Alison turned and stared into the fire. Harry filled himself a glass of port and drank it and laughed. She looked round at him. "Faith, Mr. Waverton is mighty good entertainment," he explained.
"Is that all you want to say?"
Harry would not be awed by that ominous voice. "Oh Lud, how could I dare talk after him? Our poetic orator!" He made flourishes in the air after Mr. Waverton's manner. "Nay, but I would give my new wig to have been in that upper chamber at Pontoise. Dear Geoffrey on his defence booming noble periods—and the Prince, poor gentleman, with his fingers in his ears! If dear Geoffrey was telling the truth. I wonder."
"Oh, is that what you'll pretend?"
"Pretend? I pretend nothing, ma'am. Why, to be sure, our Geoffrey always means to tell the truth—having, God bless him, no imagination. But you'll remark what when he tells a tale, it's Mr. Waverton has always thebeau rôle. He sees the world like that, dear lad. So I should be glad to hear the Caledonian gentleman's notion of what happened."
"I see. You'll make that your defence. Geoffrey imagined it all."
"Egad, ma'am, you may lower your tone. I have nothing to defend, nor are you set in judgment."
Alison started up. "Do you suppose all this is to make no change?" she cried.
"You're a splendid creature, by heaven," says Harry, tilting his chair back and watching her with a little epicurean smile, the proud vigour of her, the blood in her cheeks, the flash of her eyes, and the sweep of the white arm.
"I could hate you for that," she said, and her lips set.
"Yes. I think you're in a fair way to it," says Harry. "I wonder if you know why."
"Because I have come to despise you," she cried sharply.
"You will be solemn, will you?" says Harry. "Much good may it do you. And so, egad, have at you heartily. For you have said things which both of us will find it hard to forget."
"Oh, you can feel that?"
"Look 'e, ma'am, if we are to be in earnest, we had best not snap at each other like a pair of puppies. Now, what's happened?"
"You have to ask that? My God, if you have to ask, there's no use in words between you and me."
"Oh Lud, don't be mystical. Mr. Waverton comes here to do his poor possible to make mischief between us. I suppose you saw that. He tells us that he went blundering with my father into a muddle of a plot."
"He tells us that your father planned a vile base murder and sought to make him, a man of honour, part in it. Pray, sir, is that not infamous?"
"Egad, if you haven't caught his style! You believe all that, do you?"
"Yes."
"We shall go far to-night, I think," Harry shrugged. "And shall I tell you why you believe it, ma'am? It's because you are looking about to find matter for blackening me."
Alison hesitated a moment. "You cannot deny it. It is proved. Your father would not stay to face them."
"Face a pistol and a furious Scot? Well, I never said he was a hero."
"Do you pretend it was only a fight he feared? Do you dare tell me it was an honest, honourable plan? Nay, come, let me see if there's anything you think shameful."
Harry shrugged. "I know my father not much better than you do, ma'am. I never thought him a Bayard. Some plot there was, I think, and these political plots are all dirty enough. But, Lord, who is clean of them? And I'm not ready to write my father off a murderer because Mr. Waverton went blundering into a business which, on his own confession, he does not understand."
"He went in your place. You should have gone with your father."
"Should have gone? D'ye wish I had, ma'am?"
"Perhaps."
Harry started up. "Oh, say it out. I knew we should go far to-night."
They stood close, fronting each other fiercely. "My God, is it strange if I wish you had gone? Your father is a base wretch who should be on the gallows, and I am to be his son's wife and bear the name, and the while he goes bragging that he took Geoffrey Waverton off so that you should be free to come at me."
"Aye, that. To be sure, that rankles. But you have known it long. I showed you the letter he left me which said he had taken Geoffrey out of my way and bade me snatch my chance of you. And you made light of that, ma'am. Oh, it was a base thing, if you will, but you know well enough it went for nought. We had done our work before. By God, Alison, Geoffrey there or Geoffrey here, you would have come to me."
"Ah!" It was like a cry of pain. "You brag of it. I forced myself on you, I suppose." Harry exclaimed something, made a gesture. "Oh yes, you were all cold virtue and chastity and honour, and I—what was I?" She shuddered and drew back from him. "Yes, you would turn on me. You would taunt me with that."
"Egad, you're in a frenzy," says Harry. "You cry aloud and cut yourself with knives. You will be hurting yourself."
"I loathe you for that calm way of yours," she cried. "You mock me till I am mad, and then you please to be grave and lofty. You—I took you out of the gutter."
"What now, ma'am?" Harry stiffened.
"It's all a mask!" she cried. "Nothing of you shows in your voice or your face—your face, bah, it's always the same, when you kiss and when you strike. A mask! You're always in a mask. That's how you took me. I was a fool, and thought there must be something fine behind it." She laughed. "You were clever enough. You knew the trick and the mystery of it would take a woman. A mask! Yes, faith, that is the wear for a highwayman. I remember how Charles Hadley used to laugh at your 'Curst stand-and-deliver stare.' I liked it, I liked the challenge of it. But he knew you better. That's your trade, the highwayman, faith, the highwayman! You trick us all and prey upon us, as you dare. So you marked me down, who was rich and a girl, and you have caught me, and you have rifled me, and, for what you care I may now go hang. I ask you for my pride again, my honour, and you mock at me. Oh, I am ashamed for a fool and worse, and you know it, God help me, but you—you—"
Harry shrugged. "I suppose we have come to the end now," he said coolly. "Well, ma'am, to be sure we married in haste, and it seems we have both come to repentance. As for wrong that I have done you—why, I can't make you a maid again, and, if you please, more's the pity. My apologies and regrets. For the rest, all of your money that hath been spent on me will go in a small purse, and, I promise you, you shall spend no more. So you may sleep sound, and I wish you good night."
She watched him cross the room, and, as he was opening the door, cried out, "What do you mean?"
He turned. "Why, would you still be talking?" Their eyes met in defiance. "You can go," she said.
"I have had the honour to tell you so," he said, and was gone.
It was on the second day after that Susan Burford and Mr. Hadley rode in to the Lincoln's Inn Fields. They found Alison and Mrs. Weston together, and both sewing—a fact which failed to interest Mr. Hadley, but surprised Susan, who knew Alison, without a taste for needlework.
"My dear," says Susan, embracing Alison physically and spiritually in her large, buxom, genial way.
"You have been a long time finding me," says Alison and put her off. "I suppose I know why you kindly come to me now."
"B-r-r-r-r!" Mr. Hadley made the sound of one who comes into a cold draught. "The truth is, Susan has been so busy improving herself that she has had no time for her friends. In fine, she has been trying to make herself worthy the honour of my affections and large enough to support the burden of my dignity. I don't say she satisfies me, but she does her best." He propelled Susan forward with his one hand. "'A poor thing, ma'am, but mine own.'"
"Oh, he is amusing himself, you see," says Susan, in her leisurely fashion.
"Damme, Susan, you're so mighty innocent that sometimes I believe you are innocent."
"But you have known me so long," Susan protested.
Alison stood up with an air of ceremony. Her pale face constrained itself at last to smile at them. "My dear, I wish you may be very happy," says she, and gave Susan a matronly kiss. "Mr. Hadley, you're a fortunate man." She put out a stately hand.
Having bowed over it. "B-r-r-r," says Mr. Hadley.
"Damn these east winds. Susan, you're a plague with your affections. You will have me talk about you, and I can't make you interesting, I hope, ma'am, we find Mr. Boyce well?"
Alison drew back. "Why do you ask that? You have seen Mr. Waverton, of course."
Mrs. Weston put down her work and folded her hands upon it.
"Why, yes, I have seen Geoffrey; and what's worse, heard him. I hope he did not plague you too long."
"Pray, Mr. Hadley, don't be ironical. You can spare me that. Mr. Waverton told us his story the night before last. Thereupon Mr. Boyce and I parted company. He left my house immediately and I do not know where he is."
Mr. Hadley distinguished himself by containing an oath. Susan said, "Oh, my dear," in that slow, calm way which might mean anything.
It was Mrs. Weston who cried out, "Alison, you never told me."
"You asked once or twice where he was, and I told you I did not know.What does it matter?"
"You quarrelled with him?"
"Quarrelled!"
"Because of what this Mr. Waverton said?"
"Do you think it could make no difference?"
Mrs. Weston clasped her hands and swayed in her chair.
"Alison; we had no guess of this. I am sorry. I am so sorry," Susan said.
"There is no need." Alison held her head high.
"If we have, in some sort, forced your confidence, I beg you believe, ma'am, it was not meant," So Mr. Hadley in the grand style. "For I protest it never came into my head that Geoffrey would make mischief between you and Mr. Boyce."
"You say that?" Alison stared at him. "Oh, you mean I was so besotted with him."
Mr. Hadley relapsed to his ordinary manner. "Damme, d'ye think we came for nothing but to jeer at you? I promise you we have pleasanter matter to hand. Neither to jeer at you, nor to meddle with you, Alison, but friendly. So take us friendly in God's name. If you will go about to find a sneer in every word, why, a sneer you'll find, but not of my making. We bring you nothing but goodwill, and want nothing more of you. But if we irk you, why, let us go and we'll see you again in good time."
"That's a pretty speech to begin with an oath," Alison said, through the flicker of a smile. "And, faith, I should be slow to take offence at you. For we quarrelled before, because you were at pains to warn me. Well, sir, I humble myself before your wisdom."
There was a pause. "Oh. Now we are all ill at ease," says Susan.
"Odso, ma'am, it's not fair," Mr. Hadley cried. "I am not here to say, 'I told you so,' I am not so proud of it. Well, damme, I have no temptation to be meddling in your affairs. But I think you will have to know. It is with Mr. Waverton I have fallen out now."
"With Mr. Waverton?" Alison repeated. "What is there between you and him?"
"I believe he had the impertinence to expect my sympathetic admiration.While I was thinking him a low fellow. Which I took occasion to tell him.Without result." Mr. Hadley shrugged. "But I believe he did not feel it.It's a thick hide."
"And what was your difference?"
"Why, this precious story of his."
There was some little time of silence. "You don't believe it," Alison said slowly. "Come, you must say more than that."
"I profess, ma'am, I have no will to say anything. Whatever I say, I'll be impertinent."
"Oh. Shall we mark it in you?" Susan said.
"Well, sir, you were not always so shy of scolding me," says Alison, and again with a faint smile.
"Scold you! God warn us, I have no commission. I can tell you what I thought of Waverton and his tale. Did I believe it? Ods fish, I never remember believing Geoffrey. If he had to tell you two and two was four, he would pretend that his genius first discovered it. So I don't know what happened at Pontoise. Likely the old Colonel did mix him up in some plot which some other fellows smoked. Maybe it was even such as Geoffrey said, kidnapping and murder to follow. These plots, they grow nastier and nastier the longer they are afoot. And Colonel Boyce—well, by your leave, I don't think him delicate. But for the rest of it, I'll wager that's Geoffrey's sprightly invention. You know very well, ma'am, I have no kindness for your Mr. Boyce. But, damme, he never thought of tricking Geoffrey out of the way to give himself a free hand with you. And it's a low trick in Geoffrey to go about with that tale."
"Oh! But he is stupid," Susan said.
"What if Colonel Boyce thought of the trick?" says Alison.
"Egad, Mr. Boyce is unfortunate in his father. Maybe he knows that as well as we. But—damme, ma'am, you will have it—I believe there was not much trick in his affair with you."
"I believe you once warned me of his tricks," Alison said coldly. "It's no matter now. I tease you with my affairs."
"If I can serve you, I'm heartily at your command."
"Oh, you have worked hard to make the best of a bad business. But I can do that for myself, and I like my own way of it."
Mr. Hadley bowed.
"Oh! Let us go home," Susan said.
Alison looked at her in some surprise, and, as she stood up, came quickly to kiss her. "Have I been rude?" she whispered.
"That would be no matter," Susan said, "You choose to be angry with me?"Alison stiffened.
"Oh! One isn't angry. One is sorry," Susan said.
Alison let her go, and Mr. Hadley, ceremonious but with visible relief, went after her.
Then Mrs. Weston said suddenly, quickly, "Where is he?"
"He?" Alison chose to be slow. "Mr. Boyce? I have no notion."
"You drove him out?"
"I could not endure him longer. Or he could endure me no longer. He went heartily enough. I think we were both glad it was over."
"You taunted him till he had to go?"
"Weston, dear!" Alison laughed at the sudden fierceness of the meek."What's the matter?"
"I have heard you mocking him."
"Maybe. We both have sharp enough tongues."
"You used to jeer at him for being poor."
"Good lack, are you calling me to account, ma'am?"
"Yes, you may well be ashamed! Where is he?"
"Ashamed? What do you mean, Weston? What is the man to you?"
"I am his mother," Mrs. Weston said.
"You!… You! Oh, but this is mad!"
"I am not mad."
"But, Weston, dear, you knew nothing about him till he came; nor he of you. How could he be your son?"
"I had never seen him since he was a baby. I was not married."
"That is why you would not tell me? Oh, Weston, dear!"
"I did not mean to tell you now. I knew it would hurt him with you. But I suppose it's no matter now. But these are my affairs, not yours."
"My dear—"
"You need not pity me."
"What am I to say?" Alison held out her arms.
"You have nothing to say now. You are not his wife now. You have never been anything but a bad wife." She gathered up her work with unsteady hands and turned away.
"Where are you going?"
"I am going out of your house. Away from you."
"But, Weston—not now, not to-night. Where can you go? What can you do?"
"I can do well enough without you, as he can…. Why don't you tell me that I have been living on your money? You told him so often enough."
"Oh … you're cruel," Alison said.
"What does it matter? You'll not be hurt. You are too hard." She hurried to the door.
"Ah, don't go like this," Alison cried. "Weston, let's part kindly. Icould not know. I have done nothing against you." Mrs. Weston laughed."Stay a moment at least. I want to know. Harry's father—is ColonelBoyce—?"
"Yes, there it is. That is all you want—to pry into all the story. It is nothing to you. He is nothing to you now."
The door closed behind her.
RETURN OF CAPTAIN McBEAN
Harry was not gone far. In Long Acre stood a tavern calling itself 'The Hand of Pork.' This had always tempted Harry, whose tastes were of the people. While still a domesticated husband, he had tried its ale with satisfaction. When he left Alison it was to 'The Hand of Pork' that he brought his small, battered box.
He had a few guineas in his pocket, and made a wry face over them. "Ill-gotten gains," says he, for some were the scraped savings of Geoffrey Waverton's tutor and some the pocket money of Alison's husband. But he was in no case to be delicate. Beef and bread had to be paid for, and, in fact, his scruples were little more than a joke. It is not to be concealed that in minor things Harry Boyce was not nicely honest. If you can imagine him seriously arguing over that money—a thing impossible—he would have said that the guineas were of consequence to him and none to Geoffrey and Alison, that whether he had dealt honestly by them or not, it would not better his case to pay them back a few shillings. You have seen that he had qualms of conscience over the rights of Geoffrey's service and Alison's arms. But the ugly, awkward details gave him no trouble. He may, if you please, have swallowed a camel or so, but he never strained at a gnat.
Now that he was done with Geoffrey and Alison, both, his first feeling was comfort. It was a huge relief to be his own man again. He told himself indeed that he was mighty grateful to Geoffrey for bringing on the final explosion. For one thing, it wiped off all Geoffrey's score. If Master Geoffrey had been treated shabbily, Master Geoffrey had played a shabby trick. They could call quits—a pleasant sensation. It would have been awkward if Geoffrey had chosen to be magnanimous nobility. But he was never intelligent, the poor Geoffrey.
He had done his best to be damaging, bless him, and in all ways had been a benefactor. For, in fact, it was a great relief to be done with Alison. What with her fretful discontent, her rages, her industrious hate, she had made herself intolerable. I do not suppose that he forgot, even in the heat of the divorce, the exquisite pleasure which for a while she had given him. I think he was always ready to acknowledge that to himself, for it is certain that he bore her no malice, and if he blamed her for their catastrophe, blamed himself as much. He might make the most or more of all the taunts, of her zeal to find occasions for despising him. He forgot nothing and forgave her nothing; he wrote her down a cruel enemy. But he did not pay her back with equal hate; he dismissed all the warfare and the wounds with a shrug of sagacious cynicism.
She hated him? She had the right, she was his wife. And perhaps she was in the right too. He must fairly be reckoned a very poor match for her beauty and her wealth and her not insignificant brains. After all, he was essentially a nobody—a nobody in every department, body, mind, and soul. She might even claim that she had been cheated, for if she ought to have known that she was marrying a nobody, she could not guess that he had a bar-sinister or a disreputable father. Certainly Madame Alison could plead something of a case.
You are not to suppose Harry in an ecstasy of meek devotion. He was quite sure that she had behaved to him very badly. He admitted no excuse for her eagerness to hurt him as soon as she was tired of him. She might hate him; but after all there were obligations of courtesy, of decency, of womanhood, and her venomous temper had broken them all. He was well rid of her. In fine, she and he could call quits as well as he and Geoffrey. There was no occasion to rage against her. She had treated him badly, but, first, he had brought her into an awkward mess. Faith, she ought not to have hurried into a marriage for passion if passion was so soon to sate her. But then, what man would blame a woman for marrying for passion? Not the man she married, who might rather humble himself because he had not been able to keep her passion alive. Well, it was over, and since it was over, nothing for it but to part. God be with her! She had given him his hour. And he—why, at least she had lived with him moments she would not forget. A glorious woman. It is probable that in these first hours of their parting he began to love her.
So much for his emotions. But you will not suppose that Harry Boyce was wholly occupied with emotions. He could not indeed afford it. He had to make some provision for keeping alive. Perhaps you will be surprised to hear that he had a friend or two. There was an usher at Westminster, and a hack writer of Lintot's in Little Britain. He did not propose to live on them, who had hardly enough to feed themselves. But he looked for them to put him in the way of some pittance, and they did. The usher had news that, after Ascension-Day, Westminster would be wanting a writing master, for the man in possession hoped by then to marry the dean's cook and set up an ale-house. The author procured a commission to write two lampoons and a pamphlet against French wines. In the intervals of this occupation, Harry looked for his father.
It would be hard to guess—Harry himself could not have told—what he hoped to gain by that. He wanted, of course, to find out the truth of the mission to France. Whether his father was likely to tell it, he could not make up his mind. What he would do with the truth if ever he learnt it, he did not know in the least. Suppose the best event: suppose his father could declare excellent intentions and Geoffrey a liar. Harry imagined himself going to Alison with the news and demanding to be taken on again. A nightmare joke.
Yet to come at the truth seemed the most important task in life. The first step, though you think it impossibly difficult, did not dismay him. He had no doubt of discovering his father. That Colonel Boyce should have been killed or even caught was incredible. He was not the man so to oblige his enemies. It was incredible, too, that he would go long into hiding. Away from the importance of bustle and intrigue he could not exist. Therefore he would certainly come back to London: therefore sooner or later he would be found at one of the coffee-houses favoured by the brisk fellows in the underworld of politics—at Tom's, or the British, or Diggory's by the Seven Dials. He might be heard of among the fire-eating Jacobites of Sam's. There were not so many likely places, but Harry laid down more pennies than he could spare at the bars, and all in vain.
He sat in Sam's on an afternoon chopping Greek tags with a jolly, fanatical old parson. The days were fast lengthening, and for one reason or another—the company at Sam's were not too fond of light—only a candle here and there was burning. A little man came in with a party very obsequious to him. As he walked up to the bar Harry had a glimpse of a lean, brown face. He remembered it and yet no more than faintly, and could not tell where he had seen it. It did not much engage him, and he went on with his Greek and his parson. The little man made some noise with the pretty girl behind the bar, claiming the privileges of an old friend and a good deal of liquor, and it was a little while before he was established at a table with his party. Harry chose to mouth out something Homeric and sounding. The little man stopped in the middle of lighting his pipe. "I know that roll,pardieu!" he muttered, and in a florid fashion declaimed, "Fol de rol de row," and laughed alcoholically. "Who's talking Hebrew here?"
One of his party pointed out Harry and the parson. The little man blinked through the smoky twilight. He stood up, took his candle and lurched across the room to Harry. Down under Harry's nose he put the candle with a bang. Harry jerked back and glared at him, and he, rocking a little and blinking, said thickly, "It's a filthy likeness, after all, it is."
"No, sir, there's only one of me," said Harry. "If you see two, give God the glory and go to bed."
"I'm saying, bully, I'm saying," the little man's accent became more Caledonian and he clutched at Harry's shoulder. "I'm saying, my laddie—"
"Damme, that's what I complain of."
"I'm saying I do not like your complexion. It's yellow, my jo, it's a wee rotten orange, it is so." His company, a faithful tail, shook with laughter.
"Sleep it off, sir," says Harry, with a shrug.
"What's your will? Clip it off, do ye say so? Losh, you would have a face or two to spare. Eh, but I'm doubting you know too much o' clipping. There's clippit ears, and maybe you have a pair." He twitched Harry's bob wig awry; and with singular luck reeled out of the reach of Harry's answering blow. "Ay, and there's clippit shillings and maybe ye make your filthy living by their parings and shavings. Well a well, and there's clippit wings; and I'll clip yours, my bonny goose, the night." He clutched at the wig again and tossed it into the fire.
Harry sprang up and struck at him. He flung himself backwards into the arms of his friends and with a surprising adroitness plucked out his sword. "Have at ye, my man;" he giggled and made a pass.
"Easy, Captain," says one of his company. "The boy hath no sword."
"Oh ay, 'tis the Lord that's a man of war. The devil was aye for peace.Well, what ails ye not to lend the imp a bodkin?"
The fat old keeper of the coffee-house waddled into the midst. "Sure, Captain, you don't mean it. I would need to set my lads upon you. 'Tis disorderly homicide, indeed. Ye can't mean it. Not downstairs. I'll not deny there's the elegant parlour on the first floor."
"Ye're a canting old devil, Sam," says the little man. "But I'll oblige you. Come up, my bully, and I'll show you a thing."
"Here's for you, cully." One of the company thrust upon Harry a sword.
"Oh, by your leave,"—Harry waved it oft—"I don't fight a drunken man."
"Drunk!" the little man screamed. "Ods blades, there's a naughty way to mock a gentleman. I'll school you, bully; fou or fasting, I'll school you. What, you'll not lug out, like a bonny lad should? I jaloused it. I'm thinking you would take a beating like a lamb, laddie. Well a well. I'll be blithe to rub you down with an oaken towel. Here, Patrick, give us your staff."
"Oh, I see you must be let blood." Harry shrugged. "Well, sir, do I fight the whole platoon?"
"You're peevish, do you know, you're peevish. Here, Fraser, give him your hanger. Do you second the bairn, Donald? Come, Patrick, I'll have you. There's one for you and one for me, my man, and damn all favours."
It seemed to Harry that the little man's company were something surprised at this turn, but they took it in a disciplined silence. So the party of four marched up the stairs. You will believe that Harry liked the business ill enough. He shot glances at the two chosen for seconds. There was nothing sottish about them. They were very soberly alert, they had the tan and the vigour of open-air life. They looked anything but the fit comrades for a swashbuckling tavern hero. They were as stiff as pokers, they said not a word, they showed not a sign of interest in the affair—rather like two soldiers on guard than ready seconds in a drunken brawl. Once in the upper room they made their arrangements with solemn care, locking the door, clearing a sufficient space, and setting the candles so that the light fell fairly. Harry was taken aside, helped out of his coat, asked if he needed anything, gravely advised to risk nothing and play close.
"We are at your service, Mr. O'Connor," says Donald.
"At your pleasure, Mr. Mackenzie," says the other.
Harry was set against the little man and the swords crossed. It then occurred to him that the little man was very suddenly recovered from his liquor. The blustering chatter had been cut off as soon as they started up the stairs. Since then the little man had spoken not one word. Of the unsteadiness, the blinking, the rocking to and fro, nothing remained. He had marched to his place with a formal precision. There was the same manner, a correctness exact and staccato, about this sword play.
The knave can never have been drunk, Harry said to himself as he sweated and was the more embarrassed by bewilderment. But he dared not let himself think. The little man was urgently dangerous, and Harry knew enough to know it. Harry had no pretensions to science. All he could use was the rudiments. He had kept his head at singlestick, held his own with the foil against other lads, and never before faced a point. The little man had the speed and certainty of amaître d'armes. So Harry fought, breathing hard, every muscle aching, mind numb and dazed under the strain, expecting—hoping—every moment the thrust that would make an end.
It did not come. The ache and fever of the fight went on and on. Still the little man was masterful and precise. Still he demanded all Harry's vigour and more than all, kept him struggling desperately, beset by fear on the edge of death. Harry felt himself weakening, faltering, and still the opposing blade searched his defence sharply, still the little man was an exemplar of easy precision. And yet Harry's maladroitness always sufficed to save his skin. He was puzzled, and blundered and fumbled the more. The play grew slower and slower, and he was the more tortured, enduring many times the shame and the pain of defeat.
At last he had hit upon the truth. He was wondering in a dazed fashion why that other sword seemed always to wait on him when he made a gross mistake. Visibly, palpably, the little man's blade halted to give him time for a parry. Harry dropped his point and gasped out, "Damme, sir, you are playing with me."
"What's your will? I fight my own way. At your convenience, sir."
"The Captain's within his right, sir," says Harry's solemn second.
"Damn you, for a pack of mountebanks!" Harry cried.
"On guard, sir," says the little man.
Harry gave him an oath and dashed at him. There was a moment's wild fighting and then the little man forced it back to order. They were at the old game again, precise scientific thrust, pause, and blundering parry, when to Harry's amazement the little man's sword wavered and flew from his hand.
Through a long minute Harry stood staring at him, and he waiting unarmed for Harry's thrust. Again Harry lowered his sword. At once the little man stooped and picked up his. "Do you demand to continue, Captain?" says his second.
"You're a fool, Patrick," quoth the little man.
The impenetrable second saluted and turned to his fellow. "Another bout, if you please, Mr. Mackenzie."
"Would you grant it, sir?" says Harry's solemn Scot.
"Egad, we are all mad here," Harry wiped his brow. "Oh, play it out to hell."
The little man saluted formally and again they engaged. And now Harry was enveloped in another kind of fighting. Scientific it might be, but science far beyond his understanding. The little man's point was everywhere upon him and he thrusting blindly at the air. He might have been pinked a score times over, he was for all he knew. And then on a sudden his own point touched something. Next moment it was struck up to the ceiling. Some one called out "A hit." He saw the two seconds standing between the swords and a red scratch on the little man's cheek.
"Touché," says he with a bow. "My compliments, if you please. It's some while since a man marked me. I am glad to know you, sir. Pray, what's your name?"
"Harry Boyce, sir."
"Egad, it's wonderful!" says the little man, with a laugh which appealed to Harry. "Hector McBean, at your service." Harry stared. "Aye, aye, I'm thinking we'll explain ourselves. Will you walk, sir?"
"If you please."
Captain McBean took his arm, said over his shoulder to the two seconds "To-morrow," and marched off with him. Once they were out in the street, "So you are Colonel Noll Boyce's son," says Captain McBean with an odd look.
"He has often told me so."
"If you had not such a look of him I wouldn't believe it. Oh, pardon, monsieur,mille pardons,ma foi.I have been insolent to you in all this affair. You'll please to observe that the whole of it, and the issue, is to your honour. Will I have to say more?"
"Oh Lud, no. Pray, let's talk sense."
"I take to you marvellously,mon enfant. Well now, have you heard of me?"
"Enough to want much more."
"What, has father been talking?"
"D'ye know where he is, Captain McBean?"
"I wish I did."
"So do I. It was Mr. Waverton who told the tale. Now you know why I am eager to hear what you can say of my father or my father of you."
"Are you a good son, Mr. Boyce?"
"I pay my debts."
"There's a crooked answer. Are you in the Colonel's secrets?"
"I have no reason to think so."
"I guess he did not trust you. I guess he was right. Do you remember where you met me first?"
"I remember that I can't remember."
"And me that thought I was a beauty! Well, but you were busy. You were making mud pies with Ben."
"I have it. You were his captain on the horse. Pray, sir, what was myBenjamin's mystery?"
"I am going to trust you, Mr. Boyce. I shall not require you to trust me unless you choose. I tell you frankly I hope for it. And so—come in with you."
They turned out of the Strand into Bow Street. Captain McBean let himself into a house, and took Harry up to a room very neat and cosy. "D'ye drink usquebaugh? A pity. It's the cleanest liquor. Well, draw up." He pushed a tobacco-box across the table. "That's right Spanish. Now,mon cher, are you Jacobite or Hanoverian?"
"I never could tell."
"Oh, look you, I ask no confidences. And I make no doubt of your honour. If you had a mind to play tricks you would have tried one on me to-night. Well, I have proved you. Your pardon again. But when I saw Noll Boyce's son lurking in Sam's, how could I know he was without guile? Now there is something I must say to you. But how much I say is a question. I have no desire to embarrass you with awkward knowledge. So which is your king,mon enfant, James or George?"
"I care not a puff of smoke for either."
"So. I suppose there is something you care for. Well—you asked about Ben's mystery. It's a good beginning. The rascal should have stopped the Duke of Marlborough's coach and held it till I came up with my fellows. Instead of which he went about some private thieving. I am your debtor for giving the knave his gruel. What's Marlborough to me? It's not his dirty guineas I was after, but his papers. He was then pretending to negotiate with St. Germain. There were those of us who doubted the old villain had some black design in his head again, and it was thought that if we could turn over his private papers, we should know where to have him. It was certified that he had with him something from his agents abroad. Well, we missed him, and how deep he is dipped in this business, I know no more than you.
"Now I come to your father,mon enfant, and I promise you I will be as delicate as I may. Do you know,par exemple, how Colonel Boyce is in the mouths of gentlemen?"
"Oh, sir, that's another of the matters for which I care nothing."
"Tenez donc. You were born old, I think. Well, Colonel Boyce has been in some few plots, devices, and manoeuvres. No man ever denied him wit, nor will I,mordieu. But it's his virtue that neither his friends nor his enemies were ever sure of him. I believe, Mr. Boyce, that if he heard me he would thank me for a compliment.Bien—I come back to my tale.
"It was known to us poor Jacobites in England that Colonel Boyce was making salutes to St. Germain. Which much intrigued us, for we would not, by your leave, have him of our side. They don't know him there as we do, and King James, God save him! is young and honourable and sanguine."
"Poor lad," says Harry with a shrug.
"You may keep your pity, Mr. Boyce," McBean said stiffly. "I would have him so, by your leave. Now we heard that letters went to St. Germain from Colonel Boyce full of windy promises—verbosa et grandis epistola. D'ye keep up your humanities?—in the name of my Lord Sunderland and my Lord Stair. Black names both. But they were vastly intrigued at St. Germain. If Sunderland and Stair were ready to turn honest, thenpardieu, there was hope of the devil himself. Oh, I don't blame the King nor even Charles Middleton, though he is old enough to be slow. The times are changing, and maybe Stair and Sunderland they see it as well as we, and mean to find salvation. I can't tell. But the thing looked ill. Stair and Sunderland—there is no treachery too foul for those names. And if they meant honestly, why—saving your presence,mon enfant—why did they choose Colonel Boyce for their agent? It was no good warranty. So we adventured a counter. We have friends enough now in the Government,mon cher, and it was arranged that the Colonel should be arrested as a Jacobite. A good stroke, I think. It was mine. Only the old gentleman dodged it."
"Pray, what did you know of Mr. Waverton?"
"That sheep's-head!" McBean laughed. "Why, a letter came to hand in which the Colonel talked of taking the pretty gentleman to France. So he was joined in the warrant.D'ailleurs—it made a good appearance. However, we missed him; but we found something in his papers which made me queasy. So I e'en was off to France after him.
"The Colonel stayed at Pontoise and sent your Waverton off to St. Germain with a mighty plausible letter about secret proposals from the chiefs of the Whigs, which brought the King out to hear them secretly.Ma foi! I think Charles Middleton should have smelt a rat. But it was a clever trick, and to choose your Waverton to play it was masterly. For who could think that peacock would be in anything crafty? At Pontoise I tumbled in upon them, and your father,mon cher, he ran off on sight of me. Observe, I press nothing against him. I allow that the best evidence I have against him is just that—he ran away when he saw me. Secondly, he had with him some three-four rascals whose faces would hang them. And thirdly and lastly, beloved brethren, these fellows, when put to it and charged with a plot to murder King James, were frightened for their lives and babbled wildly, of which the sum was that they had been brought but to kidnap him. I grant ye, they may have lied, and I would not hang a dog (who was not a Whig) upon their word. But confess,mon cher, the thing is black enough. What did the Colonel want with King James alone? Why did he need his bullies? Why did he run away? I leave it with you."
Harry knocked out his pipe. "I am obliged for the story, sir. Why did you tell it?"
"You have a cold blood in you,mon enfant" says Captain MacBean. "Observe, I look for nothing wonderful from you. I allow your position is very difficult to a man of honour. And with all my heart—"
"Oh Lud, sir, let's have nothing pathetic."
"Aye, aye," McBean bowed. "Mr. Boyce! I do profess I feel the delicacy of the affair, and I detest it,pardieu. But I dare not absolve ye from your duty."
"Oh, sir, you are very sublime."
"Hear me out, Mr. Boyce. I have shown you cause to fear that your father has it in mind to compass a vile treachery, perhaps a murder. Would you deny it?"
"Damme, sir, I am not the day of judgment."
"Bien. I believe that is an answer. I declare to you there is yet a chance that he may succeed, aye, here in London."
Harry swore. "If your friends must go walking into traps what is it to me?"
"Well, sir, though you will own no loyalty to king or queen or country,I'll not be deceived. I call on you for your aid. It's believed yourfather is in London. It is likely he will seek you out, as he did before.Maybe at this hour you know where he is."
"If I did, should I betray him to you, sir?"
"I ask no treachery. But I do call on you, discover his purpose if you can, and if he intends violence to the King, prevent it. Lord, sir, it's to save your father from infamy, and your own name."
"The King? The Pretender is in London?" Harry cried.
"I told you that I should trust you far, Mr. Boyce."
Harry stared at him, and after a moment stood up. "I can do nothing," he said. "It is of all things most unlikely that I should do anything. For what I know, my father is dead. He has been nothing else to me all my life. But I believe I should thank you."
"Well!" quoth McBean. "God help you. I ha' drawn a bow at a venture. I think I have hit something, Mr. Boyce."
Do you remember how frightened Swift was of the Mohocks? How he came home early, and even (that was bitter) spent some pence on being carried in a sedan chair to avoid the "race of rakes that play the devil about this town every night, slit people's noses," and so forth? He had some reason to fear.
"Was there a Watchman took his hourly roundsSafe from their blows or new invented wounds"
in these last days of Queen Anne? Their way was to gather and take plenty of liquor, "then make a general sally and attack all that are so unfortunate as to walk the streets through which they patrol. Some are knocked down, others stabbed, others cut and carbonadoed." The women would be turned upside down or clapped into barrels and rolled over the stones.
It was a dark night with but a glimpse of the new moon when Harry left Captain McBean. From Bow Street to the "Hand of Pork" in Long Acre was only a few hundred yards, but murky enough, and Harry took Mr. Gay's advice for such night walking:
"Let constant Vigilance thy footsteps guide,And wary Circumspection guard thy side."
Nevertheless, as he was coming by the corner into Long Acre, he was surprised by a sound at his heels. He stepped quickly aside and turned upon it, felt a blow upon his head, saw flashes of light and the street, whirling round, rose up to meet him, and he knew no more.
When he came to himself he was in a room with fire and lights. He raised himself and heard voices. Then some one was standing over him. He looked up into his father's face. "Who was that?" he said feebly.
"Don't you see yet, Harry? It will soon pass off."
"Lord, I know you. Who are the others?"
"There is none here but me," said Colonel Boyce.
Harry looked painfully round the room and saw that it had become empty."What was it? A pistol?" said he, and began to feel his head.
"Egad, nothing so gentlemanly. A cudgel, by the look of the bruise. A Mohock's club, I suppose. I found you lying in the kennel as I was coming home."
"Oh, you're at home are you?" Harry laughed stupidly. "And where is home?"
"These are my lodgings in Martin's Lane, Harry, and you are welcome. But what have you to do in town? Young husbands should not be night walkers."
Harry stared at him for a moment. "I thought you knew everything," he said. Then, beginning to scramble up, he became aware that his clothes were all undone—coat, shirt, even breeches. "Odso, why were you stripping me?"
"I found you so. They shave you close, the Mohocks."
"They are a queer crew, your Mohocks." Harry looked at his father. "What should I carry inside my shirt?" Then he thrust his hands into his pockets. "Well, I had not much, but all's gone."
"Damned rogues," said his father with honest indignation. "How much have you lost, Harry?"
"Five guineas or so."
"I can make that good at least. But what is it to you? You are a warm fellow now. What, you've made no hole in Madame Alison's money bags yet."
"You're offensive, do you know?" Harry said. "I have been itching to tell you so."
Colonel Boyce's face set. "What now? Are you against me, sirrah?"
"Ods fish, you're a martyr, ain't you?" Harry laughed. But we are beginning at the end, I think. If you remember, sir, you promised to take me to France and went off without me."
"D'ye quarrel with that? Why, you had a fatter fish to fry than you could catch with me. So I left you at her and you ha' dined upon her. What's the matter then?"
"You were not honest with me—"
Colonel Boyce laughed, "Ah, bah, you will be a Puritan. It must be your mother in you."
"My mother! Thank you. We'll come to her. But one tale at a time. You let me think I was to go with you till you were gone without me. You took Waverton and told me nothing of that till you had him safe away."
"Egad, boy, it was all for your good."
"Perhaps you did think so," said Harry after a moment. "In fact it's what I complain of. You want to play Providence to me. Pray, sir, go about your business."
Colonel Boyce shrugged. "You're a proper grateful son. So be it. You have your wealthy wench and want no more of me. Well, go to the devil your own way, Harry."
"By your leave, I prefer it. But there's more, sir. Now comes Mr. Waverton and declares to my wife and me that you enticed him into a vile plot: for your pretence of a mission to the Pretender was nothing but a device for murder."
"Mr. Waverton said that to Mrs. Harry Boyce? Egad, it wasn't civil of Mr.Waverton. And what did the lady say to him?"
"That's no matter. What do you say to him, sir? Did you intend murder?"
"Lud, Harry, you talk like a ranting parson. It was not your way. Who has put this buzz of morality into your head? I suppose your pretty wife would have you break with your father. He's a low, coarse fellow, faith, who might want some of her money."
"We will leave my wife out, if you please. She will not trouble you. She and I have parted."
"God's my life! What's the quarrel?"
Harry shrugged. "Does one ever know? I was not good enough for her, I believe. And perhaps she was not good enough for me."
"Damn you for a prig," says his father.
"If you like. But you'll remark that I do not complain of her."
"Bah, you make me sick, sir! Not complain of her! That luscious piece! Egad, you should be drunk with her. But you're not a man, Harry, you're a parson."
"Oh, command your emotions! She rebelled against being wed to a man whose father ran about the world compassing murder, to a man who was withal a low fellow, a bastard. So far, it is your affair."
"I see you are no hand with a woman."
"Do I take after you, sir? We came upon a woman who said she was Mrs. Oliver Boyce and could not live with him, and boasted vehemently that she was no mother of mine."
Colonel Boyce plucked at his mouth. "So dear Rachel has got her finger into the pie. Why, Harry, you have had no luck."
"She is your wife, then. Oh, I admire your taste, sir. And pray, who was my mother?"
Colonel Boyce began to say something and stopped. "It's no matter. I believe she would not wish you to know. Why, Harry, I profess I am sorry. If we had been married, better for us all."
"Oh, you will be mysterious still. I suppose you are as tender of her honour as of mine or your own. And this matter of murdering the Pretender, pray, is that a mystery too?"
Colonel Boyce became restless. "Ods life, sirrah, there is no matter of murder. Who told you so? The fool Waverton. And where did he get the tale?"
"A gentleman who runs away tells his own tale."
"Now mark, Harry. The plan was but to bring Prince James to England—"
"Dead or alive," Harry laughed.
"Pshaw. I had him at Pontoise and was doing well with him. Then in comes a swashbuckling Scots Jacobite which is my private enemy, and a dozen bullies at his tail. Well, I had no mind to have him stick me or turn me over to the French as a spy of Marlborough's, so I went off. The fool Waverton let himself be taken. I make no doubt the Scot filled him to the brim with slanders of me. But is that my fault?"
"So you're done with the Pretender?"
Colonel Boyce gave his son a queer look. "Why, there's not much to be done with him in Martin's Lane, boy."
"Then what are you doing?"
"Egad, Harry, I should think you want to lay an information againstme. Waiting for better times is all my business now. My bolt's shot.And pray, sirrah, what may be your business now you've cut loose fromMrs. Alison?"
Harry laughed. "Living on my means."
"Why, does she settle something on you?"
Harry looked at his father without affection. "Do you know, sir, I am not always proud of your name."
"Egad, but you must have money somehow."
"The family motto, I suppose. Well, sir, I write for the Press."
"Good God, not for the newspapers? You have not fallen to that?"
"Oh, sir, the shillings are clean by comparison."
They looked at each other for a minute or two. "You walk abroad late, Mr.Author," says Colonel Boyce. "Do you make friends in your profession?"
"I believe I have two in the town—a hack writer for Lintot and an usher at Westminster. And what then, pray?"
"You were with them to-night?"
"You are paternal on a sudden, sir. Do you think of putting me out to nurse again?"
"So." Colonel Boyce stood up as if he had finished and then forced a laugh and slapped his son's shoulder, "Come, Harry, why quarrel? There's room enough for you here. I allow I owe you something. Join in with me."
"I have no luck in mysteries, sir. I'll wish you goodnight."
"Now you bear me a grudge," his father protested.
"What, for getting me born? Sometimes, perhaps."
"Egad, Harry, I should like to do something for you."
"Then give me a sword."
"A sword? And what for i' God's name?"
"In case I meet any more of your Mohocks."
Colonel Boyce was taken aback for a moment. Then he cried out heartily: "Damme, the rogues took five guineas from you too. Here, fill your purse, child." He shot out gold on the table.
"I'll take back my five guineas," said Harry, and counted them, while his father watched with a frown.
"There are swords of mine below," said Colonel Boyce.
They went down and from a rack of arms Harry chose a plain black hanger with an agate hilt. As he did it on he saw below it some heavy staves loaded with lead—just such as the Mohocks used.
"And where do you lodge?" says Colonel Boyce.
"At the 'Hand of Pork' in Long Acre. Goodbye, sir."
Colonel Boyce nodded, and for some time after he had gone stood at the door, watching.
Alison was gone back to her house at Highgate—and immediately regretted it. She took her adventures in a youthful, egoistic fashion: saw herself as a lovely woman made the prey of man and robbed of her right to her own life, a tender, confiding soul deceived and tortured into despair. The Lincoln's Inn Fields became the abomination of desolation, her fine society was dust and ashes and mankind in general all mocking villainy. So it was natural that she should retire from the world and become a recluse of tragic dignity. What other part is there for the deserted wife to play?
But she came upon awkward difficulties. The world would not be left behind. It was much more closely about her among the woods and meadows of Highgate than in her London drawing-room. The would-be fine ladies and gentlemen of her routs and her card parties, so the sweetmeats and the wines and strong waters were good enough, cared nothing whether she had a husband upstairs or somewhere else. Out in the country every one, gentle and simple, had a curious eye upon her. The very woods and meadows must be jogging her memory and putting her questions. Every one had known Miss Lambourne of the Hall and gone whispering about her strange, passionate marriage. Each pleasant path and lane had seen something of that first wild happiness. All day long she was driven back upon herself and what she had lost.
There is no doubt that she suffered. Of course she still told her heart wonderful tales about the shame that she had to bear and her torturing wrongs, and beyond doubt she believed most of them. For she could still profess to herself a miserable degradation in being married to a man of no name: she would be gloomily convinced that Harry was by his father's villainy a proven knave. But what hurt her most was the growing suspicion that she was much to blame for her own plight. Alison Lambourne, who acknowledged no law but her own will, who had never dreamed that she could be wrong in her desires, driven to confess a ruinous blunder! Imagine her distress. At first she chose to pretend that she had been overthrown by passion. The more she tried to despise Harry, the more that fancy shamed her. But there was in her a strength which refused to be content with that. She would still boast to herself that she was not the woman to be swept away by a gust of longing for the man who chanced to take her eye. And so she brought down on herself the inexorable question—if Harry were man enough to wake passion in her and deserve her magnificence, why had she driven him off? For all her selfishness and her insolent pride, she had a vehement desire, a part perhaps of her very pride in her womanhood, to owe him nothing, to play him fair, to give him all that a man could ask. Little by little she forced herself to believe that she had failed of that. After all, he had offered her nothing but himself, poor, friendless, of no repute, indolent, careless of all the world—and she had professed content. What his father might do was no matter to that. He had offered her what he was and given it faithfully. And she had not played fair. When she found herself confessing that, she discovered a new power of being wretched. All the romantic, egoistic melancholy went down the wind. The finest, proudest of her, her own honour, told of a torturing wound.
"I'll satisfy you"—that had been the boast before the wild marriage was done. And after all she had chosen to deny him. Nothing else could matter. There could be no excuse. It was he that she had taken, not his name or what he might be, and he had not changed. It was herself that she had promised—what other honour for woman or man than to give like for like?—and she had broken faith. She was humiliated—a state of all others the most dolorous for Alison.
To it came on a merry spring day Mr. Waverton. She was in two minds whether to let him see her, and then—too proud to hide from him or greedy of a chance to hurt him—had him in.
Mr. Waverton had decorated himself for a house of mourning. His large form was all black and silver and drooped sympathetically. His handsome face was set in a chastened melancholy as of one who grieves for another's trouble with a modest satisfaction. "Dear lady," says he tenderly, and bowed over her hand.
"Dear Geoffrey," says she. "Here's a new song."
"Madame?"
"'Vengeance is mine' was the refrain last time. Now it's weeping over the penitent prodigal. How I love you, Geoffrey."
Mr. Waverton made a gesture of emotion, an exclamation. "I wronged you, Alison," he said in a deep voice. "Nay, but you must forgive me. I have suffered too. Remember! I had lost all."
"Ah, no," says Alison tragically, "you had still yourself, Geoffrey."
His emotion was understood to be too much for Mr. Waverton. In a little while, "We have both been the sport of villainy," he said. "Forgive me, Alison. I remember that I spoke bitterly. Can you wonder? I had dreamed of you in his arms. To see you there in that knave's power—ah, I was beside myself. And he laughed, do you remember, he laughed!"
"He never would take you to heart, in fact."
"A treacherous hound!" said Mr. Waverton with startling vehemence.
"Oh, he was honest when he laughed."
Mr. Waverton swept Harry out of the conversation. "Forgive me, Alison, I should have known. My heart should have told me."
"Oh Lud, and is your heart to give tongue now?"
"My heart," said Mr. Waverton with dignity, "my heart is always crying to you. And now—now that the first agony is past, I know all."
"I wish I did," said Alison and looked in his eyes.
"But even then—ah, Alison, I have blamed myself cruelly—even then I should have known that when your eyes were opened, when you knew the truth, you would have no more of him."
"You might have known," Alison said slowly. "You might have judged me by yourself."
"Aye, that indeed," says Mr. Waverton heartily. "For we are very like,Alison, we are of the same spirit, you and I."
"You make me proud."
"It's our tragedy: we so like, so made to answer each other, should be betrayed to our ruin by this same vile trickster. Oh, I blame you no more than myself."
"This is too generous."
"No," says Mr. Waverton. "No. When I came on that woman of yours, that Mrs. Weston—faith, I am glad that you have cut her off too. I never liked that woman."
"Yes, she is poor."
"There it is! I doubt she was in Boyce's pay."
Alison opened her eyes at him. "Oh, Geoffrey, you surpass yourself to-day. Go on, go on."
"If you please," says Mr. Waverton, something ruffled. "I believe he hired her to play his game with you. Had you a suspicion of it when you sent her packing?"
"By God, Geoffrey, I could suspect anyone when you talk to me."
"She is bitter against you. When I heard from her that you had driven the fellow away from you, I was on fire to come to you."
"To forgive the prodigal! Oh, your nobility, Geoffrey. And pray where did you meet Mrs. Weston?"
"Why, in the High Street here. She lodges in one of those wretched cottages behind the street."
"She is here?" Alison shivered a little.
"Perhaps she has some game to play yet. She may be his spy. Be warned against her."
Alison leant forward in her chair. Her face was hidden from him. "You are giving me a lesson, Geoffrey. I'll profit by it, I promise you!"
"Alison!" Mr. Waverton gave a laugh of triumph. "I fight for us both. And I promise you I am eager enough. As soon as I learnt that you had left him, why, he was delivered into my hand. By heaven, he shall find no mercy now. Already I have him watched. I went to an attorney much practised in these treasonous cheating plots, and of him I have hired trusty fellows who know all the rogues in London and their hiding-holes. You said something?"
But Alison was laughing.
"I believe there is some humour in it," Mr. Waverton conceded grandly. "Well, they have tracked him down. Our gentleman lies at a filthy tavern in the Long Acre. The 'Leg of Pork,' or some such lewd name. He haunts Jacobite coffeehouses and the like low places. They believe that he makes some dirty money by scribbling for the Press. A writer in the newspapers! He is sunk almost to his right depth. They make no doubt that before long we shall catch him dabbling in some new treasonous matter. And then—" he made gestures of doom.
"Well? And then?"
"The law may revenge us on the treacherous rogue," said Mr. Waverton with majesty.
Alison stood up. Mr. Waverton, always polite, started up too. "I give you joy, Geoffrey," she said very quietly.
"Not yet! Not yet!" Mr. Waverton put up a modest hand.
"I believe there is nothing you could feel." Mr. Waverton recoiled and stared his bewilderment. "You carry a sword, Geoffrey. Oh, that I were a man!"
"To use it upon him! Bah, such rogues are not worth the honour of steel."
"Oh! Honour! Honour!" she cried and flung out her arms, trembling. "The honour of you and me!"
What was Mr. Waverton to make of that? "I believe I have excited you," says he.
"By God, it is the first time," Alison cried and turned on him so fiercely that he started back.
There was a servant at the door saying something which went unheard. Then Susan Burford came into the room, an odd contrast in her placid simplicity to the amazed magnificence of Mr. Waverton or Alison's tremulous, furious beauty. Alison was turned away from her and too much engaged to hear or be aware of her.
"Here is Miss Burford," said Waverton in a hurry.
Alison whirled upon her. "You! You have nothing to do here."
"My dear Alison!" Waverton protested. "Miss Burford, your very obedient."
Susan made him a small leisurely curtsy and sat down. "Oh, please give me a dish of tea," she said.
"We have not seen you at Tetherdown in this long while," Mr. Waverton complained genially.
"I believe not," says Susan.
Alison stared at her. "Why do you come here? You know you despise me."
"I do not come to people I despise," says Susan placidly.
"Well. I am private with dear Geoffrey, if you please."
"My dear Alison! I must be riding. We have finished our business, I think. I'll not fail to be with you again soon. I hope to have news for you. Miss Burford, your most obedient." Susan bent her head. "Alison—" he held out his hand and smiled at her protective affection.
"Geoffrey," said Alison, and looked in his eyes. She did not take the hand. She was very pale.