Thus it was that when Lallie returned to B. House, front door, front hall, front stairs, though her boots were dreadful, she found a lovely fire in her bedroom and Matron there arranging a little tea-table beside the armchair on the hearth. Moreover Matron insisted on her changing everything there and then, and helped her to do it, finally dosing her with ammoniated quinine before she would give her any tea. She asked no questions of Lallie, but while the girl devoured crisp toast and a boiled egg, entertained her with various items of College news, among them that there was a case of scarlet fever in one of the houses."Isn't Miss Foster in a dreadful state?" asked Lallie."Well, she's worried and anxious, but so are we all. It's not the right term for it either, and the boy can't have brought it back with him--it's too late in the term--so the question is where did he get it? One always dreads an epidemic of any kind in a large school. We haven't had a real bad one for four years, and then it was in the summer term, which was better. It's always so much easier to get people well in summer.""I got it that time too. Of course Paddy came back with it. Three holidays in succession he came back with something, and gave it to me every time; and he was so sick to have it in the holidays instead of missing school. But I should think this house is pretty safe. I never smelt so many disinfectants in my life till I came here--Come in!"Miss Foster followed her knock, and she heard Lallie's last words.The fire, lit three hours before its proper time; the tea-table; the presence of Matron; above all the certainty from the few words she had overheard that she, herself, was the subject of their discourse, all combined to rob her manner of any geniality she might have intended to impart to it. So annoyed was she that Matron should have taken upon herself to give Lallie tea without her--Miss Foster's orders, and that Lallie, as she concluded, had actually lit her own fire in the middle of the afternoon without by your leave of any sort, that she found nothing to say but:"You're back I see, and have had tea--are you unwell?""Thank you, no," Lallie answered with quite equal frigidity, "but I was tired and hungry and very wet, and Matron was kind enough to bring me some tea.""Mr. Bevan asked me to tell you that he has been unexpectedly called to Oxford and will not be back to-night.""Won't you sit down, Miss Foster? Must you go, Matron? Thank you so much. Matron told me Tony had to go; it was he who asked her to see that I had tea. I hope it has not been troublesome?" Lallie added politely, rising from her chair.Miss Foster stood in the middle of the room, large, remote, unapproachable; manifestly disapproving."I shall esteem it a favour, Miss Clonmell, if, in future, you will let me know beforehand when you intend to be absent from a meal.""Certainly, Miss Foster; then I may as well tell you now that I shall not be home for luncheon to-morrow. I'm so glad you reminded me. Won't you sit down?"Lallie herself sat down again in the big deep chair; so large was it that she almost seemed to lie down in it as she leaned back and stared fixedly at the fire. She looked so comfortable, so entirely at her ease, that Miss Foster simply longed to give this impudent girl a piece of her mind, but the events of the early afternoon had somewhat shaken her serene faith in the innate wisdom of her instincts. For years she had religiously tended the flame of her self-confidence till it burned with a steady radiance upon the altar of her beliefs. To-day, however, the flame had been blown upon by an adverse wind of criticism; it flickered until its light resembled a will-o'-the-wisp rather than the clear light of reason she had always supposed it to be. Even the sight of the denuded eggshell upon Lallie's empty plate, annoying anachronism at that hour though it was, could not stir Miss Foster to engage in open conflict.The graceful little figure in the loose white dressing-gown, lolling in the chair, plainly awaited the first onslaught. Lazy and luxurious, Lallie looked sideways at Miss Foster under her long lashes and said sweetly:"Do sit down: you look so uncomfortable standing there.""No, thank you"; and in spite of herself Miss Foster replied quite civilly. "I only came to deliver Mr. Bevan's message. Do you think you will be well enough to come down to dinner?""I assure you I am not in the least ill. I will come down most punctually. But, if you will excuse me, I will not change till it's time to dress. I have letters to write and will do them here by this nice fire. Thank you so much for coming to inquire for me."Miss Foster nearly answered: "I did nothing of the kind," but again mistrust of the "will-o'-the-wisp" prevented her, and she sailed out of the room without another word.Lallie thrust out her little feet to the warmth and laughed."Dinner alone with Paunch and Germs will be rather a silent meal," she reflected, "unless we discuss the probabilities of scarlet fever, which we are sure to do. I'll finish Tony's waistcoat this evening, for to-morrow I shall be out all day. Tony will be so annoyed with me to-morrow that he'll forget all about the stupid little stramash to-day. I hate to vex him, but I know if he guessed half I have to bear from Germs it would vex him far more; and if he got questioning me I might let out something, and for all his quiet ways Tony is very observant. Germs was very civil this evening. I wonder why? I suppose poor old Tony gave her a dressing down, but it would hurt him frightfully to do it. She really is so splendid in the house, and he does love to live at peace with all his fellow creatures. He'd never enjoy a row as I do; but then, he's as English as ever he can be. It's quite suitable that he should find fault with a harum-scarum like me, that won't hurt him; but it's upsetting in the extreme to run against such a solid body as old Germs, all knobs and hard things that hurt when you charge into her.... I hope Mr. Ballinger won't look upon it as encouragement if I ride Kitty to-morrow. After all, why shouldn't I? We lent him a horse several times when he was over in Kerry last spring, and it's much safer to lend me a horse than him. I wish he was big and benevolent like Tony. You always feel you could lean against Tony and he'd stand steady as a rock. If you leant heavily against Mr. Ballinger he might collapse. Tony really is a very great dear, he's so big all round--I hate to vex him--but perhaps it'll clear the atmosphere a bit. I wish Mr. Ballinger looked less like a passenger when he's outside a horse.... I wonder----"Lallie had ceased to wish or wonder, for she was fast asleep.CHAPTER XIVLallie came down to breakfast in her habit. Miss Foster did not ask where she was going or why she was riding so early, but contented herself with a remark to the effect that the very short and skimpy habits now in vogue were singularly ungraceful and unbecoming. Lallie replied that the shortness of the habit mattered very little if only the boots below it were irreproachable, and that after all a habit was not for walking in and that it was better to look a bit bunchy on foot than to be dragged if you happened to be thrown. Whereupon Miss Foster made a complicated sort of sound, something between a snort and a sniff, and the meal proceeded in silence.Only by going straight into College from the station could Tony take his class at the proper time, but immediately morning school was over he rushed down to B. House, hoping to find Lallie and take her up to watch the pick-up.His letters were spread out on the hall table, and one, conspicuous from the fact that it was unstamped, caught his eye at once. He recognised the little upright writing so like Fitzroy Clonmell's.As he read, Tony's honest face flushed, then paled to a look of pain and perplexity."Tony, dear," it ran, "I've disobeyed you and gone to the opening meet after all. I've not gone alone, and I assure you all will be well. Yesterday, in the town, I met a hunting friend of whom we saw a good deal last season, and he tempted me with a charming little mare whose clear destiny it was to carry me once; anyway--I fell--I gave in. His name is Ballinger--he is quite a nice man; but he doesn't ride a bit better than you, Tony, dear, so except as an escort I don't fancy I shall see much of him."This morning I had a letter from the Chesters up at Fareham, and they have asked me to go from to-morrow till Tuesday. They want me to sing at a Primrose meeting on Saturday; that I know you won't mind: it will get rid of me for a few days, and give you all a rest. Try not to be cross with me. I'm a tiresome wretch, I know, but I am also your loving Lallie."Very deliberately Tony folded the letter, put it back in the envelope, and into his breast-pocket. He gathered up the rest of his letters and went to his study, but he made no attempt to read them. He forgot that he ought to go and watch the pick-up. He sat down by his desk, staring straight in front of him at nothing.Evidently, he reflected, Lallie was unhappy in B. House; glad to get away. She was afraid he might say something to her about yesterday, and regardless of his expressed wish, nay his command, so far as he could be said to exercise any authority over her, she had disobeyed him. It had never so much as entered the realm of possibilities that she could defy him, and he was hurt. Never until that moment did he realise how much he counted upon her steady affection. He had always been so sure that he and Lallie thoroughly understood each other. From the time, when a little baby in her nurse's arms, she would hold out her own, struggling to be "taken" by the tall, shy undergraduate; throughout the somewhat stormy years of her childhood, when he was ever her confidant and her ally; during the many holidays he spent with Fitz and his family in Ireland, till the day, two years ago, when he first beheld her in a long frock with her clouds of dusky hair bound demurely round her head, and became aware with a little shock of foreboding that Lallie was growing up--never had he doubted her. And when he had got accustomed to her more grown-up appearance he speedily discovered that the real and essential Lallie was unchanged, that she was just as kind and merry and easily pleased, just as warm hearted and quick tempered, as neat fingered and capable and unexpected, as when her frocks reached barely to her knees."If I had seen her yesterday I don't believe she would have done this," Tony thought to himself; "it's not like her somehow to take the opportunity of my being away to do what she knows I would have done my best to prevent had I been at home. And this young Ballinger--he's no fit guardian for Lallie out hunting. Confound him! I wish he had stayed in his own shire. Fitz said I was not to discourage him, but I'm convinced he never meant she was to go out hunting with him. I suppose he is going to these Chesters, too; probably that's why she's going. I know nothing about the young man, but, like Charles Lamb, 'I'll d---- him at a venture.' It's too bad of Fitz shelving his parental responsibilities like this. Suppose anything happened to her to-day----"This thought was so disquieting that Tony got up and walked about the room. Finally he opened and read his letters. Then Miss Foster came and added to his anxieties by informing him that A. J. Tarrant, a new boy, had that morning started a bad feverish cold and complained of sore throat."No rash yet," Miss Foster added gloomily, "but of course we've isolated him."Altogether Tony wished he could have stayed in Oxford. Yet the day seemed very long, and when half-past five at last arrived Tony actually sprinted from the College to B. House.A great wave of sound met him as he opened the front door. Lallie was playing the overture toTanhäuser. It certainly was neither meek nor repentant music. Nevertheless Tony ejaculated "Thank God!"He opened the drawing-room door very gently. The ruddy firelight glowed and gloomed in waves of flame and shadow, but the opening of the door let in a long shaft of light from the hall, and with a final crash of chords Lallie turned on the piano stool, demanding:"Is it you, Tony?""I didn't need to ask if it was you, and it was a great relief, I assure you. Had you a good day?"Out of the shadows Lallie came forward into the ruddy circle of light."Your voice doesn't sound quite pleased with me," she said. "I must see your face to make sure. Please switch on a light and let me see."She laid her little hands upon his shoulders and looked up searchingly into his face. The bright glare of the electric light made Tony blink, and he was so inexpressibly glad to see her again that his joy wholly crowded out the reproachful expression he had intended his homely features to assume.He felt an overwhelming desire to take her in his arms, kiss her, and implore her to swear she would never go away again. It was only the certainty that she would kiss him back with the best will in the world, probably bursting into tears of repentance on his shoulder, that restrained Tony. He felt that it would not be playing the game. So very gently, with big hands that trembled somewhat, he removed those that lay so lightly on his shoulders and said, in a matter-of-fact voice:"Naturally I was anxious. You see I thought we had agreed that there was to be no hunting until we heard from your father; and how could I tell how this--Mr. Ballinger might have mounted you?"Lallie clasped her hands loosely in front of her, and stood before Tony with downcast eyes, and he forgot all about the matter under discussion in admiring her eyelashes."I didn't exactly promise," she murmured; then louder: "no, that's mean of me, and untruthful; I broke my word. I knew you wouldn't wish me to go--but I went--and I enjoyed it--rather. Not quite so much as I expected, though the little mare went like a bird. It was quite a short run; I was back here by three o'clock.""Who brought you back?""Who brought me back? My dear, good Tony, I'm not a parcel nor a passenger; I came back. I studied the ordnance map of this district that's hanging in your study for a good hour last night. It was broad daylight when the run was over, and it's a very good country for signposts. I returned. Did you see Mr. Ballinger's cards in the hall? He came fussing here to see that I was all right when I was in the middle of changing, and he dutifully asked for Miss Foster, but she'd gone to the sewing-meeting for the Mission--Ioughtto have been there; I forgot all about it; I'm so sorry--and she's not back yet, so I sent down word that I was perfectly all right andresting, so he went empty away, poor man, longing for tea, I've no doubt; so must you be, we'll have it brought in here, Miss Foster won't be back till six. Some one's reading a paper to them while they sew, poor things! I'll have another tea with you, Tony. No lunch yesterday, no lunch to-day, and to-morrow will be the third day, though Mr. Ballinger did bring me a beautiful box of sandwiches, but I had no time to eat them.""Mr. Ballinger! Why should he bring you sandwiches? Why didn't you ask Matron for some?""Oh, you dear goose! How could I ask for sandwiches when I was supposed to be going out to lunch. What would Miss Foster have said? Do you think anybody will tell her I went out hunting all by my gay lonesome?""It depends how many people knew you in the field.""Ah, there you touch me on a tender spot. With the exception of one old curmudgeon who used to hunt sometimes with the "Cockshots" at Fareham last year, there was no one I knew at all, and he rode all round me staring, and then grunted out, 'Where's your father, Miss Clonmell?' I passed him at the first fence, that's one comfort; but you're right, Tony--I missed Dad. People stared at me. It was all right when the hounds were running, I forgot everything and everybody but the fun and excitement, but at the meet it was horrid. Is your tea nice? Oh, it is good to have you back again!""And you prove your joy at my return by going off to-morrow!""That's only for the week-end. I always promised them to help at their old meeting--and me a Home-Ruler--isn't it an anomaly?""I didn't know that your politics were so pronounced.""You might guess I'd be 'ag'in the Government,' whichever party's in power. Neither really cares a jot for Ireland. I think the Tories are perhaps the less hypocritical of the two. But any sort of a political meeting is fun. I always long to shout, and boo, and kick the floor. I think all the disturbances they're able to make is what is so supremely attractive about the Suffragettes.""Are you a Suffragette as well as a Home-Ruler? I shall begin to be quite afraid of you.""Ishouldhave been a Suffragette if I might have gone to meetings, carried banners, or thumped on a gong to disturb Mr. Winston Churchill, but Dad was quite stuffy about it, and put down his foot--really put down his foot with a stamp; fancy Dad!--and forbade me to have anything to do with any of them, so what was the use? It wasn't the vote I wanted.""Fitz really has, upon occasion, wonderful flashes of common sense, even in his dealings with you.""Now don't you be pretending to think Dad spoils me, for you know very well he does nothing of the kind. He has never been petty nor interfering, but in things that really matter, I'd no more think of disobeying him than----""Of going out hunting without asking his permission," Tony suggested mildly. "And since we have approached the subject of your general submissiveness, might I suggest that you fall in with one little regulation of mine, mentioned on the very first evening you came. Do you remember my asking you not on any account to use the boys' part of the house?""Well, neither I have,ever.""What about the back staircase?"Lallie flushed angrily and began indignantly, "It wasn't my--"; then suddenly she stopped and said with studied gentleness, "I'm sorry, Tony; you did forbid me, but I quite forgot that those stairs came under your ban."Tony smiled at her."That's all right then. You'll remember in future. In some ways, Lallie, you are very like a boy.""Good ways, I hope?" her voice was anxious."Some of them are quite good. Some of them--well, they are apt to get other people in trouble. See what was sent to me by the incensed master to whom the remarks refer," and Tony held out to her a large sheet of lined paper, closely written in her own neat little upright writing. The first few lines comprised a decorous statement to the effect that "Marlborough underrated the difficulty of managing a coalition. In his necessary absence abroad this difficult operation was in the hands of Godolphin, always a timid minister without any real political convictions," when suddenly the style of the Reverend J. Franck Bright lapsed into the wholly indefensible statement that "cross old Nick is a silly old Ass," and this was repeated line after line throughout nearly half a page.Lallie gasped, then burst into uncontrollable laughter, exclaiming:"It's Cripps's lines. He told me he had to do five hundred, and that no one ever looked at them, so I said I'd do three hundred for him as he wanted awfully to play fives that day. So I copied the dry old History Book till I was sick to death of the long words, and then in the middle I put that in just to cheer things up. What had I better do? Go and see Mr. Nichol, or what? He simply must not punish Cripps. He knew nothing whatever about it, poor boy. I sent him the lines in a neat bundle, and I don't suppose he ever looked at them.""As it happened it was Mr. Nichol who looked at them, for Cripps omitted the very simple precaution of putting his own pages on the top, and as his writing in no way resembles yours, Mr. Nichol naturally suspected extraneous assistance. He turned the pages over and came upon the one you have in your hand--your capital 'A's' simply jump to the eye. Naturally he was much annoyed, and I am sorry to say he describes your friend Cripps as 'a surly, insubordinate fellow,' and demands that he should be starred.""But he can't be starred, for he didn't do it.""That, very naturally, Cripps did not explain; and after all he is responsible for the lines he gives up.""Tony, have you seen Cripps?""I have.""Oh, what did you say?""I told him that he was a lazy young dog, and ought to do his lines himself; that I hadn't an ounce of sympathy with him, and that he deserved all he got and more; but I need hardly say I did not send him to the Principal with the suggestion that his prefect's star should be taken from him.""Oh, Tony, I hear Miss Foster; quick--oughtIto run out and see Mr. Nichol? I'm not a bit afraid of him.""I think that the matter may now rest in oblivion; only let me offer you one bit of sound advice. If you are charitable enough to help any poor beggar with his lines, write large; it's a fearful waste of energy to do neat little writing like that--eight words to a line is the regulation thing--and, for Heaven's sake refrain from personal remarks.""Tony, you are a real dear. I will fly now, for Miss Foster may want to talk to you about the house."Lallie darted at Tony, dropped a hasty kiss on the top of his head, and fled across the room, opening the door to admit Miss Foster, who had removed her outdoor things. She never came into a sitting-room before going upstairs; she considered it slovenly.Tony folded the large closely written sheet of paper containing the reiterated animadversions upon the intelligence of Mr. Nichol senior, put it in his pocket, and rose to place a chair for Miss Foster, who regarded the tea things with a look of acute distress."I took the opportunity," Tony remarked, "of speaking to Miss Clonmell on the subject you mentioned to me yesterday afternoon, and--er--I reminded her that I had on her first arrival asked her on no account to use the boys' part of the house." Here Tony made a little pause, as though he expected Miss Foster to make some observation. "I confess that the fact of her being on that staircase at all did surprise me," he added meditatively, looking full at Miss Foster with kind, beseeching eyes.That lady flushed and sat up very straight in her chair, but she did not meet his gaze."What explanation did Miss Clonmell give?" she asked."None; she expressed regret that she had forgotten my prohibition, but said that she did not suppose that staircase came under it, though why, I can't imagine."Again Miss Foster felt herself encompassed by that glance, so full of dumb, entreating kindness. This time she raised her eyes to his and met them fairly as she said slowly:"Perhaps I am somewhat to blame for Miss Clonmell's presence upon that staircase, though you may imagine I never dreamt of the use to which she would put it. I confess that it never occurred to me as being in any way objectionable during the day. The boys never go up or down, and she often has such exceedingly muddy boots--I may have even suggested she should go that way. I am sorry----""It doesn't matter in the least really," Tony said heartily, and his whole face beamed. "Thank you very much for explaining."He did not add that it was just what he had suspected from the first moment that Lallie's frivolous conduct was revealed to him; but he meant Miss Foster to own up, and she had owned up. Had she failed to do so Tony could never have respected her again."As to Lallie," he reflected tenderly, "you never know what she'll do next, but there are things you can depend on her not doing, and that's to try and drag any one else into the unpleasant results of her vagaries. She'll never go back on any one, never make mischief; and who the devil is Ballinger that he should have all this?"CHAPTER XVThat evening Lallie went into the study to say good-night to Tony. He was reading by the fire, and she came and sat on the floor at his feet, leaning back against his knees as she had done on the evening he corrected papers in the drawing-room. The green silk bag was slung over her arm, but her work was allowed to remain therein, and for once she was content to let her hands lie idle."I've come early," she announced, "because if you're not very busy I'd like a little chat. I've turned out the lights and shut the door, for Miss Foster's not coming down again, she says. Isn't it funny to like to go to bed so early?""She gets up early, I expect; and perhaps she's very tired at night. Wouldn't you like a cushion or something, don't you find the floor very hard?""I'm quite comfortable, thank you. Now listen to me, Tony. Do you think I'm getting to an age when I'd be better with a home of my own?"With a mental ejaculation of "Ballinger!" Tony adjusted his mind to the question, saying quickly:"But surely you've got that already.""No, Tony; that's just what I have not got. As long as old Madame was alive it was all right. Dad came and went as he pleased, but there was always the house for Paddy and me, whether we were in France or in Ireland. But lately I've begun to feel I'm a bit of a drag on Dad; you know how restless he is sometimes, how unexpected----""It's a family failing, Lallie," Tony interrupted."And, you see, when he rushes off he won't leave me alone in whatever house we happen to be in, and Aunt Emileen seems no comfort to him unless he's in the house along with her; and there's all the fuss of arranging for me, and I'm sent off here and there on visits, whether I like it or not; and I begin to feel that I've no abiding place at all.""Is your visit here one of the 'nots'?""Now that's nasty of you. You know I meant nothing of the kind, and I jumped for joy when Dad said I should come to you for all these months; but when Dad has been home for a bit and the first delight in having me again has worn off, he'll want to be wandering. If it's wandering I can do too, that's all right. I love going about with Dad, but if it's somewhere that he doesn't care to take me, like this time, then it'll all come over again--the placing out--and I hate it.""But, Lallie, most young people like plenty of change and variety; the one thing they cannot away with is monotony. That's what most of them, girls especially, complain of.""Tony, I'm going to make a confession." Lallie turned half round, and leaning an elbow on his knee lifted her face, earnest and serious, so that she might look into his. "I'm fond of a house. I like housekeeping, and pottering, and looking after things, and ordering dinner, and sewing, and mending, and arranging flowers, and cooking if I want to, and I can cook well; and you can't do any of these things in other people's houses--at least, only the sewing part.""I'm sure you may cook here if you wish to. I'll undertake to eat anything you make if it's really good.""Oh, it's not that. I don't mean that I'd like to be always cooking, but I like to feel that I've got a house to look after--my own house. I'd be perfectly happy if Dad wanted a house, but he doesn't. He kept it up for Paddy and me when we were small because he thought it was the right thing to do; but now he doesn't seem to think it so necessary. Poor man, he's too young to have grown-up children, Tony, and that's a fact. He has small patience with Paddy, because, you know, their interests clash. It's different with a woman, the younger she is the prouder is she to have grown-up sons and the cleverer she thinks herself that they are grown up. Don't you think I'm right?""Your generalisation," Tony began deliberately, when Lallie interrupted by pinching his knee and exclaiming:"Now, none of the schoolmaster, I won't have it.""As I was about to remark when you interrupted me, what you say has a certain amount of truth in it, but your father has not yet returned from India. When he does return he may not feel the slightest inclination for wandering; at any rate, not for some considerable time--so why worry?""I should like to feel settled and secure.""My dear Lallie, you'll never feel settled, you're not that sort; and as to security, pray in what way do you feel insecure at present?"Lallie removed her elbow from Tony's knee, she leant back against him again so that he could not see her face, and said, very low:"I feel insecure because in the course of the next few weeks I'll have to make up my mind definitely one way or other, and whichever way it is, it seems to me I shall regret it."Again the whole of Tony's mentality fairly cried the name of Ballinger aloud, and although the stillness in the quiet room was so great that you might have heard a pin drop it seemed that his thought must have reached Lallie, for she broke the silence by saying in quite a different tone:"I wish you had met Dad's friend, Mr. Ballinger, Tony; I'd like to know what you think of him.""That can be easily managed; we'll ask him to dinner when you come back.""He is going to the Chesters, you know.""I didn't know, but I'm glad to hear it for your sake, since you like him.""Then you don't think I'd be better in a home of my own--married, I mean," said Lallie with startling bluntness."I never said anything of the kind.""Well, you didn't seem to smile upon the notion.""The notion, as you call it, appears to me in itself quite admirable, if not exactly novel; but you would need to make sure, wouldn't you? that the husband--I think a husband is included in your scheme of felicity--is in keeping--in the picture as it were."Tony's voice was dry as that in which he instilled the rules of prosody into his form. In fact it was less impassioned, for on occasion he waxed eloquent though vituperative when dealing with that form's Latin prose.Again Lallie turned half round and leant her elbow on his knee. Again her grey eyes searched his face, apparently in vain, for some clue to the tone in which he spoke."I wish I was a rich widow," she said vindictively, "with a nice little place of my own, then there'd be no bother at all, and you could come and stay with me and arrange cricket matches all the summer holidays. I'd put up that eleven you always go off with, and we'd have a cricket week and lovely times.""The prospect is certainly pleasing," Tony remarked, without enthusiasm; "but it seems to me a little callous on your part to be so anxious to kill off your husband before ever you've tried one.""Do you think Mr. Johns would make a nice husband?" Lallie asked in a detached, impersonal sort of way."Good heavens! How should I know? I hope he won't think of being any one's husband for years to come. He couldn't keep a wife; for one thing, he's too poor.""Oh, but he is sure to get on; he'll be a headmaster some day. You'll see. I never met a young man who was more wrapped up in his profession. He's influencing boys all day long.""By Jove! is he though? I'm glad to hear it.""I think he'd be a verykindhusband," said Lallie, "but a bit boring sometimes. I suppose I'd better be thinking of bed. You haven't helped me much, Tony," and Lallie arose and stood in front of him, slender and upright, in her straight green gown. Tony rose too."I don't quite know what you wanted me to say, Lallie, but I'd like to say this: Don't you marry anybody for the sake of having a house of your own. Your mother's daughter is capable of something finer and better than that. I cannot in all my experience recall such a happy marriage as hers. Child, there is such a thing. Don't you believe people who say that respect, and affection, and mutual suitability, and all the rest of it are one atom of good if you're not in love with the man. You spoke to-night of your father's restlessness. Do you think he would have been like that if your mother had lived? It was simply that he had the most perfect home man ever had on this earth; and when she was taken away from him the wrench destroyed his will-power, and he has been at the mercy of his impulses ever since. Never judge him, Lallie; he can't help it."The tears welled up into Lallie's eyes."I don't judge him," she faltered; "it's myself I judge, and blame, and yet I tried so hard to make his home happy and comfortable, so that he'd want to stay with me; and I can make a nice home, I really can, but it wasn't enough for Dad. Last winter I thought we were settled. He liked the hunting, and we were so happy, and had such jokes about Aunt Emileen, but it all came to an end--andhe'd like me to marry, Tony; that's the har-r-d part."The big tears hung on Lallie's lashes, the corners of her mouth drooped, and she looked so small, and pathetic, and forlorn that Tony fairly turned his back upon her and leant his arms on the chimneypiece, staring with the greatest interest at the shield bearing his college arms, which he did not see."I am convinced," he said, and his voice was almost gruff, "that your father would hate to think you married anybody simply for the sake of getting married. Of course he would like to see you well and happily married--but----""Good-night, Tony," Lallie said meekly.He turned and shook her outstretched hand and stood at the door watching her as she went slowly up the stairs with drooping head and deep depression in every line of the slender little figure that always looked so much taller than it really was. She never turned her head to look back at him, and Tony shut the door and sat down at his desk with a groan.Matron was right: he'd got it late, and he'd got it badly. But she was wrong when she informed Val that he didn't know what was the matter with him.He cursed himself for an old fool; for a betrayer of trust; for a dog in the manger.Fitz wanted Lallie to marry this Ballinger; told him so. And here was he, Tony Bevan, actually using what influence he had to prevent her doing anything of the kind. Fitz wouldn't want it unless Ballinger were a good fellow. He knew Ballinger and Tony didn't. Was it likely that Fitz would be anxious for the marriage unless Ballinger was the best of good fellows? And yet, he, Tony, who knew nothing whatever about the man, had interfered. "But she doesn't love him!" cried this old fool, this betrayer of a father's trust."How do you know?" sternly demanded the inward mentor; "is she a girl to wear her heart upon her sleeve? She may be deeply in love with him, but won't confess it to herself even, just because he is rich and eligible, and because she would like a home of her own.""She doesn't seem a bit in love with him," pleaded the fatuous one. "Lallie in love would----"The mentor shrugged his shoulders and retired, for Tony Bevan had embarked upon a sea of speculation so deliciously problematical, so wholly removed from such sober themes as duty and expediency, that it was hopeless just then by the clearest call to reach ears that were deaf to all but the siren song."I wonder," mused Tony, "if I'd met her now for the first time, if she hadn't always put me down as a friend of her father's, worlds away from any touch of sentiment--I wonder if, as a mere man, I might have had a chance. Upon my soul I'd have tried for it."For a good half hour Tony sat dreaming; then he stooped and patted Val, remarking, "I'm d--d if she's in love with Ballinger," and Val wagged his tail in cordial assent.CHAPTER XVI"FromLALLIE CLONMELL, B. HOUSE, HAMCHESTER COLLEGE, TO FITZROY CLONMELL, c/o MESSRS. KING AND Co., BOMBAY, INDIA."MY DARLING DAD,"It's eleven o'clock at night and I ought to be getting to bed, but it's mail day to-morrow and I'm going to the Chesters at Fareham quite early, so I'll do your letter to-night. I'm sleepy enough, for I've been out with the Hamchester hounds to-day. Mr. Ballinger has come to hunt here, why, I leave you to imagine, and he mounted me and took me. Tony had forbidden me to go till we heard from you, but he went to Oxford; then I met Mr. Ballinger; then I had ever such a row with Miss Foster, and I felt reckless; and as Tony was not there to make me feel conscientious or repentant I went. I didn't enjoy it much, though the day and the little mare and the run were all as good as they could be. Mr. Ballinger is going to the Chesters also. There's a Primrose meeting to-morrow night, and I've got to sing some absurd tum-ti-tum sort of Jingo song about Empire and Tariff Reform and a large loaf. They call it a 'topical' song over here. I'd much rather sing them 'The Vicar of Bray' or 'Love's Young Dream' or 'Rory O'More,' but they won't let me. I offered to."Dad, dear, you will have gathered from my letters that Miss Foster and I do not exactly hit it off. I could forgive her not liking me, though I think it's bad taste on her part, if only she wouldn't treat me as though I were a contagious disease. The boys call her Germs, but indeed it's me that she makes feel a mass of microbes of the most noxious kind. She's rude, Dad, downright rude; and it would be absurd to say she doesn't mean it, for she does. And what's more, she takes care that I know she means it. I wouldn't mind a bit if she was ever so pernicketty and peppery if only she would be kind and pleasant sometimes, but she never is pleasant--to me. And yet I can't help admiring her for the way she looks after B. House. She really loves the boys, and if one of them is the least little bit ill Miss Foster is in a dreadful way. Both she and Tony are very worried just now because a boy is ill. They fear he has got scarlet fever. There has been a case in another house."Miss Foster has taken it into her head that I am bad for the boys, and that's one reason why she dislikes me. In what way I'm bad for them I don't know, and any that I have met seem to like talking to me, but whenever they do, I can see she is worried. I think she likes Tony awfully--but who doesn't? Yet she doesn't seem to make a really comfortable home for him somehow. As for poor Paunch! she hates him as much as she hates me, and never says a civil word to him."Paunch and I are great friends; we sit and shiver together in the chill blast of Miss Foster's displeasure, and 'a fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind,' especially Paunch. He is a most earnest young man, Dad; all day long he is thinking of the influence he may be on others, and the result is that Tony, who never thinks about himself at all, makes far more impression when he tells a boy he's a silly young ass than Paunch would if he talked about ideals till Doomsday. It's very odd how the boys really care what Tony thinks; of course they don't say so, but any one can see it. Mr. Johns is awfully good at games, so the boys respect that. The other day I asked Mr. Hamilton, one of the pre's, if Tony ever gave them a 'pi-jaw' as they call it."He looked very funny for a minute, and then he said, 'I don't know any one I'd sooner go to than old Bruiser if I was in a very bad mess.' It wasn't an answer to my question, but it was enlightening all the same. Tony makes me think of those lines at the beginning of 'Stalky':"'For they taught us common sense,Tried to teach us common sense,Truth and God's own common sense,Which is more than knowledge.'"I was reading 'Stalky' last night, and that seemed to me to explain Tony. The queer thing is that both Mr. Johns and Miss Foster, though they love him dearly, think Tony is a bit of a slacker. Miss Foster, because he will not work himself up into a fever whenever there's a rumour of mumps or chicken-pox; and Mr. Johns because Tony never talks about moral training, and never seems to be watching or prying about the boys; and yet I remember Paddy saying that somehow undesirable chaps never come back to B. House, though how or why nobody never knows, and I'm certain Tony's ideals are quite as high as Mr. Johns', although he never talks about them."I think it's rather a great thing, don't you, to send so many boys out into the world so that they keep straight and work and are useful members of the community, and so that they remember you and know you'd be awfully sorry if things went wrong. All the years I've known Tony, I've thought it such a pity he was anything so humdrum as a schoolmaster. Since I've been here I don't think that any more. I think it's such a jolly good thing for all the boys who've come under him. I wish he'd had the house all the time Paddy was there; but then, Paddy had him in the holidays, so it didn't matter so much."Paddy seems very happy at the Shop. He knows a lot of gunner people outside, and he goes out every Saturday and Sunday, but he's rather sick that they don't ride till their second term."Please don't fancy I'm unhappy here, I like it awfully. Every one is as kind and jolly as possible, and the attitude of Germs just gives the necessary touch of excitement to the situation. She positively dislikes music, poor woman, so I must be a trying guest. I'm obliged to practise, for I'm always singing somewhere. The music-hater is decidedly in the minority in this world."I'm afraid, Dad, that Mr. Ballinger means to propose again very shortly, and Tony says I ought not to marry any one I'm not really in love with, and I can't imagine myself in love with Mr. Ballinger, though I do like him, really, he's so kind and nice and says such agreeable things."Tony is not so amusing here as at home. He's a tiny bit stiff sometimes. I suppose it's the atmosphere. It must be awful to think all the time about setting an example, like Mr. Johns--so tiring. But he seems to thrive under it, and Tony says he'll be stout if he doesn't take care."I hope you'll bring back a lot of nice skins. They're a mangy lot in the drawing-room over in Kerry, some new ones will be a great improvement."Please write me longer letters, dear Dad. I'm very homesick sometimes, and I miss Bridget, but she could never have got on with Miss Foster; and if she heard Miss Foster speak nastily to me there would be wigs on the green indeed. It's a good thing Biddy is not here."I wonder why extreme monotony in the matter of meals is considered so beneficial to the youthful palate. It wouldn't cost a penny more to have a little variety, but they never do in the houses. There's heaps and heaps to eat, even the boys own that, but it is so dull for them having the same things over and over again. I'd love to go into Tony's kitchen and teach that cook of his how to make real good soup and a proper haricot. Dinner is always a nice meal, but Miss Foster has no imagination. I wonder what she'd do if she had to keep house for you. She'd probably grovel to you because you'd bully her. Now, as it is, she bullies Tony, and he can't call his soul his own. They say, (Who are they? I hear you ask), well, rumour hath it that if Tony ever wants to get married he'll have to do it in the holidays secretly, and then bring his wife home to have it out with Miss Foster. I can't imagine Tony married, can you? Oh, I'd hate it. I do hope he won't."Good-night, my dearest Dad. I'm really quite good here on the whole, though I did disobey Tony about hunting just this once."Your own loving daughter,"LALLIE."
Thus it was that when Lallie returned to B. House, front door, front hall, front stairs, though her boots were dreadful, she found a lovely fire in her bedroom and Matron there arranging a little tea-table beside the armchair on the hearth. Moreover Matron insisted on her changing everything there and then, and helped her to do it, finally dosing her with ammoniated quinine before she would give her any tea. She asked no questions of Lallie, but while the girl devoured crisp toast and a boiled egg, entertained her with various items of College news, among them that there was a case of scarlet fever in one of the houses.
"Isn't Miss Foster in a dreadful state?" asked Lallie.
"Well, she's worried and anxious, but so are we all. It's not the right term for it either, and the boy can't have brought it back with him--it's too late in the term--so the question is where did he get it? One always dreads an epidemic of any kind in a large school. We haven't had a real bad one for four years, and then it was in the summer term, which was better. It's always so much easier to get people well in summer."
"I got it that time too. Of course Paddy came back with it. Three holidays in succession he came back with something, and gave it to me every time; and he was so sick to have it in the holidays instead of missing school. But I should think this house is pretty safe. I never smelt so many disinfectants in my life till I came here--Come in!"
Miss Foster followed her knock, and she heard Lallie's last words.
The fire, lit three hours before its proper time; the tea-table; the presence of Matron; above all the certainty from the few words she had overheard that she, herself, was the subject of their discourse, all combined to rob her manner of any geniality she might have intended to impart to it. So annoyed was she that Matron should have taken upon herself to give Lallie tea without her--Miss Foster's orders, and that Lallie, as she concluded, had actually lit her own fire in the middle of the afternoon without by your leave of any sort, that she found nothing to say but:
"You're back I see, and have had tea--are you unwell?"
"Thank you, no," Lallie answered with quite equal frigidity, "but I was tired and hungry and very wet, and Matron was kind enough to bring me some tea."
"Mr. Bevan asked me to tell you that he has been unexpectedly called to Oxford and will not be back to-night."
"Won't you sit down, Miss Foster? Must you go, Matron? Thank you so much. Matron told me Tony had to go; it was he who asked her to see that I had tea. I hope it has not been troublesome?" Lallie added politely, rising from her chair.
Miss Foster stood in the middle of the room, large, remote, unapproachable; manifestly disapproving.
"I shall esteem it a favour, Miss Clonmell, if, in future, you will let me know beforehand when you intend to be absent from a meal."
"Certainly, Miss Foster; then I may as well tell you now that I shall not be home for luncheon to-morrow. I'm so glad you reminded me. Won't you sit down?"
Lallie herself sat down again in the big deep chair; so large was it that she almost seemed to lie down in it as she leaned back and stared fixedly at the fire. She looked so comfortable, so entirely at her ease, that Miss Foster simply longed to give this impudent girl a piece of her mind, but the events of the early afternoon had somewhat shaken her serene faith in the innate wisdom of her instincts. For years she had religiously tended the flame of her self-confidence till it burned with a steady radiance upon the altar of her beliefs. To-day, however, the flame had been blown upon by an adverse wind of criticism; it flickered until its light resembled a will-o'-the-wisp rather than the clear light of reason she had always supposed it to be. Even the sight of the denuded eggshell upon Lallie's empty plate, annoying anachronism at that hour though it was, could not stir Miss Foster to engage in open conflict.
The graceful little figure in the loose white dressing-gown, lolling in the chair, plainly awaited the first onslaught. Lazy and luxurious, Lallie looked sideways at Miss Foster under her long lashes and said sweetly:
"Do sit down: you look so uncomfortable standing there."
"No, thank you"; and in spite of herself Miss Foster replied quite civilly. "I only came to deliver Mr. Bevan's message. Do you think you will be well enough to come down to dinner?"
"I assure you I am not in the least ill. I will come down most punctually. But, if you will excuse me, I will not change till it's time to dress. I have letters to write and will do them here by this nice fire. Thank you so much for coming to inquire for me."
Miss Foster nearly answered: "I did nothing of the kind," but again mistrust of the "will-o'-the-wisp" prevented her, and she sailed out of the room without another word.
Lallie thrust out her little feet to the warmth and laughed.
"Dinner alone with Paunch and Germs will be rather a silent meal," she reflected, "unless we discuss the probabilities of scarlet fever, which we are sure to do. I'll finish Tony's waistcoat this evening, for to-morrow I shall be out all day. Tony will be so annoyed with me to-morrow that he'll forget all about the stupid little stramash to-day. I hate to vex him, but I know if he guessed half I have to bear from Germs it would vex him far more; and if he got questioning me I might let out something, and for all his quiet ways Tony is very observant. Germs was very civil this evening. I wonder why? I suppose poor old Tony gave her a dressing down, but it would hurt him frightfully to do it. She really is so splendid in the house, and he does love to live at peace with all his fellow creatures. He'd never enjoy a row as I do; but then, he's as English as ever he can be. It's quite suitable that he should find fault with a harum-scarum like me, that won't hurt him; but it's upsetting in the extreme to run against such a solid body as old Germs, all knobs and hard things that hurt when you charge into her.... I hope Mr. Ballinger won't look upon it as encouragement if I ride Kitty to-morrow. After all, why shouldn't I? We lent him a horse several times when he was over in Kerry last spring, and it's much safer to lend me a horse than him. I wish he was big and benevolent like Tony. You always feel you could lean against Tony and he'd stand steady as a rock. If you leant heavily against Mr. Ballinger he might collapse. Tony really is a very great dear, he's so big all round--I hate to vex him--but perhaps it'll clear the atmosphere a bit. I wish Mr. Ballinger looked less like a passenger when he's outside a horse.... I wonder----"
Lallie had ceased to wish or wonder, for she was fast asleep.
CHAPTER XIV
Lallie came down to breakfast in her habit. Miss Foster did not ask where she was going or why she was riding so early, but contented herself with a remark to the effect that the very short and skimpy habits now in vogue were singularly ungraceful and unbecoming. Lallie replied that the shortness of the habit mattered very little if only the boots below it were irreproachable, and that after all a habit was not for walking in and that it was better to look a bit bunchy on foot than to be dragged if you happened to be thrown. Whereupon Miss Foster made a complicated sort of sound, something between a snort and a sniff, and the meal proceeded in silence.
Only by going straight into College from the station could Tony take his class at the proper time, but immediately morning school was over he rushed down to B. House, hoping to find Lallie and take her up to watch the pick-up.
His letters were spread out on the hall table, and one, conspicuous from the fact that it was unstamped, caught his eye at once. He recognised the little upright writing so like Fitzroy Clonmell's.
As he read, Tony's honest face flushed, then paled to a look of pain and perplexity.
"Tony, dear," it ran, "I've disobeyed you and gone to the opening meet after all. I've not gone alone, and I assure you all will be well. Yesterday, in the town, I met a hunting friend of whom we saw a good deal last season, and he tempted me with a charming little mare whose clear destiny it was to carry me once; anyway--I fell--I gave in. His name is Ballinger--he is quite a nice man; but he doesn't ride a bit better than you, Tony, dear, so except as an escort I don't fancy I shall see much of him.
"This morning I had a letter from the Chesters up at Fareham, and they have asked me to go from to-morrow till Tuesday. They want me to sing at a Primrose meeting on Saturday; that I know you won't mind: it will get rid of me for a few days, and give you all a rest. Try not to be cross with me. I'm a tiresome wretch, I know, but I am also your loving Lallie."
Very deliberately Tony folded the letter, put it back in the envelope, and into his breast-pocket. He gathered up the rest of his letters and went to his study, but he made no attempt to read them. He forgot that he ought to go and watch the pick-up. He sat down by his desk, staring straight in front of him at nothing.
Evidently, he reflected, Lallie was unhappy in B. House; glad to get away. She was afraid he might say something to her about yesterday, and regardless of his expressed wish, nay his command, so far as he could be said to exercise any authority over her, she had disobeyed him. It had never so much as entered the realm of possibilities that she could defy him, and he was hurt. Never until that moment did he realise how much he counted upon her steady affection. He had always been so sure that he and Lallie thoroughly understood each other. From the time, when a little baby in her nurse's arms, she would hold out her own, struggling to be "taken" by the tall, shy undergraduate; throughout the somewhat stormy years of her childhood, when he was ever her confidant and her ally; during the many holidays he spent with Fitz and his family in Ireland, till the day, two years ago, when he first beheld her in a long frock with her clouds of dusky hair bound demurely round her head, and became aware with a little shock of foreboding that Lallie was growing up--never had he doubted her. And when he had got accustomed to her more grown-up appearance he speedily discovered that the real and essential Lallie was unchanged, that she was just as kind and merry and easily pleased, just as warm hearted and quick tempered, as neat fingered and capable and unexpected, as when her frocks reached barely to her knees.
"If I had seen her yesterday I don't believe she would have done this," Tony thought to himself; "it's not like her somehow to take the opportunity of my being away to do what she knows I would have done my best to prevent had I been at home. And this young Ballinger--he's no fit guardian for Lallie out hunting. Confound him! I wish he had stayed in his own shire. Fitz said I was not to discourage him, but I'm convinced he never meant she was to go out hunting with him. I suppose he is going to these Chesters, too; probably that's why she's going. I know nothing about the young man, but, like Charles Lamb, 'I'll d---- him at a venture.' It's too bad of Fitz shelving his parental responsibilities like this. Suppose anything happened to her to-day----"
This thought was so disquieting that Tony got up and walked about the room. Finally he opened and read his letters. Then Miss Foster came and added to his anxieties by informing him that A. J. Tarrant, a new boy, had that morning started a bad feverish cold and complained of sore throat.
"No rash yet," Miss Foster added gloomily, "but of course we've isolated him."
Altogether Tony wished he could have stayed in Oxford. Yet the day seemed very long, and when half-past five at last arrived Tony actually sprinted from the College to B. House.
A great wave of sound met him as he opened the front door. Lallie was playing the overture toTanhäuser. It certainly was neither meek nor repentant music. Nevertheless Tony ejaculated "Thank God!"
He opened the drawing-room door very gently. The ruddy firelight glowed and gloomed in waves of flame and shadow, but the opening of the door let in a long shaft of light from the hall, and with a final crash of chords Lallie turned on the piano stool, demanding:
"Is it you, Tony?"
"I didn't need to ask if it was you, and it was a great relief, I assure you. Had you a good day?"
Out of the shadows Lallie came forward into the ruddy circle of light.
"Your voice doesn't sound quite pleased with me," she said. "I must see your face to make sure. Please switch on a light and let me see."
She laid her little hands upon his shoulders and looked up searchingly into his face. The bright glare of the electric light made Tony blink, and he was so inexpressibly glad to see her again that his joy wholly crowded out the reproachful expression he had intended his homely features to assume.
He felt an overwhelming desire to take her in his arms, kiss her, and implore her to swear she would never go away again. It was only the certainty that she would kiss him back with the best will in the world, probably bursting into tears of repentance on his shoulder, that restrained Tony. He felt that it would not be playing the game. So very gently, with big hands that trembled somewhat, he removed those that lay so lightly on his shoulders and said, in a matter-of-fact voice:
"Naturally I was anxious. You see I thought we had agreed that there was to be no hunting until we heard from your father; and how could I tell how this--Mr. Ballinger might have mounted you?"
Lallie clasped her hands loosely in front of her, and stood before Tony with downcast eyes, and he forgot all about the matter under discussion in admiring her eyelashes.
"I didn't exactly promise," she murmured; then louder: "no, that's mean of me, and untruthful; I broke my word. I knew you wouldn't wish me to go--but I went--and I enjoyed it--rather. Not quite so much as I expected, though the little mare went like a bird. It was quite a short run; I was back here by three o'clock."
"Who brought you back?"
"Who brought me back? My dear, good Tony, I'm not a parcel nor a passenger; I came back. I studied the ordnance map of this district that's hanging in your study for a good hour last night. It was broad daylight when the run was over, and it's a very good country for signposts. I returned. Did you see Mr. Ballinger's cards in the hall? He came fussing here to see that I was all right when I was in the middle of changing, and he dutifully asked for Miss Foster, but she'd gone to the sewing-meeting for the Mission--Ioughtto have been there; I forgot all about it; I'm so sorry--and she's not back yet, so I sent down word that I was perfectly all right andresting, so he went empty away, poor man, longing for tea, I've no doubt; so must you be, we'll have it brought in here, Miss Foster won't be back till six. Some one's reading a paper to them while they sew, poor things! I'll have another tea with you, Tony. No lunch yesterday, no lunch to-day, and to-morrow will be the third day, though Mr. Ballinger did bring me a beautiful box of sandwiches, but I had no time to eat them."
"Mr. Ballinger! Why should he bring you sandwiches? Why didn't you ask Matron for some?"
"Oh, you dear goose! How could I ask for sandwiches when I was supposed to be going out to lunch. What would Miss Foster have said? Do you think anybody will tell her I went out hunting all by my gay lonesome?"
"It depends how many people knew you in the field."
"Ah, there you touch me on a tender spot. With the exception of one old curmudgeon who used to hunt sometimes with the "Cockshots" at Fareham last year, there was no one I knew at all, and he rode all round me staring, and then grunted out, 'Where's your father, Miss Clonmell?' I passed him at the first fence, that's one comfort; but you're right, Tony--I missed Dad. People stared at me. It was all right when the hounds were running, I forgot everything and everybody but the fun and excitement, but at the meet it was horrid. Is your tea nice? Oh, it is good to have you back again!"
"And you prove your joy at my return by going off to-morrow!"
"That's only for the week-end. I always promised them to help at their old meeting--and me a Home-Ruler--isn't it an anomaly?"
"I didn't know that your politics were so pronounced."
"You might guess I'd be 'ag'in the Government,' whichever party's in power. Neither really cares a jot for Ireland. I think the Tories are perhaps the less hypocritical of the two. But any sort of a political meeting is fun. I always long to shout, and boo, and kick the floor. I think all the disturbances they're able to make is what is so supremely attractive about the Suffragettes."
"Are you a Suffragette as well as a Home-Ruler? I shall begin to be quite afraid of you."
"Ishouldhave been a Suffragette if I might have gone to meetings, carried banners, or thumped on a gong to disturb Mr. Winston Churchill, but Dad was quite stuffy about it, and put down his foot--really put down his foot with a stamp; fancy Dad!--and forbade me to have anything to do with any of them, so what was the use? It wasn't the vote I wanted."
"Fitz really has, upon occasion, wonderful flashes of common sense, even in his dealings with you."
"Now don't you be pretending to think Dad spoils me, for you know very well he does nothing of the kind. He has never been petty nor interfering, but in things that really matter, I'd no more think of disobeying him than----"
"Of going out hunting without asking his permission," Tony suggested mildly. "And since we have approached the subject of your general submissiveness, might I suggest that you fall in with one little regulation of mine, mentioned on the very first evening you came. Do you remember my asking you not on any account to use the boys' part of the house?"
"Well, neither I have,ever."
"What about the back staircase?"
Lallie flushed angrily and began indignantly, "It wasn't my--"; then suddenly she stopped and said with studied gentleness, "I'm sorry, Tony; you did forbid me, but I quite forgot that those stairs came under your ban."
Tony smiled at her.
"That's all right then. You'll remember in future. In some ways, Lallie, you are very like a boy."
"Good ways, I hope?" her voice was anxious.
"Some of them are quite good. Some of them--well, they are apt to get other people in trouble. See what was sent to me by the incensed master to whom the remarks refer," and Tony held out to her a large sheet of lined paper, closely written in her own neat little upright writing. The first few lines comprised a decorous statement to the effect that "Marlborough underrated the difficulty of managing a coalition. In his necessary absence abroad this difficult operation was in the hands of Godolphin, always a timid minister without any real political convictions," when suddenly the style of the Reverend J. Franck Bright lapsed into the wholly indefensible statement that "cross old Nick is a silly old Ass," and this was repeated line after line throughout nearly half a page.
Lallie gasped, then burst into uncontrollable laughter, exclaiming:
"It's Cripps's lines. He told me he had to do five hundred, and that no one ever looked at them, so I said I'd do three hundred for him as he wanted awfully to play fives that day. So I copied the dry old History Book till I was sick to death of the long words, and then in the middle I put that in just to cheer things up. What had I better do? Go and see Mr. Nichol, or what? He simply must not punish Cripps. He knew nothing whatever about it, poor boy. I sent him the lines in a neat bundle, and I don't suppose he ever looked at them."
"As it happened it was Mr. Nichol who looked at them, for Cripps omitted the very simple precaution of putting his own pages on the top, and as his writing in no way resembles yours, Mr. Nichol naturally suspected extraneous assistance. He turned the pages over and came upon the one you have in your hand--your capital 'A's' simply jump to the eye. Naturally he was much annoyed, and I am sorry to say he describes your friend Cripps as 'a surly, insubordinate fellow,' and demands that he should be starred."
"But he can't be starred, for he didn't do it."
"That, very naturally, Cripps did not explain; and after all he is responsible for the lines he gives up."
"Tony, have you seen Cripps?"
"I have."
"Oh, what did you say?"
"I told him that he was a lazy young dog, and ought to do his lines himself; that I hadn't an ounce of sympathy with him, and that he deserved all he got and more; but I need hardly say I did not send him to the Principal with the suggestion that his prefect's star should be taken from him."
"Oh, Tony, I hear Miss Foster; quick--oughtIto run out and see Mr. Nichol? I'm not a bit afraid of him."
"I think that the matter may now rest in oblivion; only let me offer you one bit of sound advice. If you are charitable enough to help any poor beggar with his lines, write large; it's a fearful waste of energy to do neat little writing like that--eight words to a line is the regulation thing--and, for Heaven's sake refrain from personal remarks."
"Tony, you are a real dear. I will fly now, for Miss Foster may want to talk to you about the house."
Lallie darted at Tony, dropped a hasty kiss on the top of his head, and fled across the room, opening the door to admit Miss Foster, who had removed her outdoor things. She never came into a sitting-room before going upstairs; she considered it slovenly.
Tony folded the large closely written sheet of paper containing the reiterated animadversions upon the intelligence of Mr. Nichol senior, put it in his pocket, and rose to place a chair for Miss Foster, who regarded the tea things with a look of acute distress.
"I took the opportunity," Tony remarked, "of speaking to Miss Clonmell on the subject you mentioned to me yesterday afternoon, and--er--I reminded her that I had on her first arrival asked her on no account to use the boys' part of the house." Here Tony made a little pause, as though he expected Miss Foster to make some observation. "I confess that the fact of her being on that staircase at all did surprise me," he added meditatively, looking full at Miss Foster with kind, beseeching eyes.
That lady flushed and sat up very straight in her chair, but she did not meet his gaze.
"What explanation did Miss Clonmell give?" she asked.
"None; she expressed regret that she had forgotten my prohibition, but said that she did not suppose that staircase came under it, though why, I can't imagine."
Again Miss Foster felt herself encompassed by that glance, so full of dumb, entreating kindness. This time she raised her eyes to his and met them fairly as she said slowly:
"Perhaps I am somewhat to blame for Miss Clonmell's presence upon that staircase, though you may imagine I never dreamt of the use to which she would put it. I confess that it never occurred to me as being in any way objectionable during the day. The boys never go up or down, and she often has such exceedingly muddy boots--I may have even suggested she should go that way. I am sorry----"
"It doesn't matter in the least really," Tony said heartily, and his whole face beamed. "Thank you very much for explaining."
He did not add that it was just what he had suspected from the first moment that Lallie's frivolous conduct was revealed to him; but he meant Miss Foster to own up, and she had owned up. Had she failed to do so Tony could never have respected her again.
"As to Lallie," he reflected tenderly, "you never know what she'll do next, but there are things you can depend on her not doing, and that's to try and drag any one else into the unpleasant results of her vagaries. She'll never go back on any one, never make mischief; and who the devil is Ballinger that he should have all this?"
CHAPTER XV
That evening Lallie went into the study to say good-night to Tony. He was reading by the fire, and she came and sat on the floor at his feet, leaning back against his knees as she had done on the evening he corrected papers in the drawing-room. The green silk bag was slung over her arm, but her work was allowed to remain therein, and for once she was content to let her hands lie idle.
"I've come early," she announced, "because if you're not very busy I'd like a little chat. I've turned out the lights and shut the door, for Miss Foster's not coming down again, she says. Isn't it funny to like to go to bed so early?"
"She gets up early, I expect; and perhaps she's very tired at night. Wouldn't you like a cushion or something, don't you find the floor very hard?"
"I'm quite comfortable, thank you. Now listen to me, Tony. Do you think I'm getting to an age when I'd be better with a home of my own?"
With a mental ejaculation of "Ballinger!" Tony adjusted his mind to the question, saying quickly:
"But surely you've got that already."
"No, Tony; that's just what I have not got. As long as old Madame was alive it was all right. Dad came and went as he pleased, but there was always the house for Paddy and me, whether we were in France or in Ireland. But lately I've begun to feel I'm a bit of a drag on Dad; you know how restless he is sometimes, how unexpected----"
"It's a family failing, Lallie," Tony interrupted.
"And, you see, when he rushes off he won't leave me alone in whatever house we happen to be in, and Aunt Emileen seems no comfort to him unless he's in the house along with her; and there's all the fuss of arranging for me, and I'm sent off here and there on visits, whether I like it or not; and I begin to feel that I've no abiding place at all."
"Is your visit here one of the 'nots'?"
"Now that's nasty of you. You know I meant nothing of the kind, and I jumped for joy when Dad said I should come to you for all these months; but when Dad has been home for a bit and the first delight in having me again has worn off, he'll want to be wandering. If it's wandering I can do too, that's all right. I love going about with Dad, but if it's somewhere that he doesn't care to take me, like this time, then it'll all come over again--the placing out--and I hate it."
"But, Lallie, most young people like plenty of change and variety; the one thing they cannot away with is monotony. That's what most of them, girls especially, complain of."
"Tony, I'm going to make a confession." Lallie turned half round, and leaning an elbow on his knee lifted her face, earnest and serious, so that she might look into his. "I'm fond of a house. I like housekeeping, and pottering, and looking after things, and ordering dinner, and sewing, and mending, and arranging flowers, and cooking if I want to, and I can cook well; and you can't do any of these things in other people's houses--at least, only the sewing part."
"I'm sure you may cook here if you wish to. I'll undertake to eat anything you make if it's really good."
"Oh, it's not that. I don't mean that I'd like to be always cooking, but I like to feel that I've got a house to look after--my own house. I'd be perfectly happy if Dad wanted a house, but he doesn't. He kept it up for Paddy and me when we were small because he thought it was the right thing to do; but now he doesn't seem to think it so necessary. Poor man, he's too young to have grown-up children, Tony, and that's a fact. He has small patience with Paddy, because, you know, their interests clash. It's different with a woman, the younger she is the prouder is she to have grown-up sons and the cleverer she thinks herself that they are grown up. Don't you think I'm right?"
"Your generalisation," Tony began deliberately, when Lallie interrupted by pinching his knee and exclaiming:
"Now, none of the schoolmaster, I won't have it."
"As I was about to remark when you interrupted me, what you say has a certain amount of truth in it, but your father has not yet returned from India. When he does return he may not feel the slightest inclination for wandering; at any rate, not for some considerable time--so why worry?"
"I should like to feel settled and secure."
"My dear Lallie, you'll never feel settled, you're not that sort; and as to security, pray in what way do you feel insecure at present?"
Lallie removed her elbow from Tony's knee, she leant back against him again so that he could not see her face, and said, very low:
"I feel insecure because in the course of the next few weeks I'll have to make up my mind definitely one way or other, and whichever way it is, it seems to me I shall regret it."
Again the whole of Tony's mentality fairly cried the name of Ballinger aloud, and although the stillness in the quiet room was so great that you might have heard a pin drop it seemed that his thought must have reached Lallie, for she broke the silence by saying in quite a different tone:
"I wish you had met Dad's friend, Mr. Ballinger, Tony; I'd like to know what you think of him."
"That can be easily managed; we'll ask him to dinner when you come back."
"He is going to the Chesters, you know."
"I didn't know, but I'm glad to hear it for your sake, since you like him."
"Then you don't think I'd be better in a home of my own--married, I mean," said Lallie with startling bluntness.
"I never said anything of the kind."
"Well, you didn't seem to smile upon the notion."
"The notion, as you call it, appears to me in itself quite admirable, if not exactly novel; but you would need to make sure, wouldn't you? that the husband--I think a husband is included in your scheme of felicity--is in keeping--in the picture as it were."
Tony's voice was dry as that in which he instilled the rules of prosody into his form. In fact it was less impassioned, for on occasion he waxed eloquent though vituperative when dealing with that form's Latin prose.
Again Lallie turned half round and leant her elbow on his knee. Again her grey eyes searched his face, apparently in vain, for some clue to the tone in which he spoke.
"I wish I was a rich widow," she said vindictively, "with a nice little place of my own, then there'd be no bother at all, and you could come and stay with me and arrange cricket matches all the summer holidays. I'd put up that eleven you always go off with, and we'd have a cricket week and lovely times."
"The prospect is certainly pleasing," Tony remarked, without enthusiasm; "but it seems to me a little callous on your part to be so anxious to kill off your husband before ever you've tried one."
"Do you think Mr. Johns would make a nice husband?" Lallie asked in a detached, impersonal sort of way.
"Good heavens! How should I know? I hope he won't think of being any one's husband for years to come. He couldn't keep a wife; for one thing, he's too poor."
"Oh, but he is sure to get on; he'll be a headmaster some day. You'll see. I never met a young man who was more wrapped up in his profession. He's influencing boys all day long."
"By Jove! is he though? I'm glad to hear it."
"I think he'd be a verykindhusband," said Lallie, "but a bit boring sometimes. I suppose I'd better be thinking of bed. You haven't helped me much, Tony," and Lallie arose and stood in front of him, slender and upright, in her straight green gown. Tony rose too.
"I don't quite know what you wanted me to say, Lallie, but I'd like to say this: Don't you marry anybody for the sake of having a house of your own. Your mother's daughter is capable of something finer and better than that. I cannot in all my experience recall such a happy marriage as hers. Child, there is such a thing. Don't you believe people who say that respect, and affection, and mutual suitability, and all the rest of it are one atom of good if you're not in love with the man. You spoke to-night of your father's restlessness. Do you think he would have been like that if your mother had lived? It was simply that he had the most perfect home man ever had on this earth; and when she was taken away from him the wrench destroyed his will-power, and he has been at the mercy of his impulses ever since. Never judge him, Lallie; he can't help it."
The tears welled up into Lallie's eyes.
"I don't judge him," she faltered; "it's myself I judge, and blame, and yet I tried so hard to make his home happy and comfortable, so that he'd want to stay with me; and I can make a nice home, I really can, but it wasn't enough for Dad. Last winter I thought we were settled. He liked the hunting, and we were so happy, and had such jokes about Aunt Emileen, but it all came to an end--andhe'd like me to marry, Tony; that's the har-r-d part."
The big tears hung on Lallie's lashes, the corners of her mouth drooped, and she looked so small, and pathetic, and forlorn that Tony fairly turned his back upon her and leant his arms on the chimneypiece, staring with the greatest interest at the shield bearing his college arms, which he did not see.
"I am convinced," he said, and his voice was almost gruff, "that your father would hate to think you married anybody simply for the sake of getting married. Of course he would like to see you well and happily married--but----"
"Good-night, Tony," Lallie said meekly.
He turned and shook her outstretched hand and stood at the door watching her as she went slowly up the stairs with drooping head and deep depression in every line of the slender little figure that always looked so much taller than it really was. She never turned her head to look back at him, and Tony shut the door and sat down at his desk with a groan.
Matron was right: he'd got it late, and he'd got it badly. But she was wrong when she informed Val that he didn't know what was the matter with him.
He cursed himself for an old fool; for a betrayer of trust; for a dog in the manger.
Fitz wanted Lallie to marry this Ballinger; told him so. And here was he, Tony Bevan, actually using what influence he had to prevent her doing anything of the kind. Fitz wouldn't want it unless Ballinger were a good fellow. He knew Ballinger and Tony didn't. Was it likely that Fitz would be anxious for the marriage unless Ballinger was the best of good fellows? And yet, he, Tony, who knew nothing whatever about the man, had interfered. "But she doesn't love him!" cried this old fool, this betrayer of a father's trust.
"How do you know?" sternly demanded the inward mentor; "is she a girl to wear her heart upon her sleeve? She may be deeply in love with him, but won't confess it to herself even, just because he is rich and eligible, and because she would like a home of her own."
"She doesn't seem a bit in love with him," pleaded the fatuous one. "Lallie in love would----"
The mentor shrugged his shoulders and retired, for Tony Bevan had embarked upon a sea of speculation so deliciously problematical, so wholly removed from such sober themes as duty and expediency, that it was hopeless just then by the clearest call to reach ears that were deaf to all but the siren song.
"I wonder," mused Tony, "if I'd met her now for the first time, if she hadn't always put me down as a friend of her father's, worlds away from any touch of sentiment--I wonder if, as a mere man, I might have had a chance. Upon my soul I'd have tried for it."
For a good half hour Tony sat dreaming; then he stooped and patted Val, remarking, "I'm d--d if she's in love with Ballinger," and Val wagged his tail in cordial assent.
CHAPTER XVI
"FromLALLIE CLONMELL, B. HOUSE, HAMCHESTER COLLEGE, TO FITZROY CLONMELL, c/o MESSRS. KING AND Co., BOMBAY, INDIA.
"MY DARLING DAD,
"It's eleven o'clock at night and I ought to be getting to bed, but it's mail day to-morrow and I'm going to the Chesters at Fareham quite early, so I'll do your letter to-night. I'm sleepy enough, for I've been out with the Hamchester hounds to-day. Mr. Ballinger has come to hunt here, why, I leave you to imagine, and he mounted me and took me. Tony had forbidden me to go till we heard from you, but he went to Oxford; then I met Mr. Ballinger; then I had ever such a row with Miss Foster, and I felt reckless; and as Tony was not there to make me feel conscientious or repentant I went. I didn't enjoy it much, though the day and the little mare and the run were all as good as they could be. Mr. Ballinger is going to the Chesters also. There's a Primrose meeting to-morrow night, and I've got to sing some absurd tum-ti-tum sort of Jingo song about Empire and Tariff Reform and a large loaf. They call it a 'topical' song over here. I'd much rather sing them 'The Vicar of Bray' or 'Love's Young Dream' or 'Rory O'More,' but they won't let me. I offered to.
"Dad, dear, you will have gathered from my letters that Miss Foster and I do not exactly hit it off. I could forgive her not liking me, though I think it's bad taste on her part, if only she wouldn't treat me as though I were a contagious disease. The boys call her Germs, but indeed it's me that she makes feel a mass of microbes of the most noxious kind. She's rude, Dad, downright rude; and it would be absurd to say she doesn't mean it, for she does. And what's more, she takes care that I know she means it. I wouldn't mind a bit if she was ever so pernicketty and peppery if only she would be kind and pleasant sometimes, but she never is pleasant--to me. And yet I can't help admiring her for the way she looks after B. House. She really loves the boys, and if one of them is the least little bit ill Miss Foster is in a dreadful way. Both she and Tony are very worried just now because a boy is ill. They fear he has got scarlet fever. There has been a case in another house.
"Miss Foster has taken it into her head that I am bad for the boys, and that's one reason why she dislikes me. In what way I'm bad for them I don't know, and any that I have met seem to like talking to me, but whenever they do, I can see she is worried. I think she likes Tony awfully--but who doesn't? Yet she doesn't seem to make a really comfortable home for him somehow. As for poor Paunch! she hates him as much as she hates me, and never says a civil word to him.
"Paunch and I are great friends; we sit and shiver together in the chill blast of Miss Foster's displeasure, and 'a fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind,' especially Paunch. He is a most earnest young man, Dad; all day long he is thinking of the influence he may be on others, and the result is that Tony, who never thinks about himself at all, makes far more impression when he tells a boy he's a silly young ass than Paunch would if he talked about ideals till Doomsday. It's very odd how the boys really care what Tony thinks; of course they don't say so, but any one can see it. Mr. Johns is awfully good at games, so the boys respect that. The other day I asked Mr. Hamilton, one of the pre's, if Tony ever gave them a 'pi-jaw' as they call it.
"He looked very funny for a minute, and then he said, 'I don't know any one I'd sooner go to than old Bruiser if I was in a very bad mess.' It wasn't an answer to my question, but it was enlightening all the same. Tony makes me think of those lines at the beginning of 'Stalky':
"'For they taught us common sense,Tried to teach us common sense,Truth and God's own common sense,Which is more than knowledge.'
"'For they taught us common sense,Tried to teach us common sense,Truth and God's own common sense,Which is more than knowledge.'
"'For they taught us common sense,
Tried to teach us common sense,
Truth and God's own common sense,
Which is more than knowledge.'
"I was reading 'Stalky' last night, and that seemed to me to explain Tony. The queer thing is that both Mr. Johns and Miss Foster, though they love him dearly, think Tony is a bit of a slacker. Miss Foster, because he will not work himself up into a fever whenever there's a rumour of mumps or chicken-pox; and Mr. Johns because Tony never talks about moral training, and never seems to be watching or prying about the boys; and yet I remember Paddy saying that somehow undesirable chaps never come back to B. House, though how or why nobody never knows, and I'm certain Tony's ideals are quite as high as Mr. Johns', although he never talks about them.
"I think it's rather a great thing, don't you, to send so many boys out into the world so that they keep straight and work and are useful members of the community, and so that they remember you and know you'd be awfully sorry if things went wrong. All the years I've known Tony, I've thought it such a pity he was anything so humdrum as a schoolmaster. Since I've been here I don't think that any more. I think it's such a jolly good thing for all the boys who've come under him. I wish he'd had the house all the time Paddy was there; but then, Paddy had him in the holidays, so it didn't matter so much.
"Paddy seems very happy at the Shop. He knows a lot of gunner people outside, and he goes out every Saturday and Sunday, but he's rather sick that they don't ride till their second term.
"Please don't fancy I'm unhappy here, I like it awfully. Every one is as kind and jolly as possible, and the attitude of Germs just gives the necessary touch of excitement to the situation. She positively dislikes music, poor woman, so I must be a trying guest. I'm obliged to practise, for I'm always singing somewhere. The music-hater is decidedly in the minority in this world.
"I'm afraid, Dad, that Mr. Ballinger means to propose again very shortly, and Tony says I ought not to marry any one I'm not really in love with, and I can't imagine myself in love with Mr. Ballinger, though I do like him, really, he's so kind and nice and says such agreeable things.
"Tony is not so amusing here as at home. He's a tiny bit stiff sometimes. I suppose it's the atmosphere. It must be awful to think all the time about setting an example, like Mr. Johns--so tiring. But he seems to thrive under it, and Tony says he'll be stout if he doesn't take care.
"I hope you'll bring back a lot of nice skins. They're a mangy lot in the drawing-room over in Kerry, some new ones will be a great improvement.
"Please write me longer letters, dear Dad. I'm very homesick sometimes, and I miss Bridget, but she could never have got on with Miss Foster; and if she heard Miss Foster speak nastily to me there would be wigs on the green indeed. It's a good thing Biddy is not here.
"I wonder why extreme monotony in the matter of meals is considered so beneficial to the youthful palate. It wouldn't cost a penny more to have a little variety, but they never do in the houses. There's heaps and heaps to eat, even the boys own that, but it is so dull for them having the same things over and over again. I'd love to go into Tony's kitchen and teach that cook of his how to make real good soup and a proper haricot. Dinner is always a nice meal, but Miss Foster has no imagination. I wonder what she'd do if she had to keep house for you. She'd probably grovel to you because you'd bully her. Now, as it is, she bullies Tony, and he can't call his soul his own. They say, (Who are they? I hear you ask), well, rumour hath it that if Tony ever wants to get married he'll have to do it in the holidays secretly, and then bring his wife home to have it out with Miss Foster. I can't imagine Tony married, can you? Oh, I'd hate it. I do hope he won't.
"Good-night, my dearest Dad. I'm really quite good here on the whole, though I did disobey Tony about hunting just this once.
"Your own loving daughter,
"LALLIE."