"Lord Arranmore is always either cynical or paradoxical," Sybil Caroom declared. "He really says the most unpleasant things with the greatest appearance of truth of any man I know."
"This company," Lord Arranmore remarked lightly, "is hostile to me. Let us go and play pool."
Lady Caroom rose up promptly. Molyneux groaned audibly.
"You shall play me at billiards instead," she declared. "I used to give you a good game once, and I have played a great deal lately. Ring for Annette, will you, Sybil? She has my cue."
Sybil Caroom made room for Brooks by her side.
"Do sit down and tell me more about the election," she said. "Sydney is sure to go to sleep. He always does after shooting."
"You shall ask me questions," he suggested. "I scarcely know what part of it would interest you."
They talked together lightly at first, then more seriously. From the other end of the hall came the occasional click of billiard balls. Lady Caroom and her host were playing a leisurely game interspersed with conversation.
"Who is this young Mr. Brooks?" she asked, pausing to chalk her cue.
"A solicitor from Medchester," he answered. "He was Parliamentary agent for Henslow, and I am going to give him a management of my estates."
"He is quite a boy," she remarked.
"Twenty-six or seven," he answered. "How well you play those cannons.
"I ought to. I had lessons for years. Is he a native of Medchester?"
Lord Arranmore was blandly puzzled. She finished her stroke and turned towards him.
"Mr. Brooks, you know. We were talking of him."
"Of course we were," he answered. "I do not think so. He is an orphan.I met his father in Canada."
"He reminds me of some one," she remarked, in a puzzled tone. "Just now as I was coming downstairs it was almost startling. He is a good-looking boy."
"Be careful not to foul," he admonished her. "You should have the spider-rest."
Lady Caroom made a delicate cannon from an awkward place, and concluded her break in silence. Then she leaned with her back against the table, chalking her cue. Her figure was still the figure of a girl she was a remarkably pretty woman. She laid her slim white fingers upon his coat-sleeve.
"I wonder," she said, softly, "whether you will ever tell me."
"If you look at me like that," he answered, smiling, "I shall tell you—a great many things."
Her eyes fell. It was too absurd at her age, but her cheeks were burning.
"You don't improve a bit," she declared. "You were always too apt with your tongue."
"I practiced in a good school," he answered.
"Dear me," she sighed. "For elderly people what a lot of rubbish we talk."
He shivered.
"What a hideous word," he remarked. "You make me feel that my chest is padded and my hair dyed. If to talk sense is a sign of youth, let us do it."
"By all means. When are you going to find me a husband for Sybil?"
"Well—is there any hurry?" he asked.
"Lots! We are going to Fernshire next week, and the place is always full of young men. If you have anything really good in your mind I don't want to miss it."
He took up his cue and scored an excellent break. She followed suit, and he broke down at an easy cannon. Then he came over to her side.
"How do you like Mr. Brooks?" he asked, quietly.
"He seems a nice boy," she answered, lightly. He remained silent. Suddenly she looked up into his face, and clutched the sides of the table.
"You—you don't mean that?" she murmured, suddenly pale to the lips.
He led her to a chair. The game was over.
"Some day," he whispered, "I will tell you the whole story."
* * * * *
"Even to think of these things," Sybil said, softly, "makes us feel very selfish."
"No one is ever hopelessly selfish who is conscious of it," he answered, smiling. "And, after all, it would not do for every one to be always brooding upon the darker side of life."
"In another minute," Molyneux exclaimed, waking up with a start, "I should have been asleep. Whatever have you two been talking about? It was the most soothing hum I ever heard in my life."
"Mr. Brooks was telling me of some new phases of life," she answered."It is very interesting, even if it is a little sad."
Molyneux eyed them both for a moment in thoughtful silence.
"H'm!" he remarked. "Dinner is the next phase of life which will interest me. Has the dressing-bell gone yet?"
"You gross person," she exclaimed. "You ate so much tea you had to go to sleep."
"It was the exercise, he insisted.
"You have been standing about all day. I heard you ask for a place without any walking, and where as few people as possible could see you miss your birds."
"Your ears are a great deal too sharp," he said. "It was the wind, then."
"Never mind what it was," she answered, laughing. "You can go to sleep again if you like."
Molyneux put up his eyeglass and looked from one to the other. He saw that Sybil's interest in her companion's conversation was not assumed, and for the first time he appreciated Brooks' good looks. He shook off his sleepiness at once and stood by Sybil's side.
"Have you been trying to convert Lady Sybil?" he asked.
"It is unnecessary," she answered, quickly. "Mr. Brooks and I are on the same side."
He laughed softly and strolled away. Lord Arranmore was standing thoughtfully before the marking-board. He laid his hand upon his arm.
"I say, Arranmore," he asked, "who the devil is Brooks?"
"God bless my soul!" Mr. Bullsom exclaimed. "Listen to this." Mrs. Bullsom, in a resplendent new dress, looking shinier and fatter than ever, was prepared to listen to anything which might relieve the tension of the moment. For it was the evening of the dinner-party, and within ten minutes of the appointed time. Mr. Bullsom stood under the incandescent light and read aloud "The shooting-party at Enton yesterday consisted of the Marquis of Arranmore, the Hon. Sydney Molyneux, Mr. Hennibul, K.C., and Mr. Kingston Brooks. Notwithstanding the high wind an excellent bag was obtained."
"What! Our Mr. Kingston Brooks?" Selina exclaimed.
"It's Brooks, right enough," Mr. Bullsom exclaimed. "I called at his office yesterday, and they told me that he was out for the day. Well, that licks me."
Mary, who was reading a magazine in a secluded corner, looked up.
"I saw Mr. Brooks in the morning," she remarked. "He told me that he was going to Enton to dine and sleep."
Selina looked at her cousin sharply.
"You saw Mr. Brooks?" she repeated. "Where?"
"I met him," Mary answered, coolly. "He told me that Lord Arranmore had been very kind to him."
"Why didn't you tell us?" Louise asked.
"I really didn't think of it," Mary answered. "It didn't strike me as being anything extraordinary."
"Not when he's coming here to dine to-night," Selina repeated, "and is a friend of papa's! Why, Mary, what nonsense."
"I really don't see anything to make a fuss about," Mary said, going back to her magazine.
Mr. Bullsom drew himself up, and laid down the paper with the paragraph uppermost.
"Well, it is most gratifying to think that I gave that young man his first start," he remarked. "I believe, too, that he is not likely to forget it."
"The bell!" Mrs. Bullsom exclaimed, with a little gasp. "Some one has come."
"Well, if they have, there's nothing to be frightened about," Mr. Bullsom retorted. "Ain't we expecting them to come? Don't look so scared, Sarah! Take up a book, or something. Why, bless my soul, you're all of a tremble."
"I can't help it, Peter," Mrs. Bullsom replied, nervously. "I don't know these people scarcely a bit, and I'm sure I shall do something foolish. Selina, be sure you look at me when I'm to come away, and—"
"Mr. Kingston Brooks."
Brooks, ushered in by a neighbouring greengrocer, entered upon a scene of unexpected splendour. Selina and her sister were gorgeous in green and pink respectively. Mr. Bullsom's shirt-front was a thing to wonder at. There was an air of repressed excitement about everybody, except Mary, who welcomed him with a quiet smile.
"I am not much too early, I hope," Brooks remarked.
"You're in the nick of time," Mr. Bullsom assured him.
Brooks endeavoured to secure a chair near Mary, which attempt Selina adroitly foiled.
"We've been reading all about your grandeur, Mr. Brooks," she exclaimed. "What a beautiful day you must have had at Enton."
Brooks looked puzzled.
"It was very enjoyable," he declared. "I wanted to see you, Miss Scott," he added, turning to Mary. "I think that we can arrange that date for the lecture now. How would Wednesday week do?"
"Admirably!" Mary answered.
"Do you know whom you take in, Mr. Brooks?" Selina interrupted.
Brooks glanced at the card in his hand.
"Mrs. Seventon," he said. "Yes, thanks."
Selina looked up at him with an arch smile.
"Mrs. Seventon is most dreadfully proper," she said. "You will have to be on your best behaviour. Oh, here comes some one. What a bother!"
There was an influx of guests. Mrs. Bullsom, reduced to a state of chaotic nervousness, was pushed as far into the background as possible by her daughters, and Mr. Bullsom, banished from the hearth where he felt surest of himself, plunged into a conversation with Mr. Seventon on the weather. Brooks leaned over towards Mary.
"Wednesday week at eight o'clock, then," he said. "I want to have a chat with you about the subject."
"Not now," she interposed. "You know these people, don't you, and theHuntingdons? Go and talk to them, please."
Brooks laughed, and went to the rescue. He won Mrs. Bullsom's eternal gratitude by diverting Mrs. Seventon's attention from her, and thereby allowing her a moment or two to recover herself. Somehow or other a buzz of conversation was kept up until the solemn announcement of dinner. And when she was finally seated in her place, and saw a couple of nimble waiters, with the greengrocer in the back, looking cool and capable, she felt that the worst was over.
The solemn process of sampling doubtful-looking entries and eating saddle of mutton to the tune of a forced conversation was got through without disaster. Mrs. Bullsom felt her fat face break out into smiles. Mr. Bullsom, though he would like to have seen everybody go twice for everything, began to expand. He had already recited the story of Kingston Brooks' greatness to both of his immediate neighbours, and in a casual way mentioned his early patronage of that remarkable young man. And once meeting his eye he raised his glass.
"Not quite up to the Enton vintage, Brooks, eh? but all right, I hope."
Brooks nodded back, and resumed his conversation. Selina took the opportunity to mention casually to her neighbour, Mr. Huntingdon, that Mr. Brooks was a great friend of Lord Arranmore's, and Louise, on her side of the table, took care also to disseminate the same information. Everybody was properly impressed. Mr. Bullsom decided to give a dinner-party every month, and to double the greengrocer's tip, and by the time Selina's third stage whisper had reached her mother and the ladies finally departed, he was in a state of geniality bordering upon beatitude. There was a general move to his end of the table. Mr. Bullsom started the port, and his shirt-front grew wider and wider. He lit a cigar, and his thumb found its way to the armhole of his waistcoat. At that moment Mr. Bullsom would not have changed places with any man on earth.
"What sort of a place is Enton to stay at, Brooks, eh?" he inquired, in a friendly manner. "Keeps it up very well, don't he, the present Marquis?"
Brooks sighed.
"I really don't know much about it," he answered, "I was only there one night."
"Good day's sport?"
"Very good indeed," Brooks answered. "Lord Arranmore is a wonderful shot."
"A remarkable man in a great many ways, Lord Arranmore," Dr. Seventon remarked. "He disappeared from London when he was an impecunious young barrister with apparently no earthly chance of succeeding to the Arranmore estates, and from that time till a few years ago, when he was advertised for, not a soul knew his whereabouts. Even now I am told that he keeps the story of all these years absolutely to himself. No one knew where he was, or how he supported himself."
"I can tell you where he was for some time, at any rate," Brooks said. "He was in Canada, for he met my father there, and was with him when he died."
"Indeed," Dr. Seventon remarked. "Then I should say that you are one of the only men in England to whom he has opened his lips on the subject. Do you know what he was doing there?"
"Fishing and shooting, I think." Brooks answered. "It was near LakeOno, right out west, and there would be nothing else to take one there."
"It was always supposed too that he had spent most of the time in a situation in New York," Mr. Huntingdon said.
"I know a man," Mr. Seaton put in, "who can swear that he met him as a sergeant in the first Australian contingent of mounted infantry sent to the Cape."
"There are no end of stories about him," Dr. Seventon remarked. "If I were the man I would put a stop to them by telling everybody exactly where I was during those twenty years or so. It is a big slice of one's life to seal up."
"Still, there is not the slightest reason why he should take the whole world into his confidence, is there?" Brooks expostulated. "He is not a public man."
"A peer of England with a seat in the House of Lords must always be a public man to some extent," Mr. Huntingdon remarked.
"I am not sure," Brooks remarked, "that the lives of all our hereditary legislators would bear the most searching inquiry."
"That's right, Brooks," Mr. Bullsom declared. "Stick up for your pals."
Brooks looked a little annoyed.
"The only claim I have upon Lord Arranmore's acquaintance," he remarked, "is his kindness to my father. I hope, Dr. Seventon, that you are going to press the matter of that fever hospital home. I have a little information which I think you might make use of."
Brooks changed his place, wine-glass in hand, and the conversation drifted away. But he found the position of social star one which the Bullsoms were determined to force upon him, for they had no sooner entered the drawing-room than Selina came rushing across the room to him and drew him confidentially on one side.
"Mr. Brooks," she said, "do go and talk to Mrs. Huntingdon. She is so anxious to hear about the Lady Caroom who is staying at Enton."
"I know nothing about Lady Caroom," Brooks replied, without any overplus of graciousness.
Selina looked at him in some dismay.
"But you met her at Enton, didn't you?" she asked.
"Oh, yes, I met her there," Brooks answered, impatiently. "But I certainly don't know enough of her to discuss her with Mrs. Huntingdon. I rather wanted to speak to your cousin."
Selina's thin little lips became compressed, and for a moment she forgot to smile. Her cousin indeed! Mary, who was sitting there in a plain black gown without a single ornament, and not even a flower, looking for all the world like the poor relation she was! Selina glanced downwards at the great bunch of roses and maidenhair fern in her bosom, at the fancy and beaded trimming which ran like a nightmare all over her new gown, and which she was absolutely certain had come from Paris; at the heavy gold bracelets which concealed some part of her thin arms; she remembered suddenly the aigrette in her hair, such a finish to her costume, and her self-confidence returned.
"Oh, don't bother about Mary now. Mrs. Huntingdon is dying to have you talk to her. Please do and if you like—I will give you one of my roses for your button-hole."
Brooks stood the shock gallantly, and bowed his thanks. He had met Mrs. Huntingdon before, and they talked together for a quarter of an hour or so.
"I wish I knew why you were here," was almost her first question."Isn't it all funny?
"Mr. Bullsom has always been very decent to me," he answered. "It is through him I was appointed agent to Mr. Henslow."
"Oh, business! I see," she answered, shrugging her shoulders. "Same here. I'm a doctor's wife, you know. Did you ever see such awful girls! and who in the name of all that's marvellous can be their dressmaker?"
"Bullsom is a very good sort indeed," Brooks answered. "I have a great respect for him."
She made a little face.
"Who's the nice-looking girl in black with her hair parted in the middle?" she asked. "Mr. Bullsom's niece. She is quite charming, and most intelligent."
"Dear me!" Mrs. Huntingdon remarked. "I had no idea she had anything to do with the family. Sort of a Cinderella look about her now you mention it. Couldn't you get her to come over and talk to me? I'm horribly afraid of Mrs. Bullsom. She'll come out of that dress if she tries to talk, and I know I shall laugh."
"I'm sure I can," Brooks answered, rising with alacrity. "I'll bring her over in a minute."
Mary had just finished arranging a card-table when Brooks drew her on one side.
"About that subject!" he began.
"We shall scarcely have time to talk about it now, shall we?" she answered. "You will be wanted to play cards or something. We shall be quite content to leave it to you."
"I should like to talk it over with you," he said. "Do tell me when I may see you."
She sat down, and he stood by her chair. "Really, I don't know," she answered. "Perhaps I shall be at home when you pay your duty call."
"Come and have some tea at Mellor's with me to-morrow."
She seemed not to hear him. She had caught Mrs. Seventon's eye across the room, and rose to her feet.
"You have left Mrs. Seventon alone all the evening," she said. "I must go and talk to her."
He stood before her—a little insistent.
"I shall expect you at half-past four," he said.
She shook her head.
Oh, no. I have an engagement."
"The next day, then."
"Thank you! I would rather you did not ask me. I have a great deal to do just now. I will bring the girls to the lecture."
"Wednesday week," he protested, "is a long way off."
"You can go over to Enton," she laughed, "and get some more cheques from your wonderful friend."
"I wonder," he remarked, "why you dislike Lord Arranmore so much."
"Instinct perhaps—or caprice," she answered, lightly.
"The latter for choice," he answered. "I don't think that he is a man to dislike instinctively. He rather affected me the other way."
She was suddenly graver.
"It is foolish of me," she remarked. "You will think so too, when I tell you that my only reason is because of a likeness."
"A likeness!" he repeated.
She nodded.
"He is exactly like a man who was once a friend of my father's, and who did him a great deal of harm. My father was much to blame, I know, but this man had a great influence over him, and a most unfortunate one. Now don't you think I'm absurd?"
"I think it is a little rough on Lord Arranmore," he answered, "don't you?"
"It would be if my likes or dislikes made the slightest difference to him," she answered. "As it is, I don't suppose it matters."
"Was this in England?" he asked.
She shook her head.
"No, it was abroad—in Montreal. I really must go to Mrs. Seventon.She looks terribly bored."
Brooks made no effort to detain her. He was looking intently at a certain spot in the carpet. The coincidence—it was nothing more, of course—was curious.
There followed a busy time for Brooks, the result of which was a very marked improvement in his prospects. For the younger Morrison and his partner, loth to lose altogether the valuable Enton connection, offered Brooks a partnership in their firm. Mr. Ascough, who was Lord Arranmore's London solicitor, and had been Brooks' guardian, after careful consideration advised his acceptance, and there being nothing in the way, the arrangements were pushed through almost at once. Mr. Ascough, on the morning of his return to London, took the opportunity warmly to congratulate Brooks.
"Lord Arranmore has been marvellously kind to me," Brooks agreed. "To tell you the truth, Mr. Ascough, I feel almost inclined to add incomprehensibly kind."
The older man stroked his grey moustache thoughtfully.
"Lord Arranmore is eccentric," he remarked. "Has always been eccentric, and will remain so, I suppose, to the end of the chapter. You are the one who profits, however, and I am very glad of it."
"Eccentricity," Brooks remarked, "is, of course, the only obvious explanation of his generosity so far as I am concerned. But it has occurred to me, Mr. Ascough, to wonder whether the friendship or connection between him and my father was in any way a less slight thing than I have been led to suppose."
Mr. Ascough shrugged his shoulders.
"Lord Arranmore," he said, "has told you, no doubt, all that there is to be told."
Brooks sat at his desk, frowning slightly, and tapping the blotting-paper with a pen-holder.
"All that Lord Arranmore has told me," he said, "is that my father occupied a cabin not far from his on the banks of Lake Ono, that they saw little of each other, and that he only found out his illness by accident. That my father then disclosed his name, gave him his papers and your address. There was merely the casual intercourse between two Englishmen coming together in a strange country."
"That is what I have always understood," Mr. Ascough agreed. "Have you any reason to think otherwise?
"No definite reason—except Lord Arranmore's unusual kindness to me," Brooks remarked. "Lord Arranmore is one of the most self-centred men I ever knew—and the least impulsive. Why, therefore, he should go out of his way to do me a kindness I cannot understand."
"If this is really an enigma to you," Mr. Ascough answered, "I cannot help you to solve it. Lord Arranmore has been the reverse of communicative to me. I am afraid you must fall back upon his lordship's eccentricity."
Mr. Ascough rose, but Brooks detained him.
"You have plenty of time for your train," he said. "Will you forgive me if I go over a little old ground with you—for the last time?"
The lawyer resumed his seat.
"I am in no hurry," he said, "if you think it worth while."
"My father came to you when he was living at Stepney—a stranger to you."
"A complete stranger," Mr. Ascough agreed. "I had never seen him before in my life. I did a little trifling business for him in connection with his property."
"He told you nothing of his family or relatives?"
"He told me that he had not a relation in the world."
"You knew him slightly, then?" Brooks continued, "all the time he was inLondon? And when he left for that voyage he came to you."
"Yes."
"He made over his small income then to my mother in trust for me. Did it strike you as strange that he should do this instead of making a will?"
"Not particularly," Mr. Ascough declared. "As you know, it is not an unusual course."
"It did not suggest to you any determination on his part never to return to England?"
"Certainly not."
"He left England on friendly terms with my mother?"
"Certainly. She and he were people for whom I and every one who knew anything of their lives had the highest esteem and admiration."
"You can imagine no reason, then, for my father leaving England for good?"
"Certainly not!"
"You know of no reason why he should have abandoned his trip toAustralia and gone to Canada?"
"None!"
"His doing so is as inexplicable to you as to me?"
"Entirely."
"You have never doubted Lord Arranmore's story of his death?"
"Never. Why should I?"
"One more question," Brooks said. "Do you know that lately I have met a traveller—a man who visited Lord Arranmore in Canada, and who declared to his certain knowledge there was no other human dwelling-house within fifty miles of Lord Arranmore's cabin?"
"He was obviously mistaken."
You think so?
"It is certain."
Brooks hesitated.
"My question," he said, "will have given you some idea of the uncertainty I have felt once or twice lately, owing to the report of the traveller Lacroix, and Lord Arranmore's unaccountable kindness to me. You see, he isn't an ordinary man. He is not a philanthropist by any means, nor in any way a person likely to do kindly actions from the love of them. Now, do you know of any facts, or can you suggest anything which might make the situation clearer to me?"
"I cannot, Mr. Brooks," the older man answered, without hesitation. "If you take my advice, you will not trouble yourself any more with fancies which seem to me—pardon me—quite chimerical. Accept Lord Arranmore's kindness as the offshoot of some sentimental feeling which he might well have entertained towards a fellow-countryman by whose death-bed he had stood in that far-away, lonely country. You may even yourself be mistaken in Lord Arranmore's character, and you can remember, too, that after all what means so much to you costs him nothing—is probably for his own advantage."
Brooks rose and took up his hat.
"I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Ascough," he said. "Yours, after all, is the common-sense view of the affair. If you like I will walk up to the station. I am going that way. . . ."
So Brooks, convinced of their folly, finally discarded certain uncomfortable thoughts which once or twice lately had troubled him. He dined at Enton that night, and improved his acquaintance with Lady Caroom and her daughter, who were still staying there. Although this was not a matter which he had mentioned to Mr. Ascough, there was something which he found more inexplicable even than Lord Arranmore's transference of the care of his estates to him, and that was the apparent encouragement which both he and Lady Caroom gave to the friendship between Sybil and himself. They had lunched with him twice in Medchester, and more often still the Enton barouche had been kept waiting at his office whilst Lady Caroom and Sybil descended upon him with invitations from Lord Arranmore. After his talk with Mr. Ascough he put the matter behind him, but it remained at times an inexplicable puzzle.
On the evening of this particular visit he found Sybil alone in a recess of the drawing-room with a newspaper in her hand. She greeted him with obvious pleasure.
"Do come and tell me about things, Mr. Brooks," she begged. "I have been reading the local paper. Is it true that there are actually people starving in Medchester?"
"There is a great deal of distress," he admitted, gravely. "I am afraid that it is true."
She looked at him with wide-open eyes.
"But I don't understand," she said. "I thought that there were societies who dealt with all that sort of thing, and behind, the—the workhouse."
"So there are, Lady Sybil," he answered, "but you must remember that societies are no use unless people will subscribe to them, and that there are a great many people who would sooner starve than enter the workhouse."
"But surely," she exclaimed, "there is no difficulty about getting money—if people only understand."
He watched her for a moment in silence—suddenly appreciating the refinement, the costly elegance which seemed in itself to be a part of the girl, and yet for which surely her toilette was in some way also responsible. Her white satin dress was cut and fashioned in a style which he was beginning to appreciate as evidence of skill and costliness. A string of pearls around her throat gleamed softly in the firelight. A chain of fine gold studded with opals and diamonds reached almost to her knees. She wore few rings indeed, but they were such rings as he had never seen before he had come as a guest to Enton. And there were thousands like her. A momentary flash of thought carried him back to the days of the French Revolution. There was a print hanging in his room of a girl as fair and as proud as this one, surrounded by a fierce rabble mad with hunger and the pent-up rage of generations, tearing the jewels from her fingers, tearing even, he thought, the trimming from her gown.
"You do not answer me, Mr. Brooks," she reminded him.
He recovered himself with a start.
"I beg your pardon, Lady Sybil. Your question set me thinking. We have tried to make people understand, and many have given most generously, but for all that we cannot cope with such distress as there is to-day in Medchester. I am secretary for one of the distribution societies, and I have seen things which are enough to sadden a man for life, only during the last few days."
"You have seen people—really hungry?" she asked, with something like timidity in her face.
He laughed bitterly.
"That we see every moment of the time we spend down amongst them," he answered. "I have seen worse things. I have seen the sapping away of character—men become thieves and women worse—to escape from starvation. That, I think, is the greatest tragedy of all. It makes one shudder when one thinks that on the shoulders of many people some portion of the responsibility at any rate for these things must rest."
Her lips quivered. She emptied the contents of a gold chain purse into her hands.
"It is we who are wicked, Mr. Brooks," she said, "who spend no end of money and close our ears to all this. Do take this, will you; can it go to some of the women you know, and the children? There are only five or six pounds there, but I shall talk to mamma. We will send you a cheque."
He took the money without hesitation.
"I am very glad," he said, earnestly, "that you have given me this, that you have felt that you wanted to give it me. I hope you won't think too badly of me for coming over here to help you spend a pleasant evening, and talking at all of such miserable things."
"Badly!" she repeated. "No; I shall never be able to thank you enough for telling me what you have done. It makes one feel almost wicked to be sitting here, and wearing jewelry, and feeling well off, spending money on whatever you want, and to think that there are people starving. How they must hate us."
"It is the wonderful part of it," he answered. "I do not believe that they do. I suppose it is a sort of fatalism—the same sort of thing, only much less ignoble, as the indifference which keeps our rich people contented and deaf to this terribly human cry."
"You are young," she said, looking at him, "to be so much interested in such serious things."
"It is my blood, I suppose," he answered. "My father was a police-court missionary, and my mother the matron of a pauper hospital."
"They are both dead, are they not?" she asked, softly.
"Many years ago," he answered.
Lady Caroom and Lord Arranmore came in together. A certain unusual seriousness in Sybil's face was manifest.
"You two do not seem to have been amusing yourselves," Lady Caroom remarked, giving her hand to Brooks.
"Mr. Brooks has been answering some of my questions about the poor people," Sybil answered, "and it is not an amusing subject."
Lord Arranmore laughed lightly, and there was a touch of scorn in the slight curve of his fine lips and his raised eyebrows. He stood away from the shaded lamplight before a great open fire of cedar logs, and the red glow falling fitfully upon his face seemed to Brooks, watching him with more than usual closeness, to give him something of a Mephistopheles aspect. His evening clothes hung with more than ordinary precision about his long slim body, his black tie and black pearl stud supplied the touch of sombreness so aptly in keeping with the mirthless, bitter smile which still parted his lips.
"You must not take Mr. Brooks too seriously on the subject of the poor people," he said, the mockery of his smile well matched in his tone. "Brooks is an enthusiast—one, I am afraid, of those misguided people who have barred the way to progress for centuries. If only they could be converted!"
Lady Caroom sighed.
"Oh, dear, how enigmatic!" she exclaimed. "Do be a little more explicit."
"Dear lady," he continued, turning to her, "it is not worth while. Yet I sometimes wonder whether people realize how much harm this hysterical philanthropy—this purely sentimental faddism, does; how it retards the natural advance of civilization, throws dust in people's eyes, salves the easy conscience of the rich man, who bargains for immortality with a few strokes of the pen, and finds mischievous occupation for a good many weak minds and parasitical females. Believe me, that all personal charity is a mistake. It is a good deal worse than that. It is a crime."
Sybil rose up, and a little unusual flush had stained her cheeks.
"I still do not understand you in the least, Lord Arranmore," she said. "It seems to me that you are making paradoxical and ridiculous statements, which only bewilder us. Why is charity a crime? That is what I should like to hear you explain."
Lord Arranmore bowed slightly.
"I had no idea," he said, leaning his elbow upon the mantelpiece, "that I was going to be inveigled into a controversy. But, my dear Sybil, I will do my best to explain to you what I mean, especially as at your age you are not likely to discover the truth for yourself. In the first place, charity of any sort is the most insidious destroyer of moral character which the world has ever known. The man who once accepts it, even in extremes, imbibes a poison from which his system can never be thoroughly cleansed. You let him loose upon society, and the evil which you have sown in him spreads. He is like a man with an infectious disease. He is a source of evil to the community. You have relieved a physical want, and you have destroyed a moral quality. I do not need to point out to you that the balance is on the wrong side."
Sybil glanced across at Brooks, and he smiled back at her.
"Lord Arranmore has not finished yet," he said. "Let us hear the worst."
Their host smiled.
"After all," he said, "why do I waste my breath? From the teens to the thirties sentiment smiles. It is only later on in life that reason has any show at all. Yet you should ask yourselves, you eager self-denying young people, who go about with a healthy moral glow inside because you have fed the poor, or given an hour or so of your time to the distribution of reckless charity-you should ask yourselves: What is the actual good of ministering to the outward signs of an internal disease? You are simply trying to renovate the outside when the inside is filthy. Don't you see, my dear young people, that to give a meal to one starving man may be to do him indeed good, but it does nothing towards preventing another starving man from taking his place to-morrow. You stimulate the disease, you help it to spread. Don't you see where instead you should turn—to the social laws, the outcome of which is that starving man? You let them remain unharmed, untouched, while you fall over one another in frantic efforts to brush away to-day's effect of an eternal cause. Let your starving man die, let the bones break through his skin and carry him up—him and his wife and their children, and their fellows—to your House of Commons. Tell them that there are more to-morrow, more the next day, let the millions of the lower classes look this thing in the face. I tell you that either by a revolution, which no doubt some of us would find worse than inconvenient, or by less drastic means, the thing would right itself. You, who work to relieve the individual, only postpone and delay the millennium. People will keep their eyes closed as long as they can. It is you who help them to do so."
"Dinner is served, my lord," the butler announced.
Lord Arranmore extended his arm to Lady Caroom.
"Come," he said, "let us all be charitable to one another, for I too am starving."
"You think they really liked it, then?"
"How could they help it? It was such a delightful idea of yours, and I am sure all that you said was so simple and yet suggestive. Good-night, Mr. Brooks."
They stood in the doorway of the Secular Hall, where Brooks had just delivered his lecture. It seemed to him that her farewell was a little abrupt.
"I was going to ask," he said, "whether I might not see you home."
She hesitated.
"Really," she said, "I wish you would not trouble. It is quite a long way, and I have only to get into a car.
"The further the better," he answered, "and besides, if your uncle is at home I should like to come in and see him."
She made no further objection, yet Brooks fancied that her acquiescence was, to some extent, involuntary. He walked by her side in silence for a moment or two, wondering whether there was indeed any way in which he could have offended her.
"I have not seen you," he remarked, "since the evening of your dinner-party."
"No!"
"You were out when I called."
"I have so many things to do—just now. We can get a car here."
He looked at it.
"It is too full," he said. "Let us walk on for a little way. I want to talk to you."
The car was certainly full, so after a moment's hesitation she acquiesced.
"You will bring your girls again, I hope?" he asked.
"They will come I have no doubt," she answered. "So will I if I am inMedchester."
"You are going away?"
"I hope so," she answered. "I am not quite sure."
"Not for good?" Possibly."
"Won't you tell me about it?" he asked.
"Well—I don't know!"
She hesitated for a moment.
"I will tell you if you like," she said, doubtfully. "But I do not wish anything said about it at present, as my arrangements are not complete."
"I will be most discreet," he promised.
"I have been doing a little work for a woman's magazine in London, and they have half promised me a definite post on the staff. I am to hear in a few days as to the conditions. If they are satisfactory—that is to say, if I can keep myself on what they offer—I shall go and live in London."
He was surprised, and also in a sense disappointed. It was astonishing to find how unpleasant the thought of her leaving Medchester was to him.
"I had no idea of this," he said, thoughtfully. "I did not know that you went in for anything of the sort."
"My literary ambitions are slight enough," she answered. "Yet you can scarcely be surprised that I find the thought of a definite career and a certain amount of independence attractive."
He stole a sidelong glance at her. In her plainly made clothes and quiet hat she was scarcely, perhaps, a girl likely to attract attention, yet he was conscious of certain personal qualities, which he had realized and understood from the first. She carried herself well, she walked with the free graceful movements of a well-bred and healthy girl. In her face was an air of quiet thought, the self-possession of the woman of culture and experience. Her claim to good looks was, after all, slight enough, yet on studying her he came to the conclusion that she could if she chose appear to much greater advantage. Her hair, soft and naturally wavy, was brushed too resolutely back; her smile, which was always charming, she suffered to appear only at the rarest intervals. She suggested a life of repression, and with his knowledge of the Bullsom menage he was able to surmise some glimmering of the truth.
"You are right," he declared. "I think that I can understand what your feeling must be. I am sure I wish you luck."
The touch of sympathy helped her to unbend. She glanced towards him kindly.
"Thank you," she said. "Of course there will be difficulties. My uncle will not like it. He is very good-natured and very hospitable, and I am afraid his limitations will not permit him to appreciate exactly how I feel about it. And my aunt is, of course, merely his echo."
"He will not be unreasonable," Brooks said. "I am sure of that. For a man who is naturally of an obstinate turn of mind I think your uncle is wonderful. He makes great efforts to free himself from all prejudices."
"Unfortunately," she remarked, "he is very down on the independent woman. He would make housekeepers and cooks of all of us."
"Surely," he protested, with a quiet smile, "your cousins are more ambitious than that. I am sure Selina would never wear a cooking-apron, unless it had ribbon and frilly things all over it."
She laughed.
"After all, they have been kind to me," she said. "My mother was the black sheep of the family, and when she died Mr. Bullsom paid my passage home, and insisted upon my coming to live here as one of the family. I should hate them to think that I am discontented, only the things which satisfy them do not satisfy me, so life sometimes becomes a little difficult."
"Have you friends in London?" he asked.
"None! I tried living there when I first came back for a few weeks, but it was impossible."
"You will be very lonely, surely. London is the loneliest of all great cities."
"Why should I not make friends?"
"That is what I too asked myself years ago when I was articled there," he answered. "Yet it is not so easy as it sounds. Every one seems to have their own little circle, and a solitary person remains so often just outside. Yet if you have friends—and tastes—London is a paradise. Oh, how fascinating I used to find it just at first—before the chill came. You, too, will feel that. You will be content at first to watch, to listen, to wonder! Every type of humanity passes before you like the jumbled-up figures of a kaleidoscope. You are content even to sit before a window in a back street—and listen. What a sound that is—the roar of London, the voices of the street, the ceaseless hum, the creaking of the great wheel of humanity as it goes round and round. And then, perhaps, in a certain mood the undernote falls upon your ear, the bitter, long-drawn-out cry of the hopeless and helpless. When you have once heard it, life is never the same again. Then, if you do not find friends, you will know what misery is."
They were both silent for a few minutes. A car passed them unnoticed.Then she looked at him curiously.
"For a lawyer," she remarked, "you are a very imaginative person."
He laughed.
"Ah, well, I was talking just then of how I felt in those days. I was a boy then, you know. I dare say I could go back now to my old rooms and live there without a thrill."
She shook her head.
"What one has once felt," she murmured, "comes back always."
"Sometimes only the echo," he answered, "and that is weariness."
They walked for a little way in silence. Then she spoke to him in an altered tone.
"I have heard a good deal about you during the last few weeks," she said. "You are very much to be congratulated, they tell me. I am sure I am very glad that you have been so fortunate."
"Thank you," he answered. "To tell you the truth, it all seems very marvellous to me. Only a few months ago your uncle was almost my only client of importance."
"Lord Arranmore was your father's friend though, was he not?"
"They came together abroad," he answered, "and Lord Arranmore was with my father when he died in Canada."
She stopped short.
Where?
"In Canada, on the banks of Lake Ono, if you know where that is," he answered, looking at her in surprise.
She resumed her usual pace, but he noticed that she was pale.
"So Lord Arranmore was in Canada?" she said. "Do you know how long ago?"
"About ten years, I suppose," he answered. "How long before that I do not know."
She was silent for several minutes, and they found themselves in the drive leading to the Bullsom villa. Brooks was curious.
"I wonder," he asked, "whether you will tell me why you are interested in Lord Arranmore—and Canada?"
"I was born in Montreal," she answered, "and I once saw some one very much like Lord Arranmore there. But I am convinced that it could only have been a resemblance."
"You mentioned it before—when we saw him in Mellor's," he remarked.
"Yes, it struck me then," she admitted. "But I am sure that Lord Arranmore could not have been the person whom I am thinking about. It is ridiculous of me to attach so much importance to a mere likeness."
They stood upon the doorstep, but she checked him as he reached out for the bell.
"You have seen quite a good deal of him," she said. "Tell me what you think of Lord Arranmore." His hand fell to his side. He stood under the gas-bracket, and she could see his face distinctly. There was a slight frown upon his forehead, a look of trouble in his grey eyes.
"You could not have asked me a more difficult question," he admitted. "Lord Arranmore has been very kind to me, although my claim upon him has been of the slightest. He is very clever, almost fantastic, in some of his notions; he is very polished, and his manners are delightful. He would call himself, I believe, a philosopher, and he is, although it sounds brutal for me to say so, very selfish. And behind it all I haven't the faintest idea what sort of a man he is. Sometimes he gives one the impression of a strong man wilfully disguising his real characteristics, for hidden reasons; at others, he is like one of those brilliant Frenchmen of the last century, who toyed and juggled with words and phrases, esteeming it a triumph to remain an unread letter even to their intimates. So you see, after all," he wound up, "I cannot tell you what I think of Lord Arranmore."
"You can ring the bell," she said. "You must come in for a few minutes."
Their entrance together seemed to cause the little family party a certain amount of disturbed surprise. The girls greeted Brooks with a great show of pleasure, but they looked doubtfully at Mary.
"Did you meet at the front door?" Selina asked. "I thought I heard voices." Brooks was a little surprised.
"Your cousin brought her class of factory girls to my lecture to-night at the Secular Hall."
Selina's eyes narrowed a little, and she was silent for a moment. Then she turned to her cousin.
"You might have told us, Mary," she exclaimed, reproachfully. "We should so much have liked to come, shouldn't we, Louise?"
"Of course we should," Louise answered, snappishly. "I can't think whyMary should go off without saying a word."
Mary looked at them both and laughed. "Well," she said, "I have left the house at precisely the same time on 'Wednesday evenings all through the winter, and neither of you have said anything about coming with me."
"This is quite different," Selina answered, cuttingly. "We should very much have enjoyed Mr. Brooks' lecture. Do tell us what it was about."
"Don't you be bothered, Brooks," Mr. Bullsom exclaimed, hospitably. "Sit down and try one of these cigars. We've had supper, but if you'd like anything—"
"Nothing to eat, thanks," Brooks protested. "I'll have a cigar if I may."
"And a whisky-and-soda, then," Mr. Bullsom insisted. "Say when!"
Brooks turned to Selina. Mary had left the room. "You were asking about the lecture," he said. "Really, it was only a very unpretentious affair, and to tell you the truth, only intended for people whose opportunities for reading have not been great. I am quite sure it would not have been worth your while to come down. We just read a chapter or so from A Tale of Two Cities, and talked about it."
"We should have liked it very mulch," Selina declared. "Do tell us when there is another one, will you?"
"With pleasure," he answered. "I warn you, though, that you will be disappointed."
"We will risk that," Selina declared, with a smile. "Have you been toEnton this week?"
"I was there on Sunday," he answered.
"And is that beautiful girl, Lady Sybil Caroom, still staying there?
"Yes," he answered. "Is she very beautiful, by the bye?"
"Well, I thought men would think so," Selina said, hastily. "I think that she is just a little loud, don't you, Louise?"
Louise admitted that the idea had occurred to her.
"And her hair—isn't it badly dyed?" Selina remarked. "Such a pity.It's all in patches."
"I think girls ought not to make up in the street, either," Louise remarked, primly. "A little powder in the house is all very well"—(Louise had a nose which gave her trouble)—"but I really don't think it looks respectable in the street."
"I suppose," Selina remarked, "you men admire all that sort of thing, don't you?
"I really hadn't noticed it with Lady Sybil," Brooks admitted.
Selina sighed.
"Men are so blind," she remarked. "You watch next time you are close to her, Mr. Brooks."
"I will," he promised. "I'll get her between me and a window in a strong north light."
Selina laughed.
"Don't be too unkind," she said. "That's the worst of you men. When you do find anything out you are always so severe."
"After all, though," Louise remarked, with a sidelong glance, "it must be very, very interesting to meet these sort of people, even if one doesn't quite belong to their set. I should think you must find every one else quite tame, Mr. Brooks."
"I can assure you I don't," he answered, coolly. "This evening has provided me with quite as pleasant society as ever I should wish for."
Selina beamed upon him.
"Oh, Mr. Brooks, you are terrible. You do say such things!" she declared, archly.
Louise laughed a little hardly.
"We mustn't take too much to ourselves, dear," she said. "Remember thatMr. Brooks walked all the way up from the Secular Hall with Mary."
Mr. Bullsom threw down his paper with a little impatient exclamation.
"Come, come!" he said. "I want to have a few words with Brooks myself, if you girls'll give me a chance. Heard anything from Henslow lately, eh?"
Brooks leaned forward.
"Not a word!" he answered.
Mr. Bullsom grunted.
"H'm! He's taken his seat, and that's all he does seem to have done. To have heard his last speech here before polling time you would have imagined him with half-a-dozen questions down before now. He's letting the estimates go by, too. There are half-a-dozen obstructors, all faddists, but Henslow, with a real case behind him, is sitting tight. 'Pon my word, I'm not sure that I like the fellow."
"I ventured to write to him the other evening," Brooks said, "and I have sent him all the statistics we promised, he seems to have regarded my letter as an impertinence, though, for he has never answered it."
"You mark my words," Mr. Bullsom said, doubling the paper up and bringing it down viciously upon his knee, "Henslow will never sit again for Medchester. There was none too mulch push about him last session, but he smoothed us all over somehow. He'll not do it again. I'm losing faith in the man, Brooks."
Brooks was genuinely disturbed. His own suspicions had been gathering strength during the last few weeks. Henslow had been pleasant enough, but a little flippant after the election. From London he had promised to write to Mr. Bullsom, as chairman of his election committee, mapping out the course of action which, in pursuance of his somewhat daring pledges, he proposed to embark upon. This was more than a month ago, and there had come not a single word from him. All that vague distrust which Brooks had sometimes felt in the man was rekindled and increased, and with it came a flood of bitter thoughts. Another opportunity then was to be lost. For seven years longer these thousands of pallid, heart-weary men and women were to suffer, with no one to champion their cause. He saw again that sea of eager faces in the market-place, lit with a sudden gleam of hope as they listened to the bold words of the man who was promising them life and hope and better things. Surely if this was a betrayal it was an evil deed, not passively to be borne.
Mr. Bullsom had refreshed himself with whisky-and-water, and decided that pessimism was not a healthy state of mind.
"I tell you what it is, Brooks," he said, more cheerfully. "We mustn't be too previous in judging the fellow. Let's write him civilly, and if nothing comes of it in a week or two, we will run up to London, you and me, eh? and just haul him over the coals."
"You are right, Mr. Bullsom," Brooks said. "There is nothing we can do for the present."
"Please don't talk any more horrid politics," Selina begged. "We wantMr. Brooks to give us a lesson at billiards. Do you mind?"
Brooks rose at once.
"I shall be charmed!" he declared.
Mr. Bullsom rose also.
"Pooh, pooh!" he said. "Brooks and I will have a hundred up and you can watch us. That'll be lesson enough for you."
Selina made a little grimace, but they all left the room together. In the hall a housemaid was speaking at the telephone, and a moment afterwards she laid the receiver down and came towards them.
"It is a message for Mr. Brooks, sir, from the Queen's Hotel. LordArranmore's compliments, and the ladies from Enton are at the theatrethis evening, and would be glad if Mr. Brooks would join them at theQueen's Hotel for supper at eleven o'clock."
Brooks hesitated, but Mr. Bullsom spoke up at once.
"Off you go, Brooks," he said, firmly. "Don't you go refusing an invitation like that. Lord Arranmore is a bit eccentric, they say, and he isn't the sort of man to like refusals. You've just got time."
"They had the message two hours ago, and have been trying everywhere to find Mr. Brooks," the housemaid added.
Selina helped him on with his coat.
"Will you come another evening soon and play billiards with us?" she asked, dropping her voice a little.
"With pleasure," Brooks answered. "Do you mind saying good-bye to your cousin for me? I am sorry not to see her again."
Brooks was shown into a private room at the Queen's Hotel, and he certainly had no cause to complain of the warmth of his welcome. Lady Sybil, in fact, made room for him by her side, and he fancied that there was a gleam of reproach in her eyes as she looked up at him.
"Is Medchester really so large a place that one can get lost in it?" she asked. "Lord Arranmore has been sending messengers in every direction ever since we decided upon our little excursion.
"I telephoned to your office, sent a groom to your rooms and to the club, and at last we had given you up," Lord Arranmore remarked.
"And I," Sybil murmured, "was in a shocking bad temper."
"It is very good of you all," Brooks remarked, cheerfully. "I left the office rather early, and have been giving a sort of lecture to-night at the Secular Hall. Then I went up to have a game of billiards with Mr. Bullsom. Your telephone message found me there. You must remember that even if Medchester is not a very large place I am a very unimportant person."
"Dear me, what modesty," Lady Caroom remarked, laughing. "To us, however, you happened to be very important. I hate a party of three."
Brooks helped himself to a quail, and remembered that he was hungry.
"This is very unusual dissipation, isn't it?" he asked. "I never dreamed that you would be likely to come into our little theatre."
"It was Sybil's doings," Lady Caroom answered. "She declared that she was dull, and that she had never seen A /Message from Mars./ I think that all that serious talk the other evening gave her the blues."
"I am always dull in the winter when there is no hunting," Sybil remarked. "This frost is abominable. I have not forgotten our talk either. I feel positively wicked every time I sip champagne."
"Our young philanthropist will reassure you," Arranmore remarked, drily.
Lady Caroom sighed.
"I wonder how it is," she murmured, "that one's conscience and one's digestion both grow weaker as one grows old. You and I, Arranmore, are content to accept the good things of the earth as they come to us."
"With me," he answered, "it is the philosophy of approaching old age, but you have no such excuse. With you it must be sheer callousness. You are in an evil way, Lady Caroom. Do have another of these quails."
"You are very rude," she answered, "and extremely unsympathetic. But I will have another quail."
"I do not Want to destroy your appetite, Mr. Brooks," Lady Sybil said, "but this is—if not a farewell feast, something like it."
He looked at her with sudden interest.
"You are going away?" he exclaimed.
"Very soon," she assented. "We were so comfortable at Enton, and the hunting has been so good, that we cut out one of our visits. Mamma developed a convenient attack of influenza. But the next one is very near now, and our host is almost tired of us."
Lord Arranmore was for a moment silent.
"You have made Enton," he said, "intolerable for a solitary man. When you go I go."
"I wish you could say whither instead of when," Lady Caroom answered. "How bored you would be at Redcliffe. It is really the most outlandish place we go to."
"Why ever do we accept, mamma?" Sybil asked. "Last year I nearly cried my eyes out, I was so dull. Not a man fit to talk to, or a horse fit to ride. The girls bicycle, and Lord Redcliffe breeds cattle and talks turnips."
"And they all drink port after dinner," Lady Caroom moaned; "but we have to go, dear. We must live rent free somewhere during these months to get through the season."
Sybil looked at Brooks with laughter in her eyes.
"Aren't we terrible people?" she whispered. "You are by way of being literary, aren't you? You should write an article on the shifts of the aristocracy. Mamma and I could supply you with all the material. The real trouble, of course, is that I don't marry."
"Fancy glorying in your failure," Lady Caroom said, complacently. "Three seasons, Arranmore, have I had to drag that girl round. I've washed my hands of her now. She must look after herself. A girl who refuses one of the richest young men in England because she didn't like his collars is incorrigible."
"It was not his collars, mother," Sybil objected. "It was his neck. He was always called 'the Giraffe.' He had no head and all neck—the most fatuous person, too. I hate fools."
"That is where you lack education, dear," Lady Caroom answered. "A fool is the most useful person—for a husband."
Sybil glanced towards Brooks with a little sigh, and, catching a glimpse of his expression, burst out laughing.
"Mother, you must really not let your tongue run away with you. Mr. Brooks is believing every word you say. You needn't," she murmured in a discreet undertone. "Mother and I chaff one another terribly, but we're really very nicely-behaved persons—for our station in life."