← catalogue

The Masquerader

by Katherine Cecil Thurston · English · Gutenberg #5422 · 502,720 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Masquerader
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The Masquerader

Author: Katherine Cecil Thurston


        
Release date: April 1, 2004 [eBook #5422]
                Most recently updated: March 16, 2018

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5422

Credits: Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MASQUERADER ***




Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer






THE MASQUERADER

By Katherine Cecil Thurston





I

Two incidents, widely different in character yet bound together by
results, marked the night of January the twenty-third. On that night the
blackest fog within a four years' memory fell upon certain portions of
London, and also on that night came the first announcement of the border
risings against the Persian government in the province of Khorasan the
announcement that, speculated upon, even smiled at, at the time, assumed
such significance in the light of after events.

At eight o'clock the news spread through the House of Commons; but at
nine men in the inner lobbies were gossiping, not so much upon how far
Russia, while ostensibly upholding the Shah, had pulled the strings
by which the insurgents danced, as upon the manner in which the 'St.
George's Gazette', the Tory evening newspaper, had seized upon the
incident and shaken it in the faces of the government.

More than once before, Lakely--the owner and editor of the 'St.
George's'--had stepped outside the decorous circle of tradition and
taken a plunge into modern journalism, but to-night he essayed deeper
waters than before, and under an almost sensational heading declared
that in this apparently innocent border rising we had less an outcome
of mere racial antagonism than a first faint index of a long-cherished
Russian scheme, growing to a gradual maturity under the “drift” policy
of the present British government.

The effect produced by this pronouncement, if strong, was varied.
Members of the Opposition saw, or thought they saw, a reflection of it
in the smiling unconcern on the Ministerial benches; and the government
had an uneasy sense that behind the newly kindled interest on the other
side of the House lay some mysterious scenting of battle from afar
off. But though these impressions ran like electricity through the
atmosphere, nothing tangible marked their passage, and the ordinary
business of the House proceeded until half-past eleven, when an
adjournment was moved.

The first man to hurry from his place was John Chilcote, member for
East Wark. He passed out of the House quickly, with the half-furtive
quickness that marks a self-absorbed man; and as he passed the policeman
standing stolidly under the arched door-way of the big court-yard he
swerved a little, as if startled out of his thoughts. He realized his
swerve almost before it was accomplished, and pulled himself together
with nervous irritability.

“Foggy night, constables,” he said, with elaborate carelessness.

“Foggy night, sir, and thickening up west,” responded the man.

“Ah, indeed!” Chilcote's answer was absent. The constable's cheery voice
jarred on him, and for the second time he was conscious of senseless
irritation.

Without a further glance at the man, he slipped out into the court-yard
and turned towards the main gate.

At the gate-way two cab lamps showed through the mist of shifting fog
like the eyes of a great cat, and the familiar “Hansom, sir?” came to
him indistinctly.

He paused by force of custom; and, stepping forward, had almost touched
the open door when a new impulse caused him to draw back.

“No,” he said, hurriedly. “No. I'll walk.”

The cabman muttered, lashed his horse, and with a clatter of hoofs and
harness wheeled away; while Chilcote, still with uncertain hastiness,
crossed the road in the direction of Whitehall.

About the Abbey the fog had partially lifted, and in the railed garden
that faces the Houses of Parliament the statues were visible in a
spectral way. But Chilcote's glance was unstable and indifferent; he
skirted the railings heedlessly, and, crossing the road with the speed
of long familiarity, gained Whitehall on the lefthand side.

There the fog had dropped, and, looking upward towards Trafalgar Square,
it seemed that the chain of lamps extended little farther than the Horse
Guards, and that beyond lay nothing.

Unconscious of this capricious alternation between darkness and light,
Chilcote continued his course. To a close observer the manner of
his going had both interest and suggestion; for though he walked on,
apparently self-engrossed, yet at every dozen steps he started at
some sound or some touch, like a man whose nervous system is painfully
overstrung.

Maintaining his haste, he went deliberately forward, oblivious of the
fact that at each step the curtain of darkness about him became closer,
damper, more tangible; that at each second the passers-by jostled each
other with greater frequency. Then, abruptly, with a sudden realization
of what had happened, he stood quite still. Without anticipation
or preparation he had walked full into the thickness of the fog--a
thickness so dense that, as by an enchanter's wand, the figures of a
moment before melted, the street lamps were sucked up into the night.

His first feeling was a sense of panic at the sudden isolation, his
second a thrill of nervous apprehension at the oblivion that had allowed
him to be so entrapped. The second feeling outweighed the first. He
moved forward, then paused again, uncertain of himself. Finally, with
the consciousness that inaction was unbearable, he moved on once more,
his eyes wide open, one hand thrust out as a protection and guide.

The fog had closed in behind him as heavily as in front, shutting
off all possibility of retreat; all about him in the darkness was a
confusion of voices--cheerful, dubious, alarmed, or angry; now and then
a sleeve brushed his or a hand touched him tentatively. It was a strange
moment, a moment of possibilities, to which the crunching wheels, the
oaths and laughter from the blocked traffic of the road-way, made a
continuous accompaniment.

Keeping well to the left, Chilcote still beat on; there was a
persistence in his movements that almost amounted to fear--a fear born
of the solitude filled with innumerable sounds. For a space he groped
about him without result, then his fingers touched the cold surface of
a shuttered shop-front, and a thrill of reassurance passed through him.
With renewed haste, and clinging to his landmark as a blind man might,
he started forward with fresh impetus.

For a dozen paces he moved rapidly and unevenly, then the natural result
occurred. He collided with a man coming in the opposite direction.

The shock was abrupt. Both men swore simultaneously, then both laughed.
The whole thing was casual, but Chilcote was in that state of mind when
even the commonplace becomes abnormal. The other man's exclamation, the
other man's laugh, struck on his nerves; coming out of the darkness,
they sounded like a repetition of his own.

Nine out of every ten men in London, given the same social position and
the same education, might reasonably be expected to express annoyance
or amusement in the same manner, possibly in the same tone of voice; and
Chilcote remembered this almost at the moment of his nervous jar.

“Beastly fog!” he said, aloud. “I'm trying to find Grosvenor Square, but
the chances seem rather small.”

The other laughed again, and again the laugh upset Chilcote. He wondered
uncomfortably if he was becoming a prey to illusions. But the stranger
spoke before the question had solved itself.

“I'm afraid they are small,” he said. “It would be almost hard to find
one's way to the devil on a night like this.”

Chilcote made a murmur of amusement and drew back against the shop.

“Yes. We can see now where the blind man scores in the matter of
salvation. This is almost a repetition of the fog of six years ago. Were
you out in that?”

It was a habit of his to jump from one sentence to another, a habit that
had grown of late.

“No.” The stranger had also groped his way to the shopfront. “No, I was
out of England six years ago.”

“You were lucky.” Chilcote turned up the collar of his coat. “It was an
atrocious fog, as black as this, but more universal. I remember it well.
It was the night Lexington made his great sugar speech. Some of us were
found on Lambeth Bridge at three in the morning, having left the House
at twelve.”

Chilcote seldom indulged in reminiscences, but this conversation with
an unseen companion was more like a soliloquy than a dialogue. He was
almost surprised into an exclamation when the other caught up his words.

“Ah! The sugar speech!” he said. “Odd that I should have been looking
it up only yesterday. What a magnificent dressing-up of a dry subject it
was! What a career Lexington promised in those days!”

Chilcote changed his position.

“You are interested in the muddle down at Westminster?” he asked,
sarcastically.

“I--?” It was the turn of the stranger to draw back a step. “Oh, I
read my newspaper with the other five million, that is all. I am an
outsider.” His voice sounded curt; the warmth that admiration had
brought into it a moment before had frozen abruptly.

“An outsider!” Chilcote repeated. “What an enviable word!”

“Possibly, to those who are well inside the ring. But let us go back to
Lexington. What a pinnacle the man reached, and what a drop he had! It
has always seemed to me an extraordinary instance of the human leaven
running through us all. What was the real cause of his collapse?” he
asked, suddenly. “Was it drugs or drink? I have often wished to get at
the truth.”

Again Chilcote changed his attitude.

“Is truth ever worth getting at?” he asked, irrelevantly.

“In the case of a public man--yes. He exchanges his privacy for the
interest of the masses. If he gives the masses the details of his
success, why not the details of his failure? But was it drink that
sucked him under?”

“No.” Chilcote's response came after a pause.

“Drugs?”

Again Chilcote hesitated. And at the moment of his indecision a woman
brushed past him, laughing boisterously. The sound jarred him.

“Was it drugs?” the stranger went on easily. “I have always had a theory
that it was.”

“Yes. It was morphia.” The answer came before Chilcote had realized it.
The woman's laugh at the stranger's quiet persistence had contrived to
draw it from him. Instantly he had spoken he looked about him quickly,
like one who has for a moment forgotten a necessary vigilance.

There was silence while the stranger thought over the information just
given him. Then he spoke again, with a new touch of vehemence.

“So I imagined,” he said. “Though, on my soul, I never really credited
it. To have gained so much, and to have thrown it away for a common
vice!” He made an exclamation of disgust.

Chilcote gave an unsteady laugh. “You judge hardly.” he said.

The other repeated his sound of contempt. “Justly so. No man has the
right to squander what another would give his soul for. It lessens the
general respect for power.”

“You are a believer in power?” The tone was sarcastic, but the sarcasm
sounded thin.

“Yes. All power is the outcome of individuality, either past or present.
I find no sentiment for the man who plays with it.”

The quiet contempt of the tone stung Chilcote.

“Do you imagine that Lexington made no fight?” he asked, impulsively.
“Can't you picture the man's struggle while the vice that had been slave
gradually became master?” He stopped to take breath, and in the cold
pause that followed it seemed to him that the other made a murmur of
incredulity.

“Perhaps you think of morphia as a pleasure?” he added. “Think of it,
instead, as a tyrant--that tortures the mind if held to, and the body if
cast off.” Urged by the darkness and the silence of his companion, the
rein of his speech had loosened. In that moment he was not Chilcote
the member for East Wark, whose moods and silences were proverbial, but
Chilcote the man whose mind craved the relief of speech.

“You talk as the world talks--out of ignorance and self-righteousness,”
 he went on. “Before you condemn Lexington you should put yourself in his
place--”

“As you do?” the other laughed.

Unsuspecting and inoffensive as the laugh was, it startled Chilcote.
With a sudden alarm he pulled himself up.

“I--?” He tried to echo the laugh, but the attempt fell flat. “Oh,
I merely speak from--from De Quincey. But I believe this fog is
shifting--I really believe it is shifting. Can you oblige me with a
light? I had almost forgotten that a man may still smoke though he
has been deprived of sight.” He spoke fast and disjointedly. He was
overwhelmed by the idea that he had let himself go, and possessed by the
wish to obliterate the consequences. As he talked he fumbled; for his
cigarette-case.

His bead was bent as he searched for it nervously. Without looking
up, he was conscious that the cloud of fog that held him prisoner
was lifting, rolling away, closing back again, preparatory to final
disappearance. Having found the case, he put a cigarette between his
lips and raised his hand at the moment that the stranger drew a match
across his box.

For a second each stared blankly at the other's face, suddenly made
visible by the lifting of the fog. The match in the stranger's hand
burned down till it scorched his fingers, and, feeling the pain, he
laughed and let it drop.

“Of all odd things!” he said. Then he broke off. The circumstance was
too novel for ordinary remark.

By one of those rare occurrences, those chances that seem too wild for
real life and yet belong to no other sphere, the two faces so strangely
hidden and strangely revealed were identical, feature for feature. It
seemed to each man that he looked not at the face of another, but at his
own face reflected in a flawless looking-glass.

Of the two, the stranger was the first to regain self-possession. Seeing
Chilcote's bewilderment, he came to his rescue with brusque tactfulness.

“The position is decidedly odd,” he said. “But after all, why should
we be so surprised? Nature can't be eternally original; she must dry
up sometimes, and when she gets a good model why shouldn't she use it
twice?” He drew back, surveying Chilcote whimsically. “But, pardon me,
you are still waiting for that light!”

Chilcote still held the cigarette between his lips. The paper had become
dry, and he moistened it as he leaned towards his companion.

“Don't mind me,” he said. “I'm rather--rather unstrung to-night, and
this thing gave me a jar. To be candid, my imagination took head in the
fog, and I got to fancy I was talking to myself--”

“And pulled up to find the fancy in some way real?”

“Yes. Something like that.”

Both were silent for a moment. Chilcote pulled hard at his cigarette,
then, remembering his obligations, he turned quickly to the other.

“Won't you smoke?” he asked.

The stranger accepted a cigarette from the case held out to him; and
as he did so the extraordinary likeness to himself struck Chilcote with
added force. Involuntarily he put out his hand and touched the other's
arm.

“It's my nerves!” he said, in explanation. “They make me want to feel
that you are substantial. Nerves play such beastly tricks!” He laughed
awkwardly.

The other glanced up. His expression on the moment was slightly
surprised, slightly contemptuous, but he changed it instantly to
conventional interest. “I am afraid I am not an authority on nerves,” he
said.

But Chilcote was preoccupied. His thoughts had turned into another
channel.

“How old are you?” he asked, suddenly.

The other did not answer immediately. “My age?” he said at last, slowly.
“Oh, I believe I shall be thirty-six to-morrow--to be quite accurate.”

Chilcote lifted his head quickly.

“Why do you use that tone?” he asked. “I am six months older than you,
and I only wish it was six years. Six years nearer oblivion--”

Again a slight incredulous contempt crossed the other's eyes.
“Oblivion?” he said. “Where are your ambitions?”

“They don't exist.”

“Don't exist? Yet you voice your country? I concluded that much in the
fog.”

Chilcote laughed sarcastically.

“When one has voiced one's country for six years one gets hoarse--it's a
natural consequence.”

The other smiled. “Ah, discontent!” he said. “The modern canker. But
we must both be getting under way. Good-night! Shall we shake hands--to
prove that we are genuinely material?”

Chilcote had been standing unusually still, following the stranger's
words--caught by his self-reliance and impressed by his personality.
Now, as he ceased to speak, he moved quickly forward, impelled by a
nervous curiosity.

“Why should we just hail each other and pass--like the proverbial
ships?” he said, impulsively. “If Nature was careless enough to let the
reproduction meet the original, she must abide the consequences.”

The other laughed, but his laugh was short. “Oh, I don't know. Our roads
lie differently. You would get nothing out of me, and I--” He stopped
and again laughed shortly. “No,” he said; “I'd be content to pass, if
I were you. The unsuccessful man is seldom a profitable study. Shall we
say good-night?”

He took Chilcote's hand for an instant; then, crossing the footpath, he
passed into the road-way towards the Strand.

It was done in a moment; but with his going a sense of loss fell upon
Chilcote. He stood for a space, newly conscious of unfamiliar faces and
unfamiliar voices in the stream of passersby; then, suddenly mastered by
an impulse, he wheeled rapidly and darted after the tall, lean figure so
ridiculously like his own.

Half-way across Trafalgar Square he overtook the stranger. He had paused
on one of the small stone islands that break the current of traffic,
and was waiting for an opportunity to cross the street. In the glare
of light from the lamp above his head, Chilcote saw for the first time
that, under a remarkable neatness of appearance, his clothes were well
worn--almost shabby. The discovery struck him with something stronger
than surprise. The idea of poverty seemed incongruous is connection with
the reliance, the reserve, the personality of the man. With a certain
embarrassed haste he stepped forward and touched his arm.

“Look here,” he said, as the other turned quietly. “I have followed you
to exchange cards. It can't injure either of us, and I--I have a wish to
know my other self.” He laughed nervously as he drew out his card-case.

The stranger watched him in silence. There was the same faint contempt,
but also there was a reluctant interest in his glance, as it passed from
the fingers fumbling with the case to the pale face with the square jaw,
straight mouth, and level eyebrows drawn low over the gray eyes. When at
last the card was held out to him he took it without remark and slipped
it into his pocket.

Chilcote looked at him eagerly. “Now the exchange?” he said.

For a second the stranger did not respond. Then, almost unexpectedly, he
smiled.

“After all, if it amuses you--” he said; and, searching in his waistcoat
pocket, he drew out the required card.

“It will leave you quite unenlightened,” he added. “The name of a
failure never spells anything.” With another smile, partly amused,
partly ironical, he stepped from the little island and disappeared into
the throng of traffic.

Chilcote stood for an instant gazing at the point where he had vanished;
then, turning to the lamp, he lifted the card and read the name it bore:
“Mr. John Loder, 13 Clifford's Inn.”




II


On the morning following the night of fog Chilcote woke at nine. He woke
at the moment that his man Allsopp tiptoed across the room and laid the
salver with his early cup of tea on the table beside the bed.

For several seconds he lay with his eyes shut; the effort of opening
them on a fresh day--the intimate certainty of what he would see
on opening them--seemed to weight his lids. The heavy, half-closed
curtains; the blinds severely drawn; the great room with its splendid
furniture, its sober coloring, its scent of damp London winter; above
all, Allsopp, silent, respectful, and respectable--were things to dread.

A full minute passed while he still feigned sleep. He heard Allsopp stir
discreetly, then the inevitable information broke the silence:

“Nine o'clock, sir!”

He opened his eyes, murmured something, and closed them again.

The man moved to the window, quietly pulled back the curtains and half
drew the blind.

“Better night, sir, I hope?” he ventured, softly.

Chilcote had drawn the bedclothes over his face to screen himself from
the daylight, murky though it was.

“Yes,” he responded. “Those beastly nightmares didn't trouble me,
for once.” He shivered a little as at some recollection. “But don't
talk--don't remind me of them. I hate a man who has no originality.”
 He spoke sharply. At times he showed an almost childish irritation over
trivial things.

Allsopp took the remark in silence. Crossing the wide room, he began
to lay out his master's clothes. The action affected Chilcote to fresh
annoyance.

“Confound it!” he said. “I'm sick of that routine: I can see you laying
out my winding-sheet the day of my burial. Leave those things. Come back
in half an hour.”

Allsopp allowed himself one glance at his master's figure huddled in the
great bed; then, laying aside the coat he was holding, he moved to the
door. With his: fingers on the handle he paused.

“Will you breakfast in your own room, sir--or down-stairs?”

Chilcote drew the clothes more tightly round his shoulders. “Oh,
anywhere--nowhere!” he said. “I don't care.”

Allsopp softly withdrew.

Left to himself, Chilcote sat up in bed and lifted the salver to his
knees. The sudden movement jarred him physically; he drew a handkerchief
from under the pillow and wiped his forehead; then he held his hand to
the light and studied it. The hand looked sallow and unsteady. With a
nervous gesture he thrust the salver back upon the table and slid out of
bed.

Moving hastily across the room, he stopped before one of the tall
wardrobes and swung the door open; then after a furtive glance around
the room he thrust his hand into the recesses of a shelf and fumbled
there.

The thing he sought was evidently not hard to find, for almost at once
he withdrew his hand and moved from the wardrobe to a table beside the
fireplace, carrying a small glass tube filled with tabloids.

On the table were a decanter, a siphon, and a water-jug. Mixing some
whiskey, he uncorked the tube, again he glanced apprehensively towards
the door, then with a very nervous hand dropped two tabloids into the
glass.

While they dissolved he stood with his hand on the table and his eyes
fixed on the floor, evidently restraining his impatience. Instantly
they had disappeared he seized the glass and drained it at a draught,
replaced the bottle in the wardrobe, and, shivering slightly in the raw
air, slipped back into bed.

When Allsopp returned he was sitting up, a cigarette between his lips,
the teacup standing empty on the salver. The nervous irritability
had gone from his manner. He no longer moved jerkily, his eyes looked
brighter, his pale skin more healthy.

“Ah, Allsopp,” he said, “there are some moments in life, after all. It
isn't all blank wall.”

“I ordered breakfast in the small morning-room, sir,” said Allsopp,
without a change of expression.

Chilcote breakfasted at ten. His appetite, always fickle, was
particularly uncertain in the early hours. He helped himself to some
fish, but sent away his plate untouched; then, having drunk two cups of
tea, he pushed back his chair, lighted a fresh cigarette, and shook out
the morning's newspaper.

Twice he shook it out and twice turned it, but the reluctance to fix his
mind upon it made him dally.

The effect of the morphia tabloids was still apparent in the
greater steadiness of his hand and eye, the regained quiet of his
susceptibilities, but the respite was temporary and lethargic. The early
days--the days of six years ago, when these tabloids meant an even sweep
of thought, lucidity of brain, a balance of judgment in thought and
effort--were days of the past. As he had said of Lexington and his vice,
the slave had become master.

As he folded the paper in a last attempt at interest, the door opened
and his secretary came a step or two into the room.

“Good-morning, sir!” he said. “Forgive me for being so untimely.”

He was a fresh-mannered, bright-eyed boy of twenty-three. His breezy
alertness, his deference, as to a man who had attained what he aspired
to, amused and depressed Chilcote by turns.

“Good-morning, Blessington. What is it now?” He sighed through habit,
and, putting up his hand, warded off a ray of sun that had forced itself
through the misty atmosphere as if by mistake.

The boy smiled. “It's that business of the Wark timber contract, sir,”
 he said. “You promised you'd look into it to-day; you know you've
shelved it for a week already, and Craig, Burnage are rather clamoring
for an answer.” He moved forward and laid the papers he was carrying on
the table beside Chilcote. “I'm sorry to be such a nuisance,” he added.
“I hope your nerves aren't worrying you to-day?”

Chilcote was toying with the papers. At the word nerves he glanced up
suspiciously. But Blessington's ingenuous face satisfied him.

“No,” he said. “I settled my nerves last night with--with a bromide. I
knew that fog would upset me unless I took precautions.”

“I'm glad of that, sir--though I'd avoid bromides. Bad habit to set up.
But this Wark business--I'd like to get it under way, if you have no
objection.”

Chilcote passed his fingers over the papers. “Were you out in that fog
last night, Blessington?”

“No, sir. I supped with some people at the Savoy, and we just missed it.
It was very partial, I believe.”

“So I believe.”

Blessington put his hand to his neat tie and pulled it. He was extremely
polite, but he had an inordinate sense of duty.

“Forgive me, sir,” he said, “but about that contract--I know I'm a
frightful bore.”

“Oh, the contract!” Chilcote looked about him absently. “By-the-way, did
you see anything of my wife yesterday? What did she do last night?”

“Mrs. Chilcote gave me tea yesterday afternoon. She told me she was
dining at Lady Sabinet's, and looking in at one or two places later.” He
eyed his papers in Chilcote's listless hand.

Chilcote smiled satirically. “Eve is very true to society,” he said. “I
couldn't dine at the Sabinets' if it was to make me premier. They have
a butler who is an institution--a sort of heirloom in the family. He is
fat, and breathes audibly. Last time I lunched there he haunted me for a
whole night.”

Blessington laughed gayly. “Mrs. Chilcote doesn't see ghosts, sir,” he
said; “but if I may suggest--”

Chilcote tapped his fingers on the table.

“No. Eve doesn't see ghosts. We rather miss sympathy there.”

Blessington governed his impatience. He stood still for some seconds,
then glanced down at his pointed boot.

“If you will be lenient to my persistency, sir, I would like to remind
you--”

Chilcote lifted his head with a flash of irritability.

“Confound it, Blessington!” he exclaimed. “Am I never to be left in
peace? Am I never to sit down to a meal without having work thrust upon
me? Work--work--perpetually work? I have heard no other word in the last
six years. I declare there are times”--he rose suddenly from his seat
and turned to the window--“there are times when I feel that for sixpence
I'd chuck it all--the whole beastly round--”

Startled by his vehemence, Blessington wheeled towards him.

“Not your political career, sir?”

There was a moment in which Chilcote hesitated, a moment in which the
desire that had filled his mind for months rose to his lips and hung
there; then the question, the incredulity in Blessington's face, chilled
it and it fell back into silence.

“I--I didn't say that,” he murmured. “You young men jump to conclusions,
Blessington.”

“Forgive me, sir. I never meant to imply retirement. Why, Rickshaw,
Vale, Cressham, and the whole Wark crowd would be about your ears like
flies if such a thing were even breathed--now more than ever, since
these Persian rumors. By-the-way, is there anything real in this border
business? The 'St. George's' came out rather strong last night.”

Chilcote had moved back to the table. His face was pale from his
outburst and his fingers toyed restlessly with the open newspaper.

“I haven't seen the 'St. George's',” he said, hastily. “Lakely is always
ready to shake the red rag where Russia is concerned; whether we are
to enter the arena is another matter. But what about Craig, Burnage? I
think you mentioned something of a contract.”

“Oh, don't worry about that, sir.” Blessington had caught the twitching
at the corners of Chilcote's mouth, the nervous sharpness of his voice.
“I can put Craig, Burnage off. If they have an answer by Thursday it
will be time enough.” He began to collect his papers, but Chilcote
stopped him.

“Wait,” he said, veering suddenly. “Wait. I'll see to it now. I'll feel
more myself when I've done something. I'll come with you to the study.”

He walked hastily across the room; then, with his hand on the door, he
paused.

“You go first, Blessington,” he said. “I'll--I'll follow you in ten
minutes. I must glance through the newspapers first.”

Blessington looked uncertain. “You won't forget, sir?”

“Forget? Of course not.”

Still doubtfully, Blessington left the room and closed the door.

Once alone, Chilcote walked slowly back to the table, drew up his chair,
and sat down with his eyes on the white cloth, the paper lying unheeded
beside him.

Time passed. A servant came into the room to remove the breakfast.
Chilcote moved slightly when necessary, but otherwise retained his
attitude. The servant, having finished his task, replenished the fire
and left the room. Chilcote still sat on.

At last, feeling numbed, he rose and crossed to the fireplace. The clock
on the mantel-piece stared him in the face. He looked at it, started
slightly, then drew out his watch. Watch and clock corresponded. Each
marked twelve o'clock. With a nervous motion he leaned forward and
pressed the electric bell long and hard.

Instantly a servant answered.

“Is Mr. Blessington in the study?” Chilcote asked.

“He was there, sir, five minutes back.”

Chilcote looked relieved.

“All right! Tell him I have gone out--had to go out. Something
important. You understand?”

“I understand, sir.”

But before the words had been properly spoken Chilcote had passed the
man and walked into the hall.




III


Leaving his house, Chilcote walked forward quickly and aimlessly. With
the sting of the outer air the recollection of last night's adventure
came back upon him. Since the hour of his waking it had hung about with
vague persistence, but now in the clear light of day it seemed to stand
out with a fuller peculiarity.

The thing was preposterous, nevertheless it was genuine. He was wearing
the overcoat he had worn, the night before, and, acting on impulse, he
thrust his hand into the pocket and drew out the stranger's card.

“Mr. John Loder!” He read the name over as he walked along, and it
mechanically repeated itself in his brain--falling into measure with
his steps. Who was John Loder? What was he? The questions tantalized
him till his pace unconsciously increased. The thought that two men so
absurdly alike could inhabit the same, city and remain unknown to each
other faced him as a problem: it tangled with his personal worries
and aggravated them. There seemed to be almost a danger in such an
extraordinary likeness. He began to regret his impetuosity in thrusting
his card upon the man. Then, again, how he had let himself go on the
subject of Lexington! How narrowly he had escaped compromise! He turned
hot and cold at the recollection of what he had said and what he might
have said. Then for the first time he paused in his walk and looked
about him.

On leaving Grosvenor Square he had turned westward, moving rapidly till
the Marble Arch was reached; there, still oblivious to his surroundings,
he had crossed the roadway to the Edgware Road, passing along it to
the labyrinth of shabby streets that lie behind Paddington. Now, as he
glanced about him, he saw with some surprise how far he had come.

The damp remnants of the fog still hung about the house-tops in a filmy
veil; there were no glimpses of green to break the monotony of tone; all
was quiet, dingy, neglected. But to Chilcote the shabbiness was restful,
the subdued atmosphere a satisfaction. Among these sad houses, these
passers-by, each filled with his own concerns, he experienced a sense
of respite and relief. In the fashionable streets that bounded his own
horizon, if a man paused in his walk to work out an idea he instantly
drew a crowd of inquisitive or contemptuous eyes; here, if a man halted
for half an hour it was nobody's business but his own.

Enjoying this thought, he wandered on for close upon an hour, moving
from one street to another with steps that were listless or rapid, as
inclination prompted; then, still acting with vagrant aimlessness, he
stopped in his wanderings and entered a small eating-house.

The place was low-ceiled and dirty, the air hot and steaming with the
smell of food, but Chilcote passed through the door and moved to one
of the tables with no expression of disgust, and with far less furtive
watchfulness than he used in his own house. By a curious mental twist he
felt greater freedom, larger opportunities in drab surroundings such as
these than in the broad issues and weighty responsibilities of his own
life. Choosing a corner seat, he called for coffee; and there, protected
by shadow and wrapped in cigarette smoke, he set about imagining himself
some vagrant unit who had slipped his moorings and was blissfully
adrift.

The imagination was pleasant while it lasted, but with him nothing was
permanent. Of late the greater part of his sufferings had been comprised
in the irritable fickleness of all his aims--the distaste for and
impossibility of sustained effort in any direction. He had barely
lighted a second cigarette when the old restlessness fell upon him; he
stirred nervously in his seat, and the cigarette was scarcely burned out
when he rose, paid his small bill, and left the shop.

Outside on the pavement he halted, pulled out his watch, and saw
that two hours stretched in front before any appointment claimed his
attention. He wondered vaguely where he might go to--what he might do
in those two hours? In the last few minutes a distaste for solitude had
risen in his mind, giving the close street a loneliness that had escaped
him before.

As he stood wavering a cab passed slowly down the street. The sight of
a well-dressed man roused the cabman; flicking his whip, he passed
Chilcote close, feigning to pull up.

The cab suggested civilization. Chilcote's mind veered suddenly and he
raised his hand. The vehicle stopped and he climbed in.

“Where, sir?” The cabman peered down through the roof-door.

Chilcote raised his head. “Oh, anywhere near Pall Mall,” he said.
Then, as the horse started forward, he put up his hand and shook the
trap-door. “Wait!” he called. “I've changed my mind. Drive to Cadogan
Gardens--No. 33.”

The distance to Cadogan Gardens was covered quickly. Chilcote had
hardly realized that his destination was reached when the cab pulled up.
Jumping out, he paid the fare and walked quickly to the hall-door of No.
33.

“Is Lady Astrupp at home?” he asked, sharply, as the door swung back in
answer to his knock.

The servant drew back deferentially. “Her ladyship has almost finished
lunch, sir,” he said.

For answer Chilcote stepped through the door-way and walked half-way
across the hall.

“All right,” he said. “But don't disturb her on my account. I'll wait
in the white room till she has finished.” And, without taking further
notice of the servant, he began to mount the stairs.

In the room where he had chosen to wait a pleasant wood-fire brightened
the dull January afternoon and softened the thick, white curtains, the
gilt furniture, and the Venetian vases filled with white roses. Moving
straight forward, Chilcote paused by the grate and stretched his hands
to the blaze; then, with his usual instability, he turned and passed to
a couch that stood a yard or two away.

On the couch, tucked away between a novel and a crystal gazing-ball,
was a white Persian kitten, fast asleep. Chilcote picked up the ball and
held it between his eyes and the fire; then he laughed superciliously,
tossed it back into its place, and caught the kitten's tail. The little
animal stirred, stretched itself, and began to purr. At the same moment
the door of the room opened.

Chilcote turned round. “I particularly said you were not to be
disturbed,” he began. “Have I merited displeasure?” He spoke fast, with
the uneasy tone that so often underran his words.

Lady Astrupp took his hand with a confiding gesture and smiled.

“Never displeasure,” she said, lingeringly, and again she smiled. The
smile might have struck a close observer as faintly, artificial. But
what man in Chilcote's frame of mind has time to be observant where
women are concerned? The manner of the smile was very sweet and almost
caressing--and that sufficed.

“What have you been doing?” she asked, after a moment. “I thought I was
quite forgotten.” She moved across to the couch, picked up the kitten,
and kissed it. “Isn't this sweet?” she added.

She looked very graceful as she turned, holding the little animal up.
She was a woman of twenty-seven, but she looked a girl. The outline of
her face was pure, the pale gold of her hair almost ethereal, and her
tall, slight figure still suggested the suppleness, the possibility of
future development, that belongs to youth. She wore a lace-colored gown
that harmonized with the room and with the delicacy of her skin.

“Now sit down and rest--or walk about the room. I sha'n't mind which.”
 She nestled into the couch and picked up the crystal ball.

“What is the toy for?” Chilcote looked at her from the mantel-piece,
against which he was resting. He had never defined the precise
attraction that Lillian Astrupp held for him. Her shallowness soothed
him; her inconsequent egotism helped him to forget himself. She never
asked him how he was, she never expected impossibilities. She let him
come and go and act as he pleased, never demanding reasons. Like the
kitten, she was charming and graceful and easily amused; it was possible
that, also like the kitten, she could scratch and be spiteful on
occasion, but that did not weigh with him. He sometimes expressed
a vague envy of the late Lord Astrupp; but, even had circumstances
permitted, it is doubtful whether he would have chosen to be his
successor. Lillian as a friend was delightful, but Lillian as a wife
would have been a different consideration.

“What is the toy for?” he asked again.

She looked up slowly. “How cruel of you, Jack! It is my very latest
hobby.”

It was part of her attraction that she was never without a craze. Each
new one was as fleeting as the last, but to each she brought the same
delightfully insincere enthusiasm, the same picturesque devotion. Each
was a pose, but she posed so sweetly that nobody lost patience.

“You mustn't laugh!” she protested, letting the kitten slip to the
ground. “I've had lessons at five guineas each from the most fascinating
person--a professional; and I'm becoming quite an adept. Of course
I haven't been much beyond the milky appearance yet, but the milky
appearance is everything, you know; the rest will come. I am trying to
persuade Blanche to let me have a pavilion at her party in March, and
gaze for all you dull political people.” Again she smiled.

Chilcote smiled as well. “How is it done?” he asked, momentarily amused.

“Oh, the doing is quite delicious. You sit at a table with the ball in
front of you; then you take the subject's hands, spread them out on the
table, and stroke them very softly while you gaze into the crystal; that
gets up the sympathy, you know.” She looked up innocently. “Shall I show
you?”

Chilcote moved a small table nearer to the couch and spread his hands
upon it, palms downward. “Like this, eh?” he said. Then a ridiculous
nervousness seized him and he moved away. “Some other day,” he said,
quickly. “You can show me some other day. I'm not very fit this
afternoon.”

If Lillian felt any disappointment, she showed none. “Poor old thing!”
 she said, softly. “Try to sit here by me and we won't bother about
anything.” She made a place for him beside her, and as he dropped into
it she took his hand and patted it sympathetically.

The touch was soothing, and he bore it patiently enough. After a moment
she lifted the hand with a little exclamation of reproof.

“You degenerate person! You have ceased to manicure. What has become of
my excellent training?”

Chilcote laughed. “Run to seed,” he said, lightly. Then his expression
and tone changed. “When a man gets to my age,” he added, “little social
luxuries don't seem worth while; the social necessities are irksome
enough. Personally, I envy the beggar in the street--exempt from
shaving, exempt from washing--”

Lillian raised her delicate eyebrows. The sentiment was beyond her
perception.

“But manicuring,” she said, reproachfully, “when you have such nice
hands. It was your hands and your eyes, you know, that first appealed to
me.” She sighed gently, with a touch of sentimental remembrance. “And
I thought it so strong of you not to wear rings--it must be such a
temptation.” She looked down at her own fingers, glittering with jewels.

But the momentary pleasure of her touch was gone. Chilcote drew away his
hand and picked up the book that lay between them.

“Other Men's Shoes!” he read. “A novel, of course?”

She smiled. “Of course. Such a fantastic story. Two men changing
identities.”

Chilcote rose and walked back to the mantel-piece.

“Changing identities?” he said, with a touch of interest.

“Yes. One man is an artist, the other a millionaire; one wants to know
what fame is like, the other wants to know how it feels to be really
sinfully rich. So they exchange experiences for a month.” She laughed.

Chilcote laughed as well. “But how?” he asked.

“Oh, I told you the idea was absurd. Fancy two people so much alike
that neither their friends nor their servants see any difference! Such a
thing couldn't be, could it?”

Chilcote looked down at the fire. “No,” he said, doubtfully. “No. I
suppose not.”

“Of course not. There are likenesses, but not freak likenesses like
that.”

Chilcote's head was bent as she spoke, but at the last words he lifted
it.

“By Jove! I don't know about that!” he said. “Not so very long ago I saw
two men so much alike that I--I--” He stopped.

Lillian smiled.

He colored quickly. “You doubt me?” he asked.

“My dear Jack!” Her voice was delicately reproachful.

“Then you think that my--my imagination has been playing me tricks?”

“My dear boy! Nothing of the kind. Come back to your place and tell me
the whole tale?” She smiled again, and patted the couch invitingly.

But Chilcote's balance had been upset. For the first time he saw Lillian
as one of the watchful, suspecting crowd before which he was constantly
on guard. Acting on the sensation, he moved suddenly towards the door.

“I--I have an appointment at the House,” he said, quickly. “I'll look in
another day when--when I'm better company. I know I'm a bear to-day. My
nerves, you know.” He came back to the couch and took her hand; then he
touched her cheek for an instant with his fingers.

“Good-bye,” he said. “Take care of yourself--and the kitten,” he added,
with forced gayety, as he crossed the room.


That afternoon Chilcote's nervous condition reached its height. All day
he had avoided the climax, but no evasion can be eternal, and this he
realized as he sat in his place on the Opposition benches during the
half-hour of wintry twilight that precedes the turning-on of the lights.
He realized it in that half-hour, but the application of the knowledge
followed later, when the time came for him to question the government
on some point relating to a proposed additional dry-dock at Talkley, the
naval base. Then for the first time he knew that the sufferings of
the past months could have a visible as well as a hidden side--could
disorganize his daily routine as they had already demoralized his will
and character.

The thing came upon him with extraordinary lack of preparation. He sat
through the twilight with tolerable calm, his nervousness showing only
in the occasional lifting of his hand to his collar and the frequent
changing of his position; but when the lights were turned on, and he
leaned back in his seat with closed eyes, he became conscious of a
curious impression--a disturbing idea that through his closed lids he
could see the faces on the opposite side of the House, see the rows of
eyes, sleepy, interested, or vigilant. Never before had the
sensation presented itself, but, once set up, it ran through all his
susceptibilities. By an absurd freak of fancy those varying eyes seemed
to pierce through his lids, almost through his eyeballs. The cold
perspiration that was his daily horror broke out on his forehead; and at
the same moment Fraide, his leader, turned, leaned over the back of his
seat, and touched his knee.

Chilcote started and opened his eyes. “I--I believe I was dozing,” he
said, confusedly.

Fraide smiled his dry, kindly smile. “A fatal admission for a member of
the Opposition,” he said. “But I was looking for you earlier in the day,
Chilcote. There is something behind this Persian affair. I believe it to
be a mere first move on Russia's part. You big trading people will find
it worth watching.”

Chilcote shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, I don't know,” he said. “I
scarcely believe in it. Lakely put a match to the powder in the 'St.
George's', but 'twill only be a noise and a puff of smoke.”

But Fraide did not smile. “What is the feeling down at Wark?” he asked.
“Has it awakened any interest?”

“At Wark? Oh, I--I don't quite know. I have been a little out of touch
with Wark in the last few weeks. A man has so many private affairs to
look to--” He was uneasy under his chief's scrutiny.

Fraide's lips parted as if to make reply, but with a certain dignified
reticence he closed them again and turned away.

Chilcote leaned back in his place and furtively passed his hand over his
forehead. His mind was possessed by one consideration--the consideration
of himself. He glanced down the crowded, lighted House to the big
glass doors; he glanced about him at his colleagues, indifferent
or interested; then surreptitiously his fingers strayed to his
waistcoat-pocket.

Usually he carried his morphia tabloids with him, but to-day by a
lapse of memory he had left them at home. He knew this, nevertheless he
continued to search, while the need of the drug rushed through him with
a sense of physical sickness. He lost hold on the business of the House;
unconsciously he half rose from his seat.

The man next him looked up. “Hold your ground, Chilcote,” he said.
“Rayforth is drying up.”

With a wave of relief Chilcote dropped back into his place. Whatever the
confusion in his mind, it was evidently not obvious in his face.

Rayforth resumed his seat, there was the usual slight stir and pause,
then Salett, the member for Salchester, rose.

With Salett's first words Chilcote's hand again sought his pocket, and
again his eyes strayed towards the doors, but Fraide's erect head and
stiff back just in front of him held him quiet. With an effort he pulled
out his notes and smoothed them nervously; but though his gaze was fixed
on the pages, not a line of Blessington's clear writing reached his
mind. He glanced at the face of the Speaker, then at the faces on the
Treasury Bench, then once more he leaned back in his seat.

The man beside him saw the movement. “Funking the drydock?” he
whispered, jestingly.

“No”--Chilcote turned to him suddenly--“but I feel beastly--have felt
beastly for weeks.”

The other looked at him more closely. “Anything wrong?” he asked. It was
a novel experience to be confided in by Chilcote.

“Oh, it's the grind-the infernal grind.” As he said it, it seemed to
him suddenly that his strength gave way. He forgot his companion, his
position, everything except the urgent instinct that filled mind and
body. Scarcely knowing what he did, he rose and leaned forward to
whisper in Fraide's ear.

Fraide was seen to turn, his thin face interested and concerned, then
he was seen to nod once or twice in acquiescence, and a moment later
Chilcote stepped quietly out of his place.

One or two men spoke to him as he hurried from the House, but he shook
them off almost uncivilly, and, making for the nearest exit, hailed a
cab.

The drive to Grosvenor Square was a misery. Time after time he changed
from one corner of the cab to the other, his acute internal pains
prolonged by every delay and increased by every motion. At last, weak in
all his limbs, he stepped from the vehicle at his own door.

Entering the house, he instantly mounted the stairs and passed to his
own rooms. Opening the bedroom door, he peered in cautiously, then
pushed the door wide. The light had been switched on, but the room
was empty. With a nervous excitement scarcely to be kept in check, he
entered, shut and locked the door, then moved to the wardrobe, and,
opening it, drew the tube of tabloids from the shelf.

His hand shook violently as he carried the tube to the table. The strain
of the day, the anxiety of the past hours, with their final failure,
had found sudden expression. Mixing a larger dose than any he had before
allowed himself, he swallowed it hastily, and, walking across the room,
threw himself, fully dressed, upon the bed.




IV


To those whose sphere lies in the west of London, Fleet Street is little
more than a name, and Clifford's Inn a mere dead letter. Yet Clifford's
Inn lies as safely stowed away in the shadow of the Law Courts as any
grave under a country church wall; it is as green of grass, as gray of
stone, as irresponsive to the passing footstep.

Facing the railed-in grass-plot of its little court stood the house in
which John Loder had his rooms. Taken at a first glance, the house had
the deserted air of an office, inhabited only in the early hours; but,
as night fell, lights would be seen to show out, first on one floor,
then on another--faint, human beacons unconsciously signalling each
other. The rooms Loder inhabited were on the highest floor; and
from their windows one might gaze philosophically on the tree-tops,
forgetting the uneven pavement and the worn railing that hemmed them
round. In the landing outside the rooms his name appeared above his
door, but the paint had been soiled by time, and the letters for the
most part reduced to shadows; so that, taken in conjunction with the
gaunt staircase and bare walls, the place had a cheerless look.

Inside, however, the effect was somewhat mitigated. The room on the
right hand, as one entered the small passage that served as hall, was of
fair size, though low-ceiled. The paint of the wall-panelling, like
the name above the outer door, had long ago been worn to a dirty and
nondescript hue, and the floor was innocent of carpet; yet in the middle
of the room stood a fine old Cromwell table, and on the plain
deal book-shelves and along the mantel-piece were some valuable
books--political and historical. There were no curtains on the windows,
and a common reading-lamp with a green shade stood on a desk. It was the
room of a man with few hobbies and no pleasures--who existed because he
was alive, and worked because he must.

Three nights after the great fog John Loder sat by his desk in the light
of the green-shaded lamp. The remains of a very frugal supper stood on
the centre-table, and in the grate a small and economical-looking fire
was burning.

Having written for close on two hours, he pushed back his chair and
stretched his cramped fingers; then he yawned, rose, and slowly walked
across the room. Reaching the mantel-piece, he took a pipe from the
pipe-rack and some tobacco from the jar that stood behind the books.
His face looked tired and a little worn, as is common with men who have
worked long at an uncongenial task. Shredding the tobacco between his
hands, he slowly filled the pipe, then lighted it from the fire with a
spill of twisted paper.

Almost at the moment that he applied the light the sound of steps
mounting the uncarpeted stairs outside caught his attention, and he
raised his head to listen.

Presently the steps halted and he heard a match struck. The stranger
was evidently uncertain of his whereabouts. Then the steps moved forward
again and paused.

An expression of surprise crossed Loder's face, and he laid down his
pipe. As the visitor knocked, he walked quietly across the room and
opened the door.

The passage outside was dark, and the new-comer drew back before the
light from the room.

“Mr. Loder--?” he began, interrogatively. Then all at once he laughed
in embarrassed apology. “Forgive me,” he said. “The light rather dazzled
me. I didn't realize who it was.”

Loder recognized the voice as belonging to his acquaintance of the fog.

“Oh, it's you!” he said. “Won't you come in?” His voice was a little
cold. This sudden resurrection left him surprised--and not quite
pleasantly surprised. He walked back to the fireplace, followed by his
guest.

The guest seemed nervous and agitated. “I must apologize for the hour of
my visit,” he said. “My--my time is not quite my own.”

Loder waved his hand. “Whose time is his own?” he said.

Chilcote, encouraged by the remark, drew nearer to the fire. Until this
moment he had refrained from looking directly at his host; now,
however, he raised his eyes, and, despite his preparation, he recoiled
unavoidably before the extraordinary resemblance. Seen here, in the
casual surroundings of a badly furnished and crudely lighted room, it
was even more astounding than it had been in the mystery of the fog.

“Forgive me,” he said again. “It is physical--purely physical. I am
bowled over against my will.”

Loder smiled. The slight contempt that Chilcote had first inspired rose
again, and with it a second feeling less easily defined. The man seemed
so unstable, so incapable, yet so grotesquely suggestive to himself.

“The likeness is rather overwhelming,” he said; “but not heavy enough
to sink under. Come nearer the fire. What brought you here? Curiosity?”
 There was a wooden arm-chair by the fireplace. He indicated it with a
wave of the hand; then turned and took up his smouldering pipe.

Chilcote, watching him furtively, obeyed the gesture and sat down.

“It is extraordinary!” he said, as if unable to dismiss the subject.
“It--it is quite extraordinary!”

The other glanced round. “Let's drop it,” he said. “It's so confoundedly
obvious.” Then his tone changed. “Won't you smoke?” he asked.

“Thanks.” Chilcote began to fumble for his cigarettes.

But his host forestalled him. Taking a box from the mantel-piece, he
held it out.

“My one extravagance!” he said, ironically. “My resources bind me to
one; and I think I have made a wise selection. It is about the only vice
we haven't to pay for six times over.” He glanced sharply at the face so
absurdly like his own, then, lighting a fresh spill, offered his guest a
light.

Chilcote moistened his cigarette and leaned forward. In the flare of the
paper his face looked set and anxious, but Loder saw that the lips did
not twitch as they had done on the previous occasion that he had given
him a light, and a look of comprehension crossed his eyes.

“What will you drink? Or, rather, will you have a whiskey? I keep
nothing else. Hospitality is one of the debarred luxuries.”

Chilcote shook his head. “I seldom drink. But don't let that deter you.”

Loder smiled. “I have one drink in the twenty-four hours--generally at
two o'clock, when my night's work is done. A solitary man has to look
where he is going.”

“You work till two?”

“Two--or three.”

Chilcote's eyes wandered to the desk. “You write?” he asked.

The other nodded curtly.

“Books?” Chilcote's tone was anxious.

Loder laughed, and the bitter note showed in his voice.

“No--not books,” he said.

Chilcote leaned back in his chair and passed his hand across his face.
The strong wave of satisfaction that the words woke in him was difficult
to conceal.

“What is your work?”

Loder turned aside. “You must not ask that,” he said, shortly. “When a
man has only one capacity, and the capacity has no outlet, he is apt to
run to seed in a wrong direction. I cultivate weeds--at abominable labor
and a very small reward.” He stood with his back to the fire, facing
his visitor; his attitude was a curious blending of pride, defiance, and
despondency.

Chilcote leaned forward again. “Why speak of yourself like that? You are
a man of intelligence and education.” He spoke questioningly, anxiously.

“Intelligence and education!” Loder laughed shortly. “London is cemented
with intelligence. And education! What is education? The court dress
necessary to presentation, the wig and gown necessary to the barrister.
But do the wig and gown necessarily mean briefs? Or the court dress
royal favor? Education is the accessory; it is influence that is
essential. You should know that.”

Chilcote moved restlessly in his seat. “You talk bitterly,” he said.

The other looked up. “I think bitterly, which is worse. I am one of
the unlucky beggars who, in the expectation of money, has been denied
a profession--even a trade, to which to cling in time of shipwreck; and
who, when disaster comes, drift out to sea. I warned you the other night
to steer clear of me. I come under the head of flotsam!”

Chilcote's face lighted. “You came a cropper?” he asked.

“No. It was some one else who came the cropper--I only dealt in
results.”

“Big results?”

“A drop from a probable eighty thousand pounds to a certain eight
hundred.”

Chilcote glanced up. “How did you take it?” he asked.

“I? Oh, I was twenty-five then. I had a good many hopes and a lot of
pride; but there is no place for either in a working world.”

“But your people?”

“My last relation died with the fortune.”

“Your friends?”

Loder laid down his pipe. “I told you I was twenty-five,” he said, with
the tinge of humor that sometimes crossed his manner. “Doesn't that
explain things? I had never taken favors in prosperity; a change
of fortune was not likely to alter my ways. As I have said, I was
twenty-five.” He smiled. “When I realized my position I sold all my
belongings with the exception of a table and a few books--which I
stored. I put on a walking-suit and let my beard grow; then, with my
entire capital in my pocket, I left England without saying good-bye to
any one.”

“For how long?”

“Oh, for six years. I wandered half over Europe and through a good part
of Asia in the time.”

“And then?”

“Then? Oh, I shaved off the beard and came back to London!” He looked at
Chilcote, partly contemptuous, partly amused at his curiosity.

But Chilcote sat staring in silence. The domination of the other's
personality and the futility of his achievements baffled him.

Loder saw his bewilderment. “You wonder what the devil I came into the
world for,” he said. “I sometimes wonder the same myself.”

At his words a change passed over Chilcote. He half rose, then dropped
back into his seat.

“You have no friends?” he said. “Your life is worth nothing to you?”

Loder raised his head. “I thought I had conveyed that impression.”

“You are an absolutely free man.”

“No man is free who works for his bread. If things had been different
I might have been in such shoes as yours, sauntering in legislative
byways; my hopes turned that way once. But hopes, like more substantial
things, belong to the past--” He stopped abruptly and looked at his
companion.

The change in Chilcote had become more acute; he sat fingering his
cigarette, his brows drawn down, his lips set nervously in a conflict of
emotions. For a space he stayed very still, avoiding Loder's eyes; then,
as if decision had suddenly come to him, he turned and met his gaze.

“How if there was a future,” he said, “as well as a past?”




V


For the space of a minute there was silence in the room, then outside
in the still night three clocks simultaneously chimed eleven, and their
announcement was taken up and echoed by half a dozen others, loud and
faint, hoarse and resonant; for all through the hours of darkness the
neighborhood of Fleet Street is alive with chimes.

Chilcote, startled by the jangle, rose from his seat; then, as if driven
by an uncontrollable impulse, he spoke again.

“You probably think I am mad--” he began.

Loder took his pipe out of his mouth. “I am not so presumptuous,” he
said, quietly.

For a space the other eyed him silently, as if trying to gauge his
thoughts; then once more he broke into speech.

“Look here,” he said. “I came to-night to make a proposition. When I
have made it you'll first of all jeer at it--as I jeered when I made
it to myself; then you'll see its possibilities--as I did; then,”--he
paused and glanced round the room nervously--“then you'll accept it--as
I did.” In the uneasy haste of his speech his words broke off almost
unintelligibly.

Involuntarily Loder lifted his head to retort, but Chilcote put up his
hand. His face was set with the obstinate determination that weak men
sometime exhibit.

“Before I begin I want to say that I am not drunk--that I am neither mad
nor drunk.” He looked fully at his companion with his restless glance.
“I am quite sane--quite reasonable.”

Again Loder essayed to speak, but again he put up his hand.

“No. Hear me out. You told me something of your story. I'll tell you
something of mine. You'll be the first person, man or woman, that I have
confided in for ten years. You say you have been treated shabbily. I
have treated myself shabbily--which is harder to reconcile. I had every
chance--and I chucked every chance away.”

There was a strained pause, then again Loder lifted his head.

“Morphia?” he said, very quietly.

Chilcote wheeled round with a scared gesture. “How did you know that?”
 he asked, sharply.

The other smiled. “It wasn't guessing--it wasn't even deduction. You
told me, or as good as told me, in the fog--when we talked of
Lexington. You were unstrung that night, and I--Well, perhaps one gets
over-observant from living alone.” He smiled again.

Chilcote collapsed into his former seat and passed his handkerchief
across his forehead.

Loder watched him for a space; then he spoke. “Why don't you pull up?”
 he said. “You are a young man still. Why don't you drop the thing before
it gets too late?” His face was unsympathetic, and below the question in
his voice lay a note of hard ness.

Chilcote returned his glance. The suggestion of reproof had accentuated
his pallor. Under his excitement he looked ill and worn.

“You might talk till doomsday, but every word would be wasted,” he said,
irritably. “I'm past praying for, by something like six years.”

“Then why come here?” Loder was pulling hard on his pipe. “I'm not a
dealer in sympathy.”

“I don't require sympathy.” Chilcote rose again. He was still agitated,
but the agitation was quieter. “I want a much more expensive thing than
sympathy--and I am willing to pay for it.”

The other turned and looked at him. “I have no possession in the world
that would be worth a fiver to you,” he said, coldly. “You're either
under a delusion or you're wasting my time.”

Chilcote laughed nervously. “Wait,” he said. “Wait. I only ask you to
wait. First let me sketch you my position--it won't take many words:

“My grandfather was a Chilcote of Westmoreland; he was one of the first
of his day and his class to recognize that there was a future in trade,
so, breaking his own little twig from the family tree, he went south to
Wark and entered a ship-owning firm. In thirty years' time he died,
the owner of one of the biggest trades in England, having married the
daughter of his chief. My father was twenty-four and still at Oxford
when he inherited. Almost his first act was to reverse my grandfather's
early move by going north and piecing together the family friendship. He
married his first cousin; and then, with the Chilcote prestige revived
and the shipping money to back it, he entered on his ambition, which was
to represent East Wark in the Conservative interest. It was a big fight,
but he won--as much by personal influence as by any other. He was an
aristocrat, but he was a keen business-man as well. The combination
carries weight with your lower classes. He never did much in the House,
but he was a power to his party in Wark. They still use his name there
to conjure with.”

Loder leaned forward interestedly.

“Robert Chilcote?” he said. “I have heard of him. One of those fine,
unostentatious figures--strong in action, a little narrow in outlook,
perhaps, but essential to a country's staying power. You have every
reason to be proud of your father.”

Chilcote laughed suddenly. “How easily we sum up, when a matter is
impersonal! My father may have been a fine figure, but he shouldn't have
left me to climb to his pedestal.”

Loder's eyes questioned. In his newly awakened interest he had let his
pipe go out.

“Don't you grasp my meaning?” Chilcote went on. “My father died and I
was elected for East Wark. You may say that if I had no real inclination
for the position I could have kicked. But I tell you I couldn't. Every
local interest, political and commercial, hung upon the candidate being
a Chilcote. I did what eight men out of ten would have done. I yielded
to pressure.”

“It was a fine opening!” The words escaped Loder.

“Most prisons have wide gates!” Chilcote laughed again unpleasantly.
“That was six years ago. I had started on the morphia tack four years
earlier, but up to my father's death I had it under my thumb--or
believed I had; and in the realization of my new responsibilities and
the excitement of the political fight I almost put it aside. For several
months after I entered Parliament I worked. I believe I made one
speech that marked me as a coming man.” He laughed derisively. “I even
married--”

“Married?”

“Yes. A girl of nineteen--the ward of a great statesman. It was a
brilliant marriage--politically as well as socially. But it didn't work.
I was born without the capacity for love. First the social life palled
on me; then my work grew irksome. There was only one factor to make
life endurable--morphia. Before six months were out I had fully admitted
that.”

“But your wife?”

“Oh, my wife knew nothing--knows nothing. It is the political business,
the beastly routine of the political life, that is wearing me out.” He
stopped nervously, then hurried on, again. “I tell you it's hell to see
the same faces, to sit in the same seat day in, day out, knowing all
the time that you must hold yourself in hand, must keep your grip on the
reins--”

“It is always possible to apply for the Chiltern Hundreds.”

“To retire? Possible to retire?” Chilcote broke into a loud, sarcastic
laugh. “You don't know what the local pressure of a place like Wark
stands for. Twenty times I have been within an ace of chucking the whole
thing. Once last year I wrote privately to Vale, one of our big men
there, and hinted that my health was bad. Two hours after he had read my
letter he was in my study. Had I been in Greenland the result would have
been the same. No. Resignation is a meaningless word to a man like me.”

Loder looked down. “I see,” he said, slowly, “I see.”

“Then you see everything--the difficulty, the isolation of the position.
Five years ago--three--even two years ago--I was able to endure it;
now it gets more unbearable with every month. The day is bound to
come when--when”--he paused, hesitating nervously--“when it will be
physically impossible for me to be at my post.”

Loder remained silent.

“Physically impossible,” Chilcote repeated, excitedly. “Until lately
I was able to calculate--to count upon myself to some extent; but
yesterday I received a shock--yesterday I discovered that--that”--again
he hesitated painfully--“that I have passed the stage when one may
calculate.”

The situation was growing more embarrassing. To hide its awkwardness,
Loder moved back to the grate and rebuilt the fire, which had fallen
low.

Chilcote, still excited by his unusual vehemence, followed him, taking
up a position by the mantelpiece.

“Well?” he said, looking down.

Very slowly Loder rose from his task. “Well?” he reiterated.

“Have you nothing to say?”

“Nothing, except that your story is unique, and that I suppose I am
flattered by your confidence.” His voice was intentionally brusque.

Chilcote paid no attention to the voice. Taking a step forward, he laid
his fingers on the lapel of Loder's coat.

“I have passed the stage where I can count upon myself,” he said, “and I
want to count upon somebody else. I want to keep my place in the world's
eyes and yet be free--”

Loder drew back involuntarily, contempt struggling with bewilderment in
his expression.

Chilcote lifted his head. “By an extraordinary chance,” he said, “you
can do for me what no other man in creation could do. It was suggested
to me unconsciously by the story of a book--a book in which men change
identities. I saw nothing in it at the time, but this morning, as I lay
in bed, sick with yesterday's fiasco, it came back to me--it rushed
over my mind in an inspiration. It will save me--and make you. I'm not
insulting you, though you'd like to think so.”

Without remark Loder freed himself from the other's touch and walked
back to his desk. His anger, his pride, and, against his will, his
excitement were all aroused.

He sat down, leaned his elbow on the desk and took his face between his
hands. The man behind him undoubtedly talked madness; but after five
years of dreary sanity madness had a fascination. Against all reason it
stirred and roused him. For one instant his pride and his anger faltered
before it, then common-sense flowed back again and adjusted the balance.

“You propose,” he said, slowly, “that for a consideration of money I
should trade on the likeness between us--and become your dummy, when you
are otherwise engaged?”

Chilcote colored. “You are unpleasantly blunt,” he said.

“But I have caught your meaning?”

“In the rough, yes.”

Loder nodded curtly. “Then take my advice and go home,” he said. “You're
unhinged.”

The other returned his glance, and as their eyes met Loder was
reluctantly compelled to admit that, though the face was disturbed, it
had no traces of insanity.

“I make you a proposal,” Chilcote repeated, nervously but with
distinctness. “Do you accept?”

For an instant Loder was at a loss to find a reply sufficiently final.
Chilcote broke in upon the pause.

“After all,” he urged, “what I ask of you is a simple thing. Merely to
carry through my routine duties for a week or two occasionally when I
find my endurance giving way--when a respite becomes essential. The work
would be nothing to a man in your state of mind, the pay anything you
like to name.” In his eagerness he had followed Loder to the desk.
“Won't you give me an answer? I told you I am neither mad nor drunk.”

Loder pushed back the scattered papers that lay under his arm.

“Only a lunatic would propose such a scheme.” he said, brusquely and
without feeling.

“Why?”

The other's lips parted for a quick retort; then in a surprising way the
retort seemed to fail him. “Oh, because the thing isn't feasible, isn't
practicable from any point of view.”

Chilcote stepped closer. “Why?” he insisted.

“Because it couldn't work, man! Couldn't hold for a dozen hours.”

Chilcote put out his hand and touched his arm. “But why?” he urged.
“Why? Give me one unanswerable reason.”

Loder shook off the hand and laughed, but below his laugh lay a
suggestion of the other's excitement. Again the scene stirred him
against his sounder judgment; though his reply, when it came, was firm
enough.

“As for reasons--” he said. “There are a hundred, if I had time to name
them. Take it, for the sake of supposition, that I were to accept
your offer. I should take my place in your house at--let us say at
dinnertime. Your man gets me into your evening-clothes, and there, at
the very start, you have the first suspicion set up. He has probably
known you for years--known you until every turn of your appearance,
voice, and manner is far more familiar to him than it is to you. There
are no eyes like a servant's.”

“I have thought of that. My servant and my secretary can both be
changed. I will do the thing thoroughly.”

Loder glanced at him in surprise. The madness had more method than he
had believed. Then, as he still looked, a fresh idea struck him, and he
laughed.

“You have entirely forgotten one thing,” he said. “You can hardly
dismiss your wife.”

“My wife doesn't count.”

Again Loder laughed. “I'm afraid I scarcely agree. The complications
would be slightly--slightly--” He paused.

Chilcote's latent irritability broke out suddenly. “Look here,” he said,
“this isn't a chaffing matter, It may be moonshine to you, but it's
reality to me.”

Again Loder took his face between his hands.

“Don't ridicule the idea. I'm in dead earnest.”

Loder said nothing.

“Think--think it over before you refuse.”

For a moment Loder remained motionless; then h rose suddenly, pushing
back his chair.

“Tush, man! You don't know what you say. The fact of your being married
bars it. Can't you see that?”

Again Chilcote caught his arm.

“You misunderstand,” he said. “You mistake the position. I tell you my
wife and I are nothing to each other. She goes her way; I go mine. We
have our own friends, our own rooms. Marriage, actual marriage, doesn't
enter the question. We meet occasionally at meals, and at other people's
houses; sometimes we go out together for the sake of appearances; beyond
that, nothing. If you take up my life, nobody in it will trouble you
less than Eve--I can promise that.” He laughed unsteadily.

Loder's face remained unmoved.

“Even granting that,” he said, “the thing is still impossible.”

“Why?”

“There is the House. The position there would be untenable. A man
is known there as he is known in his own club.” He drew away from
Chilcote's touch.

“Very possibly. Very possibly.” Chilcote laughed quickly and excitedly.
“But what club is without its eccentric member? I am glad you spoke of
that. I am glad you raised that point. It was a long time ago that I hit
upon a reputation for moods as a shield for--for other things, and, the
more useful it has become, the more I have let it grow. I tell you you
might go down to the House to-morrow and spend the whole day without
speaking to, even nodding to, a single man, and as long as you were I to
outward appearances no one would raise an eyebrow. In the same way you
might vote in my place ask a question, make a speech if you wanted to--”

At the word speech Loder turned involuntarily For a fleeting second the
coldness of his manner dropped and his face changed.

Chilcote, with his nervous quickness of perception, saw the alteration,
and a new look crossed his own face.

“Why not?” he said, quickly. “You once had ambitions in that direction.
Why not renew the ambitions?”

“And drop back from the mountains into the gutter?” Loder smiled and
slowly shook his head.

“Better to live for one day than to exist for a hundred!” Chilcote's
voice trembled with anxiety. For the third time he extended his hand and
touched the other.

This time Loder did not shake off the detaining; hand; he scarcely
seemed to feel its pressure.

“Look here.” Chilcote's fingers tightened. “A little while ago you
talked of influence. Here you can step into a position built by
influence. You might do all you once hoped to do--”

Loder suddenly lifted his head. “Absurd!” he said. “Absurd! Such a
scheme was never carried through.”

“Precisely why it will succeed. People never suspect until they have
a precedent. Will you consider it? At least consider it. Remember, if
there is a risk, it is I who am running it. On your own showing, you
have no position to jeopardize.”

The other laughed curtly.

“Before I go to-night will you promise me to consider it?”

“No.”

“Then you will send me your decision by wire to-morrow. I won't take
your answer now.”

Loder freed his arm abruptly. “Why not?” he asked.

Chilcote smiled nervously. “Because I know men--and men's temptations.
We are all very strong till the quick is touched; then we all wince.
It's morphia with one man, ambitions with another. In each case it's
only a matter of sooner or later.” He laughed in his satirical, unstrung
way, and held out his hand. “'You have my address,” he said. “Au
revoir.”

Loder pressed the hand and dropped it. “Goodbye,” he said, meaningly.
Then he crossed the room quietly and held the door open. “Good-bye,” he
said again as the other passed him.

As he crossed the threshold, Chilcote paused. “Au revoir,” he corrected,
with emphasis.

Until the last echo of his visitor's steps had died away Loder stood
with his hand on the door; then, closing it quietly, he turned and
looked round the room. For a considerable space he stood there as if
weighing the merits of each object; then very slowly he moved to one of
the book-shelves, drew out May's Parliamentary Practice, and, carrying
it to the desk, readjusted the lamp.




VI

All the next day Chilcote moved in a fever of excitement. Hot with hope
one moment, cold with fever the next, he rushed with restless energy
into every task that presented itself--only to drop it as speedily.
Twice during the morning he drove to the entrance of Clifford's Inn, but
each time his courage failed him and he returned to Grosvenor Square--to
learn that the expected message from Loder had not come.

It was a wearing condition of mind; but at worst it was scarcely more
than an exaggeration of what his state had been for months, and made but
little obvious difference in his bearing or manner.

In the afternoon he took his place in the House, but, though it was his
first appearance since his failure of two days ago, he drew but small
personal notice. When he chose, his manner could repel advances with
extreme effect, and of late men had been prone to draw away from him.

In one of the lobbies he encountered Fraide surrounded by a group of
friends. With his usual furtive haste he would have passed on; but,
moving away from his party, the old man accosted him. He was always
courteously particular in his treatment of Chilcote, as the husband of
his ward and godchild.

“Better, Chilcote?” he said, holding out his hand.

At the sound of the low, rather formal tones, so characteristic of the
old statesman, a hundred memories rose to Chilcote's mind, a hundred
hours, distasteful in the living and unbearable in the recollection; and
with them the new flash of hope, the new possibility of freedom. In a
sudden rush of confidence he turned to his leader.

“I believe I've found a remedy for my nerves,” he said. “I--I believe
I'm going to be anew man.” He laughed with a touch of excitement,

Fraide pressed his fingers kindly, “That is right,” he said. “That is
right. I called at Grosvenor Square this morning, but Eve told me
your illness of the other day was not serious. She was very busy
this morning--she could only spare me a quarter of an hour. She is
indefatigable over the social side of your prospects. Chilcote. You owe
her a large debt. A popular wife means a great deal to a politician.”

The steady eyes of his companion disturbed Chilcote.

He drew away his hand.

“Eve is unique,” he said, vaguely.

Fraide smiled. “That is right,” he said again. “Admiration is too
largely excluded from modern marriages.” And with a courteous excuse he
rejoined his friends.

It was dinner-time before Chilcote could desert the House, but the
moment departure was possible he hurried to Grosvenor Square.

As he entered the house, the hall was empty. He swore irritably under
his breath and pressed the nearest bell. Since his momentary exaltation
in Fraide's presence, his spirits had steadily fallen, until now they
hung at the lowest ebb.

As he waited in unconcealed impatience for an answer to his summons, he
caught sight of his man Allsopp at the head of the stairs.

“Come here!” he called, pleased to find some one upon whom to vent his
irritation. “Has that wire come for me?”

“No, sir. I inquired five minutes back.”

“Inquire again.”

“Yes, sir.” Allsopp disappeared.

A second after his disappearance the bell of the hall door whizzed
loudly.

Chileote started. All sudden sounds, like all strong lights, affected
him. He half moved to the door, then stopped himself with a short
exclamation. At the same instant Allsopp reappeared.

Chilcote turned on him excitedly.

“What the devil's the meaning of this?” he said. “A battery of servants
in the house and nobody to open the hall door!”

Allsopp looked embarrassed. “Crapham is coming directly, sir. He only
left the hall to ask Jeffries--”

Chilcote turned. “Confound Crapham!” he exclaimed. “Go and open the door
yourself.”

Allsopp hesitated, his dignity struggling with his obedience. As he
waited, the bell sounded again.

“Did you hear me?” Chilcote said.

“Yes, sir.” Allsopp crossed the hall.

As the door was opened Chilcote passed his handkerchief from one hand to
the other in the tension of hope and fear; then, as the sound of his own
name in the shrill tones of a telegraph-boy reached his ears, he let the
handkerchief drop to the ground.

Allsopp took the yellow envelope and carried it to his master.

“A telegram, sir,” he said. “And the boy wishes to know if there is
an answer.” Picking up Chilcote's handkerchief, he turned aside with
elaborate dignity.

Chilcote's hands were so unsteady that he could scarcely insert his
finger under the flap of the envelope. Tearing off a corner, he wrenched
the covering apart and smoothed out the flimsy pink paper.

The message was very simple, consisting of but seven words:

   “Shall expect you at eleven to-night.-LODER.”

He read it two or three times, then he looked up. “No answer,” he said,
mechanically; and to his own ears the relief in his voice sounded harsh
and unnatural.

Exactly as the clocks chimed eleven Chilcote mounted the stairs to
Loder's rooms. But this time there was more of haste than of uncertainty
in his steps, and, reaching the landing, he crossed it in a couple of
strides and knocked feverishly on the door.

It opened at once, and Loder stood before him.

The occasion was peculiar. For a moment neither spoke; each
involuntarily looked at the other with new eyes and under changed
conditions. Each had assumed a fresh stand-point in the other's thought.
The passing astonishment, the half-impersonal curiosity that had
previously tinged their relationship, was cast aside, never to be
reassumed. In each, the other saw himself--and something more.

As usual, Loder was the first to recover himself.

“I was expecting you,” he said. “Won't you come in?”

The words were almost the same as his words of the night before, but his
voice had a different ring; just as his face, when he drew back into the
room, had a different expression--a suggestion of decision and energy
that had been lacking before. Chilcote caught the difference as he
crossed the threshold, and for a bare second a flicker of something like
jealousy touched him. But the sensation was fleeting.

“I have to thank you!” he said, holding out his hand. He was too well
bred to show by a hint that he understood the drop in the other's
principles. But Loder broke down the artifice.

“Let's be straight with each other, since everybody else has to be
deceived,” he said, taking the other's hand. “You have nothing to thank
me for, and you know it. It's a touch of the old Adam. You tempted me,
and I fell.” He laughed, but below the laugh ran a note of something
like triumph--the curious triumph of a man who has known the tyranny of
strength and suddenly appreciates the freedom of a weakness.

“You fully realize the thing you have proposed?” he added, in a
different tone. “It's not too late to retract, even now.”

Chilcote opened his lips, paused, then laughed in imitation of his
companion; but the laugh sounded forced.

“My dear fellow,” he said at last, “I never retract.”

“Never?”

“No.”

“Then the bargain's sealed.”

Loder walked slowly across the room, and, taking up his position by the
mantel-piece, looked at his companion. The similarity between them
as they faced each other seemed abnormal, defying even the closest
scrutiny. And yet, so mysterious is Nature even in her lapses, they
were subtly, indefinably different. Chilcote was Loder deprived of one
essential: Loder, Chilcote with that essential bestowed. The difference
lay neither in feature, in coloring, nor in height, but in that
baffling, illusive inner illumination that some call individuality, and
others soul.

Something of this idea, misted and tangled by nervous imagination,
crossed Chilcote's mind in that moment of scrutiny, but he shrank from
it apprehensively.

“I--I came to discuss details,” he said, quickly, crossing the space
that divided him from his host. “Shall we--? Are you--?” He paused
uneasily.

“I'm entirely in your hands.” Loder spoke with abrupt decision. Moving
to the table, he indicated a chair, and drew another forward for
himself.

Both men sat down.

Chilcote leaned forward, resting elbows on the table. “There will be
several things to consider--” he began, nervously, looking across at the
other.

“Quite so.” Loder glanced back appreciatively. “I thought about those
things the better part of last night. To begin with, I must study your
handwriting. I guarantee to get it right, but it will take a month.”

“A month!”

“Well, perhaps three weeks. We mustn't make a mess of things.”

Chilcote shifted his position.

“Three weeks!” he repeated. “Couldn't you--?”

“No; I couldn't.” Loder spoke authoritatively. “I might never want to
put pen to paper, but, on the other hand, I might have to sign a check
one day.” He laughed. “Have you ever thought of that?--that I might have
to, or want to, sign a check?”

“No. I confess that escaped me.”

“You risk your fortune that you, may keep the place it bought for you?”
 Loder laughed again. “How do you know that I am not a blackguard?” he
added. “How do you know that I won't clear out one day and leave you
high and dry? What is to prevent John Chilcote from realizing forty or
fifty thousand pounds and then making himself scarce?”

“You won't do that,” Chilcote said, with unusual decision. “I told you
your weakness last night; and it wasn't money. Money isn't the rock
you'll split over.”

“Then you think I'll split upon some rock? But that's beyond the
question. To get to business again. You'll risk my studying your
signature?”

Chilcote nodded.

“Right! Now item two.” Loder counted on his: fingers. “I must know the
names and faces of your men friends as far as I can. Your woman friends
don't count. While I'm you, you will be adamant.” He laughed again
pleasantly. “But the men are essential--the backbone of the whole
business.”

“I have no men friends. I don't trust the idea of friendship.”

“Acquaintances, then.”

Chilcote looked up sharply. “I think we score there,” he said. “I have a
reputation for absent-mindedness that will carry you anywhere. They tell
me I can look through the most substantial man in the House as if he
were gossamer, though I may have lunched with him the same day.”

Loder smiled. “By Jove!” he exclaimed. “Fate Must have been constructing
this before either of us was born. It dovetails ridiculously. But I must
know your colleagues--even if it's only to cut them. You'll have to take
me to the House.”

“Impossible!”

“Not at all!” Again the tone of authority fell to Loder. “I can pull my
hat over my eyes and turn up my coat-collar. Nobody will notice me.
We can choose the fall of the afternoon. I promise you 'twill be all
right.”

“Suppose the likeness should leak out? It's a risk.”

Loder laughed confidently. “Tush, man! Risk is the salt of life. I must
see you at your post, and I must see the men you work with.” He rose,
walked across the room, and took his pipe from the rack. “When I go in
for a thing, I like to go in over head and ears,” he added, as he opened
his tobacco-jar.

His pipe filled, he resumed his seat, resting his elbows on the table in
unconscious imitation of Chilcote.

“Got a match?” he said, laconically, holding out his band.

In response Chilcote drew his match-box from his pocket and struck a
light. As their hands touched, an exclamation escaped him.

“By Jove!” he said, with a fretful mixture of disappointment and
surprise. “I hadn't noticed that!” His eyes were fixed in annoyed
interest on Loder's extended hand.

Loder, following his glance, smiled. “Odd that we should both have
overlooked it! It clean escaped my mind. It's rather an ugly scar.” He
lifted his hand till the light fell more fully on it. Above the second
joint of the third finger ran a jagged furrow, the reminder of a wound
that had once laid bare the bone.

Chilcote leaned forward. “How did you come by it?” he asked.

The other shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, that's ancient history.”

“The results are present-day enough. It's very awkward! Very annoying!”
 Chilcote's spirits, at all times overeasily played upon, were damped by
this obstacle.

Loder, still looking at his hand, didn't seem to hear. “There's only one
thing to be done,” he said. “Each wear two rings on the third finger
of the left hand. Two rings ought to cover it.” He made a speculative
measurement with the stem of his pipe.

Chilcote still looked irritable and disturbed. “I detest rings. I never
wear rings.”

Loder raised his eyes calmly. “Neither do I,” he said. “But there's no
reason for bigotry.”

But Chilcote's irritability was started. He pushed back his chair. “I
don't like the idea,” he said.

The other eyed him amusedly. “What a queer beggar you are!” he said.
“You waive the danger of a man signing your checks and shy at wearing a
piece of jewelry. I'll have a fair share of individuality to study.”

Chilcote moved restlessly. “Everybody knows I detest jewelry.”

“Everybody knows you are capricious. It's got to be the rings or
nothing, so far as I make out.”

Chilcote again altered his position, avoiding the other's eyes. At last,
after a struggle with himself, he looked up.

“I suppose you're right!” he said. “Have it your own way.” It was the
first small, tangible concession to the stronger will.

Loder took his victory quietly. “Good!” he said. “Then it's all straight
sailing?”

“Except for the matter of the--the remuneration.” Chilcote hazarded the
word uncertainly.

There was a faint pause, then Loder laughed brusquely. “My pay?”

The other was embarrassed. “I didn't want to put it quite like that.”

“But that was what you thought. Why are you never honest--even with
yourself?”

Chilcote drew his chair closer to the table. He did not attend to the
other's remark, but his fingers strayed to his waistcoat pocket and
fumbled there.

Loder saw the gesture. “Look here,” he said, “you are overtaxing
yourself. The affair of the pay isn't pressing; we'll shelve it to
another night. You look tired out.”

Chilcote lifted his eyes with a relieved glance. “Thanks. I do feel a
bit fagged. If I may, I'll have that whiskey that I refused last night.”

“Why, certainly.” Loder rose at once and crossed to a cupboard in
the wall. In silence he brought out whiskey, glasses, and a siphon of
soda-water. “Say when!” he said, lifting the whiskey.

“Now. And I'll have plain water instead of soda, if it's all the same.”

“Oh, quite.” Loder recrossed the room. Instantly his back was turned,
Chilcote drew a couple of tabloids from his pocket and dropped them into
his glass. As the other came slowly back he laughed nervously.

“Thanks. See to your own drink now; I can manage this.” He took the
jug unceremoniously, and, carefully guarding his glass from the light,
poured in the water with excited haste.

“What shall we drink to?” he said.

Loder methodically mixed his own drink and lifted the glass. “Oh, to the
career of John Chilcote!” he answered.

For an instant the other hesitated. There was something prophetic in the
sound of the toast. But he shook the feeling off and held up his glass.

“To the career of John Chilcote!” he said, with another unsteady laugh.




VII


It was a little less than three weeks since Chilcote and Loder had drunk
their toast, and again Loder was seated at his desk.

His head was bent and his hand moved carefully as he traced line after
line of meaningless words on a sheet of foolscap. Having covered the
page with writing, he rose, moved to the centre-table, and compared his
task with an open letter that lay there. The comparison seemed to
please him; he straightened his shoulders and threw back his head in an
attitude of critical satisfaction. So absorbed was he that, when a step
sounded on the stairs outside, he did not notice it, and only raised
his head when the door was thrown open unceremoniously. Even then his
interest was momentary.

“Hullo!” he said, his eyes returning to their scrutiny of his task.

Chilcote shut the door and came hastily across the room. He looked ill
and harassed. As he reached Loder he put out his hand nervously and
touched his arm.

Loder looked up. “What is it?” he asked. “Any new development?”

Chilcote tried to smile. “Yes,” he said, huskily; “it's come.”

Loder freed his arm. “What? The end of the world?”

“No. The end of me.” The words came jerkily, the strain that had
enforced them showing in every syllable.

Still Loder was uncomprehending; he could not, or would not, understand.

Again Chilcote caught and jerked at his sleeve. “Don't you see? Can't
you see?”

“No.”

Chilcote dropped the sleeve and passed his handkerchief across his
forehead. “It's come,” he repeated. “Don't you understand? I want you.”
 He drew away, then stepped back again anxiously. “I know I'm taking you
unawares,” he said. “But it's not my fault. On my soul, it's not! The
thing seems to spring at me and grip me--” He stopped, sinking weakly
into a chair.

For a moment Loder stood erect and immovable--then, almost with
reluctance, his glance turned to the figure beside him.

“You want me to take your place to-night--without preparation?” His
voice was distinct and firm, but it was free from contempt.

“Yes; yes, I do.” Chilcote spoke without looking up.

“That you may spend the night in morphia--this and other nights?”

Chilcote lifted a flushed, unsettled face. “You have no right to preach.
You accepted the bargain.”

Loder raised his head quickly. “I never--” he began; then both his face
and voice altered. “You are quite right,” he said, coldly. “You won't
have to complain again.”

Chilcote stirred uncomfortably. “My dear chap,” he said, “I meant no
offence. It's merely--”

“Your nerves. I know. But come to business. What am I to do?”

Chilcote rose excitedly. “Yes, business. Let's come to business. It's
rough on you, taking you short like this. But you have an erratic person
to deal with. I've had a horrible day--a horrible day.” His face had
paled again, and in the green lamplight it possessed a grayish hue.
Involuntarily Loder turned away.

Chilcote watched him as he passed to the desk and began mechanically
sorting papers. “A horrible day!” he repeated. “So bad that I daren't
face the night. You have read De Quincey?” he asked, with a sudden
change of tone.

“Yes.”

“Then read him again and you'll understand. I have all the
horrors--without any art. I have no 'Ladies of Sorrow,' but I have worse
monsters than his 'crocodile'.” He laughed unpleasantly.

Loder turned. “Why in the devil's name--” he began; then again he
halted. Something in Chilcote's drawn, excited face checked him. The
strange sense of predestination that we sometimes see in the eyes of
another struck cold upon him, chilling his last attempt at remonstrance.
“What do you want me to do?” he substituted, in an ordinary voice.

The words steadied Chilcote. He laughed a little. The laugh was still
shaky, but it was pitched in a lower key.

“You--you're quite right to pull me up. We have no time to waste. It
must be one o'clock.” He pulled out his watch, then walked to the window
and stood looking down into the shadowy court. “How quiet you are here!”
 he said. Then abruptly anew thought struck him and he wheeled back into
the room. “Loder,” he said, quickly---“Loder, I have an idea! While you
are me, why shouldn't I be you? Why shouldn't I be John Loder instead
of the vagrant we contemplated? It covers everything--it explains
everything. It's magnificent! I'm amazed we never thought of it before.”

Loder was still beside the desk. “I thought of it,” he said, without
looking back.

“And didn't suggest it?”

“No.”

“Why?”

Loder said nothing and the other colored.

“Jealous of your reputation?” he said, satirically.

“I have none to be jealous of.”

Chilcote laughed disagreeably. “Then you aren't so for gone in
philosophy as I thought. You have a niche in your own good opinion.”

Again Loder was silent; then he smiled. “You have an oddly correct
perception at times,” he said. “I suppose I have had a lame sort
of pride in keeping my name clean. But pride like that is out of
fashion--and I've got to float with the tide.” He laughed, the short
laugh that Chilcote had heard once or twice before, and, crossing the
room, he stood beside his visitor. “After all,” he said, “what business
have I with pride, straight or lame? Have my identity, if you want
it. When all defences have been broken down one barrier won't save the
town.” Laughing again, he laid his hand on the other's arm. “Come,” he
said, “give your orders. I capitulate.”

An hour later the two men passed from Loder's bed room, where the final
arrangements had been completed, back into the sitting-room. Loder came
first, in faultless evening-dress. His hair was carefully brushed, the
clothes he wore fitted him perfectly. To any glance, critical or casual,
he was the man who had mounted the stairs and entered the rooms earlier
in the evening. Chilcote's manner of walking and poise of the head
seemed to have descended upon him with Chilcote's clothes. He came into
the room hastily and passed to the desk.

“I have no private papers,” he said, “so I have nothing to lock up.
Everything can stand as it is. A woman named Robins comes in the
mornings to clean up and light the fire; otherwise you must shift for
yourself. Nobody will disturb you. Quiet, dead quiet, is about the one
thing you can count on.”

Chilcote, half halting in the doorway, made an attempt to laugh. Of
the two, he was noticeably the more embarrassed. In Loder's well-worn,
well-brushed tweed suit he felt stranded on his own personality,
bereft for the moment of the familiar accessories that helped to cloak
deficiencies and keep the wheel of conventionality comfortably rolling.
He stood unpleasantly conscious of himself, unable to shape his
sensations even in thought. He glanced at the fire, at the table,
finally at the chair on which he had thrown his overcoat before
entering the bedroom. At the sight of the coat his gaze brightened, the
aimlessness forsook him, and he gave an exclamation of relief.

“By Jove!” he said. “I clean forgot.”

“What?” Loder looked round.

“The rings.” He crossed to the coat and thrust his hand into the pocket.
“The duplicates only arrived this afternoon. The nick of time, eh?” He
spoke fast, his fingers searching busily. Occupation of any kind came as
a boon.

Loder slowly followed him, and as the box was brought to light he leaned
forward interestedly.

“As I told you, one is the copy of an old signet-ring, the other a plain
band--a plain gold band like a wedding-ring.” Chilcote laughed as
he placed the four rings side by side on his palm. “I could think of
nothing else that would be wide--and not ostentatious. You know how I
detest display.”

Loder touched the rings. “You have good taste,” he said. “Let's see if
they serve their purpose?” He picked them up and carried them to the
lamp.

Chilcote followed him. “That was an ugly wound,” he said, his curiosity
reawakening as Loder extended his finger. “How did you come by it?”

The other smiled. “It's a memento,” he said.

“Of bravery?”

“No. Quite the reverse.” He looked again at his hand, then glanced back
at Chilcote. “No,” he repeated, with an unusual impulse of confidence.
“It serves to remind me that I am not exempt--that I have been fooled
like other men.”

“That implies a woman?”

“Yes.” Again Loder looked at the scar on his finger. “I seldom recall
the thing, it's so absolutely past. But I rather like to remember it
to-night. I rather want you to know that I've been through the fire.
It's a sort of guarantee.”

Chilcote made a hasty gesture, but the other interrupted it.

“Oh, I know you trust me. But you're giving me a risky post. I want you
to see that women are out of my line--quite out of it.”

“But, my dear chap--”

Loder went on without heeding. “This thing happened eight years ago at
Santasalare,” he said, “a little place between Luna and Pistoria--a mere
handful of houses wedged between two hills. A regular relic of old Italy
crumbling away under flowers and sunshine, with nothing to suggest the
present century except the occasional passing of a train round the base
of one of the hills. I had literally stumbled upon the place on a long
tramp south from Switzerland, and had been tempted into a stay at the
little inn. The night after my arrival something unusual occurred. There
was an accident to the train at the point where it skirted the village.

“There was a small excitement; all the inhabitants were anxious to help,
and I took my share. As a matter of fact, the smash was not disastrous;
the passengers were hurt and frightened, but nobody was killed.”

He paused and looked at his companion, but, seeing him interested, went
on:

“Among these passengers was an English lady. Of all concerned in the
business, she was the least upset. When I came upon her she was sitting
on the shattered door of one of the carriages, calmly rearranging her
hat. On seeing me she looked up with the most charming smile imaginable.

“'I have just been waiting for somebody like you,' she said. 'My stupid
maid has got herself smashed up somewhere in the second-class carriages,
and I have nobody to help me to find my dog.'

“Of course, that first speech ought to have enlightened me, but it
didn't. I only saw the smile and heard the voice; I knew nothing of
whether they were deep or shallow. So I found the maid and found the
dog. The first expressed gratitude; the other didn't. I extricated him
with enormous difficulty from the wreck of the luggage-van, and this was
how he marked his appreciation.” He held out his hand and nodded towards
the scar.

Chilcote glanced up. “So that's the explanation?”

“Yes. I tried to conceal the thing when I restored the dog, but I was
bleeding abominably and I failed. Then the whole business was changed.
It was I who needed seeing to, my new friend insisted; I who should be
looked after, and not she. She forgot the dog in the newer interest of
my wounded finger. The maid, who was practically unhurt, was sent on to
engage rooms at the little inn, and she and I followed slowly.

“That walk impressed me. There was an attractive mistiness of atmosphere
in the warm night, a sensation more than attractive in being made
much of by a woman of one's own class and country after five years'
wandering.” He laughed with a touch of irony. “But I won't take up your
time with details. You know the progress of an ordinary love affair.
Throw in a few more flowers and a little more sunshine than is usual,
a man who is practically a hermit and a woman who knows the world by
heart, and you have the whole thing.

“She insisted on staying in Santasalare for three days in order to keep
my finger bandaged; she ended by staying three weeks in the hope of
smashing up my life.

“On coming to the hotel she had given no name; and in our first
explanations to each other she led me to conclude her an unmarried girl.
It was at the end of the three weeks that I learned that she was not a
free agent, as I had innocently imagined, but possessed a husband whom
she had left ill with malaria at Florence or Rome.

“The news disconcerted me, and I took no pains to hide it. After that
the end came abruptly. In her eyes I had become a fool with middle-class
principles; in my eyes--But there is no need for that. She left
Santasalare the same night in a great confusion of trunks and hat-boxes;
and next morning I strapped on my knapsack and turned my face to the
south.”

“And women don't count ever after?” Chilcote smiled, beguiled out of
himself.

Loder laughed. “That's what I've been trying to convey. Once bitten,
twice shy!” He laughed again and slipped the two rings over his finger
with an air of finality.

“Now, shall I start? This is the latch-key?” He drew a key from the
pocket of Chilcote's evening-clothes. “When I get to Grosvenor Square I
am to find your house, go straight in, mount the stairs, and there on
my right hand will be the door of your--I mean my own--private rooms. I
think I've got it all by heart. I feel inspired; I feel that I can't go
wrong.” He handed the two remaining rings to Chilcote and picked up the
overcoat.

“I'll stick on till I get a wire--,” he said. “Then I'll come back and
we'll reverse again.” He slipped on the coat and moved back towards the
table. Now that the decisive moment had come, it embarrassed him.

Scarcely knowing how to bring it to an end, he held out his hand.

Chilcote took it, paling a little. “'Twill be all right!” he said, with
a sudden return of nervousness. “'Twill be all right! And I've made
it plain about--about the remuneration? A hundred a week--besides all
expenses.”

Loder smiled again. “My pay? Oh yes, you've made it clear as day. Shall
we say good-night now?”

“Yes. Good-night.”

There was a strange, distant note in Chilcote's voice, but the other did
not pretend to hear it. He pressed the hand he was holding, though the
cold dampness of it repelled him.

“Good-night,” he said again.

“Good-night.”

They stood for a moment, awkwardly looking at each other, then Loder
quietly disengaged his hand, crossed the room, and passed through the
door.

Chilcote, left standing alone in the middle of the room, listened while
the last sound of the other's footsteps was audible on the uncarpeted
stairs; then, with a furtive, hurried gesture, he caught up the
green-shaded lamp and passed into Loder's bedroom.




VIII


To all men come portentous moments, difficult moments, triumphant
moments. Loder had had his examples of all three, but no moment in his
career ever equalled in strangeness of sensation that in which, dressed
in another man's clothes, he fitted the latchkey for the first time into
the door of the other man's house.

The act was quietly done. The key fitted the lock smoothly and his
fingers turned it without hesitation, though his heart, usually
extremely steady, beat sharply for a second. The hall loomed massive
and sombre despite the modernity of electric lights. It was darkly and
expensively decorated in black and brown; a frieze of wrought bronze,
representing peacocks with outspread tails, ornamented the walls; the
banisters were of heavy iron-work, and the somewhat formidable fireplace
was of the same dark metal.

Loder looked about him, then advanced, his heart again beating quickly
as his hand touched the cold banister and he began his ascent of the
stairs. But at each step his confidence strengthened, his feet became
more firm; until, at the head of the stairs, as if to disprove his
assurance, his pulses played him false once more, this time to a more
serious tune. From the farther end of a well-lighted corridor a maid was
coming straight in his direction.

For one short second all things seemed to whiz about him; the certainty
of detection overpowered his mind. The indisputable knowledge that he
was John Loder and no other, despite all armor of effrontery and dress,
so dominated him that all other considerations shrank before it. It
wanted but one word, one simple word of denunciation, and the whole
scheme was shattered. In the dismay of the moment, he almost wished that
the word might be spoken and the suspense ended.

But the maid came on in silence, and so incredible was the silence that
Loder moved onward, too. He came within a yard of her, and still she did
not speak; then, as he passed her, she drew back respectfully against
the wall.

The strain, so astonishingly short, had been immense, but with its
slackening came a strong reaction. The expected humiliation seethed
suddenly to a desire to dare fate. Pausing quickly, he turned and called
the woman back.

The spot where he had halted was vividly bright, the ceiling light being
directly above his head; and as she came towards him he raised his face
deliberately and-waited.

She looked at him without surprise or interest. “Yes, sir?” she said.

“Is your mistress in?” he asked. He could think of no other question,
but it served his purpose as a test of his voice.

Still the woman showed no surprise. “She's not in sir,” she answered.
“But she's expected in half an hour.”

“In half an hour? All right! That's all I wanted.” With a movement of
decision Loder walked back to the stair-head, turned to the right, and
opened the door of Chilcote's rooms.

The door opened on a short, wide passage; on one side stood the study,
on the other the bed, bath, and dressing-rooms. With a blind sense of
knowledge and unfamiliarity, bred of much description on Chilcote's
part, he put his hand on the study door and, still exalted by the omen
of his first success, turned the handle.

Inside the room there was firelight and lamplight and a studious air
of peace. The realization of this and a slow incredulity at Chilcote's
voluntary renunciation were his first impressions; then his attention
was needed for more imminent things.

As he entered, the new secretary was returning a volume to its place on
the book-shelves. At sight of him, he pushed it hastily into position
and turned round.

“I was making a few notes on the political position of Khorasan,” he
said, glancing with slight apprehensiveness at the other's face. He
was a small, shy man, with few social attainments but an extraordinary
amount of learning--the antithesis of the alert Blessington, whom he had
replaced.

Loder bore his scrutiny without flinching. Indeed, it struck him
suddenly that there was a fund of interest, almost of excitement, in the
encountering of each new pair of eyes. At the thought he moved forward
to the desk.

“Thank you, Greening,” he said. “A very useful bit of work.”

The secretary glanced up, slightly puzzled. His endurance had been
severely taxed in the fourteen days that he had filled his new post.

“I'm glad you think so, sir,” he said, hesitatingly. “You rather
pooh-poohed the matter this morning, if you remember.”

Loder was taking off his coat, but stopped in the operation.

“This morning?” he said. “Oh, did I? Did I?” Then, struck by the
opportunity the words gave him, he turned towards the secretary. “You've
got to get used to me, Greening,” he said. “You haven't quite grasped me
yet, I can see. I'm a man of moods, you know. Up to the present you've
seen my slack side, my jarred side, but I have quite another when I care
to show it. I'm a sort of Jekyll-and-Hyde affair.” Again he laughed,
and Greening echoed the sound diffidently. Chilcote had evidently
discouraged familiarity.

Loder eyed him with abrupt understanding. He recognized the loneliness
in the anxious, conciliatory manner.

“You're tired,” he said, kindly. “Go to bed. I've got some thinking to
do. Good-night.” He held out his hand.

Greening took it, still half distrustful of this fresh side to so
complex a man.

“Good-night, sir,” he said. “To-morrow, if you approve, I shall go on
with my notes. I hope you will have a restful night.”

For a second Loder's eyebrows went up, but he recovered himself
instantly.

“Ah, thanks, Greening,” he said. “Thanks. I think your hope will be
fulfilled.”

He watched the little secretary move softly and apologetically to
the door; then he walked to the fire, and, resting his elbows on the
mantel-piece, he took his face in his hands.

For a space he stood absolutely quiet, then his hands dropped to his
sides and he turned slowly round. In that short space he had balanced
things and found his bearings. The slight nervousness shown in his
brusque sentences and overconfident manner faded out, and he faced facts
steadily.

With the return of his calmness he took a long survey of the room. His
glance brightened appreciatively as it travelled from the walls lined
with well-bound books to the lamps modulated to the proper light;
from the lamps to the desk fitted with every requirement. Nothing was
lacking. All he had once possessed, all he had since dreamed of, was
here, but on a greater scale. To enjoy the luxuries of life a man must
go long without them. Loder had lived severely--so severely that until
three weeks ago he had believed himself exempt from the temptations of
humanity. Then the voice of the world had spoken, and within him another
voice had answered, with a tone so clamorous and insistent that it had
outcried his surprised and incredulous wonder at its existence and its
claims. That had been the voice of suppressed ambition; and now as he
stood in the new atmosphere a newer voice lifted itself. The joy of
material things rose suddenly, overbalancing the last remnant of the
philosophy he had reared. He saw all things in a fresh light--the soft
carpets, the soft lights, the numberless pleasant, unnecessary things
that color the passing landscape and oil the wheels of life. This was
power--power made manifest. The choice bindings of one's books, the
quiet harmony of one's surroundings, the gratifying deference of one's
dependants--these were the visible, the outward signs, the things he had
forgotten.

Crossing the room slowly, he lifted and looked at the different papers
on the desk. They had a substantial feeling, an importance, an air of
value. They were like the solemn keys to so many vexed problems. Beside
the papers were a heap of letters neatly arranged and as yet unopened.
He turned them over one by one. They were all thick, and interesting to
look at. He smiled as he recalled his own scanty mail: envelopes long
and bulky or narrow and thin--unwelcome manuscripts or very welcome
checks. Having sorted the letters, he hesitated. It was his task to
open them, but he had never in his life opened an envelope addressed to
another man.

He stood uncertain, weighing them in his hand.

Then all at once a look of attention and surprise crossed his face, and
he raised his head. Some one had unmistakably paused outside the door
which Greening had left ajar.

There was a moment of apparent doubt, then a stir of skirts, a quick,
uncertain knock, and the intruder entered.

For a couple of seconds she stood in the doorway; then, as Loder made
no effort to speak, she moved into the room. She had apparently but just
returned from some entertainment, for, though she had drawn off her long
gloves, she was still wearing an evening cloak of lace and fur.

That she was Chilcote's wife Loder instinctively realized the moment she
entered the room. But a disconcerting confusion of ideas was all that
followed the knowledge. He stood by the desk, silent and awkward,
trying to fit his expectations to his knowledge. Then, faced by the
hopelessness of the task, he turned abruptly and looked at her again.

She had taken off her cloak and was standing by the fire. The compulsion
of moving through life alone had set its seal upon her in a certain
self-possession, a certain confidence of pose; yet her figure, as Loder
then saw it, backgrounded by the dark books and gowned in pale blue,
had a suggestion of youthfulness that seemed a contradiction. The
remembrance of Chilcote's epithets “cold” and “unsympathetic” came back
to him with something like astonishment. He felt no uncertainty, no
dread of discovery and humiliation in her presence as he had felt in
the maid's; yet there was something in her face that made him infinitely
more uncomfortable. A look he could find no name for--a friendliness
that studiously covered another feeling, whether question, distrust, or
actual dislike he could not say. With a strange sensation of awkwardness
he sorted Chilcote's letters, waiting for her to speak.

As if divining his thought, she turned towards him. “I'm afraid I rather
intrude,” she said. “If you are busy--”

His sense of courtesy was touched; he had begun life with a high opinion
of women, and the words shook up an echo of the old sentiment.

“Don't think that,” he said, hastily. “I was only looking through--my
letters. You mustn't rate yourself below letters.” He was conscious that
his tone was hurried, that his words were a little jagged; but Eve did
not appear to notice. Unlike Greening, she took the new manner without
surprise. She had known Chilcote for six years.

“I dined with the Fraides to-night,” she said. “Mr. Fraide sent you a
message.”

Unconsciously Loder smiled. There was humor in the thought of a message
to him from the great Fraide. To hide his amusement he wheeled one of
the big lounge-chairs forward.

“Indeed,” he said. “Won't you sit down?”

They were near together now, and he saw her face more fully. Again
he was taken aback. Chilcote had spoken of her as successful and
intelligent, but never as beautiful. Yet her beauty was a rare and
uncommon fact. Her hair was black--not a glossy black, but the dusky
black that is softer than any brown; her eyes were large and of a
peculiarly pure blue; and her eyelashes were black, beautifully curved
and of remarkable thickness.

“Won't you sit down?” he said again, cutting short his thoughts with
some confusion.

“Thank you.” She gravely accepted the proffered chair. But he saw that
without any ostentation she drew her skirts aside as she passed him. The
action displeased him unaccountably.

“Well,” he said, shortly, “what had Fraide to say?” He walked to the
mantel-piece with his customary movement and stood watching her.
The instinct towards hiding his face had left him. Her instant
and uninterested acceptance of him almost nettled him; his own
half-contemptuous impression of Chilcote came to him unpleasantly, and
with it the first desire to assert his own individuality. Stung by the
conflicting emotions, he felt in Chilcote's pockets for something to
smoke.

Eve saw and interpreted the action. “Are these your cigarettes?” She
leaned towards a small table and took up a box made of lizard-skin.

“Thanks.” He took the box from her, and as it passed from one to the
other he saw her glance at his rings. The glance was momentary; her
lips parted to express question or surprise, then closed again without
comment. More than any spoken words, the incident showed him the gulf
that separated husband and wife.

“Well?” he said again, “what about Fraide?”

At his words she sat straighter and looked at him more directly, as if
bracing herself to a task.

“Mr. Fraide is--is as interested as ever in you,” she began.

“Or in you?” Loder made the interruption precisely as he felt Chilcote
would have made it. Then instantly he wished the words back.

Eve's warm skin colored more deeply; for a second the inscrutable
underlying expression that puzzled him showed in her eyes, then she sank
back into a corner of the chair.

“Why do you make such a point of sneering at my friends?” she asked,
quietly. “I overlook it when you are nervous.” She halted slightly on
the word. “But you are not nervous tonight.”

Loder, to his great humiliation, reddened. Except for an occasional
outburst on the part of Mrs. Robins, his charwoman, he had not merited a
woman's displeasure for years.

“The sneer was unintentional,” he said.

For the first time Eve showed a personal interest. She looked at him in
a puzzled way. “If your apology was meant,” she said, hesitatingly, “I
should be glad to accept it.”

Loder, uncertain of how to take the words, moved back to the desk. He
carried an unlighted cigarette between his fingers.

There was an interval in which neither spoke. Then, at last, conscious
of its awkwardness, Eve rose. With one hand on the back of her chair,
she looked at him.

“Mr. Fraide thinks it's such a pity that”--she stopped to choose her
words--“that you should lose hold on things--lose interest in things,
as you are doing. He has been thinking a good deal about you in the last
three weeks--ever since the day of your--your illness in the House;
and it seems to him,”--again she broke off, watching Loder's averted
head--“it seems to him that if you made one real effort now, even now,
to shake off your restlessness, that your--your health might improve.
He thinks that the present crisis would be”--she hesitated--“would give
you a tremendous opportunity. Your trade interests, bound up as they
are with Persia, would give any opinion you might hold a double weight.”
 Almost unconsciously a touch of warmth crept into her words.

“Mr. Fraide talked very seriously about the beginning of your career. He
said that if only the spirit of your first days could come back--” Her
tone grew quicker, as though she feared ridicule in Loder's silence.
“He asked me to use my influence. I know that I have little--none,
perhaps--but I couldn't tell him that, and so--so I promised.”

“And have kept the promise?” Loder spoke at random. Her manner and her
words had both affected him. There was a sensation of unreality in his
brain.

“Yes,” she answered. “I always want to do--what I can.”

As she spoke a sudden realization of the effort she was making struck
upon him, and with it his scorn of Chilcote rose in renewed force.

“My intention--” he began, turning to her. Then the futility of any
declaration silenced him. “I shall think over what you say,” he added,
after a minute's wait. “I suppose I can't say more than that.”

Their eyes met and she smiled a little.

“I don't believe I expected as much,” she said. “I think I'll go now.
You have been wonderfully patient.” Again she smiled slightly, at the
same time extending her hand. The gesture was quite friendly, but in
Loder's eyes it held relief as well as friendliness; and when their
hands met he noticed that her fingers barely brushed his.

He picked up her cloak and carried it across the room. As he held the
door open, he laid it quietly across her arm.

“I'll think over what you've said,” he repeated.

Again she glanced at him as if suspecting sarcasm then, partly
reassured, she paused. “You will always despise your opportunities, and
I suppose I shall always envy them,” she said. “That's the way with men
and women. Good-night!” With another faint smile she passed out into the
corridor.

Loder waited until he heard the outer door close, then he crossed the
room thoughtfully and dropped into the chair that she had vacated. He
sat for a time looking at the hand her fingers had touched; then he
lifted his head with a characteristic movement.

“By Jove!” he said, aloud, “how cordially she detests tests him!”




IX


Loder slept soundly and dreamlessly in Chilcote's canopied bed. To him
the big room with its severe magnificence suggested nothing of the gloom
and solitude that it held in its owner's eyes. The ponderous furniture,
the high ceiling, the heavy curtains, unchanged since the days of
Chilcote's grandfather, all hinted at a far-reaching ownership
that stirred him. The ownership was mythical in his regard, and the
possessions a mirage, but they filled the day. And, surely, sufficient
for the day--

That was his frame of mind as he opened his eyes on the following
morning, and lay appreciative of his comfort, of the surrounding space,
even of the light that filtered through the curtain chinks, suggestive
of a world recreated. With day, all things seem possible to a healthy
man. He stretched his arms luxuriously, delighting in the glossy
smoothness of the sheets.

What was it Chilcote had said? Better live for a day than exist for a
lifetime! That was true; and life had begun. At thirty-six he was to
know it for the first time.

He smiled, but without irony. Man is at his best at thirty-six, he
mused. He has retained his enthusiasms and shed his exuberances; he has
learned what to pick up and what to pass by; he no longer imagines
that to drain a cup one must taste the dregs. He closed his eyes and
stretched again, not his arms only, but his whole body. The pleasure of
his mental state insisted on a physical expression. Then, sitting up in
bed, he pressed the electric bell.

Chilcote's new valet responded.

“Pull those curtains, Renwick!” he said. “What's the time?” He had
passed the ordeal of Renwick's eyes the night before.

The man was slow, even a little stupid. He drew back the curtains
carefully, then looked at the small clock on the dressing-table. “Eight
o'clock, sir. I didn't expect the bell so early, sir.”

Loder felt reproved, and a pause followed.

“May I bring your cup of tea, sir?”

“No. Not just yet. I'll have a bath first.”

Renwick showed ponderous uncertainty. “Warm, sir?” he hazarded.

“No. Cold.”

Still perplexed, the man left the room.

Loder smiled to himself. The chances of discovery in that quarter were
not large. He was inclined to think that Chilcote had even overstepped
necessity in the matter of his valet's dullness.

He breakfasted alone, following Chilcote's habit, and after breakfast
found his way to the study.

As he entered, Greening rose with the same conciliatory haste that he
had shown the night before.

Loder nodded to him. “Early at work?” he said, pleasantly.

The little man showed instant, almost ridiculous relief. “Good-morning,
sir,” he said; “you too are early. I rather feared your nerves troubled
you after I left last night, for I found your letters still unopened
this morning. But I am glad to see you look so well.”

Loder promptly turned his back to the light. “Oh, last night's letters!”
 he said. “To tell you the truth, Greening, my wife”--his hesitation was
very slight--“my wife looked me up after you left, and we gossiped. I
clean forgot the post.” He smiled in an explanatory way as he moved to
the desk and picked up the letters.

With Greening's eyes upon him, there was no time for scruples. With
very creditable coolness he began opening the envelopes one by one. The
letters were unimportant, and he passed them one after another to the
secretary, experiencing a slight thrill of authority as each left his
hand. Again the fact that power is visible in little things came to his
mind.

“Give me my engagement-book, Greening,” he said, when the letters had
been disposed of.

The book that Greening handed him was neat in shape and bound, like
Chilcote's cigarette-case, in lizard-skin.

As Loder took it, the gold monogram “J.C.” winked at him in the bright
morning light. The incident moved his sense of humor. He and the book
were cooperators in the fraud, it seemed. He felt an inclination to wink
back. Nevertheless, he opened it with proper gravity and skimmed the
pages.

The page devoted to the day was almost full. On every other line were
jottings in Chilcote's irregular hand, and twice among the entries
appeared a prominent cross in blue pencilling. Loder's interest
quickened as his eye caught the mark. It had been agreed between them
that only engagements essential to Chilcote's public life need be
carried through during his absence, and these, to save confusion, were
to be crossed in blue pencil. The rest, for the most part social claims,
were to be left to circumstance and Loder's inclination, Chilcote's
erratic memory always accounting for the breaking of trivial promises.

But Loder in his new energy was anxious for obligations; the desire for
fresh and greater tests grew with indulgence. He scanned the two
lines with eagerness. The first was an interview with Cresham, one of
Chilcote's supporters in Wark; the other an engagement to lunch with
Fraide. At the idea of the former his interest quickened, but at thought
of the latter it quailed momentarily. Had the entry been a royal command
it would have affected him infinitely less. For a space his assurance
faltered; then, by coincidence, the recollection of Eve and Eve's words
of last night came back to him, and his mind was filled with a new
sensation.

Because of Chilcote, he was despised by Chilcote's wife! There was
no denying that in all the pleasant excitement of the adventure that
knowledge had rankled. It came to him now linked with remembrance of
the slight, reluctant touch of her fingers, the faintly evasive dislike
underlying her glance. It was a trivial thing, but it touched his pride
as a man. That was how he put it to himself. It wasn't that he valued
this woman's opinion--any woman's opinion; it was merely that it touched
his pride. He turned again to the window and gazed out, the engagement
book still between his hands. What if he compelled her respect? What if
by his own personality cloaked under Chilcote's identity he forced her
to admit his capability? It was a matter of pride, after all--scarcely
even of pride; self-respect was a better word.

Satisfied by his own reasoning, he turned back into the room.

“See to those letters, Greening,” he said. “And for the rest of the
morning's work you might go on with your Khorasan notes. I believe we'll
all want every inch of knowledge we can get in that quarter before we're
much older. I'll see you again later.” With a reassuring nod he crossed
the room and passed through the door.

He lunched with Fraide at his club, and afterwards walked with him to
Westminster. The walk and lunch were both memorable. In that hour he
learned many things that had been sealed to him before. He tasted his
first draught of real elation, his first drop of real discomfiture.
He saw for the first time how a great man may condescend--how
unostentatiously, how fully, how delightfully. He felt what tact and
kindness perfectly combined may accomplish, and he burned inwardly with
a sense of duplicity that crushed and elated him alternately. He was
John Loder, friendless, penniless, with no present and no future, yet he
walked down Whitehall in the full light of day with one of the greatest
statesmen England has known.

Some strangers were being shown over the Terrace when he and Fraide
reached the House, and, noticing the open door, the old man paused.

“I never refuse fresh air,” he said. “Shall we take another breath of it
before settling down?” He took Loder's arm and drew him forward. As they
passed through the door-way the pressure of his fingers tightened. “I
shall reckon to-day among my pleasantest memories, Chilcote,” he said,
gravely. “I can't explain the feeling, but I seem to have touched Eve's
husband--the real you, more closely this morning than I ever did before.
It has been a genuine happiness.” He looked up with the eyes that,
through all his years of action and responsibility, had remained so
bright.

But Loder paled suddenly, and his glance turned to the river-wide,
mysterious, secret. Unconsciously Fraide had stripped the illusion. It
was not John Loder who walked here; it was Chilcote--Chilcote with his
position, his constituency--his wife. He half extricated his arm, but
Fraide held it.

“No,” he said. “Don't draw away from me. You have always been too ready
to do that. It is not often I have a pleasant truth to tell. I won't be
deprived of the enjoyment.”

“Can the truth ever be pleasant, sir?” Involuntarily Loder echoed
Chilcote.

Fraide looked up. He was half a head shorter than his companion, though
his dignity concealed the fact. “Chilcote,” he said, seriously, “give
up cynicism! It is the trade-mark of failure, and I do not like it in my
friends.”

Loder said nothing. The quiet insight of the reproof, its mitigating
kindness, touched him sharply. In that moment he saw the rails down
which he had sent his little car of existence spinning, and the sight
daunted him. The track was steeper, the gauge narrower, than he had
guessed; there were curves and sidings upon which he had not reckoned.
He turned his head and met Fraide's glance.

“Don't count too much on me, sir,” he said, slowly. “I might disappoint
you again.” His voice broke off on the last word, for the sound of other
voices and of laughter came to them across the Terrace as a group of
two women and three men passed through the open door. At a glance he
realized that the slighter of the two women was Eve.

Seeing them, she disengaged herself from her party and came quickly
forward. He saw her cheeks flush and her eyes brighten pleasantly as
they rested on his companion; but he noticed also that after her first
cursory glance she avoided his own direction.

As she came towards them, Fraide drew away his hand in readiness to
greet her.

“Here comes my godchild!” he said. “I often wish, Chilcote, that I could
do away with the prefix.” He added the last words in an undertone as he
reached them; then he responded warmly to her smile.

“What!” he said. “Turning the Terrace into the Garden of Eden in
January! We cannot allow this.”

Eve laughed. “Blame Lady Sarah!” she said. “We met at lunch, and she
carried me off. Needless to say I hadn't to ask where.”

They both laughed, and Loder joined, a little uncertainly. He had yet to
learn that the devotion of Fraide and his wife was a long-standing jest
in their particular set.

At the sound of his tardy laugh Eve turned to him. “I hope I didn't rob
you of all sleep last night,” she said. “I caught him in his den,”
 she explained, turning to Fraide, “and invaded it most courageously. I
believe we talked till two.”

Again Loder noticed bow quickly she looked from him to Fraide. The
knowledge roused his self-assertion.

“I had an excellent night,” he said. “Do I look as if I hadn't slept?”

Somewhat slowly and reluctantly Eve looked back. “No,” she said,
truthfully, and with a faint surprise that to Loder seemed the first
genuine emotion she had shown regarding him. “No, I don't think I ever
saw you look so well.” She was quite unconscious and very charming as
she made the admission. It struck Loder that her coloring of hair and
eyes gained by daylight--were brightened and vivified by their setting
of sombre river and sombre stone.

Fraide smiled at her affectionately; then looked at Loder. “Chilcote
has got anew lease of nerves, Eve,” he said, quietly. “And I--believe--I
have got a new henchman. But I see my wife beckoning to me. I must have
a word with her before she flits away. May I be excused?” He made a
courteous gesture of apology; then smiled at Eve.

She looked after him as he moved away. “I sometimes wonder what I
should do if anything were to happen to the Fraides,” she said, a
little wistfully. Then almost at once she laughed, as if regretting her
impulsiveness. “You heard what he said,” she went on, in a different
voice. “Am I really to congratulate you?”

The change of tone stung Loder unaccountably. “Will you always
disbelieve in me?” he asked.

Without answering, she walked slowly across the deserted Terrace and,
pausing by the parapet, laid her hand on the stonework. Still in silence
she looked out across the river.

Loder had followed closely. Again her aloofness seemed a challenge.
“Will you always disbelieve in me?” he repeated.

At last she looked up at him, slowly.

“Have you ever given me cause to believe!” she asked, in a quiet voice.

To this truth he found no answer, though the subdued incredulity nettled
him afresh.

Prompted to a further effort, he spoke again. “Patience is necessary
with every person and every circumstance,” he said. “We've all got to
wait and see.”

She did not lower her gaze as he spoke; and there seemed to him
something disconcerting in the clear, candid blue of her eyes. With
a sudden dread of her next words, he moved forward and laid his hand
beside hers on the parapet.

“Patience is needed for every one,” he repeated, quickly. “Sometimes a
man is like a bit of wreckage; he drifts till some force stronger than
himself gets in his way and stops him.” He looked again at her face. He
scarcely knew what he was saying; he only felt that he was a man in an
egregiously false position, trying stupidly to justify himself. “Don't
you believe that flotsam can sometimes be washed ashore?” he asked.

High above them Big Ben chimed the hour.

Eve raised her head. It almost seemed to him that he could see her
answer trembling on her lips; then the voice of Lady Sarah Fraide came
cheerfully from behind them.


“Eve!” she called. “Eve! We must fly. It's absolutely three o'clock!”




X

In the days that followed Fraide's marked adoption of him Loder behaved
with a discretion that spoke well for his qualities. Many a man placed
in the same responsible, and yet strangely irresponsible, position might
have been excused if, for the time at least, he gave himself a loose
rein. But Loder kept free of the temptation.

Like all other experiments, his showed unlooked-for features when put
to a working test. Its expected difficulties smoothed themselves away,
while others, scarcely anticipated, came into prominence. Most notable
of all, the physical likeness between himself and Chilcote, the bedrock
of the whole scheme, which had been counted upon to offer most danger,
worked without a hitch. He stood literally amazed before the sweeping
credulity that met him on every hand. Men who had known Chilcote from
his youth, servants who had been in his employment for years, joined
issue in the unquestioning acceptance. At times the ease of the
deception bewildered him; there were moments when he realized that,
should circumstances force him to a declaration of the truth, he would
not be believed. Human nature prefers its own eyesight to the testimony
of any man.

But in face of this astonishing success he steered a steady course. In
the first exhilaration of Fraide's favor, in the first egotistical wish
to break down Eve's scepticism, he might possibly have plunged into the
vortex of action, let it be in what direction it might; but fortunately
for himself, for Chilcote, and for their scheme, he was liable to
strenuous second thoughts--those wise and necessary curbs that go
further to the steadying of the universe than the universe guesses.
Sitting in the quiet of the House, on the same day that he had spoken
with Eve on the Terrace, he had weighed possibilities slowly and
cautiously. Impressed to the full by the atmosphere of the place that
in his eyes could never lack character, however dull its momentary
business, however prosy the voice that filled it, he had sifted impulse
from expedience, as only a man who has lived within himself can sift and
distinguish. And at the close of that first day his programme bad been
formed. There must be no rush, no headlong plunge, he had decided;
things must work round. It was his first expedition into the new
country, and it lay with fate to say whether it would be his last.

He had been leaning back in his seat, his eyes on the ministers
opposite, his arms folded in imitation of Chilcote's most natural
attitude, when this final speculation had come to him; and as it came
his lips had tightened for a moment and his face become hard and cold.
It is an unpleasant thing when a man first unconsciously reckons on the
weakness of another, and the look that expresses the idea is not good
to see. He had stirred uneasily; then his lips had closed again. He was
tenacious by nature, and by nature intolerant of weakness. At the first
suggestion of reckoning upon Chilcote's lapses, his mind had drawn back
in disgust; but as the thought came again the disgust had lessened.

In a week--two weeks, perhaps--Chilcote would reclaim his place. Then
would begin the routine of the affair. Chilcote, fresh from indulgence
and freedom, would find his obligations a thousand times more irksome
than before; he would struggle for a time; then--

A shadowy smile had touched Loder's lips as the idea formed itself.

Then would come the inevitable recall; then in earnest he might venture
to put his hand to the plough. He never indulged in day-dreams, but
something in the nature of a vision had flashed over his mind in that
instant. He had seen himself standing in that same building, seen the
rows of faces first bored, then hesitatingly transformed under his
personal domination, under the one great power he knew himself to
possess--the power of eloquence. The strength of the suggestion had been
almost painful. Men who have attained self-repression are occasionally
open to a perilous onrush of feeling. Believing that they know
themselves, they walk boldly forward towards the high-road and the
pitfall alike.

These had been Loder's disconnected ideas and speculations on the first
day of his new life. At four o'clock on the ninth day he was pacing with
quiet confidence up and down Chilcote's study, his mind pleasantly
busy and his cigar comfortably alight, when he paused in, his walk and
frowned, interrupted by the entrance of a servant.

The man came softly into the room, drew a small table towards the fire,
and proceeded to lay an extremely fine and unserviceable-looking cloth.

Loder watched him in silence. He had grown to find silence a very useful
commodity. To wait and let things develop was the attitude he oftenest
assumed. But on this occasion he was perplexed. He had not rung for
tea, and in any case a cup on a salver satisfied his wants. He looked
critically at the fragile cloth.

Presently the servant departed, and solemnly reentered carrying a
silver tray, with cups, a teapot, and cakes. Having adjusted them to his
satisfaction, he turned to Loder.

“Mrs. Chilcote will be with you in five minutes, sir,” he said.

He waited for some response, but Loder gave none. Again he had found
the advantages of silence, but this time it was silence of a compulsory
kind. He had nothing to say.

The man, finding him irresponsive, retired; and, left to himself, Loder
stared at the array of feminine trifles; then, turning abruptly, he
moved to the centre of the room.

Since the day they had talked on the Terrace, he had only seen Eve
thrice, and always in the presence e others. Since the night of his
first coming, she has not invaded his domain, and he wondered what this
new departure might mean.

His thought of her had been less vivid in the last few days; for, though
still using steady discretion, he had been drawn gradually nearer the
fascinating whirlpool of new interests and new work. Shut his eyes as
he might, there was no denying that this moment, so personally vital to
him, was politically vital to the whole country; and that by a curious
coincidence Chilcote's position well-nigh forced him to take an active
interest in the situation. Again and again the suggestion had arisen
that--should the smouldering fire in Persia break into a flame,
Chilcote's commercial interests would facilitate, would practically
compel, his standing in in the campaign against the government.

The little incident of the tea-table, recalling the social side of his
obligations, had aroused the realization of greater things. As he stood
meditatively in the middle of the room he saw suddenly how absorbed
he had become in these greater things. How, in the swing of congenial
interests, he had been borne insensibly forward--his capacities
expanding, his intelligence asserting itself. He had so undeniably found
his sphere that the idea of usurpation had receded gently as by natural
laws, until his own personality had begun to color the day's work.

As this knowledge came, he wondered quickly if it held a solution of
the present little comedy; if Eve had seen what others, he knew, had
observed--that Chilcote was showing a grasp of things that he had not
exhibited for years. Then, as a sound of skirts came softly down the
corridor, he squared his shoulders with his habitual abrupt gesture and
threw his cigar into the fire.

Eve entered the room much as she had done on her former visit, but with
one difference. In passing Loder she quietly held out her hand.

He took it as quietly. “Why am I so honored?” he said.

She laughed a little and looked across at the fire. “How like a man! You
always want to begin with reasons. Let's have tea first and explanations
after.” She moved forward towards the table, and he followed. As he did
so, it struck him that her dress seemed in peculiar harmony with the day
and the room, though beyond that he could not follow its details. As she
paused beside the table he drew forward a chair with a faint touch of
awkwardness.

She thanked him and sat down.

He watched her in silence as she poured out the tea, and the thought
crossed his mind that it was incredibly long since he had seen a woman
preside over a meal. The deftness of her fingers filled him with an
unfamiliar, half-inquisitive wonder. So interesting was the sensation
that, when she held his cup towards him, he didn't immediately see it.

“Don't you want any?” She smiled a little.

He started, embarrassed by his own tardiness. “I'm afraid I'm dull,” he
said. “I've been so--”

“So keen a worker in the last week?”

For a moment he felt relieved. Then, as a fresh silence fell, his sense
of awkwardness returned. He sipped his tea and ate a biscuit. He found
himself wishing, for almost the first time, for some of the small
society talk that came so pleasantly to other men. He felt that the
position was ridiculous. He glanced at Eve's averted head, and laid his
empty cup upon the table.

Almost at once she turned, and their eyes met.

“John,” she said, “do you guess at all why I wanted to have tea with
you?”

He looked down at her. “No,” he said, honestly and without
embellishment.

The curtness of the answer might have displeased another woman. Eve
seemed to take no offence.

“I had a talk with the Fraides to-day,” she said “A long talk. Mr.
Fraide said great things of you--things I wouldn't have believed from
anybody but Mr. Fraide.” She altered her position and looked from
Loder's face back into the fire.

He took a step forward. “What things?” he said. He was almost ashamed of
the sudden, inordinate satisfaction that welled up at her words.

“Oh, I mustn't tell you!” She laughed a little. “But you have surprised
him.” She paused, sipped her tea, then looked up again with a change of
expression.

“John,” she said, more seriously, “there is one point that sticks
a little. Will this great change last?” Her voice was direct and
even--wonderfully direct for a woman, Loder thought. It came to him with
a certain force that beneath her remarkable charm might possibly lie a
remarkable character. It was not a possibility that had occurred to him
before, and it caused him to look at her a second time. In the new
light he saw her beauty differently, and it interested him differently.
Heretofore he had been inclined to class women under three heads--idols,
amusements, or encumbrances; now it crossed his mind that a woman might
possibly fill another place--the place of a companion.

“You are very sceptical,” he said, still looking down at her.

She did not return his glance. “I think I have been made sceptical,” she
said.

As she spoke the image of Chilcote shot through his mind. Chilcote,
irritable, vicious, unstable, and a quick compassion for this woman so
inevitably shackled to him followed it.

Eve, unconscious of what was passing in his mind, went on with her
subject.

“When we were married,” she said, gently, “I had such a great interest
in things, such a great belief in life. I had lived in politics, and I
was marrying one of the coming men--everybody said you were one of the
coming men--I scarcely felt there was anything left to ask for. You
didn't make very ardent love,” she smiled, “but I think I had forgotten
about love. I wanted nothing so much as to be like Lady Sarah--married
to a great man.” She paused, then went on more hurriedly: “For a while
things went right; then slowly things, went wrong. You got your--your
nerves.”

Loder changed his position with something of abruptness.

She misconstrued the action.

“Please don't think I want to be disagreeable,” she said, hastily. “I
don't. I'm only trying to make you understand why--why I lost heart.”

“I think I know,” Loder's voice broke in involuntarily. “Things got
worse--then still worse. You found interference useless. At last you
ceased to have a husband.”

“Until a week ago.” She glanced up quickly. Absorbed in her own
feelings, she had seen nothing extraordinary in his words.

But at hers, Loder changed color.

“It's the most incredible thing in the world,” she said. “It's quite
incredible, and yet I can't deny it. Against all my reason, all my
experience, all my inclination I seem to feel in the last week something
of what I felt at first.” She stopped with an embarrassed laugh. “It
seems that, as if by magic, life has been picked up where I dropped it
six years ago.” Again she stopped and laughed.

Loder was keenly uncomfortable, but he could think of nothing to say.

“It seemed to begin that night I dined with the Fraides,” she went
on. “Mr. Fraide talked so wisely and so kindly about many things. He
recalled all we had hoped for in you; and--and he blamed me a little.”
 She paused and laid her cup aside. “He said that when people have made
what they call their last effort, they should always make just one
effort more. He promised that if I could once persuade you to take an
interest in your work, he would do the rest. He said all that, and a
thousand other kinder things--and I sat and listened. But all the time I
thought of nothing but their uselessness. Before I left I promised to
do my best--but my thought was still the same. It was stronger than ever
when I forced myself to come up here--” She paused again, and glanced at
Loder's averted head. “But I came, and then--as if by conquering myself
I had compelled a reward, you seemed--you somehow seemed different. It
sounds ridiculous, I know.” Her voice was half amused, half deprecating.
“It wasn't a difference in your face, though I knew directly that you
were free from--nerves.” Again she hesitated over the word. “It was a
difference in yourself, in the things you said, more than in the way you
said them.” Once more she paused and laughed a little.

Loder's discomfort grew.

“But it didn't affect me then.” She spoke more slowly. “I wouldn't admit
it then. And the next day when we talked on the Terrace I still refused
to admit it--though I felt it more strongly than before. But I have
watched you since that day, and I know there is a change. Mr. Fraide
feels the same, and he is never mistaken. I know it's only nine or ten
days, but I've hardly seen you in the same mood for nine or ten hours in
the last three years.” She stopped, and the silence was expressive. It
seemed to plead for confirmation of her instinct.

Still Loder could find no response.

After waiting for a moment, she leaned forward in her chair and looked
up at him.

“John,” she said, “is it going to last? That's what I came to ask.
I don't want to believe till I'm sure; I don't want to risk a new
disappointment.” Loder felt the earnestness of her gaze, though he
avoided meeting it.

“I couldn't have said this to you a week ago, but to-day I can. I don't
pretend to explain why--the feeling is too inexplicable. I only
know that I can say it now, and that I couldn't a week ago. Will you
understand--and answer?”

Still Loder remained mute. His position was horribly incongruous. What
could he say? What dared he say?

Confused by his silence, Eve rose.

“If it's only a phase, don't try to hide it,” she said. “But if it's
going to last--if by any possibility it's going to last--” She hesitated
and looked up.

She was quite close to him. He would have been less than man had he been
unconscious of the subtle contact of her glance, the nearness of her
presence--and no one had ever hinted that manhood was lacking in him. It
was a moment of temptation. His own energy, his own intentions, seemed
so near; Chilcote and Chilcote's claims so distant and unreal. After
all, his life, his ambitions, his determinations, were his own. He
lifted his eyes and looked at her.

“You want me to tell you that I will go on?” he said.

Her eyes brightened; she took a step forward. “Yes,” she said, “I want
it more than anything in the world.”

There was a wait. The declaration that would satisfy her came to Loder's
lips, but he delayed it. The delay, was fateful. While he stood silent
the door opened and the servant who had brought in the tea reappeared.

He crossed the room and handed Loder a telegram. “Any answer, sir?” he
said.

Eve moved back to her chair. There was a flush on her cheeks and her
eyes were still alertly bright.

Loder tore the telegram open, read it, then threw it Into the fire.

“No answer!” he said, laconically.

At the brusqueness of his voice, Eve looked up. “Disagreeable news?” she
said, as the servant departed.

He didn't look at her. He was watching the telegram withering in the
centre of the fire.

“No,” he said at last, in a strained voice. “No. Only news that I--that
I had forgotten to expect.”




XI


There was a silence--an uneasy break--after Loder spoke. The episode
of the telegram was, to all appearances, ordinary enough, calling forth
Eve's question and his own reply as a natural sequence; yet in the pause
that followed it each was conscious of a jar, each was aware that in
some subtle way the thread of sympathy had been dropped, though to one
the cause was inexplicable and to the other only too plain.

Loder watched the ghost of his message grow whiter and thinner, then
dissolve into airy fragments and flutter up the chimney. As the last
morsel wavered out of sight, he turned and looked at his companion.

“You almost made me commit myself,” he said. In the desire to hide his
feelings his tone was short.

Eve returned his glance with a quiet regard, but he scarcely saw it.
He had a stupefied sense of disaster; a feeling of bitter
self-commiseration that for the moment outweighed all other
considerations. Almost at the moment of justification the good of life
had crumbled in his fingers, the soil given beneath his feet, and with
an absence of logic, a lack of justice unusual in him, he let resentment
against Chilcote sweep suddenly over his mind.

Eve, still watching him, saw the darkening of his expression, and with a
quiet movement rose from her chair.

“Lady Sarah has a theatre-party to-night, and I am dining with her,” she
said. “It is an early dinner, so I must think about dressing. I'm sorry
you think I tried to draw you into anything. I must have explained
myself badly.” She laughed a little, to cover the slight discomfiture
that her tone betrayed, and as she laughed she moved across the room
towards the door.

Loder, engrossed in the check to his own schemes, incensed at the
suddenness of Chilcote's recall, and still more incensed at his own
folly in not having anticipated it, was oblivious for the moment of
both her movement and her words. Then, quite abruptly, they obtruded
themselves upon him, breaking through his egotism with something of the
sharpness of pain following a blow. Turning quickly from the
fireplace, he faced the shadowy room across which she had passed, but
simultaneously with his turning she gained the door.

The knowledge that she was gone struck him with a sense of double
loss. “Wait!” he called, suddenly moving forward. But almost at once he
paused, chilled by the solitude of the room.

“Eve!” he said, using her name unconsciously for the first time.

But the corridor, as well as the room, was empty; he was too late.
He stood irresolute; then he laughed shortly, turned, and passed back
towards the fireplace.

The blow had fallen, the inevitable come to pass, and nothing remained
but to take the fact with as good a grace as possible. Chilcote's
telegram had summoned him to Clifford's Inn at seven o'clock, and it was
now well on towards six. He pulled out his watch--Chilcote's watch he
realized, with a touch of grim humor as he stooped to examine the dial
by the light of the fire; then, as if the humor had verged to another
feeling, he stood straight again and felt for the electric button in the
wall. His fingers touched it, and simultaneously the room was lighted.

The abrupt alteration from shadow to light came almost as a shock. The
feminine arrangement of the tea-table seemed incongruous beside the
sober books and the desk laden with papers--incongruous as his own
presence in the place. The thought was unpleasant, and he turned aside
as if to avoid it; but at the movement his eyes fell on Chilcote's
cigarette-box with its gleaming monogram, and the whimsical suggestion
of his first morning rose again. The idea that the inanimate objects in
the room knew him for what he was--recognized the interloper where human
eyes saw the rightful possessor--returned to his mind. Through all his
disgust and chagrin a smile forced itself to his lips, and, crossing the
room for the second time, he passed into Chilcote's bedroom.

There the massive furniture and sombre atmosphere fitted better with
his mood than the energy and action which the study always suggested.
Walking directly to the great bed, he sat on its side and for several
minutes stared straight in front of him, apparently seeing nothing;
then at last the apathy passed from him, as his previous anger against
Chilcote had passed. He stood up slowly, drawing his long limbs
together, and recrossed the room, passing along the corridor and through
the door communicating with the rest of the house. Five minutes later he
was in the open air and walking steadily eastward, his hat drawn forward
and his overcoat buttoned up.

As he traversed the streets he allowed himself no thought, Once, as he
waited in Trafalgar Square to find a passage between the vehicles, the
remembrance of Chilcote's voice coming out of the fog on their first
night made itself prominent, but he rejected it quickly, guarding
himself from even an involuntary glance at the place of their meeting.
The Strand, with its unceasing life, came to him as something almost
unfamiliar. Since his identification with the new life no business had
drawn him east of Charing Cross, and his first sight of the narrower
stream of traffic struck him as garish and unpleasant. As the impression
came he accelerated his steps, moved by the wish to make regret and
retrospection alike impossible by a contact with actual forces.

Still walking hastily, he entered Clifford's Inn, but there almost
unconsciously his feet halted. There was something in the quiet
immutability of the place that sobered energy, both mental and physical.
A sense of changelessness--the changelessness of inanimate things, that
rises in such solemn contrast to the variableness of mere human nature,
which a new environment, a new outlook, sometimes even a new presence,
has power to upheave and remould. He paused; then with slower and
steadier steps crossed the little court and mounted the familiar stairs
of his own house.

As he turned the handle of his own door some one stirred inside the
sitting-room. Still under the influence of the stones and trees that he
had just left, he moved directly towards the sound, and, without waiting
for permission, entered the room. After the darkness of the passage it
seemed well alight, for, besides the lamp with its green shade, a large
fire burned in the grate and helped to dispel the shadows.

As he entered the room Chilcote rose and came forward, his figure thrown
into strong relief by the double light. He was dressed in a shabby tweed
suit; his face looked pale and set with a slightly nervous tension, but
besides the look and a certain added restlessness of glance there was no
visible change. Reaching Loder, he held out his hand.

“Well?” he said, quickly.

The other looked at him questioningly.

“Well? Well? How has it gone?”

“The scheme? Oh, excellently!” Loder's manner was abrupt. Turning from
the restless curiosity in Chilcote's eyes, he moved a little way across
the room and began to draw off his coat. Then, as if struck by the
incivility of the action, he looked back again. “The scheme has gone
extraordinarily,” he said. “I could almost say absurdly. There are some
things, Chilcote, that fairly bowl a man over.”

A great relief tinged Chilcote's face. “Good!” he exclaimed. “Tell me
all about it.”

But Loder was reticent. The moment was not propitious. It was as if
a hungry man had dreamed a great banquet and had awakened to his
starvation. He was chary of imparting his visions.

“There's nothing to tell,” he said, shortly. “All that you'll want
to know is here in black and white. I don't think you'll find I have
slipped anything; it's a clear business record.” From an inner pocket
he drew out a bulky note-book, and, recrossing the room, laid it open on
the table. It was a correct, even a minute, record of every action that
had been accomplished in Chilcote's name. “I don't think you'll find any
loose ends,” he said, as he turned back the pages. “I had you and your
position in my mind all through.” He paused and glanced up from the
book. “You have a position that absolutely insists upon attention,” he
added, in a different voice.

At the new tone Chilcote looked up as well. “No moral lectures!” he
said, with a nervous laugh. “I was anxious to know if you had pulled
it off--and you have reassured me. That's enough. I was in a funk
this afternoon to know how things were going-one of those sudden,
unreasonable funks. But now that I see you”--he cut himself short and
laughed once more “now that I see you, I'm hanged if I don't want to--to
prolong your engagement.”

Loder glanced at him, then glanced away. He felt a quick shame at
the eagerness that rose at the words--a surprised contempt at his own
readiness to anticipate the man's weakness. But almost as speedily as he
had turned away he looked back again.

“Tush, man!” he said, with his old, intolerant manner. “You're dreaming.
You've had your holiday and school's begun again. You must remember you
are dining with the Charringtons to-night. Young Charrington's coming of
age--quite a big business. Come along! I want my clothes.” He laughed,
and, moving closer to Chilcote, slapped him on the shoulder.

Chilcote started; then, suddenly becoming imbued with the other's
manner, he echoed the laugh.

“By Jove!” he said, “you're right! You're quite right! A man must keep
his feet in their own groove.” Raising his hand, he began to fumble with
his tie.

But Loder kept the same position. “You'll find the check-book in its
usual drawer,” he said. “I've made one entry of a hundred pounds--pay
for the first week. The rest can stand over until--” He paused abruptly.

Chilcote shifted his position. “Don't talk about that. It upsets me to
anticipate. I can make out a check to-morrow payable to John Loder.”

“No. That can wait. The name of Loder is better out of the book. We
can't be too careful.” Loder spoke with unusual impetuosity. Already
a slight, unreasonable jealousy was coloring his thoughts. Already
he grudged the idea of Chilcote with his unstable glance and restless
fingers opening the drawers and sorting the papers that for one
stupendous fortnight had been his without question. Turning aside, he
changed the subject brusquely.

“Come into the bedroom,” he said. “It's half-past seven if it's a
minute, and the Charringtons' show is at nine.” Without waiting for a
reply, he walked across the room and held the door open.

There was no silence while they exchanged clothes. Loder talked
continuously, sometimes in short, curt sentences, sometimes with ironic
touches of humor; he talked until Chilcote, strangely affected by
contact with another personality after his weeks of solitude, fell under
his influence--his excitement rising, his imagination stirring at the
novelty of change. At last, garbed once more in the clothes of his own
world, he passed from the bedroom back into the sitting-room, and there
halted, waiting for his companion.

Almost directly Loder followed. He came into the room quietly, and,
moving at once to the table, picked up the note-book.

“I'm not going to preach,” he began, “so you needn't shut me up. But
I'll say just one thing--a thing that will get said. Try and keep your
hold! Remember your responsibilities--and keep your hold!” He spoke
energetically, looking earnestly into Chilcote's eyes. He did not
realize it, but he was pleading for his own career.

Chilcote paled a little, as he always did in face of a reality. Then he
extended his hand.

“My dear fellow,” he said, with a touch of hauteur, “a man can generally
be trusted to look after his own life.”

Extricating his hand almost immediately, he turned towards the door and
without a word of farewell passed into the little hall, leaving Loder
alone in the sitting-room.




XII


On the night of Chilcote's return to his own, Loder tasted the lees of
life poignantly for the first time. Before their curious compact had
been entered upon he had been, if not content, at least apathetic; but
with action the apathy had been dispersed, never again to regain its old
position.

He realized with bitter certainty that his was no real home-coming. On
entering Chilcote's house he had experienced none of the unfamiliarity,
none of the unsettled awkwardness, that assailed him now. There he had
almost seemed the exile returning after many hardships; here, in the
atmosphere made common by years, he felt an alien. It was illustrative
of the man's character that sentimentalities found no place in his
nature. Sentiments were not lacking, though they lay out of sight, but
sentimentalities he altogether denied.

Left alone in the sitting-room after Chilcote's departure, his first
sensation was one of physical discomfort and unfamiliarity. His own
clothes, with their worn looseness, brought no sense of friendliness
such as some men find in an old garment. Lounging, and the clothes that
suggested lounging, had no appeal for him. In his eyes the garb that
implies responsibility was symbolic and even inspiring.

And, as with clothes, so with his actual surroundings. Each detail of
his room was familiar, but not one had ever become intimately close.
He had used the place for years, but he had used it as he might use a
hotel; and whatever of his household gods had come with him remained,
like himself, on sufferance. His entrance into Chilcote's surroundings
had been altogether different. Unknown to himself, he had been in the
position of a young artist who, having roughly modelled in clay, is
brought into the studio of a sculptor. To his outward vision everything
is new, but his inner sight leaps to instant understanding. Amid all
the strangeness he recognizes the one essential--the workshop, the
atmosphere, the home.

On this first night of return Loder comprehended something of his
position; and, comprehending, he faced the problem and fought with it.

He had made his bargain and must pay his share. Weighing this, he had
looked about his room with a quiet gaze. Then at last, as if finding the
object really sought for, his eyes had come round to the mantel-piece
and rested on the pipe-rack. The pipes stood precisely as he had left
them. He had looked at them for a long time, then an ironic expression
that was almost a smile had touched his lips, and, crossing the room,
he had taken the oldest and blackest from its place and slowly filled it
with tobacco.

With the first indrawn breath of smoke his attitude had unbent. Without
conscious determination, he had chosen the one factor capable of easing
his mood. A cigarette is for the trivial moments of life; a cigar for
its fulfilments, its pleasant, comfortable retrospections; but in real
distress--in the solving of question, the fighting of difficulty--a pipe
is man's eternal solace,

So he had passed the first night of his return to the actualities of
life. Next day his mind was somewhat settled and outward aid was not
so essential; but though facts faced him more solidly, they were
nevertheless very drab in shade. The necessity for work, that blessed
antidote to ennui, no longer forced him to endeavor. He was no longer
penniless; but the money, he possessed brought with it no desires. When
a man has lived from hand to mouth for years, and suddenly finds himself
with a hundred pounds in his pocket, the result is sometimes curious. He
finds with a vague sense of surprise that he has forgotten how to spend.
That extravagance, like other artificial passions, requires cultivation.

This he realized even more fully on the days that followed the night of
his first return; and with it was born a new bitterness. The man who has
friends and no money may find life difficult; but the man who has money
and no friend to rejoice in his fortune or benefit by his generosity is
aloof indeed. With the leaven of incredulity that works in all strong
natures, Loder distrusted the professional beggar--therefore the charity
that bestows easily and promiscuously was denied him; and of other
channels of generosity he was too self-contained to have learned the
secret.

When depression falls upon a man of usually even temperament it
descends with a double weight. The mercurial nature has a hundred
counterbalancing devices to rid itself of gloom--a sudden lifting
of spirit, a memory of other moods lived through, other blacknesses
dispersed by time; but the man of level nature has none of these.
Depression, when it comes, is indeed depression; no phase of mind to be
superseded by another phase, but a slackening of all the chords of life.

It was through such a depression as this that he labored during three
weeks, while no summons and no hint of remembrance came from Chilcote.
His position was peculiarly difficult. He found no action in the
present, and towards the future he dared not trust himself to look. He
had slipped the old moorings that familiarity had rendered endurable;
but having slipped them, he had found no substitute. Such was his case
on the last night of the three weeks, and such his frame of mind as he
crossed Fleet Street from Clifford's Inn to Middle Temple Lane.

It was scarcely seven o'clock, but already the dusk was falling; the
greater press of vehicles had ceased, and the light of the street lamps
gleamed back from the spaces of dry and polished roadway, worn smooth
as a mirror by wheels and hoofs. Something of the solitude of night that
sits so ill on the strenuous city street was making itself felt,
though the throngs of people on the pathway still streamed eastward and
westward and the taverns made a busy trade.

Having crossed the roadway, Loder paused for a moment to survey the
scene. But humanity in the abstract made small appeal to him, and his
glance wandered from the passers-by to the buildings massed like clouds
against the dark sky. As his gaze moved slowly from one to the other
a clock near at hand struck seven, and an instant later the chorus was
taken up by a dozen clamorous tongues. Usually he scarcely heard, and
never heeded, these innumerable chimes; but this evening their effect
was strange. Coming out of the darkness, they seemed to possess a
personal note, a human declaration. The impression was fantastic, but
it was strong; with a species of revolt against life and his own
personality, he turned slowly and moved forward in the direction of
Ludgate Hill.

For a space he continued his course, then, reaching Bouverie Street,
he turned sharply to the right and made his way down the slight incline
that leads to the Embankment. There he paused and drew a long breath.
The sense of space and darkness soothed him. Pulling his cap over
his eyes, he crossed to the river and walked on in the direction of
Westminster Bridge.

As he walked the great mass, of water by his side looked dense and
smooth as oil with its sweeping width and network of reflected light.
On its farther bank rose the tall buildings, the chimneys, the flaring
lights that suggest another and an alien London; close at hand stretched
the solid stone parapet, giving assurance of protection.

All these things he saw with his mental eyes, but with his mental
eyes only, for his physical gaze was fixed ahead where the Houses of
Parliament loomed out of the dusk. From the great building his eyes
never wavered until the Embankment was traversed and Westminster Bridge
reached. Then he paused, resting his arms on the coping of the bridge.

In the tense quietude of the darkness the place looked vast and
inspiring. The shadowy Terrace, the silent river, the rows of lighted
windows, each was significant. Slowly and comprehensively his glance
passed from one to the other. He was no sentimentalist and no dreamer;
his act was simply the act of a man whose interests, robbed of their
natural outlet, turn instinctively towards the forms and symbols of the
work that is denied them. His scrutiny was steady--even cold. He was
raised to no exaltation by the vastness of the building, nor was
he chilled by any dwarfing of himself. He looked at it long and
thoughtfully; then, again moving slowly, he turned and retraced his
steps.

His mind was full as he walked back, still oblivious of the stone
parapet of the Embankment, the bare trees, and the flaring lights of the
advertisements across the water. Turning to the left, he regained Fleet
Street and made for his own habitation with the quiet accuracy that some
men exhibit in moments of absorption.

He crossed Clifford's Inn with the same slow, almost listless step;
then, as his own doorway came into view, he stopped. Some one was
standing in its recess.

For a moment he wondered if his fancy were playing him a trick; then his
reason sprang to certainty with so fierce a leap that for an instant his
mind recoiled. For we more often stand aghast at the strength of our own
feelings than before the enormity of our neighbor's actions.

“Is that you, Chilcote?” he said, below his breath.

At the sound of his voice the other wheeled round. “Hallo!” he said. “I
thought you were the ghost of some old inhabitant. I suppose I am very
unexpected?”

Loder took the hand that he extended and pressed the fingers
unconsciously. The sight of this man was like the finding of an oasis at
the point where the desert is sandiest, deadliest, most unbearable.

“Yes, you are--unexpected,” he answered.

Chilcote looked at him, then looked out into the court. “I'm done up,”
 he said. “I'm right at the end of the tether.” He laughed as he said it,
but in the dim light of the hall Loder thought his face looked ill
and harassed despite the flush that the excitement of the meeting had
brought to it. Taking his arm, he drew him towards the stairs.

“So the rope has run out, eh?” he said, in imitation of the other's
tone. But under the quiet of his manner his own nerves were throbbing
with the peculiar alertness of anticipation; a sudden sense of mastery
over life, that lifted him above surroundings and above persons--a sense
of stature, mental and physical, from which he surveyed the world. He
felt as if fate, in the moment of utter darkness, had given him a sign.

As they crossed the hall, Chilcote had drawn away and was already
mounting the stairs. And as Loder followed, it came sharply to his mind
that here, in the slipshod freedom of a door that was always open and
stairs that were innocent of covering, lay his companion's real
niche--unrecognized in outward avowal, but acknowledged by the inward,
keener sense that manifests the individual.

In silence they mounted the stairs, but on the first landing Chilcote
paused and looked back, surveying Loder from the superior height of two
steps.

“I did very well at first,” he said. “I did very well--I almost
followed your example, for a week or so. I found myself on a sort of
pinnacle--and I clung on. But in the last ten days I've--I've rather
lapsed.”

“Why?” Loder avoided looking at his face; he kept his eyes fixed
determinately on the spot where his own hand gripped the banister.

“Why?” Chilcote repeated. “Oh, the prehistoric tale--weakness stronger
than strength. I'm-I'm sorry to come down on you like this, but it's the
social side that bowls me over. It's the social side I can't stick.”

“The social side? But I thought--”

“Don't think. I never think; it entails such a constant upsetting of
principles and theories. We did arrange for business only, but one
can't set up barriers. Society pushes itself everywhere nowadays--into
business most of all. I don't want you for theatre-parties or dinners.
But a big reception with a political flavor is different. A man has to
be seen at these things; he needn't say anything or do anything, but
it's bad form if he fails to show up.”

Loder raised his head. “You must explain,” he said, abruptly.

Chilcote started slightly at the sudden demand.

“I--I suppose I'm rather irrelevant,” he said, quickly. “Fact is,
there's a reception at the Bramfells' to-night. You know Blanche
Bramfell--Viscountess Bramfell, sister to Lillian Astrupp.” His
words conveyed nothing to Loder, but he did not consider that. All
explanations were irksome to him and he invariably chafed to be done
with them.

“And you've got to put in an appearance--for party reasons?” Loder broke
in.

Chilcote showed relief. “Yes. Old Fraide makes rather a point of it--so
does Eve.” He said the last words carelessly; then, as if their sound
recalled something, his expression changed. A touch of satirical
amusement touched his lips and he laughed.

“By-the-way, Loder,” he said, “my wife was actually tolerant of me for
nine or ten days after my return. I thought your representation was to
be quite impersonal? I'm not jealous,” he laughed. “I'm not jealous, I
assure you; but the burned child shouldn't grow absentminded.”

At his tone and his laugh Loder's blood stirred; with a sudden,
unexpected impulse his hand tightened on the banister, and, looking up,
he caught sight of the face above him--his own face, it seemed, alight
with malicious interest. At the sight a strange sensation seized him;
his grip on the banister loosened, and, pushing past Chilcote, he
hurriedly mounted the stairs.

Outside his own door the other overtook him.

“Loder!” he said. “Loder! I meant no harm. A man must have a laugh
sometimes.”

But Loder was facing the door and did not turn round.

A sudden fear shook Chilcote. “Loder!” he exclaimed again, “you wouldn't
desert me? I can't go back to-night. I can't go back.”

Still Loder remained immovable.

Alarmed by his silence, Chilcote stepped closer to him.

“Loder! Loder, you won't desert me?” He caught hastily at his arm.

With a quick repulsion Loder shook him off; then almost as quickly he
turned round.

“What fools we all are!” he said, abruptly. “We, only differ in degree.
Come in, and let us change our clothes.”




XIII


The best moments of a man's life are the moments when, strong in
himself, he feels that the world lies before him. Gratified ambition
may be the summer, but anticipation is the ardent spring-time of a man's
career.

As Loder drove that night frown Fleet Street to Grosvenor Square he
realized this--though scarcely with any degree of consciousness--for he
was no accomplished self-analyst. But in a wave of feeling too vigorous
to be denied he recognized his regained foothold--the step that lifted
him at once from the pit to the pinnacle.

In that moment of realization he looked neither backward nor forward.
The present was all-sufficing. Difficulties might loom ahead, but
difficulties had but one object--the testing and sharpening of a man's
strength. In the first deep surge of egotistical feeling he almost
rejoiced in Chilcote's weakness. The more Chilcote tangled the threads
of his life, the stronger must be the fingers that unravelled them. He
was possessed by a great impatience; the joy of action was stirring in
his blood.

Leaving the cab, he walked confidently to the door of Chilcote's house
and inserted the latch-key. Even in this small act there was a grain
of individual satisfaction. Then very quietly he opened the door and
crossed the hall.

As he entered, a footman was arranging the fire that burned in the big
grate. Seeing the man, he halted.

“Where is your mistress?” he asked, in unconscious repetition of his
first question in the same house.

The man looked up. “She has just finished dinner, sir. She dined alone
in her own room.” He glanced at Loder in the quick, uncertain way that
was noticeable in all the servants of the household when they addressed
their master. Loder saw the look and wondered what depth of curiosity it
betrayed, how much of insight into the domestic life that he must always
be content to skim. For an instant the old resentment against Chilcote
tinged his exaltation, but he swept it angrily aside. Without further
remark he began to mount the stairs.

Gaining the landing, he did not turn as usual to the door that shut
off Chilcote's rooms, but moved onward down the corridor towards Eve's
private sitting-room. He moved slowly till the door was reached; then
he, paused and lifted his hand. There was a moment's wait while his
fingers rested on the handle; then a sensation he could not explain--a
reticence, a reluctance to intrude upon this one precinct--caused his,
fingers to relax. With a slightly embarrassed gesture he drew back
slowly and retraced his steps.

Once in Chilcote's bedroom, he walked to the nearest bell and pressed
it. Renwick responded, and at sight of him Loder's feelings warmed with
the same sense of fitness and familiarity that the great bed and sombre
furniture of the room had inspired.

But the man did not come forward as he had expected. He remained close
to the door with a hesitation that was unusual in a trained servant. It
struck Loder that possibly his stolidity had exasperated Chilcote, and
that possibly Chilcote had been at no pains to conceal the exasperation.
The idea caused him to smile involuntarily.

“Come into the room, Renwick,” he said. “It's uncomfortable to see you
standing there. I want to know if Mrs. Chilcote has sent me any message
about to-night.”

Renwick studied him furtively as he came forward. “Yes, sir,” he
said. “Mrs. Chilcote's maid said that the carriage was ordered for
ten-fifteen, and she hoped that would suit you.” He spoke reluctantly,
as if expecting a rebuke.

At the opening sentence Loder had turned aside, but now, as the man
finished, he wheeled round again and looked at him closely with his
keen, observant eyes.

“Look here,” he said. “I can't have you speak to me like that. I may
come down on you rather sharply when my--my nerves are bad; but when I'm
myself I treat you--well, I treat you decently, at any rate. You'll
have to learn to discriminate. Look at me now!” A thrill of risk and of
rulership passed through him as he spoke. “Look at me now! Do I look as
I looked this morning--or yesterday?”

The man eyed him half stupidly, half timidly.

“Well?” Loder insisted.

“Well, sir,” Renwick responded, with some slowness; “you look the
same--and you look different. A healthier color, perhaps, sir--and
the eye clearer.” He grew more confident under Loder's half-humorous,
half-insistent gaze. “Now that I look closer, sir--”

Loder laughed. “That's it!” he said. “Now that you look closer. You'll
have to grow observant: observation is an excellent quality in a
servant. Wheat you come into a room in future, look first of all at
me--and take your cue from that. Remember that serving a man with nerves
is like serving two masters. Now you can go; and tell Mrs. Chilcote's
maid that I shall be quite ready at a quarter-past ten.”

“Yes, sir. And after that?”

“Nothing further. I sha'n't want you again to-night.” He turned away as
he spoke, and moved towards the great fire that was always kept alight
in Chilcote's room. But as the man moved towards the door he wheeled
back again. “Oh, one thing more, Renwick! Bring me some sandwiches and
a whiskey.” He remembered for the first time that he had eaten nothing
since early afternoon.

At a few minutes after ten Loder left Chilcote's room, resolutely
descended the stairs, and took up his position in the hall. Resolution
is a strong word to apply to such a proceeding, but something in his
bearing, in the attitude of his shoulders and head, instinctively
suggested it.

Five or six minutes passed, but he waited without impatience; then at
last the sound of a carriage stopping before the house caused him to
lift his head, and at the same instant Eve appeared at the head of the
staircase.

She stood there for a second, looking down on him, her maid a pace or
two behind, holding her cloak. The picture she made struck upon his mind
with something of a revelation.

On his first sight of her she had appealed to him as a strange blending
of youth and self-possession--a girl with a woman's clearer perception
of life; later he had been drawn to study her in other aspects--as a
possible comrade and friend; now for the first time he saw her as a
power in her own world, a woman to whom no man could deny consideration.
She looked taller for the distance between them, and the distinction
of her carriage added to the effect. Her black gown was exquisitely
soft--as soft as her black hair; above her forehead was a cluster of
splendid diamonds shaped like a coronet, and a band of the same stones
encircled her neck. Loder realized in a glance that only the most
distinguished of women could wear such ornaments and not have her beauty
eclipsed. With a touch of the old awkwardness that had before assailed
him in her presence, he came slowly forward as she descended the stairs.

“Can I help you with your cloak?” he asked. And as he asked it,
something like surprise at his own timidity crossed his mind.

For a second Eve's glance rested on his face. Her expression was quite
impassive, but as she lowered her lashes a faint gleam flickered
across her eyes; nevertheless, her answer, when it came, was studiously
courteous.

“Thank you,” she said, “but Marie will do all I want.”

Loder looked at her for a moment, then turned aside. He was not hurt by
his rebuff; rather, by an interesting sequence of impressions, he was
stirred by it. The pride that had refused Chilcote's help, and the
self-control that had refused it graciously, moved him to admiration. He
understood and appreciated both by the light of person experience.

“The carriage is waiting, sir,” Crapham's voice broke in.

Loder nodded, and Eve turned to her maid. “That will do, Marie,” she
said. “I shall want a cup of chocolate when I get back--probably at one
o clock.” She drew her cloak about her shoulders and moved towards the
door. Then she paused and looked back. “Shall we start?” she asked,
quietly.

Loder, still watching her, came forward at once. “Certainly,” he said,
with unusual gentleness.

He followed her as she crossed the footpath, but made no further offer
of help; and when the moment came he quietly took his place beside her
in the carriage. His last impression, as the horses wheeled round, was
of the open hall door--Crapham in his sombre livery and the maid in her
black dress, both silhouetted against the dark background of the hall;
then, as the carriage moved forward smoothly and rapidly, he leaned back
in his seat and closed his eyes.

During the first few moments of the drive there was silence. To Loder
there was a strange, new sensation in this companionship, so close and
yet so distant. He was so near to Eve that the slight fragrant scent
from her clothes might almost have belonged to his own. The impression
was confusing yet vaguely delightful. It was years since he had been so
close to a woman of his own class--his own caste. He acknowledged the
thought with a curious sense of pleasure. Involuntarily he turned and
looked at her.

She was sitting very straight, her fine profile cut clear against the
carriage window, her diamonds quivering in the light that flashed
by them from the street. For a space the sense of unreality that had
pervaded his first entrance into Chilcote's life touched him again, then
another and more potent feeling rose to quell it. Almost involuntarily
as he looked at her his lips parted.

“May I say something?” he asked.

Eve remained motionless. She did not turn her head, as most women would
have done. “Say anything you like,” she said, gravely.

“Anything?” He bent a little nearer, filled again by the inordinate wish
to dominate.

“Of course.”

It seemed to him that her voice sounded forced and a little tired. For
a moment he looked through the window at the passing lights; then slowly
his gaze returned to her face.

“You look very beautiful to-night,” he said. His voice was low and his
manner unemotional, but his words had the effect he desired.

She turned her head, and her eyes met his in a glance of curiosity and
surprise.

Slight as the triumph was, it thrilled him. The small scene with
Chilcote's valet came back to him; his own personality moved him
again to a reckless determination to make his own voice heard. Leaning
forward, he laid his hand lightly on her arm.

“Eve,” he said, quickly--“Eve, do you remember?” Then he paused
and withdrew his hand. The horses had slackened speed, then stopped
altogether as the carriage fell into line outside Bramfell House.




XIV


Loder entered Lady Bramfell's feeling far more like an actor in a drama
than an ordinary man in a peculiar situation. It was the first time he
had played Chilcote to a purely social audience, and the first time
for many years that he had rubbed shoulders with a well-dressed crowd
ostensibly brought together for amusement. As he followed Eve along the
corridor that led to the reception-rooms he questioned the reality of
the position again and again; then abruptly, at the moment when the
sensation of unfamiliarity was strongest, a cheery voice hailed him,
and, turning, he saw the square shoulders, light eyes, and pointed
mustache of Lakeley, the owner of the 'St. George's Gazette'.

At the sight of the man and the sound of his greeting his doubts and
speculations vanished. The essentials of life rose again to the position
they had occupied three weeks ago, in the short but strenuous period
when his dormant activities had been stirred and he had recognized his
true self. He lifted his head unconsciously, the shade of misgiving that
had crossed his confidence passing from him as he smiled at Lakeley with
a keen, alert pleasure that altered his whole face.

Eve, looking back, saw the expression. It attracted and held her, like a
sudden glimpse into a secret room. In all the years of her marriage, in
the months of her courtship even, she had never surprised the look on
Chilcote's face. The impression came quickly, and with it a strange,
warm rush of interest that receded slowly, leaving an odd sense of
loneliness. But, at the moment that the feeling came and passed, her
attention was claimed in another direction. A slight, fair-haired boy
forced his way towards her through the press of people that filled the
corridor.

“Mrs. Chilcote!” he exclaimed. “Can I believe my luck in finding you
alone?”

Eve laughed. It seemed that there was relief in her laugh. “How absurd
you are, Bobby!” she said, kindly. “But you are wrong. My husband is
here--I am waiting for him.”

Blessington looked round. “Oh!” he said. “Indeed!” Then he relapsed into
silence. He was the soul of good-nature, but those who knew him best
knew that Chilcote's summary change of secretaries had rankled. Eve,
conscious of the little jar, made haste to smooth it away.

“Tell me about yourself,” she said. “What have you been doing?”

Blessington looked at her, then smiled again, his buoyancy restored.
“Doing?” he said. “Oh, calling every other afternoon at Grosvenor
Square--only to find that a certain lady is never at home.”

At his tone Eve laughed again. The boy, with his frank and ingenuous
nature, had beguiled many a dull hour for her in past days, and she had
missed him not a little when his place had been filled by Greening.

“But I mean seriously, Bobby. Has something good turned up?”

Blessington made a wry face “Something is on its way--that's why I am on
duty to-right. Old Bramfell and the pater are working it between
them. So if Lady Bramfell or Lady Astrupp happen to drop a fan or a
handkerchief this evening, I've got to be here to pick it up. See?”

“As you picked up my fans and handkerchiefs last year--and the year
before?” Eve smiled.

Blessington's face suddenly looked grave. “I wish you hadn't said that,”
 he said. Then he paused abruptly. Out of the hum of talk behind them a
man's laugh sounded. It was not loud, but it was a laugh that one seldom
hears in a London drawing-room--it expressed interest, amusement, and in
an inexplicable may it seemed also to express strength.

Eve and Blessington both turned involuntarily.

“By Jove!” said Blessington

Eve said nothing.

Loder was parting with Lakely, and his was the laugh that had attracted
them both. The interest excited by his talk was still reflected in his
face and bearing as he made his way towards them.

“By Jove!” said Blessington again. “I never realized that Chilcote was
so tall.”

Again Eve said nothing. But silently and with a more subtle meaning she
found herself echoing the words.

Until he was quite close to her, Loder did not seem to see her. Then he
stopped quietly.

“I was speaking to Lakely,” he said. “He wants me to dine with him one
night at Cadogan Gardens.”

But Eve was silent, waiting for him to address Blessington. She glanced
at him quickly, but though their eyes met he did not catch the
meaning that lay in hers. It was a difficult moment. She had known him
incredibly, almost unpardonably, absent-minded, but it had invariably
been when he was “suffering from nerves,” as she phrased it to herself.
But to-night he was obviously in the possession of unclouded faculties.
She colored slightly and glanced under her lashes at Blessington. Had
the same idea struck him, she wondered? But he was studiously studying a
suit of Chinese armor that stood close by in a niche of the wall.

“Bobby has been keeping me amused while you talked to Mr. Lakely,” she
said, pointedly.

Directly addressed, Loder turned and looked at Blessington. “How d'you
do?” he said, with doubtful cordiality. The name of Bobby conveyed
nothing to him.

To his surprise, Eve looked annoyed, and Blessington's fresh-colored
face deepened in tone. With a slow, uncomfortable sensation he was aware
of having struck a wrong note.

There was a short, unpleasant pause. Then, more by intuition than actual
sight, Blessington saw Eve's eyes turn from him to Loder, and with quick
tact he saved the situation.

“How d'you do, sir?” he responded, with a smile. “I congratulate you on
looking so--so uncommon well. I was just telling Mrs. Chilcote that
I hold a commission for Lady Astrupp to-night. I'm a sort of scout at
present--reporting on the outposts.” He spoke fast and without much
meaning, but his boyish voice eased the strain.

Eve thanked him with a smile. “Then we mustn't interfere with a person
on active service,” she said. “Besides, we have our own duties to get
through.”

She smiled again, and, touching Loder's arm, indicated the
reception-rooms.

When they entered the larger of the two rooms Lady Bramfell was still
receiving her guests. She was a tall and angular woman, who, except for
a certain beauty of hands and feet and a certain similarity of voice,
possessed nothing in common with her sister Lillian. She was speaking to
a group of people as they approached, and the first sound of her
sweet and rather drawling tones touched Loder with a curious momentary
feeling--a vague suggestion of awakened memories. Then the suggestion
vanished as she turned and greeted Eve.

“How sweet of you to come!” she murmured. And it seemed to Loder that a
more spontaneous smile lighted up her face. Then she extended her hand
to him. “And you, too!” she added. “Though I fear we shall bore you
dreadfully.”

Watching her with interest, he saw the change of expression as her eyes
turned from Eve to him, and noticed a colder tone in her voice as she
addressed him directly. The observation moved him to self-assertion.

“That's a poor compliment to me,” he said “To be bored is surely only a
polite way of being inane.”

Lady Bramfell smiled. “What!” she exclaimed. “You defending your social
reputation?”

Loder laughed a little. “The smaller it is, the more defending it
needs,” he replied.

Another stream of arrivals swept by them as he spoke; Eve smiled at
their hostess and moved across the room, and he perforce followed. As he
gained her side, the little court about Lady Bramfell was left well in
the rear, the great throng at the farther end of the room was not yet
reached, and for the moment they were practically alone.

There was a certain uneasiness in that moment of companionship. It
seemed to him that Eve wished to speak, but hesitated. Once or twice she
opened and closed the fan that she was carrying, then at last, as if by
an effort, she turned and looked at him.

“Why were you so cold to Bobby Blessington?” she asked. “Doesn't it seem
discourteous to ignore him as you did?”

Her manner was subdued. It was not the annoyed manner that one uses to a
man when he has behaved ill; it was the explanatory tone one might adopt
towards an incorrigible child. Loder felt this; but the gist of a remark
always came to him first, its mode of expression later. The fact that
it was Blessington whom he had encountered--Blessington to whom he
had spoken with vague politeness--came to him with a sense of
unpleasantness. He was not to blame in the matter, nevertheless he
blamed himself. He was annoyed that, he should have made the slip in
Eve's presence.

They were moving forward, nearing the press of people in the second
room, when Eve spoke, and the fact filled him with an added sense of
annoyance. People smiled and bowed to her from every side; one woman
leaned forward as they passed and whispered something in her ear. Again
the sensation of futility and vexation filled him; again he realized
how palpable was the place she held in the world. Then, as his feelings
reached their height and speech seemed forced upon him, a small man with
a round face, catching a glimpse of Eve, darted from a circle of people
gathered in one of the windows and came quickly towards them.

With an unjust touch of irritation he recognized Lord Bramfell.

Again the sense of Eve's aloofness stung him as their host approached.
In another moment she would be lost to him among this throng of
strangers--claimed by them as by right.

“Eve--” he said, involuntarily and under his breath.

She half paused and turned towards him. “Yes?” she said; and he wondered
if it was his imagination that made the word sound slightly eager.

“About that matter of Blessington--” he began. Then he stopped, Bramfell
had reached them.

The little man came up smiling and with an outstretched hand. 

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/5422