Evie Colebrook had found a note awaiting her at the store on the morning of the day she came home early. It consisted of a few words scrawled on a plain card, and had neither address nor signature:
"Dearest girl: I shall not be able to see you tonight. I have a long article to write and shall probably be working through the night, when your dear and precious eyes are closed in sleep.Your lover."
She had the card under her pillow when she slept.
"Are you sure you aren't too busy," said Beryl when she came down, a radiant figure, to the waiting Ronnie. "Now that you have taken up a literary career, I picture you as being rushed every hour of the day."
"Sarcasm is wasted on me," Ronnie displayed his beautiful teeth. "Unflattering though it be, I admit to a slump in my literary stock. I have had no commissions for a week."
"And I'm not taking you away from any of those beautiful friends of yours?"
"Beryl!" he murmured reproachfully. "You know that I have no friends—if by friends you mean girl friends."
"It is my mad jealousy which makes me ask these questions," she said quizzically, "come along, Ronnie, we will be late."
What the play was about, Beryl never quite remembered. Ronnie, sitting in the shade of the curtains, was more interested in his companion. It was strange that he had known her ever since she was a child and he a schoolboy, and yet had never received a true impression of her beauty. He watched her through the first act, the tilt of her chin, the quick smile.
"Beryl, you ought to be painted," he said in the first interval. "I mean by a portrait painter. You look so perfectly splendid that I couldn't take my eyes off you."
The color came slowly and, in the dim light of the box, a man who had not been looking for this evidence of her pleasure, would have seen nothing.
"That is a little less subtle than the usual brand of flattery you practice, isn't it, Ronnie? Or is your artlessness really an art that conceals art?"
"I'm not flattering you—I simply speak as I feel. I never realized your loveliness until tonight." She straightened up and laughed.
"You think I'm crude—I suppose I am. You do not say that I am keeping my hand in, though you probably think so. I admit I have had all sorts of flirtations, in fact, I have been rather a blackguard in that way, and of course I've said nice things to girls—buttered them and played to their vanity. But if I were trying to make love to you, I should be a little more subtle, as you say. I should imply my compliments. It is just because my—my spasm is unpremeditated that I find myself at a loss for words. There is no sense in my making love to you, anyway, supposing that you would allow me. I can't marry—I simply won't marry until I have enough money and I haven't nearly enough. If in four years' time the money doesn't come—well then, I'll risk being a pauper, but the girl will have to know."
She said nothing. Here was an unexpected side to his character. He had some plan of life and a code of sorts. If she had been better acquainted with that life of his, which she so far suspected, she would have grown alert when Ronnie unmasked his way of retreat. She was surprised at his virtuous reluctance to make a woman share his comparative poverty—she should have been suspicious when he fixed a time limit to his bachelorhood. It was not like Ronnie to plan so far in advance, that she knew; it might have occurred to her that he was definitely excusing the postponement of marriage. As it was, she was seeing him in a more favorable light. Ronnie desired that she should. His instinct in these matters was uncannily accurate.
"It was worth coming out with you, if only to hear your views on matrimony," was all the comment she made.
"I don't know—" he looked gloomily into the auditorium, "in many ways I have been regretting it. That doesn't sound gallant, but I am not in a mood for nice speeches—you think I am? I did not mean to be nice when I said that you were lovely, any more than I wish to be nice to Titian when I praise his pictures. Beryl, I've been fond of you for years. I suppose I've been in love with you, though I've never wanted to be. That is the truth. I've recognized just how unfair it would be, to chain a woman like you to a rake—I'm not sparing myself—like me. God knows whether I could be constant. In my heart I know that if I had you, there could be no other woman in the world for me—an intimate knowledge of my own character makes me skeptical."
Beryl was spared the necessity for replying. The curtain went up on the second act just then. She knew he was looking at her, and turned in her chair to hide her face. Her heart was beating tumultuously. She was trembling. She was a fool—a fool. He meant nothing—he was a liar; lied as readily as other men spoke the truth. That frankness of his was assumed—he was acting. Versed in the weaknesses of women, he had chosen the only approach that would storm her citadel. She told herself these truths, her reason battling in a last desperate stand against his attack. And yet—why should he not be sincere? For the first time he had admitted the unpleasant charges which hitherto he had denied. He surely could not expect to make her love him more by the confession of his infidelities?
If he had followed up his talk, had made any attempt to carry on the conversation from the point where he left it, she would have been invincible. But he did not. When the curtain went down again, he was more cheerful and was seemingly interested only in the people he recognized in the stalls. He asked her if she would mind if he left her. He wanted to smoke and to meet some men he knew.
She assented and was disappointed. They had a long wait between these two acts, and as he had returned to the box after a shorter interval than she had expected, there was plenty of time, had he so wished, to have resumed his conversation. He showed no such desire, and it was she who began it.
"You puzzle me, Ronnie. I can't see—if you loved me, how you could do some of the things you have done. You won't be so commonplace as to tell me that you wanted to keep me out of your mind and that that form of amusement helped you to forget me."
"No," he admitted, "but, Beryl dear, need we discuss it? I don't know why I spoke to you as I did. I felt like it."
"But I am going to discuss it," she insisted. "I want my mind set in order. It is overthrown for the moment. What prevented you from keeping me as a friend all this time—a real close friend, if you loved me? Oh, Ronnie, I do want to be fair to you even at the risk of being shameless, as I am now. Why could you not have asked me? Even if it meant waiting?"
He looked down at the floor. "I have some sense of decency left," he said in a low voice. And then the curtain went up.
Beryl looked at her program. The play had four acts; there was another interval. He did not leave her this time; nor did he wait for her to begin.
"I'm going to be straight with you, Beryl," he said, "I want you—I adore you. But I cannot commit you to an engagement which may adversely affect your father and incidentally myself. I am being brutally selfish and mercenary, but I am going to say what I think. You'll be amused and perhaps horrified when I tell you that Steppe is very keen on you."
She was neither amused nor horrified; but on the other hand, if Ronnie Morelle realized that in his invention he had accidentally hit upon the truth, he would not have been amused and most certainly terror would have struck him dumb. If Beryl had only said what she was of a mind to say, that she had learned from her father that Steppe was in love with her, she might have silenced him. But she said nothing. Ronnie's explanation seemed natural—knowing Ronnie.
"I'd sooner see you dead than married to him," he said vehemently, "but none of us can say that now. We are in a very tight place. Steppe could ruin your father with a gesture—he could very seriously inconvenience me." Here he was much in earnest, and the girl, with a cold feeling at her heart, knew he spoke the truth.
"But that time will pass. We shall weather the storm which is shrieking round our ears—you don't read the financial papers—you're wise. You see what might happen, Beryl?"
Beryl nodded. She was ridiculously happy.
"A great play, don't you think so, Miss Merville?" It was Sir John Maxton who had pushed through the crowd in the vestibule.
"Splendid," she said.
"Ronnie, did you like it?"
"I never heard a word," said Ronnie, and somehow that statement was so consonant with his new honesty that it confirmed her in a faith which was as novel.
The car carried them through the crowded circus and into the quietude of Piccadilly.
"Oh, Ronnie—I am so happy—"
His arm slipped round her and his lips pressed fiercely against her red mouth.
* * * * *
"Why can't you sleep?" asked the drowsy Christina, as the girl lit her candle for the second time.
"I don't know—I'm having such beastly dreams," said Evie fretfully.
The step of Ambrose Sault was light and there was a buoyancy in his mien when he came into Mrs. Colebrook's kitchen, surprising that good lady with so unusual an appearance at an hour of the day when she was taking her afternoon siesta.
"Lord, how you startled me!" she said, "the ostymopat came this morning. A stout gentleman with whiskers. Very nice, too, and American. But bless you, Mr. Sault, he'll never do any good to Christina, though I wish he could, for I'm up and down those blessed stairs from the moment I get up to the moment I go to bed. He'll never cure her. She's had ten doctors and four specialists, and she's been three times to St. Mary's hospital; to say nothing of the Evelyna when she was a child and fell out of the perambulator that did it. Ten doctors and four specialists—they're doctors, too, in a manner of speaking, so you might say fourteen."
Sault never interrupted his landlady, although his forbearance meant, very often, a long period of waiting.
"Can I see Christina, Mrs. Colebrook?" he begged.
"Certainly you can, you needn't ask me. She'll be glad to see you," said Mrs. Colebrook conventionally. "I thought of going up myself, but she has always got those books. Do you think so much reading is good for her—?"
"I'm sure it is."
"But—well, I don't know. I've never read anything but the Sunday papers, and they've got enough horrors in 'em—but they actually happened. It isn't guesswork like it is in books. I never read a book through in my life. My husband—! Why, when he passed away, there was enough books in the house to fill a room. He'd sooner read than work at any time. He was a bit aristocratic in his way."
Sault had come to understand that "aristocratic" did not stand, as Mrs. Colebrook applied the word, for gentleness of birth, but for a loftiness of demeanor in relation to labor.
He made his escape up the stairs. Christina was not reading. She lay on her back, her hands lightly folded, and she was inspecting the end bed-rail with a fixity of gaze that indicated to Ambrose how far she was from Walter Street and the loud little boys who played beneath her window.
"I have nothing for you today—I haven't been baking."
She patted the bed and he sat down.
"The osteopath has been, I suppose mother told you? She has the queerest word for him, 'ostymopat'. Yes, he came and saw, or rather, he prodded in a gentle, harmless kind of way, but I fancy that my spine has conquered. He didn't say very much, but seemed to be more interested in the bones of my neck and shoulders than he was in the place where it hurts. He wouldn't tell me anything, I suppose he didn't want to make me feel miserable. Poor, kind soul—after all the uncomplimentary things that have been said about my spinal column!"
"He told me," said Ambrose, and something in his face made her open her eyes wide.
"What did he say—please tell me—was it good?"
He nodded and a beatific smile lightened his face.
"You can be cured; completely cured. You will walk in a year or maybe less. He thinks it will take six months to manipulate the bones into their place; he talked about 'breaking down' something, but he didn't mean that he would hurt you. He just meant that he would have to remove—I don't know what it is, but it would be a gradual process and you would feel nothing. He wants your mother to put you into a sort of thin overall before he comes."
He lugged a parcel from his pocket. "I bought one—a smock of thick silk. I thought you had better have silk. He works at you through it, and it makes his work easier for him and for you if—anyhow, I got silk, Christina."
Her eyes were shining, but she did not look at him. "It doesn't seem possible," she said softly, "and it is going to cost a lot of money—cost you. The silk overall is lovely, but I wouldn't mind if I wore sackcloth. You great soul!"
She caught his hand in both of hers and gripped it with a strength that surprised him.
"Evie is quite sure that I am in love with you, Ambrose—I lied to her when I said I never called you Ambrose. And, of course, we are in love with one another, but in a way that poor Evie doesn't understand. If I was normal, I suppose I'd love you in her way—poor Ambrose, you would be so embarrassed."
She laughed quietly.
"Love is a great disturbance," said Ambrose, "I think Evie means that kind."
"Were you ever in love that way? I have never been. I think I love you as I should love my child, if I had one. If you say that you love me as a mother, I shall be offended, Ambrose. Do you think it will really happen—will it cost very much?"
"A pound a visit, and he is coming every day except Sunday."
Christina made a calculation and the immensity of the sum left her horror-stricken.
"A hundred and fifty pounds!" she cried. "Oh, Ambrose—how can you? I won't have the treatment. It is certain to fail—I won't, Ambrose!"
"I've paid a hundred on account. He didn't want to take it, but I said I would only let him come on those terms. I wasn't speaking the truth—I'd have let him come on any terms. So you see, Christina, I've paid, and you must be treated!"
"Hold my hand, Ambrose—and don't speak a word. I'm going for a long walk—I haven't dared walk before."
She resumed her gaze upon the bed-rail and he sat in silence whilst she dreamed.
Evie returned at ten o'clock that night and heard Christina singing as she mounted the stairs. "Enter, sister, has mother told you that I am practically a well woman?"
"Don't put too high hopes—"
"Shut up! I'm a well woman I tell you. In a year I shall walk into your medicine shop and sneer at you as I pass. Have you brought home any candy? 'Sweets' is hopelessly vulgar, and I like the American word better. And you look bright and sonsy. Did you see the god?"
"I wish you wouldn't use religious words, Christina, just when we are going to bed, too. I wonder you're not afraid. Yes, I saw my boy."
"Have you a boy?" in simulated surprise. "Evie, you are a surprising child. Whom does he take after?"
"Really, I think you are indecent," said her sister, shocked. "You know perfectly well I mean—Ronnie."
"Oh, is he the 'boy'? To you girls everything that raises a hat or smokes a cheap cigar is strangely boyish. Well, is he nearly dead from his midnight labors?"
"I'd like to see you write a long article for the newspapers," said Evie witheringly.
"I wish you could. You may even see that. Tell me about him, Evie. What is he like—what sort of a house has he?" She waited.
"He lives in a flat, and, of course, I've never seen it. You don't imagine that I would go into a man's flat alone, do you?'"
Christina sighed. "There are points about the bourgeoisie mind which are admirable," she said. "What does 'bourgeoisie' mean? The bourgeoisie are the people who have names instead of numbers to their houses; they catch the nine twenty-five to town and go home by the five seventeen. They go to church at least once on Sunday and their wives wear fascinators and patronize the dress circle."
"You talk such rubbish, Christina. I can't make head or tail of it half the time. I don't see what it has got to do with my not going in to Ronnie's flat. It wouldn't be respectable."
"Why didn't I think of that word?" wailed Christina. "Evie."
"Huh?" said Evie, her mouth full of pins and in an unconscious imitation of one who, did she but know it, held her soul in the hollow of his hands.
"Where do you meet your lad—I simply can't say 'boy'?"
"Oh, anywhere," said Evie vaguely. "We used to meet a lot in the park. As a matter of fact, that is where I first saw him, but now he doesn't go to the park. He says the crowd is vulgar and it is you know, Christina; why I've heard men addressing meetings and saying that there wasn't a God! And talking about the king most familiarly. It made my blood boil!"
"I don't suppose the king minds, and I'm sure God only laughed."
"Christina!"
"Well, why not? What's the use of being God if He hasn't a sense of humor? He has everything He wants, and that is one of the first blessings He would give Himself. Where do you meet Ronnie, Evie?"
"Sometimes I have dinner with him, and sometimes we just meet at the tube station and go to the pictures." Christina pinched her chin in thought.
"He knows that girl who came to see you, Miss Merville. I told him about her visit, and he asked me if she knew that I was a friend of his, and whether she had seen me. She rather runs after him, I think. He doesn't say so, he is too much a gentleman. I can't imagine Ronnie saying anything unkind."
"But he sort of hinted," suggested Christina.
"You are uncharitable, Christina! Nothing Ronnie does is right in your eyes. Of course he didn't hint. It is the way he looks, when I speak about her. I know that he doesn't like her very much. He admitted it, because, just after we had been talking about her, he said that I was the only girl he had ever met who did not bore him—unutterably. His very words!"
"That was certainly convincing evidence," said Christina, and her sister arrested the motion of her hair brush to look suspiciously in her direction. You could never be sure whether Christina was being nice or unpleasant.
Ronald Morelle had once been the victim of a demoralizing experience. He had awakened in time to hear the church clock strike nine, and for the space of a few seconds, he had suffered the tortures of hell. Why, he never discovered. He had heard the clock strike nine since then, in truth he had been specially wakened by François the very next morning, in the expectation that the tolling of the bell would recall to his mind the cause of his abject fear. But not again did the chimes affect him. He had made a very thorough examination of his mind in the Freudian method, but could trace no connection between his moments of terror and the sound of a bell. "A nightmare, as an unpleasant dream is called, may be intensively vivid, yet from the second of waking leaves no definite memory behind it," said a lesser authority.
He had to rest content with that. He had other matters to think about. Steppe, an unusual visitor, came to his flat one morning. Ronnie was in his dressing-gown, reading the morning newspapers, and he leaped up with a curious sense of guilt when the big man was announced.
"You dabble in press work, Morelle, don't you?" Ronnie acknowledged his hobby.
"Do you know anybody in Fleet Street—editors and such like?"
"I know a few—why, Mr. Steppe?"
Steppe lit a cigar and strolling across the room looked out of the window. He carried the air of a patron to such an extent that Ronnie felt an interloper, an uncomfortable feeling to a man still in pajamas.
"Because we've got to beat up a few friendly press criticisms," said Steppe at last. "The financial papers are raising merry hell about the Klein River diamond flotation and we have to get our story in somehow or other. You don't want to be called a swindling company promoter, huh? Wouldn't look good, huh?"
"I don't see how I come into it," said Ronnie.
"You don't, huh? Of course you don't! Have you ever seen anything but a shop girl's ankles? You—don't see! You're a director, so is Merville. You've drawn directors' fees. I'm not a director—it doesn't matter a damn to me what they say."
The name of Jan Steppe seldom appeared amongst the officers or directors of a company. He had his nominees who voted according to the orders they received.
"What makes it so almighty bad is that I was floating the Midwell Traction Corporation next week. We'll have to put that back now, but it will keep. What are you going to do?"
"I don't know exactly what to do," said Ronnie. It was the first time he had ever been called upon to justify his directors' fees. "I know a few men—but I doubt if I can do anything. Fleet Street is a little rigid in these things."
"Get an article in somewhere," ordered Steppe peremptorily. "Take this line: That we bought the Klein River Mine on the report of the best engineer in South Africa. We did. There's no lie about that. Mackenzie—he's in a lunatic asylum now. And the report was in his own handwriting, so there won't be a copy. And you needn't mention that he is in a lunatic asylum, most people think he is dead."
"Didn't he write to us complaining that we only put an extract from his report into the prospectus?"
"Never mind about that!" snarled Steppe. "I didn't come here for a conversation. He did write; said that we'd published a sentence away from the context. He didn't think I was going to put the worst into the prospectus, did he? What he said was, that the Klein River Mine would be one of the richest in South Africa if we could get over difficulties of working, which he said were insuperable. He was right. They are. The only way to work that mine is with deep sea divers! Now, have this right, Morelle, and try to forget Flossie's blue eyes and Winnie's golden hair. This is business. Your business. You've got to take that report (Moropulos will give it to you, but you mustn't take it from the office) and extract all that is good in it. At the general meeting you have to produce your copy and read it. If anybody wants to see the original, refer 'em to Mackenzie. You've got to make Klein River look alive and you haven't to defend it, d'ye hear me? You've got to handle that mine as though you wished it was yours, huh? No defence! The hundred-pound shares are at twelve; you've got to make 'em look worth two hundred. And it is dead easy if you go the right way about it. Ask any pickpocket. The easiest way to steal a pocketbook is to go after the man that's just lost his watch. Make 'em think that the best thing they can do is to buy more Klein Rivers and hold them, huh? You've got to think it, or you won't say it. Get this meeting through without a fuss, and there's a thousand for you."
"I'll try," said Ronnie.
Yet, it was in no confident mood that he faced a hall-full of enraged stockholders a week later. The meeting was described as "noisy"; it ended in the passing of a vote of confidence in the directors. Ronnie was elated; no other man but Steppe could have induced him to present a forged document to a meeting of critical stockholders, and when Klein Rivers rose the next day to seventeen, he was not as enthusiastic as Dr. Merville, who 'phoned his congratulations on what was undoubtedly a remarkable achievement.
He spoke of nothing else that day, and Beryl basked in reflected approval. Her father knew nothing. He wondered why Ronnie, whom he did not like overmuch, called with greater frequency. He had too large an experience of life to harbor any misconception as to his second cousin's private character, although he would, in other circumstances, have passively accepted him as a son-in-law. Men take a very tolerant view of other men's weaknesses. The theory that the world holds a patch of arable land reserved for young men to put under wild oats, and that without exciting the honest farmers whose lands adjoin, is a theory that dies hard as the cultivated fields increase in number.
He did not regard Ronnie as a marrying man, and with the exception of a few moments of uneasiness he had had when he noted Beryl's preference for his associate's society, he found nothing objectionable in the new interest which Ronnie had found. But he wished he wouldn't call so often.
Dr. Merville might, and did, dismiss Ronnie's errant adventures with a philosophicalsua cuique voluptas—he found himself taking a more and more lenient view of Ronald Morelle's character. A man is never himself until he is idle. Successions of nurses, schoolmasters and professors shepherd him into the service of his fellows, and the conventions of his profession, no less than a natural desire to stand well with the friends and clients he has acquired in his progress, assist him in maintaining something of the appearance and mental attitude which his tutors have formed in him. Many a man has gone through life being some other man who has impressed him, or some great teacher who has imparted his personality into his plastic pupil.
The first instinct of a man lost in the desert is to discard his clothes. The doctor, wandering in this financial waste, began to discard his principles. He was unconscious of the sacrifice. If, in the course of his professional life he had made a mistaken diagnosis, or blundered in an operation, he would have known. If at school he had committed some error, he would have been corrected. Now, though this he did not realize, he was, for the first time in his life, free from any other authority than his own will and conscience. He fell into a common error when he believed, as he did, that standards of honor and behavior are peculiar to the trades in which they are exercised and that right and wrong are adaptable to circumstances.
"Ronnie is coming to dinner tonight, isn't he? You know I shall not be here, my dear? I promised Steppe I would spend the evening with him. I wish you would tell Ronnie how pleased we all are at his very fine speech. I never dreamed that he had it in him—Steppe talks of making him chairman of the company."
"I thought he was that."
"No—er—no. The chairman is a man named Howitt—a very troublesome fellow. Steppe bought him out before the meeting. Ronnie was only acting chairman."
"I thought you were a director, daddy?" She was curious on this point and had waited an opportunity of asking him why he had not been present at the meeting.
"I am—in a sense—but my nerves are in such a state just now, that I simply couldn't bear the strain of listening to a crowd of noisy louts jabbering stupid criticism. The company is in a perfectly sound position. You can see that from the way the stock has jumped up in the past few days. These city people aren't fools, you know."
She wondered if it was the "city people" who were buying the stock or were responsible for the encouraging rise in Klein River Diamonds. More likely, she thought, the buyers were the people who knew very little about stock exchange transactions.
Ronnie arrived as the doctor was going out, and they met in the street before the door. "It was nothing," said Ronnie modestly, "they were rather rowdy at first, but after I had had a little talk with them—you know how sheep-like these fellows are. I discovered from Steppe who was likely to be the leader of the opposition, and I saw him before the meeting. Of course, he was difficult and full of threats about appointing a committee of investigation. However—"
"Yes, yes, you did splendidly—you'll find Beryl waiting for you. Er—Ronnie."
"Yes?"
"Don't unsettle her—she is in an enquiring mood just now, especially about the companies and things. I shouldn't talk too much about Klein Rivers. She is a very shrewd girl. Not that there is anything about Klein Rivers that is discreditable."
"I never talk business to Beryl," said Ronnie. Which was nearly true.
He found her in the drawing-room and took her into his arms. She was so dear and fragrant. So malleable in his skilled hands now that the barrier of her suspicion had been broken down.
In the middle of the night, Ambrose Sault turned in his narrow bed and woke. He was a light sleeper and the party walls of the tiny house were thin.
He got out of bed, switched on the light of a portable electric lamp which stood within reach of his hand and, thrusting his feet into slippers, opened the door. The house was silent, but a crack of light showed under Christina's door.
"Are you awake, Christina?" he asked softly. "Is anything wrong?"
"Nothing, Mr. Sault."
It was not Christina. There was no hint of tears in her voice. Ambrose went back to his bed, and to sleep. He knew that he had not been mistaken either as to the sound that had awakened him or the direction from whence it came. For one terrific moment he had thought it was Christina and that the new treatment which had already commenced was responsible for the loud sobs which had disturbed his sleep. He was sorry for Evie. He was easily sorry. A cat writhing in the middle of the street, where a too swift motor-car had passed, wrung his heart. A child crying in pain made him sweat. When he saw a man and a woman quarrelling in this vile neighborhood, he rushed from the scene lest the woman be struck.
"What did he get—up for," whispered Evie, "he is always—interfering."
"The wonder to me is that the whole street isn't up," said Christina. "What is the matter, Evie?"
"I don't know—I'm miserable." Evie flounced over in her bed. "I just had to cry. I'm sorry."
Christina was very serious; she too had been awakened by the hysterical outburst. It carried a meaning to her that she had the courage to face.
"There is nothing wrong, is there, Evie?" No answer.
"I can't be all the help to you that I should like, darling, and I am a pig to you at times. But I get tetchy myself, and it is a bore lying here day after day. You would tell me if there was anything wrong, wouldn't you?"
"Yes," whispered the girl.
"I mean, really wrong. If it was anything that—affected your health. Nothing would make you wrong in my eyes. I should just love you and help you all I could. You know that. It isn't wise to keep some secrets, Evie, not if you know that there is somebody who loves you well enough to take half your burden from you."
"I don't know what you're driving at," said Evie in a fret, "you don't mean—? I'm a virgin, if that is what you mean," she said crudely.
Christina snorted. "Then what in hell are you snivelling about?" she demanded savagely. She was not unreasonably irritated.
"I haven't—seen—Ronnie—for a week!" sobbed the girl.
"I wish to God you'd never seen him," snapped Christina and wished she hadn't, for the next minute Evie was in bed with her, in her arms.
"I'm so unhappy—I wish I hadn't met him, too—I know that it isn't right, Chris—I know it isn't—I know I shall never be happy. He is so much above me—and I'm so ignorant—such—a—such a shop girl."
Christina cuddled the slim figure and kissed her damp face. "You'll get over that, Evie," she said soothingly.
"But I love him so!"
"You don't really—you are too young, Evie—you can't test your feelings. I was reading today about some people who live in Australia, natives, who think that a sort of sour apple is the most lovely fruit in the world. But it is only because they haven't any other kind of fruit. If you go to a poor sort of store to buy a dress, you get to think the best they have in stock is the best you can buy anywhere. It takes a lot of courage to walk out of that shop and find another. After a while you are sure and certain that the dress they show you is lovely. It is only when you put it against the clothes that other women have bought from the better shops, that you see how old-fashioned and tawdry and what an ugly color it is." She waited for an answer, but Evie was asleep.
Ambrose came home early the next day. Every other afternoon he took Christina to Kensington Gardens. He kept the long spinal carriage in a stable and spent at least half an hour in cleaning and polishing the wheels and lacquered panels of the "chariot".
"Shut the door, Ambrose." He obeyed.
"You heard Evie crying? It was nothing. She hasn't seen her man for a week and she was a little upset. I promised her to tell you that it was all your imagination, if you asked. Poor Evie doesn't know that you wouldn't ask anyhow."
"Is it Ronald Morelle, Christina?"
She nodded and, seeing his face lengthen, she asked: "Is he a good man, Ambrose? Do you think there is any danger to Evie?"
"I don't know him personally," Ambrose was speaking very slowly. "No, I don't know him. Once or twice I have seen him but I have never spoken. Moropulos says he is rotten. That was the word he used. There have been one or two nasty incidents. Moropulos likes talking about that sort of thing—what was that word you told me, Christina? It is not like me to forget? It describes a man with a bad curiosity.
"Prurient?"
"That is the word. Moropulos has that kind of mind. He has books—all about beastly subjects. And pictures. He says that Ronald Morelle is bad. The worst man he has ever met. He wasn't condemning him, you understand. In fact, he was admiring him. Moropulos would."
Christina was plucking at her underlip pensively.
"Poor Evie!" she said. "She thinks she is in love with him. He is a beautiful dream to her, naturally, because she has never met anybody like him. I wish he had made the mistake of thinking she was easy, the first time he met her. That would have ended it. What I am afraid of, is that he does understand her, and is wearing down her resistance gradually. What am I to do, Ambrose?"
Years before, when he was working in a penal settlement, Ambrose Sault had bruised and cut his chin. He had been working in tapioca fields, and the prison doctor had warned him not to touch the healing wound with his hand for fear of poisoning it. From this warning he had acquired a curious trick. In moments of doubt he rubbed his chin with the knuckle of a finger. Christina had often seen him do this and had found in the gesture sure evidence of his perplexity.
"You can't advise me?" she said, reading the sign, "I didn't think you would be able to."
"I can go to Morelle and warn him," suggested Sault, "but that means trouble—here. I don't want to make mischief."
She nodded. "Evie would never forgive us," she said with a sigh. "I'm ready, Ambrose."
He stooped and lifted her from the bed, as though, as she once described it, she were of no greater weight than a pillow.
* * * * *
Mr. Jan Steppe was dressing for dinner when Sault was announced. "Tell him to wait—no, send him up."
"Here, sir?" asked the valet.
"Where else, you fool, huh?"
Sault came into the dressing-room and waited until his employer had fixed a refractory collar.
"Don't wait, you." The valet retired discreetly.
"Well, Sault, what do you want?"
"The daughter of the woman I lodge with knows Morelle," said Ambrose Sault briefly. "She's a pretty child and I don't want anything to happen to her that will necessitate my taking Morelle and breaking his neck."
Steppe looked round with a scowl. "'Necessitate'? You talk like a damned professor. I'm not Morelle's keeper. It is enough trouble to keep him up to the scratch in other matters. As to breaking his neck, I've got something to say to that, Sault, huh?" He faced the visitor, a terrifying figure, his attitude a threat and a challenge.
"You might have to identify him," said Sault thoughtfully, "that is true."
Steppe's face went red. "Now see here, Sault. I've never had a fight with you and I don't want to, huh? You're the only one of the bunch that is worth ten cents as a man, but I'll allow nobody to dictate to me—nobody, whether he is a girl-chasing dude or an escaped convict. Get that right! I've smashed bigger men and stronger men than you, by God!"
"You'll not smash me," said Sault coolly, "and you needn't smash Morelle. I'm telling you that I won't have that girl hurt. A word from you will send Morelle crawling at her feet. I don't know him, but I know of him. He's that kind."
Steppe glared. "You're telling me, are you?" he breathed. "You think you've got me because you're indispensable now that you know about the safe. But I'll have another safe and another word. D'ye hear? I'll show you that no damned lag can bully me!"
The other smiled. "You know that the code is safe with me. That's my way. I would break Morelle or you for the matter of that—kill you with my hands before your servant could come—but the code would be with me. You know that, too." He met, had not feared to meet, the fury of Steppe's eyes and presently the big man turned away with a shrug.
"You might," he said, speaking more to himself than to Ambrose Sault. "One of these days I'll try you out. I'm not a weakling and I've beaten every man that stood up to me." He looked round at the visitor and the anger had gone from his face.
"I believe you about the safe. You're the first man or woman I've ever believed in my life. Sounds queer, huh? It is a fact. I'm not frightened of you—nobody knows that better than you." Sault nodded.
"About Morelle—I'll talk to him. What is this girl—you're not in love with her yourself, huh? Can't imagine that. All right, I'll speak to Morelle—a damned cur. Anything more?"
"Nothing," said Ambrose and went out.
Steppe stared at the closed door. "A man," he said and shivered. No other man breathing had caused Steppe to shiver.
He saw Ronnie at a club late that night. "Here, I want you," he jerked his head in the direction of a quiet corner of the smoking room, and Ronnie followed him, expecting compliments, for they had not met since the meeting.
"You've got a parcel of women in tow, huh?" said Steppe.
"I don't quite understand—" began Ronnie.
"You understand all right. One of them is a friend of Sault's—Colebrook, I think her name must be. Go steady. She is a friend of Sault's. He says he'll break your neck if you monkey around there, do you get that, huh? Sault says so. He'll do it."
Ronnie did not know Ambrose Sault any better than Ambrose knew him. The threat did not sound very dreadful and he smiled.
"You can grin; maybe I'll see the same grin when I come to look at you on the mortuary slab. Sault is a hell of a bad man to cross. He has had his kill once and that will make the second seem like blowing bubbles. That's all."
Ronnie was annoyed, but not greatly impressed. He only knew Sault as a sort of superior workman, who did the dirty work of the confederacy. Sometimes he used to wonder how Steppe employed him, but then he also speculated upon the exact standing of Moropulos whose name never appeared on a prospectus and who had, apparently, no particular duties.
Threats did not greatly distress Ronnie Morelle. He had been threatened so often; and it was his experience that the worst was over when the threat came. He was free of the park now. Walking down Regent Street, one Saturday afternoon, he had come face to face with The Girl Who Had Screamed. She was with a tall, broad-shouldered young man and she had recognized him. After he had passed them, Ronnie, from the tail of his eye, saw the couple stop and the girl point after him. The man looked as though he were going to follow, but The Girl Who Screamed caught his arm. And that was the end of it.
The man might hate him, but would not make a fuss. The offense was comparatively old, and men did not pursue other people's stale vendettas. The beginning and end of vengeance was a threatening gesture. He knew just what that broad-shouldered man was saying, and thinking. He was a scoundrel, he deserved flogging. If he had been on hand when the girl squealed, he would have torn the heart out of the offender. But he wasn't there; and the girl had shown both her purity and her intelligence by preferring his gentle courtship to the violent love-making of Ronnie Morelle. In a sense the incident was subtly flattering to the broad-shouldered young man.
Ronnie was not seeing Evie in these days, he was more pleasingly engaged. The new game was infinitely more intriguing, an opponent better armed for the fight and offering a more glorious triumph.
But Steppe's warning piqued him. Sault! His lips curled in derision. That nigger! That half-caste jail-bird!
He wrote to Evie that night making an appointment.
"You don't know how happy I was when I found your letter at the store this morning. The manager doesn't like girls to get letters, he is an awful fossil, but he's rather keen on me. I told him your letters were from an uncle who isn't friends with mother."
"What a darling little liar you are!" said Ronnie amused. "My dear, I've missed you terribly. I shall have to give up my writing, if it is going to keep me from my girl."
She snuggled closer to his side as they walked slowly through the gloom to her favorite spot. She did not tell him how she had sat there every evening, braving the importunities of those less attractive ghouls who haunt the park in the hours of dusk.
"There have been times," said Ronnie when they had found chairs and drawn them to the shadow of a big elm, "when I felt that I could write no more unless I saw you for a moment. But I set my teeth and worked. I pretend sometimes that you are sitting on the other side of the table and I look up and talk to you."
"You are like Christina," said the delighted girl, "she makes up things like that. Would you have liked to see me really walk into the room and sit down opposite to you?"
He held her more tightly. "Nine-tenths of my troubles would vanish," he said fervently, "and I could work—by heaven, how I should work if I had the inspiration of your company! I wish you weren't such a dear little puritan. I'm half inclined to engage a housekeeper if only to chaperon you."
He waited for a rejoinder, but it did not come.
"You have such queer ideas about how people should behave," he said. "In fact you are awfully old-fashioned, darling."
"Am I—I suppose I am."
"Why, the modern girl goes everywhere, bachelor parties and dances—chaperons are about as much out of date as the dodo."
"What is a dodo?"
"A bird—a sort of duck."
She gurgled with laughter. "You funny boy—"
"You know Sault, don't you? Isn't he a great friend of yours?"
She struggled up out of his arms. "Friend! Of course not. He is a great friend of Christina's but not of mine. He is so old and funny-looking. He has gray hair and he is quite dark—when I say dark, I mean he is not a negro, but—well, dark."
"I understand. Not a friend of yours?"
"Of course not. There are times when I can't stand him! He doesn't read or write, did you know that? Of course you do—and he has been in prison, you told me that, too. If mother knew she would have a fit. Why do you talk about him, Ronnie?"
"I've no special reason, only—"
"Only what, has he been talking about me?"
"Not to me, of course—he told a friend of mine that he didn't like you to know me. It was a surprise to me that he was aware we were friends. Did you tell him?"
"Me—I? Of course not. I never heard of such nerve! How dare he!"
"S-sh—don't get angry, darling. I'm sure he meant well. You have to do something for me, Evie dear."
"Talking about me—!"
"What is the use?" He bent his head and kissed her. "It will be easy for you to say that you've only met me once or twice—and that you are not seeing me any more."
"But you—youwillsee me, Ronnie?"
"Surely. You don't suppose that anything in the world will ever come between us, do you? Not fifty Saults."
"It is Christina!" she said. "How mean of her to discuss me with Sault! And I've done so much for her; brought her books from the store and given her little things—I do think it is deceitful of her."
"Will you do as I ask?"
"Of course, Ronnie darling. I'll tell her that I've given you up. But she is terribly sharp and I must be careful. I sleep in the same room, ours is a very small house. I used to have a room of my own until Sault came—the horrid old man. He is in love with Christina. It does seem ridiculous, doesn't it, a man like that? Christina says she isn't, but really—she is so deceitful."
"Will you tell her what I suggest?" he insisted.
"Yes—I'll tell her. As for Mr. Sault—"
"Leave me to deal with Mr. Sault," said Ronnie grandly.
Evie reached home, her little brain charged with conflicting emotions. Her relief at meeting the man again, the happiness that meeting had brought, her resentment at Sault's unwarranted interference, her hurt from Christina's supposed duplicity and breach of confidence, each contended for domination and each in turn triumphed.
"I have given up Ronnie and I am not going to meet him again," she said as she entered the room.
She was without finesse and Christina, instantly alert, was not impressed. "This is very sudden. What has happened?"
"I've given him up!" Evie slammed her hat down on a rickety dressing-table. She had no intention of letting the matter rest there. Her annoyance with Sault must be expressed.
"If a girl cannot have a friendship without her own sister and her sister's beastly friends making up all sorts of beastly stories about her and breaking their sacred word, too, by telling beastly people about their private affairs, then she'd better give up having friendships," she said a trifle incoherently.
"I want to sort that out," said Christina, frowning, "the only thing I'm perfectly sure about is that somebody is beastly. Do you mean that people have been talking about you and your—Ronnie?"
Evie glowered at her. "You know—you know!" she blurted tremulously. "You and Sault between you, trying to interfere in my—interfering in my affairs."
"Oh," said Christina, "is that all?"
"Is that all! Don't you think it enough, parting Ronnie and I? Breaking my heart, that is what you're doing!" she wailed. "I'll never speak to Sault again. The old murderer—that's what he is, a murderer! I'm going to tell mother and have him chucked out of the house. We're not safe. Some night he'll come along with a knife and cut our throats. A nigger murderer," she screamed. "He may be good enough to be your fancy man, but he's not good enough for me!"
"Open the window and tell the street all about it," suggested Christina. "You'll get an audience in no time. Go along! Open the window! They would love to hear. Every woman in this street screams her trouble sooner or later. The woman across the road was shouting 'murder' all last night. Be fashionable, Evie. Ronnie would love to know that you made a hit in Walter Street."
Evie was weeping now. "You're horrible and vulgar, and I wish I was dead! You've—you've parted Ronnie and I—you and Sault!"
"I don't think so," said Christina quietly, "my impression is that you are saying what Ronnie told you to say."
"I swear—" began Evie.
"Don't swear, Evie, screech. It is more convincing. Ronnie told you to say that you had given him up. What did Ambrose Sault do?"
"He went to a friend of Ronnie's with a lot of lies—about me and Ronnie. And you must have told him, Christina. It was mean, mean, mean of you!"
"He didn't want telling. He heard you the other night when you were having hysterics and yelling 'Oh, Ronnie, Ronnie!' at the top of your voice. You did everything except give Ronnie's address and telephone number. Apart from that I did tell him. I wanted to know the kind of man you're raving about. And your Ronnie is just dirt."
"Don't dare to say that—don't dare!"
"If mother didn't sleep like a dormouse she'd hear you—some people think they can make black white if they shout 'black' loudly enough. Ronald Morelle has a bad reputation with girls. I don't care if you foam at the mouth, Evie, I'm going to say it. He is a blackguard!"
"Sault told you! Sault told you!" Evie's voice had a shrill thin edge to it. "I know he did—a murderer—a nigger murderer, that is what he is. Not fit to live under the same roof as me—I shall tell Ronnie what he said—I'll tell him tomorrow, and then you'll see!"
"As you are permanently parted, I don't see how you will have an opportunity of telling him," said Christina. "I could have told him myself, today, I saw him."
"Saw him, how?" Evie was surprised into interest.
"With my eyes. Mr. Sault took me into Kensington Gardens and I saw him—he pointed him out to me."
Evie smiled contemptuously. "That is where you and your damned Sault were wrong," she said in triumph. "Ronnie has been working in his flat all the afternoon! He was writing an article forThe Statesman!"
"He didn't seem to be working very hard when I saw him," said Christina unmoved, "unless he was dictating his article to Miss Merville. They were driving together. Mr. Sault said: 'There is Morelle'—"
"He should have said 'Mister'."
"And I saw him. He is good-looking; the best looking man I have ever seen."
"It wasn't Ronnie—I don't mean that Ronnie isn't good looking. He's lovely. But it couldn't have been him. Besides, he hates that Merville girl, at least he doesn't like her. You are only saying this to make me jealous. How was he dressed?"
"So far as I could see, he wore a long-tailed coat—he certainly had a top hat. Mr. Sault said that he thought he had been to Lady Somebody-or-other's garden party. Mr. Steppe was going, but couldn't get away."
"Now I know it wasn't Ronnie! He was wearing a blue suit—no, he hadn't changed his clothes. He told me he didn't dress until an hour before he met me. Sault is a—he must have been mistaken."
Before she went to bed she came over to say "good night."
"I'm sorry I lost my temper, Chris."
"My dear, if you lose nothing else, I shall be happy."
"I hate your insinuations, Christina! Some day you will find out what a splendid man Ronnie is—and then you'll be surprised."
"I shall," admitted Christina, and later, when Evie was dropping into sleep, "Who did Ambrose kill?"
"Eh—? I don't know. Somebody in Paris—" Another long silence.
"He must have been a terrible villain!"
"Who, Sault?"
"No, the man he killed," said Christina.
She lay awake for a long time. It was two o'clock when she heard his key in the lock. She raised her head, listening to the creaking of the stairs as he came up. He had to pass her room and she whispered: "Good night, Ambrose!"
"Good night, Christina."
She blew a kiss at the door.
Mr. Steppe, with a gardenia in his buttonhole, leaned out of the window of his car and waved his yellow glove in greeting and Beryl, who was just about to enter her own machine, stepped back upon the sidewalk and waited. She felt a little twinge of impatience, for she was on her way to the Horse Show and Ronald.
"Is the doctor in—good! He can wait—where are you off to, Beryl, huh? Looking perfectly lovely too. I often wonder what those old back-veld relations of mine would say if they ever saw a girl like you. Their women are just trek-oxen—mustn't say 'cows,' huh? Are you in a great hurry?"
"Not a great hurry," she smiled, "but I think father is expecting you."
"I know. But he'll not be worried if I'm late. Drive me somewhere. I want to talk."
She jumped at the opportunity of placing a time-limit on the conversation.
"Drive to Regents Park, round the inner circle and back to the house," she ordered, and Mr. Steppe handed her into the car.
"I want to have a little chat about your father," he said, greatly to her surprise. He had never before spoken more than two consecutive sentences in reference to Dr. Merville.
"What I tell you, Beryl, is in confidence," he said. "I'm not sure whether I ought to tell you at all, but you're a sensible girl, huh? No nonsense. That is how a woman should be. The doctor has lost a lot of money—you know that?"
"I didn't know," she answered in alarm, "but I thought father confined his investments to your companies?"
"Yes—so he has. He has taken up a lot of shares—against my advice. He is carrying—well I wouldn't like to tell you the figure. He bought them—against my advice. Most of my stock is only partly paid up. He is carrying nearly a million shares in one concern or another. That is all right. You can carry millions, always providing there is a market, and that you can sell at a profit, or else that there isn't any need to call up the remainder of the capital. That need has arisen in the case of two companies in which he is heavily involved. Now, Beryl, you are not to say a word about what I have told you."
"But—I don't quite follow what you have said. Does it mean that father will be called upon to pay large sums of money?" He nodded.
"Or else—?"
"There is no 'or else'," said Steppe. "The capital has to be called in, in justice to the shareholders and the doctor must pay. Somebody must pay. In fact, I am going to pay. That was the reason I was calling on him today."
"He has been very worried lately," said Beryl in a troubled tone. "I don't know how to thank you, Mr. Steppe. Is it a big sum?"
"It runs to hundreds of thousands," said Steppe. "Very few can lay their hands on that amount, huh? Jan Steppe! They know me in the city, hate me, would slaughter me, but they don't despise me. I can sign cheques for a million and they'd be honored."
"But father must make some arrangement to pay you, Mr. Steppe—" she began.
"That is nothing. The shares may rise in value—there is no telling what may happen with the market in an optimistic mood. But I thought I would let you know. Steppe isn't a bad fellow, huh?"
She heaved a long sigh. "No—you are kind, most kind. I wish father wouldn't touch the stock market. Temperamentally, he is unfitted for a gambler. He is so easily depressed. Can't you persuade him, Mr. Steppe?"
"If you say the word, I'll stop him," said Steppe. "There is nothing I wouldn't do for you, Beryl." She was silent.
"I'm grateful," she said, as the car was heading for the house. "I cannot put myself under any bigger obligation—father must do as he wishes. But if you could help him with advice—?"
It occurred to her then, that if he could, at a word, arrest the speculative tendencies of Dr. Merville, why had he contented himself with "advice" when her father had made his disastrous investments?
Saying good-bye to him at the door of the house, Beryl drove on to Olympia a disturbed and anxious girl. Steppe watched the car out of sight before he mounted the steps and rang the bell.
"You saw us, huh? Yes, I wanted to talk to Beryl and I knew that you wouldn't mind waiting. I've got to call up the unpaid capital of Brakpan Mines and Toledo Deeps."
The doctor moved uneasily. "Couldn't you wait a little while?" he asked nervously. "The shares are moving. They went up a fraction yesterday—which means that there are buyers."
"I was the buyer," said Steppe. "I took a feeler at the market. I bought five hundred—and I could have had five hundred thousand at the price. They were falling over one another to sell. No, I'm afraid I've got to make a call and you'll have to take up your shares, huh? Well, I'm going to let you have the money."
"That is good of you—"
"Not at all. I must keep your name sweet and clean, Merville. I am going to marry Beryl."
The doctor opened a silver box and took out a cigar with a shaking hand. "Beryl is a very dear girl," he said. "Have you spoken to her?"
"No, there is plenty of time. I don't want to scare her—let her get used to me, Merville, huh? That's that. You are crossing with me tonight, huh? Good, I hate the Havre route, but you can sleep on board and that saves time. Abrahams is coming from Vienna with the Bulgarian concession. I'm inclined to float it."
Ronnie was waiting in the main entrance when the girl arrived. In some respects he was a model escort. He never expected a woman to be punctual and had trained himself in the art of patient waiting.
"No, really, I haven't been here very long," he replied to her apology, "and you, of all women, are worth waiting for."
"You are a dear. I don't believe you, but still you are a dear. I'm so sick of life today, Ronnie—don't ask me why. Amuse me."
"How is the doctor?" he queried, as they were shown into their seats.
"He is going to Paris tonight with Mr. Steppe," she said. "I'm rather glad. Two or three days abroad will do him a lot of good. There aren't many people here this afternoon, Ronnie."
"Most of the swells are at Ascot," he explained, "the night seance is crowded. Gone to Paris, eh?" The news made him thoughtful.
She drove him back to the house to tea. Dr. Merville was out and was not returning to dinner. The maid said he had left a letter in his study. Beryl found it to be a note saying he was unlikely to see her before he went; his bag would be called for, he added.
"My hard-hearted parent has gone without saying good-bye," she said. "Take me out to dinner, Ronnie. After, I would like to see a revue. I feel un-intellectual today; I'm in the mood when I want to see people with red noses and baggy trousers. And I want to be in a box. I love boxes, since—"
Ronald Morelle walked home from Park Crescent stopping at a messenger office to scribble a note.
"It is at a drug store in Knightsbridge," he said. "I want the boy to give it to the young lady in the pay desk. Perhaps he had better make a purchase—a cake of soap, if that is the boy," he smiled upon the diminutive messenger, "and let him hand the letter to the lady when he puts in his bill."
He came to the flat to find François laying out his dress-clothes.
"Finish what you are doing and go home. I shall not want you this evening," he said. "Stay—have a bottle put on ice. You can lay the small table. You might have bought some flowers. I hate flowers, but—get some. You can throw them away tomorrow."
"Yes, m'sieur," said his imperturbable man, "for how many shall I lay supper?"
"For three," answered Ronnie.
It was a convention that he invariably entertained two guests, but François had never had to wash more than two used glasses.
Beryl was still in the drawing-room and the tea table had not been cleared when Ambrose Sault came for the doctor's bag. She heard the sound of his voice in the hall and came to the head of the stairs.
"Is that you, Mr. Sault? Won't you come up for a moment?"
The doctor had telephoned to Moropulos, he explained, asking him to take the grip to his club. She gathered that it was usual for Ambrose to carry out these little commissions.
"How is Miss Colebrook?—has she forgiven me for acting the part of district visitor? She is a nice girl and her hair is such a wonderful color."
"The osteopath says she will get well," replied Ambrose simply, "and when I went in to see her this morning she told me she really thought that she felt better already. She has the heart of a lion, Miss Merville."
"She is certainly brave." Beryl knew she was a brute because she could not work up an enthusiastic interest in Christina Colebrook.
"It will be wonderful if she is cured." Sault's voice was hushed. "I daren't let myself think about it—in fact, I shall be more bitterly disappointed than she, if the treatment does not succeed."
"You are very fond of her?" She had been examining his face as he spoke, wondering what there was in him that she had seen at their first meeting which reminded her of Ronnie. There was not a vestige of likeness between them. This man's face, for all its strength, was coarse; the eyes were the only fine features it possessed. And the skin—there was a yellow-brown tinge in it. She remembered her father saying once that people who had negro blood in their veins betrayed their origin even though they were quite white, by a dark half-moon on their finger-nails. Whilst he was speaking, he moved his hands so that his nails were discernible. They were ugly nails, broad and ragged of edge—yes, there it was—a brown crescent showing against the deep pink.
"Yes, I'm fond of her. She is lovable. I haven't met anybody like Christina before."
Why was she annoyed? Perhaps "annoyed" hardly described her emotion. She was disappointed in him. Her attitude toward Sault was enigmatical—it was certainly capricious. She was a little nauseated and was glad when he went.
Sault carried the suitcase to the club and left it with a porter. He wished he had an excuse for calling every day at the house—the sight of her exalted him, raised him instantly to a higher plane.
He saw Evie walking home in front of him; she saw him, stopped and became interested in a shop window. She always avoided him in the street and would not dream of walking with him. In the kitchen, to which she followed him, she condescended to speak.
"You were looking very pleased with yourself when I saw you in High Street, Mr. Sault," she said.
"Was I—yes, I was feeling good. You're home early tonight, Evie."
Mrs. Colebrook had a washing day and was at her labors in the scullery, and Evie could flare up without reproof.
"I'm so glad you notice when I come in, and go out!" she said. "It is nice to know that all your movements are watched. I suppose I ought to ask your permission when I stay out late? We always like to please the lodger!"
He looked down into the pretty flushed face and smiled gently. "I believe you are trying to be cross with me, Evie," he said good-naturedly, "and I don't feel like being cross with anybody. My dear, it is no business of mine—"
"Don't call me 'my dear', if you please! You have a nerve to 'my dear' me! A man like you!"
Sault's knuckle touched his chin awkwardly. "I didn't mean to be offensive—"
"Youareoffensive! You are the most beastly offensive person I know! You go prying and spying into my business and telling lies about gentlemen whose boots you're not fit to blacken."
"Hello, hello!" Mrs. Colebrook stood in the kitchen doorway, wiping her soapy hands on her apron. "What's this, Evie? Telling lies about you? Mr. Sault would not tell a lie to save his life. What gentleman? He'd have to be a pretty good gentleman for Mr. Sault to blacken his boots."
Evie wilted before her mother's fiery gaze and, turning, slammed from the room.
"It is nothing, Mrs. Colebrook," smiled Ambrose. "I made her angry—something I said. It was my fault entirely. Now what about those blankets?"
"You're not going to wash any blankets," said Mrs. Colebrook, "and Evie has got to say she is sorry."
"I washed blankets before you were born, Mrs. Colebrook, or soon after, at any rate. I promised you I'd come home and help you."
He went with her to the little scullery with its copper and wash tub, she protesting.
"I didn't think you meant it," she said, "and I can't let you do it. You go into the kitchen and I'll make you a cup of tea."
"Blankets," said Ambrose, rolling up his sleeves.
Evie burst into her room, red with anger. She hated Sault more than ever. She said so, flinging her hat wildly on the bed.
"Oh—was that you who was strafing?" asked Christina.
"I gave him a piece of my mind," said Evie with satisfaction.
"That was generous, considering the size of it." Christina bent outward and laid down the paper and stylograph she had been using.
"I couldn't have done that a few days ago," she said, "and what has poor Ambrose done?"
"He had the cheek to tell me I was home very early, as if he was the lord of the house!"
"Aren't you home early?"
"It is no business of his, the interfering old devil!"
Christina eyed her critically. "You came home in a bad temper," she said. "I suppose giving up Ronnie has got on your nerves."