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Title: Three Men and a Maid

Author: P. G. Wodehouse

Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6836]
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THREE MEN AND A MAID





by P. G. WODEHOUSE

1921




CHAPTER ONE


Through the curtained windows of the furnished apartment which Mrs.
Horace Hignett had rented for her stay in New York rays of golden
sunlight peeped in like the foremost spies of some advancing army. It
was a fine summer morning. The hands of the Dutch clock in the hall
pointed to thirteen minutes past nine; those of the ormolu clock in the
sitting-room to eleven minutes past ten; those of the carriage clock on
the bookshelf to fourteen minutes to six. In other words, it was
exactly eight; and Mrs. Hignett acknowledged the fact by moving her
head on the pillow, opening her eyes, and sitting up in bed. She always
woke at eight precisely.

Was this Mrs. Hignett _the_ Mrs. Hignett, the world-famous writer
on Theosophy, the author of "The Spreading Light," "What of the
Morrow," and all the rest of that well-known series? I'm glad you asked
me. Yes, she was. She had come over to America on a lecturing tour.

The year 1921, it will be remembered, was a trying one for the
inhabitants of the United States. Every boat that arrived from England
brought a fresh swarm of British lecturers to the country. Novelists,
poets, scientists, philosophers, and plain, ordinary bores; some herd
instinct seemed to affect them all simultaneously. It was like one of
those great race movements of the Middle Ages. Men and women of widely
differing views on religion, art, politics, and almost every other
subject; on this one point the intellectuals of Great Britain were
single-minded, that there was easy money to be picked up on the lecture
platforms of America and that they might just as well grab it as the
next person.

Mrs. Hignett had come over with the first batch of immigrants; for,
spiritual as her writings were, there was a solid streak of business
sense in this woman and she meant to get hers while the getting was
good. She was half way across the Atlantic with a complete itinerary
booked before 90 per cent. of the poets and philosophers
had finished sorting out their clean collars and getting their
photographs taken for the passport.

She had not left England without a pang, for departure had involved
sacrifices. More than anything else in the world she loved her charming
home, Windles, in the county of Hampshire, for so many years the seat
of the Hignett family. Windles was as the breath of life to her. Its
shady walks, its silver lake, its noble elms, the old grey stone of its
walls--these were bound up with her very being. She felt that she
belonged to Windles, and Windles to her. Unfortunately, as a matter of
cold, legal accuracy, it did not. She did but hold it in trust for her
son, Eustace, until such time as he should marry and take possession of
it himself. There were times when the thought of Eustace marrying and
bringing a strange woman to Windles chilled Mrs. Hignett to her very
marrow. Happily, her firm policy of keeping her son permanently under
her eye at home and never permitting him to have speech with a female
below the age of fifty had averted the peril up till now.

Eustace had accompanied his mother to America. It was his faint snores
which she could hear in the adjoining room, as, having bathed
and dressed, she went down the hall to where breakfast awaited
her. She smiled tolerantly. She had never desired to convert her son to
her own early rising habits, for, apart from not allowing him to call
his soul his own, she was an indulgent mother. Eustace would get up at
half-past nine, long after she had finished breakfast, read her mail,
and started her duties for the day.

Breakfast was on the table in the sitting-room, a modest meal of rolls,
cereal, and imitation coffee. Beside the pot containing this hell-brew
was a little pile of letters. Mrs. Hignett opened them as she ate. The
majority were from disciples and dealt with matters of purely
theosophical interest. There was an invitation from the Butterfly Club
asking her to be the guest of honour at their weekly dinner. There was
a letter from her brother Mallaby--Sir Mallaby Marlowe, the eminent
London lawyer--saying that his son Sam, of whom she had never approved,
would be in New York shortly, passing through on his way back to
England, and hoping that she would see something of him. Altogether a
dull mail. Mrs. Hignett skimmed through it without interest, setting
aside one or two of the letters for Eustace, who acted as her unpaid
secretary, to answer later in the day.

She had just risen from the table when there was a sound of voices in
the hall, and presently the domestic staff, a gaunt Irish lady of
advanced years, entered the room.

"Ma'am, there was a gentleman."

Mrs. Hignett was annoyed. Her mornings were sacred.

"Didn't you tell him I was not to be disturbed?"

"I did not. I loosed him into the parlor."

The staff remained for a moment in melancholy silence, then resumed.
"He says he's your nephew. His name's Marlowe."

Mrs. Hignett experienced no diminution of her annoyance. She had not
seen her nephew Sam for ten years and would have been willing to extend
the period. She remembered him as an untidy small boy who, once or
twice, during his school holidays, had disturbed the cloistral peace of
Windles with his beastly presence. However, blood being thicker than
water, and all that sort of thing, she supposed she would have to give
him five minutes. She went into the sitting-room and found there a
young man who looked more or less like all other young men, though
perhaps rather fitter than most. He had grown a good deal since she had
last met him, as men will do between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five,
and was now about six feet in height, about forty inches round the
chest, and in weight about one hundred and eighty pounds. He had a
brown and amiable face, marred at the moment by an expression of
discomfort somewhat akin to that of a cat in a strange alley.

"Hallo, Aunt Adeline!" he said awkwardly.

"Well, Samuel!" said Mrs. Hignett.

There was a pause. Mrs. Hignett, who was not fond of young men and
disliked having her mornings broken into, was thinking that he had
not improved in the slightest degree since their last meeting; and Sam,
who imagined that he had long since grown to man's estate and put off
childish things, was embarrassed to discover that his aunt still
affected him as of old. That is to say, she made him feel as if he had
omitted to shave, and, in addition to that, had swallowed some drug
which had caused him to swell unpleasantly, particularly about the
hands and feet.

"Jolly morning," said Sam, perseveringly.

"So I imagine. I have not yet been out."

"Thought I'd look in and see how you were."

"That was very kind of you. The morning is my busy time, but ... yes,
that was very kind of you!"

There was another pause.

"How do you like America?" said Sam.

"I dislike it exceedingly."

"Yes? Well, of course some people do. Prohibition and all that.
Personally, it doesn't affect me. I can take it or leave it alone."

"The reason I dislike America--" began Mrs. Hignett bridling.

"I like it myself," said Sam. "I've had a wonderful time. Everybody's
treated me like a rich uncle. I've been in Detroit, you know, and they
practically gave me the city and asked me if I'd like another to take
home in my pocket. Never saw anything like it. I might have been the
missing heir. I think America's the greatest invention on record."

"And what brought you to America?" said Mrs. Hignett, unmoved by this
rhapsody.

"Oh, I came over to play golf. In a tournament, you know."

"Surely at your age," said Mrs. Hignett, disapprovingly, "you could be
better occupied. Do you spend your whole time playing golf?"

"Oh, no. I hunt a bit and shoot a bit and I swim a good lot, and I
still play football occasionally."

"I wonder your father does not insist on your doing some useful work."

"He is beginning to harp on the subject rather. I suppose I shall take
a stab at it sooner or later. Father says I ought to get married, too."

"He is perfectly right."

"I suppose old Eustace will be getting hitched up one of these days?"
said Sam.

Mrs. Hignett started violently.

"Why do you say that?"

"Eh?"

"What makes you say that?"

"Oh, well, he's a romantic sort of fellow. Writes poetry and all that."

"There is no likelihood at all of Eustace marrying. He is of a shy and
retiring temperament and sees few women. He is almost a recluse."

Sam was aware of this and had frequently regretted it. He had always
been fond of his cousin and in that half-amused and rather patronising
way in which men of thews and sinews are fond of the weaker brethren
who run more to pallor and intellect; and he had always felt that if
Eustace had not had to retire to Windles to spend his life with a woman
whom from his earliest years he had always considered the Empress of
the Wash-outs much might have been made of him. Both at school and at
Oxford, Eustace had been--if not a sport--at least a decidedly cheery
old bean. Sam remembered Eustace at school breaking gas globes with a
slipper in a positively rollicking manner. He remembered him at Oxford
playing up to him manfully at the piano on the occasion when he had
done that imitation of Frank Tinney which had been such a hit at the
Trinity smoker. Yes, Eustace had had the makings of a pretty sound egg,
and it was too bad that he had allowed his mother to coop him up down
in the country miles away from anywhere.

"Eustace is returning to England on Saturday," said Mrs. Hignett. She
spoke a little wistfully. She had not been parted from her son since he
had come down from Oxford; and she would have liked to keep him with
her till the end of her lecturing tour. That, however, was out of the
question. It was imperative that, while she was away, he should be at
Windles. Nothing would have induced her to leave the place at the
mercy of servants who might trample over the flower-beds, scratch the
polished floors, and forget to cover up the canary at night. "He sails
on the _Atlantic_."

"That's splendid," said Sam. "I'm sailing on the _Atlantic_ myself.
I'll go down to the office and see if we can't have a state-room
together. But where is he going to live when he gets to England?"

"Where is he going to live? Why, at Windles, of course. Where else?"

"But I thought you were letting Windles for the summer?"

Mrs. Hignett stared.

"Letting Windles!" She spoke as one might address a lunatic. "What put
that extraordinary idea into your head?"

"I thought father said something about your letting the place to some
American."

"Nothing of the kind!"

It seemed to Sam that his aunt spoke somewhat vehemently, even
snappishly, in correcting what was a perfectly natural mistake. He
could not know that the subject of letting Windles for the summer was
one which had long since begun to infuriate Mrs. Hignett. People had
certainly asked her to let Windles. In fact people had pestered her. There
was a rich fat man, an American named Bennett, whom she had met just
before sailing at her brother's house in London. Invited down to Windles
for the day, Mr. Bennett had fallen in love with the place and had begged
her to name her own price. Not content with this, he had pursued her
with his pleadings by means of the wireless telegraph while she was on
the ocean, and had not given up the struggle even when she reached New
York. He had egged on a friend of his, a Mr. Mortimer, to continue the
persecution in that city. And, this very morning, among the letters on
Mrs. Hignett's table, the buff envelope of a cable from Mr. Bennett had
peeped out, nearly spoiling her breakfast. No wonder, then, that Sam's
allusion to the affair had caused the authoress of "The Spreading
Light" momentarily to lose her customary calm.

"Nothing will induce me ever to let Windles," she said with finality,
and rose significantly. Sam, perceiving that the audience was at an
end--and glad of it--also got up.

"Well, I think I'll be going down and seeing about that state-room," he
said.

"Certainly. I am a little busy just now, preparing notes for my next
lecture."

"Of course, yes. Mustn't interrupt you. I suppose you're having a great
time, gassing away--I mean--well, good-bye!"

"Good-bye!"

Mrs. Hignett, frowning, for the interview had ruffled her and disturbed
that equable frame of mind which is so vital to the preparation of
lectures on Theosophy, sat down at the writing-table and began to go
through the notes which she had made overnight. She had hardly
succeeded in concentrating herself when the door opened to admit the
daughter of Erin once more.

"Ma'am there was a gentleman."

"This is intolerable!" cried Mrs. Hignett. "Did you tell him that I was
busy?"

"I did not. I loosed him into the dining-room."

"Is he a reporter from one of the newspapers?"

"He is not. He has spats and a tall-shaped hat. His name is Bream
Mortimer."

"Bream Mortimer!"

"Yes, ma'am. He handed me a bit of a kyard, but I dropped it, being
slippy from the dishes."

Mrs. Hignett strode to the door with a forbidding expression. This, as
she had justly remarked, was intolerable. She remembered Bream
Mortimer. He was the son of the Mr. Mortimer who was the friend of the
Mr. Bennett who wanted Windles. This visit could only have to do with
the subject of Windles, and she went into the dining-room in a state of
cold fury, determined to squash the Mortimer family once and for all.

Bream Mortimer was tall and thin. He had small, bright eyes and a
sharply curving nose. He looked much more like a parrot than most
parrots do. It gave strangers a momentary shock of surprise when they
saw Bream Mortimer in restaurants eating roast beef. They had the
feeling that he would have preferred sun-flower seeds.

"Morning, Mrs. Hignett."

"Please sit down."

Bream Mortimer sat down. He looked as though he would rather have
hopped on to a perch, but he sat down. He glanced about the room with
gleaming, excited eyes.

"Mrs. Hignett, I must have a word with you alone!"

"You _are_ having a word with me alone."

"I hardly know how to begin."

"Then let me help you. It is quite impossible. I will never consent."

Bream Mortimer started.

"Then you have heard!"

"I have heard about nothing else since I met Mr. Bennett in London. Mr.
Bennett talked about nothing else. Your father talked about nothing
else. And now," cried Mrs. Hignett fiercely, "you come and try to
reopen the subject. Once and for all nothing will alter my decision. No
money will induce me to let my house."

"But I didn't come about that!"

"You did not come about Windles?"

"Good Lord, no!"

"Then will you kindly tell me why you have come?"

Bream Mortimer looked embarrassed. He wriggled a little and moved his
arms as if he were trying to flap them.

"You know," he said, "I'm not a man who butts into other people's
affairs." ... He stopped.

"No?" said Mrs. Hignett.

Bream began again.

"I'm not a man who gossips with servants."

"No?"

"I'm not a man who...."

Mrs. Hignett was never a very patient woman.

"Let us take all your negative qualities for granted," she said curtly.
"I have no doubt that there are many things which you do not do. Let us
confine ourselves to issues of definite importance. What is it, if you
have no objection to concentrating your attention on that for a moment,
that you wish to see me about?"

"This marriage."

"What marriage?"

"Your son's marriage."

"My son is not married."

"No, but he's going to be. At eleven o'clock this morning at the Little
Church Round the Corner!"

Mrs. Hignett stared.

"Are you mad?"

"Well, I'm not any too well pleased, I'm bound to say," admitted Mr.
Mortimer. "You see, darn it all, I'm in love with the girl myself!"

"Who is this girl?"

"Have been for years. I'm one of those silent, patient fellows who hang
around and look a lot, but never tell their love...."

"Who is this girl who has entrapped my son?"

"I've always been one of those men who...."

"Mr. Mortimer! With your permission we will take your positive
qualities, also, for granted. In fact, we will not discuss you at all.
You come to me with this absurd story...."

"Not absurd. Honest fact. I had it from my valet, who had it from her
maid, and, though I'm not a man who gossips with servants, I'm bound to
say...."

"Will you please tell me who is the girl my misguided son wishes to
marry?"

"I don't know that I'd call him misguided," said Mr. Mortimer, as one
desiring to be fair, "I think he's a right smart picker! She's such a
corking girl, you know. We were children together, and I've loved her
for years. Ten years at least. But you know how it is--somehow one
never seems to get in line for a proposal. I thought I saw an opening
in the summer of nineteen-twelve, but it blew over. I'm not one of
these smooth, dashing guys, you see, with a great line of talk. I'm
not...."

"If you will kindly," said Mrs. Hignett impatiently, "postpone this
essay in psycho-analysis to some future occasion I shall be greatly
obliged. I am waiting to hear the name of the girl my son wishes to
marry."

"Haven't I told you?" said Mr. Mortimer, surprised. "That's odd. I
haven't! It's funny how one doesn't do the things one thinks one does.
I'm the sort of man..."

"What is her name?"

"Bennett."

"Bennett? Wilhelmina Bennett? The daughter of Mr. Rufus Bennett? The
red-haired girl I met at lunch one day at your father's house?"

"That's it. You're a great guesser. I think you ought to stop the
thing."

"I intend to."

"Fine!"

"The marriage would be unsuitable in every way. Miss Bennett and my son
do not vibrate on the same plane."

"That's right. I've noticed it myself."

"Their auras are not the same colour."

"If I've thought that once," said Bream Mortimer, "I've thought it a
hundred times. I wish I had a dollar for every time I've thought it.
Not the same colour! That's the whole thing in a nutshell."

"I am much obliged to you for coming and telling me of this. I shall
take immediate steps."

"That's good! But what's the procedure? How are you going to form a
flying-wedge and buck-centre? It's getting late. She'll be waiting at
the church at eleven. With bells on," said Mr. Mortimer.

"Eustace will not be there."

"You think you can fix it?"

"Eustace will not be there," repeated Mrs. Hignett.

Bream Mortimer hopped down from his chair.

"Well, you've taken a weight off my mind."

"A mind, I should imagine, scarcely constructed to bear great weights."

"I'll be going. Haven't had breakfast yet. Too worried to eat
breakfast. Relieved now. This is where three eggs and a rasher of ham
get cut off in their prime. I feel I can rely on you."

"You can!"

"Then I'll say good-bye."

"Good-bye."

"I mean really good-bye. I'm sailing for England on Saturday on the
_Atlantic_."

"Indeed? My son will be your fellow-traveller."

Bream Mortimer looked somewhat apprehensive.

"You won't tell him that I was the one who spilled the beans?"

"I beg your pardon."

"You won't wise him up that I threw a spanner into the machinery?"

"I do not understand you."

"You won't tell him that I crabbed his act--gave the thing away--gummed
the game?"

"I shall not mention your chivalrous intervention."

"Chivalrous?" said Bream Mortimer doubtfully. "I don't know that I'd
call it absolutely chivalrous. Of course, all's fair in love and war.
Well, I'm glad you're going to keep my share in the business under your
hat. It might have been awkward meeting him on board."

"You are not likely to meet Eustace on board. He is a very indifferent
sailor and spends most of his time in his cabin."

"That's good! Saves a lot of awkwardness. Well, good-bye."

"Good-bye. When you reach England remember me to your father."

"He won't have forgotten you," said Bream Mortimer confidently. He did
not see how it was humanly possible for anyone to forget this woman.
She was like a celebrated chewing-gum. The taste lingered.

Mrs. Hignett was a woman of instant and decisive action. Even while her
late visitor was speaking schemes had begun to form in her mind like
bubbles rising to the surface of a rushing river. By the time the door
had closed behind Bream Mortimer she had at her disposal no fewer than
seven, all good. It took her but a moment to select the best and
simplest. She tip-toed softly to her son's room. Rhythmic snores
greeted her listening ears. She opened the door and went noiselessly
in.




CHAPTER TWO


The White Star liner _Atlantic_ lay at her pier with steam up and
gangway down ready for her trip to Southampton. The hour of departure
was near and there was a good deal of mixed activity going on. Sailors
fiddled about with ropes. Junior officers flitted to and fro.
White-jacketed stewards wrestled with trunks. Probably the captain,
though not visible, was also employed on some useful work of a nautical
nature and not wasting his time. Men, women, boxes, rugs, dogs, flowers
and baskets of fruit were flowing on board in a steady stream.

The usual drove of citizens had come to see the travellers off. There
were men on the passenger-list who were being seen off by fathers, by
mothers, by sisters, by cousins, and by aunts. In the steerage there was
an elderly Jewish lady who was being seen off by exactly thirty-seven
of her late neighbours in Rivington Street. And two men in the
second cabin were being seen off by detectives, surely the crowning
compliment a great nation can bestow. The cavernous customs shed was
congested with friends and relatives, and Sam Marlowe, heading for the
gang-plank, was only able to make progress by employing all the muscle
and energy which Nature had bestowed upon him, and which during the
twenty-five years of his life he had developed by athletic exercise.
However, after some minutes of silent endeavour, now driving his shoulder
into the midriff of some obstructing male, now courteously lifting some
stout female off his feet, he had succeeded in struggling to within a few
yards of his goal, when suddenly a sharp pain shot through his right arm
and he spun round with a cry.

It seemed to Sam that he had been bitten, and this puzzled him, for New
York crowds, though they may shove and jostle, rarely bite.

He found himself face to face with an extraordinarily pretty girl.

She was a red-haired girl with the beautiful ivory skin which goes with
red hair. Her eyes, though they were under the shadow of her hat, and
he could not be certain, he diagnosed as green, or maybe blue, or
possibly grey. Not that it mattered, for he had a catholic taste in
feminine eyes. So long as they were large and bright, as were
the specimens under his immediate notice, he was not the man to
quibble about a point of colour. Her nose was small, and on the very
tip of it there was a tiny freckle. Her mouth was nice and wide, her
chin soft and round. She was just about the height which every girl
ought to be. Her figure was trim, her feet tiny, and she wore one of
those dresses of which a man can say no more than that they look pretty
well all right.

Nature abhors a vacuum. Samuel Marlowe was a susceptible young man, and
for many a long month his heart had been lying empty, all swept and
garnished, with "Welcome" on the mat. This girl seemed to rush in and
fill it. She was not the prettiest girl he had ever seen. She was the
third prettiest. He had an orderly mind, one capable of classifying and
docketing girls. But there was a subtle something about her, a sort of
how-shall-one-put-it, which he had never encountered before. He
swallowed convulsively. His well-developed chest swelled beneath its
covering of blue flannel and invisible stripe. At last, he told
himself, he was in love, really in love, and at first sight, too, which
made it all the more impressive. He doubted whether in the whole
course of history anything like this had ever happened before to
anybody. Oh, to clasp this girl to him and--

But she had bitten him in the arm. That was hardly the right spirit.
That, he felt, constituted an obstacle.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" she cried.

Well, of course, if she regretted her rash act ... After all, an
impulsive girl might bite a man in the arm in the excitement of the
moment and still have a sweet, womanly nature....

"The crowd seems to make Pinky-Boodles so nervous."

Sam might have remained mystified, but at this juncture there proceeded
from a bundle of rugs in the neighbourhood of the girl's lower ribs a
sharp yapping sound, of such a calibre as to be plainly audible over
the confused noise of Mamies who were telling Sadies to be sure and
write, of Bills who were instructing Dicks to look up old Joe in Paris
and give him their best, and of all the fruit-boys, candy-boys,
magazine-boys, American-flag-boys, and telegraph boys who were honking
their wares on every side.

"I hope he didn't hurt you much. You're the third person he's bitten
to-day." She kissed the animal in a loving and congratulatory way on the
tip of his black nose. "Not counting bell-boys, of course," she added.
And then she was swept from him in the crowd and he was left thinking
of all the things he might have said--all those graceful, witty,
ingratiating things which just make a bit of difference on these
occasions.

He had said nothing. Not a sound, exclusive of the first sharp yowl of
pain, had proceeded from him. He had just goggled. A rotten exhibition!
Perhaps he would never see this girl again. She looked the sort of girl
who comes to see friends off and doesn't sail herself. And what memory
of him would she retain? She would mix him up with the time when she
went to visit the deaf-and-dumb hospital.

Sam reached the gang-plank, showed his ticket, and made his way through
the crowd of passengers, passengers' friends, stewards, junior
officers, and sailors who infested the deck. He proceeded down the main
companion-way, through a rich smell of india-rubber and mixed pickles,
as far as the dining-saloon: then turned down the narrow passage
leading to his stateroom.

Staterooms on ocean liners are curious things. When you see them on the
chart in the passenger-office, with the gentlemanly clerk drawing rings
round them in pencil, they seem so vast that you get the impression
that, after stowing away all your trunks, you will have room left over
to do a bit of entertaining--possibly an informal dance or something.
When you go on board you find that the place has shrunk to the
dimensions of an undersized cupboard in which it would be impossible to
swing a cat. And then, about the second day out, it suddenly expands
again. For one reason or another the necessity for swinging cats does
not arise and you find yourself quite comfortable.

Sam, balancing himself on the narrow, projecting ledge which the chart
in the passenger-office had grandiloquently described as a lounge,
began to feel the depression which marks the second phase. He almost
wished now that he had not been so energetic in having his room changed
in order to enjoy the company of his cousin Eustace. It was going to be
a tight fit. Eustace's bag was already in the cabin, and it seemed to
take up the entire fairway. Still, after all, Eustace was a good sort,
and would be a cheerful companion. And Sam realised that if that girl
with the red hair was not a passenger on the boat he was going to have
need of diverting society.

A footstep sounded in the passage outside. The door opened.

"Hullo, Eustace!" said Sam.

Eustace Hignett nodded listlessly, sat down on his bag and emitted a
deep sigh. He was a small, fragile-looking young man with a pale,
intellectual face. Dark hair fell in a sweep over his forehead. He
looked like a man who would write _vers libre_, as indeed he did.
"Hullo!" he said, in a hollow voice.

Sam regarded him blankly. He had not seen him for some years, but,
going by his recollections of him at the University, he had expected
something cheerier than this. In fact, he had rather been relying on
Eustace to be the life and soul of the party. The man sitting on the
bag before him could hardly have filled that role at a gathering of
Russian novelists.

"What on earth's the matter?" said Sam.

"The matter?" Eustace Hignett laughed mirthlessly. "Oh, nothing.
Nothing much. Nothing to signify. Only my heart's broken." He eyed with
considerable malignity the bottle of water in the rack above his head,
a harmless object provided by the White Star Company for clients who
might desire to clean their teeth during the voyage.

"If you would care to hear the story?" he said.

"Go ahead."

"It is quite short."

"That's good."

"Soon after I arrived in America I met a girl...."

"Talking of girls," said Marlowe with enthusiasm. "I've just seen the
only one in the world that really amounts to anything. It was like
this. I was shoving my way through the mob on the dock, when
suddenly...."

"Shall I tell you my story, or will you tell me yours?"

"Oh, sorry! Go ahead."

Eustace Hignett scowled at the printed notice on the wall informing
occupants of the stateroom that the name of their steward was J. B.
Midgeley.

"She was an extraordinarily pretty girl...."

"So was mine. I give you my honest word I never in all my life saw
such...."

"Of course, if you would prefer that I postponed my narrative?" said
Eustace coldly.

"Oh, sorry! Carry on."

"She was an extraordinarily pretty girl...."

"What was her name?"

"Wilhelmina Bennett. She was an extraordinarily pretty girl and highly
intelligent. I read her all my poems and she appreciated them
immensely. She enjoyed my singing. My conversation appeared to interest
her. She admired my...."

"I see. You made a hit. Now get on with the rest of the story."

"Don't bustle me," said Eustace querulously.

"Well, you know, the voyage only takes eight days."

"I've forgotten where I was."

"You were saying what a devil of a chap she thought you. What happened?
I suppose, when you actually came to propose, you found she was engaged
to some other johnny?"

"Not at all. I asked her to be my wife, and she consented. We both
agreed that a quiet wedding was what we wanted--she thought her father
might stop the thing if he knew, and I was dashed sure my mother
would--so we decided to get married without telling anybody. By now,"
said Eustace, with a morose glance at the porthole, "I ought to have
been on my honeymoon. Everything was settled. I had the license and
the parson's fee. I had been breaking in a new tie for the wedding."

"And then you quarrelled?"

"Nothing of the kind. I wish you would stop trying to tell me the
story. I'm telling _you_. What happened was this: somehow--I can't
make out how--mother found out. And then, of course, it was all over.
She stopped the thing."

Sam was indignant. He thoroughly disliked his Aunt Adeline, and his
cousin's meek subservience to her revolted him.

"Stopped it? I suppose she said, 'Now, Eustace, you mustn't!' and you
said, 'Very well, mother!' and scratched the fixture?"

"She didn't say a word. She never has said a word. As far as that goes
she might never have heard anything about the marriage."

"Then how do you mean she stopped it?"

"She pinched my trousers!"

"Pinched your trousers?"

Eustace groaned. "All of them! The whole bally lot! She gets up long
before I do, and she must have come into my room and cleaned it out
while I was asleep. When I woke up and started to dress I couldn't find
a solitary pair of bags anywhere in the whole place. I looked
everywhere. Finally, I went into the sitting-room where she was writing
letters and asked if she had happened to see any anywhere. She said she
had sent them all to be pressed. She said she knew I never went out in
the mornings--I don't as a rule--and they would be back at lunch-time,
A fat lot of use that was! I had to be at the church at eleven. Well, I
told her I had a most important engagement with a man at eleven, and
she wanted to know what it was and I tried to think of something, but
it sounded pretty feeble and she said I had better telephone to the man
and put it off. I did it, too. Rang up the first number in the book and
told some fellow I had never seen in my life that I couldn't meet him!
He was pretty peeved, judging from what he said about my being on the
wrong line. And mother listening all the time, and I knowing that she
knew--something told me that she knew--and she knowing that I knew she
knew--I tell you it was awful!"

"And the girl?"

"She broke off the engagement. Apparently she waited at the church from
eleven till one-thirty and then began to get impatient. She wouldn't
see me when I called in the afternoon, but I got a letter from her
saying that what had happened was all for the best as she had been
thinking it over and had come to the conclusion that she had made a
mistake. She said something about my not being as dynamic as she had
thought I was. She said that what she wanted was something more like
Lancelot or Sir Galahad, and would I look on the episode as closed."

"Did you explain about the trousers?"

"Yes. It seemed to make things worse. She said that she could forgive a
man anything except being ridiculous."

"I think you're well out of it," said Sam judicially. "She can't have
been much of a girl."

"I feel that now. But it doesn't alter the fact that my life is ruined.
I have become a woman-hater. It's an infernal nuisance, because
practically all the poetry I have ever written rather went out of its
way to boost women, and now I'll have to start all over again and
approach the subject from another angle. Women! When I think how mother
behaved and how Wilhelmina treated me I wonder there isn't a law
against them. 'What mighty ills have not been done by Woman! Who was it
betrayed the Capitol!'"

"In Washington?" said Sam puzzled. He had heard nothing of this. But
then he generally confined his reading of the papers to the sporting
page.

"In Rome, you ass! Ancient Rome."

"Oh, as long ago as that?"

"I was quoting from Thomas Otway's 'Orphan.' I wish I could write like
Otway. He knew what he was talking about. 'Who was't betrayed the
Capitol? A woman. Who lost Marc Antony the world? A woman. Who was the
cause of a long ten years' war and laid at last old Troy in ashes?
Woman! Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman!'"

"Well, of course, he may be right in a way. As regards some women, I
mean. But the girl I met on the dock--"

"Don't!" said Eustace Hignett. "If you have anything bitter and
derogatory to say about women, say it and I will listen eagerly. But if
you merely wish to gibber about the ornamental exterior of some dashed
girl you have been fool enough to get attracted by, go and tell it to
the captain or the ship's cat or J. B. Midgeley. Do try to realise that
I am a soul in torment! I am a ruin, a spent force, a man without a
future! What does life hold for me? Love? I shall never love again.
My work? I haven't any. I think I shall take to drink."

"Talking of that," said Sam, "I suppose they open the bar directly we
pass the three-mile limit. How about a small one?"

Eustace shook his head gloomily.

"Do you suppose I pass my time on board ship in gadding about and
feasting? Directly the vessel begins to move I go to bed and stay
there. As a matter of fact I think it would be wisest to go to bed now.
Don't let me keep you if you want to go on deck."

"It looks to me," said Sam, "as if I had been mistaken in thinking that
you were going to be a ray of sunshine on the voyage."

"Ray of sunshine!" said Eustace Hignett, pulling a pair of mauve
pyjamas out of the kit-bag. "I'm going to be a volcano!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Sam left the state-room and headed for the companion. He wanted to get
on deck and ascertain if that girl was still on board. About now the
sheep would be separating from the goats: the passengers would be on
deck and their friends returning to the shore. A slight tremor on the
boards on which he trod told him that this separation must have already
taken place. The ship was moving. He ran lightly up the companion. Was
she on board or was she not? The next few minutes would decide. He
reached the top of the stairs and passed out on to the crowded deck.
And, as he did so, a scream, followed by confused shouting, came from
the rail nearest the shore. He perceived that the rail was black with
people hanging over it. They were all looking into the water.

Samuel Marlowe was not one of those who pass aloofly by when there is
excitement toward. If a horse fell down in the street, he was always
among those present: and he was never too busy to stop and stare at a
blank window on which were inscribed the words "Watch this space!" In
short, he was one of Nature's rubbernecks, and to dash to the rail and
shove a fat man in a tweed cap to one side was with him the work of a
moment. He had thus an excellent view of what was going on--a view
which he improved the next instant by climbing up and kneeling on the
rail.

There was a man in the water, a man whose upper section, the only one
visible, was clad in a blue jersey. He wore a Derby hat, and from time
to time as he battled with the waves, he would put up a hand and adjust
this more firmly on his head. A dressy swimmer.

Scarcely had he taken in this spectacle when Marlowe became aware of
the girl he had met on the dock. She was standing a few feet away
leaning out over the rail with wide eyes and parted lips. Like
everybody else she was staring into the water.

As Sam looked at her the thought crossed his mind that here was a
wonderful chance of making the most tremendous impression on this girl.
What would she not think of a man who, reckless of his own safety,
dived in and went boldly to the rescue? And there were men, no doubt,
who would be chumps enough to do it, he thought, as he prepared to
shift back to a position of greater safety.

At this moment, the fat man in the tweed cap, incensed at having been
jostled out of the front row, made his charge. He had but been
crouching, the better to spring. Now he sprang. His full weight took
Sam squarely in the spine. There was an instant in which that young man
hung, as it were, between sea and sky; then he shot down over the rail
to join the man in the blue jersey, who had just discovered that his
hat was not on straight and had paused to adjust it once more with a
few skilful touches of the finger.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the brief interval of time which Marlowe had spent in the state-room,
chatting with Eustace about the latter's bruised soul, some
rather curious things had been happening above. Not extraordinary,
perhaps, but curious. These must now be related. A story, if it is to
grip the reader, should, I am aware, go always forward. It should
march. It should leap from crag to crag like the chamois of the Alps.
If there is one thing I hate, it is a novel which gets you interested
in the hero in chapter one and then cuts back in chapter two to tell
you all about his grandfather. Nevertheless, at this point we must go
back a space. We must return to the moment when, having deposited her
Pekinese dog in her state-room, the girl with the red hair came out
again on deck. This happened just about the time when Eustace Hignett
was beginning his narrative.

By now the bustle which precedes the departure of an ocean liner was at
its height. Hoarse voices were crying, "All for the shore!" The gangway
was thronged with friends of passengers returning to land. The crowd on
the pier waved flags and handkerchiefs and shouted unintelligibly.
Members of the crew stood alertly by the gang-plank ready to draw it in
as soon as the last seer-off had crossed it.

The girl went to the rail and gazed earnestly at the shore. There was
an anxious expression on her face. She had the air of one who was
waiting for someone to appear. Her demeanour was that of Mariana at the
Moated Grange. "He cometh not!" she seemed to be saying. She glanced at
her wrist-watch, then scanned the dock once more.

There was a rattle as the gang-plank moved inboard and was deposited on
the deck. The girl uttered a little cry of dismay. Then suddenly her
face brightened and she began to wave her arm to attract the attention
of an elderly man with a red face made redder by exertion, who had just
forced his way to the edge of the dock and was peering up at the
passenger-lined rail.

The boat had now begun to move slowly out of its slip, backing into the
river. Ropes had been cast off, and an ever widening strip of water
appeared between the vessel and the shore. It was now that the man on
the dock sighted the girl. She gesticulated at him. He gesticulated at
her. She appeared helpless and baffled, but he showed himself a person
of resource of the stuff of which great generals are made. Foch is just
like that, a bird at changing pre-conceived plans to suit the exigencies
of the moment.

The man on the dock took from his pocket a pleasantly rotund wad of
currency bills. He produced a handkerchief, swiftly tied up the bills
in it, backed to give himself room, and then, with all the strength of
his arm, he hurled the bills in the direction of the deck. The action
was greeted by cheers from a warm-hearted populace. Your New York crowd
loves a liberal provider.

One says that the man hurled the bills in the direction of the deck,
and that was exactly what he did. But the years had robbed his
pitching-arm of the limber strength which, forty summers back, had made
him the terror of opposing boys' baseball teams. He still retained a
fair control but he lacked steam. The handkerchief with its precious
contents shot in a graceful arc towards the deck, fell short by a good
six feet and dropped into the water, where it unfolded like a lily,
sending twenty-dollar bills, ten-dollar bills, five-dollar bills, and
an assortment of ones floating over the wavelets. The cheers of the
citizenry changed to cries of horror. The girl uttered a plaintive
shriek. The boat moved on.

It was at this moment that Mr. Oscar Swenson, one of the thriftiest
souls who ever came out of Sweden, perceived that the chance of a
lifetime had arrived for adding substantially to his little savings. By
profession he was one of those men who eke out a precarious livelihood
by rowing dreamily about the waterfront in skiffs. He was doing so now:
and, as he sat meditatively in his skiff, having done his best to give
the liner a good send-off by paddling round her in circles, the
pleading face of a twenty-dollar bill peered up at him. Mr. Swenson was
not the man to resist the appeal. He uttered a sharp bark of ecstasy,
pressed his Derby hat firmly upon his brow and dived in. A moment later
he had risen to the surface and was gathering up money with both hands.

He was still busy with this congenial task when a tremendous splash at
his side sent him under again; and, rising for a second time, he
observed with not a little chagrin that he had been joined by a young
man in a blue flannel suit with an invisible stripe.

"Svensk!" exclaimed Mr. Swenson, or whatever it is that natives of
Sweden exclaim in moments of justifiable annoyance. He resented the
advent of this newcomer. He had been getting along fine and had had the
situation well in hand. To him Sam Marlowe represented Competition, and
Mr. Swenson desired no competitors in his treasure-seeking enterprise.
He travels, thought Mr. Swenson, the fastest who travels alone.

Sam Marlowe had a touch of the philosopher in him. He had the ability
to adapt himself to circumstances. It had been no part of his plans to
come whizzing down off the rail into this singularly soup-like water
which tasted in equal parts of oil and dead rats; but, now that he was
here he was prepared to make the best of the situation. Swimming, it
happened, was one of the things he did best, and somewhere among his
belongings at home was a tarnished pewter cup which he had won at
school in the "Saving Life" competition. He knew exactly what to do.
You get behind the victim and grab him firmly under his arms, and then
you start swimming on your back. A moment later the astonished Mr.
Swenson, who, being practically amphibious, had not anticipated that
anyone would have the cool impertinence to try and save him from
drowning, found himself seized from behind and towed vigorously away
from a ten-dollar bill which he had almost succeeded in grasping. The
spiritual agony caused by this assault rendered him mercifully dumb;
though, even had he contrived to utter the rich Swedish oaths which
occurred to him, his remarks could scarcely have been heard, for the
crowd on the dock was cheering as one man. They had often paid good
money to see far less gripping sights in the movies. They roared
applause. The liner, meanwhile, continued to move stodgily out into
mid-river.

The only drawback to these life-saving competitions at school,
considered from the standpoint of fitting the competitors for the
problems of after-life, is that the object saved on such occasions is a
leather dummy, and of all things in this world a leather dummy is
perhaps the most placid and phlegmatic. It differs in many respects
from an emotional Swedish gentleman, six foot high and constructed
throughout of steel and india rubber, who is being lugged away from
cash which he has been regarding in the light of a legacy. Indeed, it
would not be hard to find a respect in which it does not differ. So far
from lying inert in Sam's arms and allowing himself to be saved in a
quiet and orderly manner, Mr. Swenson betrayed all the symptoms of one
who feels that he has fallen among murderers. Mr. Swenson, much as he
disliked competition, was ready to put up with it, provided that it was
fair competition. This pulling your rival away from the loot so that
you could grab it yourself--thus shockingly had the man misinterpreted
Sam's motives--was another thing altogether and his stout soul would
have none of it. He began immediately to struggle with all the violence
at his disposal. His large, hairy hands came out of the water and swung
hopefully in the direction where he assumed his assailant's face to be.

Sam was not unprepared for this display. His researches in the art of
life-saving had taught him that your drowning man frequently struggled
against his best interests. In which case, cruel to be kind, one simply
stunned the blighter. He decided to stun Mr. Swenson, though, if he had
known that gentleman more intimately and had been aware that he had the
reputation of possessing the thickest head on the water-front he would
have realised the magnitude of the task. Friends of Mr. Swenson, in
convivial moments, had frequently endeavoured to stun him with bottles,
boots, and bits of lead piping, and had gone away depressed by failure.
Sam, ignorant of this, attempted to do the job with clenched fist,
which he brought down as smartly as possible on the crown of the
other's Derby hat.

It was the worst thing he could have done. Mr. Swenson thought highly
of his hat and this brutal attack upon it confirmed his gloomiest
apprehensions. Now thoroughly convinced that the only thing to do was
to sell his life dearly he wrenched himself round, seized his assailant
by the neck, twined his arms about his middle, and accompanied him
below the surface.

By the time he had swallowed his first pint and was beginning his
second, Sam was reluctantly compelled to come to the conclusion that
this was the end. The thought irritated him unspeakably. This, he felt,
was just the silly, contrary way things always happened. Why should it
be he who was perishing like this? Why not Eustace Hignett? Now there was
a fellow whom this sort of thing would just have suited. Broken-hearted
Eustace Hignett would have looked on all this as a merciful release.

He paused in his reflections to try to disentangle the more prominent
of Mr. Swenson's limbs from about him. By this time he was sure that he
had never met anyone he disliked so intensely as Mr. Swenson--not even
his Aunt Adeline. The man was a human octopus. Sam could count seven
distinct legs twined round him and at least as many arms. It seemed to
him that he was being done to death in his prime by a solid platoon of
Swedes. He put his whole soul into one last effort ... something seemed
to give ... he was free. Pausing only to try to kick Mr. Swenson in the
face Sam shot to the surface. Something hard and sharp prodded him in
the head. Then something caught the collar of his coat; and, finally,
spouting like a whale, he found himself dragged upwards and over the
side of a boat.

       *       *       *       *       *

The time which Sam had spent with Mr. Swenson below the surface had
been brief, but it had been long enough to enable the whole floating
population of the North River to converge on the scene in scows,
skiffs, launches, tugs and other vessels. The fact that the water in
that vicinity was crested with currency had not escaped the notice of
these navigators and they had gone to it as one man. First in the race
came the tug _Reuben S. Watson_, the skipper of which, following a
famous precedent, had taken his little daughter to bear him company. It
was to this fact that Marlowe really owed his rescue. Women have often
a vein of sentiment in them where men can only see the hard business
side of a situation; and it was the skipper's daughter who insisted
that the family boat-hook, then in use as a harpoon for spearing dollar
bills, should be devoted to the less profitable but humaner end of
extricating the young man from a watery grave.

The skipper had grumbled a bit at first, but had given way--he always
spoiled the girl--with the result that Sam found himself sitting on the
deck of the tug engaged in the complicated process of restoring his
faculties to the normal. In a sort of dream he perceived Mr. Swenson
rise to the surface some feet away, adjust his Derby hat, and, after
one long look of dislike in his direction, swim off rapidly to intercept
a five which was floating under the stern of a near-by skiff.

Sam sat on the deck and panted. He played on the boards like a public
fountain. At the back of his mind there was a flickering thought that
he wanted to do something, a vague feeling that he had some sort of an
appointment which he must keep; but he was unable to think what it was.
Meanwhile, he conducted tentative experiments with his breath. It was
so long since he had last breathed that he had lost the knack of it.

"Well, aincher wet?" said a voice.

The skipper's daughter was standing beside him, looking down
commiseratingly. Of the rest of the family all he could see was the
broad blue seats of their trousers as they leaned hopefully over the
side in the quest for wealth.

"Yessir! You sure are wet! Gee! I never seen anyone so wet! I seen wet
guys, but I never seen anyone so wet as you. Yessir, you're certainly
_wet_!"

"I _am_ wet," admitted Sam.

"Yessir, you're wet! Wet's the word all right. Good and wet, that's
what you are!"

"It's the water," said Sam. His brain was still clouded; he wished he
could remember what that appointment was. "That's what has made me
wet."

"It's sure made you wet all right," agreed the girl. She looked at him
interestedly. "Wotcha do it for?" she asked.

"Do it for?"

"Yes, wotcha do it for? How come? Wotcha do a Brodie for off'n that
ship? I didn't see it myself, but pa says you come walloping down off'n
the deck like a sack of potatoes."

Sam uttered a sharp cry. He had remembered.

"Where is she?"

"Where's who?"

"The liner."

"She's off down the river, I guess. She was swinging round, the last I
seen of her."

"She's not gone?"

"Sure she's gone. Wotcha expect her to do? She's gotta to get over to
the other side, ain't she? Cert'nly she's gone." She looked at him
interested. "Do you want to be on board her?"

"Of course I do."

"Then, for the love of Pete, wotcha doin' walloping off'n her like a
sack of potatoes?"

"I slipped. I was pushed or something." Sam sprang to his feet and
looked wildly about him. "I must get back. Isn't there any way of
getting back?"

"Well, you could catch up with her at quarantine out in the bay. She'll
stop to let the pilot off."

"Can you take me to quarantine?"

The girl glanced doubtfully at the seat of the nearest pair of
trousers.

"Well, we _could_," she said. "But pa's kind of set in his ways,
and right now he's fishing for dollar bills with the boat-hook. He's
apt to get sorta mad if he's interrupted."

"I'll give him fifty dollars if he'll put me on board."

"Got it on you?" inquired the nymph coyly. She had her share of
sentiment, but she was her father's daughter and inherited from him the
business sense.

"Here it is." He pulled out his pocket-book. The book was dripping, but
the contents were only fairly moist.

"Pa!" said the girl.

The trouser-seat remained where it was--deaf to its child's cry.

"Pa! Commere! Wantcha!"

The trousers did not even quiver. But this girl was a girl of decision.
There was some nautical implement resting in a rack convenient to her
hand. It was long, solid, and constructed of one of the harder forms of
wood. Deftly extracting this from its place she smote her inoffensive
parent on the only visible portion of him. He turned sharply,
exhibiting a red, bearded face.

"Pa, this gen'man wants to be took aboard the boat at quarantine. He'll
give you fifty berries."

The wrath died out of the skipper's face like the slow turning down of
a lamp. The fishing had been poor, and so far he had only managed to
secure a single two-dollar bill. In a crisis like the one which had so
suddenly arisen you cannot do yourself justice with a boat-hook.

"Fifty berries!"

"Fifty seeds!" the girl assured him. "Are you on?"

"Queen," said the skipper simply, "you said a mouthful!"

Twenty minutes later Sam was climbing up the side of the liner as it
lay towering over the tug like a mountain. His clothes hung about him
clammily. He squelched as he walked.

A kindly looking old gentleman who was smoking a cigar by the rail
regarded him with open eyes.

"My dear sir, you're very wet," he said.

Sam passed him with a cold face and hurried through the door leading to
the companion-way.

"Mummie, why is that man wet?" cried the clear voice of a little child.

Sam whizzed by, leaping down the stairs.

"Good Lord, sir! You're very wet!" said a steward in the doorway of the
dining-saloon.

"You _are_ wet," said a stewardess in the passage.

Sam raced for his state-room. He bolted in and sank on the lounge. In
the lower berth Eustace Hignett was lying with closed eyes. He opened
them languidly--then stared.

"Hullo!" he said. "I say! You're wet."

       *       *       *       *       *

Sam removed his clinging garments and hurried into a new suit. He was
in no mood for conversation, and Eustace Hignett's frank curiosity
jarred upon him. Happily, at this point, a sudden shivering of the
floor and a creaking of woodwork proclaimed the fact that the vessel
was under way again, and his cousin, turning pea-green, rolled over on
his side with a hollow moan. Sam finished buttoning his waistcoat and
went out.

He was passing the Enquiry Bureau on the C-Deck, striding along with
bent head and scowling brow, when a sudden exclamation caused him to
look up, and the scowl was wiped from his brow as with a sponge. For
there stood the girl he had met on the dock. With her was a superfluous
young man who looked like a parrot.

"Oh, _how_ are you?" asked the girl breathlessly.

"Splendid, thanks," said Sam.

"Didn't you get very wet?"

"I did get a little damp."

"I thought you would," said the young man who looked like a parrot.
"Directly I saw you go over the side I said to myself: 'That fellow's
going to get wet!'"

There was a pause.

"Oh!" said the girl, "may I--Mr.--?"

"Marlowe."

"Mr. Marlowe. Mr. Bream Mortimer."

Sam smirked at the young man. The young man smirked at Sam.

"Nearly got left behind," said Bream Mortimer.

"Yes, nearly."

"No joke getting left behind."

"No."

"Have to take the next boat. Lose a lot of time," said Mr. Mortimer,
driving home his point.

The girl had listened to these intellectual exchanges with impatience.
She now spoke again.

"Oh, Bream!"

"Hello?"

"Do be a dear and run down to the saloon and see if it's all right
about our places for lunch."

"It is all right. The table steward said so."

"Yes, but go and make certain."

"All right."

He hopped away and the girl turned to Sam with shining eyes.

"Oh, Mr. Marlowe, you oughtn't to have done it! Really, you oughtn't!
You might have been drowned! But I never saw anything so wonderful. It
was like the stories of knights who used to jump into lions' dens after
gloves!"

"Yes?" said Sam, a little vaguely. The resemblance had not struck him.
It seemed a silly hobby and rough on the lions, too.

"It was the sort of thing Sir Lancelot or Sir Galahad would have done!
But you shouldn't have bothered, really! It's all right now."

"Oh, it's all right now?"

"Yes. I'd quite forgotten that Mr. Mortimer was to be on board. He has
given me all the money I shall need. You see it was this way. I had to
sail on this boat in rather a hurry. Father's head clerk was to have
gone to the bank and got some money and met me on board and given
it to me, but the silly old man was late, and when he got to the dock
they had just pulled in the gang-plank. So he tried to throw the money to
me in a handkerchief and it fell into the water. But you shouldn't have
dived in after it."

"Oh, well!" said Sam, straightening his tie, with a quiet brave smile.
He had never expected to feel grateful to that obese bounder who had
shoved him off the rail, but now he would have liked to seek him out
and offer him his bank-roll.

"You really are the bravest man I ever met!"

"Oh, no!"

"How modest you are! But I suppose all brave men are modest!"

"I was only too delighted at what looked like a chance of doing you a
service."

"It was the extraordinary quickness of it that was so wonderful. I do
admire presence of mind. You didn't hesitate for a second. You just
shot over the side as though propelled by some irresistible force!"

"It was nothing, nothing really. One just happens to have the knack of
keeping one's head and acting quickly on the spur of the moment. Some
people have it, some haven't."

"And just think! As Bream was saying...."

"It _is_ all right," said Mr. Mortimer, re-appearing suddenly. "I
saw a couple of stewards and they both said it was all right. So it's
all right."

"Splendid," said the girl. "Oh, Bream!"

"Hello?"

"Do be an angel and run along to my stateroom and see if Pinky-Boodles
is quite comfortable."

"Bound to be."

"Yes. But do go. He may be feeling lonely. Chirrup to him a little."

"Chirrup?"

"Yes, to cheer him up."

"Oh, all right."

"Run along!"

Mr. Mortimer ran along. He had the air of one who feels that he only
needs a peaked cap and a uniform two sizes too small for him to be a
properly equipped messenger boy.

"And, as Bream was saying," resumed the girl, "you might have been left
behind."

"That," said Sam, edging a step closer, "was the thought that tortured
me, the thought that a friendship so delightfully begun...."

"But it hadn't begun. We have never spoken to each other before now."

"Have you forgotten? On the dock...."

Sudden enlightenment came into her eyes.

"Oh, you are the man poor Pinky-Boodles bit!"

"The lucky man!"

Her face clouded.

"Poor Pinky is feeling the motion of the boat a little. It's his first
voyage."

"I shall always remember that it was Pinky who first brought us
together. Would you care for a stroll on deck?"

"Not just now, thanks. I must be getting back to my room to finish
unpacking. After lunch, perhaps."

"I will be there. By the way, you know my name, but...."

"Oh, mine?" She smiled brightly. "It's funny that a person's name is the
last thing one thinks of asking. Mine is Bennett."

"Bennett!"

"Wilhelmina Bennett. My friends," she said softly as she turned away,
"call me Billie!"




CHAPTER THREE


For some moments Sam remained where he was staring after the girl as
she flitted down the passage. He felt dizzy. Mental acrobatics always
have an unsettling effect, and a young man may be excused for feeling a
little dizzy when he is called upon suddenly and without any warning to
readjust all his preconceived views on any subject. Listening to
Eustace Hignett's story of his blighted romance, Sam had formed an
unflattering opinion of this Wilhelmina Bennett who had broken off her
engagement simply because on the day of the marriage his cousin had
been short of the necessary wedding garment. He had, indeed, thought a
little smugly how different his goddess of the red hair was from the
object of Eustace Hignett's affections. And how they had proved to be
one and the same. It was disturbing. It was like suddenly finding the
vampire of a five-reel feature film turn into the heroine.

Some men, on making the discovery of this girl's identity, might have
felt that Providence had intervened to save them from a disastrous
entanglement. This point of view never occurred to Samuel Marlowe. The
way he looked at it was that he had been all wrong about Wilhelmina
Bennett. Eustace, he felt, had been to blame throughout. If this girl had
maltreated Eustace's finer feelings, then her reason for doing so must
have been excellent and praiseworthy.

After all ... poor old Eustace ... quite a good fellow, no doubt in many
ways ... but, coming down to brass tacks, what was there about Eustace
that gave him any license to monopolise the affections of a wonderful
girl? Where, in a word, did Eustace Hignett get off? He made a
tremendous grievance of the fact that she had broken off the
engagement, but what right had he to go about the place expecting her
to be engaged to him? Eustace Hignett, no doubt, looked upon the poor
girl as utterly heartless. Marlowe regarded her behaviour as thoroughly
sensible. She had made a mistake, and, realising this at the eleventh
hour, she had had the force of character to correct it. He was sorry
for poor old Eustace, but he really could not permit the suggestion
that Wilhelmina Bennett--her friends called her Billie--had not behaved
in a perfectly splendid way throughout. It was women like Wilhelmina
Bennett--Billie to her intimates--who made the world worth living in.

Her friends called her Billie. He did not blame them. It was a
delightful name and suited her to perfection. He practised it a few
times. "Billie ... Billie ... Billie...." It certainly ran pleasantly off
the tongue. "Billie Bennett." Very musical. "Billie Marlowe." Still
better. "We noticed among those present the charming and popular Mrs.
'Billie' Marlowe."

A consuming desire came over him to talk about the girl to someone.
Obviously indicated as the party of the second part was Eustace
Hignett. If Eustace was still capable of speech--and after all the boat
was hardly rolling at all--he would enjoy a further chat about his
ruined life. Besides, he had another reason for seeking Eustace's
society. As a man who had been actually engaged to marry this supreme
girl, Eustace Hignett had an attraction for Sam akin to that of some
great public monument. He had become a sort of shrine. He had taken on
a glamour. Sam entered the state-room almost reverentially with
something of the emotions of a boy going into his first dime museum.

The exhibit was lying on his back staring at the roof of the berth. By
lying absolutely still and forcing himself to think of purely inland
scenes and objects he had contrived to reduce the green in his
complexion to a mere tinge. But it would be paltering with the truth to
say that he felt _debonair_. He received Sam with a wan austerity.

"Sit down!" he said. "Don't stand there swaying like that. I can't bear
it."

"Why, we aren't out of the harbour yet. Surely you aren't going to be
sea-sick already."

"I can issue no positive guarantee. Perhaps if I can keep my mind off
it ... I have had good results for the last ten minutes by thinking
steadily of the Sahara. There," said Eustace Hignett with enthusiasm,
"is a place for you! That is something like a spot! Miles and miles of
sand and not a drop of water anywhere!"

Sam sat down on the lounge.

"You're quite right. The great thing is to concentrate your mind on
other topics. Why not, for instance, tell me some more about your
unfortunate affair with that girl--Billie Bennett I think you said her
name was."

"Wilhelmina Bennett. Where on earth did you get the idea that her name
was Billie?"

"I had a notion that girls called Wilhelmina were sometimes Billie to
their friends."

"I never call her anything but Wilhelmina. But I really cannot talk
about it. The recollection tortures me."

"That's just what you want. It's the counter-irritation principle.
Persevere and you'll soon forget that you're on board ship at all."

"There's something in that," admitted Eustace reflectively. "It's very
good of you to be so sympathetic and interested."

"My dear fellow ... anything that I can do ... where did you meet her
first, for instance?"

"At a dinner...." Eustace Hignett broke off abruptly. He had a good
memory and he had just recollected the fish they had served at that
dinner--a flabby and exhausted looking fish, half sunk beneath the
surface of a thick white sauce.

"And what struck you most forcibly about her at first? Her lovely hair,
I suppose?"

"How did you know she had lovely hair?"

"My dear chap, I naturally assumed that any girl with whom you fell in
love would have nice hair."

"Well, you are perfectly right, as it happens. Her hair was remarkably
beautiful. It was red...."

"Like autumn leaves with the sun on them!" said Marlowe ecstatically.

"What an extraordinary thing! That is an absolutely exact description.
Her eyes were a deep blue...."

"Or, rather, green."

"Blue."

"Green. There is a shade of green that looks blue."

"What the devil do you know about the colour of her eyes?" demanded
Eustace heatedly. "Am I telling you about her, or are you telling me?"

"My dear old man, don't get excited. Don't you see I am trying to
construct this girl in my imagination, to visualise her? I don't
pretend to doubt your special knowledge, but after all green eyes
generally do go with red hair and there are all shades of green. There
is the bright green of meadow grass, the dull green of the uncut
emerald, the faint yellowish green of your face at the present
moment...."

"Don't talk about the colour of my face! Now you've gone and reminded
me just when I was beginning to forget."

"Awfully sorry! Stupid of me! Get your mind off it again--quick! What
were you saying? Oh, yes, this girl. I always think it helps one to
form a mental picture of people if one knows something about their
tastes--what sort of things they are interested in, their favourite
topics of conversation, and so on. This Miss Bennett now, what did she
like talking about?"

"Oh, all sorts of things."

"Yes, but what?"

"Well, for one thing she was very fond of poetry. It was that which
first drew us together."

"Poetry!" Sam's heart sank a little. He had read a certain amount of
poetry at school, and once he had won a prize of three shillings and
sixpence for the last line of a limerick in a competition in a weekly
paper, but he was self-critic enough to know that poetry was not his
long suit. Still there was a library on board ship and no doubt it
would be possible to borrow the works of some standard poet and bone
them up from time to time.

"Any special poet?"

"Well, she seemed to like my stuff. You never read my sonnet-sequence
on Spring, did you?"

"No. What other poets did she like besides you?"

"Tennyson principally," said Eustace Hignett with a reminiscent quiver
in his voice. "The hours we have spent together reading the Idylls of
the King!"

"The which of what?" enquired Sam, taking a pencil from his pocket and
shooting out a cuff.

"The Idylls of the King. My good man, I know you have a soul which
would be considered inadequate by a common earthworm, but you have
surely heard of Tennyson's Idylls of the King?"

"Oh, _those_! Why, my dear old chap; Tennyson's Idylls of the
King! Well, I should say! Have I heard of Tennyson's Idylls of the
King? Well, really! I suppose you haven't a copy with you on board by
any chance?"

"There is a copy in my kit-bag. The very one we used to read together.
Take it and keep it or throw it overboard. I don't want to see it
again."

Sam prospected among the shirts, collars and trousers in the bag and
presently came upon a morocco-bound volume. He laid it beside him
on the lounge.

"Little by little, bit by bit," he said, "I am beginning to form a sort
of picture of this girl, this--what was her name again? Bennett--this
Miss Bennett. You have a wonderful knack of description. You make her
seem so real and vivid. Tell me some more about her. She wasn't keen on
golf, by any chance, I suppose?"

"I believe she did play. The subject came up once and she seemed rather
enthusiastic. Why?"

"Well, I'd much sooner talk to a girl about golf than poetry."

"You are hardly likely to be in a position to have to talk to
Wilhelmina Bennett about either, I should imagine."

"No, there's that, of course. I was thinking of girls in general. Some
girls bar golf, and then it's rather difficult to know how to start
conversation. But, tell me, were there any topics which got on Miss
Bennett's nerves, if you know what I mean? It seems to me that at one
time or another you may have said something that offended her. I mean,
it seems curious that she should  have broken off the engagement if
you had never disagreed or quarrelled about anything."

"Well, of course, there was always the matter of that dog of hers. She
had a dog, you know, a snappy brute of a Pekingese. If there was ever
any shadow of disagreement between us, it had to do with that dog. I
made rather a point of it that I would not have it about the home after
we were married."

"I see!" said Sam. He shot his cuff once more and wrote on it:
"Dog-conciliate."

"Yes, of course, that must have wounded her."

"Not half so much as he wounded me! He pinned me by the ankle the day
before we--Wilhelmina and I, I mean--were to have been married. It is
some satisfaction to me in my broken state to remember that I got home
on the little beast with considerable juiciness and lifted him clean
over the Chesterfield."

Sam shook his head reprovingly.

"You shouldn't have done that!" he said. He extended his cuff and added
the words "Vitally important" to what he had just written. "It was
probably that which decided her."

"Well, I hate dogs," said Eustace Hignett querulously. "I remember
Wilhelmina once getting quite annoyed with me because I refused to step
in and separate a couple of the brutes, absolute strangers to me, who
were fighting in the street. I reminded her that we were all fighters
now-a-ways, that life itself was in a sense a fight: but she wouldn't
be reasonable about it. She said that Sir Galahad would have done it
like a shot. I thought not. We have no evidence whatsoever that Sir
Galahad was ever called upon to do anything half as dangerous. And,
anyway, he wore armour. Give me a suit of mail reaching well down over
the ankles, and I will willingly intervene in a hundred dog fights. But
in thin flannel trousers no!"

Sam rose. His heart was light. He had never, of course, supposed that
the girl was anything but perfect; but it was nice to find his high
opinion of her corroborated by one who had no reason to exhibit her in
a favourable light. He understood her point of view and sympathised
with it. An idealist, how could she trust herself to Eustace Hignett?
How could she be content with a craven who, instead of scouring the
world in the quest for deeds of daring do, had fallen down so
lamentably on his first assignment? There was a specious attractiveness
about poor old Eustace which might conceivably win a girl's heart for a
time; he wrote poetry, talked well, and had a nice singing voice; but,
as a partner for life ... well, he simply wouldn't do. That was all there
was to it. He simply didn't add up right. The man a girl like Wilhelmina
Bennett required for a husband was somebody entirely different ...
somebody, felt Samuel Marlowe, much more like Samuel Marlowe.

Swelled almost to bursting-point with these reflections, he went on
deck to join the ante-luncheon promenade. He saw Billie almost at once.
She had put on one of these nice sacky sport-coats which so enhance
feminine charms, and was striding along the deck with the breeze
playing in her vivid hair like the female equivalent of a Viking.
Beside her walked young Mr. Bream Mortimer.

Sam had been feeling a good deal of a fellow already, but at the sight
of her welcoming smile his self-esteem almost caused him to explode.
What magic there is in a girl's smile! It is the raisin which, dropped
in the yeast of male complacency, induces fermentation.

"Oh, there you are, Mr. Marlowe!"

"Oh, _there_ you are," said Bream Mortimer, with a slightly
different inflection.

"I thought I'd like a breath of fresh air before lunch," said Sam.

"Oh, Bream!" said the girl.

"Hello?"

"Do be a darling and take this great heavy coat of mine down to my
state-room will you? I had no idea it was so warm."

"I'll carry it," said Bream.

"Nonsense. I wouldn't dream of burdening you with it. Trot along and
put it on the berth. It doesn't matter about folding it up."

"All right," said Bream moodily.

He trotted along. There are moments when a man feels that all he needs
in order to be a delivery wagon is a horse and a driver.

"He had better chirrup to the dog while he's there, don't you think?"
suggested Sam. He felt that a resolute man with legs as long as Bream's
might well deposit a cloak on a berth and be back under the half-minute.

"Oh, yes! Bream!"

"Hello?"

"While you're down there just chirrup a little more to poor Pinky. He
does appreciate it so!"

Bream disappeared. It is not always easy to interpret emotion from a
glance at a man's back; but Bream's back looked like that of a man to
whom the thought has occurred that, given a couple of fiddles and a
piano, he would have made a good hired orchestra.

"How is your dear little dog, by the way?" enquired Sam solicitously,
as he fell into step by her side.

"Much better now, thanks. I've made friends with a girl on board--did
you ever hear her name--Jane Hubbard--she's a rather well-known big-game
hunter and she fixed up some sort of a mixture for Pinky which did
him a world of good. I don't know what was in it except Worcester
Sauce, but she said she always gave it to her mules in Africa when they
had the botts ... it's very nice of you to speak so affectionately of
poor Pinky when he bit you."

"Animal spirits!" said Sam tolerantly. "Pure animal spirits! I like to
see them. But, of course, I love all dogs."

"Oh, do you? So do I!"

"I only wish they didn't fight so much. I'm always stopping dog
fights."

"I do admire a man who knows what to do at a dog fight. I'm afraid I'm
rather helpless myself. There never seems anything to catch hold of."
She looked down. "Have you been reading? What is the book?"

"It's a volume of Tennyson."

"Are you fond of Tennyson?"

"I worship him," said Sam reverently. "Those--" he glanced at his
cuff--"those Idylls of the King! I do not like to think what an ocean
voyage would be if I had not my Tennyson with me."

"We must read him together. He is my favourite poet!"

"We will! There is something about Tennyson...."

"Yes, isn't there! I've felt that myself so often!"

"Some poets are whales at epics and all that sort of thing, while
others call it a day when they've written something that runs to a
couple of verses, but where Tennyson had the bulge was that his long
game was just as good as his short. He was great off the tee and a
marvel with his chip-shots."

"That sounds as though you played golf."

"When I am not reading Tennyson, you can generally find me out on the
links. Do you play?"

"I love it. How extraordinary that we should have so much in common.
We really ought to be great friends."

He was pausing to select the best of three replies when the lunch bugle
sounded.

"Oh, dear!" she cried. "I must rush. But we shall see one another again
up here afterwards?"

"We will," said Sam.

"We'll sit and read Tennyson."

"Fine! Er--you and I and Mortimer?"

"Oh, no, Bream is going to sit down below and look after poor Pinky."

"Does he--does he know he is?"

"Not yet," said Billie. "I'm going to tell him at lunch."




CHAPTER FOUR


It was the fourth morning of the voyage. Of course, when this story is
done in the movies they won't be satisfied with a bald statement like
that; they will have a Spoken Title or a Cut-Back Sub-Caption or
whatever they call the thing in the low dens where motion-picture
scenario-lizards do their dark work, which will run:--

    AND SO, CALM AND GOLDEN, THE DAYS WENT
    BY, EACH FRAUGHT WITH HOPE AND YOUTH
    AND SWEETNESS, LINKING TWO YOUNG
    HEARTS IN SILKEN FETTERS FORGED BY THE
    LAUGHING LOVE-GOD.

and the males in the audience will shift their chewing gum to the other
cheek and take a firmer grip of their companions' hands and the man at
the piano will play "Everybody wants a key to my cellar" or something
equally appropriate, very soulfully and slowly, with a wistful eye on
the half-smoked cigarette which he has parked on the lowest octave and
intends finishing as soon as the picture is over. But I prefer the
plain frank statement that it was the fourth day of the voyage. That is
my story and I mean to stick to it.

Samuel Marlowe, muffled in a bathrobe, came back to the stateroom from
his tub. His manner had the offensive jauntiness of the man who has had
a cold bath when he might just as easily have had a hot one. He looked
out of the porthole at the shimmering sea. He felt strong and happy and
exuberant.

It was not merely the spiritual pride induced by a cold bath that was
uplifting this young man. The fact was that, as he towelled his glowing
back, he had suddenly come to the decision that this very day he would
propose to Wilhelmina Bennett. Yes, he would put his fortune to the
test, to win or lose it all. True, he had only known her for four days,
but what of that?

Nothing in the way of modern progress is more remarkable than the
manner in which the attitude of your lover has changed concerning
proposals of marriage. When Samuel Marlowe's grandfather had convinced
himself, after about a year and a half of respectful aloofness, that the
emotion which he felt towards Samuel Marlowe's grandmother-to-be was
love, the fashion of the period compelled him to approach the matter in a
roundabout way. First, he spent an evening or two singing sentimental
ballads, she accompanying him on the piano and the rest of the family
sitting on the side-lines to see that no rough stuff was pulled. Having
noted that she drooped her eyelashes and turned faintly pink when he came
to the "Thee--only thee!" bit, he felt a mild sense of encouragement,
strong enough to justify him in taking her sister aside next day and
asking if the object of his affections ever happened to mention his name
in the course of conversation. Further _pour-parlers_ having passed
with her aunt, two more sisters, and her little brother, he felt that the
moment had arrived when he might send her a volume of Shelley, with
some of the passages marked in pencil. A few weeks later, he
interviewed her father and obtained his consent to the paying of his
addresses. And finally, after writing her a letter which began "Madam!
you will not have been insensible to the fact that for some time past
you have inspired in my bosom feelings deeper than those of ordinary
friendship...." he waylaid her in the rose-garden and brought the thing
off.

How different is the behaviour of the modern young man. His courtship
can hardly be called a courtship at all. His methods are those of Sir
W. S. Gilbert's Alphonso.

    "Alphonso, who for cool assurance all creation licks,
    He up and said to Emily who has cheek enough for six:
    'Miss Emily, I love you. Will you marry? Say the word!'
    And Emily said: 'Certainly, Alphonso, like a bird!'"

Sam Marlowe was a warm supporter of the Alphonso method. He was a
bright young man and did not require a year to make up his mind that
Wilhelmina Bennett had been set apart by Fate from the beginning of
time to be his bride. He had known it from the moment he saw her on the
dock, and all the subsequent strolling, reading, talking, soup-drinking,
tea-drinking, and shuffle-board-playing which they had done together
had merely solidified his original impression. He loved this girl with
all the force of a fiery nature--the fiery nature of the Marlowes was a
byword in Bruton Street, Berkeley Square--and something seemed to
whisper that she loved him. At any rate she wanted somebody like Sir
Galahad, and, without wishing to hurl bouquets at himself, he could not
see where she could possibly get anyone liker Sir Galahad than himself.
So, wind and weather permitting, Samuel Marlowe intended to propose to
Wilhelmina Bennett this very day.

He let down the trick basin which hung beneath the mirror and,
collecting his shaving materials, began to lather his face.

"I am the Bandolero!" sang Sam blithely through the soap, "I am, I am
the Bandolero! Yes, yes, I am the Bandolero!"

The untidy heap of bedclothes in the lower berth stirred restlessly.

"Oh, God!" said Eustace Hignett thrusting out a tousled head.

Sam regarded his cousin with commiseration. Horrid things had been
happening to Eustace during the last few days, and it was quite a
pleasant surprise each morning to find that he was still alive.

"Feeling bad again, old man?"

"I was feeling all right," replied Hignett churlishly, "until you began
the farmyard imitations. What sort of a day is it?"

"Glorious! The sea...."

"Don't talk about the sea!"

"Sorry! The sun is shining brighter than it has ever shone in the
history of the race. Why don't you get up?"

"Nothing will induce me to get up."

"Well, go a regular buster and have an egg for breakfast."

Eustace Hignett shuddered.

"Do you think I am an ostrich?" He eyed Sam sourly. "You seem devilish
pleased with yourself this morning!"

Sam dried the razor carefully and put it away. He hesitated. Then the
desire to confide in somebody got the better of him.

"The fact is," he said apologetically, "I'm in love!"

"In love!" Eustace Hignett sat up and bumped his head sharply against
the berth above him. "Has this been going on long?"

"Ever since the voyage started."

"I think you might have told me," said Eustace reproachfully. "I told
you my troubles. Why did you not let me know that this awful thing had
come upon you?"

"Well, as a matter of fact, old man, during these last few days I had a
notion that your mind was, so to speak, occupied elsewhere."

"Who is she?"

"Oh, a girl I met on board."

"Don't do it!" said Eustace Hignett solemnly. "As a friend I entreat
you not to do it! Take my advice, as a man who knows women, and don't
do it!"

"Don't do what?"

"Propose to her. I can tell by the glitter in your eye that you are
intending to propose to this girl--probably this morning. Don't do it.
Women are the devil, whether they marry you or jilt you. Do you realise
that women wear black evening dresses that have to be hooked up in a
hurry when you are late for the theatre, and that, out of sheer wanton
malignity, the hooks and eyes on those dresses are also made black? Do
you realise...?"

"Oh, I've thought it all out."

"And take the matter of children. How would you like to become the
father--and a mere glance around you will show you that the chances are
enormously in favour of such a thing happening--of a boy with
spectacles and protruding front teeth who asks questions all the time?
Out of six small boys whom I saw when I came on board, four wore
spectacles and had teeth like rabbits. The other two were equally
revolting in different styles. How would you like to become the
father...?"

"There is no need to be indelicate," said Sam stiffly. "A man must take
these chances."

"Give her the miss in baulk," pleaded Hignett. "Stay down here for the
rest of the voyage. You can easily dodge her when you get to
Southampton. And, if she sends messages, say you're ill and can't be
disturbed."

Sam gazed at him, revolted. More than ever he began to understand how
it was that a girl with ideals had broken off her engagement with this
man. He finished dressing, and, after a satisfying breakfast, went on
deck.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was, as he had said, a glorious morning. The sample which he had had
through the porthole had not prepared him for the magic of it. The ship
swam in a vast bowl of the purest blue on an azure carpet flecked with
silver. It was a morning which impelled a man to great deeds, a morning
which shouted to him to chuck his chest out and be romantic. The sight
of Billie Bennett, trim and gleaming in a pale green sweater and a
white skirt had the effect of causing Marlowe to alter the programme
which he had sketched out. Proposing to this girl was not a thing to be
put off till after lunch. It was a thing to be done now and at once. The
finest efforts of the finest cooks in the world could not put him in
better form than he felt at present.

"Good morning, Miss Bennett."

"Good morning, Mr. Marlowe."

"Isn't it a perfect day?"

"Wonderful!"

"It makes all the difference on board ship if the weather is fine."

"Yes, doesn't it?"

"Shall we walk round?" said Billie.

Sam glanced about him. It was the time of day when the promenade deck
was always full. Passengers in cocoons of rugs lay on chairs, waiting
in a dull trance till the steward should arrive with the eleven o'clock
soup. Others, more energetic, strode up and down. From the point of
view of a man who wished to reveal his most sacred feelings to a
beautiful girl, the place was practically Fifth Avenue and Forty-second
Street.

"It's so crowded," he said. "Let's go on to the upper deck."

"All right. You can read to me. Go and fetch your Tennyson."

Sam felt that fortune was playing into his hands. His four-days'
acquaintance with the bard had been sufficient to show him that the man
was there forty ways when it came to writing about love. You could open
his collected works almost anywhere and shut your eyes and dab down
your finger on some red-hot passage. A proposal of marriage is a thing
which it is rather difficult to bring neatly into the ordinary run of
conversation. It wants leading up to. But, if you once start reading
poetry, especially Tennyson's, almost anything is apt to give you your
cue. He bounded light-heartedly into the state-room, waking Eustace
Hignett from an uneasy dose.

"Now what?" said Eustace.

"Where's that copy of Tennyson you gave me? I left it--ah, here it is.
Well, see you later!"

"Wait! What are you going to do?"

"Oh, that girl I told you about," said Sam making for the door. "She
wants me to read Tennyson to her on the upper deck."

"Tennyson?"

"Yes."

"On the upper deck?"

"That's the spot."

"This is the end," said Eustace Hignett, turning his face to the wall.

Sam raced up the companion-way as far as it went; then, going out on
deck, climbed a flight of steps and found himself in the only part of
the ship which was ever even comparatively private. The main herd of
passengers preferred the promenade deck, two layers below.

He threaded his way through a maze of boats, ropes, and curious-shaped
steel structures which the architect of the ship seemed to have tacked
on at the last moment in a spirit of sheer exuberance. Above him
towered one of the funnels, before him a long, slender mast. He hurried
on, and presently came upon Billie sitting on a garden seat, backed by
the white roof of the smoke-room; beside this was a small deck which
seemed to have lost its way and strayed up here all by itself. It was
the deck on which one could occasionally see the patients playing an
odd game with long sticks and bits of wood--not shuffleboard but
something even lower in the mental scale. This morning, however, the
devotees of this pastime were apparently under proper restraint, for
the deck was empty.

"This is jolly," he said, sitting down beside the girl and drawing a
deep breath of satisfaction.

"Yes, I love this deck. It's so peaceful."

"It's the only part of the ship where you can be reasonably sure of not
meeting stout men in flannels and nautical caps. An ocean voyage always
makes me wish that I had a private yacht."

"It would be nice."

"A private yacht," repeated Sam sliding a trifle closer. "We would sail
about, visiting desert islands which lay like jewels in the heart of
tropic seas."

"We?"

"Most certainly we. It wouldn't be any fun if you were not there."

"That's very complimentary."

"Well, it wouldn't. I'm not fond of girls as a rule...."

"Oh, aren't you?"

"No!" said Sam decidedly. It was a point which he wished to make clear
at the outset. "Not at all fond. My friends have often remarked upon
it. A palmist once told me that I had one of those rare spiritual
natures which cannot be satisfied with substitutes but must seek and
seek till they find their soul-mate. When other men all round me were
frittering away their emotions in idle flirtations which did not touch
their deeper natures, I was ... I was ... well, I wasn't, if you see what I
mean."

"Oh, you wasn't ... weren't--?"

"No. Some day I knew I should meet the only girl I could possibly love,
and then I would pour out upon her the stored-up devotion of a
lifetime, lay an unblemished heart at her feet, fold her in my arms and
say 'At last!'"

"How jolly for her. Like having a circus all to oneself."

"Well, yes," said Sam after a momentary pause.

"When I was a child I always thought that that would be the most
wonderful thing in the world."

"The most wonderful thing in the world is love, a pure and consuming
love, a love which...."

"Oh, hello!" said a voice.

All through this scene, right from the very beginning of it, Sam had
not been able to rid himself of a feeling that there was something
missing. The time and the place and the girl--they were all present and
correct; nevertheless there was something missing, some familiar object
which seemed to leave a gap. He now perceived that what had caused the
feeling was the complete absence of Bream Mortimer. He was absent no
longer. He was standing in front of them with one leg, his head lowered
as if he were waiting for someone to scratch it. Sam's primary impulse
was to offer him a nut.

"Oh, hello, Bream!" said Billie.

"Hullo!" said Sam.

"Hullo!" said Bream Mortimer. "Here you are!"

There was a pause.

"I thought you might be here," said Bream.

"Yes, here we are," said Billie.

"Yes, we're here," said Sam.

There was another pause.

"Mind if I join you?" said Bream.

"N-no," said Billie.

"N-no," said Sam.

"No," said Billie again. "No ... that is to say ... oh no, not at all."

There was a third pause.

"On second thoughts," said Bream, "I believe I'll take a stroll on the
promenade deck, if you don't mind."

They said they did not mind. Bream Mortimer, having bumped his head
twice against overhanging steel ropes, melted away.

"Who is that fellow?" demanded Sam wrathfully.

"He's the son of father's best friend."

Sam started. Somehow this girl had always been so individual to him that
he had never thought of her having a father.

"We have known each other all our lives," continued Billie. "Father
thinks a tremendous lot of Bream. I suppose it was because Bream was
sailing by her that father insisted on my coming over on this boat. I'm
in disgrace, you know. I was cabled for and had to sail at a few days'
notice. I...."

"Oh, hello!"

"Why, Bream!" said Billie, looking at him as he stood on the old spot
in the same familiar attitude with rather less affection than the son
of her father's best friend might have expected. "I thought you said
you were going down to the Promenade Deck."

"I did go down to the promenade deck. And I'd hardly got there when a
fellow who's getting up the ship's concert to-morrow night nobbled me
to do a couple of songs. He wanted to know if I knew anyone else who
would help. I came up to ask you," he said to Sam, "if you would do
something."

"No," said Sam. "I won't."

"He's got a man who's going to lecture on deep-sea fish and a couple of
women who both want to sing 'The Rosary' but he's still an act or two
short. Sure you won't rally round?"

"Quite sure."

"Oh, all right." Bream Mortimer hovered wistfully above them. "It's a
great morning, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Sam.

"Oh, Bream!" said Billie.

"Hello?"

"Do be a pet and go and talk to Jane Hubbard. I'm sure she must be
feeling lonely. I left her all by herself down on the next deck."

A look of alarm spread itself over Bream's face.

"Jane Hubbard! Oh, say, have a heart!"

"She's a very nice girl."

"She's so darned dynamic. She looks at you as if you were a giraffe or
something and she would like to take a pot at you with a rifle."

"Nonsense! Run along. Get her to tell you some of her big-game hunting
experiences. They are most interesting."

Bream drifted sadly away.

"I don't blame Miss Hubbard," said Sam.

"What do you mean?"

"Looking at him as if she wanted to pot at him with a rifle. I should
like to do it myself. What were you saying when he came up?"

"Oh, don't let's talk about me. Read me some Tennyson."

Sam opened the book very willingly. Infernal Bream Mortimer had
absolutely shot to pieces the spell which had begun to fall on them at
the beginning of their conversation. Only by reading poetry, it seemed
to him, could it be recovered. And when he saw the passage at which the
volume had opened he realised that his luck was in. Good old Tennyson!
He was all right. He had the stuff. You could send him to hit in a
pinch every time with the comfortable knowledge that he would not
strike out.

He cleared his throat.

    "'Oh let the solid ground
      Not fail beneath my feet
    Before my life has found
      What some have found so sweet;
    Then let come what come may,
    What matter if I go mad,
    I shall have had my day.

    Let the sweet heavens endure,
      Not close and darken above me
    Before I am quite quite sure
      That there is one to love me....'"

This was absolutely topping. It was like diving off a spring-board. He
could see the girl sitting with a soft smile on her face, her eyes, big
and dreamy, gazing out over the sunlit sea. He laid down the book and
took her hand.

"There is something," he began in a low voice, "which I have been
trying to say ever since we met, something which I think you must have
read in my eyes."

Her head was bent. She did not withdraw her hand.

"Until this voyage began," he went on, "I did not know what life meant.
And then I saw you! It was like the gate of heaven opening. You're the
dearest girl I ever met, and you can bet I'll never forget...." He
stopped. "I'm not trying to make it rhyme," he said apologetically.
"Billie, don't think me silly ... I mean ... if you had the merest notion,
dearest ... I don't know what's the matter with me ... Billie, darling, you
are the only girl in the world! I have been looking for you for years
and years and I have found you at last, my soul-mate. Surely this does
not come as a surprise to you? That is, I mean, you must have seen that
I've been keen ... There's that damned Walt Mason stuff again!" His eyes
fell on the volume beside him and he uttered an exclamation of
enlightenment. "It's those poems!" he cried. "I've been boning them up
to such an extent that they've got me doing it too. What I'm trying to
say is, Will you marry me?"

She was drooping towards him. Her face was very sweet and tender, her
eyes misty. He slid an arm about her waist. She raised her lips to his.

       *       *       *       *       *

Suddenly she drew herself away, a cloud on her face.

"Darling," she said, "I've a confession to make."

"A confession? You? Nonsense!"

"I can't get rid of a horrible thought. I was wondering if this will
last."

"Our love? Don't be afraid that it will fade ... I mean ... why, it's so
vast, it's bound to last ... that is to say, of course, it will."

She traced a pattern on the deck with her shoe.

"I'm afraid of myself. You see, once before--and it was not so very
long ago,--I thought I had met my ideal, but...."

Sam laughed heartily.

"Are you worrying about that absurd business of poor old Eustace
Hignett?"

She started violently.

"You know!"

"Of course! He told me himself."

"Do you know him? Where did you meet him?"

"I've known him all my life. He's my cousin. As a matter of fact, we
are sharing a stateroom on board now."

"Eustace is on board! Oh, this is awful! What shall I do when I meet
him?"

"Oh, pass it off with a light laugh and a genial quip. Just say: 'Oh,
here you are!' or something. You know the sort of thing."

"It will be terrible."

"Not a bit of it. Why should you feel embarrassed? He must have
realised by now that you acted in the only possible way. It was absurd
his ever expecting you to marry him. I mean to say, just look at it
dispassionately ... Eustace  ... poor old Eustace ... and _you_! The
Princess and the Swineherd!"

"Does Mr. Hignett keep pigs?" she asked, surprised.

"I mean that poor old Eustace is so far below you, darling, that, with
the most charitable intentions, one can only look on his asking you to
marry him in the light of a record exhibition of pure nerve. A dear,
good fellow, of course, but hopeless where the sterner realities of
life are concerned. A man who can't even stop a dog-fight! In a world
which is practically one seething mass of fighting dogs, how could you
trust yourself to such a one? Nobody is fonder of Eustace Hignett than
I am, but ... well, I mean to say!"

"I see what you mean. He really wasn't my ideal."

"Not by a mile."

She mused, her chin in her hand.

"Of course, he was quite a dear in a lot of ways."

"Oh, a splendid chap," said Sam tolerantly.

"Have you ever heard him sing? I think what first attracted me to him
was his beautiful voice. He really sings extraordinarily well."

A slight but definite spasm of jealousy afflicted Sam. He had no
objection to praising poor old Eustace within decent limits, but the
conversation seemed to him to be confining itself too exclusively to
one subject.

"Yes?" he said. "Oh yes, I've heard him sing. Not lately. He does
drawing-room ballads and all that sort of thing still, I suppose?"

"Have you ever heard him sing 'My love is like a glowing tulip that in
an old-world garden grows'?"

"I have not had that advantage," replied Sam stiffly. "But anyone can
sing a drawing-room ballad. Now something funny, something that will
make people laugh, something that really needs putting across ... that's
a different thing altogether."

"Do you sing that sort of thing?"

"People have been good enough to say...."

"Then," said Billie decidedly, "you must certainly do something at the
ship's concert to-morrow! The idea of your trying to hide your light
under a bushel! I will tell Bream to count on you. He is an excellent
accompanist. He can accompany you."

"Yes, but ... well, I don't know," said Sam doubtfully. He could not help
remembering that the last time he had sung in public had been at a
house-supper at school, seven years before, and that on that occasion
somebody whom it was a lasting grief to him that he had been unable to
identify had thrown a pat of butter at him.

"Of course you must sing," said Billie. "I'll tell Bream when I go down
to lunch. What will you sing?"

"Well--er--"

"Well, I'm sure it will be wonderful whatever it is. You are so
wonderful in every way. You remind me of one of the heroes of old!"

Sam's discomposure vanished. In the first place, this was much more the
sort of conversation which he felt the situation indicated. In the
second place he had remembered that there was no need for him to sing
at all. He could do that imitation of Frank Tinney which had been such
a hit at the Trinity smoker. He was on safe ground there. He knew he
was good. He clasped the girl to him and kissed her sixteen times.

Suddenly, as he released her, the cloud came back into her face.

"My angel," he asked solicitously, "what's the matter?"

"I was thinking of father," she said.

The glowing splendour of the morning took on a touch of chill for Sam.

"Father!" he said thoughtfully. "Yes, I see what you mean! He will
think that we have been a little precipitate, eh? He will require a
little time in order to learn to love me, you think?"

"He is sure to be pretty angry at first," agreed Billie. "You see I
know he has always hoped that I would marry Bream."

"Bream! Bream Mortimer! What a silly thing to hope!"

"Well, you see, I told you that Mr. Mortimer was father's best friend.
They are both over in England now, and are trying to get a house in the
country for the summer which we can all share. I rather think the idea
is to bring me and Bream closer together."

"How the deuce could that fellow be brought any closer to you? He's
like a burr as it is."

"Well, that was the idea, I'm sure. Of course, I could never look at
Bream now."

"I hate looking at him myself," said Sam feelingly.

A group of afflicted persons, bent upon playing with long sticks and
bits of wood, now invaded the upper deck. Their weak-minded cries
filled the air. Sam and the girl rose.

"Touching on your father once more," he said as they made their way
below, "is he a very formidable sort of man?"

"He can be a dear. But he's rather quick-tempered. You must be very
ingratiating."

"I will practise it in front of the glass every morning for the rest of
the voyage," said Sam.

He went down to the stateroom in a mixed mood of elation and
apprehension. He was engaged to the most wonderful girl in the world,
but over the horizon loomed the menacing figure of Father. He wished he
could induce Billie to allow him to waive the formality of thawing
Father. Eustace Hignett had apparently been able to do so. But that
experience had presumably engendered a certain caution in her. The
Hignett fiasco had spoiled her for runaway marriages. Well, if it had
to be done, it must be done, and that was all there was to it.




CHAPTER FIVE

"Good God!" cried Eustace Hignett.

He stared at the figure which loomed above him in the fading light
which came through the porthole of the stateroom. The hour was
seven-thirty and he had just woken from a troubled doze, full of
strange nightmares, and for the moment he thought that he must still be
dreaming, for the figure before him could have walked straight into any
nightmare and no questions asked. Then suddenly he became aware that it
was his cousin, Samuel Marlowe. As in the historic case of father in
the pigstye, he could tell him by his hat. But why was he looking like
that? Was it simply some trick of the uncertain light, or was his face
really black and had his mouth suddenly grown to six times its normal
size and become a vivid crimson?

Sam turned. He had been looking at himself in the mirror with a
satisfaction which, to the casual observer, his appearance would not
have seemed to justify. Hignett had not been suffering from a delusion.
His cousin's face was black; and, even as he turned, he gave it a dab
with a piece of burnt cork and made it blacker.

"Hullo! You awake?" he said and switched on the light.

Eustace Hignett shied like a startled horse. His friend's profile, seen
dimly, had been disconcerting enough. Full face, he was a revolting
object. Nothing that Eustace Hignett had encountered in his recent
dreams--and they had included such unusual fauna as elephants in top
hats and running shorts--had affected him so profoundly. Sam's
appearance smote him like a blow. It seemed to take him straight into a
different and dreadful world.

"What ... what ... what...?" he gurgled.

Sam squinted at himself in the glass and added a touch of black to his
nose.

"How do I look?"

Eustace Hignett began to fear that his cousin's reason must have become
unseated. He could not conceive of any really sane man, looking like
that, being anxious to be told how he looked.

"Are my lips red enough? It's for the ship's concert, you know. It
starts in half an hour, though I believe I'm not on till the second part.
Speaking as a friend, would you put a touch more black round the ears,
or are they all right?"

Curiosity replaced apprehension in Hignett's mind.

"What on earth are you doing performing at the ship's concert?"

"Oh, they roped me in. It got about somehow that I was a valuable man
and they wouldn't take no." Sam deepened the colour of his ears. "As a
matter of fact," he said casually, "my fiancee made rather a point of
my doing something."

A sharp yell from the lower berth proclaimed the fact that the
significance of the remark had not been lost on Eustace.

"Your fiancee?"

"The girl I'm engaged to. Didn't I tell you about that? Yes, I'm
engaged."

Eustace sighed heavily.

"I feared the worst. Tell me, who is she?"

"Didn't I tell you her name?"

"No."

"Curious! I must have forgotten." He hummed an airy strain as he
blackened the tip of his nose. "It's rather a curious coincidence,
really. Her name is Bennett."

"She may be a relation."

"That's true. Of course, girls do have relations."

"What is her first name?"

"That is another rather remarkable thing. It's Wilhelmina."

"Wilhelmina!"

"Of course, there must be hundreds of girls in the world called
Wilhelmina Bennett, but still it is a coincidence."

"What colour is her hair?" demanded Eustace Hignett in a hollow voice.
"Her hair! What colour is it?"

"Her hair? Now, let me see. You ask me what colour is her hair. Well,
you might call it auburn ... or russet ... or you might call it Titian...."

"Never mind what you might call it. Is it red?"

"Red? Why, yes. That is a very good description of it. Now that you put
it to me like that, it _is_ red."

"Has she a trick of grabbing at you suddenly, when she gets excited,
like a kitten with a ball of wool?"

"Yes. Yes, she has."

Eustace Hignett uttered a sharp cry.

"Sam," he said, "can you bear a shock?"

"I'll have a dash at it."

"Brace up!"

"The girl you are engaged to is the same girl who promised to marry
_me_."

"Well, well!" said Sam.

There was a silence.

"Awfully sorry, of course, and all that," said Sam.

"Don't apologise to me!" said Eustace. "My poor old chap, my only
feeling towards you is one of the purest and profoundest pity." He
reached out and pressed Sam's hand. "I regard you as a toad beneath the
harrow!"

"Well, I suppose that's one way of offering congratulations and cheery
good wishes."

"And on top of that," went on Eustace, deeply moved. "You have got to
sing at the ship's concert."

"Why shouldn't I sing at the ship's concert?"

"My dear old man, you have many worthy qualities, but you must know
that you can't sing. You can't sing for nuts! I don't want to
discourage you, but, long ago as it is, you can't have forgotten what
an ass you made of yourself at that house-supper at school. Seeing
you up against it like this, I regret that I threw a lump of butter at
you on that occasion, though at the time it seemed the only course to
pursue."

Sam started.

"Was it you who threw that bit of butter?"

"It was."

"I wish I'd known! You silly chump, you ruined my collar."

"Ah, well, it's seven years ago. You would have had to send it to the
wash anyhow by this time. But don't let us brood on the past. Let us
put our heads together and think how we can get you out of this
terrible situation."

"I don't want to get out of it. I confidently expect to be the hit of
the evening."

"The hit of the evening! You! Singing!"

"I'm not going to sing. I'm going to do that imitation of Frank Tinney
which I did at the Trinity Smoker. You haven't forgotten that? You were
at the piano taking the part of the conductor of the orchestra. What a
riot I was--we were! I say, Eustace, old man, I suppose you don't feel
well enough to come up now and take your old part? You could do it
without a rehearsal. You remember how it went ... 'Hullo, Ernest!' 'Hullo,
Frank!' Why not come along?"

"The only piano I will ever sit at will be one firmly fixed on a floor
that does not heave and wobble under me."

"Nonsense! The boat's as steady as a rock now. The sea's like a
mill-pond."

"Nevertheless, thanking you for your suggestion, no!"

"Oh, well, then I shall have to get on as best I can with that fellow
Mortimer. We've been rehearsing all the afternoon and he seems to have
the hang of the thing. But he won't be really right. He has no pep, no
vim. Still, if you won't ... well, I think I'll be getting along to his
stateroom. I told him I would look in for a last rehearsal."

The door closed behind Sam, and Eustace Hignett, lying on his back,
gave himself up to melancholy meditation. He was deeply disturbed by
his cousin's sad story. He knew what it meant being engaged to
Wilhelmina Bennett. It was like being taken aloft in a balloon and
dropped with a thud on the rocks.

His reflections were broken by the abrupt opening of the door. Marlowe
rushed in. Eustace peered anxiously out of his berth. There was too much
cork on his cousin's face to allow of any real registering of emotion,
but he could tell from his manner that all was not well.

"What's the matter?"

Sam sank on the lounge.

"The bounder has quit!"

"The bounder? What bounder?"

"There is only one! Bream Mortimer, curse him! There may be others whom
thoughtless critics rank as bounders, but he is the only man really
deserving of the title. He refuses to appear! He has walked out on the
act! He has left me flat! I went into his stateroom just now, as
arranged, and the man was lying on his bunk, groaning."

"I thought you said the sea was like a millpond."

"It wasn't that! He's perfectly fit. But it seems that the silly ass
took it into his head to propose to Billie just before dinner--
apparently he's loved her for years in a silent, self-effacing way--and
of course she told him that she was engaged to me, and the thing upset
him to such an extent that he says the idea of sitting down at a piano
and helping me give an imitation of Frank Tinney revolts him. He says
he intends to spend the evening in bed, reading Schopenhauer. I hope it
chokes him."

"But this is splendid! This lets you out."

"What do you mean? Lets me out?"

"Why, now you won't be able to appear. Oh, you will be thankful for
this in years to come."

"Won't I appear! Won't I dashed well appear! Do you think I'm going to
disappoint that dear girl when she is relying on me? I would rather
die!"

"But you can't appear without a pianist."

"I've got a pianist."

"You have?"

"Yes. A little undersized shrimp of a fellow with a green face and ears
like water-wings."

"I don't think I know him."

"Yes, you do. He's you!"

"Me!"

"Yes, you. You are going to sit at the piano to-night."

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but it's impossible. I gave you my views
on the subject just now."

"You've altered them."

"I haven't."

"Well, you soon will, and I'll tell you why. If you don't get up out of
that damned berth you've been roosting in all your life, I'm going to
ring for J. B. Midgeley and I'm going to tell him to bring me a bit of
dinner in here and I'm going to eat it before your eyes."

"But you've had dinner."

"Well, I'll have another. I feel just ready for a nice fat pork
chop...."

"Stop. Stop!"

"A nice fat pork chop with potatoes and lots of cabbage," repeated Sam,
firmly. "And I shall eat it here on this very lounge. Now, how do we
go?"

"You wouldn't do that!" said Eustace piteously.

"I would and will."

"But I shouldn't be any good at the piano. I've forgotten how the thing
used to go."

"You haven't done anything of the kind. I come in and say, 'Hullo,
Ernest!' and you say 'Hullo, Frank!' and then you help me tell the
story about the Pullman car. A child could do your part of it."

"Perhaps there is some child on board...."

"No! I want you. I shall feel safe with you. We've done it together
before."

"But honestly, I really don't think ... it isn't as if...."

Sam rose and extended a finger towards the bell.

"Stop! Stop!" cried Eustace Hignett. "I'll do it!"

Sam withdrew his finger.

"Good!" he said. "We've just got time for a rehearsal while you're
dressing. 'Hullo, Ernest!'"

"Hullo, Frank," said Eustace Hignett, brokenly, as he searched for his
unfamiliar trousers.




CHAPTER SIX


Ship's concerts are given in aid of the seamen's orphans and widows,
and, after one has been present at a few of them, one seems to feel
that any right-thinking orphan or widow would rather jog along and take
a chance of starvation than be the innocent cause of such things. They
open with a long speech from the master of the ceremonies--so long, as
a rule, that it is only the thought of what is going to happen
afterwards that enables the audience to bear it with fortitude. This
done, the amateur talent is unleashed, and the grim work begins.

It was not till after the all too brief intermission for rest and
recuperation that the newly formed team of Marlowe and Hignett was
scheduled to appear. Previous to this there had been dark deeds done in
the quiet saloon. The lecturer on deep-sea fish had fulfilled his
threat and spoken at great length on a subject which, treated by a
master of oratory, would have palled on the audience after ten or
fifteen minutes; and at the end of fifteen minutes this speaker had only
just got past the haddocks and was feeling his way tentatively through
the shrimps. 'The Rosary' had been sung and there was an uneasy doubt
as to whether it was not going to be sung again after the interval--the
latest rumour being that the second of the rival lady singers had proved
adamant to all appeals and intended to fight the thing out on the lines
she had originally chosen if they put her in irons.

A young man recited 'Gunga Din' and, wilfully misinterpreting the
gratitude of the audience that it was over for a desire for more, had
followed it with 'Fuzzy-Wuzzy.' His sister--these things run in
families--had sung 'My Little Gray Home in the West'--rather sombrely,
for she had wanted to sing the 'Rosary,' and, with the same obtuseness
which characterised her brother, had come back and rendered two
plantation songs. The audience was now examining its programmes in the
interval of silence in order to ascertain the duration of the sentence
still remaining unexpired.

It was shocked to read the following:

    7. A Little Imitation......S. Marlowe

All over the saloon you could see fair women and brave men wilting in
their seats. Imitation...! The word, as Keats would have said, was
like a knell! Many of these people were old travellers, and their minds
went back wincingly, as one recalls forgotten wounds, to occasions when
performers at ships' concerts had imitated whole strings of Dickens'
characters or, with the assistance of a few hats and a little false
hair, had endeavored to portray Napoleon, Bismarck, Shakespeare and
others of the famous dead. In this printed line on the programme there
was nothing to indicate the nature or scope of the imitation which this
S. Marlowe proposed to inflict upon them. They could only sit and wait
and hope that it would be short.

There was a sinking of hearts as Eustace Hignett moved down the room
and took his place at the piano. A pianist! This argued more singing.
The more pessimistic began to fear that the imitation was going to be
one of those imitations of well-known opera artistes which, though
rare, do occasionally add to the horrors of ships' concerts. They
stared at Hignett apprehensively. There seemed to them something
ominous in the man's very aspect. His face was very pale and set, the
face of one approaching a task at which his humanity shudders. They
could not know that the pallor of Eustace Hignett was due entirely to
the slight tremor which, even on the calmest nights, the engines of an
ocean liner produce in the flooring of a dining saloon and to that
faint, yet well-defined, smell of cooked meats which clings to a room
where a great many people have recently been eating a great many meals.
A few beads of cold perspiration were clinging to Eustace Hignett's
brow. He looked straight before him with unseeing eyes. He was thinking
hard of the Sahara.

So tense was Eustace's concentration that he did not see Billie
Bennett, seated in the front row. Billie had watched him enter with a
little thrill of embarrassment. She wished that she had been content
with one of the seats at the back. But her friend Jane Hubbard, who
accompanied her, had insisted on the front row.

In order to avoid recognition for as long as possible, Billie now put
up her fan and turned to Jane. She was surprised to see that her friend
was staring eagerly before her with a fixity almost equal to that of
Eustace.

"What _is_ the matter, Jane?"

Jane Hubbard was a tall, handsome girl with large brown eyes. About
her, as Bream Mortimer had said, there was something dynamic. The
daughter of an eminent explorer and big-game hunter, she had frequently
accompanied her father on his expeditions. An out-doors girl.

"Who is that man at the piano?" she whispered. "Do you know him?"

"As a matter of fact, I do," said Billie. "His name is Hignett. Why?"

"I met him on the Subway not long ago. Poor little fellow, how
miserable he looks!"

At this moment their conversation was interrupted. Eustace Hignett,
pulling himself together with a painful effort, raised his hands and
struck a crashing chord: and, as he did so, there appeared through the
door at the far end of the saloon a figure at the sight of which the
entire audience started convulsively with a feeling that a worse thing
had befallen them than even they had looked for.

The figure was richly clad in some scarlet material. Its face was a
grisly black and below the nose appeared what seemed a horrible gash.
It advanced towards them, smoking a cigar.

"Hullo, Ernest," it said.

And then it seemed to pause expectantly, as though desiring some reply.
Dead silence reigned in the saloon.

"Hullo, Ernest!"

Those nearest the piano--and nobody more quickly than Jane Hubbard--now
observed that the white face of the man on the stool had grown whiter
still. His eyes gazed out glassily from under his damp brow. He looked
like a man who was seeing some ghastly sight. The audience sympathised
with him. They felt like that, too.

In all human plans there is ever some slight hitch, some little
miscalculation which just makes all the difference. A moment's thought
should have told Eustace Hignett that a half-smoked cigar was one of
the essential properties to any imitation of the eminent Mr. Tinney:
but he had completely overlooked the fact. The cigar came as an
absolute surprise to him and it could not have affected him more
powerfully if it had been a voice from the tomb. He stared at it
pallidly, like Macbeth at the ghost of Banquo. It was a strong, lively
young cigar, and its curling smoke played lightly about his nostrils.
His jaw fell. His eyes protruded. He looked for a long moment like one
of those deep-sea fishes concerning which the recent lecturer had
spoken so searchingly. Then with the cry of a stricken animal, he
bounded from his seat and fled for the deck.

There was a rustle of millinery at Billie's side as Jane Hubbard rose
and followed him. Jane was deeply stirred. Even as he sat, looking so
pale and piteous, at the piano, her big heart had gone out to him, and
now, in his moment of anguish, he seemed to bring to the surface
everything that was best and most compassionate in her nature.
Thrusting aside a steward who happened to be between her and the door,
she raced in pursuit.

Sam Marlowe had watched his cousin's dash for the open with a
consternation so complete that his sense seemed to have left him. A
general, deserted by his men on some stricken field, might have felt
something akin to his emotion. Of all the learned professions, the
imitation of Mr. Frank Tinney is the one which can least easily be
carried through single-handed. The man at the piano, the leader of the
orchestra, is essential. He is the life-blood of the entertainment.
Without him, nothing can be done.

For an instant Sam stood there, gaping blankly. Then the open door of
the saloon seemed to beckon an invitation. He made for it, reached it,
passed through it. That concluded his efforts in aid of the Seamen's
Orphans and Widows.

The spell which had lain on the audience broke. This imitation seemed
to them to possess in an extraordinary measure the one quality which
renders amateur imitations tolerable, that of brevity. They had seen
many amateur imitations, but never one as short as this. The saloon
echoed with their applause.

It brought no balm to Samuel Marlowe. He did not hear it. He had fled
for refuge to his stateroom and was lying in the lower berth, chewing
the pillow, a soul in torment.




CHAPTER SEVEN


There was a tap at the door. Sam sat up dizzily. He had lost all count
of time.

"Who's that?"

"I have a note for you, sir."

It was the level voice of J. B. Midgeley, the steward. The stewards of
the White Star Line, besides being the civillest and most obliging body
of men in the world, all have soft and pleasant voices. A White Star
steward, waking you up at six-thirty, to tell you that your bath is
ready, when you wanted to sleep on till twelve, is the nearest human
approach to the nightingale.

"A what?"

"A note, sir."

Sam jumped up and switched on the light. He went to the door and took
the note from J. B. Midgeley, who, his mission accomplished, retired in
an orderly manner down the passage. Sam looked at the letter with a
thrill. He had never seen the hand-writing before, but, with the eye of
love, he recognized it. It was just the sort of hand he would have
expected Billie to write, round and smooth and flowing, the writing of a
warm-hearted girl. He tore open the envelope.

"Please come up to the top deck. I want to speak to you."

Sam could not disguise it from himself that he was a little
disappointed. I don't know if you see anything wrong with the letter,
but the way Sam looked at it was that, for a first love-letter, it
might have been longer and perhaps a shade warmer. And, without running
any risk of writer's cramp, she might have signed it.

However, these were small matters. No doubt she had been in a hurry and
all that sort of thing. The important point was that he was going to
see her. When a man's afraid, sings the bard, a beautiful maid is a
cheering sight to see; and the same truth holds good when a man has
made an exhibition of himself at a ship's concert. A woman's gentle
sympathy, that was what Samuel Marlowe wanted more than anything else
at the moment. That, he felt, was what the doctor ordered. He scrubbed
the burnt cork off his face with all possible speed and changed his
clothes and made his way to the upper deck. It was like Billie, he
felt, to have chosen this spot for their meeting. It would be deserted
and it was hallowed for them both by sacred associations.

She was standing at the rail, looking out over the water. The moon was
quite full. Out on the horizon to the south its light shone on the sea,
making it look like the silver beach of some distant fairy island.
The girl appeared to be wrapped in thought, and it was not till the
sharp crack of Sam's head against an overhanging stanchion announced
his approach that she turned.

"Oh, is that you?"

"Yes."

"You've been a long time."

"It wasn't an easy job," explained Sam, "getting all that burnt cork
off. You've no notion how the stuff sticks. You have to use butter...."

She shuddered.

"Don't!"

"But I did. You have to with burnt cork."

"Don't tell me these horrible things." Her voice rose almost
hysterically. "I never want to hear the words burnt cork mentioned
again as long as I live."

"I feel exactly the same." Sam moved to her side.

"Darling," he said in a low voice, "it was like you to ask me to meet
you here. I know what you were thinking. You thought that I should need
sympathy. You wanted to pet me, to smooth my wounded feelings, to hold
me in your arms, and tell me that, as we loved each other, what did
anything else matter?"

"I didn't."

"You didn't?"

"No, I didn't."

"Oh, you didn't! I thought you did!" He looked at her wistfully.

"I thought," he said, "that possibly you might have wished to comfort
me. I have been through a great strain. I have had a shock...."

"And what about me?" she demanded passionately. "Haven't I had a
shock?"

He melted at once.

"Have you had a shock, too? Poor little thing! Sit down and tell me all
about it."

She looked away from him, her face working.

"Can't you understand what a shock I have had? I thought you were the
perfect knight."

"Yes, isn't it?"

"Isn't what?"

"I thought you said it was a perfect night."

"I said I thought _you_ were a perfect knight."

"Oh, ah!"

A sailor crossed the deck, a dim figure in the shadows, went over to a
sort of raised summerhouse with a brass thingummy in it, fooled about
for a moment, and went away again. Sailors earn their money easily.

"Yes?" said Sam when he had gone.

"I forget what I was saying."

"Something about my being the perfect knight."

"Yes. I thought you were."

"That's good."

"But you're not!"

"No?"

"No!"

"Oh!"

Silence fell. Sam was feeling hurt and bewildered. He could not
understand her mood. He had come up expecting to be soothed and
comforted and she was like a petulant iceberg. Cynically, he recalled
some lines of poetry which he had had to write out a hundred times on
one occasion at school as a punishment for having introduced a white
mouse into chapel.

    "Oh, woman in our hours of ease,
    Un-something, something, something, please.
    When tiddly-umpty umpty brow,
    A something, something, something, thou!"

He had forgotten the exact words, but the gist of it had been that
woman, however she might treat a man in times of prosperity, could be
relied on to rally round and do the right thing when he was in trouble.
How little the poet had known women.

"Why not?" he said huffily..

She gave a little sob.

"I put you on a pedestal and I find you have feet of clay. You have
blurred the image which I formed of you. I can never think of you again
without picturing you as you stood in that saloon, stammering and
helpless...."

"Well, what can you do when your pianist runs out on you?"

"You could have done _something_. I can't forgive a man for
looking ridiculous. Oh, what, what," she cried, "induced you to try to
give an imitation of Bert Williams?"

Sam started, stung to the quick.

"It wasn't Bert Williams. It was Frank Tinney!"

"Well, how was I to know?"

"I did my best," said Sam sullenly.

"That is the awful thought."

"I did it for your sake."

"I know. It gives me a horrible sense of guilt." She, shuddered again.
Then suddenly, with the nervous quickness of a woman unstrung, thrust a
small black golliwog into his hand.

"Take it!"

"What's this?"

"You bought it for me yesterday at the barber's shop. It is the only
present that you have given me. Take it back."

"I don't want it. I shouldn't know what to do with it."

"You must take it," she said in a low voice. "It is a symbol."

"A what?"

"A symbol of our broken love."

"I don't see how you make that out. It's a golliwog."

"I can never marry you now."

"What! Good heavens! Don't be absurd."

"I can't."

"Oh, go on, have a dash at it," he said encouragingly, though his heart
was sinking.

She shook her head.

"No, I couldn't."

"Oh, hang it all!"

"I couldn't. I'm a strange girl...."

"You're a darned silly girl...."

"I don't see what right you have to say that," she flared.

"I don't see what right you have to say you can't marry me and try to
load me up with golliwogs," he retorted with equal heat.

"Oh, can't you understand?"

"No, I'm dashed if I can."

She looked at him despondently.

"When I said I would marry you, you were a hero to me. You stood to me
for everything that was noble and brave and wonderful. I had only to
shut my eyes to conjure up the picture of you as you dived off the rail
that morning. Now"--her voice trembled--"if I shut my eyes now,--I can
only see a man with a hideous black face making himself the laughing
stock of the ship. How can I marry you, haunted by that picture?"

"But, good heavens, you talk as if I made a habit of blacking up! You
talk as if you expected me to come to the altar smothered in burnt cork."

"I shall always think of you as I saw you to-night."

She looked at him sadly, "There's a bit of black still on your left
ear."

He tried to take her hand. But she drew it away. He fell back as if
struck.

"So this is the end," he muttered.

"Yes. It's partly on your ear and partly on your cheek."

"So this is the end," he repeated.

"You had better go below and ask your steward to give you some more
butter."

He laughed bitterly.

"Well, I might have expected it, I might have known what would happen!
Eustace warned me. Eustace was right. He knows women--as I do--now.
Women! What mighty ills have not been done by women? Who was't betrayed
the what's-its-name? A woman! Who lost ... lost ... who lost ... who--
er--and so on? A woman ... So all is over! There is nothing to be said
but good-bye?"

"No."

"Good-bye, then, Miss Bennett!"

"Good-bye," said Billie sadly. "I--I'm sorry."

"Don't mention it!"

"You do understand, don't you?"

"You have made everything perfectly clear."

"I hope--I hope you won't be unhappy."

"Unhappy!" Sam produced a strangled noise from his larynx, like the cry
of a shrimp in pain. "Unhappy! I'm not unhappy! Whatever gave you that
idea? I'm smiling! I'm laughing! I feel I've had a merciful escape."

"It's very unkind and rude of you to say that."

"It reminds me of a moving picture I saw in New York. It was called
'Saved from the Scaffold.'"

"Oh!"

"I'm not unhappy. What have I got to be unhappy about? What on earth
does any man want to get married for? I don't ... Give me my gay
bachelor life! My uncle Charlie used to say 'It's better luck to get
married than it is to be kicked in the head by a mule.' But _he_
was an optimist. Good-night, Miss Bennett. And good-bye--for ever."

He turned on his heel and strode across the deck. From a white heaven
the moon still shone benignantly down, mocking him. He had spoken
bravely: the most captious critic could not but have admitted that he
had made a good exit. But already his heart was aching.

As he drew near to his stateroom, he was amazed and disgusted to hear a
high tenor voice raised in song proceeding from behind the closed door.

   "I fee-er naw faw in shee-ining arr-mor,
   Though his lance be sharrrp and-er keen;
   But I fee-er, I fee-er the glah-mour
   Therough thy der-rooping lashes seen:
   I fee-er, I fee-er the glah-mour...."

Sam flung open the door wrathfully. That Eustace Hignett should still
be alive was bad--he had pictured him hurling himself overboard and
bobbing about, a pleasing sight, in the wake of the vessel; that he
should be singing was an outrage. Remorse, Sam thought should have
stricken Eustace Hignett dumb. Instead of which, here he was comporting
himself like a blasted linnet. It was all wrong. The man could have no
conscience whatever.

"Well," he said sternly, "so there you are!"

Eustace Hignett looked up brightly, even beamingly. In the brief
interval which had elapsed since Sam had seen him last, an
extraordinary transformation had taken place in this young man.
His wan look had disappeared. His eyes were bright. His face wore
that beastly self-satisfied smirk which you see in pictures advertising
certain makes of fine-mesh underwear. If Eustace Hignett had been
a full-page drawing in a magazine with "My dear fellow, I always
wear Sigsbee's Superfine Featherweight!" printed underneath him, he
could not have looked more pleased with himself.

"Hullo!" he said. "I was wondering where you had got to."

"Never mind," said Sam coldly, "where I had got to! Where did you get
to, and why? You poor, miserable worm," he went on in a burst of
generous indignation, "what have you to say for yourself? What do you
mean by dashing away like that and killing my little entertainment?"

"Awfully sorry, old man. I hadn't foreseen the cigar. I was bearing up
tolerably well till I began to sniff the smoke. Then everything seemed
to go black--I don't mean you, of course. You were black already--and I
got the feeling that I simply must get on deck and drown myself."

"Well, why didn't you?" demanded Sam, with a strong sense of injury.
"I might have forgiven you then. But to come down here and find you
singing...."

A soft light came into Eustace Hignett's eyes.

"I want to tell you all about that," he said, "It's the most
astonishing story. A miracle, you might almost call it. Makes you
believe in Fate and all that sort of thing. A week ago I was on the
Subway in New York...."

He broke off while Sam cursed him, the Subway, and the city of New
York, in the order named.

"My dear chap, what is the matter?"

"What is the matter? Ha!"

"Something is the matter," persisted Eustace Hignett, "I can tell it by
your manner. Something has happened to disturb and upset you. I know
you so well that I can pierce the mask. What is it? Tell me."

"Ha, ha!"

"You surely can't still be brooding on that concert business? Why,
that's all over. I take it that after my departure you made the most
colossal ass of yourself, but why let that worry you? These things
cannot affect one permanently."

"Can't they? Let me tell you that as a result of that concert my
engagement is broken off."

Eustace sprang forward with outstretched hand.

"Not really? How splendid! Accept my congratulations! This is the
finest thing that could possibly have happened. These are not idle
words. As one who has been engaged to the girl himself, I speak
feelingly. You are well out of it, Sam."

Sam thrust aside his hand. Had it been his neck he might have clutched
it eagerly, but he drew the line at shaking hands with Eustace Hignett.

"My heart is broken," he said with dignity.

"That feeling will pass, giving way to one of devout thankfulness. I
know! I've been there. After all ... Wilhelmina Bennett ... what is
she? A rag and a bone and a hank of hair?"

"She is nothing of the kind," said Sam, revolted.

"Pardon me," said Eustace firmly, "I speak as an expert. I know her and
I repeat, she is a rag and a bone and a hank of hair!"

"She is the only girl in the world, and owing to your idiotic behaviour
I have lost her."

"You speak of the only girl in the world," said Eustace blithely. "If
you want to hear about the only girl in the world, I will tell you. A
week ago I was in the Subway in New York...."

"I'm going to bed," said Sam brusquely.

"All right. I'll tell you while you're undressing."

"I don't want to listen."

"A week ago," said Eustace Hignett, "I will ask you to picture me
seated after some difficulty in a carriage in a New York subway; I got
into conversation with a girl with an elephant gun."

Sam revised his private commination service in order to include the
elephant gun.

"She was my soul-mate," proceeded Eustace with quiet determination. "I
didn't know it at the time, but she was. She had grave brown eyes, a
wonderful personality, and this elephant gun. She was bringing the gun
away from the down-town place where she had taken it to be mended."

"Did she shoot you with it?"

"Shoot me? What do you mean? Why, no!"

"The girl must have been a fool!" said Sam bitterly. "The chance of a
life-time and she missed it. Where are my pyjamas?"

"I haven't seen your pyjamas. She talked to me about this elephant gun,
and explained its mechanism. You can imagine how she soothed my aching
heart. My heart, if you recollect, was aching at the moment--quite
unnecessarily if I had only known--because it was only a couple of days
since my engagement to Wilhelmina Bennett had been broken off. Well, we
parted at Sixty-sixth Street, and, strange as it may seem, I forgot all
about her."

"Do it again!"

"Tell it again?"

"Good heavens, no! Forget all about her again."

"Nothing," said Eustace Hignett gravely, "could make me do that. Our
souls have blended. Our beings have called to one another from their
deepest depths, saying ... There are your pyjamas, over in the
corner ... saying, 'You are mine!' How could I forget her after that?
Well, as I was saying, we parted. Little did I know that she was
sailing on this very boat! But just now she came to me as I writhed on
deck...."

"Did you writhe?" asked Sam with a flicker of moody interest.

"I certainly did."

"That's good!"

"But not for long."

"That's bad!"

"She came to me and healed me. Sam, that girl is an angel."

"Switch off the light when you've finished."

"She seemed to understand without a word how I was feeling. There are
some situations which do not need words. She went away and returned
with a mixture of some kind in a glass.

"I don't know what it was. It had Worcester sauce in it. She put it to
my lips. She made me drink it. She said it was what her father always
used in Africa for bull-calves with the staggers. Well, believe me or
believe me not ... Are you asleep?"

"Yes."

"Believe me or believe me not, in under two minutes I was not merely
freed from the nausea caused by your cigar. I was smoking myself! I was
walking the deck with her without the slightest qualm. I was even able
to look over the side from time to time and comment on the beauty
of the moon on the water ... I have said some mordant things about women
since I came on board this boat. I withdraw them unreservedly. They
still apply to girls like Wilhelmina Bennett, but I have ceased to
include the whole sex in my remarks. Jane Hubbard has restored my faith
in woman. Sam! Sam!"

"What?"

"I said that Jane Hubbard had restored my faith in woman."

"Oh, all right."

Eustace Hignett finished undressing and got into bed. With a soft smile
on his face he switched off the light. There was a long silence, broken
only by the distant purring of engines. At about twelve-thirty a voice
came from the lower berth.

"Sam!"

"What is it now?"

"There is a sweet womanly strength about her, Sam. She was telling me
she once killed a panther with a hat-pin."

Sam groaned and tossed on his mattress.

Silence fell again.

"At least I think it was a panther," said Eustace Hignett, at a quarter
past one. "Either a panther or a puma."




CHAPTER EIGHT


A week after the liner Atlantic had docked at Southampton, Sam Marlowe
might have been observed--and was observed by various of the
residents--sitting on a bench on the esplanade of that repellent
watering-place, Bingley-on-the-Sea, in Sussex. All watering-places on
the South Coast of England are blots on the landscape, but, though I am
aware that by saying it I shall offend the civic pride of some of the
others, none are so peculiarly foul as Bingley-on-the-Sea. The asphalt
on the Bingley esplanade is several degrees more depressing than the
asphalt on other esplanades. The Swiss waiters at the Hotel Magnificent,
where Sam was stopping, are in a class of bungling incompetence by
themselves, the envy and despair of all the other Swiss waiters at all
the other Hotels Magnificent along the coast. For dreariness of aspect
Bingley-on-the-Sea stands alone. The very waves that break on the
shingle seem to creep up the beach reluctantly, as if it revolted them
to come to such a place.

Why, then, was Sam Marlowe visiting this ozone-swept Gehenna? Why, with
all the rest of England at his disposal, had he chosen to spend a week
at breezy, blighted Bingley?

Simply because he had been disappointed in love. He had sought relief
by slinking off alone to the most benighted spot he knew, in the same
spirit as other men in similar circumstances had gone off to the
Rockies to shoot grizzly-bears.

To a certain extent the experiment had proved successful. If the Hotel
Magnificent had not cured his agony, the service and the cooking there
had at least done much to take his mind off it. His heart still ached,
but he felt equal to going to London and seeing his father, which, of
course, he ought to have done immediately upon his arrival in England.

He rose from his bench, and, going back to the hotel to enquire about
trains, observed a familiar figure in the lobby. Eustace Hignett was
leaning over the counter, in conversation with the desk-clerk.

"Hullo, Eustace!" said Sam.

"Hullo, Sam!" said Eustace.

There was a brief silence. The conversational opening had been a little
unfortunately chosen, for it reminded both men of a painful episode in
their recent lives.

"What are you doing here?" asked Eustace.

"What are _you_ doing here?" asked Sam.

"I came to see you," said Eustace, leading his cousin out of the lobby
and onto the bleak esplanade. A fine rain had begun to fall, and
Bingley looked, if possible, worse than ever. "I asked for you at your
club, and they told me you had come down here."

"What did you want to see me about?"

"The fact is, old man, I'm in a bit of a hole."

"What's the matter?"

"It's rather a long story," said Eustace deprecatingly.

"Go ahead."

"I don't know where to begin."

"Have a dash at starting at the beginning."

Eustace stared gloomily at a stranded crab on the beach below. The crab
stared gloomily back.

"Well, you remember my telling you about the girl I met on the boat?"

"Jane Something?"

"Jane Hubbard," said Eustace reverently. "Sam, I love that girl."

"I know. You told me."

"But I didn't tell _her_. I tried to muster up the nerve, but we
got to Southampton without my having clicked. What a dashed difficult
thing a proposal is to bring off, isn't it! I didn't bring it off, and
it began to look to me as though I was in the soup. And then she told
me something which gave me an idea. She said the Bennetts had invited
her to stay with them in the country when she got to England, Old Mr.
Bennett and his pal Mortimer, Bream's father, were trying to get a
house somewhere which they could share. Only so far they hadn't managed
to find the house they wanted. When I heard that, I said 'Ha!'"

"You said what?" asked Sam.

"I said 'Ha!'"

"Why?"

"Because I had an idea. Don't interrupt, old man, or you'll get me
muddled. Where was I?"

"I don't know."

"I remember. I'd just got the idea. I happened to know, you see, that
Bennett and Mortimer were both frightfully keen on getting Windles for
the summer, but my mother wouldn't hear of it and gave them both the
miss-in-baulk. It suddenly occurred to me that mother was going to be
away in America all the summer, so why shouldn't I make a private deal,
let them the house, and make it a stipulation that I was to stay there to
look after things? And, to cut a long story short, that's what I did."

"You let Windles?"

"Yes. Old Bennett was down on the dock at Southampton to meet
Wilhelmina, and I fixed it up with him then and there. He was so bucked
at the idea of getting the place that he didn't kick for a moment at
the suggestion that I should stick on at the house. Said he would be
delighted to have me there, and wrote out a fat check on the spot. We
hired a car and drove straight over--it's only about twenty miles from
Southampton, you know,--and we've been there ever since. Bennett sent a
wire to Mortimer, telling him to join us, and he came down next day."

He paused, and looked at Sam as though desiring comment. Sam had none
to offer.

"Why do you say you're in a hole?" he asked. "It seems to me as though
you had done yourself a bit of good. You've got the check, and you're
in the same house with Miss Hubbard. What more do you want?"

"But suppose mother gets to hear about it?"

"Well?"

"She'd be sorer than a sunburned neck."

"Probably. But why should she hear of it?"

"Ah! I'm coming to that."

"Is there some more of the story?"

"Quite a lot."

"Charge on," said Sam resignedly.

Eustace Hignett fixed a despondent gaze on the shingle, up which the
gray waves were crawling with their usual sluggish air of wishing
themselves elsewhere. A rain-drop fell down the back of his neck, but
he did not notice it.

"It was the weather that really started it," he said.

"Started what?"

"The trouble. What sort of weather have you been having here?"

"I haven't noticed."

"Well, down at Windles it has been raining practically all the time,
and after about a couple of days it became fairly clear to me that
Bennett and Mortimer were getting a bit fed. I mean to say, having
spent all their lives in America, don't you know, they weren't used to
a country where it rained all the time, and pretty soon it began to get
on their nerves. They started quarrelling. Nothing bad at first, but
hotting up more and more, till at last they were hardly on speaking
terms. Every little thing that happened seemed to get the wind up them.
There was that business of Smith, for instance."

"Who's Smith?"

"Mortimer's bull-dog. Old Bennett is scared of him, and wants him kept
in the stables, but Mortimer insists on letting him roam about the
house. Well, they scrapped a goodish bit about that. And then there was
the orchestrion. You remember the orchestrion?"

"I haven't been down at Windles since I was a kid."

"That's right. I forgot that. Well, my pater had an orchestrion put in
the drawing-room. One of these automatic things you switch on, you
know. Makes a devil of a row. Bennett can't stand it, and Mortimer
insists on playing it all day. Well, they hotted up a goodish bit over
that."

"Well, I don't see how all this affects you. If they want to scrap, why
not let them?"

"Yes, but, you see, the most frightful thing has happened. At least, it
hasn't happened yet, but it may any day. Bennett's talking about taking
legal advice to see if he can't induce Mortimer to cheese it by law as he
can't be stopped any other way. And the deuce of it is, your father's
Bennett's legal representative over in England, and he's sure to go
to him."

"Well, that'll do the pater a bit of good. Legal fees."

Eustace Hignett waved his arms despairingly at his cousin's obtuseness.

"But don't you see? If Bennett goes to your father about this binge,
your father will get onto the fact that Windles has been let, and he'll
nose about and make enquiries, and the first thing that'll happen will
be that mother will get to hear of it, and then where shall I be?"

Sam pondered.

"Yes, there's that," he admitted.

"Well, now you see what a hole I'm in."

"Yes, you are. What are you going to do about it?"

"You're the only person who can help me."

"What can _I_ do?"

"Why, your father wants you to join the firm, doesn't he? Well, for
goodness sake, buck up and join it. Don't waste a minute. Dash up to
London by the next train, and sign on. Then, if Bennett does blow in
for advice, you can fix it somehow that he sees you instead of your
father, and it'll be all right. You can easily work it. Get the office-boy
or somebody to tell Bennett that your father's engaged, but that you are
on the spot. He won't mind so long as he sees somebody in the firm."

"But I don't know anything about the law. What shall I say to him?"

"That's all right. I've been studying it up a bit. As far as I can
gather, this legal advice business is quite simple. Anything that isn't
a tort is a misdemeanour. You've simply got to tell old Bennett that in
your opinion the whole thing looks jolly like a tort."

"What's the word again?"

"Tort."

"What does it mean?"

"I don't know. Probably nobody knows. But it's a safe card to play.
Tort. Don't forget it."

"Tort. Right ho!"

"Well, then, come along and pack your things. There's a train to London
in about an hour."

They walked back to the hotel. Sam gulped once or twice.

"Oh, by the way," he said, "Er--how is--er--Miss Bennett?"

"Oh, she's all right." Eustace Hignett hummed a gay air. Sam's ready
acquiescence in his scheme had relieved his apprehensive mind.

"Going strong?" said Sam, after a pause.

"Oh, absolutely. We're quite good friends again now. No use being in
the same house and not being on speaking terms. It's rummy how the
passage of time sort of changes a fellow's point of view. Why, when she
told me about her engagement, I congratulated her as cheerfully as
dammit! And only a few weeks ago...."

"Her engagement!" exclaimed Sam, leaping like a stricken blanc-mange.
"Her en-gug-gug-gagement!"

"To Bream Mortimer, you know," said Eustace Hignett. "She got engaged
to him the day before yesterday."




CHAPTER NINE


The offices of the old-established firm of Marlowe, Thorpe, Prescott,
Winslow and Appleby are in Ridgeway's Inn, not far from Fleet Street.
If you are a millionaire beset by blackmailers or anyone else to whose
comfort the best legal advice is essential, and have decided to put
your affairs in the hands of the ablest and discreetest firm in London,
you proceed through a dark and grimy entry and up a dark and grimy
flight of stairs; and, having felt your way along a dark and grimy
passage, you come at length to a dark and grimy door. There is plenty
of dirt in other parts of Ridgeway's Inn, but nowhere is it so
plentiful, so rich in alluvial deposits, as on the exterior of the
offices of Marlowe, Thorpe, Prescott, Winslow and Appleby. As you tap
on the topmost of the geological strata concealing the ground-glass of
the door, a sense of relief and security floods your being. For in
London grubbiness is the gauge of a lawyer's respectability.

The brass plate, let into the woodwork of this door, is misleading.
Reading it, you get the impression that on the other side quite a covey
of lawyers await your arrival. The name of the firm leads you to
suppose that there will be barely standing-room in the office. You
picture Thorpe jostling you aside as he makes for Prescott to discuss
with him the latest case of demurrer, and Winslow and Appleby treading
on your toes, deep in conversation on replevin. But these legal firms
dwindle. The years go by and take their toll, snatching away here a
Prescott, there an Appleby, till before you know where you are, you are
down to your last lawyer. The only surviving member of the firm of
Marlowe, Thorpe--what I said before--was, at the time with which this
story deals, Sir Mallaby Marlowe, son of the original founder of the
firm and father of the celebrated black-faced comedian, Samuel of that
ilk; and the outer office, where callers were received and parked till
Sir Mallaby could find time for them, was occupied by a single clerk.

When Sam, reaching the office after his journey, opened the door, this
clerk, John Peters by name, was seated on a high stool, holding in one
hand a half-eaten sausage, in the other an extraordinary large and
powerful revolver. At the sight of Sam he laid down both engines of
destruction and beamed. He was not a particularly successful beamer,
being hampered by a cast in one eye which gave him a truculent and
sinister look; but those who knew him knew that he had a heart of gold
and were not intimidated by his repellent face. Between Sam and himself
there had always existed terms of cordiality, starting from the time
when the former was a small boy, and it had been Jno. Peters' mission
to take him now to the Zoo, now to the train back to school.

"Why, Mr. Samuel!"

"Hullo, Peters!"

"We were expecting you back a week ago. So you got back safe?"

"Safe? Why, of course,"

Peters shook his head.

"I confess that, when there was this delay in your coming here, I
sometimes feared something might have happened to you. I recall
mentioning it to the young lady who recently did me the honour to
promise to become my wife."

"Ocean liners aren't often wrecked nowadays."

"I was thinking more of the brawls on shore. America's a dangerous
country. But perhaps you were not in touch with the underworld?"

"I don't think I was."

"Ah!" said Jno. Peters, significantly.

He took up the revolver, gave it a fond and almost paternal look, and
replaced it on the desk.

"What on earth are you doing with that thing?" asked Sam.

Mr. Peters lowered his voice.

"I'm going to America myself in a few days' time, Mr. Samuel. It's my
annual holiday, and the guvnor's sending me over with papers in
connection with The People _v._ Schultz and Bowen. It's a big case
over there. A client of ours is mixed up in it, an American gentleman.
I am to take these important papers to his legal representative in New
York. So I thought it best to be prepared."

The first smile that he had permitted himself in nearly two weeks
flitted across Sam's face.

"What on earth sort of place do you think New York is?" he asked. "It's
safer than London."

"Ah, but what about the underworld? I've seen these American films that
they send over here, Mr. Samuel. Every Saturday night regular I take my
young lady to a cinema, and, I tell you, they teach you something. Did
you ever see 'Wolves of the Bowery'? There was a man in that in just my
position, carrying important papers, and what they didn't try to do to
him! No, I'm taking no chances, Mr. Samuel!"

"I should have said you were, lugging that thing about with you."

Mr. Peters seemed wounded.

"Oh, I understand the mechanism perfectly, and I am becoming a very
fair shot. I take my little bite of food in here early and go and
practice at the Rupert Street Rifle Range during my lunch hour. You'd
be surprised how quickly one picks it up. When I get home at night I
try how quick I can draw. You have to draw like a flash of lightning,
Mr. Samuel. If you'd ever seen a film called 'Two-Gun-Thomas' you'd
realise that. You haven't time to be loitering about."

"I haven't," agreed Sam. "Is my father in? I'd like to see him if he's
not busy."

Mr. Peters, recalled to his professional duties, shed his sinister
front like a garment. He picked up a speaking tube and blew down it.

"Mr. Samuel to see you, Mr. Mallaby. Yes, sir, very good. Will you go
right in, Mr. Samuel?"

Sam proceeded to the inner office, and found his father dictating into
the attentive ear of Miss Milliken, his elderly and respectable
stenographer, replies to his morning mail.

The grime which encrusted the lawyer's professional stamping ground did
not extend to his person. Sir Mallaby Marlowe was a dapper little man,
with a round, cheerful face and a bright eye. His morning coat had been
cut by London's best tailor, and his trousers perfectly creased by a
sedulous valet. A pink carnation in his buttonhole matched his healthy
complexion. His golf handicap was twelve. His sister, Mrs. Horace
Hignett, considered him worldly.

"Dear Sirs: We are in receipt of your favour and in reply beg to state
that nothing will induce us ... will induce us ... where did I put that
letter? Ah! ... nothing will induce us ... oh, tell 'em to go to blazes,
Miss Milliken."

"Very well, Sir Mallaby."

"That's that. Ready? Messrs. Brigney, Goole and Butterworth. What
infernal names these people have. Sirs, on behalf of our client ... oh,
hullo, Sam!"

"Good morning, father."

"Take a seat. I'm busy, but I'll be finished in a moment. Where was I,
Miss Milliken?"

"On behalf of our client...."

"Oh, yes. On behalf of our client, Mr. Wibblesley Eggshaw.... Where
these people get their names I'm hanged if I know. Your poor mother
wanted to call you Hyacinth, Sam. You may not know it, but in the
'nineties, when you were born, children were frequently christened
Hyacinth. Well, I saved you from that."

His attention was now diverted to his son, Sir Mallaby seemed to
remember that the latter had just returned from a long journey, and
that he had not seen him for many weeks. He inspected him with
interest.

"Very glad to see you're back, Sam. So you didn't win?"

"No, I got beaten in the semi-finals."

"American amateurs are a very hot lot: the best ones. I suppose you
were weak on the greens, I warned you about that. You'll have to rub up
your putting before next year."

At the idea that any mundane pursuit as practising putting could appeal
to his broken spirit now, Sam uttered a bitter laugh. It was as if
Dante had recommended some lost soul in the Inferno to occupy his mind
by knitting jumpers.

"Well, you seem to be in great spirits," said Sir Mallaby approvingly.
"It's pleasant to hear your merry laugh again, isn't it, Miss
Milliken?"

"Extremely exhilarating," agreed the stenographer, adjusting her
spectacles and smiling at Sam, for whom there was a soft spot in her
heart.

A sense of the futility of life oppressed Sam. As he gazed in the glass
that morning, he had thought, not without a certain gloomy
satisfaction, how remarkably pale and drawn his face looked. And these
people seemed to imagine that he was in the highest spirits. His
laughter, which had sounded to him like the wailing of a demon, struck
Miss Milliken as exhilarating.

"On behalf of our client, Mr. Wibblesley Eggshaw," said Sir Mallaby,
swooping back to duty once more, "we beg to state that we are prepared
to accept service ... sounds like a tennis match, eh, Sam? It isn't,
though. This young ass, Eggshaw ... what time did you dock this
morning?"

"I landed nearly a week ago."

"A week ago! Then what the deuce have you been doing with yourself?
Why haven't I seen you?"

"I've been down at Bingley-on-the-Sea."

"Bingley! What on earth were you doing at that Godforsaken place?"

"Wrestling with myself," said Sam with simple dignity.

Sir Mallaby's agile mind had leaped back to the letter which he was
answering.

"We should be glad to meet you.... Wrestling, eh! Well, I like a boy to
be fond of manly sports. Still, life isn't all athletics. Don't forget
that. Life is real! Life is ... how does it go, Miss Milliken?"

Miss Milliken folded her hands and shut her eyes, her invariable habit
when called upon to recite.

"Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust
thou art to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul. Art is long and
time is fleeting. And our hearts though stout and brave, Still like
muffled drums are beating Funeral marches to the grave. Lives of great
men all remind us we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave
behind us footsteps on the sands of Time. Let us then ..." said Miss
Milliken respectfully ... "be up and doing...."

"All right, all right, all right!" said Sir Mallaby. "I don't want it all.
Life is real! Life is earnest, Sam. I want to speak to you about that when
I've finished answering these infernal letters. Where was I? 'We should
be glad to meet you at any time, if you will make an appointment...'
Bingley-on-the-Sea! Good heavens! Why Bingley-on-the-Sea? Why not Margate,
while you are about it?"

"Margate is too bracing. I did not wish to be braced. Bingley suited my
mood. It was gray and dark, and it rained all the time, and the sea
slunk about in the distance like some baffled beast...."

He stopped, becoming aware that his father was not listening. Sir
Mallaby's attention had returned to the letter.

"Oh, what's the good of answering the dashed thing at all?" said Sir
Mallaby. "Brigney, Goole and Butterworth know perfectly well that they
have got us in a cleft stick. Butterworth knows it better than Goole,
and Brigney knows it better than Butterworth. This young fool, Eggshaw,
Sam, admits that he wrote the girl twenty-three letters, twelve of them
in verse, and twenty-one specifically asking her to marry him, and he
comes to me and expects me to get him out of it. The girl is suing him
for ten thousand."

"How like a woman!"

Miss Milliken bridled reproachfully at this slur on her sex. Sir
Mallaby took no notice of it whatever.

"... If you will make an appointment, when we can discuss the matter
without prejudice. Get those typed, Miss Milliken. Have a cigar, Sam.
Miss Milliken, tell Peters as you go out that I am occupied with a
conference and can see nobody for half an hour."

When Miss Milliken had withdrawn, Sir Mallaby occupied ten seconds of
the period which he had set aside for communion with his son in staring
silently at him.

"I'm glad you're back, Sam," he said at length. "I want to have a talk
with you. You know, it's time you were settling down. I've been
thinking about you while you were in America, and I've come to the
conclusion that I've been letting you drift along. Very bad for a young
man. You're getting on. I don't say you're senile, but you're not
twenty-one any longer, and at your age I was working like a beaver.
You've got to remember that life is--dash it! I've forgotten it again."

He broke off and puffed vigorously into the speaking tube. "Miss
Milliken, kindly repeat what you were saying just now about life....
Yes, yes, that's enough!" He put down the instrument. "Yes, life is
real, life is earnest," he said, gazing at Sam seriously, "and the
grave is not our goal. Lives of great men all remind us we can make our
lives sublime. In fact, it's time you took your coat off and started
work."

"I am quite ready, father."

"You didn't hear what I said," exclaimed Sir Mallaby with a look of
surprise. "I said it was time you began work."

"And I said I was quite ready."

"Bless my soul! You've changed your views a trifle since I saw you
last."

"I have changed them altogether."

Long hours of brooding among the red plush settees in the lounge of the
Hotel Magnificent at Bingley-on-the-Sea had brought about this strange,
even morbid, attitude of mind in Samuel Marlowe. Work, he had decided
even before his conversation with Eustace, was the only medicine for
his sick soul. Here, he felt, in this quiet office, far from the tumult
and noise of the world, in a haven of torts and misdemeanours and Vic.
I Cap 3's, and all the rest of it, he might find peace. At any rate, it
was worth taking a stab at it.

"Your trip has done you good," said Sir Mallaby approvingly. "The sea
air has given you some sense. I'm glad of it. It makes it easier for me
to say something else that I've had on my mind for a good while. Sam,
it's time you got married."

Sam barked bitterly. His father looked at him with concern.

"Swallow some smoke the wrong way?"

"I was laughing," explained Sam with dignity.

Sir Mallaby shook his head.

"I don't want to discourage your high spirit, but I must ask you to
approach this matter seriously. Marriage would do you a world of good,
Sam. It would brace you up. You really ought to consider the idea. I
was two years younger than you are when I married your poor mother, and
it was the making of me. A wife might make something of you."

"Impossible!"

"I don't see why she shouldn't. There's lots of good in you, my boy,
though you may not think so."

"When I said it was impossible," said Sam coldly, "I was referring to
the impossibility of the possibility.... I mean, that it was impossible
that I could possibly ... in other words, father, I can never marry. My
heart is dead."

"Your what?"

"My heart."

"Don't be a fool. There's nothing wrong with your heart. All our family
have had hearts like steam-engines. Probably you have been feeling a
sort of burning. Knock off cigars and that will soon stop."

"You don't understand me. I mean that a woman has treated me in a way
that has finished her whole sex as far as I am concerned. For me, women
do not exist."

"You didn't tell me about this," said Sir Mallaby, interested. "When
did this happen? Did she jilt you?"

"Yes."

"In America was it?"

"On the boat."

Sir Mallaby chuckled heartily.

"My dear boy, you don't mean to tell me that you're taking a shipboard
flirtation seriously. Why, you're expected to fall in love with a
different girl every time you go on a voyage. You'll get over this in a
week. You'd have got over it now if you hadn't gone and buried yourself
in a depressing place like Bingley-on-the-Sea."

The whistle of the speaking-tube blew. Sir Mallaby put the instrument
to his ear.

"All right," he turned to Sam. "I shall have to send you away now, Sam.
Man waiting to see me. Good-bye."

Miss Milliken intercepted Sam as he made for the door.

"Oh, Mr. Sam!"

"Yes?"

"Excuse me, but will you be seeing Sir Mallaby again to-day? If so,
would you--I don't like to disturb him now, when he is busy--would you
mind telling him that I inadvertently omitted a stanza. It runs," said
Miss Milliken, closing her eyes, "'Trust no future, howe'er pleasant.
Let the dead past bury its dead! Act, act in the living Present, Heart
within and God o'erhead!' Thank you so much. Good afternoon."




CHAPTER TEN


At about the time when Sam Marlowe was having the momentous interview
with his father, described in the last chapter, Mr. Rufus Bennett woke
from an after-luncheon nap in Mrs. Hignett's delightful old-world
mansion, Windles, in the county of Hampshire. He had gone to his room
after lunch, because there seemed nothing else to do. It was still
raining hard, so that a ramble in the picturesque garden was
impossible, and the only alternative to sleep, the society of Mr. Henry
Mortimer, had become peculiarly distasteful to Mr. Bennett.

Much has been written of great friendships between man and man,
friendships which neither woman can mar nor death destroy. Rufus
Bennett had always believed that his friendship for Mr. Mortimer was of
this order. They had been boys together in the same small town, and had
kept together in after years. They had been Damon and Pythias, David
and Jonathan. But never till now had they been cooped up together
in an English country-house in the middle of a bad patch of English
summer weather. So this afternoon Mr. Bennett, in order to avoid his
life-long friend, had gone to bed.

He awoke now with a start, and a moment later realized what it was that
had aroused him. There was music in the air. The room was full of it.
It seemed to be coming up through the floor and rolling about in chunks
all round his bed. He blinked the last fragments of sleep out of his
system, and became filled with a restless irritability.

He rang the bell violently, and presently there entered a grave, thin,
intellectual man who looked like a duke, only more respectable. This
was Webster, Mr. Bennett's English valet.

"Is that Mr. Mortimer?" he barked, as the door opened.

"No, sir. It is I--Webster." Not even the annoyance of being summoned
like this from an absorbing game of penny nap in the housekeeper's room
had the power to make the valet careless of his grammar. "I fancied
that I heard your bell ring, sir."

"I wonder you could hear anything with that infernal noise going on,"
snapped Mr. Bennett, "Is Mr. Mortimer playing that--that damned
gas-engine in the drawing-room?"

"Yes, sir. Tosti's Goodbye. A charming air, sir."

"Charming air be--! Tell him to stop it."

"Very good, sir."

The valet withdrew like a duke leaving the royal presence, not actually
walking backwards, but giving the impression of doing so. Mr. Bennett
lay in bed and fumed. Presently the valet returned. The music still
continued to roll about the room.

"I am sorry to have to inform you, sir," said Webster, "that Mr.
Mortimer declines to accede to your request."

"Oh, he said that, did he!"

"That is the gist of his remarks, sir."

"Did you tell him I was trying to get to sleep?"

"Yes, sir. I understood him to reply that he should worry and get a
pain in the neck."

"Go down again and say that I insist on his stopping the thing. It's an
outrage."

"Very good, sir."

In a few minutes, Webster, like the dove despatched from the Ark, was
back again.

"I fear my mission has been fruitless, sir. Mr. Mortimer appears
adamant on the point at issue."

"You gave him my message?"

"Verbatim, sir. In reply Mr. Mortimer desired me to tell you that, if
you did not like it, you could do the other thing. I quote the exact
words, sir."

"He did, did he?"

"Yes, sir."

"Very good! Webster!"

"Sir?"

"When is the next train to London?"

"I will ascertain, sir. Cook, I believe has a time-table."

"Go and see, then. I want to know. And send Miss Wilhelmina to me."

"Very good, sir."

Somewhat consoled by the thought that he was taking definite action,
Mr. Bennett lay back and waited for Billie.

"I want you to go to London," he said, when she appeared.

"To London? Why?"

"I'll tell you why," said Mr. Bennett vehemently. "Because of that pest
Mortimer. I must have legal advice. I want you to go and see Sir
Mallaby Marlowe. Here's his address. Tell him the whole story. Tell him
that this man is annoying me in every possible way and ask if he can't
be stopped. If you can't see Sir Mallaby himself, see someone else in
the firm. Go up to-night, so that you can see him first thing in the
morning. You can stop the night at the Savoy. I've sent Webster to look
out a train."

"There's a splendid train in about an hour. I'll take that."

"It's giving you a lot of trouble," said Mr. Bennett with belated
consideration.

"Oh no!" said Billie. "I'm only too glad to be able to do something for
you, father dear. This noise is a terrible nuisance, isn't it."

"You're a good girl," said Mr. Bennett.




CHAPTER ELEVEN


"That's right!" said Sir Mallaby Marlowe. "Work while you're young,
Sam, work while you're young." He regarded his son's bent head with
affectionate approval. "What's the book to-day?"

"Widgery on Nisi prius Evidence," said Sam, without looking up.

"Capital!" said Sir Mallaby. "Highly improving and as interesting as a
novel--some novels. There's a splendid bit on, I think, page two
hundred and fifty-four where the hero finds out all about Copyhold and
Customary Estates. It's a wonderfully powerful situation. It appears--but
I won't spoil it for you. Mind you don't skip to see how it all comes
out in the end!" Sir Mallaby suspended conversation while he addressed an
imaginary ball with the mashie which he had taken out of his golf-bag.
For this was the day when he went down to Walton Heath for his weekly
foursome with three old friends. His tubby form was clad in tweed of a
violent nature, with knickerbockers and stockings. "Sam!"

"Well?"

"Sam, a man at the club showed me a new grip the other day. Instead of
overlapping the little finger of the right hand ... Oh, by the way, Sam."

"Yes?"

"I should lock up the office to-day if I were you, or anxious clients
will be coming in and asking for advice, and you'll find yourself in
difficulties. I shall be gone, and Peters is away on his holiday. You'd
better lock the outer door."

"All right," said Sam absently. He was finding Widgery stiff reading.
He had just got to the bit about Raptu Haeredis, which, as of course
you know, is a writ for taking away an heir holding insocage.

Sir Mallaby looked at his watch.

"Well, I'll have to be going. See you later, Sam."

"Good-bye."

Sir Mallaby went out, and Sam, placing both elbows on the desk and
twining his fingers in his hair, returned with a frown of concentration to
his grappling with Widgery. For perhaps ten minutes the struggle was
an even one, then gradually Widgery got the upper hand. Sam's mind,
numbed by constant batterings against the stony ramparts of legal
phraseology, weakened, faltered, and dropped away; and a moment
later his thoughts, as so often happened when he was alone, darted
off and began to circle round the image of Billie Bennett.

Since they had last met, Sam had told himself perhaps a hundred times
that he cared nothing about Billie, that she had gone out of his life
and was dead to him; but unfortunately he did not believe it. A man
takes a deal of convincing on a point like this, and Sam had never
succeeded in convincing himself for more than two minutes at a time. It
was useless to pretend that he did not still love Billie more than
ever, because he knew he did; and now, as the truth swept over him for
the hundred and first time, he groaned hollowly and gave himself up to
the gray despair which is the almost inseparable companion of young men
in his position.

So engrossed was he in his meditation that he did not hear the light
footstep in the outer office, and it was only when it was followed by a
tap on the door of the inner office that he awoke with a start to the
fact that clients were in his midst. He wished that he had taken his
father's advice and locked up the office. Probably this was some
frightful bore who wanted to make his infernal will or something,
and Sam had neither the ability nor the inclination to assist him.

Was it too late to escape? Perhaps if he did not answer the knock, the
blighter might think there was nobody at home. But suppose he opened
the door and peeped in? A spasm of Napoleonic strategy seized Sam. He
dropped silently to the floor and concealed himself under the desk.
Napoleon was always doing that sort of thing.

There was another tap. Then, as he had anticipated, the door opened.
Sam, crouched like a hare in its form, held his breath. It seemed to
him that he was going to bring this delicate operation off with
success. He felt he had acted just as Napoleon would have done in a
similar crisis. And so, no doubt, he had to a certain extent; only
Napoleon would have seen to it that his boots and about eighteen inches
of trousered legs were not sticking out, plainly visible to all who
entered.

"Good morning," said a voice.

Sam thrilled from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. It was
the voice which had been ringing in his ears through all his waking
hours.

"Are you busy, Mr. Marlowe?" asked Billie, addressing the boots.

Sam wriggled out from under the desk like a disconcerted tortoise.

"Dropped my pen," he mumbled, as he rose to the surface.

He pulled himself with an effort that was like a physical exercise. He
stared at Billie dumbly. Then, recovering speech, he invited her to sit
down, and seated himself at the desk.

"Dropped my pen!" he gurgled again.

"Yes?" said Billie.

"Fountain-pen," babbled Sam, "with a broad nib."

"Yes?"

"A broad gold nib," went on Sam, with the painful exactitude which
comes only from embarrassment or the early stages of intoxication.

"Really?" said Billie, and Sam blinked and told himself resolutely that
this would not do. He was not appearing to advantage. It suddenly
occurred to him that his hair was standing on end as the result
of his struggle with Widgery. He smoothed it down hastily, and
felt a trifle more composed. The old fighting spirit of the Marlowes
now began to assert itself to some extent. He must make an effort to
appear as little of a fool as possible in this girl's eyes. And what
eyes they were! Golly! Like stars! Like two bright planets in....

However, that was neither here nor there. He pulled down his waistcoat
and became cold and business-like--the dry young lawyer.

"Er--how do you do, Miss Bennett?" he said with a question in his
voice, raising his eyebrows in a professional way. He modelled this
performance on that of lawyers he had seen on the stage, and wished he
had some snuff to take or something to tap against his front teeth.
"Miss Bennett, I believe?"

Billie drew herself up stiffly.

"Yes," she replied. "How clever of you to remember me."

"I have a good memory."

"How nice! So have I!"

There was a pause, during which Billie allowed her gaze to travel
casually about the room. Sam occupied the intermission by staring
furtively at her profile. He was by now in a thoroughly overwrought
condition, and the thumping of his heart sounded to him as if workmen
were mending the street outside. How beautiful she looked, with that
red hair peeping out beneath her hat and ... However!

"Is there anything I can do for you?" he asked in the sort of voice
Widgery might have used. Sam always pictured Widgery as a small man
with bushy eyebrows, a thin face, and a voice like a rusty file.

"Well, I really wanted to see Sir Mallaby."

"My father has been called away on important business to Walton Heath.
Cannot I act as his substitute?"

"Do you know anything about the law?"

"Do I know anything about the law!" echoed Sam, amazed. "Do I know--!
Why, I was reading my Widgery on Nisi Prius Evidence when you came in."

"Oh, were you?" said Billie interested. "Do you always read on the
floor."

"I told you I dropped my pen," said Sam coldly.

"And of course you couldn't read without that! Well, as a matter of
fact, this has nothing to do with Nisi--what you said."

"I have not specialised exclusively on Nisi Prius Evidence. I know the
law in all its branches."

"Then what would you do if a man insisted on playing the orchestrion
when you wanted to get to sleep?"

"The orchestrion?"

"Yes."

"The orchestrion, eh? Ah! H'm!" said Sam.

"You still haven't made it quite clear," said Billie.

"I was thinking."

"Oh, if you want to think!"

"Tell me the facts," said Sam.

"Well, Mr. Mortimer and my father have taken a house together in the
country, and for some reason or other they have quarrelled, and now Mr.
Mortimer is doing everything he can to make father uncomfortable.
Yesterday afternoon father wanted to sleep, and Mr. Mortimer started
his orchestrion just to annoy him."

"I think--I'm not quite sure--I think that's a tort," said Sam.

"A what?"

"Either a tort or a misdemeanour."

"Why, you do know something about it after all!" cried Billie, startled
into a sort of friendliness in spite of herself. And at the words and
the sight of her quick smile Sam's professional composure reeled on its
foundations. He had half risen, with the purpose of springing up and
babbling of the passion that consumed him, when the chill reflection
came to him that this girl had once said that she considered him
ridiculous. If he let himself go, would she not continue to think him
ridiculous? He sagged back into his seat and at that moment there came
another tap on the door which, opening, revealed the sinister face of
the holiday-making Peters.

"Good morning, Mr. Samuel," said Jno. Peters. "Good morning, Miss
Milliken. Oh!"

He vanished as abruptly as he had appeared. He perceived that what he
had taken at first glance for the stenographer was a client, and that
the junior partner was engaged on a business conference. He left behind
him a momentary silence.

"What a horrible-looking man!" said Billie, breaking it with a little
gasp. Jno. Peters often affected the opposite sex like that at first
sight.

"I beg your pardon?" said Sam absently.

"What a dreadful-looking man! He quite frightened me!"

For some moments Sam sat without speaking. If this had not been one of
his Napoleonic mornings, no doubt the sudden arrival of his old friend,
Mr. Peters, whom he had imagined at his home in Putney packing for his
trip to America, would have suggested nothing to him. As it was it
suggested a great deal. He had had a brain-wave, and for fully a minute
he sat tingling under its impact. He was not a young man who often had
brain-waves, and, when they came, they made him rather dizzy.

"Who is he?" asked Billie. "He seemed to know you? And who," she
demanded after a slight pause, "is Miss Milliken?"

Sam drew a deep breath.

"It's rather a sad story," he said. "His name is John Peters. He used
to be clerk here."

"But isn't he any longer?"

"No." Sam shook his head. "We had to get rid of him."

"I don't wonder. A man looking like that...."

"It wasn't that so much," said Sam. "The thing that annoyed father was
that he tried to shoot Miss Milliken."

Billie uttered a cry of horror!

"He tried to shoot Miss Milliken!"

"He did shoot her--the third time," said Sam warming to his work. "Only
in the arm, fortunately," he added. "But my father is rather a stern
disciplinarian and he had to go. I mean, we couldn't keep him after
that."

"Good gracious!"

"She used to be my father's stenographer, and she was thrown a good
deal with Peters. It was quite natural that he should fall in love with
her. She was a beautiful girl, with rather your own shade of hair.
Peters is a man of volcanic passions, and, when, after she had given
him to understand that his love was returned, she informed him one day
that she was engaged to a fellow at Ealing West, he went right off his
onion--I mean, he became completely distraught. I must say that he
concealed it very effectively at first. We had no inkling of his
condition till he came in with the pistol. And, after that ... well, as I
say, we had to dismiss him. A great pity, for he was a good clerk.
Still, it wouldn't do. It wasn't only that he tried to shoot Miss
Milliken. That wouldn't have mattered so much, as she left after he had
made his third attempt, and got married. But the thing became an
obsession with him, and we found that he had a fixed idea that every
red-haired woman who came into the office was the girl who had deceived
him. You can see how awkward that made it. Red hair is so fashionable
nowadays."

"My hair is red!" whispered Billie pallidly.

"Yes, I noticed it myself. I told you it was much the same shade as
Miss Milliken's. It's rather fortunate that I happened to be here with
you when he came."

"But he may be lurking out there still!"

"I expect he is," said Sam carelessly. "Yes, I suppose he is. Would you
like me to go and send him away? All right."

"But--but is it safe?"

Sam uttered a light laugh.

"I don't mind taking a risk or two for your sake," he said, and
sauntered from the room, closing the door behind him. Billie followed
him with worshipping eyes.

Jno. Peters rose politely from the chair in which he had seated himself
for more comfortable perusal of the copy of _Home Whispers_ which
he had brought with him to refresh his mind in the event of the firm being
too busy to see him immediately. He was particularly interested in the
series of chats with Young Mothers.

"Hullo, Peters," said Sam. "Want anything?"

"Very sorry to have disturbed you, Mr. Samuel. I just looked in to say
good-bye. I sail on Saturday, and my time will be pretty fully taken up
all the week. I have to go down to the country to get some final
instructions from the client whose important papers I am taking over.
I'm sorry to have missed your father, Mr. Samuel."

"Yes, this is his golf day, I'll tell him you looked in."

"Is there anything I can do before I go?"

"Do?"

"Well--"--Jno. Peters coughed tactfully--"I see that you are engaged
with a client, Mr. Samuel, and was wondering if any little point of law
had arisen with which you did not feel yourself quite capable of
coping, in which case I might perhaps be of assistance."

"Oh, that lady," said Sam. "That was Miss Milliken's sister."

"Indeed? I didn't know Miss Milliken had a sister."

"No?" said Sam.

"She is not very like her in appearance."

"No. This one is the beauty of the family, I believe. A very bright,
intelligent girl. I was telling her about your revolver just before you
came in, and she was most interested. It's a pity you haven't got it
with you now, to show to her."

"Oh, but I have! I have, Mr. Samuel!" said Peters, opening a small
handbag and taking out a hymn-book, half a pound of mixed chocolates, a
tongue sandwich, and the pistol, in the order named. "I was on my way
to the Rupert Street range for a little practice. I should be glad to
show it to her."

"Well, wait here a minute or two," said Sam, "I'll have finished
talking business in a moment,"

He returned to the inner office.

"Well?" cried Billie.

"Eh? Oh, he's gone," said Sam. "I persuaded him to go away. He was a
little excited, poor fellow. And now let us return to what we were
talking about. You say...." He broke off with an exclamation, and
glanced at his watch. "Good Heavens! I had no idea of the time. I
promised to run up and see a man in one of the offices in the next
court. He wants to consult me on some difficulty which has arisen with
one of his clients. Rightly or wrongly he values my advice. Can you
spare me for a short while? I shan't be more than ten minutes."

"Certainly."

"Here is something you may care to look at while I'm gone. I don't know
if you have read it? Widgery on Nisi Prius Evidence. Most interesting."

He went out. Jno. Peters looked up from his _Home Whispers_.

"You can go in now," said Sam.

"Certainly, Mr. Samuel, certainly."

Sam took up the copy of _Home Whispers_, and sat down with his
feet on the desk. He turned to the serial story and began to read the
synopsis.

In the inner room, Billie, who had rejected the mental refreshment
offered by Widgery, and was engaged in making a tour of the office,
looking at the portraits of whiskered men whom she took correctly to be
the Thorpes, Prescotts, Winslows and Applebys mentioned on the
contents-bill outside, was surprised to hear the door open at her back.
She had not expected Sam to return so instantaneously.

Nor had he done so. It was not Sam who entered. It was a man of
repellent aspect whom she recognised instantly, for Jno. Peters was one
of those men who, once seen, are not easily forgotten. He was smiling,
a cruel, cunning smile--at least, she thought he was; Mr. Peters
himself was under the impression that his face was wreathed in a
benevolent simper; and in his hand he bore the largest pistol ever seen
outside a motion picture studio.

"How do you do, Miss Milliken?" he said.




CHAPTER TWELVE


Billie had been standing near the wall, inspecting a portrait of the
late Mr. Josiah Appleby, of which the kindest thing one can say is that
one hopes it did not do him justice. She now shrank back against this
wall, as if she were trying to get through it. The edge of the
portrait's frame tilted her hat out of the straight, but in this
supreme moment she did not even notice it.

"Er--how do you do?" she said.

If she had not been an exceedingly pretty girl, one would have said
that she spoke squeakily. The fighting spirit of the Bennetts, though
it was considerable fighting spirit, had not risen to this emergency.
It had ebbed out of her, leaving in its place a cold panic. She had
seen this sort of thing in the movies--there was one series of
pictures, The Dangers of Diana, where something of the kind had
happened to the heroine in every reel--but she had not anticipated that
it would ever happen to her: and consequently she had not thought out
any plan for coping with such a situation. A grave error. In this world
one should be prepared for everything, or where is one? The best she
could do was to stand and stare at the intruder. It would have done Sam
Marlowe good--he had now finished the synopsis and was skimming
through the current instalment--if he could have known how she yearned
for his return.

"I've brought the revolver," said Mr. Peters.

"So--so I see!" said Billie.

Mr. Peters nursed the weapon affectionately in his hand. He was rather
a shy man with women as a rule, but what Sam had told him about her
being interested in his revolver had made his heart warm to this girl.

"I was just on my way to have a little practice at the range," he said.
"Then I thought I might as well look in here."

"I suppose--I suppose you're a good shot?" quavered Billie.

"I seldom miss," said Jno. Peters.

Billie shuddered. Then, reflecting that the longer she engaged this
maniac in conversation, the more hope there was of Sam coming back in
time to save her, she essayed further small-talk.

"It's--it's very ugly!"

"Oh, no!" said Mr. Peters, hurt.

Billie perceived that she had said the wrong thing.

"Very deadly-looking, I meant," she corrected herself hastily.

"It may have deadly work to do, Miss Milliken," said Mr. Peters.

Conversation languished again. Billie had no further remarks to make of
immediate interest, and Mr. Peters was struggling with a return of the
deplorable shyness which so handicapped him in his dealings with the
other sex. After a few moments, he pulled himself together again, and,
as his first act was to replace the pistol in the pocket of his coat,
Billie became conscious of a faint stirring of relief.

"The great thing," said Jno. Peters, "is to learn to draw quickly. Like
this!" he added, producing the revolver with something of the
smoothness and rapidity with which Billie, in happier moments, had seen
conjurers take a bowl of gold fish out of a tall hat. "Everything
depends on getting the first shot! The first shot, Miss Milliken, is
vital."

Suddenly Billie had an inspiration. It was hopeless she knew, to try to
convince this poor demented creature, obsessed with his _idee
fixe_, that she was not Miss Milliken. Denial would be a waste of
time, and might even infuriate him into precipitating the tragedy. It was
imperative that she should humour him. And, while she was humouring
him, it suddenly occurred to her, why not do it thoroughly.

"Mr. Peters," she cried, "you are quite mistaken!"

"I beg your pardon," said Jno. Peters, with not a little asperity.
"Nothing of the kind!"

"You are!"

"I assure you I am not. Quickness in the draw is essential."

"You have been misinformed."

"Well, I had it direct from the man at the Rupert Street range," said
Mr. Peters stiffly. "And if you had ever seen a picture called Two-Gun
Thomas...."

"Mr. Peters!" cried Billie desperately. He was making her head swim
with his meaningless ravings. "Mr. Peters, hear me! I am not married to
a man at Ealing West!"

Mr. Peters betrayed no excitement at the information. This girl seemed
for some reason to consider her situation an extraordinary one, but
many women, he was aware, were in a similar position. In fact, he could
not at the moment think of any of his feminine acquaintances who
_were_ married to men at Ealing West.

"Indeed?" he said politely.

"Won't you believe me?" exclaimed Billie wildly.

"Why, certainly, certainly," said Jno. Peters.

"Thank God!" said Billie. "I'm not even engaged! It's all been a
terrible mistake!"

When two people in a small room are speaking on two distinct and
different subjects and neither knows what on earth the other is driving
at, there is bound to be a certain amount of mental confusion: but at
this point Jno. Peters, though still not wholly equal to the
intellectual pressure of the conversation, began to see a faint shimmer
of light behind the clouds. In a nebulous kind of way he began to
understand that the girl had come to consult the firm about a
breach-of-promise action. Some unknown man at Ealing West had been
trifling with her heart--hardened lawyer's clerk as he was, that poignant
cry "I'm not engaged!" had touched Mr. Peters--and she wished to start
proceedings. Mr. Peters felt almost in his depth again. He put the
revolver in his pocket, and drew out a note-book.

"I should be glad to hear the facts," he said with professional
courtesy. "In the absence of the Guv'nor...."

"I have told you the facts!"

"This man at Ealing West," said Mr. Peters, moistening the point of his
pencil, "he wrote you letters proposing marriage?"

"No, no, no!"

"At any rate," said Mr. Peters, disappointed but hopeful, "he made love
to you before witnesses?"

"Never! Never! There is no man at Ealing West! There never was a man at
Ealing West!"

It was at this point that Jno. Peters began for the first time to
entertain serious doubts of the girl's mental balance. The most
elementary acquaintance with the latest census was enough to tell him
that there were any number of men at Ealing West. The place was full of
them. Would a sane woman have made an assertion to the contrary? He
thought not, and he was glad that he had the revolver with him. She had
done nothing as yet actively violent, but it was nice to feel prepared.
He took it out and laid it nonchalantly in his lap.

The sight of the weapon acted on Billie electrically. She flung out her
hands, in a gesture of passionate appeal, and played her last card.

"I love _you_!" she cried. She wished she could have remembered
his first name. It would have rounded off the sentence neatly. In such
a moment she could hardly call him 'Mr. Peters.' "You are the only man
I love."

"My gracious goodness!" ejaculated Mr. Peters, and nearly fell over
backwards. To a naturally shy man this sudden and wholly unexpected
declaration was disconcerting: and the clerk was, moreover, engaged. He
blushed violently. And yet, even in that moment of consternation, he
could not check a certain thrill. No man ever thinks he is as homely as
he really is, but Jno. Peters had always come fairly near to a correct
estimate of his charms, and it had always seemed to him, that, in
inducing his fiancee to accept him, he had gone some. He now began to
wonder if he were not really rather a devil of a chap after all. There
must, he felt, be precious few men going about capable of inspiring
devotion like this on the strength of about six and a half minutes
casual conversation.

Calmer thoughts succeeded this little flicker of complacency. The girl
was mad. That was the fact of the matter. He got up and began to edge
towards the door. Mr. Samuel would be returning shortly, and he ought
to be warned.

"So that's all right, isn't it!" said Billie.

"Oh, quite, quite!" said Mr. Peters. "Er--thank you very much!"

"I thought you would be pleased," said Billie, relieved, but puzzled.
For a man of volcanic passions, as Sam Marlowe had described him, he
seemed to be taking the thing very calmly. She had anticipated a
strenuous scene.

"Oh, it's a great compliment," Mr. Peters assured her.

At this point Sam came in, interrupting the conversation at a moment
when it had reached a somewhat difficult stage. He had finished the
instalment of the serial story in _Home Whispers_, and, looking at
his watch he fancied that he had allowed sufficient time to elapse for
events to have matured along the lines which his imagination had
indicated.

The atmosphere of the room seemed to him, as he entered, a little
strained. Billie looked pale and agitated. Mr. Peters looked rather
agitated too. Sam caught Billie's eye. It had an unspoken appeal in it.
He gave an imperceptible nod, a reassuring nod, the nod of a man who
understood all and was prepared to handle the situation.

"Come, Peters," he said in a deep, firm, quiet voice, laying a hand on
the clerk's arm. "It's time that you went."

"Yes, indeed, Mr. Samuel! yes, yes, indeed!"

"I'll see you out," said Sam soothingly, and led him through the outer
office and on to the landing outside. "Well, good luck, Peters," he
said, as they stood at the head of the stairs. "I hope you have a
pleasant trip. Why, what's the matter? You seem upset."

"That girl, Mr. Samuel! I really think--really, she cannot be quite
right in her head."

"Nonsense, nonsense!" said Sam firmly. "She's all right! Well, good-bye."

"Good-bye, Mr. Samuel."

"When did you say you were sailing?"

"Next Saturday, Mr. Samuel. But I fear I shall have no opportunity of
seeing you again before then. I have packing to do and I have to see
this gentleman down in the country...."

"All right. Then we'll say good-bye now. Good-bye, Peters. Mind you
have a good time in America. I'll tell my father you called."

Sam watched him out of sight down the stairs, then turned and made his
way back to the inner office. Billie was sitting limply on the chair
which Jno. Peters had occupied. She sprang to her feet.

"Has he really gone?"

"Yes, he's gone this time."

"Was he--was he violent?"

"A little," said Sam, "a little. But I calmed him down." He looked at
her gravely. "Thank God I was in time!"

"Oh, you are the bravest man in the world!" cried Billie, and, burying
her face in her hands, burst into tears.

"There, there!" said Sam. "There, there! Come come! It's all right now!
There, there, there!"

He knelt down beside her. He slipped one arm round her waist. He patted
her hands.

I have tried to draw Samuel Marlowe so that he will live on the printed
page. I have endeavoured to delineate his character so that it will be
as an open book. And, if I have succeeded in my task, the reader will
by now have become aware that he was a young man with the gall of an
Army mule. His conscience, if he had ever had one, had become atrophied
through long disuse. He had given this sensitive girl the worst fright
she had had since a mouse had got into her bedroom at school. He had
caused Jno. Peters to totter off to the Rupert Street range making low,
bleating noises. And did he care? No! All he cared about was the fact
that he had erased for ever from Billie's mind that undignified picture
of himself as he had appeared on the boat, and substituted another
which showed him brave, resourceful, gallant. All he cared about was
the fact that Billie, so cold ten minutes before, had allowed him to
kiss her for the forty-second time. If you had asked him, he would have
said that he had acted for the best, and that out of evil cometh good,
or some sickening thing like that. That was the sort of man Samuel
Marlowe was.

His face was very close to Billie's, who had cheered up wonderfully by
this time, and he was whispering his degraded words of endearment into
her ear, when there was a sort of explosion in the doorway.

"Great Godfrey!" exclaimed Mr. Rufus Bennett, gazing on the scene from
this point of vantage and mopping with a large handkerchief a scarlet
face, which, as the result of climbing three flights of stairs, had
become slightly soluble. "Great Heavens above!"




CHAPTER THIRTEEN


Remarkable as the apparition of Mr. Bennett appeared to his daughter, the
explanation of his presence at that moment in the office of Marlowe,
Thorpe, Prescott, Winslow, and Appleby was simple. He had woken early that
morning, and, glancing at his watch on the dressing-table, he had suddenly
become aware of something bright and yellow beside it, and had paused,
transfixed, like Robinson Crusoe staring at the footprint in the sand.
If he had not been in England, he would have said it was a patch of
sunshine. Hardly daring to hope, he pulled up the shades and looked out
on the garden.

It was a superb morning. It was as if some giant had uncorked a great
bottle full of the distilled scent of grass, trees, flowers, and hay.
Mr. Bennett sniffed luxuriantly. Gone was the gloom of the past days,
swept away in a great exhilaration.

Breakfast had deepened his content. Henry Mortimer, softened by the
same balmy influence, had been perfectly charming. All their little
differences had melted away in the genial warmth. And then suddenly
Mr. Bennett remembered that he had sent Billie up to London to enlist
the aid of the Law against his old friend, and remorse gripped him. Half
an hour later he was in the train, on his way to London to intercept her
and cancel her mission. He had arrived, breathless at Sir Mallaby's
office, and the first thing he had seen was his daughter in the arms of
a young man who was a total stranger to him. The shock took away his
breath again just as it was coming back. He advanced shakily into the
room, and supported himself with one hand on the desk, while with the
other he plied the handkerchief on his super-heated face.

Billie was the first to speak.

"Why, father," she said, "I didn't expect you!"

As an explanation of her behaviour this might, no doubt, have been
considered sufficient, but as an excuse for it Mr. Bennett thought it
inadequate. He tried to convey a fatherly reproof by puffing like a
seal after a long dive in search of fish.

"This is Sam," proceeded Billie. "Sam Marlowe."

Mr. Bennett became aware that the young man was moving towards him with
outstretched hand. It took a lot to disconcert Sam, and he was the
calmest person present. He gave evidence of this in a neat speech. He
did not in so many words congratulate Mr. Bennett on the piece of luck
which had befallen him, but he tried to make him understand by his
manner that he was distinctly to be envied as the prospective
father-in-law of such a one as himself.

Mr. Bennett stared in a frozen sort of way at the hand. He had placed
Sam by now. He knew that Sir Mallaby had a son. This, presumably, was
he. But the discovery did not diminish his indignation.

"I am delighted to meet you, Mr. Bennett," said Sam. "You could not
have come at a more fortunate moment. You see for yourself how things
are. There is no need for a long explanation. You came to find a
daughter, Mr. Bennett, and you have found a son!"

And he would like to see the man, thought Sam, who could have put it
more cleverly and pleasantly and tactfully than that.

"What are you talking about?" said Mr. Bennett, recovering breath. "I
haven't got a son."

"I will be a son to you! I will be the prop of your declining
years...."

"What the devil do you mean, my declining years?" demanded Mr. Bennett
with asperity.

"He means when they do decline, father dear," said Billie.

"Of course, of course," said Sam. "When they do decline. Not till then,
of course! I wouldn't dream of it. But, once they do decline, count on
me! And I should like to say for my part," he went on handsomely, "what
an honour I think it, to become the son-in-law of a man like Mr.
Bennett. Bennett of New York!" he added spaciously, not so much because
he knew what he meant, for he would have been the first to admit that
he did not, but because it sounded well.

"Oh!" said Mr. Bennett "You do, do you?"

Mr. Bennett sat down. He put away his handkerchief, which had certainly
earned a rest. Then he fastened a baleful stare upon his newly-discovered
son. It was not the sort of look a proud and happy father-in-law-to-be
ought to have directed at a prospective relative. It was not, as a matter
of fact, the sort of look which anyone ought to have directed at anybody
except possibly an exceptionally prudish judge at a criminal in the dock,
convicted of a more than usually atrocious murder. Billie, not being in
the actual line of fire, only caught the tail end of it, but it was
enough to create a misgiving.

"Oh, father! You aren't angry."

"Angry!"

"You _can't_ be angry!"

"Why can't I be angry!" demanded Mr. Bennett, with that sense of injury
which comes to self-willed men when their whims are thwarted. "Why the
devil shouldn't I be angry? I _am_ angry! I come here and find you
like--like this, and you seem to expect me to throw my hat in the air
and give three rousing cheers! Of course I'm angry! You are engaged to
be married to an excellent young man of the highest character, one of
the finest young men I have ever met...."

"Oh, well!" said Sam, straightening his tie modestly. "Of course, if
you say so ... It's awfully good of you...."

"But, father," cried Billie, "I never really loved Bream. I like him
very much, but I could never love him. I only got engaged to him
because you were so anxious for it, and because ... because I had
quarrelled with the man I really loved ... I don't want to marry Bream."

"Naturally!" said Sam. "Naturally! Quite out of the question. In a few
days we'll all be roaring with laughter at the very idea."

Mr. Bennett scorched him with a look compared with which his earlier
effort had been a loving glance.

"Wilhelmina," he said, "go into the outer office."

"But, father, you don't understand. You don't realise that Sam has just
saved my life."

"Saved your life? What do you mean?"

"There was a lunatic in here with a pistol, and Sam saved me."

"It was nothing," said Sam modestly. "Nothing."

"Go into the outer office!" thundered Mr. Bennett, quite unmoved by
this story.

"Very well," said Billie. "I shall always love you, Sam," she said,
pausing mutinously at the door.

"I shall always love _you_," said Sam.

"Nobody can keep us apart."

"They're wasting their time, trying," said Sam.

"You're the most wonderful man in the world."

"There never was a girl like you!"

"Get _out_!" bellowed Mr. Bennett, on whose equanimity this
love-scene, which I think beautiful, was jarring profoundly.

"Now, sir!" he said to Sam, as the door closed.

"Yes, let's talk it over calmly," said Sam.

"I will not talk it over calmly!"

"Oh, come! You can do it if you try."

"Bream Mortimer is the son of Henry Mortimer."

"I know," said Sam. "And, while it is no doubt unfair to hold that
against him, it's a point you can't afford to ignore. Henry Mortimer!
You and I have Henry Mortimer's number. We know what Henry Mortimer is
like! A man who spends his time thinking up ways of annoying you. You
can't seriously want to have the Mortimer family linked to you by
marriage."

"Henry Mortimer is my oldest friend."

"That makes it all the worse. Fancy a man who calls himself your friend
treating you like that!"

"The misunderstanding to which you allude has been completely smoothed
over. My relations with Mr. Mortimer are thoroughly cordial."

"Well, have it your own way. Personally, I wouldn't trust a man like
that. And, as for letting my daughter marry his son...!"

"I have decided once and for all...."

"If you'll take my advice, you will break the thing off."

"I will not take your advice."

"I wouldn't expect to charge you for it," explained Sam, reassuringly.
"I give it you as a friend, not as a lawyer. Six-and-eightpence to
others, free to you."

"Will you understand that my daughter is going to marry Bream Mortimer?
What are you giggling about?"

"It sounds so silly. The idea of anyone marrying Bream Mortimer, I
mean."

"Let me tell you he is a thoroughly estimable young man."

"And there you put the whole thing in a nutshell. Your daughter is a
girl of spirit. She would hate to be tied for life to an estimable
young man."

"She will do as I tell her."

Sam regarded him sternly.

"Have you no regard for her happiness?"

"I am the best judge of what is best for her."

"If you ask me," said Sam candidly, "I think you're a rotten judge."

"I did not come here to be insulted!"

"I like that! You have been insulting me ever since you arrived. What
right have you to say that I'm not fit to marry your daughter?"

"I did not say that."

"You've implied it. And you've been looking at me as if I were a leper
or something the Pure Food Committee has condemned. Why? That's what I
ask you," said Sam, warming up. This, he fancied, was the way Widgery
would have tackled a troublesome client. "Why? Answer me that!"

"I...."

Sam rapped sharply on the desk.

"Be careful, sir. Be very careful!" He knew that this was what lawyers
always said. Of course, there is a difference in position between a
miscreant whom you suspect of an attempt at perjury and the father of
the girl you love, whose consent to the match you wish to obtain, but
Sam was in no mood for these nice distinctions. He only knew that
lawyers told people to be very careful, so he told Mr. Bennett to be
very careful.

"What do you mean, be very careful?" said Mr. Bennett.

"I'm dashed if I know," said Sam frankly. The question struck him as a
mean attack. He wondered how Widgery would have met it. Probably by
smiling quietly and polishing his spectacles. Sam had no spectacles. He
endeavoured, however, to smile quietly.

"Don't laugh at me!" roared Mr. Bennett.

"I'm not laughing at you."

"You are!"

"I'm not!"

"Well, don't then!" said Mr. Bennett. He glowered at his young
companion. "I don't know why I'm wasting my time, talking to you. The
position is clear to the meanest intelligence. You cannot have any
difficulty in understanding it. I have no objection to you
personally...."

"Come, this is better!" said Sam.

"I don't know you well enough to have any objection to you or any
opinion of you at all. This is the first time I have ever met you in my
life."

"Mark you," said Sam. "I think I am one of those fellows who grow on
people...."

"As far as I am concerned, you simply do not exist. You may be the
noblest character in London or you may be wanted by the police. I don't
know. And I don't care. It doesn't matter to me. You mean nothing in my
life. I don't know you."

"You must persevere," said Sam. "You must buckle to and get to know me.
Don't give the thing up in this half-hearted way. Everything has to
have a beginning. Stick to it, and in a week or two you will find
yourself knowing me quite well."

"I don't want to know you!"

"You say that now, but wait!"

"And thank goodness I have not got to!" exploded Mr. Bennett, ceasing
to be calm and reasonable with a suddenness which affected Sam much as
though half a pound of gunpowder had been touched off under his chair.
"For the little I have seen of you has been quite enough! Kindly
understand that my daughter is engaged to be married to another man, and
that I do not wish to see or hear anything of you again! I shall try to
forget your very existence, and I shall see to it that Wilhelmina does
the same! You're an impudent scoundrel, sir! An impudent scoundrel! I
don't like you! I don't wish to see you again! If you were the last man
in the world I wouldn't allow my daughter to marry you! If that is
quite clear, I will wish you good morning!"

Mr. Bennett thundered out of the room, and Sam, temporarily stunned by
the outburst, remained where he was, gaping. A few minutes
later life began to return to his palsied limbs. It occurred to him
that Mr. Bennett had forgotten to kiss him good-bye, and he went into
the outer office to tell him so. But the outer office was empty. Sam
stood for a moment in thought, then he returned to the inner office,
and, picking up a time-table, began to look out trains to the village
of Windlehurst in Hampshire, the nearest station to his aunt Adeline's
charming old-world house, Windles.




CHAPTER FOURTEEN


As I read over the last few chapters of this narrative, I see that I
have been giving the reader a rather too jumpy time. To almost a
painful degree I have excited his pity and terror; and, though that is
what Aristotle tells one ought to do, I feel that a little respite
would not be out of order. The reader can stand having his emotions
churned up to a certain point; after that he wants to take it easy. It
is with pleasure, therefore, that I turn now to depict a quiet,
peaceful scene in domestic life. It won't last long--three minutes,
perhaps, by a stop-watch--but that is not my fault. My task is to
record facts as they happened.

The morning sunlight fell pleasantly on the garden of Windles, turning
it into the green and amber Paradise which Nature had intended it to
be. A number of the local birds sang melodiously in the under-growth at
the end of the lawn, while others, more energetic, hopped about the
grass in quest of worms. Bees, mercifully ignorant that, after
they had worked themselves to the bone gathering honey, the
proceeds of their labour would be collared and consumed by idle humans,
buzzed industriously to and fro and dived head foremost into flowers.
Winged insects danced sarabands in the sunshine. And in a deck-chair
under the cedar-tree Billie Bennett, with a sketching-block on her
knee, was engaged in drawing a picture of the ruined castle. Beside
her, curled up in a ball, lay her Pekinese dog, Pinky-Boodles. Beside
Pinky-Boodles slept Smith, the bulldog. In the distant stable-yard,
unseen but audible, a boy in shirt sleeves was washing the car and
singing as much as treacherous memory would permit of a popular
sentimental ballad.

You may think that was all. You may suppose that nothing could be added
to deepen the atmosphere of peace and content. Not so. At this moment,
Mr. Bennett emerged from the French windows of the drawing-room, clad
in white flannels and buckskin shoes, supplying just the finishing
touch that was needed.

Mr. Bennett crossed the lawn, and sat down beside his daughter. Smith,
the bull-dog, raising a sleepy head, breathed heavily; but Mr. Bennett
did not quail. Of late, relations of distant but solid friendship had
come to exist between them. Sceptical at first, Mr. Bennett had at
length allowed himself to be persuaded of the mildness of the animal's
nature and the essential purity of his motives; and now it was only when
they encountered each other unexpectedly round sharp corners that he
ever betrayed the slightest alarm. So now, while Smith slept on the grass,
Mr. Bennett reclined in the chair. It was the nearest thing modern
civilization had seen to the lion lying down with the lamb.

"Sketching?" said Mr. Bennett.

"Yes," said Billie, for there were no secrets between this girl and her
father. At least, not many. She occasionally omitted to tell him some
such trifle as that she had met Samuel Marlowe on the previous morning
in a leafy lane, and intended to meet him again this afternoon, but
apart from that her mind was an open book.

"It's a great morning," said Mr. Bennett.

"So peaceful," said Billie.

"The eggs you get in the country in England," said Mr. Bennett,
suddenly striking a lyrical note, "are extraordinary. I had three for
breakfast this morning which defied competition, simply defied
competition. They were large and brown, and as fresh as new-mown-hay!"

He mused for a while in a sort of ecstasy.

"And the hams!" he went on. "The ham I had for breakfast was what I
call ham! I don't know when I've had ham like that. I suppose it's
something they feed the pigs," he concluded, in soft meditation. And he
gave a little sigh. Life was very beautiful.

Silence fell, broken only by the snoring of Smith. Billie was thinking
of Sam, and of what Sam had said to her in the lane yesterday; of his
clean-cut face, and the look in his eyes--so vastly superior to any
look that ever came into the eyes of Bream Mortimer. She was telling
herself that her relations with Sam were an idyll; for, being young and
romantic, she enjoyed this freshet of surreptitious meetings which had
come to enliven the stream of her life. It was pleasant to go warily
into deep lanes where forbidden love lurked. She cast a swift side-glance
at her father--the unconscious ogre in her fairy-story. What would he say
if he knew? But Mr. Bennett did not know, and consequently continued to
meditate peacefully on ham.

They had sat like this for perhaps a minute--two happy mortals lulled by
the gentle beauty of the day--when from the window of the drawing-room
there stepped out a white-capped maid. And one may just as well say at
once--and have done with it--that this is the point where the quiet,
peaceful scene in domestic life terminates with a jerk, and pity and
terror resume work at the old stand.

The maid--her name, not that it matters, was Susan, and she was engaged
to be married, though the point is of no importance, to the second
 assistant at Green's Grocery Stores in Windlehurst--approached Mr.
Bennett.

"Please, sir, a gentleman to see you."

"Eh?" said Mr. Bennett, torn from a dream of large pink slices edged
with bread-crumbed fat. "Eh?"

"A gentleman to see you, sir. In the drawing-room. He says you are
expecting him."

"Of course, yes. To be sure."

Mr. Bennett heaved himself out of the deck-chair. Beyond the French
windows he could see an indistinct form in a gray suit, and remembered
that this was the morning on which Sir Mallaby Marlowe's clerk--who was
taking those Schultz and Bowen papers for him to America--had
written that he would call. To-day was Friday; no doubt the man was
sailing from Southampton to-morrow.

He crossed the lawn, entered the drawing-room, and found Mr. Jno.
Peters with an expression on his ill-favored face, which looked like
one of consternation, of uneasiness, even of alarm.

"Morning, Mr. Peters," said Mr. Bennett. "Very good of you to run down.
Take a seat, and I'll just go through the few notes I have made about
the matter."

"Mr. Bennett," exclaimed Jno. Peters. "May--may I speak?"

"What do you mean? Eh? What? Something to say? What is it?"

Mr. Peters cleared his throat awkwardly. He was feeling embarrassed at
the unpleasantness of the duty which he had to perform, but it was a
duty, and he did not intend to shrink from performing it. Ever since,
gazing appreciatively through the drawing-room windows at the charming
scene outside, he had caught sight of the unforgettable form of Billie,
seated in her chair with the sketching-block on her knee, he had
realised that he could not go away in silence, leaving Mr. Bennett
ignorant of what he was up against.

One almost inclines to fancy that there must have been a curse of some
kind on this house of Windles. Certainly everybody who entered it
seemed to leave his peace of mind behind him. Jno. Peters had been
feeling notably happy during his journey in the train from London, and
the subsequent walk from the station. The splendor of the morning had
soothed his nerves, and the faint wind that blew inshore from the sea
spoke to him hearteningly of adventure and romance. There was a jar of
pot-pourri on the drawing-room table, and he had derived considerable
pleasure from sniffing at it. In short, Jno. Peters was in the pink,
without a care in the world, until he had looked out of the window and
seen Billie.

"Mr. Bennett," he said, "I don't want to do anybody any harm, and, if
you know all about it, and she suits you, well and good; but I think it
is my duty to inform you that your stenographer is not quite right in
the head. I don't say she's dangerous, but she isn't compos. She
decidedly is _not_ compos, Mr. Bennett!"

Mr. Bennett stared at his well-wisher dumbly for a moment. The thought
crossed his mind that, if ever there was a case of the pot calling the
kettle black, this was it. His opinion of Jno. Peters' sanity went down
to zero.

"What are you talking about? My stenographer? What stenographer?"

It occurred to Mr. Peters that a man of the other's wealth and business
connections might well have a troupe of these useful females. He
particularised.

"I mean the young lady out in the garden there, to whom you were
dictating just now. The young lady with the writing-pad on her knee."

"What! What!" Mr. Bennett spluttered. "Do you know who that is?" he
exclaimed.

"Oh, yes, indeed!" said Jno. Peters. "I have only met her once, when
she came into our office to see Mr. Samuel, but her personality and
appearance stamped themselves so forcibly on my mind, that I know I am
not mistaken. I am sure it is my duty to tell you exactly what happened
when I was left alone with her in the office. We had hardly exchanged a
dozen words, Mr. Bennett, when--" here Jno. Peters, modest to the core,
turned vividly pink, "when she told me--she told me that I was the only
man she loved!"

Mr. Bennett uttered a loud cry.

"Sweet spirits of nitre!"

Mr. Peters could make nothing of this exclamation, and he was deterred
from seeking light, by the sudden action of his host, who, bounding
from his seat, with a vivacity of which one could not have believed him
capable, charged to the French window and emitted a bellow.

"Wilhelmina!"

Billie looked up from her sketching-book with a start. It seemed to her
that there was a note of anguish, of panic, in that voice. What her
father could have found in the drawing-room to be frightened at, she
did not know; but she dropped her block and hurried to his assistance.

"What it is, father?"

Mr. Bennett had retired within the room when she arrived; and, going in
after him, she perceived at once what had caused his alarm. There
before her, looking more sinister than ever, stood the lunatic Peters;
and there was an ominous bulge in his right coat-pocket which betrayed
the presence of the revolver. What Jno. Peters was, as a matter of
fact, carrying in his right coat-pocket was a bag of mixed chocolates
which he had purchased in Windlehurst. But Billie's eyes,
though bright, had no X-ray quality. Her simple creed was that, if Jno.
Peters bulged at any point, that bulge must be caused by a pistol. She
screamed, and backed against the wall. Her whole acquaintance with Jno.
Peters had been on constant backing against walls.

"Don't shoot!" she cried, as Mr. Peters absent-mindedly dipped his
hand into the pocket of his coat. "Oh, please don't shoot!"

"What the deuce do you mean?" said Mr. Bennett, irritably.

He hated to have people gibbering around him in the morning.

"Wilhelmina, this man says that you told him you loved him."

"Yes, I did, and I do. Really, really, Mr. Peters, I do!"

"Suffering cats!"

Mr. Bennett clutched at the back of a chair.

"But you've only met him once!" he added almost pleadingly.

"You don't understand, father dear," said Billie desperately. "I'll
explain the whole thing later, when...."

"Father!" ejaculated Jno. Peters feebly. "Did you say 'father'?"

"Of course I said 'father'!"

"This is my daughter, Mr. Peters."

"My daughter! I mean, your daughter! Are--are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. Do you think I don't know my own daughter?"

"But she called me 'Mr. Peters'!"

"Well, it's your name, isn't it?"

"But, if she--if this young lady is your daughter, how did she know my
name?"

The point seemed to strike Mr. Bennett. He turned to Billie.

"That's true. Tell me, Wilhelmina, when did you and Mr. Peters meet?"

"Why, in--in Sir Mallaby Marlowe's office, the morning you came there
and found me when I was--talking to Sam."

Mr. Peters uttered a subdued gargling sound. He was finding this scene
oppressive to a not very robust intellect.

"He--Mr. Samuel--told me your name, Miss Milliken," he said dully.

Billie stared at him.

"Mr. Marlowe told you my name was Miss Milliken!" she repeated.

"He told me that you were the sister of the Miss Milliken who acts as
stenographer for the guv'--for Sir Mallaby, and sent me in to show you
my revolver, because he said you were interested and wanted to see it."

Billie uttered an exclamation. So did Mr. Bennett, who hated mysteries.

"What revolver? Which revolver? What's all this about a revolver? Have
you a revolver?"

"Why, yes, Mr. Bennett. It is packed now in my trunk, but usually I
carry it about with me everywhere in order to take a little practice at
the Rupert Street range. I bought it when Sir Mallaby told me he was
sending me to America, because I thought I ought to be prepared--because
of the Underworld, you know."

A cold gleam had come into Billie's eyes. Her face was pale and hard.
If Sam Marlowe--at that moment carolling blithely in his bedroom at the
Blue Boar in Windlehurst, washing his hands preparatory to descending
to the coffee-room for a bit of cold lunch--could have seen her, the
song would have frozen on his lips. Which, one might mention, as
showing that there is always a bright side, would have been much
appreciated by the travelling gentleman in the adjoining room, who had
had a wild night with some other travelling gentlemen, and was then
nursing a rather severe headache, separated from Sam's penetrating
baritone, only by the thickness of a wooden wall.

Billie knew all. And, terrible though the fact is as an indictment of
the male sex, when a woman knows all, there is invariably trouble ahead
for some man.

There was trouble ahead for Sam Marlowe. Billie, now in possession of
the facts, had examined them and come to the conclusion that Sam had
played a practical joke on her, and she was a girl who strongly
disapproved of practical humor at her expense.

"That morning I met you at Sir Mallaby's office, Mr. Peters," she said
in a frosty voice, "Mr. Marlowe had just finished telling me a long and
convincing story to the effect that you were madly in love with a Miss
Milliken, who had jilted you, and that this had driven you off your
head, and that you spent your time going about with a pistol, trying to
shoot every red-haired woman you saw, because you thought they were
Miss Milliken. Naturally, when you came in and called me Miss Milliken,
and brandished a revolver, I was very frightened. I thought it would be
useless to tell you that I wasn't Miss Milliken, so I tried to persuade
you that I was, and hadn't jilted you after all."

"Good gracious!" said Mr. Peters, vastly relieved; and yet--for always
there is bitter mixed with the sweet--a shade disappointed. "Then--er--you
don't love me after all?"

"No!" said Billie. "I am engaged to Bream Mortimer, and I love him and
nobody else in the world!"

The last portion of her observation was intended for the consumption of
Mr. Bennett, rather than that of Mr. Peters, and he consumed it
joyfully. He folded Billie in his ample embrace.

"I always thought you had a grain of sense hidden away somewhere," he
said, paying her a striking tribute. "I hope now that we've heard the
last of all this foolishness about that young hound Marlowe."

"You certainly have! I don't want ever to see him again! I hate him!"

"You couldn't do better, my dear," said Mr. Bennett, approvingly. "And
now run away. Mr. Peters and I have some business to discuss."

A quarter of an hour later, Webster, the valet, sunning himself in the
stable-yard, was aware of the daughter of his employer approaching him.

"Webster," said Billie. She was still pale. Her face was still hard,
and her eyes still gleamed coldly.

"Miss?" said Webster politely, throwing away the cigarette with which
he had been refreshing himself.

"Will you do something for me?"

"I should be more than delighted, miss."

Billie whisked into view an envelope which had been concealed in the
recesses of her dress.

"Do you know the country about here, well, Webster?"

"Within a certain radius, not unintimately, Miss. I have been for
several enjoyable rambles since the fine weather set in."

"Do you know the place where there is a road leading to Havant, and
another to Cosham? It's about a mile down...."

"I know the spot well, miss."

"Well, straight in front of you when you get to the sign-post there is
a little lane...."

"I know it, miss," said Webster. "A delightfully romantic spot. What
with the overhanging trees, the wealth of blackberry bushes, the varied
wild-flowers...."

"Yes, never mind about the wild-flowers now. I want you after lunch to
take this note to a gentleman you will find sitting on the gate at the
bottom of the lane...."

"Sitting on the gate, miss. Yes, miss."

"Or leaning against it. You can't mistake him. He is rather tall and....
Oh, well, there isn't likely to be anybody else there, so you can't
make a mistake. Give him this, will you?"

"Certainly, miss. Er--any message?"

"Any what?"

"Any verbal message, miss?"

"No, certainly not! You won't forget, will you, Webster?"

"On no account whatever, miss. Shall I wait for an answer?"

"There won't be any answer," said Billie, setting her teeth for an
instant. "Oh, Webster!"

"Miss?"

"I can rely on you to say nothing to anybody?"

"Most undoubtedly, miss. Most undoubtedly!"

"Does anybody know anything about a feller named S. Marlowe?" enquired
Webster, entering the kitchen. "Don't all speak at once! S. Marlowe.
Ever heard of him?"

He paused for a reply, but nobody had any information to impart.

"Because there's something jolly well up! Our Miss B. is sending me
with notes for him to the bottom of lanes."

"And her engaged to young Mr. Mortimer!" said the scullery-maid
shocked. "The way they go on! Chronic!" said the scullery-maid.

"Don't you go getting alarmed. And don't you," added Webster, "go
shoving your ear in when your social superiors are talking. I've had to
speak to you about that before. My remarks were addressed to Mrs.
Withers here."

He indicated the cook with a respectful gesture.

"Yes, here's the note, Mrs. Withers. Of course, if you had a steamy
kettle handy, in about half a moment we could ... but no, perhaps, it's
wiser not to risk it. And, come to that, I don't need to unstick the
envelope to know what's inside here. It's the raspberry, ma'am, or I've
lost all my power to read the human female countenance. Very cold and
proud-looking she was! I don't know who this S. Marlowe is, but I do
know one thing; in this hand I hold the instrument that's going to give
it him in the neck, proper! Right in the neck, or my name isn't Montagu
Webster!"

"Well!" said Mrs. Withers comfortably, pausing for a moment from her
labours. "Think of that!"

"The way I look at it," said Webster, "is that there's been some sort
of understanding between our Miss B. and this S. Marlowe, and she's
thought better of it and decided to stick to the man of her parent's
choice. She's chosen wealth and made up her mind to hand the humble
suitor the mitten. There was a rather similar situation in 'Cupid or
Mammon,' that Nosegay Novelette I was reading in the train coming down
here, only that ended different. For my part I'd be better pleased if
our Miss B. would let the cash go, and obey the dictates of her own
heart; but these modern girls are all alike. All out for the stuff,
they are! Oh, well, it's none of my affair," said Webster, stifling a
not unmanly sigh. For beneath that immaculate shirt-front there beat a
warm heart. Montagu Webster was a sentimentalist.




CHAPTER FIFTEEN


A half-past two that afternoon, full of optimism and cold beef, gaily
unconscious that Webster, with measured strides was approaching ever
nearer with the note that was to give it him in the neck, proper,
Samuel Marlowe dangled his feet from the top bar of the gate at the end
of the lane and smoked contentedly as he waited for Billie to make her
appearance. He had had an excellent lunch; his pipe was drawing well,
and all Nature smiled. The breeze from the sea across the meadows,
tickled pleasantly the back of his head, and sang a soothing song in
the long grass and ragged-robins at his feet. He was looking forward
with a roseate glow of anticipation to the moment when the white
flutter of Billie's dress would break the green of the foreground. How
eagerly he would jump from the gate! How lovingly he would....

The elegant figure of Webster interrupted his reverie. Sam had never
seen Webster before, and it was with no pleasure that he saw him now. He
had come to regard this lane as his own property, and he resented
trespassers. He tucked his legs under him, and scowled at Webster under
the brim of his hat.

The valet advanced towards him with the air of an affable executioner
stepping daintily to the block.

"Mr. Marlowe, sir?" he enquired politely.

Sam was startled. He could make nothing of this.

"Eh? What?"

"Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. S. Marlowe?"

"Yes, that's my name."

"Mine is Webster, sir, I am Mr. Bennett's personal gentleman's
gentleman. Miss Bennett entrusted me with this note to deliver to you,
sir."

Sam began to grasp the situation. For some reason or other, the dear
girl had been prevented from coming this afternoon, and she had written
to explain and to relieve his anxiety. It was like her. It was just the
sweet, thoughtful thing he would have expected her to do. His
contentment with the existing scheme of things returned. The sun
shone out again, and he found himself amiably disposed towards the
messenger.

"Fine day," he said, as he took the note.

"Extremely, sir," said Webster, outwardly unemotional, inwardly full of
a grave pity.

It was plain to him that there had been no previous little rift to
prepare the young man for the cervical operation which awaited him, and
he edged a little nearer, in order to be handy to catch Sam if the
shock knocked him off the gate.

As it happened, it did not. Having read the opening words of the note,
Sam rocked violently; but his feet were twined about the lower bars and
this saved him from overbalancing. Webster stepped back, relieved.

The note fluttered to the ground. Webster, picking it up and handing it
back, was enabled to get a glimpse of the first two sentences. They
confirmed his suspicions. The note was hot stuff. Assuming that it
continued as it began, it was about the warmest thing of its kind that
pen had ever written. Webster had received one or two heated epistles
from the sex in his time--your man of gallantry can hardly hope to
escape these unpleasantnesses--but none had got off the mark
quite so swiftly, and with quite so much frigid violence as this.

"Thanks," said Sam, mechanically.

"Not at all, sir. You are very welcome."

Sam resumed his reading. A cold perspiration broke out on his forehead.
His toes curled, and something seemed to be crawling down the small of
his back. His heart had moved from its proper place and was now beating
in his throat. He swallowed once or twice to remove the obstruction,
but without success. A kind of pall had descended on the landscape,
blotting out the sun.

Of all the rotten sensations in this world, the worst is the
realisation that a thousand-to-one chance has come off, and caused our
wrong-doing to be detected. There had seemed no possibility of that
little ruse of his being discovered, and yet here was Billie in full
possession of the facts. It almost made the thing worse that she did
not say how she had come into possession of them. This gave Sam that
feeling of self-pity, that sense of having been ill-used by Fate, which
makes the bringing home of crime so particularly poignant.

"Fine day!" he muttered. He had a sort of subconscious feeling that it
was imperative to keep engaging Webster in light conversation.

"Yes, sir. Weather still keeps up," agreed the valet suavely.

Sam frowned over the note. He felt injured. Sending a fellow notes
didn't give him a chance. If she had come in person and denounced him
it would not have been an agreeable experience, but at least it would
have been possible then to have pleaded and cajoled and--and all that
sort of thing. But what could he do now? It seemed to him that his only
possible course was to write a note in reply, begging her to see him.
He explored his pockets and found a pencil and a scrap of paper. For
some moments he scribbled desperately. Then he folded the note.

"Will you take this to Miss Bennett," he said, holding it out.

Webster took the missive, because he wanted to read it later at his
leisure; but he shook his head.

"Useless, I fear, sir," he said gravely.

"What do you mean?"

"I am afraid it would effect little or nothing, sir, sending our Miss
B. notes. She is not in the proper frame of mind to appreciate them. I saw
her face when she handed me the letter you have just read, and I assure
you, sir, she is not in a malleable mood."

"You seem to know a lot about it!"

"I have studied the sex, sir," said Webster modestly.

"I mean, about my business, confound it! You seem to know all about
it!"

"Why, yes, sir, I think I may say that I have grasped the position of
affairs. And, if you will permit me to say so, sir, you have my
respectful sympathy."

Dignity is a sensitive plant which flourishes only under the fairest
conditions. Sam's had perished in the bleak east wind of Billie's note.
In other circumstances he might have resented this intrusion of a
stranger into his most intimate concerns. His only emotion now, was one
of dull but distinct gratitude. The four winds of heaven blew chilly
upon his raw and unprotected soul, and he wanted to wrap it up in a
mantle of sympathy, careless of the source from which he borrowed that
mantle. If Webster, the valet, felt disposed, as he seemed to indicate,
to comfort him, let the thing go on. At that moment Sam would have
accepted condolences from a coal-heaver.

"I was reading a story--one of the Nosegay Novelettes; I do not know if
you are familiar with the series, sir?--in which much the same
situation occurred. It was entitled 'Cupid or Mammon!' The heroine,
Lady Blanche Trefusis, forced by her parents to wed a wealthy suitor,
despatches a note to her humble lover, informing him it cannot be. I
believe it often happens like that, sir."

"You're all wrong," said Sam. "It's not that at all."

"Indeed, sir? I supposed it was."

"Nothing like it! I--I--"

Sam's dignity, on its death-bed, made a last effort to assert itself.

"I don't know what it's got to do with you!"

"Precisely, sir!" said Webster, with dignity. "Just as you say! Good
afternoon, sir!"

He swayed gracefully, conveying a suggestion of departure without
moving his feet. The action was enough for Sam. Dignity gave an
expiring gurgle, and passed away, regretted by all.

"Don't go!" he cried.

The idea of being alone in this infernal lane, without human support,
overpowered him. Moreover, Webster had personality. He exuded it.
Already Sam had begun to cling to him in spirit, and rely on his
support.

"Don't go!"

"Certainly not, if you do not wish it, sir."

Webster coughed gently, to show his appreciation of the delicate nature
of the conversation. He was consumed with curiosity, and his threatened
departure had been but a pretence. A team of horses could not have
moved Webster at that moment.

"Might I ask, then what...?"

"There's been a misunderstanding," said Sam. "At least, there was, but
now there isn't, if you see what I mean."

"I fear I have not quite grasped your meaning, sir."

"Well, I--I--played a sort of--you might almost call it a sort of trick
on Miss Bennett. With the best motives, of course!"

"Of course, sir!"

"And she's found out. I don't know how she's found out, but she has. So
there you are!"

"Of what nature would the trick be, sir? A species of ruse, sir,--some
kind of innocent deception?"

"Well, it was like this."

It was a complicated story to tell, and Sam, a prey to conflicting
emotions, told it badly; but such was the almost superhuman
intelligence of Webster, that he succeeded in grasping the salient
points. Indeed, he said that it reminded him of something of much the
same kind in the Nosegay Novelette, "All for Her," where the hero,
anxious to win the esteem of the lady of his heart, had bribed a tramp
to simulate an attack upon her in a lonely road.

"The principle's the same," said Webster.

"Well what did he do when she found out?"

"She did not find out, sir. All ended happily, and never had the
wedding-bells in the old village church rung out a blither peal than
they did at the subsequent union."

Sam was thoughtful.

"Bribed a tramp to attack her, did he?"

"Yes, sir. She had never thought much of him till that moment, sir.
Very cold and haughty she had been, his social status being
considerably inferior to her own. But, when she cried for help, and he
dashed out from behind a hedge, well, it made all the difference."

"I wonder where I could get a good tramp," said Sam, meditatively.

Webster shook his head.

"I really would hardly recommend such a procedure, sir."

"No, it would be difficult to make a tramp understand what you wanted."

Sam brightened.

"I've got it! _You_ pretend to attack her, and I'll...."

"I couldn't, sir! I couldn't really! I should jeopardise my situation."

"Oh, come! Be a man!"

"No, sir, I fear not. There's a difference between handing in your
resignation--I was compelled to do that only recently, owing to a few
words I had with the guv'nor, though subsequently prevailed upon to
withdraw it--I say there's a difference between handing in your
resignation and being given the sack, and that's what would
happen--without a character, what's more, and lucky if it didn't mean
a prison cell. No, sir; I could not contemplate such a thing."

"Then I don't see that there's anything to be done," said Sam morosely.

"Oh, I shouldn't say that, sir," said Webster, encouragingly. "It's
simply a matter of finding the way. The problem confronting us--you,
I should say...."

"Us," said Sam. "Most decidedly us."

"Thank you very much, sir. I would not have presumed, but if you say
so--The problem confronting us, as I envisage it, resolves itself into
this. You have offended our Miss B. and she has expressed a
disinclination ever to see you again. How, then, is it possible, in
spite of her attitude, to recapture her esteem?"

"Exactly," said Sam.

"There are several methods which occur to one...."

"They don't occur to _me!_"

"Well, for example, you might rescue her from a burning building as in
'True As Steel'...."

"Set fire to the house, eh?" said Sam, reflectively. "Yes, there might
be something in that."

"I would hardly advise such a thing," said Webster, a little
hastily--flattered at the readiness with which his disciple was taking
his advice, yet acutely alive to the fact that he slept at the top of
the house himself.

"A little drastic, if I may say so. It might be better to save her from
drowning, as in 'The Earl's Secret'."

"Ah, but where could she drown?"

"Well, there is a lake in the grounds...."

"Excellent!" said Sam. "Terrific! I knew I could rely on you. Say no
more! The whole thing's settled. You take her out rowing on the lake,
and upset the boat. I plunge in ... I suppose you can swim?"

"No, sir."

"Oh? Well, never mind. You'll manage somehow, I expect. Cling to the
upturned boat or something, I shouldn't wonder. There's always a way.
Yes, that's the plan. When is the earliest you could arrange this?"

"I fear such a course must be considered out of the question, sir. It
really wouldn't do."

"I can't see a flaw in it."

"Well, in the first place, it would certainly jeopardise my
situation...."

"Oh, hang your situation! You talk as if you were Prime Minister or
something. You can easily get another situation. A valuable man like
you," said Sam, ingratiatingly.

"No, sir," said Webster firmly. "From boyhood up I've always had a
regular horror of the water. I can't so much as go paddling without an
uneasy feeling."

The image of Webster paddling was arresting enough to occupy Sam's
thoughts for a moment. It was an inspiring picture, and for an instant
uplifted his spirits. Then they fell again.

"Well, I don't see what there _is_ to be done," he said, gloomily.
"It's no good making suggestions, if you have some frivolous objection
to all of them."

"My idea," said Webster, "would be something which did not involve my
own personal and active co-operation, sir. If it is all the same to
you, I should prefer to limit my assistance to advice. I am anxious to
help, but I am a man of regular habits, which I do not wish to disturb.
Did you ever read 'Footpaths of Fate,' in the Nosegay series, sir? I've
only just remembered it, and it contains the most helpful suggestion of
the lot. There had been a misunderstanding between the heroine and the
hero--their names have slipped my mind, though I fancy his was Cyril--and
she had told him to hop it...."

"To what?"

"To leave her for ever, sir. And what do you think he did?"

"How the deuce do I know?"

"He kidnapped her little brother, sir, to whom she was devoted, kept him
hidden for a bit, and then returned him, and in her gratitude all was
forgotten and forgiven, and never...."

"I know. Never had the bells of the old village church...."

"Rung out a blither peal. Exactly, sir. Well, there, if you will allow
me to say so, you are, sir! You need seek no further for a plan of
action."

"Miss Bennett hasn't got a little brother."

"No, sir. But she has a dog, and is greatly attached to it."

Sam stared. From the expression on his face it was evident that Webster
imagined himself to have made a suggestion of exceptional intelligence.
It struck Sam as the silliest he had ever heard.

"You mean I ought to steal her dog?"

"Precisely, sir."

"But, good heavens! Have you seen that dog?"

"The one to which I allude is a small brown animal with a fluffy tail."

"Yes, and a bark like a steam siren, and, in addition to that, about
eighty-five teeth, all sharper than razors. I couldn't get within ten
feet of that dog without its lifting the roof off, and, if I did, it
would chew me into small pieces."

"I had anticipated that difficulty, sir. In 'Footpaths of Fate' there
was a nurse who assisted the hero by drugging the child."

"By Jove!" said Sam, impressed.

"He rewarded her," said Webster, allowing his gaze to stray
nonchalantly over the country-side, "liberally, very liberally."

"If you mean that you expect me to reward you if you drug the dog,"
said Sam, "don't worry. Let me bring this thing off, and you can have
all I've got, and my cuff-links as well. Come, now, this is really
beginning to look like something. Speak to me more of this matter.
Where do we go from here?"

"I beg your pardon, sir?"

"I mean, what's the next step in the scheme? Oh, Lord!" Sam's face
fell. The light of hope died out of his eyes. "It's all off! It can't
be done! How could I possibly get into the house? I take it that the
little brute sleeps in the house?"

"That need constitute no obstacle, sir; no obstacle at all. The animal
sleeps in a basket in the hall.... Perhaps you are familiar with the
interior of the house, sir?"

"I haven't been inside it since I was at school. I'm Mr. Hignett's
cousin, you know."

"Indeed, sir? I wasn't aware. Mr. Hignett sprained his ankle this
morning, poor gentleman."

"Has he?" said Sam, not particularly interested. "I used to stay with
him," he went on, "during the holidays sometimes, but I've practically
forgotten what the place is like inside. I remember the hall vaguely.
Fireplace at one side, one or two suits of armour standing about, a
sort of window-ledge near the front door.."

"Precisely, sir. It is close beside that window-ledge that the animal's
basket is situated. If I administer a slight soporific...."

"Yes, but you haven't explained yet how I am to get into the house in
the first place."

"Quite easily, sir. I can admit you through the drawing-room windows
while dinner is in progress."

"Fine!"

"You can then secrete yourself in the cupboard in the drawing-room.
Perhaps you recollect the cupboard to which I refer, sir?"

"No, I don't remember any cupboard. As a matter of fact, when I used to
stay at the house the drawing-room was barred.... Mrs. Hignett wouldn't
let us inside it for fear we should smash her china. Is there a
cupboard?"

"Immediately behind the piano, sir. A nice, roomy cupboard. I was
glancing into it myself in a spirit of idle curiosity only the other
day. It contains nothing except a few knick-knacks on an upper shelf.
You could lock yourself in from the interior, and be quite comfortably
seated on the floor till the household retired to bed."

"When would that be?"

"They retire quite early, sir, as a rule. By half-past ten the coast is
generally clear. At that time I would suggest that I came down and
knocked on the cupboard door to notify you that all was well."

Sam was glowing with frank approval.

"You know, you're a master-mind!" he said, enthusiastically.

"You're very kind, sir!"

"One of the lads, by Jove!" said Sam. "And not the worst of them! I
don't want to flatter you, but there's a future for you in crime, if
you cared to go in for it."

"I am glad that you appreciate my poor efforts, sir. Then we will
regard the scheme as passed and approved?"

"I should say we would! It's a bird!"

"Very good, sir."

"I'll be round at about a quarter to eight. Will that be right?"

"Admirable, sir."

"And, I say, about that soporific.... Don't overdo it. Don't go killing
the little beast."

"Oh, no, sir."

"Well," said Sam, "you can't say it's not a temptation. And you know
what you Napoleons of the Underworld are!"




CHAPTER SIXTEEN


1

If there is one thing more than another which weighs upon the mind of a
story-teller as he chronicles the events which he has set out to
describe, it is the thought that the reader may be growing impatient
with him for straying from the main channel of his tale and devoting
himself to what are after all minor developments. This story, for
instance, opened with Mrs. Horace Hignett, the world-famous writer on
Theosophy, going over to America to begin a lecture-tour; and no one
realises more keenly than I do that I have left Mrs. Hignett flat. I
have thrust that great thinker into the background and concentrated my
attention on the affairs of one who is both her mental and moral
inferior, Samuel Marlowe. I seem at this point to see the reader--a
great brute of a fellow with beetling eyebrows and a jaw like the ram
of a battleship, the sort of fellow who is full of determination and will
stand no nonsense--rising to remark that he doesn't care what happened
to Samuel Marlowe and that what he wants to know is, how Mrs. Hignett
made out on her lecturing-tour. Did she go big in Buffalo? Did she have
'em tearing up the seats in Schenectady? Was she a riot in Chicago and
a cyclone in St. Louis? Those are the points on which he desires
information, or give him his money back.

I cannot supply the information. And, before you condemn me, let me
hastily add that the fault is not mine but that of Mrs. Hignett
herself. The fact is, she never went to Buffalo. Schenectady saw
nothing of her. She did not get within a thousand miles of Chicago, nor
did she penetrate to St. Louis. For the very morning after her son
Eustace sailed for England in the liner _Atlantic_, she happened
to read in the paper one of those abridged passenger-lists which the
journals of New York are in the habit of printing, and got a nasty
shock when she saw that, among those whose society Eustace would enjoy
during the voyage was Miss Wilhelmina Bennett, daughter of J. Rufus
Bennett, of Bennett, Mandelbaum and Co. And within five minutes of
digesting this information, she was at her desk writing out
telegrams cancelling all her engagements. Iron-souled as this woman
was, her fingers trembled as she wrote. She had a vision of Eustace and
the daughter of J. Rufus Bennett strolling together on moonlit decks,
leaning over rails damp with sea-spray, and, in short, generally
starting the whole trouble over again.

In the height of the tourist season it is not always possible for one
who wishes to leave America to spring on to the next boat. A long
morning's telephoning to the offices of the Cunard and the White Star
brought Mrs. Hignett the depressing information that it would be a full
week before she could sail for England. That meant that the inflammable
Eustace would have over two weeks to conduct an uninterrupted wooing,
and Mrs. Hignett's heart sank, till suddenly she remembered that so
poor a sailor as her son was not likely to have had leisure for any
strolling on the deck during the voyage of the _Atlantic_.

Having realised this, she became calmer and went about her preparations
for departure with an easier mind. The danger was still great, but
there was a good chance that she might be in time to intervene. She
wound up her affairs in New York and, on the following Wednesday,
boarded the _Nuronia_ bound for Southampton.

The _Nuronia_ is one of the slowest of the Cunard boats. It was
built at a time when delirious crowds used to swoon on the dock if an
ocean liner broke the record by getting across in nine days. It rolled
over to Cherbourg, dallied at that picturesque port for some hours,
then sauntered across the Channel and strolled into Southampton Water
in the evening of the day on which Samuel Marlowe had sat in the lane
plotting with Webster, the valet. At almost the exact moment when Sam,
sidling through the windows of the drawing-room, slid into the cupboard
behind the piano, Mrs. Hignett was standing at the Customs barrier
telling the officials that she had nothing to declare.

Mrs. Hignett was a general who believed in forced marches. A lesser
woman might have taken the boat-train to London and proceeded to
Windles at her ease on the following afternoon. Mrs. Hignett was made
of sterner stuff. Having fortified herself with a late dinner, she
hired an automobile and set out on the cross-country journey. It was
only when the car, a genuine antique, had broken down three times in
the first ten miles, that it became evident to her that it would be much
too late to go to Windles that night, and she directed the driver to take
her instead to the "Blue Boar" in Windlehurst, where she arrived, tired
but thankful to have reached it at all, at about eleven o'clock.

At this point many, indeed most, women, having had a tiring journey,
would have gone to bed: but the familiar Hampshire air and the
knowledge that half an hour's walking would take her to her beloved
home acted on Mrs. Hignett like a restorative. One glimpse of Windles
she felt that she must have before she retired for the night, if only
to assure herself that it was still there. She had a cup of coffee and
a sandwich brought to her by the night-porter, whom she had roused from
sleep, for bedtime is early in Windlehurst, and then informed him that
she was going for a short walk and would ring when she returned.

Her heart leaped joyfully as she turned in at the drive gates of her
home and felt the well-remembered gravel crunching under her feet. The
silhouette of the ruined castle against the summer sky gave her the
feeling which all returning wanderers know. And, when she stepped
on to the lawn and looked at the black bulk of the house, indistinct
and shadowy with its backing of trees, tears came into her eyes. She
experienced a rush of emotion which made her feel quite faint, and
which lasted until, on tiptoeing nearer to the house in order to gloat
more adequately upon it, she perceived that the French windows of the
drawing-room were standing ajar. Sam had left them like this in order
to facilitate departure, if a hurried departure should by any mischance
be rendered necessary, and drawn curtains had kept the household from
noticing the fact.

All the proprietor in Mrs. Hignett was roused. This, she felt
indignantly, was the sort of thing she had been afraid would happen the
moment her back was turned. Evidently laxity--one might almost say
anarchy--had set in directly she had removed the eye of authority. She
marched to the window and pushed it open. She had now completely
abandoned her kindly scheme of refraining from rousing the sleeping
house and spending the night at the inn. She stepped into the drawing-room
with the single-minded purpose of rousing Eustace out of his sleep and
giving him a good talking to for having failed to maintain her own
standard of efficiency among the domestic staff. If there was one thing
on which Mrs. Horace Hignett had always insisted it was that every window
in the house must be closed at lights-out.

She pushed the curtains apart with a rattle and, at the same moment,
from the direction of the door there came a low but distinct gasp which
made her resolute heart jump and flutter. It was too dark to see
anything distinctly, but, in the instant before it turned and fled, she
caught sight of a shadowy male figure, and knew that her worst fears
had been realised. The figure was too tall to be Eustace, and Eustace,
she knew, was the only man in the house. Male figures, therefore, that
went flitting about Windles, must be the figures of burglars.

Mrs. Hignett, bold woman though she was, stood for an instant
spellbound, and for one moment of not unpardonable panic, tried to tell
herself that she had been mistaken. Almost immediately, however, there
came from the direction of the hall a dull chunky sound as though
something soft had been kicked, followed by a low gurgle and the noise
of staggering feet. Unless he was dancing a _pas seul_ out of
sheer lightness of heart, the nocturnal visitor must have tripped over
something.

The latter theory was the correct one. Montagu Webster was a man who at
many a subscription ball had shaken a wicked dancing-pump, and nothing
in the proper circumstances pleased him better than to exercise the
skill which had become his as the result of twelve private lessons at
half-a-crown a visit: but he recognized the truth of the scriptural
adage that there is a time for dancing, and that this was not it. His
only desire when, stealing into the drawing-room he had been confronted
through the curtains by a female figure, was to get back to his bedroom
undetected. He supposed that one of the feminine members of the
house-party must have been taking a stroll in the grounds, and he did not
wish to stay and be compelled to make laborious explanations of his
presence there in the dark. He decided to postpone the knocking on the
cupboard door, which had been the signal arranged between himself and
Sam, until a more suitable occasion. In the meantime he bounded
silently out into the hall, and instantaneously tripped over the portly
form of Smith, the bulldog, who, roused from a light sleep to the
knowledge that something was going on, and being a dog who always liked
to be in the centre of the maelstrom of events, had waddled out to
investigate.

By the time Mrs. Hignett had pulled herself together sufficiently to
feel brave enough to venture into the hall, Webster's presence of mind
and Smith's gregariousness had combined to restore that part of the
house to its normal nocturnal condition of emptiness. Webster's stagger
had carried him almost up to the green baize door leading to the
servants' staircase, and he proceeded to pass through it without
checking his momentum, closely followed by Smith who, now convinced
that interesting events were in progress which might possibly culminate
in cake, had abandoned the idea of sleep and meant to see the thing
through. He gambolled in Webster's wake up the stairs and along the
passage leading to the latter's room, and only paused when the door was
brusquely shut in his face. Upon which he sat down to think the thing
over. He was in no hurry. The night was before him, promising, as far
as he could judge from the way it had opened, excellent entertainment.

Mrs. Hignett had listened fearfully to the uncouth noises from the
hall. The burglars--she had now discovered that there were at least two
of them--appeared to be actually romping. The situation had grown beyond
her handling. If this troupe of terpsichorean marauders was to be
dislodged she must have assistance. It was man's work. She made a brave
dash through the hall, mercifully unmolested: found the stairs: raced up
them: and fell through the doorway of her son Eustace's bedroom like a
spent Marathon runner staggering past the winning-post.


2

In the moment which elapsed before either of the two could calm their
agitated brains to speech, Eustace became aware, as never before, of
the truth of that well-known line, "Peace, perfect Peace, with loved
ones far away!"

"Eustace!"

Mrs. Hignett gasped, hand on heart.

"Eustace, there are men in the house!"

This fact was just the one which Eustace had been wondering how to
break to her.

"I know," he said uneasily.

"You know!" Mrs. Hignett stared. "Did you hear them!"

"Hear them?" said Eustace, puzzled.

"The drawing-room window was left open, and there are two burglars in
the hall."

"Oh, I say, no! That's rather rotten!" said Eustace.

"I saw and heard them. Come with me and arrest them."

"But I can't. I've sprained my ankle."

"Sprained your ankle? How very inconvenient! When did you do that?"

"This morning."

"How did it happen?"

Eustace hesitated.

"I was jumping."

"Jumping! But--oh!" Mrs. Hignett's sentence trailed off into a
suppressed shriek, as the door opened.

Immediately following on Eustace's accident, Jane Hubbard had
constituted herself his nurse. It was she who had bound up his injured
ankle in a manner which the doctor on his arrival had admitted himself
unable to improve upon. She had sat with him through the long
afternoon. And now, fearing lest a return of the pain might render him
sleepless, she had come to bring him a selection of books to see him
through the night.

Jane Hubbard was a girl who by nature and training was well adapted to
bear shocks. She accepted the advent of Mrs. Hignett without visible
astonishment, though inwardly she was wondering who the visitor might
be.

"Good evening," she said, placidly.

Mrs. Hignett, having rallied from her moment of weakness, glared at the
new arrival dumbly. She could not place Jane. She had the air of a
nurse, and yet she wore no uniform.

"Who are you?" she asked stiffly.

"Who are _you_?" countered Jane.

"I," said Mrs. Hignett portentously, "am the owner of this house, and I
should be glad to know what you are doing in it. I am Mrs. Horace
Hignett."

A charming smile spread itself over Jane's finely-cut face.

"I'm so glad to meet you," she said. "I have heard so much about you."

"Indeed?" said Mrs. Hignett. "And now I should like to hear a little
about you."

"I've read all your books," said Jane. "I think they're wonderful."

In spite of herself, in spite of a feeling that this young woman was
straying from the point, Mrs. Hignett could not check a slight influx
of amiability. She was an authoress who received a good deal of incense
from admirers, but she could always do with a bit more. Besides, most
of the incense came by mail. Living a quiet and retired life in the
country, it was rarely that she got it handed to her face to face. She
melted quite perceptibly. She did not cease to look like a basilisk,
but she began to look like a basilisk who has had a good lunch.

"My favorite," said Jane, who for a week had been sitting daily in a
chair in the drawing-room adjoining the table on which the authoress's
complete works were assembled, "is 'The Spreading Light.' I _do_
like 'The Spreading Light!'"

"It was written some years ago," said Mrs. Hignett with something
approaching cordiality, "and I have since revised some of the views I
state in it, but I still consider it quite a good text-book."

"Of course, I can see that 'What of the Morrow?' is more profound,"
said Jane. "But I read 'The Spreading Light' first, and of course that
makes a difference."

"I can quite see that it would," agreed Mrs. Hignett. "One's first step
across the threshold of a new mind, one's first glimpse...."

"Yes, it makes you feel...."

"Like some watcher of the skies," said Mrs. Hignett, "when a new planet
swims into his ken, or like...."

"Yes, doesn't it!" said Jane.

Eustace, who had been listening to the conversation with every muscle
tense, in much the same mental attitude as that of a peaceful citizen in
a Wild West saloon who holds himself in readiness to dive under a table
directly the shooting begins, began to relax. What he had shrinkingly
anticipated would be the biggest thing since the Dempsey-Carpentier
fight seemed to be turning into a pleasant social and literary evening
not unlike what he imagined a meeting of old Vassar alumni must be. For
the first time since his mother had come into the room he indulged in
the luxury of a deep breath.

"But what are you doing here?" asked Mrs. Hignett, returning almost
reluctantly to the main issue.

Eustace perceived that he had breathed too soon. In an unobtrusive way
he subsided into the bed and softly pulled the sheets over his head,
following the excellent tactics of the great Duke of Wellington in his
Peninsular campaign. "When in doubt," the Duke used to say, "retire and
dig yourself in."

"I'm nursing dear Eustace," said Jane.

Mrs. Hignett quivered, and cast an eye on the hump in the bed-clothes
which represented dear Eustace. A cold fear had come upon her.

"'Dear Eustace'!" she repeated mechanically.

"We're engaged," said Jane. "We got engaged this morning. That's how he
sprained his ankle. When I accepted him, he tried to jump a holly-bush."

"Engaged! Eustace, is this true?"

"Yes," said a muffled voice from the interior of the bed.

"And poor Eustace is so worried," continued Jane, "about the house."
She went on quickly. "He doesn't want to deprive you of it, because he
knows what it means to you. So he is hoping--we are both hoping--that
you will accept it as a present when we are married. We really shan't
want it, you know. We are going to live in London. So you will take it,
won't you--to please us?"

We all of us, even the greatest of us, have our moments of weakness.
Let us then not express any surprise at the sudden collapse of one of
the world's greatest female thinkers. As the meaning of this speech
smote on Mrs. Horace Hignett's understanding, she sank weeping into a
chair. The ever-present fear that had haunted her had been exorcised.
Windles was hers in perpetuity. The relief was too great. She sat in
her chair and gulped: and Eustace, greatly encouraged, emerged slowly
from the bedclothes like a worm after a thunderstorm.

How long this poignant scene would have lasted, one cannot say. It is a
pity that it was cut short, for I should have liked to dwell upon it.
But at this moment, from the regions downstairs, there suddenly burst
upon the silent night such a whirlwind of sound as effectually
dissipated the tense emotion in the room. Somebody had touched off the
orchestrion in the drawing-room, and that willing instrument had begun
again in the middle of a bar at the point where it had been switched
off. Its wailing lament for the passing of Summer filled the whole
house.

"That's too bad!" said Jane, a little annoyed. "At this time of night!"

"It's the burglars!" quavered Mrs. Hignett. In the stress of recent
events she had completely forgotten the existence of those enemies of
society. "They were dancing in the hall when I arrived, and now they're
playing the orchestrion!"

"Light-hearted chaps!" said Eustace, admiring the sang-froid of the
criminal world. "Full of spirits!"

"This won't do," said Jane Hubbard, shaking her head. "We can't have
this sort of thing. I'll go and fetch my gun."

"They'll murder you, dear!" panted Mrs. Hignett, clinging to her arm.

Jane Hubbard laughed.

"Murder _me_!" she said, amusedly. "I'd like to catch them at it!"

Mrs. Hignett stood staring at the door as Jane closed it safely behind
her.

"Eustace," she said, solemnly, "that is a wonderful girl!"

"Yes! She once killed a panther--or a puma, I forget which--with a
hat-pin!" said Eustace with enthusiasm.

"I could wish you no better wife!" said Mrs. Hignett.

She broke off with a sharp wail.... Out in the passage something like a
battery of artillery had roared.

The door opened and Jane Hubbard appeared, slipping a fresh cartridge
into the elephant-gun.

"One of them was popping about outside here," she announced. "I took a
shot at him, but I'm afraid I missed. The visibility was bad. At any
rate he went away."

In this last statement she was perfectly accurate. Bream Mortimer, who
had been aroused by the orchestrion and who had come out to see what
was the matter, had gone away at the rate of fifty miles an hour. He
had been creeping down the passage when he found himself suddenly
confronted by a dim figure which, without a word, had attempted to slay
him with an enormous gun. The shot had whistled past his ears and gone
singing down the corridor. This was enough for Bream. He had returned
to his room in three strides, and was now under the bed. The burglars
might take everything in the house and welcome, so that they did not
molest his privacy. That was the way Bream looked at it. And very
sensible of him, too, I consider.

"We'd better go downstairs," said Jane. "Bring the candle. Not you,
Eustace, darling. Don't you stir out of bed!"

"I won't," said Eustace obediently.


3

Of all the leisured pursuits, there are few less attractive to the
thinking man than sitting in a dark cupboard waiting for a house-party
to go to bed: and Sam, who had established himself in the one behind
the piano at a quarter to eight, soon began to feel as if he had been
there for an eternity. He could dimly remember a previous existence in
which he had not been sitting in his present position, but it seemed so
long ago that it was shadowy and unreal to him. The ordeal of spending
the evening in this retreat had not appeared formidable when he had
contemplated it that afternoon in the lane: but, now that he was
actually undergoing it, it was extraordinary how many disadvantages it
had.

Cupboards, as a class, are badly ventilated, and this one seemed to
contain no air at all: and the warmth of the night, combined with the
cupboard's natural stuffiness, had soon begun to reduce Sam to a
condition of pulp. He seemed to himself to be sagging like an ice-cream
in front of a fire. The darkness, too, weighed upon him. He was
abominably thirsty. Also he wanted to smoke. In addition to this, the
small of his back tickled, and he more than suspected the cupboard of
harboring mice. Not once nor twice but many hundred times he wished
that the ingenious Webster had thought of something simpler.

His was a position which would just have suited one of those Indian
mystics who sit perfectly still for twenty years, contemplating the
Infinite; but it reduced Sam to an almost imbecile state of boredom. He
tried counting sheep. He tried going over his past life in his mind
from the earliest moment he could recollect, and thought he had never
encountered a duller series of episodes. He found a temporary solace by
playing a succession of mental golf-games over all the courses he could
remember, and he was just teeing up for the sixteenth at Muirfield, after
playing Hoylake, St. Andrews, Westward Ho, Hanger Hill, Mid-Surrey,
Walton Heath, Garden City, and the Engineers' Club at Roslyn, L. I.,
when the light ceased to shine through the crack under the door,
and he awoke with a sense of dull incredulity to the realisation that
the occupants of the drawing-room had called it a day and that his
vigil was over.

But was it? Once more alert, Sam became cautious. True, the light
seemed to be off, but did that mean anything in a country-house, where
people had the habit of going and strolling about the garden at all
hours? Probably they were still popping about all over the place. At any
rate, it was not worth risking coming out of his lair. He remembered that
Webster had promised to come and knock an all-clear signal on the door.
It would be safer to wait for that.

But the moments went by, and there was no knock. Sam began to grow
impatient. The last few minutes of waiting in a cupboard are always the
hardest. Time seemed to stretch out again interminably. Once he thought
he heard foot-steps, but that led to nothing. Eventually, having
strained his ears and finding everything still, he decided to take a
chance. He fished in his pocket for the key, cautiously unlocked the
door, opened it by slow inches, and peered out.

The room was in blackness. The house was still. All was well. With the
feeling of a life-prisoner emerging from the Bastille, he began to
crawl stiffly forward: and it was just then that the first of the
disturbing events occurred which were to make this night memorable to
him. Something like a rattlesnake suddenly went off with a whirr, and
his head, jerking up, collided with the piano. It was only the
cuckoo-clock, which now, having cleared its throat as was its custom
before striking, proceeded to cuck eleven times in rapid succession
before subsiding with another rattle: but to Sam it sounded like the end
of the world.

He sat in the darkness, massaging his bruised skull. His hours of
imprisonment in the cupboard had had a bad effect on his nervous
system, and he vacillated between tears of weakness and a militant
desire to get at the cuckoo-clock with a hatchet. He felt that it had
done it on purpose and was now chuckling to itself in fancied security.
For quite a minute he raged silently, and any cuckoo-clock which had
strayed within his reach would have had a bad time of it. Then his
attention was diverted.

So concentrated was Sam on his private vendetta with the clock that no
ordinary happening would have had the power to distract him. What
occurred now was by no means ordinary, and it distracted him like an
electric shock. As he sat on the floor, passing a tender hand over the
egg-shaped bump which had already begun to manifest itself beneath his
hair, something cold and wet touched his face, and paralysed him so
completely both physically and mentally that he did not move a muscle
but just congealed where he sat into a solid block of ice. He felt
vaguely that this was the end. His heart stopped beating and he simply
could not imagine it ever starting again, and, if your heart refuses to
beat, what hope is there for you?

At this moment something heavy and solid struck him squarely in the
chest, rolling him over. Something gurgled asthmatically in the
darkness. Something began to lick his eyes, ears, and chin in a sort of
ecstasy: and, clutching out, he found his arms full of totally
unexpected bulldog.

"Get out!" whispered Sam tensely, recovering his faculties with a jerk.
"Go away!"

Smith took the opportunity of his lips having opened to lick the roof
of his mouth. Smith's attitude in the matter was that providence in its
all-seeing wisdom had sent him a human being at a moment when he had
reluctantly been compelled to reconcile himself to a total absence of
such indispensable adjuncts to a good time, and that now the revels
might commence. He had just trotted downstairs in rather a disconsolate
frame of mind after waiting with no result in front of Webster's
bedroom door, and it was a real treat to him to meet a man, especially
one seated in such a jolly and sociable manner on the floor. He welcomed
Sam like a long-lost friend.

Between Smith and the humans who provided him with dog-biscuits and
occasionally with sweet cakes there had always existed a state of
misunderstanding which no words could remove. The position of the
humans was quite clear. They had elected Smith to his present position
on a straight watch-dog ticket. They expected him to be one of those
dogs who rouse the house and save the spoons. They looked to him to pin
burglars by the leg and hold on till the police arrived. Smith simply
could not grasp such an attitude of mind. He regarded Windles not as a
private house but as a social club, and was utterly unable to see any
difference between the human beings he knew and the strangers who
dropped in for a late chat after the place was locked up. He had no
intention of biting Sam. The idea never entered his head. At the
present moment what he felt about Sam was that he was one of the best
fellows he had ever met and that he loved him like a brother.

Sam, in his unnerved state, could not bring himself to share these
amiable sentiments. He was thinking bitterly that Webster might have
had the intelligence to warn him of bulldogs on the premises. It was
just the sort of woollen-headed thing fellows did, forgetting facts
like that. He scrambled stiffly to his feet and tried to pierce the
darkness that hemmed him in. He ignored Smith, who snuffled sportively
about his ankles, and made for the slightly less black oblong which he
took to be the door leading into the hall. He moved warily, but not
warily enough to prevent him cannoning into and almost upsetting a
small table with a vase on it. The table rocked and the vase jumped,
and the first bit of luck that had come to Sam that night was when he
reached out at a venture and caught it just as it was about to bound on
to the carpet.

He stood there, shaking. The narrowness of the escape turned him cold.
If he had been an instant later, there would have been a crash loud
enough to wake a dozen sleeping houses. This sort of thing could not go
on. He must have light. It might be a risk: there might be a chance of
somebody upstairs seeing it and coming down to investigate: but it was
a risk that must be taken. He declined to go on stumbling about in this
darkness any longer. He groped his way with infinite care to the door,
on the wall adjoining which, he presumed, the electric-light switch
would be.

It was nearly ten years since he had last been inside Windles, and it
never occurred to him that in this progressive age even a woman like
his aunt Adeline, of whom he could believe almost anything, would still
be using candles and oil-lamps as a means of illumination. His only
doubt was whether the switch was where it was in most houses, near the
door.

It is odd to reflect that, as his searching fingers touched the knob, a
delicious feeling of relief came to Samuel Marlowe. This misguided
young man actually felt at that moment that his troubles were over. He
positively smiled as he placed a thumb on the knob and shoved.

He shoved strongly and sharply, and instantaneously there leaped at him
out of the darkness a blare of music which appeared to his disordered
mind quite solid. It seemed to wrap itself round him. It was all over
the place. In a single instant the world had become one vast bellow of
Tosti's "Goodbye."

How long he stood there, frozen, he did not know: nor can one say how
long he would have stood there had nothing further come to invite his
notice elsewhere. But, suddenly, drowning even the impromptu concert,
there came from somewhere upstairs the roar of a gun, and, when he heard
that, Sam's rigid limbs relaxed and a violent activity descended upon
him. He bounded out into the hall, looking to right and to left for a
hiding-place. One of the suits of armour which had been familiar to him
in his boyhood loomed up in front of him, and with the sight came the
recollection of how, when a mere child on his first visit to Windles,
playing hide and seek with his cousin Eustace, he had concealed himself
inside this very suit and had not only baffled Eustace through a long
summer evening but had wound up by almost scaring him into a decline by
booing at him through the vizor of the helmet. Happy days, happy days!
He leaped at the suit of armour. The helmet was a tight fit, but he
managed to get his head into it at last, and the body of the thing was
quite roomy.

"Thank heaven!" said Sam.

He was not comfortable, but comfort just then was not his primary need.

Smith, the bulldog, well satisfied with the way things had happened,
sat down, wheezing slightly, to await developments.


4

He had not long to wait. In a few minutes the hall had filled up
nicely. There was Mr. Mortimer in his shirt-sleeves, Mr. Bennett in his
pyjamas and a dressing-gown, Mrs. Hignett in a travelling costume, Jane
Hubbard with her elephant-gun, and Billie in a dinner dress. Smith
welcomed them all impartially.

Somebody lit a lamp, and Mrs. Hignett stared speechlessly at the mob.

"Mr. Bennett! Mr. Mortimer!"

"Mrs. Hignett! What are you doing here?"

Mrs. Hignett drew herself up stiffly.

"What an odd question, Mr. Mortimer! I am in my own house!"

"But you rented it to me for the summer. At least, your son did."

"Eustace let you Windles for the summer!" said Mrs. Hignett,
incredulously.

Jane Hubbard returned from the drawing-room, where she had been
switching off the orchestrion.

"Let us talk all that over cosily to-morrow," she said. "The point now
is that there are burglars in the house."

"Burglars!" cried Mr. Bennett aghast. "I thought it was you playing
that infernal instrument, Mortimer."

"What on earth should I play it for at this time of night?" said Mr.
Mortimer irritably.

It appeared only too evident that the two old friends were again on the
verge of one of their distressing fallings-out: but Jane Hubbard
intervened once more. This practical-minded girl disliked the
introducing of side-issues into the conversation. She was there to talk
about burglars, and she intended to do so.

"For goodness sake stop it!" she said, almost petulantly for one
usually so superior to emotion. "There'll be lots of time for
quarrelling to-morrow. Just now we've got to catch these...."

"I'm not quarrelling," said Mr. Bennett.

"Yes, you are," said Mr. Mortimer.

"I'm not!"

"You are!"

"Don't argue!"

"I'm not arguing!"

"You are!"

"I'm not!"

Jane Hubbard had practically every noble quality which a woman can
possess with the exception of patience. A patient woman would have
stood by, shrinking from interrupting the dialogue. Jane Hubbard's
robuster course was to raise the elephant-gun, point it at the front
door, and pull the trigger.

"I thought that would stop you," she said complacently, as the echoes
died away and Mr. Bennett had finished leaping into the air. She
inserted a fresh cartridge, and sloped arms. "Now, the question is...."

"You made me bite my tongue!" said Mr. Bennett, deeply aggrieved.

"Serves you right!" said Jane placidly. "Now, the question is, have the
fellows got away or are they hiding somewhere in the house? I think
they're still in the house."

"The police!" exclaimed Mr. Bennett, forgetting his lacerated tongue
and his other grievances. "We must summon the police!"

"Obviously!" said Mrs. Hignett, withdrawing her fascinated gaze from
the ragged hole in the front door, the cost of repairing which she had
been mentally assessing. "We must send for the police at once."

"We don't really need them, you know," said Jane. "If you'll all go to
bed and just leave me to potter round with my gun...."

"And blow the whole house to pieces!" said Mrs. Hignett tartly. She had
begun to revise her original estimate of this girl. To her, Windles was
sacred, and anyone who went about shooting holes in it forfeited her
esteem.

"Shall I go for the police?" said Billie. "I could bring them back in
ten minutes in the car."

"Certainly not!" said Mr. Bennett. "My daughter gadding about all over
the countryside in an automobile at this time of night!"

"If you think I ought not to go alone, I could take Bream."

"Where _is_ Bream?" said Mr. Mortimer.

The odd fact that Bream was not among those present suddenly presented
itself to the company.

"Where can he be?" said Billie.

Jane Hubbard laughed the wholesome, indulgent laugh of one who is
broad-minded enough to see the humor of the situation even when the
joke is at her expense.

"What a silly girl I am!" she said. "I do believe that was Bream I shot
at upstairs. How foolish of me making a mistake like that!"

"You shot my only son!" cried Mr. Mortimer.

"I shot _at_ him," said Jane. "My belief is that I missed him.
Though how I came to do it beats me. I don't suppose I've missed a
sitter like that since I was a child in the nursery. Of course," she
proceeded, looking on the reasonable side, "the visibility wasn't good,
and I fired from the hip, but it's no use saying I oughtn't at least to
have winged him, because I ought." She shook her head with a touch of
self-reproach. "I shall be chaffed about this if it comes out," she
said regretfully.

"The poor boy must be in his room," said Mr. Mortimer.

"Under the bed, if you ask me," said Jane, blowing on the barrel of her
gun and polishing it with the side of her hand. "_He's_ all right!
Leave him alone, and the housemaid will sweep him up in the morning."

"Oh, he can't be!" cried Billie, revolted.

A girl of high spirit, it seemed to her repellent that the man she was
engaged to marry should be displaying such a craven spirit. At that
moment she despised and hated Bream Mortimer. I think she was wrong,
mind you. It is not my place to criticise the little group of people
whose simple annals I am relating--my position is merely that of a
reporter--: but personally I think highly of Bream's sturdy common-sense.
If somebody loosed off an elephant gun at me in a dark corridor, I would
climb on to the roof and pull it up after me. Still, rightly or wrongly,
that was how Billie felt: and it flashed across her mind that Samuel
Marlowe, scoundrel though he was, would not have behaved like this. And
for a moment a certain wistfulness added itself to the varied emotions
then engaging her mind.

"I'll go and look, if you like," said Jane agreeably. "You amuse
yourselves somehow till I come back."

She ran easily up the stairs, three at a time. Mr. Mortimer turned to
Mr. Bennett.

"It's all very well your saying Wilhelmina mustn't go, but, if she
doesn't, how can we get the police? The house isn't on the 'phone, and
nobody else can drive the car."

"That's true," said Mr. Bennett, wavering.

"I'm going," said Billie resolutely. It occurred to her, as it has
occurred to so many women before her, how helpless men are in a crisis.
The temporary withdrawal of Jane Hubbard had had the effect which the
removal of a rudder has on a boat. "It's the only thing to do. I shall
be back in no time."

She stepped firmly to the coat-rack, and began to put on her
motoring-cloak. And just then Jane Hubbard came downstairs, shepherding
before her a pale and glassy-eyed Bream.

"Right under the bed," she announced cheerfully, "making a noise like a
piece of fluff in order to deceive burglars."

Billie cast a scornful look at her fiancee. Absolutely unjustified, in
my opinion, but nevertheless she cast it. But it had no effect at all.
Terror had stunned Bream Mortimer's perceptions. His was what the
doctors call a penumbral mental condition. He was in a sort of trance.

"Bream," said Billie, "I want you to come in the car with me to fetch
the police."

"All right," said Bream.

"Get your coat."

"All right," said Bream.

"And cap."

"All right," said Bream.

He followed Billie in a docile manner out through the front door, and they
made their way to the garage at the back of the house, both silent. The
only difference between their respective silences was that Billie's was
thoughtful, while Bream's was just the silence of a man who has unhitched
his brain and is getting along as well as he can without it.

In the hall they had left, Jane Hubbard once more took command of
affairs.

"Well, that's something done," she said, scratching Smith's broad back
with the muzzle of her weapon. "Something accomplished, something done,
has earned a night's repose. Not that we're going to get it yet. I
think those fellows are hiding somewhere, and we ought to search the
house and rout them out. It's a pity Smith isn't a bloodhound. I like
you personally, Smithy, but you're about as much practical use in a
situation like this as a cold in the head. You're a good cake-hound,
but as a watch-dog you don't finish in the first ten."

The cake-hound, charmed at the compliment, frisked about her feet like
a young elephant.

"The first thing to do," continued Jane, "is to go through the
ground-floor rooms...." She paused to strike a match against the suit
of armour nearest to her, a proceeding which elicited a sharp cry of
protest from Mrs. Hignett, and lit a cigarette. "I'll go first, as I've
got a gun...." She blew a cloud of smoke. "I shall want somebody with me
to carry a light, and...."

"Tchoo!"

"What?" said Jane.

"I didn't speak," said Mr. Mortimer. "Who am I to speak?" he went on
bitterly. "Who am I that it should be supposed that I have anything
sensible to suggest?"

"Somebody spoke," said Jane. "I...."

"Achoo!"

"Do you feel a draught, Mr. Bennett?" cried Jane sharply, wheeling
round on him.

"There _is_ a draught," began Mr. Bennett.

"Well, finish sneezing and I'll go on."

"I didn't sneeze!"

"Somebody sneezed."

"It seemed to come from just behind you," said Mrs. Hignett nervously.

"It couldn't have come from just behind me," said Jane, "because there
isn't anything behind me from which it could have...." She stopped
suddenly, in her eyes the light of understanding, on her face the set
expression which was wont to come to it on the eve of action. "Oh!" she
said in a different voice, a voice which was cold and tense and
sinister. "Oh, I see!" She raised her gun, and placed a muscular
forefinger on the trigger. "Come out of that!" she said. "Come out of
that suit of armour and let's have a look at you!"

"I can explain everything," said a muffled voice through the vizor of
the helmet. "I can--achoo." The smoke of the cigarette tickled Sam's
nostrils again, and he suspended his remarks.

"I shall count three," said Jane Hubbard. "One--two--"

"I'm coming! I'm coming!" said Sam petulantly.

"You'd better!" said Jane.

"I can't get this dashed helmet off!"

"If you don't come quick, I'll blow it off."

Sam stepped out into the hall, a picturesque figure which combined the
costumes of two widely separated centuries. Modern as far as the neck,
he slipped back at that point to the Middle Ages.

"Hands up!" commanded Jane Hubbard.

"My hands _are_ up!" retorted Sam querulously, as he wrenched at
his unbecoming head-wear.

"Never mind trying to raise your hat," said Jane. "If you've lost the
combination, we'll dispense with the formalities. What we're anxious to
hear is what you're doing in the house at this time of night, and who
your pals are. Come along, my lad, make a clean breast of it and
perhaps you'll get off easier. Are you a gang?"

"Do I look like a gang?"

"If you ask me what you look like...."

"My name is Marlowe ... Samuel Marlowe...."

"Alias what?"

"Alias nothing! I say my name is Samuel Marlowe...."

An explosive roar burst from Mr. Bennett. "The scoundrel! I know him! I
forbade him the house, and...."

"And by what right did you forbid people my house, Mr. Bennett?" said
Mrs. Hignett with acerbity.

"I've rented the house, Mortimer and I rented it from your son...."

"Yes, yes, yes," said Jane Hubbard. "Never mind about that. So you know
this fellow, do you?"

"I don't know him!"

"You said you did."

"I refuse to know him!" went on Mr. Bennett. "I won't know him! I
decline to have anything to do with him!"

"But you identify him?"

"If he says he's Samuel Marlowe," assented Mr. Bennett grudgingly, "I
suppose he is. I can't imagine anybody saying he was Samuel Marlowe if
he didn't know it could be proved against him."

"_Are_ you my nephew Samuel?" said Mrs. Hignett.

"Yes," said Sam.

"Well, what are you doing in my house?"

"It's _my_ house," said Mr. Bennett, "for the summer, Henry
Mortimer's and mine. Isn't that right, Henry?"

"Dead right," said Mr. Mortimer.

"There!" said Mr. Bennett. "You hear? And when Henry Mortimer says a
thing, it's so. There's nobody's word I'd take before Henry
Mortimer's."

"When Rufus Bennett makes an assertion," said Mr. Mortimer, highly
flattered by these kind words, "you can bank on it, Rufus Bennett's
word is his bond. Rufus Bennett is a white man!"

The two old friends clasped hands with a good deal of feeling.

"I am not disputing Mr. Bennett's claim to belong to the Caucasian
race," said Mrs. Hignett, "I merely maintain that this house is...."

"Yes, yes, yes, yes!" interrupted Jane. "You can thresh all that out
some other time. The point is, if this fellow is your nephew, I don't
see what we can do. We'll have to let him go."

"I came to this house," said Sam, raising his vizor to facilitate
speech, "to make a social call...."

"At this hour of the night!" snapped Mrs. Hignett. "You always were
an inconsiderate boy, Samuel."

"I came to enquire after poor Eustace's ankle. I've only just heard
that the poor chap was ill."

"He's getting along quite well," said Jane, melting. "If I had known
you were so fond of Eustace...."

"All right, is he?" said Sam.

"Well, not quite all right, but he's going on very nicely."

"Fine!"

"Eustace and I are engaged, you know!"

"No, really? Splendid! I can't see you very distinctly--how those
Johnnies in the old days ever contrived to put up a scrap with things like
this on their heads beats me--but you sound a good sort. I hope you'll
be very happy."

"Thank you ever so much, Mr. Marlowe. I'm sure we shall."

"Eustace is one of the best."

"How nice of you to say so."

"All this," interrupted Mrs. Hignett, who had been a chafing auditor of
this interchange of courtesies, "is beside the point. Why did you dance
in the hall, Samuel, and play the orchestrion?"

"Yes," said Mr. Bennett, reminded of his grievance, "waking people up."

"Scaring us all to death!" complained Mr. Mortimer.

"I remember you as a boy, Samuel," said Mrs. Hignett, "lamentably
lacking in consideration for others and concentrated only on your
selfish pleasures. You seem to have altered very little."

"Don't ballyrag the poor man," said Jane Hubbard. "Be human! Lend him a
can-opener!"

"I shall do nothing of the sort," said Mrs. Hignett. "I never liked him
and I dislike him now. He has got himself into this trouble through his
own wrong-headedness."

"It's not his fault his head's the wrong size," said Jane.

"He must get himself out as best he can," said Mrs. Hignett.

"Very well," said Sam with bitter dignity. "Then I will not trespass
further on your hospitality, Aunt Adeline. I have no doubt the local
blacksmith will be able to get this damned thing off me. I shall go to
him now. I will let you have the helmet back by parcel-post at the
earliest possible opportunity. Good night!" He walked coldly to the
front door. "And there are people," he remarked sardonically, "who say
that blood is thicker than water! I'll bet they never had any aunts!"


5

Billie, meanwhile, with Bream trotting docilely at her heels, had
reached the garage and started the car. Like all cars which have been
spending a considerable time in secluded inaction, it did not start
readily. At each application of Billie's foot on the self-starter, it
emitted a tinny and reproachful sound and then seemed to go to sleep
again. Eventually, however, the engines began to revolve and the
machine moved reluctantly out into the drive.

"The battery must be run down," said Billie.

"All right," said Bream.

Billie cast a glance of contempt at him out of the corner of her eyes.
She hardly knew why she had spoken to him except that, as all
automobilists are aware, the impulse to say rude things about their
battery is almost irresistible. To an automobilist the art of
conversation consists in rapping out scathing remarks either about the
battery or the oiling-system.

Billie switched on the head-lights and turned the car down the dark
drive. She was feeling thoroughly upset. Her idealistic nature had
received a painful shock on the discovery of the yellow streak in
Bream. To call it a yellow streak was to understate the facts. It was a
great belt of saffron encircling his whole soul. That she, Wilhelmina
Bennett, who had gone through the world seeking a Galahad, should
finish her career as the wife of a man who hid under beds simply
because people shot at him with elephant guns was abhorrent to her.
Why, Samuel Marlowe would have perished rather than do such a thing.
You might say what you liked about Samuel Marlowe--and, of course, his
habit of playing practical jokes put him beyond the pale--but nobody
could question his courage. Look at the way he had dived overboard that
time in the harbour at New York! Billie found herself thinking hard
about Samuel Marlowe.

There are only a few makes of car in which you can think hard about
anything except the actual driving without stalling the engines, and
Mr. Bennett's Twin-Six Complex was not one of them. It stopped as if it
had been waiting for the signal. The noise of the engine died away. The
wheels ceased to revolve. The automobile did everything except lie
down. It was a particularly pig-headed car and right from the start it
had been unable to see the sense in this midnight expedition. It seemed
now to have the idea that if it just lay low and did nothing, presently
it would be taken back to its cosy garage.

Billie trod on the self-starter. Nothing happened.

"You'll have to get down and crank her," she said curtly.

"All right," said Bream.

"Well, go on," said Billie impatiently.

"Eh?"

"Get out and crank her."

Bream emerged for an instant from his trance.

"All right," he said.

The art of cranking a car is one that is not given to all men. Some of
our greatest and wisest stand helpless before the task. It is a job
towards the consummation of which a noble soul and a fine brain help
not at all. A man may have all the other gifts and yet be unable to
accomplish a task the fellow at the garage does with one quiet quick
flick of the wrist without even bothering to remove his chewing gum.
This being so, it was not only unkind but foolish of Billie to grow
impatient as Bream's repeated efforts failed of their object. It was
wrong of her to click her tongue, and certainly she ought not to have
told Bream that he was not fit to churn butter. But women are an
emotional sex and must be forgiven much in moments of mental stress.

"Give it a good sharp twist," she said.

"All right," said Bream.

"Here, let me do it," cried Billie.

She jumped down and snatched the thingummy from his hand. With bent
brows and set teeth she wrenched it round. The engine gave a faint
protesting mutter, like a dog that has been disturbed in its sleep, and
was still once more.

"May I help?"

It was not Bream who spoke but a strange voice--a sepulchral voice,
the sort of voice someone would have used in one of Edgar Allen Poe's
cheerful little tales if he had been buried alive and were speaking
from the family vault. Coming suddenly out of the night it affected
Bream painfully. He uttered a sharp exclamation and gave a bound which,
if he had been a Russian dancer, would probably have caused the
management to raise his salary. He was in no frame of mind to bear up
under sudden sepulchral voices.

Billie, on the other hand, was pleased. The high-spirited girl was just
beginning to fear that she was unequal to the task which she had chided
Bream for being unable to perform and this was mortifying her.

"Oh, would you mind? Thank you so much. The self-starter has gone
wrong."

Into the glare of the head-lights there stepped a strange figure,
strange, that is to say, in these tame modern times. In the Middle Ages
he would have excited no comment at all. Passers-by would simply have
said to themselves, "Ah, another of those knights off after the
dragons!" and would have gone on their way with a civil greeting. But
in the present age it is always somewhat startling to see a helmeted
head pop up in front of your automobile. At any rate, it startled
Bream. I will go further. It gave Bream the shock of a lifetime. He had
had shocks already that night, but none to be compared with this. Or
perhaps it was that this shock, coming on top of those shocks, affected
him more disastrously than it would have done if it had been the first
of the series instead of the last. One may express the thing briefly by
saying that, as far as Bream was concerned, Sam's unconventional
appearance put the lid on it. He did not hesitate. He did not pause to
make comments or ask questions. With a single cat-like screech which
took years off the lives of the abruptly wakened birds roosting in the
neighbouring trees, he dashed away towards the house and, reaching his
room, locked the door and pushed the bed, the chest of drawers, two
chairs, the towel stand, and three pairs of boots against it. Only then
did he feel comparatively safe.

Out on the drive Billie was staring at the man in armour who had now,
with a masterful wrench which informed the car right away that he would
stand no nonsense, set the engine going again.

"Why--why," she stammered, "why are you wearing that thing on your
head?"

"Because I can't get it off."

Hollow as the voice was, Billie recognised it.

"S--Mr. Marlowe!" she exclaimed.

"Get in," said Sam. He had seated himself at the steering wheel. "Where
can I take you?"

"Go away!" said Billie.

"Get in!"

"I don't want to talk to you."

"I want to talk to _you!_ Get in!"

"I won't."

Sam bent over the side of the car, put his hands under her arms, lifted
her like a kitten and deposited her on the seat beside him. Then
throwing in the clutch, he drove at an ever increasing speed down the
drive and out into the silent road. Strange creatures of the night came
and went in the golden glow of the head-lights.


6

"Put me down," said Billie.

"You'd get hurt if I did, travelling at this pace."

"What are you going to do?"

"Drive about till you promise to marry me."

"You'll have to drive a long time."

"Right ho!" said Sam.

The car took a corner and purred down a lane. Billie reached out a hand
and grabbed at the steering wheel. "Of course, if you _want_ to
smash up in a ditch!" said Sam, righting the car with a wrench.

"You're a brute!" said Billie.

"Cave-man stuff," explained Sam, "I ought to have tried it before."

"I don't know what you expect to gain by this."

"That's all right," said Sam, "I know what I'm about."

"I'm glad to hear it."

"I thought you would be."

"I'm not going to talk to you."

"All right. Lean back and doze off. We've the whole night before us."

"What do you mean?" cried Billie, sitting up with a jerk.

"Have you ever been to Scotland?"

"What do you mean?"

"I thought we might push up there. We've got to go somewhere and, oddly
enough, I've never been to Scotland."

Billie regarded him blankly.

"Are you crazy?"

"I'm crazy about you. If you knew what I've gone through to-night for
your sake you'd be more sympathetic. I love you," said Sam swerving to
avoid a rabbit. "And what's more, you know it."

"I don't care."

"You will!" said Sam confidently. "How about North Wales? I've heard
people speak well of North Wales. Shall we head for North Wales?"

"I'm engaged to Bream Mortimer."

"Oh no, that's all off," Sam assured her.

"It's not!"

"Right off!" said Sam firmly. "You could never bring yourself to marry
a man who dashed away like that and deserted you in your hour of need.
Why, for all he knew, I might have tried to murder you. And he ran
away! No, no, we eliminate Bream Mortimer once and for all. He won't
do!"

This was so exactly what Billie was feeling herself that she could not
bring herself to dispute it.

"Anyway, I hate _you_!" she said, giving the conversation another
turn.

"Why? In the name of goodness, why?"

"How dared you make a fool of me in your father's office that morning?"

"It was a sudden inspiration. I had to do something to make you think
well of me, and I thought it might meet the case if I saved you from a
lunatic with a pistol. It wasn't my fault that you found out."

"I shall never forgive you!"

"Why not Cornwall?" said Sam. "The Riviera of England! Let's go to
Cornwall. I beg your pardon. What were you saying?"

"I said I should never forgive you and I won't."

"Well, I hope you're fond of motoring," said Sam, "because we're going
on till you do."

"Very well! Go on, then!"

"I intend to. Of course, it's all right now while it's dark. But have
you considered what is going to happen when the sun gets up? We shall
have a sort of triumphal procession. How the small boys will laugh when
they see a man in a helmet go by in a car! I shan't notice them myself
because it's a little difficult to notice anything from inside this
thing, but I'm afraid it will be rather unpleasant for you ... I know
what we'll do. We'll go to London and drive up and down Piccadilly!
That will be fun!"

There was a long silence.

"Is my helmet on straight?" said Sam.

Billie made no reply. She was looking before her down the hedge-bordered
road. Always a girl of sudden impulse, she had just made a curious
discovery, to wit, that she was enjoying herself. There was something
so novel and exhilarating about this midnight ride that imperceptibly
her dismay and resentment had ebbed away. She found herself struggling
with a desire to laugh.

"Lochinvar!" said Sam suddenly. "That's the name of the chap I've been
trying to think of! Did you ever read about Lochinvar? 'Young
Lochinvar' the poet calls him rather familiarly. He did just what I'm
doing now, and everybody thought very highly of him. I suppose in those
days a helmet was just an ordinary part of what the well-dressed man
should wear. Odd how fashions change!"

Till now dignity and wrath combined had kept Billie from making any
enquiries into a matter which had excited in her a quite painful
curiosity. In her new mood she resisted the impulse no longer.

"_Why_ are you wearing that thing?"

"I told you. Purely and simply because I can't get it off. You don't
suppose I'm trying to set a new style in gents' headwear, do you?"

"But why did you ever put it on?"

"Well, it was this way. After I came out of the cupboard in the
drawing-room...."

"What!"

"Didn't I tell you about that? Oh yes, I was sitting in the cupboard in
the drawing-room from dinner-time onwards. After that I came out and
started cannoning about among Aunt Adeline's china, so I thought I'd
better switch the light on. Unfortunately I switched on some sort of
musical instrument instead. And then somebody started shooting. So,
what with one thing and another, I thought it would be best to hide
somewhere. I hid in one of the suits of armour in the hall."

"Were you inside there all the time we were...?"

"Yes. I say, that was funny about Bream, wasn't it? Getting under the
bed, I mean."

"Don't let's talk about Bream."

"That's the right spirit! I like to see it! All right, we won't. Let's
get back to the main issue. Will you marry me?"

"But why did you come to the house at all?"

"To see you."

"To see me! At that time of night?"

"Well, perhaps not actually to see you." Sam was a little perplexed for
a moment. Something told him that it would be injudicious to reveal his
true motive and thereby risk disturbing the harmony which he felt had
begun to exist between them. "To be near you! To be in the same house
with you!" he went on vehemently feeling that he had struck the right
note. "You don't know the anguish I went through after I read that
letter of yours. I was mad! I was ... well, to return to the point,
will you marry me?"

Billie sat looking straight before her. The car, now on the main road,
moved smoothly on.

"Will you marry me?"

Billie rested her hand on her chin and searched the darkness with
thoughtful eyes.

"Will you marry me?"

The car raced on.

"Will you marry me?" said Sam. "Will you marry me? Will you marry me?"

"Oh, don't talk like a parrot," cried Billie. "It reminds me of Bream."

"But will you?"

"Yes," said Billie.

Sam brought the car to a standstill with a jerk, probably very bad for
the tires.

"Did you say 'yes'?"

"Yes!"

"Darling!" said Sam, leaning towards her, "Oh, curse this helmet!"

"Why?"

"Well, I rather wanted to kiss you and it hampers me."

"Let me try and get it off. Bend down!"

"Ouch!" said Sam.

"It's coming. There! How helpless men are!"

"We need a woman's tender care," said Sam depositing the helmet on the
floor of the car, and rubbing his smarting ears. "Billie!"

"Sam!"

"You angel!"

"You're rather a darling after all," said Billie. "But you want keeping
in order," she added severely.

"You will do that when we're married. When we're married!" he repeated
luxuriously. "How splendid it sounds!"

"The only trouble is," said Billie, "father won't hear of it."

"No, he won't. Not till it is all over," said Sam.

He started the car again.

"What are you going to do?" said Billie. "Where are you going?"

"To London," said Sam. "It may be news to you but the old lawyer like
myself knows that, by going to Doctors' Commons or the Court of Arches
or somewhere or by routing the Archbishop of Canterbury out of bed or
something, you can get a special license and be married almost before
you know where you are. My scheme--roughly--is to dig this special
license out of whoever keeps such things, have a bit of breakfast, and
then get married at our leisure before lunch at a registrar's."

"Oh, not a registrar's!" said Billie.

"No?"

"I should hate a registrar's."

"Very well, angel. Just as you say. We'll go to a church. There are
millions of churches in London. I've seen them all over the place." He
mused for a moment. "Yes, you're quite right," he said. "A church is
the thing. It'll please Webster."

"Webster?"

"Yes, he's rather keen on the church bells never having rung out so
blithe a peal before. And we must consider Webster's feelings. After
all, he brought us together."

"Webster? How?"

"Oh, I'll tell you all about that some other time," said Sam. "Just for
the moment I want to sit quite still and think. Are you comfortable?
Fine! Then off we go."

The birds in the trees fringing the road stirred and twittered grumpily
as the noise of the engine disturbed their slumbers. But, if they had
known it, they were in luck. At any rate, the worst had not befallen
them, for Sam was too happy to sing.

THE END





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