 Chapter 15 When, by way of comforting Jeffrey, I criticised Dory's outburst, he fell upon me as though about to devour me alive. After what he had done for her, said I, given up one of the great chances of his career, carried her bodily from London to Nice, and made her a present of a brilliant novel, so as to save Adrian's memory from shame, she ought to go on her knees and pray God to shower blessings on his head. As it was, she deserved whipping. Jeffrey called me, among other things, an amazing ass. He has an eastern habit of façade, the tuperation, and roared about the drawing-room. The ladies, be it understood, had retired. You don't seem to grip the elements of the situation. You haven't the intelligence of a rabbit. How in 80s could she know I've written the rotten book? She thinks it's Adrian's, and she thinks I've spoiled it. She's perfectly justified. For the little footling services I rented her on the journey, she's idiotically grateful out of all proportion. Why, as for Persha, she knows nothing about it. She ought to, said I, if you tell her I'll break your neck, roared Jeffrey. All right, said I, desiring to remain whole. So long as you're satisfied, it doesn't much matter to me. It didn't. After all, one has one's own life to live, and however understanding of one's friends and sympathetically inclined towards them one may be, one cannot follow them emotionally through all their bleak despairs and furious passions. A man doing so would be dead in a week. It doesn't seem to strike you, he went on, that the poor girl's mental and moral balance depends on the successful carrying out of this ghastly farce. I do, my dear chap. You don't. I wrote the thing as best as I could, a labour of love. But it's nothing like Tom Carston's work, which he thinks is Adrian's. To keep up the deception I had to crab it and say that the fault's for mine. Naturally she believes me. All right, said I again. And when the book is published and Adrian's memory flattered and Doria is assured of her mental and moral balance, what then? I hope she'll be happy, he answered. Why, the blazes do you suppose I've worried if it wasn't to give her happiness? I could not press my point. I could not commit to the gross indelicacy of saying, my poor friend, where do you come in? All words of that effect. Nor could I possibly lay down the proposition that a living second husband, stretching the imagination to the hypothesis of her taking one, is but an indifferent hero to the widow who spends her life in burning incense before the shrine of the demigod husband who is dead. We can say these things to our friends. We expect them to have common sense as we have ourselves. But we don't, and for the curious reason based on the intense individualism of sexual attraction that no man can appreciate save intellectually another man's desire for a particular woman. We can't realise the poor, full hunger of his heart. The man who pours into our ears a torrential tale of passion moves us not to sympathy, but rather to psychological speculation, if we are kindly disposed, or to murderous inclinations, if we are not. On the other hand, he who is silent moves us not at all. In any and every case, however, we entirely fail to comprehend why, if Niera is obdurate, our swaying does not go afield and find, as assuredly he can, some complacent amour it is. I confess honestly that, during this conversation, I felt somewhat impatient with my dear infatuated friend. There he was, casting the largesse of his soul at the feet of a blind woman, a woman blinded by the bedazzlement of a false fire whose flame it was his religion to intensify. There he was, doing this, and he did not see the imbecility of it. Then after time we can correlate incidents and circumstances, veering them in a perspective more or less correct. We see that we might have said and done up a hundred helpful things. Well, we know that we did not, and there is an end on it. I felt, as I say, impatient with Geoffrey, although, or was it because, I recognized the bald fact that he was in love with Doria to the maximum degree of besottedness. You see, when you say to a man, Why do you let the woman kick you? And he replies with a glare of indignation. She is dain't to touch my unworthy carcass with her sacred boot. What in the world are you to do? Say, resume the interrupted enjoyment of your cigar. This I did. I also found amusement in comparing this meek wooing, like that of an early Italian amourist, with his rumbustious theories as to marriage by capture and other primitive methods of bringing women to hill. Doria, seeing him unresentful of kicking, continued to kick. When Barbara was looking, for Barbara had read on her lecture on the plight treatment of trustees and executors, and she made him more her slave than ever. He fetched and carried. He read poetry. He was custodian of the sacred rubbers, and the grass was damp. He shielded her from over-rough incursions on the part of Susan. He chanted the responses in her litany of St. Adrian. He sacrificed his golf so that he could sit near her and hold figurative wool for her to unwind. It was very pretty to watch them. The contrast between them made its unceasing appeal. Besides, Doria did not kick all the time. There were long spells during which, touched by the Jarn's devotion, she repaid it in tokens of tender regard. At such times she was as fascinating an elf as one could wish to meet on a spring morning. He could bring, like no one else, a smile into her dark, mournful eyes. There is no doubt that, in her way, and as far as her ageing-bound emotional temperament permitted, she felt grateful to Geoffrey. She also felt safe in his company. He was like a great St. Bernard dog, she declared to Barbara. These idyllic relations continued unruffled for some days. Until a letter arrived from the eminent novelist to whom, with Doria's approval, Geoffrey had sent the proofs. A marvellous story, was the great man's verdict, singularly different from the diamond gate, any resembling it in its largeness of conception and the perfection of its kind. The alteration of a single word would spot it. Even an alien hand is there, it is imperceptible. His splendid tribute to Geoffrey beamed with happiness. He tossed the letter to Barbara across the breakfast-table. No alien hand, perceptible? Ha-ha-ha-ha! But it's stunning, isn't it? I do believe the old fraud of a book is going to win through. This ought to satisfy Doria, don't you think so? It ought to, said Barbara, I'll send it up to her room. But Doria, with ageing's impeccability on the brain, and how could a work of ageing's be impeccable when an alien hand, however imperceptible, had touched it, was not satisfied. Towards noon, when she came downstairs, she met Geoffrey on the terrace, with a familiar little knitting of the brow, before which his welcoming smile faded. It's all right up to a point, she said, handing back the letter. Nobody with the rudiments of a brain could fail to recognize the merits of ageing's work, but no novelist was possessed of the critical faculty. Then why, asked Geoffrey, after the way of men, did you ask me to send him the novel? I took it for granted he had common sense," replied Doria, after the way of women. And he hasn't any? Read the thing again. Geoffrey scanned the page mechanically and looked up. Well, what's to be done now? I should like to compare the proofs with ageing's original manuscript. Where is it? Here was the question we had all dreaded. Geoffrey lied convincingly. He went to the printer's, my dear, and of course they had destroyed it. I thought everything was typed nowadays. Typing takes time," replied Geoffrey serenely, and I'm not an advocate of feather-beds and rose-water baths for printers. As I wanted to rush the book out as quickly as possible, I didn't see why I should pamper them with type. Have you the original manuscript of the Darman Gate? No," said Doria. Well, don't you see?" said Geoffrey, with a smile. For the first time I praised old man Johnny Croft. He brought up his daughter far from the maddening mechanics of the literary life. To my great relief Doria swallowed the incredible story. It was careless of you not to have given special instructions for the manuscript to be saved, I must say. But if it's gone, it's gone, and I'm not unreasonable. I think you are," said Barbara, who had been arranging flowers on the drawing-room, and had emerged onto the terrace. You made Geoffrey submit his careful editing to an expert, and you're honourably bound to accept the expert's verdict. I do accept it," she retorted, with a toss of her head and a flash of her eyes. Have I ever said I didn't? But I'm at liberty to keep to my own opinion. Doria scratched his whiskers and beard and screwed up his face as he did in moments of perplexity. What exactly do you want changed? he asked. Just those few coarse touches you admit are yours. They didn't want it to get an atmosphere of rye whiskey and bad tobacco, not tea and strawberries. The eminent novelist in Commium had arrived at the artist's pride in his first born. An altered word would spoil the book. My dear girl," said he, stretching out his great hand, from beneath which she wriggled an impatient shoulder. My dear Doria," said he very gently, the possessor of the order of merit is both a critic and a man of common sense. Anyway, he knows more about novels than either of us do. If it weren't for him I would give you the proofs to blue pencil as much as you'd liked. But I'm sure you would make a thundering mess of it. Doria made a little gesture, a bit of a shrug, a bit of a resigned flicker of her hands. Of course, do as you please, dear Jaffery. I'm quite alone, a woman with nobody to turn to. She smiled with her lips, but there was no coordination of the eyes. As I said before, I passed the proofs. She went quickly through the drawing-room door into the house, leaving Jaffery still scratching a red whisker. Oh, Lord," said he ruefully, I've gone and done it now. He turned to follow her, but Barbara interposed her small body on the threshold. Don't be a silly fool, Jaffery. You've handed quite enough to her morbid vanity. It's your book, isn't it? You have given it birth. You know better than anybody what is vital to it. Just you send those proofs straight back to the publisher. If you let her persuade you to change one word as true as I'm standing here, I'll tell her the whole thing and dam the consequences. My exquisite Barbara's rare dams were oaths in the strictest sense. They connoted the most irrefragable of implications. She would never think of breaking a dam than her marriage vows or a baby's neck. Of course, I'm not going to let her touch the thing, said Jaffery, but I don't want her to look on me as a bullying brute. It would be better both for you and for her if she did," snapped Barbara. The order of a woman is like the dog on the walnut tree. It's only the exceptional woman that can take command. I, who'd been sitting calm, on the low parapet beneath the tenderly sprouting mysterious arbor, broke my philosophic silence. Observe the exceptional woman, said I. For a day or so Doria stood upon her dignity, treating Jaffery with cold politeness. In the mornings she allowed him to wrap her up in her garden chair and attend to her comforts, and then, settled down, she would open a volume of Tolstoy and courtesely signify his dismissal. Jaffery, with a hang-dog expression, went with me to the golf course where he drove with prodigious muscular skill and putted extracurably. Had it not been a question of good taste, to say nothing of human sentiment, I would have reminded him that the thing he was hitting so violently was only a little white ball and not poor Adrien's scowl. If ever a man was loyal to a dead friend, Jaffery's chain was loyal to Adrien Boltero. But poor old Jaffery was being checked in every vital avenue, not by the memory of the man whom he had known and loved, but by his cynical and masquerading ghost. It is not given to me, thank God, to know from direct speech what Jaffery thought of Adrien, for Jaffery is too splendid a fellow to have ever said a word in depreciation of his once living friend and afterward dead rival. But both I, who do not aspire to these quickzotic heights and only with masculine power of generalisation, deduce results from a quiet eye's harvest of mundane phenomena, and Barbara, whose rapier intuition penetrates the core of spiritual things, could, with little difficulty, divine the passionate struggle between love and hatred, between loyalty and tenderness, between desire and duty, that took place in the soul of this chivalrous, yet primitive and vastly appetited gentleman. You may think that I am trying to present Jaffery as a hero of romance. I am not. I am merely trying to put before you, in my imperfect way, a barbarian at war with civilised instincts. I lust his son of Patagruel, forced into the incongruous role of Sir Galahad. During the term of his punishment he behaved in a bearish and most unheroic manner. At last, however, Doria forgave him, and, smiling on him once more, permitted him to read Tolstoy aloud to her. Whereupon he mended his manners. The day following this reconciliation was a Sunday. We had invited Lyosha, as we constantly did, to lunch and dine. She usually arrived by an early train in the forenoon and returned by the late train at night. But on Saturday evening she asked Barbara over the telephone for permission to bring a friend, a gentleman staying in the boarding house, the happy possessor of a car who would motor her down. His name was Fendi Hook. Barbara replied that she would be delighted to see Lyosha's friend, and, of course, came back to us and speculated as to who and what this Mr. Fendi Hook might be. Why didn't you ask her, said I? He would scarcely have been polite. We consulted Geoffrey. Never heard of him, he growled. I don't like to hear of him now. That young woman's running loose and fast deal too much. What an old dog in the manger you are! cried Barbara. And that's started an old argument. On Sunday morning we saw Mr. Fendi Hook for ourselves. I met the car, a two-seater, which he drove himself, at the front door, and perceived beneath a motoring cap worn peak behind and a tightly-buttoned burberry coat, a pink, fleshy, clean-shaven face, from the middle of which projected an enormous cigar. I helped Lyosha out. This is Mr. Fendi Hook. A commonly called wrasse, Fendi Hook, at your service, said he. I smiled and shook hands and gave the car into the charge of my chauffeur, who appeared from the stately yard. In the hall, aided by Franklin, Mr. Rasse Fendi Hook divested himself with his outer wrappings, and revealed a thick-set man of medium height, rather flashily attired. I know it is narrow-minded, but I have a prejudice against a black and white check-suit and a red neck-tie threaded through a gold ring. Against the rules, he asked, holding up his cigar, a very good one, on which he had retained the band. By no means, said I, we smoke all over the house. Dip-dop! he looked round the hall. You seem to have a bit of a right here. I told him you would like it, everybody does, said Lyosha. Ah, Barbara dear! she ran up the stairs to meet her. We followed. Mr. Fendi Hook was presented. I noticed, with a little shock, that he kept on his gloves. Very kind of you to let me come down, madam. I thought a bit of a blow would do our fair friend good. Barbara took off Lyosha, looking very handsome and fresh beneath the motor-veil to her room, leaving me with Mr. Fendi Hook. As he proceeded me into the drawing-room, I saw a bald patch, like a tonsure, in the middle of a crop of coarse brown hair. Again he looked round appreciatively, and again he said, Dip-dop! He advanced to the open French window. Gone's all right, must take a lot of doing. Who are our friends? The long and the short of it, aren't they? He alluded to Jaffrey and Doria, who were strolling on the lawn. I told him their names. Jaffrey Jane! Why that's the chap, Mrs. Prescott's always talking about her guardian or something. Her trustee said I, and an intimate friend of her late husband. Ah! said he, with a twinkle in his eyes, which I will swear signified, that there was a Prescott after all. He waved his cigar. Introduce me. And as I accompanied him across the lawn, there's nothing like knowing everybody, getting it over at once. Then one feels at home. I hope you felt at home as soon as you entered the house, said I. Of course I did, old pal! He replied heartily. Of course I did. The amazing creature patted me on the back. I performed the introductions. Mr. Fenneyhook declared himself delighted to make the acquaintance of my friends. Then, as conversation did not start spontaneously, he once more looked around, nodded at the landscape approvingly, and once more said, tipped up. That's what I want to have, he continued, when I can afford to retire and settle down. None of your gim-crap modern villas in a desirable residential neighbourhood, but an English gentleman's country-house. It's your ambition to be an English gentleman, Mr. Fenneyhook? Queridoria. He laughed good humorately. Now you're putting my leg! I saw that he was not lacking in shrewdness. Susan, never far from Jaffrey during her off-time, came running up. Hello! Is that you, young one? Mr. Fenneyhook asked. Come and say, how do you do, Gwendolyn? Susan advanced, shyly. He shook hands with her, chucked her under the chin, and paid her the ill compliment of saying that she was the image of her father. Jaffrey stood with folded arms, holding the burl of his pipe in one hand, and looked down on Mr. Fenneyhook as on some puzzling insect. Do you mind if I take off my gloves? Our strange visitor asked. But pray do, said I. The sight of the fellow, wandering about a garden, bareheaded and gloved in yellow chamois leather, had begun to affect my nerves. He peeled them off. Look here, Gwendolyn Arabella, my dear, he cried, catch! He made a faint of throwing them. Haven't you caught them? No. But he stared at the man-open mouth, for behold, his hands were empty. Tutt, tutt, said he, perhaps you can catch a handkerchief. He flicked a red silk handkerchief from his pocket, crumpled it into a ball, and threw. But like the gloves, it vanished. Now where has it gone to? Susan, who had shrunk beneath Jaffrey's protecting shadow, crept forward, fascinated. Mr. Fenneyhook took a sudden step or two towards the flower bed. Oh, there it is! He stretched out a hand, and there before our eyes the hag-chief hung limp over the pruned top of a standard rose. The jolly good! exclaimed Jaffrey. I hope you don't mind, I like a music it is. Have you ever talked to Angel's Elementor? No? Well, I have. Look! He threw half-crowned up into the air until they disappeared into the central blue, and then held a ventriloquial conversation, not to the best of taste, with the celestial spirits, who, having caught the coins, announced their intention of sticking to them. But threats of reporting to headquarters prevailed, and one by one the coins dropped and jinkled in his hand. We applauded. Susan regarded him as she were a god. Can you do it again? she asked breathlessly. Lord bless you, Eustachio, and keep on doing it all day long. He balanced his cigar on the tip of his nose, and with a snap caught it in his mouth. He turned to me with a grin which showed white, strong teeth. More than you could do, Al Powell! You must have practised that a great deal, said Doria. Two hours a day, solid year in and year out. Not that trick alone, of course. Yeah! He burst into a laugh. I'm blodey, if you know who I am. I'm the one and only Rass Fendihoek, illusionist, ventriloquist and general variety artist. Haven't you ever seen my turn? We confessed with regret that we have missed the privilege. Well, well, it's a queer world," he said philosophically. You've never heard of me. Perhaps you two gentlemen are big bugs in your own line, and I've never heard of you. But anyhow, I never asked you, Mr. Chayne, to catch my gloves. I haven't your gloves," said Jaffrey, with his eye on Susan. You have! You've got them in your pocket. And diving into Jaffrey's jacket pocket, he produced the wash-leathered gloves. There, Petronella, said he, that's the end of the matinee performance. Susan looked at him wide-eyed. I'm not at all tired. Aren't you? Then don't let that big black dog there chase the little one. He pointed with his finger, and from behind the old U-arbo came the shrill clamour of a little dog in agony. It brought Barbara flying out of the house. Lyosha followed leisurely. The helping ceased. Mr. Rath Fendt Hook went to meet his hostess. Doria, Jaffrey, and I looked at one another in mutual and dismayed comprehension. "'Old pal,' quoted Doria, I glanced apprehensibly across the strip of lawn. I hope for his sake he's not calling Barbara old girl." He calls everybody funny names. Susan chimed in. "'See what a lot he called me!' "'Does your royal fairy Highness approve of him?' asked Jaffrey. "'I should think so, Uncle Jaff,' she replied fervently. "'He's marvellous!' "'Me is,' said Jaffrey, and even that jewel of language doesn't express him. "'My dear,' said I, "'you stick close to him all day, as long as Mummy will let you.' "'I have never got the credit I deserved for the serene wisdom of that suggestion. All through lunch, all through the long afternoon, until it pursues in bed-time, her obedience to my command saved over and over again a tense situation. To the guest in our house Barbara was the perfection of courtesy. But beneath the mask of convention raged fury with Leosha. A woman can seldom take a queer social animal for what he is, and suck the honey from his flowers of unconventionality. She had never heard a man say, "'Right-ho!' to a butler, when offered a second helping of pudding. She had never dreamed of the possibility of a strange table-neighbour laying his hand on hers and requesting her to take it from me, my dear. It sent awful shivers down her spine to hear my august self alluded to as her old man. She looked down her nose when to the apoplectic joy of Susan, supposed to be on her premised behaviour at Meals. He, with a significant wink, threw a new potato into there, caught it on his fork, and conveyed it to his mouth. Her smile was that of the polite hostess, and not of the enthusiastic listener, when he told her of triumphs in Manchester and Cincinnati. To her confusion he presupposed her intimate acquaintance with the personalities of the world of variety. "'That's where I came across little Evie Bostock,' he said confidentially. A clipper, wasn't she? Just before she ran off with that contortionist, you know, I mean, handsome chap. What's his name?' "'Oh, of course you know him.'" My poor Barbara, daughter of a distinguished civil-servant, a KCB, assumed to be on friendly terms with a boneless wonder. "'But indeed I don't,' Mr. Fenty-hook, she replied, pathetically. "'Yes, yes, you must,' he snapped his fingers. "'Got it. Romeo! You must have heard of Romeo!' "'I sneaked. I couldn't help it,' a Barbara's face. He went on with his reminiscences. Barbara nearly wept, while I, though displeased with Leosha for introducing such an incongruous element into my family-circle, took the rational course of deriving from the fellow considerable entertainment. Geoffrey would have done the same as myself, had not his responsibility as Leosha's guardian weighed heavily upon him. He frowned, and ate in silence, vastly. Victoria, like my wife, I could see, was shocked. The only two who, beside myself, enjoyed our guest, was Susan and Leosha. Well, Susan was nine years old, and a meal at which a guest broke her whole deck-a-log of table manners at once, to say nothing of the performance of such miracles as squeezing an origin to nothingness without the juice running out, and subsequently abstracted it from the neck of an agonised mother, was a feast of memorable gaudiness. Susan could be excused. But Leosha? Leosha, pupil of the admirable Mrs. Constantine? Leosha, a descendant of proud Albanian chieftains who had lain in gory beds for centuries. How could she have marred this peculiarly vulgar, although in his own line peculiarly accomplished person? Yet her admiration was obvious. She sat by my side, grand and radiant, proud of the wondrous gift she had bestowed on us. She claimed his tricks, she laughed at his anecdotes, she urged him on to further exhibition of prize, and in a magnificent way appeared unconscious at the presence at the table of her trusty and would-be dragon, Geoffrey Chaine. After lunch Susan obeyed my instructions and stuck very close to Mr. Fendihoek. Doria retired for her afternoon rest. Geoffrey, having invited Leosha to go for a long walk with him, and she, having declined, with a polite smile, on the ground that her best Sunday-go-to-meeting long gown was not suitable for country roads, went off by himself in dungeon. Barbara took Leosha aside and cross-examined her on the subject of Mr. Fendihoek, and as far as hospitality allowed, signified her non-appreciation of the guest. After a time I took him to the billiard-room, Susan following him. As he was a brilliant player, given me one hundred and fifty and two hundred and running out easily before I had made thirty, he found less excitement in the game than in orating his exploits and performing tricks for the child. He did astonishing things with the billiard-balls, making them run all over his body-like mice, and balancing them on cues and juggling with them five at a time. I think that day he must have gone through his whole repertoire. The party assembled for tea in the drawing-room. Fendihoek's first words to Leosha were, Hello, my bulking-green. How have you been getting on? Very well, thank you, smart Leosha. He turned to Jeffrey. She did not talk to her usual form to-day, but sometimes she's a fair treat. I give you my word." He laughed loudly and winked. Jeffrey, whose adunity in rubber tea was rather physical than mental, glowered at him, rumbled something uninterditable beneath his breath, and took tea out to Doria, who was established on the terrace. Seems you've got the pip, Mr. Fendihoek remarked cheerfully. Barbara, with icy of a likeness, offered him tea. He refused, explaining that unless he sat down to a square meal, which in view of the excellence of the lunch he was unable to do, he never drank tea in the afternoon. Could I have a whisky and a soda, old pal? The drink was brought. He pledged Barbara, and may I drink to the success of that promising little affair? He joked a backward thumb between our pippy friend and the charming widow. Barbara had passed the gasping stage. Mr. Chane, she said, in the metallic voice that before now had made strong men grow pale, Mr. Chane stands in the same relation of trustee to Mrs. Baldero as he does to Mrs. Prescott. The Fendihoek was undismayed. Some fellows have all the luck. Here's to him, and here's to you, she was green. He nodded to Leosha, and pulled at his drink. But Leosha did not respond. A hard look appeared in her eyes, and the knuckles of her hand showed white. Presently she rose and went on to the terrace, where she found Jaffrey fixing a rebellious rug round Doria's feet. And this is what happened. Jaffed Chane, she said, I want to have a word with you. You'll excuse me, Doria, but Jaffed Chane's as much my trustee as he is yours. I have business to talk." Doria eyed her coldly. Talk as much as business as you like, my dear girl. I'm not preventing you." Jaffrey strayed off with Leosha. As soon as they were out of earshot she said, Are you going to marry her? Who? Doria. Jaffrey bent his brows on her. He was not in his most angelic mood. What the blazes that he's got got to do with you! But just you mind your own business. All right. She retorted, Ah, well. Dad, you hear it, said he, and now I want a word with you. What do you mean by bringing that howling cad down here? It's you who howl, not he. He's a very kind gentleman, and very clever, and he makes me laugh. He's not like you. He's a performing gorilla! cried Jaffrey. They were both exceedingly angry, and having walked very fast they found themselves in front of the gate of the walled garden. Eventually they entered and had the place to themselves. I had a confounded bounder of a gorilla at that! Jaffrey continued. How dare you speak so of my friend! You ought to be ashamed of yourself for having such a friend, and you're just going to drop him. Do you understand? Shant, said Leosha. You shall. You're not going to be seen outside the house with him. There was battle clamorous and a trifle undignified. They said the same things over and over again. Both had worked themselves into a fury. I forbid you to have anything to do with the fellow. You, Jaffrey, shall be to my own business, just you mind yours. It is my business, he shouted, to see that you don't disgrace yourself with a beast of a fellow like that. What did you say? Disgrace myself? She drew herself up magnificently. Do you think I would disgrace myself with any man living? You insult me. Rot! cried Jaffrey. Every woman is liable to make a blessed fool of herself, and you more than most. I know one that's not going to make a fool of herself. She taunted and flung an arm in the direction of the house. Jaffrey blazed, You leave me alone. And you leave me alone. They glared inimically into each other's eyes. Leosha turned, marched superbly away, opened the garden door, and, passing through, slammed it in his face. It had been a very pretty primitive quarrel, free from all subtlety. Elemental instinct flamed in Jaffrey's veins. If he could have given her a good sound thrashing, he would have been a happy man. This accursed civilisation paralysed him. He stood for a few moments tearing at whiskers and beard. Then he started in pursuit and overtook her in the middle of the lawn. Anyhow, you'll take the infernal fellow away now, and never bring him here again. Is Hillary's house not yours?" she remarked, looking straight before her. We'll ask him. I will. Hillary! At her hail and beckon I left the terriers where Mr. Fenderhoek had been discoursing irrepressibly on the behemoth vultures of Woodihood to a quivering Doria, and advanced to meet her a flushed and bright-eyed Juno. Would you like me to bring Rass Fenderhoek here again? Tell us straight, said Jaffrey. Mr. Susan, looking from one to the other, would have been conscious of storms. I took her hand. "'My dear Lyosha,' said I, "'our social system is so complicated that it is no wonder you don't appreciate the most delicate ramifications.' "'Oh, talk sense to her!' growled Jaffrey. "'Mr. Fenderhoek is not quite,' I hesitated, "'not quite the kind of purse, my dear, that we're accustomed to meet.' "'I know,' said Lyosha, "'you want them all stamped out in a pattern like little tin soldiers.' "'I see the point of your criticism, and it's true as far as it goes.' "'Oh, go on,' Jaffrey interrupted. "'But,' I continued, "'you'd rather not see him here again?' "'No,' roared Jaffrey. "'I'm talking to Hillary, not you,' said Lyosha. She turned to me. "'You and Barbara would like me to take him away right now?' "'I still held her hand, which was growing moist, and I suppose mine was too, and I didn't like to drop it, for fear of hurting her feelings. I gave it a great squeeze. It was very difficult for me. "'Personally, I enjoyed the frank, untrammeled and prodigiously accomplished skin of a valga race. As a mere bachelor, isolated human, meeting him, I should have taken him joyously, if not to my heart, at any rate to my microscope, unstudied him, and savored him, and got out of him all that there was of grotesqueness. But to every one of my household, save Susan, who didn't count, he was, I admit, deservedly, an object of loathing. So I squeezed Lyosha's hand. "'The beginning and end of the matter, my dear,' said I, "'is that he's not quite a gentleman.' "'All right,' said Lyosha, liberating herself, "'now I know.' She left me, and sailed to the terrace. I amused the metaphor, advisedly. She had a way of walking like a full-rigged ship before a breeze. We're as fennel-hooked as time we were going.' A bit of headache looked at his watch, and jumped up. "'We must hook it!' Barbara asked conventionally. "'Won't you stay to supper?' "'Great Scott, no,' he explained. "'No offence meant. You're very kind, but it's Lady's night at the rabbits, and I'm Buck Rabbit for the evening, and the Queen of Sheba's coming as my guest.' "'Who are the rabbits?' asked Doria. "'He and I had heard of this bohemian confraternity, and I explained with a learned inaccuracy that evoked a semi-circular grin on the pink, fleshy face of Mr. Rass' fennel-hook.' "'Oh, thank goodness,' said Barbara, as the two-seater scutted away down the drive. "'Here's indeed,' said Doria. Jeffery shook his fist at the disappearing car. "'One of these days I'll break his infernal neck.' "'Why?' asked Doria, on a sharp note of inquiry. "'I don't like him,' said Jeffery, and he's taking her out to dine among all that circus crowd. It's damnable!' "'For the lady whose father stuck pigs in Chicago,' said Doria, "'I should think it was rather a rise in the social scale.' And she went indoors with her nose in the air. To every one save the puzzle to Jeffery, it was obvious that she'd disapproved of his interest in the osher.' CHAPTER XVI The greater glory came out in due season puzzled the reviewers and made a sensation—a greater sensation even than a legitimate successor to the diamond gate dictated by the spirit of Tom Castleton. The contrast was so extraordinary, so inexplicable. It was generally concluded that no writer but Adrian Baldero in the world's history had ever revealed two such distinct literary personalities as those that informed the two novels. The protean nature of his genius aroused universal wonder. His death was deplored as the gracious loss sustained by English letters since Keats. The press could do nothing but hail the new book as a masterpiece. Barbara and myself, who alone of mortals knew the strange history of the two books, did not agree with the press. In seber truth the greater glory was not a work of genius, for after all the only hallmark of a work of genius that you can put your finger on is its haunting quality. That quality Tom Castleton's work possessed. Jeffery Chains did not. The greater glory vibrated with life. It was wide and generous. It was a capital story, but unlike The Darman Gate it could not rank with The Vicar of Wakefield and David Copperfield. I say this in no way to disparage my dear old friend, but merely to present his work in true proportion. Published under his own name it would doubtless have received recognition. Probably it would have made money, but it could not have met with the enthusiastic reception it enjoyed when published under the tragic and romantic name of Adrian Baldero. Of course, Jeffery beamed with delight. His fallen hope had succeeded beyond his dreams. He had fulfilled the immediate needs of the woman he loved. He had also astonished himself enormously. It's darn good to let you and Barbara know, said he, that I'm not a mere six-foot of beef and thirst, but that I'm a chap with brains, and, he added, turning over a bundle of press-cuttings, and poetic fancy and master of the human heart, and penetrating insight into the soul of things, and uncanny knowledge of the complexities of a woman's nature—that's me, Jeff Chain, whom you've disregarded all these years. Look at him, black and white, uncanny knowledge of the complexities of a woman's nature—and it's selling like blazes! He did not enter his honest head to have envied the dead man, his fresh, ill-gotten fame. He accepted the success in the large simplicity of spirit that it enabled him to conceive and write the book. His poorer human thoughts and emotions centered in the hope that now Adrian's restless ghost would be laid for ever, and that for Doria there would open a new life, in which, with the past behind her, she could find a glory in the sun and an influence in the stars, and a spark in her own bosom responsive to his devotion. For the tumultuous moment, however, when Adrian's name was on all men's tongues, and before all men's eyes, the ghost walked in triumphant verisimilitude of life. At all the meetings of Geoffrey and Doria, he was there smiling beneath his laurels whenever he was evoked, and he was evoked continuously. Either by law of irony, or perhaps for intrinsic merit, the bridges to whose clumsy construction Geoffrey, like an idiot had confessed, had been picked out by many reviewers as typical instances of Adrian Baldero's new style. First blunders were flies in Doria's healing ointment. She needed it to the reviewers in disdainful terms. How dared it is his employmen to write on Adrian's work who are unable to distinguish between it and that of Geoffrey's chain. One day, when she talked like this, Barbara lost her temper. I think you're an ungrateful little wretch. Here as Geoffrey sacrificed his work for three months and devoted himself to pulling together Adrian's unfinished manuscript and making a great success of it, and you treat him as if he were a dog. Doria protested. I don't. I am grateful. I don't know what I should do without Geoffrey. But all my gratitude and fondness for Geoffrey can't alter the fact that he has spoiled Adrian's work, and when I hear those very faults in the book praised, I am fit to be tied. Well, go crazy and bite the furniture when you're all by yourself, said Barbara, but when you're with Geoffrey, try to be sane and civil. I think you're horrid, Doria exclaimed, and if you weren't the wife of Adrian's trusted friend, I would never speak to you again. RUBBISH! said Barbara. I'm talking to you if you're good, and you know it. Meanwhile Geoffrey lingered on in London in the cheerless little eerie in Victoria Street, with no apparent attention of ever leaving it. Our bath-not of the Daily Gazette, satirically inquiring whether he wanted a job, or still yearned for a season in Mayfair, he consigned in his grinning way to perdition. Change was the essence of holiday-making, and this was his holiday. It was many years since he had had one. When he wanted a job he would go round to the office. All right, tell our bath-not, and in the meantime if you want to keep your hand in him by doing a far or a fashion or wedding, ring it up! Where had Geoffrey roared this being the sort of joke he liked? The need of a holiday amid the bricks of mortar of Victoria Street may have impressed our bath-not, but it did not impress me. I dismissed the excuse as fantastic. I tackled him one day at lunch at the club, assuming my most skeptical manner. Well, there's Doria, somebody must look after her. Doria, said I, is a young woman, now that she is in sound health, perfectly capable of looking after herself, and if she does want a man's advice, she can always turn to me. Where there's Leosha? Leosha, I remarked judiciously, is also a young woman capable of looking after herself. If she isn't, she's given you very definitely to understand that she's going to try. Have you had any more interesting evenings out lately? No, he growled. She's offended with me because I warned her off that low down bounder. I think you did your best, said I, to make her take up with him. He protested. We argued the point, and I think I got the better of the argument. Well anyhow, he said, with an air of infantile satisfaction, she can't marry him. Who's going to prevent her if she wants to? The law of England. He laughed, mightily pleased. The beggar is married already. I've found that out. He's got three or four wives, in fact, a dreadful hound, but only one real one with a wedding-ring, and she lives up in the north with a pack of children. All the more dangerous for Leosha to associate with such a villain. He waived the suggestion aside. No fear of that, said he, if not Leosha's game, hers was an Amazonian kind of chastity. Here I agree with him. All the less reason, said I, for you to stay in London so as to look after her. But I don't like her to be seen about in the fellow's company. She'll get a bad name. Look here, did I. The idea of a vast hairy chap like you devoting his life to keeping a couple of young widows out of mischief is too preposterous. Try me with something else. Then, being in good humour, he told me the real reason. He was writing another book. He was writing another novel, and he did not want anyone to know. He was getting along famously. He'd had the story in his head for a long time. I was glad to talk about it, sketch the outline very pituristically. Perhaps I was more vitally interested in the development of the man, Jaffrey, than in the story. A queer thing had happened. The ball novelist had just discovered himself and clamoured for artistic self-expression. He was writing this book just because he could not help it, finding gladness in the mere work, delighting in the mechanics of the thing, and letting himself go in the joy of the narrative. It was going to become of it when written. I did not inquire. It was rather too delicate a matter. Jaffrey Chayne could be nothing else than Jaffrey Chayne. A new novel published by him would resemble The Greater Glory, as closely as Penn Dennis resembles Philip. And then there would be the Deuce to Pay. If he published it under his own name he would render himself liable to the charge of having stolen a novel from the dead author of The Greater Glory. And so complicate this already complicated web of poetry theft. And if he threw sufficient dust into the eyes of Doria to enable him to publish under Adrian's name he would be performing the task of the altruistic bees immortalised by Virgil. Anyhow, there he was, perfectly happy, pegging away at his novel, looking after Doria, pretending to look after Leoscha, and enjoying the society of the few cronies, chiefly adventurous birds of passage like himself, who happened to be passing through London. Being a man of modest needs, saved need of mere bulk of simple food, he found his small patrimony and the savings from his professional earnings quite adequate for amenable existence. When he wanted healthy fresh air he came down to us to see Susan. When he wanted anything else he went to see Doria, which was almost daily. Doria was living now in the flat, surrounded by the lorries and penates consecrated by Adrian. Now and then for purposes of airing and dusting she entered the awful room. Neither servants nor friends were allowed to cross the threshold, but otherwise it was always locked and the key lay in her jewel-case. Adrian was the focus of her being. She put heavy tasks on Jaffrey. There was to be a fitting monument on Adrian's grave, over which she kept him busy. In her blind perversity she counted on his cooperation. It was he who carried through negotiations with an eminent sculptor for a bust of Adrian, which, in her will, made about that time, she bequeathed to the nation. She ordered him to see to the inclusion of Adrian in the supplement to the Dictionary of National Biography, and all the time Jaffrey obeyed her sovereign behests without a murmur and without a hint that he desired reward for his servitude. But to those gifted with normal vision signs were not wanting that he chafed, to put it mildly, under this forced worship of Adrian, and to those who knew Jaffrey it was obvious that his one-sided arrangement could not last forever. Doria remained blind, taking it for granted that everyone should kiss the feet of her idol, and in that act of adoration find Auguste recompense. That the man loved her, she was fully aware. She was not devoid of elementary sense. But she accepted it as she accepted everything else as her due, and perhaps rather despised Jaffrey for his meekness. Why again she disregarded what her instinct must have revealed to her of the primitive passions lurking beneath the exterior of her kind and tender ogre, I cannot understand. For one thing she considered herself his intellectual superior, vanity perhaps blinded her judgment. At all events she did not realize that a change was bound to come in their relations. It came, inevitably. One day in June they sat together on the balcony of the St. John's Wood flat, in the soft afternoon shadow, both conscious of queer isolation from the world below, and from the strange world masked behind the vast superficiers of brick against which they were perched. Jaffrey said something about a nest bid way on a cliffside overlooking the sea. He also, in basing coherence, formulated the opinion that in such a nest might be found true happiness. The pretty langer of early summer laughed in the air. Their situation, tweaked earth and heaven, had a little sensuous charm. Dory replied sentimentally, Yes, a little house covered with clematis on a ledge of cliff, with the seagulls weaning about it, bringing messages from the sunset lands across the blue-blue sea. Poor dear! She forgot that sea lit by a western sand is of no colour at all, and that the blue water lies to the east. But no matter. Jaffrey, drinking in her words, forgot it likewise. Away from everything, she continued, and two people who loved, with a great, great love. Her eyes were fixed on the motor omnibuses passing up and down made of ale at the end of her road. Her lips were parted. The ripeness of youth and health rendered her adorable. Her flush stained her ivory cheek. He would find the exact simile in Virgil. She was too desirable for Jaffrey's self-control. He bent forward in his chair. They were sitting face to face, so that he had his back to the motor omnibuses, and put his great hand on her knee. Why not we too? Jaffrey was silly, sentimental, schoolboyish, what she pleased. But every man's first declaration of love is Baethos, the zenith of his passion connoting perhaps the nadir of his intelligence. Anyhow, the declaration was made without shadow of a mistake. Doria switched her knee away sharply, as her vision of sunset and gulls and blue sea and atlemity's covered house vanished from before her eyes, and she found herself on her balcony with Jaff's chain. �What do you mean?� she asked. �You know very well what I mean.� He rose like a lefathon, and made a step towards her. The three-foot balustrade of the balcony seemed to come to his ankles. She put out a hand. �Oh, don't do that, Jaff, you might fall over. It makes me so nervous.� He checked himself, and stood up quite straight. Again he felt as if she had dealt him a slap in the face. �You know very well what I mean� he repeated. �I love you, and I want you, and I'll never be happy till I get you.� She looked away from him, and lifted her slender shoulders. �Why spoil things by talking of the impossible?� �The word has no meaning, doesn't exist� said Jaffrey. �It exists very much indeed� she returned with a quick upward glance. �Not with an obstant devil like me.� She leaned against the low balustrade. She rose. �You'll drive me into hysterics� she cried, and fled into the drawing-room. He followed impatiently. �I'm not such an ass as to fall off a footling balcony what you take me for.� �I take you for Adrian's friend� she said, very erect, brave elf facing horrible ogre, and either by chance or design her hand touched and held the tip of a great silver-framed photograph of her late husband. �I think I've proved it� said Jaffrey. �Are you proving it now? What value can you attach to Adrian's memory when you say such things to me?� �I'm saying to you what every honest man has the right to say to the free woman he loves.� �But I'm not a free woman. I'm bound to Adrian.� �You can't be bound to him forever and ever.� �I am. That's why it's shameful and dishonourable of you.� His blue eyes flashed dangerously, and he clenched his hands. But heedless she went on. �Yes, mean and base and despicable of you to wish to betray him. �Ajan� �Oh, don't talk, Drevel, it makes me sick. Leave Adrian alone and listen to a living man� he shouted. All the pent-up intellectual disgusts and sex-jealouses bursting out in a mad gush. �A real live man who would walk through hell for you.� He caught her frail body in his great grasp, and she vibrated like a bit of wah caught up by a dynamo. �My love for you has nothing whatever to do with Adrian. I've been as loyal to him as one man can be to another living and dead. My God, I have!� asked Hillary and Barbara. �But I want you. I've wanted you since the first moment I set eyes on you. You've got into my blood. You're going to love me. You're going to marry me, Adrian, or no, Adrian.� He bent over her, and she met the passion in his eyes bravely. She did not lack courage, and her eyes were hard, and her lips were white, and her face was pinched into a marble statuette of hate. And unconscious that his grip was giving her physical pain, he continued, �I've waited for you. I've waited for you from the moment I heard you were engaged to the other man, and I'll go on waiting but by God!� Not knowing what he did, he shook her backwards and forwards, �I'll not go on waiting for ever! You little bit of mystery! You little bit of eternity! You� �Ah!� With a great gesture he released her. But the poor ogre had not counted on his strength. His unwitting violence sent her spinning, and she fell, knocking her head against the sofa. He uttered a gasp of horror, and in an instant lifted her and later on the sofa, and on his knees beside her with the remorse over-surging his passion, behaved like a penitent fool, accusing himself of all the unforgivable savages ever practiced by barbaric mail. Doria, who was not hurt in the least, sat up and pointed to the door. �Go!� she said, �Go!� you�re nothing but a brute!� Jaffrey rose from his knees and regarded her in the hebitude of reaction. �I suppose I am, Doria, but it�s my way of loving you!� She still pointed. �Go!� she said turnously. �I can�t turn you out, but if Adrien was alive!� She laughed with a touch of hysteria. �How do you dare, you baron rascal!� �How do you dare to think you can take the place of a man like Adrien?� The whip of her tongue lashed him to sudden fury. He picked her up bodily and held her in spite of struggles, just as you or I would hold a cat or a rabbit. �You little fool, did he!� �Don�t you know the difference between a man and a� The realisation of the tragedy struck him, as a spent bullet might have struck him on the side of the head. He turned white. �All right� said he, in a changed voice. �Easy on.� �I�m not going to hurt you.� He deposited it to her gently on the sofa and strode out of the room. End of Chapter 16 Chapter 17 of Jaffrey by William John Locke. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Simon Evers. Chapter 17 If the old song be true which says that it is not so much the lover who woos as the lover�s way of wooing, Jaffrey seemed to have thrown away his chances by adopting a very unfortunate way indeed. Doria proved to Barbara, urgently summoned to a bed of prostration and nervous collapse, that she would never set eyes again upon the unqualifiable savage by whom her odious sentiments had been outraged, and her person disgracefully mishandled. She poured out the blood-curdling story into semi-sympathetic ears. Barbara made short work of her contention that Jaffrey ought to have respected her as he would have respected the wife of a living friend, characterizing it as morbid and indecent nonsense, and with regard to the physical violence she declared that it would have served her right had he smacked her. �If you wanted to be faithful to the memory of your first husband, be faithful,� she said. �No one can prevent you. And if a good man comes along with an honourable proposal of marriage, tell him in an honourable way why you can�t marry him. But don�t except for months all a man has to give, and then when he tells you what you�ve known perfectly well all along, treat him as if he were making shameful proposals to you, especially a man like Jaffrey. �I have no patience with you.� Barbara wept. �No one understood her. No one understood Adrian. No one understood the bond there was between them.� Of that she was aware. But when it became to be brutally assaulted by Jaffrey chain she really thought Barbara would sympathize. Wherefore Barbara, rather angry at being brought up to London on a needless errand, involving loss of dinner and upset of household arrangements, administered a sleeping draught, and made her wake in the morning in a less idiotic frame of mind. �Perhaps I behave like a cat�, Barbara said to me later. �To behave like a cat is her way of signifying her display of the vilest phases of feminine nature. But I couldn�t help it. She didn�t talk a great deal of sense. It isn�t as if I had never warned her about the way she�s been treating Jaffrey. �I have, heaps of times. And as for Adrian, I�m sick of his name. And if I am, what must poor old Jaff be?� This she said during a private discussion that night on the whole situation. �I say the whole situation, because when she returned to Northland she found there a haggard ogre who, with the first time in his life had eaten a canary�s chair of an excellent dinner, imploring me to tell him whether he should enlist for a soldier, or commit suicide, or lie prone on Doria�s doormat and to which a pleaser to come out and trample on him. He seemed rather surprised. Indeed, a trifle hurt. The Diverus called him a satire. �How could we take his part, and not Doria�s, especially now that Barbara had come from the bedside of the scandously untreated lady?� He boomed and bellowed about the drawing-room, recapitulating the whole story. �But my good friend�, I demonstrated, �by the showing of both of you she�d taunted you and insulted you all ends up. You, a barren rascal! You! Good God!� He flung out a deprecatory hand. �What did it matter?� We must take this from her point of view. He ordained it to have laid hands on her. He ordained it to have spoken to her at all. She was right. He was a savage unfit for the society of any woman outside a wigwam. �Oh, you make me tired!� said Barbara at last. �I�m going to bed. Henry, give him a straight waistcoat. He�s a lunatic. Our sub-resort is not including a straight waistcoat. I could not exactly obey her. But as he had come down luggageless and with a large disregard of the hours of homeward trains, I lent him a suit of my meagre pyjamas which must have served the same purpose. He left the next morning. He does have advice he called on Doria and was denied admittance. He wrote. His letter was returned unopened. He passed a miserable week unable to work at a loose end in London during the height of the season. In despair he went to the Daily Gazette office and proclaimed himself ready for a job. But for the moment the earth was fairly calm and the management could find no field for Geoffrey�s special activities. Our butthnot again offered him reports of fires and fashionable weddings, but this time Geoffrey did not enjoy the fine humour of the proposal. He blistered our butthnot with abuse, swung from the newspaper office, and barged, mightily down Fleet Street, a disturber of traffic. Then he came down to Northlands for a while, where, for want of something to do, he hired himself out to my gardener and dug up most of the kitchen-garden. His usual occupation of romping with Susan was gone, for she lay a bed with some childish ailment which Barbara fear might turn into German measles. So when he was not perspiring over a spade or eating or sleeping he wanted about the place in his most restless mood. At night he ransacked my library for gazetteers and atlases wherein he searched for abominable places like to afford the explorer of the most horrible life and the bleakest possible death. He was toying with the idea of making a jaunt on his own to account to Tibet, when a merciful Providence gave him something definite to think about. It was Saturday morning. I was shaving peacefully in my dressing-room when Geoffrey, after thunderously demanding abittance, rushed in, clad in bath-garden slippers, flourishing a letter. Read that! I recognized Lyosha's handwriting. I read, D. H. F. Shane, as you and my trustee, I guess I ought to tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to marry Rass Fendihoek. I looked up. But you told me the man was married already. He is. Read on! We're going to be married at once. We're going to be married at Harvard, in France. Rass says that because I'm a widow and an Albanian, it would be an awful trouble for me to get married in England, and I'd have to give up half my money to government. But in France, owing to different laws, I can get married without any fuss at all. I don't understand it. But Rass has consorted a lawyer, so it's all right. I suppose that when I am married, you won't be my trustee any more. So, dear Geoff Shane, I must say good-bye and thank you for all your great kindness to me. I'm sorry you and Barbara and Hillary don't like Rass, which his real name really is Erasmus. But you all, when you know him better. Yours affectionately, Lyosha Prescott, the amazing epistle, took my breath away. Of all the infernal scoundrels, I cried. There's going to be trouble, said Geoffrey, and his look signified that it was he who intended to cause it. But why Harvard of all places in the world, said I? I suppose it's the only one he knows, replied Geoffrey. He must have once gone to Paris by that route. It's the cheapest. I'd lanced through the letter again, and I felt a warm gush of pity for our poor, diluted Lyosha. We must get her out of this. Going to, said Geoffrey. Let us have him Barbara at once. I opened the communicating door and threw the letter into the room where she was dressing. After a moment or two she appeared in cap and peignoir and the three of us in dressing-gones. I, with lather crinkling over one half of my face, held first at indignation meeting, and then a council of war. I never dreamed the brute would do this, said Geoffrey. He couldn't offer her marriage in the ordinary way without committing bigamy, and I know she wouldn't consent to any other arrangement, so she invented these poisonous plots to get her out of England. I'll probably go through some full form of ceremony, said Barbara. How can she be such a thundering idiot as to swallow it? Asked Geoffrey. I was going to remark that women would believe anything, but Barbara's eye was upon me. Yet Lyosha's unfamiliarity with the laws and formalities of English marriage was natural, considering the fact that, not so very long before, she was placidly prepared to be sold to a young Albanian cutthroat who met his death through coming to haggle over her price. I myself had found unworthy amusement in telling her wild fables of English life. Her ignorance in many ways was abysmal. Once, having seen a photograph in the papers of the king in a bowler hat, she expressed her disappointment that he wore no insignia of royalty. And when I consoled her by saying that, by act of parliament, the king was obliged to wear his crown so many hours a day, and therefore wore it always a breakfast, lunch, and dinner in Buckingham Palace, she accepted my assurance with the credulity of a child of four. And when Barbara rebuked me for taking advantage of her innocence, she was very angry indeed. How was she to know when and where not to believe me? She is fresh and ingenuous enough, said I, to swallow any kind of plausible story, and her ingenuousness in writing you a fuller kind of it is a proof. She's given the whole show away, said Geoffrey. He smiled. If Fendiock knew he would be as sick as a dog. And the poor dear is so honest and truthful, so Barbara. She thought she was doing the honourable thing in letting you know. No doubt modelling herself on Mrs. Jupp, late Constantine, said I. Who let us know at the last minute, so Barbara, with a quick knitting of the brow? Precisely, said I. Good Lord! cried Geoffrey, do you think she's gone off with the fellow already? You better ring up Queen's Gate and find out. He rushed from the room. I hastily finished shaving, while Barbara discoursed to me on the neglect of our duties with regard to the Osher. Presently Geoffrey burst in like a rhinoceros. She's gone. She went on Thursday. This is Saturday. Fendiock left last Sunday. Evidently she has joined him. We regarded each other in dismay. They're in harbour by now, so Barbara. I'm not so sure, so Geoffrey, sweeping his beard from the stash downwards. This I knew to be a sign of satisfaction. When he was puzzled, he scrabbled at the whisker. I'm not so sure. Why should he leave the boarding-house on Sunday? I'll tell you. Because his London engagement was over, and he had to put in a week's engagement at some provincial music hall. Theatrical folk always travel on Sunday. If he was still working in London and wanted to shift his lodgings, he wouldn't have chosen Sunday. We could easily see by the advertisements in the morning paper. His London engagement was at the atrium. I've got the daily telegraph here," said Barbara. She fetched it from her room in the earthquake-stricken condition to which she, as usual, had reduced it, and after earnest search among the ruins, disinterred the theatrical advertisement page. The attraction to the atrium was set out fully, but the name of Ras Fendiock did not appear. I'm right," said Geoffrey. The brooch not in town. Now where did she write from? He fished the envelope from his bath-gump pocket. Postmarked London SW 5.45 p.m. Posted yesterday afternoon. So she's in London. He'd lanced at the letter which was written on our own note-paper, headed with the Queen's Gate address, and then held it up before us. See anything queer about this? We looked and saw that it was dated Thursday. There's something fishy, said he. Can I have the car? Of course. I've got to run on both to earth. I want Barbara to come along. I can tackle men right enough, but when it comes to women, I seem to be a bit of an ass. Besides, you'll come, won't you? With pleasure, if I can get back early this afternoon. Early this afternoon? Why, my dear child, I want you to be prepared to come to Harvard, all over France, if necessary. You've got rather a nerve, said I, taken aback by the vast coolness of the proposal. I have, said he, curtly. I make my living by it. I'd come like a shot, said Barbara. I can't leave Susan. Oh, blazes, said Geoffrey. I forgot about that. Of course you can't. He turned to me. Then Hillary'll come. Where? I asked stupidly. Wherever I take you. My dear fellow, I remonstrated. He cut me short. Send him to his bath, Barbara dear, and pack his bag, and see that he's ready to start at 10 sharp. He strode out of the door. I caught him up in the corridor. Why the deuce, I cried, can't you do your manhunting by yourself? There are two of them, and you may come in useful. He faced me, and I met the cold steel in his eyes. If you would rather not help me to save a woman, we're both formed off from destruction. I can find somebody else. Of course I'll come, said I. Good, said he. Asked Barbara to order a devil of a breakfast. He marched away, looking in his bath-gown like 20 Roman heroes rolled into one, quite a different Geoffrey from the noisy bellowing fellow to whom I had been accustomed. He spoke in the normal tones of the ordinary human, very coldly and incisively. I rejoined Barbara. My dear, said I, what have we done that we should be dragged into all these acute discomforts of other people's lives? She put her hand on my shoulder. Perhaps, my dear boy, it's just because we've done nothing, nothing otherwise to justify our existence. We're too selfishly, sluggishly happy, you and I and Susan. If we didn't take a share of other people's troubles, we should die of congestion of the soul. I kissed her, to show that I understood my rare Barbara of the steady vision. But all the same I fretted at having to start off at a moment's notice for anywhere. Perhaps Harvara, perhaps Marseille, perhaps Singapore, with this horrible damp climate which wouldn't suit me. Anywhere, that tough and discomfort-loving Geoffrey might choose to ordain. And I was getting on so nicely with my translation of Fodusi. Don't forget, said I, departing Bathwards, to tell Franklin to put in an arctic sleeping bag and a cellotope. We drove first to the house in Queensgate under interview of Mrs. Jardine, a pretentious woman with gold earrings and elaborately dumb black hair, who seemed to resent our examination as though we were calling in question the moral character of her establishment. She did not know where Mr. Fendi hooker Mrs. Prescott had gone. She was not in the habit of putting such inquiries to her guests. But one or other may have mentioned it casually, said I. Mr. Fendi hook went away on a Sunday and Mrs. Prescott on Thursday. It was not my business to associate the two departures in any way. By pressing the various points we learned that Fendi hook was an old client of the house. During Mrs. Constantine's residence he had been touring in America. It had been his habits to go and come without much ceremonial. As for Leosha she had given up her rooms, paid her bill, and departed with her trunks. When did she give notice to leave you? I knew nothing of her intentions till Thursday morning. Then she came with her hat on and asked for her bill, and said her things were packed and ready to be brought downstairs. What address did she give to the cab man? Mrs. Jardine did not know. She rang for the luggage porter. Giafrey repeated his question. Which Minster Abbey, sir? answered the man. I laughed. It seemed rather comic. But everyone else regarded it as the most natural thing in the world. Giafrey frowned on me. I seen nothing to laugh at. She was obeying instructions, covering up her tracks. When she got to Westminster, she told the driver to cross the bridge. And what railway station is the other end of the bridge? Waterloo, said I. And from Waterloo the train goes to Southampton, and from Southampton the boat leaves for Harvara. But nothing funny, believe me. I said no more. The porter was dismissed. Giafrey drew the letter from his pocket. On the other hand she was in London yesterday afternoon in this district, for here is the 545 postmark. Oh, I posted that letter, said Mrs. Jardine. You? cried Giafrey. He slapped his thigh. I said there was nothing fishy about it. There was nothing fishy, as you call it at all, Mr. Chain, and I'm surprised that you're casting such an perspiration on my character. I had a short letter from Mrs. Prescott yesterday, enclosing four other letters which she asked me to stamp and post, as I owed her four points of change on her bill. Where did she write from? Giafrey asked eagerly. Nowhere in particular, said the provoked lady. But the postmark on the envelope. She had not looked at the postmark, and the envelope had been destroyed. Then where is she? I asked. At Southampton, you idiot, said Giafrey. Let us go there at once. So, after a visit to my bankers, for I'm not the kind of person to set out for Santa Fe de Bogota with tuppence hape in my pocket, and after a hasty lunch at a restaurant, much to Giafrey's impatient disgust. Why the dick-ins, Creti, did I order a big breakfast? It were to fool about wasting time over lunch. But, as I have explained, if I don't have regular meals, I get a headache. And, after having made other sane preparations for a journey, including the purchase of a toothbrush, an indispensable toilet adjunct, which Franklin, admirable fellow that he is, invariably forgets to put into my case, we started for Southampton. And along the jolly Portsmouth Road we went, through Guilford, along the Hogsback, over the Surrey Downs, roading warm in the sunshine, through Farnham, through Grey, Dreamy Winchester, Pass and Cross, with its old world arms-house, through Otterborne, and up the hill and down to Southampton, seventy-eight miles, in two hours and a quarter. Giafrey drove. We began our search. First, we examined the play-bills at the various places of entertainment. Ras Fendihoek was not playing in Southampton. We went round the hotels, the Southwestern, the Royal, the Star, the Dolphin, the Polygon, and found no trace of the runaways. Giafrey interviewed officials at the stations and docks, dapper gentlemen with the air of diplomatists, tremendous fellows in uniform, policemen, porters, with all of whom he seemed to be on terms of familiar acquaintance. But none of them could trace or remember such a couple having crossed by the midnight boats of Thursday or Friday. Nor were their names down on the list of those who had secured births in advance for this Saturday night. Your brother at fault, said I, rather maliciously, not displeased at my masterful friend's failure. Not a bit, said he. Fendihoek's leaving on Sunday certainly means that he was starting to fulfill a provincial engagement on Monday. If it was a week's engagement, he crosses to-night. We've only to wait and catch them. If it was a three-night's engagement, which is possible, he and Liosha crossed on Thursday night. In that case, we'll cross ourselves and track them down. Even if we have to go over the Andes and far away, I muttered. Even so, said he. Now, listen, if he's had a week's engagement, he must be finishing tonight. In order to catch the boat, he must be working in the neighbourhood. Savvy? The only possible place besides this is Portsmouth. We'll run over to Portsmouth, for seventy-seventy miles. All right, said I, with a wistful look back at my peaceful, comfortable home. Let us go to Portsmouth. I'll resign myself to dine at Portsmouth. But supposing he isn't there, I asked as the car drove off. Then he went to harbour on Thursday. But supposing he's at Birmingham. He would then take to-morrow night's boat. There isn't one on Sundays. Then Monday night's boat. When if he does, won't we be there on Tuesday morning to meet him on the key? Lord! he laughed, and brought each huge grip down on my leg above the knee, thereby causing me a physical agony. I should like to take you on an expedition. It would do you a thundering lot of good. We arrived at Portsmouth, where we conducted the same kind of enquiries as at Southampton. Neither there, nor at adjoining Southsea, could we find a sign of the Varartish Tsar, Ras Fendi Hook, and still less of the obscure Lyosha. We dined at a Southsea hotel. We dined very well. On that I insisted, without much expenditure of nervous force. Jaffrey rails at me for a civil right, and what not, but I've never seen him refuse vians on a kind of succulency or wine on a kind of flavour. We had a court of excellent champagne, a pint of decent port, and a good cigar, and we felt that the gods were good. That is how I liked to feel. I felt it so gratefully that when Jaffrey suggested it was time to start back to Southampton in order to wailay the London train of the docks on the off-chance of our fugitives having come down by it, and to catch the harvara boat ourselves, I had not a weary word to say. I cheerfully contemplated the prospect of a night's voyage to harvara. And, as Jaffrey, also humanised by good cheer, had been entertaining me with juicy stories of China and other mythical lands, I felt equal to any daredevil of venture. We went back to Southampton and collected our luggage at the Southwestern Hotel, the Hotel Porter in charge thereof. Our uncertainty as to whether we would cross or not horribly disturbed his dull brain. Ten shinnings at Jaffrey's peremptory order to stick to his side and obey him slavishly took the place of intellectual workings. It was nearly midnight. We walked through the docks, a background of darkness, a foreground of confusing lights amid which shone vivid illuminative placards before the brightly lit steamers. Samalo, Sherbourg, Jersey, Avra. At the quiet gangway of the Avra boat we waited. The porter deposited our bags on the ski and stood patiently expectant like a dog who lays a stick at its master's feet. One London train came in. The carriage doors opened and a myriad ants swarmed to the various boats. At the Avra boat I took the four, he, the aft gangway. Thousands passed over, men and women, vague human forms encumbered with queer projecting excretances of impedimenta. They all seemed alike, just a herd of Britons impelled by a rational instinct like the fate-driven lemmings of Norway to cross the sea. And all around, weird in the conflicting lights, hurried gnome-like figures mountainously laden, and in the confusion of sounds could be heard the sliver and thud of trunks being conveyed to the whole. At last the tail of the packed wedge disappeared on board and the gangway was clear. I went to the aft gangway to Geoffrey and the porter. Neither of us had seen Fendihok or Lyosha. A second train produced results equally barren. There was nothing to do but carry out the prearranged plan. We went aboard, followed by the porter with the luggage. My method of travel has always been to arrange everything beforehand with meticulous foresight. In the most crowded trains and boats I have thus secured luxurious accommodation. To hear, therefore, that there were no berths free and that we should have to pass the night either on the windy deck or in the red plush discomfort of the open saloon caused me not unreasonable dismay. I had to choose, and I chose the saloon. Geoffrey, of course, chose the raw winds of heaven. All night I did not get a wink of sleep. There was a gross fellow in the next section of red plush who snoring drowned the throb of the engines. Stewards, long after they had cleared away the remains of supper from the long central table, chinked money at the desk and discussed the racing-stables of the world with a loudly-dressed red-faced man, who, judging from the popping of corks, absorbed whiskies and sodas at the rate of three a minute. I understood then how thoughts of murder arose in the human brain. I devised exquisite means of removing him from a nauseated world. Then there was a lamp which swung backwards and forwards and searched my eyeballs relentlessly, no matter how I covered them. What was I doing in this awful galley? Why had I left my wife and child and tranquil home? The wind freshened as soon as we got out to sea. There were horrible noises and rattling of tins and swift scurrying of stewards. The ship rolled, which I particularly hate a ship to do. And I was fully dressed, and it seemed as if all the tender parts of my body were tied up with twine. What was I doing in this galley? When I woke, it was broad daylight, and Jeffrey was grilling over me, and all was deathly still. Good God! I cried sitting up. Why has the ship stopped? Is there a fog? Fog! he boomed. What are you talking of? We're alongside of Avra. What time is it, I asked? Half past six. A Christian gentleman's hour of rising is nine o'clock, said I, lying down again. He shook me rudely. Get up! said he. The sleepless, unshaven, unkempt, twine-bound, self-hating wreck of Hilary Freeth rose to his feet with a groan. What a ghastly night! Spend it! said Jeffrey, ruddy and fresh. I must have tramped over twenty miles. There was an onrush of blue-blowsed porters with metal plate numbers on their arms. One took our baggage. We followed him up the companion onto the deck and joined the crowd that awaited the releasing gangway. I stood resentful in the sardine pack of humans. The sky was overcast. It was very cold. The universe had an uncared for, unswept appearance, like a house surprised to dawn before the housemaids are up. The forced appearance of a well-to-do philosopher at such an hour was nothing less than an outrage. I blared at the immature day. The day blared at me and turned on its temperature about twenty degrees. From full fortlessness I had not put on my overcoat, which was now far away in charge of the blue-blowsed porter. I shivered. Jeffrey was behind me. I glanced over my shoulder. This is our so-called civilisation, I said bitterly. At the sound of my voice, a tall woman in the rank five feet deep from us turned instinctively round, and Leosha and I looked into each other's eyes. End of Chapter 17 Chapter 18 of Jaffrey by William John Locke This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Simon Evers. Chapter 18 Jaffrey caught sight of her at the same time and gripped my arm. Her eyes, travelling from mine to his, flashed in dignified anger. Then she turned, haughtily. We tried to edge nearer her, but she was just beyond the convergence of two side currents, which pushed us even further away. The gangway was fixed, and the movement of the conglomerate mass began. Presently Jaffrey again seized my arm. There's the brute waiting for her. There on the key, with a flower in his button-hole and a smile on his fat face, stood Mr. Rass Fendiouc. He met her at the foot of the gangway, and obviously told at once of our presence, sought us anxiously with his gaze. Then, with an air of bravado, waved his hat, a hard white felt, and cried out, Jero! We did not respond. He grinned at us, and linking his arm through Leosha's, joined at the stream of passengers, hurrying across the stones to the custom sheds. Stop! Jaffrey roared. They turned, as indeed did everybody, within earshot. Fendiouc would have gone on, but Leosha very proudly drew him out of the stream into a clear space, and, prepared for battle, awaited us. When we had struggled our slow way down and reached the key, she advanced a few steps, looking very terrible in her wrath. How dare you follow me? Come further away from the crowd, said Jaffrey, and with an imperious gesture he swept the three of us along the key to the stern of the boat, where only a few idle sailor men were lounging, and a sergeant de Ville was pacing on his leisurely beat. I said you would make a fool of yourself one of these days if I didn't play dragon, he said at a sudden halt. I've come to play dragon with a vengeance. He marched on Fendiouc. Now you. How'd you do, old cock? Didn't expect you here? He said jointly. Don't be insolent, replied Jaffrey in a remarkably quiet tone. You know very well why I'm here. Jaff chain, Leosha began, he waved her off. Take her away, Hillary. Come, said I, I'll tell you all about it. He's got to tell me, not you. I certainly don't know why the devil you're here, said Fendiouc with sudden nastiness. I've come to save this lady from a dirty blaggard. How are you going to do it? Jaffrey addressed Leosha. You said in your letter. You wrote to him you crazy fool after all my instructions? Snarled Fendiouc. You said in your letter you were going to marry this man. Sure, said Leosha. And are you going to marry this lady? Certainly. Why didn't you marry her in England? I told you my letter, said Leosha. See, here, we don't want any of your interference. And she planted herself by the side of her abductor, glaring defiance at Jaffrey. Jaffrey smiled. You told her that because she was a widow and an Albanian, she would find considerable obstacles in her way, and would forfeit half her money to the government. You lying little skunk! The vibration in Jaffrey's voice arrested Leosha. She looked swiftly at Fendiouc. Wasn't it true what you told me? Of course not, I interposed. He was free to marry in England as Mrs. Constantine. She paid no attention to me. Wasn't it true, she repeated? Fendiouc laughed in vulgar bluster. You didn't take all that rot seriously, you silly cuckoo? Leosha drew a step away from him and regarded him wonderingly. For the first time, doubt as to his straight-dealing rose in her candid mind. She did, said Jaffrey. She also took seriously your promise to marry her in France. Well, ain't I gonna marry her? No, said Jaffrey, you can't. Who says I can't? I do. You've got a wife already and three children. I've divorced her. You haven't. You've deserted her, which isn't the same thing. I've found out all about you. You shouldn't visit a famous character. Leosha stood speechless for a moment, quivering all over her eyes burning. He's married already? She gasped. Certainly. He decoyed you here just to seduce you. Leosha made a sudden spring like a Tigris, and had it not been for Jaffrey's intervening boom of an arm, her hands would have been round Fendiouc's throat. Steady on, growled Jaffrey, controlling her with his arned strength. Fendiouc could start it back with an oath, grew as white as a sheet. I tapped him on the arm. You'd better hook it, said I, and keep out of her way if you don't want a knife stuck into you. Yes, I added, meeting a scared look. You've been playing with the wrong kind of woman. You'd better stick to the sort you're accustomed to. Thank you for those kind words, said he. I will. It would be wise also to keep out of the way of Jaffrey's chain. With my own eyes I've seen him pick up a man he didn't like, and—I made an expressive gesture—throw him clean away. Right-o, said he. He nodded, winked impotently, and walked away. A thought struck me. I overtook him. Where are you staying in Harvard? He looked at me suspiciously. What do you want to know for? To save you from being murdered, as you would most certainly be if we chanced upon the same hotel. I'm staying at the fair. He is the swagger one on the beach near the casino. Excellent, said I. Go on, swaggering. Goodbye. Goodbye, old pal," said he. He tilted his white hat to a rickish angle and marched away. I rejoined Jaffrey and Leosha. He still held her wrists, but she stood unresisting, tense, and rigid, with averted head, looking sideways down. Her lip quivered, her bosom heaved. Jaffrey had mastered her fury, but now we had to deal with her shame and humiliation. Let her go, I whispered. Jaffrey freed her. She rubbed her wrists mechanically without moving her head. I wished Barbara had been there. She would have known exactly what to do. As it was, we stood by her, somewhat helplessly. A monsieur, said a voice close by, and we saw our little blue-bloused porter. He explained that he'd been seeking us everywhere, and we did not make haste to be losing the Paris train. I replied that as we were not going to Paris, we were not pressed for time. But this little outside happening broke the situation. Better give this fellow your luggage to get Leosha, said Jaffrey. She looked about how bewildered, and then I noticed on the ground a leather satchel which she had been carrying. I picked it up. She extracted the ticket, and we all went to the custom house. What's the programme now? I asked Jaffrey. Hotel, said he. This poor girl will want a rest. Besides, we'll have to stay the night. Our friend is staying at the Hotel de Paris. Then we'll go to Tortoni's. An ordinary woman would have drawn down the motor-veil which she wore cockled up on her travelling hat. But Leosha, grandly unconcerned with such vanities, showed her young, shame-stricken face to all the world. I felt intentionally sorry for her. She realised now from what a big, blatant scoundrel she had been saved, but she still bitterly resented our intervention. I thought as if I were stripped naked walking between them. That was her primitive account later of her state of mind. Barbara, said I, sent you her very dear love. She nodded without looking at me. Barbara would have come too if Susan had not been ill. She gave a little start. I thought she was about to speak, but she remained silent. We entered the customs shed when she attended mechanically to her declarations. On emerging free into the open air again, we found that the cheery sun had pierced the morning clouds and gave promise of a glorious day. The luggage was piled on the Hotel omnibus. We took an open cab and rattled through the narrow, flag-paved streets of the harbour-quarter of the town. As we emerged into a more spacious thoroughfare, suddenly from a gaudy column at the corner flared the name of Rass Fendihoek. I caught the heading of the aphiche. Musicale l'aldorado! Part of the mystery was solved. Geoffrey had been right in his deduction that he had left London on a professional engagement, but we had not thought of an engagement out of England. I had a correct answer now to my question. Why, Avra, of all places? Geoffrey, sitting with Lyosha on the back seat of the Victoria, saw it too, and we exchanged atlances. But Lyosha had eyes for nothing, save her hands tightly clasped in her lap. We passed another column before we entered the plus gambetta, where already at that early hour, above its wide terrace, the striped awning of tortonies was flung. We alighted at the Hotel and ordered our three rooms. Coffee and roll to be taken up to my dharm. We men would eat to our petit dojone downstairs. Lyosha left us without saying a word. Bathed, shaved, changed, refreshed by the good cafe au lait, gladdened by the sunshine and smugly satisfied with our morning's work. Quite a different Hilary Freeth sat with Geoffrey on the terrace, from the sleepless wreck he had awakened two hours before. My urbane dismissal of Ras Fendihoek lindered suave in my memory. The glow of conscious heroism warmed me, even like last night's dinner, to sympathy with my kind. After dispatching, by the chasseur, a long telegram to Barbara, and ascending up to Lyosha's room a bunch of red roses, we bought her to florist's hard buy. I surrendered myself idly to the contemplation of the matuginal, Sunday life for provincial France, while Geoffrey smoked his pipe and uttered staccato maledictions on Mr. Ras Fendihoek. I love provincial France. It is narrow. It is bourgeois. It is regarding of its sue. It is what you will. But it lives a spacious, out-of-door, corporate life. On Sundays it does not bury itself, like provincial England, in a cellular house. It walks abroad. It indulges in its modest pleasures. It is serious. It is intentionally conscious of family. But it can take deep breaths of freedom. It is not sundified into an arvacuous boredom. It clings to the picturesque in which it finds its dignified delight. The little soldier clad in blue tunic and red trousers strut along with his fiancé, or maitresse, on his arm. The cuirassier swags by in brass helmet and horsehair plume. The cavalry officer, dapper in light blue, with his pretty wife, drinks syrup at a neighbouring table in your café. The work girls, even on Sunday, go about bare-headed, as though they were at home in the friendly street. The cuiré in shovel-hat and cassock. The workman, for whom Sunday happens not to be the Jorda repose hebdomadadir, or bedained by law, in their blue sarau. The peasants from outlying villages. The men in queer shell-jackets with a complication of buttons. The women in dazzling white caps astonishingly goreford. The lawyer in decent black with his white cambrick tie. The fat and greasy citizen, with fat and greasy wife, and prim, pig-tailed little daughter, clad in an exiguous cotton frock of loud and unauthentic tartan, and showing a quarter of an inch of sock above high yellow boots. The superb pair of jaundarm with their cocked hats, wooden epaulettes, and swords. The white apron-waiters standing by café-tables. All these types are distinct, picked out pleasurably by the eye. They give a cheery sense of variety. The stage is dressed. So when Geoffrey asked me what in the world we were going to do all day, I replied, Sit here. Don't you want to see the place? The place, said I, is parading before us. We might hire a car and run over to Etheter. There's Leosha, I objected. We can't leave her alone, and she's not in a mood for jawns. And she won't leave her room to-day, poor girl. It must be awful for her. Oh, that swine of a blighter! His waltz exploded again over the iniquitous fendi-hook. For the dozens of time we went over the story. What on earth are we going to do with her? He asked. She can't go back to the boarding-house. Well, for the time being at any rate, I'll take her down to Barbara. Barbara's a wonder, said he fervently. And you know, Hillary, there's the makings of a devilish fine woman in Leosha, if one only knew the right way to take her. The right way, I think, was known to me, but I did not reveal it. I sent it to Geoffrey's proposition. She has a vile temper, and the mind and façade passions of a Spanish gypsy. But she has stunning qualities. She's the soul of truth and honour and a straight as a die. And brave. This has been a nasty knock for her. But I don't mind betting you that as soon as she has pulled herself together, she'll treat the whole thing quite in a big way. And, as if to prove his assertion, who should come sailing towards us past the long line of empty tables, but Leosha herself? Another woman would have lain weeping on her bed, and one of us would have had to soothe her and sympathise with her and coax her to eat and cajole her into revisiting the light of day. Not so Leosha. She arrayed herself in fresh, form-coloured coat and skirt, fitting close to her splendid figure, which she held erect. A smart hat with a feather, a new white gloves, and came to us the incarnation of summer, clear-eyed as the morning, our roses pinned in our corsage. Of course she was pale, and her lips were not quite under control. But she made a valiant show. We arose as she approached, but she motioned us back to our chairs. Don't get up. I guess I'll join you. We drew up a chair, and she seated herself between us. Then she looked steadily and unsmilingly from one to the other. I want to thank you, too. I've been a damn fool. Well, girl, said Jeffrey kindly, I must own you've been rather indiscreet. I've been a damn fool, she repeated. Anyhow, it's over now, thank goodness, said I. Did you eat your breakfast? She made a little rye face. No, she could not touch it. What would she have now? I sent a waiter for café au lait and a brioche, and lectured her on the folly of going without proper sustenance. The ghost of a smile crept into her eyes, in recognition, I suppose, of the hedonism with which I am wrongly credited by my friends. Then she thanked us for the roses. They were big, like her, she said. The waiter set out the little tray, and the versa poured out the coffee and milk. We watched her eat and drink. Having finished, she said she felt better. You've got some sense, Hillary, she admitted. Tell me, said Jeffrey, I had become to miss you on the boat. We watched the London trains carefully. I came from Southsea about an hour before the boat started, went to bed at once. Southsea? Why were we there all the evening? Said I. What were you doing at Southsea? Staying with Emma, Mrs. Jupp. The general lives there. I couldn't stick that boarding-house by myself any longer, so I wrote to Emma to ask her to put me up. So that's why you went on Thursday. That's why. Pardon me if I'm inquisitive, said I. But did you take Mrs. Constantine, I mean Mrs. Jupp, into your confidence? Lord, no. She's not my dragon any longer. She knew I was going to Harvard to meet friends. Of course, I had to tell her that. But Jeff Cheyne was the only person that had to know the truth. We questioned her as delicately as we could, and gradually the intrigue that had puzzled us became clear. Ras Fenihook left London on Sunday for a fortnight's engagement at the El Dorado of Avra. As there was no Sunday night boat for Southampton, he had to travel to Avra via Paris. Being a crafty villain, he would not run away with Lyosha straight from London. She was to join him a week later, after he had time to spy out the land and make his nefarious schemes for a mock marriage. His fortnight up, he was sailing away again to America. Lyosha was to accompany him. In all probability, for I delight in thinking the worst of Mr. Ras Fenihook, he would have found occasion towards the end of his tour of sending her on a full Xerrand, say, to Texas, while he worked his way to New York, where he would have an unembarrassed voyage back to England, leaving Lyosha floundering helplessly in the railway network of the United States. I made it my business to inquire into the ways of this entertaining but unholy villain. This is what I am sure he would have done. One girl, some half-dozen years before, he had left Penelus in San Francisco, and the door over which burns the red lamp swallowed her up for ever. For the present, however, Lyosha was to join him in Avra. Not a soul must know. He gave sordid instructions as to secrecy. As Jaffrey had guessed, he had instigated the comic destination of Westminster Abbey. Although her open nature uphauled the deception, she obeyed his instructions in minor details, and thought she was acting in the spirit of the intrigue when she enclosed the letters to Mrs. Jardine to be posted in London. By risking discovery of her secrets during her visit to the admirable Lady at Southsea, and by ingenuously disclosing the plot to Jaffrey, she showed herself to be a very sorry conspirator. She spoke so quietly and bravely that we had not the heart to touch upon the sentimental side of her adventure. As we could not stay in Avra all day at the risk of meeting Mr. Rass Fendihoek, who might swagger into the town from his swagger hotel on the plage, we carried out Jaffrey's proposal, hired an automobile, and drove to Etrata. We came straight from inland into the tiny place, so kaketish in its mingling of fisherfolk and fashion, so cut off from the coast world by the jagged needle-gates jutting out on each side of the small bay, and by the sudden grass-grown bluff rising above them, so cleanly sparkly in the sunshine, and for the first time Lyotta's face brightened. She drew a deeper breath. Oh, let us all come and live here! We laughed, and wandered among the tarred, upturned boats, wherein the fishermen store their tackle, and along the pebbly beach where a few belated bathers bobbed about in the water, and up the curious steps to the terrace, and listened to the last number of the orchestra. Then lunch at the clean, old-fashioned hotel Blanque among the fishing boats, and afterwards coffee and a cures in the little shady courtyard. Giafrey was very gentle with Lyosha, treating her tenderly like a bruised thing, and talked of his adventures, and cracked little jokes, and attended solicitously to her wants. Several times I saw her raise her eyes in shy gratitude, and now then she laughed. Her healthy youth also enabled her to make an excellent meal, and after it she smoked cigarettes and sip creme de montre with Frank Gusto. To me she appeared like a naughty child, who instead of meeting with expected punishment, find itself coddled in affectionate arms. All resentment had died away. Unreservedly she had laid herself as a damn fool at our feet, or rather at Giafrey's feet, for I did not count for much. Instead of blundering over her, and tugging her up, and otherwise exacerbating her wounds, he lifted her with tactful kindness to her self-respect. For the first time, save when Susan was the connecting link, he entered into a spiritual relation with Lyosha. She fulfilled his prophecy. She was dealing with a soul-shriveling situation in a big way. He admired her immensely, as his great robust nature admired immense things. At the same time he realized all in her that was sore, and grievously throbbing, and needed the delicate touch. I shall never forget those few hours. To dream away a summer's afternoon had no place, however, in Giafrey's category of delights. He must be up and doing. I have threatened on many restless occasions to rig up at Northland such a gigantic wheel for his benefit, similar to that in which Susan's white mice take futile exercise. If there was such a wheel, he must, I am sure, get in it and whirl it round. Just as if there is a boat, he must row it, or tree to be felled, he must fell it, or a hill to be climbed, he must climb it. Adetrata, as it happened, there are two hills. He stretched forth his hand to one, of course the highest, crowned by the fisherman's chapel, and ordained an ascent. Lyosha was in the chastened mood in which she would have died with him into the depths of the English Channel. I, with grudging meekness, and a prayer for another five minutes devoted to the dead nutrition of another liqueur brandy, acquiaste. It was not such an arduous climb, after all. A light breeze tempered the fury of the July sun. The grasp was crisp and agreeable to the feet. The smell of wild thyme mingled with the salt of the low tide seaweed conveyed stimulating fragrance. When we reached the top and Jeffery suggested that we should lie down, I protested. Why not walk along the edge of the inspiring cliffs? It's all very well for you who've slept like a log all night," said he, throwing his huge bulk on the ground. But Lyosha and I need rest. Lyosha stood glowing on the hilltop and panting a little after the quick ascent. A little curly strand on her forehead played charmingly in the wind, which blew her skirts closer round her in fine modeling. I thought of the winged victory. I'm not a bit tired, she said. But seeing Jeffery definitely prone with his bearded chin on his fists, she'd lanced at me as though she should say, who were we to go contrary to his desires, and settled down beside him. So I stretched myself too on the grass, and we watched the dancing sea and the flashing sails of fishing boats and the long plume from a steamer in the offing, and the little town beneath us, and the tiny golfers on the cliff on the other side of the bay, and we're in fact giving ourselves up to an idyllic afternoon. When suddenly Lyosha broke the spell. If I got hold of that man this morning, I think I would have killed him. Since leaving Havre, we had not referred to unhappy things. It would have served him right, said Jeffery. I did strike him once. Oh! said I. Yes! she looked out to sea. There was a pause. I longed to hear the details of the scene which could not have lacked humorous elements, but she left them to my imagination. After that, she continued, he saw that I was an honest woman and talked about marriage. Jeffery's fingers fiddled with bits of grass. What makes me, my dear, said he, is how you came to take up with the fellow. She shrugged her shoulders. It was the full shrug of the un-English child of nature. I don't know, she said, with her gaze still far away. He was so funny. But he was such a bounder, old lady, said Jeffery. In gentle remonstrance. He all said so, but I thought she didn't like him because he was different and could make me laugh. I guess I hated you all very much. He seemed to want me to behave like euphemia, and I couldn't behave like euphemia. I tried very hard when he used to take me out to dinner. Jeffery looked at her comically, but all he said was go on. What can I say? She shrugged her shoulders again. With him I hadn't to be on my best behaviour. I could say anything I liked. You all think it dreadful because I know, like everybody else, how children come into the world and can make jokes about things like that. Emma used to say it was not ladylike, but he—he did not say so. He laughed. His friends used to laugh. With him and his friends I could, so to speak, take off my stays. She threw out her hands largely. I see, said Jeffery, frowning at his blades of grass. But between liking figuratively to take off your corsets and a crowd of Bohemians and wanting to marry the worst of them lies a big difference. You must have got fond of the fellow," he added in a low voice. I said nothing. It was their affair. I was responsible to Barbara for her safe deliverance, and here she was, delivered. My attitude, as you can understand, was solely one of kindly curiosity. Leosha, for some moments, also said nothing. Rather feverishly she pulled off her new white gloves and cast them away. And I noticed an all but imperceptible something— something, for whatever better word, like a ripple. Sweep through her, faintly shaking her bosom, infinitesimally ruffling her neck and dying away in a flush on her cheek. You love the fellow, said Jeffery, still picking at the grass-blades. She bent forward as she sat, hovered over him for a second or two, and clutched his shoulder. I didn't, she cried. I didn't. She almost screamed. I thought you understood. Out of marrying anybody who would have taken me out of prison, he was going to take me out of prison to places where I could breathe. She fell back onto her heels and beat her breast with both hands. I was dying from one of air. I was suffocating. Her intensity caught him. He lumbered to his feet. What are you talking about? She rose too, almost with a synchronous movement. An interested spectator, I continued sitting, my hands clasped round my knees. The little prison you put me into, I felt this in my throat. And forgetful of the admirable Mrs. Constantine's discipline, she mimed her words start with thee. I was sick—sick—sick to death. He forget Jeffery in the mountains of Albania. Perhaps I did, he said he with his steady eyes fixed on her. But I remember of now. Would you like to go back? She put her hands for a few seconds before her face, as though to hide swift visions of slaughtered enemies. Then dash them away. No, not now, not after, no. But mountains, freedom, anything unlike prison. Oh, I've gone mad sometimes. I've wanted to take up a fender and smash things. I felt like that myself, said Jeffery. And what have you done? I've broken out of prison and run away. That's what I did, said Lyosha. Then Jeffery burst into his great laugh and held her hands, and looked at her with kindly sympathetic mirth in his eyes. And Lyosha laughed, too. We're both of us savages under our skins, old lady. That's what it's come to. No more was said of Ras Fendihoek. The man's broad, flashy good humour had caught her fancy. His vagabond life stimulated her imagination of wider horizons. He promised her release from the conventions and restrictions of her artificial existence. She was ready to embark with him as his wife into the unknown. But it was evident that she had not given him the tiniest little scrap of her heart. Why didn't you tell me this long ago? asked Jeffery. I tried to be good to please you. You and Barbara and Hillary would be so kind to me. It's all this infernal civilisation, he did lured. My dear girl, I'm as much fed up with it as you are. I want to go somewhere and wear beads. So do I, said Lyosha. I thought of Barbara's lecture on the whole duty of woman, and I chuckled. The attitude in which I was, my hands clasped round my knees, consorted with sardonic merriment. I was checked, however, a moment afterwards, by the sight of my barbarians in the perfect agreement of babyhood, calmly walking away from me along the cliff road. I jumped to my feet and pursued them. At any rate, while you're with me, I panted, you'll observe the decencies of civilised life. End of Chapter 18