On a day in July, when this wonderful London season was drawing near an end, and the five hundred pounds had reached about half-way towards exhaustion, Arthur Lisle gave himself and his friends a treat. He invited the Syndicate—as they laughingly styled themselves—to lunch at the Lancaster Hotel. There were some disappointing refusals. Mr. Sarradet would not come; he was sulky in these days, for Raymond was neglecting his father's perfumery and spending his father's money; the integrity of the dowry was threatened, and old Sarradet had a very cold fit about the prospects of the theatrical speculation. Sidney Barslow—he was invited thanks to his heroic re-entry—pleaded work. The author himself wrote that he would be unavoidably detained at "the office"—Mr. Beverley was never more definite than that about the occupation which filled the day-time for him. But Marie and Amabel came, escorted by Joe Halliday, and they made a merry party of four. The girls were excited at being asked to the Lancaster. Such sumptuous places, though not perhaps beyond the Sarradet means, were quite foreign to the thrifty Sarradet habits. Amabel was of the suburbs and patronised "popular price" restaurants on her visits to town. Joe lived in grill rooms. The balcony of the Lancaster seemed magnificent, and Emile, themaître d'hôtel, knew Arthur quite well, called him by his name, and told him what brand of champagne he liked—marks of intimacy which could not fail to make an impression on Arthur's guests, and which Emile had a tactful way of bestowing even on quite occasional patrons.
Joe Halliday made his report. Everything was in trim, and going on swimmingly. The theatre was taken, a producer engaged, the girl who was Joe's own discovery secured and, besides her, a famous comic actor who could carry anything—anything—on his back. Rehearsals were to begin in a month.
"By this time next year lunch at the Lancaster will be an every-day event. Just now it can't be—so I'll trouble you for a little more fizz, Arthur," said Joe, with his great jolly laugh.
"Don't count your chickens——!" said cautious Marie.
"A coward's proverb!" cried Arthur gaily. "Why, you lose half the fun if you don't!"
"Even if we do fail, we shall have had our fun," Joe remarked philosophically.
The others could hardly follow him to these serene heights. Amabel had persuaded gold out of her "governor." Marie felt decidedly responsible to old Sarradet; and the pledge that Arthur had given to fortune was very heavy.
"If it becomes necessary, we'll try to feel like that," said Arthur, "but I hope we shan't have to try."
"Of course we shan't," Amabel insisted eagerly. "How can it fail? Of course it mayn't be quite such an enormous success asHelp Me——"
"It'll knockHelp Me Out Quicklyinto a cocked hat," Joe pronounced decisively. "Just see if it don't!" He turned to Marie. "Then what sort of a smile shall we see on old Sidney's face?" He could not quite forgive Sidney Barslow (hero as he was!) for having refused to "come in."
"Sidney's a wise man about business and—and money. Wiser than we are perhaps!" Marie smiled as she ate her ice.
"Sidney's developing all the virtues at a great pace," laughed Amabel. "Under somebody's influence!"
Joe laughed too; so did Marie, but she also blushed a little. Arthur was suddenly conscious of a joke which was new to him—something which the other three understood but he did not. He looked at Joe in involuntary questioning. Joe winked. He saw Marie's blush; it caused him a vague displeasure.
"Yes," Joe nodded. "He is. Works like a horse and goes to bed at eleven o'clock! I shouldn't be surprised if he turned up one fine day with a blue ribbon in his coat!"
"Oh, don't be so silly, Joe," laughed Marie; but the laugh sounded a little vexed, and the blush was not quite gone yet.
"Why, what do you mean?" asked Arthur.
"Joking apart, he has put the brake on. Jolly good thing too! He's such a good chap—really."
Arthur was not ungenerous, but he could not help feeling that the apotheosis of Sidney Barslow might be carried too far. The vision of the scene in Oxford Street was still vivid in his mind; it would need a lot of heroism, a lot of reformation, altogether to obliterate that, however much he might agree to a gentler judgment of it.
"No, don't make a joke of it, Joe, anyhow not to Sidney himself," said Marie, looking a little embarrassed still, but speaking with her usual courage. "Because it's for our sake—well, mostly so, I think—that he's—he's doing what he is. I told him that in the beginning he had led Raymond into mischief, and that he ought to set him a better example now. And he's trying—without much success, I'm afraid, as far as Raymond is concerned." Her voice grew very troubled.
"I'm awfully sorry, Marie," Arthur murmured.
"Oh, I've no intention of rotting Sidney about it. If only because he'd probably hit me in the eye!"
"Yes, we know his fighting powers," laughed Amabel in admiring reminiscence. Her tone changed to one of regretful exasperation. "Raymond is a goose!"
"But we mustn't spoil Mr. Lisle's party with our troubles," said Marie, smiling again.
"Oh, come, I say, I'm not altogether an outsider!" Arthur protested with a sudden touch of vehemence.
"Oh, no, not that," Marie murmured, with a little shake of her head; her tone did not sound very convinced. Amabel giggled feebly. Joe covered a seeming embarrassment by gulping down his coffee and pretending to find it too hot. A constraint fell upon the party. Arthur wanted to make himself thoroughly one with them in anxiety and concern over Raymond's misdeeds—nay, even in admiration for Sidney Barslow's reformation; he wanted to, if he could. Yet somehow he found no words in which to convey his desire. Every phrase that came into his head he rejected; they all sounded cold and unreal, somehow aloof and even patronising. Silence, however awkward, was better than speeches like that.
It was one of Joe Halliday's chosen missions in life, and one of his greatest gifts, to relieve occasions of restraint and embarrassment by a dexterous use of humour. This social operation he now, perceiving it necessary, proceeded to perform. Clapping his hand to his forehead in a melodramatic manner, he exclaimed in low but intense tones, "Ask me who I want to be! Who I want to be in all the world! Ask me quickly!"
He won his smiles. "What's the matter now, Joe?" asked Arthur; his smile was tolerant.
"No, I'll tell you! Don't speak!" He pointed with his finger, past Arthur, towards the other end of the room. "There he sits! A murrain on him! That's the man! And how dare he lunch with that Entrancing Creature?"
"Which one, Joe? Which one?" asked Amabel, immediately full of interest.
"There—behind Arthur's back. He can't see her. Good thing too! He doesn't deserve to."
"I suppose I can turn round, if I want to—and if she's worth it. Is she, Marie?"
"Is it the one in blue, Joe? Yes, she is. Awfully pretty!"
"Never saw such a corker in my life!" Joe averred with solemnity.
"Then round—in a careless manner—goes my head!" said Arthur.
"He woos her, I swear he woos her, curses on his mother's grave!" Joe rode his jokes rather hard.
"We'd better not all stare at her, had we?" asked Marie.
"She's not looking; she's listening to the man," Amabel assured her.
Arthur turned round again—after a long look. He gave a little laugh. "It's my cousin, Bernadette Lisle. Joe, you are an ass."
It was Bernadette Lisle; she sat at a little table with Oliver Wyse. They had finished eating. Bernadette was putting on her gloves. Her eyes were fixed on Oliver's face, her lips were parted. The scene of the Café de Paris reproduced itself—and perhaps the topic. She had not seen Arthur when he came in, nor he her. She did not see him now. She listened to Sir Oliver.
"Your cousin! That! Introduce me—there may yet be time!" said the indomitable Joe.
"Oh, shut up!" groaned Arthur, half-flattered however, though half-peevish.
"She's very beautiful." Marie's eyes could not leave Bernadette. "And so—so—well, she looks like something very very precious in china."
Arthur looked round again; he could not help it. "Yes, that is rather it, Marie."
"Look—look at her hat, Marie!" came from Amabel in awed accents. Indeed the visit to the hat-shop in Paris had not been without its fruit.
"Now is it fair—is it reasonable—for a fellow to have a cousin like that? He might have a Queen like that, or a Dream like that, and I shouldn't care. But a cousin! He knows the Vision! He's talked to it! Heavens, he's probably lunched with it himself! And he kept it all dark from us—oh, so dark!"
"Is it Mr. Lisle with her?" asked Amabel, quite innocently.
Arthur smiled. "No, I don't think you'd find Godfrey lunching here. That's a man named Wyse. I've met him at their house."
"He's good-looking too," Amabel decided after a further survey.
A waiter brought Oliver Wyse his bill. When he turned to pay it, Bernadette rose. The spell which had held her attention so closely was broken. She looked round the room. Suddenly a bright smile came on her lips, she spoke a hurried word to her companion, and came straight across the room towards Arthur's table. She had recognised the back of his head.
"She's coming here!" whispered Amabel breathlessly.
Arthur turned round quickly, a bright gleam in his eyes. He rose from his chair; the next moment she was beside him, looking so joyful, so altogether happy.
"Oh, Arthur dear, I am glad!" She did not offer to shake hands; she laid her little hand on his coat-sleeve as she greeted him. "Did you see me—with Sir Oliver?" But she did not wait for an answer. "Do let me sit down with you for a minute. And mayn't I know your friends?" A waiter hurried up with a chair, and Bernadette sat down by Arthur. "Why, what fun this is! Cousin Arthur, I must have another ice." The gloves began to come off again, while Arthur made the necessary introductions.
"Oh, but I know you all quite well!" exclaimed Bernadette. "You're old friends of mine, though you may not know it."
Oliver Wyse, his bill paid, followed her with a leisurely step. He greeted Arthur cordially and included the rest of the table in a bow. "I gather you intend to stay a bit," he said to Bernadette, smiling. "I've got an appointment, so if you'll excuse me——?"
"Oh yes, Arthur will look after me." She gave him her hand. "Thanks for your lunch, Sir Oliver."
"It was so good of you to come," he answered, with exactly the right amount of courteous gratitude.
As he went off, she watched him for just a moment, then turned joyously back to her new companions. A casual observer might well have concluded that she was glad to be rid of Oliver Wyse.
Joe was—to use his own subsequent expression—"corpsed"; he had not a joke to make! Perhaps that was as well. But he devoured her with his eyes, manifesting an open admiration whose simple sincerity robbed it of offence. Bernadette saw it, and laughed at it without disguise. Amabel's eyes were even more for frock and hat than for the wearer; this it was to be not merely clothed but dressed. Marie had paid her homage to beauty; she was watching and wondering now. Arthur tasted a new delight in showing off his wonderful cousin to his old friends, a new pride in the gracious kindness of her bearing towards them. And Bernadette herself was as charming as she could be for Arthur's sake, and in gratitude for his appearance—for the casual observer would have been quite right as to her present feeling about Oliver Wyse.
Marie Sarradet revised her notions. She forgave her father his meddling; even against Mrs. Veltheim she pressed the indictment less harshly. Here surely was the paramount cause of her defeat! Mrs. Lisle and what Mrs. Lisle stood for against herself and what she represented—candid-minded Marie could not for a moment doubt the issue. Her little, firmly repressed grievance against Arthur faded away; she must have a grievance against fate, if against anything. For it was fate or chance which had brought Mrs. Lisle on to the scene just when the issue hung in the balance. Yet with her quick woman's intuition, quickened again by her jealous interest, she saw clearly in ten minutes, in a quarter of an hour—while Bernadette chattered about the farce (valuable anyhow as a topic in common!) and wistfully breathed the hope that she would be able to come up from the country for the first night—that the brilliant beautiful cousin had for Arthur Lisle no more than a simple honest affection, flavoured pleasantly by his adoration, piquantly by amusement at him. He was her friend and her plaything, her protégé and her pet. There was not even a fancy for him, sentimental or romantic; at the idea of a passion she would laugh. See how easy and unconstrained she was, how open in her little familiar gestures of affection! This woman had nothing here to conceal, nothing to struggle against. It was well, no doubt. But it made Marie Sarradet angry, both for herself and for Arthur's sake. To take so lightly what had so nearly been another's—to think so lightly of all that she had taken!
The intuition, quick as it was, had its limits; maybe it worked better on women than on men, or perhaps Marie's mind was somewhat matter-of-fact and apt to abide within obvious alternatives—such as "He's in love, or he's not—and there's an end of it!" Arthur loved his cousin's wife, without doubt. But, so far at least, it was an adoration, not a passion; an ardour, not a pursuit. He asked no more than he received—leave to see her, to be with her, to enjoy her presence, and in so doing to be welcome and pleasant to her. Above all—as a dim and distant aspiration, to which circumstances hitherto had shown no favour—to serve her, help her, be her champion. This exalted sentiment, these rarefied emotions, escaped the analysis of Marie's intuition. What she saw was an Arthur who squandered all the jewels of his heart and got nothing for them; whereas in truth up to now he was content; he was paid his price and counted himself beyond measure a gainer by the bargain.
Who was the other man—the man of quiet demeanour and resolute face, who had so held her attention, who had so tactfully resigned the pleasure of her company? Marie's mind, quick again to the obvious, fastened on this question.
Bernadette, under friendly pressure, rose from a hope to an intention. "I will come to the first night," she declared. "I will if I possibly can."
"Now is that a promise, Mrs. Lisle?" asked Joe eagerly. After all, the farce was his discovery, in a special sense his property. He had the best right to a paternal pride in it.
"It's a promise, with a condition," said Arthur, laughing. "She will—if she can. Now I don't think promises like that are worth much. Do you, Marie?"
"It's the most prudent sort of promise to give."
"Yes, but it never contents a man," Bernadette complained. "Men are so exacting and so—so tempestuous." She broke into a little laugh, rather fretful.
"Now am I tempestuous?" Arthur asked, with a protesting gesture of his hands.
"Oh, you're not all the world, Arthur," she told him, just a little scornfully, but with a consoling pat on the arm. "You know what I mean, Miss Sarradet? They want things so definite—all in black and white! And if they can't have them like that, they tell you you're a shillyshallying sort of person without a mind and, as I say, get tempestuous about it."
Joe had regained some of his self-confidence. "If anybody bothers you like that, just you send him to me, Mrs. Lisle. I'll settle him!" His manner conveyed a jocose ferocity.
"I wish you would! I mean, I wonder if you could. They talk as if one's mind only existed to be made up—like a prescription. One's mind isn't a medicine! It's a—a—What is it, Arthur?"
"It's a faculty given us for the agreeable contemplation and appreciation of the world."
"Quite right!" declared Bernadette in emphatic approval. "That's exactly what I think."
"It would clearly promote your agreeable appreciation of the world to come to our first night, Mrs. Lisle," urged Joe.
"Of course it would——"
"So you'll come?"
"Yes, I'll come—if I possibly can," said Bernadette.
They all began to laugh. Bernadette joined in. "Back to where we began—just like a woman!" exclaimed Arthur.
"There—that's just what I mean, Miss Sarradet. He's begun to bully!"
"Well, I must. Because why shouldn't you be able to come, you see?"
She looked at him, pursing up her smiling lips. "Circumstances, Cousin Arthur!" And she pushed back her chair from the table.
"Oh, rot! And, I say, don't go, Bernadette!"
"I must. I'm awfully sorry to. You're all so nice."
"And if you possibly can, Mrs. Lisle? D.V.? That kind of thing, you know?"
"Unless circumstances absolutely prevent!" she playfully promised for the last time, as she turned away, Arthur following to put her in her carriage.
Joe Halliday drew a long breath. "Well now, girls, how's that for high?"
"Why, her hat alone must have——" Amabel began, with every appearance of meaning to expatiate.
"I wonder what she's really like!" said Marie thoughtfully.
"She's really like an angel—down to the last feather!" Joe declared with an emphasis which overbore contradiction.
Le château qui parle et la femme qui écoute—Bernadette Lisle had begun to be conscious of the truth contained in the proverb, and to recognise where she had made her great mistake. Though Oliver Wyse had told her that he was in love with her, she had allowed him to go on coming to the house as usual; and she had not even explicitly barred the dangerous topic. Little use if she had! To keep him on the other side of the hall-door was really the only way. But, though startled and frightened, she had not been affronted; though rejecting his suit, she had been curious and excited about it. It was a complication indeed; but it cut across a home-life which had not complications of that kind enough, in which nobody catered for her emotions; she had to look somewhere outside for that. A lover makes a woman very interesting to herself. He casts a new light on familiar things; he turns disagreeables into tragedies, routine into slavery, placid affection into neglect. He converts whims into aspirations, freaks into instincts, selfishness into the realisation of self. All this with no willing hypocrisy, not at all meaning to tell her lies. He is simply making her see herself as he sees her, to behold with him her transfiguration.
Oliver Wyse was lucky in that he had more truth on his side than many a lover can boast. Her life was starved of great things; she was in a sense wasted; her youth and beauty, things that pass, were passing with no worthy scope; where the sweetest intimacy should be, there was none; her marriage was a misfit. It could not be denied that she had contrived, in spite of these unpromising facts, to be fairly happy. But that was before her eyes were open, he hinted, before she had looked on the transfiguration, before she knew her true self. She supposed that must be so, though with an obstinate feeling that she might manage to be fairly happy again, if only he and his transfiguration would go away—or if she might just look at it, and wonder, and admire, without being committed to the drastic steps which lovers expect of the transfigurations they have made. Is it absolutely necessary to throw your cap over the mill just because somebody at last really understands and appreciates you? That was a question Bernadette often asked herself—quite fretfully. The action was threatened by so many penalties, spiritual and worldly.
She had her shrewdness also, increased by the experience of a beauty, who has seen many aspire in golden ardour, sigh in piteous failure, and presently ride away on another chase with remarkably cheerful countenances. If this after failure, what after success? Men were tempestuous in wooing; what were they when the fight was won? She knew about her husband, of course, but she meant real men—so her thoughts perilously put a contrast.
"Have you often been in love, Sir Christopher?" she asked the old Judge one day as he sat in her little den, sipping tea and smoking cigarettes.
He was a lifelong bachelor. "Often, Bernadette."
"Now, tell me," she said, leaning towards him with a knitted brow and a mighty serious look. "Of all the women you've been in love with, is there anyone you now wish you'd married?"
"Yes, certainly. Two."
"Out of how many?"
"I don't know. A matter of double figures, I'm afraid." Smiling, he put an apologetic note into his voice. "They're not the two I was most desperate about, Bernadette."
"Of course I should very much like to know who they were."
"But since, of course, that's impossible, let us continue the discussion in the abstract."
"Why didn't you marry them—well, one of them, I mean, anyhow?"
"Is that the abstract? Well, one of them refused."
"To marry you?"
"She refused, Bernadette. Now please go back to the abstract."
"Without asking about the other?"
"I'm afraid so."
"All right. I don't think I care so much about desperation myself, you know."
"Seen too much of it probably!" His old blue eyes twinkled.
"I could have fallen awfully in love with you, Judge. Do you often think about those two?"
"Oftener about the others."
"That's very perverse of you."
"The whole thing's infernally perverse," said the Judge.
"However I suppose you've pretty well forgotten about the whole thing now?"
"The deuce you do!"
"Did you soon get to be glad you hadn't married them—the other twenty or so?"
"That varied. Besides, if I had married them, I might have become quite content."
"They'd have got to look older, of course," Bernadette reflected. "But people ought to be content with—well, with being content, oughtn't they?"
"Well, you see, you're generally young when you're in love—comparatively, at all events. You get content with being content—as you neatly put it—rather later."
"That means you're not in love any more?"
"Life has its stages, Bernadette."
She gave a quick little shiver. "Horrid!"
"And children come, bringing all sorts of ties. That must make a difference." The old man sighed lightly, clasping together his thin hands with their gleaming rings.
"Oh, a tremendous difference, of course," Bernadette made orthodox reply.
In effect just what she had said to Oliver Wyse himself when she lunched with him at the Lancaster! "Among other things, you forget Margaret," she had said, reinforcing her resistance with every plea which came to her hand. "I don't forget her, but I think first of all of you," had been his reply. It was no doubt true that he thought of her before the child; whether he thought of her first of all was much more open to question. "She depends on me so much," she had urged, sounding even to herself rather conventional. Did little Margaret really depend on her so much—that demure prim child, self-centred, busy in a world of her own with her fancies and her toys? She was shy and reserved, she neither gave nor seemed to expect demonstrations of affection. She was her father's daughter and promised to grow up like him in mind, as she already showed a physical likeness. The natural bond existed between mother and child and was felt. It was not strengthened by any congeniality of disposition, nor by the tender appeal of frailty or sickness—despite that doctor's advice, Margaret was robust and healthy. They did not see much of one another really, not even at Hilsey. There was so much to do. Bernadette was not a habit in her child's life and doings; she was an interlude, and probably not seldom an interruption. Still there they were—mother and child. And the child would grow up, understand, and remember. No woman could make light of all that; if Oliver thought she could, he did her gross injustice. No, he who loved her would not do her wrong. Then he must understand that duty to the child was a great thing with her. And yet he said there ought to be a greater!
At the back of her mind, unacknowledged, was a thought which offered a sop to conscience. She would not be leaving Margaret to strangers. Besides the father, there would be Judith. The little girl was very fond of Judith, and Judith of her. They seemed to understand one another; Margaret's tranquil demureness fitted in with Judith's dry humour and unemotional ways. The natural thing—under certain circumstances—would be for Judith to take over the charge of her uncle's house. "Just as if I were to die, you know," thought Bernadette.
Besides, all this assumed that she would go away. Of course Oliver wanted that, but—well, lots of women didn't. Nice women too, some of them, and good mothers. She could think of two or three at least among her own acquaintance, and recognised now, with a sort of surprise and relief, that she had never thought very particularly the worse of them for their peccadillo; she had never shunned their society. Who did—although everybody knew the facts? It was odd what a difference there was between the official view (so to speak) and the way people actually behaved about the matter; Oliver had been quite right on that point—and even rather amusing.
She was seeing Oliver Wyse almost daily now, and their meeting was the event of the day to her—anticipated, waited for, feared. Everything else stood in relation to it—as a means or a hindrance, as a dull contrast or a merciful relief. He found her eager and excited, he left her often weary and fretful; but by the next day she was eager again. She was like a man who drinks himself into a headache and sadly grows sober, only to drink once more.
The eve of the household's departure to the country had come. They were to go on the morrow; as matters were arranged, Oliver Wyse would join them two days later. After another ten days, Arthur was due at Hilsey for his visit, and two or three friends besides for a week-end. So stood the programme—externally. But one point in it still hung in doubt, even externally. Sir Oliver had a competing engagement—some important business on the Continent; should he give up the business and come to Hilsey? Or the other way? He put the question to her, when he came to take leave of her—whether for three days, or for how much longer?
The time had passed when he could say, "It will wait." That had been right when he said it; to hurry matters then would have been to fail. But she had been brought to a point when a decision could be risked. Risked it must be, not only because his feelings ardently demanded an end to his suit, but lest he should become ridiculous in his own eyes. Dangling and philandering were not to his taste. He had got a dangerous notion into his head—that she would keep him hanging on and off to the end of the chapter. He had often seen men cheated like that, and had laughed at them. His passion was strong in him now, but his masculine pride was equal to fighting it. He had himself on the curb. He could and would leave her unless he could stay on his own terms. To tell her that might involve cruelty to her; he did not stand on the scruple. There were scruples enough and to spare, if a man began to reckon them, in an affair of this kind. They were in the nature of the case. What animal can live and thrive that does not add cunning to courage, trickery to daring? He liked neither being cruel to her nor tricking those about her; but for the moment these things had to be done. There should be an end of them soon; he promised himself that and found comfort in the promise.
But she fought him with a pertinacity that surprised him; he had not in his heart expected so stout a resistance.
"It's not in the least for me to decide whether you come to Hilsey or not," she told him roundly. "It's entirely for you. I ask you to pay me a visit. Come or not as you like, Sir Oliver."
"But what does it mean if I do come?"
"I don't know. I'm not a prophet."
He put on no melodramatic airs. His manner was quiet and friendly still. "You're a very provoking woman." He smiled. "I hate to be abrupt—well, I don't think I have been—but this thing's got to be settled."
"Has it? Who says so? What is there to settle?"
"You're being tempestuous now." He threw her own word back at her, with a laugh. "And you know quite well what there is to settle." He looked at her stormy little face with love and tender amusement. But his answer he meant to have.
"Settle, settle, settle! How many thousand times have you used that word? I think I hate you, Sir Oliver."
"I begin to think myself that you don't love me. So I'd best be off on my business."
"Yes, I really think you had. And when you come back, perhaps we can consider——"
"Oh, dear me, no, we can't!"
She looked at him for an instant. Again he made her eyes dim. He hated himself at the moment, but it seemed to him that there was nothing to do but stick to his course. Else, whatever he felt now, he would feel to-morrow that she had fooled him. She sat looking very forlorn, her handkerchief clenched in her hand, ready to wipe away the tears. He went and leant over her.
"Dearest, forgive me. You must think how I feel. Can't you love and trust me?"
She thrust her hand confidingly into his: "I think I wish you'd just be friends, Oliver."
An impulse of remorse struck him. "I think I wish I could," he said ruefully.
"Then why not?"
"Oh, you don't understand—and I think you can't love me."
"Yes, I do. I'm sure I do."
He bent down and kissed her. She was thinking, and let the caress pass as though unnoticed.
"I don't think I could manage life now without you."
"Well, doesn't that mean—? Come, it just needs a little courage."
"Oh, don't talk as if I were going to the dentist's!" But she gave the hand she held an affectionate squeeze; her anger had passed. "I suppose I've got to do it," she went on. "I suppose I have. It's rather an awful thing, but I'm—I'm in a corner. Because I do love you—and, yes, I'm a coward. It's such an awful plunge, and there's—oh, everything against it! Except just you, of course. Oliver, I don't think I can come away."
He said nothing; he gently pressed her hand in encouragement.
She looked up at him and whispered, "Must I come away—now, directly?"
"Soon at all events."
"I must go down to Hilsey to—to see Margaret, you know, and——"
"Well, go. Make an excuse to come up from there, and I'll meet you."
"As if I should dare to do it without you to help me! You must come to Hilsey too, Oliver, and we—we'll start from there."
It was a fluttering faltering consent, but a consent it was; though still deferred, it was definite. It agreed not only to give him what he wanted, but to give it in the way he liked—openly, before the world. The short delay—to be spent largely in her company—weighed lightly against all this. He caught her in his arms in gratitude and passion, pouring out endearing words, beyond himself in exultation because "it was settled."
Now at last she too was moved to the depths of her nature. She sat clinging to him, with his strong arms about her, very quiet, smiling, yet drawing her breath in long low pants, her dim eyes very tender and never leaving his. So she heard his half-whispered protestations and encouragement, smiling at them, just now and then murmuring a faint "Yes." Her fears were silenced, her scruples scattered to the winds while she sat thus.
It was strange when that same evening (on which, she thanked heaven, she had no engagement) she sat—quite otherwise—at the head of her table with her husband opposite, Judith Arden and Arthur Lisle on either side—a little family party, a little domestic structure, so to say, of which she was the keystone and which she was about to shatter. Yet it seemed so firm, so habitual, the manner of its life so inveterate. Even Arthur, the latest comer, was like a native part of it now. Its permanence had looked so assured a few short weeks ago, when Oliver's infatuation was a thing to smile over in amused secrecy. But it was not permanent. She was going, by an arbitrary exercise of power, to end it. Nay, she was going to end herself, the self she had been all these last years—Godfrey's wife, Margaret's mother, Mrs. Lisle of Hilsey and of Hill Street, W. This woman, with all her various functions and relations, was going to disappear, like a bit of fluff blown into the air. Enter—through a somewhat stormy passage—a new woman, utterly different and conditioned absolutely otherwise, a person of whom Mrs. Lisle really knew very little, though she reached out to the comprehension of her and to the vision of her life with an ache of curiosity.
The other three—that all unconscious trio—were in good spirits. Even Godfrey was cheerful at the prospect of escaping from London and talked quite gaily. Judith was looking forward to seeing Margaret and to the country pursuits she loved; her talk was of riding, fishing, and tennis. Arthur was gleeful; the short separation seemed but to flavour the prospect of long and blissful days at Hilsey. Bernadette herself was the most silent of the party, a thing quite contrary to her wont. She sat there with a queer attractive sense of power—in kind perhaps like what they say has sometimes tempted men to secret murder—as though she dispensed fate to her companions and disposed of their lives, though they knew nothing of it. About them, even as about the new woman who was to come into being, her dominant feeling was not compunction but curiosity. How would they take it? Imagine them at dinner at Hilsey—say this day three weeks or this day month! Three, not four, at table, and Mrs. Lisle of Hilsey not merely not there, but for all purposes important for them non-existent! An exultation mingled now with her eager curiosity. She marvelled that she had courage to wave the mystic wand which was to destroy the structure. She looked on the three with an ironical pity.
"Well, you all sound as if you were going to enjoy yourselves," she said, at last breaking her silence. "Have you made any plans for me?"
"You always like the garden, don't you, Bernadette?" Godfrey's tone was propitiatory.
"Oh, you must play tennis this year—and there'll be the new car!" said Judith.
"Among other things, you're going to play golf with me. You promised! The links are only about eight miles off. We can motor over and make a jolly long day of it." Arthur's sentence would have gained significance by the addition of one more word—"together."
"I see you've settled it all among you," she said. "But aren't you forgetting our guest? While you and I are doing all this, what's to become of Sir Oliver?"
Arthur looked round the table with brows raised and a gaily impudent smile. He felt pretty safe of the sympathy of two of his audience; he was confident that the third would pardon his presumption because of the hint that lay beneath it—the hint that anything which interfered with long days together would be unwelcome.
"For my part, I can't think what you want with your old Sir Oliver at all," he said.
His speech came as a cap to the situation, a savoury titbit for her ironical humour. She looked at him for a moment with eyes that sparkled maliciously; then she broke into low long laughter. She seemed unable to stop or control it. She sat and laughed at all of them—and most of all at Cousin Arthur. He—they—it—all too absurd!
"Oh, I'm sorry!" she gasped at last, for their faces began to grow astonished. "But it strikes me as very funny. If he could hear you! Because he thinks a good deal of himself, you know—my old Sir Oliver!"
The next day there occurred to Arthur Lisle—whose mind was a thousand miles away from such things—a most unexpected event. The news of it came by telephone from Henry, who ventured to bespeak Mr. Lisle's immediate attention; he was not quite sure that he would get it, so reprehensibly neglectful had Mr. Lisle's professional conduct been of late. A brief had arrived, not somebody else's to be 'held,' but actually for Arthur himself—a brief in the Westminster County Court. The case would come on for trial in two days' time.
His first impulse was to send the brief back, to fly from it; not so much now because it frightened him as because it clashed with the whole present temper of his mind. But full as he was of fancies and vanities, he had somewhere a residuum of sober sense. Did he really mean to turn his back on work, to abandon his profession? Not merely to neglect preparation and opportunities, as he had been doing, but to refuse work actually there? That was a different thing—a decision too momentous. If he refused this brief, he would scarcely dare to show himself at his chambers, to face Henry again. He braced himself up, and in a mixture of apprehension, annoyance, and surprise, took his way to the Temple—instead of going down to Wimbledon to watch lawn-tennis.
Henry welcomed the Prodigal, quite forgetful apparently of that unfortunate episode of the Law Reports. "It's from Wills and Mayne," he said. "Mr. Mayne brought it himself, and said a clerk would be at the court on Friday to look after you."
"But who are they? Do you know them, Henry?"
"No, sir, I never heard of them. They're not clients of Mr. Norton Ward's. But Mr. Mayne seemed to know about you. A shortish gentleman, grey and rather bald—one of his eyelids sort o' trembles, something like as if he was winking."
"Hum!" He did not identify the stranger. "How the deuce did they ever hear of me?" Because although Arthur might have been cutting a figure in society, and certainly was a person to whom notable things of a romantic order had been happening, he was, as a member of the Bar, very young and monstrously insignificant. "Well, it beats me!" he confessed as he untied the tape which fastenedTiddes v. the Universal Omnibus Company, Ltd..
Mr. Tiddes, it appeared (for of course Arthur dashed at the brief and read it without a moment's delay), had a grievance against the Universal Omnibus Company, Ltd., in that they had restarted their 'bus while he was still in process of alighting, thereby causing him to fall in the roadway, to sprain his thumb, bark his knee, and tear his trousers, in respect of which wrongs and lesions he claimed forty pounds in damages. The Omnibus Company said—well, according to their solicitors, Messrs. Wills and Mayne, they did not seem to have very much to say. They observed that their clients were much exposed to actions of this sort and made it their policy to defend them whenever possible. The incident, or accident, occurred late on Saturday night; Mr. Tiddes had been in company with a lady (whom he left in the 'bus), and had struck the conductor as being very animated in his demeanour. Counsel would make such use of these facts as his discretion dictated. In short, a knowledge of our national habits made falling off a 'bus late on Saturday night in itself a suspicious circumstance. Add the lady, and you added suspicion also. Add an animated demeanour, and the line of cross-examination was clearly indicated to counsel for the defendants.
Not a clerk but Mr. Mayne himself met Arthur at the court; he was recognisable at once by the tremor of his eyelid—like a tiny wink, a recurring decimal of a wink. He was, it seemed, rather pessimistic; he said it was a class of case that the Company must fight—"Better lose than not defend"—and Mr. Lisle must do his best. Of course the jury—and plaintiff had naturally elected to have a jury—would find against the Company if they could; however Mr. Lisle must do his best. Arthur said he would. He longed to ask Mr. Mayne how the deuce the firm had ever heard of him, but judiciously refrained from thus emphasising his own obscurity. Also he strove not to look frightened.
He was frightened, but not so frightened as he would have been in the High Court. Things were more homely, less august. There was no row of counsel, idle and critical. His Honour had not the terrors of Pretyman,j., and counsel for the plaintiff was also young at the job, though not so raw as Arthur. But the really lucky thing was that Mr. Tiddes himself made Arthur furiously angry. He was a young man, underbred but most insufferably conceited; he gave his evidence-in-chief in a jaunty facetious way, evidently wishing to be considered a great buck and very much of a ladies' man. With this air he told how he had spent the Saturday half-holiday—he was in the drapery line—at a cricket-match, had met the young lady—Miss Silcock her name was—by appointment at a tea-shop, had gone with her to a "Cinema," had entertained her to a modest supper, and in her company mounted the 'bus. It was at her own request that he got out, leaving her to go home unattended. His manner conveyed that Miss Silcock's had been a stolen spree. Then came his story of the accident, his physical sufferings, his doctor's bill, and his tailor's account; finally the hard-hearted and uncompromising attitude of the Company was duly exhibited.
Arthur rose to cross-examine—the moment of a thousand dreams and fears.
"Now, Mr. Tiddes——" he began.
"Atyour service, sir," interposed Mr. Tiddes in jaunty and jocular defiance.
"I want to follow you through this very pleasant evening which you seem to have had. I'm sure we're all very sorry that it ended badly."
"Very unselfish ofyouto look at it like that, Mr. Lisle," said His Honour. (Laughter in Court.)
Follow Mr. Tiddes he did through every incident of the evening, with a curiosity especially directed towards the refreshments of which Mr. Tiddes had partaken. With subtle cunning he suggested that in such company as he had been privileged to enjoy Mr. Tiddes would be lavish—his hand would know no stint. As a matter of fact, Mr. Tiddes appeared to have done things well. The "tea-shop" sold other commodities, such as a glass of port. Next door to the "Cinema" was a saloon buffet and Mr. Tiddes admitted a visit. At supper they naturally took something—in fact bottled ale for Miss Silcock, and whiskey-and-soda for Mr. Tiddes.
"One whiskey and soda?" asked counsel for the defence.
"Yes, one," said Mr. Tiddes. "At least I think so. Well—I believe I did have a split, besides."
"Split whiskey or split soda?" (Laughter in Court.)
His Honour lolled back in his chair, smiling. Evidently he thought somebody a fool, but Arthur could not be sure whether it was himself or Mr. Tiddes. But he did not much care. He had warmed to his work, he had forgotten his fears. He could not bear that Mr. Tiddes should defeat him; it had become a battle between them. Once or twice Mr. Tiddes had winced, as over that 'split'—an arrow in the joints of his harness! He was less jaunty, less facetious.
At last they got to the accident. Here Mr. Tiddes was very firm. He made no concessions; he walked (so he maintained) from his place in a perfectly quiet, sober, and business-like manner, and in like manner was about to descend from the 'bus when—on it moved and he was jerked violently off! If the conductor said anything to the contrary—well, the conductor was not looking at the critical moment; he was collecting somebody's fare.
"You didn't even look back at the young lady over your shoulder?"
"I did not, sir." Mr. Tiddes too was, by now, rather angry.
"Didn't kiss your hand or anything of that sort?"
"Nothing of the kind, sir."
"In fact you were attending entirely to what you were doing?"
"I was."
"Don't you think, then, that it's rather odd that you should have been jerked off?"
"The 'bus moved suddenly, and that jerked me off."
"But you were holding on, weren't you?"
"Yes, I was holding on all right."
So they went on wrangling, till His Honour ended it by remarking, "Well, we've got his story, I think, Mr. Lisle. You will have your opportunity of commenting on it, of course." Upon which Arthur sat down promptly.
But he was dissatisfied. It was no more than a drawn battle with Mr. Tiddes. If Mr. Tiddes's refreshments had been shown to border on excess, there was nothing to show that they had affected the clearness of his mind or the stability of his legs. That was what Arthur was fishing for—and pure fishing it was, for the conductor had in fact had his back turned at the critical moment when Mr. Tiddes left the 'bus—somehow. Also he was between Mr. Tiddes and the only other passenger (Miss Silcock herself excepted). He had reached backwards to give the signal to start—assuming that Mr. Tiddes was already safely off. Negligent, perhaps—but why was Mr. Tiddes not safely off by then? That question stuck in Arthur's mind; but he had got no answer to it out of Mr. Tiddes. The plaintiff insisted that no human being could have got off in the time allowed by that negligent conductor.
Miss Silcock confirmed her friend's story, but in rather a sulky way. It was not pleasant to have the stolen spree dragged to light; she had "had words" with her mother, to whom she had originally represented the companion of her evening as belonging to the gentler sex; she was secretly of opinion that a true gentleman would have forgone his action in such circumstances. Arthur had hopes of Miss Silcock and treated her very gently—no suggestion whatever that her conduct was other than perfectly ladylike! Miss Silcock was quite in a good humour with him when they got to the moment when Mr. Tiddes bade her good night.
"You were at the far end of the 'bus. He said good night, and walked past the conductor?"
"Yes."
"When did the 'bus stop?"
"When he was about half-way to the door."
"What did he do?"
"Walked to the door."
"Had the 'bus started again by then?"
"No."
"You could see him all the time? Where was he when the 'bus started again?"
"On the platform outside the door."
"Was he holding on to anything?"
Miss Silcock looked a little flustered. "I don't remember."
"Oh, but try, Miss Silcock," said His Honour soothingly, but sitting up straight in his chair again.
"Well, no, I don't think he was. He'd turned round."
"Oh, hehadturned round!" said Arthur, with a quite artistic glance at the jury.
"Well, he just turned and smiled at me—sort o' smiled good night."
"Of course! Very natural he should!"
"But he didn't seem to remember having done it," observed His Honour.
"Did he do anything besides smile at you?" asked Arthur.
"No, I don't think——" She smiled and hesitated a moment.
"Think again, Miss Silcock. You'd had a very pleasant evening together, you know."
Miss Silcock blushed a little, but was by no means displeased. "Well, he did cut a sort of caper—silly-like," she admitted.
"Oh, did he? Could you show us what it was like?"
"I couldn'tshowyou," answered Miss Silcock, with a slight giggle and a little more blush. "He lifted up one leg and kind of wiggled it in the air, and——"
"Just then the 'bus went on again, is that it?"
"Well, just about then, yes." Miss Silcock had caught a look—such a look!—from her friend, and suddenly became reluctant.
"While he was on one leg?"
Miss Silcock, turned frightened and remorseful, was silent.
"Answer the question, please," said His Honour.
"Well, I suppose so. Yes."
"Thank you, Miss Silcock. No more questions."
Re-examination could not mend matters. The evidence for the defence came to very little. Counsel's speeches call for no record, and His Honour did little more than observe that, where Mr. Tiddes and Miss Silcock differed, the jury might see some reason to think that Miss Silcock's memory of the occurrence was likely to be the clearer and more trustworthy of the two. The jury thought so.
"We find that the conductor started the 'bus too soon, but that the plaintiff oughtn't to have been behaving like he was," said the foreman.
"That he wouldn't have tumbled off but for that, do you mean?" asked His Honour.
After a moment's consultation, the foreman answered "Yes."
"I submit that's a verdict of contributory negligence, your Honour," said Arthur, jumping up.
"I don't think you can resist that, Mr. Cawley, can you?" His Honour asked of counsel for the plaintiff. "Judgment for the defendants with costs."
Poor Mr. Tiddes! He was purple and furious. It is sadly doubtful if he ever again gave Miss Silcock a pleasant evening-out.
The case was won. Mr. Cawley was disconsolate. "Fancy the girl letting me down like that!" he said, in mournful contemplation of the untoward triumph of truth. Mr. Mayne, winking more quickly than usual, was mildly congratulatory. "The result will be very satisfactory to the Company. Just the sort of thing which shows their policy of fighting is right! Good afternoon, Mr. Lisle, and thank you." And there was Henry, all over smiles, waiting to applaud him and to carry home his blue bag. Arthur had a suspicion that, if he had lost, Henry would have disappeared and left him to carry the bag back to the Temple himself.
He was exultant, but he was not satisfied. As he strolled back to his chambers, smoking cigarettes, a voice kept saying in his ear, "You ought to have got it out of Tiddes! You ought to have got it out of Tiddes!" Ought he? Could he? Had Tiddes been lying, or was his memory really misty? Arthur did not know even now, though he favoured the former alternative. But oughtn't he to know? Oughtn't he to have turned Mr. Tiddes inside out? He had not done it. Tiddes would have beaten him, but for Miss Silcock. True, he had persevered with Miss Silcock because his mind had gone to the mysterious point in the case—why Mr. Tiddes was just ten seconds or so too long in getting off the 'bus. But could he—or couldn't he—have been expected to think of that capering silly-like?
Between exultation and dissatisfaction his mind was tingling. He fought the fight over and over again; he was absolutely engrossed in it. He was back in the Temple before he knew it almost—sitting in his chair by the fire, with a pipe, trying to see what he could have asked, how he could have broken down Mr. Tiddes's evidence. A pure triumph might have left him pleased but careless. This defeat in victory sharpened his feelings to a keen interest and curiosity. What were the secrets of the art of wresting the truth from unwilling witnesses? The great art of cross-examination—what were its mysteries?
At any rate it was a wonderful art and a wonderful thing. Very different from the dreary reading of Law Reports! There was a fascination in the pitting of your brain against another man's—in wringing the truth (well, if what you wanted to get happened to be the truth) from his reluctant grasp. It was Battle—that's what it was.
"By Jove!" he cried within himself—indeed he could not tell whether he uttered the words out loud or not—"There's something in this beastly old business after all, if only I can stick to it!"
Oblivious for the moment of everything else, even of Hilsey, even of his adoration, he vowed that he would.
All this was the doing of quiet old Mr. Mayne with his winking eyelid. Why had he done it? That too Arthur now forgot to ask. He remembered nothing save the battle with Mr. Tiddes. He had tasted blood.
Serious trouble threatened the Sarradet household also—not of the sort which impended over the Lisles, but one not less common. There was increasing strife between father and son. Raymond's taste for pleasure showed no sign of being sated; he took no warning from the scrape out of which Sidney Barslow's strong arm had rescued him; he spared neither time nor money in seeking the delights to which his youth and his temperament inclined him. Old Mr. Sarradet was ageing; he grew more grumpy and crusty, fonder of his hoards, less patient when he saw money wasted, more fearful of leaving the family business at the mercy of a spendthrift. He grumbled and scolded; he made scenes. Raymond met them with sullen hostility, or took to avoiding them by absenting himself from the house. If home were made uncomfortable, there were plenty of other places to go to! The more his father would bridle him, the more he kicked.
Marie tried to hold them together, to patch up quarrels, to arrange truces, to persuade each of them to meet the other half-way. Her task was the more difficult since she herself was held as a threat over her brother's head. She should have the hoards, she should have the business, unless Raymond would mend his ways! The old man's menace turned her brother's anger against her; almost openly he accused her of bad faith and hypocrisy—of aiming at stepping into his shoes. The charge was cruel, for she loved him. But he made a stranger and at last nearly an enemy of her. Once she had hoped to work on him through Amabel Osling, but Amabel, slighted in favour of more recent and more gaudy attractions, stood now on her dignity and would make no approaches to Raymond. She came to the house still, and was as friendly as ever to father and daughter, but distant towards the son on the rare occasions when she found him there. Joe Halliday was no use in serious straits like these; he took everything as it came, for others as well as for himself; his serenely confident, "Oh, he's a young fool, of course, but it'll come all right, you'll see," did not seem to Marie to meet the situation. And Arthur Lisle? Her old feeling forbade the idea of troubling Mr. Lisle with such matters; they would certainly grate on him. Besides, he was—somehow—a little bit of a stranger now.
It was Sidney Barslow's opportunity; he was well fitted to use the chance that circumstances gave him. The strong will which enabled him to put a curb on his own inclinations, so soon as he had an adequate motive, made him a man to turn to in distress. His past indulgences, in so far as they were known or conjectured, themselves gave him authority. He spoke of what he knew, of what he had experienced and overcome. Seeing him, the old father could not deny that young men might pass through a season of folly, and yet be sound at heart and able to steady themselves after a little while. Raymond could not call him a Puritan or an ignoramus, nor accuse him of not understanding the temptations which beset his own path.
Sidney was honest in his efforts. He felt a genuine remorse for having set young Raymond's feet on the primrose path along which they now raced at such dangerous speed. About his own little excursions along the same track he felt no such pangs of conscience; fellows were different; some could pull up when they liked; he could. It seemed that Raymond could not; therefore he repented of having started Raymond at all, and recognised a duty laid on himself of stopping him if possible. And the same motives which had enabled him to forsake the dangerous path urged him to turn Raymond also from it. Marie's approval had been his mark in the one case; in the other it was her gratitude; in both her favour. The pleasure he derived from seeing her trust him and lean on him was something quite new in his life and appealed strongly to his courageous and masculine temper. He would not fail her, any more than he had failed her brother in his need.
And his reward? He knew very well what he wanted—if only he could get it. He did not deal in doubts and hesitations. He had not sacrificed his indulgences without being quite sure of what he wanted in exchange. His mind, if primitive and unrefined, was direct and bold. His emotions were of the same simple and powerful type. Courting a girl was to him no matter of dreaming, romancing, idealising, fearing, palpitating. It was just a man seeking the mate that pleased him.
Marie was in no mood to be courted yet; her dream was too recently dispelled, and her steady nature could not leap to sudden change. But her eyes were on his strong qualities again; she looked at him less through Arthur Lisle's spectacles; that side of her which liked him could now assert itself. She turned to his aid readily, and, with her shrewd calculation seconding the impulse of friendship, made his company seem as welcome for its own sake as for the services it promised.
"You always bring a breath of comfort with you, Sidney," she told him gratefully.
Sidney was honest with her. "It's not much good. He won't listen to me any more." He shook his head in puzzle. "I can't think where he gets the money! You tell me the old man has cut off supplies, but I know he races, and I know he plays baccarat—and you may be sure he doesn't win on a balance. Besides he—well, he must get through a good bit in other ways. He must be raising the wind somehow. But it can't last."
It could not. One day old Sarradet came home from business almost collapsed. Men had come to his shop—his cherished City shop, hoary with the respectability of a hundred-and-fifty years, parading the 'Royal Warrant' of a third successive Sovereign—asking where his son was, brandishing writs, truculently presuming that Mr. Sarradet would "set the matter right." One more vicious than the rest, a jeweller, talked of false pretences and illegal pawning—not of a writ or a settlement, but of a summons or a warrant. He had been very savage, and the old man, ashamed and terrified, had pushed him into his own private room and there heard his ultimatum—the ring and the bangle, or their value, in twenty-four hours, or an application to a magistrate. And where was Raymond? He had not been home the night before. He was not at the West End shop. The poor old fellow babbled lamentations and threats—he would not pay, he had done with the scoundrel, here was a pretty end to an honourable life! When Marie knelt by him and put her arms about him, he fairly burst into tears.
The world of reckless living and dishonest shifts—both father and daughter were strangers to it. At her wits' end Marie telephoned for Sidney Barslow. By the time he came, she had got the old man to go to bed, weeping for his son, for himself, for his money, utterly aghast at doings so mad and disastrous. A pitiful sight! She met Sidney with tears in her eyes, full of the dismal story. "What are we to do?" she wailed, quite bereft of her usual composure and courage. The thing was too difficult, too dreadful.
"The first thing is to find him," said Sidney in his quick decisive way. He looked at his watch. "It's a bit too early now; in a couple of hours' time I may be able to lay my hands on him."
"Can you really? How? Oh, I was sure you'd be able to help!"
"Well, you see, Marie, I—er—know the ropes. I think I can find him—or somebody who'll put me on his track."
"Yes, that's where you're such a help." How she was pardoning those past indulgences! In her heart she was thanking heaven for them, almost admiring them! Wrong as they were, they taught a man things which made him ever so useful to women in distress about prodigal sons and brothers, "And what will you do when you do find him?"
"Frighten him pretty well to death, if I can," Sidney answered grimly. "I fancy our friend the jeweller may turn out a blessing in disguise. The news of criminal proceedings will be a bit of a soberer. The young ass!" Because it was so easy to enjoy yourself without being involved in criminal proceedings! "But, I say, you know," he went on, "the governor'll have to pay up."
"You must persuade him. I don't believe I can, Sidney."
"Oh, you can do that right enough. After all, I don't suppose it'll break him exactly. I daresay, though, the young 'un has run into a tidy lot. Still we can square 'em, I expect. Don't look so awfully cut up, Marie."
"I was just off my head till you came." She held out both her hands for him to grasp. "Thank you, thank you, thank you, Sidney!"
"That's all right, Marie. And, look here, if I find him, I shan't bring him here. I expect he and the old man get on one another's nerves. There's a room at my place. I'll take him there. You put some things in a bag for him, and I'll take it."
"Will you? It would be better they shouldn't meet—with father as he is."
"And you may be sure that when I've got him, I won't let him go. And we'll see about the money to-morrow."
She was infinitely comforted, immensely grateful. If he had sown wild oats, what wisdom he had gleaned from the crop! A meeting between father and son just now might be the end of all things, finally fatal! She packed the bag and gave it to her trusted emissary. "What should we have done without you!" was her cry again.
"Just leave it to me," he told her, his strong thick lips set resolutely.
With the knowledge acquired in folly but tamed now to the service of wisdom, morality, and the interests of the Sarradet business, he found young Raymond without much difficulty—and found him just in time. More than money was giving out, more than strict attention to financial ethics was in jeopardy. The little excitable fellow was pretty well at the end of his tether physically also. His nerves were at breaking strain. Pleasure had become a narcotic against thought; if that alone would not serve, drink was called in as an ally. On the verge of a collapse, he was desperately postponing it by the surest way to make it in the end complete.
Sidney, robust of body and mind, beheld him with mingled pity and contempt. He himself could have lived the life for years with faculties and powers unimpaired, really not the worse for it, save in his pocket and his morals; only prudential considerations and newly awakened hopes had, on a cool calculation, turned him from it. But Raymond, if he did not land in jail first, would land in hospital speedily. Amidst the jeers and sneers of the hardier denizens of those regions, Sidney carried him to his own flat and put him to bed like a naughty worn-out child.
In the morning came the lecture. "No end of a jawing! I pitched it in hot and strong, I can tell you," Sidney subsequently reported to Marie. Poor Raymond lay in bed with a racking headache and trembling hands, and heard his sins rehearsed and (worse still) his feebleness exhibited.
"You're not the chap for this kind of thing," Sidney told him. "Chuck it, my boy! Seek milder delights. Oh, I know it's a bit my fault in the beginning. But I thought you'd a head on your shoulders and some sense in it. I'm not against a bust now and then; but this sort of rot——! And what's this fool's business about a ring and a bangle? You're in a pretty tight place there, young fellow."
Almost amid sobs the story of these unfortunate articles of jewellery—bought on credit and pawned, by and with the advice and consent of the donee, a few days later—came out. Sidney brandished the terrors of the law; the figure of the justly irate tradesman took on terrifying proportions. If only that dread apparition, with its suggestion of policemen, of locked doors and bolts shot home, of Black Maria and picking oakum—if only that apparition could be exorcised, there was nothing Raymond would not do, promise, and abjure. Sidney jeered while he threatened and grinned while he preached, but he did both to good purpose, with all the convincing knowledge and experience of a reformed criminal at a revivalist meeting, with all the zeal of a doctor whose reputation is staked upon a cure.
Then the thorough-going long-headed man went off to his own employers and arranged to begin his approaching summer holiday immediately. That done, he tackled the writ-bearers and the fearful apparition with the aid of a sharp lawyer of his acquaintance. With threats of giving as much trouble as possible in one hand, and promises of a composition in "spot cash" in the other, the lawyer and he succeeded in reducing the claims to manageable proportions; the pawnbroker, himself a little uneasy under the lawyer's searching questions, accepted a compromise. Things could be arranged—at a price.
But the pain of that price to old Sarradet's thrifty soul! To have to subtract from his hoards instead of adding to them, sell stock instead of buying, to count himself so much the poorer instead of so much the richer—the old merchant hated it. It was Marie's task to wring the money out of him. And even when he had been brought to the point of ransoming his son, he ceased not to bewail the prospects of his beloved business.
"I won't leave it to him, I won't," he declared querulously. "I'll leave it to you, Marie."
"Oh, but I couldn't possibly manage the business, Pops," she protested, half in dismay, half laughing at the idea.
"Then you must get a husband who can."
"Never mind my husband just now. There are more pressing things than that."
An idea struck the old fellow. "I'll make it into a company. I'll clip Master Raymond's wings for him!" He pondered over this way of salvation, and, in light of its possibilities, gradually grew a little calmer.
At last the wrench was over, the money paid. It was judged to be safe for father and son to meet. Sidney brought the rescued sinner to Regent's Park. Compunction seized them at the sight of one another; the boy was so pale, shaken, and contrite; the old man was thinner, aged, and feeble. The old tenderness between them revived; each tried to console the other. Quite resolved to protect his business, Mr. Sarradet consented to forgive his son. Humbled to his soul, Raymond asked no more than to be received back into favour on any terms. Marie and Sidney stood by, helping, favouring, and exchanging glances of self-congratulation.
"I'm off for my holiday to-morrow, Mr. Sarradet," Sidney announced.
The old man looked up in sudden alarm. It was as if the anchor announced to the ship that it proposed to take a holiday.
"No, no, that's all right! I'm going for a walking tour in Wales, and Raymond's coming with me. Twenty miles a day, open air all day! Three weeks of that, and he'll be as right as rain, and ready to tackle his work like a Hercules!"
This clever fellow had a plan to meet every emergency! Surely he would have a plan to save the beloved business too? Mr. Sarradet determined to consult him about it when he came back from Wales. Meanwhile he grew much more cheerful, and even went so far as to indulge in some hints of a giddy youth of his own—hints based (in cold truth be it said) on a very slender foundation, but showing a desire to make excuses for his son.
"Yes, and your bit of fun didn't do you any harm, Mr. Sarradet, did it?" asked Sidney.
No more had his bit—though quite a large bit—done Sidney harm. There was reason then to hope that even Raymond's formidable bit might not in the end do Raymond any harm. He might turn out as good a man of business as his father yet. Still no risks should be run. The old gentleman hugged the idea of his company—and he had someone in his eye for Managing Director.
So with skill and courage, with good heart and kindliness, with ambition and cunning, Sidney Barslow bound the Sarradet family to his chariot wheels. He was the friend-in-need, the rescuer, the saviour. He was like to become the sheet-anchor, the arbiter, the referee. Between father and son—her weak old man and her weaker young one—Marie could not carry the whole load herself. She was strong and self-reliant, but she was not strong enough for that. She too would take the strong man's orders, though she might take them with a smile, when what had been and what might have been came to her remembrance.
He gave her an order now, when they said good night.
"Look here, when I bring him back from Wales, you mustn't let him mope or be bored. If I were you, I'd get Amabel to come and stay here a bit."
"Really you think of everything," she told him in a merry wonder. "I'll ask her, of course."
"I think of a good many things," he said, venturing a bold glance in her eyes.
"Don't think of too many at a time, Sidney," she warned him with a smile.
"No, no, each in its proper place! One done, t'other come on, you know!"
He stood looking down on her with a jovial confident smile—and she liked it. His bold glance of admiration did not displease or alarm her. She was quite ready to be told what the glance said; but she was not ready to say anything in reply yet. But it was evident that some day she would be asked for a reply.