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People of Position

by Stanley Portal Hyatt · English · Gutenberg #29274 · 364,833 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: People of Position

Author: Stanley Portal Hyatt

Illustrator: H. Richard Boehm


        
Release date: June 30, 2009 [eBook #29274]
                Most recently updated: January 5, 2021

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEOPLE OF POSITION ***




Produced by Peter Vachuska, Julia Miller, Martin Pettit
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net






PEOPLE OF POSITION


[Illustration: LALAGE]


PEOPLE OF POSITION

BY

STANLEY PORTAL HYATT

Author of "Little Brown Brother," "End of the Road," etc.

_With a Frontispiece by H. RICHARD BOEHM_


NEW YORK
WESSELS & BISSELL CO.
1910


COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY

WESSELS & BISSELL CO.

_September_

THE PREMIER PRESS
NEW YORK




PROLOGUE


Grierson refilled the magazine of his rifle carefully--when you are
dealing with South American patriots it is better to take no chances,
even though the enemy has retreated--then he wiped a couple of
half-dried blood spots off his cheek, and, after that, went over to
where lay the body of the man from whom that same blood had spurted.

For a full minute he stood very still, gazing with sombre eyes at the
kindly face which seemed to be smiling back at him even in death; then
he knelt down, and, with infinite gentleness, smoothed the ruffled hair,
arranged the collar so as to hide the bullet hole in the bronzed throat,
and crossed the hands on the breast. When he got up again his face was
twitching strangely, seeing which, the American officer, who had come up
behind him, suddenly became busy with his men.

It was one of those stories which seldom get into the newspapers,
possibly because they are so utterly unimportant in themselves--a ragged
band of half-breeds robbing and murdering in the name of liberty; a
landing party of marines from the nearest warship, which happened to be
American; and a futile little fight ending, as usual, in the defeat of
the brigands. Only this time, an Englishman, who had gone out with the
marines, had been killed; and now Grierson, his friend, was trying to
realise the fact.

"He was awfully good to me, the whitest man that ever stepped. I met him
down the coast a year ago--my luck was right out--and he brought me
along with him. I hadn't had a proper meal for days, much less a smoke,
and he'd only my word for who I was. Yet he risked it, and I've been
here ever since." Grierson, who had been walking in silence beside the
marine officer, spoke suddenly.

The American nodded sympathetically. "It was hard luck to be killed by a
rotten Dago outfit like that. Whenever you get a coloured man talking
about liberty you know he's just prospecting round for a chance to break
the Eighth Commandment."

Grierson muttered a curse; then, as if he wanted to confide in someone,
possibly as a relief to his own feelings, "His partner will be here in a
week's time; he was on his way already. When he comes I shall clear out
and go home."

Captain Harben nodded again. "Meaning England?" he asked.

"Yes, England--London. I've had ten years knocking about the
world--China, India, Australia, and all round this forsaken continent;
and the sum total of what I've got to show for it is the fever and a
couple of knife scars in my back--patriots again, one Hindu, one
Peruvian. So I think I had better go home and begin afresh--if I can."
And he gave a bitter little laugh.

The American glanced sharply at the tall, thin figure and haggard face.
When they had started out that morning to drive the saviours of their
country out of the spirit stores they were looting, Grierson had struck
him as a keen youngster with a rather infectious laugh, and his
appreciation had been increased by the way in which the other had
dropped a running insurgent at four hundred yards' range; now, however,
the captain found himself wondering whether, after all, it was not too
late for his companion to talk of beginning life afresh.

At dinner that night he expressed his doubts to the Consul, who shook
his head. "Locke, the man they killed to-day, told me young Grierson had
been through a pretty rough time, touched rock bottom. He was going into
the British Army, but had to throw it up, and went out to the Orient for
some Company which failed soon after, leaving him stranded. Since then
everything he had been in has turned out wrong; and now this has
gone.... Queer how some men do get the cards dealt them that way....
He's clever, writes very well, and might have done something at it.
Locke's death will be an ugly blow to him." Being a kindly man and none
too successful himself, he sighed in sympathy, then mixed another whisky
and soda, and passed on to official matters.

A little later Captain Harben harked back to the former question. "He's
got plenty of pluck. He was all there when it came to a fight. I like
him."

"So do I," the other answered, "only I guess pluck of that sort won't
help him much in England, and you know, or at least I know, that a
fellow who's knocked about a lot doesn't suit civilisation, or
civilisation doesn't suit him--put it which way you like, the result is
the same. His nerves go under, somehow, and it ends so," nodding towards
the whisky bottle.

Meanwhile Grierson was sitting on the verandah of his dead employer's
house staring out into the night, and trying to make plans for the
future.

"Whatever happens, I don't mean to starve again," he muttered.




PEOPLE OF POSITION




CHAPTER I


Mrs. Marlow flicked a crumb off her dress with rather unnecessary care.
"I've had a most annoying letter from Jimmy to-day. It came by the
second post, after Henry had gone to the City, and quite upset me. His
employer, Mr. Locke, has been killed in some disgraceful riot, and now
Jimmy himself is coming home. Of course, in a way, I shall be glad to
see him, and so will the rest of the family; but I know he's got no
money, and no profession to fall back upon, and I cannot see what he is
going to do for a living. If I asked him to do so, I have no doubt Henry
would make a place for him in the office; but I am not going to have my
husband burdened with my brother. Henry is too generous as it is; and
the Stock Exchange is in such a fearful state now that it is difficult
to make a bare living." She sighed heavily, and glanced round the
expensively furnished drawing-room, as if wondering whether that
abominable tendency towards suspicion on the part of the public, which
was causing it to eschew all sorts of speculation, might not result in
her losing the few luxuries she did possess.

Her visitor, Mrs. Grimmer, wife of the junior partner in the well-known
City firm of Hornaday, Grimes, and Grimmer, dried fruit brokers, nodded
with an affectation of sympathy which she did not feel--the Marlows had
a touring car and a motor-brougham, whilst she had only a one-horse
carriage--and held out her cup to be refilled. She had known her hostess
for a good many years, over thirty in fact, ever since she and May
Marlow, who was then May Grierson and had thick flaxen plaits tied with
blue ribbon, had met at their first children's party. Walter Grierson,
the eldest of the family, now a City solicitor, had been eleven at that
time, whilst May had been seven and Ida five; but Jimmy had not arrived
until three summers later.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Grierson belonged to eminently solid families, whose
forebears for generations had looked to the City for their living. To
them, the Square Mile stood for Respectability, just as the West End
typified Laxity and Luxury; whilst outside these limits there was
nothing but the Lower Classes. They ignored the Underworld, possibly
because they knew nothing of it, more likely because it had no place in
their Scheme of Things, the two main articles of their creed being that
every man must choose an occupation early and abide by his choice, and
that every good woman must stay at home. The logical result of these
Grierson ancestors and their kind was the Victorian age, the exaltation
of the Supremely Bad in Art and the Supremely Proper in mankind. Mrs.
Grierson had been Victorian in the fullest sense of the word, and she
had lived and died with all her principles intact, believing in the
Evangelical Church, the respectability of wealth, and the evil
tendencies of modern thought. On the other hand, some alien strain had
crept into Mr. Grierson, and he had not accepted the family traditions
in their entirety; in fact, both his own relatives and those of his wife
had found much to criticise in his ideas. Had he been able to shake
himself free of the family, he would have liked nothing better than to
possess a ranch in America or a sheep station in New South Wales. All
his life, he longed, in secret, for open air, and freedom, and the
society of men whose interests did not stop at Temple Bar; but, in the
end, Fate, in the form of a business bequeathed him by his father, sent
him to the City, and he resolutely put his dreams on one side. The
inevitable happened. He was essentially an honourable man, and, not
understanding the meaning of Commercial Morality, he imagined that
other men in the City were the same; consequently, he met the fate of
he who of old went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, though there was no
Samaritan to sympathise; rather otherwise, in fact, for his fellows
shook their heads scornfully over his failure, whilst admiring the
business capacity of those into whose hands his capital had passed.

The process of Mr. Grierson's ruin had been a comparatively slow one,
the law requiring certain decencies to be observed in these matters; and
his wife was dead, and his three elder children grown up and married,
before the day when he discovered his own ruin, and took the quickest
way out of the troubles of this world. He was mad, of course; everyone
agreed on that point: not the least of the proofs being the fact that
the only message he left was a letter for Jimmy, who was then at
Sandhurst. The coroner had read the letter, and handed it back with a
remark that it had no bearing whatsoever on the case; but no one else
had seen it, nor had Jimmy given a hint of its contents to any of the
family. It concerned him alone, he said. He would have to leave
Sandhurst now and wanted to go abroad, and the others let him go, if not
gladly, at least without any great regrets. They were all provided for;
Walter was partner in a growing firm of solicitors; May had married
Henry Marlow, a stockbroker; whilst Ida's husband was, if not actually
in the City, at least very respectable, being a Northampton boot factor.
They were very fond of Jimmy, genuinely fond of him, both from the
purely correct point of view, as being their brother, and for his own
happy disposition; but, none the less, there had always been a certain
jealousy of their father's evident preference for him, a jealousy
mingled with surprise, or even resentment, Jimmy being essentially
unpractical, and almost unconventional. Moreover, they had never liked
the idea of his going to Sandhurst. None of the family had been in the
Service before; and it was a matter of common knowledge that no man
could make financial headway in the Army. So, when, through Mr. Marlow's
influence, the boy obtained a billet in China, the family heaved sighs
of relief, and though, throughout the next ten years, his sisters kept
up as regular a correspondence as his wanderings allowed, their home
concerns and increasing families inevitably weakened their interest in
him. They had their own circles, in which he had no part, though, on the
other hand, when he did think of England, which was often during those
years of hardship and disappointment, Jimmy always looked on them as
essentially his own people, to whom, one day, he would return, having no
one else....

Mrs. Grimmer sipped her tea slowly, and asked for further particulars
concerning the absent wanderer.

"Does he say what he proposes to do?"

Mrs. Marlow shook her head. "No, only that he's sick of knocking about,
and thinks he will try his luck at home. It's very selfish of him,
because he has never been a credit to us; and, of course, naturally,
everyone will know he's our brother."

"What has he done that wasn't--wasn't quite the thing?" the visitor
asked.

Mrs. Marlow looked a little puzzled. "Well, I don't know that there's
anything, exactly--at least that way. Only, Luke Chapman and her husband
met him in Calcutta three years ago--Mr. Chapman has a branch there, you
know--and Luke told me that he was doing nothing, and living at a queer
sort of hotel, where ships' officers and those sort of people stay, not
at all the thing. Then, you see, he's done no good. He's just as poor as
when he went out ten years ago."

"So he's done no harm and no good. Then you can keep an open mind about
him, May. Meanwhile, if I were you, I should try and find him a wife
with money. He's sure to be interesting, you know. Men who travel
usually are. Let me know when he comes back, as I should like to meet
him again. Well, good-bye, dear, and don't worry too much about your
black sheep. The colour may come off, or you may be able to get him
whitewashed."

"Edith Grimmer was very flippant about it," Mrs. Marlow complained to
her husband that evening, after she had shown him Jimmy's letter and had
heard his remarks thereon. "I didn't like her tone at all. She has grown
rather coarse lately, since they have got into that new set. They dine
in town a good deal now, and I'm sure they can't afford it. She's taken
to smoking cigarettes, too."

Her husband, a small man with a waxed moustache and the most perfect
fitting clothes, frowned heavily. There had been girls, in fact there
were still some, who might blow whole clouds of cigarette smoke in his
face and only evoke a laugh from him; but they had nothing to do with
his home life. Where the latter was concerned, he was very careful; and
he fully agreed with May's prejudices. Such things injured one's
position in the neighbourhood. "Edith is a very foolish woman," he said
severely. "And Grimmer is little more sensible. He was talking a great
deal of nonsense about South African mines when we were coming down in
the train this evening. Crossley and Merchant were in the carriage, and
I am sure they were pleased when I took him up sharply. I do not know
whether he is aware that I was interested in the promotion of the
Umchabeze Gold Dredging Syndicate; if so, his remarks were positively
insulting. It seems he lost money over it. So did other people; but I
can't help that." He threw his cigar end into the fire with a rather
vicious gesture.

His wife came across to his chair, put her hands on his shoulders, and
kissed him gently on the forehead. "Never mind, dear. You mustn't let
these silly people annoy you. I'm sorry now I worried you to-night about
my brother, Jimmy. I might have left it until the morning, when you
weren't tired."

He drew her face down to his and returned her kiss. She was perfectly
content for him to be away all day, even for several days when he went
golfing, and he was content to go; yet, in a sense, they were lovers
still, after the fashion of those whose way through life has been easy.

"You were quite right to mention it, dear," he said. "Of course we must
do what we can for him, have him to stay here when he lands, and so on.
I daresay he will be quite presentable, after all. Why, a man I know at
the club, Heydon, Amos Heydon, was in the East for twelve years, in a
bank I think, and you would never imagine he had been out of the City.
He's got all our ways."

Mrs. Marlow sighed. "I hope you're right, Henry. You usually are, and
you've had so much experience. But I wish we knew what he intended to do
for a living. He is thirty now, or nearly that, and ought to be in a
better position. The whole thing is most annoying. I must take care he
does not tell the children stories which will make them dream at
nights--Harold is sure to ask him for some, and you know what a memory
the boy has. Then, too, we don't want Jimmy proposing to any of the nice
girls we know, like Laura Stephens or May Cutler; for then we should
have to confess that he had no means of any sort, and it would be
horribly humiliating. See how well those young Cutlers have got on in
their father's office. Of course, Edith Grimmer knows that Jimmy is a
failure; but she won't talk about it."

Yet, at that very moment, Mrs. Grimmer was retailing the story of May's
troubles to her husband and a couple of guests who had been dining with
them.

"Jimmy always was a nice boy, not a bit of a prig. But he's not what you
can call a success; and I fancy the Marlows won't want to exhibit him.
Still, I shall have him to dinner and get some nice girls to meet him."

Grimmer laughed. He had not forgotten what had passed between Marlow and
himself in the train, and he was far from forgiving his loss over the
gold dredging syndicate. "Have him by all means, Edith, if you think it
will annoy those people. Besides, a Grierson who was interesting would
be quite a show animal."




CHAPTER II


Jimmy Grierson landed in England a broken man. What was almost worse, he
was aware of the fact, and, whilst he resented the way in which Fate had
dealt with him, he had no great hopes of altering things. He had drifted
so long that, somehow, he supposed he must go on drifting. John Locke
had stopped the process for a time, and given him something to stick to,
something worth doing; but a bullet from an old Remington in the hands
of a ragged Dago, a bullet probably aimed at someone else, had sent him
adrift again. True, that same Dago had gone, a few seconds later, to
whatever place there is reserved for his kind; but that did not alter
matters; it avenged, perhaps, but it could not bring back, the one man
besides his father for whom Jimmy had ever cared, who had ever
understood him, and, therefore, been able to keep him from drifting.

His decision to return to England had been taken on the spur of the
moment, without reflection; but he held to it, because no other course
seemed to offer any better prospects. He knew, perfectly well, that
Locke's partner would not want to keep him on, and he shrank from the
ordeal of searching for employment again. He had been through it so
often before; and he had learnt, long since, that the man on the spot
only gets the temporary billets; the permanent staff is always recruited
at home. Moreover, he had the fevers of half a dozen different countries
in his system, and the shock of Locke's death brought at least one of
them to the surface. Two Dagos helped him on board ship, a wreck, and
though, physically, he was much stronger at the end of the voyage, his
nerves were far from being right.

London extended its welcome to him in the form of a drenching rain, and
he shivered a little under the thin, ready-made overcoat he had bought
from a German store on the Coast.

He had hoped that one of the family would have met the boat train, and
carried him off to a real home; but, though there had been a welcoming
hand for most of his fellow passengers, he, himself, scanned the crowd
in vain for a familiar face. Even those who had come across the ocean
with him seemed to forget him the moment they got out on to the
platform. He became the stranger at once; so he stood to one side until
they had all departed, feeling horribly alone. Still, he was home at
last, in his own country, and he tried to work up a proper sense of
elation as he waited in the station entrance, watching a porter hoisting
his battered trunks on to a cab.

It was already evening, and the stream of people was flowing inwards
through the gates of the terminus, London's workers returning to those
dreary rows of villas in the suburbs, which, probably, seemed
delightfully peaceful, almost rural, by comparison with the noise and
grime of the City. Some were closing dripping umbrellas; others, having
no umbrellas, shook the rain out of the brims of theirs hats, and turned
down their soaking coat-collars as they came under shelter. All looked
more or less draggled and weary; yet you could see that they were on
their way to their own houses, where there would be someone to welcome
them, someone who had been waiting for them. Suddenly all Jimmy's sense
of loneliness came back, and he shivered again as the cab splashed out
of the muddy station yard, towards the hotel to which he had told his
people to address their letters.

There was a letter from each of his sisters awaiting him, and he tore
them open more eagerly than was his wont. Ida, writing from her home in
Northampton, invited him to come down for a week at some vague future
date; one of the children was unwell, and until it recovered it was
impossible to fix a day. Still, they would be delighted to see him
again. Her letters always had a note of stiffness in them, which was
purely unintentional, or rather, purely natural, reflecting the one
salient point in her character.

May's letter began with an apology. They were so sorry they could not
ask him down that night; but they had a large dinner party on, and he
would have made an odd man. Doubtless, too, he would be tired after his
journey and disinclined for such a function. The following day, however,
they would be glad to have him. It was forty minutes' run from Victoria
Station, and she would send the car to meet him at the other end.

Jimmy thrust the letters into his pocket, and followed his luggage up to
his room, which was a perfect example of its kind, containing the
irreducible minimum of furniture an hotel guest could require, and
having, as its sole wall decoration, a notice imploring you to switch
out the electric light when you did not actually require it. He was
disappointed, though not annoyed. The excuses appeared genuine, if
rather inadequate and he never suspected that May had spent the
afternoon in a distressing state of anxiety lest he should change his
mind, and, instead of going to the hotel, come straight down in time for
dinner.

"There is no telling what he may be like," she said to her
sister-in-law, who was staying in the house. "We must see him first
before we introduce him to people here. Why, he may not even possess a
dress suit."

Jimmy dined in the hotel. The dining-room was very empty, and he had a
corner of it all to himself, a miserable contrast to the cheerful,
crowded saloon of the mail steamer he had quitted that morning. He ate
very little, and would not wait for coffee. He felt he must get outside
that gloomy barn of the hostelry, must go where there was life and
movement, and, and if he could find it, society.

The rain had ceased, and, as he came out of the dull side street into
the Strand, he experienced for the first time that strange thrill,
excitement, anticipation, almost exhilaration, which only the returned
wanderer who comes back to the Greatest of Cities after years of
absence, can know. When he had driven up to the hotel, the day
population had been hurrying home through the downpour; now, though the
street and the pavements were still glistening with the wet, and there
was another deluge to come, London, the night side of London, was out as
if there was no such things as rain and mud and sodden footwear.

Jimmy stood a couple of minutes, watching it, taking it all in, as
though he had never seen it before. A policeman on point duty eyed him
curiously, yet with no hint of suspicion. Most men, and practically
every woman, remembered Jimmy's face when they met him a second time. He
was not handsome, far from it; but, in some indefinable way, his grey
eyes suggested sympathy, whilst the poise of his head spoke of
determination verging on obstinacy.

He was looking at the scene as a whole, rather than at individuals, and
the policeman remarked, with a kind of grim satisfaction, that he let
the women pass him unnoticed. Even when one turned back at the next
corner and repassed him slowly, he seemed not to see her. Just as he was
turning away, however, a girl's face did catch his eye, and,
unconsciously, he stopped again. She was coming out of a restaurant a
few yards away, accompanied by a man in evening dress, though she
herself was in an ordinary walking costume. Tall and very graceful, with
dark eyes and a perfect profile, she formed a curious contrast to her
short and rather stout companion. It was only a question of a minute
before they got into a waiting hansom and driven away; but, somehow, the
incident worried Jimmy. He wondered who she was, what she was, and was
so preoccupied with her that as he walked on eastwards, he hardly
noticed that he left the Strand, with its life and hurry, for the
comparative quietude of Fleet Street by night. He had come out of the
hotel intending to have a drink at the first likely-looking bar he came
to; but he was half-way between the Griffin and Ludgate Circus before he
remembered he was thirsty.

"Hullo, Grierson, my best of piracy experts. So you've come to Fleet
Street at last, as I always said you would. Sneddon, let me introduce
Mr. Grierson, an old colleague of mine on a short-lived paper in
Shanghai. He knows more Chinese pirates than any man I ever met, not to
mention gunrunners and opium smugglers; and he's perfectly invaluable to
fill a column when the news has run short." The speaker, a man of about
Jimmy's own age, with a keen, smooth-shaven face and restless eyes,
shook hands heartily, and ordered another round of drinks.

At the sound of his voice, Jimmy's face lit up with genuine pleasure. He
had known Douglas Kelly well on the China Coast, when the other was
editing a local paper for a starvation wage, and, as Kelly said, he had
written him many a column to fill up space with when both copy and
advertisements were short. The British and American community, being
absorbed in trade, and knowing nothing of literature, and often very
little of the English language, as is the way of its kind, had failed
to see the genius under the wild and not too temperate exterior, and had
frowned on the young editor as a rather scandalous person entirely
devoid of commercial instincts; but Jimmy had always stood by him, and
when a sudden access of wealth, in the form of a draft for sixty pounds
for a series of short stories in an American magazine, had enabled Kelly
to say good-bye both to the China Coast and to his creditors, Grierson
has regretted him as much, or even more, than had the latter.

"So you've come to Fleet Street, at last," Kelly repeated. "I knew you
would. And I suppose you are going to enter into competition with me. I
believe you are the one man of whom I am really afraid."

Jimmy laughed. "I only landed to-day, and I wandered down here by
chance. As for writing, I have done very little since I saw you off on
that tramp steamer. There were two or three acquaintances of yours
watching the mail boat next day on the chance of finding you."

"Herbst, I suppose, and the other squarehead from the hotel--what was
his name?--oh, Heine, and that uncleanly Greek tailor. They were a dull
lot, and I've forgotten them long ago. Tell me about yourself. Where
have you been?"

"India, Australia, and the Dago Republics, where I saw the beginning
and the end of various presidents. I made a couple of trips on a
blockade runner, and went on a hidden treasure hunt. It sounds all
right, thrilling and exciting, yet, when I size it up in my own mind, it
comes down to a record of fever and disappointment; with a few purple
patches which were so good that, somehow, they seem to have come out of
another man's book, instead of being my own experiences."

Kelly stared into his glass. "I know," he said very quietly. "I know the
game, though I got out of it sooner than you did, being wiser, as I
always told you I was. I suppose you know I'm famous?"

Jimmy smiled; long ago, Douglas Kelly had explained to him his theory of
self-advertisement, how, once he was strong enough to do so, he intended
to go in for a regular system of blatant, unblushing egotism, which
would pay equally little regard to the feelings of others and to the
recognised canons of veracity. Now, it was evident that he was
translating his theory into practice.

"Even in the Dago countries we used to get papers containing articles of
yours," Jimmy said. "And I saw a review of one of your books. Did you
put some of our old friends of the China Coast into them?"

Douglas Kelly shook his head emphatically. "They weren't even worth
satirising. They might take it as flattery if I remembered their very
existence.... I've done what I said I would, Grierson. I'm making a
thousand a year now." He turned to his companion. "Sneddon, you might go
back to the office, and see if there's anything doing. If anyone wants
me, say I'm busy"; then when the other had gone, "How are things with
you, Jimmy?" he asked bluntly.

Jimmy laughed a little awkwardly. "Well, they shot my last employer, who
was also my best friend, out there; and I came home because I thought it
might change the luck."

"So you're broke, just as I used to be?"

"No, not exactly. I've got a few pounds left; but I've nothing to do,
and I don't know what to turn my hand to--that's all." Jimmy answered,
then as Kelly dived into his pocket and produced a cheque book, he
flushed quickly, "No, old man. If I want that, I'll come to you; but I
don't want it yet. Thanks very much, though."

Kelly shrugged his shoulders. "You're quite a change. It's generally the
other way round. Men ask me for money, and I do the refusing." Usually,
his expression was hard, almost cynical, but as he looked at Jimmy it
softened, and he seemed to grow years younger. He was back again on the
China Coast, in the days when success was a thing of the future, and
therefore greatly to be prized. "You'll do well, Grierson, you've got it
in you, just as I had. And, after all, London is the one place, the only
market worth bringing your stuff to."

"I will admit I had thought of writing, but I know how hard it is to get
a start, and----" Jimmy began; but Kelly cut him short.

"Rot! It's hard for the ruck, for the ninety and nine, who, after all,
ought to find it impossible, not merely hard. But it's different for you
and me, Jimmy Grierson, because we're not in the ruck. Of course you'll
write, for it's in you, and you would be a fool to try anything else.
You won't jump into a job right away; and you'll have to fight as I
fought. I started as a sub-editor on three pounds a week, correcting the
grammar in the copy of men who were getting five times that amount--but
I can get you a start of sorts, right away. Come around now to the
_Record_ office, and I'll introduce you to Dodgson, the editor, a
perfectly uninspired person, who ought to have been a grocer's assistant
and have sung in a chapel choir. But he has the grace to realise his
limitations, and take my advice. It will mean two guineas every now and
then for a Page Four article--a thousand words, you know."

Jimmy finished off his drink and stood up. He was beginning to
understand that, after all, there was an element of sane, cool common
sense behind Kelly's blatant self-assertiveness. It might irritate what
the other called the "ruck," but it also cowed them, and they got out of
his path; moreover, there was always the undeniable fact that the man
had genius of no common order. Jimmy had been perfectly sincere when he
said he had not come home intending to make his living by his pen. He
had thought of doing so, certainly, or rather had longed to do so; but,
like most amateurs, he had been deterred by what he had heard of the
difficulties, and had put the idea on one side. Now, however, the
proposition had come to him in a concrete form, from a man who had
succeeded, a man, moreover, who knew his capacity, and was able to judge
his prospects of success. After all, it was only part of that game of
drift which he had been playing for the last ten years; and the new
phase had this advantage--he might be able to make use of what he had
learned during the previous stages of his drifting. So he followed
Douglas Kelly out into Fleet Street, then down one of the narrow alleys,
to the _Herald_ office.

The main entrance to the _Record_ building, that through which the
general public enters, when it wishes to pay for advertisements, or
consult the files, or order back numbers, has a rather gorgeous swing
door and a quite gorgeous door-keeper in uniform with no less than four
medal ribbons on his breast; but all this is closed in by an iron grille
when normal people leave the City, and the staff has to enter through a
small door at the back, which is guarded by an old and surly porter,
over the window of whose box hangs a peremptory and uncleanly notice
forbidding anyone to smoke in the building.

Douglas Kelly ignored both the porter and the notice, and went straight
up to the second floor, where, after a moment's parley with a
weary-looking secretary, he and Jimmy were admitted to the editor's
room.

Somehow, Jimmy had always pictured the editor of a great daily as a
plethoric person with keen eyes, and a background of leather-bound
volumes; but this one was thin and insignificant; there was not a single
book in his room, and, at the first glance, Jimmy was inclined to
believe that his friend had been right when he spoke of the editor
singing in a chapel choir. Yet, after Kelly had introduced him briefly,
as an old colleague, and Dodgson had put a few curt questions, Grierson
began to change his mind.

Jimmy could talk well. He had, in an unusual degree, the art of putting
things vividly and crisply, and he possessed an extraordinary memory
for those little details which give actuality to the picture. When he
described the shooting of a presidential candidate, Dodgson could see
the man with his grimy hands and torn collar, crumpling up as the volley
from the firing party caught him. The editor himself had never come in
contact with crude realities such as this--a London County Councillor
escaping by a hair's breadth from a fully-deserved conviction for
corruption over a tramway contract was the nearest approach he had
witnessed--but he understood the value of Jimmy's reminiscences, and,
without a moment's hesitation, he asked him for an article, hinting
plainly that, if the written matter were as good as his spoken words,
the paper would be glad of many others.

Jimmy left the room with an unwonted sense of elation. Kelly had
withdrawn immediately he had introduced his friend, but he was waiting
in the doorway. "Well, what did you do?" he asked.

"He's going to give me a chance," Jimmy answered. Kelly nodded. "Of
course he will. He must. I introduced you. Don't you realise, James
Grierson, that I am a man they dare not offend, because the great
fool-public wants stuff with my signature; and, if the _Record_ upset
me, I could go across the road to the _Herald_ and, perhaps, get a
bigger salary? It's all a game of bluff, as I told you years ago in that
fan-tan shop in Shanghai. I know you won't bluff through as I have done,
because you have a streak of--what shall I call it?--early Victorian
modesty, in you; but still you will come out on top, because you've got
brains, instead of the whisky-soaked sponge which occupies the space
behind the brow of the average Fleet Street man."

"I shouldn't think you're very popular in Fleet Street," Jimmy remarked
grimly.

Douglas Kelly shrugged his shoulders. "The ruck would dislike me anyway,
because I know more than it does. Still, it need not worry. I am going
to quit journalism, and go in for fiction soon, as you will do in due
course.... What's the time?" They had come out into Fleet Street again,
and he glanced upwards at the _Telegraph's_ clock. "Half-past ten. It's
too late to take you down to stay at my place, as I can't telephone to
my wife. So I may as well stay in town. We'll wander round a bit, and
after closing time, I'll take you up to one of my clubs."

"Your wife. So you're married?" Jimmy smiled, as though at some
recollection. "You seem to have done pretty well all round; whilst I am
still where I was."

The other took him up sharply, "Still where you were. Why, you've got
your head full of copy, and you're right at your market, instead of
being on that forsaken China Coast. Well, let's have a drink here for a
start."




CHAPTER III


Jimmy awoke in the morning with a slight headache, and a fixed
determination not to go out again with Douglas Kelly. True, it had cost
him nothing, Kelly having carried him from one club to another, cashing
a cheque at each, and spending the proceeds with such freedom as to
evoke a protest from his guest.

"I want to impress you," Kelly had retorted. "I want to show you how
well I've done. I always do the same when I get hold of any of you
fellows from out there. Yet," he paused and looked at the other keenly,
"you're such a queer beggar, that I don't suppose you are impressed. I
needn't have tried it on you, after all," but, none the less, he had
declined to let his companion go, and it had been past three when a
sleepy night porter admitted Jimmy to the hotel, Kelly having declared
his intention of taking a room at the club they had visited last.

Jimmy drew up his blind to find the sun shining in a cloudless sky, and
his spirits went up at once. As a result of the deluge of the night
before, London looked almost clean and bright, and he began to wonder
at his depression of the previous evening. After all, it was very good
to be home again, and, thanks to Kelly, he had already made a small
start, which might lead to much bigger things. Kelly, himself, had
arrived in England with nothing, an unknown man.

From Kelly, his mind worked backwards to the girl he had seen enter the
cab. It was curious how her face seemed fixed in his memory. The thought
of her, and of her possible story, worried him all the time he was
shaving, and he found himself wishing he had never noticed her. Somehow,
he did not like the look of her companion, who seemed to treat her with
a very perfunctory sort of courtesy, verging on familiarity, or even
contempt. He was still thinking of her when he went down to breakfast;
but the sight of a copy of the _Record_, the first real English daily he
had seen for many years, a paper, moreover, which wanted him to write
for it, changed the current of his thoughts, and he forgot all about the
girl.

Dodgson had told him there was no hurry for the article, any time within
the next week or so would do, and he, himself, knew that it would be
impossible to write in the dreary atmosphere of the hotel; so he decided
to go down to the City and call on his brother, Walter. There was no
one else he wanted to see in town. All his former acquaintances had
dropped clean out of his life, or, rather, he had dropped out of theirs;
and, probably, he could not have found one of them, even had he wished
to do so, which was not the case. He was a very lonely man, he told
himself; and yet he did not feel bitter about that fact as he had done
on the previous night; his meeting with Kelly, and the new hope with
which the other had infused him, had changed his views greatly. Now, it
seemed as if he had a prospect of doing something definite, of starting
on a new career, his success in which would depend entirely on his own
exertions.

Walter Grierson was a short, clean-shaven man with a decidedly pompous
manner. He had been very successful in his profession, owing to his
energy, rather than to his mental capacity, and he regarded unsuccessful
men as little better than criminals. His whole outlook on life was
severe, except in his own home, where he was a generous husband and
indulgent father. Never having been tempted himself, he had no sympathy
with those who fell, being quite unable to understand them. Steadiness
was the virtue he most admired in younger men, meaning by that term the
capacity for choosing and sticking to an orthodox method of livelihood
and for maintaining an unwavering respectability of conduct. Jimmy's
career, the wanderings from one country to another, the continual
changes of occupation, had been a very real grief to him, violating as
it did every canon of his creed. No one could call his brother steady.

Walter Grierson was engaged when Jimmy called, and the visitor spent
half an hour glancing round the gloomy office, and wondering how anyone
could be content to spend his days in such a place. He wanted to smoke,
but something in the attitude of the clerks restrained him, and he put
his cigarette case back into his pocket. He was not sure about the three
younger ones, whether they would be scandalised, or whether the smell of
the tobacco would arouse cruel longings which could not be satisfied
until the too-brief luncheon hour came round; but there was no mistaking
the reprobation in the old managing clerk's face. Even their richest
clients knew better than to disturb the microbes on the upper shelves
with their smoke. Those same clients were all City men, dignified, and
understanding the ways of the City, which are very different from those
of San Francisco or Johannesburg. In London, it is only foreigners and
green-fruit brokers and such like doubtful people, with neither
self-respect nor position to maintain, who break the City's law.
Stockbrokers are, of course, men apart from the rest. They draw most of
their customers from a class which knows nothing of business; and must
therefore be humoured; moreover, a little eccentricity, a
lightheartedness, verging at times on the clownish, is useful, for, if
duly reported, it procures the Stock Exchange a free advertisement in
the Press. Even Mr. Marlow had been known to play football with a silk
hat and wave a little Union Jack, when the news of a British victory,
which meant an improvement in the Market, was recorded in a special
edition. But his brother-in-law, Walter Grierson, had never done any of
these things, having neither the need, nor the desire, for
advertisement. Jimmy did not know the City, but he knew a good deal of
mankind, and he gleaned something of the spirit and traditions of that
office, as his eyes wandered from the rows of black, shiny deed boxes to
the equally shiny pate of the managing clerk, and then to the
drab-looking girl typist, pale-faced and narrow-chested, who seemed to
finger the key-board as though the maddening click of her abominable
machine had killed any individuality she might once have had, and turned
her into a mere part of the mechanism of the City. The one spot of
colour in the office was an insurance company's calendar, and, even on
that, the design was crude and the inscription little more than a dull
list of figures. Jimmy sighed, pitying them all. He did not know that
those who have never experienced the crude things of life seldom have
any desire for them. Being prosaic, they are satisfied with prosaic
surroundings, which is a fortunate thing in an essentially prosaic age.
There is very little room for romance in a world which gauges success by
the measure of a reputed bank balance.

At last, the client, who proved to have side whiskers and an
ivory-handled umbrella, took his departure, and Walter Grierson came out
in his wake. The solicitor greeted Jimmy, if not warmly, at least
sincerely; then sat down and slowly took stock of the returned wanderer.

"You look better than I expected from what May told me you had said in
your last letter. Yes, you look decidedly better. Still, you have
changed a great deal, changed in many ways." He adjusted his gold-rimmed
pince-nez, in order to make a closer scrutiny.

Jimmy laughed. "Well, you must remember, it's ten years since you saw me
last, and I wasn't very old then. You, yourself, look exactly the same.
I should have known you anywhere. How are Janet and the children?"

Walter Grierson's face brightened perceptibly. He was a family man above
everything, and he gave his brother very full details. "Let me see,
you've never seen George and Christine, have you?" he asked at the end
of the recital.

Jimmy shook his head. "No, I have seven or eight unknown nephews and
nieces to inspect, or I'm not sure that it isn't nine. I've rather lost
count."

The elder man frowned slightly; it was not quite the thing to refer to
members of the family in that flippant way. Surely Jimmy could recollect
the number of his sister's children. He gave the tally of the latter,
with their names and ages, and with guarded comments on their
peculiarities, from which Jimmy gathered that they were decidedly
inferior to the little Walter Griersons. And after that there came a
pause, short in duration, certainly, but very significant. After ten
years' separation the brothers had exhausted their subjects of mutual
interest in little over ten minutes.

Jimmy fingered the cigarette case in his pocket, knowing the consolation
and the wisdom to be found in tobacco; but he did not like to produce
it, and he had already noted that Walter's room was innocent of any
ash-tray; so, instead, he racked his brains for a new topic of
conversation. At last:

"You're the sole partner here now, aren't you?" he asked.

Walter nodded. "Yes, Jardine died three years back, and I don't want
anyone else till I can take in Ralph, my eldest boy. He has a nasty
cold, or you would have seen him in the office." He shook his head, as
though at the thought of the dangerous after-effects of colds, and it
struck Jimmy that, for a man of forty-three or forty-four, Walter was
very old and stuffy. He, himself, often felt old and more than a little
weary, but in quite another way. He was not snuffly and solemn in
consequence; it was only that he knew his youth was slipping from him
fast, perhaps had already slipped from him, as is the case with every
European who stays too long in countries made for the coloured man, and
it irritated him to think that, if success ever did come to him, it
would probably be when he had lost the capacity for enjoyment.

"Have you made any plans for your future movements?" Walter asked
suddenly.

Jimmy started. "Well, yes--at least, last night I met an old friend of
mine, and he advised me to go in for writing. I've done a bit of it, of
course, and this man, Douglas Kelly--I expect you know his name." Walter
shook his head; he never read anything except the _Times_. "He's a man
who's made a big hit, and he knows what I can do. So I think of taking
his advice. The _Record_ has already asked me for an article."

Once more, Walter Grierson frowned, and then he sighed. The only
journalists he had ever met had been connected with financial papers,
and his negotiations with them had taught him the subtleties of
scientific blackmail. Being a man of little imagination, though of
retentive memory, he judged the whole profession by the two or three
members of it, or rather pseudo-members, he had been unfortunate enough
to encounter professionally.

"I am sorry to hear your decision, Jimmy," he said. "Very sorry, indeed.
You will find it a most precarious way of life, and it will bring you
into contact with highly undesirable people. I had hoped, we had all
hoped, that now you had returned you would settle down to something
steady. Personally, I think you will be making a great mistake. But I
suppose you know your own business best." He shook his head, as though,
in his own mind, he was quite sure Jimmy did not know anything of the
sort.

Then, once more, there was an awkward pause, and it was a relief to both
of the brothers when the junior clerk came in with a card in his hand.
Walter Grierson glanced at the name, then got up. "I am sorry, Jimmy;
but this is a man with whom I had made an appointment. I would ask you
to lunch with me, but there is more than a probability of my having to
take him out. You must come down and stay with us soon. Janet told me to
give you her love, and ask you to fix a date. I am very glad you called.
Give my love to May when you see her to-night. And, Jimmy," he hesitated
a little, "of course it is not for me to advise you; but I do wish you
would reconsider that decision of yours. It's a most precarious calling,
most precarious, and, I am afraid, one full of temptations." There was
perfectly genuine concern in his voice, and yet, within a couple of
minutes, Jimmy and his affairs were clean out of his mind, and he was
deep in the business of his client.

Jimmy lighted a cigarette on the landing outside his brother's office;
but neither the tobacco, nor the drink he had a few minutes later, could
alleviate his sense of disappointment. He was a very lonely man.




CHAPTER IV


The Marlow motor-car, large and luxurious, with red panels and an
expensive alien chauffeur, met Jimmy at the station. Mrs. Marlow hurried
down to the hall as she heard the throbbing of the engine outside the
front door, and greeted her brother with emotion which verged on tears.

"I am very glad to see you again, Jimmy, dear," she said, kissing him a
second time. "And Henry, too, is delighted to have you. Of course, you
have grown a great deal older, but I don't know that you have changed
very much." She scrutinised his face, then noted, with something akin to
dismay, that his clothes, though well cut, were neither new nor
fashionable.

Jimmy, on his part, was trying to readjust his ideas. He had been
picturing May as still rather rosy and inclined to plumpness,
essentially suggestive of good nature and repose; now, he saw her thin,
almost angular, a little hard of feature, though retaining some of her
good looks. In his calculations, he had forgotten the four children she
had brought into the world since he had seen her last.

May asked him a number of questions about himself, his health, and his
doings, hardly waiting for his answers before passing on to something,
fresh, and hardly listening when she did allow him time to reply; then--

"I'll take you up to your room," she said. "Your trunks have gone up
already. I have had to give you one of the smaller spare rooms, because
my sister-in-law will be back to-night--you remember Laura, of
course--and there may be someone else coming to-morrow." At the door of
his room she paused. "Dinner is at half-past seven. We always dress, but
don't you trouble, if you would rather not, or, or----" She stammered a
little.

Jimmy understood. "I always retained my suit through all my ups and
downs," he said with a smile. "It is the one absolute essential. It will
get you credit when nothing else will. Many a time I have gone to an
hotel with only the suit and a lot of old newspapers in my trunk, and
not five dollars in my pocket."

Mrs. Marlow did not smile. Instead, she looked as she felt, shocked and
pained; and as she went downstairs she was casting round for some scheme
to stop Jimmy's flow of reminiscences. It would never do for him to talk
in that way before people like the Graylings or the Bashfords; whilst,
if the servants were to hear him, it would be all round the
neighbourhood in a couple of days that Mrs. Marlow's brother was, or had
been, a penniless adventurer.

Jimmy did not come down till the dinner gong went; consequently, after
he had shaken hands with Henry Marlow, they went straight into the
dining-room, and May lost her chance of saying anything.

Marlow himself was hungry and ate heartily, and the guest was distinctly
tired, thanks to Douglas Kelly; as a result, there was little said
during the first three courses, except by Mrs. Marlow, who gave her
husband a full account of all her own and the children's doings for that
day, and the names of the people on whom she had called, and of other
visitors whom she had met at their houses. Once or twice she tried to
include Jimmy in the conversation, by asking if he did not remember this
one or that, friends she had known before she was married; but, in every
case, they were merely names to him; they had all been grown up when he
was still at school, and now, after having forgotten their very
existence for ten years, he could not feel the slightest interest in
them.

After a while, Marlow, having taken the edge off his appetite, asked him
a few questions about his wanderings, but paid little heed to his
answers. Even when Jimmy told, in his essentially picturesque way, the
story of John Locke's death, his brother-in-law merely remarked that
such things were never allowed to occur in the British Empire, though,
doubtless, they were to be expected under governments which had injured
the market so greatly in the past by repudiating their bargains. Their
debased silver currency and their worthless paper money were an absolute
scandal, he added.

May, on her part, gave a little gasp when told of the end of Locke's
slayer; then, looking up, and seeing the parlour-maid standing
open-mouthed, with a sauce-boat balanced on a tray at a most dangerous
angle, she felt it was time to intervene.

"Please don't give us any more horrors, Jimmy. We are not used to them
here. Mary," severely, to the parlour-maid, "the master's plate."

Jimmy flushed and said no more; and, apparently, they were perfectly
content that it should be so, for the subject of his travels dropped,
and was not resumed, either then or afterwards. He saw that they were
not interested, even though they were his own people; and he listened in
silence when his sister went back to the apparently inexhaustible
subject of their friends. Certainly, whilst they sat smoking after
dinner, Henry Marlow did ask his guest some more questions, a great
many more in fact, and listened with considerable attention to the
replies; but, as Jimmy noted with a kind of grim amusement, they were
all of an impersonal nature, having reference solely to mining
conditions in South American states. Jimmy's own experiences at the
hands of Dago patriots left his brother-in-law unmoved, being things
which belonged rather to books, and certainly had no part in the lives
of people of position; but the effect of those same patriots' doings on
the development of the country, and, consequently, on the profits of
British Enterprise, aroused his bitterest wrath. Once, some years
before, he had lost over a thousand pounds through a new president
revoking a lead-mining concession which his predecessor had granted;
and, that predecessor having been sent where neither letters nor writs
could reach him, none of the purchase money had been recovered despite
the efforts of the Foreign Office. Mr. Marlow, himself, had never
forgiven either the Dagos or the diplomatists, especially as the
concession had eventually gone to a German firm, which had made a clear
half-million out of it; and he argued, not without reason, that the most
effective form of negotiation would have been a whiff of grapeshot, or
its modern equivalent, from the guns of a British cruiser.

Jimmy listened patiently to the grievance, which took some time in the
telling, involving, as it did, full details of the careers and financial
standing of the directors of the ill-fated company, men of position and
weight in the City, who deserved very different treatment.

"Disgraceful business, disgraceful," Henry added. "To think that the
British Government should allow us to be robbed by a snuff-coloured
rascal like that. Did you ever come across him?"

"Who? President Montez?" Jimmy laughed apologetically. "I'm very sorry;
but I helped him with that revolution. I was pretty hard up at the time,
and I knew something about field guns, so they gave me a job."

Mr. Marlow apparently saw nothing at which to laugh; in fact, he frowned
slightly. He held rather strong views on the subject of law and order;
moreover, there were people who would be very ready to sneer if they
heard Jimmy's story of the affair. But his chief thought was, as usual,
for his wife, who would be annoyed were she to learn the part Jimmy had
played.

"I shouldn't tell May, if I were you," he said. "In fact, I don't think
I should tell anyone. You see, it's not--what shall I say?--quite the
thing to be mixed up in those affairs, and it would stand in your light
over here, socially as well as from a practical point of view. You
understand?"

Jimmy nodded; at least he was beginning to understand.

May was doing some fancy work when they joined her in the drawing-room;
but she glanced up with a smile as Jimmy entered, and told him to take
the chair next to hers. After all, he looked presentable, this brother
of hers, at any rate, in evening dress, a little thin for his height and
rather yellow in the face perhaps, but still there was about him a
certain indefinable air of distinction which most men she knew lacked.
There were girls who might even call him handsome. As she thought of
that, her mouth hardened momentarily. She must guard against any folly
of that sort by not introducing him in dangerous quarters until he was
in a very much better position financially. The last thought suggested a
question she had been intending to ask him at the first opportunity.

"What are you thinking of doing now, Jimmy? I suppose you still intend
to remain at home?"

Henry Marlow muttered something about the evening paper. He was always
tactful where his wife was concerned, and this was a Grierson concern,
in which he might seem an intruder. May would tell him anything there
was to tell later.

Jimmy, remembering Walter's reception of his news, hesitated slightly.
The assurance with which Douglas Kelly's words had filled him was oozing
out rather rapidly. It was one thing to decide on a literary career when
one was in a Bohemian club and the time was long after midnight; but,
somehow, in an essentially staid drawing-room, where there was more than
a hint of Victorian influence in the furniture, and with a sense of a
heavy dinner still oppressing him, matters seemed different. After all,
it was only natural that it should be so. He was a Grierson, with a
veneration for conventions in his blood, and, in the appropriate
surroundings, the force, so long latent as to be practically forgotten,
began to make itself felt, not very strongly, perhaps, but still the
fact remained that it was there. Just as his father had given in at
last, and gone to the City, so, for a moment, it seemed to Jimmy that he
must go. But then he remembered Walter's office, where you could not
smoke, and the only spot of colour was that inartistic insurance
calendar with its grim lists of figures.

"I'm going to write," he said, "or at least try to write. I think I can
make a living at it. It's worth trying. There's nothing else, you see,"
he added, a little lamely.

May stopped in the middle of a stitch, and stared at him with something
akin to dismay. She remembered an article of his she had once read,
unsigned to be sure, and only in an obscure Hong Kong paper, but so
painfully outspoken that she had shown it to no one, not even to her
husband; and then rose up before her the vision of him writing similar
articles for London journals, and of the world, her world, knowing him
to be the author. She recognised her brother's cleverness, and it never
entered into her head to doubt that he could get his work into print;
she knew nothing of the financial side of journalism, and, for the
moment, what had formerly seemed the all-important question, Jimmy's
method of livelihood, was thrust into the background, owing to her fear
that he would do something to compromise both himself and his family.

Yet, the idea had taken her so greatly by surprise that at first she did
not know what to say. She was not afraid of offending Jimmy or of
hurting his feelings. To her, he was still a boy, who would; or at least
should, listen to her advice.

"Surely you don't mean that, Jimmy," she began. "I never dreamt of your
contemplating such a thing; and I shall be very sorry if you go on with
it. I am certain you will do yourself a lot of harm, for I know from
your letters that you have picked up a number of curious, and even
improper, ideas. We are all aware that there is a low public taste which
likes these things; but there are already more than enough writers
providing them. We had hoped that when you came home you would settle
down to regular work of some sort."

Jimmy had coloured a little. "What sort?" he asked quietly.

It was May's turn to flush; she did not quite like his tone, and,
moreover, she had no answer ready. "Some business, of course," she
answered tartly. "You have no profession. Henry has promised to see if
any of his friends have vacancies in their offices. I suppose you have
saved enough to keep you for a little while?"

Her brother got up rather suddenly. He had been alone so long, playing a
lone hand, that he had forgotten the great unwritten law of the Family
Inquisition, whose main clause is that the common rules of courtesy do
not apply when two of the same blood meet; but still, he recognised the
genuine kindness underlying the inquiry, and stifled his resentment,
which May would not have understood, because she and Walter and Ida were
in the habit of asking each other similar blunt questions.

"For a short time," he answered. "Enough for a week or two, and a friend
on the Press has put me in the way of getting one commission already.
As for a City office, I couldn't stand it for a day."

Mrs. Marlow put another stitch in her fancy work, then pulled her thread
a little viciously, breaking it. "Well, I hope you will be careful, and
not write anything we need feel ashamed of. Remember, that though you
may have no position to lose, we have one."

"You needn't be afraid of that, May." There was a suspicion of scorn,
and more than a suspicion of anger, in his voice. "It doesn't make much
difference if I don't write under my own name, so long as I can get the
dollars, which are what I'm out for."

Mrs. Marlow gave in with a sigh. After all, so long as he kept the
family name out of print, there would not be much harm done; and it was
a relief to find that he looked at matters from a practical point of
view. Of course, he ought to have accepted Henry's assistance and gone
into the City; but if he would not do so, as seemed to be the case, it
was some consolation to find that he was apparently anxious to make
money in other ways.

But when she talked the matter over with her husband after Jimmy had
gone up to bed, Henry Marlow shook his head. His opinions coincided
exactly with those of Walter Grierson. "A most precarious occupation,"
he said, "and one which I should certainly not allow our boys to take
up. It's a great pity, as I believe I could have got him into Foulger's
office--Foulger and Hilmon, you know, the jobbers."

Upstairs, Jimmy was smoking and staring into his fire. Somehow, he felt
very disappointed, as though he had been working on a false assumption,
and must readjust his ideas and then start afresh. He was little more at
home than he had been the previous night in the hotel.




CHAPTER V


The hours of Jimmy's stay with the Marlows dragged by slowly. The
children, four boys, proved uninteresting in the extreme, whilst between
himself and Laura Marlow, May's sister-in-law, there was little in
common. Two other guests, an elderly aunt and uncle of Henry's, arrived
in time for dinner on the second night, and Jimmy retired more and more
into the background, or, rather, he found himself in the background by a
kind of natural sequence. No one wanted to put him there; in fact, both
his brother-in-law and his sister were kindness itself; but he was the
outsider in the party, sharing none of the interests of the others.

He had been invited for a week, at least, longer if possible; yet at the
end of three days he was longing for an excuse to get back to town,
where he intended to take rooms; but no excuse presented itself, and so
he stayed on, spending most of his time in the billiard-room, a part of
the house seldom used in the daytime, writing, or trying to write, some
of the articles which Douglas Kelly had suggested. He had sent his copy
in to the _Record_, and each morning, immediately after breakfast, he
strolled down to the little news agent's shop to buy a copy of the
paper--Mr. Marlow took no halfpenny journals--but when Sunday came round
it had not appeared.

The Marlows were regular church-goers, at least Mrs. Marlow was, and her
husband always accompanied her when he was not away at the seaside,
golfing. May took her religion as part of her settled order of
existence. She had been bred up in it, and she would have resented any
attack on it as fiercely as she would have resented the abolition of
class distinctions. She believed in it, and, in a sense, she loved it;
but, with the one exception of her father's tragic death, her way
through life had been so smooth that she had never felt the need of its
consolations, and, consequently, had never analysed it in any way. Doubt
had never entered into her mind, because her creed seemed to suit her
circumstances so admirably. The well-dressed congregation, the
well-trained choir, the cushioned seats and reserved pews, the suave,
optimistic rector, and deferential curates--these were all part of a
nicely balanced state of society which kept motor-cars, or at least
broughams, and paid its tradesmen's bills by cheque on the first of the
month.

Henry Marlow seldom, if ever, gave the matter a thought; but he
subscribed generously when asked by the rector, and he kept the Ten
Commandments scrupulously, so far as his home life was concerned. He
respected the Church, as something which stood for solidity and the
security of property, like Consols and the Mansion House, and he
regarded Dissenters in much the same light as he did outside brokers, as
persons who should be watched by the police. He did not try to worship
both God and Mammon simultaneously; but, wholly unconsciously, he
divided his life into two parts, that which he spent in the City, and
that which he spent outside the Square Mile, and so avoided the
difficulty.

Jimmy, on the other hand, had heard very few services during the last
ten years, and of those the majority had been read by a layman, and had
begun with the words "I am the resurrection and the life, saith the
Lord." Lack of opportunity had kept him from attending in the first
case, and, after a while, having lost the habit of his boyhood, he had
ceased to think of taking such opportunities as did offer.

"I think it must be five years at least since I went to anything but a
funeral service," he remarked to May, as they walked towards the big
red-brick church.

Mrs. Marlow threw a swift glance over her shoulder, fearing her other
guests, who were following, might have heard. "Hush, Jimmy," she said.
"It sounds so bad. Never say that again, especially before the servants.
The rector's housemaid is sister to my parlour-maid, and it would be
sure to get round to him. Of course, I know you have been in wild places
where there were no churches, and we understand, but others might not.
And all our friends are Church-people."

Jimmy dropped the subject, and a few minutes later he was following her
rustling skirts up the broad centre aisle to the pew four rows back from
the pulpit. He wished it had not been so far forward, because the
worshippers interested him, if only by reason of their sameness of type.
You could see they were all people of position, with regular incomes and
hereditary political convictions, solid people of that slow-moving,
tenacious class which is the real backbone of the country, holding, as
it does, the greater part of the wealth, and producing, often by a kind
of apparent accident, the greater part of the intellect.

Jimmy belonged to them by birth, and yet, as he sat amongst them,
listening to the lisping voice of the senior curate, he found it hard to
realise the fact. He tried his best to follow the service, to keep his
mind on it, but, somehow, the whole atmosphere seemed wrong. The church
was a modern one, the work of a famous architect, and, therefore,
grossly inartistic, lacking every feature which makes for solemnity and
beauty. The detail was coarse and roughly finished, the red-brick walls,
as always, an offence to the eye; big texts seemed to squirm, like
semi-paralysed eels, over the chancel arch and round the East window.
The latter, off which Jimmy could hardly take his eyes, was a veritable
triumph of the Victorian tradition. Its colouring was gruesome, its
design grotesque; and yet it was a source of great pride to the
congregation as a whole, having been put in to the memory of a banker
who had left nearly a million. They no more dreamed of doubting its
artistic merits than they did of questioning the religion it was
supposed in some vague way to typify.

The singing was good, the sermon grammatical and well delivered, and yet
Jimmy left the church with a feeling of dissatisfaction. He had expected
that this, his first service in England after ten years, would have
carried him back to the days when he knew nothing of the Tree of
Knowledge; but, instead of that, it had made no appeal to him. Its
poetry was destroyed by the hideousness of the surroundings; whilst even
the glorious words of the Benediction seemed but a perfunctory
dismissal, giving the congregation leave to hasten away to the heavy
dinners which were awaiting it at home.

He was very silent on his way back, thinking of the past, and he was
only recalled to the present when May, seeing him producing his
cigarette case, thought it time to speak.

"Jimmy," she said, rather severely, "it is hardly correct to smoke on
your way home from church. People notice that sort of thing so much."

Her brother coloured, and thrust the case back into his pocket. A minute
later, he heard his sister's name spoken, and a tall, well-dressed woman
hurried up from behind.

"I have been trying to overtake you for the last five minutes, May," she
said. "Only you have been walking as if you were very, very hungry,"
then, disregarding Mrs. Marlow's little snort of annoyance, she turned
to Jimmy, "Don't you remember me, Jimmy--Mr. Grierson I suppose I ought
to say--I'm Ethel Grimmer, Ethel Jardine that was."

Jimmy laughed and took the outstretched hand.

"Of course I remember you now; but when I saw you in church where I
could only catch your profile obliquely, I was not quite sure who you
were. I didn't know you lived down here."

Mrs. Grimmer laughed too, but mentally she registered another grievance
against May. So this Jimmy Grierson, who dressed quite decently after
all, and had a distinctly interesting face, was to be kept in the
background.

"I suppose you and May have found so much to talk about," she said. "I'm
sure you must, after being apart all these years, and you have such a
lot to tell." She was a handsome woman with fine eyes, and she knew how
to use them. "When May has done with you, or rather when she can spare
you for an hour or two, you must come and see us--Jimmy." She blushed a
little. "When will you let him come, May? How would dinner on Tuesday
do? I know you and Henry are going to the Foulgers' that night, and this
poor boy will be alone."

May bit her lip to repress an exclamation of annoyance. She did not want
Jimmy to go to the Grimmers', but it was impossible to deny the
engagement with the Foulgers, and equally impossible to say that Jimmy
was going there with her--Ethel Grimmer knew how many people the Foulger
dining table would seat; so she gave in, and Jimmy arranged to go,
showing rather more eagerness over his acceptance than May considered
necessary. Indeed, she remarked so much to her husband whilst she was
taking off her hat; then a sudden thought struck her, and she paused,
with her fingers still grasping a half-withdrawn hatpin.

"Henry, do you remember what a silly fuss Ethel used to make over Jimmy,
just before he went abroad, how they used to go cycling together. Of
course, she's years older than he is, but still----"

Marlow nodded solemnly; he had never really liked the Grimmers, and he
knew that, several times lately, Ethel had gone out of her way to annoy
his wife, whilst Grimmer himself had behaved like a fool over the Gold
Dredging Company, actually hinting that, because they knew each other
socially, he ought to have been warned when the thing was going wrong.
As if sentiment of that sort could be allowed to intrude on business.
Billy Grimmer had been in the City over twenty years, and it was quite
time he knew its ways.

"Ethel is a vain, flighty woman," Marlow said, in reply to his wife's
remark. "She likes to have young men like Jimmy trailing after her; and
Grimmer only laughs. I suppose it's what they call being 'smart.' Pity
he doesn't put a little more smartness into his business affairs." He
chuckled slightly at the recollection of the dredging shares, which had
been some of those he, himself, had received as vendor. "Still, Jimmy
is old enough to take care of himself now," he went on, "and, after
all, he will be going back to town a day or two later."

But May shook her head. "I must warn him not to talk too much--he seems
terribly indiscreet--and I think I shall give him a plain hint about
falling in love, and so on. From what Ethel said the other day, she is
quite capable of getting some silly girls with money to meet him."

Meanwhile, Jimmy was staring out of the window of the billiard-room, and
smiling a little grimly at the memories which his meeting with Mrs.
Grimmer had reawakened. They had been very great friends in his
Sandhurst days, although she was several years his senior; and, for a
month or two after his departure from England, he had slept with her
photo under his pillow, and tried to imagine her warm farewell kisses on
his lips; and then, somehow, the photo had got mislaid, and the other
recollections had begun to lose their actuality, and when, a year later,
he had received the news of her engagement, he had written her a hearty,
and perfectly sincere, letter of congratulation. It would be distinctly
amusing to meet her under the new conditions, and see how much she was
disposed to remember.




CHAPTER VI


On Tuesday morning Jimmy opened the _Record_ as usual at page 4, and the
first thing that caught his eye was his own article. He glanced down it
quickly, with an unusual sense of exaltation: never before had anything
of his appeared in a great London daily; and the _Record's_ circulation
ran to a considerable fraction of a million. There was no one with him
to whom he could show it; but he was passing an hotel, the "Railway
Tavern," and he turned in at the door, to celebrate his luck, and read
his work through quietly.

The barmaid, who was polishing her spirit measures, looked at him
curiously. "You seem mighty pleased about something," she said at last,
perhaps a little resentfully, as though feeling that her own rather,
full-blown charms deserved more attention than the paper.

Jimmy glanced up with a smile. "There's an article of mine here," he
said, holding out the sheet.

The girl knit her brow and spelled out the heading. "My! Is that your
writing? What's it all about. Anything spicy?" But, though she was
regarding him with more interest than before, she made no attempt to
read his work.

Jimmy finished his drink and folded up the paper. Somehow, at the second
reading, it had not seemed so good. There were at least two clumsy
sentences, and the fool of a printer had chopped out half a dozen
commas. He could see now where he could have made several improvements,
and he had little doubt that Dodgson would see too, and, perhaps, reckon
him a careless workman. He had yet to learn how much, or how little, the
public recks of either grammar or punctuation, how it prefers
semi-truths tempered by split infinitives to facts stated in balanced
prose.

As he came out of the hotel, his mind was full of the career which
seemed to lie ahead of him, and he did not notice Laura Marlow walking
up the other side of the road; but Miss Marlow saw him, saw too where he
had been, and duly reported the fact to May when she returned to the
house.

Jimmy found his sister in her boudoir, busy with her tradesmen's books,
searching for the errors which certainly would have been there had the
butcher and the baker and the grocer not learned long since that Mrs.
Marlow was in the habit of checking her accounts, a habit which they
viewed with a mixture of scorn and wrath, tempered by not a little fear.
They regarded her much as a municipal politician regards a chartered
accountant; but they knew it was useless to add up two and five as
eight, or to charge for fresh butter when cooking butter had been
ordered. May allowed no one to rob her husband, even of a halfpenny.
They called her a hard woman, and said many bitter things about her as
they foregathered outside the chapel after service; but, none the less,
they supplied her with far better goods than those they sent to Mrs.
Grimmer, who paid her bills spasmodically, without attempting to check
them.

May glanced at the paper her brother held out, but she did not attempt
to take it. "I will read it by and by, when I've time," she said; then
she noticed his name below the heading and frowned. "I thought you were
going to write under an assumed name," she added.

Jimmy coloured slightly. "I've changed my mind," he said, rather
shortly. "I don't see why I should disguise myself. It's nothing to be
ashamed of, as you'll see if you read it."

His sister sighed and picked up her pencil again. "I must get on with
these tiresome tradesmen's books. Oh, don't leave that paper there,
Jimmy." He had put it down on the table. "There's so much litter about
already. I'll ask you for it later."

Jimmy picked up the _Record_ again and left the room without another
word. His sister's apparent lack of interest hurt him more than he cared
to acknowledge, even to himself; and his sense of grievance deepened as
the day went by without her making any other reference to his article.
Yet, after lunch, she found time to put in an hour studying a children's
fashion paper with the greatest attention. He had the cutting from the
_Record_ in his pocket-book, ready for her or any of the other guests to
see, but it remained there until the evening, and when he dressed to go
to the Grimmers' he left it behind deliberately. He was not going to
risk another snub.

On entering the Grimmer drawing-room, however, Ethel met him with a copy
of the paper in her hand.

"Billy just brought this home from town," she said. "A man showed it to
him in the train. I like it very much indeed, and so does my husband."
She paused and gave a little laugh. "It's awfully nice of you to come,
Jimmy, and--and, not be jealous or anything silly. Still, that was all
years ago, wasn't it?"

"You look just the same," he answered, smiling back at her.

She laughed again, flattered, and yet relieved at his tone--some men do
remember such a stupidly long time, and she had half feared lest her
guest might be one of them. "Now you are being silly," she answered,
lightly. "I am sure May wouldn't approve of that. But I know you're
going to be good, and, as a reward, I've got two very nice girls for you
to meet. Ah, here's Billy." Then she introduced the two men, adding,
"Billy knows all about you already."

The nice girls proved to be respectively Miss Farlow, the daughter of
the rector, and Miss Barton, whose mother had a large house next to that
of the Marlows, for whom she entertained that measure of good will which
usually exists between near neighbours; but, none the less, she was very
pleasant to Jimmy, knowing nothing of his financial position. Young men
were by no means plentiful in the neighbourhood.

The rector, too, was pleasant, for very similar reasons, although, as a
matter of fact, he was affable to all his parishioners and their
relatives. There were no poor amongst his flock, no self-evident black
sheep, and, consequently, he was able to know every member of his
congregation socially, which, as he was never tired of repeating, was
most comforting to a conscientious man.

Mrs. Grimmer, having secured Jimmy, did not mean to allow his light to
remain hidden, as May apparently intended it should be; consequently,
dinner had scarcely begun before she started to draw him out
scientifically, and, after the dullness of the last few days, her guest
was not loath to talk. He was always interesting, but this time he was
almost brilliant; and when Ethel gave the signal to the other ladies,
she left the room feeling that she had scored greatly over Mrs. Marlow,
who would now have to explain why she had kept this distinctly
interesting brother in the background. Grimmer, too, was pleased,
foreseeing a chance of annoying Marlow in the train by bringing up the
subject of Jimmy's adventures.

Ethel managed to keep her guest until the others had gone, and even then
she did not seem inclined to let him go.

"Stay and have a whisky and soda and another cigar with Billy. I know
you would like one, and I'm quite sure it won't hurt that fat butler of
May's to sit up an extra half-hour to let you in. I don't suppose May
has given you a latchkey."

Jimmy shook his head at the latter suggestion, then followed her into
the smoking-room.

"I think I shall have a cigarette, too, Billy," she said to her husband,
after she had settled her rather elaborate draperies into a big leather
chair, "only you mustn't tell May, Jimmy. I am quite sure she never
smoked. I didn't myself until this husband of mine taught me." She took
a few whiffs, then, "Which did you like best?" she asked, suddenly.
"Mary Barton will have the most money; but Vera Farlow is the better
looking, and, they say, her father will probably be a bishop some day.
You see, he has private means, and married an earl's granddaughter."

Her guest parried the question, a little awkwardly; whereupon Mrs.
Grimmer, seeing his embarrassment, let the matter drop, and went on to
ask about his plans for the future. "I wonder you don't live with some
of your own people," she said, when he told her of his intention to take
rooms. "But, still, I suppose it would be dull for you. What do you say,
Billy?... You must come down here for a week-end as soon as you can find
time."

It was an hour later when Jimmy left; and the fat butler had already
finished the bottle of port and gone to sleep, with the result that only
at the third ringing of the bell did he awaken and stumble upstairs to
the front door. Jimmy was feeling more than ever disappointed at the
attitude of his own people, more than ever ready to disregard both their
wishes and their advice. After all, Ethel Grimmer had far more brains
and sympathy than May; whilst Grimmer, though not over-brilliant, was
more interesting than Henry Marlow. He woke up next morning with his
sense of grievance still unabated; and his disappointment changed to
something very like anger when May called him into her boudoir after
breakfast, and proceeded to cross-examine him as to whom he had met at
the Grimmers'.

"I hope you will remember these people are all our friends, even more
than they are Ethel's, Jimmy," she said severely, "and I trust you will
not let Ethel fill your head with her own silly ideas about getting
married and so on. Both Mrs. Barton and Mrs. Farlow will only allow
their girls to marry men of means and position."

"And you mean that I have neither." Her brother laughed bitterly. "Good
heavens, May, do you think I came home to get married, and live on a
stodgy father-in-law? I've got plenty of other things to think about."
But although he brushed the matter aside scornfully, May's words
remained in his memory. Only men of means and position were wanted in
their circle.




CHAPTER VII


Jimmy's original intention had been to take a couple of rooms of which
Douglas Kelly had told him. They were somewhere in that queer maze of
little streets and courts which lies at the back of Fleet Street, and
would have suited him admirably. But May had objected strongly to the
idea. No one they knew had ever dwelt in such a quarter; and both she
and Henry agreed that it was not the thing for any young man, especially
for a young man of Jimmy's temperament, to live in a place where nobody
would know what he was doing, or what hours he kept. So she had written
to a former maid of hers, who had married and settled in a South London
suburb, and arranged for her to board and lodge Jimmy for a fixed weekly
sum.

Jimmy had given in reluctantly, though he had not shown his reluctance
openly. Abroad, he had gone his own way, doing just as it seemed good to
him; but in England it was different. He was not afraid of his own
people; but he was anxious not to shock them in any way; and, at the
same time, contact with them had brought back much of his respect for
those conventions which had governed his boyhood. He was a Bohemian by
habit, and largely so by nature, yet when he was amongst those who lived
settled lives their influence and example seemed to revive some latent
instinct of staid respectability within himself, and, to a certain
extent, he came to see things with their eyes. True, the phase passed
quickly, so quickly that often during the ensuing months his own people
wondered whether he were not a hypocrite. They were used to men with
fixed temperaments, men you could rely upon to maintain a suitable
standard of propriety. The other kinds they ignored socially, as they
certainly would have ignored Jimmy, had he not been of their own blood;
but they belonged to a class which reckons family as second only to
property, which, though it may quarrel with its relations, always
remembers the relationship, and the sacred right of interference which
relationship gives.

Jimmy's new lodgings were half an hour's journey from the City. You
reached them by means of an uncleanly train, whose driver seemed to be
perpetually on the look-out for an excuse to stop with a jolt. You got
out--usually ten minutes late--at a smoke-grimed station, and emerged
into a wide thoroughfare, lined on either side with shops of the
margarine-and-spot-cash variety, and horrible with the screeching and
rattling of gigantic municipal trams, which appeared to run solely for
the pleasure of the motorman and conductor. The third turning on the
right and then the second on the left brought you to Mrs. Benn's house,
semidetached and severe looking, with heavy curtains and a brass plate
on a front door bearing the single word "Apartments."

Jimmy groaned inwardly as the cab drew up at the little iron gate, and
he wished, once more, that he had not given way to his sister. A band,
obviously the product of a happy and musical Fatherland, was just
packing up its music stands some fifty yards lower down the street;
whilst, as he mounted the steps of the house, two Dagos appeared round
the next corner, trundling a piano organ, on the top of which was seated
what was apparently a small and long-tailed relative of their own. His
rooms, however--two on the first floor--though small, were quite
cheerful for their kind, whilst the meat tea, which the landlady
presently brought up, was distinctly promising.

He had no stuff of his own, beyond the clothes in his trunks, not even a
book or a photograph; and during his wandering days the lack of such
things had never struck him; but now he found himself registering a
mental vow to buy some pictures as soon as possible, if only to have an
excuse for banishing the German reproductions of mid-Victorian art
which disfigured the walls of his sitting-room. The painters of the
originals had all borne great names, or at least had been accounted
great in their generation; but as he sat smoking after tea, and staring
at these glazed abominations, he wondered who had been the greater
sinner, the English artist or the Teutonic engraver; probably the
former, he told himself, for, after all, the latter had only spoiled
what detail there might have been; he had copied the smugness and the
false sentiment, perhaps rejoiced in them as being essentially the
products of Teutonic thought, but it had been the Englishman who had put
that smugness on to the canvas in the first case.

Unfortunately, it was easier to want new pictures than to get them, even
though they might cost but a few shillings apiece. Jimmy's total capital
amounted to a bare fifteen pounds, and his means of subsistence so far
appeared to consist of the introduction to Dodgson of the _Record_. Not
that the fact troubled him greatly. A more sanguine man would have been
haunted by the fear of his money giving out before any earnest of future
success came to him; a less experienced man would never have dreamed of
making the attempt at all; but Jimmy was used to being hard pressed for
cash, and had learnt in a rough school not to expect very much. He was
used to drifting, and, in any case, he had practically nothing to lose.

On the first morning Jimmy went out to have a look at the neighbourhood,
but after an hour's walk he had seen enough to kill any desire he might
have felt for further exploration. The whole district was prosaic and
unlovely, saturated with the spirit of municipal government. There were
rows and rows of jerry-built houses running at right angles to the High
Street, houses with small rooms and big rates, occupied by tired-looking
men who hurried to the station about half-past eight every morning, and
did not get back again till after seven in the evening, when you would
meet them walking homewards rather slowly, shuffling a little perhaps,
as overworked clerks are prone to do, and still carrying the halfpenny
paper which they had bought on their way to town. They had read every
word in it, and their wives would be too busy, or too worn-out, to give
it a glance; but still it had a value as fire-lighting material.
Halfpennies were not negligible factors in those desirable villa
residences. You could see that when the women folk went out to do their
morning shopping. Some of them were flashily-smart, some, most perhaps,
drab and weary like their husbands; but all had to pay cash to those
prosperous tradesmen in the High Street, every one of whom looked like
a councillor, or, at the very least, a guardian, having the air of
growing rich at the expense of the multitude.

There seemed to be a council school, aggressive in its hideousness, up
every second side street; the grinding whirr of the municipal trams was
always in your ears, to remind you of the poverty of the neighbourhood
in case our eyes should play you false, that worst form of poverty which
has to wear a decent black suit and possesses the mockery of a vote;
whilst the only alternative to the pavements--laid by a
councillor-contractor, and kept in repair by means of a special
rate--was the recreation ground, in which a plethoric and guardian-like
official spent his days in keeping the embryo ratepayers off the
sacrosanct municipal grass. You felt you were in the clutch of a
horrible machine, or rather of two machines, unallied perhaps, yet very
similar in operation, for both took as much as possible and grudged
giving anything in return. From nine till six you were part of the
mechanism of the City, wearing yourself out for the bare means of
subsistence, often without the slightest hope of further advancement,
always with the dread of dismissal as soon as your hair began to turn
grey, when a younger, cheaper man, or a German volunteer, would take
your place. There was nothing in the present, save the eternal
necessity for economy; nothing in the future, save the fear of
unemployment. At night, you returned home, to be gripped by the
municipal Frankenstein's monster, which you and your fellows had helped
to make. You were never free man, you never could be free; because in
London the price of freedom is usually starvation for your children and
prison for yourself, if you cannot satisfy the demands of the "Guardians
of the Poor."

Jimmy smiled grimly to himself as he noted the new Town Hall. He had met
a good many robber-politicians during his wanderings in the Dago
Republics; but all of them had, at least, the saving grace of frankness.
The aim and end of their policy was to arrive safely in Paris, with the
contents of the national treasury as their baggage. They did not hunger
after honours, such as knighthoods, or aspire to speak at Sunday
afternoon gathering in pseudo-places of worship. Certainly, they told a
number of flamboyant falsehoods before getting into office, but that was
the only respect in which they copied civilised political methods; and
they did run a risk from which their English counterparts would have
shrunk in a cold sweat of fear. The price of failure was death.

The one tour of inspection satisfied Jimmy. He saw the tragedy
underlying the lives of these people, saw it far more clearly, perhaps,
than they did themselves, for he had known so many other phases, whilst
they were inured to the drab monotony, most had been born to it, and so
its full meaning was mercifully hidden from them. They would have waxed
wrath at hearing it called a poor locality, in fact it was not one,
being eminently respectable, as any house agent could tell you. Why, the
late mayor, who died during his third term of office, had left nearly a
hundred thousand pounds.

For three days Jimmy wrote steadily, doing no less than five articles of
the type which the _Record_ had accepted. One he sent to Dodgson, the
others to papers which Douglas Kelly had mentioned, and then, suddenly,
inspiration seemed to fail him. He could not write a line, could not
even think of a subject; and, for a whole day, he felt something nearly
akin to dismay. If his ideas ran out as quickly as this his prospects
were small indeed; and when the postman brought back two of his
manuscripts, with printed slips conveying the editor's thanks and
regrets, he began to curse his own folly in ever coming home.

That evening, the craving for companionship he had felt in the hotel the
night he landed came back to him again. He had spoken to no one, save
his landlady, for the better part of a week, and the loneliness seemed
unbearable. He sent his supper away, practically untasted, then, without
giving Mrs. Benn a chance to come up and comment on the smallness of his
appetite, took his hat and went out.

It was Early Closing Day, and the High Street was thronged, mainly with
the liberated shop assistants. Jimmy walked slowly, and, owing perhaps
to that fact, he got more than one glance, encouraging him to begin an
acquaintance with young ladies in cheap and showy raiment. But none of
them made the slightest appeal to him. He had no taste for an insipid
flirtation with a girl who would probably play havoc with the aspirates.
He had met many women far less innocent than these, and there had been
more than one passage in his life which he did not recall with pride;
and yet, withal, he was still fastidious where women were concerned. The
only one who had interested him since his return home was the girl whom
he had seen entering the cab in the Strand. Somehow, her face remained
fixed in his memory, and many times since that evening he had found
himself wondering who she was, what her story could be.

He walked down to the bottom of the High Street, to where the trams
swerved round a corner with a whirr and a jolt into the domain of the
next borough council. There was a large public house at that point, with
much brass work and mahogany about its swing doors, and he turned in,
not so much because he wanted anything to drink, but because it seemed
the obvious alternative to the dreariness of his own rooms or the
boredom of the street.

The presiding deity welcomed him with the smile she reserved for new
customers. Trade was not very brisk in the saloon bar--there were eight
other licensed houses in the street--and she tossed her peroxide-dyed
curls and flashed her new teeth at him as she poured out his whisky.

"You look pretty doleful about something," she remarked.

Jimmy laughed. "I was till I came in here." Then he began to chat to
her, about nothing in particular, and somehow the time passed so quickly
that it was closing time before he took his leave. She had not
interested him in the least; but she was someone to talk to, and the
five or six drinks he had taken had cheered him up temporarily. It was
only when he got out into the now-emptying street that he remembered
that he had not got a latchkey.

Mrs. Benn was sitting up for him, and received him with a rather sour
face.

"I didn't know you was going to be late, sir," she said severely. "Mrs.
Marlow wrote that you would always be in in good time."

Jimmy muttered an apology and took his candle. On the top stair of the
first flight he caught his foot in a loose piece of carpet, and
stumbled, dropping the candlestick, which broke off at the base. In
silence, Mrs. Benn fetched another, and handed it to him with an air of
resignation, then, "You'll be sure and put it out safe, sir," she said.

Jimmy saw what was in her mind, and laughed, though there was a note of
annoyance in his voice as he attempted to reassure her; but his
annoyance would have changed to wrath had he known that the early post
next morning carried a letter to May describing how he returned home the
worse for liquor.




CHAPTER VIII


The morning post consisted of a manuscript returned from the _Daily
Herald_. Jimmy tossed the package on to the side table, with an
exclamation of disgust, not even troubling to ascertain if there were
any enclosure beyond the ordinary printed slip. Then, suddenly, he
decided to go up to town to see if he could find Douglas Kelly.

"Will you be late again, sir?" Mrs. Benn asked, severely.

"I think not," Jimmy answered, then, remembering his former experience
with Kelly, he added, "still you might let me have a latchkey on the
chance. I meant to have asked you for one before."

Mrs. Benn sighed, fumbled in a pocket, took a key off her own bunch, and
handed it to her lodger with an air of resignation.

"Mrs. Marlow said as you would always be in early." She repeated her
remark of the previous evening. "But if you are going to be late, sir, I
must ask you to be very careful with the candle. One does read of such
awful things, folks burnt in their beds. I'm sure I'm afraid to look at
the papers in these days."

Jimmy tried to laugh, but the sound spoke of irritation rather than of
amusement. "I don't think you need be afraid of me, Mrs. Benn, though I
did twist my ankle on that loose piece of carpet last night."

The landlady sniffed, and descended to the basement, where she relieved
her feelings, and conveyed a moral lesson, by smacking the head of her
youngest son, who was not wearing his Band of Hope ribbon.

"Poor children, can't they keep sober without joining a temperance
society?" a young lady lodger had once said, with a show of sympathy,
and since then the badges had not been greatly in evidence; but now they
should be brought out again as a rebuke to Mrs. Marlow's brother.

Jimmy went to the club which he knew Kelly used most, but the journalist
was not there. The waiter on duty surveyed the caller critically through
a window, then, having grown grey and wise in the ways of literary men,
he decided that Jimmy was not a creditor, and volunteered some
information. "Mr. Kelly's not been in yet, sir; but he's sure to come to
get his letters. So you might call again."

Jimmy strolled about until two o'clock--he was not of the kind which
calls just before lunch-time--then went back to the club.

"Not in yet, sir," the waiter said. "But he may come about four o'clock
for a cup of tea. He usually does, if he's in town."

Jimmy sighed. He was sick of waiting about; but he craved for the
society of someone he knew, and the idea of going back to spend the rest
of the day in those suburban lodgings seemed intolerable. So he decided
to wait, and walked down the narrow side street into the Strand, and
thence westwards, in more or less aimless fashion. He had never known
town sufficiently well to note the changes which the last ten years had
brought; possibly, they would not have interested him greatly in any
case, for he was a Londoner by birth, and the true Londoner looks at the
people and ignores the buildings.

He walked slowly, up to Piccadilly Circus, and thence along Regent
Street to Oxford Circus, where he turned eastwards again.

"Are you saved?" A tall gaunt man, in shabby clerical costume and black
woollen gloves, whispered the words in his ear, endeavoured to thrust a
tract into his hand, then hurried on towards the Circus. Jimmy looked
round quickly to see him repeat the process with an obviously astonished
German, then forgot all about the crank and his ways, for, coming up
behind him, clad just as she had been the night he saw her getting into
the cab in the Strand, was the tall girl whose face had been haunting
his memory.

Jimmy turned aside quickly and stared into a shop whilst she was
passing, then started to follow her at a little distance, not with the
least idea of making her acquaintance, but because some curious instinct
seemed to compel him to do so. She was walking rather fast, holding her
head erect, and looking neither to the right nor to the left; and, a
moment later, Jimmy saw the reason, for, just behind her, obviously
dogging her steps, was a great, overdressed African native, typical of
those who are sent by scores to England, to have a so-called education
wasted on them, sensual and lickerous savages, who may be quite
admirable as carriers in the West Coast jungles, but are wholly
abominable when allowed loose in the streets of London.

In common with every sane Englishman who has travelled, Jimmy had no
illusions left on the colour question. To him, the bare idea of a
coloured man speaking to a white woman was horrible, and here was the
worst form of coloured man, the son of the cannibal and the
devil-worshipper, trying to force himself on a white girl. Jimmy went
hot suddenly, a woman who was passing gave a little gasp as she saw the
look in his eyes; then he quickened his pace to catch up the two in
front, coming behind them in time to see the native deliberately jostle
the girl, then raise his glossy silk hat with a lascivious smile and
begin an apology. With flaming cheeks, the girl turned quickly, coming
face to face with Jimmy; but her persecutor's blood was up, and he
followed, still hat in hand. In a moment, Jimmy saw red, and, almost
before he knew what he was doing, he had caught the other on the point
of the jaw with his fist. The black man staggered, but recovered
himself, and for an instant it looked as though he were going to show
fight; but his colour told, and he looked round for a line of retreat,
just as a policeman, seeing the rapidly-gathering knot of spectators,
came up to investigate.

Jimmy, white-faced and fierce-eyed, listened in contemptuous silence
whilst the coloured man was giving his version, which was corroborated
by a rather long-haired person with a small white tie, who professed to
have seen the incident.

"This person"--he indicated Jimmy with a wave of a podgy hand--"this
person struck the dark gentleman a most cruel blow, entirely unprovoked.
I shall be most happy to give evidence," and he produced a card, a
printed one, stating that he was the Rev. Silas Lark, whilst the
address indicated that his business was the conversion of the heathen.

The constable gave him a keen look, and took the slip of pasteboard
rather doubtfully. "I see," he said, then he turned to Jimmy. "What have
you got to say to it all, sir?"

Jimmy told his story in a few words, then he glanced round to where the
girl had been standing; but, with a mingled sense of disappointment and
relief, he saw that she had slipped away. "I don't want to bring the
lady's name into it, of course," he added, as he gave his own name and
address.

"Now, then, move on there." The constable closed his notebook and
dispersed the little crowd; then he turned to Jimmy again, "I don't
expect you'll hear any more of this, sir. We've had one or two
complaints about that black man and his friends, and as for the Reverend
Mr. Silas," he smiled, grimly, "we've been told to watch him as a
pickpocket." He glanced at Jimmy again. "You look as if you've come from
abroad, sir, or else I shouldn't have told you so much. Take it from me,
Oxford Street is just alive with wrong 'uns in the afternoon, women as
well as men." Then he drew himself up, and went on to superintend the
raising of a fallen cab-horse, which served also to draw off the few who
were still staring at Jimmy. He was looking for the tall girl; and, a
moment later, he was rewarded by seeing her coming out of a tea-shop
with a paper-bag in her hand. She gave him a frank little smile of
recognition, and, emboldened, he raised his hat and went up to her.

"Thank you so much," she said. "I--I hope there won't be trouble for
you. I couldn't be in it, you see, so I slipped in there on the excuse
of buying a bun."

"Oh, it'll be all right," Jimmy answered lightly. "I don't mind paying a
fine for the pleasure of teaching a nigger manners," then, seeing she
looked tired and upset, he asked suddenly, "Will you come and have some
tea in here?" indicating a large restaurant they were passing.

The girl nodded. "Thank you. I should like some," she answered simply.
Her voice was sweet and refined, and, seeing her closely, Jimmy found
that she was even better-looking than he had imagined, whilst her
carriage was perfection.

Nothing more was said until they were seated at one of the little tables
in the palm court, then, suddenly, "Oh, how I loathe those black men."
She brought the words out with a little shudder. "There are three or
four of them haunt Oxford Street."

"Are you often about town?" Jimmy asked. She looked at him with a kind
of grave surprise; then she turned away as she answered, "I am always
about town. I have to be. You understand?" Her voice was very low, but
the words were perfectly distinct.

Unconsciously, Jimmy twisted his gloves in his two hands so fiercely
that one of them tore nearly in half. The daylight seemed to have gone
suddenly, leaving the gilding of the place dull and heavy. He
understood. Her words had killed all the romance of their meeting; yet,
when he looked at her again, he could hardly believe she was speaking
the truth.

The waiter brought the tea, and she poured it out, with far more grace
of manner and movement than Mrs. Marlow would have shown. Moreover, she
made no affectation about not wanting the dainty little sandwiches and
cakes. "They are so delicious that I feel it's a sin to leave them," she
said, when he declared he would have no more.

"What is your name?" he asked abruptly, breaking what had been rather a
long silence. She was dusting some minute crumbs off her dress, and she
answered without looking up, "Penrose, Lalage Penrose."

She did not ask for his name, but he volunteered it; then, "May I come
and see you?" he added.

The girl hesitated a moment. "Why not?" she asked at last, but she
flushed at her own words, and her hand was unsteady as she wrote down
the address, which was one of a block of flats near Baker Street.

"Can I come to-morrow afternoon?"

She nodded and got up. At the entrance of the restaurant she stopped and
held out her hand. "Good-bye, and thank you."

"It's only _au revoir_, isn't it?" he answered, as he raised his hat,
then without looking back, for fear she would think he was watching her,
he walked away rapidly, his feelings a mixture of elation and of
something very nearly akin to misery.

Douglas Kelly was in when Jimmy called again at the club. "The waiter
gave me your card and I supposed you would come along soon. You look a
bit doleful. What are you going to drink?... That was a good article of
yours in the _Whitehall Gazette_ this evening."

Jimmy set his glass down suddenly. "I haven't seen it; in fact, I was
expecting to find the manuscript waiting for me when I got back."

Kelly laughed. "So that's the reason of the dumps? The postman drops 'em
through the letter-box with a kind of sickening thud, and you feel
there's nothing left to live for, unless it's to kill the editor. I went
through it all, until I made 'em understand they must have my signature
at my own price. Still, you haven't done so badly in the few days you've
been home. Dodgson tells me they've got another article of yours in
type. Here, Romsey," he hailed a man who had just come in, whose face
somehow seemed familiar to Jimmy, "I want to introduce you to an old
colleague of mine, Grierson, who is going to knock spots out of you
all."

The new-comer grinned. "I've seen him knocking spots out a nigger in
Oxford Street already. It'll be in the next edition of the _Evening
Post_, 'Outrageous assault on an African Prince.' I happened to be
passing and got seven shillings-worth of copy out of it," he added,
turning to Jimmy. "I left your name out, though. But, you see, the
_Evening Post_ believes in a man and a brother, and sacks its boys if it
finds they have been vaccinated; so the story exactly suited them. The
Prince, too, has just sold the gold-mining rights of his native swamp,
and has held a reception in Exeter Hall, so he in himself was good stuff
for us." Then he gave Kelly a moderately truthful account of what had
occurred.

Kelly did not laugh. "It won't go down here, Jimmy, that sort of thing.
Of course you were right; it's an abominable scandal to let these
niggers loose; but at home people'll never understand it. If your name
were to come out, you would be done, right away. And," he looked at him
keenly, "your lady friends should know better than to be alone in that
part of Oxford Street. Well, Romsey, are you going to pay for the drinks
out of your seven shillings, or am I? Then I'm going to put Jimmy up for
the club, and you can second him."




CHAPTER IX


That day Jimmy did not go back to his lodgings. Instead, he sent a wire
to Mrs. Benn, and went to dine and spend the night with the Kellys,
although he did not get away from the club until he had been introduced
to a score of journalists to whom his host described him as an old
colleague. As a result they were an hour late for dinner when they
reached the flat.

"It doesn't matter; my wife won't mind," Kelly remarked cheerfully as
they went up in the lift, and, a few moments later, when he met Mrs.
Kelly Jimmy saw that her husband was speaking the truth.

Dora Kelly was a pretty, thrifty little woman, with a mass of rather
untidy fair hair. She was still in the tea-gown which, apparently, she
had been wearing all the day, whilst her foot-gear consisted of a pair
of Japanese slippers; and yet the whole effect was charming, possibly
because she was entirely unaffected and obviously happy. The flat
reflected the character of its mistress. It was full of good things, all
in wonderful disarray. Even the drawing-room had an air of having
undergone a strenuous straightening up a month previously, since which
event it had not been touched again.

"Dinner won't be long, Douglas," Mrs. Kelly said. "But the cook went out
at four o'clock and hasn't come in yet; I'm afraid she must have got
drunk again; so I borrowed the Harmers' servant," she turned to Jimmy.
"Servants are such a nuisance, Mr. Grierson, yet one daren't discharge
them, and our cook is a treasure when she's sober. Douglas says you live
in lodgings in some suburb, so you don't have those worries, I suppose.
Here it's dreadful." She shook her head dolefully; but a moment later
she was smiling again and chattering gaily about her own experiences in
lodgings. She had been on the Press herself prior to her marriage, and
she knew, only too well, the ways of the London landlady.

If he had not chanced to saunter up Oxford Street that afternoon Jimmy
would have enjoyed immensely his dinner and the long talk which followed
it. He had been craving for the society of his own kind; yet now he had
got it it did not seem such a very great thing after all; for Lalage
Penrose had come into his life, and the thought of her was uppermost in
his mind. Even whilst he was talking over old times with Kelly, or
listening to Dora Kelly's laughing descriptions of the struggles of
their early married life, he was wondering how Lalage was spending the
evening, and the thought was making him sick at heart. Mentally, he
cursed himself for a fool, and tried hard to put the memory away from
him; but it was an effort all the time; and when Kelly finally allowed
him to go to bed, long after midnight, he shut his door with a sigh of
relief. But he did not undress. Instead, he sat in a big armchair,
staring into the fire, which, having been lighted by the borrowed
servant just before she left, a full three hours previously, had now
died down to a red glow.

He was a fool, and he knew it. The stronger part of his nature, that
which came of the alien streak in his father, warned him of the danger
of thinking seriously of chance female acquaintances, told him that no
man of the world ever did so; whilst to the Grierson strain in him
anything in the way of an intrigue was an unpardonable offence against
the canons of respectability. Douglas Kelly, the Bohemian, and Walter
Grierson, the city man, would both have called him mad, agreeing on this
point, if on none other; for they would argue that only a madman could
feel that he had any regard for a strange girl, who, by her own showing,
was without the pale. Suddenly he resolved to have no more to do with
Lalage. He would destroy her address, avoid those parts of the town
where he might possibly see her, drop the acquaintance before it went
any further.

He got up suddenly, took the slip of paper Lalage had given him out of
his pocket, and stood staring at words on it. It was well-written, in
the hand of an educated girl; but there was a shakiness in it which
suddenly destroyed all his wise resolutions, making an irresistible
appeal to his chivalry. After all, he himself, if not actually an
outcast, was one of life's failures. He had touched bed-rock, more than
once, and he knew too much of the bitterness of life to judge either man
or woman harshly. It is only those who have never suffered who show no
mercy to others.

What was it that American girl had said to him in Iquique, when she
insisted on lending him one hundred dollars, the time he was absolutely
penniless and too weak from fever to refuse? "The best thanks you can
give me, Jimmy, will be to help another girl if you ever get the
chance." He had returned the money a couple of months later, and he had
neither seen nor heard of her again; but the memory of her words had
remained, and now he seized on them as an excuse for the course he
wanted to follow. And so the slip of paper went back into his
pocket-book, tucked in carefully, though he knew every word that was on
it; and he sat down again, and remained, thinking and wondering, until
the fire had ceased to show even a spark of red, and the chill of the
room sent him shivering to bed, to dream of Lalage.

Jimmy came out of his room at nine o'clock next morning to find Mrs.
Kelly sweeping the dining-room. "The cook has not come back yet," she
remarked cheerfully. "I do hope the police haven't taken her, for she is
really a treasure when she's sober. And I can't very well borrow the
Harmers' servant again. So breakfast will be late; but you said last
night you weren't in a hurry, and Douglas isn't either. Won't you have a
whisky and soda, Mr. Grierson, whilst you're waiting. The decanter is on
the sideboard, or it should be--oh, no, I remember, Douglas has got it
in the dressing-room. I'll fetch it."

Breakfast was finally over about eleven o'clock. "We're not usually so
late, though it's always a movable feast," Mrs. Kelly explained, and
then Douglas prepared to go down to the office.

"They can always call me on the telephone if they want me specially," he
remarked, "and showing my independence is part of my scheme. I don't
think you'll ever be able to bluff, Jimmy. It isn't in you. At the back
of your mind, really, you're staid and respectable, with a reverence for
those set in authority over you, even for those who'll set themselves
there. So you'll have to trust to the merit of your work alone, and it's
a slow job getting recognition that way. What do you say, Dora?"

Mrs. Kelly smiled, and then suddenly her face grew grave, almost sad.
"Yes, it is a slow job sometimes," she said, softly. "Only Mr.
Grierson's old enough not to go under whilst he's waiting, and, of
course, he has the knowledge. It's those raw boys from the provinces I
pity." She shook her head as if at some memory, then followed her
husband to the front door. "Come again, Mr. Grierson, won't you," she
said as she shook hands. "Of course, you'll see Douglas often at the
club, and if he gives me longer warning I'll make sure the cook doesn't
get out. Douglas, dear, you might ask them at the police station if
they've got her. I've got a kind of creepy feeling which tells me that
they have, and, you know, the magistrate said he wouldn't fine her next
time."

"You're lucky," Jimmy said abruptly, as they came down the steps of the
mansions into the street.

Kelly looked up with a grin. "Do you mean in having our cook?"

Jimmy disregarded the question, and went on, "Were you lonely when you
first came home, before you married? Did you have to go through it, or
had you people of your own?"

He did not put it clearly, but the other showed he understood when he
answered, "My people are all in the North, and they're Nonconformists
and teetotallers. I went up once, and the governor and I quarrelled. I
haven't seen them since. Dora's never seen them. We were married six
months after I came home, on nothing. I wouldn't have risked it, but she
insisted for my sake. I was at the old game, you know."

Jimmy nodded. He understood, remembering vividly certain wild drinking
bouts which, incidentally, had given him some practical experience in
newspaper work, for on more than one occasion he had taken Kelly's
place, and brought out the little sheet.

They walked on a little way in silence, then, "Women are a confounded
sight better than we are," Kelly jerked out. "They see so much further.
We reckon we are being unselfish when we're only cowards; but they're
ready to back their own opinion and run the risk; and when they win they
let us take the credit."

"Some of them do, the right sort. But there are others----" Jimmy was
thinking of the girls to whom Ethel Grimmer had introduced him, those
whose parents had trained them in a due appreciation of the value of men
of position.

Kelly stopped suddenly and looked at him anxiously. "James Grierson," he
said, "I shall put you in a book some day when you're developed. At
present you're about twenty-one years old in many respects. Probably
you'll marry stodgily, or else you'll go to the other extreme and make
an even bigger ass of yourself."

Jimmy flushed uncomfortably, remembering Lalage; then went hot at the
thought of his own folly. He had only spoken to the girl once.




CHAPTER X


Lalage Penrose's flat was on the second floor of a small block of flats
in a narrow and grimy street. Opposite the main entrance was a fried
fish shop, and next door to that a coal and greengrocery stores, with
the latest price per hundredweight of what were untruthfully called the
"Best Household Coals" displayed in huge numerals on each of the
windows. Unwashed children from the uncleanly houses which made up the
rest of the street seemed to spend the whole day, and half the night,
dancing to barrel organs. Garbage and paper littered the roadway, except
where there was sufficient slimy black mud to cover these; but, on the
other hand, there was a large and gaudy public house at the corner,
opposite a similar block of flats, and a cab rank just down the side
turning.

Lalage's flat consisted of three very small rooms, for which she paid
fifty pounds a year. "Inclusive of rates," the agent had said; but, as
the landlord himself was on the Borough Council, his assessment was, of
course, not unduly high. By trade, the owner was a butcher in Maida
Vale, though his friends in Tooting did not know that; moreover,
besides being a councillor, he was a German by extraction; consequently,
with these two qualifications, it was quite natural that he should own
flats of that kind. In Capetown, where men are crude or brutal in their
ways, a judge and jury between them would probably have assessed his
merits at fifty lashes and two years' hard labour; in London, on the
other hand, not only was his person sacred and his property safe from
police raids, but he also had reasonable grounds for expecting to be
mayor in due course--which often meant a knighthood--whilst even the
greatest prize of all, the chairmanship of the new Electricity
Committee, a body having the giving of six-figure contracts, was not
beyond his grasp. He was quite a personage in the municipal life of West
London, as well as in the social life of Tooting, and, being a married
man with a family, he treated his tenants with righteous severity,
distraining on the slightest excuse when he suspected they possessed
anything of value, knowing well that his victims would not dare seek
redress in the Courts.

It was four o'clock exactly when Jimmy knocked at the door of the flat,
which was opened by Lalage herself. "I've no servant," she explained,
"only a woman who comes in once or twice a week." Then she led the way
into the tiny slip of a sitting-room, where she had tea laid out. "I'm
glad you've come," she added, "I was half afraid you wouldn't."

"Why?" he asked with a smile.

She looked at him seriously, her head a little on one side, as though
she were trying to read his character. "You seemed shy, different from
most men. Are you an Englishman?"

He nodded, and gave her a brief sketch of who he was. She listened with
evident interest. "It must be splendid to travel and see things. I have
always longed to, at least I did once, but now----" She broke off with a
hopeless little sigh, and got up abruptly. "I'll fetch the tea now."

The tea things, like everything else in the place, were of the simplest,
cheapest kind, yet as tasteful as was possible considering their price;
but, on the other hand, the tea itself was good, and there was a plate
of daintily-cut bread and butter and another of sandwiches.

"I was so glad of that tea yesterday." Lalage looked up suddenly. "I
hadn't had anything since some bread and milk at breakfast time, and
that horrible black man made me feel quite shaky."

Jimmy frowned. "Why do you starve yourself in that way?" he asked.

In after years, he often thought of this question and her answer. He
had been hungry himself more than once, and he knew, only too well, what
it meant; but, somehow, he had never pictured a well-dressed girl as
suffering that way.

"I only had a penny left, the one I spent on that bun, and no one will
trust you with as much as a loaf round here. I was afraid you would
notice how greedy I was at tea." Then, as he flushed awkwardly and began
to speak, she stopped him with a little gesture. "Why should you have
thought of it? You were very good, as it was. And I'm all right now. I
got a postal order last night," she added rather hurriedly; then she
changed the subject abruptly, and went on to talk of one or two matters
of passing interest, which the papers had been booming for want of
anything of real importance. She had evidently received an average
education, Jimmy could see that plainly, and yet he was puzzled, for in
many of her ideas, and especially in her strong prejudices, she belied
her apparent age; for they were those of a child of fourteen, rather
than of a girl of some two or three and twenty. Insensibly, he found
himself listening to her as one would to a child, and then, a moment
later, she would bring out some cynical scrap of wisdom, evidently the
fruit of bitter experience, which sounded strange coming from her lips.
Yet, despite the utter unconventionality, there was no hint of fastness
about her, and even when she touched by implication on her way of life,
she did so with a kind of frank simplicity, hiding nothing and trying to
excuse nothing.

"What do you think of my little flat?" she asked suddenly, after what
had been rather a long pause. "It's very tiny, of course; but it's a
home, and when you've had nowhere to go to, not even a lodging----" She
broke off, and stared into the fire. "It's simply awful to have
nowhere," she went on after a while. "To walk about hour after hour with
the mud squelching through your shoes, and nothing to eat; and getting
more hopeless as midnight comes on. I was out two whole nights."

Jimmy breathed heavily; he had often heard the same sort of thing from
men; but it sounded very different coming from the lips of a girl.

"And then one day I got ten pounds," Lalage continued, "and I made up my
mind I would have a home. I paid a month's rent in advance--they don't
worry over references if you do that--and I went to some hire-purchase
people for furniture. Then I bought a kettle at the sixpenny halfpenny
shop, and a cup and saucer and plate in the next street, where the
barrows are. By the time I had got curtains and some sheets and one or
two odd things like a lamp, there were only a few shillings left." She
looked up seriously. "You wouldn't think till you try how expensive
furnishing is; but I was so proud of my little home. I am still; and you
know, when you've a place of your own, if you only have bread and milk
no one is any the wiser. I've often been hard up since, but I've always
managed to scrape up the rent and the hire-purchase instalment. One must
do that; they don't give you a day's grace."

Jimmy was chewing savagely at the ends of his moustache. It never
entered into his head that she was trying to play upon his sympathies.
There was some curious quality of simplicity in her manner which forbade
that supposition. She interested him as no woman had ever interested him
before, and, suddenly, he was filled with a desire to know her past,
and, in that, to find excuses for the present.

"Where do you come from?" he asked.

"Hampshire," she answered, adding, "My people are dead. I'm quite alone
in the world." Then, as if to change the subject, she got up from her
seat. "You must have a look round my tiny place."

Jimmy felt almost guilty as he noted her obvious pride in the few little
articles she had collected together. May's cook would have rejected with
scorn the kettle from the sixpenny halfpenny bazaar, and the one or two
pots and pans which had since been bought at the same shop; whilst none
of the Marlow servants would have deigned to use the thick earthenware
plates on the dresser. Yet everywhere there was a perfect cleanliness,
which, possibly, those same servants would never have succeeded in
attaining in the smoke-laden atmosphere of that street.

"I do hate dirt and untidiness," Lalage explained when he made a remark
on the subject. "I do everything myself, except the scrubbing; and I
wouldn't have a woman in for that if it wasn't for my hands; I want to
keep them nice."

She held them out for Jimmy to inspect, with the first touch of vanity
he had seen in her. Perhaps, her pride was justifiable, for they were
well worth looking at, being small and perfectly shaped. She wore no
rings, nor, for the matter of that, any jewellery at all, whilst her
dress was of the simplest.

When they went back to the sitting-room he asked her the time. "I never
carry a watch," he said. "Mine went the way of a good many other things
when I was first knocked out with fever, and I've never managed to
afford another one."

Lalage nodded with sympathetic comprehension. "I know; but it's worst
when you've nothing left to pawn. As for clothes, they give you nothing
on them, at least round here. But you want to know the time." She
opened the window and listened a moment. "It's just on six. I can hear
the periwinkle man coming, and he's never late. This is the last part of
his round, you see, because he doesn't expect to sell much here; then he
goes to a stall for the evening. I know them all, and I think they like
me, because I chat to them. But the people in the other flats," she
shook her head with an air of disgust, "most of them are dreadful; a lot
of horrid foreigners, you know. Still, the caretaker sees they don't
fight on the stairs, and when I shut my door, I feel I shut them all
out."

Jimmy smiled a little grimly; he could picture those other tenants and
their ways. Then, "Will you put your hat on, and we'll go out and get
some dinner?"

She reflected a moment. "Why not get something and bring it in here? It
won't cost nearly so much, though it will be much nicer. Oh, in six
months I've got simply to loathe the smell of a café. There's a nice ham
and beef shop where we can get everything we want." She laughed rather
ruefully. "I remember yesterday when I was so hungry looking in there
and wishing I could get a roast chicken they had, all beautiful and
brown, you know, with jelly on it. But they wouldn't have trusted me
with even a quarter of a pound of beef. I suppose they've been robbed
so often. Well, I'll put on my hat, and we'll get what we want. Really,
honestly, I would much sooner have it like that than go to one of the
best restaurants. Don't you yourself think cafés are hateful?"

Jimmy watched her marketing with a distinct sense of admiration. She
knew the local price of everything, and she insisted on having exactly
what she ordered.

"I don't see why they should rob you," she said. "They make huge profits
anyway. Now, I think that's all we want." She ticked the articles off on
her fingers. "Oh, unless you care for something to drink.... Yes, I like
a whisky and soda with my meals; but don't get a whole bottle, it's only
a waste; and they will sell it you by the quartern in that public house.
I'll wait whilst you go in. But don't buy a bottle; I know you haven't
got any money to throw away?" she added.

When he came out, she noted, with evident satisfaction, that he had
obeyed her. "This will make a lovely supper," she declared, and her
smile showed she meant it. "I like shopping like this. It's always nicer
than a café, and much less expensive."

Her last remark reminded him of what she had said just as he was going
in for the whisky.

"Why do you think I haven't got any money to throw away?" he asked.

She gave a wise little nod. "You tell me you write, and I know literary
men never have anything to spare."

Jimmy laughed. "How do you know?"

Lalage turned away. "Never mind, but I do know, only too well."




CHAPTER XI


"I have not heard from you for several days," Mrs. Marlow wrote to
Jimmy, "though I have had a couple of letters from Eliza Benn, who says
that for two consecutive nights you did not come home. The first night
you wired to her, but the second time she sat up until after midnight,
fearing lest it might not be safe to let you have a light. I need not
say how annoying it is to hear these things from one's former servants.
Both Henry and I trust that you are not already getting into dissipated
ways, and that you will remember that you belong to a respectable
family, which will have to bear a large share of any disgrace into which
you may fall, or be led." Then there was a postscript. "Eliza Benn is a
person for whom I have a great regard; and I hear that her husband holds
quite an excellent situation in Mr. Grimmer's salesrooms, where he is
paid thirty-five shillings a week, which, Henry says, would only be
given to a most experienced and steady man."

Jimmy tore the letter across savagely and tossed it into the fire. It
annoyed him the more because his sister had got within measurable
distance of the truth, at least from her point of view. He had already
had some uncomfortable moments over the thought of what the family would
say if it ever came to know of Lalage. He had not seen the latter again,
but, though it was less than forty-eight hours since they had parted, he
had written to her twice, and he could not disguise from himself the
fact that she filled his life to the exclusion of all else. No other
woman had ever appealed to him in the same way. Lalage had gripped his
imagination. He could remember every word she had said, and, having been
on the rocks himself, he could understand what she had suffered--the
rain squelching through the thin little shoes, the bitter loneliness of
the great city, the meals of bread and milk which had to last the whole
day, the passionate longing for a home of some sort. He did not attempt
to argue the thing out logically, as a Grierson would have done. The
thought of her way of life inspired him, not with the scorn or loathing
a man of position would have felt, even when taking advantage of it, but
with a terrible, gnawing jealousy. Probably, he would not have admitted,
even to himself, that he was in love, for, somehow, the phrase seemed
hopelessly inapplicable. It belonged to the Grierson part of his nature,
and was supposed to signify a preliminary to marriage, an altogether
decorous kind of affection for a decorously-behaved girl, who had never
been homeless or hungry or cold. All he cared for now was to get Lalage
away, to be with her always, and, for the moment at least, anything
which did not help towards that end seemed of absolutely no importance.
He had thrust family considerations on one side, thrust on one side all
those good resolutions, or rather those revived instincts of the past,
which had been uppermost in his mind when he first came home. His own
world, the Griersons and Marlows and Grimmers, would have called him
either mad or hopelessly immoral, according to the degree of charity
latent in their respective natures; Kelly would have warned him bluntly
not to endanger his prospects by being a fool; a mental specialist would
have explained that the shock of John Locke's death, coming on top of
the ten years of almost continual overstrain in bad climates, had
temporarily affected his balance, an opinion with which Lalage herself
would have agreed, knowing, after all, nothing of men's love; but
neither opinions nor diagnosis would have altered Jimmy's determination.

He had put in two days of almost savagely hard work. Without money he
would be helpless. True, most of his manuscripts had come back; but
still three had actually appeared in print, and he could feel he had
made a start. The old semi-indifference on the question of his ultimate
success or failure had vanished completely. He was in deadly earnest
now; Lalage should have no more bread-and-milk days, if he could help
it.

Mrs. Marlow's letter had arrived by the first delivery, in the cheerful
company of a returned manuscript. He had heard from Lalage, her first
letter to him, the evening before, and he did not expect another till
that night; but when the second postman knocked at the door, and, a
moment later, Mrs. Benn came creaking upstairs, he hurried to meet her,
hoping the envelope might bear the West London postmark. But he was
doomed to disappointment. The letter was from Ida, his sister in
Northampton. "When I heard from you last week you said any day this week
would do," Ida Fenton wrote. "We find we shall be able to have you
to-morrow, and hope you will stay four or five days. The best train is
one at 2:15, and I will meet you by that, so you need not worry about
answering this note. We are all looking forward to seeing you, and
though, of course Joseph is at business all day, and the children at
school, I daresay you will find the rest do you good."

Jimmy frowned as he folded it up and put it back into the envelope. He
had arranged to spend the next day with Lalage; they were going to have
a run out somewhere--"somewhere inexpensive, like the Crystal Palace,"
Lalage had said in her letter--and then they were going to have another
of those delightful marketing expeditions in the grimy street where the
barrows were. Now, all that would have to be postponed. Jimmy would not
have scrupled greatly about disappointing Ida--she had been in no hurry
to see him--but May's letter had shown him how he was being watched and
his doings reported, and he did not want to arouse further suspicion. He
intended to move very shortly, though his plans were as yet but half
formed, and, moreover, he shrank from doing anything which would offend
May. He might not be afraid of his relations; but at the back of his
mind he was sufficiently conscious of his own departure from the paths
of rectitude to feel the weakness of his position.

He wrote to Lalage that evening, explaining matters; consequently, she
was not surprised when he came up next morning carrying a handbag. At
first, it struck him that she was looking rather pale and worried, but
she greeted him with frank pleasure, and, in a few minutes, she was her
usual self again. As Jimmy learned later, she had in a peculiar degree
the art of seeing the best side of things. In a sense, she was almost a
fatalist, and though she made no disguise about the regret she felt for
her ruined life, a moment later she always seemed to put the regrets
aside as useless. "I try to keep as respectable as I can," she said to
Jimmy.

Normal people, being respectable themselves, would probably have
sneered, knowing that those who have fallen are all on the level, and
that only in those far-off days when He who pitied the Magdalen and bade
the sinless cast the first stone trod the earth was there forgiveness
for this greatest of sins. But Jimmy, not being normal, and being
anxious to find excuses for Lalage, did not sneer, and before long he
found that, though she might not be able to rise again, she was
determined to fall no lower. She was almost fastidious in her hatred of
bad language, and there was, as a matter of fact, an immeasurable
distance between her and the German women who formed the majority of the
other tenants.

"Of course I am sorry to have to go away," Lalage said in answer to
Jimmy's complaints of having to go to Northampton. "But still, it's only
right. Your own people ought to come first, and I shall see you when you
get back, if you haven't forgotten me."

Jimmy took both her hands in his. "I shall never forget you, Lalage,
never."

She shook her head. "Others have said the same, and have forgotten,
none the less. I'm afraid to hope too much sometimes, for fear of
disappointment. It's easier when you haven't expected anything." She
freed her hands and went across to the window, where she stood,
apparently staring at the gigantic telephone post on the roof opposite.

Jimmy came up behind her. "Would you be sorry if I were to forget?" he
asked.

She answered without looking round, "Of course I should."

"Why would you be sorry?" he went on.

"Because I like you very much. You are always gentlemanly and nice in
your ways." Still she did not face him.

"Do you like anyone else, anyone at all?" Jimmy's voice was not very
steady.

"No, no." Now she turned her head, and he saw that her eyes were wet.
"There's no one I like. I don't know why I've told you things, only,
somehow, you seemed to understand how hard life is; and you don't treat
me----" she paused as though looking for a word, "you don't treat me
lightly. You're careful to raise your hat and open the door for me, and
all those little things, just as though I were," her voice broke
slightly, "a good girl."

Jimmy coloured, and muttered something which Lalage did not catch,
then, suddenly, she gave a little gasp of annoyance. "Jimmy, you left
your bag in the hall, and it's got your name on it. The charwoman was
cleaning the kitchen and now she's out in the hall. Do get it at once."

He obeyed her with obvious surprise, then looked at her inquiringly.
"Blackmail," she answered simply. "All these women round here do it if
they get a chance, and they say the landlord puts them up to it.
Everyone about here preys on us, in one way or another. The district
lives on us, tradesmen, landlords, agents, even the gas and electric
light people; and when they've bled us dry they seize our homes and turn
us out. They know we can't go to law, and yet whilst they're robbing us
they're sitting as guardians or councillors and going to chapel every
Sunday. They treat us like dirt, and their wives and daughters shake
their skirts at us, and all the time it's we who earn the money for
them."

Jimmy went over to the mantelpiece, and buried his head on his hands. He
was wholly unconscious of what he was doing, being too miserable to
think of appearances. Lalage watched him a moment, then put her arm
gently round his neck, and, for the first time, kissed him of her own
accord.

"What is it, dear, tell me," she said.

"I can't stand it. The whole thing's horrible, abominable." It was the
man's voice which was broken now.

"You can't help it, Jimmy dear," she answered sadly. "It's too late now.
There's no road back in these things. It's my own fault, and I must pay
for it."

"There must be a way out," he answered fiercely. "I will find it when I
can get this wretched visit over. You can't go on like this."

She tried to soothe him down, almost as a mother soothes a child. "All
right, dear, you shall find it when you come back. We'll see what can be
done."

Lalage went down to the station to see him off. They arrived in plenty
of time, and when he had taken his ticket they went into the refreshment
booth for some sandwiches. They sat down, and for a minute or two,
neither said anything. Then, suddenly, Jimmy turned to her.

"How are you off for money, Lalage?" he asked.

The girl coloured slightly. "Quite all right, thanks," she answered
after a moment's hesitation. "Really I am, Jimmy, and, anyway, I
wouldn't let you run yourself short."

But he was not satisfied. "Are you sure? Take some in case of
accidents."

She shook her head. "No, there's no need. I shall be able to pull
along."

He gave in reluctantly. "Well, you've got my address. Let me know if you
do get short, because I should hate to think----" He broke off abruptly,
then went on. "Promise you'll let me know."

Lalage nodded. "Yes, I promise."




CHAPTER XII


Ida Fenton, Jimmy's younger sister, was a tall, fair woman with a
beautiful profile and hazel-blue eyes. Women who did not like her called
her a stick, and even her friends admitted that she was severe.
Stiffness was the dominant note in her character. Most men, including
even her husband, wondered that she had ever married. In pre-Reformation
times she would certainly have been a nun, and probably a saint, being
passionless, and therefore able to avoid all carnal sins without effort.
However, she belonged to an age which regarded marriage as the one
vocation for women, at least for those of position, and she had accepted
Joseph Fenton, if not with enthusiasm, at least with satisfaction. He
appeared to fulfil all the necessary conditions, and she had never found
reason to regret her choice. If Fenton himself sometimes appeared hurt
at the fact that she did not display more outward affection towards him
or the children, she seldom worried over the matter, being fully
conscious of her own rectitude of conduct and feeling.

Jimmy felt chilled the moment he entered the Fenton house. Ida's own
personality seemed to be reflected in everything, in the furniture, in
the pictures, and above all in the unnaturally tidy children to whom he
was presently introduced. He could still feel the one cold kiss which
Ida had given him, and, when he was shown up to his room, he
unconsciously gave the spot an extra dab with the sponge.

The weather was bitter, yet there was no fire in the big spare room, Ida
holding that fires in bedrooms were unhealthy and extravagant,
consequently, being still thin blooded as a result of ten years in
tropical climates, he was shivering when he got downstairs again.

"Can I have a little whisky, Joe?" he said to his brother-in-law, whom
he found in the smoking-room. "I've got a bit of a chill on me, and it
takes very little to bring out my malaria."

Ida, who had just entered, frowned slightly. "Ammoniated quinine would
do you more good, Jimmy. Joseph himself never drinks between meals. It's
such a bad example if the children happen to come in."

Jimmy stifled a retort to the effect that the obvious course was to keep
the children out; but he refused the proffered quinine and helped
himself to some of the whisky which his brother-in-law had already
produced.

Ida sighed and went out, whereupon Fenton lost no time in making use of
the second glass which was on the tray.

"Ida likes giving people ammoniated quinine," he remarked.

Jimmy nodded sympathetically, knowing his sister of old. She had managed
their father's household during the period between their mother's death
and her own marriage, and he still had lively recollections of her
régime.

Dinner was a dreary meal. Fenton, who was essentially a cheerful person,
made several spasmodic attempts at conversation, but Ida, cold and
beautiful, seemed to check him by her own silence; whilst Jimmy was
thinking of Lalage, contrasting the luxury of his present surroundings,
the massive plate, the costly dinner service, the deferential,
silently-moving butler, with Lalage's little room, and its hire-purchase
furniture, earthenware plates, and the meal bought at the ham and beef
shop. Now, he was amongst his own people, a Grierson come back to the
Griersons; and yet he hated it all, because he had reached the point of
wanting to share everything with Lalage, whom he could never hope to
introduce into houses like the Fentons'.

The long meal came to an end at last, and they went into the
smoking-room, where Ida joined them. Mrs. Fenton had asked no questions
at dinner, when the servants were present, but Jimmy quickly found that
there were many things she wanted to know, not about the past, but about
his doings since he had come home, and about his plans for the future.
In a flash, he understood that May must have arranged this sudden
invitation to Northampton, and he was on his guard at once. Inwardly, he
was furious and a little uneasy, foreseeing the possibility of future
trouble; but he kept both his temper and his composure, and in the end
he lulled Ida's suspicions. When she had gone, Fenton himself breathed a
sigh, which sounded curiously like one of relief, and, pulling out a
couple of big volumes in the bottom shelf of the bookcase, produced a
bottle of whisky of a brand greatly superior to that which stood on the
tray.

"She doesn't like to see it go too fast." He motioned towards the other
bottle.

Jimmy nodded sympathetically, understanding; then helped himself.

"They're afraid of you going the pace." Joseph Fenton jerked the words
out, looking away almost guiltily.

Once more Jimmy nodded. He liked this brother-in-law, always had liked
him, knowing him to be a man, and, for a moment, he felt inclined to
tell him of Lalage; but, before he could make up his mind, Joseph went
on:

"They don't understand, Jimmy--Ida and May and my own sisters too. Yet,
hang it all, in a way I suppose they're right, because of the kids, you
know." He tossed his cigar into the grate and lighted another, rather
carefully. "You fellows who have knocked about, you get ideas and
ways----. But, they won't do here, Jimmy, believe me." He paused again,
to help himself to another whisky, then went on, hurriedly, "This work
of yours, it's a bit uphill. Are you all right for cash? If not come to
me."

Jimmy flushed. He wanted some money badly, how badly only a man in his
position, the lover of Lalage, could know; but still he could not take
it from Fenton, for that purpose. Joseph would never understand his
motives. So he stood up, suddenly.

"Thanks, very much, Joe; but I can rub along, at least I think so. If I
am dead stuck, I will come to you; but I believe I can pull through."
Then he said good night, and went upstairs, to think of Lalage, and to
curse his own idiocy in not taking the proffered loan. Twenty pounds
would have been nothing to his brother-in-law, yet to Lalage and himself
it would have meant a new start. Before he lay down he had made up his
mind to ask Joseph for it, after all, and he went to sleep with that
resolution in his mind; but when he awoke in the morning things somehow
seemed different, and before breakfast was over he had changed his mind.
This was his world, and these were his own people, living ordered lives,
with soles and grilled kidneys for breakfast, and family plate on the
table, knowing nothing of ham and beef shops, or of milkmen who demanded
cash in exchange for their milk. He belonged to them, he was one of
them, sharing their principles and their prejudices, worshipping their
gods, as his ancestors and theirs had done. What real kinship had he
with Lalage, who made her breakfast tea out of a quarter-pound packet
bought the evening before at the little general shop round the corner,
and took an obvious delight in the sixpenny haddock they had purchased
off the barrow with the glaring oil lamps over it?

And yet, when the postman brought him no letter from that same Lalage,
he grew silent and restless, as his sister's eyes were quick to note.
When Joseph had departed to his office, he himself went to the
smoking-room and wrote three whole sheets to the girl who lived in the
flat, for the first time throwing all prudence to the winds, and saying
the things he felt. His pen travelled quickly, and, whilst he was
writing, he forgot all about his surroundings, his mind being full of
Lalage. When, at last, he had finished and signed his name, in full, as
a sign of his trust in her, disdaining any subterfuge, he looked round
the luxuriously furnished room, and for an instant he was filled with a
sense of his own folly; then, hurriedly, as though ashamed of what he
was doing, he thrust the letter into an envelope and sealed it down,
afterwards posting it with his own hands.

The hours dragged by slowly. The Marlow house had seemed dull; but the
Fentons' was almost unbearable. Ida meant to be kind; but, perhaps,
because she tried to show her intention, she only succeeded in making
Jimmy feel his position as a poor relation. She took him for a drive in
the afternoon to call on one or two elderly ladies in reduced
circumstances, whom she patronised unconsciously, greatly to the
discomfort of her brother, who had a kind of fellow feeling for her
victims. Yet, on the other hand, he was conscious of a grim admiration
for Ida; she was so sure of her own rectitude, so convinced that her
husband's wealth--which meant her own position--entitled her to lecture
and to interfere. It was all interesting, even amusing, or it would have
been so, had Lalage never come into his life, in which case he could
have regarded Mrs. Fenton from a more or less impersonal point of view.
Now, however, she was a possible danger, to be guarded against,
and--though he did not like to put it that way--to be lied to, if
occasion demanded.

That night, Jimmy hardly closed his eyes, being occupied with the
problem of inventing an excuse for getting back to town. The evening
post had brought him no letters; and, though it was improbable that
Lalage would have any real news for him, he was terribly worried at her
silence. Lying then through the long hours, praying for the sleep which
would not come to ease him from the hideous pain of jealousy, he
suffered as few men can suffer in their lives. He had no right to
control Lalage, no more claim on her than anyone else had, he was mad to
trouble about her, knowing what he did of her, and having ten years'
experience of women behind him. Yet he lay there, wide-eyed, wondering,
and tormenting himself. Twice he got up and endeavoured to smoke a
cigarette, but all to no purpose. The tobacco tasted rank, and, after a
few whiffs, he let the thing go out. When, towards morning, he did fall
into a heavy sleep, it was only to dream of Lalage, with the mud and
rain squelching through her shoes, looking for someone to give her
shelter.




CHAPTER XIII


If Ida felt any relief when, at the end of four miserably long days,
Jimmy returned to town, she did not say so, even to her husband. It had
been a trial in many ways, but, at the same time, she was conscious of
having done her duty. She had impressed her brother with a sense of what
he owed to the family in the matter of conduct, and his very depression
seemed to show that he had taken the matter to heart.

"Jimmy's nerves are all wrong. He's like a man on wires. He wants a
comfortable home and a wife to look after him," Fenton ventured to
remark whilst his brother-in-law was upstairs, packing; but Ida brushed
the theory aside scornfully.

"I am surprised at you, Joseph. It is not at all the way to speak of
marriage. The Griersons have always waited until they were in a position
to marry, and have never held those disgusting ideas of nerves and so
on. Jimmy most emphatically cannot think of marrying for many years to
come. He is perfectly well, or he would be if he did not smoke and drink
so much. He has the remedy in his own hands."

Fenton shrugged his shoulders and turned away, wondering inwardly
whether the Grierson strain would predominate in his own children. He
almost wished Jimmy had not come down. It was annoying to be disturbed
and made to think after having got out of the habit of so doing.

The men and women of the type Ida usually invited to the house never
worried him in that way, belonging as they did to the class which can
afford to take its theories as facts.

Jimmy had heard once from Lalage, a brief little note, just
acknowledging his letters, and telling him nothing. Mrs. Fenton had
watched carefully whilst he was reading it--she had detected a woman's
handwriting--but he had managed to keep his composure, and then, the
better to deceive her, he had rolled the paper into a ball and tossed it
on to the fire, though it cut him to the heart to part with anything
which had once been Lalage's.

He had hoped the girl would have been waiting for him at the station;
but he failed to see her tall figure on the platform, so, jumping into a
cab, he told the driver to take him to the mansions. However, as they
went up the last street, he caught sight of Lalage coming out of a
hairdresser's shop. A moment later he was beside her.

Jimmy's first impression was one of delight at the look of genuine
pleasure which, had come into her eyes; then he noted with concern how
worn and pale she looked.

"I didn't expect you quite so soon," she said. "I must have made a
mistake in the time, and I wanted to get my hair done nicely before you
got back."

"What has been the matter with you? Why didn't you write, dear?" he
asked.

She parried the questions until they got inside the flat, when he
repeated them, holding her hands, and looking into her eyes. She tried
to avoid his scrutiny.

"I've been all right," she answered, "only there was nothing to write
about."

But he would not be put off like that, and at last, with a sob, she told
him. "It's over now, and I didn't mean you to know. I--I've had the
brokers in." She was speaking hurriedly, in a low voice. "You see,
someone has been paying my rent, and I expected it the day you went
away--it should have come that morning--and it was due next day. I never
heard, and I only had a few shillings, so they put the brokers in at
once. These landlords always do."

Jimmy cursed silently. "Why didn't you wire to me? You know I would have
sent it at once."

She shook her head. "No, no. I hate taking money from you, above
everyone."

"What did you do in the end?"

She looked up and faced him, with a kind of desperate courage. "I got it
by going away for two days. It's no good disguising things, trying to
make out that I don't."

It was a question which was the paler, the man or the woman. It had come
home to him, as it had never done before. He dropped her hands and went
over to the window, where he stood very still, staring out with
absolutely unseeing eyes; whilst she watched him with a deadly pain at
her heart, thinking she had killed the love which she knew had grown up
in him.

"Perhaps it's best, after all, perhaps it's best." She tried desperately
hard to say the words to herself, then, almost unconsciously, she took a
step towards him. Possibly her action altered the whole course of two
lives, for, like a flash, he turned round, seized her in his arms, and
covered her face with kisses.

"I don't care, now I've come back, because it'll never happen again, it
can't happen again, and what went before has nothing to do with me.
We'll start afresh, dearest, we'll start afresh." He repeated the words
several times, savagely, as though wishing to assure himself that it
would be so.

Lalage was crying on his shoulder, sobbing quietly without noise or
movement, as overwrought women do; but it was soon over, and she pulled
herself together bravely.

"I think you're very tired and we had better have some tea now," she
said, smiling at him with wet eyes. He kissed away her tears, then
released her, and sat down whilst she hurried into the kitchen to
prepare the tray.

It was very much later, in fact not until after they had finished the
supper, which she insisted should come from the next street--"Because it
was so nice last time," she explained--that he went back to the subject
of their future. He was so desperately in earnest that he succeeded in
blinding himself to the financial difficulties ahead; and, though
perhaps he did not convince either Lalage or himself, they were both in
the mood to risk things.

"I'll give up my rooms at Mrs. Benn's, thankfully, and we can take some
others, somewhere near Fleet Street, until we can get on our feet," he
went on.

But Lalage demurred. "I can't give up this flat, at least not without
losing all I've paid on the furniture, until the end of my agreement, in
six months' time. Why shouldn't we stay on here?"

Jimmy frowned. He loathed the place and all its associations, but he was
not in a position to give her another home of her own, as yet, and he
could not answer her argument, especially when she added:

"I can tell them at the agent's office that we are married, and we can
give them some name or other."

She said it simply, without the least intention of hurting him; but the
words cut him like a whip, for though, for one mad moment, he had
thought of marriage, real marriage, he had put the idea on one side as
utterly impossible. He was a Grierson, owing a duty to the family, and
he could not do the thing. Only he had the grace not even to hint of it
to her, and she gave no sign that she had the least expectation of any
promise from him. She had recovered her spirits, and, apparently, was
quite content with the arrangement he proposed. He was fully conscious
that Society would condemn him unsparingly, if it found out, and he
could not justify his own conduct, even to himself; but Lalage never
seemed to consider the moral aspect of the question, that curious
element of irresponsibility, almost childishness, which he had marked at
the very outset, was now more noticeable than ever.

Suddenly, a new fear gripped him. "It will never do to give my people
this address," he said. "They would make inquiries at once, and
then----" He gave a grim little smile.

Lalage's face grew hard. "Why should they hunt you like that? If they
really cared, they would have looked after you, instead of sending you
to those lodgings. They want you to be like a little boy, to do just
what they say, and never to have a mind of your own--oh, yes, but they
do. They ought to have seen that after all you've been through, you need
care and love."

He looked up with a queer light in his eyes. "Do you love me, Lalage?
You've never said so."

"I like you very, very much," she answered.

But he was not satisfied. "Do you love me?" he repeated.

"I like you better, much better, than anyone else I ever met," and with
that he had to be content.




CHAPTER XIV


"I know someone who will let you a room, just as an address, in case
those horrid sisters of yours make inquiries." Lalage turned round
suddenly from the looking-glass, her hands still busy with her hair.

"Who is she? Where does she live?" Jimmy asked lazily, being at the
moment more interested in that same hair than in anything else.

"She lives just the other side of Baker Street, and really she's a kind
of agent, you know." Lalage made a gesture of supreme disgust. "But
she's not so bad as most of them, and, as her husband is a clerk in the
Council office, anyone would tell your people that the house is quite
respectable. Why, it belongs to the mayor himself."

Jimmy frowned. He loathed the idea of putting himself in the hands of
people of that sort, people who would understand exactly how matters
stood, and judge, not only himself, but Lalage as well, according to
their own standards.

"I would sooner we had nothing whatever to do with any of them," he
said.

He was touching mud for the first time in his life, real mud, and he did
not like the feeling of it. Moreover, he had suddenly grown very
particular about Lalage. They might not be married, in fact he had
decided that there could be no question of marriage between them; but,
none the less, as long as he was going under another name, he wanted
people to believe they had legalised their union, and to respect Lalage
accordingly. Had he not belonged to a family of position, he might have
seen himself as a coward or a cad; but the Griersons were essentially of
the Victorian age, and so he was able to quiet his conscience with
platitudes; whilst under the seeming calmness with which Lalage had
accepted his proposal, she was too glad of any change from the nightmare
of the past to be very critical. She hoped--that was all, resolutely
refusing to allow herself any fears or misgivings. And, after all, Jimmy
was very young so far as these things were concerned, and Lalage was
even younger; so, probably, they would not have listened to, much less
have believed, anyone who had warned them that they were attempting the
impossible. They were happy at the moment, having put the past behind
them, and they were ready to assume that their happiness would last,
ignoring its dangerous insecure foundations.

In the end, Lalage had her way, so far as the room was concerned. Mrs.
Fagin, the landlady, scenting money easily earned, was absolutely
servile. Jimmy stammered a little over his explanations, but Lalage put
things more plainly. "He will seldom be here; in fact I do not think he
will ever actually need the room," she said. "But it will be an address
for his letters, and you will know what to say if there are any
inquiries. What would be your terms?"

Mrs. Fagin looked at Jimmy, as if to get his measure. "I'm sure I don't
know, sir," she began. "We haven't had that same thing before, but----."

"He will pay three shillings a week," Lalage interrupted, "and begin
next week. That should suit you, Mrs. Fagin. Very well," and she sailed
out.

Jimmy looked at her admiringly. "You do know how to deal with them,
Lalage," he remarked.

She sighed a little wearily. "I've had to learn that, and a good many
other things, since I came to town."

Down at the apartment house in the dreary suburban street, Mrs. Benn
accepted a week's notice from Jimmy with a sniff of anger.

"Very well, sir. You know your own business best, though Mrs. Marlow did
say as how you would be permanent. Without that, I shouldn't have gone
out of my way to give you our own best room, and to wear my health,
which is not too good, out in making you comfortable. But then, Mrs.
Marlow was evidently mistook all round, for she said you would keep
respectable hours and act as such."

Whereupon Jimmy lost his temper, paid her a week in lieu of notice, and
went straight back to Lalage, who received him with delight. "So you
haven't changed your mind at the last moment, as you would have done if
you had been wise, and good and," she laughed mischievously,
"Grierson-like."

"All I care about is being good to you, sweetheart," he answered. "But
why do you say 'Grierson-like'?"

She looked at him critically, her head a little on one side. "Because
you're two men--James Grierson, who is stodgy and respectable and ought
to marry what the other Griersons call a good girl, that is one with
money; and Jimmy, who is awfully sweet and unselfish, just the opposite
to James. Just now, you're Jimmy, the nice side of you is uppermost; but
some day it may be the other way about and then you'll run off and leave
poor Lalage."

He flushed, and tried to draw her to him. "Never, never," he declared.
"I shall always stick to you. Who else have I got?"

She shook her head. "You've got your own people, always, ready to have
you, when you'll be one of them; whilst I'm all alone, and only Lalage,
the girl you met by chance in Oxford Street."

Her words reawakened his curiosity as to her past. Twice before he had
tried to learn her story, but now, as on those occasions, she baffled
his questions.

"I am Lalage Penrose, that's all. I was a fool, and I've paid for my
folly, and there's nothing else worth telling."

"Still, I should like to hear," he persisted.

"Well, perhaps you shall some day, if you don't turn into James Grierson
before then. But--but, don't ask me, Jimmy." Her bantering manner
changed suddenly, and with a queer little sob she jumped up and hurried
into the other room.

Jimmy did not try to follow her. Instead, he lighted a cigarette, and
endeavoured to settle down to work on an article which had been
suggested by a paragraph in that morning's Record. A quarter of an hour
later Lalage came back with a little bundle of his socks in her hand.

"These want darning," she remarked; then, in the most natural manner,
she sat down in the big wicker chair beside him, and started to ply her
needle.

From time to time Jimmy glanced up from his writing. He was breaking
the moral code in which he had been brought up, the code which he knew,
as every sane man does know, is essentially right in principle; he was
risking a rupture with his own people who, certainly, would never
tolerate Lalage; he was face to face with an ugly financial situation,
almost penniless himself and with another dependent on him; and yet he
felt more at peace than he had done for many months past. Lalage, intent
on her needlework, frowning prettily over the large holes in his socks,
looked so sweet and girlish, so entirely unsoiled, outwardly at least,
by what she had been through, that it seemed as if, after all, there
could be nothing wrong. Marriage was only a formality, he told himself,
and from that time on he tried to school himself to think so, almost
succeeding after a while.

When his article was finished, Jimmy glanced through it rapidly, made
one or two corrections, scrawled his signature at the foot, then turned
to Lalage. "What is the time, dear? Have any of your clock-men come down
the street lately?"

She looked up with a smile. "Yes, the watercress man, which means five
o'clock. Have you finished now?"

Jimmy nodded. "I thought of taking it down to the office now. It's
topical, so there's just a chance they'll use it to-night. Will you
come too?"

"Of course," she answered. "We can get a motor 'bus at the end of the
street, and it'll be a nice little run out. Besides, it'll be lucky if I
go with you. They'll be sure to take it. I've a feeling I shall bring
you luck. Don't you think so yourself?"

He kissed her lightly on the hair. "I'm sure you will, sweetheart. And
we want lots of luck just now."

"What a dirty place and what a grumpy old man!" Lalage remarked as they
came out of the _Record_ office, after handing the envelope to the surly
porter, who had taken it with an inarticulate growl and tossed it to a
waiting boy. "Still, if they use it and they're good to you, I don't
mind how dusty their passage is, or how bad tempered the porter looks."

Jimmy pressed her arm. "Good to us, you mean, don't you?"

She laughed. "Yes, good to us, I should say now." In the morning Jimmy
was out early to buy a copy of the paper; and, as she opened the door to
him, his radiant face told her the news.

"They've used it," he said, unnecessarily.

She laughed softly. "I felt sure they would. You see Lalage is lucky to
you already."




CHAPTER XV


"That last article of yours I used was a very good one, and I shall
always be glad to see anything you like to submit; but the amount of
space we can give to foreign stuff, however good, is limited, and I do
not like to have the same signature more than three or four times a
month," Dodgson wrote, in returning Jimmy's next manuscript.

Jimmy passed the letter to Lalage. "Not very encouraging, is it dear?"

The girl read it through. "Oh, I think so. Three or four months means
six or eight guineas from one paper alone, and then, you see, there are
so many others. I'm sure you'll do well, because you're very, very
clever, and because you're good to Lalage."

"Will that bring me luck?" he asked, smiling.

"Of course," she answered. "Everyone who is good to me gets on and those
who are horrid come to grief. I've seen it, lots of times." She spoke
seriously, with an air of conviction.

"Well, I hope you're right." Jimmy sighed. He had not sold any
manuscript for several days, and was feeling distinctly worried about
the future. His original capital had dwindled down to a few shillings,
despite Lalage's careful management, and, so far, he had not been paid
for any of his work. Already, the need of money was crippling him,
robbing him of his powers of imagination, and by that hideous perversity
of effect which every writer knows to his cost, making him do less
instead of the more he longed to produce.

Lalage, ever an optimist, did her best to cheer him up and to assist
him, searching the papers for news items which might form the basis of
an article, counting the number of words in his manuscripts to see they
did not exceed the regulation column length, and even copying out his
rough notes in her clear, bold handwriting.

"I wish you could get a typewriter machine, Jimmy," she remarked. "I'm
sure your stuff would have a better chance, and I could soon learn to
use the thing. Other girls do, so I'm sure I can."

"They cost a lot of money," Jimmy answered, rather wearily.

Lalage tossed her head. "You can get them on the hire-purchase system. I
believe you think I should get tired of it, you old silly. Now don't
you?"

The man stooped down and kissed her. "I don't think anything of the
kind. I know you're a brick, only----." He broke off with a sigh, then,
"I'm going down to the club, to see if I can find Kelly. I must do
something before we get in a fix."

She looked up at him anxiously. "Will you be long, dear? And do be
careful, won't you? You walk through the traffic as if it wasn't there,
unless you have me to look after you."

When he had gone out, she sat for a long time, very still, staring into
the fire. Already, she was getting a little afraid. Twice, Jimmy had
gone down to the club in the vain hope of hearing of something to do or
picking up some useful hints, and each time he had returned a little
flushed and inclined to be apologetic. Lalage did not blame him, even in
her own mind. It was inevitable, she told herself, after all he had been
through, to the strain of which was now added the anxiety of the
present. She did not blame him, but at the same time, as she glanced
round her little home, she gave a shudder of fear at the possibility of
losing it all and of losing Jimmy as well. "If I were only sure of him,
if I dare trust him, I wouldn't mind, I'd risk it all. But to lose
everything, and then be homeless and alone again----" She suddenly felt
very cold and stooped down to poke the little fire.

A moment later, the electric bell rang, three times in rapid
succession, a signal she knew well. She stood up quickly, her face very
pale. "It's Ralph," she muttered. "And we want money so badly. I wonder
if he would just lend it." She stood, with clenched hands, trying to
decide. The bell rang again, seemingly more insistently; then,
deliberately, she sat down, and put her fingers in her ears. "Oh, Jimmy,
I won't, because I love you. But I don't believe you trust me, and I
don't believe you understand."

Down at the club, Jimmy was seeking advice of Douglas Kelly.

"Hasn't the _Record_ paid you yet?" the latter asked. "Oh, you haven't
sent in an account? You should have done so on the Wednesday after your
stuff appeared, then you would have got a cheque on the Friday
afternoon. Still, if you go down to-day, before five, the cashier will
give it to you. He's a very decent fellow, and, if you're ever badly
stuck, he'll let you have it the day your article appears. I've been
glad enough to get it that way, more than once."

Jimmy felt that sudden relief which only those who have been desperately
short of money can know. He had led Lalage to understand that he had a
couple of shillings in his pocket for his own needs beyond the
half-crown he left her, whereas he had not even got his omnibus fare
back from Fleet Street.

"I hate to think of you going out without the money for a drink and so
on," she had said. "What's more, I'm not going to let you do it." So he
had lied bravely to her, knowing that, unless he had some luck, the
half-crown would be needed for food for the morrow. Now, however, he
would have money enough for a good many to-morrows.

Kelly knew nothing of Lalage, but he understood what the sudden
brightening of Jimmy's face meant.

"Been hard up?" he asked, with a smile. "Why didn't you come to me, as I
told you to do? Of course, you'll find it an uphill game, and I would
advise you to leave it now, at the start, if I were not sure you would
succeed in the end. You'll have a hard fight, because you've got ability
and experience of the world, and those will tell against you at first."

"Why?" Jimmy asked.

Kelly gave a cynical little laugh. "Because there's not much demand for
either in Fleet Street. You've only got to study the Press to see
that--dailies, weeklies, magazines, the whole lot. They want writers who
are just on the level of the mob, because then the mob can understand
them. All your travel won't help you to get a job; but if you could go
into a newspaper office and say, 'I know more about Upper Clapton, or
Stockwell, or some such beastly place than any man living,' or 'I'm a
crime expert, and I can give the names, and dates of execution, of every
man hanged in London for the last twenty years,' then they'd welcome you
as a long-lost brother, and give you about ten pounds a week."

Jimmy laughed, not quite believing him. "Then how did you yourself get
on?"

Kelly finished his drink, and ordered some more before answering the
question, then, "I bluffed," he said. "There was a coal strike coming
on, and I swore I was an expert on coal mining, so the _Evening
Guardian_ gave me a job. I picked up a little knowledge locally, just a
few technical terms and so on; and, as for the rest, neither the editor
nor the public knew that half my stuff was utter rot. It read well, and
lent itself to good headlines."

"And then, after that?" Jimmy asked.

"After that? Oh, well, I had got my foot in, and it was easy. I
advertised myself, and made the ruck get out of my way, as I told you
before. I'm not loved, but then I'm not in Fleet Street for the sake of
earning the regard of its population."

Jimmy looked surprised. "They all seem pretty eager to talk to you."

"Of course they do." Kelly laughed grimly. "Of course they do, because
I'm a power already and I may be an editor by-and-by; but, if I went
down, all they would think about would be to scramble for my place.
Don't think I'm blaming them; they're a decent enough crowd, awfully
decent, but the fight is too hard to have time for thinking about anyone
else. Why you, yourself, are already the common foe, in a sense. You're
taking up space in the _Record_ which, but for you, someone else would
fill. You won't get any help or advice, and most people would say I was
a fool for introducing a possible competitor of my own. You'll feel the
same, if you stick in Fleet Street long enough, which you won't do."

"I thought you said I was going to succeed," Jimmy retorted.

Kelly yawned. "So I did, my bright child. But when you've learnt the
ropes, and can afford it, you'll go in for fiction. But just now, all
your ideas are chaotic, and you won't do a decent story until you've
sorted them out and fallen in love."

Jimmy coloured. "How do you know I've never done that yet?"

The other man shook his head. "You're too sweetly young in many of your
ways and ideas. Oh, I daresay there's some prim maiden belonging to
your sister's circle, with an aldermanic papa in the City--but you,
yourself, would never really be in love with her. I know you too well;
and if you did marry her, you would never write a book, until you had
run away from her, as you would certainly do. Well," he got up abruptly,
as if to avoid giving any reasons for his ideas, "I'm going over to the
_Record_ office now, and if you come, I'll introduce you to the cashier
and you can get your cheque."

Jimmy did not waste any time after he left the _Record_ office. The
cashier himself changed the cheque for him, the banks being shut. Jimmy
hesitated a moment as to whether he should take a hansom, then
remembered the lean days of the past, and jumped on an omnibus. Lalage
could make a shilling go a surprisingly long way.

He found the girl sitting in the dark, in front of an almost dead fire,
and his conscience smote him on account of the time he had spent in the
warm, comfortable club smoking-room.

"We're in luck, sweetheart," he said, putting his hands on her
shoulders, and kissing her. "I've got the six guineas out of the
_Record_."

She reached up and pulled his face down to hers again, in one of her
rare bursts of outward affection. "Oh, I'm so glad. I was reckoning up,
and I found you must have gone out without any money, even for tobacco
or a drink, and I was picturing you trudging back in this cold drizzle.
You are a naughty boy to do those things."

"And how about you, if I spent all the money? Wouldn't you think to
yourself that I was a selfish beast?"

Lalage shook her head. "You could never be selfish; it's not your
nature. You might be thoughtless, that's all. Promise me you won't go
out like that again. I shall worry ever so much if you don't. I know,
only too well, what it means to trudge about in the London mud without a
penny for even a glass of hot milk. Oh, the cold." She gave a little
shiver. "You know that shop in Regent Street, where they have the big
fires in the window, showing off some stoves. I've stood there for as
long as I dare, more than once, trying to think I was feeling the heat
through the glass."

"Don't, please don't," Jimmy muttered thickly. "I do hate to think of it
all. And it shan't be so again, I swear it shan't. Let's forget it all
to-night, and go out and have some dinner somewhere, for a change.
You're all on a shiver now. I'll go out and get some brandy, whilst you
put your things on. I may as well bring in a bottle."

Lalage put her hand on his arm. "Not a bottle, dear, only a quartern.
That'll be quite enough. Do what Lalage tells you this time."

"Don't I always do what you tell me?" he asked, laughing.

"Oh, I don't want you to say that," she answered quickly. "You ought to
be your own master; only when I know a thing is right I do like to tell
you. A woman should, I think."

For an instant, Jimmy felt a wild longing to beg her to change the word
"woman" to that of "wife," but she had already turned towards the door,
and at the same moment the noise of the grimy street seemed to come in
through the window and somehow fill the room. The sound recalled him to
his normal self. How could he, a Grierson, take a wife from those
surroundings?




CHAPTER XVI


Mrs. Marlow had learnt of her brother's sudden change of address with
mingled annoyance and anxiety. It was not pleasant to have him quit the
lodgings she had found for him after so short a trial, and she could not
help feeling that there was some very strong attraction drawing him to
town. Mrs. Benn, that uncompromising "Son of Temperance," had come over
herself to explain matters to Jimmy's sister, and had taken the
opportunity to enlarge on the number of bottles she had found in her
lodger's room, omitting to state, however, that these had included the
best part of a dozen of Bass, which, possibly because she hated liquor
so much, she had promptly sold to her next-door neighbour at a halfpenny
a bottle below the retail price.

"I'm afraid as how the house was too quiet for Mr. Grierson, mum," she
wound up. "Having nothing to do hisself, except just write, he seemed to
think other folks couldn't be tired and want to go to bed, folks that
worked." She emphasised her words with a truly British scorn for those
who live by their brains. "I'm sure the hours and hours as I've sat up
for him, it's fair worn me out. And him your brother, mum, and uncle to
these lovely little children, what I remember coming into the world."

Mrs. Marlow wrote plainly to her brother, doing her duty without
flinching. Jimmy read the letter with a grim smile, then handed it to
Lalage, who was bubbling over with wrath long before she reached the end
of it.

"They are horrid, Jimmy, really they are. They see something wrong in
everything you do. It's quite enough to drive you to the bad, never
giving you a chance, and treating you like a silly little boy. I'm sure
you don't drink as she says you do. She must be a nasty-minded woman.
You know I should be the last to want to separate you from your family,
or anything like that, if they were good to you; but as it is, I'm sure
you're much better here than in those miserable lodgings, all alone and
moping. That would make you drink."

They were having breakfast at the time, but Lalage looked so sweet,
lying back in a big wicker chair, wrapped in an old kimono of Jimmy's,
that he felt compelled to lean over and kiss her.

"You won't let me go to drink, will you, Lalage?" he asked.

"Of course not," she answered promptly. "You know how I feel about
that. Yet your people would never believe it if they found me--when they
find me. We girls," she looked up, a little defiantly, "we girls are
supposed to be everything that is bad; whilst they, your City people,
have got all the virtues, except charity, which they don't imagine they
need."

Jimmy coloured. "You're a bit rough on them sometimes, Lalage," he said.

She shook her head emphatically. "I'm not too rough. Have they any idea
of charity, any idea of forgiveness? If I were able to live respectably
again, live a good life, would they, or any of their kind, allow me to
wipe out the past and start afresh?"

Jimmy suddenly became busy with a cigarette he was rolling. "You are
living a respectable life now," he muttered, weakly evading the
question.

But Lalage smiled bitterly, and then, with a sudden change of
expression, she laid her hand on his, very gently. "No, Jimmy dear,
let's be straight, even amongst ourselves. You are all right, because
you're a man, and men are allowed to do these things; but they would all
treat me as a bad woman, as something rather worse than a dog. Even you,
dear, don't respect me, in your heart, although I have tried to make
you."

The man got up suddenly, tossing his newly made cigarette into the
grate. "I do respect you, you know I do. To me, you come before everyone
else in the world; and I think as much of you, as if, as if----" He
stammered a little, and, still very gently, she finished the sentence
for him.

"As if I were your wife."

Jimmy's eyes flashed. Somehow, it sounded wonderfully sweet, coming from
her lips, and all his caution, all his Grierson traditions, seemed to
slip from him suddenly. He stood up, very straight, facing her.

"My wife," he said in a low voice. "My wife. Will you be my wife,
Lalage?"

The girl turned white, and her hand went to her throat, as though she
were choking, then she looked away, staring into the fire, whilst he
watched her, waiting for her answer with almost pitiful anxiety.

"Dearest," she began at last, "it's very sweet of you----" Then she
paused again, as though searching for the words, which came to her at
last. "Jimmy, dearest, do you really mean it? Remember, you've only
known me quite a little time, and you can't be sure of me yet. Can you?
You see, if you made a mistake it would spoil your whole life. It means
so much to you."

"And what does it mean to you?" he asked, thickly.

"Everything," she answered, simply. "But then, I've spoilt my life
already, and I mustn't spoil yours too."

"You wouldn't spoil it. You, know that as well as I do. You would give
me something to work for, make me keep up to the mark." He was
thoroughly in earnest now, carried away by the fear of losing her. He
walked up and down the room a couple of times, then stopped in front of
her. "Lalage," he asked, very quietly, "do you love me?"

The girl nodded, without looking up.

"Then will you marry me?" He said it deliberately. She clenched her
hands, but answered nothing, till he repeated his question, then she
faced him, white-lipped and wild-eyed.

"God forgive me for saying it--yes. But not yet, Jimmy, not yet," and
without allowing him to kiss her, she jumped up and ran into the other
room, shutting the door behind her.

Jimmy walked down to the club that day, not from reasons of
economy--there was still some of the _Record_ money left--but because he
wanted to think matters over, quietly and deliberately. He was conscious
of an unwonted sense of elation--Lalage was to be his, definitely and
finally, so that they could face the world openly, with none of this
miserable business of subterfuge and bogus address; no one would know of
the past. And then, suddenly, he went cold at the thought of the family
inquisition, and the falsehoods he would have to tell; whilst, even if
the latter were not detected, his people would never forgive him for
marrying a stranger, never agree to his marriage until he was in what
they would consider a good position, which would mean years of waiting.
He tried to picture Lalage, with her almost childish outlook on life,
being cross-examined by the cold and immaculate Ida, or sitting down to
dinner in the Marlow house, where even the servants would turn up their
noses at the mention of the ham and beef shop.

And then if, after they were married, they came across someone belonging
to Lalage's old life--that was the worst idea of all, intolerable,
wholly abominable. Insensibly, he quickened his pace, as though trying
to get away from the thought, then, finding that useless, turned into a
saloon bar, where he remained a full hour, drinking whisky practically
neat, and endeavouring to interest himself in the other people who came
into the place. When, at last, he did reach the club, he was feeling
much more certain of the wisdom of his choice and his ability to manage
his own affairs. He had determined to tell Douglas Kelly, as
practically his only friend, about his engagement; and yet, somehow, he
felt a distinct sense of relief when, in reply to his question, the
waiter said:

"Mr. Kelly, sir? He has been in, in a great hurry, just for letters and
so on. But," and he lowered his voice discreetly, knowing Kelly to be a
friend of Jimmy's and two other members being near, "but he's gone to
Russia, sir, all in a hurry. Told me to tell you he wouldn't be there
very long, at least he thought not."

As Jimmy turned away, he found himself face to face with Romsey of the
_Evening Post_, of whom he had seen a good deal during the last few
weeks.

"Hullo, Grierson," the other said. "You don't look too cheerful. I
suppose you are wondering how the smash is going to affect you."

Jimmy knit his brow. "What do you mean?" he demanded. "Who has gone to
smash?"

The reporter gave him an incredulous look. "Where on earth do you live
that you haven't heard? Why the _Comet_ ceased publication last night
without warning, which means there are forty of the best men in Fleet
Street out of jobs, ready to scramble for the space you and I and the
other fellows used to have. Cheerful prospect, isn't it?"

Jimmy did not answer. He was wondering dully whether any of these men
had ever felt the same degree of desperate anxiety about the future as
he was feeling then.




CHAPTER XVII


Things were bad in Fleet Street. Everyone said so, and therefore it
followed that the statement was true. Certainly Jimmy found no reason to
doubt it. His manuscripts came back with horrible regularity, not so
much because they were unsuitable but because there was so little space
and so many eager to fill it. Had he been more experienced he would have
known that things are always bad to the majority, whilst the successful
minority has no time to waste in telling others how it is getting on;
but he was raw to the game, and not over-sanguine by nature, so instead
of being elated by such little luck as he did get he was terribly
discouraged when he counted up the total results of a month's hard work.
He had just managed to scrape together the rent of the flat and the
instalment on the hire-purchase furniture, but that had been all. There
was nothing due to him from any of the papers; he was practically
penniless, as well as a little in debt to such of the local tradesmen as
would allow any credit. His own boots were growing uncomfortably thin,
whilst, as for Lalage, he had not been able to buy her a single thing.
Not that she asked him for anything, rather otherwise.

"I can manage," she said with a brave attempt at cheerfulness. "These
shoes will do me for some little time yet, as I hardly ever go out, and
I know you'll get me lots of nice clothes when we grow rich."

But though she tried to encourage him she was not very successful. It is
no easy task to put a new heart into someone else when there is a deadly
fear gripping at your own, and as day after day went by and she saw him
growing thinner, shabbier, more weary and despondent, her own hopes for
the future dwindled down to the vanishing point. Hitherto he had kept
away from his own people, none of whom had seen him since his return
from Northampton; but they were always there in the background, and she
knew that he had only to abandon her and come into line with their ideas
to get his immediate needs supplied and some provision made for his
future in the shape of a steady, respectable occupation. She believed in
his ability as a writer far more than he did himself, but success meant
months, even years, of waiting, and she saw that he had not the strength
to wait. Already his nerve was going and he was trying to steady himself
with whisky. Towards herself he was very loving and gentle, at least
most of the time; but he was quickly becoming too worried to work in
the flat. The sharp knock at the door which heralded the daily visit of
one or other of their small creditors would put him off work for the
rest of the day, and before long he took to spending the day at the
club, sometimes writing, more often mooning about in the vague hope of
meeting someone who could help him into a regular berth on one of the
papers.

For Lalage these days passed with unutterable slowness. There was, of
necessity, very little to do in the way of cooking, and she had not the
heart to go out. It is miserable work looking into the shop windows
whilst your own pockets are empty, and, moreover, she had long since
divined the terrible jealousy of the past which was always at the back
of Jimmy's mind, and she knew that he hated her to be out by herself,
although, on the other hand, he seemed afraid to be seen out with her.
It was the dread of meeting some of his own people, she understood that
perfectly well, and the knowledge increased her fears for the future. In
the end she was going to lose everything, not only Jimmy but her little
home as well; and all because she had been insane enough to forget that
love was not for such as herself, because she had been wilfully blind to
the fact that Jimmy came from the Griersons, and must ultimately go
back to the Griersons and their kind.

Now and then there was a red-letter day, when Dodgson of the _Record_
wired for a special article, which probably meant two guineas on the
morrow. On those occasions Lalage always went down to the office with
Jimmy to hand in the copy because, as Jimmy declared, she was lucky to
him, and, being elated by the commission, he was able to put on one side
the fear of meeting anyone who knew him. But the next returned
manuscript brought back his depression and sent him down to the club
again to waste his time and drink whisky.

Lalage did not blame him for leaving her the task of meeting the little
tradesmen, who grew foul-mouthed and truculent over an account of two or
three shillings, as is their wont in that part of London. Rather, she
sorrowed over the far smaller share of worry which did fall to him, and
tried to take it all on to her own shoulders. He would leave her, she
fully believed that, and, had she been as her kind is supposed to be, as
perhaps it is, she would have hastened his going in order to be free
again; but because she loved him she was ready to sacrifice anything to
keep him as long as possible. For Jimmy's own sake, too, she dreaded his
going back to his people, knowing, as she did, that he could never
forget her, and that he would inevitably seek oblivion and find death in
the bottle. She had divined his tendency that way from the very first,
and the fear of it had never been out of her mind since.

Jimmy was still keeping up the nominal address at the house just off
Baker Street, and so far Mrs. Fagin, the landlady, had treated him with
fawning politeness when he paid his weekly rent, but from the very first
he had distrusted her, and he always had the feeling that she would sell
his secret if she discovered the market. Once Mrs. Marlow had called and
had been told by the maid that Mr. Grierson was out for the day and his
room was locked, but there was ever the chance that she might call again
and disclose her identity to Mrs. Fagin. The whole thing was a nightmare
to Jimmy, who sometimes found himself blaming Lalage in his heart for
having suggested the arrangement. He was a supremely miserable man, at
least when he was alone, fearful of his own people, terribly worried
about money matters, jealous almost to the point of madness, and haunted
by the dread of losing Lalage in the end. If only they could have faced
the world openly half the battle would have been over, and they could,
he told himself, have got through the rest somehow together. And yet
since that one day of madness when he had made her promise to be his
wife he had never referred to the subject again. He wanted her for his
own, and yet he shrank from the sacrifice of marriage. He tried to quiet
his conscience by telling himself it was wiser to wait, that it really
made little difference after all; whilst Lalage said nothing, being
already broken-hearted and bankrupt of hope.




CHAPTER XVIII


When she found time to think about him seriously, which was not very
often, Mrs. Marlow was far from being satisfied as to Jimmy's doings or
prospects. Someone had reported having seen him walking down Fleet
Street late at night, looking ill and down at heel, and the news upset
her. It was not pleasant to have these things said about one of the
family, even though he, himself, might be entirely to blame for it. She
would have asked him down to stay for a week-end, but for the fact that
she did not want him to meet Ethel Grimmer again, having the feeling
that he might tell that lady things which he would not confide to his
own sister. But she took counsel with Ida, and, in the end, they decided
that Walter Grierson was the right person to make an investigation.

Rather unwillingly, Walter undertook the task, or said he would
undertake it, and, after consultation with his wife, who was not in the
least interested, detesting both Ida and May, asked Jimmy down to stay,
three or four days.

"I'm sure I haven't any desire to go," Jimmy said, as he read the
letter to Lalage. Then he coughed a little and put his handkerchief to
his mouth.

Lalage watched him with big, troubled eyes, not for the first time. "I
think you had better go, dear," she said. "The change may do you good,
and it'll take your mind off these stupid worries. I shall manage all
right alone. I'm used to it, you see."

He took her words in the wrong sense, and glanced at her with sudden
jealous suspicion, which she saw and strove hard to ignore. "You see,
there's nothing urgent due just now," she went on, hurriedly, "and I've
enough food in the house to last me out. If I get some condensed milk
in, I can pretend we're both away."

Jimmy had the grace to feel ashamed of his own thoughts. "I must see you
fixed up, sweetheart, of course, and, anyway, one night will be enough
for me at Walter's. As for money, there will be a guinea and a half
coming from the _Sunday Echo_ to-morrow. It's their pay day, the second
Friday."

But Lalage shook her head. "You must have that for a new pair of boots,
Jimmy, and one or two little things. I can't let you go as you are. I
only wish there had been more time, so that we could have saved enough
for a new suit for you." She looked at his figure critically. "I know a
place where they sell misfits very cheap, good ones, and you might get
one to fit you. They would take my dinner dress in exchange, I'm sure."

"No, no." Jimmy leaned forward and kissed her hand. "I won't have that.
I can manage, and if Mrs. Walter thinks I'm too shabby, she won't ask me
again, which will be a relief."

Lalage sighed. "I hate to see you looking thin and ill and poor. It just
breaks my heart." She gave a little sob. "But, oh, Jimmy dearest, when
you get to your brother's big house, don't despise Lalage and our poor
little place here; because we have been so happy in it, in spite of all
our troubles."

He drew her to him, very gently. "That will never happen, dear. I won't
go at all, if you're afraid of anything like that. I would much rather
not go, anyway. You are all I want."

But she had her way in everything, save that he insisted on leaving her
five shillings, in addition to laying in a stock of provisions.

"Really, I don't want any money," she said; "or a shilling at the most,
in case I want to wire to you. Take the money, Jimmy, do; you will want
a drink at the station, and that sort of thing."

He looked at her with shining eyes. "Do you ever think of yourself?" he
asked.

"Of course I do," she laughed. "I want to make you happy, and then I'm
happy, so really I'm selfish, after all."

In the end, Jimmy stayed three days at Walter's, and, if he did not
actually enjoy himself, at least he was well content to be there. It was
very refreshing to be away from all worries, to have no one asking you
for money, to feel you could go out of the door without the fear of
meeting some miserable creditor. There was plenty to eat, plenty to
drink; and, even if he was not actually in sympathy with Wa

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