Burton spent the rest of the day in most delightful fashion. He took the Tube to South Kensington Museum, where he devoted himself for several hours to the ecstatic appreciation of a small section of its treasures. He lunched off some fruit and tea and bread and butter out in the gardens, wandering about afterwards among the flower-beds and paying especial and delighted attention to the lilac trees beyond the Memorial. Towards evening he grew depressed. The memory of Ellen, of little Alfred, and his gingerbread villa, became almost like a nightmare to him. And then the light came! His great resolution was formed. With beating heart he turned to a stationer's shop, bought a sheet of paper and an envelope, borrowed a pen and wrote:
My DEAR ELLEN,
I am not coming home for a short time. As you remarked, there is something the matter with me. I don't know what it is. Perhaps in a few days I shall find out. I shall send your money as usual on Saturday, and hope that you and the boy will continue well.
From your husband,
Burton sighed a long sigh of intense relief as he folded up and addressed this epistle. Then he bought four stamps and sent it home. He was a free man. He had three pounds fifteen in his pocket, a trifle of money in the savings-bank, no situation, and a wife and son to support. The position was serious enough, yet never for a moment could he regard it without a new elasticity of spirit and a certain reckless optimism, the source of which he did not in the least understand. He was to learn before long, however, that moods and their resulting effect upon the spirit were part of the penalty which he must pay for the greater variety of his new life.
He took a tiny bedroom somewhere Westminster way—a room in a large, solemn-looking house, decayed and shabby, but still showing traces of its former splendor. That night he saw an Ibsen play from the front row of a deserted gallery, and afterwards, in melancholy mood, he walked homeward along the Embankment by the moonlight. For the first time in life he had come face to face with a condition of which he had had no previous experience—the condition of intellectual pessimism. He was depressed because in this new and more spontaneous world, so full of undreamed-of beauties, so exquisitely stimulating to his new powers of appreciation, he had found something which he did not understand. Truth for the first time had seemed unpleasant, not only in its effects but in itself. The problem was beyond him. Nevertheless, he pulled his bed up to the window, from which he could catch a glimpse of the varied lights of the city, and fell asleep.
In the morning he decided to seek for a situation. A very reasonable instinct led him to avoid all such houses as Messrs. Waddington & Forbes. He made his way instead to the offices of a firm who were quite at the top of their profession. A junior partner accorded him a moment's interview. He was civil but to the point.
"There is no opening whatever in this firm," he declared, "for any one who has been in the employment of Messrs. Waddington & Forbes. Good morning!"
On the doorstep, Burton ran into the arms of Mr. Lynn, who recognized him at once.
"Say, young man," he exclaimed, holding out his hand, "I am much obliged for that recommendation of yours to these people! I have taken a house in Connaught Place—a real nice house it is, too. Come and see us—number 17. The wife and daughters land to-morrow."
"Thank you very much," Burton answered. "I am glad you are fixed up comfortably."
Mr. Lynn laid his hand upon the young man's shoulder. He looked at him curiously. He was an observant person and much interested in his fellow-creatures.
"Kind of change in you, isn't there?" he asked, in a puzzled manner. "I scarcely recognized you at first."
Burton made no reply. The conventional falsehood which rose to his lips, died away before it was uttered.
"Look here," Mr. Lynn continued, "you take a word of advice from me. You chuck those people, Waddington & Forbes. They're wrong 'uns—won't do you a bit of good. Get another job. So long, and don't forget to look us up."
Mr. Lynn passed on his way into the office. He ran into the junior partner, who greeted him warmly.
"Say, do you know that young man who's just gone out?" the former inquired.
The junior partner shook his head.
"Never seen him before," he replied. "He came here looking for a job."
"Is that so?" Mr. Lynn asked with interest. "Well, I hope you gave it to him?"
Young Mr. Miller shook his head.
"He came from the wrong school for us," he declared. "Regular thieves, the people he was with. By the bye, didn't they nearly let you that death-trap of old Lady Idlemay's?"
"Yes, and he happens to be just the young man," Mr. Lynn asserted, removing the cigar from his mouth, "who prevented my taking it, or at any rate having to part with a handsome deposit. I was sent down there with him and at first he cracked it up like a real hustler. He got me so fixed that I had practically made up my mind and was ready to sign any reasonable agreement. Then he suddenly seemed to turn round. He looked me straight in the face and told me about the typhoid and all of it, explained that it wasn't the business of the firm to let houses likely to interest me, and wound up by giving me your name and address and recommending me to come to you."
"You surprise me very much indeed," Mr. Miller admitted. "Under the circumstances, it is scarcely to be wondered at that he is out of employment. Old Waddington wouldn't have much use for a man like that."
"I shouldn't be surprised," Mr. Lynn remarked thoughtfully, "if it was through my affair that he got the sack. Couldn't you do something for him, Mr. Miller—to oblige me, eh?"
"If he calls again," Mr. Miller promised, "I will do my best."
But Burton did not call again. He made various efforts to obtain a situation in other directions, without the slightest result. Then he gave it up. He became a wanderer about London, one of her children who watched her with thoughtful eyes at all times and hours of the day and night. He saw the pink dawn glimmer through the trees in St. James's Park. He saw the bridges empty, the smoke-stained buildings deserted by their inhabitants, with St. Paul's in the background like a sentinel watching over the sleeping world. He heard the crash and roar of life die away and he watched like an anxious prophet while the city slept. He looked upon the stereotyped horrors of the Embankment, vitalized and actual to him now in the light of his new understanding. He wandered with the first gleam of light among the flower-beds of the Park, sniffing with joy at the late hyacinths, revelling in the cool, sweet softness of the unpolluted air. Then he listened to the awakening, to the birth of the day. He heard it from the bridges, from London Bridge and Westminster Bridge, over which thundered the great vans fresh from the country, on their way to Covent Garden. He stood in front of the Mansion House and watched the thin, black stream of the earliest corners grow into a surging, black-coated torrent. There were things which made him sorry and there were things which made him glad. On the whole, however, his isolated contemplation of what for so long he had taken as a matter of course depressed him. Life was unutterably and intensely selfish. Every little unit in that seething mass was so entirely, so strangely self-centered. None of them had any real love or friendliness for the millions who toiled around them, no one seemed to have time to take his eyes from his own work and his own interests. Burton became more and more depressed as the days passed. Then he closed his eyes and tried an antidote. He abandoned this study of his fellow-creatures and plunged once more into the museums, sated himself with the eternal beauties, and came out to resume his place amid the tumultuous throng with rested nerves and a beatific smile upon his lips. It mattered so little, his welfare of to-day or to-morrow—whether he went hungry or satisfied to bed! The other things were in his heart. He saw the truth.
One day he met his late employer. Mr. Waddington was not, in his way, an ill-natured man, and he stopped short upon the pavement. Burton's new suit was not wearing well. It showed signs of exposure to the weather. The young man himself was thin and pale. It was not for Mr. Waddington to appreciate the soft brilliance of his eyes, the altered curves of his lips. From his intensely practical point of view, his late employee was certainly in low water.
"Hullo, Burton!" he exclaimed, coming to a standstill and taking the pipe from his mouth.
"How do you do, sir?" Burton replied, civilly.
Getting on all right, eh?
"Very nicely indeed, thank you, sir."
Mr. Waddington grunted.
"Hm! You don't look like it! Got a job yet?"
"No, sir."
"Then how the devil can you be getting on at all?" Mr. Waddington inquired.
Burton smiled quite pleasantly.
"It does seem queer, sir," he admitted. "I said that I was getting on all right because I am contented and happy. That is the chief thing after all, isn't it?"
Mr. Waddington opened his mouth and closed it again.
"I wish I could make out what the devil it was that happened to you," he said. "Why, you used to be as smart as they make 'em, a regular nipper after business. I expected you'd be after me for a partnership before long, and I expect I'd have had to give it you. And then you went clean dotty. I shall never forget that day at the sale, when you began telling people everything it wasn't good for them to know."
"You mean that it wasn't good for us for them to know," Burton corrected gently.
Mr. Waddington laughed. He had a large amount of easy good-humor and he was always ready to laugh.
"You haven't lost your wits, I see," he declared. "What was it? Did you by any chance get religion, Burton?"
The young man shook his head.
"Not particularly, sir," he replied. "By the bye, you owe me four days' money. Would it be quite convenient—?"
"You shall have it," Mr. Waddington declared, thrusting his hand into his trousers pocket. "I can't afford it, for things are going badly with me. Here it is, though. Thirty-four shillings—that's near enough. Anything else?"
"There is one other thing," Burton said slowly. "It is rather a coincidence, sir, that we should have met just here. I see that you have been into Idlemay House. I wonder whether you would lend me the keys? I will return them to the office, with pleasure, but I should very much like to go in myself for a few minutes."
Mr. Waddington stared at his late employee, thoroughly puzzled.
"If you aren't a caution!" he exclaimed. "What the mischief do you want to go in there for?"
Burton smiled.
"I should like to see if that little room where the old Egyptian died has been disturbed since I was there, sir."
Mr. Waddington hesitated. Then he turned and led the way.
"I'd forgotten all about that," he said. "Come along, I'll go in with you."
They crossed the road, ascended the steps, and in a few minutes they were inside the house. The place smelt very musty and uninhabited. Burton delicately avoided the subject of its being still unlet. The little chamber on the right of the hall was as dark as ever. Burton felt his heart beat quickly as a little waft of familiar perfume swept out to him at the opening of the door. Mr. Waddington struck a match and held it over his head.
"So this is the room," he remarked. "Dashed if I've ever been in it!It wants cleaning out and fumigating badly. What's this?"
He picked up the sheet of paper, which was lying exactly as Burton had left it. Then he lifted up the little dwarf tree and looked at it.
"It is finished. The nineteenth generation has triumphed. He who shall eat of the brown fruit of this tree, shall see the things of Life and Death as they are. He who shall eat—"
"Well, I'm d—d!" he muttered. "What's it all mean, anyway?"
"Try a brown bean," Burton suggested softly. "They aren't half bad."
"Very likely poison," Mr. Waddington said, suspiciously.
Burton said nothing for a moment. He had taken up the sheet of paper and was gazing at the untranslated portion.
"I wonder," he murmured, "if there is any one who could tell us what the other part of it means?"
"The d—d thing smells all right," Mr. Waddington declared. "Here goes!"
He broke off a brown bean and swallowed it. Burton turned round just in time to see the deed. For a moment he stood aghast. Then very slowly he tiptoed his way from the door and hurried stealthily from the house. From some bills which he had been studying half an hour ago he remembered that Mr. Waddington was due, later in the morning, to conduct a sale of "antique" furniture!
The clearness of vision which enabled Alfred Burton now to live in and appreciate a new and marvelous world, failed, however, to keep him from feeling, occasionally, exceedingly hungry. He lived on very little, but the weekly amount must always be sent to Garden Green. There came a time when he broke in upon the last five pound note of his savings. He realized the position without any actual misgivings. He denied himself regretfully a tiny mezzotint of the Raphael "Madonna," which he coveted for his mantelpiece. He also denied himself dinner for several evenings. When fortune knocked at his door he was, in fact, extraordinarily hungry. He still had faith, notwithstanding his difficulties, and no symptoms of dejection. He was perfectly well aware that this need for food was, after all, one of the most unimportant affairs in the world, although he was forced sometimes to admit to himself that he found it none the less surprisingly unpleasant. Chance, however, handed over to him a shilling discovered upon the curb, and a high-class evening paper left upon a seat in the Park. He had no sooner eaten and drunk with the former than he opened the latter. There was an article on the front page entitled "London Awake." He read it line by line and laughed. It was all so ridiculously simple. He hurried back to his rooms and wrote a much better one on "London Asleep." He was master of his subject. He wrote of what he had seen with effortless and sublime verity. Why not? Simply with the aid of pen and ink he transferred from the cells of his memory into actual phrases the silent panorama which he had seen with his own eyes. That one matchless hour before the dawn was entirely his. Throughout its sixty minutes he had watched and waited with every sense quivering. He had watched and heard that first breath of dawn come stealing into life. It was child's play to him. He knew nothing about editors, but he walked into the office of the newspaper which he had picked up, and explained his mission.
"We are not looking for new contributors at present," he was told a little curtly. "What paper have you been on?"
"I have never written anything before in my life," Burton confessed, "but this is much better than 'London Awake,' which you published a few evenings ago."
The sub-editor of that newspaper looked at him with kindly contempt.
"'London Awake' was written for us by Rupert Mendosa. We don't get beginner's stuff like that. I don't think it will be the least use, but I'll look at your article if you like—quick!"
Burton handed over his copy with calm confidence. It was shockingly written on odd pieces of paper, pinned together anyhow—an untidy and extraordinary-looking production. The sub-editor very nearly threw it contemptuously back. Instead he glanced at it, frowned, read a little more, and went on reading. When he had finished, he looked at this strange, thin young man with the pallid cheeks and deep-set eyes, in something like awe.
"You wrote this yourself?" he asked.
"Certainly, sir," Burton answered. "If it is really worth putting in your paper and paying for, you can have plenty more."
"But why did you write it?" the editor persisted. "Where did you get the idea from?"
Burton looked at him in mild-eyed wonder.
"It is just what I see as I pass along," he explained.
The sub-editor was an ambitious literary man himself and he looked steadfastly away from his visitor, out of the window, his eyes full of regret, his teeth clenched almost in anger. Just what he saw as he passed along! What he saw—this common-looking, half-educated little person, with only the burning eyes and sensitive mouth to redeem him from utter insignificance! Truly this was a strange finger which opened the eyes of some and kept sealed the eyelids of others! For fifteen years this very cultivated gentleman who sat in the sub-editor's chair and drew his two thousand a year, had driven his pen along the scholarly way, and all that he had written, beside this untidy-looking document, had not in it a single germ of the things that count.
"Well?" Burton asked, with ill-concealed eagerness.
The sub-editor was, after all, a man. He set his teeth and came back to the present.
"My readers will, I am sure, find your little article quite interesting," he said calmly. "We shall be glad to accept it, and anything else you may send us in the same vein. You have an extraordinary gift for description."
Burton drew a long sigh of relief.
"Thank you," he said. "How much shall you pay me for it?"
The sub-editor estimated the length of the production. It was not an easy matter, owing to the odd scraps of paper upon which it was written.
"Will ten guineas be satisfactory?" he inquired.
"Very satisfactory indeed," Burton replied, "and I should like it now, at once, please. I need some money to send to my wife."
The sub-editor rang for the cashier.
"So you are married," he remarked. "You seem quite young."
"I am married," Burton admitted. "I am not living with my wife just now because we see things differently. I have also a little boy. They live down at Garden Green and I send them money every Saturday."
"What do you do? What is your occupation?"
"I just wander about," Burton explained. "I used to be an auctioneer's clerk, but I lost my situation and I couldn't get another."
"What made you think of writing?" the sub-editor asked, leaning a little over towards his new contributor.
"I picked up a copy of your newspaper on a seat in the Park," Burton replied. "I saw that article on 'London Awake.' I thought if that sort of thing was worth printing, it was worth paying for, so I tried to do something like it. It is so easy to write just what you see," he concluded, apologetically.
The sub-editor handed him his ten guineas.
"When will you bring me some more work?"
"Whenever you like," Burton replied promptly. "What about?"
The sub-editor shook his head.
"You had better choose your own subjects."
"Covent Garden at half-past three?" Burton suggested, a little diffidently. "I can't describe it properly. I can only just put down what I see going on there, but it might be interesting."
"Covent Garden will do very well indeed," the sub-editor told him. "You needn't bother about the description. Just do as you say; put down—what you see."
Burton put down just what he saw as he moved about the city, for ten days following, and without a word of criticism the sub-editor paid him ten guineas a time and encouraged him to come again. Burton, however, decided upon a few days' rest. Not that the work was any trouble to him; on the contrary it was all too ridiculously easy. It seemed to him the most amazing thing that a description in plain words of what any one might stand and look at, should be called literature. And yet some times, in his more thoughtful moments, he dimly understood. He remembered that between him and the multitudes of his fellow-creatures there was a difference. Everything he saw, he saw through the clear white light. There were no mists to cloud his vision, there was no halo of idealism hovering around the objects upon which his eyes rested. It was the truth he saw, and nothing beyond it. He compared his own work with work of a similar character written by well-known men, and his understanding became more complete. He found in their work a touch of personality, a shade of self-consciousness about the description of even the most ordinary things. The individuality of the writer and his subject were always blended. In his own work, subject alone counted. He had never learned any of the tricks of writing. His prose consisted of the simple use of simple words. His mind was empty of all inheritance of acquired knowledge. He had no preconceived ideals, towards the realizations of which he should bend the things he saw. He was simply a prophet of absolute truth. If he had found in those days a literary godfather, he would, without doubt, have been presented to the world as a genius.
Then, with money in his pocket, clad once more in decent apparel, he made one more effort to do his duty. He sent for Ellen and little Alfred to come up and see him. He sent them a little extra money, and he wrote as kindly as possible. He wanted to do the right thing; he was even anxious about it. He determined that he would do his very best to bridge over that yawning gulf. The gingerbread villa he absolutely could not face, so he met them at the Leicester Square Tube.
The moment they arrived, his heart sank. They stepped out of the lift and looked around them. Ellen's hat seemed larger than ever, and was ornate with violent-colored flowers. Her face was hidden behind a violet veil, and she wore a white feather boa, fragments of which reposed upon the lift man's shoulder and little Alfred's knickerbockers. Her dress was of black velveteen, fitting a little tightly over her corsets, and showing several imperfectly removed stains and creases. She wore tan shoes, one of which was down at the heel, and primrose-colored gloves. Alfred wore his usual black Sunday suit, a lace collar around his neck about a foot wide, a straw hat on the ribbon of which was printed the name of one of His Majesty's battleships, and a curl plastered upon his forehead very much in the style of Burton himself in earlier days. Directly he saw his father, he put his finger in his mouth and seemed inclined to howl. Ellen raised her veil and pushed him forward.
"Run to daddy," she ordered, sharply. "Do as you're told, or I'll box your ears."
The child made an unwilling approach. Ellen herself advanced, holding her skirts genteelly clutched in her left hand, her eyes fixed upon her husband, her expression a mixture of defiance and appeal. Burton welcomed them both calmly. His tongue failed him, however, when he tried to embark upon the most ordinary form of greeting. Their appearance gave him again a most unpleasant shock, a fact which he found it extremely difficult to conceal.
"Well, can't you say you're glad to see us?" Ellen demanded, belligerently.
"If I had not wished to see you," he replied, tactfully, "I should not have asked you to come."
"Kiss your father," Ellen ordered, twisting the arm of her offspring."Kiss him at once, then, and stop whimpering."
The salute, which seemed to afford no one any particular satisfaction, was carried out in perfunctory fashion. Burton, secretly wiping his lips—he hated peppermint—turned towards Piccadilly.
"We will have some tea," he suggested,—"Lyons', if you like. There is music there. I am glad that you are both well."
"Considering," Ellen declared, "that you haven't set eyes on us for Lord knows how long—well, you need to be glad. Upon my word!"
She was regarding her husband in a puzzled manner. Burton was quietly but well dressed. His apparel was not such as Ellen would have thought of choosing for him, but in a dim sort of way she recognized its qualities. She recognized, too, something new about him which, although she vigorously rebelled against it, still impressed her with a sense of superiority.
"Alfred Burton," she continued, impressively, "for the dear land's sake, what's come over you? Mrs. Johnson was around last week and told me you'd lost your job at Waddington's months ago. And here you are, all in new clothes, and not a word about coming back or anything. Am I your wife or not? What do you mean by it? Have you gone off your head, or what have we done—me and little Alfred?"
"We will talk at tea-time," Burton said, uneasily.
Ellen set her lips grimly and the little party hastened on. Burton ordered an extravagant tea, in which Ellen declined to take the slightest interest. Alfred alone ate stolidly and with every appearance of complete satisfaction. Burton had chosen a place as near the band as possible, with a view to rendering conversation more or less difficult. Ellen, however, had a voice which was superior to bands. Alfred, with his mouth continually filled with bun, appeared fascinated by the cornet player, from whom he seldom removed his eyes.
"What I want to know, Alfred Burton, is first how long this tomfoolery is to last, and secondly what it all means?" Ellen began, with her elbows upon the table and a reckless disregard of neighbors. "Haven't we lived for ten years, husband and wife, at Clematis Villa, and you as happy and satisfied with his home as a man could be? And now, all of a sudden, comes this piece of business. Have you gone off your head? Here are all the neighbors just wild with curiosity, and I knowing no more what to say to them than the man in the moon."
"Is there any necessity to say anything to them?" Burton asked, a little vaguely.
Ellen shook in her chair. A sham tortoise-shell hairpin dropped from her untidy hair on to the floor with a little clatter. Her veil parted at the top from her hat. Little Alfred, terrified by an angry frown from the cornet player, was hastily returning fragments of partially consumed bun to his plate. The air of the place was hot and uncomfortable. Burton for a moment half closed his eyes. His whole being was in passionate revolt.
"Any necessity?" Ellen repeated, half hysterically. "Alfred Burton, let's have done with this shilly-shallying! After coming home regularly to your meals for six years, do you suppose you can disappear and not have people curious? Do you suppose you can leave your wife and son and not a word said or a question asked? What I want to know is this—are you coming home to Clematis Villa or are you not?"
"At present I am not," Burton declared, gently but very firmly indeed.
"Is it true that you've got the sack from Mr. Waddington?"
"Perfectly," he admitted. "I have found some other work, though."
She leaned forward so that one of those dyed feathers to which he objected so strongly brushed his cheek.
"Have you touched the money in the Savings Bank?" she demanded.
"I have drawn out every penny of it to send you week by week," he replied, "but I am in a position now to replace it. You can do it yourself, in your own name, if you like. Here it is."
He produced a little roll of notes and handed them to her. She took them with shaking fingers. She was beginning to lose some of her courage. The sight of the money impressed her.
"Alfred Burton," she said, "why don't you drop all this foolishness?Come home with us this afternoon."
She leaned across the table, on which she had once more plumped her elbows. She looked at him in a way he had once found fascinating—her chin thrown forward, her cheeks supported by her knuckles. Little specks of her boa fell into her untouched teacup.
"Come home with Alfred and me," she begged, with half-ashamed earnestness. "It's band night and we might ask the Johnsons in to supper. I've got a nice steak in the house, been hanging, and Mrs. Cross could come in and cook it while we are out. Mr. Johnson would sing to us afterwards, and there's your banjo. You do play it so well, Alfred. You used to like band nights—to look forward to them all the week. Come, now!"
The man's whole being was in a state of revolt. It was an amazing thing indeed, this which had come to him. No wonder Ellen was puzzled! She had right on her side, and more than right. It was perfectly true that he had been accustomed to look forward to band nights. It was true that he used to like to have a neighbor in to supper afterwards, and play the fool with the banjo and crack silly jokes; talk shop with Johnson, who was an auctioneer's clerk himself; smoke atrocious cigars and make worse puns. And now! He looked at her almost pitifully.
"I—I can't manage it just yet," he said, hurriedly. "I'll write—or see you again soon. Ellen, I'm sorry," he wound up, "but just at present I can't change anything."
So Burton paid the bill and the tea-party was over. He saw them off as far as the lift in Leicester Square Station, but Ellen never looked at him again. He had a shrewd suspicion that underneath her veil she was weeping. She refused to say good-bye and kept tight hold of Alfred's hand. When they had gone, he passed out of the station and stood upon the pavement of Piccadilly Circus. Side by side with a sense of immeasurable relief, an odd kind of pain was gripping his heart. Something that had belonged to him had been wrenched away. A wave of meretricious sentiment, false yet with a curious base of naturalness, swept in upon him for a moment and tugged at his heart-strings. She had been his woman; the little boy with the sticky mouth was child of his. The bald humanity of his affections for them joined forces for a moment with the simple greatness of his new capacity. Dimly he realized that somewhere behind all these things lurked a truth greater than any he had as yet found. Then, with an almost incredible swiftness, this new emotion began to fade away. His brain began to work, his new fastidiousness asserted itself. A wave of cheap perfume assailed his nostrils. The untidy pretentiousness of her ill-chosen clothes, the unreality of her manner and carriage, the sheer vulgarity of her choice of words and phrases—these things seized him as a nightmare. Like a man who rushes to a cafe for a drink in a moment of exhaustion, he hastened along towards the National Gallery. His nerves were all quivering. An opalescent light in the sky above Charing Cross soothed him for a moment. A glimpse into a famous art shop was like a cool draught of water. Then, as he walked along in more leisurely fashion, the great idea came to him. He stopped short upon the pavement. Here was the solution to all his troubles: a bean for Ellen; another, or perhaps half of one, for little Alfred! He could not go back to their world; he would bring them into his!
At a little before ten on the following morning, Burton stood upon the pavement outside, looking with some amazement at the house in Wenslow Square. The notices "To Let" had all been torn down. A small army of paper-hangers and white-washers were at work. A man was busy fastening flower boxes in the lower windows. On all hands were suggestions of impending occupation. Burton mounted the steps doubtfully and stood in the hall, underneath a whitewasher's plank. The door of the familiar little room stood open before him. He peered eagerly in. It was swept bare and completely empty. All traces of its former mysterious occupant were gone.
"Is this house let?" he inquired of a man who was deliberately stirring a pail of shiny whitewash.
The plasterer nodded.
"Seems so," he admitted. "It's been empty long enough."
Burton looked around him a little vaguely.
"You all seem very busy," he remarked.
"Some bloke from the country's taken the 'ouse," the man grumbled, "and wants to move in before the blooming paint's dry. Nobody can't do impossibilities, mister," he continued, "leaving out the Unions, which can't bear to see us over-exert ourselves. They've always got a particular eye on me, knowing I'm a bit too rapid for most of them when I start."
"Give yourself a rest for a moment," Burton begged. "Tell me, what's become of the rugs and oddments of furniture from that little room opposite?"
The man produced a pipe, contemplated it for a moment thoughtfully, and squeezed down a portion of blackened tobacco with his thumb.
"Poor smoking," he complained. "Got such a family I can't afford more than one ounce a week. Nothing but dust here."
"I haven't any tobacco with me," Burton regretted, "but I'll stand a couple of ounces, with pleasure," he added, producing a shilling.
The man pocketed the coin without undue exhilaration, struck a vilely smelling match, and lit the fragment of filth at the bottom of his pipe.
"About those oddments of furniture?" Burton reminded him.
"Stolen," the man asserted gloomily,—"stolen under our very eyes, as it were. Some one must have nipped in just as you did this morning, and whisked them off. Easy done with a covered truck outside and us so wrapped up in our work, so to speak."
"When was this?" Burton demanded, eagerly.
"Day afore yesterday."
"Does Mr. Waddington know about it?"
The man removed his pipe from his teeth and gazed intently at his questioner.
"Is this Mr. Waddington you're a-speaking of a red-faced gentleman—kind of auctioneer or agent? Looks as though he could shift a drop?"
Burton recognized the description.
"That," he assented, "is Mr. Waddington."
The workman replaced the pipe in the corner of his mouth and nodded deliberately.
"He knows right enough, he does. Came down here yesterday afternoon with a friend. Seemed, from what I could hear, to want to give him something to eat out of that room. I put him down as dotty, but my! you should have heard him when he found out that the stuff had been lifted!"
"Was he disappointed?" Burton asked.
Words seemed to fail the plasterer. He nodded his head a great many times and spat upon the floor.
"That may be the word I was looking for," he admitted. "Can't say as I should have thought of it myself. Anyway, the bloke never stopped for close on five minutes, and old Joe—him on the ladder there—he came all the way down and listened with his mouth open, and he don't want no laming neither when there's things to be said. Kind of auctioneer they said he was. Comes easy to that sort, I suppose."
"Did he—did Mr. Waddington obtain any clue as to the whereabouts of the missing property?" Burton asked, with some eagerness.
"Not as I knows on," the plasterer replied, picking up his brush, "and as to the missing property, there was nowt but a few mouldy rugs and a flower-pot in the room. Some folks does seem able to work themselves up into a fuss about nothing, and no mistake! Good morning, guvnor! Drop in again some time when you're passing."
Burton turned out of Wenslow Square and approached the offices and salesrooms of Messrs. Waddington & Forbes with some misgiving. Bearing in mind the peculiar nature of the business conducted by the firm, he could only conclude that ruin, prompt and absolute, had been the inevitable sequence of Mr. Waddington's regrettable appetite. He was somewhat relieved to find that there were no evidences of it in the familiar office which he entered with some diffidence.
"Is Mr. Waddington in?" he inquired.
A strange young man slipped from his stool and found his questioner gazing about him in a bewildered manner. There was much, indeed, that was surprising in his surroundings. The tattered bills had been torn down from the walls, the dust-covered files of papers removed, the ceilings and walls painted and papered. A general cleanliness and sense of order had taken the place of the old medley. The young man who had answered his inquiry was quietly dressed and not in the least like the missing office-boy.
"Mr. Waddington is at present conducting a sale of furniture," he replied. "I can send a message in if your business is important."
Burton, who had always felt a certain amount of liking for his late employer, was filled now with a sudden pity for him. Truth was a great and marvelous thing, but the last person who had need of it was surely an auctioneer engaged in the sale of sham articles of every description! It was putting the man in an unfair position. A vague sense of loyalty towards his late chief prompted Burton's next action. If help were possible, Mr. Waddington should have it.
"Thank you," he said, "I will step into the sales-room myself. I know the way."
Burton pushed open the doors and entered the room. To his surprise, the place was packed. There was the usual crowd of buyers and many strange faces; the usual stacks of furniture of the usual quality, and other lots less familiar. Mr. Waddington stood in his accustomed place but not in his accustomed attitude. The change in him was obvious but in a sense pathetic. He was quietly dressed, and his manner denoted a new nervousness, not to say embarrassment. Drops of perspiration stood upon his forehead. The strident note had gone from his voice. He spoke clearly enough, but more softly, and without the familiar roll.
"Gentlemen—ladies and gentlemen," he was saying as Burton entered, "the next item on the catalogue is number 17, described as an oak chest, said to have come from Winchester Cathedral and to be a genuine antique."
Mr. Waddington leaned forward from his rostrum. His tone became more earnest.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he continued, "I am bound to sell as per catalogue, and the chest in question is described exactly as it was sent in to us, but I do not myself for a moment believe either that it came from Winchester or that it is in any way antique. Examine it for yourselves—pray examine it thoroughly before you bid. My impression is that it is a common oak chest, treated by the modern huckster whose business it is to make new things look like old. I have told you my opinion, ladies and gentlemen. At what shall we start the bidding? It is a useful article, anyhow, and might pass for an antique if any one here really cares to deceive his friends. At any rate, there is no doubt that it is—er—a chest, and that it will—er—hold things. How much shall we say for it?"
There was a little flutter of conversation. People elbowed one another furiously in their desire to examine the chest. A dark, corpulent man, with curly black hair and an unmistakable nose, looked at the auctioneer in a puzzled manner.
"Thay, Waddington, old man, what'th the game, eh? What have you got up your sleeve that you don't want to thell the stuff? Blow me if I can tumble to it!"
"There is no game at all," Mr. Waddington replied firmly. "I can assure you, Mr. Absolom, and all of you, ladies and gentlemen, that I have simply told you what I believe to be the absolute truth. It is my business to sell whatever is sent to me here for that purpose, but it is not my business or intention to deceive you in any way, if I can help it."
Mr. Absolom re-examined the oak chest with a puzzled expression. Then he strolled away and joined a little knot of brokers who were busy discussing matters. The various remarks which passed from one to another indicated sufficiently their perplexed condition of mind.
"The old man's dotty!"
"Not he! There's a game on somewhere!"
"He wants to buy in some of the truck!"
"Old Waddy knows what he's doing!"
Mr. Absolom listened for a while and then returned to the rostrum.
"Mr. Waddington," he asked, "ith it the truth that there are one or two pieces of real good stuff here, thent in by an old farmer in Kent?"
"Quite true," Mr. Waddington declared, eagerly. "Unfortunately, they all came in together and were included with other articles which have not the same antecedents. You may be able to pick out which they are. I can't. Although I am supposed to be in the business, I never could tell the difference myself."
There was a chorus of guffaws. Mr. Waddington mopped his forehead with a handkerchief.
"It is absolutely true, gentlemen," he pleaded. "I have always posed as a judge but I know very little about it. As a matter of fact I have had scarcely any experience in real antique furniture. We must get on, gentlemen. What shall we say for lot number 17? Will any one start the bidding at one sovereign?"
"Two!" Mr. Absolom offered. "More than it'th worth, perhaps, but I'll rithk it."
"It is certainly more than it's worth," Mr. Waddington admitted, dolefully. "However, if you have the money to throw away—two pounds, then."
Mr. Waddington raised his hammer to knock the chest down, but was met with a storm from all quarters of the room.
"Two-ten!"
"Three!"
"Three-ten!"
"Four!"
"Four-ten!"
"Five!"
"Six pounds!"
"Seven!"
"Seven-ten!"
"Ten pounds!"
Mr. Absolom, who so far had held his own, hesitated at the last bid. A gray-haired old gentleman looked around him fiercely. The gentleman was seemingly opulent and Mr. Absolom withdrew with a sigh. Mr. Waddington eyed the prospective buyer sorrowfully.
"You are quite sure that you mean it, sir?" he asked. "The chest is not worth the money, you know."
"You attend to your business and I'll attend to mine!" the old gentleman answered, savagely. "Most improper behavior, I call it, trying to buy in your own goods in this bare-faced manner. My name is Stephen Hammonde, and the money's in my pocket for this or anything else I care to buy."
Mr. Waddington raised his hammer and struck the desk in front of him.As his clerk entered the sale, the auctioneer looked up and caughtBurton's eye. He beckoned to him eagerly. Burton came up to therostrum.
"Burton," Mr. Waddington exclaimed, "I want to talk to you! You see what's happened to me?" he went on, mopping his forehead with his handkerchief.
"Yes, I see!
"It's that d—d bean!" Mr. Waddington declared. "But look here,Burton, can you tell me what's happened to the other people?"
"I cannot," Burton confessed. "I am beginning to get an idea, perhaps."
"Stand by for a bit and watch," Mr. Waddington begged. "I must go on with the sale now. Take a little lunch with me afterwards. Don't desert me, Burton. We're in this together."
Burton nodded and found a seat at a little distance from the rostrum. From here he watched the remainder of the morning's sale. The whole affair seemed to resolve itself into a repetition of the sale of the chest. The auctioneer's attempts to describe correctly the wares he offered were met with mingled suspicion and disbelief. The one or two articles which really had the appearance of being genuine, and over which he hesitated, fetched enormous prices, and all the time his eager clients eyed him suspiciously. No one trusted him, and yet it was obvious that if he had advertised a sale every day, the room would have been packed. Burton watched the proceedings with the utmost interest. Once or twice people who recognized him came up and asked him questions, to which, however, he was able to return no satisfactory reply. At one o'clock precisely, the auctioneer, with a little sigh of relief, announced a postponement. Even after he had left the rostrum, the people seemed unwilling to leave the place.
"Back again this afternoon, sir?" some one called out.
"At half-past two," the auctioneer replied, with a smothered groan.
Mr. Waddington called a taxicab.
"I can't stand the Golden Lion any longer," he explained. "Somehow or other, the place seems to have changed in the most extraordinary manner' during the last week or so. Everybody drinks too much there. The table-linen isn't clean, and the barmaids are too familiar. I've found out a little place in Jermyn Street where I go now when I have time. We can talk there."
Burton nodded. He was, as a matter of fact, intensely interested. Only a few weeks ago, his late employer had spent nearly every moment of his time, when his services were not urgently required at the office, at the Golden Lion, and he had been seen on more than one occasion at the theatre and elsewhere with one or another of the golden-haired ladies behind the bar. Mr. Waddington—fortunately, perhaps, considering his present predicament!—was a bachelor.
The restaurant, if small, was an excellent one, and Mr. Waddington, who seemed already to be treated with the consideration of a regular customer, ordered a luncheon which, simple though it was, inspired his companion with respect. The waiter withdrew and the auctioneer and his quondam clerk sat and looked at one another. Their eyes were full of questions. Mr. Waddington made a bad lapse.
"What in hell do you suppose it all means, Burton?" he demanded. "You see, I've got it too!"
"Obviously," Burton answered. "I am sure," he added, a little hesitatingly, "that I congratulate you."
Mr. Waddington at that moment looked scarcely a subject for congratulation. A spasm, as though of pain, had suddenly passed across his face. He clutched at the sides of his chair.
"It's marvelous!" he murmured. "A single word like that and I suffer in an absolutely indescribable sort of way. There seems to be something pulling at me all the time, even when it rises to my lips."
"I shouldn't worry about that," Burton replied. "You must get out of the habit. It's quite easy. I expect very soon you will find all desire to use strong language has disappeared entirely."
Mr. Waddington was inclined to be gloomy.
"That's all very well," he declared, "but I've my living to get."
"You seem to be doing pretty well up to now," Burton reminded him.
Mr. Waddington assented, but without enthusiasm.
"It can't last, Burton," he said. "I am ashamed to say it, but all my crowd have got so accustomed to hear me—er—exaggerate, that they disbelieve everything I say as a matter of habit. I tell them now that the goods I am offering are not what they should be, because I can't help it, and they think it's because I have some deep game up my sleeve, or because I do not want to part. I give them a week or so at the most, Burton—no more."
"Don't you think," Burton suggested doubtfully, "that there might be an opening in the profession for an auctioneer who told the truth?"
Mr. Waddington smiled sadly.
"That's absurd, Burton," he replied, "and you know it."
Burton considered the subject thoughtfully.
"There must be occupations," he murmured, "where instinctive truthfulness would be an advantage."
"I can't think of one," Mr. Waddington answered, gloomily. "Besides, I am too old for anything absolutely new."
"How on earth did you succeed in letting Idlemay House?" Burton asked suddenly.
"Most remarkable incident," his host declared. "Reminds me of my last two sales of antique furniture. This man—a Mr. Forrester—came to me with his wife, very keen to take a house in that precise neighborhood. I asked him the lowest rent to start with, and I told him that the late owner had died of typhoid there, and that the drains had practically not been touched since."
"And yet he took it?"
"Took it within twenty-four hours," Mr. Waddington continued. "He seemed to like the way I put it to him, and instead of being scared he went to an expert in drains, who advised him that there was only quite a small thing wrong. He's doing up some of the rooms and moving in in a fortnight."
"This sounds as though there might be an opening for an honest house-agent," Burton suggested.
Mr. Waddington looked dubious.
"It's never been tried. Just this once it came off, but as a regular thing I should have no confidence in it. People like to be gulled. They've been brought up to it. They ask for lies—that's why the world's so full of them. Case of supply and demand, you know."
"According to you, then," Burton remarked, a little dolefully, "it seems as though this change in us unfits us for any sort of practical life."
Mr. Waddington coughed. Even his cough was no longer strident.
"That," he confessed, "has been worrying me. I find it hard to see the matter differently. If one might venture upon a somewhat personal question, how did you manage to discover a vocation? You seem to be prospering," he added, glancing at his companion's neat clothes and gray silk tie.
"I was fortunate," Burton admitted frankly. "I discovered quite by accident the one form in which it is possible to palm off the truth on an unsuspecting public."
Mr. Waddington laid down his knife and fork. He was intensely interested.
"Art," Burton murmured softly.
"Art?" Mr. Waddington echoed under his breath, a little vaguely. The questioning gleam was still in his eyes.
"Painting, sculpture, in my case writing," Burton explained. "I read something when I was half starving which was in a newspaper and had obviously been paid for, and I saw at once that the only point about it was that the man had put down what he saw instead of what he thought he saw. I tried the same thing, and up to the present, at any rate, it seems to go quite Well."
"That's queer," Mr. Waddington murmured. "Do you know," he continued, dropping his voice and looking around him anxiously, "that I've taken to reading Ruskin? I've got a copy of 'The Seven Lamps' at the office, and I can't keep away from it. I slip it into my drawer if any one comes in, like an office boy reading the Police Gazette. All the time I am in the streets I am looking at the buildings, and, Burton, this is the extraordinary part of it, I know no more about architecture than a babe unborn, and yet I can tell you where they're wrong, every one of them. There are some streets I can't pass through, and I close my eyes whenever I get near Buckingham Palace. On the other hand, I walked a mile the other day to see a perfect arch down in South Kensington, and there are some new maisonettes in Queen Anne Street without a single erring line."
Burton poured himself out a glass of wine from the bottle which his companion had ordered.
"Mr. Waddington," he said, "this is a queer thing that has happened to us."
"Not a soul would believe it," the auctioneer assented. "No one will ever believe it. The person who declared that there was nothing new under the sun evidently knew nothing about these beans!"
Burton leaned across the table.
"Mr. Waddington," he continued, "I was around at Idlemay House this morning. I went to see what had become of the flower-pot. I found the little room swept bare. One of the workmen told me that the things had been stolen."
Mr. Waddington showed some signs of embarrassment. He waited for his companion to proceed.
"I wanted the rest of those beans," Burton confessed.
Mr. Waddington shook his head slowly.
"I haven't made up my mind about them yet," he said. "Better leave them alone."
"You do know where they are, then?" Burton demanded breathlessly.
The auctioneer did not deny it.
"I had them removed," he explained "in a somewhat peculiar fashion. The fact of it is, the new tenant is a very peculiar man and I did not dare to ask him to give me that little tree. I simply did not dare to run the risk. It is a painful subject with me, this, because quite thoughtlessly I endeavored to assume the appearance of anger on discovering the theft. The words nearly stuck in my throat and I was obliged to lie down for an hour afterwards."
Burton drew a little breath of relief.
"I wish I'd asked you about this before," he declared. "I should have enjoyed my luncheon better."
Mr. Waddington coughed.
"The beans," he remarked, "are in my possession. There are only eleven of them and I have not yet made up my mind exactly what to do with them."
"Mr. Waddington," Burton said impressively, "have you forgotten that I am a married man?"
Mr. Waddington started.
"God bless my soul!" he exclaimed. "I had forgotten that!
"A wife and one little boy," Burton continued. "We were living at Garden Green in a small plastered edifice called Clematis Villa. My wife is a vigorous woman, part of whose life has been spent in domestic service, and part in a suburban dressmaker's establishment. She keeps the house very clean, pins up the oleographs presented to us at Christmas time by the grocer and the oil-man, and thinks I look genteel in a silk hat when we walk out to hear the band in the public gardens on Thursday evenings."
"I can see her!" Mr. Waddington groaned. "My poor fellow!"
"She cuts out her own clothes," Burton continued, "from patterns presented by a ladies' penny paper. She trims her own hats with an inheritance of feathers which, in their day have known every color of the rainbow. She loves strong perfumes, and she is strenuous on the subject of the primary colors. We have a table-cloth with fringed borders for tea on Sunday afternoons. She hates flowers because they mess up the rooms so, but she adorns our parlor with wool-work mementoes, artificial roses under a glass case, and crockery neatly inscribed with the name of some seaside place."
Mr. Waddington wiped the perspiration from his forehead and produced a small silver casket from his waistcoat pocket.
"Stop!" he begged. "You win! I can see what you are aiming at. Here is a bean."
Burton waved it away.
"Listen," he proceeded. "I have also a child—a little son. His name is Alfred. He is called Alf, for short. His mother greases his hair and he has a curl which comes over his forehead. I have never known him when his hands were not both sticky and dirty—his hands and his lips. On holidays he wears a velveteen suit with grease spots inked over, an imitation lace collar, and a blue make-up tie."
Mr. Waddington re-opened the silver casket.
"It is Fate," he decided. "Here are two beans." Burton folded them up in a piece of paper and placed them carefully in his waistcoat pocket.
"I felt convinced," he said gratefully, "that I should not make my appeal to you in vain. Tell me, what do you think of doing with the rest?"
"I am not sure," Mr. Waddington admitted, after a brief pause. "We are confronted from the beginning with the fact that there isn't a living soul who would believe our story. If we tried to publish it, people would only look upon it as an inferior sort of fiction, and declare that the idea had been used before. I thought of having one of the beans resolved into its constituents by a scientific physician, but I doubt if I'd get any one to treat the matter seriously. Of course," he went on, "if there were any quantity of the beans, so that we could prove the truth of our statements upon any one who professed to doubt them, we might be able to put them to some practical use. At present," he concluded, with a little sigh, "I really can't think of any."
"When one considers," Burton remarked, "the number of people in high positions who might have discovered these beans and profited by them, it does rather appear as though they had been wasted upon an auctioneer and an auctioneer's clerk who have to get their livings."
"I entirely agree with you," Mr. Waddington assented. "I must admit that in some respects I feel happier and life seems a much more interesting place. Yet I can't altogether escape from certain apprehensions as regards the future."
"If you take my advice," Burton said firmly, "you'll continue the business exactly as you are doing at present."
"I have no idea of abandoning it," Mr. Waddington replied. "The trouble is, how long will it be before it abandons me?"
"I have a theory of my own as to that," Burton declared. "We will not talk about it at present—simply wait and see."
Mr. Waddington paid the bill.
"Meanwhile," he said, "you had better get down to Garden Green as quickly as you can. You will excuse me if I hurry off? It is almost time to start the sale again."
Burton followed his host into the street. The sun was shining, and a breath of perfume from the roses in a woman's gown assailed him, as she passed by on the threshold to enter the restaurant. He stood quite still for a moment. He had succeeded in his object, he had acquired the beans which were to restore to him his domestic life, and in place of any sense of satisfaction he was conscious of an intense sense of depression. What magic, after all, could change Ellen! He forgot for one moment the gulf across which he had so miraculously passed. He thought of himself as he was now, and of Ellen as she had been. The memory of that visit to Garden Green seemed suddenly like a nightmare. The memory of the train, underground for part of the way, with its stuffy odors, made him shiver. The hot, dusty, unmade street, with its hideous rows of stuccoed villas, loomed before his eyes and confirmed his swiftly born disinclination to taking at once this final and ominous step. Something all the time seemed to be drawing him in another direction, the faint magic of a fragrant memory—a dream, was it—that he had carried with him unconsciously through a wilderness of empty days? He hesitated, and finally climbed up on to the garden seat of an omnibus on its way to Victoria.
"I do not think," the girl with the blue eyes said, diffidently, "that I gave you permission to sit down here."
"I do not believe," Burton admitted, "that I asked for it. Still, having just saved your life—"
"Saved my life!"
"Without a doubt," Burton insisted, firmly. She laughed in his face. When she laughed, she was good to look upon. She had firm white teeth, light brown hair which fell in a sort of fringe about her forehead, and eyes which could be dreamy but were more often humorous. She was not tall and she was inclined to be slight, but her figure was lithe, full of beautiful spring and reach.
"You drove away a cow!" she exclaimed. "It is only because I am rather idiotic about cows that I happened to be afraid. I am sure that it was a perfectly harmless animal."
"On the contrary," he assured her seriously, "there was something in the eye of that cow which almost inspired me with fear. Did you notice the way it lashed its tail?"
"Absurd!"
"At least," he protested, "you cannot find it absurd that I prefer to sit here with you in the shadow of your lilac trees, to trudging any further along that dusty road?"
"You haven't the slightest right to be here at all," she reminded him."I didn't even invite you to come in."
He sighed.
"Women have so little sense of consequence," he murmured. "When you came in through that gate without saying good-bye, I naturally concluded that I was expected to follow, especially as you had just pointed this out to me as being your favorite seat."
Again she laughed. Then she stopped suddenly and looked at him. He really was a somewhat difficult person to place.
"If I hadn't a very irritable parent to consider," she declared, "I think I should ask you to tea."
Burton looked very sad.
"You need not have put it into my head," he objected gently. "The inn smells so horribly of the beer that other people have drunk. Besides, I have come such a long way—just for a glimpse of you."
It seemed to her like a false note. She frowned.
"That," she insisted, "is ridiculous."
"Is it?" he murmured. "Don't you ever, when you walk in your gardens, with only that low wall between you and the road, wonder whether any of those who pass by may not carry away a little vision with them? It is a beautiful setting, you know."
"The people who pass by are few," she answered. "We are too far off the beaten track. Only on Saturdays and holiday times there are trippers, fearful creatures who pick the bracken, walk arm in arm, and sing songs. Tell me why you look as though you were dreaming, my preserver?"
"Look along the lane," he said softly. "Can't you see them—the wagonette with the tired horse drawn up just on the common there—a tired, dejected-looking horse, with a piece of bracken tied on to his head to keep the flies off? There were three men, two women and a little boy. They drank beer and ate sandwiches behind that gorse bush there. They called one another by their Christian names, they shouted loud personal jokes, one of the women sang. She wore a large hat with dyed feathers. She had black, untidy-looking hair, and her face was red. One of the men made a noise with his lips as an accompaniment. There was the little boy, too—a pasty-faced little boy with a curl on his forehead, who cried because he had eaten too much. One of the men sat some distance apart from the others and stared at you—stared at you for quite a long time."
"I remember it perfectly," she declared. "It was last Whit-Monday. Hateful people they were, all of them. But how did you know? I saw nobody else pass by."
"I was there," he whispered.
"And I never saw you!" she exclaimed in wonder. "I remember those BankHoliday people, though, how abominable they were."
"You saw me," he insisted gently. "I was the one who sat apart and stared."
"Of course you are talking rubbish!" she asserted, uneasily.
He shook his head.
"I was behind the banks—the banks of cloud, you know," he went on, a little wistfully. "I think that that was one of the few moments in my life when I peered out of my prison-house. I must have known what was coming. I must have remembered afterwards—for I came here."
She looked at him doubtfully. Her eyes were very blue and he looked into them steadfastly. By degrees the lines at the sides of her mouth began to quiver.
"Why, that person was abominable!" she declared. "He stared at me as though I were something unreal. He had taken off his coat and rolled his shirt sleeves up. He had on bright yellow boots and a hateful necktie. You, indeed! I would as soon believe," she concluded, "that you had fallen, to-day from a flying-machine."
"Let us believe that," he begged, earnestly. "Why not? Indeed, in a sense it is true. I am cut adrift from my kind, a stroller through life, a vagabond without any definite place or people. I am trying to teach myself the simplest forms of philosophy. To-day the sky is so blue and the wind blows from the west and the sun is just hot enough to draw the perfume from the gorse and the heather. Come and walk with me over the moors. We will race the shadows, for surely we can move quicker than those fleecy little morsels of clouds!"
"Certainly not," she retorted, with a firmness which was suspiciously emphasized. "I couldn't think of walking anywhere with a person whom I didn't know! And besides, I have to go and make tea in a few minutes."
He looked over her shoulder and sighed. A trim parlor maid was busy arranging a small table under the cedar tree.
"Tea!" he murmured. "It is unfortunate."
"Not at all!" she replied sharply. "If you'd behave like a reasonable person for five minutes, I might ask you to stay."
"A little instruction?" he pleaded. "I am really quite apt. My apparent stupidity is only misleading."
"You may be, as you say, a vagabond and an outcast, and all that sort of thing, but this is a conventional English home," the girl with the blue eyes declared, "and I am a perfectly well-behaved young woman with an absent-minded but strict parent. I could not think of asking any one to tea of whose very name I was ignorant."
He pointed to the afternoon paper which lay at her feet.