Belle was silent for a few moments. She wished that this wonderful week could be extended over the whole of her holidays. She knew, and was really a little frightened at knowing, that when she left Oxford the next day she would leave behind her a heart that had hitherto been quite untouched. She was amazed and even a little annoyed to find that a mere week had brought about such a revolution in all her feelings and in her whole outlook on life. She had meant to have a perfectly wonderful time before falling in love.
"I suppose," she said, "that we shan't hear anything of you until we see you again, unless,—unless you write sometimes to mother and tell her how you are and what Peter is doing."
Kenyon didn't even smile. "Peter will write to your mother once a week, as usual—he's very consistent—and I'll get him to put in a postscript about me, if you like. I shall have some difficulty in preventing myself from writing to you from time to time, although I'm a child in the art of letter-writing."
"Why should you prevent it? I should simply love to have your letters."
"But isn't your mother a little old-fashioned?"
"Maybe," said Belle, "but does that matter? You've not met any American girls before—that's easy to see. We do just what we like, and if our mothers don't agree they don't dare to say so. Shall I tell you why? Because it wouldn't make any difference if they did."
"Then I shall write," said Kenyon, "and give youbrief but eloquent descriptions of English weather, English politics and the condition of my liver,—that is to say, the three inevitable topics of this country."
Belle laughed. "Then it will be perfectly safe for me to leave your letters about," she said.
"Perfectly,—always supposing that you censor the postscripts."
"I'm crazy about you!" said Belle; and this time her laugh awoke the echoes of the river and filled a nightingale near by with a pathetic ambition to emulate its music.
And then they heard Peter's great voice shouting, "N-i-c-k!" Whereupon Kenyon gathered himself together, not unpleased at being disturbed, stood up gracefully and pulled back into the main stream. "The call of duty," he said—"such is life." It was consistent with his policy to conduct this most pleasant affair by instalments.
When he saw the other punt he asked Peter, with a touch of beautiful petulance, why he had deliberately lost them, and turned a deaf ear to Graham's idiotic chuckle.
The landing stage was in the shadow, which was just as well. When Kenyon gave his hand to Belle to help her out of the punt, he drew her close against him and with a touch of passion as unexpected as the sudden flash of a searchlight across a dark sky left a kiss on her lips that took her breath away.
All the way back to the hotel she hung on Peter's arm and dared not trust herself to speak. For the first time in her young life she had caught a glimpseof its meaning. It left her strangely moved and thrilled.
Little Mrs. Guthrie walked back with Kenyon, very proud of the fact that he was Peter's friend.
Poor little mother!
On the steps of the Randolph Hotel, Mrs. Guthrie turned to Kenyon and asked him, with one of her most motherly smiles, to have some supper with them. Telegraphing quickly to Peter and Graham that they were not to accept the invitation, Kenyon said: "Nothing would give me greater pleasure—absolutely nothing. Unfortunately Peter and I have already accepted an invitation from two of our Dons and we cannot possibly get out of this dull but profitable hour."
"How very disappointing!" said Mrs. Guthrie.
"How silly!" said Belle.
Betty merely said, "Oh!" but the rest of her sentence was condensed into one quick look at Peter.
Peter, utterly without guile, turned round to Nicholas Kenyon in blank amazement. "It's the first I've heard of it," he said. "What on earth do you mean? Two of the Dons? Who are they?"
But Kenyon was an artist and a strategist, and therefore a liar. "My dear old boy! What would you do without me? I'm your diary, your secretary, your guide, philosopher and friend. If you've forgotten the engagement I certainly haven't." And heshot at Peter a swift and subtle wink, in which he included Graham.
Scenting adventure and gathering that the two Dons were in all probability coming from the chorus of "The Pirates of Penzance," Graham joined in quickly. "I suppose I can't come and listen humbly to the learned conversation of these two professors?"
"But why not?" said Kenyon. "No doubt you can tell them more about Wall Street in five minutes than they would ever learn in their lives. Therefore, dear Mrs. Guthrie, I'm afraid we must all say 'good-night.' We'll rejoin you in the morning for breakfast as arranged, and wind up what's been the pleasantest week of my life, by driving out to Woodstock for lunch."
It was all done in the most masterly manner, and when the three men left the hotel arm in arm they were not guided by Kenyon toward St. Giles, but to the theatre, where the curtain was just about to fall with the last act.
"What's all this?" asked Peter, impatiently. "Mother had set her heart upon having us to supper."
"Mother has had us all day," replied Kenyon. "Bear in mind the fact that there are other women in the world to whom we owe a little gallantry. You and Graham are going to eat Welsh Rabbit at the somewhat humble rooms of my little friends, Lottie Lawrence and Billy Seymour."
"I'll see you damned first!" said Peter. "I've no use for these people. Come on, Graham, let's go back."
Kenyon's face was wreathed in smiles. "It can'tbe done, dear lad," he said. "Your mother would be the last person on earth to permit you to be discourteous to our two distinguished Dons, and by this time in all human probability Betty will be preparing for bed."
Peter had been building all his hopes on another hour with Betty. She was leaving Oxford with his people the next afternoon and he wanted above all things, however incoherently, to let her know something of the state of his feelings. He had never been so angry with Kenyon before. "Curse you!" he said. "You've spoiled everything. If you must play about with these chorus girls why can't you do it alone? Why drag me in?"
Kenyon's eyes narrowed. "Only the angels die young, Peter, my friend," he said. "As I've been obliged to tell you before, you stand a pretty good chance of an early demise. Have you ever heard the word 'priggish'? For a whole week I've played the game by you and devoted myself, lock, stock and barrel, to your family. Mere sportsmanship demands that you make some slight return to me by joining my little party to-night. Don't you agree with me, Graham?"
Graham's vanity was vastly appealed to by the fact that this perfect man of the world had taken him into his intimacy. Hitherto he hadn't met English chorus girls. He rather liked the idea. "Why," he said, "I can't see why we shouldn't go. I'm with you, anyway. Come on, Peter. Be a sport."
But Peter held his ground. He had all the morereason for so doing because he had met Betty. "All right!" he said. "You two can do what you jolly well like. Cut me out of it. I shall turn in. If that's being priggish—fine. Good-night!"
He wheeled round and marched off, and as he passed beneath the windows of the Randolph Hotel he drew up short for a moment and with a touch of knightliness which was quite unself-conscious he bared his head beneath the window of the room in which he believed that Betty was to sleep, but which, as a matter of fact, harboured a short, fat, wheezy Anglo-Indian with a head as bald as a billiard ball.
Kenyon disguised his annoyance under an air of characteristic imperturbability. "Well, that's our Peter to the life," he said, taking Graham's eager arm. "He's a sort of Don Quixote—a very pure and perfect person. One of these days he's likely to come an unholy cropper, and that's to my way of thinking what he most needs. I don't agree with a man's being a total abstainer in anything. It narrows him and makes him provincial. Then, too, a man who fancies himself as better than his fellows is apt to wear a halo under his hat, and that disgusting trick ruins friendship and leads to a hasty and ill-considered marriage with the first good actress who catches him on the hop and makes use of his lamentable ignorance. Come along, brother, we'll see life together."
"Fine!" said Graham. "Me for life all the time."
So these two,—the one curiously old and the other dangerously young,—made their way to the stage doorof the Theatre Royal and waited among the little crowd of undergraduates for the moment when the ladies of the chorus should have retouched their make-up and be ready for further theatricalisms.
Lottie Lawrence and Billy Seymour were the first out. The latter's greeting was exuberant. "What-ho, Nick! Where's the blooming giant you said you were going to bring?"
"Otherwise engaged, dear Billy; but permit me to introduce to you a financial magnate from the golden city of New York."
Billy was young and slim and so tight-skirted that her walk was almost like that of a Chinese Princess. Even under the modest light of the stage door-keeper's box her lips gleamed crimsonly and her long eyelashes stuck out separately in black surprise. Her small round face was plastered thickly with powder. She was very alluring to the very young. Her friend had come from an exactly similar mould and might have been a twin but for her manner, which was that of the violet—the modest violet—on a river's brim.
Kenyon hailed a cab, gave the man the address in Wellington Square and sat himself between the two girls, with an arm round each.
Billy Seymour had taken in Graham with one expert glance of minute examination. "Graham Guthrie, eh?" she said. "It smacks of Caledonia, bag-pipes and the braes and banks o' bonnie Doon. I take it your ancestors went over on the S. S. Mayflower, of the White Star Line—that gigantic vessel which followed the beckoning finger of Columbus—and startedthe race which invented sky-scrapers and the cuspidors."
Graham let out a howl of laughter and told himself that he was in for a good evening, especially as the ladies' knees were very friendly.
Lottie Lawrence placed her head on Kenyon's shoulder, sighed a little and said: "Oh, I'm so tired and so hungry; and I've a thirst I wouldn't sell for a tenner."
Kenyon tightened his hold. "All those things shall be remedied, little one," he said. "Have no fear."
The first things which met their eyes when they entered the sitting-room of the sordid little house in which a series of theatricals had lodged from time immemorial, were a half-dozen bottles of champagne—sent in by Nick's order. The two girls showed their appreciation for his tactfulness in different ways. Billy fell upon one of the bottles as though it were her long-lost sister, pressed it to her bosom and placed a passionate kiss upon its label; while Lottie, with an eloquent gesture, immediately handed Graham a rather battered corkscrew. "Help me to the bubbly, boy," she said. "My throat is like a limekiln."
All the clocks of the City of Spires were striking three as Kenyon and Graham supported each other out into the quiet and deserted street. There was much powder on Graham's coat and a patch of crimson on Kenyon's left cheek.
"Life with a big L, Graham, my boy," said Kenyon a little thickly.
"A hell of a big L," said Graham, with a very much too loud laugh at his feeble joke. "You certainly do know your way about."
"And most of the short cuts," said Kenyon dryly. "Presently I shall scale the wall of St. John's, climb through the window of one of our fellows who's about to take holy orders, and wind up the night in the hospitable arms of Morpheus." This eventually Graham watched him do, with infinite delight, and was still wearing a smile of self-congratulation as he passed the door of his mother's bedroom in the hotel and entered his own.
His father heard the heavy footsteps as they went along the passage, but imagined that they were those of the night watchman on his rounds.
Fate is the master of irony.
The following morning at eight o'clock Peter, as fit as a fiddle, stalked into Kenyon's bedroom and flung up the blind. The sun poured in through the open window. Innumerable sparrows twittered among the trees in the gardens and scouts were moving energetically about the quad. From the other windows the sounds of renewed life were coming. The great beehive of a college was about to begin a new and strenuous day.
Kenyon was sleeping heavily with a blanket drawn about his ears. His clothes were all over the floorand a tumbler one-fourth filled with whiskey stood on the dressing-table among a large collection of ivory-backed brushes, links, studs, tie-pins and other paraphernalia which belong to men of Kenyon's type,—the bloods of Oxford. With a chuckle, Peter dipped a large sponge in the water of the hip-bath which had been placed ready on the floor, and throwing back the blanket squeezed its contents all over Kenyon's well-cut face.
The effect was instantaneous. The sleeper awoke, and cursed. Peter's howl of laughter at the sight of this pale blinking man with his delicate blue silk pajamas all wet round the neck advertised the fact to the whole college that he was up and about.
Kenyon got slowly out of bed. "There are fools—damned fools—and Peter Guthrie," he said quietly. "What's the time?"
"Time for you to get up, shave and bathe, if you want to breakfast at the Randolph. How late were you last night?"
"Haven't a notion," said Kenyon. "The first faint touch of dawn was coming over the horizon, so far as I remember, when your little brother watched me climb through the window of the man Rivers, upon whose 'tummie' I planted my foot. For a man who's about to enter the Church he has an astounding vocabulary of gutter English. You look abominably fit, old boy—the simple life, eh? Heigh-ho!—Manipulate this machine for me while I'm doing my hair." He picked up the small black case of his safety-razor and threw it at Peter, who caught it.Then he got into a very beautiful silk dressing-gown, stuck his feet into a pair of heelless red morocco slippers, and with infinite pains and accuracy made a centre parting in his fair hair, in which there was a slight natural curl.
From his comfortable position on the foot of the bed Peter watched his friend shave,—a performance through which he went with characteristic neatness. It was a very different performance from the one through which Peter was in the habit of going. Soap flew all round this untidy man, giving the scout much extra work in his cleaning-up process.
Kenyon didn't intend to enter into any details as to the orgy of the night before. He knew from previous experience that Peter's sympathy was not with him. For many reasons he desired to stand well with his friend, especially looking to the fact that he needed an immediate loan. One or two of his numerous creditors were pressing for part payment. So he let the matter drop and took the opportunity to talk like a father to Peter on another point which had grown out of the visit of his people. "Tell me," he said, "what is precisely the state of your feelings in regard to your sister's friend? It seems to me that you're getting a bit sloppy in that direction. Am I right?"
"No," said Peter, "'sloppy' isn't the word."
"Oh! Well, then, what is the word? I may be able to advise you."
"I don't want your advice," said Peter. "My mind is made up."
Kenyon turned round. "Is that so? Quick work."
Peter nodded. "It's always quick when it's inevitable."
"Oho! What have we here—romance?"
"Yes; I think so," said Peter quietly.
"Who'd have thought it? Our friend Peter has met his soul-mate! Out of the great crowd he has chosen the mother of his children. It is to laugh!"
"Think so?" said Peter. "I don't."
Kenyon put down his razor and stood in front of the man with whom he had lived for several years and who had now apparently come up against a big moment in his life. It didn't suit him that Peter should be seriously in love yet. He looked to his friend to provide him with a certain amount of leisure in the future. His plans would all go wrong if he had to share him with someone else. He had imagined that his friend was only temporarily gone on this little girl whose brief entry into Oxford had helped to make Eight's week very pleasant. It was his duty to find out exactly how Peter stood.
"Do you mean to tell me," he asked, "that you've proposed to Betty Townsend?"
"Not yet," said Peter, "but I'm going to this morning—that is if I have the pluck."
"My dear fellow," said Kenyon, with a genuine earnestness, "don't do it. I've no doubt she'll jump at you, being under the influence of this place and seeing you as a small hero here; but take the adviceof a man who knows and bring caution to your rescue. What'll happen if you tie yourself up to this girl? After all, you can't possibly be in love with her—that's silly. You're under the influence of a few silver nights, and that most dangerous of all things—propinquity. Dally with her of course, kiss her and write her letters in which you quote the soft stuff of the poets. That'll provide you with much quiet amusement and assist you in the acquisition of a literary style; but, for God's sake, don't be serious. You're too young. You've not sown your wild oats. What's the use of taking a load of responsibility on your shoulders before you're obliged to do so? I'm talking to you like a father, old man, and I've the right."
"Oh yes," said Peter, "you've the right—no man better—but you and I look at things differently. I want the responsibility of this girl. I want someone to work for,—an impetus—an ultimate end. It may seem idiotic to you that I know the right girl directly I see her, but all the same it's a fact. You see my undergraduate days are almost over. When I go home in the fall I shall start earning my living. What am I going to work for? A home, of course, and a wife and all that that means. If that's what you call romance, thank you, it's exactly what I want. Do you get me?"
Kenyon shrugged his shoulders. "Then I don't see that there's anything more to be said. Does all this mean that you're going to chuck me? Supposing Betty accepts you? Are you going to dog her footsteps for the rest of the summer and leave me in the cart?"
"Oh Lord, no!" said Peter.
"Thank God for small mercies! And now if you'll give me a little elbow-room I'll have my bath."
"Right-o!" said Peter. "Buck up! Breakfast at nine o'clock."
He went out, not singing as usual but with a curious quietness and a strange light dancing in his eyes.
Kenyon was left the sole master of that little bedroom. As he finished dressing he marshalled his thoughts and into them entered the figure of a certain very beautiful person who lived in a cottage on the borders of his father's estate. Before now she had twisted young men, quite as romantic as Peter, out of their engagements to simple little girls. He would see that she worked her wiles on Peter. He didn't intend that his friend should devote himself to any person except Nicholas Kenyon so long as he could prevent it.
It was a rather curious meal,—this final breakfast at the Randolph Hotel. There were several under-currents of feeling which seemed to disturb the atmosphere like cross winds. The Doctor and Mrs. Guthrie were genuinely sorry that the week had come to an end. It was one which would be filled with memories. Graham would very willingly have remained atOxford as long as Kenyon did. He had fallen a complete victim to the attractions of this master of psychology. He regarded him as the very last word in expert worldliness. He paid him the highest tribute that he considered it was possible for one man to pay another, by calling him "a good sport," and he looked forward with enormous pleasure to the time when he would be able to show Kenyon the night side of New York, with which he had himself begun to be well acquainted.
As to the two girls, wonderful things had happened to both of them during that emotional, stirring, picturesque and altogether "different" week. It seemed almost incredible to them they had been in that old town for so short a time, during which, however, their little plans—their girlish point of view—had undergone absolute revolution. The high-spirited Belle, who had hitherto gone through life with a consistent exuberance and rather thoughtless joy, was rendered uncharacteristically serious at the knowledge that she would not see Nicholas Kenyon again for some months. Not for a moment did she regret the fact that she had fallen badly in love with him. It was a new sensation for her, and young as she was, it was the new thing that counted. Her mind was filled with dreams. In imagination she walked from one series of pictures into another and all were touched with excitement, exhilaration and a sense of having won something, the possession of which all her friends would envy her.
In going over in her mind all that Kenyon had saidto her, she could not put her finger on any actual declaration on his part; but his subtle assumption of possession, the way in which he touched her hand and looked at her over other people's heads with eyes which seemed to embrace her, seemed to her to be far more satisfactory than any conventional set of words ordinary under such circumstances. Then, too, there was that wonderful and sudden kiss on the landing stage in the shadow. Why, there was no doubt about it. She had, like Cæsar, come and seen and conquered. She was to be the Hon. Mrs. Nicholas Kenyon, daughter-in-law of Lord Shropshire, of Thrapstone-Wynyates. What a delightful surprise for father and mother, and how proud they would be of her!
Betty knew that Peter intended to make her his wife. She knew it and was happy. His very incoherence had been more eloquent to her than the well-rounded sentences of all the heroes of her favorite novels, and if he never said another word before she left, she would be satisfied. In her heart there was the sensation of one who had come to the end of a long road and now stood in a great wide open space on which the sun fell warmly and with great beauty.
Not much was said by anyone, and the question of the afternoon train which was to leave at four-thirty was consistently avoided by them all.
Breakfast over, the whole party followed Kenyon into the street, where two cars were waiting for the trip to Woodstock. They were to lunch at the old inn which stood beneath the gnarled branches of the oaks that had sheltered the Round Heads and Royalists.The first car was Kenyon's roadster, in which he placed Mrs. Guthrie, the Doctor and Graham. He had intended that Betty should sit by his side as he drove, and that Peter should take Belle in his two-seater. But Master Peter was too quick for him this time. He had touched Betty on the arm and said: "You're coming with me." And before Kenyon could frame a sentence to break up this arrangement these two were off together with the complete disregard for speed limits which was peculiar to the Oxford undergraduate. Kenyon had the honesty to say about this to himself that it was well done, but all the same he was immensely annoyed. As he drove off with Belle on the front seat he was not, for at least a mile, a very talkative companion. Belle put his silence down to the fact that she was going away that afternoon.
Along St. Giles, past the burial ground, the Roman Catholic Church, Somerville, and into the Woodstock road as far as the Radcliffe Infirmary, Peter kept the lead, and then the big car overtook him and left him behind. Graham waved his hand and shouted something which Peter didn't catch. It was probably facetious. As far as Wolvercote Peter kept in touch with the car in front, when he began to fall gradually behind. He had a plan in the back of his head.
The morning seemed to suit all that he had to say, if he found himself able to say it. The earth was warm with the sun. The hedges and trees were still in the first fresh vigor of early summer. Everywhere birds sang and were busy with their young.
Peter pulled up short at the edge of a spinney."Let's get out of here," he said, "I want to show you a corking little bit of country." And Betty obeyed without a word. She rather liked being ordered about by this big square-shouldered person.
They didn't go far,—hardly, in fact, fifty yards from the car,—and when they came to a small opening among the beeches where bracken grew and "bread and cheese" covered the soft turf with their little yellow heads, Peter said: "Sit down; I want to speak to you."
And again Betty obeyed without a word. It was coming—she knew that it was coming—and the only thing she was afraid about was that Peter would hear the quick beat of her heart.
He laid himself full stretch at her feet, threw off his cap and ran his fingers through his hair. "You know this place," he said.
"I? No, I've never been here before."
"Yes, you have. You've been here with your friends. They come out every night from the first of May until the first of October. Can't you see the marks their feet have made as they danced here in the ring? It's awfully queer. This is the first place I came to after I got to Oxford—all the leaves were red—and I sat here one afternoon alone and wondered how long it would be before I should look up and see you. I've often come here since, winter and summer, and listened for sticks to crackle as you came along through the trees to find me. Why don't you laugh?"
"Why should I?"
"I knew you wouldn't. If you had it wouldn't have been you."
He turned himself round on to his elbows and looked up at her, and remained looking and looking. And Betty looked back. Her heart was beating so loudly that it seemed to her that someone was whacking a carpet somewhere with a stick. She wondered whether she would be able to hear Peter when he spoke again,—if ever he did.
And Peter said: "I'm going to begin to be a man exactly five months from to-day. That is to say, I'm going into a law office in New York to make a beginning. I'm going to work like the dickens. Do you know why?"
Betty shook her head and then nodded. He was a long time coming to the point. If he wasn't quick she'd simply have to scream. Her heart was up in her throat—it was most uncomfortable.
Peter went on. Somehow words came easy to him. The earth was so friendly and so motherly and so very kind, and after all this was his spot and she was there at last. "I forget the number of the house," he said, "but up on the eighth floor of it, facing south, there's a most corking apartment. The rooms are large and can be filled with big furniture and enormous book-cases. I'm going to work to get that. I don't know how long it'll take, but I'm going to ask you to help me to get it. Will you?"
Betty nodded again. Someone was beating the carpet in a most violent manner.
Peter, without another word, sprang up, put twolarge strong hands under Betty's elbows and set her on her feet. She came up to the top button of his coat and he held her there tight and it hurt her cheek. But oh, how fine and broad the chest was behind it and how good it was to nestle there. She heard him say much that she forgot then, but remembered afterwards—simple boyish things expressed with deep sincerity and a sort of throb—outpourings of pent-up feelings—not in the very least incoherent, but all definite and very good. And there they stayed for what appeared to be a long time. The man with the carpet had gone away, but without looking up Betty knew that there were hundreds of little people dancing around them in the ring and the little clearing full of the yellow heads of wild flowers seemed to have become that great open space and out of it, between an avenue of old trees, stretched the wide road which led to,—the word was the only one in the song that filled her brain,—motherhood! Motherhood!
A rabbit ran past them frightened, and Betty sprang away. "Peter! What will the others say?"
Peter shook himself and his great laugh awoke the echoes of the woods. "I don't care what anybody says," he answered. "Do you?"
"Yes. Let's go. We shall be late for lunch."
And Peter picked her up, carried her to the car, kissed her, put her in, and drove away.
Peter and Kenyon left the station arm in arm. They had watched the train round the corner and disappear. Many hands had waved to the crowd of undergraduates who had come to see their people and friends off. Peter had stood bareheaded with his hand still tingling with the touch of Betty's.
They walked slowly back to college, each busy with his thoughts. Exultation filled Peter's mind. Kenyon was wondering how much he could touch Peter for. In the procession of returning undergraduates they made their way under the railway bridge and along the sun-bathed but rather slummy cobblestone road over which the tram-cars ran. They passed the row of little red brick houses—most of which were shops—and the factory, stammering smoke, and turned into the back way which led by a short cut to Worcester.
Oxford had resumed her normal atmosphere. Fathers and mothers, uncles, guardians, brothers, sisters and cousins, who had all descended upon the town, had departed. No longer were the old winding streets set alight by the many colored frocks of pretty girls, nor were they any longer stirred into a temporary bustle by the great influx of motor-cars. Undergraduates held possession once more and with their peculiar adaptability were making hasty preparations for the long vacation.
Peter led the way to his sitter, loaded his inevitablepipe, and sat in the sun on the sill of the open window. With fastidious care Kenyon stuck a cigarette into a long meerschaum holder and laid himself down on the settee. He had worked very hard during the week and had very much more than carried out his promise to Peter to make himself pleasant. The moment had come when he might certainly lead the way up to his reward.
Peter took the words out of his friend's mouth. "What d'you think?" he said. "When I was saying good-bye to the Governor on the platform he took me aside and gave me a cheque. He did it in his curious apologetic way which always makes me feel that he's someone else's father, and said: 'I think this will see you through for a month or two.' Gee! It's some cheque, Nick! I don't think I shall have to touch the old man down for another bob until I have to book my passage. His generosity leaves me wordless. I wish to God I'd been able to say something nice. As it was, I had to tell mother to thank him for me." He went over to his desk, fished out a cheque-book, sat down and made one out in his large round boyish handwriting.
Kenyon watched him intently. He hoped that it might be for himself and for fifty sovereigns. That amount, carefully split up, would keep some of his more pressing tradesmen quiet for a short time.
"Is this any good to you, old man?" said Peter. He dropped the cheque on to Kenyon's immaculate waistcoat. It was for a hundred pounds.
The master parasite was taken by surprise almostfor the first time in his life and he was sincerely touched by this generosity. "My dear old Peter! This is really devilish kind of you! I'm exceedingly grateful. My exit from Oxford can now be made with a certain amount of dignity. I'll add this amount to your other advances, and you must trust in God and my luck at cards to get it back."
"Oh, that's all right," said Peter. "You'd have done the same for me. What's the good of friendship anyway if a man can't share his bonuses with a pal? Well, well! There goes another Commem:—the last of them for us. Everything seems awfully flat here without,—without my people. What d'you think of the Governor?"
Kenyon folded the cheque neatly and slipped it into a small leather case upon which his crest was embossed in gold. It was one of the numerous nice things for which he owed. "Your father," he said, "is a very considerable man. I made a careful study of him and I've come to the conclusion that all he needs from you and Graham is human treatment. If he were my father I should buy a metaphorical chisel and an easily manipulated hammer and chip off all his shyness bit by bit as though it were concrete. Properly managed there's enough in Dr. Guthrie to keep you in comfort for the rest of your life without doing a stroke of work. What age is he—somewhere about fifty-three I suppose? In all human probability he is good—barring accidents—for another fifteen years or so. Then, duly mourned, and, I take it, considerably paragraphed in your newspapers, he will goto his long rest and you will come into your own. With even quite ordinary diplomacy you can use those fifteen years to considerable advantage to yourself,—dallying gently with life and adding considerably to your experience, making your headquarters at his house. You can do the semblance of work in order to satisfy his rather puritanical notion,—but I can't see that there'll be any need for you to sweat. For instance, become a poet—that's easy. There are stacks of sonneteers whom you could imitate. Or you could call yourself a literary man and do nothing more than establish a sanctum-sanctorum in which to keep a neat pile of well-bound manuscript books and acquire a library. If I were you I should adopt the latter course—it sounds well. It'll satisfy the old man and all the while you're not writing the great book he'll pat himself on the back and congratulate himself on having had you properly educated. During all this time you can draw from him a very nice yearly income, and then make your splash when nature has laid her relentless hand upon the old man's shoulder."
There was a moment's pause, during which Peter looked very curiously at the graceful indolent man who lay upon his settee. "If I didn't know that you were talking for effect," he said, "I should take you by the scruff of your neck and the seat of your breeches and hurl you down-stairs. I know you better than to believe that you are the cold-blooded brute that you make yourself out to be. Anyhow, we'll not discuss the matter. The one useful thing you have said—and on which I shall try to act—is that Graham andI must try to be more human with the Governor. He deserves it. What's the program?"
"For me," said Kenyon, "dinner with Lascelles and bridge to the early hours. With good cards and a fairly good partner I shall hope to make a bit. What are you going to do?"
"I shall dine in Hall," said Peter, "and then go out for a walk."
"I see." Kenyon got up, filled his cigarette case from Peter's box and stood with his back to the mantel-piece. "You proposed to Betty to-day, didn't you?"
"How the deuce did you know that?"
Kenyon laughed. "My dear fellow," he said, "everybody knows that. You exuded romance when you arrived late at the Inn. The very waiter guessed it, and was so stirred, being Swiss, that he very nearly poured the soup down your mother's neck. And when your mother looked at you I saw something come into her eyes which showed me that she knew she had lost you. I wouldn't be a mother if you paid me!" And then he held out his hand with that charm of which he was past-master. "'Friend that sticketh closer than a brother,' three years; dashed bit of a slip of a girl, one week,—and where's your friend? Well, good luck, Peter! She's a nice little thing. Dream your dreams, old boy, but don't altogether forget the man who's been through Oxford with you."
Peter grasped the hand warmly. "Don't be an ass!" he said. "Go and brush your back hair. It's all sticking up."
And when he was alone, except for a golden patch of evening sun which had found its way through his window and had spilt itself on his carpet, Peter pulled out a little white glove from his pocket and kissed it.
"O God!" he said. "Help me to become a man."
No one knew, because no one was told, of the many hours of grief which little Mrs. Guthrie endured after she left Oxford. There were two reasons for this grief. One, the inevitable realization that the time had come for some other woman to take her place with her son. She remained his mother, but she was no longer first. The other, that Peter had not told her about Betty at once and had left it for her to find out, as the others did. And this hurt badly. He had always been in the habit of telling her everything,—first at her knee, then as he stood on a level with her, and finally when he looked down upon her from his great height. Every one of his numerous letters written while he was so far away from home contained the outpourings of his soul—his troubles, difficulties, triumphs, wonderings and short incoherent cries for help. As Kenyon said, she had only to look at him once when he marched into the Old Inn at Woodstock with Betty to know that she had lost him. She waited for him that afternoon to tell her,—but he never spoke. Even as he put her into the train she hoped that he would remember, but he didn't. That wasn'tlike her Peter, she told herself again and again. What was she to think but that it only needed one short week and a very pretty face to make him forget all the long years of her love and tenderness. It was very, very hard.
It is true that for the remainder of their holiday, during which, with her husband, Graham, Belle, and Betty, Mrs. Guthrie went from one charming place to another, seeing shrines and looking down from famous heights on garden-like valleys of English country, Peter's letters came as regularly as usual. They were no shorter and no less intimate; and in the first one that she received, the day after leaving Oxford, he told her his great news,—but he hadn't spoken of it—he hadn't come to her at once, and she felt with a great shock of pain that she was deposed. Also she was well aware of the fact that the same posts which brought her letters brought letters to Betty—and she was jealous.
Uttering no word of complaint, even to the Doctor, little Mrs. Guthrie nursed her sorrow and went out of her way to be very nice to Betty. Her mother-instinct told her that she must win this girl; otherwise there was a chance that she might in the future see very little of Peter. In all this she had one small triumph, of which she made the most. Her letters from Peter contained more news than those written to Betty, and thus she was able to score a little over the girl. With an air of great superiority, very natural under the circumstances, she told Betty and the others the manner in which Peter had gone down from Oxford; of thedinner that was given to him by the American Club,—a great evening, during which he was presented with a silver cigarette box covered with signatures,—of the farewell luncheon with his professors and the delightful things that they said to him there; of his strenuous doings at Henley, the stern training, the race itself in which his boat was beaten; of the wild night on the Vanderbilt barge; of the few cheery days spent in London with a bunch of the Rhodesmen; and finally his preparations for his visit to Thrapstone-Wynyates, in Shropshire, the famous old Tudor House of Kenyon's father.
Three times during these pleasant weeks Peter ran down to see,—not her, but Betty, and went out with her with his face alight and then hurried back to his engagements, having given her, his mother, who loved him so, several hugs and a few incoherent words. It was the way of life, youth to youth, but it was very hard.
On the afternoon of the fifth of August, when the party crossed the gangplank at Southampton to go aboard theOlympic, little Mrs. Guthrie told herself that in a few minutes she would see Peter's great form elbowing through the crowd, although he had not said that he would be there to say good-bye. She almost hoped that something might prevent him from being in time, because she knew that he would not come solely to hold her in his arms, but for another reason. Nothing, however, did prevent him. He followed them almost instantly on board; and although he never left her side, he surreptitiously held Betty's hand all the time.
A smile of unusual bitterness crept all about the little woman's heart. It was very hard. He was her boy—her son—her first-born and the apple of her eye. She had come up for the first time to one of the rudest awakenings that a mother can ever know. And presently when the cry, "All ashore that's going ashore!" went up and Peter put both his big arms about her and said, "Good-bye, mummie, darling, I shall come home soon," she broke into such a fit of weeping and kissed him with a passion so great that the boy was startled and a little frightened. There was no time to think or ask questions. There was his father's hand to shake, and Graham's, and Belle to kiss. There was also Betty, and she was suddenly hugged before them all.
As the big liner sent out its raucous note of departure and moved away from the dock the little mother was unable to see the bare head of her boy above the heads of the great crowd. Her eyes were blinded. "He doesn't understand," she said to herself. "He doesn't understand."
Poor little mother! It was very hard.
The cottage on the borders of Lord Shropshire's park was just as pretty and just as small as the little lady who lived there. It was appropriately called "The Nest," although there was no male bird in it and it was devoid of young ones; but Mrs. RandolphLennox was so like a bird, with her trilly soprano voice, her quick dartings here and there and the peculiar way she had of getting all a-flutter when people called, that the name of her charming little place—first given by Kenyon—stuck, and was generally used.
It was perched up on high ground overlooking the gardens of the old Tudor House,—those wonderful Italian gardens in which Charles II had dallied with his mistresses on his return from his long, heart-breaking and hungry exile. It was tree-surrounded and creepers grew up its old walls to its thickly thatched roof. For many years it had been occupied by the agent of the estate, until—so it was said—it was won by Mrs. Lennox from the present Lord Shropshire as the result of a bet.
No one had ever seen Randolph Lennox and many people didn't believe that he was anything more than a myth; but the little woman gave herself out as the widow of this man and was accepted as such. Her income was small, but not so small as to preclude her from playing bridge for fairly large stakes, dressing exquisitely, riding to the hounds and keeping an extremely efficient menage, consisting of two maid servants and an elderly gardener. It enabled her also to spend May and June in London yearly at a little hotel in Half Moon Street, Piccadilly, from which utterly correct little house she was taken nightly to dinner and to the theatre by one or other of the numerous young men who formed her entourage. Never taken actually into the heart of London society, she managed with quiet skill to attach herself to its ratherlong limbs, and her name was frequently to be found in the columns of society papers as having been seen in a creation by Paquin or Macinka at Ranalagh or Hurlingham, the opera, or lunching at the Ritz.
At one time the tongue of rumor had been very busy about Mrs. Randolph Lennox,—"Baby" Lennox as she was commonly called. It was said that she had been lifted out of the chorus of the Gaiety at the age of nineteen by His Serene Highness, the Prince of Booch-Kehah; that she had passed under the control of Captain Harry Waterloo, and eventually, before disappearing for a time, figured in the Divorce Court as a correspondent. The tongue of rumor is, however, in the mouth of Ananias, and as Baby Lennox never spoke of herself except, a little sadly, as a woman whose brief married life was an unfortunate memory, her past remained a mystery and people were obliged to accept her for her present and her future. She was so small—so golden-haired—so large eyed—so fresh and young and dainty—so consistently charming and birdlike—that she was the Mecca of very young men. With the beautiful trustfulness of the male young they believed in her, and over and over again she could have changed her name to others which were equally euphonious and which, unlike her own, could be discovered in the Red Book. But as there was no money attached to them she continued to remain a young and interesting widow and to live in the little cottage on the hill and to pop in and out of the Shropshire house as the most popular member of its kaleidoscopic parties.
Whether there was any truth in the story that the present Lord Shropshire was related to her in a fatherly way no one will ever know, except perhaps Nicholas Kenyon, who in his treatment of her was uncharacteristically brotherly. These two, at any rate, had no secrets from each other and both regarded life from the same peculiar angle. As parasites they had everything in common and they assisted each other and played into each other's hands with a loyalty that was praiseworthy even under these circumstances.
Nicholas Kenyon's mother—a very large, handsome woman with brilliant teeth and amazing good-nature, who, even when in the best of health, never finished dressing till four o'clock in the afternoon and then never put much on—was undergoing a rest-cure in the west wing of Thrapstone-Wynyates when the boys arrived for the shooting. For nearly a year she had been playing auction every night until the very small hours and had, while in a nervous condition, stumbled across an emotional pamphlet written by a Welsh revivalist, which sent her straight to bed. She was really greatly shaken by it and perhaps a little bit frightened. It did not mince words about the future of women of her type, and she was shocked. Heaven seemed to her to be a place into which she had the same inherited right to walk as the Royal Enclosure at Ascot; but this vehement little book put a widely different point of view before her. Therefore it happened that the first woman to whom Peter was introduced was the little widow, "Baby" Lennox, who was acting as hostess.
Two evenings before she met Peter she had received a letter from Kenyon, which ran as follows:
Carlton Hotel,Dear Old Girl:I shall turn up at home on Thursday in time for tea. I hear that mother is enjoying herself in the throes of some very pleasant imaginary complaint of sorts and has retired to the solitude of the west wing. After a busy season she no doubt wishes to read Wells' new novel of socialism and seduction and the latest Masefield poems, which always remind me of the ramblings of rum-soaked sailors in a Portsmouth pub. I, for one, shall miss her florid and inaccurate presence and the deliciously flagrant way in which she cheats at Bridge; but if father has gathered round him an August house-party on his usual lines, I look forward to a cheery time,—dog eating dog, if I may put it like that. I am bringing with me the man with whom I have shared rooms at Oxford,—Peter Guthrie. He's the American of whom I have spoken to you before. I am especially anxious for him to meet you, because, while under the hypnotic influence of Oxford in all the beauty of late spring, he has been fool enough to get himself engaged. Now, not only is Guthrie very useful to me, having a wealthy father and being himself a generous soul, but I am going to New York with him in October to see if that city can be made to render up some of its unlimited dollars, and I don't want him to be hanging, booby-eyed, at the heels of a girl until such time as I have found my feet. You have a wonderful way with the very young and unsophisticated and I shall really be enormously obliged if you will work your never-failing wiles on my most useful friend and draw his at present infatuated mind away from the nice, harmlesslittle girl who has just sailed. Fasten on him, my dear, and make him attach himself to you for the remainder of our holiday. Go as far as you dare or care,—the farther the better for my sake and eventually for his own. He is one of those admirable, simple, big, virgin men to whom women are a wonderful mystery. At present he has refused even to look through a glass, darkly, at that pleasant and compensating side of life, and he needs to be brought down from his self-made pedestal. It will do him good and me a service. Honestly, I find it more than a little trying to be in such close association with an Archangel. Turn your innocent blue eyes on him, Baby dear, and teach him things and, above all, get him out of this silly, sentimental tangle of his. Incidentally, he has money and can procure more and I feel sure that you will not find him a waste of your good efforts. He is a splendid specimen of what my particular Don was wont to call 'young manhood,' and when he plays ragtime he puts the Savoy, or, for the matter of that, any other English orchestra into a little round hole.Yours ever,N. K.
Carlton Hotel,
Dear Old Girl:
I shall turn up at home on Thursday in time for tea. I hear that mother is enjoying herself in the throes of some very pleasant imaginary complaint of sorts and has retired to the solitude of the west wing. After a busy season she no doubt wishes to read Wells' new novel of socialism and seduction and the latest Masefield poems, which always remind me of the ramblings of rum-soaked sailors in a Portsmouth pub. I, for one, shall miss her florid and inaccurate presence and the deliciously flagrant way in which she cheats at Bridge; but if father has gathered round him an August house-party on his usual lines, I look forward to a cheery time,—dog eating dog, if I may put it like that. I am bringing with me the man with whom I have shared rooms at Oxford,—Peter Guthrie. He's the American of whom I have spoken to you before. I am especially anxious for him to meet you, because, while under the hypnotic influence of Oxford in all the beauty of late spring, he has been fool enough to get himself engaged. Now, not only is Guthrie very useful to me, having a wealthy father and being himself a generous soul, but I am going to New York with him in October to see if that city can be made to render up some of its unlimited dollars, and I don't want him to be hanging, booby-eyed, at the heels of a girl until such time as I have found my feet. You have a wonderful way with the very young and unsophisticated and I shall really be enormously obliged if you will work your never-failing wiles on my most useful friend and draw his at present infatuated mind away from the nice, harmlesslittle girl who has just sailed. Fasten on him, my dear, and make him attach himself to you for the remainder of our holiday. Go as far as you dare or care,—the farther the better for my sake and eventually for his own. He is one of those admirable, simple, big, virgin men to whom women are a wonderful mystery. At present he has refused even to look through a glass, darkly, at that pleasant and compensating side of life, and he needs to be brought down from his self-made pedestal. It will do him good and me a service. Honestly, I find it more than a little trying to be in such close association with an Archangel. Turn your innocent blue eyes on him, Baby dear, and teach him things and, above all, get him out of this silly, sentimental tangle of his. Incidentally, he has money and can procure more and I feel sure that you will not find him a waste of your good efforts. He is a splendid specimen of what my particular Don was wont to call 'young manhood,' and when he plays ragtime he puts the Savoy, or, for the matter of that, any other English orchestra into a little round hole.
Yours ever,
N. K.
Quite unconscious of this scheme, Peter fell into the light-heartedness of this beautiful old house with his usual gusto. To his unsuspicious eyes Baby Lennox was quite the most charming woman he had ever met.
He was delighted, a little surprised and even a little jealous at the relations which existed between Kenyon and his father. He was quick to notice that they treated each other more like pals or brothers, than father and son, were entirely open and frank with each other, walked about arm in arm, played tennisand billiards together and often spent hours in each other's society, laughing and talking. He noticed, too, that Kenyon always called his father "Tops," a name which had grown into daily use from the time when, as a tiny lad just able to talk, the things that most caught his fancy were Lord Shropshire's riding-boots, in which he seemed to live, being mostly on horseback. "Nicko" was what his father called Kenyon,—that and old man or old boy. He wished most deeply that he and his own father were on such good terms.
If Peter had heard the sort of things these two talked about and confided to each other, his surprise would have elaborated into amazement. The elder man took infinite pleasure in telling the one who was so complete a chip off the same block the most minute details of his love affairs during the time that he was at Sandhurst for his army training, while he was in a crack Cavalry regiment and while he knocked about London and Paris and Vienna before and after his marriage. Also he revelled in relating his racing and gambling experiences, describing the more shady episodes with witty phrases and a touch of satire that was highly entertaining to the younger man. They both agreed, with a paradoxical sort of honesty, deliberately and inherently, that they were not straight and accepted each other as such, and the father used frequently to speculate from which of his dull, responsible and worthy ancestors he acquired the tendency. It was certainly not from the late Lord Shropshire, whose brilliant work as a Cabinet Minister in several Governments and as one of the most valued advisersof Queen Victoria had placed his name permanently in the annals of his country. "We get it from one of the women of the family, I suspect, Nicko," he had a way of saying, after a more than usually excellent dinner. "A dear, pretty creature who lived a double life with delightful finesse—the great lady and the human woman by turns. What d'you think, old boy? At any rate, you and I make no pretences and, 'pon my soul! I don't know which of us is the better exponent in the delicate and difficult art of sleight of hand. I wish I were going to America with you. I fancy that we should make in double harness enough to enable us to retire from the game and live like little gentlemen. As it is, you'll do very well, I've no doubt. From what I hear, the country reeks with wealthy young men waiting to be touched by an expert such as you are. Do some good work, old fellow, and when you come back you shall lend me a portion of your earnings, eh?"
They were a strange couple, these two, capable, outwardly charming and cut out for a very different way of life but for the regrettable possession of a kink which caused them to become harpies and turn the weaknesses of unsuspicion of human nature to their own advantage. Some psychologists might have gone out of their way to find excuses for these men and endeavor to prove that they would both have run straight but for the fact that they were always pushed for money. They would, however, have been wrong. Just as some men are born orators, some with mechanical and creative genius and some with the gift ofleadership, these two men were born crooked, and under no conditions, even the most favorable, could they have played any game according to the rules.
The men of the party were all excellent sportsmen and good fellows, and the women more than usually delightful representatives of English society. As a matter of fact, the men were all,—like Kenyon's father,—living on their wits and just avoiding criminal prosecution by the eighth of an inch. They called themselves racing men, which, translated into cold English, means that they were people of no ostensible means of livelihood, who attended every race meeting and backed horses on credit, taking their winnings and owing their losses until chased by crook solicitors. They all bore names well known in English history. They had all passed through the best schools and either Oxford, Cambridge or Sandhurst. One or two of them were still in the army. One had been requested to resign from the navy, the King having no further use for his services, and one was a Member of Parliament, having previously been hammered in the other house,—that is to say the Stock Exchange. The women of the party were either wives of these men or not, as the case may be. At any rate they were good to look at, amusing to talk to, and apparently without a care in the world. And if Lord Shropshire, in welcoming Peter to his famous house, had said, like the spider to the fly, "Come into my parlor so that whatever you have about you may be sucked dry by us," he would have been strictly truthful. Several other such men as Peter had gone into that websound and whole, but they had come out again with many things to regret and forget.
Who could say whether Peter would escape?
Peter had, as he duly reported to his mother and to Betty, a corking time at Thrapstone-Wynyates.
Although an open-air man, an athlete, whose reading had always been confined to those books only that were necessary to his work,—dry law books for the most part,—Peter was far from being insensible to the mellow beauty of the house, and his imagination, uncultivated so far as any training in art or architecture went, was subconsciously stirred by the knowledge that its floors and stone walks and galleries were worn by the feet of a long line of men and women whose loves and passions and hatreds had been worked out there and whose ghostly forms in all the picturesque trappings of several centuries haunted its echoing Hall and looked down from its walls, from their places in gold frames, upon its present occupants.
The atmosphere of Oxford, and especially of his own college, had often spun his thoughts from rowing and other strenuous, splendid, vital things, to the great silent army of dead men whose shouts had rung through the quad and whose rushing feet had gone under the old gate. But this house, standing bravely and with an indescribable sense of responsibility as one of the few rear-guards of those great days ofchivalry and gallant fighting for heroic causes, moved him differently. Here women had been and their perfume seemed to hang to the tapestries, and the influence of their hands that could no longer touch was everywhere apparent. Often Peter drew up short, on his way up the wide staircase, to listen for the click of high heels, the tinkle of a spinet and the rattle of dice. Everywhere he went he had a queer but not unpleasant sense of never being alone, just as most men have who walk along the cloisters of a cathedral whose vast array of empty prie-dieus have felt the knees of many generations and in whose lofty roof there is collected the voices of an unnumberable choir.
Up early enough to find the dew still wet on flowers and turf he enjoyed a swim every morning in the Italian bathing pool beneath the Cedar trees with Baby Lennox. Then he either went for a gallop, before breakfast, on one of Lord Shropshire's ponies—again with Baby Lennox—or had a round of golf with her on the workmanlike nine-hole course which had been laid out in the park. She played a neat game, driving straight, approaching deftly and putting like a book,—frequently beating him.
The picture of this very pretty little person as she stood on the edge of the bathing pool that first morning was, as she intended it to be, indescribably attractive. She came from her room in a white kimono worked with the beautiful designs which only the Chinese can achieve. Her golden hair was closely covered by a tight-fitting bathing cap of geranium red, most becoming to her white skin. "Mr. Peter!" shecalled out. "I can't swim a bit, so you must look after me like—like a brother." And then, as though to show how silly that word was, she flung off the wrap and stood, all slim and sweet, in blue silk tights cut low at the neck and high above her little round white knees. Peter thought, with a kind of boyish gasp, that she looked like a most alluring drawing on the cover of a magazine. With an irresistible simplicity and utter lack of self-consciousness she stood, balanced on the edge of the pool, with the sun embracing her, in a diving attitude, in no hurry to take her dip. And when Peter, suddenly seized with the notion that he might be looking at her too intently, dived in, she gave a little cry of joy and dismay and jumped in after him. "You must hold me, you must hold me, or I shall go under!" she cried, and he swam with her to the steps. In reality she swam like a frog, but her beautiful assumption of inability and her pluck in jumping into deep water again and again to be taken possession of by him, filled him with admiration at her courage. With her tights wet and clinging and the water glistening on her white flesh she assured herself that she deserved admiration, having carefully calculated her effect. Practice makes perfect, and the very young are always alike.
The first morning on which she appeared in riding kit she again made a charming picture. She always rode astride, but few women would have ventured to wear such thin and such close-fitting white breeches. Her coat, cut like a man's, was of white drill. Her stock was white and her hat, with a wide flat brim wasof white straw, but her boots were as black and shiny as the back of a crow. "Your hand, Mr. Peter," she said, raising her little foot for the spring,—it was "Mr. Peter" still,—"what a gorgeous morning for a gallop." And for a moment she leaned warmly against his shoulder. Yes, she was quite pleased with the effect. Peter's face was flushed as they started off together.
When they golfed she had a delightful way of making her conversation from green to green into a sort of serial. With her head hatless, her short Irish homespun skirt displaying much blue stocking which exactly matched her silk sweater and her large befringed eyes, she made a fascinating opponent and companion. "No wonder you loved Oxford and all that it gave you. Quite a little tee, please. Thanks. To a man with any imagination—" A settle, a swing, a nice straight ball and silence while Peter beat his ball pressing for all he was worth; the picking up of the two bags and on side by side. "A man with any imagination must feel the beauty and underlying meaning of that inspiring atmosphere,—as of course you did. You, I can see, are highly susceptible to everything that is beautiful. You, I think, of all men, you who have managed to remain,—I'm sure I don't know how!—so unspoiled, will always remember and feel the influence of your college. A cleek, I think, don't you? No? A brassie? Just as you say." And so she would continue chatting merrily away all round, but always keen on her game and doing her best to do it credit, letting out nice little bits of flattery with sonaïve an air and with such frankly appreciative glances, that poor old Peter's vanity, hitherto absolutely dormant, began to bud, like new leaves in April.
It must be remembered that Peter was a rowing man. Always, except when out with the guns, he was with Baby Lennox. They were inseparable from the first day of his visit. Even in the evening they hunted in couples, because she was sick of Bridge, she said, and he gave out that he knew nothing at all about any card games and had no desire to learn. After being frequently pressed to cut in by Courthope, Pulsford, Fountain and the other men who could not bear to see him with an unscathed cheque-book, and tempted again and again by their well-groomed and delightfully friendly wives to try a hand, Peter was left alone. They were annoyed and irritated but they found that when Peter said "No" he didn't mean "Yes," like so many of the other young men whose weakness formed the greater part of these people's income; and so they very quickly gave him up to Baby Lennox, were obliged to be satisfied with his jovial piano-playing and make up for lost time with the inevitable members of thenouveau richeswho lived near by and were only too glad to pay for the privilege of dining at Thrapstone-Wynyates in the odour of titles.
The nights being warm and windless, Peter sat out on the moon-bathed terrace with Baby Lennox listening to her girlish prattle and thinking how particularly charming she looked with the soft light on her golden hair and white arms and dainty foot. Sometimes, suddenly, her merry words would give place to sadones, and Peter's simple, honest heart would be touched by her artistic and mythical glimpses of the unhappy side of her life.
"Oh, Peter, Peter!" she said one night, unconsciously showing almost a yard of leg in a black lace stocking patterned with butterflies. "I wish, oh, how I wish that I'd been born like you, under a lucky star! I've always been in a smart and rather careless set and I've never really had time to see visions and walk in the garden of my soul." She spoke in capital letters. "If I'd met you when I was a little young thing you might have become my gardener to pluck the weeds out of my paths, and train the flowers of my mind. You might have planted seeds so sweet that in my best and most devout hours their blooms would have filled my thoughts with scent. Oh dear me, the might have beens,—how sad they are! But, in one thing at least I can take joy,—I'm all the better for knowing you, dear big Peter."
But these graver interludes never lasted long. Mrs. Lennox was far too clever for that. She would break the monotony of conversation by walking with her little hand on the boy's strong arm, or by dancing with him to the music of a gramophone placed in the open window of the morning room. How close she clung to him then and how sweet she was to hold!
And then, she would say, with a wonderful throb in her voice. "Oh, Peter, Peter! Isn't life wonderful—isn't it just the most wonderful and thrilling thing that is given to us? Listen to the stars—there's love in their song! Listen to the nightingale—love,all love! Listen to the whisper of the breeze! Can't you hear it tell us to love and touch and taste all the sweets that are given us to enjoy? Oh, Peter, Peter! Listen, listen,—and live!"
In her picturesque and slangy way she announced to Kenyon, as soon as three days after the commencement of the house-party, that she "had got Peter well hooked." It was not, however, an accurate statement. It is true that Peter's vanity had been appealed to. Whose wouldn't have been? This attractive young thing was hostess. She was far and away prettier, younger, more alluring and more complex than any other woman in the party. And yet she had made a favorite of Peter at once and showed a frank pleasure in being with him at all possible times. He had hardly spoken for longer than an hour with her before she had said, in the middle of his description of the Henley week, "Imustcall you Mr. Peter, Imust. May I?" She sent him little notes, too, charming, spontaneous little notes, to say "Good-night," and how greatly she had enjoyed the evening, or the swim, or the round of golf, beginning "Dear Big Man" and ending,—at first without a signature, and eventually with "Baby." At the beginning they were brought in by the man, or placed on the dressing-table against a bowl of flowers. Then they were thrust under his door by her after he had gone up to his room, or thrown through his open window from the narrow balcony that ran round the house. Her room was next to his. She had seen to that. In a hundred unexpected and appealing ways she had set out to prove to him that they were indeed,as she had said they were, "very, very close friends."
Now, Peter had never been a woman's man. To him women and their ways were new and wonderful. He suspected nothing. Why should he? He accepted Mrs. Randolph Lennox on her face value, which was priceless, as so many other excellent and unsophisticated young men had done. He believed in her and her stories and was very sorry that she had been unhappy. He believed that she was sincere and good and clean and that she liked him and was his friend.
Kenyon, who watched all this, called Peter an easy mark. He was. What else could he be in the expert and cunning hands of such a woman?
As for Mrs. Lennox, her performance,—it was rather in the nature of a performance,—was all the more brilliant and effective because Peter appealed to her more than any man she had ever met. His height and strength and squareness, his fearless honesty, his unself-conscious pride and boyish love of life,—she liked them all. She liked his clean-cut healthy face and thick hair and amazing laugh. But, above everything, she liked him for being untilled soil, virgin earth. It was this that piqued her seriously and set alight in her a desire which grew and grew, to test her charms upon him, to taste him, to stir him into a first great passion. And this was the real reason that she gave him so much of her time and company. The gratification of this desire was the thing for which she was working, upon which she had set her mind. Hers was not a record of failures. Peter stood a very poor chance of getting out whole.