IIIUnder the stars the dancing section of the Beau-Site went off in jingling sleighs over the snow to the ball at the Métropole. The distance was not great, but it was great enough to show the inadequacy of furs against twenty degrees of mountain frost, and it was also great enough to allow the party to come to a general final understanding that its demeanour must be cold and critical in the gilded halls of the Métropole. The rumour ran that Captain Deverax had arrived, and every one agreed that he must be an insufferable booby, except the Countess Ruhl, who never used her fluent exotic English to say ill of anybody.The gilded halls of the Métropole certainly were imposing. The hotel was incontestably larger than the Beau-Site, newer, more richly furnished. Its occupants, too, had a lordly way with them, trying to others, but inimitable. Hence the visitors from the Beau-Site, as they moved to and fro beneath those crystal chandeliers from Tottenham Court Road, had their work cut out to maintain the mien of haughty indifference. Nellie, for instance, frankly could not do it. And Denry did not do it very well.Denry nevertheless did score one point over Mrs. Clutterbuck's fussy cousin."Captain Deverax has come," said this latter. "He was very late. He 'll be downstairs in a few minutes. We shall get him to lead the cotillon.""Captain Deverax?" Denry questioned."Yes. You 've heard us mention him," said the cousin, affronted."Possibly," said Denry. "I don't remember."On hearing this brief colloquy the cohorts of the Beau-Site felt that in Denry they possessed the making of a champion.There was a disturbing surprise, however, waiting for Denry.The lift descended, and with a peculiar double action of his arms on the doors, like a pantomime fairy emerging from an enchanted castle, a tall, thin man stepped elegantly out of the lift and approached the company with a certain mincingness. But before he could reach the company several young women had rushed towards him, as though with the intention of committing suicide by hanging themselves from his neck. He was in an evening suit so perfect in detail that it might have sustained comparison with the costume of the head waiter. And he wore an eyeglass in his left eye. It was the eyeglass that made Denry jump. For two seconds he dismissed the notion. But another two seconds of examination showed beyond doubt that this eyeglass was the eyeglass of the train. And Denry had apprehensions."Captain Deverax!" exclaimed several voices.The manner in which the youthful and the mature fair clustered around this Captain aged forty (and not handsome) was really extraordinary—to the males of the Hotel Beau-Site. Even the little Russian Countess attached herself to him at once. And by reason of her title, her social energy, and her personal distinction, she took natural precedence of the others."Recognise him?" Denry whispered to his wife.Nellie nodded. "He seems rather nice," she said diffidently."Nice!" Denry repeated the adjective. "The man 's an ass."And the majority of the Beau-Site party agreed with Denry's verdict either by word or gesture.Captain Deverax stared fixedly at Denry; then smiled vaguely and drawled, "Hullo! How d' do?"And they shook hands."So you know him?" some one murmured to Denry."Know him? ... Since infancy."The inquirer scented facetiousness, but he was somehow impressed. The remarkable thing was that though he regarded Captain Deverax as a popinjay, Denry could not help feeling a certain slight satisfaction in the fact that they were in some sort acquaintances. Mystery of the human heart. He wished sincerely that he had not, in his conversation with the Captain in the train, talked about previous visits to Switzerland. It was dangerous.The dance achieved that brightness and joviality which entitle a dance to call itself a success. The cotillon reached brilliance, owing to the captaincy of Captain Deverax. Several score opprobrious epithets were applied to the Captain in the course of the night, but it was agreednemine contradicentethat, whatever he would have done in front of a Light Brigade at Balaclava, as a leader of cotillons he was terrific. Many men, however, seemed to argue that if a man who was a man led a cotillon he ought not to lead it too well, on pain of being considered a coxcomb.At the close, during the hot soup, the worst happened. Denry had known that it would.Captain Deverax was talking to Nellie, who was respectfully listening, about the scenery, when the Countess came up, plate in hand."No! No!" the Countess protested. "As for me, I hate your mountains. I was born in the steppe where it is all level—level! Your mountains close me in. I am only here by order of my doctor. Your mountains get on my nerves." She shrugged her shoulders.Captain Deverax smiled."It is the same with you, isn't it?" he said, turning to Nellie."Oh! no!" said Nellie simply."But your husband told me the other day that when you and he were in Geneva a couple of years ago, the view of Mont Blanc used to—er—upset you.""View of Mont Blanc?" Nellie stammered.Everybody was aware that she and Denry had never been in Switzerland before, and that their marriage was indeed less than a month old."You misunderstood me," said Denry gruffly. "My wife has n't been to Geneva.""Oh!" drawled Captain Deverax.His "Oh!" contained so much of insinuation, disdain, and lofty amusement that Denry blushed, and when Nellie saw her husband's cheek she blushed in competition and defeated him easily. It was felt that either Denry had been romancing to the Captain or that he had been married before, unknown to his Nellie, and had been "carrying on" at Geneva. The situation, though it dissolved of itself in a brief space, was awkward. It discredited the Hotel Beau-Site. It was in the nature of a repulse for the Hotel Beau-Site (franc a day cheaper than the Métropole) and of a triumph for the popinjay.The fault was utterly Denry's. Yet he said to himself:"I 'll be even with that chap."On the drive home he was silent. The theme of conversation in the sleighs which did not contain the Countess was that the Captain had flirted tremendously with the Countess and that it amounted to an affair.IVCaptain Deverax was equally salient in the department of sports. There was a fair sheet of ice, obtained by cutting into the side of the mountain, and a very good tobogganing track, about half a mile in length and full of fine curves, common to the two hotels. Denry's predilection was for the track. He would lie on his stomach on the little contrivance which the Swiss call a "luge" and which consists of naught but three bits of wood and two steel-clad runners, and would course down the perilous curves at twenty miles an hour. Until the Captain came this was regarded as dashing, because most people were content to sit on the luge and travel legs foremost instead of head foremost. But the Captain, after a few eights on the ice, intimated that for the rest no sport was true sport save the sport of ski-running. He allowed it to be understood that luges were for infants. He had brought his skis, and these instruments of locomotion, some six feet in length, made a sensation among the inexperienced. For when he had strapped them to his feet the Captain, while stating candidly that his skill was as nothing to that of the Swedish professionals at St. Moritz, could assuredly slide over snow in a manner prodigious and beautiful. And he was exquisitely clothed for the part. His knickerbockers, in the elegance of their lines, were the delight of beholders. Ski-ing became the rage. Even Nellie insisted on hiring a pair. And the pronunciation of the word "ski" aroused long discussions and was never definitely settled by anybody. The Captain said "skee," but he did not object to "shee," which was said to be the more strictly correct by a lady who knew some one who had been to Norway. People with no shame and no feeling for correctness said, brazenly, "sky." Denry, whom nothing could induce to desert his luge, said that obviously "s-k-i" could only spell "planks." And thanks to his inspiration this version was adopted by the majority.On the second day of Nellie's struggle with her skis she had more success than she either anticipated or desired. She had been making experiments at the summit of the track, slithering about, falling and being restored to uprightness by as many persons as happened to be near. Skis seemed to her to be the most ungovernable and least practical means of travel that the madness of man had ever concocted. Skates were well-behaved old horses compared to these long, untamed fiends, and a luge was like a tricycle. Then suddenly a friendly starting push drove her a yard or two, and she glided past the level on to the first imperceptible slope of the track. By some hazard her two planks were exactly parallel, as they ought to be, and she glided forward miraculously. And people heard her say:"How lovely!"And then people heard her say:"Oh! ... Oh!"For her pace was increasing. And she dared not strike her pole into the ground. She had, in fact, no control whatever over those two planks to which her feet were strapped. She might have been Mazeppa and they, mustangs. She could not even fall. So she fled down the preliminary straight of the track, and ecstatic spectators cried: "Look howwellMrs. Machin is doing!"Mrs. Machin would have given all her furs to be anywhere off those planks. On the adjacent fields of glittering snow the Captain had been giving his adored Countess a lesson in the use of skis; and they stood together, the Countess somewhat insecure, by the side of the track at its first curve.Nellie, dumb with excitement and amazement, swept towards them."Look out!" cried the Captain.In vain! He himself might perhaps have escaped, but he could not abandon his Countess in the moment of peril, and the Countess could only move after much thought and many efforts, being scarce more advanced than Nellie. Nellie's wilful planks quite ignored the curve, and, as it were afloat on them, she charged off the track, and into the Captain and the Countess. The impact was tremendous. Six skis waved like semaphores in the air. Then all was still. Then, as the beholders hastened to the scene of the disaster, the Countess laughed and Nellie laughed. The laugh of the Captain was not heard. The sole casualty was a wound about a foot long in the hinterland of the Captain's unique knickerbockers. And as threads of that beautiful check pattern were afterwards found attached to the wheel of Nellie's pole, the cause of the wound was indisputable. The Captain departed home chiefly backwards, but with great rapidity.In the afternoon Denry went down to Montreux and returned with an opal bracelet, which Nellie wore at dinner."Oh! What a ripping bracelet!" said a girl."Yes," said Nellie. "My husband gave it me only to-day.""I suppose it's your birthday or something," the inquisitive girl ventured."No," said Nellie."How nice of him!" said the girl.The next day Captain Deverax appeared in riding breeches. They were not correct for ski-running, but they were the best he could do. He visited a tailor's in Montreux.VThe Countess Ruhl had a large sleigh of her own, also a horse; both were hired from Montreux. In this vehicle, sometimes alone, sometimes with a male servant, she would drive at Russian speed over the undulating mountain roads; and for such expeditions she always wore a large red cloak with a hood. Often she was thus seen, in the afternoon; the scarlet made a bright moving patch on the vast expanses of snow. Once, at some distance from the village, two tale-tellers observed a man on skis careering in the neighbourhood of the sleigh. It was Captain Deverax. The flirtation, therefore, was growing warmer and warmer. The hotels hummed with the tidings of it. But the Countess never said anything; nor could anything be extracted from her by even the most experienced gossips. She was an agreeable but a mysterious woman, as befitted a Russian Countess. Again and again were she and the Captain seen together afar off in the landscape. Certainly it was a novelty in flirtations. People wondered what might happen between the two at the fancy-dress ball which the Hotel Beau-Site was to give in return for the hospitality of the Hotel Métropole. The ball was offered not in love, but in emulation, almost in hate; for the jealousy displayed by the Beau-Site against the increasing insolence and prosperity of the Métropole had become acute. The airs of the Captain and his lieges, the Clutterbuck party, had reached the limit of the Beau-Site's endurance. The Métropole seemed to take it for granted that the Captain would lead the cotillon at the Beau-Site's ball as he had led it at the Métropole's.And then, on the very afternoon of the ball, the Countess received a telegram—it was said from St. Petersburg—which necessitated her instant departure. And she went, in an hour, down to Montreux by the funicular railway, and was lost to the Beau-Site. This was a blow to the prestige of the Beau-Site. For the Countess was its chief star, and moreover much loved by her fellow guests, despite her curious weakness for the popinjay, and the mystery of her outings with him.In the stables Denry saw the Countess's hired sleigh and horse, and in the sleigh her glowing red cloak. And he had one of his ideas, which he executed, although snow was beginning to fall. In ten minutes he and Nellie were driving forth, and Nellie in the red cloak held the reins. Denry, in a coachman's furs, sat behind. They whirled past the Hotel Métropole. And shortly afterwards, on the wild road towards Attalens, Denry saw a pair of skis scudding as quickly as skis can scud in their rear. It was astonishing how the sleigh, with all the merry jingle of its bells, kept that pair of skis at a distance of about a hundred yards. It seemed to invite the skis to overtake it, and then to regret the invitation and flee further. Up the hills it would crawl, for the skis climbed slowly. Down them it galloped, for the skis slid on the slopes at a dizzy pace. Occasionally a shout came from the skis. And the snow fell thicker and thicker. So for four or five miles. Starlight commenced. Then the road made a huge descending curve round a hollowed meadow, and the horse galloped its best. But the skis, making a straight line down the snow, acquired the speed of an express, and gained on the sleigh one yard in every three. At the bottom, where the curve met the straight line, was a farmhouse and out-buildings and a hedge and a stone wall and other matters. The sleigh arrived at the point first, but only by a trifle. "Mind your toes," Denry muttered to himself, meaning an injunction to the skis, whose toes were three feet long. The skis, through the eddying snow, yelled frantically to the sleigh to give room. The skis shot up into the road, and in swerving aside swerved into a snow-laden hedge, and clean over it into the farmyard, where they stuck themselves up in the air, as skis will when the person to whose feet they are attached is lying prone. The door of the farmhouse opened and a woman appeared.She saw the skis at her doorstep. She heard the sleigh-bells, but the sleigh had already vanished into the dusk."Well, that was a bit of a lark, that was, Countess!" said Denry to Nellie. "That will be something to talk about. We 'd better drive home through Corsier, and quick too! It'll be quite dark soon.""Supposing he's dead?" Nellie breathed, aghast, reining in the horse."Not he!" said Denry. "I saw him beginning to sit up.""But how will he get home?""It looks a very nice farmhouse," said Denry. "I should think he 'd be sorry to leave it."VIWhen Denry entered the dining-room of the Beau-Site, which had been cleared for the ball, his costume drew attention not so much by its splendour or ingenuity as by its peculiarity. He wore a short Chinese-shaped jacket, which his wife had made out of blue linen, and a flat Chinese hat to match, which they had constructed together on a basis of cardboard. But his thighs were enclosed in a pair of absurdly ample riding breeches of an impressive check and cut to a comic exaggeration of the English pattern. He had bought the cloth for these at the tailor's in Montreux. Below them were very tight leggings, also English. In reply to a question as to what or whom he supposed himself to represent he replied:"A Captain of Chinese cavalry, of course."And he put an eyeglass into his left eye and stared about.Now it had been understood that Nellie was to appear as Lady Jane Grey. But she appeared as Little Red Riding Hood, wearing over her frock the forgotten cloak of the Countess Ruhl.Instantly he saw her, Denry hurried towards her, with a movement of the legs and a flourish of the eyeglass in his left hand which powerfully suggested a figure familiar to every member of the company. There was laughter. People saw that the idea was immensely funny and clever, and the laughter ran about like fire. At the same time some persons were not quite sure whether Denry had not lapsed a little from the finest taste in this caricature. And all of them were secretly afraid that the uncomfortable might happen when Captain Deverax arrived.However, Captain Deverax did not arrive. The party from the Métropole came with the news that he had not been seen at the hotel for dinner; it was assumed that he had been to Montreux and missed the funicular back."Our two stars simultaneously eclipsed!" said Denry, as the Clutterbucks (representing all the history of England) stared at him curiously."Why?" exclaimed the Clutterbuck cousin. "Who 's the other?""The Countess," said Denry. "She went this afternoon—three o'clock."And all the Métropole party fell into grief."It's a world of coincidences," said Denry, with emphasis."You don't mean to insinuate," said Mrs. Clutterbuck, with a nervous laugh, "that Captain Deverax has—er—gone after the Countess?""Oh, no!" said Denry with unction. "Such a thought never entered my head.""I think you 're a very strange man, Mr. Machin," retorted Mrs. Clutterbuck, hostile and not a bit reassured. "May one ask what that costume is supposed to be?""A Captain of Chinese cavalry," said Denry, lifting his eyeglass.Nevertheless, the dance was a remarkable success, and little by little even the sternest adherents of absent Captain Deverax deigned to be amused by Denry's Chinese gestures. Also, Denry led the cotillon, and was thereafter greatly applauded by the Beau-Site. The visitors agreed among themselves that, considering that his name was not Deverax, Denry acquitted himself honourably. Later he went to the bureau, and returning, whispered to his wife:"It's all right. He's come back safe.""How do you know?""I 've just telephoned to ask."Denry's subsequent humour was wildly gay. And for some reason which nobody could comprehend he put a sling round his left arm. His efforts to insert the eyeglass into his left eye with his right hand were insistently ludicrous and became a sure source of laughter for all beholders. When the Métropole party were getting into their sleighs to go home—it had ceased snowing—Denry was still trying to insert his eyeglass into his left eye with his right hand, to the universal joy.VIIBut the joy of the night was feeble in comparison with the violent joy of the next morning. Denry was wandering, apparently aimless, between the finish of the tobogganing track and the portals of the Métropole. The snowfall had repaired the defects of the worn track, but it needed to be flattened down by use, and a number of conscientious "lugeurs" were flattening it by frequent descents, which grew faster at each repetition. Other holiday makers were idling about in the sunshine. A page-boy of the Métropole departed in the direction of the Beau-Site with a note in his hand.At length—the hour was nearing eleven—Captain Deverax, languid, put his head out of the Métropole and sniffled the air. Finding the air sufferable, he came forth on to the steps. His left arm was in a sling. He was wearing the new knickerbockers which he had ordered at Montreux, and which were of precisely the same vast check as had ornamented Denry's legs on the previous night."Hullo!" said Denry sympathetically. "What's this?"The Captain needed sympathy."Ski-ing yesterday afternoon," said he, with a little laugh. "Has n't the Countess told any of you?""No," said Denry. "Not a word."The Captain seemed to pause a moment."Yes," said he. "A trifling accident. I was ski-ing with the Countess. That is, I was ski-ing and she was in her sleigh.""Then this is why you did n't turn up at the dance?""Yes," said the Captain."Well," said Denry. "I hope it's not serious. I can tell you one thing, the cotillon was a most fearful frost without you." The Captain seemed grateful.They strolled together towards the track.The first group of people that caught sight of the Captain with his checked legs and his arm in a sling began to smile. Observing this smile, and fancying himself deceived, the Captain attempted to put his eyeglass into his left eye with his right hand, and regularly failed. His efforts towards this feat changed the smiles to enormous laughter."I dare say it's awfully funny," said he. "But what can a fellow do with one arm in a sling?"The laughter was merely intensified. And the group, growing as luge after luge arrived at the end of the track, seemed to give itself up to mirth, to the exclusion of even a proper curiosity about the nature of the Captain's damage. Each fresh attempt to put the eyeglass to his eye was coal on the crackling fire. The Clutterbucks alone seemed glum."What on earth is the joke?" Denry asked primly. "Captain Deverax came to grief late yesterday afternoon, ski-ing with the Countess Ruhl. That's why he did n't turn up last night. By the way, where was it, Captain?""On the mountain, near Attalens," Deverax answered gloomily. "Happily there was a farmhouse near—it was almost dark.""With the Countess?" demanded a young impulsive schoolgirl."You did say the Countess, didn't you?" Denry asked."Why, certainly," said the Captain testily."Well," said the schoolgirl with the nonchalant thoughtless cruelty of youth, "considering that we all saw the Countess off in the funicular at three o'clock I don't see how you could have been ski-ing with her when it was nearly dark." And the child turned up the hill with her luge, leaving her elders to unknot the situation."Oh, yes!" said Denry. "I forgot to tell you that the Countess left yesterday after lunch."At the same moment the page-boy, reappearing, touched his cap and placed a note in the Captain's only free hand."Could n't deliver it, Sir. The Comtesse left early yesterday afternoon."Convicted of imaginary adventure with noble ladies, the Captain made his retreat, muttering, back to the hotel. At lunch Denry related the exact circumstances to a delighted table, and the exact circumstances soon reached the Clutterbuck faction at the Métropole. On the following day the Clutterbuck faction and Captain Deverax (now fully enlightened) left Mont Pridoux for some paradise unknown. If murderous thoughts could kill, Denry would have lain dead. But he survived to go with about half the Beau-Site guests to the funicular station to wish the Clutterbucks a pleasant journey. The Captain might have challenged him to a duel, but a haughty and icy ceremoniousness was deemed the best treatment for Denry. "Never show a wound" must have been the Captain's motto.The Beau-Site had scored effectively. And, now that its rival had lost eleven clients by one single train, it beat the Métropole even in vulgar numbers.Denry had an embryo of a conscience somewhere, and Nellie's was fully developed."Well," said Denry, in reply to Nellie's conscience, "it serves him right for making me look a fool over that Geneva business. And besides, I can't stand uppishness, and I won't. I 'm from the Five Towns, I am."Upon which singular utterance the incident closed.CHAPTER XII. THE SUPREME HONOURIDenry was not as regular in his goings and comings as the generality of business men in the Five Towns; no doubt because he was not by nature a business man at all, but an adventurous spirit who happened to be in a business which was much too good to leave. He was continually, as they say there, "up to something" that caused changes in daily habits. Moreover, the Universal Thrift Club (Limited) was so automatic and self-winding that Denry ran no risks in leaving it often to the care of his highly-drilled staff. Still, he did usually come home to his tea about six o'clock of an evening, like the rest, and like the rest he brought with him a copy of theSignalto glance at during tea.One afternoon in July he arrived thus upon his waiting wife at Machin House, Bleakridge. And she could see that an idea was fermenting in his head. Nellie understood him. One of the most delightful and reassuring things about his married life was Nellie's instinctive comprehension of him. His mother understood him profoundly. But she understood him in a manner sardonic, slightly malicious, and even hostile. Whereas Nellie understood him with her absurd love. According to his mother's attitude, Denry was guilty till he had proved himself innocent. According to Nellie's, he was always right and always clever in what he did, until he himself said that he had been wrong and stupid—and not always then. Nevertheless, his mother was just as ridiculously proud of him as Nellie was; but she would have perished on the scaffold rather than admit that Denry differed in any detail from the common run of sons. Mrs. Machin had departed from Machin House, without waiting to be asked. It was characteristic of her that she had returned to Brougham Street and rented there an out-of-date cottage without a single one of the labour-saving contrivances that distinguished the residence which her son had originally built for her.It was still delicious for Denry to sit down to tea in the dining-room, that miracle of conveniences, opposite the smile of his wife, which told him (a) that he was wonderful, (b) that she was enchanted to be alive, and (c) that he had deserved her particular caressing attentions and would receive them. On the afternoon in July the smile told him (d) that he was possessed by one of his ideas."Extraordinary how she tumbles to things!" he reflected.Nellie's new fox-terrier had come in from the garden through the French window, and eaten part of a muffin, and Denry had eaten a muffin and a half, before Nellie, straightening herself proudly and putting her shoulders back (a gesture of hers), thought fit to murmur:"Well, anything thrilling happened to-day?"Denry opened the green sheet and read:"Sudden death of Alderman Bloor in London. What price that?""Oh!" exclaimed Nellie. "How shocked father will be! They were always rather friendly. By the way, I had a letter from mother this morning. It appears as if Toronto was a sort of paradise. But you can see the old thing prefers Bursley. Father 's had a boil on his neck, just at the edge of his collar. He says it's because he 's too well. What did Mr. Bloor die of?""He was in the fashion," said Denry."How?""Appendicitis, of course. Operation—domino! All over in three days.""Poor man!" Nellie murmured, trying to feel sad for a change, and not succeeding. "And he was to have been mayor in November, was n't he? How disappointing for him!""I expect he 's got something else to think about," said Denry.After a pause Nellie asked suddenly:"Who'll be mayor—now?""Well," said Denry, "his Worship, Councillor Barlow, J. P., will be extremely cross if he is n't.""How horrid!" said Nellie frankly. "And he 's got nobody at all to be mayoress.""Mrs. Prettyman would be mayoress," said Denry. "When there's no wife or daughter, it's always a sister if there is one.""But can you imagine Mrs. Prettyman as mayoress? Why, they say she scrubs her own doorstep—after dark. They ought to make you mayor!""Do you fancy yourself as mayoress?" he inquired."I should be better than Mrs. Prettyman anyhow!""I believe you 'd make an A1 mayoress," said Denry."I should be frightfully nervous," she confidentially admitted."I doubt it," said he.The fact was that since her return to Bursley from the honeymoon Nellie was an altered woman. She had acquired, as it were in a day, to an astonishing extent, what in the Five Towns is called "a nerve.""I should like to try it," said she."One day you 'll have to try it, whether you want to or not.""When will that be?""Don't know. Might be next year but one. Old Barlow 's pretty certain to be chosen for next November. It's looked on as his turn next. I know there's been a good bit of talk about me for the year after Barlow. Of course, Bloor's death will advance everything by a year. But even if I come next after Barlow it 'll be too late.""Too late? Too late for what?""I'll tell you," said Denry. "I wanted to be the youngest mayor that Bursley 's ever had. It was only a kind of notion I had, a long time ago. I 'd given it up, because I knew there was no chance, unless I came before Bloor, which of course I could n't do. Now he 's dead. If I could upset old Barlow's apple-cart I should just be the youngest mayor by the skin of my teeth. Huskinson, the mayor in 1884, was aged thirty-four and six months. I 've looked it all up this afternoon.""How lovely if youcouldbe the youngest mayor!""Yes. I'll tell you how I feel. I feel as though I didn't want to be mayor at all if I can't be the youngest mayor ... you know."She knew."Oh!" she cried. "Do upset Mr. Barlow's apple-cart. He's a horrid old thing. Should I be the youngest mayoress?""Not by chalks!" said he. "Huskinson's sister was only sixteen.""But that's only playing at being mayoress!" Nellie protested. "Anyhow, I do think you might be youngest mayor. Who settles it?""The Council, of course.""Nobody likes Councillor Barlow.""He 'll be still less liked when he 's wound up the Bursley Football Club.""Well, urge him on to wind it up, then. But I don't see what football has got to do with being mayor."She endeavoured to look like a serious politician."You are nothing but a cuckoo," Denry pleasantly informed her. "Football has got to do with everything. And it's been a disastrous mistake in my career that I 've never taken any interest in football. Old Barlow wants no urging on to wind up the Football Club. He's absolutely set on it. He 's lost too much over it. If I could stop him from winding it up, I might...""What?""I dunno."She perceived that his idea was yet vague.IINot very many days afterwards the walls of Bursley sharply called attention, by small blue and red posters (blue and red being the historic colours of the Bursley Football Club), to a public meeting which was to be held in the Town Hall, under the presidency of the Mayor, to consider what steps could be taken to secure the future of the Bursley Football Club.There were two "great" football clubs in the Five Towns—Knype, one of the oldest clubs in England, and Bursley. Both were in the League, though Knype was in the first division while Bursley was only in the second. Both were, in fact, limited companies, engaged as much in the pursuit of dividends as in the practice of the one ancient and glorious sport which appeals to the reason and the heart of England. (Neither ever paid a dividend.) Both employed professionals, who, by a strange chance, were nearly all born in Scotland; and both also employed trainers who before an important match took the teams off to a hydropathic establishment far, far distant from any public-house. (This was called "training.") Now, whereas the Knype Club was struggling along fairly well, the Bursley Club had come to the end of its resources. The great football public had practically deserted it. The explanation, of course, was that Bursley had been losing too many matches. The great football public had no use for anything but victories. It would treat its players like gods—so long as they won. But when they happened to lose, the great football public simply sulked. It did not kick a man that was down; it merely ignored him, well knowing that the man could not get up without help. It cared nothing whatever for fidelity, municipal patriotism, fair play, the chances of war, or dividends on capital. If it could see victories it would pay sixpence, but it would not pay sixpence to assist at defeats.Still, when at a special general meeting of the Bursley Football Club, Limited, held at the registered offices, the Coffee House, Bursley, Councillor Barlow, J. P., chairman of the company since the creation of the League, announced that the directors had reluctantly come to the conclusion that they could not conscientiously embark on the dangerous risks of the approaching season, and that it was the intention of the directors to wind up the Club, in default of adequate public interest—when Bursley read this in theSignal, the town was certainly shocked. Was the famous club, then, to disappear for ever, and the football ground to be sold in plots and the grandstand for firewood? The shock was so severe that the death of Alderman Bloor (none the less a mighty figure in Bursley) passed as a minor event.Hence the advertisement of the meeting in the Town Hall caused joy and hope, and people said to themselves, "Something's bound to be done; the old Club can't go out like that." And everybody grew quite sentimental. And although nothing is supposed to be capable of filling Bursley Town Hall except a political meeting and an old folks' treat, Bursley Town Hall was as near full as made no matter for the football question. Many men had cheerfully sacrificed a game of billiards and a glass of beer in order to attend it.The Mayor, in the chair, was a mild old gentleman who knew nothing whatever about football and had probably never seen a football match; but it was essential that the meeting should have august patronage, and so the Mayor had been trapped and tamed. On the mere fact that he paid an annual subscription to the golf club certain parties built up the legend that he was a true sportsman with the true interests of sport in his soul.He uttered a few phrases such as "the manly game," "old associations," "bound up with the history of England," "splendid fellows," "indomitable pluck," "dogged by misfortune" (indeed, he produced quite an impression on the rude and grim audience), and then he called upon Councillor Barlow to make a statement.Councillor Barlow, on the Mayor's right, was a different kind of man from the Mayor. He was fifty and iron-grey, with whiskers, but no moustache; short, stoutish, raspish.He said nothing about manliness, pluck, history, or auld lang syne.He said he had given his services as chairman to the Football Club for thirteen years; that he had taken up £2000 worth of shares in the company; and that, as at that moment the company's liabilities would exactly absorb its assets, his £2000 was worth exactly nothing. "You may say," he said, "I've lost that £2000 in thirteen years. That is, it's the same as if I 'd been steadily paying three pun' a week out of my own pocket to provide football matches that you chaps would n't take the trouble to go and see. That's the straight of it! What have I got for my pains? Nothing but worries, and these!" (He pointed to his grey hairs.) "And I 'm not alone; there's others; and now I have to come and defend myself at a public meeting. I 'm supposed not to have the best interests of football at heart. Me and my co-directors," he proceeded, with even a rougher raspishness, "have warned the town again and again what would happen if the matches weren't better patronised. And now it's happened, and now it's too late, you want todosomething! You can't! It's too late. There 's only one thing the matter with first-class football in Bursley," he concluded, "and it is n't the players. It's the public—it's yourselves. You 're the most craven lot of tomfools that ever a big football club had to do with. When we lose a match, what do you do? Do you come and encourage us next time? No, you stop away, and leave us fifty or sixty pound out of pocket on a match, just to teach us better! Do you expect us to win every match? Why, Preston North End itself—" here he spoke solemnly, of heroes—"Preston North End itself in its great days did n't win every match—it lost to Accrington. But did the Preston public desert it? No! You—you have n't got the pluck of a louse, nor the faithfulness of a cat. You 've starved your Football Club to death, and now you call a meeting to weep and grumble. And you have the insolence to write letters to theSignalabout bad management, forsooth! If anybody in the hall thinks he can manage this Club better than me and my co-directors have done, I may say that we hold a majority of the shares, and we 'll part with the whole show to any clever person or persons who care to take it off our hands at a bargain price. That's talking."He sat down.Silence fell. Even in the Five Towns a public meeting is seldom bullied as Councillor Barlow had bullied that meeting. It was aghast. Councillor Barlow had never been popular: he had merely been respected; but thenceforward he became even less popular than before."I 'm sure we shall all find Councillor Barlow's heat quite excusable," the Mayor diplomatically began."No heat at all," the councillor interrupted. "Simply cold truth!"A number of speakers followed, and nearly all of them were against the directors. Some, with prodigious memories for every combination of players in every match that had ever been played, sought to prove by detailed instances that Councillor Barlow and his co-directors had persistently and regularly muddled their work during thirteen industrious years. And they defended the insulted public by asserting that no public that respected itself would pay sixpence to watch the wretched football provided by Councillor Barlow. They shouted that the team wanted reconstituting, wanted new blood."Yes!" shouted Councillor Barlow in reply. "And how are you going to get new blood, with transfer fees as high as they are now? You can't get even an average good player for less than £200. Where 's the money to come from? Anybody want to lend a thousand or so on second debentures?"He laughed sneeringly.No one showed a desire to invest in second debentures of the Bursley F.C. Ltd.Still, speakers kept harping on the necessity of new blood in the team, and then others, bolder, harped on the necessity of new blood on the board."Shares on sale!" cried the councillor. "Any buyers? Or," he added, "do you want something for nothing—as usual?"At length a gentleman rose at the back of the hall."I don't pretend to be an expert on football," said he, "though I think it's a great game, but I should like to say a few words as to this question of new blood."The audience craned its neck."Will Mr. Councillor Machin kindly step up to the platform?" the Mayor suggested.And up Denry stepped.The thought in every mind was: "What's he going to do? What's he got up his sleeve—this time?""Three cheers for Machin!" people chanted gaily."Order!" said the Mayor.Denry faced the audience. He was now accustomed to audiences. He said:"If I 'm not mistaken, one of the greatest modern footballers is a native of this town."And scores of voices yelled: "Ay! Callear! Callear! Greatest centre forward in England!""Yes," said Denry. "Callear is the man I mean. Callear left the district, unfortunately for the district, at the age of nineteen, for Liverpool. And it was not till after he left that his astounding abilities were perceived. It is n't too much to say that he made the fortune of Liverpool City. And I believe it is the fact that he scored more goals in three seasons than any other player has ever done in the League. Then, York County, which was in a tight place last year, bought him from Liverpool for a high price, and, as all the world knows, Callear had his leg broken in the first match he played for his new club. That just happened to be the ruin of the York Club, which is now quite suddenly in bankruptcy (which happily we are not) and which is disposing of its players. Gentlemen, I say that Callear ought to come back to his native town. He is fitter than ever he was, and his proper place is in his native town."Loud cheers!"As captain and centre forward of the club of the Mother of the Five Towns he would be an immense acquisition and attraction, and he would lead us to victory."Renewed cheers!"And how," demanded Councillor Barlow jumping up angrily, "are we to get him back to his precious native town? Councillor Machin admits that he is not an expert on football. It will probably be news to him that Aston Villa have offered £700 to York for the transfer of Callear, and Blackburn Rovers have offered £750, and they 're fighting it out between 'em. Any gentleman willing to put down £800 to buy Callear for Bursley?" he sneered. "I don't mind telling you that steam-engines and the King himself couldn't get Callear into our Club.""Quite finished?" Denry inquired, still standing.Laughter, overtopped by Councillor Barlow's snort as he sat down.Denry lifted his voice."Mr. Callear, will you be good enough to step forward and let us all have a look at you?"The effect of these apparently simple words surpassed any effect previously obtained by the most complex flights of oratory in that hall. A young, blushing, clumsy, long-limbed, small-bodied giant stumbled along the central aisle and climbed the steps to the platform, where Denry pointed him to a seat. He was recognised by all the true votaries of the game. And everybody said to everybody: "By Gosh! It's him right enough. It's Callear!" And a vast astonishment and expectation of good fortune filled the hall. Applause burst forth, and though no one knew what the appearance of Callear signified, the applause continued and waxed."Good old Callear!" The hoarse shouts succeeded each other. "Good old Machin!""Anyhow," said Denry, when the storm was stilled, "we 've got him here, without either steam-engines or his Majesty. Will the directors of the club accept him?""And what about the transfer?" Councillor Barlow demanded."Would you accept him and try another season if you could get him free?" Denry retorted.Councillor Barlow always knew his mind, and was never afraid to let other people share that knowledge."Yes," he said."Then I will see that you have the transfer free.""But what about York?""I have settled with York provisionally," said Denry. "That is my affair. I have returned from York to-day. Leave all that to me. This town has had many benefactors far more important than myself. But I shall be able to claim this originality: I 'm the first to make a present of a live man to the town. Gentlemen—Mr. Mayor—I venture to call for three cheers for the greatest centre forward in England, our fellow-townsman."The scene, as theSignalsaid, was unique.And at the Sports Club and the other clubs afterwards men said to each other: "No one but him would have thought of bringing Callear over specially and showing him on the platform.... That's cost him above twopence, that has!"Two days later a letter appeared in theSignal(signed "Fiat Justitia") suggesting that Denry, as some reward for his public spirit, ought to be the next mayor of Bursley, in place of Alderman Bloor deceased. The letter urged that he would make an admirable mayor, the sort of mayor the old town wanted in order to wake it up. And also it pointed out that Denry would be the youngest mayor that Bursley had ever had, and probably the youngest mayor in England that year. The sentiment in the last idea appealed to the town. The town decided that it would positivelyliketo have the youngest mayor it had ever had, and probably the youngest mayor in England that year. TheSignalprinted dozens of letters on the subject. When the Council met, more informally than formally, to choose a chief magistrate in place of the dead alderman, several councillors urged that what Bursley wanted was a young andpopularmayor. And in fine Councillor Barlow was shelved for a year. On the choice being published the entire town said: "Now weshallhave a mayoralty—and don't you forget it!"And Denry said to Nellie:"You 'll be mayoress to the youngest mayor, etc., my child. And it's cost me, including hotel and travelling expenses, eight hundred and eleven pounds six and sevenpence."
III
Under the stars the dancing section of the Beau-Site went off in jingling sleighs over the snow to the ball at the Métropole. The distance was not great, but it was great enough to show the inadequacy of furs against twenty degrees of mountain frost, and it was also great enough to allow the party to come to a general final understanding that its demeanour must be cold and critical in the gilded halls of the Métropole. The rumour ran that Captain Deverax had arrived, and every one agreed that he must be an insufferable booby, except the Countess Ruhl, who never used her fluent exotic English to say ill of anybody.
The gilded halls of the Métropole certainly were imposing. The hotel was incontestably larger than the Beau-Site, newer, more richly furnished. Its occupants, too, had a lordly way with them, trying to others, but inimitable. Hence the visitors from the Beau-Site, as they moved to and fro beneath those crystal chandeliers from Tottenham Court Road, had their work cut out to maintain the mien of haughty indifference. Nellie, for instance, frankly could not do it. And Denry did not do it very well.
Denry nevertheless did score one point over Mrs. Clutterbuck's fussy cousin.
"Captain Deverax has come," said this latter. "He was very late. He 'll be downstairs in a few minutes. We shall get him to lead the cotillon."
"Captain Deverax?" Denry questioned.
"Yes. You 've heard us mention him," said the cousin, affronted.
"Possibly," said Denry. "I don't remember."
On hearing this brief colloquy the cohorts of the Beau-Site felt that in Denry they possessed the making of a champion.
There was a disturbing surprise, however, waiting for Denry.
The lift descended, and with a peculiar double action of his arms on the doors, like a pantomime fairy emerging from an enchanted castle, a tall, thin man stepped elegantly out of the lift and approached the company with a certain mincingness. But before he could reach the company several young women had rushed towards him, as though with the intention of committing suicide by hanging themselves from his neck. He was in an evening suit so perfect in detail that it might have sustained comparison with the costume of the head waiter. And he wore an eyeglass in his left eye. It was the eyeglass that made Denry jump. For two seconds he dismissed the notion. But another two seconds of examination showed beyond doubt that this eyeglass was the eyeglass of the train. And Denry had apprehensions.
"Captain Deverax!" exclaimed several voices.
The manner in which the youthful and the mature fair clustered around this Captain aged forty (and not handsome) was really extraordinary—to the males of the Hotel Beau-Site. Even the little Russian Countess attached herself to him at once. And by reason of her title, her social energy, and her personal distinction, she took natural precedence of the others.
"Recognise him?" Denry whispered to his wife.
Nellie nodded. "He seems rather nice," she said diffidently.
"Nice!" Denry repeated the adjective. "The man 's an ass."
And the majority of the Beau-Site party agreed with Denry's verdict either by word or gesture.
Captain Deverax stared fixedly at Denry; then smiled vaguely and drawled, "Hullo! How d' do?"
And they shook hands.
"So you know him?" some one murmured to Denry.
"Know him? ... Since infancy."
The inquirer scented facetiousness, but he was somehow impressed. The remarkable thing was that though he regarded Captain Deverax as a popinjay, Denry could not help feeling a certain slight satisfaction in the fact that they were in some sort acquaintances. Mystery of the human heart. He wished sincerely that he had not, in his conversation with the Captain in the train, talked about previous visits to Switzerland. It was dangerous.
The dance achieved that brightness and joviality which entitle a dance to call itself a success. The cotillon reached brilliance, owing to the captaincy of Captain Deverax. Several score opprobrious epithets were applied to the Captain in the course of the night, but it was agreednemine contradicentethat, whatever he would have done in front of a Light Brigade at Balaclava, as a leader of cotillons he was terrific. Many men, however, seemed to argue that if a man who was a man led a cotillon he ought not to lead it too well, on pain of being considered a coxcomb.
At the close, during the hot soup, the worst happened. Denry had known that it would.
Captain Deverax was talking to Nellie, who was respectfully listening, about the scenery, when the Countess came up, plate in hand.
"No! No!" the Countess protested. "As for me, I hate your mountains. I was born in the steppe where it is all level—level! Your mountains close me in. I am only here by order of my doctor. Your mountains get on my nerves." She shrugged her shoulders.
Captain Deverax smiled.
"It is the same with you, isn't it?" he said, turning to Nellie.
"Oh! no!" said Nellie simply.
"But your husband told me the other day that when you and he were in Geneva a couple of years ago, the view of Mont Blanc used to—er—upset you."
"View of Mont Blanc?" Nellie stammered.
Everybody was aware that she and Denry had never been in Switzerland before, and that their marriage was indeed less than a month old.
"You misunderstood me," said Denry gruffly. "My wife has n't been to Geneva."
"Oh!" drawled Captain Deverax.
His "Oh!" contained so much of insinuation, disdain, and lofty amusement that Denry blushed, and when Nellie saw her husband's cheek she blushed in competition and defeated him easily. It was felt that either Denry had been romancing to the Captain or that he had been married before, unknown to his Nellie, and had been "carrying on" at Geneva. The situation, though it dissolved of itself in a brief space, was awkward. It discredited the Hotel Beau-Site. It was in the nature of a repulse for the Hotel Beau-Site (franc a day cheaper than the Métropole) and of a triumph for the popinjay.
The fault was utterly Denry's. Yet he said to himself:
"I 'll be even with that chap."
On the drive home he was silent. The theme of conversation in the sleighs which did not contain the Countess was that the Captain had flirted tremendously with the Countess and that it amounted to an affair.
IV
Captain Deverax was equally salient in the department of sports. There was a fair sheet of ice, obtained by cutting into the side of the mountain, and a very good tobogganing track, about half a mile in length and full of fine curves, common to the two hotels. Denry's predilection was for the track. He would lie on his stomach on the little contrivance which the Swiss call a "luge" and which consists of naught but three bits of wood and two steel-clad runners, and would course down the perilous curves at twenty miles an hour. Until the Captain came this was regarded as dashing, because most people were content to sit on the luge and travel legs foremost instead of head foremost. But the Captain, after a few eights on the ice, intimated that for the rest no sport was true sport save the sport of ski-running. He allowed it to be understood that luges were for infants. He had brought his skis, and these instruments of locomotion, some six feet in length, made a sensation among the inexperienced. For when he had strapped them to his feet the Captain, while stating candidly that his skill was as nothing to that of the Swedish professionals at St. Moritz, could assuredly slide over snow in a manner prodigious and beautiful. And he was exquisitely clothed for the part. His knickerbockers, in the elegance of their lines, were the delight of beholders. Ski-ing became the rage. Even Nellie insisted on hiring a pair. And the pronunciation of the word "ski" aroused long discussions and was never definitely settled by anybody. The Captain said "skee," but he did not object to "shee," which was said to be the more strictly correct by a lady who knew some one who had been to Norway. People with no shame and no feeling for correctness said, brazenly, "sky." Denry, whom nothing could induce to desert his luge, said that obviously "s-k-i" could only spell "planks." And thanks to his inspiration this version was adopted by the majority.
On the second day of Nellie's struggle with her skis she had more success than she either anticipated or desired. She had been making experiments at the summit of the track, slithering about, falling and being restored to uprightness by as many persons as happened to be near. Skis seemed to her to be the most ungovernable and least practical means of travel that the madness of man had ever concocted. Skates were well-behaved old horses compared to these long, untamed fiends, and a luge was like a tricycle. Then suddenly a friendly starting push drove her a yard or two, and she glided past the level on to the first imperceptible slope of the track. By some hazard her two planks were exactly parallel, as they ought to be, and she glided forward miraculously. And people heard her say:
"How lovely!"
And then people heard her say:
"Oh! ... Oh!"
For her pace was increasing. And she dared not strike her pole into the ground. She had, in fact, no control whatever over those two planks to which her feet were strapped. She might have been Mazeppa and they, mustangs. She could not even fall. So she fled down the preliminary straight of the track, and ecstatic spectators cried: "Look howwellMrs. Machin is doing!"
Mrs. Machin would have given all her furs to be anywhere off those planks. On the adjacent fields of glittering snow the Captain had been giving his adored Countess a lesson in the use of skis; and they stood together, the Countess somewhat insecure, by the side of the track at its first curve.
Nellie, dumb with excitement and amazement, swept towards them.
"Look out!" cried the Captain.
In vain! He himself might perhaps have escaped, but he could not abandon his Countess in the moment of peril, and the Countess could only move after much thought and many efforts, being scarce more advanced than Nellie. Nellie's wilful planks quite ignored the curve, and, as it were afloat on them, she charged off the track, and into the Captain and the Countess. The impact was tremendous. Six skis waved like semaphores in the air. Then all was still. Then, as the beholders hastened to the scene of the disaster, the Countess laughed and Nellie laughed. The laugh of the Captain was not heard. The sole casualty was a wound about a foot long in the hinterland of the Captain's unique knickerbockers. And as threads of that beautiful check pattern were afterwards found attached to the wheel of Nellie's pole, the cause of the wound was indisputable. The Captain departed home chiefly backwards, but with great rapidity.
In the afternoon Denry went down to Montreux and returned with an opal bracelet, which Nellie wore at dinner.
"Oh! What a ripping bracelet!" said a girl.
"Yes," said Nellie. "My husband gave it me only to-day."
"I suppose it's your birthday or something," the inquisitive girl ventured.
"No," said Nellie.
"How nice of him!" said the girl.
The next day Captain Deverax appeared in riding breeches. They were not correct for ski-running, but they were the best he could do. He visited a tailor's in Montreux.
V
The Countess Ruhl had a large sleigh of her own, also a horse; both were hired from Montreux. In this vehicle, sometimes alone, sometimes with a male servant, she would drive at Russian speed over the undulating mountain roads; and for such expeditions she always wore a large red cloak with a hood. Often she was thus seen, in the afternoon; the scarlet made a bright moving patch on the vast expanses of snow. Once, at some distance from the village, two tale-tellers observed a man on skis careering in the neighbourhood of the sleigh. It was Captain Deverax. The flirtation, therefore, was growing warmer and warmer. The hotels hummed with the tidings of it. But the Countess never said anything; nor could anything be extracted from her by even the most experienced gossips. She was an agreeable but a mysterious woman, as befitted a Russian Countess. Again and again were she and the Captain seen together afar off in the landscape. Certainly it was a novelty in flirtations. People wondered what might happen between the two at the fancy-dress ball which the Hotel Beau-Site was to give in return for the hospitality of the Hotel Métropole. The ball was offered not in love, but in emulation, almost in hate; for the jealousy displayed by the Beau-Site against the increasing insolence and prosperity of the Métropole had become acute. The airs of the Captain and his lieges, the Clutterbuck party, had reached the limit of the Beau-Site's endurance. The Métropole seemed to take it for granted that the Captain would lead the cotillon at the Beau-Site's ball as he had led it at the Métropole's.
And then, on the very afternoon of the ball, the Countess received a telegram—it was said from St. Petersburg—which necessitated her instant departure. And she went, in an hour, down to Montreux by the funicular railway, and was lost to the Beau-Site. This was a blow to the prestige of the Beau-Site. For the Countess was its chief star, and moreover much loved by her fellow guests, despite her curious weakness for the popinjay, and the mystery of her outings with him.
In the stables Denry saw the Countess's hired sleigh and horse, and in the sleigh her glowing red cloak. And he had one of his ideas, which he executed, although snow was beginning to fall. In ten minutes he and Nellie were driving forth, and Nellie in the red cloak held the reins. Denry, in a coachman's furs, sat behind. They whirled past the Hotel Métropole. And shortly afterwards, on the wild road towards Attalens, Denry saw a pair of skis scudding as quickly as skis can scud in their rear. It was astonishing how the sleigh, with all the merry jingle of its bells, kept that pair of skis at a distance of about a hundred yards. It seemed to invite the skis to overtake it, and then to regret the invitation and flee further. Up the hills it would crawl, for the skis climbed slowly. Down them it galloped, for the skis slid on the slopes at a dizzy pace. Occasionally a shout came from the skis. And the snow fell thicker and thicker. So for four or five miles. Starlight commenced. Then the road made a huge descending curve round a hollowed meadow, and the horse galloped its best. But the skis, making a straight line down the snow, acquired the speed of an express, and gained on the sleigh one yard in every three. At the bottom, where the curve met the straight line, was a farmhouse and out-buildings and a hedge and a stone wall and other matters. The sleigh arrived at the point first, but only by a trifle. "Mind your toes," Denry muttered to himself, meaning an injunction to the skis, whose toes were three feet long. The skis, through the eddying snow, yelled frantically to the sleigh to give room. The skis shot up into the road, and in swerving aside swerved into a snow-laden hedge, and clean over it into the farmyard, where they stuck themselves up in the air, as skis will when the person to whose feet they are attached is lying prone. The door of the farmhouse opened and a woman appeared.
She saw the skis at her doorstep. She heard the sleigh-bells, but the sleigh had already vanished into the dusk.
"Well, that was a bit of a lark, that was, Countess!" said Denry to Nellie. "That will be something to talk about. We 'd better drive home through Corsier, and quick too! It'll be quite dark soon."
"Supposing he's dead?" Nellie breathed, aghast, reining in the horse.
"Not he!" said Denry. "I saw him beginning to sit up."
"But how will he get home?"
"It looks a very nice farmhouse," said Denry. "I should think he 'd be sorry to leave it."
VI
When Denry entered the dining-room of the Beau-Site, which had been cleared for the ball, his costume drew attention not so much by its splendour or ingenuity as by its peculiarity. He wore a short Chinese-shaped jacket, which his wife had made out of blue linen, and a flat Chinese hat to match, which they had constructed together on a basis of cardboard. But his thighs were enclosed in a pair of absurdly ample riding breeches of an impressive check and cut to a comic exaggeration of the English pattern. He had bought the cloth for these at the tailor's in Montreux. Below them were very tight leggings, also English. In reply to a question as to what or whom he supposed himself to represent he replied:
"A Captain of Chinese cavalry, of course."
And he put an eyeglass into his left eye and stared about.
Now it had been understood that Nellie was to appear as Lady Jane Grey. But she appeared as Little Red Riding Hood, wearing over her frock the forgotten cloak of the Countess Ruhl.
Instantly he saw her, Denry hurried towards her, with a movement of the legs and a flourish of the eyeglass in his left hand which powerfully suggested a figure familiar to every member of the company. There was laughter. People saw that the idea was immensely funny and clever, and the laughter ran about like fire. At the same time some persons were not quite sure whether Denry had not lapsed a little from the finest taste in this caricature. And all of them were secretly afraid that the uncomfortable might happen when Captain Deverax arrived.
However, Captain Deverax did not arrive. The party from the Métropole came with the news that he had not been seen at the hotel for dinner; it was assumed that he had been to Montreux and missed the funicular back.
"Our two stars simultaneously eclipsed!" said Denry, as the Clutterbucks (representing all the history of England) stared at him curiously.
"Why?" exclaimed the Clutterbuck cousin. "Who 's the other?"
"The Countess," said Denry. "She went this afternoon—three o'clock."
And all the Métropole party fell into grief.
"It's a world of coincidences," said Denry, with emphasis.
"You don't mean to insinuate," said Mrs. Clutterbuck, with a nervous laugh, "that Captain Deverax has—er—gone after the Countess?"
"Oh, no!" said Denry with unction. "Such a thought never entered my head."
"I think you 're a very strange man, Mr. Machin," retorted Mrs. Clutterbuck, hostile and not a bit reassured. "May one ask what that costume is supposed to be?"
"A Captain of Chinese cavalry," said Denry, lifting his eyeglass.
Nevertheless, the dance was a remarkable success, and little by little even the sternest adherents of absent Captain Deverax deigned to be amused by Denry's Chinese gestures. Also, Denry led the cotillon, and was thereafter greatly applauded by the Beau-Site. The visitors agreed among themselves that, considering that his name was not Deverax, Denry acquitted himself honourably. Later he went to the bureau, and returning, whispered to his wife:
"It's all right. He's come back safe."
"How do you know?"
"I 've just telephoned to ask."
Denry's subsequent humour was wildly gay. And for some reason which nobody could comprehend he put a sling round his left arm. His efforts to insert the eyeglass into his left eye with his right hand were insistently ludicrous and became a sure source of laughter for all beholders. When the Métropole party were getting into their sleighs to go home—it had ceased snowing—Denry was still trying to insert his eyeglass into his left eye with his right hand, to the universal joy.
VII
But the joy of the night was feeble in comparison with the violent joy of the next morning. Denry was wandering, apparently aimless, between the finish of the tobogganing track and the portals of the Métropole. The snowfall had repaired the defects of the worn track, but it needed to be flattened down by use, and a number of conscientious "lugeurs" were flattening it by frequent descents, which grew faster at each repetition. Other holiday makers were idling about in the sunshine. A page-boy of the Métropole departed in the direction of the Beau-Site with a note in his hand.
At length—the hour was nearing eleven—Captain Deverax, languid, put his head out of the Métropole and sniffled the air. Finding the air sufferable, he came forth on to the steps. His left arm was in a sling. He was wearing the new knickerbockers which he had ordered at Montreux, and which were of precisely the same vast check as had ornamented Denry's legs on the previous night.
"Hullo!" said Denry sympathetically. "What's this?"
The Captain needed sympathy.
"Ski-ing yesterday afternoon," said he, with a little laugh. "Has n't the Countess told any of you?"
"No," said Denry. "Not a word."
The Captain seemed to pause a moment.
"Yes," said he. "A trifling accident. I was ski-ing with the Countess. That is, I was ski-ing and she was in her sleigh."
"Then this is why you did n't turn up at the dance?"
"Yes," said the Captain.
"Well," said Denry. "I hope it's not serious. I can tell you one thing, the cotillon was a most fearful frost without you." The Captain seemed grateful.
They strolled together towards the track.
The first group of people that caught sight of the Captain with his checked legs and his arm in a sling began to smile. Observing this smile, and fancying himself deceived, the Captain attempted to put his eyeglass into his left eye with his right hand, and regularly failed. His efforts towards this feat changed the smiles to enormous laughter.
"I dare say it's awfully funny," said he. "But what can a fellow do with one arm in a sling?"
The laughter was merely intensified. And the group, growing as luge after luge arrived at the end of the track, seemed to give itself up to mirth, to the exclusion of even a proper curiosity about the nature of the Captain's damage. Each fresh attempt to put the eyeglass to his eye was coal on the crackling fire. The Clutterbucks alone seemed glum.
"What on earth is the joke?" Denry asked primly. "Captain Deverax came to grief late yesterday afternoon, ski-ing with the Countess Ruhl. That's why he did n't turn up last night. By the way, where was it, Captain?"
"On the mountain, near Attalens," Deverax answered gloomily. "Happily there was a farmhouse near—it was almost dark."
"With the Countess?" demanded a young impulsive schoolgirl.
"You did say the Countess, didn't you?" Denry asked.
"Why, certainly," said the Captain testily.
"Well," said the schoolgirl with the nonchalant thoughtless cruelty of youth, "considering that we all saw the Countess off in the funicular at three o'clock I don't see how you could have been ski-ing with her when it was nearly dark." And the child turned up the hill with her luge, leaving her elders to unknot the situation.
"Oh, yes!" said Denry. "I forgot to tell you that the Countess left yesterday after lunch."
At the same moment the page-boy, reappearing, touched his cap and placed a note in the Captain's only free hand.
"Could n't deliver it, Sir. The Comtesse left early yesterday afternoon."
Convicted of imaginary adventure with noble ladies, the Captain made his retreat, muttering, back to the hotel. At lunch Denry related the exact circumstances to a delighted table, and the exact circumstances soon reached the Clutterbuck faction at the Métropole. On the following day the Clutterbuck faction and Captain Deverax (now fully enlightened) left Mont Pridoux for some paradise unknown. If murderous thoughts could kill, Denry would have lain dead. But he survived to go with about half the Beau-Site guests to the funicular station to wish the Clutterbucks a pleasant journey. The Captain might have challenged him to a duel, but a haughty and icy ceremoniousness was deemed the best treatment for Denry. "Never show a wound" must have been the Captain's motto.
The Beau-Site had scored effectively. And, now that its rival had lost eleven clients by one single train, it beat the Métropole even in vulgar numbers.
Denry had an embryo of a conscience somewhere, and Nellie's was fully developed.
"Well," said Denry, in reply to Nellie's conscience, "it serves him right for making me look a fool over that Geneva business. And besides, I can't stand uppishness, and I won't. I 'm from the Five Towns, I am."
Upon which singular utterance the incident closed.
CHAPTER XII. THE SUPREME HONOUR
I
Denry was not as regular in his goings and comings as the generality of business men in the Five Towns; no doubt because he was not by nature a business man at all, but an adventurous spirit who happened to be in a business which was much too good to leave. He was continually, as they say there, "up to something" that caused changes in daily habits. Moreover, the Universal Thrift Club (Limited) was so automatic and self-winding that Denry ran no risks in leaving it often to the care of his highly-drilled staff. Still, he did usually come home to his tea about six o'clock of an evening, like the rest, and like the rest he brought with him a copy of theSignalto glance at during tea.
One afternoon in July he arrived thus upon his waiting wife at Machin House, Bleakridge. And she could see that an idea was fermenting in his head. Nellie understood him. One of the most delightful and reassuring things about his married life was Nellie's instinctive comprehension of him. His mother understood him profoundly. But she understood him in a manner sardonic, slightly malicious, and even hostile. Whereas Nellie understood him with her absurd love. According to his mother's attitude, Denry was guilty till he had proved himself innocent. According to Nellie's, he was always right and always clever in what he did, until he himself said that he had been wrong and stupid—and not always then. Nevertheless, his mother was just as ridiculously proud of him as Nellie was; but she would have perished on the scaffold rather than admit that Denry differed in any detail from the common run of sons. Mrs. Machin had departed from Machin House, without waiting to be asked. It was characteristic of her that she had returned to Brougham Street and rented there an out-of-date cottage without a single one of the labour-saving contrivances that distinguished the residence which her son had originally built for her.
It was still delicious for Denry to sit down to tea in the dining-room, that miracle of conveniences, opposite the smile of his wife, which told him (a) that he was wonderful, (b) that she was enchanted to be alive, and (c) that he had deserved her particular caressing attentions and would receive them. On the afternoon in July the smile told him (d) that he was possessed by one of his ideas.
"Extraordinary how she tumbles to things!" he reflected.
Nellie's new fox-terrier had come in from the garden through the French window, and eaten part of a muffin, and Denry had eaten a muffin and a half, before Nellie, straightening herself proudly and putting her shoulders back (a gesture of hers), thought fit to murmur:
"Well, anything thrilling happened to-day?"
Denry opened the green sheet and read:
"Sudden death of Alderman Bloor in London. What price that?"
"Oh!" exclaimed Nellie. "How shocked father will be! They were always rather friendly. By the way, I had a letter from mother this morning. It appears as if Toronto was a sort of paradise. But you can see the old thing prefers Bursley. Father 's had a boil on his neck, just at the edge of his collar. He says it's because he 's too well. What did Mr. Bloor die of?"
"He was in the fashion," said Denry.
"How?"
"Appendicitis, of course. Operation—domino! All over in three days."
"Poor man!" Nellie murmured, trying to feel sad for a change, and not succeeding. "And he was to have been mayor in November, was n't he? How disappointing for him!"
"I expect he 's got something else to think about," said Denry.
After a pause Nellie asked suddenly:
"Who'll be mayor—now?"
"Well," said Denry, "his Worship, Councillor Barlow, J. P., will be extremely cross if he is n't."
"How horrid!" said Nellie frankly. "And he 's got nobody at all to be mayoress."
"Mrs. Prettyman would be mayoress," said Denry. "When there's no wife or daughter, it's always a sister if there is one."
"But can you imagine Mrs. Prettyman as mayoress? Why, they say she scrubs her own doorstep—after dark. They ought to make you mayor!"
"Do you fancy yourself as mayoress?" he inquired.
"I should be better than Mrs. Prettyman anyhow!"
"I believe you 'd make an A1 mayoress," said Denry.
"I should be frightfully nervous," she confidentially admitted.
"I doubt it," said he.
The fact was that since her return to Bursley from the honeymoon Nellie was an altered woman. She had acquired, as it were in a day, to an astonishing extent, what in the Five Towns is called "a nerve."
"I should like to try it," said she.
"One day you 'll have to try it, whether you want to or not."
"When will that be?"
"Don't know. Might be next year but one. Old Barlow 's pretty certain to be chosen for next November. It's looked on as his turn next. I know there's been a good bit of talk about me for the year after Barlow. Of course, Bloor's death will advance everything by a year. But even if I come next after Barlow it 'll be too late."
"Too late? Too late for what?"
"I'll tell you," said Denry. "I wanted to be the youngest mayor that Bursley 's ever had. It was only a kind of notion I had, a long time ago. I 'd given it up, because I knew there was no chance, unless I came before Bloor, which of course I could n't do. Now he 's dead. If I could upset old Barlow's apple-cart I should just be the youngest mayor by the skin of my teeth. Huskinson, the mayor in 1884, was aged thirty-four and six months. I 've looked it all up this afternoon."
"How lovely if youcouldbe the youngest mayor!"
"Yes. I'll tell you how I feel. I feel as though I didn't want to be mayor at all if I can't be the youngest mayor ... you know."
She knew.
"Oh!" she cried. "Do upset Mr. Barlow's apple-cart. He's a horrid old thing. Should I be the youngest mayoress?"
"Not by chalks!" said he. "Huskinson's sister was only sixteen."
"But that's only playing at being mayoress!" Nellie protested. "Anyhow, I do think you might be youngest mayor. Who settles it?"
"The Council, of course."
"Nobody likes Councillor Barlow."
"He 'll be still less liked when he 's wound up the Bursley Football Club."
"Well, urge him on to wind it up, then. But I don't see what football has got to do with being mayor."
She endeavoured to look like a serious politician.
"You are nothing but a cuckoo," Denry pleasantly informed her. "Football has got to do with everything. And it's been a disastrous mistake in my career that I 've never taken any interest in football. Old Barlow wants no urging on to wind up the Football Club. He's absolutely set on it. He 's lost too much over it. If I could stop him from winding it up, I might..."
"What?"
"I dunno."
She perceived that his idea was yet vague.
II
Not very many days afterwards the walls of Bursley sharply called attention, by small blue and red posters (blue and red being the historic colours of the Bursley Football Club), to a public meeting which was to be held in the Town Hall, under the presidency of the Mayor, to consider what steps could be taken to secure the future of the Bursley Football Club.
There were two "great" football clubs in the Five Towns—Knype, one of the oldest clubs in England, and Bursley. Both were in the League, though Knype was in the first division while Bursley was only in the second. Both were, in fact, limited companies, engaged as much in the pursuit of dividends as in the practice of the one ancient and glorious sport which appeals to the reason and the heart of England. (Neither ever paid a dividend.) Both employed professionals, who, by a strange chance, were nearly all born in Scotland; and both also employed trainers who before an important match took the teams off to a hydropathic establishment far, far distant from any public-house. (This was called "training.") Now, whereas the Knype Club was struggling along fairly well, the Bursley Club had come to the end of its resources. The great football public had practically deserted it. The explanation, of course, was that Bursley had been losing too many matches. The great football public had no use for anything but victories. It would treat its players like gods—so long as they won. But when they happened to lose, the great football public simply sulked. It did not kick a man that was down; it merely ignored him, well knowing that the man could not get up without help. It cared nothing whatever for fidelity, municipal patriotism, fair play, the chances of war, or dividends on capital. If it could see victories it would pay sixpence, but it would not pay sixpence to assist at defeats.
Still, when at a special general meeting of the Bursley Football Club, Limited, held at the registered offices, the Coffee House, Bursley, Councillor Barlow, J. P., chairman of the company since the creation of the League, announced that the directors had reluctantly come to the conclusion that they could not conscientiously embark on the dangerous risks of the approaching season, and that it was the intention of the directors to wind up the Club, in default of adequate public interest—when Bursley read this in theSignal, the town was certainly shocked. Was the famous club, then, to disappear for ever, and the football ground to be sold in plots and the grandstand for firewood? The shock was so severe that the death of Alderman Bloor (none the less a mighty figure in Bursley) passed as a minor event.
Hence the advertisement of the meeting in the Town Hall caused joy and hope, and people said to themselves, "Something's bound to be done; the old Club can't go out like that." And everybody grew quite sentimental. And although nothing is supposed to be capable of filling Bursley Town Hall except a political meeting and an old folks' treat, Bursley Town Hall was as near full as made no matter for the football question. Many men had cheerfully sacrificed a game of billiards and a glass of beer in order to attend it.
The Mayor, in the chair, was a mild old gentleman who knew nothing whatever about football and had probably never seen a football match; but it was essential that the meeting should have august patronage, and so the Mayor had been trapped and tamed. On the mere fact that he paid an annual subscription to the golf club certain parties built up the legend that he was a true sportsman with the true interests of sport in his soul.
He uttered a few phrases such as "the manly game," "old associations," "bound up with the history of England," "splendid fellows," "indomitable pluck," "dogged by misfortune" (indeed, he produced quite an impression on the rude and grim audience), and then he called upon Councillor Barlow to make a statement.
Councillor Barlow, on the Mayor's right, was a different kind of man from the Mayor. He was fifty and iron-grey, with whiskers, but no moustache; short, stoutish, raspish.
He said nothing about manliness, pluck, history, or auld lang syne.
He said he had given his services as chairman to the Football Club for thirteen years; that he had taken up £2000 worth of shares in the company; and that, as at that moment the company's liabilities would exactly absorb its assets, his £2000 was worth exactly nothing. "You may say," he said, "I've lost that £2000 in thirteen years. That is, it's the same as if I 'd been steadily paying three pun' a week out of my own pocket to provide football matches that you chaps would n't take the trouble to go and see. That's the straight of it! What have I got for my pains? Nothing but worries, and these!" (He pointed to his grey hairs.) "And I 'm not alone; there's others; and now I have to come and defend myself at a public meeting. I 'm supposed not to have the best interests of football at heart. Me and my co-directors," he proceeded, with even a rougher raspishness, "have warned the town again and again what would happen if the matches weren't better patronised. And now it's happened, and now it's too late, you want todosomething! You can't! It's too late. There 's only one thing the matter with first-class football in Bursley," he concluded, "and it is n't the players. It's the public—it's yourselves. You 're the most craven lot of tomfools that ever a big football club had to do with. When we lose a match, what do you do? Do you come and encourage us next time? No, you stop away, and leave us fifty or sixty pound out of pocket on a match, just to teach us better! Do you expect us to win every match? Why, Preston North End itself—" here he spoke solemnly, of heroes—"Preston North End itself in its great days did n't win every match—it lost to Accrington. But did the Preston public desert it? No! You—you have n't got the pluck of a louse, nor the faithfulness of a cat. You 've starved your Football Club to death, and now you call a meeting to weep and grumble. And you have the insolence to write letters to theSignalabout bad management, forsooth! If anybody in the hall thinks he can manage this Club better than me and my co-directors have done, I may say that we hold a majority of the shares, and we 'll part with the whole show to any clever person or persons who care to take it off our hands at a bargain price. That's talking."
He sat down.
Silence fell. Even in the Five Towns a public meeting is seldom bullied as Councillor Barlow had bullied that meeting. It was aghast. Councillor Barlow had never been popular: he had merely been respected; but thenceforward he became even less popular than before.
"I 'm sure we shall all find Councillor Barlow's heat quite excusable," the Mayor diplomatically began.
"No heat at all," the councillor interrupted. "Simply cold truth!"
A number of speakers followed, and nearly all of them were against the directors. Some, with prodigious memories for every combination of players in every match that had ever been played, sought to prove by detailed instances that Councillor Barlow and his co-directors had persistently and regularly muddled their work during thirteen industrious years. And they defended the insulted public by asserting that no public that respected itself would pay sixpence to watch the wretched football provided by Councillor Barlow. They shouted that the team wanted reconstituting, wanted new blood.
"Yes!" shouted Councillor Barlow in reply. "And how are you going to get new blood, with transfer fees as high as they are now? You can't get even an average good player for less than £200. Where 's the money to come from? Anybody want to lend a thousand or so on second debentures?"
He laughed sneeringly.
No one showed a desire to invest in second debentures of the Bursley F.C. Ltd.
Still, speakers kept harping on the necessity of new blood in the team, and then others, bolder, harped on the necessity of new blood on the board.
"Shares on sale!" cried the councillor. "Any buyers? Or," he added, "do you want something for nothing—as usual?"
At length a gentleman rose at the back of the hall.
"I don't pretend to be an expert on football," said he, "though I think it's a great game, but I should like to say a few words as to this question of new blood."
The audience craned its neck.
"Will Mr. Councillor Machin kindly step up to the platform?" the Mayor suggested.
And up Denry stepped.
The thought in every mind was: "What's he going to do? What's he got up his sleeve—this time?"
"Three cheers for Machin!" people chanted gaily.
"Order!" said the Mayor.
Denry faced the audience. He was now accustomed to audiences. He said:
"If I 'm not mistaken, one of the greatest modern footballers is a native of this town."
And scores of voices yelled: "Ay! Callear! Callear! Greatest centre forward in England!"
"Yes," said Denry. "Callear is the man I mean. Callear left the district, unfortunately for the district, at the age of nineteen, for Liverpool. And it was not till after he left that his astounding abilities were perceived. It is n't too much to say that he made the fortune of Liverpool City. And I believe it is the fact that he scored more goals in three seasons than any other player has ever done in the League. Then, York County, which was in a tight place last year, bought him from Liverpool for a high price, and, as all the world knows, Callear had his leg broken in the first match he played for his new club. That just happened to be the ruin of the York Club, which is now quite suddenly in bankruptcy (which happily we are not) and which is disposing of its players. Gentlemen, I say that Callear ought to come back to his native town. He is fitter than ever he was, and his proper place is in his native town."
Loud cheers!
"As captain and centre forward of the club of the Mother of the Five Towns he would be an immense acquisition and attraction, and he would lead us to victory."
Renewed cheers!
"And how," demanded Councillor Barlow jumping up angrily, "are we to get him back to his precious native town? Councillor Machin admits that he is not an expert on football. It will probably be news to him that Aston Villa have offered £700 to York for the transfer of Callear, and Blackburn Rovers have offered £750, and they 're fighting it out between 'em. Any gentleman willing to put down £800 to buy Callear for Bursley?" he sneered. "I don't mind telling you that steam-engines and the King himself couldn't get Callear into our Club."
"Quite finished?" Denry inquired, still standing.
Laughter, overtopped by Councillor Barlow's snort as he sat down.
Denry lifted his voice.
"Mr. Callear, will you be good enough to step forward and let us all have a look at you?"
The effect of these apparently simple words surpassed any effect previously obtained by the most complex flights of oratory in that hall. A young, blushing, clumsy, long-limbed, small-bodied giant stumbled along the central aisle and climbed the steps to the platform, where Denry pointed him to a seat. He was recognised by all the true votaries of the game. And everybody said to everybody: "By Gosh! It's him right enough. It's Callear!" And a vast astonishment and expectation of good fortune filled the hall. Applause burst forth, and though no one knew what the appearance of Callear signified, the applause continued and waxed.
"Good old Callear!" The hoarse shouts succeeded each other. "Good old Machin!"
"Anyhow," said Denry, when the storm was stilled, "we 've got him here, without either steam-engines or his Majesty. Will the directors of the club accept him?"
"And what about the transfer?" Councillor Barlow demanded.
"Would you accept him and try another season if you could get him free?" Denry retorted.
Councillor Barlow always knew his mind, and was never afraid to let other people share that knowledge.
"Yes," he said.
"Then I will see that you have the transfer free."
"But what about York?"
"I have settled with York provisionally," said Denry. "That is my affair. I have returned from York to-day. Leave all that to me. This town has had many benefactors far more important than myself. But I shall be able to claim this originality: I 'm the first to make a present of a live man to the town. Gentlemen—Mr. Mayor—I venture to call for three cheers for the greatest centre forward in England, our fellow-townsman."
The scene, as theSignalsaid, was unique.
And at the Sports Club and the other clubs afterwards men said to each other: "No one but him would have thought of bringing Callear over specially and showing him on the platform.... That's cost him above twopence, that has!"
Two days later a letter appeared in theSignal(signed "Fiat Justitia") suggesting that Denry, as some reward for his public spirit, ought to be the next mayor of Bursley, in place of Alderman Bloor deceased. The letter urged that he would make an admirable mayor, the sort of mayor the old town wanted in order to wake it up. And also it pointed out that Denry would be the youngest mayor that Bursley had ever had, and probably the youngest mayor in England that year. The sentiment in the last idea appealed to the town. The town decided that it would positivelyliketo have the youngest mayor it had ever had, and probably the youngest mayor in England that year. TheSignalprinted dozens of letters on the subject. When the Council met, more informally than formally, to choose a chief magistrate in place of the dead alderman, several councillors urged that what Bursley wanted was a young andpopularmayor. And in fine Councillor Barlow was shelved for a year. On the choice being published the entire town said: "Now weshallhave a mayoralty—and don't you forget it!"
And Denry said to Nellie:
"You 'll be mayoress to the youngest mayor, etc., my child. And it's cost me, including hotel and travelling expenses, eight hundred and eleven pounds six and sevenpence."