"Large hands," said Hughie. "Half a minute!"
He produced from his tail-pocket two forks, a napkin, and a bottle of soda-water.
"I remembered you liked your drink diluted," he said, pouring out both bottles at once. "I noticed it at dinner, the other night."
"Hughie, you're a dear!" said Joan impulsively.
"Say when!" remarked Hughie unsteadily.
It was five o'clock in the morning. The band had played "Whisper and I shall hear," followed by "John Peel," followed by "God save the King," followed by "John Peel," once more, followed by "God save the King" again, and the musicians were now putting away their instruments with an air of finality which intimated thatin their humble opinion the Midfield Hunt Ball had had its money's worth.
The Manors party, all twelve of them, were being scientifically packed into an omnibus constructed to seat ten uncomfortably, and Joan was waiting her turn in the portico. At this moment Sylvia Tarrant, followed by a slightly sheepish brother, came down the steps. Her cheeks were excessively pink and her eyes blazed.
She saw Joan, and stopped.
"I was afraid I was going to miss you," she said. "Good-night!"
"Good-night!" said Joan.
The little girl—she was a head shorter than Joan—placed her hands upon her new friend's shoulders, and stood on tiptoe.
"I should like to kiss you," she said shyly.
"Oh, my dear!" said Joan, quite flustered. "Of course—if you like. There!"
She was unusually silent all the way home, and when they reached Manors said good-night to Mrs. Leroy and flitted upstairs to her room. The rest of the party dispersed ten minutes later, and Hughie was left alone with his host and hostess.
"I have never known that child have a headache before," said Mrs. Leroy rather anxiously, as Hughie lighted her candle. "I hope there's nothing wrong."
"She's as right as rain," said Hughie. "Shegave up all her partners—every man Jack of them—I mean—I'm sorry! I don't think she meant me to tell—"
"You may as well finish now," said Mrs. Leroy composedly.
Hughie did so. Mrs. Leroy nodded.
"It was like her," she said softly, "especially telling you to keep quiet about it. A good many women might have given up their dances, but very few could have resisted the temptation to make capital out of their generosity. Never tell me again, miserable creature," she continued, turning suddenly upon her comatose spouse, "that a woman is incapable of doing a good turn to another woman!"
"Cert'nly, m'dear," replied Captain Leroy, making a desperate effort to close his mouth and open his eyes.
"But of course," broke in Hughie unexpectedly, "there are precious few women like Joey."
Then he bit his lip, and turned a dusky red.
Mrs. Leroy, being a woman, took no outward notice, but her husband, who was a plain creature, turned and regarded his guest with undisguised interest.
"Whatho!" he remarked, wagging his sleepy head.
"Good-night, old man!" said Hughie hurriedly.
BUSINESS ONLY
Nextmorning Hughie made Miss Joan Gaymer a proposal of marriage.
It was not an impressive effort—very few proposals are. But a performance of this kind may miss the mark as a spectacle and yet, by the indulgence of the principal spectator, achieve its end. Even thus Hughie failed, and for various reasons.
In the first place, he proposed directly after breakfast, which, as Joey pathetically observed to Mrs. Leroy long afterwards, was just the sort of brutal thing he would do. A woman, especially if she be young, likes to be won, or at any rate wooed, in a certain style. A secluded spot, subdued light, mayhap a moon; if possible, distant music—all these things tell. If Hughie had paid a little more attention to stage-effects of this kind he might have found his ward more amenable. Being a Marrable, he brushed aside these trappings and came straight to what he fondly imagined was the point, little knowing that to a young girl romance and courtship make up one great and glorious vista, filling the eye and occupyingthe entire landscape, while marriage is a small black cloud on the distant horizon.
His actual method of procedure was to sit heavily down beside his ward as she enjoyed the morning sun in a corner of the lawn, and say,—
"Joey, I want to talk to you—on business."
"All right, warder," replied Miss Gaymer meekly; "fire away!"
"I suppose you know," said Hughie, a little dashed, "that all your affairs have been left in my hands?"
"I do, worse luck!" said Miss Gaymer frankly. "And that reminds me, Hughie dear, I should like a trifle on account. You won't refuse poor Joey, will you?"
She squeezed her guardian's arm in a manner which a Frenchman would have described astrès câline.
"I think I had better put you on an allowance," said Hughie.
Joan's eyes danced.
"Oh, youripper! How much?"
"Can't say," replied Hughie, "until I've been up to town and seen the bankers."
"When are you going?"
"To-morrow: that's why I wanted to talk to you to-day. You see, your money is in two parts, so to speak. One lot is tied up in such a way thatit can't be touched until poor Uncle Jimmy's death is actually proved."
Joan's blue-grey eyes were troubled.
"Hughie," she said, "is thereanyhope? I still like to think so."
Hughie shook his head. "Not much," he said. "In fact, none. It is known that he went with that crack-brained expedition of Hymack's up the Congo,—to study the Rubber Question on the spot,—and the last letter he sent home said that he was suffering from black-water fever, and it is also known that the expedition came back without him. And—all that was two years ago, Joey."
Joan nodded her head submissively.
"Poor Uncle Jimmy!" she said softly.
"Still," continued Hughie stoutly, "you never know. I have sent a man out to make inquiries, and if he fails, perhaps I shall go myself. But until we learn something definite the will can't be proved. However, he left me very full instructions what to do in case he did not come back, so I must carry them out. There is plenty for you to go on with. I shall run up to town to-morrow, and when I come back I'll let you know how much it is, and how much a year I can allow you."
Miss Gaymer clasped her hands and sighed happily.
"Wewillhave a time, Hughie!" she said. "I'll stand treat."
"Thank you," said Hughie gravely.
There was a long silence. Hughie, suddenly ill at ease,—he had arrived at Part Two of his morning's syllabus,—made fatuous attempts to roll a cigarette. His ward sat with a rapt expression in her widely-opened eyes, mentally visualising a series of charitable enterprises (ranging from a turquoise pendant for Mildred Leroy to a new cap for the cook) made feasible by the sudden prospect of wealth.
Presently Hughie cleared his throat in a heart-rending manner, and said, in what he afterwards admitted to himself was entirely the wrong sort of voice,—
"Joey, I think you and I had better marry one another."
Miss Gaymer, who was more used to this sort of thing than her companion, turned and eyed him calmly.
"And why?" she asked.
There was only one possible answer to this question, and Hughie should have given it with the full strength of his heart and soul and body. But—well, reserve is a curious and paralysing thing. All he said was,—
"I think it would be very suitable; don't you?"
"For you or for me?" inquired Miss Gaymer.
"For both of us," replied Hughie. "No—forme!" he added, his habitual modesty getting the better of him.
"In what way?" continued Miss Gaymer, with unnatural calm.
"Well—Uncle Jimmy was very keen about it," said Hughie desperately.
"You're a dutiful nephew, Hughie," observed Joan approvingly.
"And then," continued the suitor, "as I have been made your guardian, and all that, I think I am in a position to take care of you, and look after your money, and so on."
"You mean it would make it easier for you to manage my affairs?" said Miss Gaymer helpfully.
"Yes," said Hughie, feeling that he was getting on.
"Any more reasons?" inquired Miss Gaymer, with a docile appearance of intelligent interest.
Hughie made an immense effort, and grasped his chair until the veins stood out on his hands.Parturiunt montes—at last.
"Well, Joey," he said at last, "we have always been pals, and all that. I mean, we have known each other for a long time now, haven't we? You even offered to marry me once,"—he laughed nervously,—"when you were a kiddie. Do you remember? It seems to me we should get on first-rate together—eh? What's your opinion?"
Ridiculus mus!
Miss Gaymer sat up in her chair, and turned upon the unfortunate young man beside her.
"And youdare," she said, "to come to a girl like me with a proposal like that! You sit there and tell me that you have taken me over from Uncle Jimmy like a—like a parcel from a porter, and that you have been saddled with my money and affairs, so perhaps it would be simplest and save trouble if you married me!Me!" she repeated, "who have to keep men off with a stick!"
The last sentence was a mistake. It was an inartistic and egotistical climax to a perfectly justifiable tirade. Joan realised the fact the moment she had uttered the words, but poor Hughie was too much occupied in retiring into his shell to notice anything. He had laid bare his heart, in his own fashion, for the first time in his life, and this was the result. Never again! He burned inwardly, like a child who has been laughed at by grown-ups.
"I'm sorry," he said stiffly. "My mistake! Shan't occur again."
Joey's ear was caught by the tone of his voice, and conscience gave her a twinge. She patted Hughie's arm in a friendly way.
"Old boy," she said, suddenly contrite, "I've made you angry, and I've hurt you. I'm sowwy—sorry, I mean! (I'm a bit upset, you see)," she said, smiling disarmingly. "But Ican'tmarryyou, really. I couldn'tbearto be married at all at present. It seems so—so unnecessary. I don't see what I should get out of it. That's a selfish thing to say, I suppose, but I'll try to explain a girl's point of view to you. You're a terrible child in some respects, so I'll do it quite simply."
She stroked his sleeve in a motherly fashion, and continued:—
"Years ago, my dear, the only way a girl could get her freedom or any male society was by marrying. Now, she gets as much of both as she wants, and if she marries she loses all the freedom and most of the male society. So why should she marry at all?"
Hughie kept silence before this poser. He felt incapable of plunging into the depths of an argument: one has to keep to the surface in discussing these matters with a maiden of twenty.
"So I shan't marry for years, if at all," continued Miss Gaymer, with the air of one propounding an entirely new theory. "Not until I'm gettingpasséeat any rate, and only then if I could find a man whom it wouldn't give me the creeps to think of spending the rest of my life with. Besides, the moment one gets engaged all the other men drop off,—all the nice ones, at any rate,—and that would never do. Don't you think my system is a sensible one?"
"It comes hard on the men," said Hughie.
"Yes, poor dears!" said Miss Gaymer sympathetically. "Still, one man is so tiresome and a lot is so nice!"
With which concise and not unmasterly summary of the marriage question, as viewed through the eyes of the modern maiden, Miss Gaymer turned the conversation into other channels, and the idyll terminated.
Half an hour later they were called into the house, to make ready for a boating expedition.
Joan, with her usual frankness, reverted for a moment before they left the seclusion of the trees to the topic that was uppermost in their minds.
"Hughie," she said softly, "does it hurt much?"
"I don't quite know yet," said Hughie.
"I mean, are you sad or angry—which? It usually takes a man one way or the other," observed this experienced damsel.
"I don't know that I'm either," said Hughie meditatively; "the only feeling that I have just now is that I'm desperately sorry. But I'm not kicking."
"It is my belief," remarked Miss Gaymer with sudden and pardonable asperity, "that you don't care for me in the least. Do you, now?"
They were a very honest and sincere couple, these. For a full minute they looked each other inthe face, without speaking. Then Hughie said,—
"Joey, I simply don't know! I thought I did half an hour ago, and I'd have sworn it last night, when—"
He checked himself.
"When what?" asked Joan swiftly.
"Nothing," said Hughie. "That's rather beside the point now, isn't it?"
Joan, curiosity struggling with honesty, nodded reluctantly.
"Anyhow," continued Hughie, "I thought I did then, but I'm blessed if I know now. In fact," he added in a sudden burst of confidence, "sometimes I can't stand you at any price, Joey dear!"
"Ah!" said Miss Gaymer, nodding a wise head, "I see you don't know your own mind yet. But youwill—one way or another—as soon as you get away from me."
A week later another interview took place between the pair, on the same spot.
"Business only this time, Joey!" said Hughie, with rather laborious cheerfulness.
"All right. Did you have a good time in town?" inquired Miss Gaymer, in the inevitable manner of women and Orientals, who dislike coming to the point in matters of business without a few decent preliminaries.
"Yes, thanks. I have been picking up old friends again, and generally settling down," said Hughie. "Got a flat, and a comic man-servant—Scotchman—introduce you some day. He—"
He plunged into a rather rambling description of John Alexander Goble. He was evidently no more anxious to get to business than Joan.
At last Miss Gaymer inquired,—
"Well, Hughie, have you fixed up my affairs?"
"Yes," said Hughie slowly. "Do you want details?"
"Mercy, no! I don't know anything about business, and I don't believe you do either, Hughie.Doyou?"
"Not much," confessed the trustee. "However, I must tell you at once, Joey, that your income won't be nearly as large as I expected—"
"Right O!" replied Joan cheerfully. "When do I start for the workhouse?"
"It's not quite so bad as that," said Hughie, "but—"
"What am I worth?" inquired the practical Miss Gaymer.
"I can't quite tell you," said Hughie in a hesitating fashion. "You see"—he appeared to be choosing his words rather carefully—"the nominal value of investments, and their actual cash equivalent—"
Joan put her fingers in her ears.
"Stop!" she cried, "or I shall scream! I don't know an asset from a liability, except that in the arithmetic book brokerage is one-eighth, and—Never mind! I should never understand. How much am I to have a year? Tell me that."
"Supposing it should be a mere trifle," said Hughie slowly, "what would you do?"
Miss Gaymer puckered her brow thoughtfully.
"You mean, if I hadn't enough to live on?"
Hughie nodded.
"Well, I shouldn't be a governess, I don't think. I love children, but children are always perfectly diabolical to their governess, and I shouldn't be able to stand their mothers, either. No: governesses are off! I shouldn't mind being a typewriter, though, or a secretary,—not that I can typewrite, or even spell,—provided it was to a really nice man. An author, you know, or a Cabinet Minister. He could walk about the room, rumpling up his hair and getting the stuff off his chest, and I would sit there like a little mouse, in a neat black skirt and a white silk blouse,—perhapsone or two carnations pinned on,—looking very sweet and taking it all down."
"It's a pretty picture," said Hughie drily.
"Yes, isn't it?" said Miss Gaymer, with genuine enthusiasm. "I think," she continued, soaring to still greater heights, "that I should like togo on the stage best of all. Of course, it wouldn't be the slightest good my going on the proper stage—learning parts, and all that; but a piece like 'The Merry Widow,' with different frocks for each act and just a few choruses to sing in, would be top-hole!SayI'm a pauper, Hughie!"
"You're not—thank God!" was Hughie's brutal but earnest response.
"All right, then! Don't bite my head off!" said Miss Gaymer, with unimpaired good temper. "Let us resume. How much are you going to give me?"
"How much can you live on?"
"Well, I was talking about it to Ursula Harbord—you know her, don't you?"
"I do," said Hughie, making a wry face.
"Very well, don't abuse her. She's the cleverest girl I know," said Joan warmly. "She is on the staff of 'The New Woman,' and can put a man in his place in about two minutes."
"So I discovered," said Hughie resignedly. "Popular type of girl. However, you were saying—?"
"I was asking Ursula," continued Joan, "about the cost of living in town, and so on, and we agreed to share a flat. She said I could get along on three hundred a-year."
Joan paused expectantly, and waited for an answer to her unspoken question.
"That," said Hughie, after hesitating a moment as if to work out a sum in mental arithmetic, "is just what I can give you."
A pair of Archdiaconal shoe-buckles, the glimmer of a lady's white evening wrap, and a glowing cigar-end were discernible in the half-light of the verandah outside the drawing-room window after dinner. Two Olympians, to whom human hearts were as an open book, were discussing mortal affairs.
"Is there no way of bringing it off?" inquired one voice.
"Lots," replied the other. "But they have so bungled things between them that we shall have to go slow for a bit. Why, oh, why do men whom you could trust to do almostanythingin the ordinary way always make such a mess of their love-affairs? Why aren'tyoumarried, for instance, Mr. D'Arcy?"
"To return to the point," said the reverend gentleman evasively, "what ought Hughie to do? Take her by the shoulders and shake her? I have known such a method prove most efficacious," he added, rather incautiously.
"N-no," said Mrs. Leroy, "I don't think so—not in Joey's case. It would bring some women to reason—most women, in fact—in no time. But the child is too high-spirited. Her pridewould never forgive such treatment. A better way would be for him to make love to some one else."
"Being Hughie, that is out of the question. He could only make love to some one else if he meant it; and that would rather defeat your object, Mrs. Leroy."
"Myobject?"
"Well, ours, then. But is there no other way?"
"Yes. He must get into trouble of some kind. At present he is too popular: everybody likes him. If they turned against him she would come round fast enough. Yes, he must get intotrouble."
"Well, perhaps he will," said the Venerable the Archdeacon hopefully.
DEPUTATIONS—WITH A DIFFERENCE
Hughielet himself into his chambers in Jermyn Street, and rang the bell of his sitting-room. It was a comfortable bachelor apartment, with sporting trophies on the walls, cavernous arm-chairs round the fireplace, and plenty of pipes dotted about the mantelpiece.
It was eleven o'clock on a fine morning in March, and Hughie had been to Putney to stroke a scratch eight against the Cambridge crew, who had rowed a full trial on the early flood and required a little pacing between bridges.
Presently the sitting-room door opened, and John Alexander Goble presented himself upon the threshold. Since his unregenerate days on board the Orinoco a new and awful respectability had descended upon him, and in his sober menial attire he looked more like a Calvinistic divine than ever. He regarded his employer with some displeasure.
"Your breakfast has been sitting in the fender these twa hours," he observed bitterly.
"Sorry, John. Afraid I forgot to countermand it. I had some at Putney."
"At what hour?" inquired the inexorable Mr. Goble.
"Half-past seven, about, with the crew."
"It's eleven the noo. You'll be able for some mair, I doot. Forbye it's a pity to waste good food. Bide you, while I'll get it."
Hughie, who was as wax in the hands of his retainer, presently found himself partaking of a lukewarm collation and opening his letters.
He glanced through the first.
"John!" he called.
Mr. Goble appeared from the bedroom.
"Were you cryin' on me?" he inquired.
"Yes. Did two gentlemen call here at ten?"
"Aye."
"Who were they?"
"Yon felly Gaymer, and anither."
"Who was he?"
"I couldna say."
"What was he like?"
Mr. Goble cast about him for a suitable comparison.
"He was just a long drink o' watter," he announced at last, with an air of finality.
"Did he look—like an actor?" inquired Hughie, with a flash of intuition.
"Worse than that," replied Goble.
"Um—I think I know him. Thank you, that will do. By the way, I'm expecting some friendsto lunch. Captain and Mrs. Leroy—and Mr. D'Arcy. You know him, don't you?"
"D'Arcy? Aye, I mind him fine. A fat yin, wi' a lum hat tied up wi' string. A popish-lookin' body," commented Mr. Goble sorrowfully.
He retired downstairs, to ponder upon the dubiety of the company into which his employer appeared to be drifting, and Hughie returned to his letters.
The sight of the next caused him to glow suddenly, for on the back of the envelope he observed the address of Joan's flat. But he cooled when he turned it round and read the superscription. It was in the handwriting of the lady with whom Joan shared the flat.
"Dear Mr. Marrable[it said],—"Joan and I are coming to call on you to-morrow about twelve—"
"Dear Mr. Marrable[it said],—
"Joan and I are coming to call on you to-morrow about twelve—"
"They'd better stay to lunch." Hughie touched the bell and continued,—
"Dear Joan is very young in some ways, and she has no idea of the value of money; but since talking the matter over withmerecently, she would like to have a few words with you about her financial position."How delightful to see the leaves coming out again!—Believe me, yours sincerely,"Ursula Harbord."
"Dear Joan is very young in some ways, and she has no idea of the value of money; but since talking the matter over withmerecently, she would like to have a few words with you about her financial position.
"How delightful to see the leaves coming out again!—Believe me, yours sincerely,
"Ursula Harbord."
"'Dear Joan would like'—wouldshe?" commented Hughie. "I'm afraid it's Ursula Harbord I'm going to have the few words with, though. Hades!"
He rose and crossed the room to the fireplace, where he kicked the coals with unnecessary violence. Then he sighed heavily, and picked up a photograph which stood upon the mantelpiece.
Joan had spoken nothing but the truth when she told Hughie that he would discover his true feelings as soon as he found himself away from her. For six or eight months he had gone about his day's work with the thoroughness and determination of his nature. He had administered the little estate of Manors, was beginning to dabble in politics, had taken up rowing again, and was trying to interest himself generally in the course of life to which he had looked forward so eagerly on his travels. He had even tried conclusions with a fewdébutanteswho had been introduced to his notice by business-like Mammas. But whatever his course of life, his thoughts and desires persisted in centring round a single object,—a very disturbing and elusive object,—and try as he would, he failed to derive either pleasure or profit from his present existence.
In other words, he had made a mess of a love-affair.
Most men—and most women too, for thatmatter—undergo this experience at least once in their lives, and no two ever endure it in the same way. One rants, another mopes, a third forgets, a fourth bides his time, a fifth seeks consolation elsewhere, a sixth buries himself in work or dissipation. Hughie, who cherished a theory that everything ultimately comes right in this world provided you hold on long enough, and that when in doubt a man should "stand by the Day's Work and await instructions," like Kipling's Bridge-Builders, had gone steadily on, because it was his nature so to do. It was uphill work at present,—a mechanical perfunctory business, with no reward or alleviation in sight,—but he was determined to go on doing his duty by Joan to the best of his ability, and combine so far as he was able the incompatiblerôlesof stern guardian, undesired suitor, and—to him most paradoxical of all—familiar friend.
For there was no doubt that Joan liked him. She trusted him, consulted him,—yea, obeyed him, even when he contradicted her most preposterous utterances and put down a heavy foot on her most cherished enterprises. For this he did without flinching. The fact that he was a failure as a lover seemed to be no reason why he should fail as a guardian.
Not that Joan submitted readily to hisrégime. To Hughie's essentially masculine mind herchanges of attitude were a complete mystery. They seemed to have no logical sequence or connection. She would avoid him or seek him out with equal unexpectedness. She might be hopelessly obstinate or disarmingly docile. One day she would behave like a spoilt child; on another she would be a very grandmother to him. Sometimes she would blaze up and rail against her much-enduring guardian for a tyrant and a monster; at others she would take him under a most maternal wing, and steer him through a garden-party or a reception in a manner which made him feel like a lost child in the hands of a benevolent policeman. On one occasion, which he particularly remembered, she had rounded on him and scolded him for a full half-hour for his stolid immobility and lack offinesse; the self-same afternoon he had overheard her hotly defending him against a charge of dulness brought by two frivolous damsels over the tea-table.
All this was very perplexing to a man who hated subtlety and liked his friends and foes marked in plain figures. It unsettled his own opinions, too. Joey's variegated behaviour prevented him from deciding in his own mind whether he really liked her or not. At present all he was certain of was that he loved her.
Meanwhile she was coming to see him—about her financial position. That did not promiseromance. And Ursula Harbord was coming too. Help! Certainly life was a rotten business at present. And it had been so full and glorious before he had forsaken the wide world and taken to this sort of thing. It might have been so different too, if only—
Poor Hughie replaced Joan's photograph, sighed again—and coughed confusedly. A funereal image appeared over his shoulder in the chimney-glass.
"Were you ringin'?" inquired a sepulchral voice.
"Yes, John. Miss Gaymer and a friend of hers are coming to see me this morning. They'll probably stay to lunch. You can clear away that food over there."
He returned to his letters. Only one remained unopened, and proved to be from a man with whom he had arranged to shoot in the autumn.
"This seems to promise a little relief from the present cheery state of affairs," he mused. "Four men on a nice bleak moor, with no women about! Thank God! A hundred pounds a share. Well, Lord knows, trusteeing is an unprofitable business, but I think I can just do it. I'll accept at once."
He began to write a telegram. Bachelors have a habit of conducting their correspondence in this manner.
"Here's they twa whigmalearies," announced Mr. Goble dispassionately.
He ushered in Lance Gaymer and the histrionic Mr. Haliburton.
"After compliments," as they say in official circles, Lance came to the point.
"Marrable," he said, after an almost imperceptible exchange of glances with Haliburton, "aren't you keeping my sister rather short of money?"
Hughie turned and stared at him in blank astonishment.
Mr. Haliburton, exuding gentlemanly tact at every pore, rose instantly.
"You two fellows would like to be alone, no doubt," he said. "I must not intrude into family matters. I'll call for you in half an hour, Lance."
Hughie had risen too.
"You need not trouble, Mr. Haliburton," he said. "Lance is coming with you."
Mr. Gaymer was obviously unprepared for such prompt measures as these.
"But look here—I say—what the devil do you mean?" he spluttered.
"I mean," replied Hughie deliberately,—he had realised, almost exultantly, that here once more was a situation which need not be handled with kid gloves,—"that I am your sister's sole trustee and guardian, and that you have nothingwhatever to do with the disposition of her property, and—"
"I think you forget," said Lance truculently, "that I am her brother."
"I do not forget it," said Hughie. "Neither did Jimmy Marrable. It was no oversight on his part which left Joan's inheritance and yours locked up in separate compartments, so to speak. He gave you an independent income long ago, Lance, because he was particularly anxious to give you no opportunity of interfering with Joan's affairs when the time came. For some reason he had chosen me for the job, and he preferred that I should have a free hand. Therefore I am not going to allow you to cut into my department. I am sorry to have to put it so brutally, but, really, you have been infernally officious of late. This is the fourth reference which you have made to the subject during the past six weeks. I don't know whether your enterprise is inspired by brotherly love or the desire to make a bit, but whichever it is I don't think you'll get much change out of me. I also object to your latest move—bringing in Mr. Haliburton, presumably as an accomplice, or a witness, or whatever you like to call him."
"Really, Mr. Marrable!" Mr. Haliburton's voice quivered with gentlemanly indignation.
Hughie rang the bell.
"Look here, Marrable," burst out Lance furiously, "you are getting yourself in a hole, I can tell you! We—I happen to know that Jimmy Marrable left thirty or forty thousand pounds at least for Joey's immediate use; and I am pretty certain he left something for mine too. Now—"
"I'm sorry I can't ask you to stay to lunch," said Hughie, "but I have some friends coming. Show these gentlemen out, John."
The deputation was ruthlessly shepherded downstairs by the impassive Mr. Goble, and Hughie was left to his own reflections. He filled a pipe meditatively.
"I wonder," he said, lighting a spill and puffing, "where young Lance got his figures from. I also wonder what the game is. He was obviously a bit worked up, and I should say he had been fortifying himself for the interview before he arrived. I knew, of course, that he had never forgiven me for being put in charge of Joey's affairs: he has always made things as difficult for me as possible. Perhaps he wants a trifle for himself: his closing remarks rather pointed that way. But what on earth is friend Haliburton doing in that galley? I fancy he has been at the back of things all along. What interest hashein the amount of Joey's fortune? I don't know much about him, but I wouldn't trust him a yard.Perhaps Lance owes him money. Have they gone, John?"
"Aye," replied Mr. Goble. "They went quite quietly," he added regretfully.
He began to lay the table for luncheon.
"I say, John," began Hughie awkwardly.
"Aye?"
"There's a thing I want to speak to you about. I have been losing money lately, and I have to give up some luxuries I can't afford. I—I am afraid you are one of them. I have always regarded a man-servant as an extravagance," he went on with a rush, "and I must ask you to look about for another place. Take your time, of course, and don't leave me till you are suited. I shall be glad to give you a character, and all that. You understand?"
There was a silence, while Mr. Goble folded a napkin. Then he replied: "Fine!" Then he added, after a pause, "So you've been lossin' your money? Aye! Aha! Mphm!"
"Yes. I'm desperately sorry," said Hughie penitently. "I don't want to lose you. Perhaps it will only be tempor—"
"You'll no be daen' that yet a while," remarked Mr. Goble morosely. "I'm an ill body tae move."
"But, John, you don't understand. I can't afford to keep you for more than—"
"There a cab!" observed Mr. Goble.
Hughie looked down out of the window.
"So it is," he said hastily. "I'll show them up, John. You go on with your work."
He was across and out of the room in three strides, and could be heard descending the stairs kangaroo fashion.
Mr. John Goble breathed heavily into a spoon and rubbed it with the point of his elbow.
"I wunner wha his visitors is," he mused caustically. "Of course he always opens the door himsel' tae all his visitors! Of course I dinna ken wha she is! Oh, no!"
He wagged his head in a broken-hearted manner, and gave vent to a depressing sound which a brother Scot would have recognised as a chuckle of intense amusement.
To him entered Miss Ursula Harbord. She worepince-nezand a sage-green costume of some art fabric—one of the numerous crimes committed in the name of Liberty. She was Joan Gaymer's latest fad; and under her persuasive tutelage Joan was beginning to learn that the men who all her life had served her slightest whim were at once monsters of duplicity and brainless idiots; and that, given a few more fervid and ungrammatical articles in "The New Woman," women would shortly come to their own and march in the van of civilisation, and that people likeUrsula Harbord would march in the van of the women.
Pending this glorious destiny, Miss Harbord acted as unsettler-in-general of Joan's domestic instincts, and worried Hughie considerably.
She was followed into the room by Joan; very much the Joan of last summer, if we make allowances for the distressing appearance presented by a young woman of considerable personal attractions who is compelled by Fashion's decree, for this season at any rate, to obscure her features under a hat which looks like an unsuccessful compromise between a waste-paper basket and a dish-cover.
"Well, John," she inquired in her friendly fashion, "have you quite settled down in London?"
"Aye, mem."
"Not missing Scotland?" continued Joan, peeling off her white gloves and sitting down in an arm-chair.
"Naething to speak of," said John.
"I thought," continued Miss Gaymer, surveying Mr. Goble's Cimmerian features, "that you had perhaps left your heart there."
"Ma hairt? What for would I dae a thing like that?" enquired the literal Mr. Goble. "A hairt is no a thing a body can dae wi'oot," he explained. "It's no like a rib. Ye jist get the ane, so ye canna afford tae get leavin' it ony place."
Miss Gaymer smilingly abandoned the topic, and in all probability the ghost of Sydney Smith chuckled.
"When are you going to pay us another visit at Manors?" was Joan's next question.
"I'm no sure," said Mr. Goble. "Mr. Marrable has jist given me notice."
"Oh, John!" said Joan, "what have you been doing? Breaking his china?"
"Drinking his wine?" suggested Miss Harbord, turning from a scornful inspection of Hughie's stock of current literature.
"I doot I'm no givin' satisfaction," said John.
"But, John, I amsureyou are!" said Joan. "Was that the reason he gave?"
"He said he was givin' up keepin' a man-servant."
Miss Harbord, who had been craning her neck to see something in the street, turned round sharply.
"Why? Has he been losing money?"
"I couldna say, mem," said Mr. Goble woodenly. He shared his master's antipathy to Miss Harbord.
That lady shook her head resignedly.
"I thought so!" she said. "Joan, dear—"
At this moment Hughie entered, and Miss Harbord's fire was diverted.
"Mr. Marrable, have you got rid of that cabman?" she enquired with truculence.
"Rather!" said Hughie. "He went like a lamb."
"He was intoxicated," remarked Miss Harbord freezingly.
"I didn't notice it," said Hughie. "He was quite tractable. Apparently you engaged him at Hyde Park Terrace and stopped at two shops on the way."
"That is correct."
"And you gave him one and threepence for a drive of over two miles and a stop of about ten minutes."
"His legal fare. We employed him for exactly half an hour."
"But did you tell him that you were engaging him by the hour?"
"Of course not! They simplycrawlif you do. You might have known that, Mr. Marrable."
"Well, it's all right now," interposed Joan cheerfully.
"Mr. Marrable," persisted Miss Harbord, "I fear you were weak with him. How much did you give him?"
"Nothing out of the way," said Hughie uneasily. "You'll stay to lunch, won't you? I am expecting the Leroys and D'Arcy. We can all go on to amatinéeafterwards."
Miss Harbord assumed the expression of one who is not to be won over by fair words, and endeavoured to catch Miss Gaymer's eye—an enterprise which failed signally, as the latter lady rose from her seat and strolled to the window.
"Mr. Marrable," began Miss Harbord, taking up her parable single-handed, "Joan wishes to have a chat with you about money-matters."
"No I don't, Hughie," said Miss Gaymer promptly, over her shoulder.
"Well then, dear," said Miss Harbord calmly, "you ought to. Women leave these things to men far too much as it is. Joan has an old-fashioned notion," she added to Hughie, "that it is not quite nice for girls to know anything about money-matters: hence her reluctance. However, I will conduct her case for her."
Miss Harbord crossed her legs, threw herself back in her chair in a manner which demonstrated most conclusively her contempt for appearances and feminine ideas of decorum, and began:
"Tell me, Mr. Marrable, what interest does Joan get on her money?"
Hughie gaped feebly. Half an hour ago he had put Mr. Lance Gaymer to the door for an almost precisely similar question. But Lance Gaymer was a man, and Miss Harbord, concealthe fact as she might, was a woman; and Hughie's old helplessness paralysed him once more.
"The usual rate of interest," he said lamely, "is about four per cent."
Ursula Harbord nodded her head, as who should say, "I expected that!" and produced a crumpled newspaper from her muff.
"That," she said almost indulgently, "reveals your ignorance of the world, Mr. Marrable. If you mixed a little more in affairs, and followed some regular occupation, you would have more opportunities of discovering things for yourself, and so be spared the indignity—I suppose you consider it an indignity?—of having to be advised by a woman."
The afflicted Hughie murmured something about it being a pleasure.
"Now here," continued Miss Harbord, slapping the newspaper as an East-End butcher slaps the last beef-steak at his Saturday night auction, "I have the report of the half-yearly meeting of the International Trading Company, Limited, where a dividend of seven per cent was declared, making a dividend on the whole year of fourteen per cent.Nowdo you see what I—what Joan wants?"
"Hughie," said Joan, who was making a tour of inspection of the room, "where did you get this lovely leopard-skin? Have I seen it before?"
"Shot it, Joey. I beg your pardon, Miss Harbord?"
"Do you see what Joan wants you to do?" repeated that financial Amazon.
"Afraid I don't, quite. I'll get on to it in a minute, though," replied the docile Hughie.
"Surely, the whole thing is quite clear! You must take Joan's capital out of whatever it is in and buy shares in The International Trading Company with it. And be sure you orderpreferenceshares, Mr. Marrable. They are the best sort to get. That is all; but I ought not to have to point these things out to you."
Hughie surveyed his preceptress in an undecided fashion. Was it worth while endeavouring to explain to her a few of the first principles of finance, or would it be simpler to grin and bear it? He decided on the latter alternative.
"The shares," continued Miss Harbord, having evidently decided to follow up her whips with a few selected scorpions, "should be bought as cheap as possible. They go up and down, you know, like—a—"
"Monkey on a stick?" suggested Hughie, with the air of one anxious to help.
Miss Harbord smiled indulgently.
"No, no! Like a—a barometer, let us say; and you have to watch your opportunity. There is a thing called 'par' which they go to,—anybodywill tell you what it is,—and that is a very good time to buy them."
Hughie, fighting for breath, rose and joined Joan in the window recess, while Miss Harbord, with much ostentatious crackling, folded up the newspaper and put it away.
"Hughie," said Joan, under cover of the noise, "you are angry."
"Not at all," replied Hughie, wiping his eyes furtively. "A bit flummoxed—that's all. No idea your friend was so up in these things."
"Sheisclever, isn't she?" said Joan, with unaffected sincerity. "But, Hughie dear, don't bother about it if it worries you. My affairs must be a fearful nuisance to you, but Ursula was so keen that I should come—"
"I'm glad you did, Joey. It was worth it," said Hughie simply.
"Of course," continued the unlearned Miss Gaymer, "to people like Ursula these things are as easy as falling off a log, but for you and me, who know nothing about business, they're pretty stiff to tackle, aren't they?"
"Quite so," agreed Hughie meekly. "But look here, Joey," he continued, "are you really in want of money?"
"Of course she is!" said Miss Harbord, overhearing and resuming the offensive.
"Icoulddo with a few more frocks, Hughie,"said Miss Gaymer wistfully, "if it wouldn't be a bother to change those investments about a bit, as Ursula advises. Still, if it can't be done, we'll say no more about it."
"Will another hundred a-year be any use to you?" said Hughie suddenly.
"Oh, Hughie, I shouldthinkso! Can it be managed without a fearful upset?" cried Miss Gaymer, her eyes already brightening over a vista of blouse-lengths and double-widths.
"Yes," said Hughie shortly. "I'll—I'll make the necessary changes and see that the cash is paid into your banking account."
"You dear!" said Miss Gaymer, with sincerity.
"A hundred pounds? It might be more!" observed the daughter of the horse-leech on the sofa. Fourteen per cent still rankled in her Napoleonic brain.
Hughie crossed to the writing-table and tore up a telegraph-form.
"Capt'n Leroy!" announced Mr. Goble's voice in the doorway.
That easy-going paladin entered the room, and intimated that his wife had sent him along to say that she would arrive in ten minutes.
"That means twenty," said Joan. "Ursula, we have just time to run round and see that hat we thought we'd better not decide about until we had heard from Hughie about the thing wecame to see him about. Now I can try it on with a clear conscience. Back directly, Hughie!"
She flitted out, the prospective hundred pounds obviously burning a hole in her pocket (or wherever woman in the present era of fashion keeps her money), followed by Miss Harbord.
Hughie turned to Leroy.
"Take a cigarette, old man," he said, "and sit down with a glass of sherry while I do myself up for lunch. Been down at Putney."
Leroy obeyed. When Hughie returned from his bedroom a quarter of an hour later, he found that Mrs. Leroy had arrived. She and her husband were engaged in a low-toned conversation, which they broke off rather abruptly on their host's entrance.
Hughie shook hands, and sweeping some newspapers off the sofa, offered his latest-arrived guest a seat.
"No, thanks, Hughie," said Mrs. Leroy; "I prefer to look out of the window."
She walked across the room and began to gaze down into the street with her back to Hughie. Her husband, evidently struck with the suitability of this attitude, rose and joined her.
"The fact is, Hughie," began Mrs. Leroy, staring resolutely at the house opposite, "Jack and I want to talk to you like a father and mother, and I can do it more easily if I look the other way."
"Same here," corroborated Leroy gruffly.
Hughie started, and surveyed the guilty-looking pair of backs before him with an uneasy suspicion. Surely he was not going to be treated to a third variation on the same theme!
"Go on, Jack!" was Mrs. Leroy's next remark.
"Can't be done, m'dear," replied the gentleman, after an obvious effort.
"Well, Hughie," continued Mrs. Leroy briskly, "as this coward has failed me, I must say it myself. I want to tell you that people are talking."
"Ursula Harbord, for instance," said Hughie drily.
"Yes. How did you know?"
"She delivered a lecture to me this morning. Gave me to understand that she darkly suspects me of being a knave, and made no attempt to conceal her conviction that I am a fool."
"Well, of course that's all nonsense," said Mrs. Leroy to a fly on the window-pane; "but really, Hughie, with all the money that her Uncle Jimmy left her, you ought to be able to give Joey more than you do,shouldn'tyou? The child has to live in quite a small way—not really poor, you know, but hardly as an heiress ought to live. You give her surprisingly small interest on her money, Jack says—didn't you, Jack?"
Captain Leroy made no reply, but the deep shade of carmine on the back of his neck said "Sneak!" as plainly as possible.
"And you know he would be the last to say anything against you—wouldn't you, Jack?"
"Rather!" said Leroy, in a voice of thunder.
"Hughie," said Mrs. Leroy, turning impulsively, "won't you confide in me?"
Hughie kicked a coal in the grate in his usual fashion, and sighed.
"I can't,really," he said.
"Fact is, old man," broke in Leroy, in response to his wife's appealing glances, "we didn't want to say anything at all, but the missis thought it best—considerin' the way people are talkin', and all that. CanIbe of any use? Been speculatin', or anything?"
"No, Jack, I haven't," said Hughie shortly.
Mrs. Leroy gave a helpless look at her husband, and said desperately:
"But, Hughie, we can't leave things like this! You simply don'tknowwhat stories are going about. It is ruining your chances with Joey, too. She thinks you are a noodle."
"I know it," said Hughie.
"Well, look here," said Leroy, "can't you give us some sort of explanation—some yarn we could put about the place to account for this state of things—"
"What state of things?" said Hughie doggedly. He was in an unpleasant temper.
"Well, Hughie," said Mrs. Leroy, keeping hers, "here is Joan, known to have been left a lot of money for her immediate use,—she admits it herself,—living quite humbly and cheaply, and obviously not well off. People are asking why. There are two explanations given. One, the more popular, is that you have embezzled or speculated the money all away. The other, which prevails among theélite—"
"The people who are really in the know, you know," explained Leroy.
"Yes:theysay," continued his wife, "that Joan won't marry you, so you have retaliated by—by—"
"By cutting off supplies," suggested Hughie.
"Yes, until—"
"Until she is starved into submission—eh?"
"That's about the size of it, old son," said Leroy.
There was a long pause. Finally Hughie said:—
"Well, it's a pretty story; but, honestly, I'm not in a position to contradict it at present."
Mrs. Leroy desisted from plaiting the window-cord, swung round, walked deliberately to the fireplace, and laid a hand on Hughie's arm.
"Hughie," she said, in tones which her husbandsubsequently affirmed would have drawn ducks off a pond, "what have you done? Tellus!"
Leroy followed his wife across the room. "Get it off your chest, old man," he said, with the air of a father confessor.
Hughie smiled gratefully. He took Mrs. Leroy's two hands into one of his own, and laid the other on Jack Leroy's shoulder.
"Jack and Milly," he said earnestly, "my two pals!—I would rather tell you than anybody else; but—I simplycan't! It's not my secret! You'll probably find out all about it some day. At present I must ask you to accept my assurance that I'm not so black as I'm painted."
"Hughie," said Mrs. Leroy, "you are simply stupid! We have not come to you out of idle curiosity—"
"I know that," said Hughie heartily.
"And I think you might give us some sort of an inkling—a sort of favourable bulletin—that I could pass on to Joey, at any rate—"
"Joey!" said Hughie involuntarily; "Lord forbid!"
Mrs. Leroy, startled by the vehemence of his tone, paused; and her husband added dejectedly,—
"All right, old man! Let's drop it! Sorry you couldn't see your way to confide in us. Wouldn'thave gone any further. Rather sick about the whole business—eh? No wonder! Money is the devil, anyway."
Somehow Leroy's words hit Hughie harder than anything that had been said yet. He wavered. After all,—
"We've bought the hat, and I'm perfectlyravenous," announced Joan, appearing in the doorway. "And we've brought Mr. D'Arcy. Hughie, are those plover's eggs? Ooh!"
This was no atmosphere for the breathing of confidential secrets. The party resumed its usual demeanour of off-hand Britishinsouciance, and began to gather round the luncheon-table. Only Mr. D'Arcy's right eyebrow asked a question of Mrs. Leroy, which was answered by a slight but regretful shrug of the shoulders.
Hughie's apartment was L-shaped, and the feast was spread in the smaller arm, out of the way of draughts and doorways. Consequently any one entering the room would fail to see the luncheon table unless he turned to his left and walked round a corner.
Hughie was helping the plover's eggs,—it is to be feared that Miss Gaymer received a Benjamin's portion of the same,—when Mr. Goble suddenly appeared at his elbow and whispered in his ear,—
"Him again!"
Muttering an apology, Hughie left the table and walked round the corner to the other arm of the room. Lance Gaymer had just entered. His face was flushed and his eyes glittered, and Hughie's half-uttered invitation to him to come in and have some lunch died away upon his lips.
"Hallo, Lance!" he said lamely.
Mr. Gaymer replied, in the deliberate and portentously solemn tones of a man who is three parts drunk,—
"I understand you have got a party on here."
"Yes," said Hughie, endeavouring to edge his visitor through the doorway.
"What I want to say," continued Mr. Gaymer in rising tones, "is that I accuse you of embezzling my sister's property, and I'm going to make things damned hot for you. Yes—you! Go and tell that to your luncheon-party round the corner!" he concluded with a snort. "And—glug—glug-glug!"
By this time he had been judiciously backed into the passage, almost out of ear-shot of those in the room. Simultaneously Mr. Goble's large hand closed upon his mouth from behind, and having thus acquired a good purchase, turned its owner deftly round and conducted him downstairs.
Death-like silence reigned at the luncheon-table. Hughie wondered how much they hadheard. Not that it mattered greatly, for Master Lance's accusations, making allowances for alcoholic directness, partook very largely of the nature of those already levelled at Hughie by more conventional deputations.
Before returning to his seat, Hughie crossed to the window and looked down into the street.
Mr. Lance Gaymer was being assisted into a waiting hansom by the kindly hands of Mr. Guy Haliburton.
Hughie, having seen all he expected to see, returned with faltering steps to his duties as a host.
It was a delicate moment, calling for the exercise of much tact. Even Mildred Leroy hesitated. Joan had flushed red, whether with shame, or anger, or sympathy, it was hard to say. Mr. D'Arcy regarded her curiously.
But heavy-footed husbands sometimes rush in, with success, where the most wary and diplomatic wives fear to tread. Jack Leroy cleared his throat.
"Now, Hughie, my son," he observed, "when you'vequitedone interviewin' all your pals on the door-mat, perhaps you'll give your guests a chance. With so many old friends collected round your table like this, we want to drink your health, young-fellow-my-lad! Fill up your glass, Miss Harbord! No heel-taps, Milly!"
There was an irrelevantbonhomieabout this whole speech which struck exactly the right note. Mrs. Leroy glanced gratefully at her husband, and lifted her glass. The others did the same. But it was Joan who spoke first.
"Hughie!" she cried, with glowing eyes.
"Hughie!" cried every one. "Good health!"
In the times of our prosperity our friends are always critical, frequently unjust, generally a nuisance, and sometimes utterly detestable. But there is no blinking the fact that they are a very present help in trouble.
Hughie suddenly felt himself unable to speak. He bowed his head dumbly, and made a furious onslaught upon a plover's egg.