughed. I said: “Good-night, Manana. Don’t let him hurt you.” She didn’t seem to dare look at me.

They went, up that muddy lane. He had her by the arm, and you could see he had her tight. There aren’t many lamps in that beau quartier, and a few steps took them out of my sight. I heard a scream, and then a sob.

That settled Julian Raphael so far as I was concerned. Then another sob—from the back of that nasty darkness. I couldn’t, of course, go after them then. It would look too much as though I was bidding for possession of the young Jew’s love-lady. But at that moment I made up my mind I’d land that pretty boy sometime soon. That scream had made me feel just a trifle sick. That was personal. Then I was against Julian Raphael impersonally because I’ve always been for law and order. You have too, Hilary. I shouldn’t wonder if that’s not another reason why women find men like us dull. But some of us must be, God knows, in this world. And it was against all law and order that young Mr. Julian Raphael—imagine any man actually using a name like that!—should be loose in the world. Crook was too simple a word for Mr. Raphael. And he was worse for being so devilish handsome. One imagined him with women—with this poor soul of a Manana. Of course, Venice and Napier and the other people at their potty old club knew nothing about either of them. They must have just drifted in, they said. They had, into my life.

The very next morning I rang up our friend H—— at Scotland Yard and asked him if he knew anything about a Julian Raphael. Oh, didn’t he! Had a dossier of him as long as my arm. H—— said: “The Prince of the Jews, that’s Julian Raphael’s pet name. Profession: counterfeiter. But we’ve never yet caught him or his gang.”

Oh, the cinema wasn’t in it with our fancy young friend. The police had been after him for about five years. Once they had almost got him for knifing a Lascar. Murder right enough, but they’d had to release him for lack of evidence. The Lascar, H—— said, had probably threatened to give away a cocaine plant, and Julian Raphael had slit his throat. Suspected of cocaine-smuggling, living on immoral earnings of women, and known to be the finest existing counterfeiter of Bank of England £5 notes. Charming man, Mr. Julian Raphael.

“I want to land him,” I told H——.

“Thanks very much,” said he. “So do we.”

“Well, how about that girl of his—Manana something?”

“Manana Cohen? Catch her giving him away! She adores the beast, and so do they all, those who aren’t terrified of him.”

I said: “Well, we’ll see. I want to get that boy. I don’t like him.”

H——’s last words to me were: “Now look here, Charles, don’t go playing the fool down there. I know the East End is nowadays supposed to be as respectable as Kensington and that the cinema has got it beat hollow for pools of blood, but believe me a chap is still liable to be punctured in the ribs by a clever boy like Julian Raphael. So be a good fellow and go back to your nice old Navy and write a book saying which of your brother Admirals didn’t win Jutland just to show you’re an Admiral as well.”

H—— was right. I was a fool, certainly. But God drops the folly into the world as well as the wisdom, and surely it’s part of our job to pick up bits of it. Besides, I’ve never been one for dinner-parties or the artless prattle of young ladies, and so, thought I, could a man spend his leave more profitably than in landing a snake like Julian Raphael?

I took myself off down to the East End with my oldest tweeds, a toothbrush and a growth on my chin. George Tarlyon came with me. He had scented a row that night, and not the devil himself can keep George from putting both his feet into the inside of a row. Besides, he wanted to have a look at Miss Manana Cohen, saying he was a connoisseur of Cohens and liked nothing so much as to watch them turning into Curzons or Colquhouns. I wasn’t sorry, for you can’t have a better man in a row than George Tarlyon, and with his damfool remarks he’d make a miser forget he was at the Ritz. We took two rooms in Canning Town E., and very nice rooms they were, over a ham and beef shop, and walked from pub to pub watching each other’s beards grow and listening for Julian Raphael. At least, I listened and George talked.

You would naturally have thought that the likely place to find that smart young man would be round about what journalists call the “exclusive hotels and night-clubs of the West End.” Not a bit of it. We soon heard something of Julian Raphael’s ways from one tough or another. Tarlyon’s idea of getting information delicately about a man was to threaten to fight anyone who wouldn’t give it to him, and we soon collected quite a bit that way.

Mr. Raphael was a Socialist, it appeared—remember, I’d guessed he was clever?—and hated the rich. He hated the rich so bitterly that, though he had a pretty fat bank-account of his own, he still clung to his old quarters in the East End. But no one knew, or cared to give, the address of his “old quarters,” which were probably various. Tarlyon threatened to fight any number of toughs who didn’t “know” Mr. Raphael’s address, but they preferred to fight, and in the end George got tired.

Oh, yes, Julian Raphael was certainly watched by the police, but he was generally somewhere else while the police were watching him. And Miss Manana Cohen was certainly his young lady-love, and she loved him and lived with him but he wouldn’t marry her because of another principle he had, that it was wrong for a man of independent spirit to have a wife of his own. Nice boy, Mr. Julian Raphael. But it appeared that he loved Miss Manana very decidedly and discouraged competition. It also appeared that before he had taken to the downward path he had been a juggler with knives on the music-halls. Knives again. Tarlyon thought that a pretty good joke at the time, but he didn’t enjoy it nearly so much later on.

We had been pottering about down there several days and George was just beginning to think of a nice shave and a bath when we hit on our first clue. The clue was walking up a grimy side-street by the East India Docks.

“Oh, pretty!” says George. And she certainly was. She hadn’t seen us. She was in a hurry.

“We follow,” I said.

“Naturally,” says George. “A nice girl like that! What do you take me for, a Y. M. C. A.?”

We followed. She walked fast, did Miss Manana. And it was queer, how she lit up that grimy God-forsaken street. The way she was walking, you might have taken her for a young gentlewoman “doing” the East End in a hurry. Tall, lithe, quietly dressed—Julian Raphael’s property! And he’d made her scream with pain.

“Now what?” snapped George.

She had been about twenty yards ahead of us. Street darkish, deserted, lined with warehouses, and all closed because it was a Saturday afternoon. Suddenly, no Manana Cohen. We slipped after her quick as you like. She had dived down a narrow passage between the warehouses. We were just in time to see the tail of her skirt whisking through a door in the wall a few yards up—and just in time to cut in after her.

“Oh!” she gasped. We must have looked a couple of cut-throats. And it was dark in there. I was panting—nothing like a sailor’s life for keeping you thoroughly out of training, unless it’s a soldier’s. But George was all there, being a good dancer.

“Miss Cohen, I believe?” he asks. All in whispers. She just stared at us. George didn’t want to scare her any more than I did. He was gay, in that mood of his when he seems to be laughing more at himself than at anyone else. But she just stared at us. She was tall, as women go, but we simply towered over the poor child. Then she recognised me and went as red as a carnation. I couldn’t think why. Tarlyon said comfortingly: “There, there!”

Then she panted all in a jumble: “I’m sorry I was rude to you the other night. Really I am. Please go away now, please!”

“I’m afraid we can’t do that,” I whispered. “We want——”

George, with his foot, gently shut the door behind us. We were in the passage of the house or whatever it was. It was pitch-dark. I lit another match.

“But what is it, what do you want?” the girl moaned.

“We just want to have a word with your young man,” said George, the idiot, in his ordinary voice.

“Oh!” she caught her breath. That gave the show away all right. Julian Raphael was at home, whatever home was. Then the match went out. And the lights went on, snap! Julian Raphael stood at the end of the passage, pointing a revolver.

George said: “Don’t be an ass!”

“Come here!” says Mr. Raphael to the girl.

“No, you don’t!” said George, hauling her to him by the arm.

Julian Raphael smiled in that way he had. “If you don’t let her go at once,” he says, “I shoot.”

“You what!” I said.

Tarlyon laughed. You can hear him. He said: “Now don’t be a fool all your life but stand at attention when you speak to my friend here, because he’s a knight. And put that comic gun away else I’ll come and hit you.”

I couldn’t help laughing. The young Jew looked so surprised. He’d never before been talked to just in that way and it bothered him, he was used to doing the laughing and being taken seriously. But I had laughed too soon. There was a whizz by my ear, a thud on the door behind me, and a knife an inch deep in the panel. The surprise had given Manana a chance to slip away. She was by Mr. Raphael now at the end of the passage. There wasn’t light enough to make out what was behind them, a stairway up or a stairway down. Down, I guessed, into the bowels of the earth. Julian Raphael was smiling. I’ll say it was well thrown, that knife.

Tarlyon was livid. “By God,” he whispered, “threw a knife at us! We are having a nice weekend!”

I held him back. What was the use? A little child could have led us at knife-throwing. Julian Raphael said, with that infernal sneer of his:

“Gentlemen, I merely wanted to show you what to expect if you were to advance another step. I wouldn’t kill you—not yet. One of you, yes. But it would cause comment, the disappearance of two fools. However, I might slice bits off your ears. Further, this is my house. Are you not intruding? Gentlemen, you may go.”

And, you know, we did. What the deuce else was there to do? If Tarlyon with his infernal chuckling hadn’t roused the man out of his lair we might have taken him by surprise and learnt something of the whereabouts of that counterfeiting business. But as it was, “go” was us while the going was good. And the way Tarlyon swore when we were outside made me glad it was a Saturday afternoon and the warehouses were closed, else he might have corrupted the poor workmen.

“What do we do now?” he asked at last. “Lump it?”

“Well, at any rate, we know his address now.”

“Address be blowed! That’s not an address, Charles, but an exit. I’ll bet our smart friend doesn’t press his trousers in that hole—and, by Heaven, there you are!”

He made me jump. I hadn’t, didn’t, see anything. I thought it was another knife.

“Never mind,” snapped George. “Too late now. Come on, man, come on!”

He made me walk on. After reaching daylight from that passage between the warehouses we had turned to the left, walked on a hundred yards or so by the front of the warehouses, then to the left again. This, running parallel to the passage, was a row of quite respectable-looking houses all stuck together, as quite respectable-looking houses should do in these times. There are streets and streets of them down there, and I’m told white women sometimes marry Chinamen just for the pleasure of living in them. But, as someone has said, white women will do anything. We had come to the end of a block when Tarlyon set up that howl and then shut me up.

“What the deuce!” I said again.

George said, walking on: “Jewboy has made one mistake. Naughty Jewboy. Now have a look at that house we passed. Don’t stare as though you were an American tailor looking at the Prince of Wales. Casually. The corner one.”

I turned and looked, casually. It was a house like another, and I said so. George asked me how far I thought it was from the passage in which I had nearly fielded Raphael’s knife with my ear. I said it must be a good way. Two hundred yards at least. There was a whole block of warehouses and a row of houses in between.

“Quite,” said George. We walked on. “Then how did Mr. Raphael get there so quick? Not by the road. I just saw a piece of his delightful face round the curtain of one of the windows. His one mistake, to have let me see him. There must be an underground passage about two hundred yards long between his warehouse address and his residence. You’ll bet the police have never spotted it yet, and I only spotted it because he was so eager to see us well away. I don’t think he likes us, Charles. But I’d be pleased to know who is supposed to be living in that house. And I’d take a bet that there’s a nice counterfeiting matinée going on this very moment somewhere between that house and that warehouse passage. Now you say something.”

“The point is, George, do you think he saw you spot him?”

Tarlyon smiled. “There’s always a catch. Trust the God of the Jews to lay a snag for poor Gentiles. But I don’t know. He mayn’t have seen I got him. But we will have to act as if he had. Get him quick, else he’ll be in the air. What’s the time now? Nearly eight. We’ll get back to civilisation, try and catch H—— at his home address, come down here to-night and surround the place. Fun. Hurray!”

I said: “Look here, George——”

He looked at me sharply. “I know what you are going to say, Charles. Don’t say it. You’re old enough to know better.”

But I stuck to my point. We must let H—— know at once, yes. Post men at the warehouse entrance and the house entrance, certainly. Catch Julian Raphael and his friends, decidedly. But we must give Manana Cohen another chance. She was only a child—twenty-one or two at most.

George said: “Charles, don’t be a silly old man. She is probably as bad as any of them. You can’t tell. Girls don’t live a life like that unless they want to.”

I knew he was wrong. I just knew it. So I didn’t argue, but stuck to my point. The girl must be got out of the way before the place was raided. If the police found her there, she would be jailed—perhaps for years. I simply wouldn’t have it. The girl was at the beginning of her life. To jail her now would be to ruin her for all her life.

Tarlyon, of course, didn’t need to be convinced. He was only leading me on. Tarlyon wouldn’t have put the police on a girl for trying to boil him in oil. But I was right about Manana Cohen. Good God, don’t I know I was right! This had been her life, was her life, these dreary streets, these foul alleys. Julian Raphael had found her, dazzled her, seduced her, bullied her, broken her. What chance had the girl, ever? She was timorous, you could see. A timid girl. No matter how kindly you talked to her, she stared at you like a rabbit at a stoat. Life was the stoat to Manana Cohen. Who knows what the girl hadn’t already suffered in her small life, what hell? Maybe she had loved Julian Raphael, maybe she loved him now. That wasn’t against her. Saints love cads. It’s the only way you can know a saint, mostly. Some of the nicest women you and I know, Hilary, have been divorced for the love of blackguards. Well, if Manana loved Raphael she would be punished enough by seeing him go to prison for a long stretch. One might find her a job on the stage, with her looks and figure. Good Lord, the way that girl looked at you when you so much as opened your mouth, her black eyes shivering as though her heart was hurt.

We found a taxi in the Whitechapel Road. To civilisation. Tarlyon was quiet. I wondered if he thought I was in love with the girl. Me, at my age. As we rattled through Cheapside—deserted on a Saturday afternoon—Tarlyon said: “We will have to think of a way of getting the girl out of the place beforehand. But how? If we warn her she will naturally pass the glad news on to her man. Naturally.”

Naturally, I agreed. She wouldn’t be herself if she went back on her man. I said I would think of a way as I bathed and dressed for dinner. As George dropped me at my flat he said:

“Let’s say dinner in an hour’s time at White’s. Meanwhile I’ll ring up H——. Maybe he will dine with us. I suppose it will be about midnight before we get down there with his men. I’ll tell you one thing, I’m not going to have knives chucked at me on an empty stomach—for I’ll not be left out of this, not for all the knives in Christendom and Jewry. This is a real treasure-hunt as compared to chasing poppycock with children round Regent’s Park and chickenfood with flappers up Piccadilly. I said midnight, Charles, to give you a chance of getting Miss Manana Colquhoun clear away. Wish you luck!”

But fate wouldn’t be bullied by George Almeric St. George Tarlyon. Fate had ideas of her own. Or is fate a he? No, it would be a woman, for she hates slim women. I’ve noticed that in the East, where no slim woman ever comes to any good. I hadn’t finished glancing at my letters, while my bath was running, when my man announced a young lady.

“A young what?” I said.

He was surprised, too. I went into the sitting-room. Manana Cohen was by the open door, as though she was afraid to come right in.

I said: “Thank Heaven you’ve come!” Extraordinary thing to say, but I said it.

She tried to smile. All scared eyes. I thought she was going to faint, tried to make her sit down, fussed about. Hilary, I’m trying to tell you I was shy.

“I’m frightened,” she said, as though that would be news for me. Then it all came out in that jumbled way of hers. She had given Raphael the slip, had found my address in the telephone-book, had come to me to warn me.

“To warn me!” I gasped. The cheek of these young people! Here were we and all Scotland Yard after them—and she had come to warn me!

“Yes. Listen.” Then she stopped. Suddenly, she blushed crimson.

I said: “Now, Manana, what is it? What on earth is there to blush about?”

She tried not to stammer as she said: “I can’t help it. Julian’s after you. He’s out to kill. He hates you once and he hates you twice because he thinks I’m in love with you. I don’t know why. He’s just mad jealous. I know Julian. And they’ll never catch him. Never. The fool police! I just thought I’d warn you. Go away, please go away—out of London. I feel if you die it will be my fault. He’ll throw you if you don’t go away. I know Julian. You’ll be walking up Piccadilly one evening, this evening perhaps. Suddenly, swish, knife in your back. No one will know who threw it, in the crowd. He could throw it from the top of a ’bus and no one notice. He never misses.”

I said: “So, Manana, he thinks you love me. Why does he think that?”

She wasn’t blushing now. She was quite calm now. She had never moved from the open door. Her eyes wouldn’t meet mine. They shone like anything in that white face. She just said: “Now I’ve warned you, I must go back. He will miss me. I’m glad I warned you. I think you must be a good man. Good-bye. But go away, please go away at once! Good-bye.”

I couldn’t stop her by touching her, else she would have got scared. I just told her not to go back East. We were going to raid Julian Raphael’s place that night.

“You came to warn me,” I said, “but I was just coming to warn you. My friend and I don’t want you to go to prison, Manana. You had better stay away from there for the present. I can find you somewhere to stay to-night, if you like. You can trust me.”

She opened her eyes very wide, but all she said was: “I must go back at once.”

I began to protest, but she went on tonelessly: “You don’t understand. I came to warn you because you are a good man. You are, aren’t you? I’m sorry I was led into laughing at you that night. He pinched my arm when I didn’t laugh. But I must stand by Julian. He is my man, good or bad. You see? He has been kind to me in his way. He loves me. I must go back to him at once. If you make me promise not to tell him about the police, I won’t. I won’t tell him anyway, I think. He must go to prison. It is time, because he will do more murders. I hate murders. But I will go with him to prison. And that will make it all right between Julian and me. Good-bye.”

It was good-bye. I knew it was no use arguing. With some women one doesn’t know when it’s any good or not, with a few one does. They’re the ones who count. I could hold her by force, of course—for her own good. Dear God, the lies we can tell ourselves! If I held her by force from going back to Julian Raphael it would not have been so much for her own good as for mine. I hated her going, I wanted her. But she must do as she thought right. Everyone must always, in spite of everything. I’m glad I’ve never married, Hilary, I would have made a mess of it just by always seeing my wife’s point of view.

I saw Manana downstairs to the door. It was raining the deuce, and the difference between twilight and night was about the same as that between a man of colour and a nigger. Manana and I stood close together in the open doorway. It was good-bye. I said: “Perhaps they will let you off. I will do my best. Come to me for help later on. Good-bye, Manana. Thank you.”

She smiled. The first and last smile I ever saw light that face. “I must never see you again,” she said, and then the laughter of Julian Raphael tore the smile from her face.

My rooms, as you know, are in Curzon Street: at the rather grubby end where Curzon Street, as though finally realising that it is deprived of the residential support of the noble family of that name, slopes helplessly down to a slit in a grey wall called Lansdowne Passage. I don’t know if you ever have occasion to go through there. When it is dark in London it is darker in Lansdowne Passage. It leads, between Lansdowne House and the wreck of Devonshire House, to Berkeley Street. There is a vertical iron bar up the middle of each opening, which I’m told were originally put there to prevent highwaymen making a dash through the Passage to the open country round Knightsbridge. Against that vertical iron bar leant Julian Raphael. I remember he had a pink shirt on. Our young dandy always showed a stretch of cuff. Between us and him there was one of those very tall silver-grey lamp-posts. You could see him round the edge of it, a black lean lounging shape. And that pink shirt.

“Manana, I followed you!” he cried. And he laughed.

The girl whispered frantically to me: “Get in, get in, get in!”

I said “What?” like a fool. She tried to push me inside the doorway. I was looking at her, not at Julian Raphael. I didn’t understand. There was a scream from the twilight: “Mind out, Manana!” Manana jumped in front of me. That’s all.

I held her as she fell backward. She just sighed.

“Manana!” the voice screamed again. Oh, in terror! The knife was up to the hilt in her throat.

I think I lost my head completely for the first time in my life. I made a dash towards the figure in the opening of Lansdowne Passage. He didn’t move, didn’t even see me coming. He was sobbing like a baby. Then I changed my mind and rushed back to Manana. Lay a flower on a pavement in the rain, and you have Manana as I last saw her. Her eyelids fluttered once or twice. The rain was washing the blood from her throat into the gutter. My man had come down and was doing his best. I looked through the twilight at the crumpled black figure against the iron bar.

“She’s dead, Raphael!” I called, whispering to my man: “Go get him!”