"The epoch-making nights of one's life," Mr. Hennibul remarked, "are few. Let us sit down and consider what has happened."
"A seat," Lady Caroom sighed. "What luxury! But where?"
"My knowledge of the geography of this house," Mr. Hennibul answered, "has more than once been of the utmost service to me, but I have never appreciated it more than at this moment. Accept my arm, Lady Caroom."
They made a slow circuit of the room, passed through an ante-chamber and came out in a sort of winter-garden looking over the Park. Lady Caroom exclaimed with delight.
"You dear man," she exclaimed. "Of course I knew of this place—isn't it charming?—but I had no idea that we could reach it from the reception-rooms. Let us move our chairs over there. We can sit and watch the hansoms turn into Piccadilly."
"It shall be as you say," he answered. "I wonder if all London is as excited to-night as the crowd we have just left."
"To me," she murmured, "London seems always imperturbable, stonily indifferent to good or evil. I believe that on the eve of a revolution we should dine and go to the theatre, choose our houses at which to spend the evening, and avoid sweet champagne with the same care. You and I may know that to-night England has thrown overboard a national policy. Yet I doubt whether either of us will sleep the less soundly."
"Not only that," he said, "but the Government have to-day shown themselves possessed of a penetration and appreciation of mind for which I for one scarcely gave them credit. They have made me a peer."
She looked at him with an amused smile.
"They make judges and peers for two reasons" she remarked.
"That, Lady Caroom, is unkind," he said. "I can assure you that throughout my career I have never made a nuisance of myself to any one. In the House I have been a model member, and I have always obeyed my whip in fear and trembling. At the Bar I have been mildness itself. The /St. James's Gazette/ speaks of my urbanity, and the courtesy with which I have always conducted the most arduous cross-examination. You should read the /St. James's Gazette/, Lady Caroom. I do not know the biographical editor, but it is easy to predict a future for him. He has common-sense and insight. The paragraph about myself touched me. I have cut it out, and I mean to keep it always with me."
"The Press," she said, "have all those things cut and dried. No doubt if you made friends with that young man he would let you read your obituary notice. I have a friend who has corrected the proofs of his already."
Hennibul smiled.
"My cousin Avenal, the police magistrate," he said, "actually read his in the Times. He was bathing at Jersey and was carried away by currents, and picked up by a Sark fishing-smack. They took him to Sark, and he was so charmed with his surroundings and the hospitality of the people that he quite forgot to let anybody know where he was. When he read his obituary notice he almost decided to remain dead. He declared that it was quite impossible to live up to it."
"Our charity now-a-days," she remarked, "always begins with the dead."
"Let me try and awaken yours towards the living!" he said.
She laughed.
"Are you smitten with the Brooks' fever?" she asked.
"Mine is a fever," he answered, "but it has nothing to do with Brooks. I would try to awaken your charity on behalf of a perfectly worthy object, myself—/vide/ the /St. James's Gazette/."
"And what do you need from me more than you have?" she asked. "Haven't you the sole possession of my society, the right to bore me or make me happy, perhaps presently the right to feed me?"
"For a few minutes," he answered.
"Don't be so sure. It may be an hour."
"I want it," he said, "for longer."
Something in his tone suddenly broke through the easy lightness of their conversation. She stole a swift side-glance at him, and understood.
"Come," she said, "you and I are setting every one here a bad example. This is not an occasion for /tete-a-tetes/. We should be doing our duty and talking a little to every one. Let us go back and make up for lost time."
She rose to her feet, but found him standing in the way. For once the long humorous mouth was set fast, his eyes were no longer full of the shadow of laughter, his tone had a new note in it, the note which a woman never fails to understand.
"Dear Lady Caroom," he said, "I was not altogether jesting."
She looked him in the eyes.
"Dear friend," she answered, "I know that you were not, and so I think that we had better go back."
He detained her very gently.
"It is the dearest hope I have in life," he said, softly. "Do not let me run the risk of being misunderstood. Will you be my wife?"
She shook her head. There were tears in her eyes, but her gesture was significant enough.
"It is impossible," she said. "I have loved another man all my life."
He offered her his arm at once.
"Then I believe," he said, in a low tone, "in the old saying—that a glimpse of paradise is sufficient to blind the strongest man…."
They passed into the reception-room, and came face to face with Brooks.She held out her hand.
"Come, you have no right here," she declared. "You are not even aMember of Parliament." He laughed.
"What about you?"
"Oh, I am an inspiration!"
"I don't believe," he said, "that you realize in the least what is going to happen."
"I do!" she answered. "I am going to make you relieve Lord Hennibul, and take me to have an ice."
They moved off together. Hennibul stood looking after them for a moment. Then he sighed and turned slowly away.
"If it's Arranmore," he said to himself, "why on earth doesn't he marry her?"
Lady Caroom was more silent than usual. She complained of a headache, and Brooks persuaded her to take champagne instead of the ice.
"What is the matter with you to-night?" she asked, looking at him thoughtfully. "You look like a boy—with a dash of the bridegroom."
He laughed joyously.
"You should read the evening papers—you would understand a little the practical effect of our new Tariff Bill. Mills in Yorkshire and Lancashire are being opened that have been shut down for years; in Medchester, Northampton, and the boot-centres the unemployed are being swept into the factories. Manufacturers who have been struggling to keep their places open at all are planning extensions already. The wages bill throughout the country will be the largest next week that has been paid for years. Travellers are off to the Colonies with cases of samples—every manufacturing centre is suddenly alive once more. The terrible struggle for existence is lightened. Next week," Brooks continued, with an almost boyish twinkle in his eyes, "I shall go down to Medchester and walk through the streets where it used to make our hearts ache to see the unemployed waiting about like dumb suffering cattle. It will be a holiday—a glorious holiday."
"And yet behind it all," she remarked, watching him closely, "there is something on your mind. What is it?"
He looked at her quickly.
"What an observation."
"Won't you tell me?"
He shook his head.
"It is only one of the smallest cupboards," he said. "The ghost will very soon be stifled."
She sighed.
"Did you see Lord Arranmore this evening?"
"Yes. He was talking to the duke just now. What of him?"
"I have been watching him. Did you ever see a man look so ill?",
"He is bored," Brooks answered, coldly. "This sort of thing does not amuse him."
She shook her head.
"He is always the same. He has always that weary look. He is living with absolute recklessness. It cannot possibly last long."
"He knows the price," Brooks answered. "He lives as he chooses."
"I wonder," she murmured. "Sometimes I wonder whether we do not misjudge him—you and I, Kingston. For you know we have been his judges. You must not shake your head. It is true. You have judged him to be unworthy of a son, and I—I have judged him to be unworthy of a wife. You don't think—that we could possibly have made a mistake—that underneath there is a little heart left—eaten up with pride and loneliness?"
"I have never seen," Brooks answered, "the slightest trace of it."
"Nor I," she answered. "Yet I knew him when he was young. He was so different, and annihilation is very hard, isn't it? Supposing he were to die, and we were to find out afterwards?"
"You," he said, slowly, "must be the judge of your own actions. For my part I see in him only the man who abandoned my mother, who spent the money of other people in dissipation and worse than dissipation. Who came to England and accepted my existence after a leisurely interval as a matter of course. I have never seen in any one of his actions, or heard in his tone one single indication of anything save selfishness so incarnate as to have become the only moving impulse of his life. If ever I could believe that he cared for me, would find in me anything save a convenience, I would try to forget the past. If he would even express his sorrow for it, show himself capable of any emotion whatsoever in connection with anything or any person save himself, I would be only too thankful to escape from my ridiculous position."
Then they were silent for a moment, each occupied with their own thoughts, and Lord Arranmore, pale and spare, taller than most men there, notwithstanding a recently-acquired stoop, came wearily over to them.
"Dear me," he remarked, "what gloomy faces—and I expected to see Brooks at least radiant. Am I intruding?"
"Don't be absurd, Arranmore," she said kindly. "Why don't you bring up that chair and sit down? You look tired."
He laughed—a little hardly.
"I have been tired so long," he said, "that it has become a habit. Brooks, will you think me guilty of an impertinence, I wonder? I have intruded upon your concerns."
Brooks looked up with his eyes full of questioning. "That fellow Lavilette," Arranmore continued, seemed worried about your anonymous subscription. I was in an evil temper yesterday afternoon, and Verity amused me. So I wrote and confounded the fellow by explaining that it was I who sent the money—the thousand pounds you had."
"You?" Lady Caroom exclaimed, breathlessly.
"You sent me that thousand pounds?" Brooks cried.
They exchanged rapid glances: A spot of colour burned in Lady Caroom's cheeks. She felt her heart quicken, an unspoken prayer upon her lips.
Brooks, too, was agitated.
"Upon my word," Lord Arranmore remarked, coldly, "I really don't know why my whim should so much astound you. I took care to explain that I sent it without the slightest sympathy in the cause—merely out of compliment to an acquaintance. It was just a whim, nothing more, I can assure you. I think that I won it at Sandown or something."
"It was not because you were interested in this work, then?" Lady Caroom asked, fearfully.
"Not in the slightest," he answered. "That is to say, sympathetically interested. I am curious. I will admit that. No more."
The colour faded from Lady Caroom's cheeks. She shivered a little and rose to her feet. Brooks' face had hardened.
"We are very much obliged to you for the money," he said. "As forLavilette, I had not thought it worth while to reply to him."
Lord Arranmore shrugged his shoulders.
"Nor should I in your place," he answered. "My position is a little different, of course. I am positively looking forward to my next week's Verity. You are leaving now, I see. Good-night!"
"I have kept Mr. Brooks away from his friends," she said, looking at him. "Will you see me to my carriage?"
He offered her his arm with courtly grace. They passed down the crowded staircase together.
"You are looking ill, Philip," she said, softly. "You are not taking care of yourself."
"Care of myself," he laughed. "Why, for whom? Life is not exactly a playground, is it?"
"You are not making the best of it!"
"The best! Do you want to mock me?"
"It is you," she whispered, "who stand before a looking-glass, and mock yourself. Philip, be a man. Your life is one long repression. Break through just once! Won't you?"
He sighed. "Would you have me a hypocrite, Catherine?"
She shook her head. Suddenly she looked up at him.
"Philip, will you promise me this? If ever your impulse should come—if you should feel the desire to speak, to act once more as a man from your heart—you will not stifle it. Promise me that." He looked at her with a faint, tired smile. "Yes, I promise," he answered.
Brooks glanced at the card which was brought in to him, at first carelessly enough, afterwards with mingled surprise and pleasure.
"Here is some one," he said to Mary Scott, "whom I should like you to meet. Show the young lady in," he directed.
Some instinct seemed to tell her the truth.
"Who is it?" she asked quickly. "I am very busy this morning."
"It is Lady Sybil Caroom," he answered. "Please don't go. I should like you to meet her."
Mary looked longingly at the door of communication which led into the further suite of offices, but it was too late to think of escape. Sybil had already entered, bringing into the room a delicious odor of violets, herself almost bewilderingly beautiful. She was dressed with extreme simplicity, but with a delicate fastidiousness which Mary at any rate was quick to appreciate. Her lips were slightly parted in a natural and perfectly dazzling smile. She came across to Brooks with outstretched hand and laughter in her eyes.
"Confess that you are horrified," she exclaimed. "I don't care a bit.I've waited for you to take me quite long enough. If you won't come nowI shall go by myself."
"Go where?" he exclaimed.
"Why, to one of the branches—I don't care which. I can help for the rest of the day." He laughed.
"Well, let me introduce you to Miss Scott," he said, turning round. "Mary, this is Lady Sybil Caroom. Miss Scott," he continued, turning to the younger girl, "has been my right hand since we first started. If ever you do stand behind our counter it will have to be under her auspices."
Sybil turned courteously but with some indifference towards the girl, who was standing by Brooks' chair. In her plain black dress and white linen collar Mary perhaps looked more than her years, especially by the side of Sybil. As the eyes of the two met, Sybil saw that she was regarded with more than ordinary attention. She saw, too, that Mary was neither so plain nor so insignificant as she had at first imagined.
"I am sure you are very much to be congratulated, Miss Scott," she said. "Mr. Brooks' scheme is a splendid success, isn't it? You must be proud of your share in it."
"My share," Mary said, in quiet, even tones, "has been very small indeed. Mr. Brooks is alone responsible for it. The idea was his, and the organization was his. We others have been no more than machines."
"Very useful machines, Mary," Brooks said, with a kind glance towards her. "Come, we mustn't any of us belittle our share in the work."
Mary took up some papers from the desk.
"I think," she said, "that if you have no more messages for Mr. FlitchI had better start. We are very busy in Stepney just now."
"Please don't hurry," Brooks said. "We must try and manage something for Lady Sybil."
Mary looked up doubtfully.
"Unless you ask Lady Sybil to look on," she said, "I don't quite see how it is possible for her to come."
"Lady Sybil knows the conditions," Brooks answered. "She wants to have a try as a helper."
Mary raised her eyebrows slightly.
"The chief work in the morning is washing children," she remarked. "They come to us in a perfectly filthy condition, and we wash about twenty each, altogether."
Sybil laughed.
"Well, I'm not at all afraid of that," she declared. "I could do my share. I rather like kiddies."
"The other departments," Mary went on, "all need some instruction. Would you think it worth while for one day? If so, I should be pleased to do what I can for you."
Sybil hesitated. She glanced towards Brooks.
"I don't want to give a lot of unnecessary trouble, of course," she said. "Especially if you are busy. But it might be for more than one day. You have a staff of supernumerary helpers, haven't you, whom you send for when you are busy? I thought that I might be one of those."
"In that case," Mary answered, "I shall be very glad, of course, to put you in the way of it. I am going to my own branch this morning at Stepney. Will you come with me?"
"If you are sure I shan't be a nuisance," Sybil answered, gratefully. "Good-bye, Mr. Brooks. I'm awfully obliged to you, and will talk it all over at the Henages' to-night."
The two girls drove off in Sybil's brougham. Mary, in her quiet little hat and plain jacket, seemed to her companion, notwithstanding her air of refinement, to be a denizen of some other world. And between the two there was from the first a certain amount of restraint.
"Do you give up your whole time to this sort of work?" Sybil asked, presently.
"I do now," Mary answered. "I had other employment in the morning, but I gave that up last week. I am a salaried official of the Society from last Monday."
Sybil stole a swift side-glance at her.
"Do you know, I think that it must be a very satisfactory sort of life," she said.
Mary's lips flickered into the faintest of smiles. "Really!"
"Oh, I mean it," Sybil continued. "Of course, I like going about and enjoying myself, but it is hideously tiring. And then after a year or two of it you begin to realize a sort of sameness. Things lose their flavour. Then you have odd times of serious thought, and you know that you have just been going round and round in a circle, that you have done nothing at all except made some show at enjoying yourself. Now that isn't very satisfactory, is it?"
"No," Mary answered, "I don't suppose it is."
"Now you," Sybil continued, "you may be dull sometimes, but I don't suppose you are, and whenever you leave off and think—well, you must always feel that your time, instead of having been wasted, has been well and wholesomely spent. I wish I could have that feeling sometimes."
Despite herself, Mary felt that she would have to like this girl. She was so pretty, so natural, and so deeply in earnest.
"There is no reason why you shouldn't, is there?" she said, more kindly than she had as yet spoken. "I can assure you that I very often have the blues, and I don't consider mine by any means the happiest sort of life. But, of course, one feels differently a little if one has tried to do something—and you can if you like, you know."
Sybil's face was perfectly brilliant with smiles.
"You think that I can?" she exclaimed. "How nice of you. I don't mind how hard it is at first. I may be a little awkward, but I don't think I'm stupid."
"You think this sort of work is the sort you would like best?"
"Why, yes. It seems so practical, you know," Sybil declared. "You must be doing good, even if some of the people don't deserve it. I don't know about the washing, but I don't mind it a bit. Do you think it will be a busy morning?"
"I am sure it will," Mary answered. "A number of the people are getting to work again now, since the Tariff Revision Bill passed, and they keep coming to us for clothes and boots and things. I shall give you the skirts and blouses to look after as soon as the washing is over.
"Delightful," Sybil exclaimed. "I am sure I can manage that."
"And on no account must you give any money to any one," Mary said."That is most important."
"I will remember," Sybil promised.
Two hours later she broke in upon her mother and half-a-dozen callers, her hat obviously put on without a looking-glass, her face flushed, and her hair disordered, and smelling strongly of disinfectant.
"Some tea, mother, please," she exclaimed, nodding to her visitors. "I have had one bun for luncheon, and I am starving. Can you imagine what I have been doing?"
No one could. Every one tried.
"Skating!"
"Ping-pong!"
Getting theatre-tickets at the theatre! She waved them aside with scorn.
"I have washed fourteen children," she declared, impressively, "fitted at least a dozen women with blouses and skirts, and three with boots. Besides a lot of odd things."
Lord Arranmore set down his cup with a little shrug of the shoulders.
"You have joined Brooks' Society?" he remarked.
"Yes! I have been down at the Stepney branch all the morning. And do you know, we're disinfected before we leave."
"A most necessary precaution, I should think," Lady Caroom exclaimed, reaching for her vinaigrette, "but do go and change your things as quickly as you can.
"I must eat, mother, or starve," Sybil declared. "I have never been so hungry."
A somewhat ponderous lady, who was the wife of a bishop, felt bound to express her disapprobation.
"Do you really think, dear," she said, "that you are wise in encouraging a charity which is not in any way under the control of the Church?"
"Oh, isn't it?" Sybil remarked. "I'm sure I didn't know. But then the Church hasn't anything quite like this, has it? Mr. Brooks is so clever and original in all his ideas."
The disapprobation of the bishop's wife became even more marked.
"The very fact," she said, "that the Church has not thought it wise to institute a charitable scheme upon such—er—sweeping lines, is a proof, to my mind, that the whole thing is a mistake. As a matter of fact, I happen to know that the bishop strongly disapproves of Mr. Brooks' methods."
"That's rather a pity, isn't it?" Sybil asked, sweetly. "The Society has done so much good, and in so short a time. Every one admits that."
"I think that the opinion is very far from universal," the elder lady remarked, firmly. "There appears to be no discrimination shown whatever in the distribution of relief. The deserving and the undeserving are all classed together. I could not possibly approve of any charity conducted upon such lines, nor, I think, could any good churchwoman."
"Mr. Brooks thinks," Sybil remarked, with her mouth full of cake, "that it is the undeserving who are in the greatest need of help."
"One could believe anything," the bishop's wife said stiffly, "of a man who adopted such principles as that. And although I do not as a rule approve of Mr. Lavilette or his paper, I am seriously inclined to agree with him in some of his strictures upon Mr. Brooks."
Sybil laughed softly.
"I hadn't read them," she remarked. "Mother doesn't allow the man's paper in the house. Do you really mean that you have it at the palace, Mrs. Endicott?"
The bishop's wife stiffened.
"Mr. Lavilette has at times done great service to the community by his exposure of frauds of all sorts, especially charitable frauds," she said. "It is possible that he may shortly add to the number."
Lord Arranmore shook his head slowly.
"Mr. Lavilette," he said, "has also had to pay damages in one or two rather expensive libel cases. And, between you and me, Mrs. Endicott, if our young friend Brooks chose to move in the matter, I am afraid Mr. Lavilette might have to sign the largest cheque he has ever signed in his life for law costs."
The bishop's wife rose with an icy smile.
"I seem to have found my way into Mr. Brooks' headquarters," she remarked. "Lady Caroom, I shall hope to see you at the palace shortly."
"Poor me," Sybil exclaimed, as their visitor departed. "She only asked you, mummy, so as to exclude me. And poor Mr. Brooks! I wish he'd been here. What fun we should have had."
"Oh, these Etrusians," Lord Arranmore murmured. "I thought that a bishop was very near heaven indeed, all sanctity and charity, and that a bishop's wife was the concentrated essence of these things—plus the wings."
Sybil laughed softly.
"Sanctity and charity," she repeated, "and Mrs. Endicott. Oh!"
The two girls were travelling westwards on the outside of an omnibus, in itself to Sybil a most fascinating mode of progression, and talking a good deal spasmodically.
"It's really too bad of you, Miss Scott," Sybil declared. "Now to-day, if you will come, luncheon shall be served in my own room. We shall be quite cosy and quiet, and I promise you that you shall not see a soul except my mother—whom I want you to know."
Mary shook her head.
"Don't think me unkind," she said. "I really must not begin visiting. I have only just time for a hurried lunch, and then I must look in at the office and get down to Bermondsey."
"You might just as well have that hurried lunch with me," Sybil declared. "I'll send you anywhere you like afterwards in the carriage."
"It is very kind of you," Mary answered, "but my visiting days are over. I am not a social person at all, you know. My role is usefulness, and nothing else."
"You are too young to talk like that," Sybil said. "I am ten years older than you are," Mary reminded her. "You are twenty-eight," Sybil answered. "I think it is beautiful of you to be so devoted to this work, but I am quite sure a little change now and then is wholesome."
"In another ten years I may think of it," Mary said. "Just now I have so much upon my hands that I dare not risk even the slightest distraction."
"In another ten years," Sybil said, "you will find it more difficult to enlarge your life than now. I can't believe that absorption in any one thing is natural at your age."
Mary looked steadfastly down at the horses.
"We must all decide what is best for ourselves," she said. "I have not your disposition, remember."
"Nothing in the world," Sybil said, "would convince me that it is well for any girl of your age to crowd everything out of her life except work, however fine and useful the work may be. Now you have admitted that except for Mr. Brooks and the people you have met in connection with his work you have no friends in London. I want you to count me a friend, Miss Scott. You have been very kind to me, and made everything delightfully easy. Why can't you let me try and repay it a little?"
"I have only done my duty," Mary answered, quietly. "I am supposed to show new helpers what to do, and you have picked it up very quickly. And as for the rest—don't think me unkind, but I have no room for friendships in my life just now."
"I am sorry," Sybil answered, softly, for though Mary's tone had been cold enough, she had nevertheless for a single moment lifted the curtain, and Sybil understood in some vague manner that there were things behind into which she had no right to inquire.
The two girls parted at Trafalgar Square, and Sybil, still in love with the fresh air, turned blithely westward on foot. In the Haymarket she came face to face with Brooks.
He greeted her with a delightful smile.
"You alone, and walking," he exclaimed. "What fortune. May I come?"
"Of course," she answered. "You know where I have come from, I suppose?"
He glanced at her plain clothes and realized that the odour of disinfectants was stronger even than the perfume of the handful of violets which she had just bought from a woman in the street.
"Stepney!" he exclaimed.
"Quite right. I had a card last evening, and was there at nine o'clock this morning. I suppose I look a perfect wreck. I was dancing at Hamilton House at three o'clock."
He looked towards her marvelling. Her cheeks were prettily flushed, and she walked with the delightful springiness of perfect health.
"I have never seen you look better," he answered.
"And you," she remarked, glancing in amusement at his blue serge clothes, which, to tell the truth, badly needed brushing. "What are you doing in the West End at this time in the morning?
"I have been to Drury Lane," he answered, "with some surveyors from the County Council. There is a whole court there I mean to get condemned. Then I looked in at our new place there, but there was such a howling lot of children that I was glad to get away. How they hate being washed!"
"Don't they!" she exclaimed, laughing. "I had the dearest, naughtiest little girl this morning, and, do you know, when I got her clean, her own brothers and sisters didn't know her again. I'm so glad I've seen you, Mr. Brooks. I want to ask you something." "Well?"
"About Miss Scott. She's been so good to me, and I like her awfully.We've just come up on the omnibus together."
"She has been my right hand from the very first," Brooks said, slowly. "I really don't see how I could have done without her. She is such a capital organizer, too."
"I know all that," Sybil declared. "She's wonderful. I don't want, of course, to be inquisitive," she went on, after a moment's hesitation, "but she interests me so much, and it was only this morning that I felt that I understood her a little bit."
Brooks nodded.
"She is a very reserved young woman," he said.
"Yes, but isn't there some reason for it?" Sybil continued, eagerly. "I have asked her lots of times to come and see me. She admits that she has no friends in London, and I wanted to have her come very much. You see, I thought she would be sure to like mother, and if she doesn't care for society, we might go to the theatre or the opera, a it would be a little change for her, wouldn't it?"
"I think it is very kind of you indeed," Brooks said.
"Well, she has always refused, but I have been very persistent. I just thought that she was perhaps a little shy, or found it difficult to break through her retirement—people get like that, you know, when they live alone. So this morning I really went for her, and I happened to be looking, and I saw something in her face which puzzled me. It stopped my asking her any more. There is something underneath her quiet manner and self-devotion. She has had trouble of some sort."
"How do you know?" he asked.
"A girl can always tell," Sybil answered. "Her self-control is wonderful, but she just let it slip—for a moment. She has some trouble, I am sure. I thought perhaps you might know. Isn't there anything we could do? I am so sorry for her."
Brooks was very grave, and his face was curiously pale.
"Are you quite sure?" he asked.
"Certain!"
They walked on in silence for a few moments.
"You have asked me a very difficult question," he said at last. "She has had a very unhappy sort of life. Her father and mother died in Canada—her father shot himself, and her mother died of the shock. She went to live with an uncle at Medchester, who was good to her, but his household could scarcely have been very congenial. I met her there—she was interested in charitable works then, and she came to London to try and attain some sort of independence. At first she had a position on a lady's magazine which took up her mornings, but we have just induced her to accept a small salary and give us all her time." "That seems like a comprehensive sketch of her life," Sybil remarked, thoughtfully, "but are you sure—that you have not missed anything out?"
"So far as I know," he answered, gravely, "there is nothing new to tell."
They walked the rest of the way to Berkeley Square in absolute silence.
"You will come in to lunch?" she said.
He looked down at his clothes.
"I think not," he answered.
"We are almost certain to be alone," she said. "You haven't seen mother for a long time."
He suffered himself to be persuaded, and almost immediately regretted it. For there were a dozen people or more round the luncheon-table, and he caught a glimpse of more than one frock coat. Further, from the dead silence which followed their entrance, it seemed more than probable that he himself had formed the subject of conversation.
Lady Caroom greeted him as kindly as ever, and found a place for him by her side. Brooks, whose self-possession seldom failed him, smiled to himself as he recognized the bishop, who was his /vis-a-vis/. Hennibul, however, from a little lower down nodded to him pleasantly, and Lord Arranmore spoke a few words of dry greeting.
"Your friend Bullsom," he remarked, "has soon distinguished himself.He made quite a decent speech the other night on the Tariff Bill."
"He has common-sense and assurance," Brooks answered. "He ought to be a very useful man."
Lord Hennibul leaned forward and addressed Arranmore with blank surprise on his face.
"You don't mean to say that you read the debates in the House ofCommons, Arranmore?" he exclaimed.
Lord Arranmore shrugged his shoulders.
"Since the degeneration of English humour," he remarked, "one must go somewhere for one's humour."
"I should try the House of Lords, then," a smart young under-secretary remarked under his breath, with a glance at the bishop. "There is more hidden humour in the unshaken gravity of the Episcopal Bench than in both Houses of Parliament put together."
"They take themselves so seriously," Sybil murmured.
"To our friend there," the younger man continued, "the whole world's a congregation—and, by Jove, here comes the text."
For the bishop had deliberately cleared his throat, and leaning forward addressed Brooks across the table.
"I believe," he said, "that I have the pleasure of speaking to Mr.Brooks—Mr. Kingston Brooks?"
"That is my name," Brooks answered civilly, wondering what avalanche was to be hurled upon him.
"Would you consider a question, almost a personal question, from a stranger an impertinence—when the stranger is twice your age?" the bishop asked.
"By no means," Brooks answered. "On the contrary, I should be delighted to answer it if I can."
"These aspersions which Mr.—er—Lavilette has been making so freely in his paper against your new departure—I mean against the financial management of it—do you propose to answer them?"
"Well," Brooks said, "I have not altogether made up my mind. Perhaps your lordship would permit me—since you have mentioned the matter—to ask for your advice."
The bishop inclined his head. This was by no means the truculent sort of young man he had expected.
"You are very welcome to it, Mr. Brooks," he answered. "I should advise you most earnestly to at once justify yourself,—not to Mr. Lavilette, but to the readers of his paper whom he may have influenced by his statements. One charitable institution, however different its foundation, or its method of working, or its ultimate aims, leans largely upon another. Mr. Lavilette's attack, if unanswered, may affect the public mind with regard to many other organizations which are grievously in need of support."
"If that is your opinion," Brooks said, after a moment's hesitation, "I will take the steps you suggest, and set myself right at once."
"If you can do that thoroughly and clearly," the bishop said, "you will render a service to the whole community."
"There should not be much difficulty," Brooks remarked, helping himself to omelette. "I never appealed for subscriptions, but directly they began to come in I engaged a clerk and a well-known firm of auditors, through whose banking-account all the money has passed. They have been only too anxious to take the matter up."
"I am more than pleased at your decision, Mr. Brooks," the bishop said, genially. "I rejoice at it. You will pardon my remarking that you seem very young to have inaugurated and to carry the whole responsibility of a work of such magnitude."
"The work," Brooks answered, "has largely grown of itself. But I have an excellent staff of helpers."
"The sole responsibility though rests with you.
"I am arranging to evade it," Brooks answered. "I am going to adopt commercial methods and inaugurate a Board of Directors."
The bishop hesitated.
"Again, Mr. Brooks," he said, "I must address a suggestion to you which might seem to require an apology. You have adopted methods and expressed views with regard to your scheme which are in themselves scarcely reconcilable with the point of view with which we churchmen are bound to regard the same question. But if you thought it worth while before finally arranging your Board to discuss the whole subject with me, it would give me the greatest pleasure to have you visit me at the palace at any time convenient to yourself."
"I shall consider it a great privilege," Brooks answered, promptly, "andI shall not hesitate to avail myself of it."
The little party broke up soon afterwards, but Lady Caroom touchedBrooks upon his shoulder.
"Come into my room for a few minutes," she said. "I want to talk with you."
"Do you know," Lady Caroom said, motioning Brooks to a seat by her side, "that I feel very middle-class and elderly and interfering. For I am going to talk to you about Sybil."
Brooks was a little paler than usual. This was one of those rare occasions when he found his emotions very hard to subdue. And it had come so suddenly.
"After we left Enton," Lady Caroom said, thoughtfully, "I noticed a distinct change in her. The first evidences of it were in her treatment of Sydney Molyneux. I am quite sure that she purposely precipitated matters, and when he proposed refused him definitely."
"I do not think," Brooks found voice to say, "that she would ever have married Sydney Molyneux."
"Perhaps not," Lady Caroom admitted, "but at any rate before our visit to Enton she was quite content to have him around—she was by no means eager to make up her mind definitely. After we left she seemed to deliberately plan to dispose of him finally. Since then—I am talking in confidence, Kingston-she has refused t e Duke of Atherstone."
Brooks was silent. His self-control was being severely tested. His heart was beating like a sledgehammer—he was very anxious to avoid Lady Caroom's eyes.
"Atherstone," she said, slowly, "is quite the most eligible bachelor in England, and he is, as you know, a very nice, unaffected boy. There is only one possible inference for me, as Sybil's mother, to draw, and that is that she cares, or is beginning to think that she cares, for some one else."
"Some one else? Do you know whom?" Brooks asked.
"If you do not know," Lady Caroom answered, "I do not."
Brooks threw aside all attempt at disguise. He looked across at LadyCaroom, and his eyes were very bright.
"I have never believed," he said, "that Sybil would be likely to care for me. I can scarcely believe it now."
Lady Caroom hesitated.
"In any case," she said, "could you ask her to marry you? You must see that as things are it would be impossible!"
"Impossible!" he muttered. "Impossible!"
"Of course," she answered, briskly. "You must be a man of the world enough to know that. You could not ask a girl in Sybil's position to share a borrowed name, nor would the other conditions permit of your marrying her. That is why I want to talk to you."
"Well?"
"Is there any immediate chance of your reconciliation with the Marquis of Arranmore?"
"None," Brooks answered.
"Well, then," Lady Caroom said, "there is no immediate chance of your being in a position to marry Sybil. Don't look at me as though I were saying unkind things. I am not. I am only talking common-sense. What is your income?"
"About two thousand pounds, but some of that half, perhaps more—goes to the Society."
"Exactly. It would be impossible for you to marry Sybil on the whole of it, or twice the whole of it."
"You want me then," Brooks said, "to be reconciled to my father. Yet you—you yourself will not trust him."
"I have not expressed any wish of the sort," Lady Caroom said, kindly. "I only wished to point out that as things are you were not in a position to ask Sybil to marry you, and therefore I want you to keep away from her. I mean this kindly for both of you. Of course if Sybil is absolutely in earnest, if the matter has gone too far, we must talk it all over again and see what is to be done. But I want you to give her a chance. Keep away for a time. Your father may live for twenty-five years. If your relations with him all that time continue as they are now, marriage with a girl brought up like Sybil would be an impossibility."
Brooks was silent for several moments. Then he looked up suddenly.
"Has Lady Sybil said anything to you—which led you to speak to me?"
Lady Caroom shook her head.
"No. She is very young, you know. Frankly, I do not believe that she knows her own mind. You have not spoken to her, of course?" "No!"
"And you will not?"
"I suppose," Brooks said, "that I must not think of it."
"You must give up thinking about her, of course," Lady Caroom said, "until—" Until what?
"Until you can ask her—if ever you do ask her—to marry you in your proper name."
Brooks set his teeth and walked up and down the little room.
"That," he said, "may be never."
"Exactly," Lady Caroom agreed. "That is why I am suggesting that you do not see her so often."
He stopped opposite her.
"Does he—does Lord Arranmore know anything of this?"
She shook her head.
"Not from me. He may have heard whispers. To tell you the truth, I myself have been asked questions during the last few days. You have been seen about a good deal with Sybil, and you are rather a mystery to people. That is why I felt compelled to speak." He nodded. "I see!"
"You must not blame me," she went on, softly. "You know, Kingston, that I like you, that I would give you Sybil willingly under ordinary circumstances. I don't want to speak to her if I can help it. And, Kingston, there is one thing more I must say to you. It is on my mind. It keeps me awake at night. I think that it will make an old woman of me very soon. If—if we should be wrong?"
"There is no possibility of that," he answered, sadly. "Lord Arranmore is candour itself, even in his selfishness."
"His face haunts me," she murmured. "There is something so terribly impersonal, so terribly sad about it. He looks on at everything, he joins in nothing. They say that he gambles, but he never knows whether he is winning or losing. He gives entertainments that are historical, and remains as cold as ice to guests whom a prince would be glad to welcome. His horse won that great race the other day, and he gave up his place on the stand, just before the start, to a little girl, and never even troubled to watch the race, though his winnings were enormous. He bought the Frivolity Theatre, produced this new farce, and has never been seen inside the place. What does it mean, Kingston? There must be suffering behind all this—terrible suffering."
"It is a law of retribution," Brooks said, coldly. "He has made other people suffer all his life. Now perhaps his turn has come. He spends fortunes trying to amuse himself and cannot. Are we to pity him for that?"
"I have heard of people," she said, looking at him intently, "who are too proud to show the better part of themselves, who rather than court pity or even sympathy will wear a mask always, will hide the good that is in them and parade the bad."
"You love him still?" he said, wonderingly.
"Kingston, I do. If I were a brave woman I would risk everything. Sometimes when I see him, like a Banquo at a feast, with his eyes full of weariness and the mummy's smile upon his lips, I feel that I can keep away no longer. Kingston, let us go to him, you and I. Let us see if we can't tear off the mask."
He shook his head.
"He would laugh at us!"
"Will you try?"
He hesitated.
"No! But, Lady Caroom, you have no such debt of bitterness against him as I have. I cannot advise you—I would not dare. But if there is a spark of soul left in the man, such love as yours must fan it into warmth. If you have the courage—risk it."
Brooks left without seeing Sybil again, and turned northward. In PallMall he heard his name called from the steps of one of the great clubs.He looked up and found Lord Arranmore leisurely descending.
"A word with you, Brooks," he said, coolly, "on a matter of business.Will you step inside?"
Brooks hesitated. It was beginning to rain, and neither of them had umbrellas.
"As you will," he answered. "I have an appointment in half-an-hour."
"I shall not detain you ten minutes," Lord Arranmore answered. "There is a comfortable strangers' room here where we can chat. Will you have anything?"
"Nothing to drink, thanks," Brooks answered. "A cigarette, if you are going to smoke."
Lord Arranmore pushed his cigarette-case across the small round table which stood between their easy-chairs. The room was empty.
"You will find these tolerable. I promised to be brief, did I not? I wished to speak for a moment upon a subject which it seems to me might require a readjustment of our financial relations."
Brooks looked up puzzled but made no remark.
"I refer to the possibility of your desiring to marry. Be so good as not to interrupt me. I have seen you once or twice with Sybil Caroom, and there has been a whisper—but after all that is of no consequence. The name of the young lady would be no concern of mine. But in case you should be contemplating anything of the sort, I thought it as well that you should know what the usual family arrangements are."
"I am sorry," Brooks said, "but I really don't understand what you mean by family arrangements."
"No!" Lord Arranmore remarked, softly. "Perhaps if you would allow me to explain—it is your own time which is limited, you know. The eldest son of our family comes in, as you have been told, on his twenty-first birthday, to two thousand pounds a year, which income you are now in possession of. On his marriage that is increased to ten thousand a year, with the possession of either Enton or Mangohfred. in the present case you could take your choice, as I am perfectly indifferent which I retain. That is all I wished to say. I thought it best for you to understand the situation. Mr. Ascough will, at any time, put it into legal shape for you."
"You speak of this—arrangement," Brooks said, slowly, "as though it were a corroboration of the settlement upon the eldest son. This scarcely seems possible. There can be no such provision legally."
"I scarcely see," Lord Arranmore said, wearily, "what that has to do with it, The ten thousand pounds a year is, of course, not a legal charge upon the estates. But from time immemorial it has been the amount which has been the admitted portion of the eldest son upon marriage. It is no gift from me. It is the income due to Lord Kingston of Ross. If you wish for any future explanation I must really refer you to Mr. Ascough. The discussion of business details is by no means a favourite occupation of mine."
Brooks rose to his feet. His eyes were fixed steadily, almost longingly upon Lord Arranmore's. His manner was not wholly free from nervousness.
"I am very much obliged to you, Lord Arranmore," he said. "I quite understand that you are making me the offer of a princely settlement out of the Arranmore estates to which I have no manner of claim. It is not possible for me to accept it."
There was a moment's silence. A great clock in the corner ticked noisily. A faint unusual colour stole into Lord Arranmore's cheeks.
"Accept it! I accord you no favour, I offer you no gift. The allowance is, I repeat, one which every Lord Kingston has drawn upon his marriage. Perhaps I have spoken before it was necessary. You may have had no thoughts of anything of the sort?"
Brooks did not answer.
"I have noticed," Lord Arranmore continued in measured tones, "an intimacy between you and Lady Sybil Caroom, which suggested the idea to me. I look upon Lady Sybil as one of the most charming young gentlewomen of our time, and admirably suited in all respects to the position of the future Marchioness of Arranmore. I presume that as head of the family I am within my rights in so far expressing my opinion?"
"Marriage," Brooks said, huskily, "is not possible for me at present."
"Why not?"
"I cannot accept this money from you. The terms on which we are do not allow of it."
There was an ominous glitter in Lord Arranmore's eyes. He, too, rose to his feet, and remained facing Brooks, his hand upon the back of his chair.
"Are you serious? Do you mean that?"
"I do!" Brooks answered. Lord Arranmore pointed to the door.
"Then be off," he said, a note of passion at last quivering in his tone. "Leave this room at once, and let me see as little of you in the future as possible. If Sybil cares for you, God help her! You are a damned obstinate young prig, sir. Be off!"
Brooks walked out of the club and into the street, his ears tingling and his cheeks aflame. The world seemed topsy-turvy. It was long indeed before he forgot those words, which seemed to come to him winged with a wonderful and curious force.
At no time in his life was Brooks conscious of so profound a feeling of dissatisfaction with regard to himself, his work, and his judgment, as during the next few weeks. His friendship with Mary Scott, which had been a more pleasant thing than he had ever realized, seemed to him to be practically at an end, he had received a stinging rebuke from the one man in the world whose right to administer it he would have vigorously denied, and he was forced to admit to himself that his last few weeks had been spent in a fool's paradise, into which he ought never to have ventured. He had the feeling of having been pulled up sharply in the midst of a very delightful interlude—and the whole thing seemed to him to come as a warning against any deviation whatsoever from the life which he had marked out for himself. So, after a day of indecision and nerveless hesitation, he turned back once more to his work. Here, at any rate, he could find absorption.
He formed his Board—without figure-heads, wholly of workers. There was scarcely a name which any one had ever heard of before. He had his interview with the bishop, who was shocked at his views, and publicly pronounced his enterprise harmful and pauperizing, and Verity, with the names of the Board as a new weapon, came for him more vehemently than ever. Brooks, at last goaded into action, sent the paper to his solicitors and went down to Medchester to attend a dinner given to Mr. Bullsom.
It was at Medchester that he recovered his spirits. He knew the place so well that it was easy for him to gauge and appreciate the altered state of affairs there. The centre of the town was swept clean at last of those throngs of weary-faced men and youths looking for a job, the factories were running full time-there seemed to his fancy to be even an added briskness in the faces and the footsteps of the hurrying crowds of people. Later on at the public dinner which he had come down to attend, he was amply assured as to the sudden wave of prosperity which was passing over the whole country. Mr. Bullsom, with an immense expanse of white shirt, a white waistcoat and a scarlet camellia in his button-hole, beamed and oozed amiability upon every one. Brooks he grasped by both hands with a full return to his old cordiality, indulgence in which he had rather avoided since he had been aware of the social gulf between them.
"Brooks," he said, "I owe this to you. It was your suggestion. And I don't think it's turned out so badly, eh? What do you think?"
"I think that you have found your proper sphere," Brooks answered, smiling. "I can't think why you ever needed me to suggest it to you."
"My boy, I can't either," Mr. Bullsom declared. "This is one of the proudest nights of my life. Do you know what we've done up there at Westminster, eh? We've given this old country a new lease of life. How they were all laughing at us up their sleeve, eh! Germans, and Frenchmen, and Yankees. It's a horse of another colour now. John Bull has found out how to protect himself. And, Brooks, my boy, it's been mentioned to-night, and I'm a proud man when I think of it. There were others who did the showy part of the work, of course, the speechmaking and the bill-framing and all that, but I was the first man to set the Protection snowball rolling. It wasn't much I had to say, but I said it. A glass of wine with you, Sir Henry? With pleasure, sir!
"I wonder how long it will last," Brooks' neighbour remarked, cynically. "The manufacturers are like a lot of children with a new toy. What about the Colonies? What are they going to say about it?"
"We have no Colonies," Brooks answered, smiling. "You are only half anImperialist. Don't you know that they have been incorporated in theBritish Empire?
"Hope they'll like it," his neighbour remarked, sardonically. "Plenty of glory and a good price to pay for it. What licks me is that every one seems to imagine that this Tariff Bill is going to give the working-classes a leg-up. To my mind it's the capitalist who's going to score by it."
"The capitalist manufacturer," Brooks answered. "But after all you can't under our present conditions dissociate capital and labour. The benefit of one will be the benefit of the other. No food stuffs are taxed, you know."
His neighbour grunted.
"Pity Cobden's ghost can't come and listen to the rot those fellows are talking," he remarked. "We shall see in a dozen years how the thing works."
The dinner ended with a firework of speeches, and an ovation to their popular townsman and member, which left Mr. Bullsom very red in the face and a little watery about the eyes. Brooks and he drove off together afterwards, and Mr. Bullsom occupied the first five minutes or so of the journey with a vigorous mopping of his cheeks and forehead.
"A great night, Brooks," he exclaimed, faintly. "A night to remember.Don't mind admitting that I'm more than a bit exhausted though. Phew!"
Brooks laughed, and leaning forward looked out of the windows of the carriage.
"Are we going in the right direction?" he asked. "This isn't the way to'Homelands.'"
Mr. Bullsom smiled.
"Little surprise for you, Brooks!" he remarked. "We found the sort of place the girls were hankering after, to let furnished, and we've took it for a year. We moved in a fortnight ago."
"Do I know the house?" Brooks asked. "It's Woton Hall," Mr. Bullsom remarked, impressively. "Nice old place. Dare say you remember it."
"Remember it! Of course I do," Brooks answered. "How do the young ladies like it?"
Mr. Bullsom laid hold of the strap of the carriage. The road was rough, the horses were fresh, and Mr. Bullsom's head had felt steadier.
"Well," Mr. Bullsom said, "you'd think to hear em we'd stepped straight into heaven. We're close to the barracks, you know, and I'm blest if half the officers haven't called already. They drop in to luncheon, or dinner, or whatever's going on, in the most friendly way, just as they used to, you know, when Sir Henry lived there, him as took wine with me, you remember. Lord, you should hear Selina on the military. Can't say I take to 'em much myself. I'll bet there'll be one or two of them hanging about the place to-night. Phew!"
Mr. Bullsom mopped his forehead again. The carriage had turned in at the drive, and he glanced towards Brooks a little uneasily.
"Do I look-as though I'd been going it a bit?" he asked. "Since Selina's got these band-box young men hanging around she's so mighty particular."
Brooks leaned forward and rescued Mr. Bullsom's tie from underneath his ear.
"You're all right," he said, reassuringly. "You mustn't let the girls bully you, you know."
Mr. Bullsom sat bolt upright.
"You are quite right, Brooks," he declared. "I will not. But we took on the servants here as well, and they're a bit strange to me. After all, though, I'm the boss. I'll let 'em know it, too."
A footman threw open the door and took Brooks' dressing-case. A butler, hurrying up from the background, ushered them into the drawing-room. Mr. Bullsom pulled down his waistcoat and marched in; whistling softly a popular tune. Selina and Louise, in elaborate evening gowns, were playing bridge with two young men.
Selina rose and held out her hand to Brooks a little languidly.
"So glad to see you, Mr. Brooks," she declared. "Let me introduce Mr.Suppeton, Captain Meyton!"
The two young men were good enough to acknowledge the introduction, and Brooks shook hands with Louise. Selina was surveying her father with uplifted eyebrows.
"Why, father, where on earth have you been?" she exclaimed. "I never saw anybody such a sight. Your shirt is like a rag, and your collar too."
"Never you mind me, Selina," Mr. Bullsom answered, firmly. "As to where I've been, you know quite well. Political dinners may be bad for your linen, and there may be more healths drunk than is altogether wise, but a Member of Parliament has to take things as he finds 'em. Don't let us interrupt your game. Brooks and I are going to have a game at billiards."
One of the young men laid down his cards.
"Can't we join you?" he suggested. "We might have a game of pool, if it isn't too late."
"You are soon tired of bridge," Selina remarked, reproachfully. "Very well, we will all go into the billiard-room."
The men played a four-handed game. Between the shots Selina talked toBrooks.
"Were you surprised?" she asked. "Had you heard?"
"Not a word. I was astonished," he answered.
"You hadn't seen it in the papers either? Most of them mentioned it—in the county notes."
"I so seldom read the newspapers," he said. "You like it, of course?"
Selina was bereft of words.
"How we ever existed in that hateful suburb," she whispered under her breath. "And the people round here too are so sociable. Papa being a member makes a difference, of course. Then the barracks—isn't it delightful having them so close? There is always something going on. A cricket match to-morrow, I believe. Louise and I are going to play. Mrs. Malevey—she's the Colonel's wife, you know persuaded us into it."
"And your mother?" Brooks asked a minute or two later.
Selina tossed her head.
"Mother is so foolish," she declared. "She misses the sound of the trains, and she actually calls the place dead alive, because she can't sit at the windows and see the tradesmen's carts and her neighbours go by. Isn't it ridiculous?"
Brooks hesitated.
"I suppose so," he answered. "Your mother can have her friends out here, though. It really is only a short drive to Medchester."
"She won't have them oftener than I can help," Selina declared, doggedly. "Old Mrs. Mason called the other day when Captain Meyton and Mrs. Malevey were here. It was most awkward. But I don't know why I tell you all these things," she declared, abruptly. "Somehow I always feel that you are quite an old friend."
Selina's languishing glance was intercepted by one of her admirers from the barracks, as she had intended it to be. Brooks went off to play his shot and returned smiling.
"I am only too happy that you should feel so," he declared. "Your father was very kind to me."
"Isn't it almost a pity that you didn't stay in Medchester, Mr.Brooks?" Selina remarked, with a faint note of patronage in her tone."Papa is so much more influential now, you know, and he was always sofond of you."
"It is rather a pity," Brooks remarked, with twinkling eyes. "One can't foresee these things, you know."
Selina felt it time to bestow her attention elsewhere, and the game soon came to an end. The girls glanced at the clock and reluctantly withdrew.