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The Kingdom Round the Corner: A Novel

by Coningsby Dawson · English · Gutenberg #25702 · 538,287 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Kingdom Round the Corner: A Novel

Author: Coningsby Dawson

Illustrator: William Dodge Stevens


        
Release date: June 5, 2008 [eBook #25702]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25702

Credits: Produced by Tamise Totterdell, Joe Free, Graeme Mackreth
        and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
        http://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE KINGDOM ROUND THE CORNER: A NOVEL ***




Produced by Tamise Totterdell, Joe Free, Graeme Mackreth
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net







The Kingdom Round the Corner--_A Novel_

BOOKS BY MR. DAWSON

_NOVELS_

THE KINGDOM ROUND THE CORNER

THE GARDEN WITHOUT WALLS

SLAVES OF FREEDOM

THE RAFT

LAST CHANCE RIVER

THE ROAD TO AVALON


_SHORTER STORIES_

THE LITTLE HOUSE--_Illustrations by Stella Langdale_

THE SEVENTH CHRISTMAS--_Illustrations by Edmund Dulac_

THE UNKNOWN COUNTRY--_Illustrations by W.C. Rice_


_WAR BOOKS_

CARRY ON: LETTERS IN WAR-TIME

THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES

OUT TO WIN: THE STORY OF AMERICA IN FRANCE

LIVING BAYONETS: A RECORD OF THE LAST PUSH

THE TEST OF SCARLET: A ROMANCE OF REALITY


_POEMS_

FLORENCE ON A CERTAIN NIGHT

THE WORKER AND OTHER POEMS

[Illustration:]"_I'm sorry," Tabs apologized. "I didn't mean anything
unkind._"




_The_ Kingdom Round the Corner--_A Novel_

_By_ CONINGSBY DAWSON

_Illustrated by W.D. Stevens_

   "_To every man the woman whom he loves is as Mother Earth was to her
   legendary son: he has but to kneel and kiss her breast to know that
   he is strong again._"--Michelet


NEW YORK

Cosmopolitan Book Corporation

_M C M X X I_

_Copyright, 1921, by Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, New York.--All
rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages,
including that of the Scandinavian_

_Printed in the United States of America_




CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
                                                            PAGE
AN ALTERED WORLD                                              7

CHAPTER II

RETRIEVERS OF YOUTH                                          54

CHAPTER III

ALL SORTS OF KINGDOMS                                        94

CHAPTER IV

THE COMPLICATIONS OF MAISIE                                 134

CHAPTER V

THE AIR OF CONQUEST                                         172

CHAPTER VI

TRAMPLED ROSES                                              217

CHAPTER VII

SOME PEOPLE FIND THEIR KINGDOMS                             262

CHAPTER VIII

ROUND THE CORNER                                            311


The Illustrations by

W.D. Stevens

"I'M SORRY," TABS APOLOGIZED. "I DIDN'T MEAN ANYTHING
UNKIND." (Page 33)                                 _Frontispiece_

                                                     FACING PAGE

TABS EXTENDED HIS HAND. BRAITHWAITE MADE NO MOTION
TO TAKE IT.                                                 130

"MRS. LOCKWOOD, WHY CAN'T YOU LET ADAIR ALONE?"             172

"I WAS AFRAID YOU HAD LEFT"                                 324




_The_ Kingdom Round the Corner




CHAPTER THE FIRST

AN ALTERED WORLD


I

It was on a blustering March morning in 1919 that Tabs regained his
freedom. His last five months had been spent among doctors, having
sundry bullets extracted from his legs. He walked with a limp which was
not too perceptible unless he grew tired. His emotions were similar to
those of a man newly released from gaol: he felt dazed, vaguely happy
and a little lost. He felt dazed because he hadn't remembered that the
world was so wide and so complicated. He felt lost because he was
discovering that this wasn't the same old world that he had left in
1914. It hadn't paid him the compliment of marking time during his
absence; it had marched impolitely forward. He would have to hurry to
overtake it. What made him feel most lost at the moment was the fact
that he had only just realized how his bravest years had been escaping.
The reason for this realization was Terry. He had been accustomed to
think of himself as in the first flush of manhood, with all life's
conquests still lying ahead; it was therefore a little disconcerting to
be told, as a matter of course, that he had only four more years to go
till he was forty. "I'll be there at the station to meet you," Terry had
written him. And then, she had added laughingly, "Father orders me to
say that he only gives his permission because you're such an old friend
and nearly middle-aged."

Middle-aged! He, Tabs, middle-aged! The thought was appalling. It was a
slander so almost true as to be incapable of disproving. He had to-day,
to-morrow, and the next day; after that people would have the right to
say of him that he was middle-aged. That was the real sacrifice that he
had made in the war--he had given to it the last of his youth. And he
had not been aware of this until he had received that letter.

Now that he was aware of it, he rebelled against the sacrifice. He
refused to be robbed. He would not allow himself to become middle-aged.
Why, he hadn't begun to live yet. He'd only been experimenting up to the
point when the war had started. He'd been thirty-one then, a man full of
promise, and now he was dubbed middle-aged. He remembered with
indignation the theory that men of forty ought to be chloroformed to
make room for the younger generation. "But, hang it, one's years have
nothing to do with it," he protested; "in my spirit I belong to the
younger generation." So, to the rumbling accompaniment of the train, he
argued his claims passionately. Had he formed them into a petition he
would have prayed, "God, make me young again." It would have been
because of Terry that he would have prayed.

And yet he was happy--vaguely happy, as any man must be to whom the
right to live has been restored. For the past half decade his horizon,
and that of all the men with whom he had intimately associated, had been
dwarfed by the thought of dying. Throughout that period he had dared to
hope for nothing personal; he had belonged body and soul to unseen
forces which had hurried him without explanation from one hell to
another. He had had to subdue his pride to their authority and to train
his courage to contemplate the shock of annihilation. Now, at the end of
almost five years, the will and the body which had been so ruthlessly
snatched from him, had been as ruthlessly flung back into his own
keeping. All of a sudden, after having been enslaved in every detail,
his will and body were set free and no one cared what became of them.
They could be his playthings; he was allowed to do with them what he
liked. But what did he like? It was a problem. He could so easily spoil
them. When he reminded himself of how easily he could spoil them the
fear of death, which would never again trouble him, was replaced by the
fear of failure. He was furious to find that he was still capable of
fearing. He had so confidently believed that, whatever the past five
years had stolen from him, they had at least brought him the reward of
never again knowing fear of any sort.

That morning by the earliest train he had shaken off the dust of camps
and started in civilian dress as his own master on the new journey. It
was characteristic of him to start early and to slip out of his latest
phase with so little fuss. For the first two years of his service, while
men of his class were gaining high promotions, he had served in the
ranks. He had done it as a uselessly proud protest. In the ranks one did
the real work, faced most of the danger and won the fewest decorations.
He had loved the ranks for their quiet self-effacement and had preferred
to be reckoned in their number.

It had been dawn when he had started. From the top of the hill above the
camp he had gazed back at the huddled, sleeping rows of hutments. How
lacking in individuality they were! How wilfully ugly! You could see
their like in the rear of all armies. The military mind seemed incapable
of appreciating differences and beauty. How stereotyped the past five
years had been; yes, and, while the danger had threatened, how ennobled
with duty! So ennobled that there had been times when it had almost
seemed that he was on the point of finding his kingdom.

What he hadn't expected was that he would be alive to-day. With that
thought gratitude had bubbled up and he had limped away, whistling,
through dim lanes and budding hedgerows to the little wayside country
station.

But once on board the train to London, he began to feel more like a
fugitive escaping than a hero returning. This wasn't the end of
soldiering that imagination had painted. There had been strident bands
and hysteric shouting to start him on his way to the conflict. There
had been pictorial challenges to his courage pasted on every hoarding.
There had been extravagant promises of the welcome which would await him
if he survived. Who remembered them to-day? He hummed over the words of
the latest promise, "If you come back, and you will come back, the whole
world's waiting for you." Was it? He doubted. There was something
unpleasantly furtive about the way in which men were being stripped of
their outward signs of valor and dribbled back into civilian life. It
almost seemed that statesmen had discovered something to be ashamed of
in the unforeseen heroism by which the world had been rescued.

What did it matter? The world had been saved, and he had helped to save
it. No one could deprive him of that knowledge. His joy leapt up. What
did it matter if other people considered him nearly middle-aged? He and
Terry must prove to them the contrary. He was free; that was what
counted. Free to reckon his life by more than stretches of twenty-four
hours. Free to rise or go to bed when he liked. Free to travel to the
ends of the earth. Free to speak his mind without the dread of a
court-martial. Never again would he be compelled to issue orders which
he knew to be unwise; never again would he be compelled to obey them. He
was free. And there was Terry----


II

Across the carriage-windows landscapes went leaping: the bleak clearness
of brisk March skies; the shining grayness of meadows from which mists
were slowly rising; the faint flush of greenness which was gathering in
hedges; the shy pageant of spring unfolding, with the promised certainty
of new summers which are never ending. The world looked young. As the
train dashed by, new-born lambs, unused to such disturbances, tottered,
bleating, after their mothers. Buds were bursting. Sap was rising. The
chapped scars of winter were vanishing. Things which had seemed dead
were being convulsed with life. He watched it all gladly and yet
impatiently; it was for the end of the journey that he was waiting.

On nearing London the train slowed down as though reluctant to leave the
country. Twice it halted and he consulted his wrist-watch with a frown.
Then it crept through Battersea, wound snake-like across the gleaming
Thames, and came to rest in Victoria Station. Despite his lameness, he
was the first passenger to alight. He had no luggage to attend to, save
the newly-purchased bag which he carried. He lost no time in hurrying
down the platform; when he hurried his limp became more pronounced. As
he passed through the barrier he slackened his pace. By reason of his
greater height he could glance above the heads of the crowd; his eyes
went questing in all directions. They failed to find what they sought.
He delayed until nearly all the people from the incoming trains had
scuttled into the holes of the Underground; then, masking his
disappointment, he wandered out into the station-yard to hail a taxi. An
Army Staff car was drawn up against the curb. A thrill of hostility
shot through him. How often, in the old days, when marching up to an
attack, had he and his comrades huddled to the side of the road like
sheep that these khaki-colored collies of the shepherds, who had driven
them up to die, might splash arrogantly past them! He eyed it casually
and was passing on, when a girl in the back seat stood up frantically
waving. She was dressed in the latest whim of fashion; but it was her
that he saw rather than her appointments. Her gold bobbed hair was like
a Botticelli angel's. Her eyes were clear and deep as violets. She was
exquisitely vibrant and alive--scarcely beautiful; her nose turned up
and was too short for that. One sought for the right words to express
her attraction. Perhaps it was due to her light-hearted health and
girlish freshness.

As he came up eagerly, limping with the effort, she reached out her
hand. "Tabs, fancy you not knowing me! I don't need to call you Lord
Taborley, do I? Between us it's still Tabs."

"Terry dear! My dear Terry, at last!" He spoke queerly as though he had
been running. Then, seeing how his intensity startled her, he let go her
hand and laughed. "You can't blame me for not having spotted you.
Where's all your beautiful hair that was so blowy?"

She glanced up through her lashes at the tall man. "'I'm growing such a
big girl now'--you remember the refrain from the song at the Gaiety?
That's why. When you were a young man, girls put their hair up to show
they were of age; nowadays they bob it."

"So that's the explanation!" He climbed in and took his seat beside her.
"That's another thing that disguised you. How was I to guess that you'd
wangle a Staff car to meet an ex-lieutenant?"

"It belongs to a friend at the War Office." She nodded her permission to
the trim girl-soldier at the wheel to start. "He lent it to me when he
heard that I was to meet you this morning. Taxis are so scarce, and I
didn't know how well you could walk, so----" She turned from the subject
abruptly. "You're so changed. I scarcely recognized you at first. I was
expecting that you'd still be in uniform."

"I was demobbed yesterday. So you find me changed! For better or for
worse? Confess, Terry."

She was aware that beneath his assumption of gayety he was hiding
something--something that pained. He had been hurt too much already.
With impulsive sympathy she laid her hand on his arm. "It isn't a case
of better or worse. Between people like ourselves appearances don't
matter. I think to me you were handsomest of all as a Tommy. How proud I
was of you, Tabs, when you first joined up! Do you remember how I used
to strut along beside you---- And that last night, when you went for the
first time to the Front?"

He remembered, and waited with boyish expectancy. She had stopped
suddenly and glanced away from him. For the second time his intensity
had frightened her. He said nothing--did nothing to help her. She
mustered her courage to turn back with a smile. "It's long ago, isn't
it. Tabs? I've grown such a big girl now."

He brushed aside her attempt to divert him. "But you find a difference
in me?"

"A difference! You mean the difference between a man in uniform and in
mufti? Why, yes. A uniform made you look younger. It did that for most
men."

"But more for me than for most." He was pitiless towards himself now
that he had forced her to answer. "I've aged more than the five years
since you slipped your arm into mine as we marched through the darkness
to the troop-train. You never shed a tear, Terry. You kept your promise.
Often and often when I was afraid in the trenches I remembered you, a
white and gold slip of a girl with dry eyes, waving and waving. And
then, somehow, because you'd kept your promise not to cry----"

"Don't," she whispered. "Please don't. It's all ended. Everything's new
and beginning afresh."

"Beginning with you," he questioned, "where it left off?"

If she heard him, she ignored the interrogation in his voice.


III

The girl-soldier at the wheel relieved the situation. Since leaving the
station she had been running slower and slower, glancing back across her
shoulder and trying to catch their attention. Just short of the great
cross-roads at Hyde Park Corner she brought the car to a halt.

"What's the matter, Prentys?" Terry asked. "Anything wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, miss; but you've not told me where to go."

The girl spoke so reproachfully that Terry laughed. "Awfully sorry,
Prentys. It's Lord Taborley's fault. He didn't tell either of us. What
are your plans, Tabs? Where do you want to go?"

"To go?"

He caught at her question and examined it. To go--where did he want to
go? He had been so certain when he had boarded the train to London early
that morning. Ever since he had said good-by to her, nearly five years
ago, he had known quite definitely. Each time that he had had a glimpse
of her on those brief leaves from the Front, he had been more and more
sure of the desired direction. Her letters coming up to him under
shell-fire had made him even more certain--those letters compassionate
with unashamed sincerity, written with a girl's admiration for a man who
was jeopardizing his all that she might live in safety.

And now, when he was free at last to go where he chose and she herself
asked him, he could find no answer to her question. Why couldn't he? He
looked at her thoughtfully with the frown of his problem in his eyes.
What change had come over her? Or was it he who was altered? She had
seemed so absolutely his while the terror of battle had kept them apart.
She had written and acted as though she was his right up to---- Yes,
right up to the point when he had been in a position to claim her.

Between him and Terry there had been no engagement--only a wealth of
interchanged affection; interchanged for the most part on paper. Once
and only once had marriage been mentioned--on the night that he had set
out for the first time for the Front. "You won't ask me, Tabs; I know
that. You're too honorable. So I've got to say it. When you come back
I'm going to marry you."

"_If_ I come back, little Terry," he had corrected.

"But you will--you must," she had pleaded, "for my sake."

"I'll try. I'll try so hard," he had promised. "But I won't marry you
till I'm out of khaki or the war is ended."

"And I'll meet you at the train the moment you're free and we'll be
married that very day."

All this five years ago on a murky station in the tragedy of parting,
while Belgium was being trampled and the troop-train waited. She had
eluded the vigilance of her parents and had met him outside the
barracks, without forewarning. Through the gloom of streets and the blur
of the accompanying crowd, he had seen her face loom up. Her arm had
slipped through his; she had marched beside him like any Tommy's
sweetheart. She had been seventeen at the time; to-day she was
two-and-twenty. In the years that had followed he had taken no step to
make that girlish promise binding, yet increasingly its fulfillment had
been the goal towards which he had struggled.

After she had joined Lady Dawn's Nursing Unit and had gone to France he
had missed her on his leaves; by some fatality they had been always
missing. She had existed for him only in their correspondence and in his
vivid imagination. And now, after so much hoping, she had become again a
reality. He had been prepared for strangeness, but not for---- Was it
her youth, which was to have flung wide all doors, that formed the
barricade? Her youth which, if shared, would have put back the hands on
the face of Time! Her relentless, flaunting youth! Youth which is
forever hostile to age!

Her growing and puzzled expression of impatience forced him to narrow
his answer to the requirements of the moment. "What are my plans, you
asked? I haven't any. I'm a man at a loose end and at a beginning--like
all the world, as you yourself just stated."

"Yes, but----"

"I know what you're going to say--that every one has to live somewhere.
I have a place all right--my old place."

"Shall I tell Prentys to drive you there?"

He shook his head and thrust out his long legs, throwing his weight more
heavily against the cushions. "Not unless you didn't read my letter."

Her habitual sunniness clouded. "Tabs, you're trying to be beastly. If I
hadn't read it, I shouldn't have known to have met you, or when, or
where."

"Then you remember that it reminded you of----"

She cut him short, glancing furtively at the girl at the wheel to see
whether she had been listening. "I don't forget easily. Where do you
want to go? Would a run into the country suit you?"

"Excellently."

"In what direction?"

"Makes no difference."

She whispered something to the girl; the car semi-circled and gathered
speed, shooting through the traffic which was lumbering towards the
Fulham Road and Surrey.

Now that he had gained his point, he didn't seem inclined for
conversation. He lolled back with his eyes half-shut; she sat bolt
upright, ignoring his presence.

He recalled to-day as he had pictured it. Terry was to have been still
the girl-woman who had wanted him so badly that she had been brave
enough to ask for him. She was to have been precisely and in every
detail the girl from whom he had parted. She was to have been on the
platform waiting for him, and he....

Pshaw! What a sentimentalist and how easily disappointed! The old fight
was still on in another form. It was never ended. Life was a fight from
start to finish, calling for new and yet newer courage. He refused to be
defeated. He would not be embittered. He would win his kingdom round the
corner, even though it proved to be a different kingdom from the one he
had expected. Terry couldn't have stayed seventeen always, which was the
miracle he had demanded. She was a woman. He would have to teach her to
love him afresh. There was no time to be lost. For all he knew there
might be a rival--perhaps the mysterious some one at the War Office who
had lent her this car. He leant forward good-humoredly, touching her
hand to attract her attention, "Terry."


IV

She turned slowly, almost reluctantly. What new and disturbing question
was he going to ask? She hadn't been prepared for this altered man with
his limp and his gauntness and his strained intensity. She couldn't
bring herself to believe that this grave, spent, unlaughing person at
her side was Tabs, the gallant, care-free comrade she had asked to marry
her. She was shocked both at him and at herself. And she had wanted to
be so glad--to make him feel that every one was so happy at having him
back----

"Terry."

At the sound of her name, spoken like that, a little thrill of his
old-time power stirred her; it traveled up to her eyes, so that she had
to press back the tears before she turned.

"Terry, it was sentimental blackmail. I'm sorry."

"What was? I don't understand."

"That last letter. I oughtn't to have reminded you. What one promises at
seventeen doesn't hold good. It was sporting of you to keep the promise
by meeting me this morning, but---- What I'm trying to say is this; I'm
forgetting everything that you would like me to forget."

"But I'm not sure that I want you to forget anything." She widened her
lips into a smile from which the trouble was only half dispelled. "It
sounds horrid and unfriendly, this talk of forgetting, as though---- It
sounds so much worse when it's put into words, as though we had
something of which to be ashamed."

"No, it's not like that. May I be terrifically honest--just as we used?"

She eyed him doubtfully. It was evident that she was still timid of the
truth. Then she nodded.

"Well, you know how it was between us before I went away. You were of an
age when most people still thought of you as a child. You _were_
outwardly, but inside you were almost a woman. The little girl did
things and promised things that the woman wouldn't approve to-day. And
then take my side of it. I went out to a place where life seemed at an
end and where, because of that, one became selfish in the demands he
made on the people whom he had left behind--especially on the women. It
was impossible to be normal; probably I'm not quite normal now. But the
point is this: every man in khaki thought intensely of some one girl. It
didn't matter whether he had the right to think of her; he just thought
of her, and wrote to her, and carried her photo with him up to an
attack, as if he had the right. He wasn't even much disturbed as to
whether, in allowing him to love her, she loved him in return or was
merely being patriotic; he didn't expect to live to put things to a
test. All he wanted was the belief that one woman loved him. You
understand, she was very often only a makeshift--a symbol for the woman
he would have married if death hadn't been in such a hurry. Well, for
some of us Death has had time to spare and we've come back--come back
starved, emotional, tyrannic--passionate to possess all the things for
which our hearts have hungered and of which they have been deprived so
long. It was easy to strip ourselves of everything when we thought we
were going to die. But now that we know we're going to live we're
tempted to recover some of our lost years by violence. You must be
patient with us, Terry; we're sick children, querulous, eager to take
offense and over-exacting. I was like that when I blackmailed you into
meeting me this morning. It was unworthy of me to have treated that
child's promise as binding."

"But I was seventeen; I wasn't a child. And I wanted to meet you--I did
truly."

"Letting me down lightly?" he smiled.

"No, an honest fact."

When he gazed at her with kindly incredulity, she edged herself closer
and bent forward in a generous effort to persuade him.

"Don't you see that what you've said of yourself was true of me as
well?"

"I wasn't talking in particular of myself," he parried; "I was including
all the other men."

"Yes, but especially of yourself. It was of yourself that you were
talking. What you've said of yourself is true of me and--oh, of almost
all women. We saw you men march away; you seemed lost to us forever.
Everything seemed at an end. So we did what you did--chose one man who
would embody all our dreams and become especially ours. We wrote to
him, shopped for him, placed his portrait on our dressing-tables, were
anxious for him and, oh, so proud of him. We didn't stop to ask whether
he was the man with whom we could live for always. There wasn't any
_always_. It didn't look as though there was ever again going to be any
_always_. And then the horror stopped and we found ourselves with a man
on our hands--a man who, though we had known him so well, would come
back to us different. We hadn't meant to cheat him when we made all
those promises; but now that he's really ours, we're not sure that
we---- All the ecstasies and tears that we wrote to him on paper----"
She made a helpless gesture with her hands. "They don't seem real. It's
not our fault. They belonged to the part of nurses and soldiers that we
were acting. And now we've slipped out by the stage-door and we've
become ourselves. Don't you see, Tabs, we men and girls have got to find
out afresh who we are? We've almost forgotten."

She seemed to have made an end, when something else occurred to her. She
recommenced hurriedly, "We women have been spendthrifts, too; we've
given away more than was wise--little bits of ourselves, not always to
the one man--sometimes in the wrong directions. But which is the right
direction? When people who were risking so much for us begged for a
little of our affection, we never thought of that. We simply gave
recklessly--little bits of ourselves. Now that we've regained a future,
with room for remorse and things like that, we've become suddenly
cautious. The swing of the pendulum----" She turned to him, as though
proffering a smile for his forgiveness, "It's our sudden caution that
makes us seem mean and ungracious. But I _was_ tremendously interested
about meeting you."

"Interested! Not glad or ecstatic. It's a long road from dreams to
facts."

"Yes."

She said it humbly. He tried to catch the expression in her eyes, but
all he saw was the flickering gold of her hair as the wind tossed it
against the rounded whiteness of her neck. His brain kept muttering,
"Little bits of herself! What did she mean by that?"

A barrel-organ was grinding out a tune; children danced in the sunshine
on the pavement. As they flashed down the street the music followed
them. She twisted to look back and he caught her eyes. "Tabs, do you
know what it's playing?"

"Can't say I do."

"It's out of the Elsie Janis revue at The Palace. I think it was written
especially for this moment." She listened till the air reached the
refrain and then sang the words, "_Apres la guerre, there'll be a good
time everywhere_."

His stern face relaxed at her childishness. "Will there, Terry? I hope
so. Musical chaps aren't reliable authorities. They're----"

"You must _know_ so," she interrupted valiantly. Then, forgetting her
caution, she slipped her small gloved fingers into the palm of his big
brown hand. "You _must_. Even though I disappoint you ever so badly,
you must know so, dear Tabs. You must seize your own good time at
whatever cost. One girl isn't all the world."


V

"I wonder whether what we've been saying explains Adair."

They were crossing one of the bridges over the Thames. He wasn't sure
which one. Moreover, he didn't care; it was enough for him that,
wherever they were going, they were going together--racing into a
sun-crazed world where spring romped and shouted like a hoyden. Above
lazy chimney-pots trees patched the sky-line with sudden greenness. At a
greater distance soft contours of hills lay shadowed beneath stampeding
clouds. Coldly silver beneath the bridge the river flashed, dimpled here
and there by rapid feet where breezes, like adventurous children, rushed
across it. He noted the bowed windows of little houses along the banks,
their whitened steps and shining brasses. He caught the far-blown
fragrance of hyacinths; it set him dreaming of drifting bloom and
flower-strewn ways of woodlands. A happy world, whatever the mental
state of its inhabitants! A world which was doing its bravest best to
play the game by mankind! A world which was whispering at every portal
of the senses that the business of living was immensely worth while! A
world which----! He had reached this point, when the mention of Adair
brought him back to the cause of his philosophizing--the inscrutable
tenderness of the girl, half sorceress, half penitent, seated at his
side. She had recovered her calmness by withdrawing her thin fingers
from his enclosing hand.

Adair Easterday! He didn't want to discuss him; he had more important
things to talk about. Speaking absent-mindedly, "Adair doesn't need any
explaining," he said.

"Oh, doesn't he?" she laughed softly and looked away, creating the
impression that she was leaving volumes unexpressed.

Her air of wisdom provoked him. "Well, I've known him since we were boys
at school together and I've never found him much of a conundrum. He's
brilliant, and lazy, and kind. I think of all the men I've known he's
the one who's most truly a gentleman; he's the one who has given most
promise and who has fewest accomplishments to his credit. He may have
puzzled you as his sister-in-law; but to me, a man of his own age, he
presents no mystery. If anything he's too obvious; that and the fact
that he allows himself to be too much absorbed by his wife are two of
the reasons for his lack of success."

"He doesn't allow himself to be too much absorbed by his wife now." She
had turned deliberately that she might watch the effect of her words.
"He doesn't even pretend to care for Phyllis any longer."

"Not care for her--his own wife! Nonsense! You can't make me believe
that." Then he reined himself in, for he suddenly realized that he was
unconsciously adopting the tones of an elder. "That was a terribly
modern accusation for you to make, Terry, just as if loyalties and
affections were ostrich-plumes and ermine to be worn or discarded with
the fashion."

"That's just what they do seem to have become since we've all stopped
fighting," she persisted. "And please don't look at me like that, Tabs,
as though you were my commanding-officer. I'm not trying to be a cynical
young person; I'm simply stating facts. Look at all the men for whom the
war was a social leg-up. They were plumbers and bank-clerks and dentists
in 1914; by the end of 1918 they were Majors and Colonels and
Brigadiers. They didn't know where the West End was till they got into
uniforms. Since then they've learnt the way into all the clubs and
fashionable hotels; they've spent money like water; they've been the
companions of men and women whom they couldn't have hoped to have met
unless the war had shaken us all out of our class-snobbishness. But now
that the war's ended, these men whom every one flattered for their
bravery and whose social failings they excused while there was fighting
to be done, have become worse snobs than ourselves. They've been
educated out of the class for which they were fitted. War was their
chance; it's ended, and now they have to go back to their humble jobs,
which are the only ones by which they can gain a livelihood. Worse
still, they've got to go back to their wives, who haven't shared their
grandeurs, but who've played the game by them, taking care of their
children and standing by the wash-tub. Some of them can't face up to the
change. Peace has turned the world up-side-down. We're walking on our
heads. You're just out of hospital, but you'll know what I mean when
you've been a week in London."

"But nothing of what you've been saying applies to Adair Easterday," he
objected. "He wasn't a profiteer in khaki; he wasn't even in khaki. He
made nothing; he lost nearly everything he had. Moreover, whatever
faults he may have, he's always been a thorough-bred--a stickler for
honor; the kind of chap who, if he had to sink, would go down with all
his colors flying. Where his wife is concerned, he's a lover-for-all-time
kind of fellow."

She shook her head obstinately. "He isn't now. He's standing on his head
like the rest of us."

"I'm certain you're mistaken." He paused, half-minded to let the matter
rest. He hated this contending. In the old days he and Terry had never
argued. He glanced at her; she was smiling in a sorry, amused fashion.
It made him feel that in accusing Adair she had cast suspicion on every
man's constancy--his own included. Reluctantly he set himself to prove
to her that she was incorrect.

"When you were in France with Lady Dawn's Nursing Unit, I spent most of
my leaves with Phyllis and Adair. We went about together. I lived in
their house, got to love their kiddies, knew all that went on there. I
think a part of my motive was that being with your sister seemed to
bring you nearer. I'm not going to pretend that I didn't notice
frictions and irritations. Adair was humiliated at being rejected by the
Army because he wasn't up to physical standards. He tried every trick,
but was always turned down. He didn't like to be seen about town; he
felt that people were accusing him of being a slacker. He looked so well
that he had always to be explaining why he wasn't in the trenches. It
tried his temper. Wherever he went soldiers were being treated as
heroes. Women were pleased to be seen escorted by a uniform--his own
wife as well. And I'm bound to say Phyllis didn't help him. She prided
herself on having held on to her man as though it were something that
she'd done herself. Adair used to flare up in a passion and tell her not
to be a fool; then, because her foolishness was all because she loved
him, her feelings were hurt. But to say that he doesn't love her is an
exaggeration. If there's anything the matter, the trouble is not with
his heart but with his nerves."

"Then you really haven't heard? I thought everybody----" She stifled a
yawn. "It's the wind against my face. It always makes me sleepy," she
apologized. "Since you haven't heard, I suppose I oughtn't to tell you.
He's become the sort of skeleton in our family cupboard---- You're still
incredulous! That will please mother. She'll be almost happy when she
learns that there's at least one person who hasn't been told about it.
She thinks that all the world talks of nothing else. As for Daddy,
Phyllis was always his favorite and he adores her children. He goes
about trying to find some one who'll volunteer to horsewhip Adair. I
can't say that I feel that way myself." Her hand stole out and touched
his arm caressingly; it seemed as though she were appealing for herself.
"We've all either done or are on the verge of doing something foolish
that we're sure to regret. It's not a time to be hard on anybody.
To-morrow we may stand in need of sympathy ourselves. Horror has
shell-shocked every one, civilians as well as fighting-men. The
blackness of insecurity----! We're all convalescing." She halted
abruptly, biting her lip and peering at him, suddenly aware that she had
been confessing herself. When he only looked puzzled, she finished
lightly, "So, you see, Tabs, though you'll think me terribly immoral, I
keep a soft place in my heart for our skeleton."

"But you don't tell me anything positive," he complained. "What has
Adair done?"

"Done!" She stared at him. "That's what I have been telling you. He's
fallen in love with some one else."

He was unwilling to believe what he had heard.

"Some one else! Impossible!---- I'm sorry, Terry; I didn't mean that I
doubted your word. You mustn't be offended, but---- I'm picturing
Phyllis. At her best she was good and sweet and pretty enough to hold
any man. She was such a loyal little pal--only second best to you,
Terry. And Adair--he was such a white man, so patient with her and so
devoted to the kiddies. I can't see him in the role of a runaway. And
what on earth would he gain by it that he hasn't got already? I don't
want to think that what you've told me---- It makes all fidelity seem so
contemptibly temporary."

Terry spoke gently. "Not that. It's infidelity that is temporary. A lot
of us are unfaithful for the moment--it's a symptom of our illness. You
said something a little while ago about trying to regain one's lost
years by violence--that's what he's doing. He's mislaid the knack of
happiness with Phyllis; he's trying to recover it with some one else."

Tabs was still rebelling against the facts. "But he was such a staid old
fellow."

Terry ignored his discursiveness. "I don't think I've done wrong in
letting you into our family secrets. You'll be made a part of them as
soon as you meet Daddy. When he heard that you were coming to town and
that I was going to see you, he said, 'Thank God for that. Taborley will
be able to do something.' He has a pathetic belief in you, Tabs. One of
the reasons why I was at the station this morning was that I might have
the chance to tell you first, before any one else had prejudiced you
with bitterness. Daddy wants you to dine with him to-night. He expects
you to be the kind of moral policeman who makes the arrest. But it can't
be done with morality. I don't think even you could manage to persuade
Adair at the present--not with moral arguments, anyhow."

"Why not?"

"Because I've seen _her_."


VI

It was at this moment that a sound like a pistol-shot occurred. The car
commenced to bump. The girl-driver applied the brakes, guided the car
to the side of the road and jumped out.

"Quite like the Front," Terry cried cheerfully; "I expect you feel at
home when you hear a noise like that."

Tabs looked round. He had been too busy talking to notice where they
were. To the right, through wind-rumpled, tree-dotted meadows ran the
Thames, still intensely silver in the sunshine, but somehow blither and
more young than in London. Clouds flew high; everything was riotously
spacious. Scattered through the vivid stretch of landscape ivy-covered
houses stood squarely in their park-lands. Set down in the level
distance, like children's toys, cattle browsed. The quiet greenness had
become starred as far as eye could carry with a gentle rain of myriad
tinted petals.

"The car's got a sense of beauty," he laughed; "it chooses carefully
when it wants to break down."

"And it's all at the Government's expense," Terry smiled, glancing back
at him across her shoulder as she scrambled out. "So it's a back tire.
How long will it take to put right, Prentys?---- Then we may as well
walk and let you overtake us. I don't think we're more than a mile from
Old Windsor. We'll get something to eat at the little inn by the
riverside. You remember the one I mean? We've been there several times
when the General was with us."

"What General is that?" Tabs asked as they trudged along between the
hedges.

"The General who lent me the car," she replied.

"Oh, your friend at the War Office! I suppose he's one of the dug-outs
who's been there all the time."

"He isn't. He rose from the ranks. He's only been at a desk job since
the Armistice." She spoke defensively, with a certain resentment. Tabs
was quick to detect the sharpness in her voice. "I'm sorry," he
apologized; "I didn't mean anything unkind."

She halted with a sudden gesture of concern. "I _am_ inconsiderate. I
never thought of it. Won't this walking wear you out?"

"She's changing the subject," he told himself. "I wonder why?" Aloud he
said, "Not a bit. But I can't stride along the way we used in the old
days."

Branching off to the right, they came down to a little inn by the
water-side. It was shabby with the look of disrepair which all inns had
at that time. Its paint was chapped and faded; its windows cracked and
held together by pasted strips of paper. The putty had perished in
places, so that some of the panes were on the point of falling out.
Nevertheless, it had a brave look of carrying on triumphantly, for
tulips and crocuses were springing neat as ever from the turf and it was
over-hung by a green mist of trees just coming into leafage. They
entered and took their seats at a table from which they could watch the
pale flowing of the river through the spangled peace of the outside
world.

"It was lucky we broke down." Terry sat watching him with her square
little face cushioned in her hands. "You see I'm training myself to
believe," she explained, "that everything happens for the best."

"A comforting philosophy for the lazy," he smiled. "It lets us all out
of resisting temptation. Why resist anything, if everything happens for
the best? If it were true, it would give us the license to be as flabby
as we liked--which rather falls in line with what we were saying about
Adair. But who is she--this woman? You say you've seen her."

"You'll know soon enough for your peace of mind--probably you'll see her
yourself before the day is out."

"But can't you even tell me her name?"

"Her name's Maisie Lockwood for the present."

"For the present! Why for the present?"

"Because one's never certain about Maisie. She was Maisie Gervis once
and Maisie Pollock before that; there must have been a time when she was
Maisie Something Else."

Tabs couldn't quite make up his mind whether he ought to laugh or frown.
The suspicion had crossed his mind that this composed imp of a girl, who
could look so immensely the young lady when she liked, was playing a sly
game with him. However he pretended to take her seriously. "In most
social sets names are fairly permanent."

Terry laughed outright and looked away from him, following the river
with her eyes. "There's nothing permanent about Maisie. I think that's
her attraction; that's what makes people forgive her everything. She
starts each day afresh--it really is a new day for her, with no old
hates or griefs or dreads to drag her down. She has no regrets because
she remembers nothing. Whatever happened yesterday she puts out of mind;
she forgets everything except her willingness to be friends."

"Her names as well, according to your account."

"Yes, there's no denying that. Until the war ended, if you'd not seen
her for a month, you were never quite sure how you ought to address her.
Even now one's liable to make a mistake. To-day she's Maisie Lockwood;
to-morrow she may be Maisie Anything--Mrs. Adair Easterday, perhaps."

Under her willful mystifications his calmness was getting ruffled. While
he listened to her, he kept comparing this day with the other day that
his imagination had painted. The world was to have been so much better
and kinder when the agony of the trenches was ended. It was in order
that it might be better that so many men had not come back. And this was
the kinder world--a world in which men, saved from the jaws of death,
met the girls they had loved as strangers, in whose presence, if they
were to avoid offense, they must pick their words! A world full of men
like Adair, who had been honorable until others had made them safe by
their sacrifice, and of women like Maisie of the many names, who forgot
her yesterdays that she might seize her selfish personal happiness!

"Terry," he spoke with a show of patience, "do you think it's a matter
about which to jest? There's your sister and her kiddies; their future's
at stake. If I'm to be of any help----" He broke off, for a voice inside
his brain had started talking, "You're old. That's exactly the way in
which her father speaks to her." Was it her thoughts that he had heard?
Her face was lowered; he could see nothing but the top of her golden
head. Youth radiated from her; even in his anger it intoxicated him.

"So if I'm to help," he picked up his thread, "you mustn't mock. It
isn't decent, Terry; the situation's too serious. Let me have the facts.
How does she come by all these different names? Does she call herself
something different with each new dress?"

Terry's eyes were wide and sorry. "No, with each new husband, but----"
There came a break in her voice, "Oh, Tabs, I can't bear that you should
be cross with me. You've been disappointed in me from the moment we met.
We're not the same. And I know it's not all my fault. And----"

Her lips trembled. He was in terror lest she would give way to crying.
If it hadn't been for the table that parted them with its unromantic
debris of dishes---- As it was he leant across and assured her
earnestly, "I'm not cross with you, my dearest girl. I'm---- Terry, how
is it that we've drifted so apart? I keep groping after the old Terry;
for a minute I think I've found her, and then she's no longer there."

Drying her eyes, she nodded. "It hurts most frightfully. That's what I
keep doing, barking my shins in the dark, trying to follow the old Tabs.
He's always going away from me----"

"I think it's the laughter that I miss most," she said presently;
"you've grown so stern."

"I've seen stern things happen--a kind of Judgment Day. It's remembered
things that are so silencing."

"I know what you mean. I saw some of those things in our hospital in
France." She shut her eyes as if the memory was unbearable. "But don't
be hard on people who have a right to be young and who want to forget.
It isn't that they're ungrateful." Then she surprised him, "People like
Maisie and myself."

"Don't couple yourself with her." He spoke more sharply than he had
intended.

"But she was with me out there," she expostulated. "That was how she met
her second husband, Gervis. She nursed him."

"It makes no difference how she met him; she's not in your class--a
woman who has been divorced three times."

"But she hasn't. Whatever made you think that?" Terry shot upright on
her chair, for all the world like a startled rabbit.

"You told me she'd had three husbands." He was once more puzzled and
uncertain of his ground. "You as good as said that she wouldn't be
averse to making a fourth of Adair. I therefore conjectured----"

"You conjectured all wrong," she cut him short. "They died for their
country."

"All of them?" He was making a rapid calculation as to how long could
have elapsed between each re-marriage.

"One at a time, of course," she added. "She was married to the first
the first week of the war."

"Even so it was quick work. May I light a cigarette? Three husbands in
four years! She must be a very alluring person!"

Terry laughed nervously. "She is, though you mayn't think it. I can see
you don't; you think she's horrid. But let me tell you it takes a smart
woman to bring three men to the point of matrimony when the world's so
full of unmarried girls. And they were every one of them more or less
famous--the kind of men of whom any woman would be proud. You'll
remember Pollock--Reggie Pollock; he was one of the earliest of our
aces--the man who brought down the Zeppelin over Brussels and got killed
himself a few days later, no one quite knew how. There was a mystery
about his death. He was the man to whom she was first married."

"A splendid chap! And I recall her now. Her portrait was in the
illustrated papers at the time of her third marriage. It was headed _A
Conscientious War-Worker_ or something like that. And I don't forget the
name the soldiers called her when they read the papers in the trenches."

"Did they call her something?" She was gazing at him intently. "Was it
something brutal that you wouldn't like to tell me?"

"It was something true," he said, pinching out his cigarette with quiet
fierceness.

"Oh, I don't know----" She broke off to ask the waitress whether the car
had arrived and was answered in the affirmative. "I don't know about its
being true. After all, she made three men happy before they went West.
I don't see that she'd have been any more to be admired if she'd allowed
the last two to go wretched."

Tabs half-rose and then reseated himself. "An awful woman! Insatiable! A
Lucrezia Borgia, without Lucrezia Borgia's excuse."

"I knew you'd say that." Terry spoke hopelessly in a tone that dragged.
"How do you or I know what excuses she had? How do we know why anybody
does anything--what hidden reasons they have? And yet we're always so
eager to condemn! I wanted to be the first to let you know about Adair
because you always used to understand. You would have understood if
you'd been the _you_ that you were. I thought that if I explained to you
about Maisie---- But what's the use!"

She rose from her chair and stood leaning against the table, looking
wilted and pathetic. When she spoke again the heat had gone out of her
words and was replaced by an appealing tenderness. "Don't you see what
it is--why it is that I don't condemn? I'm so sorry for them--so sorry
for you, for myself, for everybody. It hurts me here, Tabs." She laid
her hand against her breast. "We all want what we've spent in the lost
years. We want it so impatiently. We can't get it; but we want it at
once--_now_. The things one wants are always in the past or the future,
so one cheats to get them _now_."

He hadn't the remotest idea what she was trying to tell him. She was
stirred by some deep emotion--some overwhelming loneliness. For a moment
it crossed his mind that she also was tempted--fascinated by some
lurement of dishonor kindred to Adair's. He put the thought from him as
preposterous and disloyal. Yet it recurred. Ever since they had met she
had been talking curiously--talking about having given away bits of
herself to people who were hungry, little bits of herself in wrong
directions. She had coupled her own case with this unspeakable Maisie's.
What was her problem?

She stood there with her head bowed, like a child self-accused of
wrong-doing, with all the flaunting joy of spring tapping against the
window on which she had turned her back. Then it dawned on him why she
was standing; he was between the door of escape and herself. He stepped
aside. As she moved eagerly forward, he caught her by the points of her
elbows and arrested her going. The wild violet eyes fluttered up to his
fearfully and fell as he towered over her.

"My very dearest!" He spoke gently in a voice from which all passion had
been purged. "Don't blame me if I simply can't understand. Though I
never become any more to you than I am now, I shall always be your
comrade, believing in you and loving you. Remember that."

When he released her she fled from him, leaving him alone in the shabby
room.


VII

When he found her, she was talking to the girl-soldier in the yard of
the inn. "But do you think that you can manage it, Prentys? It'll be
all right in the open country, but I'm not sure that I want to risk it
in the London traffic. We're merely joy-riding and, if anything happened
to the car when you weren't on military duty----"

"I don't see that we've got much choice, miss," the girl answered. "The
General's orders to me were explicit, and you know what he is: obedience
and no explanations. We've barely time to do it."

Their backs were towards the inn. Tabs strolled up and made a pretense
of inspecting the new tire.

"Anything I can do?" he asked casually.

It was Prentys who answered him. "I sprained my left wrist, sir, back
there along the road." She held it out to him painfully as proof. It was
all bound up and puffy. "It isn't very much use, sir; so I've only one
hand and I don't know whether I'll be able----"

Terry interrupted and took up the running. "I thought that the car was
ours for the day. Prentys has just told me that General Braithwaite
ordered her to pick him up at the War Office this afternoon at
three-thirty. Now that she's sprained her wrist, she'll have to drive so
carefully that there's scarcely time to do it."

Tabs couldn't help smiling at the pompous importance of little people in
this newly enfranchised world. It was only yesterday that for him also
the foibles of Generals had been sacred. Generals had been gods whose
tantrums and mental rheumatics had thrown whole armies into a fume and
fret. For him that day was ended, but it still existed for this slim
girl-soldier. He was sorry for her.

"You needn't be upset," he said kindly. "I haven't renewed my license,
but I can drive. No one's likely to interfere with me in an Army car.
Jump in and I'll get you there with a quarter of an hour in hand."

"But----"

It was Terry who had spoken. Her brows puckered with thoughtfulness, she
was gazing far away into the green distance. He waited for her to
amplify her objection. When she maintained silence, he prompted her. "If
it's me and my bag that's the trouble, you don't need to worry. After
I've driven you both to the War Office, I can fudge round for a taxi.
One can usually wangle one in the neighborhood of Whitehall."

Before he had ended, he knew that his guess had missed fire. It wasn't
his comfort that was disturbing her.

"All right," she said reluctantly. "I suppose there's no other way. Get
into the back, Prentys; I'll ride in front with Lord Taborley."

He was glad to have something to occupy his attention--to be able to
talk without the necessity of regarding her. They were both embarrassed
by the memory of their recent tempest of emotion. "Braithwaite! So
that's the name of the good fairy who gave us our day in the country. I
don't remember him; but that's not remarkable. Generals at the Front
were as common as policemen in London; you found one at every street
corner. As for trenchdwellers like myself, we never came in touch with
them except when we were in for a wigging. We came in touch with them
all right then."

She made no remark. He had the feeling that she was annoyed with herself
for having let the General's name escape her. Up to that point she had
referred to him anonymously as "a friend at the War Office." Tabs tried
to switch to another subject without making the change offensively
apparent. "Now that I'm a free man, I've got to reorganize a household."

She kindled into interest, "Taborley House is still a hospital, isn't
it?"

"Yes, I handed it over to the Americans. I was glad to do that for my
mother's sake. After all, I'm half American. At least a third of my
boyhood was spent in the States. But they're sending most of their
wounded home now, so I shall soon have it back on my hands. But that
wasn't what I meant. It was too big for me; I never lived there."

"Then what did you mean?"

He realized that she was encouraging him to continue talking because the
topic was safe--not because it held much attraction for her.

"What I meant was that I'll have to try to collect up my old servants. I
don't know where they all are, or who's alive and who's dead. There's
one man I'm particularly anxious to discover."

He slowed down, tooting his horn vigorously as they rounded an awkward
corner. When they were again on the level she reminded him: "You were
saying that you were anxious to discover----"

"Oh, that man of mine! There isn't much to tell! He looked after me
while I was up at the 'Varsity; when I left, I carried him off. I was
always wandering, so I made him my body-servant. When we were leading
civilized lives in cities he acted as my valet-butler-secretary. When we
were adventuring in the remoter parts of the world, he was my
companion-friend. I had a real affection for the chap; he was so
genuinely distinguished and quick to learn. He'd have gone far if things
had kept on. As it is, he's probably gone farther."

"Gone farther?" She sounded half-asleep--politely lackadaisical.

"Gone West," he explained shortly. "His letters became fewer. We joined
up together in the ranks. You know all about my end of it. I suppose it
was my mother's democratic Americanism that made me do that. We got
drafted into different regiments. After the fighting had been going for
a year, he stopped corresponding. The funny thing was that none of my
letters to him was returned."

She was so bored that she was scarcely listening. He cut the matter
short by adding, "It was your mention of General Braithwaite that
started me gossiping."

She pulled herself together with a jerk and instantly became all
attention. "How? How could my mentioning General Braithwaite do that?"

He noticed again her unreasonable suspicion of hostility each time he
made a reference to this man. Thinking it the wiser policy to overlook
it, he answered evenly, "Because his name also happened to be
Braithwaite."

Fully fifteen minutes elapsed. "She's quite fed up with my valet," he
told himself. He hadn't been able to contrive any fresh topic which was
sufficiently innocuous, so he'd been keeping silent. They were again
passing over the bridge beneath which, like a gleaming sword, lay the
Thames, barriered on either bank by the little bow-windowed houses, with
their shining brasses and whitened steps. They were already catching up
with the throng of London traffic when she shook herself out of her
self-absorption by saying, "There must be thousands of Braithwaites in
the world."

He glanced at her out of the corners of his eyes. Her latest
conversational effort tickled his sense of humor--it was so wholly
inadequate. He laughed outright. "That's better; the high spirits will
soon be coming back---- Thousands of Braithwaites! My dear Terry, there
must be hundreds of thousands." Then in a graver voice, "But though
there were thousands of millions, it wouldn't restore to me my one loyal
man."

"You loved him?" She uttered her guess softly.

"Yes, and I--it's a queer thing to say about one's valet--I admired him
tremendously."

It was the best part of five years since Tabs had driven a car. He
hadn't yet regained his old dexterity. He wasn't expert enough to attend
to the wheel and at the same time to carry on a conversation. As he left
the bridge he had to pass a coster's barrow which was drawn up beside
the curb. The coster was dressed in the soiled khaki of a man recently
released from the Army; his barrow was piled high with narcissi and
daffodils, and a drowsy donkey drooped between the shafts. In avoiding a
suicidal pedestrian, Tabs misjudged the room that he had to spare. He
felt a jolt, guessed what had happened, and jammed on his brakes. A
policeman in front of him was holding up a magisterial hand. Behind him
a stream of familiar trench profanity was gathering in volume; under
other circumstances he would have found a certain enjoyment in the
sound. He looked back and saw what he expected: the barrow overturned;
the flowers scattered, the donkey surprised out of its drowsiness,
thrown on its back and kicking in its harness; the coster straddling the
sudden ruin and calling down all the rigors of the law. A crowd was
running together; it hesitated between the coster and Tabs, uncertain as
to which would provide the more exciting entertainment. When the
policeman waving his note-book approached the car, it plunked for Tabs.

The policeman was a stout, fat-fingered, immovable kind of person. He
said nothing till he had penciled down the car's official number. Tabs
gave his name and address. "Lord Taborley, etc." The policeman lifted
his slow eyes to judge for himself whether the Lord part of his
information looked probable. The lean aristocratic face which he
encountered seemed to correspond with the specifications recorded. He
asked to see his Lordship's license. Tabs embarked on explanations,
pointing to the bandaged wrist of Prentys as a confirmation of his
facts. While he was explaining the coster joined them, having got his
donkey on to its legs. He was violent with anger and burning to expound
the justice of his cause. Suddenly he struck out a convincing line of
argument, "Look at 'im, the bloomin' slacker--the pasty h'aristocrat. 'E
didn't see no fightin'. Not 'im. But now the war's been won by poor
blokes like meself, 'e ain't ashamed ter go banging abart in h'Army
cars."

"I know how you feel," Tabs said. "But you're mistaken; I served in the
ranks two years myself. I was only demobbed yesterday; to-day's my first
day out of uniform. I'll pay you whatever you think fair; so you don't
need to work yourself up."

The man's attitude changed completely. He removed his cap and scratched
his head. "Served in the ranks, did yer? Then you and me was pals out
there!" He turned to the policeman, "'E ain't done me as much damidge as
if one of them there Big Berthas 'ad landed."

The policeman let his fat eyes wander from the coster to Tabs, from Tabs
back to the coster. "I wuz too old ter go," he said inconsequently; "but
me son's out there and won't ever come back." He crossed out the
particulars he had written down so laboriously; when that was done, he
fumbled his note-book back into his pocket. "If your mate 'ere says that
it's h'all right, sir, it's h'all right so far as I'm consarned. Your
fust day h'out of the h'Army! Well, well!" He looked at Terry with a
world of understanding, wheeled about slowly and went ponderously back
to his corner.

"That was sportsmanly of you." It was Tabs speaking. "I'd like to know
how much----"

The coster shook his head. "It don't cost you nothink. Me and you used
ter share."

Tabs protested. The man climbed the running-board and pushed his
grime-stained hand into the car. "Call it quits, mister, and shake for
luck. And now the little lady, if she don't h'object."

Terry shook his hand daintily. So there wasn't going to be a fight after
all! Everything had been settled amicably! With an air of disappointment
the crowd dispersed.

"Came pretty well out of that!" Tabs remarked as the car started
forward.

"You're not to talk." Terry's voice was high-strung and emphatic. "You
can't talk and drive--and you've got to drive like mad."

"Why? What's the hurry?"

"The hurry! We've wasted twenty minutes; we've barely time to get
there."

"Oh, the General! I'd forgotten. Well, it won't do the old boy any harm
to wait. Lord, the hours he and his sort have kept me waiting on
parade-grounds in France!"

Then he remembered that this General wasn't an old boy. If he wasn't
old, there was all the less reason for making so much effort not to be
late. Nevertheless, to please Terry---- He could feel her body
twitching. Every time he had to slow down for traffic he was aware of
her impatience. Why was it of such vital importance to her that they
should arrive in time? She wasn't too punctual by habit. A thought
struck him; it was like a searchlight pointing out many things that had
been dark. Her anxiety wasn't that they should arrive in time, but
before time. She didn't intend, if she could prevent it, that he should
meet the owner of the car. Had it not been for the double accident of
Prentys spraining her wrist and having failed to mention that the car
must be back by three-thirty, he would never have been allowed to know
that there was a General. Terry had been compelled to let him drive if
the borrowed car was to be returned; but her main object now was to
reach the War Office a few minutes early and to smuggle him off before
an introduction would be necessary. If they arrived punctually or late,
the General might be already on the pavement---- Tabs bit his lip. He
hated petty intrigue. He demanded a man's code of honor from the woman
he adored and made no feeble excuses for feminine dishonesty. This was
the worst disappointment she had given him.

As they approached Hyde Park, when it was too late to turn off into a
side-street, he saw that the road ahead was blocked. He worked the car
as far forward as possible and then had to halt. Terry was nervously
consulting her watch. "The time?" he asked.

"Three-twenty-three."

"Then this puts the lid on it." He beckoned to a policeman, "What's
holding us up?"

"The Queen's expected, so I'm told, sir, though us didn't 'ave no proper
warning."

At that moment the crowd out of sight commenced cheering. The cheering
spread and drew nearer. It was taken up by people who were strung across
the road immediately in front. A carriage flashed by in which two ladies
were sitting, one of whom was bowing from right to left. Despite her
irritation at the delay, Terry stood up so that she could get a clearer
view above the clustered heads. The cheering grew deafening, then
lessened, and sank to a hoarse murmur beneath the trees of the Park. As
she reseated herself and the traffic lurched forward, she turned to
Tabs, "You noticed who it was?"

"The Queen."

"Yes, but the lady who was with her?"

"I didn't see."

"It was Diana--Lady Dawn with whom I nursed. She's supposed to be the
most beautiful woman in England."

"Don't know her. So I shouldn't have placed her if I had seen her."

They made a clear run of it from Hyde Park Corner to Whitehall and drew
up quite marvelously before the War Office on the second.

"Done it," said Tabs as he shut off the engine. "It's zero hour
exactly."

But Terry wasn't there to listen to him, as he discovered when his
attention was free and the engine had ceased to throb. Almost before
they had halted, she had nipped out of the car and was hailing a taxi
which was on the point of moving off. His bag was already in process of
being whisked from one vehicle to the other. This indecent haste to be
rid of him roused his obstinacy; he sat still where he was and watched.

She returned a little breathless and self-congratulatory. "There! Wasn't
that clever of me? Taxis are scarce. If I hadn't collared you that one
you might have---- Come on, Tabs, if you're stiff in your lame leg, give
me your hand and I'll----"

At that moment the dingy swing-doors of the War Office flew open and a
red-tabbed, handsome figure of a man, with gold braid on his cap and
crossed swords on his epaulettes, came briskly out on to the steps. He
caught sight of Terry and, throwing her an airy salute, came with an
eager stride towards her. He wasn't the old fogy Tabs had so
persistently imagined. He was young, barely thirty, lean, tall and
swift-moving as an arrow--very much what Tabs had been before he had
spent himself at the war.

"Hulloa, Terry! This is ripping. I didn't expect you---- But what's all
this? An accident! What have you been doing to Prentys?"

The voice was glad and frank, though its habit of command was
unmistakable. Every gesture bespoke authority and arrogance of body.
Even in this moment of geniality, "Obedience and no explanations" was
written all over him. He was a man who believed his acceptable
importance to be a verity established beyond the pale of challenge. Yet
there was something lacking--a sureness of refinement, a last
considerateness. With the first word he had spoken, Tabs had detected
that he wasn't quite the part.

Terry had hurried forward to meet him. She was saying something in a
voice so subdued that it did not carry. She had so contrived their
grouping--or was it an accident?--that the General's face was hidden.

Tabs waited, then turned to Prentys, "My taxi-man's getting impatient.
Will you give my thanks to the General for his kindness and make the
explanations?---- And I hope that your wrist will soon be better."

He had given the driver his address and was stepping into the taxi, when
he heard Terry's voice, "Why, you're running away! You mustn't go
without meeting the General. General Braithwaite, I want to introduce
you to Lord Taborley, of whom I've spoken to you so often."

Tabs limped back to the pavement and found the General regarding him
intently. "I'm glad to make Lord Taborley's acquaintance," he said
formally. And then to Terry, "You didn't tell me that it was for Lord
Taborley you were borrowing my car."

Before Terry could reply, Tabs was answering for her, "Then I have to
apologize to you, sir, as well as to thank you. But we've used the same
car often, haven't we? In fact, I'm certain that we've met many times."

"Never to my knowledge." The General drew himself up stiffly. "You
mistake me. It's the first time I've had the pleasure."

The two tall men stood glooming at each other. Tabs had it on the tip of
his tongue to say something more, but glanced at Terry and thought
better of it. Instead he addressed her, "Do I drive you home?"

The General interrupted. "It'll be out of your way. I'm going right past
Miss Beddow's house."

For the first time since they had been introduced Terry came between
their hostility. "How did you know where Lord Taborley lived and that it
would be out of his way? You said that this was the first time you had
met him."

Tabs refused to make her the witness of a quarrel. "Since General
Braithwaite knows where I live, perhaps he will call and explain that to
me later. I can't keep my cab waiting longer--are you riding with me,
Terry?"

She avoided his eyes. "With the General." And then, "You won't forget
that you're dining to-night with father?"

"To-night. At seven-thirty, I suppose, as usual?"

"At seven-thirty."

He raised his hat. As he drove away he felt compelled to look back just
once to assure himself. He caught the General's features in full
sunlight; he had not been mistaken.

"So that's why my letters to him weren't returned, and that's why he
didn't write! He's gone farther than far with a vengeance." He clenched
his fists and frowned savagely at his crippled leg. "I felt so sure of
her--and to have to compete with my own valet!"




CHAPTER THE SECOND

RETRIEVERS OF YOUTH


I

The taxi had scarcely drawn up before a small, prim house in Brompton
Square when the door was opened by a neat maid in immaculate cap and
apron. She was so neat and respectful as to appear almost passionless.
She had the high complexion of a Country girl, good gray eyes, a slim,
attractive figure and dark, wavy hair which escaped rebelliously from
beneath her cap. One wondered how she looked in her off-duty moments,
when she wasn't saying, "Yes, your Lordship" and "No, your Lordship."
Tabs mustered a smile and called to her, "Thank you, Ann. I'll be with
you in a moment."

As he paid the fare, he let his eyes wander. The outside of the house
had been painted white, evidently in honor of his home-coming. The work
had been only recently completed, for the chalked warning on the
pavement was not yet obliterated, "Wet Paint Beware." He had given no
orders; it was Ann's doing--her accustomed, tactful thoughtfulness. The
steps were speckless as a newly laundered shirt, the brasses polished to
the brilliancy of precious metal. His window-boxes---- He glanced along
the fronts of his neighbors' houses; they hadn't put theirs out yet. His
were ahead of everybody's; they made a cheerful splash of red, with
their soldierly upstanding tulips, above the long serried line of
area-railings. Again Ann's doing! And the snow-white curtains behind
each row of panes were also Ann's.

The driver clicked his "For Hire" sign into the upright position and
chugged away to join the flow of traffic which thumped orchestrally past
the end of the Square. Tabs climbed the three low steps separately; he
had been used to take them at a bound. He tried to climb them slowly as
though from choice, and not from necessity. He was very conscious that
Ann was watching. As she closed the door behind him he said, "So you
knew I was coming? You received my telegram?"

"Yes, your Lordship."

"I was sorry I couldn't tell you the exact hour. I didn't know it
myself. I hope you didn't trouble to prepare lunch."

"It was no trouble, your Lordship."

"Then you've managed to get some one in the kitchen? They tell me that
all the cooks have become bus-conductresses or lady-secretaries."

"I did, your Lordship. My sister--the one who lost her husband at Mons.
I thought you wouldn't object----"

He cut her short. "Ann, you know I never object; you never need to go
into details. Whatever you've done is right. From what I've seen already
you've done splendidly."

Under his praise she flushed and became a little less the servant. "I
was afraid you might think I'd taken too much upon myself, what with the
flower-boxes and having the house repainted. I wanted to have things
nice for your Lordship after----" She hesitated for a word, and then
burst out, "After all the dirt and beastliness! Your Lordship ought
never to have gone in the ranks, begging your pardon; you weren't fitted
for it. You ought to have gone as a General. Then you wouldn't have come
home with that poor leg and----" She saw him wince and changed the
subject. "But about doing things without orders, I knew that if
Braithwaite--if Braithwaite----" Her voice sagged and her eyes misted
over. At last Tabs saw how she looked in her off-duty moments, when she
wasn't occupied with being respectful. The sudden memory came back of
intuitions he had had that she and his valet might one day marry. From
time to time he had twitted them on their fondness, taking an idle
pleasure in forwarding the match. And Braithwaite had kissed her before
he marched away. Ridiculous to remember it now! It signified nothing.
People in their station kissed when they felt kindly, and on that
occasion they had had an epoch-making pretext.

Her eyes were searching his with a hungry wistfulness. "What I was
meaning, your Lordship, was that if he had been spared, he'd have done
things on his own and gone ahead, the same as he always did. So I,
seeing as how he wasn't----"

Tabs touched her shoulder gently. "It's all right, Ann. I appreciate
your motives. I'm glad you went ahead. But you haven't shaken hands
yet."

He glanced in at the dining-room before he went upstairs. The table was
spread for dinner. Cut flowers were standing about in vases. The very
silver had a festive shine.

"Again I have to be sorry," he told her. "I'm dining with Sir Tobias
Beddow."

"And Miss Terry," she inquired, "is she well?"

When he went to climb the narrow stairs she refused to permit him to
carry his bag. He guessed the reason--that he might be freer to support
himself by the rail of the banisters. On the first small landing, which
looked out at the back on to the Oratory and the graveyard of the Parish
Church, there were still more flowers. When he reached his bedroom,
three flights up, he found that his evening clothes had been all laid
out and just as carefully as if Braithwaite--the old Braithwaite whom he
had loved--had been there before him.

As she unpacked his bag, opening and closing drawers, "I shall have to
look round for another valet," he said.

"Please don't." Her tone was sharp with earnestness.

Tabs felt sorry for her. She, too, like all the world was wanting the
thing that she could never have. He wondered whether it wouldn't be
kinder to tell her and let her know the worst. "But sha'n't I, Ann?"

With simple pathos, which was the more touching because it was so
unconscious, she clasped her hands, "He might come back. He was never
reported. My letters were returned unopened. I've not given over
hoping. I shouldn't like him to find that your Lordship---- If he found
another man in his place, he might feel like he hadn't been wanted. Me
and sister can manage----"

"But----"

He got no further, for her eyes were meeting his with an appeal that was
desperate. "A strange man--his ways would be different. He'd make one
know that everything--everything was ended."

She glanced hurriedly round for a last time to make sure that there was
nothing she had omitted--collar, tie, silk socks, dress-shoes,
shaving-water, razor. "I'll be listening for the bell in case there's
anything that I've forgotten, sir."

With that she closed the door between himself and her emotion. As she
rustled discreetly down the stairs, he thought he heard a sound of
sobbing.


II

It was too early to dress--not five o'clock yet. He made an estimate of
the time he had to spare. If he walked across the Park to Sir Tobias
Beddow's, that would take him from a half to three-quarters of an hour.
At the earliest he wouldn't have to leave the house till six-thirty. So
he had the best part of two hours during which to think out his line of
conduct and to dress. At dinner he would meet Terry--how would she act?
And what was the right thing for him to do as her family's trusted
friend? He felt very tired. It took a tremendous lot out of one
pretending to other people that one wasn't tired. He was ashamed to have
to own to himself how quickly nowadays he could use up his physical
reserves. For the moment there was no one to watch him; he stretched
himself out at full length on the couch.

He was glad to be back in this friendly house with its narrow stairways
and endearing littleness; it had been his American mother's before him.
Within its walls were the exquisite traces of a temperament and taste
that had been hers. She hadn't always been a great lady; to the end of
her days there had remained with her the love of small things which one
finds in nun-like New England towns. There had been times when the
ostentation and entertaining at Taborley House had become too much for
her; this nest of refuge had been her secret--her place of retreat where
she had regarnered her sincerities. She had loved the Square's
old-fashioned primness, its tininess, its unchanging atmosphere of rest.
It was scarcely invaded by the strum of London. In the cloud of
greenness which drifted above its communal garden, one could still
listen to the country sounds of birds. At the back gray religion spoke
in the tolling bell of the Parish Church; through Sabbath stillnesses
one could catch the pealing of the organ in the Oratory and the mutter
of worshipers at prayer. Tabs had kept the house as she had left it. It
was something faithful to which to return, however much he failed in the
search for his kingdom and however far he wandered.

However much he failed! This first day of freedom had been anything but
successful. He felt as though every hope that he had had had been
blotted out; that morning he had had no plan for the future which had
not included Terry. What would be the upshot? Would Braithwaite accept
his challenge to visit him? If he did, what then? He, Tabs, couldn't
very well ask his ex-valet, merely because he was his ex-valet, to
desist from loving the same girl. He had no doubt that Braithwaite, in
his new incarnation as a General, did dare to love her. He had little
doubt that Terry had shown herself at least susceptible to the glamor of
his infatuation. How far had the matter gone between them? There lay the
guess.

He searched back, trying to piece together phrases which would indicate
the correct answer. There was her disturbing confession about having
given away bits of herself, little bits of herself in wrong directions.
There was her reticence as to the ownership of the car and the way in
which she had tried to prevent a meeting. There was her sympathy for
Maisie's matrimonial excesses; her unnatural tolerance for Adair; her
reiterated excuse for the current love-madness, that people had the
right at any cost to be happy; and the eagerness with which she had
seized on his own words, "to recover our lost years by violence." In the
silence of his brain he heard her voice pleading, urgent with pain and
underlying terror, "Don't you see why I don't condemn? I'm sorry for
you, for myself, for everybody." His knowledge of the world told him
that impassioned latitudinarians were most frequently found among those
who had themselves offended the conventions. Whatever Terry knew or did
not know, she was certainly aware that a match between herself and
General Braithwaite was completely off the map and would be regarded by
every one who counted as a _mesalliance_.

And what did she know? Not that Braithwaite had been a valet--most
decidedly not that he had been _his_ valet; at most she suspected that
they had been acquainted when Braithwaite had moved in humbler circles.
Had she been possessed of the exact truth, she would never have borrowed
a car from that quarter to meet her ex-lover on his home-coming. She had
been testing--trying to discover. She had scented a mystery--one for the
solving of which none of the General's explanations had proved
convincing. Then had come the unforeseen encounter outside the War
Office and Braithwaite's falsehood, which even Terry had detected. "You
mistake me. It's the first time I've had the pleasure." What was the
man's game? Did he hope to erase his old identity? Did he think----

At this point Tabs' patience broke down. "Dash it all," he muttered, "if
there hadn't been a war, the fellow would have been running my
bath-water at this moment."

If there hadn't been a war! But there had; and this was only one of the
many preposterous situations which had resulted from it. Terry was right
in at least one thing that she had said--the world was upside down and
walking on its head.

As he lay there thinking, with the topmost branches of the trees in the
Square weaving a tracery of green shadows against his windows, a sudden
inspiration came to him. He sat up. "By Jove, I've got it. Terry's proud
as Lucifer. I can stop this nonsense at any time by telling her who her
lover was. Braithwaite will have to call to see me; I can force him to
it. When he calls, the door will be opened by Ann. I can hold the threat
over him that, if he doesn't promise to break with Terry, I'll expose
him."

He went across to his writing-table, selected a pen and wrote:--

     _General Braithwaite,
        The War Office,
        Whitehall,
        London.

   Sir:

   I shall be pleased to see you any time to-morrow at my house in
   Brompton Square, which you know so well. The matter which we have to
   discuss is urgent.

     Yours truly,
     Taborley._

He addressed the envelope, sealed it and rang the bell. When Ann
appeared, he handed it to her. "Please see that it's posted
immediately."

He had done something decisive. For the time being he felt happier.
"Nothing like getting a thing off your chest!" He took a bath and,
having slipped into his dressing-gown, commenced to shave. Between these
acts he whistled snatches of street-songs to prove to himself his
genuine light-heartedness. It was while he was drying his razor that he
started on the wrong air. Where had he heard it? Oh, yes, the sunlit
street, the children dancing and a voice at his side murmuring the words
of the refrain, "Apres la Guerre, there'll be a good time everywhere."

The old argument commenced again, but with a new justice. "What have I
really got against this chap? To rise from a private to a General is no
crime; it's to his credit. We all had his chance and some of us had more
influence; yet he got there."

He tried to eliminate his own desires and wounded pride from the
problem. For five years he had been nothing and had been glad to be
nothing, that the cause which he believed to be righteous might triumph
by his self-effacement. What sickness of soul had overtaken him that, on
this, his first day of freedom, he had immediately surrendered to this
orgy of outrageous selfishness? It was Terry that mattered and only
Terry. The stronghold of her happiness was threatened by Braithwaite's
lie. There was a kingdom for everybody, his old theory. As for himself,
if he had been mistaken and his kingdom was not Terry, then he must
press on, for it lay further up the road round some newer turning.
Meanwhile, at whatever cost to himself he must rescue Terry's happiness.

His heroic state of mind lasted no longer than it takes to set down. He
was demanding too much of his exhausted capacity for self-abnegation. He
was starving for her. His old hunger to win her swept over him
ravenously. Only by winning her could his lost youth be regained.


III

He had almost completed dressing when there came a tap at the door.
Finishing what he was doing in front of the mirror, he answered, "Yes,
what is it, Ann?"

"Before you go, I should like to speak with your Lordship."

"Is it important? I've not got too much time."

"It's--it's something to do with myself."

"All right. Half a second."

On opening the door, he saw at once that her face was disturbed.

"What is it?"

"It's something to do with him, sir."

"With whom?"

"With Braithwaite."

It was evident that for Ann there was only one _him_ in the world.

"Well, what of him?"

Ann commenced speaking slowly. Under the stress of her nervousness she
forgot the correct demeanor for a high-class parlor-maid and became a
country girl, twisting the corner of her white, starched apron in her
hands.

"I was noticing the address on that letter your Lordship gave me to
post." Tabs thought quickly, "Hullo, we're in for it. That was foolish
of me. She's put two and two together."

But Ann reassured him in her next sentence. "It was to a General at the
War Office and I was thinking that he might help. Braithwaite and I had
an understanding. I'm not saying we were engaged; we weren't. We didn't
tell anybody. But we'd made up our minds to get married if he ever came
back. If I'd been engaged to him, I'd have a right to make enquiries;
but now, in most people's eyes, I was nothing to him. That's--that's the
hardest part of it. You see, sir, he was never reported dead or missing
or anything. I just stopped hearing from him. So I thought that if this
General was your Lordship's friend----"

Tabs' brain had been working. He already had a plan. "You thought that I
might persuade him to use his influence to have the records searched?"

She glanced up hopefully. "That's what I was thinking. Would he do it
for your Lordship? I don't know how to set about things myself. It's
this--this," she almost broke down, "this uncertainty that's a-killing
of me. Sister knows about her man, but I----"

Tabs saw the redness of sleeplessness in her eyes; it was true--the
uncertainty was killing her. "Don't upset yourself by talking about it,"
he said kindly. "I'll write to the General and post my request on my way
out."

He had supposed he had dismissed her and had seated himself at his desk.
A sound behind him warned him; he looked across his shoulder to find her
still hovering in the doorway.

She answered his unspoken question as to why she was delaying. "Aren't
there any particulars that your Lordship ought to have? Things like his
regimental number, and his birthday, and where he was born, and all
that? And wouldn't this help?"

"What's that?"

She pulled out from her apron-pocket an envelope. "It's one of his
letters. If the General was to see it, he'd know I had the right."

"May I glance through it?"

Tabs unfolded the scribbled sheets of paper. They were torn from an Army
note-book.

   _"My darling Ann:

   The jolly old war drags on and seems as though it were never going to
   end. Not that I've much to kick about, for it's proved a chance for
   me. Here's the great news. I'm in for my commission and shall soon be
   'an officer and a gentleman.' Don't tell his Lordship if you write to
   him or see him; he's still in the ranks and might not like it. It's
   funny to think that I shall be his military superior before many
   weeks are out and that, were he and I to meet, he'd have to salute
   me. If I come through the war, I sha'n't go back to being a valet.
   Once having been a gentleman----"_

Tabs ran rapidly through this sheet and turned to the next:--

   _"You're wonderfully good. I got the socks that you knitted and the
   two parcels of food from Harrods. You mustn't spend so much of your
   money on me. When it's all ended, I'll pay you back. We'll get
   married and have a little cottage in a little town, the way the song
   says that we heard together at the Comedy on my last leave. You
   remember how it goes.

     'And we'll have a little mistress in a silken gown.
     A little doggie, a little cat,
     A little doorstep, with WELCOME on the mat.'

   "My dearest sweetheart, I love you.

   "Yours, in the pink, etc."_

Tabs looked up. "May I keep this for the present?--And, by the way, how
many more of them have you?"

"Nearly a hundred from the day he enlisted. That's one of the last--I
never heard from him whether he lived to get his commission."

When she had vanished, he reread the letter more carefully, made a copy
of it and slipped the copy into another envelope addressed to General
Braithwaite, together with a note from himself, which read, "_One of the
important reasons why I am insistent that you shall call on me is
contained in the enclosed copy of one of your many letters, the
originals of all of which are in my possession. To a man of honor it
speaks for itself_."


IV

At the red pillar-box, at the foot of the Square, he posted this second
missive. "He'll receive them both by the first delivery to-morrow," he
thought. "I wonder what he'll---- Rotten! But it can't be helped." Then
he turned to the right by the Tube Station, going up the narrow old
world passage, behind the backs of houses, through the graveyard of the
Brompton Parish Church to Ennismore Gardens and the sudden, railed in
solitudes of Hyde Park.

There were few pedestrians about. Until he reached the Park they were
for the most part men in evening-dress, going to dinner-parties, like
himself. Sometimes they were accompanied by their wives or sweethearts,
whose little high-heeled shoes made a sharp tap-a-tap against the
pavement. Lamps were lighted. The reluctant twilight was gradually
fading; the sunset still glowed faintly above clustered chimney-pots to
the west. "I'm going to meet Terry," he told himself. "If the day had
worked out as I'd planned, I should be going to ask for her hand in
marriage---- When I planned that, I still believed that I was young."

Then he thought forward. Sir Tobias, from the moment he entered, would
be scheming to get him to himself. Sir Tobias must be avoided. Directly
dinner was ended, he would try to hurry him off and imprison him in his
library to discuss this Maisie woman and Adair. Still he was going to
see Terry; merely to see her was a compensation which stirred his blood.

He crossed the Serpentine, stretching like a phantom lake, rose and
slate-colored, through the Peter Pan haunted glades of Kensington
Gardens. Then he emerged from the Victoria Gate and found himself
ringing a bell and being admitted by a butler, who relieved him of his
coat and hat with the velvet-plush manner of a fashionable surgeon
feeling a patient's pulse.

"If you will come this way, Sir Tobias is waiting for your Lordship in
the library."

It was happening precisely as he had foreseen; it was being taken for
granted that he had come as her father's friend, and therefore in some
absurd measure as his contemporary.

As he prepared to follow, his attention was attracted by the scarlet
band and gold braid about an officer's cap which was lying carelessly on
the hall-table beside a pair of dog-skin gloves.


V

Sir Tobias was standing astride the hearth-rug with his back towards the
fire. As the door opened, he was caught in a last nervous adjustment of
his tie.

He was a little man, inclined to be podgy, brimful of a darting kind of
energy and dignified with an air of fussy distinction which none of his
antics, however grotesque, could diminish. He was Shakespeare as he
might have appeared at sixty, after years and a return to Ann Hathaway
had quenched the taller flames of his poetic fire. The resemblance was
haunting and remarkable: there underlay it a hint of gnome-like agility.
One suspected that he affected age as a disguise. The pointed beard was
white; the scanty hair had receded from the calm forehead; the eyes were
blue and faded, and red about the rims with over-much study. The top
part of the face above the cheek-bones was noble; but the lower part
fell away to a mouth and chin which were amiable and undecided. At the
hour of Tabs' arrival, he was flinging up his hands and spluttering
impotently, an inexpert swimmer in the waters of adversity.

"My dear Lord Taborley! My dear fellow!" The moment he discovered his
guest in the doorway he came darting forward. "My dear boy, this is real
friendship. We missed you and wanted you so much.--So you're out of it
at last? I mean the khaki."

The little, wrinkled hand with its stubby fingers reached up timidly in
an attempt to pat the big breadth of shoulders.

"Yes, I'm out of it, Sir Tobias."

Tabs didn't want to be patted. He was impatient of polite evasions. He
foresaw that he was expected to spend the next five minutes in replying
to questions which required no answers--all this as a conventional
preface to a discussion of the delicate position of Adair and Maisie.
But Tabs had his own problem, and one question in particular about a hat
on the hall-table that he was burning to ask. They stood staring at each
other, the big, fair man and the worn version of Shakespeare, both
wondering how long it would be decorous to chatter before they clinched
with the vital topic.

"May as well sit down. There's time for a cigarette. Terry----" Sir
Tobias made a short-winded attempt to push a second arm-chair into place
beside the fire; Tabs achieved the desired end with one lurch of his
body. "Terry brought some one in to tea; he's not gone yet. They never
know when to go, these New Army fellows. Good at their job, they tell
me, but no polish. I suppose I oughtn't to say that--ungrateful of me!
But I'm sick of it all, the invasion of the classes, the women in
trousers, the beggars on horseback, the Jazz music. I want the old world
back--the womanly women, everybody labeled, and Beethoven."

He pushed the cigarette-box fretfully across to Tabs, having first
selected one for himself.

"Beethoven," he snorted, "that's what I want, and no bobbed hair and
everybody happily married."

"This New Army chap who's with Terry," Tabs paused to make his voice
unanxious and ordinary, "does she see much of him? Is she fond of him?"

"Fond of him!" The little man jerked round quickly. He was in a mood to
see the shadow of terror in the most far-fetched suggestion. "If I
thought she was, I should pack her off to Lady Dawn and keep her with
her until the fellow was dead or----"

"What's the matter with him?" Tabs flipped the ash off his cigarette
indifferently.

"The matter with him!" Sir Tobias pulled at the point of his beard,
making a mental effort to frame the charge. "If you'd asked me that
question five years ago I could have told you; but not now. In 1914 we
spoke of a man as belonging to our class and meant that he had our
standards of conduct, our code of honor, our sense of public duty, our
traditions--that he could be trusted to run true to form. To-day any
man's a gentleman, provided he killed enough Germans."

"But still you do feel that there's something the matter with him."

"Yes, but I can't tell you for the life of me why I feel it. In many
ways he's admirable: I believe he's about the youngest brigadier we have
who rose from the ranks. There was no hanky-panky about his promotion
either--no petticoat influence; it was all sheer merit and courage. He
was a fighting-man from first to last and shared all the chances. But
the trouble is that one doesn't know where he came from, and, therefore,
one can't be sure where he's going. I know that sounds snobbish. You
have the right to tell me that if a man was good enough to be butchered
to save an old chap like myself, he ought to be good enough to sit down
with me at the same table. But what people don't realize is that men
have been wounded in protecting old chaps like myself in coal-mines, and
on railroads, and a thousand other places ever since the world started,
but until now we never felt it necessary to offer them a bed in our
houses. War asked for the simplest gifts from men, physical strength,
uncomplaining endurance and courage. The war's ended, and if those same
gifts are to continue to secure social advancement, every policeman who
captures a burglar ought to be made a bank-president. When I demand that
a man shall have traditions to be my friend, I ask no more than when I
refuse to buy a dog without a pedigree."

"But this man, what's he called? If he's as distinguished as you say, I
ought to have heard of him."

Before his host could answer, the door was discreetly opened. "Dinner is
being served, Sir Tobias."

There was a rush of light footsteps and Terry breezed past the butler.
"I know you're going to scold me, Daddy. It's all my fault that you were
kept waiting. It took me so long to persuade General Braithwaite. By the
time he'd consented---- I had to dress like a hurricane. I'm not at all
sure that I'm properly hooked up the back. I know I feel draughty."
Then, as though she had not remembered that he was expected, "Why,
hullo, Tabs! In a dinner-jacket! You do look peaceful and jolly."


VI

They had taken their places at the square handsome table, illuminated at
each corner by a silver candle-stick, red-shaded and electric-lighted.
Tabs and Terry were seated side by side, so that he saw her always in
profile, except when she turned to him in conversation. He saw the soft
roundness of her shoulder, the satin pallor of her throat and breast,
the quivering gold of her childishly wavy hair.

The General sat isolated, opposite and facing them. Sir Tobias and his
wife sat at either end--had they known it, for all the world like
judges.

Lady Beddow was a proud, unbending woman, gracious to her own sort,
unquestioningly respectful to those above her, tender in a practical way
to those below her and coldly scrutinizing to any one who tapped at her
door claiming to be an equal. Being bred to her finger-tips, she was as
ill-at-ease as her husband in the jostling democracy of the moment.

In the hall Sir Tobias rather huffily had introduced his guests. Tabs
had relieved the tension by smiling quietly at Braithwaite, "The General
and I have met before."

It was an uncomfortable dinner from the moment they sat down. Sir
Tobias, although he had shown no signs of it in the library, seemed to
have developed a resentment at having been kept waiting. No reference
was made to this resentment, but Terry and the General were obviously
the culprits. Sir Tobias was vaguely unhappy and had to blame somebody.
Under the tacitly implied criticism Terry's rebellious spirits rose
higher, but the General's authoritative assurance began to crumble.

Sir Tobias was continuing the conversation which had started in the
library. He seemed oblivious to the fact that it had then concerned the
man who was now present. "You can't make the world afresh with a
catastrophe. Men are like water: in a storm they rise above or sink
below themselves. When the disturbance is ended, they tend to find their
own level. War destroys; it never created anything."

"That's not true, if you'll excuse me for contradicting you. You're
speaking without knowledge." Braithwaite uttered himself bluntly as he
would have done in his own Headquarters' mess--this despite the fact
that it was Tabs whom his host had been addressing.

In his astonishment, Sir Tobias nearly gagged himself with the soup that
he was on the point of swallowing. He blinked mildly at this confident
young man, his breast ablaze with decorations, whom he had not invited.
"Then, in your opinion, what has war ever created," he asked with
dangerous courtesy; "this war, for instance, that's just ended?"

"This war that's just ended is the only war of which I have had any
experience." Braithwaite glanced across at Terry for encouragement. "I
know what it created in me and in thousands like me. It created in us
the most valuable of all assets--character. In the bitter test of pain
and dirt and despair we _found_ ourselves--found ourselves capable of
more nobility than we had ever dreamt possible. We sorted out afresh, in
hours that we thought would be our last, all our inherited superstitions
and servilities; in so doing we discovered that God and life itself are
much kinder than we had been informed. Because of that discovery men who
had been timid learnt how to face death gladly, shirkers how to shoulder
responsibility, selfish people how to become decent through the fine
humanity of sharing. Time-servers learnt how to get up off their bellies
and confront misfortune with a laugh. I don't know whether I make myself
clear; perhaps one had to be a part of the great game to understand its
lessons. That we do understand them is the reward of those who have
survived. We've come back to you as uncomfortable fellows; we shall be
much more uncomfortable before we're satisfied. We intend to fight for
the same equalities in peace that you sent us out to fight for in war.
You asked me what this particular war has created; it has created a
complete new set of social and spiritual values. It's done away with the
uncharity of caste."

During his last words he had been gazing across the table at Tabs with a
fearless challenge, as much as to say, "That's who I am. Now expose me."

But Tabs was remembering the coster's reason for not having dragged him
into the police-courts, "Served in the ranks, did yer? Then you and me
was pals out there!" Braithwaite, whether he knew it or not, had been
doing a piece of special pleading for himself. He and Braithwaite,
whatever they might be now, had been pals out there. Silently Tabs had
been thinking while he had been listening, "You're right and I'm with
you. I'd be with you still more if you'd only live up to your standards
by sticking to Ann."

It was Sir Tobias who took the offensive. The soup-plates had been
removed and the fish-course had not yet been served. He had the leisure
to talk. "You men who have been in the Army," he said testily,
"especially those of you who have gained your promotion rapidly, always
speak as if the rest of us had been receivers of stolen goods until you
put on uniforms. Armies are composed of youth; for most of you it was
the first time you had tasted authority. It's gone to your heads; you
want to brush experience aside and dragoon the older world into new
formations. You, who were civilians yourselves, have come back despising
us civilians; your contempt is three-parts fear lest you'll fail, as you
failed before, in the old civilian competitive struggle. You talk about
the virtues war has taught; let's grant them and grant them
gratefully--they saved us from destruction. But what about the frantic
recklessness it encouraged, the cheap views of bodily chastity, the
desperate insistence on momentary happiness?" At the mention of bodily
chastity, Lady Beddow from the other end of the table had stuttered a
"tut, tut!" Her husband dodged it, as a boy might dodge a wheelbarrow
upset in his path. Without shifting his glance he ran on. "A complete
new set of social and spiritual values! Rubbish! War places an excessive
premium on merely brutal qualities--muscle, bone, sinew, all the
paraphernalia of physical endurance. What use has it got for old fellows
of intellectual attainments like myself? It takes the greatest poet,
singer, painter, violinist; all it can do with him is to thrust a rifle
into his hands. All brains look alike, Michael Angelo's or a
rag-picker's, when they're spattered in the mud of a trench. Take Lord
Taborley here, for instance--all that military stupidity could do with
him was to keep him in the ranks for two years. You can't make me
believe in your complete new set of social and spiritual values. A
complete unrest and insubordination to time-honored moralities is the
legacy of war."

Having delivered himself, he tucked his napkin tighter into his
waistcoat and attacked the fish-course, as though by this display of
gastronomic energy he could somehow strengthen his argument.

It was clear to Tabs that behind all that Sir Tobias had been saying lay
his misery over Maisie and Adair. He saw the world always in the
personal equation.

"I agree with most of your statements," the General blundered on. "And
yet you're wrong. You miss something. I think it's the vision of the
stupendous heroism. You never saw it; you don't want to see it. That you
never saw it we can understand; but that you shouldn't want to see it,
makes us see red. It was something that we did for you, and you take it
all for granted. You cheered us and jeered us into going because you
were frightened. You handed us white feathers if we hesitated. You
dragged us from our jobs and very often we were poor men, who had no
such financial security as was yours. You promised that if we would
share our lives with you, you'd go fifty-fifty with us on your financial
security. There wasn't time to have deeds of agreement drawn up; we took
you at your word. And what a lie it was! Why, I passed a blinded officer
in Regent Street to-day peddling shoe-laces. The day before a jobless
soldier threw himself beneath a train and his last words were, 'Over the
top and the best of luck.' There's a Colonel I see by to-night's paper
who's gone back to being a policeman. If you see a man in uniform
to-day, your unspoken thought is, 'For God's sake take it off.' I tell
you it's all wrong. It's that kind of ingratitude that leads to
revolution. You talk about the brutality of war; it's not a patch on the
brutality of peace. You treated men's lives as yours while the danger
lasted, but you insist that your possessions are your own now that it's
been averted."

He took a breath and glanced round.

Tabs was nodding unconscious approval. Terry's face reflected the fire
of his own passionate indignation and enthusiasm. The butler in the
shadows had turned his back non-committally and was making a pretense of
fiddling with the next course. Lady Beddow sat very upright and
startled, grasping her knife and fork as though they helped to support
her. The only person who was still doing justice to the meal was the
worn-out version of Shakespeare, who was responsible for the storm.

The silence seemed to call for a final climax. The ex-valet cleared his
throat. And it was to his ex-valet that Tabs listened; he had forgotten
the General. It was as though the grimness of reality had interrupted a
piece of play-acting. There was less heat in Braithwaite's voice now and
more reproach. "You said nothing about caste in those days, when you
hurried us to the shambles. You promised us---- What was it that you
promised us?"

"A kingdom round the corner," Tabs suggested. The next minute he felt
Terry's warm little hand clinging to his own beneath the tablecloth.

Braithwaite stared at Tabs to see whether he were jesting; then smiled
in relieved friendship at this proof of comradeship from an unexpected
quarter. "Yes, perhaps it was that--a future kindliness, where we should
all be men together, neither free nor bond." Then again to his host,
"You sent us out there where everything was censored. Scarcely a whisper
of the truth reached you. The very war-correspondents were instructed to
delete the horror and to write nothing that would disturb your calm.
We've come back, what are left of us; we think you ought to know what
really happened. It isn't that we take much pleasure in telling you, but
we think that if you knew, you might be persuaded to keep at least some
of your promises. And what do you do? You reassert your privilege to
despise us. You stuff your fingers in your ears and talk about caste,
and forgetting the war, and getting back to work. Sir Tobias, I'm afraid
I'm being far too personal, but you're a sample of millions who weren't
there. You're living in a totally altered world of whose very existence
you're content to be unaware. Your complacency drives men like myself to
the point of madness. We hold that you have no right to be complacent
until the bill you put your hand to has been settled. I don't know how
Lord Taborley feels; he's not expressed----"

"Tabs feels exactly the way you do and so do I." It was Terry speaking,
like the shrill courage of a bugle answering the slow bass of a
trumpet-call. "We're the world that purchased victory--we three, while
the rest of the world sat back. It was men like you two who got gassed,
and wrenched, and tortured, and girls like myself who patched you up and
flirted with you so that we might send you back to the Front
cheery--girls like myself who hadn't known love, or children, or
anything but a nursery sort of happiness. We three and people like us
understand, because we paid the price together."

"Really, Terry, I must confess there are times when you shock me." As
Lady Beddow rose from her seat, she was the picture of disapproval. From
the door, which the butler held open for her, she glanced back. "I think
this discussion has gone _very_ far."

As she swept out, she called across her shoulder, as one might call to a
pet dog, "Come, Terry."


VII

But Terry did not come; she sat on tightly, just as if she were a man
among men. Until coffee had been served and the room was free from
servants, there was a pretense at small-talk in which Sir Tobias did not
join. He crouched moodily in his chair, an unlighted cigar between his
fingers, looking very old and somehow deserted. With the instinctive
tenderness which she always showed when she knew that she had hurt,
Terry got up and went to him. She linked her arms about his neck and
stooped to kiss the bald-spot on his head. "Cheer up, Daddy dear; it
isn't half as bad as it sounded. Don't you want me to light your cigar
for you?"

Tabs, to distract attention from the reconciliation, addressed the
General. It was odd that he should feel so much sympathy for a man whom
his letters, already beyond recall, would stir into panic in the
morning. "Do you intend to stay in the Army, sir?"

"No. But why do you ask? They're getting rid of all of us who aren't
Regulars, no matter how brilliant our service. They're making the Army
again a social club. I shall soon be out of uniform."

"And then?" Tabs persisted.

"Oh, then I shall find something else." He spoke airily, but the shadow
which crossed his handsome face added plainly as words, "If I can find
anything."

"If it isn't impertinence," Tabs sank his voice, "may I ask what you
intend to turn to?"

The General eyed him suspiciously, wondering whether he was again about
to lay claim to the previous embarrassing acquaintance. "I have several
things in view," he said sketchily, "from which a man in my position
ought to be able to choose."

"Ought! But that hasn't been the story up-to-date. What of the Colonel
you were just telling us about?" Tabs saw that another storm was
brewing. He leant across the table and hurried on. "If the worst comes
to the worst, I expect your old job's waiting for you. The qualities
which have made you what you are to-day, must have been recognized and
valued----" Terry had completed her reconciliation with her father and
was resting her gaze upon them. Tabs altered his tone. "You put what you
said at dinner rather strongly, sir. But I understand what you were
driving at--it was the democracy of the front-line where courage, which
at its best is unselfishness, was our only standard of aristocracy."

Before the General could make reply, Sir Tobias had raised his
bewildered head. "It's a thing that I for one don't want to understand.
I don't want to go on living, if what you've said is true."

Tabs turned considerately to the older man. "I think you would if you
knew. The difference that war made to all of us who were there was that
it taught us to judge men by their good points rather than their
defects. It upset all our preconceived notions about society, especially
our notions about the extreme value of race and breeding. What we
learnt was that there's a breeding of the heart which enables a man from
the gutter to run true to the highest form."

Sir Tobias leveled his weary eyes in challenge. "Then what about Adair?"

The name was out at last--the name which he had been trying to get
uttered all evening. It didn't matter that Adair hadn't been at the war
and had no proper place in the argument. He had wanted to break through
his reticence due to his sense of impending family disaster. At last he
had done it.

"I think, Daddy," Terry said, "the General and I had better leave you
and Tabs to talk alone."

The next thing that Tabs saw was Terry making her escape with this other
man. He had it in his power to settle his suspense for all time by
saying, "One minute, Terry. You're choosing between the General and
myself. It may help you in making your decision to know that Braithwaite
was once----" But the coster's definition of fair-play deterred him.
This man had been his pal in the trenches; because of that he allowed
himself for the second time that day to be shut out from the company of
youth. He hadn't discovered how much or how little she knew. By her
withdrawal he was made to feel middle-aged--more nearly her father's
contemporary than ever. Yet, as an underlying comfort to his distress,
he had the remembered pressure of the little hand that had sought his
own in secret friendliness.

He turned to Sir Tobias. "Yes, what about Adair? Terry said that you
wanted to consult me. If there's anything that I can say or do----"


VIII

The door was reopening. Tabs glanced back across his shoulder through
the shadows. She was hovering just inside the threshold, hastily clad in
her evening-wrap; beyond her in the hall the General stood fidgeting
with his cap. Sir Tobias was sitting with his head bowed; he had not
heard the sound of her reentry. He spoke evidently believing that they
two were alone. "I don't like that fellow. It's the last time he ever
comes to my house. Whatever Terry can see in him---- And he's not good
for Terry."

She tiptoed back into the hall, pulling the door softly behind her. A
moment later the front door closed with a bang.

"What was that?" Sir Tobias looked up gnome-like and startled.

Tabs guessed what it was; but because, as she had said they three had
paid the price together, he kept her secret. "General Braithwaite,
probably. But you were speaking of Adair?"

Sir Tobias shivered, betraying his nervous tension. "A disturber," he
said irritably, "even in his going. And yet, I suppose it's true; we
shouldn't be sitting here comfortably to-night if it hadn't been for his
sort."

Now that it had been broached, it was anything to avoid the main topic.
He drummed with his fingers on the table, ceased drumming and sighed
heavily. "Yes, I was speaking of Adair. I don't understand him. I've
grown out of touch; I don't seem to understand anybody. I'm left behind,
somehow. People do things to-day that they never used to do. They shout
about things from the house-tops which all my life I've mentioned only
in whispers. Terry does; you heard what she said to-night about never
having been loved and never having had children. The loss of
delicacy----"

"I wouldn't call it a loss of delicacy." Tabs struck a match. "I would
call it a loss of prudishness. We all know that girls are born to be
married and that the best of them long to have children. Why shouldn't
they own it? You owned it long ago when you bought her dolls. The lid is
off false reticences. I hope it stays off; we shall be a much honester
world."

"The lid's off! That's the phrase I was searching for." Sir Tobias leant
forward confidentially. "You haven't been much in England during the
past four years or you'd know how badly the lid is off. You men, when
you were in the trenches, lived above yourselves; but, the moment you
came home on leave, you taught the world that wasn't in khaki how to
live below itself. I could tell you stories----"

"I know." Tabs didn't want to hear those stories. "It was pathetic. Men
tried to steal in a handful of hours all the passionate experiences that
would have come to them beautifully and legitimately over forty years.
It was like snatching from a bargain-counter things that you hadn't time
to pay for. You were young and you were so soon to be snuffed out. The
unthoughtful took desperately what they believed life owed them.
They----"

It was the turn of Sir Tobias to interrupt. "But so did the women--this
Maisie woman, for instance. It was astounding--the women one would least
have expected. All the desires we had caged through the centuries broke
loose--caged with traditions, with public opinion and scriptural
penalties." He was delighted with his image and went on to elaborate it.
"They broke loose like wild animals from a menagerie. We'd always known
they existed. Sometimes we'd paid surreptitious visits to them in
books," the old eyes blinked cautiously, "the way one goes to the Zoo,
to remind himself that there is a jungle somewhere. But we'd only
regarded them as specimens; we'd never expected to meet them roaming
about the streets loose or coming as domestic pets into our houses. Now
the war's ended and the jungle's all about us; we can't get the animals
back into their cages. Fellows like this General Braithwaite don't help
matters by telling us that we oughtn't to want to get them back----"

"Perhaps he's one of the animals," Tabs interpolated. "You couldn't
expect him to want to be put back."

"Perhaps he is. In fact that's what I've felt about him. That's what's
helped me to make up my mind that he shall see no more of Terry." He
reached out and tapped Tabs' hand, taking it for granted that he was his
ally. "The sight's becoming far too normal--wild beasts everywhere,
sunning themselves in impertinent freedom, as if they were house-cats.
Nobody's shocked at it any longer. Terry isn't. Lloyd George isn't--at
least he pretends he isn't for fear the wild beasts may lose him an
election. No one makes a stand. It's left for private individuals like
ourselves, to----"

"To do what?"

Sir Tobias lost his stride. He blinked reproachfully. "To get them back
into their cages."

For an instant Tabs nearly smiled. "And Adair--is he the first wild
beast we tackle? Have we got to get him back into the cage of matrimony?
Tell me about Adair."

"It was no cage." Sir Tobias spoke almost resentfully. "His home was a
kind of nest and Phyllis was the mother-bird."

The butler had looked in several times to see whether he was free to
clear away. For the first time Sir Tobias became aware of him pottering
in the shadows. "Perhaps we'd better continue in my library."

He pushed back his chair, dropped his napkin, groped after it feebly,
then led the way solemnly across the hall. When he had seated himself
before the fire and fortified his courage with a fresh cigar, he plunged
headlong into the story of his son-in-law's delinquencies.


IX

"How a man who has a daughter of mine for his wife can find attraction
in any other woman is more than I can fathom."

"I agree with you there, sir." Tabs suddenly found himself carried off
his feet and on the point of a confession. "If any man were to play
false by Terry, I think--I think I'd brain him."

Sir Tobias half-closed his eyes and regarded his guest with sleepy
approval. "I somehow knew," he said slowly, "that that was how you
felt." Then he opened his eyes wide and darted forward in his chair, as
though to trace exactly the effect of his words. He was full of tricks
and contradictions, obstinacies and tendernesses, this Punch-like old
gentleman with the head of Shakespeare. "I knew that was how you felt,"
he continued, "because you've seen all the love that has gone to their
making. You were already a big fellow when they were still tiny. Wasn't
it Terry who first called you Tabs because her tongue couldn't get round
Taborley? Ah, I've been so proud of my girls! They were so little and
white when they first came to us. They couldn't walk--not a step. One
had to carry them everywhere. Then they began to crawl; they couldn't
stand up right unless one gave them his hand. And then at last they
walked. They walked by one's side at first and soon got tired. But as
they grew stronger, they walked away and away, always getting more
incomprehensible, till finally--it hasn't happened to Terry yet--till
finally they met a man. Wait till you're a father, Lord Taborley; from
the moment you give all that whiteness into another's keeping, you never
cease to be jealous of him. He can never appreciate what a gift you have
made him. He never saw her when she was little and helpless. She's your
youth--she's everything vigorous that you were. The first time he
affords you with a reason for hating him, you'll hate him like---- The
way you said: so that you could brain him without compunction.
Adair----I could cheerfully kill him."

Tabs felt rather than heard the pent-up passion in his voice; it alarmed
him with its sincerity. "But mayn't you be exaggerating?" he suggested.
"Are you sure that Adair---- What I mean to say is, he may be only
philandering. Heaps of men do that--go through all the motions of making
fools of themselves and actually do nothing. He may be only expressing
the discontent of the moment, the revolt from suspense, the flatness of
quiet after terrible excitements. One didn't need to be a fighting-man
to share those excitements. You say that Phyllis made a nest of her
home. Perhaps he didn't like nests. It may be that that's done it. Adair
can't have altered so radically over night; he wasn't forceful enough to
erupt so disastrously. He was decent----"

"I know nothing definite." The passion had died down. It was again an
old and weary man who spoke. "I only know that she believes he's
abandoning her and that it makes her wretched. She wants him back; if
there's any way of getting him back, she must have him. I never denied
anything to my girls. If money will persuade him, it's for you to find
out how much. If this Lockwood woman has a price, let her state it. I'll
spare nothing. Though everything else has lost its value, money still
has the power to purchase. I can't buy back faithfulness and loyalty;
but I should be able to buy the appearance of it. If I were you I would
tackle this Lockwood woman first."

He tossed the stub of his cigar towards the fire. It fell short in the
grate. He picked it up and rammed it deep into the burning coals. He
looked a poor, old, pitiful child, uttering embittered heresies. "All
women are mercenary; all of them except my wife and daughters. Ah, yes,
and Lady Dawn."

Tabs wondered what Lady Dawn had done to gain exemption from this
sweeping accusation. "I'll see this Maisie Lockwood to-morrow," he said,
"if you can tell me where she lives."

Sir Tobias had risen and was seating himself at his desk. "I'll copy you
out her address. I have it somewhere buried among these papers."

He had hidden it so thoroughly that it took a few minutes to find. As he
rustled sundry sheets and stooped over them round-shouldered, Tabs had
time to reflect. Terry! Where was she? She was so little and unprotected
and white. Would a day ever come when a man would play her false? At
this moment he had it in his power to prevent that day from ever
arriving.

"Ah, here it is!" It was his host talking. Then the painful scratching
of the pen commenced.

"Sir Tobias, I want to speak to you about Terry." The scratching of the
pen stopped, but the shoulders remained bowed. "This is an unfortunate
night for me to choose to talk to you about her, but---- To tell the
truth, I feel that if I don't speak to-night I may lose my chance."

"What do you want to say about her?" The shoulders had unhunched
themselves, but the head had not turned.

"Only this, that I've loved her for a very long while and that if you
don't think I'm too old, I should like your permission to ask her to
marry me."

Tabs thought to himself with a glow of satisfaction, "At last I've done
it. And done it in just the way and at just the time that I'd always
planned."

He felt the pride of a man who had worked on schedule and been punctual
to the second.

Sir Tobias turned. His face was composed. It was some seconds before he
spoke. "Of course this is no surprise to me. You _are_ old for her.
You'll be fifty-five when she's scarcely forty." He paused and Tabs'
heart sank. "You're older than her; but then you're wiser. She needs a
husband who'll be wise." He sat leisurely as though he were resting from
a long journey; then he stretched out his hand. Tabs went over and took
it. "My dear fellow, there's only one thing I ask: make her always
happy."

The clock in the hall struck midnight. He lifted himself to his feet. "I
had no idea how the time had flown. By the way, that's the address--the
Maisie woman's."

Tabs took it carelessly. It had become a thing of little consequence. He
folded it away in his pocket. "And when shall I see Terry?" Of a sudden
he felt that he must see her; see her and make sure of her without loss
of time.

"To-morrow, I suppose. Say about eleven."

Tabs thought back. He had expected to receive a call from General
Braithwaite about eleven, or at least to hear from him as soon as he had
opened his morning's letters. Then he smiled to himself; when once he
was engaged to Terry, what General Braithwaite did or did not do would
be no longer of any importance.

"Yes, about eleven, if it'll be agreeable to Terry."

"There's not much doubt about its being agreeable to her."

They passed out into the hall. While Tabs found his hat and coat, they
spoke only in monosyllables. The servants had gone to bed. The house was
intensely silent.

They had got as far as the front-door and Sir Tobias already had his
hand upon the latch, when a taxi purred up to the pavement and came to a
halt immediately outside. "Some one stopping at the wrong house," he
hazarded and threw the door wide. "See you again to-morrow."

"Yes, to-morrow."

"At eleven," Sir Tobias reminded.

"On the dot of eleven," Tabs confirmed.

He passed into the cool night air, wistful with the fragrance of unseen
flowers. His eyes were dazed for the moment by the sudden change of
light. He made out the blurred silhouette of the taxi and faltered,
thinking he might have a chance to hire it; then he saw that its shadowy
occupants were climbing back into its deeper darkness. It seemed that
Sir Tobias had been right; it had stopped at the wrong house.

As he reached the corner where he turned, he glanced back. The taxi had
not moved. Its occupants were again getting out--an officer and a girl.
The girl was ringing the bell of the house that he had left, while, the
officer was settling with the driver. As he joined her, the door opened,
letting fall a shaft of light. There was a brief parley--evidently
hurried explanations. Even at that distance he could recognize the
indignant tones of Sir Tobias' angry voice. Then he heard the "Shish,
Daddy!" from Terry. They entered. The door closed behind them. The taxi
moved off in the opposite direction. Again there was silence--nothing
but the fragrance of unseen flowers and the wistfulness of the cool,
spring night.




CHAPTER THE THIRD

ALL SORTS OF KINGDOMS


I

Tabs had dressed himself with more than ordinary care. He was rather
amused at his self-consciousness in having done so, and a little
disdainful of it. Yet he knew that in the winning of a woman the
strategy of clothes has its value; he had no intention of losing a trick
by negligence. It was nine o'clock when he sat down to breakfast; within
two hours he would be seeing Terry.

It was a gay morning, lacquered with sunshine; bustling breezes made
young leaves of trees in the little Square murmurous. Ever since he had
wakened he had been listening to the gossiping chirp of congregated
sparrows and the rolling boom of tumultuous traffic. At intervals across
the upland of roofs there had drifted to him the far-blown chime of
bells and the slower music of clocks striking. It was like an orchestra
scraping its chairs and tuning up before crashing into the overture of
the happier world.

Lying beside his plate as he came down he saw a single letter. It was
addressed to him in an unfamiliar feminine hand. He picked it up and
examined it carefully with the air of a connoisseur. So long as a
letter remains unopened, especially when it is to a bachelor from an
unknown woman, it retains an atmosphere of adventure. Up to a point he
resented the intrusion. This morning his thoughts should have been so
utterly Terry's. And yet he was piqued by it.

He slit the envelope. The letter-head was embossed with a crest quite
unknown to any but the most modern heraldry. He read:--

   _Dear Lord Taborley:

   I have been given to understand that you are exceedingly anxious to
   make my acquaintance. If this is so, I shall be at home when you call
   to-morrow afternoon. Asking your lenience for this liberty, I remain,

   Yours very truly,

   Maisie P. Lockwood._

"To-morrow afternoon! Written yesterday! That means the afternoon of
to-day.--And why the _P_--Maisie _P._ Lockwood? Is that for Pollock, her
first husband?--Unusual! A rather naive person!" Then his face went
blank. "She must be a thought-reader! How the dickens did she guess that
I wanted to make her acquaintance? I scarcely knew it myself at the time
that she wrote this letter."

Crushing the scented sheet in his hand, he tossed it into the empty
grate. "My dear lady, if you can read minds so accurately at a distance,
be assured of this: to-day I shall be too busy with Terry to have any
time to spare on you."

The door from the narrow hall partly opened. "May I come in?"

At sound of her voice, he sprang to his feet, upsetting his chair. She
made bold to look in at him. "Why, Tabs, you _are_ a late breakfaster.
Daddy told me you were planning to see me at eleven; to save you the
trouble, I hurried round."

Like a flurry of March sunshine, Terry entered.


II

He scarcely knew how to greet her. How does one greet a girl whose
permission he has yet to gain, whereas her father has already consented?
Moreover, there was his last memory of her, at midnight dodging into the
taxi to avoid him.

She spared him the trouble of deciding by holding out her hand. "I know
that you saw me. That's what I've come to talk about."

Her smile as she said it was both embarrassed and frank. She looked like
an honest youngster who had come voluntarily to confess and, if need be,
to be spanked. Tabs noticed that her lower lip was tremulous and that
she was whipping up her courage. His mind went back to days when she had
really been a child and he a man--when he had bound up cut fingers for
her, had taken her on fishing expeditions, had taught her to cast her
first fly and, as a reward, before the nursery lights went out, had been
allowed to see her snuggled safe in bed. Little Terry, she had been his
tiny sister in those days whom he had loved with no thought of
gain--just a small companion for whom he bought exciting presents
wherever he voyaged across the world--a doll's house in China, a quirt
in Mexico, a scarlet riding-saddle in Persia. It hurt him to see her
afraid of him now--afraid of him because he was about to offer her the
greatest of all presents. Was she afraid because he was too old for her?

"You don't need to talk about it unless you like," he said kindly.
"Whatever you do or have done is right."

"That's not true." She wrung her hands. "Oh, Tabs, you make it so hard
for me when you're generous. I haven't done right. I'm in a tangle. I
don't know whether what I'll do in the future will be any better."

They were still standing just as they had confronted each other when she
had entered. Tabs glanced round the room at the used breakfast-table,
Maisie's crumpled petition lying in the grate, the flood of sunlight and
the tops of the heads of passers-by stealing across the pane above the
stiff row of tulips. His eyes went back to the flower-face of this young
girl as she stood before him, fashionably attired and battling to
conceal the storm of her distress. The setting struck him as inadequate
and unprivate. The hats which stole by above the row of tulips seemed to
belong to spies. At any moment Ann might tap and request that she be
allowed to clear the table. He believed that in the next half-hour his
dream of the last five years was to be shattered; otherwise, if it had
not been to spare him, why should Terry have paid him so unconventional
a visit, at such an unconventional hour, when by every law of usage she
should have been waiting for him to call on her?

"How about upstairs?" he suggested. "In my study we shall be sure to be
undisturbed."

"No, Tabs, dear," and the little added word touched him strangely, "I've
got to say at once what has to be said. It's like waiting at the
dentist's--it's the waiting that's so wearing." Her face lit up with the
ghost of a smile. "When you've faced the real pain, it's over in a
second."

She seated herself. Reluctantly he followed her example. But when she
was seated, she found herself at a loss for words. She drew off her
gloves, and sat there folding and refolding them. He waited for her to
commence; the silence was unbroken, save for the laughter of children
playing in the Square and the occasional tapping of footsteps on the
pavement. He leant across the table and took her hand. "Terry, after all
these years you're not afraid of me? You don't need to be. Remember what
you've just said: it's the waiting that's so wearing; the real pain's
over in a second. Get the real pain over; then we'll plan for the best."

She looked up gratefully with eyes that were almost clear of trouble.
"You're gentle--so different from other men. I could almost love you; I
do love you. But not quite in the way---- You understand. I trust you
more than any one in the world."

"Then why----?"

"Ah, why?" she echoed. "That's what I wish you could tell me. Why should
I be able to offer more to--to some one else whom I trust less? So much
less?"

"But is that love, Terry? Isn't it infatuation? Could you keep on
offering? Loving means marrying and marrying means being together
without respite."

"I know," she nodded wisely. "I know all that. I know it so well that I
don't want to marry him or anybody--at least, not yet."

"Then why----?"

She took his other hand in hers, clinging to it as if she were drowning.
"That's the second time you've asked me why. I'll tell you. Because if I
don't say 'Yes,' I shall lose him. Even though I may not want him
forever, I can't bear to lose him for now. You must know the
feeling--you who are in love. And that's why," her voice choked with the
tears that she kept back from her eyes, "that's why I promised him last
night."

"Last night!" Tabs spoke slowly, trying to bring the finality home to
himself.

"Last night," she repeated; "the night that should have been yours. The
night I had promised to you for years." Then, in a flame of
self-derision, "Why don't you let go my hands and hate me, now that you
know how treacherous I am?"

"You're not treacherous." He smoothed the slim fingers as though he were
coaxing a child. "You mustn't be unjust to yourself. When we're in love
we're all apt to be unjust; I was yesterday, to this man. Injustice,
whether to oneself or to some one else, works most of our mischief; one
never knows where it ends. We can't control our hearts, Terry; you've
tried. You've tried to make your heart love me and it's refused. Don't
be miserable because of it; you couldn't help that. And this man--he's a
fine fellow. I always knew he was a fine fellow, until seeing him with
you yesterday made me jealous and blinded my eyes. He's a finer fellow
than ever now. You couldn't love him if he weren't."

She wasn't giving him the enthusiastic attention that his praise
deserved. Somewhere at the back of her mind there lay a doubt with which
she wrestled while he strove to comfort her. He believed that he had
guessed her doubt. "As for not trusting him the way you trust me," he
explained, "that's natural. We know the whole of each other's lives; our
families are the same kind of families and we share the same kind of
friends. Whereas----"

"Whereas," she broke in, "I know nothing about his past, where he lived,
who his people were or anything. I know nothing that he enjoyed or
laughed at before I saw him lying quietly in our hospital-ward in
France. I've questioned him as much as I dared; but always he grows
vague. There's something that he's hiding from me. I only gathered that
he had known you from the way he pricked up and listened whenever your
name was mentioned. That was why, without warning either of you,
I----You see, I had to find out. And then, when he met you face to face
he--he lied."

"Hush, Terry."

"But he did. He lied."

She had withdrawn her hands from his and sat back eyeing him with a
clear look of challenge. Tabs was at a loss to explain her change of
attitude. Yesterday she had been all for defending this man. What did
she gain by accusing him now that she was engaged to him? In any case
she had employed too ugly a word. And here was a strange state of
affairs, that it should be left to him to defend his successful rival.

"A man is not compelled to know another man unless he likes," he said
cautiously. "They may have met some time in the past under unfortunate
circumstances--circumstances which are embarrassing to remember. The man
to whom that memory is a disadvantage has a right to protect himself by
sweeping it clean from his mind."

"But not to lie about it to the girl he says he loves," she declared.
"There can be only one motive for such a denial: that it covers up
something which is dishonorable."

"But there never was anything dishonorable. That I swear."

"Then he believes that I would think it dishonorable," she insisted;
"which means that he doesn't trust me. That's the reason I can't trust
him in return. If we don't trust each other now, how can we hope that
things would be better if we married?"

Her logic was unanswerable, but she was arguing on the wrong side. At
what was she driving? He gave it up. Was she wanting him to tell her
where and when he and her future husband had met? The eagerness of her
silence seemed to demand as much. But there are rules to every game. No
pressure that she could bring to bear could make him tell her that. She
recognized those rules by refraining from putting her request into
words.

It was he who broke the silence. His tones were puzzled. "You come to me
on the morning that I had hoped to be engaged to you myself and you
confide all these secrets about this other man. You insist that neither
of you trusts the other and that you could find no happiness in
marriage. Then why, in heaven's name, Terry, did you pledge yourself to
him last night?"

"The fear of losing him----" Her face quivered pitifully. She was on the
verge of weeping. "He overheard what Daddy said about forbidding him the
house. It seemed our last time together. I couldn't bear that it should
be the last. It was to keep him near me for just a little longer that
I----"

Tabs rose and limped to the window. He dared not let himself go, the way
his instincts urged. They might carry him too far. She looked so much
like the little girl in short skirts he had known, as she sat there
bravely trying not to cry. He wanted to take her on his knees, as in the
old days. Now that she loved another man, he was not allowed to show her
comfort in that way any longer. That she should run to him for help and
yet love some one else, wounded his pride. What was the matter with him
that he had failed to stir her passion? Why could he appeal only to her
helplessness?

Inside the communal garden, with its surrounding railings and locked
gates, nurses in uniforms were pushing prams. Toddlers were tossing a
ball across the lawn and tottering after it with excited shouts. Beneath
a tree in the clear sunshine a young mother sat sewing. Other men's
women! Other men's babies! He would have to set out in search of his
kingdom afresh; all his old quests had been mistaken. But he was older
now and lame; he lacked the energy for a new journey. It seemed to him
that he would be alone and unwanted always.

A telegraph-girl was mounting the steps. He heard the bell ring without
interest. Gazing out, with his back towards Terry, he put to her what he
intended should be his final question. "You promised him last
night--then why did you hurry round to me this morning?"

Her dress rustled and her breathing quickened. "Because----" she
commenced and failed. He did not turn his head. She tried again in a
lower voice, "Because I want you to get my promise back."

He swung round and crossed to where she was still sitting. With his
hands resting lightly on her shoulders, he stared down at her golden
head. "But, Terry dear, why? Look at me. You must tell me."

She did not look at him. "I'm frightened. Nobody knows as yet; so before
they know---- Oh, Tabs, you're so clever; you can do anything." And then
she repeated whimperingly, like a child over a broken toy, "I want you
to get my promise back."

"Listen to me, Terry dearest," he spoke coaxingly, "don't be a baby.
What is it that you're asking me to do? Is it to see him for you and to
break the news that you've altered your mind over night. You know he'll
want reasons. What shall I tell----?"

She lifted her head, stretching back her throat so that all her face
looked up at him. "If you'll still have me----" His hands on her
shoulders tightened. "Say that you still want me, Tabs." For answer his
head slowly nodded, but his eyes never left her eyes. "Tell him that I'm
engaged to you, instead."

In the tumult of surprised desire he bent over her, but he got no
further, for a tap fell on the panel of the door and the handle turned.
He drew himself upright quickly and stepped back aloofly. "What is it?"

"A telegram, your Lordship." Ann entered. "I told the girl to wait in
case there was an answer."

He tore it open, glanced through it and handed it to Terry. To Ann he
said, "There won't be any answer."

Terry read, "_Shall be delighted to have you lunch with me to-day Savoy
Hotel one o'clock. Braithwaite._" She examined the address and looked up
startled, "But it's to you. It's--it's as though he knew we were
together. What made him send it?"

When Tabs answered there was no echo of her excitement in his voice. "I
wrote him yesterday asking him to call here. Evidently he preferred a
more public place."

She glanced at him shrewdly. "Why did you write him? You must have done
that between leaving me and coming to our house to dine. I know it's no
good my asking you." Her last words were more of a question than an
assertion. "I can see that it's no good my asking you." "No, Terry, it's
no good. Braithwaite's past is his own secret. But I can pledge you my
word that it bears no stain."

"Then why shouldn't he----?" She changed her question. "Shall you meet
him to-day at lunch?"

"Yes."

"Shall you tell him what we've----?"

"Not all of it, Terry."

"Why not all of it? Which part are you going to leave out?"

He came again to where she sat and stood gazing down on her. "Terry, why
do you want me to tell him? Why can't you tell him yourself? It would be
kinder."

"Because---- Oh, Tabs, you do want me, don't you? Because I daren't
trust myself to see him."

"And so you want me to tell him we're engaged because you daren't trust
yourself to tell him! Isn't that it?"

She nodded.

"And you daren't trust yourself to tell him because the moment you saw
him you would fall again under his spell?"

This time she didn't nod, but her eyes gave assent.

"And what does that mean, little Terry? Whether you call it love or
fascination, it means that even though you do not see him, your heart is
his at present. It means that against your will he's infinitely more to
you than I am. It means that you only ask me to become engaged to you
in order that you may be strong to break his spell. It doesn't mean that
I will be anything more to you to-morrow than I was last night, when you
gave him your pledge."

She tried to speak, but he halted her words. "I'm older than you are.
Have you thought of that? I'm not the man I was; I'm lame. You can like
me as a friend and believe me indispensable; but, if I were your
husband, fifteen years from now when you're only the age I am
to-day----Have you considered that? My dear, I love you so well, that
I'll never let you tie yourself to me, till you're as certain that you
can't risk meeting me without loving me as you're certain at this moment
that you daren't risk meeting this other man. When you can do that----"

The tenderness in his eyes hurt her. "Directly I can do that, I'll tell
you, Tabs. And--and I believe I could almost tell you now."

"If you can now," he said, "there's a test. Will you take my place at
lunch and tell Braithwaite?"

She shrank, and tried to smile, and shook her head.

"Then it'll be I who'll have to do it." He tried to assume a cheerful
manner. "But I can't give him your reason about being engaged to me. If
it were true, which it isn't, it wouldn't be generous. If I carry any
message, the only honorable thing for me to do is to inform him of
everything."

"Of everything?" she questioned.

"Yes, of everything. I must tell him where the trouble lies and give
him his chance to be frank with you. Only when that is done, shall I be
free to do my utmost to win you for myself."

She took his hands and drew herself up to him. "Do what you like, Tabs.
As long as I know that I've not lost you," her voice became small and
almost happy, "I'm content."

She was tiptoeing against him. The next thing he knew he was kissing her
warm red mouth.


III

She was gone. He had watched her from the steps until she had reached
the end of the Square where the swirl of passing traffic had engulfed
her. At the last moment she had looked back and smiled. For some minutes
after she had vanished, he had stood there recalling the way in which
her brave little figure had tripped out of sight among the blustering
March sunshine and shadows. A child, he thought, impulsive and lacking
in perspective, with a child's alacrity for drying its tears and
believing in a future happiness. How would she regard this morning years
hence in the after-glow of experience? Would she find nothing in its
calamities but foolishness? And what relation would he himself bear to
her when she had arrived at that stoical calm?

He reentered the house. In the room where they had been together the
fragrance of her presence still lingered. The chair was pushed back,
just as she had risen from it to lift her warm, red lips to his. How
smooth they were! Again like a child's! Everything about her was young
and undeveloped. She had kissed simply and gratefully, with none of the
blundering, sweet surrender with which a woman clings to her lover. If
she had ever kissed Braithwaite, she had not kissed him like that.

And then Tabs was overcome with a reluctant remorse, which was tinged
with a shameful sense of triumph. She had offered him her lips in
gratitude; they had kindled in him the flames of passion. For the moment
he had devoured her with kisses--her eyes, lips, cheeks and hair.

If he were to keep himself in hand, he must fill his days with
interests--_new_ interests. He must move among people and normalize
himself. He must fight against the melancholy of his obsession. His eyes
chanced to rest on the crumpled sheet of scented note-paper tossed into
the empty grate. Stooping, he picked it up and smoothed it out. This
problem of Maisie would at least divert him--besides, he had promised to
do what he could for Adair. He noted the Chelsea address and reread the
contents with its sly humility and hint of coquetry: "I have been given
to understand that you are exceedingly anxious to make my acquaintance.
If this is so, I shall be at home when you call to-morrow afternoon."

She had been quite certain that he would call when she wrote those
words. They had all the assurance of one who was fully persuaded of her
own powers of charm and beauty.

"Again, Maisie P.," he apostrophized her, "I'm bound to acknowledge that
you know more about me than I know about myself. I didn't know that I
wanted to make your acquaintance at the time when you were writing this
letter. I was quite sure that I wasn't going to call upon you when I
read it. In both cases you were the better informed, for I shall be with
you as soon as I've fulfilled my Savoy engagement."

An hour later, as he was on his way out, he found Ann waiting for him at
the foot of the stairs.

"I don't want to bother your Lordship."

"You're not bothering me. What is it?"

"I've been thinking that if I wrote the particulars down myself----"

"The particulars! What particulars?"

"About Braithwaite, sir. There were things you wouldn't know or might
leave out. So I thought that if I stated my case myself, it might make
things more sensible-like to your Lordship's friend at the War Office."

"It might. Are those the particulars you have in your hand?"

"Yes, sir. But they're kind of private. I shouldn't like them to be read
by just anybody. That's why---- Perhaps, if your Lordship was seeing
your friend----"

"As it happens," Tabs spoke with a careless air, "I shall be lunching
with him to-day. I can deliver your letter direct."

"Your Lordship is very kind."

"Not in the least, Ann. And remember, whatever happens, that Braithwaite
was brave and he'd expect you to be brave. If you're not---- D'you know
what you'll do? Whether he's alive or dead, you'll let him down."

Her head lifted proudly, despite the tears in her eyes. "No fear of
that, sir. I'll never let my man down."

"That's the way to talk. And don't worry too much. You know the saying
about night always being blackest at the hour before the dawn? If we'd
only all believe that and cheer up----"

He let himself out. As he walked down the Square he tried to stroll
jauntily; probably Ann was watching.

"I could do worse than live up to that advice myself," he thought. Then,
"And so I will, by the Lord Harry."


IV

As he passed through the doors into the Savoy, he consulted his watch;
he was five minutes late. He halted in the middle of the foyer, gazing
round. There was the usual collection of officers on leave or out of
hospital, British, Overseas, American, all of them out for a good time
and debonair. There were the usual rows of expectant girls, wondering
whether their men had forgotten the appointment or whether the fault was
theirs in mistaking the place of rendezvous. Here and there through the
crowd worried and assertive literary individuals wandered, searching for
invariably unpunctual publishers. As though Time pressed behind them
with his scythe, hatchet-faced journalists from Fleet Street were making
a bee-line for the restaurant. In contrast to this perfervid haste,
self-possessed young queens of the footlights lolled with their
admirers, importantly believing they were recognized. All the medley of
London as it used to be, is and will be again, was there; but nowhere
could Tabs descry a General's uniform.

He went to the desk to enquire whether there was any message for him. At
mention of the General his enquiry was received with marked respect.
Yes, General Braithwaite lived there. No message had been left, but he
might be in his room. While they were telephoning and he was waiting,
Tabs remembered and smiled at remembering. Under quite other
circumstances, on a former occasion, he and Braithwaite had stayed there
together. The clerk interrupted his reflections. "The General's not in
his room---- Ah, here he comes, your Lordship."

Tabs turned quickly and looked in vain at first. He did not become aware
of his host till he was standing almost at his elbow. Then he held out
his hand, "How are you, General? You must pardon me for not having
picked you out at once. Like all of us, you look different in mufti."

"More like the old Braithwaite your Lordship used to know?" The General
smiled. "Well, I have to thank that experience for this at least--that I
know where to find the proper tailors. How about lunch? Are you ready?"

Against a window looking out on the Embankment, one of the best tables
had been reserved--a further proof of the new esteem in which
Braithwaite was held. The head-waiter hurried up immediately to advise
what he should eat and passed on his orders to subordinates with as much
solemnity as if they had been the details for an offensive. "Yes, my
General." "No, my General." When everything had been chosen and there
was nothing to do but wait for the first dish to be served, Braithwaite
leaned across to Tabs, "Your Lordship is amused. I don't blame you."

Tabs drew out his case and offered him a cigarette. "I'll make a bargain
with you, sir. Let's cut out the unfriendly formalities. I'll call you
Braithwaite if you'll call me Taborley."

The General blew a puff of smoke into the air and watched it disappear
before he answered. In civilian clothes he bore a more distinct
resemblance to the man he had been; and yet the resemblance only served
to emphasize the change that had taken place in him. The old Braithwaite
had been a slight-built, gentle creature, loyal to the point of
self-effacement, soft-spoken and dependent on the appreciation of a
master for his happiness. The new Braithwaite both in body and character
had hardened. His gray eyes had concentrated into command. His
clean-shaven cheeks and small military mustache gave him an expression
which was tolerantly ironic. The moment you saw him, you knew beyond
question that he was ruthlessly aware of what he wanted out of life. He
was a sword which had lain hidden in its scabbard and was now withdrawn,
glistening, intimidating and fiercely pointed.

Tabs compared his forceful appearance with his own, where in a mirror
their reflections sat facing each other. There was little to choose
between them in outward gentility, despite the immense disparity of
their chances. There was no fault to find; everything about Braithwaite
bespoke confidence and refinement--his neatly brushed chestnut hair, his
well-cut gray tweeds, his black, woven tie with the horse-shoe scarf-pin
of diamonds, his fine white teeth, his trim mustache. He looked a man of
iron will and unswerving decision, destined from birth to take control
of crises and to shoulder responsibilities. As a last humanizing touch,
there was a hint of cavalier devilment about him, of the gambler who was
also a sportsman.

The puff of smoke had faded. The General's eyes came back with a twinkle
to his guest. "You're right. Between us this 'Your Lordship and General'
business would grow tiresome. I never thought the day would come when
I'd call you Taborley, however. As for myself, plain Braithwaite's a
little reminiscent---- Still, we'll consider that part of our compact
settled. And now, what?"

"Do we need to hurry matters?" Tabs questioned. "This isn't a military
court of enquiry. It wasn't my idea to meet you as though we were
maintaining an armed neutrality. We----"

"But aren't we?" Braithwaite interposed with an air of amused
good-humor. Then he lowered his voice, "When you parted from me I was
your valet. You didn't hear from me for the best part of four years and
believed me dead. You came back to find that I was your superior officer
and had tangled things up for you pretty badly. You've threatened me
with your knowledge of a previous love-affair and you have it in your
power to tangle up my future in return. Under the circumstances what
else is possible but an armed neutrality?"

"Let me state the case from another and, I think, a juster angle." Tabs
paused to knock the ash from his cigarette. "Before the war you were my
valet whom I had always treated as my friend. I believe at that time, if
it had come to the show down, you were the man who was closest to my
affections and whom I trusted most in all the world. I'm trying to speak
soberly, Braithwaite, without any color of exaggeration. We'd been in
many tight corners together--perhaps the tightest was when they tried to
execute us in Mexico. Anyway, we'd always played the game by each other.
In 1914 we both joined in the ranks; in 1918 you finished up as a
General, while I was a first lieutenant. There's only one way to account
for that: up to 1914 you'd never had your chance; when your chance came,
you proved yourself the better man. In a way, though it's difficult for
me to confess it, I can understand and sympathize with Terry's
preference. Women admire bravery and merit. Ann and I admired them in
you; we knew they were there before the war made them public."

He took a breath while he watched what effect the mention of Ann's name
had had. The General's expression from being interested and generous had
grown suddenly obstinate and set. Tabs hurried on. "So I can understand
Terry's preference. And yet, as you've owned, despite your advantages, I
hold the winning card. I can joker all your aces by telling--well, the
things to which you have referred." He leant forward across the table.
"I don't want to have to tell. To do that I should have to make myself
still more inferior to you than you have proved me to be in the hardest
of all tests. There's only one occasion that would compel----"

"And that?" the General enquired coldly.

Before Tabs could answer, a Major in the Guards who was passing had
halted. "Hullo, sir!" he exclaimed, addressing Braithwaite. "I was
intending to hunt you up. I've heard a rumor about your transferring to
the Regulars. Why don't you have a shot at my outfit?"

Braithwaite introduced Lord Taborley perfunctorily, then returned to his
friend's question. "A shot at your outfit! It's too expensive. I've got
to make money. Besides, to become a Regular I'd have to sink my rank and
live on my pay at that. I can't afford it. To tell the truth, I'm
already out of the Army. I handed over the keys of my desk at the War
Office this morning. That phase is ended."

"You did! Well, if you've got something better----" The Guardsman nodded
assent to a signaled question from a companion at another table. "Don't
lose touch with your old set, sir," he added cheerfully as he moved
away. "Send us the map-location of your next dug-out."

The lunch arrived. Dishes were obsequiously offered for inspection and
approval. While the meal was being served, there was no opportunity for
private conversation. Tabs was pondering one fact which he had
overheard. "So, he, too, was demobbed yesterday! That's why he took his
last chance to become engaged. The glamour of a uniform---- And to-day
he's back where he started. Poor chap!"

The over-zealous waiter had at last moved out of range. Braithwaite
lifted up his dagger gaze. "And what is that occasion--the one occasion
which would compel you to publish my past? Perhaps I can save you the
trouble of putting it into words. You mean if I dared to become engaged
to Terry Beddow? I am engaged to her. I dared last night; so I must
leave you to do your worst."

He smiled with quiet triumph; gradually his smile faded into puzzlement.
"You don't seem surprised."

"I'm not," said Tabs. "Why should I be? I myself supposed, that I was
engaged to her last night."

It was Braithwaite who showed amazement. "You! Last night!"

"Yes, I, last night."

Braithwaite set down his knife and fork. The bleak look came into his
eyes that had given him the nickname at the Front of "Steely Jack." He
was silent for a full five seconds; then he said, "Lord Taborley, you're
a man of your word, but I find it difficult to believe that."

Tabs' voice was both quiet and kindly when he replied, "You'll find it
difficult to believe a good many things before I've ended. Evidently
Terry never told you that for over four years she and I had had an
understanding that, when peace came, if I survived, we would be married.
Last night, while you were proposing to her, I was asking her father's
consent. While I was gaining his consent, you were being accepted."

The blank look of astonishment which had overspread the General's face,
quickly gave way to one of generous compassion. "On my word of honor,
Lord Taborley, I never knew that. I thought--please forgive me--that you
were interfering merely out of snobbishness. I ought to have known
better. All my dealings with you should have---- I begin to understand."

Tabs' old sense of friendship for the man--his man--was coming back.
"You begin," he said, "but you don't fully understand. You and I have to
come down to earth. Not unnaturally up till now you've chosen to treat
me as an enemy. Perhaps I was when I sent you those two letters
yesterday. But I'm not now. I, too, am learning. There was a coster who
let me off arrest. Did I tell you about him? I forget. The reason he
gave taught me a lot, 'You and me was pals out there.' And you and I
were pals out there, Braithwaite--not master and man or junior and
senior officer. It would be a burning shame if, now that the war's
ended, we should fall to squabbling among ourselves."

"And yet the fact remains," said Braithwaite, "that I, who used to be
your servant, have cut you out of Terry. How are we going to remain pals
in a case like that?"

Tabs flinched at the bluntness of the words, "cut you out of Terry." For
a moment he felt inclined to say right out, "You're mistaken. She's sent
me to get her promise back." Instead he said, "How are we going to
remain pals! That's what I'm here to talk about. I've made up my mind
how I'm going to act. It's about you that I'm concerned. I'm jealous for
you, Braithwaite. I'm proud of the fact that, whatever you are to-day,
you were once my man--my man in the old clan sense. I want to see you
carry yourself as bravely in your new fight as you did in the one that's
ended. I think of the two this peace fight will be the more difficult
test, especially for men like yourself. I lost caste during the war,
while for you it proved a social opportunity. Now that we're back at
peace, the process is likely to be reversed. The qualities which gave
you high rank in a world at war won't fetch the same market value.
You'll have to fight afresh--only this time it'll be against the
temptation to sink below your own high standards through bitterness. In
a General's uniform you could go anywhere. It was your passport. No one
made enquiries. Once you're demobilized, the world asks for other
credentials--credentials as to your profession, bank-account, friends,
birth. What I'm trying to say is this: there's nothing dishonorable in
your past save your own assumption that it was dishonorable. And I want
to assure you that it isn't my purpose to drag you down. I couldn't.
There's only one man who can do that--yourself. But _you_ can drag
yourself below anything that you were if you go on refusing to play
fair."

Braithwaite's face went white beneath its tan. He fell to stroking his
mustache. "You take a lot upon yourself. It's the first time that I've
ever been accused of not playing fair."

"But _I_ accuse you of it." Tabs spoke with an equal quietness. To any
one watching they would have appeared to be two handsome men of the
soldier type engaged in desultory conversation. "I have to accuse you of
it. I want you to glance through this before you answer me."

He drew from his pocket and passed across the letter which Ann had given
him that morning--the letter which, to quote her words, "Might make
things seem more sensible-like to your Lordship's friend at the War
Office." It was unaddressed, but as Braithwaite's eye fell on the
sprawling handwriting of the contents, the deep flush which crept across
his face betrayed the fact that it was recognized. He commenced to read
the sheet with a studied carelessness; as he proceeded, the carelessness
gave way to a troubled frown. For some time after he had finished, he
sat motionless. When he looked up, his mood was contemptuous. "So this
is your price?"

"No price was mentioned."

"But it was implied. You tell me that, at the time that I was being
accepted, you yourself were hoping to be engaged to Miss Beddow; then
you hand me this letter. What do you suppose I infer? What would any man
infer? That your promise to keep my existence a secret from Ann is
conditional on the breaking of my engagement with Miss Beddow."

"Handing you Ann's letter wouldn't do that. Your engagement with Miss
Beddow is already broken."

Braithwaite jerked his chair back and stared. Then the audacity of such
an assertion touched his sense of humor. He fell to laughing. "That at
least is an invention."

Tabs showed no resentment. There was something disturbingly convincing
about his self-possession. "Didn't I tell you," he asked patiently,
"that you'd find it difficult to believe a good many things before I had
ended? I had an appointment to see Miss Beddow at her father's house
this morning at eleven. Before I'd finished breakfast she was visiting
me instead. She had called to make two requests: that I would see you
to-day and get her promise back, and that I'd become engaged to her
myself."

Braithwaite lurched forward, folding his arms on the table. His voice
was thick with passion when he spoke. "What you tell me sounds mad; but
you'd gain nothing by telling it if it were not true."

"Nothing," Tabs confirmed.

"No, nothing. If it weren't true, I could go to the telephone and
disprove your falsehood inside of ten minutes."

"You could."

"Then it is true--which means that you've ousted me. And that's why you
can afford to be so calm and Christ-like. I've been wondering how you'd
contrived this Galilean display of charity."

"You've not heard me out." Tabs still spoke with friendliness. "While we
were together your telegram arrived and I agreed to be the bearer of her
message. But as for her second request, that I should become engaged to
her, I refused that point-blank."

"You what?" The anger cleared from Braithwaite's face, leaving the
chalky mask of a tragic harlequin. When he spoke again it was humbly.
"You can't blame me for not believing you. You jump about. You say
several things which seem to point to a definite conclusion and then at
the last moment you change it. I don't know whether you do it to amuse
yourself at my expense or whether it's merely the way your mind works.
At any rate, it's cruel--this cat and mouse game. I wish you'd be
direct."

"That's what I wish to be. You could help me if you'd ask questions."

Braithwaite sighed, wearied beyond endurance. He was becoming less like
the General and more like the old dependent Braithwaite every second.
"You wanted to marry her last night, only to find she'd promised herself
to me already. Then she comes to you this morning, offering herself, and
you refuse her. That doesn't make sense. Why did you refuse her?"

"Because if I'd taken her at her word, I shouldn't have been playing
fair."

At the recurrence of that phrase "playing fair," a momentary annoyance
crept into Braithwaite's eyes. "I've always heard," he commenced, "that
in love and war----"

"Everything's fair," Tabs ended his quotation. "Well, in this case, it
isn't. It was because she realized, after she'd promised herself to you,
that in love everything isn't fair, that she asked me to get her promise
back."

"You mean as regards yourself? She'd begun to feel that she wasn't
treating you handsomely?"

"I don't mean as regards myself. You were the cause of her change of
mind."

"I!" Braithwaite's bewilderment made him hostile. "How could I have
caused her to change her mind? I parted with her after midnight; it must
have been shortly after nine that she was seeing you. I held no
communication with her in any shape or form during the eight or nine
hours that elapsed."

"Nevertheless, you were the cause. She realized in the meanwhile that in
love everything isn't fair. It isn't fair to ignore a young girl's
happiness in order to win her hand. You had done that; though she has no
proofs, instinctively she feels it."

Braithwaite shook his head and thrust himself back with the gesture of a
man whose patience is completely at an end. "I haven't the vaguest idea
what you're hinting at."

"Then I'll be brutally explicit. You've at no time told her who you were
or where you came from before you made a name for yourself. You've
evaded all her questions. You told a palpable falsehood in her presence
when you insisted that you had never known me. You're perfectly aware
that, if you approached her father, all the facts about your past, which
you're suppressing, would most certainly come out. Your courting has
been clandestine, behind the back of her family. It seems perfectly
obvious that you're trying to lure her into a runaway match. She has
grounds for believing that you do not trust her and, because of that,
although you fascinate her, she finds it impossible to trust you in
return. She trusts you so little that she did not dare to risk facing
you and sent me in her stead. She's so sure that a marriage with you
would be unfortunate that, in order to save herself from it, she's
willing to become engaged to me, whom she loves only as a friend. You'll
wonder why I tell you all this. It's because I want her to be happy. If
you really are the man for her, she must have you. But you'll never have
the remotest chance of winning her unless you make a clean breast----"

"If I did my chances would be at an end."

"If you believe that," Tabs sought for the most lenient words, "you know
what you're doing. You'd despise to cheat at cards, but you don't mind
cheating the woman whom you profess to love best.--And then there's
Ann."

"I'd rather not discuss Ann." The abrupt pain in Braithwaite's tone
betrayed the grumbling ache of an old wound. "I think even you will
grant that there are some things in a man's heart which are privately
sacred. Ann lies entirely outside the bounds of all justifiable
interference on your part."

It took an effort for Tabs to bring himself to break down the barrier of
reticence which this depth of feeling had imposed. "I'm sorry, General,
but I can't agree with you." He waited for the expected protest. When it
did not come, he carried on reluctantly, "I have a high regard for Ann.
She's one of my household and that makes me responsible for her to an
extent. I can't allow her to be tortured any longer with suspense--she's
had more than three years of this horrid nightmare, hovering between
hope and dread. Every day of the three years has been unnecessary.
Whether you break or keep your promise to her is your concern. Whether
she takes action against you when she knows the truth, is hers. But she
has the right to know. To see that she knows comes within the bounds of
any decent man's justifiable interference. One of us must tell her; the
news would come with less grace from myself. But for you to wriggle out
of your dilemma with silence, while she goes on breaking her heart, is
cowardly--just as cowardly as if you'd deserted in the face of the
enemy. I've no doubt you've sentenced more than one poor wretch to be
shot at sunrise for doing that."

Tabs pulled out his watch. He had said everything. So far as he was
concerned the conversation was at an end. It was nearly three o'clock.
Time had traveled quickly. He was surprised at the lateness of the hour.
Now that his intentness was relaxed, he let his gaze wander. The room
was nearly empty. Most of the gay little ladies who had chattered across
the tables to their recently recovered lovers or husbands, had tripped
away to continue their spree of celebration at a matinee or in an orgy
of shopping. Those who were left were putting on their wraps or sipping
the last of their coffee under the reproachful eyes of waiters. Across
the window in a brown-gray streak flowed the wind-flecked highway of the
Thames.

Braithwaite beckoned for his bill. After the humiliation of what had
been said it irked Tabs to have to see him pay it. The trend of the
conversation had helped to strip him of the arrogance of his military
honors. The mercenary subserviency of the man who handed him his
account, seemed to arouse him to the landslide that had taken place in
his self-esteem. He made a conscious effort to pull himself together.
While he waited for his change, he broke the silence.

"I believe you meant well by coming here. It would be foolish for me to
pretend that I'm altogether grateful--grateful for your way of
expressing most of the things that we've discussed together. At the same
time, Lord Taborley, I owe you an apology if at any point I've misjudged
your intentions. As regards Ann, you err in justice when you hold me
accountable for all the causes of her tragedy. Both she and I, and Miss
Beddow for the matter of that, are the victims of circumstances. It's
scarcely my fault that I've outgrown Ann; I'm no more to blame for that
than Terry is for having fallen in love with a man who was your servant.
_I_ didn't make the war. _I_ didn't promote myself from a valet to a
General. _I_ didn't even consciously allure Terry. She fascinates me as
much as I fascinate her: I fought against her fascination at first.--But
to get back to Ann, I let her slip out of my life because I wanted to
spare her. I thought it would be easier for her to believe me dead than
to be told that she was--was discarded. I couldn't be expected to
foresee that she would display this awkward loyalty of hoping. I didn't
know what had happened to her. She's a good-looking girl; I'd pictured
her as married to a man of her own class, until you flung this
bombshell at me. I'm not callous. Don't misapprehend me. I can still
think of her with tenderness. But as for ever treating her again as my
equal---- It would be as impossible for me to resume the old relations
with her as it would be for your Lordship to commence them." He waited
for some word of criticism or encouragement. When Tabs only nodded
non-committally, he proceeded more slowly. "I don't know what I'm going
to do. I'm fully aware, now that the war is ended, that as a has-been
General who rose from the ranks, I have no marketable value. I have no
specialized training to offer to a commercial world which calls for
experts. The only knowledge that I have to sell is the old knowledge
that you used to purchase. My house of cards has collapsed. To be
unwisely frank, my financial resources are limited to little more than
my war-gratuity."

"And yet you're anxious to marry Terry," Tabs suggested; "to marry her
without letting her know about any of these handicaps of which she would
have to share the penalty."

Braithwaite's head went up with a soldierly jerk. The bleak look came
into his eyes. He was "Steely Jack" at that moment. "I have the
confidence to believe," he said proudly, "that I shall go as far in
peace as I did in war. Never to own that you're beaten, never to squeal
when you're hurt, never to retreat from a position when once it has been
captured must count back here for as much as it did out there. In France
I had the reputation for never losing an inch of trench. I don't intend
to lose an inch of trench now. My back is to the wall. For the present
I can't afford to do anything gratuitously charitable; by the smallest
waste of energy I may defeat myself. To hold any correspondence with Ann
at this moment might mean the slamming in my own face of every door of
opportunity. I'll do my stretcher-bearing when I've won; not a second
before."

Against his will, while he listened, the unscrupulous valor of the man
stirred Tabs to admiration. Only the after-event could prove whether
this verbal display of fireworks was only bombast. "And so that's your
ultimatum?" he asked with disquieting sanity.

"Yes, if that's what you call it."

The waiter had returned with the receipted bill. Braithwaite was picking
up the change. Not looking at Tabs he said, "A few minutes ago you were
consulting your watch. I believe you have an engagement."

"I have. But if we can arrive at any more definite conclusion by talking
longer, I'll skip it. It's of no importance."

Braithwaite glanced up. "Not to you, perhaps; but it may be to her."

With that he commenced to lead the way out, choosing a winding path
through the maze of tables. Not until they were traversing the great
gold and crimson lounge, with its ornate furnishings, did Tabs catch up
with him to ask his question. "How did you know about my engagement and
whether it was important or not?"

Braithwaite answered carelessly, "It's with Maisie, isn't it? I heard
Terry suggest to her that she should make it. She's a nice little woman.
I shouldn't like to be the cause of her disappointment. She was looking
forward----" The rest was lost as a flunkey requested the registered
number of whatever Tabs had left in the cloak-room.

While they waited for the hat and cane to be produced, Tabs made a last
attempt to persuade the General to commit himself to some promised
course of action. "No one would be more pleased to see you succeed than
myself. I'm not trying to hamper you. Neither is Terry; but she insists
that unless things are to terminate between you, she must know the
truth. Frankness with Terry necessitates frankness with Ann. You'll
never succeed, however great your courage, unless you start with your
honor solvent. Ann's beneath you, you say--that's why you've outgrown
her. It's not my business to dispute the fact. I didn't want to
introduce the class view of things; but, by the same showing, you're
beneath Terry. She's young to-day: through a lifetime she might outgrow
_you_. She's as much your social superior as you claim to be Ann's.
You've discarded Ann on the ground of inequality of rank. In your case
Terry's family have a perfect right to raise the same objection."

"Not at all." The answer came like the crack of a whip. Braithwaite drew
himself up with the pride of one who had moved men like pawns across the
checker-board of life and death. "The two cases afford no parallel. Ann
and Terry have remained in the social stations to which they were born,
while I--I stand outside all such ready-made, rule of thumb
classifications. By sheer impetus of personality I have lifted myself
out of the rut, so that not even you, with all your omniscience, dare
prophesy how far I am going or where I shall end."

It was plain that further talk would be useless. "I'm afraid I must be
going," Tabs said. "I wish you very good luck. I hope we part friends.
And of course you understand that I now consider myself entirely free to
do my utmost to win Terry for myself."

He extended his hand. Braithwaite made no motion to take it. He held
himself erect as if prepared for an affront. His tones were icy when he
spoke. "Before I shake hands with you, Lord Taborley, I have to know
what you mean by your utmost. With so many playing-cards out against me,
I don't stand the ghost of a show unless---- Perhaps I have no right to
expect it; I never asked quarter from any man. I was going to say,
unless you intend to be gallant----"

Tabs pocketed his hand and turned to limp into the sunlit thunder of the
Strand. "The merciful receive mercy, General. Perhaps we shall shake
hands some other day. How gallant I am depends entirely upon yourself."


V

He emerged into the swollen thoroughfare, where the traffic roared and
jostled like a torrent through a mountain gorge towards the broader
freedom of Trafalgar Square. He turned westward, walking swiftly for
the first hundred yards, rather fearing that he might be followed. Then
he slowed down; swift walking made his limp too painfully obvious.

He was dissatisfied with both himself and Braithwaite. He felt as though
he had gone to meet some one in a wood and had heard only the muttering
of a voice and the rustle of retreating footsteps. "If I had only seen
his face," he thought.

In recalling Braithwaite, he found himself picturing two persons, of
both of whom he had had separate and distinct glimpses: the one the
loyal man, who in years gone by had served him faithfully and shared so
many of his adventures; the other the arrogant, red-tabbed superior, who
had stolen his happiness without warning. It was impossible to resolve
the two into one. The first he still regarded with affection. The
second---- He had never allowed himself to hate any one. Hatred he held
to be back of breeding--a weak man's subterfuge for acknowledging
self-distrust. Because he had come so near to hating, he accused himself
of censoriousness. "If I had only seen his face--the real man beneath
the pretense--I might have understood and helped him," he muttered.

[Illustration: _Tabs extended his hand. Braithwaite made no motion to
take it._]

And now he was going to a fresh encounter where even more sympathy would
be required. It would be easy to condemn Maisie P. Lockwood. On a
superficial judgment she merited nothing else. Three husbands in four
and a half years, plus a risky flirtation with a married man were not
the credentials of an honorable character. If he followed the advice
of Sir Tobias Beddow, he would seek to assess her price at once. But he
had never been accustomed to regard women in that light--as a sex whose
virtue could be inflated or depressed by the increase or shrinkage of a
balance at the bank. Actually he knew very little about women; riding as
a knight-errant, with the wonder in his eyes of the mystery that might
surprise him round the luck of any corner, he had never given himself
much time to learn. His ideas about women were Tennysonian. He liked to
believe that they were free from temptations, more true in their
emotions, more generous in their affections, more unerring and unstained
than men. He extended to them all the reverent tenderness with which he
regarded his mothers memory. In this he saw nothing quixotic; to him the
most hoydenish girl was a potential mother, whose body possessed a
sacredness quite apart from herself as a slim, adventurous ark which
would bear the future of the race across the deluge of the ages. He
knew, as a matter of fact, that all women were invariably neither saints
nor angels; but he clung to his chivalrous superstition as a man prays,
though he receives no answers to his prayers. To the recorded cynicism
of experimenters in temptation he flung back the challenge of a sadder
cynic, "We're all in the gutter; but some of us are looking at the
stars."

So in this matter of Maisie, he argued, she couldn't be as shallow as
her history would indicate. She was Terry's friend; that, in itself, was
a proof of goodness. Terry had been so anxious for him to meet and
comprehend her that she had gone behind his back to prompt the
appointment. Well, he would make a better job of this second interview
than he had of the one that was just ended. He must approach it, at any
rate, without prejudice.

While thinking these thoughts he reached Charing Cross. Already he was
weary with so small an exertion. He halted, debating whether he should
struggle further. Then he became aware of wounded Tommies, chiefly
Overseas troops, Canadians and Australians, who from their first landing
in England had chosen this quarter of a mile as their happy
hunting-ground. They stood propped up against the pavement; they sat
among the pigeons on the parapets of Trafalgar Square. They were
laughing and chaffing, those one-legged, one-armed, derelict crusaders
in their atrocious hospital uniforms. They were thousands of miles from
their one and only woman; but their drawn faces grinned cheerfully and
their jaws were squared in the old, invincible, obstinate determination
never to admit they were down-hearted. The sight of them filled him with
strength. Though he saw them only fugitively through gaps in the tide of
traffic, he felt their companionship. He would always feel it--the fine,
shared courage of men out of sight, who had adventured for an ideal as
his companions.

He crossed the top of Whitehall, passed beneath the Admiralty Arch and
entered the garnished, graveled, tree-bordered spaciousness of the Mall.
His old sense returned--the confidence which the Mall always gave to
him--of Empire and world-wideness. As he strolled along, he noticed a
board which informed the public that, by following a certain path, one
would arrive at the Passport Office. Hidden in the greenness, set down
in the bed of an ornamental lake which had been drained when the terror
of air raids had threatened, he made out a low-built, sprawling shed. It
was like a glimpse of romance. The path which led to its doorway was the
first few hundred yards along the road that ran to Rio, Fiji and Tibet.
One had but to enter and the journey was commenced. The sight reminded
him of something which he had forgotten; that, though every other
delight failed, he still possessed the wideness of the world. He could
sail away. There were islands of the sea--Stevenson's Samoa, Conrad's
Malay Archipelago. If people proved disappointing, there were always the
painted solitudes which human disillusions had not withered and could
not defile. It was a loophole worth remembering.

Outside Buckingham Palace he made an unpremeditated surrender. A taxi
was prowling along by the curb as slowly as regulations allowed. He
raised his stick automatically as he caught the driver's eye. When the
cab had halted, again he procrastinated with the handle of the door in
his hand.

"Where to?" the driver enquired for the second time.

"To Brompton Square," he ordered uncertainly.

The cab was already moving when he changed his mind. Standing up and
leaning out of the window, "No. To Chelsea," he shouted above the
throbbing of the engine. Then drawing out Maisie's crumpled letter, he
read from it the address.




CHAPTER THE FOURTH

THE COMPLICATIONS OF MAISIE


I

Tabs was not very familiar with Chelsea. He had seen it from the river a
score of times, red-walled, umbrageous and old-fashioned. But of the
district itself he knew next to nothing, save that up to the war it had
been the favorite roosting-place of short-haired women and long-haired
men. He wondered whether Maisie's hair was short. He decided in the
negative. To have attracted three husbands in four and a half years she
must be outwardly conventional. An unconventional woman might persuade
one man to marry her, but not three in such rapid succession. She
probably belonged to the apparently harmless, sympathetic, sisterly,
domestic type. And yet she must be something more than conventional;
millions of merely conventional women lacked the prowess to anchor only
one man in all the years of their life, whereas, judging by the Adair
incident, Maisie had not yet completed her list of husbands. There was
an undefined danger in coming into contact with such a woman, which lent
this expedition to Chelsea an atmosphere of adventure.

Did she know for what purpose he was visiting her? If she did, she was a
bold woman--a strategist. Her position was strengthened by his coming to
her in the guise of an invited guest. Then he remembered that he had
made a bargain with himself to meet her with a mind unclouded by
prejudice.

He had been traveling mean thoroughfares, when suddenly the cab swung
into an old-world street of dignified respectability and turned again
abruptly into a tiny quadrangle of color-washed, stucco-fronted,
timbered houses. In the center was a lawn, surrounded with white posts
between which black painted chains hung in loops; the apparent intention
was to create the illusion of a village-green. Tabs entered instantly
into the spirit of the game--the littleness and childishness of the
attempt at quaintness. He liked the bijou privacy of the Court, its
greenness and tidiness, and the absurdity of the narrow windows which
glinted at him like spectacles. But there was something that he missed.

The driver had climbed down and was opening the door. "Mulberry Tree
Court, mister. I forget which number you told me; but there ain't so
much of it that you're likely to lose yourself."

"But where's the mulberry tree?" Tabs asked. There was in his voice the
discontent of a disappointed child.

"There never was no mulberry tree," the man replied in all seriousness.

"Well, if there isn't a mulberry tree," Tabs laughed, "I suppose we must
make shift to do without it."

The man frowned and justified himself grumblingly. "It ain't my bloomin'
fault. I've done nothin' with yer bloomin' tree."

"I suppose not," said Tabs as if the matter were still in doubt.

Feeling in his pocket he paid what was owing and watched the cab move
off. Even at this last moment he was half-minded to retreat. What
business was it of his to interfere in another man's love-affair? He
looked stealthily round the Court to see if eyes were watching. All the
windows were empty; nothing stirred. The fact that he was not watched
reassured him. He glanced at the number on the nearest door, discovered
in which direction the numbers ran and decided that his must be the
house conspicuous for its marigold-tinted curtains, standing retiringly
in the farthest corner.

Once again he hesitated. Should he or should he not? The old
nursery-rhyme came wandering into his head with its innocent lilt of
jolliness:

   "Here we go round the mulberry-bush,
   The mulberry-bush, the mulberry-bush;
   Here we go round the mulberry-bush,
   So early in the morning."

"And so we do," he murmured. "Let's take a chance."


II

The door--an apple-green door--was opened by a maid as trim as Ann. Was
Mrs. Lockwood in? She would enquire. "And your name, please, sir?--Lord
Taborley! Certainly."

She left him waiting in the hall, while she went to make her fictional
enquiries. He was as sure that they were fictional as if he had glanced
into the room upstairs where Maisie was making a last anxious inspection
before her mirror. So the pretense was to be that he had called casually
and had scarcely been expected.

He tried to learn something of Maisie from the appearance of her hall.
It was speckless. Everything in it shone with intense cleanliness and
polish. He had noticed the same gleam about the windows, brasses and
very doorstep before he had entered. He had noticed it again about the
maid who had admitted him. It sent Maisie up very much in his
estimation. It almost explained to him how she had managed to get three
husbands. Men never know why they fall in love with a woman; more often
than not they mistake tidiness for beauty. "If you can't be beautiful,
be clean," Maisie's hall seemed to say; "if you can be both, you're
invincible." Maisie was invincible, as her conquests proved. This first
glimpse of her belongings showed that she loved cleanliness. By a jump
in his logic Tabs began to suspect that she must be beautiful.

He had pursued his observations thus far, when he heard a door
discreetly closed overhead and the starchy rustling of the maid
returning.

"If your Lordship will step into the drawing-room, Madam will be down in
a moment."

He found himself in a long artistic room, feminine to a degree,
exquisitely restful and yet broad-minded with signs of selection and
travel. It was furnished according to no particular period. There was
an Italian chest of drawers inlaid with ivory, a Dutch marquetry
secretaire, some Louis XVIth chairs, a mirror of old Venetian glass,
bronzes, snuff-boxes, specimens of china, odd bits of beaten silver,
knick-knacks of all sorts, lying scattered about with apparent
carelessness. A fire was burning in the grate. Tea was set out on a
table beside a companionable couch. Through French windows the smallest
of gardens shone bravely, a-blow with bulb flowers planted in crevices
of a rockery, at the foot of which lay an oval pond and a silent
fountain. As though to emphasize the game of littleness, a toy-boat
floated on the pond's surface.

"Not the woman I had imagined," was his unspoken thought; "not the wily
adventuress! But if she's not, then what----"

In an attempt to satisfy his curiosity, he commenced to inspect the room
in detail. The first thing he discovered was that all the silver frames,
which stood about, contained photographs of the same man. It struck him
as an odd exhibition of faithfulness on the part of a woman who had had
so many husbands. He counted the photographs; there were no less than
five of them, recording the same face from varying angles.

"Which of them, is he," he asked himself, "Pollock, Gervis, or Lockwood?
But he mayn't be any of them. Perhaps he's a possible fourth--the
latest. If so, here's hoping, for he shuts out Adair."

He turned towards the couch, intending to sit down. As he turned, his
gaze encountered an oil-painting hanging above the mantelpiece.

"By George! How did I manage to miss that?"

He stared at it with intense interest--almost with a sense of shock.
Somewhere--he could not determine where--he had seen that face before.

The picture was a half-length portrait of a woman. There was something
extraordinarily queenly and at the same time patient in her attitude.
Her hands, which were out of sight, seemed to be folded. She was seated,
leaning forward; her head was turned towards the right, so that her face
appeared in profile. She was in extremely low evening-dress of an
aquamarine shade, flowered with gold. Her shoulders were sickle-shaped
and gleamed like the half-crescent of a young moon. From her throat,
which was full and white, hung a splendid string of tan-colored pearls.
But it was the slope of her jaw, the way her ears set back, and the
rounded strength of her head that gave to her that peculiarly alert
beauty. Her dark hair was drawn from off her forehead, making clear in
her features an expression of calm challenge. She was a woman who had
lived and not always happily. Her calmness was the quiet of almost
painful self-control. And her age---- With her atmosphere of experience,
it was certainly over thirty. She was not the woman to put back the
hands of time for any man.

"It can't be of Maisie," he thought, and yet he hoped. "But it can't be
of her," he insisted. "This woman is remote and uncapturable. She's done
with passion. She's tasted life to the full and the taste was bitter.
She has nothing left but her unquenchable pride, with which she tortures
herself: her pride not to submit, not to cry out, to stand always at
bay. That's all she has, unless----" And then, speaking aloud in his
effort to remember, "I know her. I'm positive. And yet----"

The door behind him opened. "This is nice of you, Lord Taborley.--Ah,
you were looking at Di! Most men do that when they visit me. I ought to
be jealous. But a word of warning; looking is as far as any of them
get."

Tabs found himself shaking hands with a woman who shared the features of
the woman in the portrait, but who differed from her in that she was
fair, lacked her alluring remoteness and had much more of youth to her
credit. Whereas the woman in the portrait looked uncapturable, Maisie's
charm lay in her accessibility--the genial promise she held out of being
willing and even eager to surrender. Her every tone and gesture
proclaimed her anxiety to find this world a pleasant place--her
determination to make it pleasant and to be gay under every
circumstance.

She was as little, flawless and gleaming as her house. More than half
her good looks were due to the immaculate care which she bestowed on her
body--the whiteness of her teeth, the fineness of her well-kept hands,
the brilliant clearness of her complexion, the wavy smoothness of her
abundant flaxen hair which had been brushed and brushed until it shone
and glinted like raw gold in sunshine. She would have looked almost too
perfect to be genuine, had it not been for her vivid health. She was so
dainty in her fragility that one longed and yet scarcely dared to touch
her.

The moment she had spoken Tabs had recognized that nothing that she had
done or might do could obscure her atmosphere of breeding. He had met
men like that, whose sense of race, even when they were at the lowest
depths, had kept them superior to their environment. A pale woman of
spun silk and gossamer, with cornflower eyes and lips like parted
poppy-petals! This woman could be kind to the point of folly--so kind
that her folly would appear almost virtue. She was a woman who, though
she might love too often, would love so much that to her much would
always be forgiven.

"I must apologize," Tabs spoke gently, "for having been found staring at
your picture."

He did not know it, but men always spoke gently to Maisie. It was her
air of trust and helplessness that did it, her tender trick of creating
in each man the belief that she relied peculiarly on him for
protection--all of which was totally at variance with the masterly
efficiency with which she ran both herself and her house.

"I was staring at your picture," Tabs continued, "because I thought I
recognized----"

"I daresay you did," Maisie interrupted. "Though you may not have met
her, her face is forever in the papers. Among the family she's known as
the Princess Czarina Bolsheviki----"

"She looks it. But is she a princess?"

Maisie laughed. "Not yet, but it won't be her fault if she isn't. It'll
have to be a prince next time. If she marries again, she'll stoop to
nothing less. Look at the way she carries her head; she almost feels the
weight of her coronet already. But she says she's had enough of
marriage. We've all said that. Poor dear Di, she misses a lot of fun by
her exclusiveness. If I only had half her wealth----"

She evidently wanted Tabs to ask her what she would do with it. Her eyes
grew round with spendthrift promises of jolliness, if ever such wealth
should come within reach of her tiny, managing hands. She looked as
mischievously covetous as a magpie while she waited for him to put the
obvious question.

But Tabs wasn't interested in the obvious. He stuck to his enquiry.
"What you've told me doesn't help me to recall her," he said. "Who is
she? It's most annoying to recognize a face and not to be able to place
it against any background."

Maisie pretended to pout. "You're like all the rest of them; you come to
see me and do nothing but talk of her. I'd have hidden her in the attic
long ago, only she's by Sargent. She's too beautiful for hiding, and
then no one can afford to hide her Sargent under a bushel in these hard
times."

"And still you've not told me," Tabs reproached her.


III

"Wouldn't we be more comfortable sitting down?" Maisie slid between the
couch and the tea-table, making herself comfortable against a pile of
cushions. When Tabs looked round for a seat, he discovered the strategy
of the arrangem

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