Gossip in clubs and whispers from more secret circles had a way of reaching Mrs. Bonfill's ears. In the days that followed Mr. Liffey's public inquiry as to who Brown, Jones, and Robinson might be, care sat on her broad brow, and she received several important visitors. She was much troubled; it was the first time that there had been any unpleasantness with regard to one of herprotégés. She felt it a slur on herself, and at first there was a hostility in her manner when Lord Glentorly spoke to her solemnly and Constantine Blair came to see her in a great flutter. But she was open to reason, a woman who would listen; she listened to them. Glentorly said that only his regard for her made him anxious to manage things quietly; Blair insisted more on the desirability of preventing anything like a scandal in the interests of the Government. There were rumours of a question in the House; Mr. Liffey's next article might even now be going to press. As to the fact there was little doubt, though the details were rather obscure.
'We are willing to leave him a bridge to retreat by, but retreat he must,' said Glentorly in a metaphor appropriate to his office.
'You're the only person who can approach both Liffey and Chance himself,' Constantine Blair represented to her.
'Does it mean his seat as well as his place?' she asked.
'If it's all kept quite quiet, we think nothing need be said about his seat,' Blair told her.
There had been a difference of opinion on that question, but the less stringent moralists—or the more compassionate men—had carried their point.
'But once there's a question, or an exposure by Liffey—piff!' Blair blew Beaufort Chance to the relentless winds of heaven and the popular press.
'How did he come to be so foolish?' asked Mrs. Bonfill in useless, regretful wondering.
'You'll see Liffey? Nobody else can do anything with him, of course.'
Mrs. Bonfill was an old friend of Liffey's; before she became motherly, when Liffey was a young man, and just establishing 'The Sentinel,' he had been an admirer of hers, and, in that blameless fashion about which Lady Blixworth was so flippant, she had reciprocated his liking; he was a pleasant, witty man, and they had always stretched out friendly hands across the gulf of political difference and social divergence. Liffey might do for Mrs. Bonfill what he would not for all the Estates of the Realm put together.
'I don't know how much you know or mean to say,' she began to Liffey, after cordial greetings.
'I know most of what there is to know, and I intend to say it all,' was his reply.
'How did you find out?'
'From Brown, a gentleman who lives at Clapham, and whose other name is Clarkson. Fricker's weak spot is that he's a screw; he never lets the subordinates stand in enough. So he gets given away. I pointed that out to him over the Swallow Islands business, but he won't learn from me.' Mr. Liffey spoke like an unappreciated philanthropist. The Swallow Islands affair had been what Fricker called a 'scoop'—a very big thing; but there had been some trouble afterwards.
'Say all you like about Fricker——'
'Oh, Fricker's really neither here nor there. The public are such asses that I can't seriously injure Fricker, though I can make an article out of him. But the other——'
'Don't mention any public men,' implored Mrs. Bonfill, as though she had the fair fame of the country much at heart.
'Any public men?' There was the hint of a sneer in Liffey's voice.
'I suppose we needn't mention names. He's not a big fish, of course, but still it would be unpleasant.'
'I'm not here to make things pleasant for Farringham and his friends.'
'I speak as one of your friends—and one of his.'
'This isn't quite fair, you know,' smiled Liffey. 'With the article in type, too!'
'We've all been in such a fidget about it.'
'I know!' he nodded. 'Glentorly like a hen under a cart, and Constantine fussing in and out like a cuckoo on a clock! Thank God, I'm not a politician!'
'You're only a censor,' she smiled with amiable irony. 'I'm making a personal matter of it,' she went on with the diplomatic candour that had often proved one of her best weapons.
'And the public interest? The purity of politics? Cæsar's wife?' Liffey, in his turn, allowed himself an ironical smile.
'He will resign his place—not his seat, but his place. Isn't that enough? It's the end of his chosen career.'
'Have you spoken to him?'
'No. But of course I can make him. What choice has he? Is it true there's to be a question? I heard that Alured Cummins meant to ask one.'
'Between ourselves, it's a point that I had hardly made up my mind on.'
'Ah, I knew you were behind it!'
'It would have been just simultaneous with my second article. Effective, eh?'
'Have you anything quite definite—besides the speculation, I mean?'
'Yes. One clear case of—well, of Fricker's knowingsomething much too soon. I've got a copy of a letter our gentleman wrote. Clarkson gave it me. It's dated the 24th, and it's addressed to Fricker.'
'Good gracious! May I tell him that?'
'I proposed to tell him myself,' smiled Liffey, 'or to let Cummins break the news.'
'If he knows that, he must consent to go.' She glanced at Liffey. 'My credit's at stake too, you see.' It cost her something to say this.
'You went bail for him, did you?' Liffey was friendly, contemptuous, and even compassionate.
'I thought well of him, and said so to George Glentorly. I ask it as a friend.'
'As a friend you must have it. But make it clear. He resigns in three days—or article, letter, and Alured Cummins!'
'I'll make it clear—and thank you,' said Mrs. Bonfill. 'I know it's a sacrifice.'
'I'd have had no mercy on him,' laughed Liffey. 'As it is, I must vamp up something dull and innocuous to get myself out of my promise to the public.'
'I think he'll be punished enough.'
'Perhaps. But look how I suffer!'
'There are sinners left, enough and to spare.'
'So many of them have charming women for their friends.'
'Oh, you don't often yield!'
'No, not often, but—you were an early subscriber to "The Sentinel."'
It would be untrue to say that the sort of negotiation on which she was now engaged was altogether unpleasant to Mrs. Bonfill. Let her not be called a busybody; but she was a born intermediary. A gratifying sense of power mingled with the natural pain. She wired to Constantine Blair, 'All well if X. is reasonable,' and sent a line asking Beaufort Chance to call.
Chance had got out of Dramoffskys prosperously. Hisprofit was good, though not what it had been going to reach but for Liffey's article. Yet he was content; the article and the whispers had frightened him, but he hoped that he would now be safe. He meant to run no more risks, to walk no more so near the line, certainly never to cross it. A sinner who has reached this frame of mind generally persuades himself that he can and ought to escape punishment; else where is the virtue—or where, anyhow, the sweetness—that we find attributed to penitence? And surely he had been ill-used enough—thanks to Trix Trevalla!
In this mood he was all unprepared for the blow that his friend Mrs. Bonfill dealt him. He began defiantly. What Liffey threatened, what his colleagues suspected, he met by angry assertions of innocence, by insisting that a plain statement would put them all down, by indignation that she should believe such things of him, and make herself the mouthpiece of such accusations. In fine, he blustered, while she sat in sad silence, waiting to produce her last card. When she said, 'Mr. Fricker employed a man named Clarkson?' he came to a sudden stop in his striding about the room; his face turned red, he looked at her with a quick furtive air. 'Well, he's stolen a letter of yours.'
'What letter?' he burst out.
With pity Mrs. Bonfill saw how easily his cloak of unassailable innocence fell away from him.
She knew nothing of the letter save what Liffey had told her.
'It's to Mr. Fricker, and it's dated the 24th,' said she.
Was that enough? She watched his knitted brows; he was recalling the letter. He wasted no time in abusing the servant who had betrayed him; he had no preoccupation except to recollect that letter. Mrs. Bonfill drank her tea while he stood motionless in the middle of the room.
When he spoke again his voice sounded rather hollow and hoarse.
'Well, what do they want of me?' he asked.
Mrs. Bonfill knew that she saw before her a beaten man.All pleasure had gone from her now; the scene was purely painful; she had liked and helped the man. But she had her message to deliver, even as it had come to her. He must resign in three days—or article, letter, and Alured Cummins! That was the alternative she had to put before him.
'You've too many irons in the fire, Beaufort,' said she with a shake of her head and a friendly smile. 'One thing clashes with another.'
He dropped into a chair, and sat looking before him moodily.
'There'll be plenty left. You'll have your seat still; and you'll be free to give all your time to business and make a career there.'
Still he said nothing. She forced herself to go on.
'It should be done at once. We all think so. Then it'll have an entirely voluntary look.'
Still he was mute.
'It must be done in three days, Beaufort,' she half-whispered, leaning across towards him. 'In three days, or—or no arrangement can be made.' She waited a moment, then added, 'Go and write it this afternoon. And send a little paragraph round—about pressure of private business, or something, you know. Then I should take a rest somewhere, if I were you.'
He was to vanish—from official life for ever, from the haunts of men till men had done talking about him. Mrs. Bonfill's delicacy of expression was not guilty of obscuring her meaning in the least. She knew that her terms were accepted when he took his hat and bade her farewell with a dreary heavy awkwardness. On his departure she heaved a sigh of complicated feelings: satisfaction that the thing was done, sorrow that it had to be, wonder at him, surprise at her own mistake about him. She had put him in his place; she had once thought him worthy of her dearest Trix Trevalla. These latter reflections tempered her pride in the achievements of her diplomacy, and moderated to a self-depreciatory tone thereports which she proceeded to write to Mr. Liffey and to Constantine Blair.
Hard is the case of a man fallen into misfortune who can find nobody but himself to blame; small, it may be added, is his ingenuity. Beaufort Chance, while he wrote his bitter note, while he walked the streets suspicious of the glances and fearful of the whispers of those he met, had no difficulty in fixing on the real culprit, on her to whom his fall and all that had led to it were due. He lost sight of any fault of his own in a contemplation of the enormity of Trix Trevalla's. To cast her down would be sweet; it would still be an incentive to exalt himself if thereby he could make her feel more unhappy. If he still could grow rich and important although his chosen path was forbidden him, if she could become poor and despised, then he might cry quits. Behind this simple malevolence was a feeling hardly more estimable, though it derived its origin from better things; it was to him that he wanted her to come on her knees, begging his forgiveness, ready to be his slave and to take the crumbs he threw her.
These thoughts, no less than an instinctive desire to go somewhere where he would not be looked at askance, where he would still be a great man and still be admired, took him to the Frickers' later in the afternoon. A man scorned of his fellows is said to value the society of his dog; if Fricker would not have accepted the parallel, it might in Chance's mind be well applied to Fricker's daughter Connie. Lady Blixworth had once described this young lady unkindly; but improvements had been undertaken. She was much better dressed now, and her figure responded to treatment, as the doctors say. Nature had given her a fine poll of dark hair, and a pair of large black eyes, highly expressive, and never allowed to grow rusty for want of use. To her Beaufort was a great man; his manners smacked of the society which was her goal; the touch of vulgarity, from which good birth and refined breeding do not always save a man vulgar in soul, was either unperceived or, as is perhaps more likely, considered the hall-mark of 'smartness'; othersthan Connie Fricker might perhaps be excused for some confusion on this point. Yet beneath her ways and her notions Connie had a brain.
Nobody except Miss Fricker was at home, Beaufort was told; but he said he would wait for Mrs. Fricker, and went into the drawing-room. The Frickers lived in a fine, solid, spacious house of respectable age. Its walls remained; they had gutted the interior and had it refurnished and re-bedecked; the effect was that of a modern daub in a handsome frame. It is unkind, but hardly untrue, to say that Connie Fricker did not dispel this idea when she joined Beaufort Chance and said that some whisky-and-soda was coming; she led him into the smaller drawing-room where smoking was allowed; she said that she was so glad that mamma was out.
'I don't often get a chance of talking to you, Mr. Chance.'
Probably every man likes a reception conceived in this spirit; how fastidious he may be as to the outward and visible form which clothes the spirit depends partly on his nature, probably more on his mood; nobody is always particular, just as nobody is always wise. The dog is fond and uncritical—let us pat the faithful animal. Chance was much more responsive in his manner to Connie than he had ever been before; Connie mounted to heights of delight as she ministered whisky-and-soda. He let her frisk about him and lick his hand, and he conceived, by travelling through a series of contrasts, a high opinion of canine fidelity and admiration. Something he had read somewhere about the relative advantage of reigning in hell also came into his mind, and was dismissed again with a smile as he puffed and sipped.
'Seen anything of Mrs. Trevalla lately?' asked Connie Fricker.
'Not for a week or two,' he answered carelessly.
'Neither have we.' She added, after a pause, and with a laugh that did not sound very genuine, 'Mamma thinks she's dropping us.'
'Does Mrs. Trevalla count much one way or the other?' he asked.
But Connie had her wits about her, and saw no reason why she should pretend to be a fool.
'I know more about it than you think, Mr. Chance,' she assured him with a toss of her head, a glint of rather large white teeth, and a motion of her full but (as improved) not ungraceful figure.
'You do, by Jove, do you?' asked Beaufort, half in mockery, half in an admiration she suddenly wrung from him.
'Girls are supposed not to see anything, aren't they?'
'Oh, I dare say you see a thing or two, Miss Connie!'
His tone left nothing to be desired in her eyes; she did not know that he had not courted Trix Trevalla like that, that even his brutality towards her had lacked the easy contempt of his present manner. Why give people other than what they want, better than they desire? The frank approval of his look left Connie unreservedly pleased and not a little triumphant. He had been stand-offish before; well, mamma had never given her a 'show'—that was the word which her thoughts employed. When she got one, it was not in Connie to waste it. She leant her elbow on the mantel-piece, holding her cigarette in her hand, one foot on the fender. The figure suffered nothing from this pose.
'I don't know whether you've heard that I'm going to cut politics?—at least office, I mean. I shall stay in the House, for a bit anyhow.'
Connie did not hear the whispers of high circles; she received the news in unfeigned surprise.
'There's no money in it,' Beaufort pursued, knowing how to make her appreciate his decision. 'I want more time for business.'
'You'd better come in with papa,' she suggested half-jokingly.
'There are worse ideas than that,' he said approvingly.
'I don't know anything about money, except that I liketo have a lot.' Her strong, hearty laughter pealed out in the candid confession.
'I expect you do; lots of frocks, eh, and jewels, and so on?'
'You may as well do the thing as well as you can, mayn't you?'
Chance finished his tumbler, threw away his cigarette, got up, and stood by her on the hearthrug. She did not shrink from his approach, but maintained her ground with a jaunty impudence.
'And then you have plenty of fun?' he asked.
'Oh, of sorts,' admitted Connie Fricker. 'Mamma's a bit down on me; she thinks I ought to be so awfully proper. I don't know why. I'm sure the swells aren't.' Connie forgot that there are parallels to the case of the Emperor being above grammar.
'Well, you needn't tell her everything, need you?'
'There's no harm done by telling her—I take care of that; it's when she finds out!' laughed Connie.
'You can take care of that too, can't you?'
'Well, I try,' she declared, flashing her eyes full on him.
Beaufort Chance gave a laugh, bent swiftly, and kissed her.
'Take care you don't tell her that,' he said.
'Oh!' exclaimed Connie, darting away. She turned and looked squarely at him, flushed but smiling. 'Well, you've got——' she began. But the sentence never ended. She broke off with a wary, frightened 'Hush!' and a jerk of her hand towards the door.
Mrs. Fricker came sailing in, ample and exceedingly cordial, full of apologies, hoping that 'little Connie' had not bored the visitor. Beaufort assured her to the contrary, little Connie telegraphing her understanding of the humour of the situation over her mother's shoulders, and laying a finger on her lips. Certainly Connie, whatever she had been about to accuse him of, showed no resentment now; she was quite ready to enter into a conspiracy of silence.
In a different way, but hardly less effectually, Mrs. Fricker soothed Beaufort Chance's spirit. She too helped to restore him to a good conceit of himself; she too took the lower place; it was all very pleasant after the Bonfill interview and the hard terms that his colleagues and Liffey offered him. He responded liberally, half in a genuine if not exalted gratitude, half in the shrewd consciousness that a man cannot stand too well with the women of the family.
'And how's Mrs. Trevalla?' Evidently Trix occupied no small place in the thoughts of the household; evidently, also, Fricker had not thought it well to divulge the whole truth about her treachery.
'I haven't seen her lately,' he said again.
'They talk a lot about her and Lord Mervyn,' said Mrs. Fricker, not without a sharp glance at Beaufort.
He betrayed nothing. 'Gossip, I daresay, but who knows? Mrs. Trevalla's an ambitious woman.'
'I see nothing in her,' said Connie scornfully.
'Happily all tastes don't agree, Miss Fricker.'
Connie smiled in mysterious triumph.
Presently he was told that Fricker awaited him in the study, and he went down to join him. Fricker was not a hard man out of hours or towards his friends; he listened to Beaufort's story with sympathy and with a good deal of heartfelt abuse of what he called the 'damned hypocrisy' of Beaufort's colleagues and of Mrs. Bonfill. He did not accuse Mr. Liffey of this failing; he had enough breadth of mind to recognise that with Mr. Liffey it was all a matter of business.
'Well, you sha'n't come to any harm through me,' he promised. 'I'll take it on myself. My shoulders are broad. I've made ten thousand or so, and every time I do that Liffey's welcome to an article. I don't like it, you know, any more than I like the price of my champagne; but when I want a thing I pay for it.'
'I've paid devilish high and got very little. Curse that woman, Fricker!'
'Oh, we'll look after little Mrs. Trevalla. Will you leave her to me? Look, I've written her this letter.' He handed Beaufort Chance a copy of it, and explained how matters were to be managed. He laughed very much over his scheme. Beaufort gave it no more explicit welcome than a grim smile and an ugly look in his eyes; but they meant emphatic approval.
'That's particularly neat about Glowing Stars,' mused Fricker in great self-complacency. 'She doesn't know anything about the trifling liability! Oh, I gave her every means of knowing—sent her full details. She never read 'em, and told me she had! She's a thorough woman. Well, I shall let her get out of Dramoffskys rather badly, but not too hopelessly badly. Then she'll feel virtuous—but not quite so virtuous as to sell Glowing Stars. She'll think she can get even on them.'
'You really are the deuce, Fricker.'
'Business, my boy. Once let 'em think they can play with you, and it's all up. Besides, it'll please my womankind, when they hear what she's done, to see her taken down a peg.' He paused and grew serious. 'So you're out of work, eh? But you're an M.P. still. That's got some value, even nowadays.'
'I shouldn't mind a job—not this instant, though.'
'No, no! That would be a little indiscreet. But presently?'
They had some business talk and parted with the utmost cordiality.
'I'll let myself out,' said Beaufort. He took one of Fricker's excellent cigars, lit it, put on his hat, and strolled out.
As he walked through the hall he heard a cough from half-way up the stairs. Turning round, he saw Connie Fricker; her finger was on her lips; she pointed warily upwards towards the drawing-room door, showed her teeth in a knowing smile, and blew him a kiss. He took off his hat with one hand, while the other did double duty inholding his cigar and returning the salute. She ran off with a stifled laugh.
Beaufort was smiling to himself as he walked down the street. The visit had made him feel better. Both sentimentally and from a material point of view it had been consoling. Let his colleagues be self-righteous, Liffey a scoundrel, Mrs. Bonfill a prudish woman who was growing old, still he was not done with yet. There were people who valued him. There were prospects which, if realised, might force others to revise their opinions of him. Trix Trevalla, for instance—he fairly chuckled at the thought of Glowing Stars. Then he remembered Mervyn, and his face grew black again. It will be seen that misfortune had not chastened him into an absolute righteousness.
As for the kiss that he had given Connie Fricker, he thought very little about it. He knew just how it had happened, how with that sort of girl that sort of thing did happen. The fine eyes, not shy, the challenging look, the suggestion of the jaunty attitude—they were quite enough. Nor did he suppose that Connie thought very much about the occurrence either. She was evidently pleased, liked the compliment, appreciated what she would call 'the lark,' and enjoyed not least the sense of hoodwinking Mrs. Fricker. Certainly he had done no harm with Connie; nor did he pretend that, so far as the thing went, he had not liked it well enough.
He was right about all the feelings that he assigned to Connie Fricker. But his analysis was not quite exhaustive. While all the lighter shades of emotion which he attributed to her were in fact hers, there was in her mind also an idea which showed the business blood in her. Connie was of opinion that, to any girl of good sense, having been kissed was an asset, and might be one of great value. This idea is not refined, but no more are many on which laws, customs, and human intercourse are based. It was then somewhat doubtful whether Connie would be content to let the matter rest and to rank his tribute merely as a pastime or a compliment.
At this point Trix Trevalla's fortunes impose on us a timid advance into the highest regions, where she herself trod with an unaccustomed foot. Her reception was on the whole gratifying. The Barmouths could not indeed be entirely pleased when their only son proposed to make a match so far from brilliant; but after all the Trevallas were gentlefolk, and (a more important point) the Barmouths had such a reverence for Mervyn that he might have imitated the rashness of King Cophetua without encountering serious opposition. His parents felt that he ennobled what he touched, and were willing to consider Trix as ennobled accordingly. They were very exclusive people, excluding among other things, as it sometimes seemed, a good deal of what chanced to be entertaining and amusing. It does not, however, do to quarrel with anybody's ideal of life; it is simpler not to share it.
Roguish nature had created Lord Barmouth very short, stout, and remarkably unimposing; he made these disadvantages vanish by a manner of high dignity not surpassed even by his tall and majestic wife. They had a very big house in Kent, within easy reach of London, and gave Saturday-to-Monday parties, where you might meet the people you had met in London during the week. There was a large hall with marble pillars round it, excellently adapted for lying in state, rather chilly perhaps if it were considered as a family hearth; Lord Barmouth was fond of walking his guests up and down this hall, and telling them what wasgoing to happen to the country—at least, what would, if it were not for Mortimer.
'On the whole I'd sooner go to the dogs and not have Mortimer,' Lady Blixworth had declared after one of these promenades.
The Glentorlys, Lady Blixworth and Audrey Pollington, three or four men—Constantine Blair among them—Mrs. Bonfill, Trix herself, and Mervyn, all came down in a bunch on Saturday evening—a few days after Trix had promised to marry Mervyn, but before any formal announcement had been made. The talk ran much on Beaufort Chance: he was pitied and condemned; he was also congratulated on his resignation—that was the proper thing to do. When this was said, glances turned to Mrs. Bonfill. She was discreet, but did not discourage the tacit assumption that she had been somehow concerned, and somehow deserved credit.
'It is vital—vital—to make an example in such cases,' said Barmouth at dinner. He had a notion that the force of an idea was increased by reiterating the words which expressed it.
'We naturally feel great relief,' said Mervyn. (By 'We' he meant the Ministry.)
'It's straining a point to let him stay in the House,' declared Glentorly.
'The seat's shaky,' murmured Constantine Blair. Mervyn's eye accused him of saying the wrong thing.
Trix, from conscience or good-nature, began to feel sorry for Beaufort Chance.
'Resist the beginnings—the beginnings,' said Lord Barmouth. 'The habit of speculation is invading all classes.'
'Public men, at least, must make a stand,' Mervyn declared.
The corners of Lady Blixworth's mouth were drooping in despair. 'What I go through for that girl Audrey!' she was thinking, for she had refused a most pleasant little dinner- and theatre party in town. She was not in a good temperwith Trix Trevalla, but all the same she shot her a glance of understanding and sympathy.
'Now persons like this Fricker are pests—pests,' pursued Barmouth.
'Oh, Mr. Fricker's really a very good-natured man,' protested Trix, who was on her host's left hand.
'You know him, Mrs. Trevalla?' Lord Barmouth did not conceal his surprise.
'Oh, yes!'
'Mrs. Trevalla knows him just slightly, father,' said Mervyn.
Lord Barmouth attained a frigid amiability as he said with a smile: 'Used to know him, perhaps you'll say now?'
'That's better, Trix, isn't it?' smiled Mrs. Bonfill.
Lady Blixworth's satirical smile met Trix across the table. Trix felt mean when she did no more than laugh weakly in response to Barmouth's imperious suggestion. She understood what Lady Blixworth meant.
'If we cut everybody who's disreputable,' observed that lady sweetly, 'we can all live in small houses and save up for the Death Duties.'
'You're joking, Viola!' Lady Barmouth complained; she was almost sure of it.
'For my part, if Mr. Fricker will put me on to a good thing—isn't that the phrase, Mortimer?—I shall be very grateful and ask him to dinner—no, lunch; he can come to that without Mrs. Fricker. Why, you used to stand up for them, Sarah!'
'Things are different now,' said Mrs. Bonfill, with a touch of severity.
'Mrs. Bonfill means that circumstances have changed—changed completely,' Lord Barmouth explained.
'I thought she must mean that,' murmured Lady Blixworth, gratefully.
'You can't touch pitch without being defiled—defiled,' remarked Lord Barmouth, with an unpleasantly direct look at Trix. Everybody nodded with a convinced air.
'That's right, Barmouth,' said Sir Stapleton Stapleton-Staines, a gentleman with a good estate in that part of the country. 'In my opinion that's right.'
That being settled, Lady Barmouth rose.
Next morning, after church (everybody went except Lady Blixworth, who had announced on going to bed that she would have a headache until lunch), Mervyn took Trix for a walk round the place. It was then, for the first time, her fright wearing off, that the truth of the position flashed on her in all its brilliance. She was no mere Saturday-to-Monday visitor; she had come to see what was to be her home; she was to be mistress of it all some day. Mervyn's words, and his manner still more, asserted this and reminded her of it every moment: the long stately façade of the house, the elaborate gardens, the stretches of immemorial turf, all the spacious luxury of the pleasure-grounds, every fountain, every statue, he pointed out, if not exactly for her approval, yet as if she had a right to an account of them, and was to be congratulated on their excellence. 'I have a great deal to give—look at it all. I give it all to you!' Some such words summarise roughly Mervyn's tone and demeanour. Trix grew eager and excited as the fumes of greatness mounted to her head; she hugged the anticipation of her splendour. What a victory it was! Think of the lodging-houses, the four years with Vesey Trevalla, thepensions, think even of the flat—the flat and the debts—and then look round on this! Was not this the revenge indeed?
And the price? She had learnt enough of the world now to be getting into the way of expecting a price. But it seemed very light here. She liked Mervyn, and not much more than that degree of feeling seemed to be expected of her. He was fond of kissing her hand in a rather formal fashion; when he kissed her cheek there was a hint of something that she decided to call avuncular. No display of passion was asked from her. All she had to do was to be a particularly good girl; in view of the manner of the whole family towards her, she could not resist that way ofputting it. So long as she was a good girl they would be very kind to her. 'But we can't have pranks—pranks,' she seemed to hear her future father-in-law declaring. Against pranks they would be very firm. Like speculation, like the Frickers, pranks might invade every class of society, but they would find no countenance from the house of Barmouth.
Well, pranks are a small part of life, after all. One may like to think of a few as possible, but they are surely of no great moment. Trix thoroughly understood the gently congratulatory manner which the company assumed towards her. Audrey Pollington was wistfully and almost openly envious; she sat between two fountains, looking at the house and announcing that she would ask no more than to sit there always. Mrs. Bonfill, who could never be in a big house without seeming to own it, showed Trix all over this one, and kissed her twice during the process. Lord Barmouth himself walked her round and round the hall after lunch, and told her a family reminiscence for each several pillar that they passed. Only in Lady Blixworth's eyes did Trix find an expression that might be malice, or, on the other hand, conceivably might be pity. A remark she made to Trix as they sat together in the garden favoured the latter view, although, of course, the position of affairs tended to support the former.
'I suppose you haven't had enough of it yet to feel anything of the kind,' she said, 'but, for my part, sometimes I feel as if I should like to get drunk, run out into the road in my petticoat, and scream!'
'I don't think Lord Barmouth would let you come back again,' laughed Trix.
'I suppose Sarah's trained you too well. Look at Sarah! It wasn't forced on her; she needn't have had it! She would have it, and she loves it.'
'There's a great deal to love in it,' said Trix, looking round her.
'Everything, my dear, except one single fandango! NowI love a fandango. So I go about looking as if I'd never heard of one.' She turned to Trix. 'I shouldn't wonder if you loved a fandango too?'
'I haven't had many,' said Trix, it must be owned with regret.
'No, and you won't now,' remarked Lady Blixworth.
There was no use in keeping up the fiction of a secret.
'I shall have to be very good indeed,' smiled Trix.
'Oh, it's just splendid for you, of course!' The natural woman and the trained one were at issue in Lady Blixworth's heart. 'And I daresay one might love Mortimer. Don't be hurt—I'm only speculating.'
'He's everything that's good, and distinguished, and kind.'
Lady Blixworth looked round cautiously, smiled at Trix, and remarked with the utmost apparent irrelevance, 'Fol-de-rol!'
Then they both laughed.
'Hush! here comes Sarah! Don't look thoughtful, or she'll kiss you. Kisses are a remedy for thought sometimes, but not Sarah's.'
Trix did not regard the absence of pranks and fandangoes as an inseparable accident of high degree—there facts might have confuted her—but it certainly seemed the most striking characteristic of the particular exalted family to which she was to belong. The guests left on Monday; Trix remained for the week, alone with her prospective relations. Mervyn ran up to his office two or three times, but he was not wanted in the House, and was most of the time at Barslett, as the place was called. Everything was arranged; the engagement was to be announced immediately; Trix was in the house on the footing of a daughter. For some reason or another she was treated—she could not deny it—rather like a prodigal daughter; even her lover evidently thought that she had a good deal to learn and quite as much to forget. All the three were industrious people, all wanted her to understand their work, all performed it with an unconcealed sense of merit. LordBarmouth was a churchman and a farmer; Lady Barmouth was a politician and a housekeeper; Mervyn, besides going to be Prime Minister, was meditating a Life of Burke. 'One never need be idle in the country,' Barmouth used to say. To Trix's mind he went far to rob the country of its main attraction. She felt that she would have bartered a little splendour against a little more liveliness. Was this to repent of her bargain? No, in truth! She was always giving thanks that she had done so magnificently, got out of all her troubles, sailed prosperously into a haven so ample and so sure. Yet Lady Blixworth's untutored impulse recurred to her now and then, and met with a welcoming smile of sympathy. Airey Newton and Peggy Ryle came into her mind too, on occasion; their images were dismissed with a passing sigh.
What annoyed her most was that she found her courage failing. The high spirit that had defied Beaufort Chance, braved Fricker, and treated almost on equal terms with Mrs. Bonfill, seemed cowed by the portentous order, decorum, usefulness, industry, and piety that now encircled her in a ring-fence of virtue. Day by day she became more afraid of this august couple and their even more august son, her lover and chosen husband. She had said that she must be a good girl in fun at first, as a burlesque on their bearing towards her. Really truth threatened to overtake the burlesque and make it rather fall short of than exaggerate or caricature her feelings. She would never dare to rebel, to disregard, or to question. She would be good—and she would be good because she would be afraid to be anything else. Of course the world would know nothing of that—it would see only the splendour—but she would know it always. Under the fine robes there would be golden chains about her feet. If her ideal of life had demanded freedom besides everything else, it was like to share the fate of most ideals.
'Oh, if I had the courage to defy them! Perhaps I shall when I'm married!'
No, she feared that she never would—not thoroughly, norwithout a quaking heart at least. Not because they were particularly wise or clever, or even supernaturally good. Rather because they were so established, so buttressed by habit, so entrenched by the tradition of their state. Defiance would seem rebellion and sacrilege in one. Trix had no difficulty in imagining any one of the three ordering her to bed; and (oh, worst humiliation!) she knew that in such a case she would go, and go in frightened tears. Such an absurd state of mind as this was intolerably vexatious.
'When you were a boy, were you afraid of your father and mother?' she asked Mervyn once.
'Afraid!' He laughed. 'I never remember having the least difference with either of them.'
That was it; nobody ever would have any differences in that family.
'I'm rather afraid of them,' she confessed. When he smiled again she added, 'And of you too.'
'How silly!' he said gently. It was, however, tolerably plain that he was neither surprised nor displeased. He took the fear to which she owned as a natural tribute to the superiority of the family, a playful feminine way which she chose to express her admiration and respect. He kissed her affectionately—as if she had been very good. No doubt, if there were bed when necessary, there would, on suitable occasions, be sugar-plums too. To Trix Trevalla, erstwhile rebel, gaoler, wanderer, free-lance, the whole thing seemed curiously like a second childhood, very different from her first, and destined to continue through her life.
'It'll make a slave or a liar of me, I know,' she thought. But she thought also that, if she spoke to Lady Blixworth in that vein, she would be asked on what grounds she expected to escape the common lot. It would probably make her both a liar and a slave, Lady Blixworth would say with her languid smile; but then the compensations! Even Lady Blixworth's wild impulse was admittedly only occasional, whereas she had a standing reputation for refinement and elegance.
An example of what was going to happen all her lifeoccurred on the last day of her visit, the last day, too, before the world was to hail her as the future Lady Mervyn. She was sitting by Mervyn, reading a book while he wrote. The post came in, and there was a letter for her. While he attacked his pile, she began on her one. It was from Fricker. A quick glance assured her that Mervyn's attention was fully occupied.
Mr. Fricker's letter opened very cordially and ran to a considerable length. It was concerned with Dramoffskys, and told her that he had sold her holding, considering that step on the whole the wisest thing in her interest. Owing, however, to a great variety of unforeseen events—more rumours, new complications, further anxiety as to what the Tsar meant to do—he regretted to inform her that he had for once miscalculated the course of the market. Dramoffskys had fallen rather severely; he would not take the responsibility of saying whether or when they would be likely to rise to the price at which she had bought—much less go higher. They would be worse before they were better—long before—was the conclusion at which he arrived with regret. So that in fine, and omitting many expressions of sorrow, it came to this: out of her five thousand pounds he was in a position to hand back only a sum of 2,301l. 5s. 11d., which amount he had had the pleasure of paying to her account at her bank. 'I will advise you subsequently as to Glowing Stars,' he ended, but Trix had no thoughts to spare for Glowing Stars.
The blow was very severe. She had counted on a big profit, she was faced with a heavy loss. She did not suspect Fricker's good faith, but was aghast at her own bad luck.
'How horrible!' she exclaimed aloud, letting the letter fall in her lap. Even for a moment more she forgot that she was sitting by Mervyn.
'What's the matter, dear?' he asked, turning round. 'No bad news in your letter, I hope?'
'No, nothing serious, nothing serious,' she stammered, making a hasty clutch at the two big type-written sheets of paper.
'Are you sure? Tell me about it. You must tell me all your troubles.' He stretched out his hand and pressed hers. She crumpled up the letter.
'It's nothing, really nothing, Mortimer.'
'Do you cry out "How horrible!" about nothing?' His smile was playful; such a course of conduct would be plainly unreasonable. 'Whom is it from?' he asked.
'It's from my servant, to tell me she's broken a china vase I'm very fond of,' said Trix in a smooth voice, quite fluently, her eyes fixed on Mervyn in innocent grief and consternation.
Fortunately he was not an observant man. He had noticed neither the typewriting nor Trix's initial confusion. He patted her hand, then drew it to him and kissed it, saying with a laugh:—
'I'm glad it's no worse. You looked so frightened.' Then he turned back to his letters.
Presently Trix escaped into the garden in a tempest of rage at herself. She was thinking no more of the treacherous conduct of Dramoffskys, but of herself.
'That's what I shall always do!' she exclaimed to the trim lawns and the sparkling fountains, to the stately façade that was some day to salute her as its mistress. 'How easily I did it, how naturally!' She came to a pause. 'I'll go in and tell him.' She took a step or two towards the house, but stopped again. 'No, I can't now.' She turned away, saying aloud, 'I daren't!'
The thought flashed into her mind that he would be very easy to deceive. It brought no comfort. And if he ever found out! She must end all connection with Fricker, anyhow. She could not have such an inevitable source of lies about her as that business meant.
'How easily I did it!' she reflected to herself again in a sort of horror.
Mervyn told the story at dinner, rallying Trix on her exaggerated consternation over the news. Lady Barmouth took up the cudgels for her, maintaining a housewife's view of the importance and preciousness of household possessions.Lord Barmouth suggested that perhaps the vase was an heirloom, and asked Trix how she became possessed of it, what was it like, what ware, what colour, what size, and so forth. Thence they passed, under Lady Barmouth's guidance, to the character of the servant, to her previous record in the matter of breakages, comparing her incidentally in this and other respects with a succession of servants who had been at Barslett. Steadily and unfalteringly, really with great resource and dexterity, Trix equipped both servant and vase with elaborate histories and descriptions, and agreed with the suggestion that the vase might perhaps be mended, and that the servant must be at least seriously warned as to what would happen in the event of such a thing ever occurring again. The topic with its ramifications lasted pretty well through the meal, Trix imagining all the time every sort of unlikely catastrophe which might possibly result in her dressing-case falling into the hands of the family and Mr. Fricker's letter being discovered therein.
Well, there was nothing for it; she must be good. If she would not go on lying, she must obey. There was some of the old hardness about her eyes and her lips as she came to this conclusion. She was not, after all, accustomed to having everything just as she liked. That had been only a dream, inspired by Airey Newton's words at Paris; when put to the test of experience, it had not borne the strain. She was to belong to the Barmouths, to be admitted to that great family; she would pay her dues.
She was very sweet to Mervyn that evening; there was a new submission in her manner, a strong flavour of the dutiful wife. From afar Lord Barmouth marked it with complacency and called his wife's attention to it.
'Yes, and I liked her for thinking so much about her vase, poor child,' said Lady Barmouth.
'In my opinion she will be a success—a success,' said he. 'After all, we might have been sure that Mortimer would make a suitable choice.'
'Yes, and Sarah Bonfill thoroughly approves.'
Lord Barmouth's expression implied that Mrs. Bonfill's approval might be satisfactory, but could not be considered essential. In such matters the family was a sufficient law unto itself.
The next day Trix went up to town. At the station Mervyn gave her a copy of the 'Times' containing the announcement that a marriage had been arranged between them. His manner left nothing to be desired—by any reasonable person at least; and he promised to come and see her on his way to the House next day. Trix steamed off with the 'Times' in her hand, and the hum of congratulation already sounding in her expectant ears.
She lay back in the railway carriage, feeling tired but content—too tired, perhaps, to ask whence came her content. The hum of congratulation, of course, had something to do with it. Had escaping from Barslett something to do with it too? Lazily she gave up the problem, threw the 'Times' aside, and went to sleep.
When the train was nearing London, she awoke with a start. She had been having visions again; they had come while she slept—strange mixtures of the gay restaurant and of dingy Danes Inn; a room where Airey Newton smoked his pipe, where the only sound was of Peggy Ryle's heart-whole laughter; a dream of irresponsibility and freedom. She laughed at herself as she awoke, caught up the paper again, and re-read that important announcement. There lay reality; have done with figments! And what a magnificent reality it was! She stepped out on to the platform at Charing Cross with conscious dignity.
At the flat it rained telegrams; from everybody they came—from the Bonfills, the Glentorlys—yes, and the Farringhams; from crowds of less-known people. There was one from Viola Blixworth, and there was one from Peggy Ryle. She accorded this last the recognition of a little sigh. Then she went to dress for a dinner party. Her entry into the drawing-room that evening would be the first-fruits of her triumph. She thought no more about the china vase.
For years a man may go on not perceiving nor understanding what he is doing with his life, failing to see not merely whither it is tending under his guidance, but even the various points at which from time to time it arrives. Miles Childwick had recommended a frame of mind affected with, or even devoted to, this blindness when he argued against the Fallacy of Broad Views; perhaps, like some other things that do not as a rule work well, it would work well enough if it could be maintained with absolute consistency. But a breakdown is hard to avoid. Something happens to the man, or, just as often, to another whom he knows and has watched as he has not watched his own doings; in the light of it he discerns hidden things about himself. He may find that he has given fame the go-by, or power, or the attainment of great place; he may groan over the discovery, or he may sayVile damnumand go back to his unobtrusive industry or his leisurely study. He may discover that he is not useful, and be struck with remorse, or, on the other hand, inspired to a sceptical defiance of the obligation; he may see that nobody is likely ever to think much of him or to care much about him, and smile at their rightness or their wrongness as his opinion leads him, and be annoyed or resigned as his temperament dictates. Or he may awake to a sense of some loss at once vaguer and larger than any of those hitherto suggested, a loss not of any particular thing, however desirable, out of life, but a loss of life itself; he has abdicated legitimate pretensions, drawn backhis boundaries, thrown away part of his inheritance, denied to his being some of the development to which it was inherently able to attain. A man who arrives at this conclusion must be of a very unusual temper if he does not suffer disquietude and discontent. It is easy to maintain that any given object of ambition, or even that any chosen excellence, is not indispensable; it needs more resolution to say that it is immaterial and no ground for regret that a man has been less of a man, a narrower creature, than it lay in his power to be; that he has stopped when he might have gone forward, and fallen into the habit of saying 'no' when he ought to have cultivated the practice of saying 'yes.' It is difficult for him to vindicate to himself his refusal of the fulness of life according as the measure of his ability would have realised it for him. It is nothing to say that he has had as much as, or more than, A, B, or C. He agrees scornfully. Has he taken as much as he himself could have claimed by the right of his nature and faculties? That seems the primeval obligation, Nature's great command, to be obeyed in ten thousand different ways, but always to be obeyed.
'Do you live?' Trix Trevalla had once asked Airey Newton. He had answered, 'Hardly.' Yet, when he said that, consciousness of the truth had been very dim and faint in him, just nascent perhaps, but unable to assert itself against things stronger in his soul. If it had grown from that time onward, the growth had been unmarked and almost imperceptible. He had his great delight, his preoccupation and propensity; that had still seemed enough. His renewed meeting with Trix, especially that talk of theirs after his dinner party, had forwarded matters another stage. The news of her engagement to Mervyn seemed the cue on which voices long silenced in him spoke aloud—not, indeed, in unreserved praise of Trix, a line permissible neither to his conception of the case nor to truth itself, but in an assertion that she was at least trying for what he had let slip, was reaching out her hands to the limit of life, was trying what the world could do for her. And, as he understood,she dated this effort back to his advice. In the irony of that thought he found the concrete instance needed to give unity, force, and clearness to the vague murmurs of his spirit.
His mood bred no action; what stood between? First, a sense that he was too late; the feeling that Trix had awakened centred on her; she was to him part, an essential part, of the full life as it rose before his eyes; and, in fact, she was nothing to him. He would have liked to be content with that answer. But there was another; the red book and the safe still stood in the corner of his room. A divination of the true deity is but a small step towards robbing the old idol of his time-consecrated power. Airey Newton was left crying 'Impossible!' in answer to his own demand for the stir of life which Trix Trevalla embodied for him. Trix herself had wistfully given the same answer when Peggy Ryle made her long for the joy of it.
A week after the news which had such a peculiar significance for one man as well as its obvious social importance to many people, Peggy Ryle dropped in at Danes Inn and ate bread-and-butter in a complimentary sort of way. She also wanted another fifty pounds from her hoard, but she meant to lead up to this gently, as she had observed that Airey disapproved of her extravagance, and handed out her money to her with reluctance.
'Well, Airey, I suppose you haven't heard anything that's happening?' she said.
'Probably not,' he agreed with a grim smile. 'You're in the thick of it all?'
'For the present,' Peggy replied cautiously. 'I'm considered an heiress, and they ask me everywhere. Mrs. Bonfill has offered to take me out! I'm great, Airey. And I've gone to lots of places with Mrs. Trevalla.'
'She's great too?'
'Oh, yes, much greater. A new loaf to-day?'
'I thought you were about due. Want some more money?'
'How nice of you to suggest it!' cried Peggy in relieved gratitude. 'Just fifty, please—to pay for a frock, a supper, a box, and incidental expenses.'
'I think you'd better fit yourself up with a rich match, like Mrs. Trevalla. You'll be in the workhouse in three months.'
'I've been there before. Lots of friends always there, Airey!' Her nod and smile included him in the number with an affectionate recognition. 'And I don't know that Mrs. Trevalla is to be envied so particularly. I daresay it's very nice to be married in a cathedral, but it's not as inviting to be married to one—and it's what Lord Mervyn reminds me of.' She paused and then added, 'Trix isn't in love with him, of course.'
Undoubtedly Airey Newton was glad to hear that, though with no joy which can rank above a dog-in-the-manger's. However, he made no comment on it.
'And who's in love with you?' he asked.
'Two or three men, Airey,' replied Peggy composedly—'besides Miles, I mean.' Miles's affection was composed, but public. 'Miles renewed his offer on hearing that I had come into money. He said that the circumstance freed his action from any offensive appearance of benevolence.'
'And you said no?'
'I never say no to Miles. I never can do anything but laugh. It would be just perfect if he didn't mean it.' In spite of her sympathy Peggy laughed again. 'I wish you were rich and were going to marry Trix Trevalla,' she resumed. 'She's very fond of you, you know, Airey.'
'Stuff!' growled Airey unceremoniously.
'Well, of course!' sighed Peggy, glancing round the room.
A man may say 'Stuff!' and yet not be over-pleased to have it greeted with 'Of course!' Airey grumbled something into his pipe; Peggy smiled without hearing it.
'Well, I mean she'd never marry anybody who wasn't well-off,' she explained. 'She couldn't, you see; she's veryextravagant. I'm sure she spends more than she's got. But that doesn't matter now.'
'And perhaps you needn't be very severe on it,' Airey suggested.
'You gave an enormous dinner,' Peggy retorted triumphantly.
Airey began to walk about the room, giving an occasional and impatient tug at his beard.
'What's the matter?' asked Peggy, noting these signs of disturbance.
'Nothing,' said Airey, fretfully. 'You needn't talk as if I was a pauper,' he broke out the next moment.
Here was something strange indeed. Never before had he resented any implied reference to his poverty; nay, he had rather seemed to welcome it; and in their little circle everybody took the thing as a matter of course. But Airey stood there looking resentful or at least ashamed, and greatly hurt anyhow. Peggy was terribly upset. She jumped up and ran to him, holding out her hands.
'How could I?' she cried. 'I had no idea—— Dear Airey, do forgive me! I never thought of hurting your feelings! How can you think that I or any of us mind a scrap whether you're rich or poor?' There were tears in her eyes, and she would not be refused a grasp of his hands. 'You thought I took it all—all you give me—and then sneered at you!' gasped Peggy.
'I'm comfortably off,' said Airey stiffly and obstinately.
'Yes, yes; of course you are. I'll never say anything of the sort again, Airey.' She let go his hands with a reluctant slowness; she missed the hearty forgiveness for which she had begged. He puzzled her now.
'I have money for everything I need. I don't pose as being poor.'
'Oh, you mustn't take it like that,' she groaned, feeling fit to cry in real earnest, conceiving him to be terribly wounded, sure now that he had squandered his resources on the dinner because among them they had made him ashamedof being poor. She could not herself understand being ashamed of poverty, but she had an idea that many people were—especially men perhaps, to whom it properly belonged to labour, and to labour successfully.
'I sha'n't go until you forgive me,' she insisted. 'It'll spoil everything for me if you don't, Airey.'
'There's nothing to forgive,' he rejoined gloomily, as he dropped into a chair by the little table and rested his elbow on the red-leather book. 'I don't want to sail under false pretences, that's all.' His tones were measured and still hard. Peggy felt herself in disgrace; she drifted back to the window and forlornly poured out another cup of tea.
The impulse had been on Airey to tell her everything, to abandon to her his great secret, to let her know the truth as Tommy Trent knew it, to make her understand, by bitter mockery of himself, what that truth had done to him. But at the last he had not power to conquer the old habit of secrecy, or to face the change that a disclosure must bring. He unlocked his safe indeed, but it was only to take out five ten-pound notes; her money was all in notes, she liked the crackle of them. That done, he shut the door with a swing, clanking the heavy bolts home with a vicious twist of the handle.
'It sounds as if it meant to keep whatever it gets, doesn't it?' asked Peggy, with a laugh still rather nervous. She took the notes. 'Thanks, Airey. I love money.' She crackled the notes against her cheek.
Airey's laugh, almost hearty, certainly scornful, showed that he was recovering his temper. 'Your love displays itself in getting rid of the beloved object as quickly as possible,' he remarked.
'That's what it's for,' smiled Peggy, happy at the re-establishment of friendly relations.
Peggy paid two or three other visits that day. At Mrs. Bonfill's she found Glentorly and Constantine Blair. She was admitted, but nobody took much notice of her. They were deep in political talk: things were not going very well;the country was not relying on Lord Glentorly in quite the proper spirit. Clouds were on everybody's brow. Peggy departed, and betook herself to Lady Blixworth's. The atmosphere here too was heavy and lamentable. Audrey seemed resentful and forlorn, her aunt acid and sharp; disappointment brooded over the premises.
'How people worry!' Peggy reflected, as she got back into her hansom and told the man to drive to Trix Trevalla's; if not at Danes Inn, if not in the houses of the great, there at least in Trix's flat she ought to find gaiety and triumph. The fact that people worried was oppressing Peggy to-day. Alas, Trix Trevalla was with Lord Mervyn! Gathering this fact from a discreet servant, Peggy fled back into her hansom with the sense of having escaped a great peril. She had met Lord Mervyn at Mrs. Bonfill's.
Whither now? Why, to Tommy Trent's, of course. The hansom (which was piling up a very good fare) whisked her off to Tommy's chambers at the corner of a street looking over St. James's Square. She left the cab at the door and went in. Here, anyhow, she was in great hopes of escaping the atmosphere of worry.
Tommy was a prosperous man, enjoying a very good practice as a solicitor in the City; his business was of a high class and yet decidedly lucrative. Peggy liked his rooms with their quiet luxury and their hint of artistic taste carefully unemphasised. She threw herself into a large armchair and waited for Tommy to appear. There was a small room where he sometimes worked an hour or so after he came home in the evenings, and there she supposed him to be; it was shut off by an interior door from the room where she sat, and opened on the passage by another which she had passed on her way in. The servant had told her that Mr. Trent was engaged for the moment, but would soon be free. Peggy hoped that it would turn out that he was free for the evening too; a little dinner would be restful, and she had no engagement that she considered it necessary to keep.
There was a murmur of voices through the door. Peggyrecognised Tommy's; it sounded familiar and soothing as she read a paper to while away the time; the other voice was strange to her. Presently there was the noise of chairs being pushed back, as though the interview were coming to a close. Tommy spoke again in a louder voice.
'Mr. Newton doesn't want his name mentioned.'
'We should have liked the support of Mr. Airey Newton's name.'
'He won't hear of that, but he believes in his process thoroughly——'
'I wonder if I ought to be hearing this!' thought Peggy, amused and rather interested at stumbling on her friends, so to speak, in their business hours and their business affairs.
Tommy Trent's voice went on:—
'And will take a fifth share in the syndicate—5,000l.'
'Is he prepared to put that down immediately?' The question sounded sceptical.
'Oh, yes, twice as much; to-morrow, if necessary. But no mention of his name, please. That's all settled then? Well, good-bye, Mr. Ferguson. Glad the thing looks so good. Hope your wife's well. Good-bye.'
The passage door was opened and shut. Peggy heard Tommy come back from it, whistling in a soft and contented manner. The passage door opened again, and the servant's voice was audible.
'Miss Ryle there? I'll go in directly,' said Tommy.
The paper had fallen from Peggy's hands. Five thousand pounds! Twice as much to-morrow, if necessary! Airey Newton! No other Newton, but Airey, Airey! The stranger had actually said 'Airey!' Her thoughts flew back to her talk with Airey—and, further back, to how Tommy Trent had made him give a dinner. And on that account she had quarrelled with Tommy! Everything fitted in now. The puzzle which had bewildered her in Danes Inn that very afternoon was solved. Perceiving the solution with merciless clearness, Peggy Ryle felt that she must cry. It was such hypocrisy, such meanness, nay, suchtreachery. 'I don't want to sail under false colours,' he had said, and used that seemingly honest speech and others like it to make his wretched secret more secure. Now the safe took its true place in the picture; a pretty bad place it was; she doubted not that the red book was in the unholy business too. And the bread-and-butter! Peggy must be pardoned her bitterness of spirit. To think of the unstinted gratitude, the tender sentiment, which she had lavished on that bread-and-butter! She had thought of it as of St. Martin's cloak or any other classical case of self-sacrificing charity. And—worse, if possible—she had eaten the dinner too, a dinner that came from a grudging hand. She had fled to Tommy Trent's to escape worry. Worse than worry was here. With rather more justification than young folks always possess, she felt herself in the presence of a tragedy; that there was any comedy about also was more likely to strike a looker-on from outside.
'Sorry to have kept you waiting, Peggy,' said Tommy cheerfully, coming in from the other room. 'I had a man on business, and Wilson didn't tell me you were here.'
Peggy rose to her feet; a tear trickled down her cheek.
'Hullo! What's the matter? Are you in trouble?'
'I overheard you through the door.'
'What?'
'Just at the end you raised your voice.'
'And you listened?' Tommy was rather reproachful, but it did not yet seem to strike him what had happened.
'I heard what you said about Airey Newton.'
Tommy gave a low whistle; a look of perplexity, not unmixed with amusement, spread over his face.
'The deuce you did!' he remarked slowly.
'That's what's the matter: that's why I'm nearly crying.'
'I don't see it in that light, but I'm sorry you heard. It's a secret that Airey——'
'A secret! Yes, I should think it was. Are you anythingthat I don't know of? I mean a burglar, or a swindler, or anything of that kind?'
'You do know that I'm a solicitor?' Tommy wanted to relieve the strain of the conversation.
'I meant to stay with you, and perhaps to take you out to dinner——'
'Well, why won't you? I haven't done anything—except forget that it's not wise to talk too loudly about my clients' business.'
'I'm just going to Danes Inn to see Airey Newton.'
'Oh!' Tommy nodded gravely. 'You think of doing that?'
'It's what I'm going to do directly. I've a hansom at the door.'
'I'm sure you've a hansom at the door,' agreed Tommy. 'Sit down one minute, please,' he added. 'I want you to do something for me.'
'Be quick, then,' commanded Peggy, sitting down, but obviously under protest. 'And you have done something too,' she went on. 'You've connived at it. You've backed him up. You've helped to deceive us all. You've listened to me while I praised him. You've praised him yourself.'
'I told you he could afford to give the dinner.'
'Yes—as he told me to-day that he wasn't a pauper! He made me think I'd hurt his feelings. I felt wretched. I begged him to forgive me. Oh, but it's not that! Tommy, it's the wretched meanness of it all! He was just one of the six or seven people in the world; and now——!'