MR. WADDINGTON OF WYCK

 BY MAY SINCLAIR

 1921

MR. WADDINGTON OF WYCK

I

1

Barbara wished she would come back. For the last hour Fanny Waddingtonhad kept on passing in and out of the room through the open door intothe garden, bringing in tulips, white, pink, and red tulips, for theflowered Lowestoft bowls, hovering over them, caressing them with herdelicate butterfly fingers, humming some sort of song to herself. 

The song mixes itself up with the Stores list Barbara was making: "Twodozen glass towels. Twelve pounds of Spratt's puppy biscuits. One dozengent. 's all-silk pyjamas, extra large size" ... "A-hoom--hoom, a-hoom--hoom" (that _Impromptu_ of Schubert's), and with the notesBarbara was writing: "Mrs. Waddington has pleasure in enclosing.... "Fanny Waddington would always have pleasure in enclosing something.... "A ho-om--boom, hoom, hee. " A sound so light that it hardly stirred thequiet of the room. If a butterfly could hum it would hum like FannyWaddington. 

Barbara Madden had not been two days at Lower Wyck Manor, and alreadyshe was at home there; she knew by heart Fanny's drawing-room with thelow stretch of the Tudor windows at each end, their lattices panelled bythe heavy mullions, the back one looking out on to the green gardenbordered with wallflowers and tulips; the front one on to the roundgrass-plot and the sundial, the drive and the shrubbery beyond, down thebroad walk that cut through it into the clear reaches of the park. Sheliked the interior, the Persian carpet faded to patches of grey and fawnand old rose, the port-wine mahogany furniture, the tables thrusting outthe brass claws of their legs, the latticed cabinets and bookcases, thechintz curtains and chair-covers, all red dahlias and powder-blueparrots on a cream-coloured ground. But when Fanny wasn't there youcould feel the room ache with the emptiness she left. 

Barbara ached. She caught herself listening for Fanny Waddington's feeton the flagged path and the sound of her humming. As she waited shelooked up at the picture over the bureau in the recess of thefireplace, the portrait in oils of Horatio Bysshe Waddington, Fanny'shusband. 

He was seated, heavily seated with his spread width and folded height, in one of the brown-leather chairs of his library, dressed in a tweedcoat, putty-coloured riding breeches, a buff waistcoat, and a grey-bluetie. The handsome, florid face was lifted in a noble pose above thestiff white collar; you could see the full, slightly drooping lower lipunder the shaggy black moustache. There was solemnity in the thick, rounded salient of the Roman nose, in the slightly bulging eyes, and inthe almost imperceptible line that sagged from each nostril down thelong curve of the cheeks. This figure, one great thigh crossed on theother, was extraordinarily solid against the smoky background where theclipped black hair made a watery light. His eyes were not looking atanything in particular. Horatio Bysshe Waddington seemed to be absorbedin some solemn thought. 

His wife's portrait hung over the card-table in the other recess. 

Barbara hoped he would be nice; she hoped he would be interesting, sinceshe had to be his secretary. But, of course, he would be. Anybody soenchanting as Fanny could never have married him if he wasn't. Shewondered how she, Barbara Madden, would play her double part ofsecretary to him and companion to her. She had been secretary to othermen before; all through the war she had been secretary to somebody, butshe had never had to be companion to their wives. Perhaps it was a goodthing that Fanny, as she kept on reminding her, had "secured" her first. She was glad he wasn't there when she arrived and wouldn't be till theday after to-morrow (he had wired that morning to tell them); so that fortwo days more she would have Fanny to herself. 

2

"Well, what do you think of him?"

Fanny had come back into the room; she was hovering behind her. 

"I--I think he's jolly good-looking. "

"Well, you see, that was painted seventeen years ago. He was youngthen. "

"Has he changed much since?"

"Dear me, no, " said Fanny. "He hasn't changed at all. "

"No more have you, I think. "

"Oh, _me_--in seventeen years!"

She was still absurdly like her portrait, after seventeen years, withher light, slender body, poised for one of her flights, her quickmovements of butterfly and bird, with her small white face, the terriernose lifted on the moth-wing shadows of her nostrils, her dark-blueeyes, that gazed at you, close under the low black eyebrows, her brownhair that sprang in two sickles from the peak on her forehead, raking upto the backward curve of the chignon, a profile of cyclamen. And hermouth, the fine lips drawn finer by her enchanting smile. All thesefeatures set in such strange, sensitive unity that her mouth looked atyou and her eyes said things. No matter how long she lived she wouldalways be young. 

"Oh, my dear child, " she said, "you are so like your mother. "

"Am I? Were you afraid I wouldn't be?"

"A little, just a little afraid. I thought you'd be modern. "

"So I am. So was mother. "

"Not when I knew her. "

"Afterwards then. " A sudden thought came to Barbara. "Mrs. Waddington, if mother was your dearest friend why haven't you known me all thistime?"

"Your mother and I lost sight of each other before you were born. "

"Mother didn't want to. "

"Nor I. "

"Mother would have hated you to think she did. "

"I never thought it. She must have known I didn't. "

"Then why--"

"Did we lose sight?"

"Yes, why? People don't, if they can help it, if they care enough. Andmother cared. "

"You're a persistent little thing, aren't you? Are you trying to makeout that I didn't care?"

"I'm trying to make you see that mother did. "

"Well, my dear, we both cared, but we _couldn't_ help it. We married, and our husbands didn't hit it off. "

"Didn't they? And daddy was so nice. Didn't you know how nice he was?"

"Oh, yes. I knew. My husband was nice, too, Barbara; though you mightn'tthink it. "

"Oh, but I do. I'm sure he is. Only I haven't seen him yet. "

"So nice. But, " said Fanny, pursuing her own thought, "he never made ajoke in his life, and your father never _made_ anything else. "

"Daddy didn't 'make' jokes. They came to him. "

"I've seen them come. He never sent any of them away, no matter hownaughty they were, or how expensive. I used to adore his jokes.... ButHoratio didn't. He didn't like my adoring them, so you see--"

"I see. I wonder, " said Barbara, looking up at the portrait again, "what he's thinking about?"

"I used to wonder. "

"But you know now?"

"Yes, I know now, " Fanny said. 

"What'll happen, " said Barbara, "if _I_ make jokes?"

"Nothing. He'll never see them. "

"If he saw daddy's--"

"Oh, but he didn't. That was me. "

Barbara was thoughtful. "I daresay, " she said, "you won't keep me long. Supposing I can't do the work?"

"The _work_?" Fanny's eyes were interrogative and a little surprised, asthough they were saying, "Who said work? What work?"

"Well, Mr. Waddington's work. I've got to help him with his book, haven't I?"

"Oh, his book, yes. _When_ he's writing it. He isn't always. Does helook, " said Fanny, "like a man who'd always be writing a book?"

"No. I can't say he does, exactly. " (What _did_ he look like?)

"Well, then, it'll be all right. I mean _we_ shall be. "

"I only wondered whether I could really do what he wants. "

"If Ralph could, " said Fanny, "you can. "

"Who's Ralph?"

"Ralph is my cousin. He _was_ Horatio's secretary. "

"_Was_. " Barbara considered it. "Did _he_ make jokes, then?"

"Lots. But that wasn't why he left.... It was an awful pity, too;because he's most dreadfully hard up. "

"If he's hard up, " Barbara said, "I couldn't bear to think I've done himout of a job. "

"You haven't. He had to go. "

Fanny turned again to her flowers and Barbara to her Stores list. 

"Are you sure, " Fanny said suddenly, "you put 'striped'?"

"Striped? The pyjamas? No, I haven't. "

"Then, for goodness' sake, put it. Supposing they sent those awfulFuturist things; why, he'd frighten me into fits. Can't you see Horatiostalking in out of his dressing-room, all magenta blobs and forkedlightning?"

"I haven't seen him at all yet, " said Barbara. 

"Well, you wait.... Does my humming annoy you?"

"Not a bit. I like it. It's such a happy sound. "

"I always do it, " said Fanny, "when I'm happy. "

You could hear feet, feet in heavy soled boots, clanking on the drivethat ringed the grass-plot and the sundial; the eager feet of a youngman. Fanny turned her head, listening. 

"There _is_ Ralph, " she said. "Come in, Ralph!"

The young man stood in the low, narrow doorway, filling it with hisslender height and breadth. He looked past Fanny, warily, into the farcorner of the room, and when his eyes found Barbara at her bureau theysmiled. 

"Oh, _come_ in, " Fanny said. "He isn't here. He won't be till Friday. This is Ralph Bevan, Barbara; and this is Barbara Madden, Ralph. "

He bowed, still smiling, as if he saw something irrepressibly amusing inher presence there. 

"Yes, " said Fanny to the smile. "Your successor. "

"I congratulate you, Miss Madden. "

"Don't be an ironical beast. She's just said she couldn't bear to thinkshe'd done you out of your job. "

"Well, I couldn't, " said Barbara. 

"That's very nice of you. But you didn't do me out of anything. It wasthe act of God. "

"It was Horatio's act. Not that Miss Madden meant any reflection on hisjustice and his mercy. "

"I don't know about his justice, " Ralph said. "But he was absolutelymerciful when he fired me out. "

"Is it so awfully hard then?" said Barbara. 

"You may not find it so. "

"Oh, but I'm going to be Mrs. Waddington's companion, too. "

"You'll be all right then. They wouldn't let _me_ be that. "

"He means you'll be safe, dear. You won't be fired out whateverhappens. "

"Whatever sort of secretary I am?"

"Yes. She can be any sort she likes, in reason, can't she?"

"She can't be a worse one than I was, anyhow. "

Barbara was aware that he had looked at her, a long look, halfthoughtful, half amused, as if he were going to say something different, something that would give her a curious light on herself, and hadthought better of it. 

Fanny Waddington was protesting. "My dear boy, it wasn't forincompetence. She's simply dying to know what you _did_ do. "

"You can tell her. "

"He wanted to write Horatio's book for him, and Horatio wouldn't lethim. That was all. "

"Oh, well, _I_ shan't want to write it, " Barbara said. 

"We thought perhaps you wouldn't, " said Fanny. 

But Barbara had turned to her bureau, affecting a discreet absorption inher list. And presently Ralph Bevan went out into the garden with Fannyto gather more tulips. 

II

1

She _had_ been dying to know what he had done, but now, after Ralph hadstayed to lunch and tea and dinner that first day, after he had spentall yesterday at the Manor, and after he had turned up to-day at teno'clock in the morning, Barbara thought she had made out the history, though they had been very discreet and Fanny had insisted on reading"Tono-Bungay" out loud half the time. 

Ralph, of course, was in love with his cousin Fanny. To be sure, shemust be at least ten years older than he was, but that wouldn't matter. And, of course, it was rather naughty of him, but then again, verylikely he couldn't help it. It had just come on him when he wasn'tthinking; and who could help being in love with Fanny? You could be inlove with people quite innocently and hopelessly. There was no sin wherethere wasn't any hope. 

And perhaps Fanny was innocently, ever so innocently, in love with him;or, if she wasn't, Horatio thought she was, which came to much the samething; so that anyhow poor Ralph had to go. The explanation they hadgiven, Barbara thought, was rather thin, not quite worthy of theiradmirable intelligence. 

It was Friday, Barbara's fifth day. She was walking home with RalphBevan through the Waddingtons' park, down the main drive that led fromWyck-on-the-Hill to Lower Wyck Manor. 

It wouldn't be surprising, she thought, if Fanny were in love with hercousin; he was, as she put it to herself, so distinctly"fallable-in-love-with. " She could see Fanny surrendering, first to hissudden laughter, his quick, delighted mind, his innocent, engagingfrankness. He would, she thought, be endlessly amusing, endlesslyinteresting, because he was so interested, so amused. There wassomething that pleased her in the way he walked, hatless, his headthrown back, his shoulders squared, his hands thrust into his coatpockets, safe from gesture; something in the way he spun round in hispath to face her with his laughter. He had Fanny's terrier nose with theghost of a kink in it; his dark hair grew back in a sickle on eachtemple; it wouldn't lie level and smooth like other people's, but sprangup, curled from the clipping. His eyes were his own, dappled eyes, greenand grey, black and brown, sparkling; so was his mouth, which wasneither too thin nor too thick--determination in the thrusting curve ofthat lower lip--and his chin, which was just a shade too big for it, ashade too big for his face. His cheeks were sunburnt, and a littleshower of ochreish freckles spread from the sunburn and peppered theslopes of his nose. She wanted to sketch him. 

"Doesn't Mrs. Waddington ever go for walks?" she said. 

"Fanny? No. She's too lazy. "

"Lazy?"

"Too active, if you like, in other ways.... How long have you knownher?"

"Just five days. "

"Five _days_?"

"Yes; but, you see, years ago she was my mother's dearest friend. That'show I came to be their secretary. When she saw my name in theadvertisement she thought it must be me. And it was me. They hadn't seeneach other for years and years. My father and Mr. Waddington didn't hitit off together, I believe. "

"You haven't seen him yet?"

"No. There seems to be some mystery about him. "

"Mystery?"

"Yes. What is it? Or mayn't you tell?"

"I _won't_ tell. It wouldn't be kind. "

"Then don't--don't. I didn't know it was that sort of thing. "

Ralph laughed. "It isn't. I meant it wouldn't be kind to you. I don'twant to spoil him for you. "

"Then there _is_--tell me one thing: Shall I get on with him all right?"

"Don't ask me _that_. "

"I mean, will he be awfully difficult to work with?"

"Because he sacked me? No. Only you mustn't let on that you know betterthan he does. And if you want to keep your job, you mustn't contradicthim. "

"Now you've made me want to contradict him. Whatever he says I shallhave to say the other thing whether I agree with him or not. "

"Don't you think you could temporize a bit? For her sake. "

"Did _you_ temporize?"

"Rather. I was as meek and servile as I knew how. "

"As you knew how. Do you think I shall know better?"

"Yes, you're a woman. You can get on the right side of him. Will you tryto, because of Fanny? I'm most awfully glad she's got you, and I wantyou to stay. Between you and me she has a very thin time withWaddington. "

"There it is. I know--I know--I _know_ I'm going to hate him. "

"Oh, no, you're not. You can't _hate_ Waddington. "

"_You_ don't?"

"Oh, Lord, no. I wouldn't mind him a bit, poor old thing, if he wasn'tFanny's husband. "

He had almost as good as owned it, almost put her in possession of theirsecret. She conceived it--his secret, Fanny's secret--as all innocenceon her part, all chivalry on his; tender and hopeless and pure. 

2

They had come to the white gate that led between the shrubberies and thegrass-plot with the yellow-grey stone house behind it. 

It was nice, she thought, of Fanny to make Mr. Bevan take her for theselong walks when she couldn't go with them; but Barbara felt all the timethat she ought to apologize to the young man for not being Fanny, especially when Mr. Waddington was coming back to-day by the three-fortytrain and this afternoon would be their last for goodness knew how long. And as they talked--about Ralph's life before the war and the jobs hehad lost because of it (he had been a journalist), and about Barbara'sjob at the War Office, and air raids and the games they both went infor, and their favourite authors and the room he had in the White HartInn at Wyck--as they talked, fluently, with the ease of oldacquaintances, almost of old friends, Barbara admired the beauty of Mr. Bevan's manners; you would have supposed that instead of suffering, ashe must be suffering, agonies of impatience and irritation, he had neverenjoyed anything in his life so much as this adventure that was justcoming to an end. 

He had opened the gate for her and now stood with his back to it, holding out his hand, saying "Good-bye. "

"Aren't you coming in?" she said. "Mrs. Waddington expects you for tea. "

"No, " he said, "she doesn't. She knows I can't come if he's there. "

He paused. "By the way, that book of his, it's in an appalling muddle. Ihadn't time to do much to it before I left. If you can't get it straightyou must come to me and I'll help you. "

"That's very good of you. "

"Rather not. It _was_ my job, you know. "

He was backing through the gate, saluting as he went. And now he hadturned and was running with raking, athletic paces up the grass borderof the park. 

III

1

"Tea is in the library, miss. "

This announcement, together with Partridge's extraordinary increase ofimportance, would have told her that the master had returned, even ifshe had not seen, through the half-open door of the cloak-room, Mr. Waddington's overcoat hanging by its shoulders and surmounted by hisgrey slouch hat. 

With a rapid, furtive movement the butler closed the door on thesesanctities; and she noted the subdued quiet of his footsteps as he ledthe way down the dark oak-panelled corridor, through the smoke-room, andinto the library beyond. She also caught a surprising sight of her ownface in the glass over the smoke-room chimneypiece, her dark eyesshining, the cool, wind-beaten flush on her young cheeks, the curledmouth flowering, geranium red on rose white. 

This Barbara of the looking-glass smiled at her in passing with suchgay, irresponsible amusement that it fairly took her breath away. Itsorigin became clear to her as Ralph Bevan's words shot into her mind:"I don't want to spoil him for you. " She foresaw a possible intimacy inwhich Horatio Bysshe Waddington would become the unique thoughunofficial tie between them. She was aware that it pleased her to sharea secret jest with Ralph Bevan. 

She found Fanny established behind her tea-table in the low room, dimwith its oak panelling above the long lines of the bookcases, whereFanny's fluttering smile made movement and a sort of light. 

Her husband sat facing her in his brown leather chair and in the pose, the wonderful pose of his portrait; only the sobriety of his navy-blueserge had fined it down, giving him a factitious slenderness. He hadn'tseen her come in. He sat there in innocence and unawareness; andafterwards it gave her a little pang of remorse remembering how innocenthe had then seemed to her and unaware. 

"This is my husband, Barbara. Horatio, you haven't met Miss Madden. "

His eyes bulged with the startled innocence of a creature taken unaware. He had just lifted his face, with its dripping moustache, from histeacup, and though he carried off this awkwardness with an unabashedsweep of his pocket-handkerchief, you could see that he was sensitive;he hated you to catch him in any gesture that was less than noble. Allhis gestures were noble and his attitudes. He was noble as he got up, slowly, unfolding his great height, tightening by a movement of hisshoulders his great breadth. He looked down at her superbly and held outhis hand; it closed on hers in a large genial clasp. 

"So this is my secretary, is it?"

"Yes. And don't forget she's my companion as well as your secretary. "

"I never forget anything that you wish me to remember. " (Only he said"nevah" and "remembah"; he bowed as he said it in a very courtly way. )

Barbara noticed that his black hair and moustache were lightly grizzled, there was loose flesh about his eyelids, his chin had doubled, and hischeeks were sagging from the bone, otherwise he was exactly like hisportrait; these changes made him look, if anything, more incorruptiblydignified and more solemn. He had remained on his feet (for his breedingwas perfect), moving between the tea-table and Barbara, bringing hertea, milk and sugar, and things to eat. Altogether he was so simple, sogenial and unmysterious that Barbara could only suppose that Ralph hadbeen making fun of her, of her wonder, her curiosity. 

"My dear, what a colour you've got!"

Fanny put up her hands to her own cheeks to draw attention to Barbara's. "You _are_ growing a country girl, aren't you? You should have seen herwhite face when she came, Horatio. "

"What has she been doing to herself?" He had settled again into hischair and his attitude. 

"She's been out walking with Ralph. "

"With Ralph? Is _he_ here still?"

"Why shouldn't he be?"

Mr. Waddington shrugged his immense shoulders. "It's a question oftaste. If he _likes_ to hang about the place after his behaviour--"

"Poor boy! whatever has he done? 'Behaviour' makes it sound as if it hadbeen something awful. "

"We needn't go into it, I think. "

"But you _are_ going into it, darling, all the time. Do you mean to keepit up against him for ever?"

"I'm not keeping anything up. What Ralph Bevan does is no concern ofmine. Since I'm not to be inconvenienced by it--since Miss Madden hascome to my rescue so charmingly--I shall not give it another thought. "

He turned to Barbara as to a change of subject. "Had you anydifficulty"--(his voice was measured and important)--"in finding yourway here?"

"None at all. "

"Ah, that one-thirty train is excellent. Excellent. But if you had nottold the guard to stop at the Hill you would have been carried on toCheltenham. Which would have been very awkward for you. Very awkwardindeed. "

"My dear Horatio, what did you suppose she _would_ do?"

"My dear Fanny, there are many things she might have done. She mighthave got into the wrong coach at Paddington and been carried on toWorcester. "

"And that, " said Barbara, "would have been much worse than Cheltenham. "

"The very thought of it, " said Fanny, "makes me shudder. But thank God, Barbara, you didn't do any of those things. "

Mr. Waddington shifted the crossing of his legs as a big dog shifts hispaws when you laugh at him; the more Fanny laughed the more dignifiedand solemn he became. 

"You haven't told me yet, Horatio, what you did in London. "

"I was just going to tell you when Miss Madden--so delightfully--camein. "

At that Barbara thought it discreet to dismiss herself, but Fanny calledher back. "What are you running away for? He didn't do anything inLondon he wouldn't like you to hear about. "

"On the contrary, I particularly wish Miss Madden to hear about it. Iam starting a branch of the National League of Liberty in Wyck. You mayhave heard of it?"

"Yes. I've _heard_ of it. I've even seen the prospectus. "

"Good. Well, Fanny, I lunched yesterday with Sir Maurice Gedge, and he'sas keen as mustard. He agrees with me that the League will be no good, no good at all, until it's taken up strong in the provinces. He wants meto start at once. Just as soon as I can get my Committee. "

"My dear, if you've got to have a Committee first you'll never start. "

"It depends altogether on who I get. And it'll be _my_ Committee. SirMaurice was very emphatic about that. He agrees with me that if you wanta thing done, and done well, you must do it yourself. There can only be_one_ moving spirit. The Committee will have nothing to do but carry outmy ideas. "

"Then be sure you get a Committee that hasn't any of its own. "

"That will not be difficult, " said Mr. Waddington, "in Wyck.... Thefirst thing is the prospectus. That's where you come in, Miss Madden. "

"You mean the first thing is that Barbara draws up the prospectus. "

"Under my supervision. "

"The next thing, " Fanny said, "is to conceal your prospectus from yourCommittee till it's in print. You come to your Committee with yourprospectus. You don't offer it for discussion. "

"Supposing, " Barbara said, "they insist on discussing it?"

"They won't, " said Fanny, "once it's printed, especially if it's paidfor. You must get Pyecraft to send in his bill at once. And if they _do_start discussing you can put them off with the date and place of themeeting and the wording of the posters. That'll give them something totalk about. I suppose you'll be chairman. "

"Well, I think, in the circumstances, they could hardly appoint anybodyelse. "

"I don't know. Somebody might suggest Sir John Corbett. "

Mr. Waddington's face sagged with dismay as Fanny presented thisunpleasant possibility. 

"I don't think Sir John would care about it. I shall suggest it to himmyself; but I don't think--. "

After all, Sir John Corbett was a lazy man. 

"When you've roused Sir John, if you ever _do_ rouse him, then you'llhave to round up all the towns and villages for twenty miles. It's apity you can't have Ralph; he would have rounded them for you in no timeon his motor-bike. "

"I am quite capable of rounding them all up myself, thank you. "

"Well, dear, " said Fanny placably, "it'll keep you busy for the next sixmonths, and that'll be nice. You won't miss the war then so much, willyou?"

"_Miss the war_?"

"Yes, you do miss it, darling. He was a special constable, Barbara; andhe sat on tribunals; and he drove his motor-car like mad on governmentservice. He had no end of a time. It's no use your saying you didn'tenjoy it, Horatio, for you did. "

"I was glad to be of service to my country as much as any soldier, butto say that I enjoyed the war--"

"If there hadn't been a war there wouldn't have been any service to beglad about. "

"My dear Fanny, it's a perfectly horrible suggestion. Do you mean to saythat I would have brought about that--that infamous tragedy, that Iwould have sent thousands and thousands of our lads to their deaths toget a job for myself? If I thought for one moment that you wereserious--"

"You don't like me to be anything else, dear. "

"I certainly don't like you to joke about such subjects. "

"Oh, come, " said Fanny, "we all enjoyed our war jobs except poor Ralph, who got gassed first thing, and _then_ concussed with a shell-burst. "

"Oh, did he?" said Barbara. 

"He did. And don't you think, Horatio, considering the rotten time he'shad, and that he lost a lucrative job through the war, and that you'vedone him out of his secretaryship, don't you think you might forgivehim?"

"Of course, " said Horatio, "I forgive him. "

He had got up to go and had reached the door when Fanny called him back. "And I can write and ask him to come and dine to-morrow night, can't I?I want to be quite sure that he _does_ dine. "

"I have never said or implied, " said Horatio, "that he was not to comeand dine. "

With that he left them. 

"The beautiful thing about Horatio, " said Fanny, "is that he never bearsa grudge against people, no matter what he's done to them. I've no doubtthat Ralph was excessively provoking and put him in the wrong, and yet, though he was in the wrong, and knows he was in it, he doesn't resentit. He doesn't resent it the least little bit. "

2

Barbara wondered how and where she would be expected to spend herevenings now that Fanny's husband had come home. Being secretary to Mr. Waddington and companion to Fanny wouldn't mean being companion to bothof them at once. So when Horatio appeared in the drawing-room aftercoffee, she asked if she might sit in the morning-room and writeletters. 

"Do you want to sit in the morning-room?" said Fanny. 

"Well, I ought to write those letters. "

"There's a fire in the library. You can write there. Can't she, Horatio?"

Mr. Waddington looked up with the benign expression he had had when hecame on Barbara alone in the drawing-room before dinner, a look sodirected to her neck and shoulders that it told her how well her low-cutevening frock became her. 

"She shall sit anywhere she likes. The library is hers whenever shewants to use it. "

Barbara thought she would rather like the library. As she went shecouldn't help seeing a look on Fanny's face that pleaded, that wouldhave kept her with her. She thought: She doesn't want to be alone withhim. 

She judged it better to ignore that look. 

She had been about an hour in the library; she had written her lettersand chosen a book and curled herself up in the big leather chair and wasreading when Mr. Waddington came in. He took no notice of her at first, but established himself at the writing-table with his back to her. Hewould, of course, want her to go. She uncurled herself and went quietlyto the door. 

Mr. Waddington looked up. 

"You needn't go, " he said. 

Something in his face made her wonder whether she ought to stay. Sheremembered that she was Mrs. Waddington's companion. 

"Mrs. Waddington may want me. "

"Mrs. Waddington has gone to bed.... Don't go--unless you're tired. I'mgetting my thoughts on paper and I may want you. "

She remembered that she was Mr. Waddington's secretary. 

She went back to her chair. It was only his face that had made herwonder. His great back, bent to his task, was like another person there;absorbed and unmoved, it chaperoned them. From time to time she heardbrief scratches of his pen as he got a thought down. It was ten o'clock. 

When the half-hour struck Mr. Waddington gave a thick "Ha!" ofirritation and got up. 

"It's no use, " he said. "I'm not in form to-night. I suppose it's thejourney. "

He came to the fireplace and sat down heavily in the opposite chair. Barbara was aware of his eyes, considering, appraising her. 

"My wife tells me she has had a delightful time with you. "

"I've had a delightful time with her. "

"I'm glad. My wife is a very delightful woman; but, you know, youmustn't take everything she says too seriously. "

"I won't. I'm not a very serious person myself. "

"Don't say that. Don't say that. "

"Very well. I think, if you don't want me, I'll say good night. "

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. "

He had risen as she rose and went to open the door for her. He escortedher through the smoke-room and stood there at the further door, holdingout his hand, benignant and superbly solemn. 

"Good night, then, " he said. 

She told herself that she was wrong, quite wrong about his poor oldface. There was nothing in it, nothing but that grave and unadventurousbenignity. His mood had been, she judged, purely paternal. Paternal andchildlike, too; pathetic, if you came to think of it, in his clinging toher presence, her companionship. "It must have been my little evilmind, " she thought. 

3

As she went along the corridor she remembered she had left her knittingin the drawing-room. She turned to fetch it and found Fanny still there, wide awake with her feet on the fender, and reading "Tono-Bungay. "

"Oh, Mrs. Waddington, I thought you'd gone to bed. "

"So did I, dear. But I changed my mind when I found myself alone withWells. He's too heavenly for words. "

Barbara saw it in a flash, then. She knew what she, the companion andsecretary, was there for. She was there to keep him off her, so thatFanny might have more time to find herself alone in. 

She saw it all. 

"'Tono-Bungay, '" she said. "Was _that_ what you sent me out with Mr. Bevan for?"

"It was. How clever of you, Barbara. "

IV

1

Mr. Waddington closed the door on Miss Madden slowly and gently so thatthe action should not strike her as dismissive. He then turned on thelights by the chimneypiece and stood there, looking at himself in theglass. He wanted to know exactly how his face had presented itself toMiss Madden. It would not be altogether as it appeared to himself; forthe glass, unlike the young girl's clear eyes, was an exaggerating anddistorting medium; he had noticed that his wife's face in the smoke-roomglass looked a good ten years older than the face he knew; hecalculated, therefore, that this faint greenish tint, this slightlylop-sided elderly grimace were not truthful renderings of his complexionand his smile. And as (in spite of these defects, which you could putdown to the account of the glass) the face Mr. Waddington saw was stillthe face of a handsome man, he formed a very favourable opinion of theface Miss Madden had seen. Handsome, and if not in his first youth, thenstill in his second. Experience is itself a fascination, and if a manhas any charm at all his second youth should be more charming, moreirresistibly fascinating than his first. 

And the child had been conscious of him. She had betrayed uneasiness, asense of danger, when she had found herself alone with him. He recalledher first tentative flight, her hesitation. He would have liked to havekept her there with him a little longer, to have talked to her about hisLeague, to have tested by a few shrewd questions her ability. 

Better not. Better not. The child was wise and right. Her wisdom andrectitude were delicious to Mr. Waddington, still more so was thethought that she had felt him to be dangerous. 

He went back into his library and sat again in his chair and meditated:This experiment of Fanny's now; he wondered how it would turn out, especially if Fanny really wanted to adopt the girl, Frank Madden'sdaughter. That impudent social comedian had been so offensive to Mr. Waddington in his life-time that there was something alluring in the ideaof keeping his daughter now that he was dead, seeing the exquisitelittle thing dependent on him for everything, for food and frocks andpocket-money. But no doubt they had been wise in giving her thesecretaryship before committing themselves to the irrecoverable step;thus testing her in a relation that could be easily terminated if by anychance it proved embarrassing. 

But the relation in itself was, as Mr. Waddington put it to himself, alittle difficult and delicate. It involved an intimacy, a closerintimacy than adoption: having her there in his library at all hours towork with him; and always that little uneasy consciousness of hers. 

Well, well, he had set the tone to-night for all their futureintercourse; he had in the most delicate way possible let her see. Itseemed to him, looking back on it, that he had exercised a perfect tact, parting from her with that air of gaiety and light badinage which hisown instinct of self-preservation so happily suggested. Yet he smiledwhen he recalled her look as she went from him, backing, backing, to thedoor; it made him feel very tender and chivalrous; virtuous too, as ifsomehow he had overcome some unforeseen and ruinous impulse. And all thetime he hadn't had any impulse beyond the craving to talk to anintelligent and attractive stranger, to talk about his League. 

Mr. Waddington went to bed thinking about it. He even woke his wife upout of her sleep with the request that she would remind him to call atUnderwoods first thing in the morning. 

2

As soon as he was awake he thought of Underwoods. Underwoods wasimportant. He had to round up the county, and he couldn't do thatwithout first consulting Sir John Corbett, of Underwoods. As a matterof form, a mere matter of form, of course, he would have to consult him. 

But the more he thought about it the less he liked the idea ofconsulting anybody. He was desperately afraid that, if he once beganletting people into it, his scheme, his League, would be taken away fromhim; and that the proper thing, the graceful thing, the thing to whichhe would be impelled by all his instincts and traditions, would be tostand modestly back and see it go. Probably into Sir John Corbett'shands. And he couldn't. He couldn't. Yet it was clear that the League, just because it was a League, must have members; even if he had beenprepared to contribute all the funds himself and carry on the wholebusiness of it single-handed, it couldn't consist solely of Mr. Waddington of Wyck. His problem was a subtle and difficult one: How toidentify himself with the League, himself alone, in a unique andindissoluble manner, and yet draw to it the necessary supporters? How tocontrol every detail of its intricate working (there would be endlesswheels within wheels), and at the same time give proper powers to theinevitable Committee? If he did not put it quite so crudely as Fanny inher disagreeable irony, his problem resolved itself into this: How todivide the work and yet rake in all the credit?

He was saved from its immediate pressure by the sight of the envelopethat waited for him on the breakfast-table, addressed in a familiarhand. 

"Mrs. Levitt--" His emotion betrayed itself to Barbara in a peculiarfurtive yet triumphant smile. 

"Again?" said Fanny. (There was no end to the woman and her letters. )

Mrs. Levitt requested Mr. Waddington to call on her that morning ateleven. There was a matter on which she desired to consult him. Thebrevity of the note revealed her trust in his compliance, trust thatimplied again a certain intimacy. Mr. Waddington read it out loud toshow how harmless and open was his communion with Mrs. Levitt. 

"Is there any matter on which she has not consulted you?"

"There seems to have been one. And, as you see, she is repairing theomission. "

A light air, a light air, to carry off Mrs. Levitt. The light air thathad carried off Barbara, that had made Barbara carry herself off thenight before. (It had done good. This morning the young girl was allease and innocent unconsciousness again. )

"And I suppose you're going?" Fanny said. 

"I suppose I shall have to go. "

"Then I shall have Barbara to myself all morning?"

"You will have Barbara to yourself all day. "

He tried thus jocosely to convey, for Barbara's good, his indifferenceto having her. All the same, it gave him pleasure to say her name likethat: "Barbara. "

He was not sure that he wanted to go and see Mrs. Levitt with all thisbusiness of the League on hand. It meant putting off Sir John. Youcouldn't do Sir John _and_ Mrs. Levitt in one morning. Besides, hethought he knew what Mrs. Levitt wanted, and he said to himself thatthis time he would be obliged, for once, to refuse her. 

But it was not in him to refuse to go and see her. So he went. 

As he walked up the park drive to the town he recalled with distinctlypleasurable emotion the first time he had encountered Mrs. Levitt, thevision of the smart little lady who had stood there by the inner gate, the gate that led from the park into the grounds, waiting for hisapproach with happy confidence. He remembered her smile, an affair ofmilk-white teeth in an ivory-white face, and her frank attack: "Forgiveme if I'm trespassing. They told me there was a right of way. " Heremembered her charming diffidence, the naïve reverence for his"grounds" which had compelled him to escort her personally through them;her attitudes of admiration as the Manor burst on her from its bay inthe beech trees; the interest she had shown in its date andarchitecture; and how, spinning out the agreeable interview, he had gonewith her all the way to the farther gate that led into Lower Wyckvillage; and how she had challenged him there with her "You must be Mr. Waddington of Wyck, " and capped his admission with "I'm Mrs. Levitt. " Towhich he had replied that he was delighted. 

And the time after that--Partridge had discreetly shown her into thelibrary--when she had called to implore him to obtain exemption for herson Toby; her black eyes, bright and large behind tears; and her cry:"I'm a war widow, Mr. Waddington, and he's my only child;" the flatteryof her belief that he, Mr. Waddington of Wyck, had the chief power onthe tribunal (and indeed it would have been folly to pretend that he hadnot power, that he could not "work it" if he chose). And the third time, after he had "worked it, " and she had come to thank him. Tears again;the pressure of a plump, ivory-white hand; a tingling, delicious memory. 

After that, his untiring efforts to get a war job for Toby. There hadbeen difficulties, entailing many visits to Mrs. Levitt in the littlehouse in the Market Square of Wyck-on-the-Hill; but in the end he hadhad the same intoxicating experience of his power, all obstructionsgoing down before Mr. Waddington of Wyck. 

And this year, when Toby was finally demobilized, it was only naturalthat she should draw on Mr. Waddington's influence again to get him apermanent peace job. He had got it; and that meant more visits and moregratitude; till here he was, attached to Mrs. Levitt by the unbreakabletie of his benefactions. He was even attached to her son Toby, whosecontinued existence, to say nothing of his activity in Mr. Bostock'sBank at Wyck, was a perpetual tribute to his power. Mr. Waddington hadnothing like the same complacence in thinking of his own son Horace; butthen Horace's existence and his activity were not a tribute but amenace, a standing danger, not only to his power but to his fascination, his sense of himself as a still young, still brilliant and effectivepersonality. (Horace inherited his mother's deplorable lack ofseriousness. ) And it was in Mrs. Levitt's society that Mr. Waddingtonwas most conscious of his youth, his brilliance and effect. With anagreeable sense of anticipation he climbed up the slopes of Sheep Streetand Park Street, and so into the Square. 

The house, muffled in ivy, hid discreetly in the far corner, behind thetwo tall elms on the Green. Mrs. Trinder, the landlady, had a sidelongbend of the head and a smile that acknowledged him as Mr. Waddington ofWyck and Mrs. Levitt's benefactor. 

And as he waited in the low, mullion-darkened room he reminded himselfthat he had come to refuse her request. If, as he suspected, it was theBallingers' cottage that she wanted. To be sure, the Ballingers hadnotice to quit in June, but he couldn't very well turn the Ballingersout if they wanted to stay, when there wasn't a decent house in theplace to turn them into. He would have to make this very clear to Mrs. Levitt. 

Not that he approved of Ballinger. The fellow, one of his best farmhands, had behaved infamously, first of all demanding preposterouswages, and then, just because Mr. Waddington had refused to bebrow-beaten, leaving his service for Colonel Grainger's. ColonelGrainger had behaved infamously, buying Foss Bank with the money he hadmade in high explosives, and then letting fly his confounded Socialismall over the county. Knowing nothing, mind you, about local conditions, and actually raising the rate of wages without consulting anybody, andupsetting the farm labourers for miles round. At a time when theprosperity of the entire country depended on the farmers. Still, Mr. Waddington was not the man to take a petty revenge on his inferiors. Hedidn't blame Ballinger; he blamed Colonel Grainger. He would like to seeGrainger boycotted by the whole county. 

The door opened. He strode forward and found himself holding out asudden, fervid hand to a lady who was not Mrs. Levitt. He drew up, turning his gesture into a bow, rather unnecessarily ceremonious; but hecould not annihilate instantaneously all that fervour. 

"I am Mrs. Levitt's sister, Mrs. Rickards. Mr. Waddington, is it not?I'll tell Elise you're here. I know she'll be glad to see you. She hasbeen very much upset. "

She remained standing before him long enough for him to be aware of aprojecting bust, of white serge, of smartness, of purplish copper hair, a raking panama's white brim, of eyebrows, a rouged smile, and a smellof orris root. Before he could grasp its connexion with Mrs. Levitt thisamazing figure had disappeared and given place to a tapping of heels anda furtive, scuffling laugh on the stairs outside. A shriller laugh--thatmust be Mrs. Rickards--a long Sh-sh-sh! Then the bang of the front doorcovering the lady's retreat, and Mrs. Levitt came in, stifling merrimentunder a minute pocket-handkerchief. 

He took it in then. They were sisters, Mrs. Rickards and Elise Levitt. Elise, if you cared to be critical, had the same defects: short legs, loose hips; the same exaggerations: the toppling breasts underpinned bythe shafts of her stays. Not Mr. Waddington's taste. And yet--and yetElise had contrived a charming and handsome effect out of black eyes andthe milk-white teeth in the ivory-white face. The play of the blackeyebrows distracted you from the equine bend of the nose that sprangbetween them; the movements of her mouth, the white flash of its smile, made you forget its thinness and hardness and the slight heaviness ofits jaw. Something foreign about her. Something French. Piquant. Andthen, her clothes. Mrs. Levitt wore a coat and skirt, her sister's whiteserge with a distinction, a greyish stripe or something; cleanstraightness that stiffened and fined down her exuberance. One jewel, one bit of gold, and she might have been vulgar. But no. He thought: sheknows what becomes her. Immaculate purity of white gloves, white shoes, white panama; and the black points of the ribbon, of her eyebrows, hereyes and hair. After all, the sort of woman Mr. Waddington liked to beseen out walking with. She made him feel slender. 

"My _dear_ Mr. Waddington, how good of you!"

"My dear Mrs. Levitt--always delighted--when it's possible--to doanything. "

As she covered him with her brilliant eyes he tightened his shouldersand stood firm, while his spirit braced itself against persuasion. If itwas the Ballingers' cottage--

"I really am ashamed of myself. I never seem to send for you unless I'min trouble. "

"Isn't that the time?" His voice thickened. "So long as you do send--"He thought: It isn't the Ballingers' cottage then. 

"It's your own fault. You've always been so good, so kind. To my poorToby. "

"Nothing to do with Toby, I hope, the trouble?"

"Oh, no. No. And yet in a way it has. I'm afraid, Mr. Waddington, I mayhave to leave. "

"To leave? Leave Wyck?"

"Leave dear Wyck. "

"Not seriously?"

He wasn't prepared for that. The idea hit him hard in a place that hehadn't thought was tender. 

"Quite seriously. "

"Dear me. This is very distressing. Very distressing indeed. But youwould not take such a step without consulting your friends?"

"I _am_ consulting you. "

"Yes, yes. But have you thought it well over?"

"Thinking isn't any use. I shall have to, unless something can be done. "

He thought: "Financial difficulties. Debts. An expensive lady. Unlesssomething could be done?" He didn't know that he was exactly prepared todo it. But his tongue answered in spite of him. 

"Something must be done. We can't let you go like this, my dear lady. "

"That's it. I don't see how I _can_ go, with dear Toby here. Nor yet howI'm to stay. "

"Won't you tell me what the trouble is?"

"The trouble is that Mrs. Trinder's son's just been demobilized, and shewants our rooms for his wife and family. "

"Come--surely we can find other rooms. "

"All the best ones are taken. There's nothing left that I'd care to livein.... Besides, it isn't rooms I want, Mr. Waddington, it's a house. "

It was, of course, the Ballingers' cottage. But she couldn't have it. She couldn't have it. 

"I wouldn't mind how small it was. If only I had a little home of myown. You don't know, Mr. Waddington, what it is to be without a home ofyour own. I haven't had a home for years. Five years. Not since thewar. "

"I'm afraid, " said Mr. Waddington, "at present there isn't a house foryou in Wyck. "

He brooded earnestly, as though he were trying to conjure up, to createout of nothing, a house for her and a home. 

"No. But I understand that the Ballingers will be leaving in June. Yousaid that at any time, if you had a house, I should have it. "

"I said a house, Mrs. Levitt, not a cottage. "

"It's all the same to me. The Ballingers' cottage could be made into anadorable little house. "

"It could. With a few hundred pounds spent on it. "

"Well, you'd be improving your property, wouldn't you? And you'd get itback in the higher rent. "

"I'm not thinking about getting anything back. And nothing would pleaseme better. Only, you see, I can't very well turn Ballinger out as longas he behaves himself. "

"I wouldn't have him turned out for the world.... But do you considerthat Ballinger _has_ behaved himself?"

"Well, he played me a dirty trick, perhaps, when he went to Grainger;but if Grainger can afford to pay for him I've no right to object to hisbeing bought. It isn't a reason for turning the man out. "

"I don't see how he can expect you to refuse a good tenant for him. "

"I must if I haven't a good house to put him into. "

"He doesn't expect it, Mr. Waddington. Didn't you give him notice inDecember?"

"A mere matter of form. He knows he can stay on if there's nowhere elsefor him to go to. "

"Then why, " said Mrs. Levitt, "does he go about saying that he dares youto let the cottage over his head?"

"Does he? Does he say that?"

"He says he'll pay you out. He'll summons you. He was most abusive. "

Mr. Waddington's face positively swelled with the choleric flush thatswamped its genial fatuity. 

"It seems somebody told him you were going to do up the cottage and letit for more rent. "

"I don't know who could have spread that story. "

"I assure you, Mr. Waddington, it wasn't me!"

"My dear Mrs. Levitt, of course.... I won't say I wasn't thinking of it, and that I wouldn't have done it, if I could have got rid ofBallinger.... " He meditated. 

"I don't see why I shouldn't get rid of him. If he dares me, thescoundrel, he's simply asking for it. And he shall have it. "

"Oh, but I wouldn't for worlds have him turned into the street. With hiswife and babies. "

"My dear lady, I shan't turn them into the street. I shouldn't beallowed to. There's a cottage at Lower Wyck they can go into. The one hehad when he first came to me. "

He wondered why he hadn't thought of it before. It wasn't, as it stood, a decent cottage; but if he was prepared to spend fifty pounds or so onit, it could be made habitable; and, by George, he _was_ prepared, if itwas only to teach Ballinger a lesson. For it meant that Ballinger wouldhave to walk an extra mile up hill to his work every day. Serve himright, the impudent rascal. 

"Poor thing, he won't, " said Mrs. Levitt, "have his nice garden. "

"He won't. Ballinger must learn, " said Mr. Waddington with magisterialseverity, "that he can't have everything. He certainly can't have itboth ways. Abuse and threaten me and expect favours. He may go ... ToColonel Grainger. "

"If it really _must_ happen, " said Mrs. Levitt, "do you mean that I mayhave the house?"

"I shall be only too delighted to have such a charming tenant. "

"Well, I shan't threaten and abuse you and call you every nasty nameunder the sun. And you won't, you _won't_ turn me out when my lease isup?"

He bowed over the hand she held out to him. 

"You shall never be turned out as long as you want to stay. "

By twelve o'clock they had arranged the details; Mr. Waddington was toput in a bathroom; to throw the two rooms on the ground floor into one;to build out a new sitting-room with a bedroom over it; and to paint anddistemper the place, in cream white, throughout. And it was to be calledthe White House. By the time they had finished with it Ballinger'scottage had become the house Mrs. Levitt had dreamed of all her life, and not unlike the house Mr. Waddington had dreamed of that minute(while he planned the bathroom); the little bijou house where anadorable but not too rigorously moral lady--He stopped with a mentaljerk, ashamed. He had no reason to suppose that Elise was or wouldbecome such a lady. 

And the poor innocent woman was saying, "Just one thing, Mr. Waddington, the rent?"

(No earthly reason. ) "We can talk about that another time. I shan't behard on you. "

No. He wouldn't be hard on her. But in that other case there wouldn'thave been any rent at all. 

As he left the house he could see Mrs. Rickards hurrying towards itacross the square. 

"She waddles like a duck, " he thought. The movement suggested a plebeianexcitement and curiosity that displeased him. He recalled her face. Herextraordinary face. "Quite enough, " he thought, "to put all that into myhead. Poor Elise"

He liked to think of her. It made him feel what he had felt last nightover Barbara Madden--virtuous--as though he had struggled and got thebetter of an impetuous passion. He was so touched by his own beautifulrenunciation that when he found Fanny working in the garden he felt asudden tenderness for her as the cause of it. She looked up at him fromher pansy bed and laughed. "What are you looking so sentimental for, oldthing?"

3

Mrs. Levitt's affair settled, he could now give his whole time to theserious business of the day. 

He was exceedingly anxious to get it over. Nothing could be moredisturbing than Fanny's suggestion that the name of Sir John Corbettmight carry more weight with his Committee than his own. The Waddingtonsof Wyck had ancestry. Waddingtons had held Lower Wyck Manor for tengenerations, whereas Sir John Corbett's father had bought Underwoods andrebuilt it somewhere in the 'seventies. On the other hand Sir John wasthe largest and richest landowner in the place. He could buy upWyck--on--the--Hill to--morrow and thrive on the transaction. Hetherefore represented the larger vested interest And as the wholeobject of the League was the safeguarding of vested interests, in otherwords, of liberty, that British liberty which is bound up with law andorder, with private property in general and landownership in particular;as the principle of its very being was the preservation of preciselysuch an institution as Sir John himself, the Committee of the WyckBranch of the League could hardly avoid inviting him to be itspresident. There was no blinking the fact, and Fanny hadn't blinked it, that Sir John was the proper person. Most of Fanny's suggestions had astrong but unpleasant element of common sense. 

But the more interest he took in the League, the more passionately heflung himself into the business of its creation, the more abhorrent toMr. Waddington was the thought that the chief place in it, thepresidency, would pass over his head to Sir John. 

His only hope was in Sir John's well-known indolence andirresponsibility. Sir John was the exhausted reaction from the effortsof a self-made grandfather and of a father spendthrift in energy; he hadhad everything done for him ever since he was a baby, and consequentlywas now unable or unwilling to do anything for himself or other people. You couldn't see him taking an active part in the management of theLeague, and Mr. Waddington couldn't see himself doing all the work andhanding over all the glory to Sir John. Still, between Mr. Waddingtonand the glory there was only this supine figure of Sir John, and SirJohn once out of the running he could count without immodesty on theunanimous vote of any committee he formed in Wyck. 

It was possible that even a Sir John Corbett would not really carry itover a Waddington of Wyck, but Mr. Waddington wasn't taking any risks. What he had to do was to suggest the presidency to Sir John in such away that he would be certain to refuse it. 

He had the good luck to find Sir John alone in his library at tea-time, eating hot buttered toast. 

There was hope for Mr. Waddington in Sir John's attitude, lying back andnursing his little round stomach, hope in the hot, buttery gleam of hischeeks, in his wide mouth, lazy under the jutting grey moustache, and inthe scrabbling of his little legs as he exerted himself to standupright. 

"Well, Waddington, glad to see you. "

He was in his chair again. With another prodigious effort he leanedforward and rang for more tea and more toast. 

"Did you walk?" said Sir John. His little round eyes expressed horror atthe possibility. 

"No, I just ran over in my car. "

"Drove yourself?"

"No. Too much effort of attention. I find it interferes with mythinking. "

"Interferes with everything, " said Sir John. "'Spect you drove enoughduring the war to last you for the rest of your life. "

"Ah, Government service. A very different thing. That reminds me; I'vecome to-day to consult you on a matter of public business. "

"Business?" (He noted Sir John's uneasy pout. ) "Better have some teafirst. " Sir John took another piece of buttered toast. 

If only Sir John would go on eating. Nothing like buttered toast forsustaining that mood of voluptuous inertia. 

When Mr. Waddington judged the moment propitious he began. "While I wasup in London I had the pleasure of lunching with Sir Maurice Gedge. Hewants me to start a branch of the National League of Liberty here. "

"Liberty? Shouldn't have thought that was much in your line. Didn'texpect to see you waving the red flag, what? Why didn't you put him onto our friend Grainger?"

"My dear Corbett, what are you thinking of? The object of the League isto put down all that sort of thing--Socialism--Bolshevism--to rouse thewhole country and get it to stand solid for order and good government. "

"H'm. Is it? Queer sort of title for a thing of that sort--League ofLiberty, what?"

Mr. Waddington raised a clenched fist. Already in spirit he was on hisplatform. "Exactly the title that's needed. The people want liberty, always have wanted it. We'll let 'em have it. True liberty. Britishliberty. I tell you, Corbett, we're out against the tyranny of Labourminorities. You and I and every man that's got any standing and anyinfluence, we've got to see to it that we don't have a revolution andCommunism and a Soviet Government here. "

"Come, you don't think the Bolshies are as strong as all that, do you?"

Mr. Waddington brought his fist down on the arm of his chair. "I _know_they are, " he said. "And look here--if they get the upper hand, it's thegreat capitalists, the great property holders, the great _land_ownerslike you and me, Corbett, who'll be the first to suffer.... Why, we'resuffering as it is, here in Wyck, with just the little that fellowGrainger can do. The time'll come, mark my words, when we shan't be ableto get a single labourer to work for us for a fair wage. They'll bleedus white, Corbett, before they've done with us, if we don't make astand, and make it now. 

"That's what the League's for, to set up a standard, something we canpoint to and say: These are the principles we stand for. Something youcan rally the whole country round. We shall want your support--"

"I shall be very glad--anything I can do--"

Mr. Waddington was a little disturbed by this ready acquiescence. 

"Mind you, it isn't going to end here, in Wyck. I shall start it in Wyckfirst; then I shall take it straight to the big towns, Gloucester, Cheltenham, Cirencester, Nailsworth, Stroud. We'll set 'em going tillwe've got a branch in every town and every village in the county. "

He thought: "That ought to settle him. " He had created a vision ofintolerable activity. 

"Bless me, " said Sir John, "you've got your work cut out for you. "

"Of course I shall have to get a local committee first. I can't take astep like that without consulting you. "

Sir John muttered something that sounded like "Very good of you, I'msure. "

"No more than my duty to the League. Now, the point is, Sir Maurice wasanxious that _I_ should be president of this local branch. It needssomebody with energy and determination--the president's work, certainly, will be cut out for him--and I feel very strongly, and I think that myCommittee will feel that _you_, Corbett, are the proper person. "

"H'm--m. "

"I didn't think I should be justified in going further without firstobtaining your consent. "

"We-ell--"

Mr. Waddington's anxiety was almost unbearable. The programme hadevidently appealed to Sir John. Supposing, after all, he accepted?

"I wouldn't ask you to undertake anything so--so arduous, but that it'llstrengthen my hands with my Committee; in fact, I may get a muchstronger and more influential Committee if I can come to them, and tellthem beforehand that you have consented to be president. "

"I don't mind being president, " said Sir John, "if I haven't got to doanything. "

"I'm afraid--I'm _afraid_ we couldn't allow you to be a merefigurehead. "

"But presidents always are figureheads, aren't they?"

There was a bantering gleam in Sir John's eyes that irritated Mr. Waddington. That was the worst of Corbett; you couldn't get him to takea serious thing seriously. 

"'T any rate, " Sir John went on, "there's always some secretary johnniewho runs round and does the work. "

So that was Corbett's idea: to sit in his armchair and bag all theprestige, while he, Waddington of Wyck, ran round and did the work. 

"Not in this case. In these small local affairs you can't delegatebusiness. Everything depends on the personal activity of the president. "

"The deuce it does. How do you mean?"

"I mean this. If Sir John Corbett asks for a subscription he gets it. We've got to round up the whole county and all the townspeople andvillagers. It's no use shooting pamphlets at 'em from a motor-car. Theylike being personally interviewed. If Sir John Corbett comes and talk tothem and tells them they must join, ten to one they will join. 

"And there isn't any time to be lost if we want to get in first beforeother places take it up. It'll mean pretty sharp work, day in and dayout, rounding them all up. "

"Oh, Lord, Waddington, _don't_. I'm tired already with the bare idea ofit. "

"Come, we can't have you tired, Corbett. Why, it won't be worse, itwon't be half as bad as a season's hunting. You're just the man for it. Fit as fit. "

"Not half as fit as I look, Waddington. "

"There's another thing--the meetings. If the posters say Sir JohnCorbett will address the meeting people'll come. If Sir John Corbettspeaks they'll listen. "

"My dear fellow, that settles it. I can't speak for nuts. You _know_ Ican't. I can introduce a speaker and move a vote of thanks, and that'sabout all I _can_ do. It's your show, not mine. _You_ ought to bepresident, Waddington. You'll enjoy it and I shan't. "

"I don't know at all about enjoying it. It'll be infernally hard work. "

"Precisely. "

"You don't mean, Corbett, that you won't come in with us? That you won'tcome on the Committee?"

"I'll come on all right if I haven't got to speak, and if I haven't gotto do anything. I shan't be much good, but I could at least propose youas president. You couldn't very well propose yourself. "

"It's very good of you. "

Mr. Waddington made his voice sound casual and indifferent, so that hemight appear to be entertaining the suggestion provisionally and underprotest. "There'll have to be one big meeting before the Committee'sformed or anything. If I let you off the presidency, " he said playfully, "will you take the chair?"

"For that one evening?"

"That one evening only. "

"You'll do all the talking?"

"I shall have to. "

"All right, my dear fellow. I daresay I can get my wife to come on yourcommittee, too. That'll help you to rope in the townspeople.... And now, supposing we drop it and have a quiet smoke. "

He roused himself to one more effort. "Of course, we'll send you asubscription, both of us. "

Mr. Waddington drove off from Underwoods in a state of pleasurableelation. He had got what he wanted without appearing--without appearingat all to be playing for it. Corbett had never spotted him. 

There he was wrong. At that very moment Sir John was relating theincident to Lady Corbett. 

"And you could see all the time the fellow wanted it himself. I put himin an awful funk, pretending I was going to take it. "

All the same, he admitted very handsomely that the idea of the Leaguewas "topping, " and that Waddington was the man for it. And thesubscription that he and Lady Corbett sent was very handsome, too. Unfortunately it obliged Mr. Waddington to contribute a slightly largersum, by way of maintaining his ascendancy. 

4

On his way home he called at the Old Dower House in the Square to seehis mother. He had arranged to meet Fanny and Barbara Madden there anddrive them home. 

The old lady was sitting in her chair, handsome, with dark eyes stillbrilliant in her white Roman face, a small imperious face, yet soft, soft in its network of fine grooves and pittings. An exquisite old ladyin a black satin gown and white embroidered shawl, with a whiteChantilly scarf binding rolled masses of white hair. She had been a MissPostlethwaite, of Medlicott. 

"My dear boy--so you've got back?"

She turned to her son with a soft moan of joy, lifting up her hands tohold his face as he stooped to kiss her. 

"How well you look, " she said. "Is that London or coming back to Fanny?"

"It's coming back to you. "

"Ah, she hasn't spoilt you. You know how to say nice things to your oldmother. "

She looked up at him, at his solemn face that simmered with excitedegoism. Barbara could see that he was playing--playing in hisponderous, fatuous way, at being her young, her not more thantwenty-five years old son. He turned with a sudden, sportive, caracolingmovement, to find a chair for himself. He was sitting on it now, closebeside his mother, and she was holding one of his big, fleshy hands inher fragile bird claws and patting it. 

From her study of the ancestral portraits in the Manor dining-roomBarbara gathered that he owed to his mother the handsome Roman structurethat held up his face, after all, so proudly through its layers ofWaddington flesh. He had the Postlethwaite nose. The old lady looked ather, gratified by the grave attention of her eyes. 

"Miss Madden can't believe that a little woman like me could have such agreat big son, " she said. "But, you see, he isn't big to me. He'll neverbe any older than thirteen. "

You could see it. If he wasn't really thirteen to her he wasn't a dayolder than twenty-five; he was her young grown-up son whose caressesflattered her. 

"She spoils me, Miss Madden. "

You could see that it pleased him to sit close to her knees, to have hishand patted and be spoilt. 

"Nonsense. Now tell me what happened at Underwoods. Is it to be JohnCorbett or you?"

"Corbett says it's to be me. "

"I'm glad he's had that much sense. Well--and now tell me all about thisLeague of yours. "

He told her all about it, and she sat very quietly, listening, noddingher proud old head in approval. He talked about it till it was time togo. Then the old lady became agitated. 

"My dear boy, you mustn't let Kimber drive you too fast down that hill. Fanny, will you tell Kimber to be careful?"

Her face trembled with anxiety as she held it to him to be kissed. Atthat moment he was her child, escaping from her, going out rashly intothe dangerous world. 

"I like going to see Granny, " said Fanny as Kimber tucked them uptogether in the car. "She makes me feel young. "

"You may very well feel it, " said Mr. Waddington. "It's only my mother'swhite hair, Miss Madden, that makes her look old. "

"I thought, " said Barbara, "she looked ever so much younger"--she wasgoing to say, "than she is"--"than most people's mothers. "

"You will have noticed, " Fanny said, "that my husband is younger thanmost people. "

Barbara noticed that he had drawn himself up with an offended air, unnaturally straight. He didn't like it, this discussion about ages. 

They were running out of the Square when Fanny remembered and cried out, "Oh, stop him, Horatio. We must go back and see if Ralph's coming todinner. "

But at the White Hart they were told that Mr. Bevan had "gone to Oxfordon his motor-bike" and was not expected to return before ten o'clock. 

"Sorry, Barbara. "

"I don't see why you should apologize to Miss Madden, my dear. I've nodoubt she can get on very well without him. "

"She may want something rather more exciting than you and me, sometimes. "

"I'm quite happy, " Barbara said. 

"Of course you're happy. It isn't everybody who enjoys Ralph Bevan'ssociety. I daresay you're like me; you find him a great hindrance toserious conversation. "

"That's why _I_ enjoy him, " Fanny said. "We'll ask him for to-morrownight. "

Barbara tucked her chin into the collar of her coat. The car was runningdown Sheep Street into Lower Wyck. She stared out abstractedly at theeastern valley, the delicate green cornfields and pink fallows, themuffling of dim trees, all washed in the pale eastern blue, rolling outand up to the blue ridge. 

It made her happy to look at it. It made her happy to think of RalphBevan coming to-morrow. If it had been to-night it would have been allover in three hours. And something--she was not sure what, but felt thatit might be Mr. Waddington--something would have cut in to spoil thehappiness of it. But now she had it to think about, and her thoughtswere safe. "What are you thinking about, Barbara?"

"The view, " said Barbara. "I want to sketch it. "

V

1

Mr. Waddington was in his library, drawing up his prospectus while Fannyand Barbara Madden looked on. At Fanny's suggestion (he ownedmagnanimously that it was a good one) he had decided to "sail in, " asshe called it, with the prospectus first, not only before he formed hisCommittee, but before he held his big meeting. (They had fixed the dateof it for that day month, Saturday, June the twenty-first. )

"You come before them from the beginning, " she said, "with somethingfixed and definite that they can't go back on. " And by signing theprospectus, Horatio Bysshe Waddington, he identified it beyond allcontention with himself. 

It was at this point that Barbara had blundered. 

"Why, " she had said, "should we go to all that bother and expense? Whycan't we send out the original prospectus?"

"My dear Barbara, the original prospectus isn't any good. "

"Why isn't it?"

"Because it isn't Horatio's prospectus. "

Barbara looked down and away from the dangerous light in Fanny's eyes. 

"But it expresses his views, doesn't it?"

"That's no good when he wants to express them himself. "

And so far from being any good, the original prospectus was a positivehindrance to Mr. Waddington. It took all the wind out of his sails; ittook, as he justly complained, the very words out of his mouth and theideas out of his head; it got in his way and upset him at every turn. Somehow or other he had got to stamp his personality upon this thing. "It's no good, " he said; "if they can't recognize it as a personalappeal from ME. " And here it was, stamped all over, and indelibly, withthe personalities of Sir Maurice Gedge and his London Committee. And hecouldn't depart radically from the lines they had laid down; there werejust so many things to be said, and Sir Maurice and his Committee hadcontrived to say them all. 

But, though the matter was given him, Mr. Waddington, before he actuallytackled his prospectus, had conceived himself as supplying his own freshand inimitable manner; the happy touch, the sudden, arresting turn. Butsomehow it wasn't working out that way. Try as he would, he couldn'tget away from the turns and touches supplied by Sir Maurice Gedge. 

"It would have been easy enough, " he said, "to draw up the originalprospectus. I'd a thousand times rather do that than write one on thetop of it. "

Fanny agreed. "It's got to _look_ different, " she said, "without _being_different. "

"Couldn't we, " said Barbara, "turn it upside down?"

"Upside down?" He stared at her with great owl's eyes, offended, suspecting her this time of an outrageous levity. 

"Yes. Really upside down. You see, the heads go in this order--Defenceof Private Property; Defence of Capital; Defence of Liberty; Defence ofGovernment; Defence of the Empire; Danger of Revolution, Communism andBolshevism; Every Man's Duty. Why not reverse them? Every Man's Duty;Danger of Bolshevism, Communism and Revolution; Defence of the Empire;Defence of Government; Defence of Liberty; Defence of Capital; Defenceof Private Property. "

"That's an idea, " said Fanny. 

"Not at all a bad idea, " said Mr. Waddington. "You might take down theheads in that order. "

Barbara took them down, and it was agreed that they presented a veryoriginal appearance thus reversed; and, as Barbara pointed out, the oneorder was every bit as logical as the other; and though Mr. Waddingtonobjected that he would have preferred to close on the note of Governmentand Empire, he was open to the suggestion that, while this might appealmore to the county, with the farmers and townspeople, capital andprivate property would strike further home. And by the time he hadchanged "combat the forces of disorder" to "take a stand against anarchyand disruption, " and "spirit of freedom in this country" to "Britishgenius for liberty, " and "darkest hour in England's history" to"blackest period in the history of England, " he was persuaded that theprospectus was now entirely and absolutely his own. 

"But I think we must sound the note of hope to end up with. My ownmessage. How about 'We must remember that the darkest hour comes beforedawn'?"

"My dear Horatio, if you inflate yourself so over your prospectus, you'll have no wind left when you come to speak. Be as wildly originalas you please, but _don't_ be wasteful and extravagant. "

"All right, Fanny. I will reserve the dawn. Please make a note of that, Miss Madden. Speech. 'Blackest'--or did I say 'darkest'?--'hour beforedawn. '"

"You'd better reserve all you can, " said Fanny. 

When Barbara had typed the prospectus, Mr. Waddington insisted on takingit to Pyecraft himself. He wanted to insure its being printed withoutdelay, and to arrange for the posters and handbills; he also wanted tosee the impression it would make on Pyecraft and on the young lady inPyecraft's shop. He liked to think of the stir in the composing roomwhen it was handed in, and of the importance he was conferring onPyecraft. 

"You haven't said what you think of the prospectus, " said Fanny, as theywatched him go. 

"I haven't said what I think of the League of Liberty. "

"What _do_ you think of it?"

"I think it looks as if somebody was in an awful funk; and I don't seethat there's going to be much liberty about it. "

"That, " said Fanny, "is how it struck me. But it'll keep Horatio quietfor the next six months. "

"_Quiet_? And afterwards?"

"Oh, afterwards there'll be his book. "

"I'd forgotten his book. "

"That'll keep him quieter than anything else; if you can get him tosettle down to it. "

2

That evening Barbara witnessed the reconciliation of Mr. Waddington andRalph Bevan. Mr. Waddington made a spectacle of it, standing, majesticand immovable, by his hearth and holding out his hand long before Ralphhad got near enough to take it. 

"Good evening, Ralph. Glad to see you here again. "

"Good of you to ask me, sir. "

Barbara thought he winced a little at the "sir. " He had a distaste forthose forms of deference which implied his seniority. You could see hedidn't like Ralph. His voice was genial, but there was no light in hisbulging stare; the heavy lines of his face never lifted. She wondered:Was it Ralph's brilliant youth that had offended him, reminding him, even when he refused to recognize his fascination? For you could seethat he did refuse, that he regarded Ralph Bevan as an inferior, insignificant personality. Barbara had to revise her theory. He wasn'tjealous of him. It would never occur to him that Fanny, or Barbara forthat matter, could find Ralph interesting. Nothing could disturb for amoment his immense satisfaction with himself. He conducted dinner with asuperb detachment, confining his attention to Fanny and Barbara, as ifhe were pretending that Ralph wasn't there, until suddenly he heardFanny asking him if he knew anything about the National League ofLiberty and what he thought of it. 

"Mr. Waddington doesn't want to know what I think of it. "

"No, but we want to. "

"My dear Fanny, any opinion, any honest opinion--"

"Oh, Ralph's opinion will be honest enough. "

"Honest, I daresay, " said Mr. Waddington. 

"Well, if you really want to know, I think it's a pathological symptom. "

"A what?" said Mr. Waddington, startled into a show of interest. 

"Pathological symptom. It's all funk. Blue funk. True blue funk. "

"That's what Barbara says. "

The young man looked at Barbara as much as to say, "I knew I could trustyou to take the only intelligent view. "

"It's run, " he said, "by a few imbeciles, like Sir Maurice Gedge. They're scared out of their lives of Bolshevism. "

"Do you mean to say that Bolshevism isn't dangerous?"

"Not in this country. "

"Perhaps, then, you'd like to see a Soviet Government in this country?"

"I didn't say so. "

"But I understand that you uphold Bolshevism?"

"I don't uphold funk. But, " said Ralph, "there's rather more in it thanthat. It's being engineered. It's a deliberate, dishonest, and maliciousattempt to discredit Labour. "

"Absurd, " said Mr. Waddington. "You show that you are ignorant of thevery principles of the League. "

If he recognized Ralph's youth, it was only to despise it as crude anduninformed. 

"It is--the--National--League--of Liberty. "

"Well, that's about all the liberty there is in it--liberty to suppressliberty. "

"You may not know that I'm starting a branch of the League in Wyck. "

"I'm sorry, sir. I did not know. Fanny, why did you lay that trap forme?"

"Because I wanted your real opinion. "

"Before you set up an opinion, you had better come to my meeting on thetwenty-first. Then perhaps you'll learn something about it. "

Fanny changed the subject to Sir John Corbett's laziness. 

"A man, " said Mr. Waddington, "without any seriousness, any sense ofresponsibility. "

After coffee Mr. Waddington removed Fanny to the library to consult withhim about the formation of his Committee, leaving Barbara and RalphBevan alone. Fanny waved her hand to them from the doorway, signallingher blessing on their unrestrained communion. 

"It's deplorable, " said Ralph, "to see a woman of Fanny's intelligencemixing herself up with a rotten scheme like that. "

"Poor darling, she only does it to keep him quiet. "

"Oh, yes, I admit there's every excuse for her. "

They looked at each other and smiled. A smile of delicious and secretunderstanding. 

"Isn't he wonderful?" she said. 

"I thought you'd like him.... I say, you know, I _must_ come to hismeeting. He'll be more wonderful than ever there. Can't you see him?"

"I can. It's almost _too_ much--to think that I should be allowed toknow him, to live in the same house with him, to have him turninghimself on by the hour together. What have I done to deserve it?"

"I see, " he said, "you _have_ got it. "

"Got what?"

"The taste for him. The genuine passion. I had it when I was here. Icouldn't have stood it if I hadn't. "

"I know. You must have had it. You've got it now. "

"And I don't suppose I've seen him anything like at his best. You'll getmore out of him than I did. "

"Oh, do you think I shall?"

"Yes. He may rise to greater heights. "

"You mean he may go to greater lengths?"

"Perhaps. I don't know. You'd have, of course, to stop his lengths, which would he a pity. I think of him mostly in heights. There's noreason why you shouldn't let him soar.... But I mustn't discuss him. I've just eaten his dinner. "

"No, we mustn't, " Barbara agreed. "That's the worst of dinners. "

"I say, though, can't we meet somewhere?"

"Where we _can?_"

"Yes. Where we can let ourselves rip? Couldn't we go for more walkstogether?"

"I'm afraid there won't be time. "

"There'll be loads of time. When he's off in his car 'rounding up thecounty. '"

"When he's 'off, ' I'm 'on' as Mrs. Waddington's companion. "

"Fanny won't mind. She'll let you do anything you like. At any rate, she'll let _me_ do anything _I_ like. "

"Will you ask her?"

"Of course I shall. "

So they settled it. 

3

When Barbara said to herself that Mr. Waddington would spoil her eveningwith Ralph Bevan, she had judged by the change that had come over thehouse since the return of its master. You felt it first in the depressedfaces of the servants, of Partridge and Annie Trinder. A thoughtfulgloom had settled even on Kimber. Worse than all, Fanny Waddington hadleft off humming. Barbara missed that spontaneous expression of herhappiness. 

She thought: "What is it he does to them?" And yet it was clear that hedidn't do anything. They were simply crushed by the sheer mass andweight of his egoism. He imposed on them somehow his incredibleconsciousness of himself. He left an atmosphere of uneasiness. You feltit when he wasn't there; even when Fanny had settled down in thedrawing-room with "Tono-Bungay" you felt her fear that at any minute thedoor would open and Horatio would come in. 

But Barbara wasn't depressed. She enjoyed the perpetual spectacle hemade. She enjoyed his very indifference to Ralph, his refusal to seethat he could command attention, his conviction of his own superiorfascination. She knew now what Ralph meant when he said it would beunkind to spoil him for her. He was to burst on her without preparationor description. She was to discover him first of all herself. First ofall. But she could see the time coming when her chief joy would be theirmaking him out, bit by bit, together. She even discerned a merry devilin Fanny that amused itself at Horatio's expense; that was aware ofBarbara's amusement and condoned it. There were ultimate decencies thatprevented any open communion with Fanny. But beyond that refusal tosmile at Horatio after eating his dinner, she could see no decenciesrestraining Ralph. She could count on him when her private delightbecame intolerable and must be shared. 

But there were obstacles to their intercourse. Mr. Waddington couldn'tvery well start on what he called his "campaign" until he was armed withhis prospectus, and Pyecraft took more than a week to print it. Andwhile she sat idle, thinking of her salary, the fiend of conscienceprompted Barbara to ask him for work. Wasn't there his book?

"My book? My Cotswold book?" He pretended he had forgotten all about it. He waved it away. "The book is only a recreation, an amusement. Plentyof time for that when I've got my League going. Still, I shall be gladwhen I can settle down to it, again. ".... He was considering it now withreminiscent affection.... "If it would amuse you to look at it--"

He began a fussy search in his bureau. 

"Ah, here we are!"

He unearthed two piles of manuscript, one typed, the other written, bothscored with erasures, with almost illegible corrections and insertions. 

"It's in a terrible mess, " he said. 

She saw what her work would be: to cut a way through the jungle, to makeclearings. 

"If I were to type it all over again, you'd have a clean copy to work onwhen you were ready. "

"If you _would_ be so good. It's that young rascal Ralph. He'd nobusiness to leave it in that state. "

Her scruple came again to Barbara. 

"Mr. Waddington, you'd take him on again for your secretary if he'd comeback?"

"He'd come back all right. Trust him. "

"And you'd take him?"

"My dear young lady, why should I? I don't want _him_; I want _you_. "

"And _I_ don't want to stand in his way. "

"You needn't worry about that. "

"I can't help worrying about it. You'd take him back if I wasn't here. "

"You _are_ here. "

"But if I weren't?"

"Come, come. You mustn't talk to me like that. "

She went away and talked to Fanny. 

"I can't bear doing him out of his job. If he'll come back--"

"My dear, you don't know Ralph. He'd die rather than come back. They'vemade it impossible between them. "

"Mr. Waddington says he'd take him back if I wasn't here. "

"He wouldn't. He only thinks he would, because it makes him feelmagnanimous. He offered Ralph half a year's salary if he'd go at once. And Ralph went at once and wouldn't touch the salary. That made him comeout top dog, and Horatio didn't like it. Not that he supposed he couldscore off Ralph with money. He isn't vulgar. "

No. He wasn't vulgar. But she wondered how he would camouflage it tohimself--that insult to his pride. And there was Ralph's pride that wasso fiery and so clean. Yet--

"Yet Mr. Bevan comes and dines, " she said. 

"Yes, he comes and dines. He'll always be my cousin, though he won't beHoratio's secretary. He's got a very sweet nature and he keeps theissues clear. "

"But what will he _do_? He can't live on his sweet nature. "

"Oh, he's got enough to live on, though not enough to--to do what hewants on. But he'll get a job all right. You needn't bother your dearlittle head about Ralph. "

Fanny said to herself: "I'll tell him, then he'll adore her more thanever. If only he adores her _enough_ he'll buck up and get something todo. "

VI

1

Mr. Waddington did not approve of Mrs. Levitt's intimacy with hersister, Bertha Rickards. 

He would have approved of it still less if he had heard the conversationwhich Mrs. Trinder heard and reported to Miss Gregg, the governess atthe rectory, who told the Rector's wife, who told the Rector, who toldColonel Grainger, who told Ralph Sevan, who kept it to himself. 

"What did you say to the old boy, Elise?"

"Don't ask me what I _said_!"

"Well--have you got the cottage?"

"Of course I've got it, silly cuckoo. I can get anything out of him Ilike. He wasn't going to turn those Ballingers out, but I made him. "

"Did he say when Mrs. Waddington was going to call?"

Bertha couldn't resist the temptation of pinching where she knew theflesh was tender. 

"I didn't ask him. "

"She can't very well be off it, now he's your landlord. "

That was what Mrs. Levitt thought. And if Mrs. Waddington called, LadyCorbett couldn't very well be off it either. They were the only ones inWyck who had not called; but it would be futile to pretend that theydidn't matter, that they were not the ones who mattered more thananybody. 

The net she had drawn round Mr. Waddington was tightening, though he wasas yet unaware of his entanglement. First of all, the Lower Wyck cottagewas put into thorough repair; and if the plaster was not quite dry whenthe Ballingers moved into it, that was not Mr. Waddington's concern. Hehad provided them with a house, which was all that the law couldreasonably require him to do. Clearly it was Hitchin, the builder, whoshould be held responsible for the plaster, not he. As for therheumatism Mrs. Ballinger got, supposing it could be put down to thedamp plaster and not to some inherent defect in Mrs. Ballinger'sconstitution, clearly that was not Mr. Waddington's concern either. Ifanybody was responsible for Mrs. Ballinger's rheumatism, it was Hitchin. 

Mr. Waddington did not approve of Hitchin. Hitchin was a Socialist whofollowed Colonel Grainger's lead in overpaying his workmen, withdisastrous consequences to other people; for over and above the generalupsetting caused by this gratuitous interference with the prevailingeconomic system, Mr. Hitchin was in the habit of recouping himself bymonstrous overcharges. And Mr. Hitchin was not only the best builder inthe neighbourhood, but the only builder and stonemason inWyck-on-the-Hill, so that he had you practically at his mercy. 

And operations at the Sheep Street cottage were suspended while Mr. Waddington disputed Mr. Hitchin's estimate bit by bit, from the totalcost of building the new rooms down to the last pot of enamel paint andhis charge per foot for lead piping. June was slipping away while theycontended, and there seemed little chance of Mrs. Levitt's getting intoher house before Michaelmas, if then. 

So that on the morning of the nineteenth, two days before the meeting, Mr. Waddington found another letter waiting for him on thebreakfast-table. 

Fanny was looking at him, and he sought protection in an affectation ofannoyance. 

"Now what can Mrs. Levitt find to write to me about?"

"I wouldn't set any limits to her invention, " Fanny said. 

"And what do you know about Mrs. Levitt?"

"Nothing. I only gather from what you say yourself that she is--fertilein resource. "

"Resource?"

"Well, in creating opportunities. "

"Opportunities, now, for what?"

"For you to exercise your Christian charity, my dear. When are you goingto let me call on her?"

"I am not going to let you call on her at all. "

"Is that Christian charity?"

"It's anything you please. " He was absorbed in his letter. Mrs. Levitthad been obliged to move from Mrs. Trinder's in the Square to inferiorrooms in Sheep Street, and she was sorry for herself. 

"But surely, when you're always calling on her yourself--"

"I am not always calling on her. And if I were, there are some thingswhich are perfectly proper for me to do which would not be proper foryou. "

"It sounds as if Mrs. Levitt wasn't. "

He looked up as sharply as his facial curves permitted. "Nothing of thesort. She's simply not the sort of person you _do_ call on; and I don'tmean you to begin. "

"Why not?"

"Because you're my wife and you have a certain position in the county. That's why. "

"Rather a snobby reason, isn't it? You said I might call on anybody Iliked. "

"So you may, in reason, provided you don't begin with Mrs. Levitt. "

"I may have to end with her, " said Fanny. 

Mr. Waddington had many reasons for not wishing Fanny to call on Mrs. Levitt. He wanted to keep his wife, because she was his wife, in a placeapart from Mrs. Levitt and above her, to mark the distance anddistinction that there was between them. He wanted to keep himself, asFanny's husband, apart and distant, by way of enhancing his maleattraction. And he wanted to keep Mrs. Levitt apart, to keep her tohimself, as the hidden woman of passionate adventure. Hitherto theirintercourse had had the charm, the unique, irreplaceable charm of thingsunacknowledged and clandestine. Mrs. Levitt was unique; irreplaceable. He couldn't think of any other woman who would be a suitable substitute. There was little Barbara Madden; she had been afraid of him; but hispassions were still too young to be stirred by the crudity of a girl'sfright; if it came to that, he preferred the reassuring ease of Mrs. Levitt. 

And he didn't mean it to come to that. 

But though Mr. Waddington did not actually look forward to a time whenhe would be Mrs. Levitt's lover, he had visions of the pure fancy inwhich he saw himself standing on Mrs. Levitt's doorstep after dark; say, once a fortnight, on her servant's night out; he would sound a muffledsignal on the knocker and the door would he half-opened by Elise. Elise!He would slip through in a slender and mysterious manner; he would go ontip-toe up and down her stairs, recapturing a youthful thrill out of thevery risks they ran, yet managing the affair with a consummate delicacyand discretion. 

At this point Mr. Waddington's fancy heard another door open down thestreet; somebody came out and saw him in the light of the passage;somebody went by with a lantern; somebody timed his comings and goings. He felt the palpitation, the cold nausea of detection. No. You couldn'tdo these things in a little place like Wyck-on-the-Hill, where everybodyknew everybody else's business. And there was Toby, too. 

Sometimes, perhaps, on a Sunday afternoon, when Toby and the servantwould be out. Yes. Sunday afternoon between tea-time and church-time. 

Or he could meet her in Oxford or Cheltenham or in London. Wiser. Week-ends. More satisfactory. Risk of being seen there too, but you musttake some risks. Surprising how these things _were_ kept secret. 

Birmingham now. Birmingham would be safer because more unlikely. Hedidn't know anybody in Birmingham. But the very thought of Mrs. Levittcalling at the Manor on the same commonplace footing, say, as Mrs. Grainger, was destruction to all this romantic secrecy. 

Also he was afraid that if Mrs. Levitt were really that sort of woman, Fanny's admirable instinct would find her out and scent the imminentaffair. Or if Fanny remained unsuspicious and showed plainly her senseof security, Elise might become possessive and from sheer jealousy giveherself away. Mr. Waddington said to himself that he knew women, andthat if he were a wise man, and he _was_ a wise man, he would arrangematters so that the two should never meet. Fanny was docile, and if hesaid flatly that she was not to call on Mrs. Levitt, she wouldn't. 

2

There was another thing that Mr. Waddington dreaded even more than thatdangerous encounter: Fanny's knowing that he had turned the Ballingersout. As he would have been very unwilling to admit that Mrs. Levitt hadforced his hand there, he took the whole of the responsibility for thataction. But, inevitable and justifiable as it was, he couldn't hope tocarry it off triumphantly with Fanny. It was just, but it was notmagnanimous. Therefore, without making any positively untruthfulstatement, he had let her think that Ballinger had given notice of hisown accord. The chances, he thought, were all against Fanny ever hearingthe truth of the matter. 

If only the rascal hadn't had a wife and children, and if only hiswife--but, unfortunately for Mr. Waddington, his wife was Susan Trinder, Mrs. Trinder's husband's niece, and Susan Trinder had been Horace'snurse; and though they all considered that she had done for herself whenshe married that pig-headed Ballinger, Fanny and Horace still called herSusan-Nanna. And Susan-Nanna's niece, Annie Trinder, was parlourmaid atthe Manor. So Mr. Waddington had a nasty qualm when Annie, clearing awaybreakfast, asked if she might have a day off to look after her aunt, Mrs. Ballinger, who was in bed with the rheumatics. 

To his horror he heard Fanny saying: "She wouldn't have had therheumatics if they'd stayed in Sheep Street. "

"No, ma'am. "

Annie's eyes were clear and mendacious. 

"He never ought to have left it, " said Fanny. 

"No, ma'am. No more he oughtn't. "

"Isn't she very sorry about it?"

(Why couldn't Fanny leave it alone?)

"Yes, m'm. She's frettin' something awful. You see, 'tesn't so much thehouse, though 'tes a better one than the one they're in, 'tes thegarden. All that fruit and vegetable what uncle he put in himself, andthem lavender bushes. Aunt, she's so fond of a bit of lavender. I dunnowI'm sure how she'll get along. "

Annie knew. He could tell by her eyes that she knew. There was nothingbut Annie's loyalty between him and that exposure that he dreaded. Heheard Fanny say that she would go and see Susan to-morrow. There wouldbe nothing but Susan's loyalty and Ballinger's magnanimity. It wouldamount to that if they spared him for Fanny's sake. He had beenabsolutely right, and Ballinger had brought the whole trouble onhimself; but you could never make Fanny see that. And Ballingercontrived to put him still further in the wrong. The next day when Fannycalled at the cottage she found it empty. Ballinger had removed himselfand his wife and family to Susan's father's farm at Medlicott, a goodtwo and a half miles from his work on Colonel Grainger's land, thusproviding himself with a genuine grievance. 

And Fanny would keep on talking about it at dinner. 

"Those poor Ballingers! It's an awful pity he gave up the Sheep Streetcottage. Didn't you tell him he was a fool, Horatio?"

Mercifully Annie Trinder had left the room. But there was Partridge bythe sideboard, listening. 

"I'm not responsible for Ballinger's folly. If he finds himselfinconvenienced by it, that's no concern of mine. "

"Well, Ballinger's folly has been very convenient for Mrs. Levitt. "

Mr. Waddington tried to look as if Mrs. Levitt's convenience were noconcern of his either. 

VII

1

The handbills and posters had been out for the last week. Theirheadlines were very delightful to the eye with their enormous capitalsstaring at you in Pyecraft's royal blue print. 

 NATIONAL LEAGUE OF LIBERTY. 

 * * * * *

 A MEETING IN AID OF THE ABOVE LEAGUE WILL BE HELD IN THE TOWN HALL, WYCK-ON-THE-HILL, _Saturday, June 21st, 8 p. M. _

 * * * * *

 _Chairman_: SIR JOHN CORBETT, OF UNDERWOODS, WYCK-ON-THE-HILL. _Speaker_: HORATIO BYSSHE WADDINGTON, ESQ. , OF THE MANOR HOUSE, LOWER WYCK. 

 * * * * *

 YOU ARE EARNESTLY REQUESTED TO ATTEND. 

 * * * * *

 GOD SAVE THE KING!

Only one thing threatened Mr. Waddington's intense enjoyment of hismeeting: his son Horace would be there. Young Horace had insisted oncoming over from Cheltenham College for the night, expressly to attendthe meeting. And though Mr. Waddington had pointed out that the meetingcould very well take place without him, Fanny appeared to be backingyoung Horace up in his impudent opinion that it couldn't. This he foundexcessively annoying; for, though for worlds he wouldn't have owned it, Mr. Waddington was afraid of his son. He was never the same man when hewas about. The presence of young Horace--tall for sixteen and developingrapidly--was fatal to the illusion of his youth. And Horace had a way ofcommenting disadvantageously on everything his father said or did; hehad a perfect genius for humorous depreciation. At any rate, he and hismother behaved as if they thought it was humorous, and many of hisremarks seemed to strike other people--Sir John and Lady Corbett, forexample, and Ralph Bevan--in the same light. Over and over again youngHorace would keep the whole table listening to him with unreasoning andunreasonable delight, while his father's efforts to converse receivedonly a polite and perfunctory attention. And the prospect of havingyoung Horace's humour let loose on his meeting and on his speech at themeeting was distinctly disagreeable. Fanny oughtn't to have allowed itto happen. He oughtn't to have allowed it himself. But short of writingto his Head Master to forbid it, they couldn't stop young Horace coming. He had only to get on his motor-bicycle and come. 

Barbara came on him in the drawing-room before dinner, sitting in aneasy chair and giggling over the prospectus. 

He jumped up and stood by the hearth, smiling at her. 

"I say, did my guv'nor really write this himself?"

"More or less. Did you really come over for the meeting?"

"Rather. "

His smile was wilful and engaging. 

"You _are_ enthusiastic about the League. "

"Enthusiastic? We-ell, I can't say I know much about it. Of course, Iknow the sort of putrid tosh he'll sling at them, but what I want is to_see_ him doing it. "

He had got it too, that passion of interest and amusement, hers andRalph's. Only it wasn't decent of him to show it; she mustn't let himsee she had it. She answered soberly:

"Yes, he's awfully keen. "

"_Is_ he? I've never seen him really excited, worked up, except once ortwice during the war. "

As he stood there, looking down, smiling pensively, he seemed to broodover it, to anticipate the joy of the spectacle. 

He had an impudent, happy face, turned and coloured like his mother's;he had Fanny's blue eyes and brown hair. All that the Waddingtons andPostlethwaites had done to him was to raise the bridge of his nose, andto thicken his lips slightly without altering their wide, vivacioustwirl. He considered Barbara. 

"You're going to help him to write his book, aren't you?"

"I hope so, " said Barbara. 

"You've got a nerve. He pretty well did for Ralph Bevan. He's worse thanshell-shock when he once gets going. "

"I expect I can stand him. He can't be worse than the War Office. "

"Oh, isn't he? You wait. "

At that moment his father came in, late, and betraying the firstsymptoms of excitement. Barbara saw that the boy's eyes took them in. Asthey sat down to dinner Mr. Waddington pretended to ignore Horace. ButHorace wouldn't be ignored. He drew attention instantly to himself. 

"Don't you think it's jolly decent of me, pater, to come over for yourmeeting?"

"I shouldn't have thought, " said Mr. Waddington, "that politics weremuch in your line. Not worth spoiling a half-holiday for. "

"I don't suppose I shall care two fags about your old League. What I'vecome for is to see you, pater, getting up on your hind legs and givingit them. I wouldn't miss that for a million half-holidays. "

"If that's all you've come for you might have saved yourself thetrouble. "

"Trouble? My dear father, I'd have taken _any_ trouble. "

You could see he was laughing at him. And he was talking at Barbara, attracting her attention the whole time; with every phrase he shot alook at her across the table. Evidently he was afraid she might think hedidn't know how funny his father was, and he had to show her. It wasn'tdecent of him. Barbara didn't approve of young Horace; yet she couldn'tresist him; his eyes and mouth were full, like Ralph's, of suchintelligent yet irresponsible joy. He wanted her to share it. He was anegoist like his father; but he had something of his mother's charm, something of Ralph Bevan's. 

"Nothing, " he was saying, "nothing would have kept me away. "

"You're very good, sir. " Horace could appreciate that biting sarcasm. 

"Not at all. I say, I wish you'd let me come on the platform. "

"What for? You don't propose yourself as a speaker, do you?"

"Rather not. I simply want to be somewhere where I can see your face andold Grainger's at the same time, and Hitchin's, when you're going fortheir Socialism. "

"You shall certainly not come on the platform. And wherever you sit Imust request you to behave yourself--if you can. You may not realize it, but this is going to be a serious meeting. "

"I know _that_. It's just the--the seriousness that gets me. " Hegiggled. 

Mr. Waddington shrugged his shoulders. "Of course, if you've no sense ofresponsibility--if you choose to go on like an ill-bred schoolboy--butdon't be surprised if you're reprimanded from the chair. "

"What? Old Corbett? I should like to see him.... Don't you worry, pater, I'll behave a jolly sight better than anybody else will. You see if Idon't. "

"How did you suppose he'd behave, Horatio?" said Fanny. "When he's comeall that way and given up a picnic to hear you. "

"Pater'll be a picnic, if you like, " said Horace. 

Mr. Waddington waved him away with a gesture as if he flicked a teasingfly, and went out to collect his papers. 

Fanny turned to her son. "Horry dear, you mustn't rag your father likethat. You mustn't laugh at him. He doesn't like it. "

"I can't help it, " Horry said. "He's so furiously funny. He _makes_ megiggle. "

"Well, whatever you do, don't giggle at the meeting, or you'll give himaway. "

"I won't, mater. Honour bright, I won't. I'll hold myself in like--likeanything. Only you mustn't mind if I burst. "

2

Mr. Waddington had spoken for half an hour, expounding, with somenecessary repetitions, the principles and objects of the League. 

He was supported on the platform by his Chairman, Sir John Corbett, andby the other members of his projected Committee: by Lady Corbett, byFanny, by the Rector, by Mr. Thurston of the Elms, Wyck-on-the-Hill; byMr. Bostock of Parson's Bank; Mr. Jackson, of Messrs. Jackson, Cleaverand Co. , solicitors; Major Markham of Wyck Wold, Mr. Temple ofNorton-in-Mark, and Mr. Hawtrey of Medlicott; and by his secretary, Miss Barbara Madden. The body of the hall was packed. Beneath him, inthe front row, he had the wives and daughters of his committeemen; inits centre, right under his nose, he was painfully aware of the presenceof young Horace and Ralph Bevan. Colonel Grainger sat behind them, conspicuous and, Mr. Waddington fancied, a little truculent, with hisgreat square face and square-clipped red moustache, and on each side ofColonel Grainger and behind him were the neighbouring gentry and thetownspeople of Wyck, the two grocers, the two butchers, the drapers andhotel keeper, and behind them again the servants of the Manor and acrowd of shop assistants; and further and further back, farm labourersand artisans; among these he recognized Ballinger with several ofColonel Grainger's and Hitchin's men. A pretty compact group they made, and Mr. Waddington was gratified by their appearance there. 

And well in the centre of the hall, above the women's hats, he could seeMr. Hitchin's bush of hair, his shrewd, round, clean-shaven and rosyface, his grey check shoulders and red tie. Mr. Hitchin had the air ofbeing supported by the entire body of his workmen. Mr. Waddington wasgratified by Mr. Hitchin's appearance, too, and he thought he wouldinsert some expression of that feeling in his peroration. 

He was also profoundly aware of Mrs. Levitt sitting all by herself in anempty space about the middle of the third row. 

From time to time Ralph Bevan and young Horace fixed on Fanny Waddingtonand Barbara delighted eyes in faces of a supernatural gravity. YoungHorace was looking odd and unlike himself, with his jaws clampedtogether in his prodigious effort not to giggle. Whenever Barbara's eyesmet his and Ralph's, a faint smile quivered on her face and flickeredand went out. 

Once Horace whispered to Ralph Bevan: "Isn't he going it?" And Ralphwhispered back: "He's immense. "

He was. He felt immense. He felt that he was carrying his audience withhim. The sound of his own voice excited him and whipped him on. It was asort of intoxication. He was soaring now, up and up, into hisperoration. 

"It is a gratification to me to see so many working men and women hereto-night. They are specially welcome. We want to have them with us. Donot distrust the working man. The working man is sound at heart. Soundat head too, when he is let alone and not carried away by thetreacherous arguments of ignorant agitators. We--myself and thefounders of this League--have not that bad opinion of the working manwhich his leaders--his misleaders, I may call them--appear to have. Webelieve in him, we know that, if he were only let alone, there is nosection of the community that would stand more solid for order and goodgovernment than he. "

"Hear! Hear!" from Colonel Grainger. Ralph whispered, "Camouflage!" toHorace, who nodded. 

"There is nothing in the aims of this League contrary to the interestsof Labour. On the contrary"--he heard, as if somebody else hadperpetrated it, the horrible repetition--"I mean to say--" His brainfought for another phrase madly and in vain. "On the contrary, it existsin order to safeguard the true interests, the best interests, of everyworking man and woman in the country. "

"Hear! Hear!" from Sir John Corbett. Mr. Waddington smiled. 

"President Wilson"--he became agitated and drank water--"PresidentWilson talked about making the world safe for democracy. Well, if we, you and I, all of us, don't take care, the world won't be safe foranything else. It certainly won't be safe for the middle classes, forthe great business and professional classes, for the class to which I, for one, belong: the class of English gentlemen. It won't be safe for_us_. 

"Not that I propose to make a class question of it. To make a classquestion of it would be more than wrong. It would be foolish. It wouldbe a challenge to revolution, the first step towards letting loose, unchaining against us, those forces of disorder and destruction which weare seeking to keep down. I am not here to insist on class differences, to foment class hatred. Those differences exist, they always will exist;but they are immaterial to our big purpose. This is a question ofprinciple, the great principle of British liberty. Are we going tosubmit to the tyranny of one class over all other classes, of oneinterest over all other interests in the country? Are we going to knockunder, I say, to a minority, whether it is a Labour minority or anyother?

"Are--we--going--to tolerate Bolshevism and a Soviet Government here? Ifthere are any persons present who think that that is our attitude andour intention, I tell them now plainly--it is _not_. In their ownlanguage, in our good old county proverb: 'As sure as God's inGloucester, ' it is not and never will be. The sooner they understandthat the better. I do not say that there are any persons present whowould be guilty of so gross an error. I do not believe there are. I donot believe that there is any intelligent person in this room who willnot agree with me when I say that, though it is just and right thatLabour should have a voice in the government, it is not just and it isnot right that it should be the only voice. 

"It has been the only voice heard in Russia for two years, and what isthe consequence? Bloodshed. Anarchy and bloodshed. I don't _say_ that weshould have anarchy and bloodshed here; England, thank God, is notRussia. But I do not say that we shall _not_ have them. And I _do_ saythat it rests with us, with you and me, ladies and gentlemen, to decidewhether we shall or shall not have them. It depends on the action wetake to-night with regard to this National League of Liberty, on theaction taken on--on other nights at similar meetings, all over thisEngland of ours; it depends, in two words, on our _united action_, whether we shall have anarchy or stable government, whether this Englandof ours shall or shall not continue to be a free country. 

"Remember two things: the League is National, and it is a League ofLiberty. It would not be one if it were not the other. 

"You will say, perhaps many of you _are_ saying: 'This League is allvery well, but what can _I_ do?' Perhaps you will even say: 'What canWyck do? After all, Wyck is a small place. It isn't the capital of thecounty. '"

"Well, I can tell you what Wyck can do. It can be--it _is_ the firsttown in Gloucestershire, the first provincial town in England to start aNational League of Liberty. They've got a League in London, the parentLeague; they may have another branch League anywhere any day, but I hopethat--thanks to the very noble efforts of those ladies and gentlemen whohave kindly consented to serve on my Committee--I hope that before longwe shall have started Leagues in Gloucester, Cheltenham, Cirencester, Nailsworth and Stroud; in every town, village and hamlet in the county. I hope, thanks to your decision to-night, ladies and gentlemen, to beable to say that Wyck--little Wyck--has got in first. All round us, forfifteen--twenty miles round, there are hamlets, villages and towns thathaven't got a League, that know nothing about the League. Wyck-on-the-Hill will be the centre of the League for this part of theCotswolds. 

"It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the principle atstake. Impossible, therefore, to exaggerate the importance of thisLeague, therefore impossible to exaggerate the importance of thismeeting, of every man and woman who has come here to-night. And whenyou rise from your seats and step up to this platform to enroll yournames as members of the National League of Liberty, I want you to feel, every one of you, that you will be doing an important thing, a thingnecessary to the nation, a thing in its way every bit as necessary andimportant as the thing the soldier does when he rises up out of histrench and goes over the top. "

It was then, and then only, that young Horace giggled. But he coveredhis collapse with a shout of "Hear! Hear!" that caused Fanny and Barbarato blow their noses simultaneously. As for Ralph, he hid his face in hishands. 

"Like him, " said Mr. Waddington, "you will be helping to save England. And what can any of us do more?"

He sat down suddenly in a perfect uproar of applause, and drank water. In spite of the applause he was haunted by a sense of incompleteness. There was something he had left out of his speech, something he hadparticularly wanted to say. It seemed to him more vital, more important, than anything he _had_ said. 

A solitary pair of hands, Mrs. Levitt's hands, conspicuously lifted, were still clapping when Mr. Hitchin's face rose like a red moon behindand a little to the left of her; followed by the grey check shouldersand red tie. He threw back his head, stuck a thumb in each armhole ofhis waistcoat, and spoke. "Ladies and gentlemen. The speaker has quotedPresident Wilson about the world being made safe for democracy. He seemsto be concerned about the future, to be, if I may say so, in a bit of afunk about the future. But has he paid any attention to the past? Has heconsidered the position of the working man in the past? Has he evenconsidered the condition of many working men at the present time, forinstance, of the farm labourer now in this country? If he had, if heknew the facts, if he cared about the facts, he might admit that, whether he's going to like it or not, it's the working man's turn. Justabout his turn. 

"I needn't ask Mr. Waddington if he knows the parable of Dives andLazarus. But I should like to say to him what Abraham said to the richman: 'Remember that thou in thy life-time receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted and thou arttormented. '

"I don't want Mr. Waddington to be tormented. To be tormented too much. Not more than is reasonable. A little torment--say, his finger scorchedfor the fraction of a second in that hot, unpleasant place--would begood for him if it made him think. I say I don't want to torment him, but I'll just ask him one question: Does he think that a world whereit's possible for a working man, just because he _is_ a working man andnot an English gentleman, a world where it's still possible for him, andhis wife and his children, to be turned out of house and home to suitthe whim of an English gentleman; does he think that a world wherethings like that can happen is a safe place for anybody?

"I can tell him it isn't safe. It isn't safe for you and me. And if itisn't safe for you and me, it isn't safe for the people who make thesethings happen; and it isn't any safer for the people who stand by andlet them happen. 

"And if the Socialist--if the Bolshevist is the man who's going to seeto it that they don't happen, if a Soviet Government is the onlyGovernment that'll see to that, then the Socialist, or the Bolshevist, is the man for my money, and a Soviet Government is the Government formy vote. I don't say, mind you, that it _is_ the only Government--I say, if it were. 

"Mr. Waddington doesn't like Bolshevism. None of us like it. He doesn'tlike Socialism. I think he's got some wrong ideas about that. But he'sdead right when he tells you, if you're afraid of Bolshevism and aSoviet Government, that the remedy lies in your own hands. If there everis a day of reckoning, what Mr. Waddington would call a revolution inthis country, you, we, ay, everyone of us sitting here, will be donewith according as we do. "

He sat down, and Mr. Waddington rose again on his platform, solemn and alittle pale. He looked round the hall, to show that there was no personthere whom he was afraid to face. It might have been the look of somebold and successful statesman turning on a turbulent House, confident inhis power to hold it. 

"Unless I have misheard him, what Mr. Hitchin has just said, ladies andgentlemen, sounded very like a threat. If that is so, we maycongratulate Mr. Hitchin on providing an unanswerable proof of the needfor a National League of Liberty. "

There were cries of "Hear! Hear!" from Sir John Corbett and from Mr. Hawtrey of Medlicott. 

Then a horrible thing happened. Slight and rustling at first, thengathering volume, there came a hissing from the back rows packed withColonel Grainger's and Mr. Hitchin's men. Then a booing. Then a booingand hissing together. 

Sir John scrabbled on to his little legs and cried: "Ordah, there!Ordah!" Mr. Waddington maintained an indomitably supercilious air whileSir John brought his fist down on the table (probably the most energeticthing he had ever done in his life), with a loud shout of "Ordah!"Colonel Grainger and Mr. Hitchin were seen to turn round in theirplaces and make a sign to their men, and the demonstration ceased. 

Mr. Waddington then rose as if nothing at all had happened and said, "Any ladies and gentlemen wishing to join the League will please come upto the platform and give their names to Miss Madden. Any persons wishingto subscribe at once, may pay their subscriptions to Miss Madden. 

"I will now call your attention to the last item on the programme, andask you all to join with me very heartily in singing 'God Save theKing. '"

Everybody, except Colonel Grainger and Mr. Hitchin, rose, and everybody, except the extremists of the opposition, sang. One voice--it was Mrs. Levitt's voice--was lifted arrogantly high and clear above the rest. 

"Send--him--vic-torious, Hap-py--and--glorious. Long--to-oo rei-eign overious Gaw-aw-awd--Save--ther King. "

Mr. Waddington waited beside Barbara Madden at the table; he waited in asuperb confidence. After all, the demonstration engineered by ColonelGrainger had had no effect. The front and middle rows had risen to theirfeet and a very considerable procession was beginning to file towardsthe platform. 

Mr. Waddington was so intent on this procession, Barbara was so busytaking down names and entering subscriptions and making out receipts, Sir John and Lady Corbett and the rest of the proposed Committee weretalking to each other so loud and fast, Ralph and Horace were soabsorbed in looking at Barbara that none of them saw what was happeningin the body of the hall. Only Fanny caught the signals that passedbetween Colonel Grainger and Mr. Hitchin, and between Mr. Hitchin andhis men. 

Then Colonel Grainger stood up and shouted, "I protest!"

Mr. Hitchin stood up and shouted, "I protest!"

They shouted together, "We protest!"

Sir John Corbett rushed back to his chair and shouted "Ordah!" and theback rows, the ranks of Hitchin's men, stood up and shouted, "We won'tsign!" "We won't sign!" "We won't sign!"

And then young Horace did an unsuspected thing, a thing that surprisedhimself. He leaped on to the front bench and faced the insurgent backrows. His face was red with excitement, and with the shame and anger andresentment inspired by his father's eloquence. But he was shouting inhis hoarse, breaking, adolescent voice:

"Look here, you blackguards there at the back. If you don't stop thatrow this minute, I'll jolly well chuck you all out. "

Only one voice, the voice of Mr. Hitchin's biggest and brawniestquarryman, replied: "Come on, sir!"

Young Horace vaulted lightly over the bench, followed by Ralph, and thetwo were steeplechasing down the hall when Mr. Hitchin made another ofhis mysterious signals and the men filed out, obediently, one by one. 

Ralph and Horace found themselves in the middle of the empty bencheslaughing into each other's faces. Colonel Grainger and Mr. Hitchin stoodbeside them, smiling with intolerable benevolence. 

Mr. Hitchin was saying: "The men are all right, Mr. Bevan. They don'tmean any harm. They just got a bit out of hand. "

Horace saw that they were being magnanimous, and the thought maddenedhim. "I don't blame the men, " he said, "and I don't blame you, Hitchin. You don't know any better. But Colonel Grainger ought to be damned wellashamed of himself, and I hope he is. "

Colonel Grainger laughed. So did Mr. Hitchin, throwing himself back andswaying from side to side as his mirth shook him. 

"Look here, Mr. Hitchin--"

"That'll do, Horry, " said Ralph. He led him gently down a side aisleand through a swing door into the concealed corridor beside theplatform. There they waited. 

"Don't imagine for one moment, " said young Horry, "that I agree with allthat tosh he talked. But, after all, he's got a perfect right to make afool of himself if he chooses. And he's _my_ father. "

"I know. From first to last, Horry, you behaved beautifully. "

"Well, what would _you_ do if your father made an unholy ass of himselfin public?"

"My father doesn't. "

"No, but if he did?"

"I'd do what you did. Sit tight and try and look as if he didn't. "

"Then, " said Horace, "you look as big a fool yourself. "

"Not quite. You don't say anything. Besides, your father isn't as big afool as those London Leaguers who started the silly show. Sir MauriceGedge and all that crowd. He didn't invent the beastly thing. "

"No, " said Horace mournfully, "he hasn't even the merit of originality. "

He meditated, still mournful. 

"Look here, Ralph, what did that blackguard Hitchin mean?"

"He isn't a blackguard. He's a ripping good sort. I can tell you, ifevery employer in this confounded commercial country was as honest asold Hitchin, there wouldn't be any labour question worth talking about. "

"Damn his honesty. What did he _mean_? Was it true what he said?"

"Was what true?"

"Why, that my father turned the Ballingers out?"

"Yes; I'm afraid it was. "

"I say, how disgusting of him. You know I always thought he was a bit ofa fool, my father; but I didn't know he was that beastly kind of fool. "

"He isn't, " said Ralph. "He's just--a fool. "

"I know. Did you ever hear such putrid rot as he talked?"

"I don't know. For the kind of silly thing it was, his speech wasn'thalf bad. "

"What? About going over the top? Oh, Lord! And after turning theBallingers out, too. "

Ralph was silent. 

"What's happened to him? He didn't use to be like that. He must be mad, or something. "

Ralph thought of Mrs. Levitt. 

"He's getting old and he doesn't like it. That's what's the matter withhim. "

"But hang it all, Ralph, that's no excuse. It really isn't. "

"I believe Ballinger gave him some provocation. "

"I don't care what he gave him. He'd no earthly business to takeadvantage of it. Not with that sort of person. Besides, it wouldn'tmatter about Ballinger so much, but there's old Susan and thekiddies.... He doesn't see how perfectly sickening it is for _me_. "

"It isn't very nice for your mother. "

"No; it's jolly hard on the poor mater.... Well, I can't stick it muchlonger. I'm just about fed up with Horatio Bysshe. I shall clear outfirst thing in the morning before he's down. I don't care if I never seehim or speak to him again. "

"I say, I say, how about the midsummer holidays?"

"Oh, damn the midsummer holidays!"

"Isn't it rather rotten to take a line you can't possibly keep up?"

"That's all right. Whatever I may do in the future, " said young Horacemagnificently, "I've got to give him his punishment _now_. "

Ralph laughed. Young Horace was as big an egoist as his father, but withthese differences: his blood was hot instead of cold, he had hismother's humour, and he was not a fool. Ralph wondered how he wouldhave felt if he had realized Mrs. Levitt's part in the Ballingeraffair. 

3

Mr. Waddington remained standing on his platform. They were coming roundhim now, grasping him by the hand, congratulating him: Sir John Corbett, the Rector, Major Markham of Wyck Wold and Mr. Hawtrey of Medlicott. 

"Capital speech, Waddington, capital. "

"Best speech made in the Town Hall since they built it. "

"Splendid. You landed them one every time. "

"No wonder you drew them down on to you. "

"That was a disgraceful business, " said Sir John. "Disgraceful. "

"Nothing of the sort ever happened in Wyck before, " said the Rector. 

"Nobody ever made a speech like Waddington's before, " said Major Markhamof Wyck Wold. 

"Oh, you always get a row if you drag in politics, " Mr. Hawtrey said. 

"I don't know, " said Sir John. "That was a put-up job between Hitchinand Grainger. "

"Struck me it had every appearance of a spontaneous outburst, " MajorMarkham said. 

"I've no doubt the rowdy element was brought in from the outside, " saidthe Rector. "Hardly one of Hitchin's workpeople is a Wyck man. OtherwiseI should have to apologize to Waddington for my parishioners. "

"You needn't. There was nothing personal to me in it. Nothing personalat all. Even Hitchin wouldn't have had the impudence to oppose me on myown platform. It was the League they were going for. Bit too big for'em. If you come out with a large, important thing like that there'ssure to be some opposition just at first till it gets hold of 'em. "

"Glad you can see it that way, " said Sir John. 

"My dear fellow, that's the way to see it. It's the right way; the bigimpersonal way. "

"You've taken it in the proper spirit, Waddington, " said the Rector. "None of those fellows meant any real harm. All good fellows.... By theway, is it true that the Ballingers have moved to Lower Wyck?"

"I believe so. "

"Dear me, what on earth possessed them?"

"Some fad of Ballinger's, I fancy. "

"That reminds me, I must go and see Mrs. Ballinger. "

"You won't find them there, sir. They've moved again to her father's atMedlicott. "

"You don't say so. I wonder now what they've done that for. "

"They complained of the house being damp for one thing. If it was, thatwas Hitchin's fault, not mine. "

Was everybody in a plot to badger him about those wretched Ballingers?He was getting sick of it. And he wanted to speak a word to Mrs. Levitt. 

Mrs. Levitt had come up in the tail of the procession. She had given inher name and her subscription to Barbara Madden; but she lingered, waiting no doubt for a word with him. If only Corbett and the rest ofthem would go. 

"Of course. Of course it was Hitchin's fault, " said the Rector, withimperishable geniality. "Well.... Good night, Waddington, and thank youfor a most--a most stimulating evening. "

They had gone now, all but Sir John and Lady Corbett. (He could hear hertalking to Fanny at the back of the platform. ) Mrs. Levitt was gatheringher scarf round her; in another minute she would be gone. And Corbettwouldn't go. 

"I say, Waddington, that's a splendid young cub of yours. See him goover the top? He'd have taken them all on. Licked 'em, too, I shouldn'twonder. "

Mr. Waddington resented this diversion of the stream of admiration. Andhe was acutely aware of Mrs. Levitt standing there, detached butwaiting. 

"Was I really all right, Corbett?" He wasn't satisfied with his speech. If only he could remember what he had left out of it. 

"Absolutely, my dear chap. Absolutely top-hole. You ought to make thatboy a soldier. "

He wished that young Horace could be a soldier at that moment, stationedin a remote part of the Empire, without any likelihood of leave for thenext five years. He wanted--he wanted intolerably to speak to Mrs. Levitt, to spread himself voluptuously in her rejuvenating smile. 

Sir John retreated before his manifest indifference. He could hear himat the back of the platform, congratulating Fanny. 

Mrs. Levitt advanced towards him. 

"At last, " she said, "I may add my congratulations. That speech wasmagnificent. "

"Nothing, my dear lady, nothing but a little necessary plain speaking. "

"Oh, but you were wonderful. You carried us off our feet. "

"I hope, " he said, "we've enrolled you as a member?" (He knew they had. )

"Of course I'm enrolled. And I've paid in my poor little guinea to thatdelightful Miss Madden. "

"Ah, that is _too_ good of you. "

It was. The amount of the subscription was purely a matter of individualfancy. 

"It's the least I could do in such a splendid cause. "

"Well, dear Mrs. Levitt, we're delighted to have you with us. Delighted. "

There was a pause. He was looking down at her from the height of his sixfeet. The faint, sweet scent of orris root rose up from her warm skin. She was very attractive, dressed in a low-necked gown of that dull, satiny stuff women were wearing now. A thin band of white net wasstretched across the top of her breasts; through it he could see theshadowy, arrow-headed groove between; her pendant--pearl bistre andpaste--pointed, pointed down to it. 

He was wrong about Elise and jewellery. That was a throat for pearls andfor diamonds. Emeralds. She would be all black and white and sparklinggreen. A necklace, he thought, wouldn't hang on her; it would be laidout, exposed on that white breast as on a cushion. You could never tellwhat a woman was really like till you'd seen her in a low-necked gown. It made Mrs. Levitt ten times more alluring. He smiled at her, a tender, brooding, rather fatuous smile. 

Mrs. Levitt saw that her moment had come. It would be now or never. Shemust risk it. 

"I wish, " she said, "you'd introduce me to your wife. "

It was a shock, a horrid blow. It showed plainly that Elise hadinterests beyond him, that she was not, like him, all for the secret, solitary adventure. 

Yet perhaps--perhaps--she had planned it; she thought it would be saferfor them, more discreet. 

She looked up at him with the old, irrefutable smile. 

"Will you?" she pleaded. 

"Well--I'm not sure that I know where my wife _is_. She was here aminute ago, talking to Lady Corbett. "

He looked round. A wide screen guarded the door on to the platform. Hecould see Lady Corbett and Fanny disappearing behind it. 

"I--I'll go and look for her, " he said. He meditated treachery. Treachery to poor Elise. 

He followed them through the door and down the steps into the concealedcorridor. He found Ralph Bevan there. Horace had gone. 

"I say, Ralph, I wish you'd take Fanny home. She's tired. Get her out ofthis. I shall be here quite half an hour longer; settling up accounts. You might tell Kimber to come back for me and Miss Madden. "

Now to get to the entrance you had to pass through the swing door intothe hall and down the side aisle to the bottom, so that Mrs. Levittwitnessed Mrs. Waddington's exit with Ralph Bevan. Mr. Waddington. Waited till the hall doors had closed on them before he returned. 

"I can't find my wife anywhere, " he said. "She wasn't in the cloak-room, so I think she must have gone back with Horace. "

Mrs. Levitt would think that Fanny had disappeared while he was lookingfor her, honourably, in the cloak-room. 

"I saw her go out, " said Mrs. Levitt coldly, "with Mr. Bevan. "

"I suppose he's taking her home, " he said vaguely. His best policy wasvagueness. "And now, my dear lady, I wish I could take _you_ home. But Ishall be detained here some little time. Still, if you don't mindwaiting a minute or two till Kimber comes back with the car, he shalldrive you. "

"Thank you, Mr. Waddington, I'm afraid I've waited quite long enough. Itisn't worth while troubling Kimber to drive me a hundred yards. "

It gave her pleasure to inflict that snub on Mr. Waddington in returnfor his manoeuvre. As the meeting had now broken up, and there wouldn'tbe anybody to witness her departure in the Waddingtons' car, Mrs. Levitt calculated that she could afford that little gratification of herfeelings. They were intensified by Mr. Waddington's very evidentdistress. He would have walked home with her the hundred yards to SheepStreet, but she wouldn't hear of it. She was perfectly capable of seeingherself home. Miss Madden was waiting for him. Good night. 

4

Eleven o'clock. In the library where Mr. Waddington was drinking hiswhisky and water, Fanny had been crying. Horry had stalked off to hisbedroom without saying good night to anybody. Barbara had retireddiscreetly. Ralph Bevan had gone. And when Fanny thought of the lavenderbags Susan-Nanna sent every year at Christmas, she had cried. 

"How could you _do_ it, Horatio? How _could_ you?"

"There was nothing else to be done. You can't expect me to take yoursentimental, view of Ballinger. "

"It isn't Ballinger. It's poor Susan-Nanna and the babies, and thelavender bags. "

Mr. Waddington swayed placably up and down on the tips of his toes. "Itserves poor Susan-Nanna right for marrying Ballinger. "

"Oh--I suppose it serves _me_ right, too--"

Though she clenched her hands tight, tight, she couldn't keep back thatlittle spurt of anger. 

He was smiling his peculiar, voluptuous smile. "Serves you right? Forspoiling everybody in the village? It does indeed. "

"You don't in the least see what I mean, " said Fanny. 

But, after all, she was glad he hadn't seen it. 

He hadn't seen anything. He hadn't seen that she had been crying. It hadnever dawned on him that she might care about Susan-Nanna, or that theBallingers might love their home, their garden and their lavenderbushes. He was like that. He didn't see things, and he didn't care. 

He was back in his triumph of the evening, going over the complimentsand congratulations, again and again--"Best speech ever made in the TownHall--" But there was something--something he had left out. 

"Did it never dawn on you--" said Fanny. 

Ah, _now_ he had it. 

"There!" he said. "I knew I'd forgotten something. I never put in thatbit about the darkest hour before dawn. "

Fanny's mind had wandered from what she had been going to say. "Did yousee what Horry did?" she said instead. 

"Everybody could see it. It was most unnecessary. "

"I don't care. Think, Horatio. Think of his sticking up for you likethat. He was going to fight them, the dear thing, all those great roughmen. To fight them for _you_. He said he'd behave better than anybodyelse, and he did. "

"Yes, yes. He behaved very well. " Now that she put it to him that way hewas touched by Horace's behaviour. He could always be touched by thethought of anything you did for _him_. 

But Ralph Bevan could have told Fanny she was mistaken. Young Horacedidn't do it altogether for his father; he did it for himself, for anideal of conduct, an ideal of honour that he had, to let off steam, tomake a sensation in the Town Hall, to feel himself magnificent andbrave; because he, too, was an egoist, though a delightful one. 

Mr. Waddington returned to his speech. "I can't think what made me leaveout that bit about the dawn. "

"Oh, bother your old dawn, " said Fanny. "I'm going to bed. "

She went, consoled. "Dear Horry, " she thought, "I'm glad he did that. "

VIII

1

The Ballinger affair did not end with the demonstration in the TownHall. It had unforeseen and far-reaching consequences. 

The first of these appeared in a letter which Mr. Waddington receivedfrom Mr. Hitchin:

"DEAR SIR, --

"_Re_ my estimate for decoration and additional building to Mrs. Levitt's house, I beg to inform you that recent circumstances haverendered it impossible for me to take up the contract. I must thereforerequest you to transfer your esteemed order to some other firm. 

"Faithfully yours, "THOMAS HITCHIN. "

Mr. Hitchin expressed his attitude even more clearly to the foreman ofhis works. "I'm not going to build bathrooms and boudoirs and bedroomsfor that--" the word he chose completed the alliteration. So that Mr. Waddington was compelled to employ a Cheltenham builder whose estimateexceeded Mr. Hitchin's estimate by thirty pounds. 

And Mr. Hitchin's refusal was felt, even by people who resented hisestimates, to be a moral protest that did him credit. It impressed thepopular imagination. In the popular imagination Mrs. Levitt was nowinextricably mixed up with the Ballinger affair. Public sympathy was allwith Ballinger, turned out of his house and forced to take refuge withhis wife's father at Medlicott, forced to trudge two and a half milesevery day to his work and back again. The Rector and Major Markham ofWyck Wold, meditating on the Ballinger affair as they walked back thatnight from the Town Hall, pronounced it a mystery. 

"It wasn't likely, " Major Markham said, "that Ballinger, of his owninitiative, would leave a comfortable house in Sheep Street for a dampcottage in Lower Wyck. "

"Was it likely, " the Rector said, "that Waddington would turn him out?"He couldn't believe that old Waddington would do anything of the sort. 

"Unless, " Major Markham suggested, "he's been got at. Mrs. Levitt mayhave got at him. " He was a good sort, old Waddy, but he would be veryweak in the hands of a clever, unscrupulous woman. 

The Rector said he thought there was no harm in Mrs. Levitt, and MajorMarkham replied that he didn't like the look of her. 

A vague scandal rose in Wyck-on-the-Hill. It went from mouth to mouth inbar parlours and back shops; Major Markham transported it in hismotor-car from Wyck Wold to the Halls and Manors of Winchway and ChippingKingdon and Norton-in-Mark. It got an even firmer footing in the countythan in Wyck, with the consequence that one old lady withdrew hersubscription to the League, and that when Mr. Waddington started on hiscampaign of rounding up the county the county refused to be rounded up. And the big towns, Gloucester, Cheltenham and Cirencester, weresingularly apathetic. It was intimated to Mr. Waddington that if thelocal authorities saw fit to take the matter up no doubt something wouldbe done, but the big towns were not anxious for a National League ofLiberty imposed on them from Wyck-on-the-Hill. 

The League did not die of Mrs. Levitt all at once. Very soon after theinaugural meeting the Committee sat at Lower Wyck Manor and appointedMr. Waddington president. It arranged a series of monthly meetings inthe Town Hall at which Mr. Waddington would speak ("That, " said Fanny, "will give you something to look forward to every month. ") Thus, onSaturday, the nineteenth of July, he would speak on "The Truth aboutBolshevism. " It was also decided that the League could be made veryuseful during by-elections in the county, if there ever were any, andMr. Waddington prepared in fancy a great speech which he could use forelectioneering purposes. 

On July the nineteenth, seventeen people, counting Fanny and Barbara, came to the meeting: Sir John Corbett (Lady Corbett was unfortunatelyunable to attend), the Rector without his wife, Major Markham of WyckWold, Mr. Bostock of Parson's Bank, Kimber and Partridge and AnnieTrinder from the Manor, the landlady of the White Hart, the butcher, thegrocer and the fishmonger with whom Mr. Waddington dealt, three farmerswho approved of his determination to keep down wages, and Mrs. Levitt. When he sat down and drank water there was a feeble clapping led by Mrs. Levitt, Sir John and the Rector. On August the sixteenth, the audiencehad shrunk to Mrs. Levitt, Kimber and Partridge, the butcher, one of thethree farmers, and a visitor staying at the White Hart. Mr. Waddingtonspoke on "What the League Can Do. " Owing to a sudden unforeseen shortagein his ideas he was obliged to fall back on his electioneering speechand show how useful the League would be if at any time there were aby-election in the county. The pop-popping of Mrs. Levitt's hands burstinto a silent space. Nobody, not even Kimber or Partridge, was going tofollow Mrs. Levitt's lead. 

"You'll have to give it up, " Fanny said. "Next time there won't beanybody but Mrs. Levitt. " And with the vision before him of all thosefoolish, empty benches and Mrs. Levitt, pop-popping, dear brave woman, all by herself, Mr. Waddington admitted that he would have to give itup. Not that he owned himself beaten; not that he gave up his opinion ofthe League. 

"It's a bit too big for 'em, " he said. "They can't grasp it. Sleepyminds. You can't rouse 'em if they won't be roused. "

He emerged from his defeat with an unbroken sense of intellectualsuperiority. 

2

Thus the League languished and died out; and Mr. Waddington, in theabsence of this field for personal activity, languished too. In spite ofhis intellectual superiority, perhaps because of it, he languished tillBarbara pointed out to him that the situation had its advantages. Atlast he could go on with his book. 

"If you can only start him on it and keep him at it, " Fanny said, "I'llbless you for ever. "

But it was not easy either to start him or to keep him at it. To beginwith, as Ralph had warned her, the work itself, _Ramblings Through theCotswolds_, was in an appalling mess, and Mr. Waddington seemed to haveexhausted his original impetus in getting it into that mess. He had setout on his ramblings without any settled plan. "A rambler, " he said, "shouldn't have a settled plan. " So that you would find Mr. Waddington, starting from Wyck-on-the-Hill and arriving at Lechford in the Thamesvalley, turning up in the valley of the Windlode or the Speed. You wouldfind him on page twenty-seven drinking ale at the Lygon Arms in ChippingKingdon, and on page twenty-eight looking down on the Evesham plain fromthe heights south of Cheltenham. He would turn from this prospect and, without traversing any intermediate ground, be back again, where youleast expected him, in his Manor under Wyck-on-the-Hill. For though hehad no fixed plan, he had a fixed idea, and however far he rambled hereturned invariably to Wyck. To Mr. Waddington Wyck-on-the-Hill was theone stable, the one certain spot on the earth's surface, and this led tohis treating the map of Gloucestershire entirely with reference toWyck-on-the-Hill, so that all his ramblings were complicated by thenecessity laid on him of starting from and getting back to it. 

So much Barbara made out after she had copied the first forty pages, making the first clearing in Mr. Waddington's jungle. The clearings, she explained to Ralph, broke your heart. It wasn't till you'd got thething all clean and tidy that you realized the deep spiritual confusionthat lay behind it. 

After that fortieth page the Ramblings piled and mixed themselves inthree interpenetrating layers. First there was the original layer ofWaddington, then a layer of Ralph superimposed on Waddington andstriking down into him; then a top layer of Waddington, striking downinto Ralph. First, the primeval chaos of Waddington; then Ralph's spiritmoving over it and bringing in light and order; then Waddington again, invading it and beating it all back to darkness and confusion. From themoment Ralph came into it the progress of the book was a strugglebetween these two principles, and Waddington could never let Ralph be, so determined was he to stamp the book with his own personality. 

"After all, " Ralph said, "it _is_ his book. "

"If he could only get away from Wyck, so that you could see where theother places _are_, " she moaned. 

"He can't get away from it because he can't get away from himself. Hismind is egocentric and his ego lives in Wyck. "

Barbara had had to ask Ralph to help her. They were in the librarytogether now, working on the Ramblings during one of Mr. Waddington'speriodical flights to London. 

"He thinks he's rambling round the country but he's really ramblinground and round himself. All the time he's thinking about nothing buthis blessed self. "

"Oh, come, he thought a lot about his old League. "

"No, the League was only an extension of his ego. "

"That must have been what Fanny meant. We were looking at his portraitand I said I wondered what he was thinking about, and she said she usedto wonder and now she knew. Of course, it's Himself. That's what makeshim look so absurdly solemn. "

"Yes, but think of it. Think. That man hasn't ever cared about anythingor anybody but himself. "

"Oh--he cares about Fanny. "

"No. No, he doesn't. He cares about his wife. A very different thing. "

"Well--he cares about his old mother. He really cares. "

"Yes, and you know why? It's only because she makes him feel young. Hehates Horry because he can't feel young when he's there. "

"Why, oh why, did that angel Fanny marry him?"

"Because she isn't an angel. She's a mortal woman and she wanted ahusband and children. "

"Wasn't there anybody else?"

"I believe not--available. The man she ought to have married wasmarried already. "

"Did my mother marry him?"

"Yes. And _my_ mother married the next best one.... It was as plain andsimple as all that. And you see, the plainer and simpler it was, themore she realized why she was marrying Horatio, the more she idealizedhim. It wanted camouflage. "

"I see. "

"Then you must remember her people were badly off and he helped them. Hewas always doing things for them. He managed all Fanny's affairs for herbefore he married her. "

"Then--he does kind things. "

"Lots. When he wants to get something. He wanted to get Fanny.... Besides, he does them to get power, to get a hold on you. It's reallyfor himself all the time. It gives him a certain simplicity and purity. He isn't a snob. He doesn't think about his money or his property, orhis ancestors--he's got heaps--quite good ones. They don't matter. Nothing matters but himself. "

"How about his book? Doesn't that matter?"

"It does and yet again it doesn't. He pretends he's only doing it toamuse himself, but it's really a projection of his ego into theCotswolds. On the other hand, he'd hate it if you took him for awriting man when he's Horatio Bysshe Waddington. That's how he's got itinto such a mess, because he can't get away from himself and his Manor. "

"Proud of his Manor, anyhow. "

"Oh, yes. Not, mind you, because it's perfect Tudor of the sixteenthcentury, _nor_ because the Earl of Warwick gave it to hisgreat-grandfather's great-great-grandfather, but because it's his Manor. Horatio Bysshe Waddington's Manor. Of course, it's got to be what it isbecause any other sort of Manor wouldn't be good enough for Bysshe. "

"It's an extension of his ego, too?"

"Yes. Horatio's ego spreading itself in wings and bursting intoball-topped gables and overflowing into a lovely garden and a park. There isn't a tree, there isn't a flower that hasn't got bits of Horatioin it. "

"If I thought that I should never want to see roses and larkspursagain. "

"It only happens in Horatio's mind. But it does happen. "

So, between them, bit by bit, they made him out. 

And they made out the book. Here and there, on separate slips, weregreat outlying tracts of light, contributed by Ralph, to be inserted, and sketches of dark, undeveloped stuff, sprung from Waddington, to beinserted too. Neither Ralph nor Barbara could make them fit. The onlything was to copy it out clear as it stood and arrange it afterwards. And presently it appeared that two pages were missing. 

One evening, the evening of Mr. Waddington's return, looking for thelost pages, Barbara made her great discovery: a sheaf of manuscript, ahundred and twenty pages in Ralph's handwriting, hidden away at the backof the bureau, crumpled as if an inimical hand had thrust it out ofsight. She took it up to bed and read it there. 

A hundred and twenty pages of pure Ralph without any taint ofWaddington. It seemed to be part of Mr. Waddington's book, and yet nopart of it, for it was inconceivable that it should belong to anythingbut itself. Ralph didn't ramble; he went straight for the things he hadseen. He saw the Cotswolds round Wyck-on-the-Hill, he made you see them, as they were: the high curves of the hills, multiplied, thrown off, oneafter another; the squares and oblongs and vandykes and spread fans ofthe fields; and their many colours; grass green of the pastures, emeraldgreen of the young wheat, white green of the barley; shining, metallicgreen of the turnips; the pink, the brown, the purple fallows, the sharpcanary yellow of the charlock. And the trees, the long processions oftrees by the great grass-bordered roads; trees furring the flanks andgroins of the parted hills, dark combs topping their edges. 

Ralph knew what he was doing. He went about with the farmers and farmhands; he followed the ploughing and sowing and the reaping, the feedingand milking of the cattle, the care of the ewes in labour and of theyoung lambs. He went at night to the upland folds with the shepherds; hecould tell you about shepherds. He sat with the village women by theirfiresides and listened to their talk; he could tell you about villagewomen. Mr. Waddington did not tell you about anything that mattered. 

She took the manuscript to Ralph at the White Hart with a note to sayhow she had found it. He came running out to walk home with her. 

"Did you know it was there?" she said. 

"No. I thought I'd lost it. You see what it is?"

"Part of your book. "

"Horatio's book. "

"But you wrote it. "

"Yes. That's what he fired me out for. He got tired of the thing andasked me to go on with it. He called it working up his material. I wenton with it like that, and he wouldn't have it. He said it was badlywritten--jerky, short sentences--he'd have to re-write it. Well--Iwouldn't let him do that, and he wouldn't have it as it stood. "

"But--it's beautiful--alive and real. What more does he want?"

"The stamp of his personality. "

"Oh, he'd _stamp_ on it all right. "

"I'm glad you like it. "

"_Like_ it. Don't you?"

Ralph said he thought he'd liked it when he wrote it, but now he didn'tknow. 

"You'll know when you've finished it. "

"I don't suppose I shall finish it, " he said. 

"But you must. You can't _not_ finish a thing like that. "

"I own I'd like to. But I can't publish it. "

"Why ever not?"

"Oh, it wouldn't be fair to poor old Waddy. After all, I wrote it forhim. "

"What on earth does that matter? If he doesn't want it. Of course you'llfinish it, and of course you'll publish it. "

"Well, but it's all Cotswold, you see. And _he's_ Cotswold. If it _is_any good, you know, I shouldn't like to--to well, get in his way. It'shis game. At least he began it. "

"It's a game two can play, writing Cotswold books. "

"No. No. It isn't. And he got in first. "

"Well, then, let him get in first. You can bring your book out after. "

"And dish his?"

"No, let it have a run first. Perhaps it won't have any run. "

"Perhaps mine won't. "

"_Yours_. That heavenly book? And his tosh--Don't you see that you_can't_ get in his way? If anybody reads him they won't be the samepeople who read you. "

"I hope not. All the same it would be rather beastly to cut him out; Imean to come in and do it better, show how bad he is, how frightful. Itwould rub it in, you know. "

"Not with him. You couldn't. "

"You don't know. Some brute might get up and hurt him with it. "

"Oh, you _are_ tender to him. "

"Well, you see, I did let him down when I left him. Besides, it isn'taltogether him. There's Fanny. "

"Fanny? She'd love you to write your book. "

"I know she'd think she would. But she wouldn't like it if it madeHoratio look a fool. "

"But he's bound to look a fool in any case. "

"True. I might give him a year, or two years. "

"Well, then, _my_ work's cut out for me. I shall have to make Horatio goon and finish quick, so as not to keep you waiting. "

"He'll get sick of it. He'll make you go on with it. "

"_Me?_"

"Practically, and quarrel with every word you write. Unless you canwrite so like Horatio that he'll think he's done it himself. And then, you know, he won't have a word of mine left in. You'll have to take meout. And we're so mixed up together that I don't believe even he couldsort us. You see, in order to appease him, I got into the way of givingmy sentences a Waddingtonian twist. If only I could have kept it up--"

"I'll have to lick the thing into shape somehow. "

"There's only one thing you'll have to do. You must make him steer aproper course. This is to be _the_ Guide to the Cotswolds. You can'thave him sending people back to Lower Wyck Manor all the time. You'llhave to know all the places and all the ways. "

"And I don't. "

"No. But I do. Supposing I took you on my motor-bike? Would you awfullymind sitting on the carrier?"

"Do you think, " she said, "he'd let me go?"

"Fanny will. "

"I _could_, I think. I work so hard in the mornings and evenings thatthey've given me all the afternoons. "

"We might go every afternoon while the weather holds out, " he said. Andthen: "I say, he _does_ bring us together. "

That was how Barbara's happy life began. 

3

He did bring them together. 

In the terrible months that followed, while she struggled for order andclarity against Mr. Waddington, who strove to reinstate himself in hisobscure confusion, Barbara was sustained by the thought that in workingfor Mr. Waddington she was working for Ralph Bevan. The harder sheworked for him the harder she worked for Ralph. With all her cunning andher little indomitable will she urged and drove him to get on and makeway for Ralph. Mr. Waddington interposed all sorts of irritatingobstructions and delays. He would sit for hours, brooding solemnly, equally unable to finish and to abandon any paragraph he had once begun. He had left the high roads and was rambling now in bye-ways of suchintricacy that he was unable to give any clear account of himself. WhenBarbara had made a clean copy of it Mr. Waddington's part didn't alwaysmake sense. The only bits that could stand by themselves were Ralph'sbits, and they were the bits that Mr. Waddington wouldn't let stand. Thevery clearness of the copy was a light flaring on the hopeless mess itwas. Even Mr. Waddington could see it. 

"Do you think, " she said, "we've got it all down in the right order?"She pointed. 

"_What's_ that?" She could see his hands twitching with annoyance. Hisloose cheeks hung shaking as he brooded. 

"That's not as _I_, wrote it, " he said at last. "That's Ralph Bevan. Hewasn't a bit of good to me. There's--there's no end to the harm he'sdone. Conceited fellow, full of himself and his own ideas. Now I shallhave to go over every line he's written and write it again. I'd ratherwrite a dozen books myself than patch up another fellow's bad work.... We've got to overhaul the whole thing and take out whatever he's done. "

"But you're so mixed up you can't always tell. "

He looked at her. "You may be sure that if any passage is obscure orconfused or badly written it isn't mine. The one you've shown me, forexample. "

Then Barbara had another of her ideas. Since they were so mixed uptogether that Mr. Waddington couldn't tell which was which, and since hewanted to give the impression that Ralph was responsible for all the badbits, and insisted on the complete elimination of Ralph, she had onlygot to eliminate the bad bits and give such a Waddingtonian turn to thegood ones that he would be persuaded that he had written them himself. 

The great thing was, he said, that the book should be written byhimself. And once fairly extricated from his own entanglements and setgoing on a clear path, with Barbara to pull him out of all the awkwardplaces, Mr. Waddington rambled along through the Cotswolds at a smooth, easy pace. Barbara had contrived to break him of his wasteful andexpensive habit of returning from everywhere to Wyck. All through Augusthe kept a steady course northeast, north, northwest; by September he hadturned due south; he would be beating up east again by October; Novemberwould find him in the valleys; there was no reason why he shouldn'tfinish in December and come out in March. 

Mr. Waddington himself was surprised at the progress he had made. 

"It shows, " he said, "what we can do without Ralph Bevan. "

And Barbara, seated on Ralph's carrier, explored the countryside andmapped out Mr. Waddington's course for him. 

"She's worth a dozen Ralph Bevins, " he would say. 

And he would go to the door with her and see her start. 

"You mustn't let yourself be victimized by Ralph, " he said. He glancedat the carrier. "Do you think it's safe?"

"Quite safe. If it isn't it'll only be a bit more thrilling. "

"Much better to come in the car with me. "

But Barbara wouldn't go in the car with him. When he talked about it shelooked frightened and embarrassed. 

Her fright and her embarrassment were delicious to Mr. Waddington. Hesaid to himself: "She doesn't think _that's_ safe, anyhow. "

And as he watched her rushing away, swaying exquisitely over a series ofterrific explosions, he gave a little skip and a half turn, light andyouthful, in the porch of his Manor. 

IX

1

Sir John Corbett had called in the morning. He had exerted himself tothat extent out of friendship, pure friendship for Waddington, and hehad chosen an early hour for his visit to mark it as a serious andextraordinary occasion. He sat now in the brown leather armchair whichwas twin to the one Mr. Waddington had sat in when he had his portraitpainted. His jolly, rosy face was subdued to something serious andextraordinary. He had come to warn Mr. Waddington that scandal wasbeginning to attach itself to his acquaintance--he was going to say"relations, " but remembered just in time that "relations" was aquestion-begging word--to his acquaintance with a certain lady. 

To which Mr. Waddington replied, haughtily, that he had a perfect rightto choose his--er--acquaintance. His acquaintance was, pre-eminently, his own affair. 

"Quite so, my dear fellow, quite so. But, strictly between ourselves, isit a good thing to choose acquaintances of the sort that give rise toscandal? As a man of the world, now, between ourselves, doesn't itstrike you that the lady in question may be that sort?"

"It does not strike me, " said Mr. Waddington, "and I see no reason whyit should strike you. "

"I don't like the look of her, " said Sir John, quoting Major Markham. 

"If you're trying to suggest that she's not straight, you're readingsomething into her look that isn't there. "

"Come, Waddington, you know as well as I do that when a man's knockedabout the world like you and me, he gets an instinct; he can tell prettywell by looking at her whether a woman's that sort or not. "

"My dear Corbett, my instinct is at least as good as yours. I've knownMrs. Levitt for three years, and I can assure she's as straight, asinnocent, as your wife or mine. "

"Clever--clever and a bit unscrupulous. " Again Sir John quoted MajorMarkham. "A woman like that can get round simple fellows like you andme, Waddington, in no time, if she gives her mind to it. That's why Iwon't have anything to do with her. She may be as straight and innocentas you please; but somehow or other she's causing a great deal ofunpleasant talk, and if I were you I'd drop her. Drop her. "

"I shall do nothing of the sort. "

"My dear fellow, that's all very well, but when everybody knows yourwife hasn't called on her--"

"There was no need for Fanny to call on her. My relations with Mrs. Levitt were on a purely business footing--"

"Well, I'd leave them there, and not too much footing either. "

"What can I do? Here she is, a war widow with nobody but me to lookafter her interests. She's got into the way of coming to me, and I'm notgoing back on the poor woman, Corbett, because of your absurdinsinuations. "

"Not _my_ insinuations. "

"Anybody's insinuations then. Nobody has a right to insinuate anythingabout _me_. As for Fanny, she'll make a point of calling on her now. Wewere talking about it not long ago. "

"A bit hard on Mrs. Waddington to be let in for that. "

"You needn't worry. Fanny can afford to do pretty well what she likes. "

He had him there. Sir John knew that this was true of Fanny Waddington, as it was not true of Lady Corbett. He could remember the time whennobody called on his father and mother; and Lady Corbett could not, yet, afford to call on Mrs. Levitt before anybody else did. 

"Well, " he said, "so long as Mrs. Levitt doesn't expect my wife tofollow suit. "

"Mrs. Levitt's experience can't have led her to expect much in the wayof kindness here. "

"Well, don't be too kind. You don't know how you may be landed. Youdon't know, " said Sir John fatally, "what ideas you may have put intothe poor woman's head. "

"I should be very sorry, " said Mr. Waddington, "if I thought for onemoment I had roused any warmer feelings--"

But he wasn't sorry. He tried hard to make his face express a chivalrousregret, and it wouldn't. It was positively smiling, so agreeable was theidea conveyed by Sir John. He turned it over and over, drawing out itsdelicious flavour, while Sir John's little laughing eyes observed hisenjoyment. 

"You don't know, " he said, "_what_ you may have roused. "

There was something very irritating in his fat chuckle. 

"You needn't disturb yourself. These things will happen. A woman may becarried away by her feelings, but if a man has any tact and any delicacyhe can always show her very well--without breaking off all relations. That would be clumsy. "

"Of course, if you want to keep up with her, keep up with her. Onlytake care you don't get landed, that's all. "

"You may be quite sure that for the lady's own sake I shall take care. "

They rose; Mr. Waddington stood looking down at Sir John and his littleround stomach and his little round eyes with their obscene twinkle. Andfor the life of him he couldn't feel the indignation he would like tohave felt. As his eyes encountered Sir John's something secret andprimitive in Mr. Waddington responded to that obscene twinkle; somethingreminiscent and anticipating; something mischievous and subtle anddelightful, subversive of dignity. It came up in his solemn face andsimmered there. Here was Corbett, a thorough-paced man of the world, andhe took it for granted that Mrs. Levitt's feelings had been roused; heacknowledged, handsomely, as male to male, the fascination that hadroused them. He, Corbett, knew what he was talking about. He saw thewhole possibility of romantic adventure with such flattering certitudethat it was impossible to feel any resentment. 

At the same time his interference was a piece of abominableimpertinence, and Mr. Waddington resented that. It made him more thanever determined to pursue his relations with Mrs. Levitt, just to showhe wasn't going to be dictated to, while the very fact that Corbett sawhim as a figure of romantic adventure intensified the excitement of thepursuit. And though Elise, seen with certainty in the light of Corbett'sintimations, was not quite so enthralling to the fancy as the Elise ofhis doubt, she made a more positive and formidable appeal to his desire. He loved his desire because it made him feel young, and, loving it, hethought he loved Elise. 

And what Corbett was thinking, Markham and Thurston, and Hawtrey andyoung Hawtrey, and Grainger, would be thinking too. They would all seehim as the still young, romantic adventurer, the inspirer of passion. 

And Bevan--But no, he didn't want Bevan to see him like that. Or rather, he did, and yet again he didn't. He had scruples when it came to Bevan, because of Fanny. And because of Fanny, while he rioted in visions ofthe possible, he dreaded more than anything an actual detection, theraking eyes and furtive tongues of the townspeople. If Fanny called onMrs. Levitt it would stop all the talking. 

That was how Fanny came to know Mrs. Levitt, and how Mrs. Levitt (andToby) came to be asked to the September garden party at Lower WyckManor. 

2

Mrs. Levitt, of the White House, Wyck-on-the-Hill, Gloucestershire. 

She thought it sounded very well. She had been out, that is to say, shehad judged it more becoming to her dignity not to be at home when Fannycalled; and Fanny had been actually out when Mrs. Levitt called, so thatthey met for the first time at the garden party. 

"It's absurd our not knowing each other, " Fanny said, "when my husbandknows you so well. "

"I've always felt, Mrs. Waddington, that I ought to know you, if it'sonly to tell you how good he's been to me. But, of course, you know it. "

"I know it quite well. He's always being good to people. He likes it. You must take off some of the credit for that. "

She thought: "She has really very beautiful eyes. " A lot of credit wouldhave to be taken off for her eyes, too. 

"But isn't that, " said Mrs. Levitt, "what being good _is_? To like beingit? Only I suppose that's just what lays him open--"

She lowered the eyes whose brilliance had blazed a moment ago on Fanny;she toyed with her handbag, smiling a little secret, roguish smile. 

"That lays him open?"

Mrs. Levitt looked up, smiling. "To the attacks of unscrupulous peoplelike me. "

It was risky, but it showed a masterly boldness and presence of mind. Itwas as if she and Fanny Waddington had had their eyes fixed on a livescorpion approaching them over the lawn, and Mrs. Levitt had stoopeddown and grasped it by its tail and tossed it into the lavender bushes. As if Mrs. Levitt had said, "My dear Mrs. Waddington, we both know thatthis horrible creature exists, but we aren't going to let it sting us. "As if she knew why Fanny had called on her and was grateful to her. 

Perhaps if Mrs. Levitt had never appeared at that garden party, or if, having appeared, she had never been introduced, at their own request, toMajor Markham, Mr. Thurston, Mr. Hawtrey and young Hawtrey and Sir JohnCorbett, Mr. Waddington might never have realized the full extent of herfascination. 

She had made herself the centre of the party by her sheer power to seizeattention and to hold it. You couldn't help looking at her, again andagain, where she sat in a clearing of the lawn, playing the clever, pointed play of her black and white, black satin frock, black satincloak lined with white silk, furred with ermine; white stockings andlong white gloves, the close black satin hat clipping her head; thevivid contrast and stress repeated in white skin, black hair, blackeyes; black eyes and fine mouth and white teeth making a charming andperpetual movement. 

She had been talking to Major Markham for the last ten minutes, displaying herself as the absurdly youthful mother of a grown-up son. Toby Levitt, a tall and slender likeness of his mother, was playingtennis with distinction, ignoring young Horace, his partner, standingwell up to the net and repeating the alternate smashing and slidingstrokes that kept Ralph and Barbara bounding from one end of the courtto the other. Mrs. Levitt was trying to reconcile the proficiency ofToby's play with his immunity from conscription in the late war. The warled straight to Major Markham's battery, and Major Markham's battery tothe battery once commanded by Toby's father, which led to Poona and thegreat discovery. 

"You don't mean Frank Levitt, captain in the gunners?"

"I do. "

"Was he by any chance stationed at Poona in nineteen-ten, eleven?"

"He was. "

"But, bless my soul--_he_ was my brother-in-law Dick--Dick Benham'sbest friend. "

The Major's slightly ironical homage had given place to a seriousexcitement, a respectful interest. 

"Oh--Dicky Benham--is _he_--?"

"Rather. I've heard him talk about Frank Levitt scores of times. Do youhear that, Waddington? Mrs. Levitt knows all my sister's people. Why onearth haven't we met before?"

Mr. Waddington writhed, while between them they reeled off a long seriesof names, people and places, each a link joining up Major Markham andMrs. Levitt. The Major was so excited about it that he went round thegarden telling Thurston and Hawtrey and Corbett, so that presently allthese gentlemen formed round Mrs. Levitt an interested and animatedgroup. Mr. Waddington hovered miserably on the edge of it; short ofthrusting Markham aside with his elbow (Markham for choice) he couldn'thave broken through. He would give it up and go away, and be drawn backagain and again; but though Mrs. Levitt could see him plainly, nosummons from her beautiful eyes invited his approach. 

His behaviour became noticeable. It was observed chiefly by his sonHorry. 

Horry took Barbara apart. "I say, have you seen my guv'nor?"

"No. What? Where?"

She could see by his face that he was drawing her into some iniquitous, secret by-path of diversion. 

"There, just behind you. Turn round--this way--but don't look as ifyou'd spotted him.... Did you ever see anything like him? He's like aNewfoundland dog trying to look over a gate. It wouldn't be half sofunny if he wasn't so dignified all the time. "

She didn't approve of Horry. He wasn't decent. But the dignity--it _was_wonderful. 

Horry went on. "What on earth did the mater ask that woman for? Shemight have known he'd make a fool of himself. "

"Oh, Horry, you mustn't. It's awful of you. You really _are_ a littlebeast. "

"I'm not. Fancy doing it at his own garden party. He never thinks of_us_. Look at the dear little mater, there, pretending she doesn't seehim. _That's_ what makes me mad, Barbara. "

"Well, you ought to pretend you don't see it, too. "

"I've been pretending the whole blessed afternoon. But it's no goodpretending with _you_. You jolly well see everything. "

"I don't go and draw other people's attention to it. "

"Oh, come, how about Ralph? You know you wouldn't let him miss him. "

"Ralph? Oh, Ralph's different. I shouldn't point him out to LadyCorbett. "

"No more should I. _You_'re different, too. You and Ralph and me are theonly people capable of appreciating him. Though I wouldn't swear thatthe mater doesn't, sometimes. "

"Yes. But you go too far, Horry. You're cruel to him, and we're not. "

"It's all very well for you. He isn't your father.... Oh, Lord, he'scraning his neck over Markham's shoulder now. What his face must looklike from the other side--"

"If you found your father drunk under a lilac bush I believe you'd goand fetch me to look at him. "

"I would, if he was as funny as he is now.... But I say, you know, Ican't have him going on like that. I've got to stop it, somehow. Whatwould you do if you were me?"

"Do? I think I should ask him to go and take Lady Corbett in to tea. "

"Good. "

Horry strode up to his father. "I say, pater, aren't you going to takeLady Corbett in to tea?"

At the sheer sound of his son's voice Mr. Waddington's dignity stoodfirm. But he went off to find Lady Corbett all the same. 

When it was all over the garden party was pronounced a great success, and Mr. Waddington was very agreeably rallied on his discovery, taxedwith trying to keep it to himself, and warned that, he wasn't going tohave it all his own way. 

"It's our turn now, " said Major Markham, "to have a look in. "

And their turn was constantly coming round again; they were alwayslooking in at the White House. First, Major Markham called. Then SirJohn Corbett of Underwoods, Mr. Thurston of The Elms, and Mr. Hawtrey ofMedlicott called and brought their wives. These ladies, however, didn'tlike Mrs. Levitt, and they were not at home when she returned theircalls. Mrs. Levitt's visiting card had its place in three collectionsand there the matter ended. But Mr. Thurston and Mr. Hawtrey continuedto call with a delightful sense of doing something that their wivesconsidered improper. Major Markham--as a bachelor his movements weremore untrammelled--declared it his ambition to "cut Waddy out. " _He_ waseverlastingly calling at the White House. His fastidious correctness, the correctness that hadn't "liked the look of her, " excused thisintensive culture of Mrs. Levitt on the grounds that she was "wellconnected"; she knew all his sister's people. 

And Mrs. Levitt took good care to let Mr. Waddington know of thesevisits, and of her little bridge parties in the evening. "Just Mr. Thurston and Mr. Hawtrey and Major Markham and me. " He was teased andworried by his visions of Elise perpetually surrounded by Thurston andHawtrey and the Major. Supposing--only supposing that--driven bydespair, of course--she married that fellow Markham? For the first timein his life Mr. Waddington experienced jealousy. Elise had ceased to bethe subject of dreamy, doubtful speculation and had become the object ofan uneasy passion. He could give her passion, if it was passion that shewanted; but, because of Fanny, he could not give her a position in thecounty, and it was just possible that Elise might prefer a position. 

And Elise was happy, happy in her communion with Mr. Thurston and Mr. Hawtrey and in the thought that their wives detested her; happy in herincreasing intimacy with Major Markham and in her consciousness of beingwell connected; above all, happy in Mr. Waddington's uneasiness. 

Meanwhile Fanny Waddington kept on calling. "If I don't, " she said, "the poor woman will be done for. "

She couldn't see any harm in Mrs. Levitt. 

3

Barbara and Ralph Bevan had been for one of their long walks. They werecoming back down the Park when they met, first, Henry, the gardener'sboy, carrying a basket of fat, golden pears. 

"Where are you going with those lovely pears, Henry?"

"Mrs. Levitt's, miss. " The boy grinned and twinkled; you could almosthave fancied that he knew. 

Farther on, near the white gate, they could see Mr. Waddington and twoladies. He had evidently gone out to open the gate, and was walking onwith them, unable to tear himself away. The ladies were Mrs. Rickardsand Mrs. Levitt. 

They stopped. You could see the flutter of their hands and faces, suggesting a final triangular exchange of playfulness. 

Then Mr. Waddington, executing a complicated movement of farewell, a bowand a half turn, a gambolling skip, the gesture of his ungovernableyouth. 

Then, as he went from them, the abandonment of Mrs. Rickards and Mrs. Levitt to disgraceful laughter. 

Mrs. Levitt clutched her sister's arm and clung to it, almostperceptibly reeling, as if she said: "Hold me up or I shall collapse. It's too much. Too--too--too--too much. " They came on with a peculiarrolling, helpless walk, rocked by the intolerable explosions of theirmirth, dabbing their mouths and eyes with their pocket-handkerchiefs ina tortured struggle for control. 

They recovered sufficiently to pass Ralph and Barbara with serious, sidelong bows. And then there was a sound, a thin, wheezing, soaring yetstifled sound, the cry of a conquered hysteria. 

"Did you see that, Ralph?"

"I did. I heard it. "

"_He_ couldn't, could he?"

"Oh, Lord, no.... They appreciate him, too, Barbara. "

"That isn't the way, " she said. "We don't want him appreciated that way. That rich, gross way. "

"No. It isn't nearly subtle enough. Any fool could see that hiscaracoling was funny. They don't know him as we know him. They don'tknow what he really is. "

"It was an outrage. It's like taking a fine thing and vulgarizing it. They'd no _business_. And it was cruel, too, to laugh at him like thatbefore his back was turned. When they're going to eat his pears, too. "

"The fact is, Barbara, nobody _does_ appreciate him as you and I do. "

"Horry?"

"No. Not Horry. He goes too far. Horry's indecent. Fanny, perhaps, sometimes. "

"Fanny doesn't see one half of him. She doesn't see his Mrs. Levittside. "

"Have _you_ seen it, Barbara?"

"Of course I have. "

"You never told me. It isn't fair to go discovering things on your ownand not telling me. We must make a compact. To tell each other the veryinstant we see a thing. We might keep count and give points to which ofus sees most. Mrs. Levitt ought to have been a hundred to your score. "

"I'm afraid I can't score with Mrs. Levitt. You saw that, too. "

"It'll be a game for gods, Barbara. "

"But, Ralph, there might be things we _couldn't_ tell each other. Itmightn't be fair to him. "

"Telling each other isn't like telling other people. Hang it all, ifwe're making a study of him we're making a study. Science is science. We've no right to suppress anything. At any moment one of us might seesomething absolutely vital. "

"Whatever we do we musn't be unfair to him. "

"But he's ours, isn't he? We can't be unfair to him. And we've got tobe fair to each other. Think of the frightful advantage you might haveover me. You're bound to see more things than I do. "

"I might see more, but you'll understand more. "

"Well, then, you can't do without me. It's a compact, isn't it, that wedon't keep things back?"

As for Mrs. Levitt's handling of their theme they resented it as anabominable profanation. 

"Do you think he's in love with her?" Barbara said. 

"What _he_ would call being in love and we shouldn't. "

"Do you think he's like that--he's always been like that?"

"I think he was probably 'like that' when he was young. "

"Before he married Fanny?"

"Before he married Fanny. "

"And after?"

"After, I should imagine he went pretty straight. It was only the way hehad when he was young. Now he's middle-aged he's gone back to it, justto prove to himself that he's young still. I take it the poor old thinggot scared when he found himself past fifty, and he _had_ to start aproof. It's his egoism all over again. I don't suppose he really cares arap for Mrs. Levitt. "

"You don't think his heart beats faster when he sees her coming?"

"I don't. Horatio's heart beats faster when he sees himself making loveto her. "

"I see. It's just middle age. "

"Just middle age. "

"Don't you think, perhaps, Fanny does see it?"

"No. Not that. Not that. At least I hope not. "

X

1

Mr. Waddington's _Ramblings Through the Cotswolds_ were to be profuselyillustrated. The question was: photographs or original drawings? And hehad decided, after much consideration, on photographs taken byPyecraft's man. For a book of such capital importance the work of aninferior or obscure illustrator was not to be thought of for an instant. But there were grave disadvantages in employing a distinguished artist. It would entail not only heavy expenses, but a disastrous rivalry. Theillustrations, so far from drawing attention to the text and fixing itfirmly there, would inevitably distract it. And the artist's celebratedname would have to figure conspicuously, in exact proportion to hiscelebrity, on the title page and in all the reviews and advertisementswhere, properly speaking, Horatio Bysshe Waddington should stand alone. It was even possible, as Fanny very intelligently pointed out, that asufficiently distinguished illustrator might succeed in capturing theenthusiasm of the critics to the utter extinction of the author, whomight consider himself lucky if he was mentioned at all. 

But Fanny had shown rather less intelligence in using this argument tosupport her suggestion that Barbara Madden should illustrate the book. She had more than once come upon the child, sitting on a camp-stoolabove Mrs. Levitt's house, making a sketch of the steep street, allcream white and pink and grey, opening out on to the many-colouredfields and the blue eastern air. And she had conceived a preposterousadmiration for Barbara Madden's work. 

"It'll be an enchanting book if she illustrates it, Horatio. "

"_If_ she illustrates it!"

But when he tried to show Fanny the absurdity of the idea--HoratioBysshe Waddington illustrated by Barbara Madden--she laughed in his faceand told him he was a conceited old thing. To which he replied, withdignified self-restraint, that he was writing a serious and importantbook. It would be foolish to pretend that it was not serious andimportant. He hoped he had no overweening opinion of its merits, but onemust preserve some sense of proportion and propriety--some sanity. 

"Poor little Barbara!"

"It isn't poor little Barbara's book, my dear. "

"No, " said Fanny. "It isn't. "

Meanwhile, if the book was to be ready for publication in the spring, the photographs would have to be taken at once, before the light and theleaves were gone. 

So Pyecraft and Pyecraft's man came with their best camera, andphotographed and photographed, as long as the fine weather lasted. Theyphotographed the Market Square, Wyck-on-the-Hill; they photographed thechurch; they photographed Lower Wyck village and the Manor House, theresidence--corrected to seat--of Mr. Horatio Bysshe Waddington, theauthor. They photographed the Tudor porch, showing the figures of theauthor and of Mrs. Waddington, his wife, and Miss Barbara Madden, hissecretary. They photographed the author sitting in his garden; theyphotographed him in his park, mounted on his mare, Speedwell; and theyphotographed him in his motor-car. Then they came in and looked at thelibrary and photographed that, with Mr. Waddington sitting in it at hiswriting-table. 

"I suppose, sir, " Mr. Pyecraft said, "you'd wish it taken from one endto show the proportions?"

"Certainly, " said Mr. Waddington. 

And when Pyecraft came the next day with the proofs he said, "I think, sir, we've got the proportions very well. "

Mr. Waddington stared at the proofs, holding them in a hand thattrembled slightly with emotion. With a just annoyance. For thoughPyecraft had certainly got the proportions of the library, Mr. Waddington's head was reduced to a mere black spot in the far corner. 

If _that_ was what Pyecraft meant by proportion--

"I think, " he said, "the--er--the figure is not quite satisfactory. "

"The--? I see, sir. I did not understand, sir, that you wished thefigure. "

"We-ell--" Mr. Waddington didn't like to appear as having wished thefigure so ardently as he did indeed wish it. "If I'm to be there atall--"

"Quite so, sir. But if you wish the size of the library to be shown, Iam afraid the figure must be sacrificed. We can't do you it both ways. But how would you think, sir, of being photographed yourself, somewhatlarger, seated at your writing-table? We could do you that. "

"I hadn't thought of it, Pyecraft. "

As a matter of fact, he had thought of nothing else. He had the title ofthe picture in his mind: "The Author at Work in the Library, Lower WyckManor. "

Pyecraft waited in deference to Mr. Waddington's hesitation. His man, less delicate but more discerning, was already preparing to adjust thecamera. 

Mr. Waddington turned, like a man torn between personal distaste andpublic duty, to Barbara. 

"What do _you_ think, Miss Madden?"

"I think the book would hardly be complete without you. "

"Very well. You hear, Pyecraft, Miss Madden says I am to bephotographed. "

"Very good, sir. "

He wheeled sportively. "Now how am I to sit?"

"If you would set yourself so, sir. With your papers before you, spreadcareless, so. And your pen in your hand, so.... A little nearer, Bateman. The figure is important this time.... _Now_, sir, if you wouldbe so good as to look up. "

Mr. Waddington looked up with a face of such extraordinary solemnitythat Mr. Pyecraft smiled in spite of his deference. 

"A leetle brighter expression. As if you had just got an idea. "

Mr. Waddington imagined himself getting an idea and tried to look likeit. 

"Perfect--perfect. " Mr. Pyecraft almost danced with excitement. "Keepthat look on your face, sir, half a moment.... Now, Bateman. "

A click. 

"_That's_ over, thank goodness, " said Mr. Waddington, reluctant victimof Pyecraft's and Barbara's importunity. 

After that Mr. Pyecraft and his man were driven about the country takingphotographs. In one of them Mr. Waddington appeared standing outside themediaeval Market Hall of Chipping Kingdon. In another, wearing fishingboots, and holding a fishing-rod in his hand, he waded knee deep in thetrout stream between Upper and Lower Speed. 

And after that he said firmly, "I will not be photographed any more. They've got enough of me. "

2

In November, when the photographing was done, Fanny went away to Londonfor a fortnight, leaving Barbara, as she said, to take care of Horatio, and Ralph Bevan to take care of Barbara. 

It was then, in consequence of letters he received from Mrs. Levitt, that Mr. Waddington's visits in Sheep Street became noticeably frequent. Barbara, sitting on her camp-stool above the White House, noticed them. 

She noticed, too, the singular abstraction of Mr. Waddington's manner inthese days. There were even moments when he ceased to take any interestin his Ramblings, and left Barbara to continue them, as Ralph hadcontinued them, alone, reserving to himself the authority ofsupervision. She had long stretches of time to herself, when she hadreason to suspect that Mr. Waddington was driving Mrs. Leavitt toCheltenham or Stratford-on-Avon in his car, while Ralph Bevan obeyedFanny's parting charge to look after Barbara. 

Every time Barbara did a piece of the Ramblings she showed it to RalphBevan. They would ride off together into the open country, and Barbarawould read aloud to Ralph, sitting by the roadside where they lunched, or in some inn parlour where they had tea. They had decided that, thoughit would be dishonourable of Barbara to show him the bits that Mr. Waddington had written, there could be no earthly harm in trusting himwith the bits she had done herself. 

Not that you could tell the difference. Barbara had worked hard, knowingthat the sooner Mr. Waddington's book was finished the sooner Ralph'sbook would come out; and under this agreeable stimulus she had developedinto the perfect parodist of Waddington. She had wallowed inWaddington's style till she was saturated with it and wroteautomatically about "bold escarpments" and "the rosy flush on the highforehead of Cleeve Cloud"; about "ivy-mantled houses resting in theshade of immemorial elms"; about the vale of the Windlode, "awash withthe golden light of even, " and "grey villages nestling in the beech-cladhollows of the hills. "

"'Come with me, '" said Barbara, "'into the little sheltered valley ofthe Speed; let us follow the brown trout stream that goes purling--'"

"Barbara, it's priceless. What made you think of purling?"

"_He'd_ have thought of it. 'Purling through the lush green grass of themeadows. '"

Or, "'Let us away along the great high road that runs across the uplandsthat divide the valleys of the Windlode and the Thames. Let us rest amoment halfway and drink--no, quaff--a mug of good Gloucestershire alewith mine host of the Merry Mouth. '"

Not that Mr. Waddington had ever done such a thing in his life. But allthe other ramblers through the Cotswolds did it, or said they did it;and he was saturated with their spirit, as Barbara was saturated withhis. He could see them, robust and genial young men in tweedknickerbocker suits, tramping their thirty miles a day and quaffing mugsof ale in every tavern; and he desired to present himself, like thoseyoung men, as genial and robust. He couldn't get away from them andtheir books any more than he had got away from Sir Maurice Gedge and hisprospectus. 

And Barbara had invented all sorts of robust and genial things for himto do. She dressed him in pink, and mounted him on his mare Speedwell, and sent him flying over the stone walls and five-barred gates to thebaying of "Ranter and Ranger and Bellman and True. " He fished and hetramped and he quaffed and he tramped again. He did his thirty miles aday easily. She set down long conversations between Mr. Waddington andold Billy, the Cotswold shepherd, all about the good old Cotswold ways, in the good old days when the good old Squire, Mr. Waddington'sfather--no, his grandfather--was alive. 

"'I do call to mind, zur, what old Squire did use to zay to me: "Billy, "'e zays, "your grandchildren won't be fed, nor they won't 'ave thecottages, nor yet the clothes as you 'ave and your children. As zure asGod's in Gloucester" 'e zays. They was rare old times, zur, and they begawn. '"

"_What_ made you think of it, Barbara? I don't suppose he ever said twowords to old Billy in his life. "

"Of course he didn't. 'But it's the sort of thing he'd like to think hedid. "

"Has he passed it?"

"Rather. He's as pleased as Punch. He thinks he's forming my style. "

3

Mr. Waddington was rapidly acquiring the habit of going round to SheepStreet after dinner. But in those evenings that he did not devote toMrs. Levitt he applied himself to his task of supervision. 

On the whole he was delighted with his secretary. There could be nodoubt that the little thing was deeply attached to him. You could tellthat by the way she worked, by her ardour and eagerness to please him. There could be only one explanation of the ease with which she hadreceived the stamp of his personality. 

Therefore he used tact. He used tact. 

"I'm giving you a great deal of work, Barbara, " he would say. "But youmust look on it as part of your training. You're learning to write goodEnglish. There's nothing like clear, easy, flowing sentences. You can'thave literature without 'em. I might have written those passages myself. In fact, I can hardly distinguish--" His face shook over it; shenoticed the tremor of imminent revision. "Still, I _think_ I shouldprefer 'babbling streams' here to 'purling streams. ' Shakespearean. "

"I _had_ 'babbling' first, " said Barbara, "but I thought 'purling' wouldbe nearer to what you'd have written yourself. I forgot aboutShakespeare. And babbling isn't exactly purling, is it?"

"True--true. Babbling is _not_ purling. We want the exact word. Purlinglet it be.... 

"And 'lush. ' Good girl. You remembered that 'lush' was one of my words?"

"I thought it _would_ be. "

"Good. You see, " said Mr. Waddington, "how you learn. You're getting thesense, the _flair_ for style. I shall always be glad to think I trainedyou, Barbara.... And you may be very thankful it _is_ I and not RalphBevan. Of all the jerky--eccentric--incoherent--"

XI

1

It was Monday, the twenty-fourth day of November, in the last week ofFanny's fortnight in London. 

Barbara had been busy all morning with Mr. Waddington's correspondenceand accounts. And now, for the first time, she found herself definitelyon the track of Mrs. Levitt. In checking Palmer and Hoskins's, theCheltenham builders, bill for the White House she had come across twosubstantial items not included in their original estimate: no less thanfifteen by eight feet of trellis for the garden and a hot water piperail for the bathroom. It turned out that Mrs. Levitt, desiring thecomfort of hot towels, and objecting to the view of the kitchen yard asseen from the lawn, had incontinently ordered the hot water rail and thetrellis. 

There was that letter from Messrs. Jackson and Cleaver, Mr. Waddington'sagents, informing him that his tenant, Mrs. Levitt, of the White House, Wyck-on-the-Hill, had not yet paid her rent due on the twenty-fifth ofSeptember. Did Mr. Waddington wish them to apply again?

And there were other letters of which Barbara was requested to makecopies from his dictation. Thus:

"My Dear Mrs. Levitt" (only he had written "My dear Elise"), --"Withreference to your investments I do not recommend the purchase, at thepresent moment, of Government Housing Bonds. 

"I shall be very glad to loan you the fifty pounds you require to makeup the five hundred for the purchase of Parson's Provincial and LondonBank Shares. But I am afraid I cannot definitely promise an advance offive hundred on the securities you name. That promise was conditional, and you must give me a little time to consider the matter. Meanwhile Iwill make inquiries; but, speaking off-hand, I should say that, owing tothe present general depreciation of stock, it would be highlyunadvisable for you to sell out, and my advice to you would be: Hold onto everything you've got. 

"I am very glad you are pleased with your little house. We will let thematter of the rent stand over till your affairs are rather more in orderthan they are at present. --With kindest regards, very sincerely yours, "HORATIO BYSSHE WADDINGTON. 

"P. S. --I have settled with Palmer and Hoskins for the trellis and hotwater rail. "

"_To_ Messrs. Lawson & Rutherford, Solicitors, "9, Bedford Row, London, W. C. 

"Dear Sirs, --Will you kindly advise me as to the current value of thefollowing shares--namely:

"Fifty £5 5 per cent. New South American Rubber Syndicate;

"Fifty £10 10 per cent. B Preference Addison Railway, Nicaragua;

"One hundred £1 4 per cent. Welbeck Mutual Assurance Society. 

"Would you recommend the holder to sell out at present prices? Andshould I be justified in accepting these shares as security for animmediate loan of five hundred?--Faithfully yours, "HORATIO BYSSHE WADDINGTON. "

He was expecting Elise for tea at four o'clock on Wednesday, and Messrs. Lawson and Rutherford's reply reached him very opportunely thatafternoon. 

"Dear Sir, --_Re_ your inquiry in your letter of the twenty-fifth instant, as to the current value of 5 per cent. New South American RubberSyndicate Shares, 10 per cent. B Preference Addison Railway, and 4 percent. Welbeck Mutual Assurance Society, respectively, we beg to informyou that these stocks are seriously depreciated, and we doubt whetherat the present moment the holder would find a purchaser. We certainlycannot advise you to accept them as security for the sum you name. --Weare, faithfully, "Lawson & Rutherford. "

It was clear that poor Elise--who could never have had any head forbusiness--was deceived as to the value of her securities. It might evenbe that with regard to all three of them she might have to cut herlosses and estimate her income minus the dividends accruing from thissource. But that only made it the more imperative that she should haveat least a thousand pounds tucked snugly away in some safe investment. Nothing short of the addition of fifty pounds to her yearly income wouldenable Elise to pay her way. The dear woman's affairs ought to stand ona sound financial basis; and Mr. Waddington asked himself this question:Was he prepared to put them there? All that Elise could offer him, failing her depreciated securities, was the reversion of a legacy offive hundred pounds promised to her in her aunt's will. She had spokenvery hopefully of this legacy. Was he prepared to fork out a whole fivehundred pounds on the offchance of Elise's aunt dying within areasonable time and making no alteration in her will? In a certaincontingency he _was_ prepared. He was prepared to do all that and morefor Elise. But it was not possible, it was not decent to state hisconditions to Elise beforehand, and in any case Mr. Waddington did notstate them openly as conditions to himself. He allowed his mind to bemuzzy on this point. He had no doubt whatever about his passion, but hepreferred to contemplate the possibility of its satisfaction through adecent veil of muzziness. When he said to himself that he would like toknow where he stood before committing himself, it was as near as hecould get to clarity and candour. 

And when he wrote to Elise that his promise was conditional he reallydid mean that the loan would depend on the value of the securitiesoffered; a condition that his integrity could face, a condition that, asthings stood, he had a perfect right to make. While, all the time, deepinside him was the knowledge that, if Elise gave herself to him, hewould not ask for security--he would not make any conditions at all. Hesaw Elise, tender and yielding, in his arms; he saw himself, tender andpowerful, stooping over her, and he thought, with a qualm of disgust: "Iwouldn't touch her poor little legacy. "

Meanwhile he judged it well to let the correspondence pass, like anyother business correspondence, through his secretary's hands. It waswell to let Barbara see that his relations with Mrs. Levitt were on astrictly business footing, that he had nothing to hide. It was well tohave copies of the letters. It was well--Mr. Waddington's instinct, nothis reason, told him it WA well--to have a trustworthy witness to allthese transactions. A witness who understood the precise nature of hisconditions, in the event, the highly unlikely event, of trouble withElise later on. (It was almost as if, secretly, he had a premonition. )Also, when his conscience reproached him, as it did, with makingconditions, with asking the dear woman for security, he was able topersuade himself that he didn't really mean it, that all this was clevercamouflage designed to turn Barbara's suspicions, if she ever had any, off the scent. And at the same time he was not sorry that Barbara shouldsee him in his rôle of generous benefactor and shrewd adviser. 

"I needn't tell you, Barbara, that all this business is strictlyprivate. As my confidential secretary, you have to know a great manythings it wouldn't do to have talked about. You understand?"

"Perfectly. "

She understood, too, that it was an end of the compact with Ralph Bevan. She must have foreseen this affair when she said to him there would bethings she simply couldn't tell. Only she had supposed they would bethings she would see, reward of clear eyesight, not things she would beregularly let in for knowing. 

And her clear eyes saw through the camouflage. She had a suspicion. 

"I don't see, " she said, "why you should have to go without your rentjust because Mrs. Levitt doesn't want to pay it. "

She was sorry for Waddy. He might be ever so wise about Mrs. Levitt'saffairs; but he was a perfect goose about his own. No wonder Fanny hadasked her to take care of him. 

"I've no doubt, " he said, "she _wants_ to pay it; but she's a war widow, Barbara, and she's hard up. I can't rush her for the rent. "

"She's no business to rush you for trellis work and water pipes youdidn't order. "

"Well--well, " he couldn't be angry with the child. She was so loyal, socareful of his interests. And he couldn't expect her to take kindly toElise. There would be a natural jealousy. "That's Palmer and Hoskins'smistake. I can't haggle with a lady, Barbara. _Noblesse oblige_. " But hewinced under her clear eyes. 

She thought: "How about the fifty and the five hundred? At this rate_noblesse_ might _oblige_ him to do anything. "

She could see through Mrs. Levitt. 

Mr. Waddington kept on looking at the clock. 

It was now ten minutes to four, and at any moment Elise might be there. His one idea was to get Barbara Madden out of the way. Those clear eyeswere not the eyes he wanted to be looking at Elise, to be looking at himwhen _their_ eyes met. And he understood that that fellow Bevan wasgoing to call for her at four. He didn't want _him_ about. "Where areyou going for your walk?" he said. 

"Oh, anywhere. Why?"

"Well, if you happen to be in Wyck, would you mind taking thesephotographs back to Pyecraft and showing him the ones I've chosen? Justsee that he doesn't make any stupid mistake. "

The photographs were staring her in the face on the writing-table, sothat there was really no excuse for her forgetting them, as she did. ButMr. Waddington's experience was that if you wanted anything done you hadto do it yourself. 

2

Elise would be taken into the drawing-room. He went to wait for herthere. 

And as he walked up and down, restless, listening for the sound of herfeet on the gravel drive and the ringing of the bell, at each turn ofhis steps he was arrested by his own portrait. It stared at him fromits place above Fanny's writing-table; handsome, with its brilliantblack and carmine, it gave him an uneasy sense of rivalry, as if he feltthe disagreeable presence of a younger man in the room. He stared backat it; he stared at himself in the great looking-glass over thechimneypiece beside it. 

He remembered Fanny saying that she liked the iron-grey of his moustacheand hair; it was more becoming than all that hard, shiny black. Fannywas right. It _was_ more becoming. And his skin--the worn bloom of it, like a delicate sprinkling of powder. Better, more refined than thatrich, high red of the younger man in the gilt frame. To be sure hiseyes, blurred onyx, bulged out of creased pouches; but his nose--thePostlethwaite nose, a very handsome feature--lifted itself firmly abovethe fleshy sagging of the face. His lips pouted in pride. He could stillconsole himself with the thought that mirrors were unfaithful; Elisewould see him as he really was; not that discoloured and distortedimage. He pushed out his great chest and drew a deep, robust breath. Atthe thought of Elise the pride, the rich, voluptuous, youthful pride oflife mounted. And as he turned again he saw Fanny looking at him. 

The twenty-year-old Fanny in her girl's white frock and blue sash; hertilted, Gainsborough face, mischievous and mocking, smiled as if shewere making fun of him. His breath caught in his chest. Fanny--Fanny. His wife. Why hadn't his wife the loyalty and intelligence of Barbara, the enthusiasm, the seriousness of Elise? He needn't have anyconscientious scruples on Fanny's account; she had driven him to Elisewith her frivolity, her eternal smiling. Of course he knew that shecared for him, that he had power over her, that there had never been andnever would be any other man for Fanny; but he couldn't go on withFanny's levity for ever. He wanted something more; something sound andsolid; something that Elise gave him and no other woman. Any man wouldwant it. 

And yet Fanny's image made him uneasy, watching him there, smiling, asif she knew all about Elise and smiled, pretending not to care. Hedidn't want Fanny to watch him with Elise. He didn't want Elise to seeFanny. When he looked at Fanny's portrait he felt again his oldrepugnance to their meeting. He didn't want Elise to sit in the sameroom with Fanny, to sit in Fanny's chair. The drawing-room was Fanny'sroom. The red dahlia and powder-blue parrot chintz was Fanny's choice;every table, cabinet and chair was in the place that Fanny had chosenfor it. The book, the frivolous book she had been reading before shewent away, lay on her little table. Fanny was Fanny and Elise wasElise. 

He rang the bell and told Partridge to show Mrs. Levitt into the libraryand to bring tea there. The library was _his_ room. He could do what heliked in it. The girl Fanny laughed at him out of the corners of hereyes as he went. Suddenly he felt tender and gentle to her, because ofElise. 

When Elise came she found him seated in his armchair absorbed in a book. He rose in a dreamy attitude, as if he were still dazed and abstractedwith his reading. 

Thus, at the very start, he gave himself the advantage; he showedhimself superior to Elise. Intellectually and morally superior. 

"You're deep in it? I'm interrupting?" she said. 

He came down from his height instantly. He was all hers. 

"No. I was only trying to pass the time till you came. "

"I'm late then?"

"Ten minutes. " He smiled, indulgent

Elise was looking handsomer than ever. The light November chill hadwhipped a thin flush into her face. He watched her as she took off herdark skunk furs and her coat. 

How delightful to watch a woman taking off her things, the prettygestures of abandonment; the form emerging, slimmer. That was one of thethings you thought and couldn't say. Supposing he had said it to Elise?Would she have minded?

"What are you thinking of?" she said. 

"How did you know I was thinking of anything?"

"Your face. It tells tales. "

"Only nice ones to you, my dear lady. "

"Ah, but you _didn't_ tell--"

"Would you like me to?"

"Not if it's naughty. Your face looks naughty. "

He wheeled, delighted. "Now, how does my face look when it's naughty?"

"Oh, that _would_ be telling. It's just as well you shouldn't know. "

"Was it as naughty as all that then?"

"Yes. Or as nice. "

They kept it up, lightly, till Partridge and Annie Trinder came, tinkling and rattling with the tea-things outside the door. As if, Mr. Waddington thought, they meant to warn them. 

"Partridge, " he called, as the butler was going, "Partridge, if Sir JohnCorbett calls you can show him in here; but I'm not at home to anybodyelse. "

(Clever idea, that. )

"He isn't coming, is he, the tiresome old thing?"

"No. He isn't. If I thought he was for one minute I wouldn't be athome. "

"Then why--?"

"Why did I say I would be? Because I wanted to make it safe for you, Elise. "

Thus tactfully he let it dawn on her that he might be dangerous. 

"We don't want to be interrupted, do we?" he said. 

"Not by Sir John Corbett. "

He drew up the big, padded sofa square before the fire for Elise. Allhis movements were unconscious, innocent of deliberation and design. Heseated himself top-heavily behind the diminutive gate-legged tea-table;the teapot and cups were like dolls' things in his great hands. Shelooked at him, at his slow fingers fumbling with the sugar tongs. 

"Would you like me to pour out tea for you?" she said. 

He started visibly. He wouldn't like it at all. He wasn't going to allowElise to put herself into Fanny's place, pouring out tea for him as ifshe was his wife. She wouldn't have suggested it if she had had any tactor any delicacy. 

"No, " he said. The "No" sounded hard and ungracious. "You must reallylet me have the pleasure of waiting on you. "

The sugar dropped from the tongs; he fumbled again, madly, and Elisesmiled. "Damn the tongs, " he thought; "damn the sugar. "

"Take it in your fingers, goose, " she said. 

Goose! An endearment, a caress. It softened him. His tenderness forElise came back. 

"My fingers are all thumbs, " he said. 

"Your thumbs, then. You don't suppose I mind?"

There was meaning in her voice, and Mr. Waddington conceived himself tobe on the verge of the first exquisite intimacies of love. He left offthinking about Fanny. He poured out tea and handed bread and butter in ahappy dream. He ate and drank without knowing what he ate and drank. Hiswhole consciousness was one muzzy, heavy sense of the fullness andnearness of Elise. He could feel his ears go "vroom-vroom" and his voicethicken as if he were slightly, very slightly drunk. He wondered howElise could go on eating bread and butter. 

He heard himself sigh when at last he put her cup down. 

He considered the position of the tea-table in relation to the sofa. Ithemmed in that part of it where he was going to sit. Very cramping. Hemoved it well back and considered it again. It now stood in his directline of retreat from the sofa to the armchair. An obstruction. Ifanybody were to come in. He moved it to one side. 

"That's better, " He said. "Now we can get a clear view of the fire. Itisn't too much for you, Elise?"

He had persuaded himself that he had really moved the tea-table becauseof the fire. As yet he had no purpose and no plan. He didn't know whaton earth he was going to say to Elise. 

He sat down beside her and there was a sudden hushed pause. Elise hadturned round in her seat and was looking at him; her eyes were steadybehind the light tremor of their lashes, brilliant and profound. Hereflected that her one weak point, the shortness of her legs, was notnoticeable when she was sitting down. He also wondered how he could everhave thought her mouth hard. It moved with a little tender, sensitivetwitch, like the flutter of her eyelids, and he conceived that she wasdrawn to him and held trembling by his fascination. 

She spoke first. 

"Mr. Waddington, I don't know how to thank you for your kindness aboutthe rent. But you know it's safe, don't you?"

"Of course I know it. Don't talk about rent. Don't think about it. "

"I can't help it. I can't think of anything else until it's paid. "

"I'd rather you never paid any rent at all than that you should worryabout it like this. I didn't ask you to come here to talk business, Elise. "

"I'm afraid I must talk it. Just a little. "

"Not now, " he said firmly. "I won't listen. "

It sounded exactly as if he said he wouldn't listen to any more talkabout rent; but he thought: "I don't know what I shall do if she beginsabout that five hundred. But she hardly can, after that. Anyhow, I shalldecline to discuss it. "

"Tell me what you've been doing with yourself?"

"You can't _do_ much with yourself in Wyck. I trot about my house--mydear little house that you've made so nice for me. I do my marketing, and I go out to tea with the parson's wife, or the doctor's wife, orMrs. Bostock, or Mrs. Grainger. "

"I didn't know you went to the Graingers. "

He thought that was not very loyal of Elise. 

"You must go somewhere. "

"Well?"

"And in the evenings we play bridge. "

"Who plays bridge?"

"Mr. Hawtrey, or Mr. Thurston, or young Hawtrey, and Toby, and MajorMarkham and me. "

"Always Major Markham?"

"Well, he comes a good deal. He likes coming. "

"_Does_ he?"

"Do you mind?"

"I should mind very much if I thought it would make any difference. "

"Any difference?" She frowned and blinked, as though she were tryinghard to see what he meant, what he possibly _could_ mean by that. "Difference?" she said. "To what?"

"To you and me. "

"Of course it doesn't. Not a scrap. How could it?"

"No. How could it? I don't really believe it could. "

"But why should it?" she persisted. 

"Why, indeed. Ours is a wonderful relation. A unique relation. And Ithink you want as much as I do to--to keep it intact. "

"Of course I want to keep it intact. I wouldn't for worlds let anythingcome between us, certainly not bridge. " She meditated. "I suppose I doplay rather a lot. There's nothing else to do, you see, and you getcarried away. "

"I hope, my dear, you don't play for money. "

"Oh, well, it isn't much fun for the others if we don't. "

"You don't play high, I hope?"

"What do you call high?"

"Well, breaking into pound notes. "

"Pound notes! Penny points--well, ten shillings is the very higheststake when we're reckless and going it. Besides, I always play againstMarkham and Hawtrey, because I know _they_ won't be hard on me if Ilose. "

"Now, _that's_ what I don't like. I'd a thousand times rather pay yourgambling debts than have you putting yourself under an obligation tothose men. "

He couldn't bear it. He couldn't bear to think that Elise could bear it. 

"You should have come to me, " he said. 

"I have come to you, haven't I?" She thought of the five hundred pounds. 

He thought of them too. "Ah, that's different. Now, about these debts toMarkham and Hawtrey. How much do they come to--about?"

"Oh, a five-pound note would cover all of it. But I shall only be indebt to you. "

"We'll say nothing about that. If I pay it, Elise, will you promise meyou'll never play higher than penny points again?"

"It's too angelic of you, really. "

He smiled. He liked paying her gambling debts. He liked the power itgave him over her. He liked to think that he could make her promise. Heliked to be told he was angelic. It was all very cheap at five pounds, and it would enable him to refuse the five hundred with a better grace. 

"Come, on your word of honour, only penny points. "

"On my word of honour.... But, oh, I don't think I can take it. "

She thought of the five hundred. When you wanted five hundred it waspretty rotten to be put off with a fiver. 

"If you can take it from Hawtrey and Markham--"

"That's it. I _can't_ take it from Markham. I haven't done that. I can'tdo it. "

"Well, Hawtrey then. "

"Hawtrey's different"

"Why is he different?"

A faint suspicion, relating to Markham, troubled him, and not for thefirst time. 

"Well, you see, he's a middle-aged married man. He might be my uncle. "

He thought: "And Markham--_he_ might be--"

But Elise was not in love with the fellow. No, no. He was sure of Elise;he knew the symptoms; you couldn't mistake them. But she might marryMarkham, all the same. Out of boredom, out of uncertainty, out ofdesperation. He was not going to let that happen; he would make itimpossible; he would give Elise the certainty she wanted now. 

"You said _I_ was different. "

Playful reproach. But she would understand. 

"So you are. You're a married man, too, aren't you?"

"I thought we'd agreed to forget it. "

"Forget it? Forget Mrs. Waddington?"

"Yes, forget her. You knew me long before you knew Fanny. What has shegot to do with you and me?"

"Just this, that she's the only woman in the county who'll know _me_. "

"Because you're my friend, Elise. "

"You needn't remind me. I'm not likely to forget that any good thingthat's come to me here has come through you. "

"I don't want anything but good to come to you through me"

He leaned forward. 

"You're not very happy in Wyck, are you?"

"Happy? Oh, yes. But it's not what you'd call wildly exciting. AndToby's worrying me. He says he can't stand it, and he wants toemigrate. "

"Well, why not?"

Mr. Waddington's heart gave a great thump of hope. He saw it allclearly. Toby was the great obstruction. Elise might have held out forever as long as Toby lived with her. But if Toby went--She saw ittoo; that was why she consented to his going. 

"It isn't much of a job for him, Bostock's Bank. "

"N-no, " she assented, "n-no. I've told him he can go if he can getanything. "

He played, stroking the long tails of her fur. It lay between them likea soft, supine animal. 

"Would you like to live in Cheltenham, Elise?"

"Cheltenham?"

"If I took a little house for you?"

(He had calculated that he might just as well lose his rent inCheltenham as in Wyck. Better. Besides, he needn't lose it. He could letthe White House. It would partly pay for Cheltenham. )

"One of those little houses in Montpelier Place?"

"It's too sweet of you to think of it. " She began playing too, strokingthe fur animal; their hands played together over the sleek softness, consciously, shyly, without touching. 

"But--why Cheltenham?"

"Cheltenham isn't Wyck. "

"No. But it's just as dull and stuffy. Stuffier. "

"Beautiful little town, Elise. "

"What's the good of that when it's crammed full of school children andschool teachers, and decayed army people and old maids? I don't _know_anybody in Cheltenham. "

"Can't you see that that would be the advantage?"

"No. I can't see it. There's only one place I _want_ to live in. "

"And that is--?"

"London. And I can't. "

"Why not?" After all, London was not such a bad idea. He had thought ofit before now himself. 

"Well--I don't know whether I told you that I'm not on very good termswith my husband's people. They haven't been at all nice to me since poorFrank's death. "

"Poor Elise--"

"They live in London and they want to keep me out of it. Myfather-in-law gives me a small allowance on condition I don't livethere. They hate me, " she said, smiling, "as much as all that. "

"Is it a large allowance?"

"No. It's a very small one. But they know I can't get on without it. "

"You ought not to be dependent on such people.... Perhaps in a flat--orone of those little houses in St. John's Wood--"

"It would be too heavenly. But what's the good of talking about it?"

"You must know what I want to do for you, Elise. I want to make youhappy, to put you safe above all these wretched worries, to take care ofyou, dear. You _will_ let me, won't you?"

"My dear Mr. Waddington--my dear friend--" The dark eyes brightened. She saw a clear prospect of the five hundred. Compared with what oldWaddy was proposing, such a sum, and a mere loan too, representedmoderation. The moment had come, very happily, for reopening thisquestion. "I can't let you do anything so--so extensive. Really andtruly, all I want is just a temporary loan. If you really could lend methat five hundred. You said--"

"I didn't say I would. And I didn't say I wouldn't. I said it woulddepend. "

"I know. But you never said on what. If the securities I offered youaren't good enough, there's the legacy. "

He was silent. He knew now that his condition had had nothing to do withthe securities. He must know, he would know, where he stood. 

"My aunt, " said Elise gently, "is very old. "

"I wouldn't dream of touching your poor little legacy. " He said it withpassion. "Won't you drop all this sordid talk about business and trustme?"

"I do trust you. "

The little white hand left off stroking the dark fur and reached out tohim. He took it and held it tight. It struggled to withdraw itself. 

"You aren't afraid of me?" he said. 

"No, but I'm afraid of Partridge coming in and seeing us. He might thinkit rather odd. "

"He won't come in. It doesn't matter what Partridge thinks. "

"Oh, _doesn't_ it!"

"He won't come in. "

He drew a little closer to her. 

"He will. He _will_. He'll come and clear away the things. I hear himcoming. "

He got up and went to the door of the smoke-room, to the further door, and looked out. 

"There's no one there, " he said. "They don't come 'till six and it isn'tfive yet.... Elise--abstract your mind one moment from Partridge. If Iget that little house in London, will you live in it?"

"I can't let you. You make me ashamed, after all you've done for me. It's too much. "

"It isn't. If I take it, will you let me come and see you?"

"Oh, yes. But--" She shrank, so far as Elise could be said to shrink, a little further back into her corner. 

"It's rather far from Wyck, " he said. "Still, I could run up oncein"--he became pensive--"in three weeks or so. "

"For the day--I should be delighted. "

"No. _Not_ for the day. " He was irritated with this artificialobtuseness. "For the week-end. For the week, sometimes, when I canmanage it. I shall say it's business. "

She drew back and back, as if from his advance, her head tilted, hereyes glinting at him under lowered lids, taking it all in yet pretendinga paralysis of ignorance. She wanted to see--to see how far he would go, before she--She wanted him to think she didn't understand him evennow. 

It was this half-fascinated, backward gesture that excited him. He drewhimself close, close. 

"Elise, it's no use pretending. You know what I mean. You know I wantyou. "

He stooped over her, covering her with his great chest. He put his armsround her. 

"In my arms. You _know_ you want _me_--"

She felt his mouth pushed out to her mouth as it retreated, trying tocover it, to press down. She gave a cry: "Oh--oh, you--" and struggled, beating him off with one hand while the other fumbled madly for herpocket-handkerchief. His grip slackened. He rose to his feet. But hestill stooped over her, penning her in with his outstretched arms, hisweight propped by his hands laid on the back of the sofa. 

"You--old--imbecile--" she spurted. 

She could afford it. In one rapid flash of intelligence she had seenthat, whatever happened, she could never get that five hundred pounds_down_. And to surrender to old Waddy without it, to surrender to oldWaddy at all, when she could marry Freddy Markham, would be toopreposterous. Even if there hadn't been any Freddy Markham, it wouldhave been preposterous. 

At that moment as she said it, while he still held her prisoned and theystared into each other's faces, she spurting and he panting, Barbaracame in. 

He started; jerked himself upright. Mrs. Levitt recovered herself. 

"You silly cuckoo, " she said. "You don't know how ridiculous you look. "

She had found her pocket-handkerchief and was dabbing her eyes and mouthwith it, rubbing off the uncleanness of his impact. "Howridic--Te-hee--Te-hee--te-hee!" She shook with laughter. 

Barbara pretended not to see them. To have gone back at once, closingthe door on them, would have been to admit that she had seen them. Instead she moved, quickly yet abstractedly, to the writing-table, tookup the photographs and went out again. 

Mr. Waddington had turned away and stood leaning against thechimneypiece, hiding his head ("Poor old ostrich!") in his hands. Hisattitude expressed a dignified sorrow and a wronged integrity. Barbarastood for a collected instant at the door and spoke:

"I'm sorry I forgot the photographs. " As if she said: "Cheer up, oldthing. I didn't really see you. "

Through the closed door she heard Mrs. Levitt's laughter let loose, malignant, shrill, hysterical, a horrid sound. 

"I'm sorry, Elise. But I thought you cared for me. "

"You'd no business to think. And it wasn't likely I'd tell you. "

"Oh, you didn't tell me, my dear. How could you? But you made me believeyou wanted me. "

"Wanted? Do you suppose I wanted to be made ridiculous?"

"Love isn't ridiculous, " said Mr. Waddington. 

"It is. It's _the_ most ridiculous thing there is. And when _you_'remaking it.... If you could have seen your face--Oh, dear!"

"If you wouldn't laugh quite so loud. The servants will hear you. "

"I mean them to hear me. "

"Confound you, Elise!"

"That's right, swear at me. Swear at me. "

"I'm sorry I swore. But, hang it all, it's every bit as bad for me as itis for you. "

"Worse, I fancy. You needn't think Miss Madden didn't see you, becauseshe did. "

"It's a pity Miss Madden didn't come in a little sooner. "

"Sooner? I think she chose her moment very well. "

"If she had heard the whole of our conversation I think she'd haverealized there was something to be said for me. "

"There isn't anything to be said for you. And until you've apologizedfor insulting me--"

"You've heard me apologize. As for insulting you, no decent woman, inthe circumstances, ever tells a man his love insults her, even if shecan't return it. "

"And even if he's another woman's husband?"

"Even if he's another woman's husband, if she's ever given him theright--"

"Right? Do you think you bought the right to make love to me?" She rose, confronting him. 

"No. I thought you'd given it me.... I was mistaken. "

He helped her to put on the coat that she wriggled into with clumsy, irritated movements. Clumsy. The woman _was_ clumsy. He wondered how hehad never seen it. And vulgar. Noisy and vulgar. You never knew what awoman was like till you'd seen her angry. He had answered herappropriately and with admirable tact. He had scored every point; he wasscoring now with his cool, imperturbable politeness. He tried not tothink about Barbara. 

"Your fur. "

"Thank you. "

He rang the bell. Partridge appeared. 

"Tell Kimber to bring the car round and drive Mrs. Levitt home. "

"Thank you, Mr. Waddington, I'd rather walk. "

Partridge retired. 

She held out her hand. Mr. Waddington bowed abruptly, not taking it. Hestrode behind her to the door, through the smoke-room, to the furtherdoor. In the hall Partridge hovered. He left her to him. 

And, as she followed Partridge across the wide lamp-lighted space, henoticed for the first time that Elise, in her agitation, waddled. Like aduck--a greedy duck. Like that horrible sister of hers, BerthaRickards. 

Then he thought of Barbara Madden. 

3

When Ralph called for Barbara he told her, first thing, that he hadheard from Mackintyres, the publishers, about his book. He had sent itthem two-thirds finished, and Grevill Burton--"Grevill _Burton_, Barbara!"--had read it and reported very favourably. Mackintyres hadagreed to publish it if the end was equal to the beginning and themiddle. 

It was this exciting news, thrown at her before she could get her haton, that had caused Barbara to forget all about Mr. Waddington'sphotographs and Mr. Waddington's book and Mr. Waddington, until she andRalph were half way between Wyck-on-the-Hill and Lower Speed. There wasnothing for it then but to go on, taking care to get back in time totake the photographs to Pyecraft's before the shop closed. There hadn'tbeen very much time, but Barbara said she could just do it if she made adash, and it was the dash she made that precipitated her into the sceneof Mr. Waddington's affair. 

Ralph waited for her at the white gate. 

"We must sprint, " she said, "if we're to be in time. "

They sprinted. 

As they walked slowly back, Barbara became thoughtful. 

As long as she lived she would remember Waddington: the stretched-outarms, the top-heavy body bowed to the caress; the inflamed and startledface staring at her, like some strange fish, over Mrs. Levitt'sshoulder, the mouth dropping open as if it called out to her "Go back!"What depths of fatuity he must have sunk to before he could have come tothat! And the sad figure leaning on the chimneypiece, whipped, beaten byMrs. Levitt's laughter--the high, coarse, malignant laughter that hadmade her run to the smoke-room door to shield him, to shut it off. 

What wouldn't Ralph have given to have seen him!

It was all very well for Ralph to talk about making a "study" of him; hehadn't got further than the merest outside fringe of his great subject. He didn't know the bare rudiments of Waddington. He had had brilliantflashes of his own, but no sure sight of the reality. And it had beengiven to her, Barbara, to see it, all at once. She had penetrated at onebound into the thick of him. They had wondered how far he would go; andhe had gone so far, so incredibly far above and beyond himself that alltheir estimates were falsified. 

And she saw that her seeing was the end--the end of their game, hersand Ralph's, the end of their compact, the end of the tie that boundthem. She found herself shut in with Waddington; the secret that sheshared with him shut Ralph out. It was intolerable that all this rich, exciting material should be left on her hands, lodged with her useless, when she thought of what she and Ralph could have made of it together. 

If only she could have given it him. But of course she couldn't. She hadalways known there would be things she couldn't give him. She would goon seeing more and more of them. 

Odd that she didn't feel any moral indignation. It had been too funny, like catching a child in some amusing naughtiness; and, as poor Waddy'seyes and open mouth had intimated, she had had no business to catch him, to know anything about it, no business to be there. 

"Ralph, " she said, "you must let me off the compact. "

He turned, laughing. "Why, have you seen something?"

"It doesn't matter whether I have or haven't. "

"It was a sacred compact. "

"But if I can only keep it by being a perfect pig--"

He looked down at her face, her troubled, unnaturally earnest face. 

"Of course, if you feel like that about it--"

"You'd feel like that if you were his confidential secretary and hadall his correspondence. "

"Yes, yes. I see, Barbara, it won't work. I'll let you off the compact. We can go on with him just the same. "

"We can't. "

"What? Not make a study of him?"

"No. We don't know what we're doing. It isn't safe. We may come onthings any day. "

"Like the thing you came on just now. "

"I didn't say I'd come on anything. "

"All right, you didn't. He shall be our unfinished book, Barbara. "

"He'll be _your_ unfinished book. I've finished mine all right. Anythingelse will be simply appendix. "

"You think you've got him complete?"

"Fairly complete. "

"Oh, Barbara--"

"Don't tempt me, Ralph. "

"After all, " he said, "we were only playing with him. "

"Well, we mustn't do it again. "

"Never any more?"

"Never any more. I know it's a game for gods; but it's a cruel game. Wemust give it up. "

"You mean we must give him up?"

"Yes, we've hunted and hounded him enough. We must let him go. "

"That's the compact, is it?"

"Yes. "

"We shall break it, Barbara; see if we don't. We can't keep off him. "

4

Mr. Waddington judged that, after all, owing to his consummate tact, hehad scored in the disagreeable parting with Mrs. Levitt. But when hethought of Barbara, little Barbara, a flush mounted to his face, hisears, his forehead; he could feel it--wave after wave of hot, unpleasantshame. 

He went slowly back to the library and shut himself in with thetea-table, and the sofa, and the cushions crushed, deeply hollowed withthe large pressure of Elise. He wondered how much Barbara had taken in, at what precise moment she had appeared. He tried to reconstruct thescene. He had been leaning over Elise; he could see himself leaning overher, enclosing her, and Elise's head, stiffened, drawing back from hiskiss. Worse than the sting of her repugnance was the thought thatBarbara had seen it and his attitude, his really very compromisingattitude. Had she? Had she? The door now, it was at right angles to thesofa; perhaps Barbara hadn't caught him fair. He went to the door andcame in from it to make certain. Yes. Yes. From that point it was nogood pretending that he couldn't be seen. 

But Barbara had rushed in like a little whirlwind, and she had gonestraight to the writing-table, turning her back. She wouldn't have hadtime to take it in. He was at the chimneypiece before she had turnedagain, before she could have seen him. He must have recovered himselfwhen he heard her coming. She couldn't charge in like that without beingheard. He must have been standing up, well apart from Elise, not leaningover her by the time Barbara came in. 

He tried to remember what Barbara had said when she went out. She hadsaid something. He couldn't remember what it was, but it had soundedreassuring. Now, surely if Barbara had seen anything she wouldn't havestopped at the door to say things. She would have gone straight outwithout a word. In fact, she wouldn't have come in at all. She wouldhave drawn back the very instant that she saw. She would simply neverhave penetrated as far as the writing-table. He remembered how coollyshe had taken up the photographs and gone out again as if nothing hadhappened. 

Probably, then, as far as Barbara was concerned, nothing had happened. 

Then he remembered the horrible laughing of Elise. Barbara must haveheard that; she must have wondered. She might just have caught him withthe tail of her eye, not enough to swear by, but enough to wonder; andafterwards she would have put that and that together. 

And he would have to dine with her alone that evening, to face heryoung, clear, candid eyes. 

He didn't know how he was going to get through with it, and yet he didget through. 

To begin with, Barbara was very late for dinner. 

She had thought of being late as a way of letting Mr. Waddington downeasily. She would come in, smiling and apologetic, palpably in thewrong, having kept him waiting, and he would be gracious and forgiveher, and his graciousnees and forgiveness would help to reinstate him. He would need, she reflected, a lot of reinstating. Barbara consideredthat, in the matter of punishment, he had had enough. Mrs. Levitt, withher "You old imbecile!" had done to him all, and more than all, thatjustice could require; there was a point of humiliation beyond which nohuman creature should be asked to suffer. To be caught making love toMrs. Levitt and being called an old imbecile! And then to be pelted withindecent laughter. And, in any case, it was not her, Barbara's, place topunish him or judge him. She had had no business to catch him, nobusiness, in the first instance, to forget the photographs. 

Therefore, as she really wanted him not to know that she had caught him, she went on behaving as if nothing had happened. All through dinner sheturned the conversation on to topics that would put him in a favourableor interesting light. She avoided the subject of Fanny. She asked himall sorts of questions about his war work. 

"Tell me, " she said, "some of the things you did when you were a specialconstable. "

And he told her his great story. To be sure, she knew the best part ofit already, because Ralph had told it--it had been one of his scoresover her--but she wanted him to remember it. She judged that it wasprecisely the sort of memory that would reinstate him faster thananything. For really he had played a considerable part. 

"Well"--you could see by his face that he was gratified--"one ofthe things we had to do was to drive about the villages and farmsafter dark to see that there weren't any lights showing. It wasnineteen--yes--nineteen-sixteen, in the winter. Must have been winter, because I was wearing my British warm with the fur collar. And there wasa regular scare on. "

"Air raids?"

"No. Tramps. We'd been fairly terrorized by a nasty, dangerous sort oftramp. The police were looking for two of these fellows--dischargedsoldiers. We'd a warrant out for their arrest. Robbery and assault. "

"With violence?"

"Well, you may call it violence. One of 'em had thrown a pint pot at thelandlord of the King's Head and hurt him. And they'd bolted with twobottles of beer and a tin of Player's Navy Cut. They'd made off, goodness knows where. We couldn't find 'em. 

"I was driving to Daunton on a very nasty, pitch-black night. You knowhow beastly dark it is between the woods at Byford Park? Well, I'd justgot there when I passed two fellows skulking along under the wall. Theystood back--it was rather a near shave with no proper lights on--and Iflashed my electric torch full on them. Blest if they weren't the verychaps we were looking for. And I'd got to run 'em in somehow, all bymyself. And two to one. It wasn't any joke, I can tell you. Goodnessknows what nasty knives and things they might have had on 'em. "

"What _did_ you do?"

"Do? I drove on fifty yards ahead, and pulled up the car outside theporter's lodge at Byford. Then I got out and came on and met 'em. Theywere trying to bolt into the wood when I turned my torch on them againand shouted 'Halt!' in a parade voice. 

"They halted, hands up to the salute. I thought the habit would be toomuch for 'em when they heard the word of command. I said, 'You've got tocome along with me. ' I didn't know how on earth I was going to take themif they wouldn't go. And they'd started dodging. So I tried it on again:'Halt!' Regular parade stunt. And they halted again all right. Then Iharangued them. I said, 'Shun, you blighters! I'm a special constable, and I've got a warrant here for your arrest. '

"I hadn't. I'd nothing but an Inland Revenue Income Tax form. But Iwhipped it out of my breast pocket and trained my light on the royalarms at the top. That was enough for 'em. Then I shouted again in myparade voice, 'Right about face! Quick march!'

"And I got them marching. I marched them the two miles from Byford, through Lower Speed, and up the hill to Wyck and into the policestation. And we ran 'em in for robbery and assault. "

"It was clever of you. "

"No; nothing but presence of mind and bluff, and showing that youweren't going to stand any nonsense. But I don't suppose Corbett orHawtrey or any of those chaps would have thought of it. "

Barbara wondered: "Supposing I were to turn on him and say, 'You oldhumbug, you know I don't believe a word of it. You know you didn't marchthem a hundred yards. ' Or '_I_ saw you this afternoon. ' What would helook like?" It was inconceivable that she should say these things. Ifshe was to go on with her study of him alone she would go on in thespirit they had begun in, she and Ralph. That spirit admitted nothingbut boundless amusement, boundless joy in him. Moral indignation wouldhave been a false note; it would have been downright irreverence towardsthe God who made him. 

What if he did omit to mention that the nasty, dangerous fellows turnedout to be two feeble youths, half imbecile with shell-shock and halfdrunk, and that it was Mr. Hawtrey, arriving opportunely in his car, whotook them over the last mile to the police station? As it happened Mr. Waddington had frankly forgotten these details as inessential to hisstory. (He _had_ marched them a mile. )

After telling it he was so far re-established in his own esteem as topropose their working together on the Ramblings after dinner. He evenordered coffee to be served in the library, as if nothing had happenedthere. Unfortunately, by some culpable oversight of Annie Trinder's, thecushions still bore the imprint of Elise. Awful realization came to himwhen Barbara, with a glance at the sofa, declined to sit on it. He hadturned just in time to catch the flick of what in a bantering mood hehad once called her "Barbaric smile. " After all, she might have seensomething. Not Mrs. Levitt's laughter but the thought of what Barbaramight have seen was his punishment--that and being alone with her, knowing that she knew. 

5

All this happened on a Wednesday, and Fanny wouldn't be back beforeSaturday. He had three whole days to be alone with Barbara. 

He had thought that no punishment could be worse than that, but as thethree days passed and Barbara continued to behave as though nothing hadhappened, he got used to it. It was on a Friday night, as he lay awake, reviewing for the hundredth time the situation, that his consciencepointed out to him how he really stood. There was a worse punishmentthan Barbara's knowing. 

If Fanny knew--

There were all sorts of ways in which she might get to know. Barbaramight tell her. The two were as thick as thieves. And if the childturned jealous and hysterical--She had never liked Elise. Or she mighttell Ralph Bevan and he might tell Fanny, or he might tell somebody whowould tell her. There were always plenty of people about who consideredit their duty to report these things. 

Of course, if he threw himself on Barbara's mercy, and exacted a promisefrom her not to tell, he knew she would keep it. But supposing all thetime she hadn't seen or suspected anything? Supposing her calm mannercame from a mind innocent of all seeing and suspecting? Then he wouldhave given himself away for nothing. 

Besides, even if Barbara never said anything, there was Elise. Noknowing what Elise might do or say in her vulgar fury. She might tellToby or Markham, and the two might make themselves damnably unpleasant. The story would be all over the county in no time. 

And there were the servants. Supposing one of the women took it into herhead to give notice on account of "goings on?"

He couldn't live in peace so long as all or any of these things werepossible. 

The only thing was to be beforehand with Barbara and Bevan and Elise andToby and Markham and the servants; to tell Fanny himself before any ofthem could get in first. The more he thought about it the more he waspersuaded that this was the only right, the only straightforward andmanly thing to do; at the same time it occurred to him that bysuppressing a few unimportant details he could really give a verysatisfactory account of the whole affair. It would not be necessary, forinstance, to tell Fanny what his intentions had been, if indeed he hadever had any. For, as he went again and again over the whole stupidbusiness, his intentions--those that related to the little house inCheltenham or St. John's Wood--tended to sink back into the dream statefrom which they had arisen, clearing his conscience more and more fromany actual offence. He had, in fact, nothing to account for but hisattitude, the rather compromising attitude in which Barbara had foundhim. And that could be very easily explained away. Fanny was not one ofthose exacting, jealous women; she would be ready to accept a reasonableexplanation of anything. And you could always appease her by a littleattention. 

So on Friday afternoon Mr. Waddington himself drove the car down to WyckStation and met Fanny on the platform. He made tea for her himself andwaited on her, moving assiduously, and smiling an affectionate yetrather conscious smile. He was impelled to these acts spontaneously, because of that gentleness and tenderness towards Fanny which the barethought of Elise was always enough to inspire him with. 

Thus, by sticking close to Fanny all the evening he contrived thatBarbara should have no opportunity of saying anything to her. And in thelast hour before bed-time, when they were alone together in thedrawing-room, he began. 

He closed the door carefully behind Barbara and came back to his place, scowling like one overpowered by anxious thought. He exaggerated thisexpression on purpose, so that Fanny should notice it and give him hisopening, which she did. 

"Well, old thing, what are _you_ looking so glum about?"

"Do I look glum?"

"Dismal. What is it?"

He stood upright before the chinmeypiece, his conscience sustained bythis posture of rectitude. 

"I'm not quite easy about Barbara, " he said. 

"Barbara? What on earth has _she_ been doing?"

"She's been doing nothing. It's--it's rather what she may do if youdon't stop her. "

"I don't want to stop her, " said Fanny, "if you're thinking of RalphBevan. "

"Ralph Bevan? I certainly am not thinking of him. Neither is she. "

"Well then, what?"

"I was thinking of myself. "

"My dear, you surely don't imagine that Barbara's thinking of you?"

"Not--not in the way you imply. The fact is, I was let in for a--arather unpleasant scene the other day with Mrs. Levitt. "

"I always thought, " said Fanny, "that woman would let you in forsomething. Well?"

"Well, I hardly know how to tell you about it, my dear. "

"Why, was it as bad as all that? Perhaps I'd better not know. "

"I want you to know. I'm trying to tell you--because of Barbara. "

"I can't see where Barbara comes in. "

"She came into the library while it was happening--"

Fanny laughed and it disconcerted him. 

"While what was happening?" she said. "You'd better tell me straightout. I don't suppose it was anything like as bad as you think it was. "

"I'm only afraid of what Barbara might think. "

"Oh, you can trust Barbara not to think things. She never does. "

Dear Fanny. He would have found his job of explaining atrociouslydifficult with any other woman. Any other woman would have entangled himtighter and tighter; but he could see that Fanny was trying to get itstraight, to help him out with all his honour and self-respect anddignity intact. Every turn she gave to the conversation favoured him. 

"My dear, I'm afraid she saw something that I must say was open tomisinterpretation. It wasn't my fault, but--"

No. The better he remembered it the more clearly he saw it was Elise'sfault, not his. And he could see that Fanny thought it was Elise'sfault. This suggested the next step in the course that was only notperjury because it was so purely instinctive, the subterfuge ofterrified vanity. It seemed to him that he had no plan; that he followedFanny. 

"Upon my word I'd tell you straight out, Fanny, only I don't like togive the poor woman away. "

"Mrs. Levitt?" said Fanny. "You needn't mind. You may be quite sure thatshe'll give _you_ away if you don't. "

She was giving him a clear lead. 

When he began he had really had some thoughts of owning, somewhere aboutthis point, that he had lost his head; but when it came to the point hesaw that this admission was unnecessarily quixotic, and that he wouldbe far safer if he suggested that Elise had lost hers. In fact, it wasFanny who had suggested it in the first place. It might not bealtogether a fair imputation, but, hang it all, it was the only one thatwould really appease Fanny, and he had Fanny to think of and not Elise. He owed it her. For her sake he must give up the personal luxury oftruthtelling. The thing would go no further with Fanny, and it was onlywhat Fanny had believed herself in any case and always would believe. Elise would be no worse off as far as Fanny was concerned. So he fairlylet himself go. 

"There's no knowing what she may do, " he said. "She was in a thoroughlyhysterical state. She'd come to me with her usual troubles--not able topay her rent, and so on--and in talking she became very much upset ander--er--lost her head and took me completely by surprise. "

"That, " he thought, "she certainly did. "

"You mean you lost yours too?" said Fanny mildly. 

"I did nothing of the sort. But I was rather alarmed. Before you couldsay 'knife' she'd gone off into a violent fit of hysterics, and I wasjust trying to bring her round when Barbara came in. " His explanationwas so much more plausible than the reality that he almost believed ithimself. "I think, " he said, pensively, "she _must_ have seen mebending over her. "

"And she didn't offer to help?"

"No; she rushed in and she rushed out again. She may not have seenanything; but in case she did, I wish, my dear, you'd explain. "

"I think I'd better not, " said Fanny, "in case she didn't. "

"No. But it worries me every time I think of it. She came right into theroom. Besides, " he said, "we've got to think of Mrs. Levitt. "

"Mrs. Levitt?"

"Yes. Put yourself in her place. She wouldn't like it supposed that Iwas making love to her. She might consider the whole thing made her lookas ridiculous as it made me. "

"I'd forgotten Mrs. Levitt's point of view. You rather gave me tounderstand that was what she wanted. "

"I never said anything of the sort. " Seeing that the explanation wasgoing so well he could afford to be magnanimous. 

"I must have imagined it, " said Fanny. "She recovered, I suppose, andyou got rid of her?"

"Yes, I got rid of her all right. "

"Well, " said Fanny, gathering herself up to go to bed, "I shouldn'tworry any more about it. I'll make it straight with Barbara. "

She went up to Barbara's bedroom, where Barbara, still dressed, satreading over the fire. 

"Come in, you darling, " Barbara said. She got up and crouched on thehearthrug, leaving her chair for Fanny. 

Fanny came in and sat down. 

"Barbara, " she said, "what's all this about Horatio and Mrs. Levitt?"

"I don't know, " said Barbara flatly, with sudden presence of mind. 

"I said you didn't. But the poor old thing goes on and on about it. Hethinks you saw something the other day. Something you didn't understand. Did you?"

Barbara said nothing. She stared away from Fanny. 

"Did you?"

"Of course I didn't. "

"Of course you did. He says you must have seen. And it's worrying him noend. "

"I saw something. But he needn't worry. I understood all right"

"What did you see?"

"Nothing. Nothing that mattered. "

"It matters most awfully to me. "

"I don't think it need, " said Barbara. 

"But it _does_. In a sense I don't mind what he does, and in a sense Ido. I still care enough for that. "

"I don't think there was anything you need mind so awfully. "

"Yes, but there _was_ something. He said there was. He was afraid you'dmisunderstand it. He said he was bending over her when you came in. "

"Well, he _was_ bending a bit. "

"What was _she_ doing?"

"She was laughing. "

"In hysterics?"

She saw it all. 

"I suppose you might call it hysterics. They weren't nice hysterics, though. She isn't a nice woman. "

"No. But he was making love to her, and she was laughing at him. She wasnice enough for that. "

"If that's nice. "

"Why, what else could the poor woman do if she's honest?"

"Oh, she's honest enough in _that_ way, " said Barbara. 

"And he couldn't see it. He's so intent on his own beautifulPostlethwaite nose, he can't see anything that goes on under it.... Still, honest or not honest, she's a beast, Barbara. When they'd beensuch pals and he'd helped her, to have gone and rounded on the poorthing like that. She might just as well have pulled his Postlethwaitenose. It couldn't have hurt more. "

"Oh, I think he'll get over it. "

"I mean it couldn't have hurt _me_ more. "

"She _is_ a beast, " said Barbara. "I bet you anything you like it's herfault. She drove him to it. "

"No, Barbara, it was _my_ fault. _I_ drove him. I'm always laughing athim, and he can't bear being laughed at. It makes him feel all stuffyand middle-aged. He only goes in for passion because it makes him feelyoung. "

"It isn't really passion, " said Barbara. 

"No, you wise thing, it isn't. If it was I could forgive him. I couldforgive it if he really felt young. It's this ghastly affectation Ican't stand.... But it's my fault, Barbara, my fault. I should have kepthim young.... "

They sat silent, Barbara at Fanny's feet. Presently Fanny drew thegirl's head down into her lap. 

"You'll never be old, Barbara, " she said. "And Ralph won't. "

"What made you think of Ralph, Fanny?"

"Horatio, of course. "

XII

1

If any rumour circulated round Wyck-on-the-Hill, sooner or later it wasbound to reach the old lady at the Dower House. The Dower House was theredistributing centre for the news of the district. 

Thus Mr. Waddington heard that Mrs. Levitt was talking about letting theWhite House furnished; that she was in debt to all the tradesmen in theplace; that her rent at Mrs. Trinder's was still owing; that her lossesat bridge were never paid for. He heard that if Major Markham had beenthinking of Mrs. Levitt, he had changed his mind; there was even adefinite rumour about a broken engagement. Anyhow, Major Markham was nowpaying unmistakable attentions to the youngest Miss Hawtrey ofMedlicott. But as, engagement or no engagement, his attentions to Mrs. Levitt had been unmistakable too, their rupture required someexplanation. It was supposed that the letter which the Major's mother, old Mrs. Markham of Medlicott, received from her daughter, Mrs. DickBenham of Tunbridge Wells, did very thoroughly explain it. There hadbeen "things" in that letter which Mrs. Markham had not been able torepeat, but you gathered from her singular reticence that they hadsomething to do with Dick Benham and Mrs. Levitt, and that they showedconclusively that Elise was not what old Mrs. Waddington called "a nicewoman. "

"They say she led Frank Levitt an awful life. The Benhams, my dear, won't have her in the house. "

But all this was trivial compared with the correspondence that nowpassed between Mr. Waddington and Elise. He admitted now that oldCorbett had known what he was talking about when he had warned him thathe would be landed--landed, if he didn't take care, to the tune of fivehundred and fifty-five pounds. His letters to Mrs. Levitt, dictated toBarbara Madden, revealed the care he had to take. From motives whichappeared to him chivalrous he had refrained from showing Barbara Mrs. Levitt's letters to him. He left her to gather their crude substancefrom his admirable replies. 

"'MY DEAR MRS. LEVITT:

"'I am afraid I must advise you to give up the scheme if it depends onmy co-operation. I thought I had defined my position--'

"Defined my position is good, I think. "

"It sounds good, " said Barbara. 

"'That position remains what it was. And as your exceptionally fineintelligence cannot fail to understand it, no more need be said. 

"'At least I hope it is so. I should be sorry if our very pleasantrelations terminated in disappointment--'"

For one instant she could see him smile, feeling voluptuously the sharp, bright edge of his word before it cut him. He drew back, scowling abovea sudden sombre flush of memory. 

"Disappointment--" said Barbara, giving him his cue. 

"Disappointment is not quite the word. I want something--something morechivalrous. "

His eyes turned away from her, pretending to look for it. 

"Ah--now I have it. 'Very pleasant relations terminated on a note--on anote of--on an unexpected note. 

"'With kind regards, very sincerely yours, "'HORATIO BYSSHE WADDINGTON. '

"You will see, Barbara, that I am saying precisely the same thing, butsaying it inoffensively, as a gentleman should. "

Forty-eight hours later he dictated:

"'DEAR MRS. LEVITT:

"'No: I have no suggestion to make except that you curtail your veryconsiderable expenditure. For the rest, believe me it is as disagreeablefor me to be obliged to refuse your request as I am sure it must be foryou to make it--'

"H'm. Rest--request. That won't do. 'As disagreeable for me to have torefuse as it must be for you to ask. '

"Simpler, that. Never use an elaborate phrase where a simple one willdo. 

"'You are good enough to say I have done so much for you in the past. Ihave done what I could; but you will pardon me if I say there is a limitbeyond which I cannot go. 

"'Sincerely yours, "'HORATIO B. WADDINGTON. '

"I've sent her a cheque for fifty-five pounds already. That ought tohave settled her. "

"Settled her? You don't mean to say you sent her a _cheque?_"

"I did. "

"You oughtn't to have sent her anything at all. "

"But I'd promised it, Barbara--"

"I don't care. You ought to have waited. "

"I wanted to close the account and have done with her. "

"That isn't the way to close it, sending cheques. That cheque will haveto go through Parson's Bank. Supposing Toby sees it?"

"What if he does?"

"He might object. He might even make a row about it. "

"What could I do? I had to pay her. "

"You could have made the cheque payable to me. It would have passed asmy quarter's salary. I could have cashed it and you could have given hernotes. "

"And if Toby remembered their numbers?"

"You could have changed them for ten shilling notes in Cheltenham. "

"All these elaborate precautions!"

"You can't be too precautions when you're dealing with a woman likethat.... Is this all you've given her?"

"All?"

"Yes. Did you ever give her anything any other time?"

"Well--possibly--from time to time--"

"Have you any idea of the total amount?"

"I can't say off-hand. And I can't see what it has to do with it. "

"It has everything to do with it. Can you find out?"

"Certainly, if I look up my old cheque books. "

"You'd better do that now. "

He turned, gloomily, to his writing-table. The cheque books for thecurrent year and the year before it betrayed various small loans to Mrs. Levitt, amounting in all to a hundred and fifty pounds odd. 

"Oh, dear, " said Barbara, "all that's down against you. Still--it's allante-Wednesday. What a pity you didn't pay her that fifty-five beforeyour interview. "

"How do you mean?"

"It's pretty certain she's misinterpreted your paying it now so soon. "

"After the interview? Do you really think she misunderstood me, Barbara?"

"I think she wants you to think she did. "

"You think she's trying--trying--to--"

"To sell you her silence? Yes, I do. "

"Good God! I never thought of that. Blackmail. "

"I don't suppose for a minute she thinks she's blackmailing you. She'sjust trying it on.... And she may raise her price, too. She won't resttill she's got that five hundred out of you. "

Mrs. Levitt's next communication would appear to have supportedBarbara's suspicion, for Mr. Waddington was compelled to answer it thus:

"DEAR MRS. LEVITT:

"You say you were 'right then' and that my 'promises' were'conditional'"--

(You could tell where the inverted commas came by the biting clip of histone. )

--"I fail to appreciate the point of this allusion. I cannot imaginewhat conditions you refer to. I made none. As for promises, I am notresponsible for the somewhat restricted interpretation you see fit toput on a friend's general expressions of goodwill. 

"Yours truly, "HORATIO BYSSHE WADDINGTON. "

His last letter, a day later, never got as far as its signature. 

"DEAR MADAM:

"My decision will not be affected by the contingency you suggest. Youare at perfect liberty to say what you like. Nobody will believe you. "

"That, I think, is as far as I can go. "

"Much too far, " said Barbara. 

"And that's taking her too seriously. "

"Much. You mustn't send that letter. "

"Why not?"

"Because it gives you away. "

"Gives me away? It seems to me most guarded. "

"It isn't. It implies that there _are_ things she might say. Even if youdon't mind her saying them you mustn't put it in writing. "

"Ah-h. There's something in that. Of course, I could threaten her with alawyer's letter. But somehow--The fact is, Barbara, if you're adecent man you're handicapped in dealing with a lady. Delicacy. Thereare things that could be said. Material things--most material to thecase. But I can't say them. "

"No. You can't say them. But I can. I think I could stop the whole thingin five minutes, if I saw Mrs. Levitt. Will you leave it to me?"

"Come--I don't know--"

"Why not? I assure you it'll be all right. "

"Well. Perhaps. It's a matter of business. A pure matter of business. "

"It certainly is that. There's no reason why you shouldn't hand it overto your secretary. "

He hesitated. He was still afraid of what Elise might say to Barbara. 

"You will understand that she is in a very unbalanced state. Excitable. A woman in that state is apt to put interpretations on the mostinnocent--er--acts. "

"She won't be able to put on any after I've done with her. If it comesto that, I can put on interpretations too. "

Mr. Waddington then, at Barbara's dictation, wrote a short note to Mrs. Levitt inviting her to call and see him that afternoon at three o'clock. 

2

At three o'clock Barbara was ready for her. 

She had assumed for the occasion her War Office manner, that firmsweetness with which she used to stand between importunate interviewersand her chief. It had made her the joy of her department. 

"Mr. Waddington is extremely sorry he is not able to see you himself. Heis engaged with his agent at the moment. "

Mr. Waddington had, indeed, created that engagement. 

"Engaged? But I have an appointment. "

"Yes. He's very sorry. He said if there was anything I could do foryou--"

"Thank you, Miss Madden. If it's all the same to you, I'd much rathersee Mr. Waddington himself. I can wait. "

"I wouldn't advise you to. I'm afraid he may be a long time. He has somevery important business on hand just now. "

"_My_ business, " said Mrs. Levitt, "is very important. "

"Oh, if it's only business, " Barbara said, "I think we can settle it atonce. I've had most of the correspondence in my hands and I think I knowall the circumstances. "

"You have had the correspondence in your hands?"

"Well, you see, I'm Mr. Waddington's secretary. That's what I'm herefor. "

"I didn't know he trusted his private business to his secretary. "

"He's obliged to. He has so much of it. You surely don't expect him tocopy out his own letters?"

"I don't expect him to hand over my letters to other people to read. "

"I haven't read your letters, Mrs. Levitt. I've merely taken down hisanswers to copy out and file for reference. "

"Then, my dear Miss Madden, you don't know all the circumstances. "

"At any rate, I can tell you what Mr. Waddington intends to do and whathe doesn't. You want to see him, I suppose, about the loan for theinvestment?"

Mrs. Levitt was too profoundly disconcerted to reply. 

Barbara went on in her firm sweetness. "I know he's very sorry not to beable to do more, but, as you know, he did not advise the investment andhe can't possibly advance anything for it beyond the fifty pounds he hasalready paid you. "

"Since you know so much about it, " said Mrs. Levitt with a certain calm, subdued truculence, "you may as well know everything. You are quitemistaken in supposing that Mr. Waddington did not advise the investment. On the contrary, it was on his representations that I decided to invest. And it was on the strength of the security he offered that my solicitorsadvanced me the money. He is responsible for the whole business; he hasmade me enter into engagements that I cannot meet without him, and whenI ask him to fulfil his pledges he lets me down. "

"I don't think Mr. Waddington knows that your solicitors advanced themoney. There is no reference to them in the correspondence. "

"I think, if you'll look through your _files_, or if Mr. Waddington willlook through his, you'll find you are mistaken. "

"I can tell Mr. Waddington what you've told me and let you know what hesays. If you don't mind waiting a minute I can let you know now. "

She sought out Mr. Waddington in his office--luckily it was situated inthe kitchen wing, the one farthest from the library. She found him alonein it (the agent had gone), sitting in a hard Windsor chair. He knewthat Elise couldn't pursue him into his office; it was even doubtfulwhether she knew where it was. He had retreated into it as into someimpregnable position. 

Not that he looked safe. His face sagged more than ever, as though thePostlethwaite nose had withdrawn its support from that pale flesh offunk. If it had any clear meaning at all it expressed a terrifiedexpectation of blackmail. His very moustache and hair droopedlamentably. 

"Are you disengaged?" she said. 

"Yes. But for God's sake don't tell her that. "

"It's all right. She knows she isn't going to see you. "

"Well?"

She felt the queer, pathetic clinging of his mind to her as if itrealized that she held his honour and Fanny's happiness in her hands. 

"She's not going to give up that five hundred without a struggle. "

"The deuce she isn't. On what grounds does she claim it?"

"She says you advised her to make a certain investment, and that youpromised to lend her half the sum she wanted. "

"I made no promise. I said, 'Perhaps that sum might be forthcoming. ' Imade it very clear that it would depend on circumstances. "

"On circumstances that she understood--knew about?"

"Er--on circumstances that--No. She didn't know about them. "

"Still, you made conditions?"

"No. I made--a mental reservation. "

"She seems to be aware of the circumstances that influenced you. Shethinks you've gone back on your word. "

"I have gone back on nothing. My word's sacred. The woman lies. "

"She sticks to it that the promise was made, that on the strength of itshe invested a certain sum of money through her solicitors, that theyadvanced the money on that security and you advised the investment. "

"I did not advise it. I advised her to give it up. I wrote to her. Youtook down the letter.... No, you didn't. I copied that one myself. "

"Have you got it? I'd better show it her. "

"Yes. It's--it's--confound it, it's in my private drawer. "

"Can't I find it?"

He hesitated. He didn't like the idea of anybody, even little Barbara, rummaging in his private drawer, but he had to choose the lesser of twoevils, and that letter would put the matter beyond a doubt. 

"Here's the key, " he said, and gave it her. "It's dated October thethirtieth or thirty-first. But it's all humbug. I've reason to believethat money was never invested at all. It's all debts. She hasn't a legto stand on. Not a leg. "

"Not a stump, " said Barbara. "Leave her to me. "

She went back to the library. Mrs. Levitt's face lifted itself inexcited questioning. 

"One moment, Mrs. Levitt. "

After a slightly prolonged search in Mr. Waddington's private drawer shefound the letter of October tie thirty-first, and returned with it tothe office. It was very short and clear:

"MY DEAR ELISE:

"I cannot promise anything--it depends on circumstances. But if you sentme the name and address of your solicitors it might help. "

"Take it, " he said, "and show it her. "

3

Barbara went back again to the library and her final battle with Elise. 

This time she had armed herself with the cheque books. 

Mrs. Levitt began, "Well--?"

"Mr. Waddington says he is very sorry if there's any misunderstanding. Idon't know whether you remember getting this letter from him?"

Mrs. Levitt blinked hard as she read the letter. 

"Of course I remember. "

"You see that he could hardly have stated his position more clearly. "

"But--this letter is dated October the thirty-first. The promise I referto was made long after that. "

"It doesn't appear so from his letters--all that I've taken down. If youcan show me anything in writing--"

"Writing? Mr. Waddington is a gentleman and he was my friend. I neverdreamed of pinning him down to promises in writing. I thought his wordwas enough. I never dreamed of his going back on it. And aftercompromising me the way he's done. "

Barbara's eyebrows lifted delicately, innocently. "_Has_ he compromisedyou?"

"He has. "

"How?"

"Never mind how. Quite enough to start all sorts of unpleasant stories. "

"You shouldn't listen to them. People will tell stories without anythingto start them. "

"That doesn't make them any less unpleasant. I should have thought thevery least Mr. Waddington could do--"

"Would be to pay you compensation?"

"There can be no compensation in a case of this sort, Miss Madden. I'mnot talking about compensation. Mr. Waddington must realize that hecannot compromise me without compromising himself. "

"I should think he would realize it, you know. "

"Then he ought to realize that he is not exactly in a position torepudiate his engagements. "

"Do you consider that _you_ are in a position--exactly--to hold him toengagements he never entered into?"

"I've told you already that he has let me in for engagements that Icannot meet if he goes back on his word. "

"I see. And you want to make it unpleasant for him. As unpleasant as youpossibly can?"

"I can make it even more unpleasant for him, Miss Madden, than it is forme. "

"What, after all the compromising?"

"I think so. If, for instance, I chose to tell somebody what happenedthe other day, what you saw yourself. "

"_Did_ I see anything?"

"You can't deny that you saw something you were not meant to see. "

"You mean Wednesday afternoon? Well, if Mr. Waddington chose to say thatI saw you in a bad fit of hysterics I shouldn't deny _that_. "

"I see. You're well posted, Miss Madden. "

"I am, rather. But supposing you told everybody in the place he wascaught making love to you, what good would it do you?"

"Excuse me, we're not talking about the good it would do me, but theharm it would do him. "

"Same thing, " said Barbara. "Supposing you told everybody and nobodybelieved you?"

"Everybody will believe me. You forget that those stories have beengoing about long before Wednesday. "

"All the better for Mr. Waddington and all the worse for you. You werecompromised before Wednesday. Then why, if you didn't like beingcompromised, did you consent to come to tea alone with him when his wifewas away?"

"I came on business, _as you know_. "

"You came to borrow money from a man who had compromised you? If you'reso careful of your reputation I should have thought that would have beenthe last thing you'd have done. "

"You're forgetting my friendship with Mr. Waddington. "

"You said business just now. Friendship or business, or business _and_friendship, I don't think you're making out a very good case foryourself, Mrs. Levitt. But supposing you did make it out, and supposingMr. Waddington did lose his head and _was_ making love to you onWednesday, do you imagine people here are going to take _your_ partagainst _him_?"

"He's not so popular in Wyck as all that. "

"He mayn't be, but his caste is. Immensely popular with the county, which I suppose is all you care about. You must remember, Mrs. Levitt, that he's Mr. Waddington of Wyck; you're not fighting one Mr. Waddington, but three hundred years of Waddingtons. You're up againstall his ancestors. "

"I don't care _that_ for his ancestors, " said Mrs. Levitt with agesture of the thumb. 

"You may not. I certainly don't. But other people do. Major Markham, theHawtreys, the Thurstons, even the Corbetts, do you suppose they're allgoing to turn against him because he lost his head for a minute on aWednesday? Ten to one they'll all think, and _say_, you made him do it. "

"I made him? Preposterous!"

"Not so preposterous as you imagine. You must make allowances forpeople's prejudices. If you wanted to stand clear you shouldn't havetaken all that money from him. "

"All that money indeed! A loan, a mere temporary loan, for an investmenthe recommended. "

"Not only that loan, but--" Barbara produced the cheque books withtheir damning counterfoils. "Look here--twenty-five pounds on thethirty-first of January. And here--October last year, and July, andJanuary before that--More than a hundred and fifty altogether. Howare you going to account for that?

"And who's going to believe that Mr. Waddington paid all that fornothing, if some particularly nasty person gets up and says he didn't?You see what a horrible position you'd be in, don't you?"

Mrs. Levitt didn't answer. Her face thickened slightly with a dreadfulflush. Her nerve was going. 

Barbara watched it go. She followed up her advantage. "And supposing Iwere to tell everybody--his friend, Major Markham, say--that you werepressing him for that five hundred, immediately _after_ the affair ofWednesday, on threats of exposure, wouldn't that look very likeblackmail?"

"Blackmail? _Really_, Miss Madden--"

"I don't suppose you _mean_ it for blackmail; I'm only pointing out whatit'll look like. It won't look _well_.... Much better face the facts. You _can't_ do Mr. Waddington any real harm, short of forcing his wifeto get a separation. "

There was a black gleam in Mrs. Levitt's eyes. "Precisely. Andsupposing--since we _are_ supposing--I told Mrs. Waddington of hisbehaviour?"

"Too late. Mr. Waddington has told her himself. "

"His own version. "

"Certainly, his own version. "

"And supposing I gave mine?"

"Do. Whatever you say it'll be your word against ours and she won'tbelieve you. If she did she'd think it was all your fault.... Andremember, I have the evidence for your attempts at blackmail. 

"I don't think, " said Barbara, going to the door and opening it, "there's anything more to be said. "

Mrs. Levitt walked out with her agitated waddle. Barbara followed heramicably to the front door. There Elise made her last stand. 

"_Good_ afternoon, Miss Madden. I congratulate Mr. Waddington--on thepartnership. "

Barbara rushed to the relief of the besieged in his office redoubt. 

"It's all over!" she shouted at him joyously. 

Mr. Waddington did not answer all at once. He was still sitting in hisuneasy Windsor chair, absorbed in meditation. He had brought out alittle note from his inmost pocket and as he looked at it he smiled. 

It began thus, and its date was the Saturday following that dreadfulWednesday:

"MY DEAR MR. WADDINGTON:

"After the way you have stood by me and helped me in the past, I cannotbelieve that it is all over, and that I can come to you, my generousfriend, and be repulsed--"

He looked up. "How did she behave, Barbara?" "Oh--she wanted to bite--tobite badly; but I drew all her teeth, very gently, one by one. " Teeth. Elise's teeth--drawn by Barbara. 

He tore the note into little bits, and, as he watched them flutter intothe waste-paper basket, he sighed. He rose heavily. 

"Let's go and tell Fanny all about it, " said Barbara. 

XIII

1

"I hope you realize, Horatio, that it was Barbara who got you out ofthat mess?"

"Barbara showed a great deal of intelligence; but you must give mecredit for some tact and discretion of my own, " Mr. Waddington said ashe left the drawing-room. 

"_Was_ he tactful and discreet?"

"His first letters, " said Barbara, "were masterpieces of tact anddiscretion. Before he saw the danger. Afterwards I think his nerve mayhave gone a bit. Whose wouldn't?"

"It _was_ clever of you, Barbara. All the same, it must have been ratherawful, going for her like that. "

"Yes. "

Now that it was all over Barbara saw that it had been awful; rather likea dog-fight. She had been going round and round, rolling with Mrs. Levitt in the mud; so much mud that for purposes of sheer cleanliness ithardly seemed to matter which of them was top dog at the finish. All shecould see was that it had to be done and there wasn't anybody else to doit. 

"You see, " Fanny went on, "she had a sort of case. He _was_ making loveto her and she didn't like it. It doesn't seem quite fair to turn on herafter that. "

"She did all the turning. I wouldn't have said a thing if she hadn'ttried to put the screw on. Somebody had got to stop it. "

"Yes, " Fanny said. "Yes. Still, I wish we could have let her go inpeace. "

"There wasn't any peace for her to go in; and she wouldn't have gone. She'd have been here now, with his poor thumb in her screw. After all, Fanny, I only pointed out how beastly it would be for her if she didn'tgo. And I only did that because he was your husband, and it was yourthumb, really. "

"Yes, darling, yes; I know what you did it for. ... Oh, I wish shewasn't so horribly badly off. "

"So do I, then it wouldn't have happened. But how can you be such anangel to her, Fanny?"

"I'm not. I'm only decent. I hate using our position to break her poorback. Telling her we're Waddingtons of Wyck and she's only Mrs. Levitt. "

"It was the handiest weapon. And you didn't use it. _I'm_ not aWaddington of Wyck. Besides, it's true; she can't blackmail him in hisown county. You don't seem to realize how horrid she was, and how jollydangerous. "

"No, " Fanny said, "I don't realize people's horridness. As for danger, Idon't want to disparage your performance, Barbara, but she seems to meto have been an easy prey. "

"You _are_ disparaging me, " said Barbara. 

"I'm not. I only don't like to think of you enjoying that nasty scrap. "

"I only enjoyed it on your account. "

"And I oughtn't to grudge you your enjoyment when we reap the benefit. Idon't know what Horatio would have done without you. I shudder to thinkof the mess he'd have made of it himself. "

"He was making rather a mess of it, " Barbara said, "when I took it on. "

"Well, " said Fanny, "I daresay I'm a goose. Perhaps I ought to begrateful to Mrs. Levitt. If he was on the look-out for adventures, it'sjust as well he hit on one that'll keep him off it for the future. She'dhave been far more deadly if she'd been a nice woman. If he _must_ makelove. "

"Only then he couldn't very well have done it, " Barbara said. 

"Oh, couldn't he! You never can tell what a man'll do, once he's begun, "said Fanny. 

2

Meanwhile Mrs. Levitt stayed on, having failed to let her house for thewinter. She seemed to be acting on Barbara's advice and refraining fromany malignant activity; for no report of the Waddington affair had asyet penetrated into the tea-parties and little dinners atWyck-on-the-Hill. Punctually every Friday evening Mr. Thurston of theElms, and either Mr. Hawtrey or young Hawtrey of Medlicott, turned up atthe White House for their bridge. If Mrs. Dick Benham chose to writevenomous letters about Elise Levitt to old Mrs. Markham, that was noreason why they should throw over an agreeable woman whose hospitalityhad made Wyck-on-the-Hill a place to live in, so long as she behaveddecently _in_ the place. They kept it up till past midnight now thatMrs. Levitt had had the happy idea of serving a delicious supper ateleven. (She had paid her debts of honour with Mr. Waddington's fivepounds; the fifty she reserved, in fancy, for the cost of the chickensand the trifles and the Sauterne. ) In Mr. Thurston and the Hawtreys thebridge habit and the supper habit, and what Billy Hawtrey called theLevitty habit, was so strong that it overrode their sense of loyalty toMajor Markham. The impression created by Mrs. Dick Benham onlyheightened their enjoyment in doing every Friday what Mrs. Thurston andMrs. Hawtrey persisted in regarding as a risky thing. "There was no harmin Elise Levitt, " they said. 

So every Friday, after midnight, respectable householders, sleeping oneither side of the White House, were wakened by the sudden opening ofher door, by shrill "Good nights" called out from the threshold andanswered by bass voices up the street, by the shutting of the door andthe shriek of the bolt as it slid to. 

And the Rector went about saying, in his genial way, that he liked Mrs. Levitt, that she was well connected, and that there was no harm in her. So long as any parishioner was a frequent attendant at church, and aregular subscriber to the coal and blanket club, and a reliable sourceof soup and puddings for the poor, it was hard to persuade him thatthere was any harm in them. Fanny Waddington said of him that ifBeelzebub subscribed to his coal and blanket club he'd ask him to tea. He had a stiff face for uncharitable people; Elise was received almostostentatiously at the rectory as a protest against scandal-mongering;and he made a point of stopping to talk to her when he met her in thestreet. 

This might have meant the complete rehabilitation of Elise, but thatthe Rector's geniality was too indiscriminate, too perfunctory, tooChristian, as Fanny put it, to afford any sound social protection; and, ultimately, the approval of the rectory was disastrous to Elise, lettingher in, as she afterwards complained bitterly, for Miss Gregg. Meanwhileit helped her with people like Mrs. Bostock and Mrs. Cleaver and Mrs. Jackson, who wanted to be charitable and to stand well with the Rector. 

Then, in the December following the Waddington affair, Wyck wasastonished by the friendship that sprang up, suddenly, between Mrs. Levitt and Miss Gregg, the governess at the rectory. 

There was a reason for it--there always is a reason for thesethings--and Mrs. Bostock named it when she named young Billy Hawtrey. Friendship with Mrs. Levitt provided Miss Gregg with, unlimitedfacilities for meeting Billy, who was always running over from Medlicottto the White House. Miss Gregg's passion for young Billy hung by soslender, so nervous, and so insecure a thread that it required thecontinual support of conversation with an experienced and sympatheticfriend. Miss Gregg had never known anybody so sympathetic and soexperienced as Mrs. Levitt. The first time they were alone together shehad seen by Elise's face that she had some secret like her own (MissGregg meant Major Markham), and that she would understand. And onestrict confidence leading to another, before very long Miss Gregg hadcaptured that part of Elise's secret that related to Mr. Waddington. 

It was through Miss Gregg's subsequent activities that it first becameknown in Wyck that Mrs. Levitt had referred to Mr. Waddington as "thathorrible old man. " This might have been very damaging to Mr. Waddingtonbut that Annie Trinder, at the Manor, had told her aunt, Mrs. Trinder, that Mr. Waddington spoke of Mrs. Levitt as "that horrible woman, " andhad given orders that she was not to be admitted if she called. It wasthen felt that there might possibly be more than one side to thequestion. 

Then, bit by bit, through the repeated indiscretions of Miss Gregg, thewhole affair of Mrs. Levitt and Mr. Waddington came out. It travelleddirect from Miss Gregg to the younger Miss Hawtrey of Medlicott, andfinally reached Sir John Corbett by way of old Hawtrey, who had it fromhis wife, who didn't believe a word of it. 

Sir John didn't believe a word of it, either. At any rate, that was whathe said to Lady Corbett. To himself he wondered whether there wasn't"something in it. " He would give a good deal to know, and he made uphis mind that the next time he saw Waddington he'd get it out of him. 

He saw him the very next day. 

Ever since that dreadful Wednesday an uneasy mind had kept Mr. Waddington for ever calling on his neighbours. He wanted to find outfrom their behaviour and their faces whether they knew anything and howmuch they knew. He lived in perpetual fear of what that horrible womanmight say or do. The memory of what _he_ had said and done thatWednesday no longer disturbed his complete satisfaction with himself. Hecouldn't think of Elise as horrible without at the same time thinking ofhimself as the pure and chivalrous spirit that had resisted her. Automatically he thought of himself as pure and chivalrous. And in therare but beastly moments when he did remember what he had done and saidto Elise and what Elise had done and said to him, when he felt again herhand beating him off and heard her voice crying out: "You old imbecile!"automatically he thought of her as cold. Some women were likethat--cold. Deficient in natural feeling. Only an abnormal coldnesscould have made her repulse him as she did. She had told him to hisface, in her indecent way, that love was _the_ most ridiculous thing. He couldn't, for the life of him, understand how a thing that was sodelightful to other women could he ridiculous to Elise; but there itwas. 

Absolutely abnormal, that. His vanity received immense consolation inthinking of Elise as abnormal. 

His mind passed without a jolt or a jar from one consideration to itsopposite. Elise was cold and he was normally and nobly passionate Elisewas horrible and he was chivalrously pure. Whichever way he had it hewas consoled. 

But you couldn't tell in what awful light the thing might present itselfto other people. 

It was this doubt that drove him to Underwoods one afternoon early inJanuary, ostensibly to deliver his greetings for the New Year. 

After tea Sir John lured him into his library for a smoke. The peculiarsmile and twinkle at play on his fat face should have warned Mr. Waddington of what was imminent. 

They puffed in an amicable silence for about two minutes before hebegan. 

"Ever see anything of Mrs. Levitt now?"

Mr. Waddington raised his eyebrows as if surprised at this impertinence. He seemed to be debating with himself whether he would condescend toanswer it or not. 

"No, " he said presently, "I don't. "

"Taken my advice and dropped it, have you?"

"I should say, rather, it dropped itself. "

"I'm glad to hear that, Waddington; I'm very glad to hear it. I alwayssaid, you know, you'd get landed if you didn't look out. "

"My dear Corbett, I did look out. You don't imagine I was going to belet in more than I could help. "

"Wise after the event, what?"

Mr. Waddington thought: "He's trying to pump me. " He was determined notto be pumped. Corbett should not get anything out of him. 

"After what event? Fanny's called several times, but she doesn't care tokeep it up. Neither, to tell the honest truth, do I.... Why?"

Sir John was twinkling at him in his exasperating way. 

"Why? Because, my dear fellow, the woman's going about everywhere sayingshe's given _you_ up. "

"I don't care, " said Mr. Waddington, "what she says. Quite immaterial tome. "

"You mayn't care, but your friends do, Waddington. "

"It's very good of them. But they can save themselves the trouble. "

He thought: "He isn't going to get anything out of me. "

"Oh, come, you don't suppose we believe a word of it. "

They looked at each other. Sir John thought: "I'll get it out of him. "And Mr. Waddington thought: "I'll get it out of him. "

"You might as well tell me what you're talking about, " he said. 

"My dear chap, it's what Mrs. Levitt's talking about. That's the point. "

"Mrs. Levitt!"

"Yes. She's a dangerous woman, Waddington. I told you you were doing arisky thing taking up with her like that.... And there's Hawtrey doingthe same thing, the very same thing.... But he's a middle-aged man, so Isuppose he thinks he's safe. ... But if he was ten years younger--Hang it all, Waddington, if I was a younger man I shouldn't feel safe. Ishouldn't, really. I can't think what there is about her. There'ssomething. "

"Yes, " said Mr. Waddington, "there's something. "

Something. He wasn't going to let Corbett think him so middle-aged thathe was impervious to its charm. 

"What is it?" said Sir John. "She isn't handsome, yet she gets all theyoung fellows running after her. There was Markham, and Thurston, andthere's young Hawtrey. It's only sober old chaps like me who don't getlanded.... Upon my word, Waddington, I shouldn't blame you if you _had_lost your head. "

Mr. Waddington felt shaken in his determination not to let Corbett getit out of him. It was also clear that, if he did admit to having for onewild moment lost his head, Corbett would think none the worse of him. Hewould then be classed with Markham and young Billy, whereas if he deniedit, he would only rank himself with old fossils like Corbett. And hecouldn't bear it. There was such a thing as doing yourself anunnecessary injustice. 

Sir John watched him hovering round the trap he had laid for him. 

"Absolutely between ourselves, " he said. "_Did_ you?"

Under Mr. Waddington's iron-grey moustache you could see theRabelaisian smile answering the Rabelaisian twinkle. For the life of himhe couldn't resist it. 

"Well--between ourselves, Corbett, absolutely--to be perfectly honest, Idid. There _is_ something about her.... Just for a second, you know. Itdidn't come to anything. "

"Didn't it? She says you made violent love to her. "

"I won't swear what I wouldn't have done if I hadn't pulled myself upin time. "

At this point it occurred to him that if Elise had betrayed the secretof his love-making she would also have told her own tale of its repulse. That had to be accounted for. 

"I can tell you one queer thing about that woman, Corbett. She'scold--cold. "

"Oh, come, Waddington--"

"You wouldn't think it--"

"I don't, " said Sir John, with a loud guffaw. 

"But I assure you, my dear Corbett, she's simply wooden. Talk of makinglove, you might as well make love to--to a chair or a cabinet. I cantell you Markham's had a lucky escape. "

"I don't imagine that's what put him off, " said Sir John. "He knewsomething. "

"What do you suppose he knew?"

"Something the Benhams told them, I fancy. They'd some queer story. Rather think she ran after Dicky, and Mrs. Benham didn't like it. "

"Don't know what she wanted with him. Couldn't have been in love withhim, I will say that for her. "

"Well, she seems to have preferred their bungalow to her own. Anyhow, they couldn't get her out of it. "

"I don't believe that story. We must be fair to the woman, Corbett. "

He thought he had really done it very well. Not only had he accountedhonourably for his repulse, but he had cleared Elise. And he had clearedhimself from the ghastly imputation of middle-age. Repulse or norepulse, he was proud of his spurt of youthful passion. 

And in another minute he had persuaded himself that his main motive hadbeen the desire to be fair to Elise. 

"H'm! I don't know about being fair, " said Sir John. "Anyhow, Icongratulate you on your lucky escape. "

Mr. Waddington rose to go. "Of course--about what I told you--you won'tlet it go any further?"

Sir John laughed out loud. "Of course I won't. Only wanted to know howfar _you_ went. Might have gone farther and fared worse, what?"

He rose, too, laughing. "If anybody tries to pump me I shall say youbehaved very well. So you did, my dear fellow, so you did. Consideringthe provocation. "

He could afford to laugh. He had got it out of poor old Waddington, ashe said he would. But to the eternal honour of Sir John Corbett, it didnot go any further. When people tried to get it out of him he simplysaid that there was nothing in it, and that to his certain knowledgeWaddington had behaved very well. As Barbara had prophesied, nobodybelieved that he had behaved otherwise. It was not for nothing that hewas Mr. Waddington of Wyck. 

And in consequence of the revelations she had made to her friend, MissGregg, very early in the New Year Elise found other doors closed to herbesides the Markhams' and the Waddingtons'. And behind the doors on eachside of the White House respectable householders could sleep in theirbeds on Friday nights without fear of being wakened by the opening andshutting of Mrs. Levitt's door and by the shrill "Good nights" calledout from its threshold and answered up the street The merry bridgeparties and the little suppers were no more. 

Even the Rector's geniality grew more and more Christian andperfunctory, till he too left off stopping to talk to Mrs. Levitt whenhe met her in the street. 

3

Mr. Waddington's confession to Sir John was about the only statementrelating to the Waddington affair which did not go any further. Thus avery curious and interesting report of it reached Ralph Bevan throughColonel Grainger, when he heard for the first time of the part Barbarahad played in it. 

In the story Elise had told in strict confidence to Miss Gregg, Mr. Waddington had been deadly afraid of her and had beaten a cowardlyretreat behind Barbara's big guns. Not that either Elise or Miss Greggwould have admitted for one moment that her guns were big; ColonelGrainger had merely inferred the deadliness of her fire from thedemoralization of the enemy. 

"Your little lady, Bevan, " he said, "seems to have come off best in thatencounter. "

"We needn't worry any more about the compact, Barbara, now I know aboutit, " Ralph said, as they walked together. Snow had fallen. The Cotswoldswere all white, netted with the purplish brown filigree-work of thetrees. Their feet went crunching through the furry crystals of the snow. 

"No. That's one good thing she's done. "

"Was it very funny, your scrap?"

"It seemed funnier at the time than it did afterwards. It was reallyrather beastly. Fanny didn't like it. "

"You could hardly expect her to. There's a limit to Fanny's sense ofhumour. "

"There's a limit to mine. Fanny was right. I had to fight her with thefilthiest weapons. I had to tell her she couldn't do anything because hewas Waddington of Wyck, and she was up against all his ancestors. I hadto drag in his ancestors. "

"That was bad. "

"I know it was. It's what Fanny hated. And no wonder. She made me feelsuch a miserable little snob, Ralph. "

"Fanny did?"

"Yes. _She_ couldn't have done it. She'd have let her do her damnedest. "

"That's because Fanny's an incurable little aristocrat. She's got moreWaddington of Wyckedness in her little finger than Horatio has in allhis ego; and she despises Mrs. Levitt. She wouldn't have condescended toscrap with her. "

"The horrible thing is, it's true. He can do what he likes and nothinghappens to him. He can turn the Ballingers out of their house andnothing happens. He can make love to a woman who doesn't want to be madelove to and nothing happens. Because he's Waddington of Wyck. "

"He's Waddington of Wyck, but he isn't such a bad old thing, really. People laugh at him, but they like him because he's so funny. Andthey've taken Mrs. Levitt's measure pretty accurately. "

"You don't think, then, I was too big a beast to her?"

Ralph laughed. 

"Somebody had to save him, Ralph. After all, he's Fanny's husband. "

"Yes, after all, he's Fanny's husband. "

"So you don't--do you?"

"Of course I don't.... What's he doing now?"

"Oh, just pottering about with his book. It's nearly finished. "

"You've kept it up?"

"Rather. There isn't a sentence he mightn't have written himself. Ithink I'm going to let him go back to Lower Wyck on the last page andend there. In his Manor. I thought of putting something in aboutholly-decked halls and Yule logs on the Christmas hearth. He wasphotographed the other day. In the snow. "

"Gorgeous. "

"I wonder if he'll really settle down now. Or if he'll do it all overagain some day with somebody else. "

"You can't tell. You can't possibly tell. He may do anything. "

"That's what we feel about him, " Barbara said. 

"Endless possibilities. Yet you'd think he couldn't go one better thanMrs. Levitt. "

For the next half-mile they disputed whether in the scene with Mrs. Levitt he was or was not really funny. Ralph was inclined to think thathe might have been purely disgusting. 

"You didn't _see_ him, Ralph. You've no right to say he wasn't funny. "

"No. No. I didn't see him. You needn't rub it in, Barbara. "

"We've got to wait and see what he does next. It may be your turn anyday. "

"We can't expect him to do very much for a little while. He must be abit exhausted with this last stunt. "

"Yes. And the funny thing is he has moments when you don't laugh at him. Moments of calm, beautiful peace.... You come on him walking in hisgarden looking for snowdrops in the snow. Or he's sitting in hislibrary, reading Buchan's 'History of the Great War. ' Happy. Notthinking about himself at all. Then you're sorry you ever laughed athim. "

"I'm not, " Ralph said. "He owes it us. He does nothing else to justifyhis existence. "

"Yes. But he exists. He exists. And somehow, it's pretty mysteriouswhen you think of it. You wonder whether you mayn't have seen him allwrong. Whether all the time he isn't just, a simple old thing. When youget that feeling--of his mysteriousness, Ralph--somehow you're done. "

"I haven't had it yet. "

"Oh, it's there. You'll get it some day. "

"You see, Barbara, how right I was? We can't keep off him. "

XIV

1

It was Sunday, the last week of Horry's holidays. All through supper hehad been talking about cycling to Cirencester if the frost held, toskate on the canal. 

The frost did hold, and in the morning he strapped a cushion on thecarrier of his bicycle and called up the stairs to Barbara. 

"Come along, Barbara, let's go to Cirencester. "

Barbara appeared, ready, carrying her skates. Mr. Waddington had let heroff the Ramblings, yet, all of a sudden, she looked depressed. 

"Oh, Horry, " she said, "I was going with Ralph. "

"You are _not_, " said Horry. "You're always going with Ralph. You'rejolly well coming with me this time. "

"But I promised him. "

"You'd no business to promise him, when it's the last week of myholidays. 'Tisn't fair. "

Fanny came out into the hall. 

"Horry, " she said, "don't worry Barbara. Can't you see she wants to gowith Ralph?"

"That's exactly, " he said, "what I complain of. "

She shook her head at him. "You're your father all over again, " shesaid. 

"I'll swear I'm not, " said Horry. 

"If you were half as polite as your father it wouldn't be a bad thing. "

There was a sound of explosions in the drive. "There's Ralph come tosettle it himself, " said Fanny. And at that point, Mr. Waddington cameout on them, suddenly, from the cloak-room. 

"What's all this?" he said. He looked with disgust at the skatesdangling from Barbara's hand. He went out into the porch and looked withdisgust at Ralph and at the motor-bicycles. He thought with bitternessof the Cirencester canal. He couldn't skate. Even when he was Horry'sage he hadn't skated. He couldn't ride a motor-bicycle. When he lookedat the beastly things and thought of their complicated machinery andtheir evil fascination for Barbara, he hated them. He hated Horry andRalph standing up before Barbara, handsome, vibrating with youth andhealth and energy. 

"I won't have Barbara riding on that thing. It isn't safe. If he skidson the snow he'll break her neck. "

"Much more likely to break his own neck, " said Horry. 

In his savage interior Mr. Waddington wished he would, and Horry too. 

"He won't skid, " said Barbara; "if he does I'll hop off. "

"We'll come back, " said Ralph, "if we don't get on all right. "

They started in a duet of explosions, the motor-bicycles hissing andcrunching through the light snow. Barbara, swinging on Ralph's carrier, waved her hand light-heartedly to Mr. Waddington. He hated Barbara; butfar more than Barbara he hated Horry, and far more than Horry he hatedRalph. 

"He'd no business to take her, " he said. "She'd no business to go. "

"You can't stop them, my dear, " said Fanny; "they're too young. "

"Well, if they come back with their necks broken they'll have onlythemselves to thank. "

He took a ferocious pleasure in thinking of Horry and Ralph and Barbarawith their necks broken. 

Fanny stared at him. "I wonder what's made him so cross, " she thought. "He looks as if he'd got a chill on the liver. ".... "Horatio, have yougot a chill on the liver?"

"Now, what on earth put that into your head?"

"Your face. You look just a little off colour, darling. "

At that moment Mr. Waddington began to sneeze. 

"There, I knew you'd caught cold. You oughtn't to go standing about indraughts. "

"I haven't caught cold, " said Mr. Waddington. 

But he shut himself up in his library and stayed there, huddled in hisarmchair. From time to time he leaned forward and stooped over thehearth, holding his chest and stomach as near as possible to the fire. Shivers like thin icicles kept on slipping down his spine. 

At lunch-time he complained that there was nothing he could eat, andbefore the meal was over he went back to his library and his fire. Fannysat with him there. 

"I wish you wouldn't go standing out in the cold, " she said. She knewthat on Saturday he had stood for more than ten minutes in the fallensnow of the park to be photographed. And he wouldn't wear his overcoatbecause he thought he looked younger without it, and slenderer. 

"No wonder you've got a chill, " she said. 

"I didn't get it then. I got it yesterday in the garden. "

She remembered. He had been wandering about the garden, after church, looking for snowdrops in the snow. Barbara had worn the snowdrops in thebreast of her gown last night. 

He nourished his resentment on that memory and on the thought that hehad got his chill picking snowdrops for Barbara. 

At tea-time he drank a little tea, but he couldn't eat anything. He feltsick and his head ached. At dinner-time, on Fanny's advice, he went tobed and Fanny took his temperature. 

A hundred and one. He turned the thermometer in his hand, gazingearnestly at the slender silver thread. He was gratified to know thathis temperature was a hundred and one and that Fanny was frightened andhad sent for the doctor. He had a queer, satisfied, exalted feeling, nowthat he was in for it. When Barbara came back she would know what he wasin for and be frightened, too. He would have been still more gratifiedif he had known that without him dinner was a miserable affair. Fannyshowed that she was frightened, and her fear flattened down the highspirits of Ralph and Barbara and Horry, returned from their skating. 

"You see, Barbara, " said Ralph, when they had left Fanny and Horry withthe doctor, "we can't live without him. "

They listened at the smoke-room door for the sound of Dr. Ransome'sdeparture, and Ralph waited while Barbara went back and brought him theverdict. 

"It's flu, and a touch of congestion of the lungs. "

They looked at each other sorrowfully, so sorrowfully that they smiled. 

"Yet we can smile, " he said. 

"You know, " said Barbara, "he got it standing in the snow, whilePyecraft photographed him. "

"It's the way, " Ralph said, "he would get it. "

And Barbara laughed. But, all the same, she felt a distinct pang at herheart every time she went into her bedroom and saw, in its glass on herdressing-table, the bunch of snowdrops that Mr. Waddington had pickedfor her in the snow. They made a pattern on her mind; white coneshanging down; sharp green blades piercing; green stalks held in thecrystal of the water. 

2

"Nobody but a fool, " said Horry, "would have stood out in the snow to bephotographed ... At his age. "

"Don't, Horry. "

Barbara was in the morning-room, stirring some black, sticky stuff in asaucepan over the fire. The black, sticky stuff was to go on Mr. Waddington's chest. Horry looked on, standing beside her in an attitudeof impatience. A pair of boots with skates clipped on hung from hisshoulders by their laces. He felt that his irritation was justifiable, for Barbara had refused to go out skating with him. 

"Why 'don't'?" said Horry. "It's obvious. "

"Very. But he's ill. "

"There can't be much the matter with him or the mater wouldn't look sochirpy. "

"She likes nursing him. "

"Well, " Horry said, "_you_ can't nurse him. "

"No. But I can stir this stuff, " said Barbara. 

"I suppose, " Horry said, "you'd think me an awful brute if I went?"

"I wish you _would_ go. You're a much more awful brute standing theresaying things about him and getting in my way. "

"All right. I'll get out of it. That's jolly easy. "

And he went. But he felt sick and sore. He had tried to persuade himselfthat his father wasn't ill because he couldn't bear to think how ill hewas; it interfered with his enjoyment of his skating. "If, " he said tohimself, "if he'd only put it off till the ice gave. But it was justlike him to choose a hard frost. "

His anger gave him relief from the sickening anxiety he felt when hethought of his father and his father's temperature. It had gone down, but not to normal. 

Mr. Waddington lay in his bed in Fanny's room. Barbara, standing at theopen door with her saucepan, caught a sight of him. 

He was propped up by his pillows. On his shoulders, over one of thosestriped pyjama suits that Barbara had once ordered from the Stores, hewore, like a shawl, a woolly, fawn-coloured motor-scarf of Fanny's. Hisarms were laid before him on the counterpane in a gesture of completesurrender to his illness. Fanny was always tucking them away under theblankets, but if anybody came in he would have them so. He was sittingup, waiting in an adorable patience for something to be done for him. His face had the calm, happy look of expectation utterly appeased andresigned. It was that look that frightened Barbara; it made her thinkthat Mr. Waddington was going to die. Supposing his congestion turned topneumonia? There was so much of him to be ill, and those big men alwaysdid die when they got pneumonia. 

Mr. Waddington could hear Barbara's quiet voice saying something toFanny; he could see her unhappy, anxious face. He enjoyed Barbara'sanxiety. He enjoyed the cause of it, his illness. So long as he wasactually alive he even enjoyed the thought that, if his congestionturned to pneumonia, he might actually die. There was a dignity, aprestige about being dead that appealed to him. Even his hightemperature and his headache and his shooting pains and his difficultyin breathing could not altogether spoil his pleasure in the deliciousconcern of everybody about him, and in his exquisite certainty that, atany minute, a moan would bring Fanny to his side. He was the one personin the house that counted. He had always known it, but he had never feltit with the same intensity as now. The mind of every person in the housewas concentrated on him now as it had not been concentrated before. Hewas holding them all in a tension of worry and anxiety. He wouldapologize very sweetly for the trouble he was giving everybody, declaring that it made him very uncomfortable; but even Fanny could seethat he was gratified. 

And as he got worse--before he became too ill to think about it atall--he had a muzzy yet pleasurable sense that everybody inWyck-on-the-Hill and in the county for miles round was thinking of him. He knew that Corbett and Lady Corbett and Markham and Thurston and theHawtreys, and the Rector and the Rector's wife and Colonel Grainger hadcalled repeatedly to inquire for him. He was particularly gratified byGrainger's calling. He knew that Hitchin had stopped Horry in the streetto ask after him, and he was particularly gratified by that. OldSusan-Nanna had come up from Medlicott to see him. And Ralph Bevancalled every day. That gratified him, too. 

The only person who was not allowed to know anything about his illnesswas his mother, for Mr. Waddington was certain it would kill her. Everyevening at medicine time he would ask the same questions: "My motherdoesn't know yet?" And: "Anybody called to-day?" And Fanny would givehim the messages, and he would receive them with a gentle, solemnsweetness. You wouldn't have believed, Barbara said to herself, thatcomplacency could take so heartrending a form. 

And under it all, a deeper bliss in bliss, was the thought that Barbarawas thinking about him, worrying about him, and being, probably, tentimes more unhappy about him than Fanny. After working so long by hisside, her separation from him would be intolerable to Barbara;intolerable, very likely, the thought that it was Fanny's turn, now, tobe by his side. Every day she brought him a bunch of snowdrops, andevery day, as the door closed on her little anxious face, he was sorryfor Barbara shut out from his room. Poor little Barbara. Sometimes, whenhe was feeling well enough, he would call to her: "Come in, Barbara. "And she would come in and look at him and put her flowers into his handand say she hoped he was better. And he would answer: "Not much better, Barbara. I'm very ill. "

He even allowed Ralph to come and look at him. He would hold his hand ina clasp that he made as limp as possible, on purpose, and would say in avoice artificially weakened: "I'm very ill, Ralph. "

Dr. Ransome said he wasn't; but Mr. Waddington knew better. It was truethat from time to time he rallied sufficiently to comb his own hairbefore Barbara was let in with her snowdrops, and that he could giveorders to Partridge in a loud, firm tone; but he was too ill to do morethan whisper huskily to Barbara and Fanny. 

Then when he felt a little better the trained nurse came, and with thesheer excitement of her coming Mr. Waddington's temperature leapt upagain, and the doctor owned that he didn't like that. 

And Barbara found Fanny in the library, crying. She had been tidying uphis writing-table, going over all his papers with a feather brush, andshe had come on the manuscript of the Ramblings unfinished. 

"Fanny--"

"Barbara, I know I'm an idiot, but I simply cannot bear it. It was allvery well as long as I could nurse him, but now that woman's comethere's nothing I can do for him.... I've--I've never done anything allmy life for him. He's always done everything for me. And I've been abrute. Always laughing at him.... Think, Barbara, think; for eighteenyears never to have taken him seriously. Never since I married him.... Ibelieve he's going to die. Just--just to punish me. "

"He isn't, " said Barbara indignantly, as if she had never believed itherself. "The doctor says he isn't really very ill. The congestion isn'tspreading. It was better yesterday. "

"It'll be worse to-night, you may depend on it. The doctor doesn't_like_ his temperature flying up and down like that. "

"It'll go down again, " said Barbara. 

"You don't know what it'll do, " said Fanny darkly. "Did you ever seesuch a lamb, such a _lamb_ as he is when he's ill?"

"No, " said Barbara; "he's an angel. "

"That's just, " said Fanny, "what makes me feel he's going to die.... Iwish I were you, Barbara. "

"Me?"

"Yes. You've really helped him. He could never have written his bookwithout you. His poor book. "

She sat stroking it. And suddenly a horrible memory overcame her, andshe cried out:

"Oh, my God! And I've laughed at that, too!"

Barbara put her arm round her. "You didn't, darling. Well, if youdid--it is a little funny, you know. I'm afraid I've laughed a bit. "

"Oh, _you_--that doesn't matter. You helped to write it. "

Then Barbara broke out. "Oh, don't, Fanny, don't, _don't_ talk about hispoor book. I can't _bear_ it. "

"We're both idiots, " said Fanny. "Imbeciles. "

She paused, drying her eyes. 

"He liked the snowdrops you brought him, " she said. 

Barbara thought: "And the snowdrops he brought _me_. " He had caught coldthat day, picking them. They had withered in the glass in her bedroom. 

She left Fanny, only to come upon Horry in his agony. Horry stood in thewindow of the dining-room, staring out and scowling at the snow. 

"Damn the snow!" he said. "It's killed him. "

"It hasn't, Horry, " she said; "he'll get better. "

"He won't get better. If this beastly frost holds he hasn't got achance. "

"Horry dear, the doctor says he's better. "

"He doesn't. He says his temperature's got no business to go up. "

"All the same--"

"Supposing he does think him better. Supposing he doesn't know. Supposing he's a bleating idiot.... I expect the dear old pater knowshow he is a jolly sight better than anybody can tell him.... And youknow you're worrying about him yourself. So's the mater. She's beencrying. "

"She's jealous of the nurse. That's what's the matter with her. "

"Jealous? Tosh! That nurse is an idiot. She's sent his temperature upfirst thing. "

"Horry, old thing, you must buck up. You mustn't let your nerve go likethis. "

"Nerve? Your nerve would go if you were me. I tell you, Barbara, Iwouldn't care a hang about his being ill--I mean I shouldn't care soinfernally if I'd been decent to him. ... But you were right I was acad, a swine. Laughing at him. "

"So was I, Horry. I laughed at him. I'd give anything not to have. "

"You didn't matter.... "

He was silent a moment. Then he swung round, full to her. His faceburned, his eyes flashed tears; he held his head up to stop themfalling. 

"Barbara--if he dies, I'll kill myself. "

That evening Mr. Waddington's temperature went up another point. Ralph, calling about nine o'clock, found Barbara alone in the library, huddledin a corner of the sofa, with her pocket-handkerchief beside her, rolledin a tight, damp ball. She started as he came in. 

"Oh, " she said, "I thought you were the doctor. "

"Do you want him?"

"Yes. Fanny does. She's frightened. "

"Shall I go and get him?"

"No. No. They've sent Kimber. Oh, Ralph, I'm frightened, too. "

"But he's getting on all right. He is really. Ransome says so. "

"I know. I've told them that. But they won't believe it. And _I_ don'tnow. He'll die: you'll see he'll die. Just because we've been such pigsto him. "

"Nonsense; that wouldn't make him--"

"I'm not so sure. It's awful to see him lying there, like a lamb--sogood--when you think how we've hunted and hounded him. "

"He didn't know, Barbara. We never let him know. "

"You don't know what he knew. He must have seen it. "

"He never sees anything. "

"I tell you, you don't know what he sees.... I'd give anything, anythingnot to have done it. "

"So would I. "

"It's a lesson to me, " she said, "as long as I live, never to laugh atanybody again. Never to say cruel things. "

"We didn't say cruel things. "

"Unkind things. "

"Not very unkind. "

"We did. I did. I said all the really beastly ones. "

"No. No, you didn't. Not half as beastly as I and Horry did. "

"That's what Horry's thinking now. He's nearly off his head about it. "

"Look here, Barbara; you're simply sentimentalizing because he's ill andyou're sorry for him.... You needn't be. I tell you, he's enjoying hisillness. ... I don't suppose, " said Ralph thoughtfully, "he's enjoyedanything so much since the war. "

"Doesn't that show what brutes we've been, that he has to be ill inorder to enjoy himself?"

"Oh, no. He enjoys himself--himself, Barbara--all the time. He can'thelp enjoying his illness. He likes to have everybody fussing round himand thinking about him. "

"That's what I mean. We never did think of him. Not seriously. We'vedone nothing--nothing but laugh. Why, you're laughing now. ... It'shorrible of you, Ralph, when he may be dying. ... It would serve us alljolly well right if he did die. "

To her surprise and indignation, Barbara began to cry. The hard, damplump of pocket-handkerchief was not a bit of good, and before she couldreach out for it Ralph's arms were round her and he was kissing thetears off one by one. 

"Darling, I didn't think you really minded--"

"What d-did you th-think, then?" she sobbed. 

"I thought you were playing. A sort of variation of the game. "

"I told you it was a cruel game. "

"Never mind. It's all over. We'll never play it again. And he'll be wellin another week. ... Look here, Barbara, can't you leave off thinkingabout him for a minute? You know I love you, most awfully, don't you?"

"Yes. I know now all right. "

"And _I_ know. "

"How do you know?"

"Because, old thing, you've never ceased to hang on to my collar sinceI grabbed you. You can't go back on _that_. "

"I don't want to go back on it.... I say, we always said he brought ustogether, and he _has_, this time. "

When later that night Ralph told Fanny of their engagement the firstthing she said was, "You mustn't tell him. Not till he's well again. Infact, I'd rather you didn't tell him till just before you're married. "

"Why ever not?"

"It might upset him. You see, " she said, "he's very fond of Barbara. "

The next day Mr. Waddington's temperature went down to normal; and thenext, when Ralph called, Barbara fairly rushed at him with the news. 

"He's sitting up, " she shouted, "eating a piece of sole. "

"Hooray! Now we can be happy. "

The sound of Fanny's humming came through the drawing-room door. 

XV

1

Mr. Waddington was sitting up in his armchair before the bedroom fire. By turning his head a little to the right he could command a perfectview of himself in the long glass by the window. To get up and look athimself in that glass had been the first act of his convalescence. Hehad hardly dared to think what alterations his illness might have madein him. He remembered the horrible sight that Corbett had presentedafter _his_ influenza last year. 

Looking earnestly at himself in the glass, he had found that hisappearance was, if anything, improved. Outlines that he had missed forthe last ten years were showing up again. The Postlethwaite nose wascleaner cut. He was almost slender, and not half so weak as Fanny saidhe ought to have been. Immobility in bed, his spiritual attitude ofcomplacent acquiescence, and the release of his whole organism from thestrain of a restless intellect had set him up more than his influenzahad pulled him down; and it was a distinctly more refined and youthfulWaddington that Barbara found sitting in the armchair, wearing a royalblue wadded silk dressing-gown and Fanny's motor-scarf, with a greymohair shawl over his knees. 

Mr. Waddington's convalescence was altogether delightful to him, admitting, as it did, of sustained companionship with Barbara. As soonas it reached the armchair stage she sat with him for hours together. She had finished the Ramblings, and at his request she read them aloudto him all over again from beginning to end. Mr. Waddington was muchgratified by the impression they made recited in Barbara's charmingvoice; the voice that trembled a little now and then with an emotionthat did her credit. 

"'Come with me into the little sheltered valley of the Speed. Let usfollow the brown trout stream that goes purling through the lush greengrass of the meadows--'"

"I'd no idea, " said Mr. Waddington, "it was anything like so good as itis. We may congratulate ourselves on having got rid of Ralph Bevan. "

And in February, when the frost broke and the spring weather came, andthe green and pink and purple fields showed up again through the mist onthe hillsides, he went out driving with Barbara in his car. He wantedto look again at the places of his _Ramblings_, and he wanted Barbara tolook at them with him. It was the reward he had promised her for what hecalled her dreary, mechanical job of copying and copying. 

Barbara noticed the curious, exalted expression of his face as he sat upbeside her in the car, looking noble. She put it down partly to thateverlasting self-satisfaction that made his inward happiness, and partlyto sheer physical exhilaration induced by speed. She felt something likeit herself as they tore switchbacking up and down the hills: anexcitement whipped up on the top of the deep happiness that came fromthinking about Ralph. And there was hardly a moment when she didn'tthink about him. It made her eyes shine and her mouth quiver with apeculiarly blissful smile. 

And Mr. Waddington looked at Barbara where she sat tucked up beside him. He noticed the shining and the quivering, and he thought--what he alwayshad thought of Barbara. Only now he was certain. 

The child loved him. She had been fascinated and frightened, frightenedand fascinated by him from the first hour that she had known him. Butshe was not afraid of him any more. She had left off struggling. She wasgiving herself up like a child to this feeling, the nature of which, inher child's innocence, she did not yet know. But he knew. He had alwaysknown it. 

So much one half of Mr. Waddington's mind admitted, while the other halfdenied that he had known it with any certainty. It went on saying toitself: "Blind. Blind. Yet I might have known it, " as if he hadn't. 

He had, of course, kept it before him as a possibility (no part of himdenied that). And he had used tact. He had handled a delicate situationwith a consummate delicacy. He had done everything an honourable mancould do. But there it was. There it had been from the day that he hadcome into the house and found her there. And the thing was too strongfor Barbara. Poor child, he might have known it would be. And it was toostrong for Mr. Waddington. It wasn't his fault. It was Fanny's fault, having the girl there and forcing them to that dangerous intimacy. 

Before his illness Mr. Waddington had resisted successfully any littleinclination he might have had to take advantage of the situation. Heconceived his inner life for the last nine months as consisting of aseries of resistances. He conceived the episode of Elise as a safetyvalve, natural but unpleasant, for the emotions caused by Barbara: thesubstitution of a permissible for an impermissible lapse. It had beenincredible to him that he should make love to Barbara. 

But one effect of his influenza was apparent. It had lowered hisresistance, and, lowering it, had altered his whole moral perspectiveand his scale of values, till one morning in April, walking with Barbarain the garden that smelt of wallflowers and violets, he became awarethat Barbara was as necessary to him as he was to Barbara. 

Her easel stood in a corner of the lawn with an unfinished water-colourdrawing of the house on it. He paused before it, smiling his tender, sentimental smile. 

"There's one thing I regret, Barbara--that I didn't have your drawingsfor my Cotswold book. "

The _Ramblings_, thanks to unproclaimed activities of Ralph Bevan, wereat that moment in the press. 

"Why should you, " she said, "if you didn't care about them?"

"It's inconceivable that I shouldn't have cared. ... I was blind. Blind.... Well, some day, if we ever have an _édition de luxe_, they shallappear in that. "

"Some day!"

She hadn't the heart to tell him that the drawings had anotherdestination, for as yet the existence of Ralph's took was a secret. They had agreed that nothing should disturb Mr. Waddington's pleasure inthe publication of his Ramblings--his poor Ramblings. 

"One has to pay for blindness in this world, " he said. 

"A lot of people'll be let in at that rate. I don't suppose five willcare a rap about my drawings. "

"I wasn't thinking only of your drawings, my dear. " He pondered. ... "Fanny tells me you're going to have a birthday. You're quite a littleApril girl, aren't you?"

2

It was Barbara's twenty-fourth birthday, and the day of her adoption. Ithad begun, unpropitiously, with something very like a dispute betweenHoratio and Fanny. 

Mr. Waddington had gone up to London the day before, and had returnedwith a pearl pendant for Fanny, and a green jade necklace for Barbara(not yet presented) and a canary yellow waistcoat for himself. 

And not only the waistcoat--

On the birthday morning Fanny had called out to Barbara as she passedher bedroom door:

"Barbara, come here. "

Fanny was staring, fascinated, at four pairs of silk pyjamas spread outbefore her on the bed. Remarkable pyjamas, of a fierce magenta withforked lightning in orange running about all over them. 

"Good God, Fanny!"

"You may well say 'Good God. ' What would you say if you'd got to... ?I'm not a nervous woman, but--"

"It's a mercy he didn't get them eighteen years ago, " said Barbara, "orHorry might have been born an idiot. "

"Yellow waistcoats are all very well, " said Fanny. "But what _can_ hehave been thinking of?"

"I don't know, " said Barbara. Somehow the pattern called up, irresistibly, the image of Mrs. Levitt. 

"Perhaps, " she said, "he thinks he's Jupiter. "

"Well, I'm not What's-her-name, and I don't want to be blasted. So I'llput them somewhere where he can't find them. "

At that moment they had heard Mr. Waddington coming through hisdressing-room and Barbara had run away by the door into the corridor. 

"Who took those things out of my wardrobe?" he said. He was gazing, dreamily, affectionately almost, at the pyjamas. 

"I did. "

"And what for?"

"To look at them. Can you wonder? Horatio, if you wear them I'll applyfor a separation. "

"You needn't worry. "

There was a queer look in his face, significant and furtive. And Fanny'smind, with one of its rapid flights, darted off from the pyjamas. 

"What are you going to do about Barbara?" she said. 

"_Do_ about her?"

"Yes. You know we were going to adopt her if we liked her enough. And wedo like her enough, don't we?"

"I have no paternal feeling for Barbara, " said Mr. Waddington. "Theparental relation does not appeal to me as desirable or suitable. "

"I should have thought, considering her age and your age, it was verysuitable indeed. "

"Not if it entails obligations that I might regret. "

"You're going to provide for her, aren't you? That isn't an obligation, surely, you'll regret?"

"I can provide for her without adopting her. "

"How? It's no good just leaving her something in your will. "

"I shall continue half her salary, " said Mr. Waddington, "as anallowance. "

"Yes. But will you give her a marriage portion if she marries?"

He was silent. His mind reeled with the blow. 

"If she marries, " he said, "with my consent and my approval--yes. "

"If that isn't a parental attitude! And supposing she doesn't?"

"She isn't thinking of marrying. "

"You don't know what she's thinking of. "

"Neither, I venture to say, do you. "

"Well--I don't see how I can adopt her, if you don't. "

"I didn't say I wouldn't adopt her. "

"Then you will?"

He snapped back at her with an incredible ferocity. 

"I suppose I shall have to. Don't _worry_ me!"

He then lifted up the pyjamas from the bed and carried them into hisdressing-room. Through the open door she saw him, mounted on a chair, laying them out, tenderly, on the top shelf of the wardrobe: as if hewere storing them for some mysterious and romantic purpose in whichFanny was not included. 

"Perhaps, after all, " she thought, "he only bought them because theymake him feel young. "

All the morning, that morning of Barbara's birthday and adoption Mr. Waddington's thoughtful gloom continued. And in the afternoon he shuthimself up in his library and gave orders that he was not to bedisturbed. 

3

Barbara was in the morning-room. 

They had given her the morning-room for a study, and she was alone init, amusing herself with her pocket sketch-book. 

The sketch-book was Barbara's and Ralph's secret. Sometimes it lived fordays with Ralph at the White Hart. Sometimes it lived with Barbara, inher coat pocket, or in her bureau under lock and key. She was obsessedwith the fear that some day she would leave it about and Fanny wouldfind it, or Mr. Waddington. Or any minute Mr. Waddington might come onher and catch her with it. It would be awful if she were caught. Forthat remarkable collection contained several pen-and-ink drawings of Mr. Waddington, and Barbara added to their number daily. 

But at the moment, the long interval between an unusually early birthdaytea and an unusually late birthday dinner, she was safe. Fanny had goneover to Medlicott in the car. Mr. Waddington was tucked away in hislibrary, reading in perfect innocence and simplicity and peace. Itwasn't even likely that Ralph would turn up, for he had gone over toOxford, and it was on his account that the birthday dinner was put offtill half-past eight. There would be hours and hours. 

She had just finished the last of three drawings of Mr. Waddington: Mr. Waddington standing up before the long looking-glass in his new pyjamas;Mr. Waddington appearing in the doorway of Fanny's bedroom as Jupiter, with forked lightning zig-zagging out of him into every corner; Mr. Waddington stooping to climb into his bed, a broad back view withlightnings blazing out of it. 

And it was that moment that Mr. Waddington chose to come in to presentthe green jade necklace. He was wearing his canary yellow waistcoat. 

Barbara closed her sketch-book hurriedly and laid it on the table. Shekept one arm over it while she received and opened the leather casewhere the green necklace lay on its white cushion. 

"For _me_? Oh, it's too heavenly. How awfully sweet of you. "

"Do you like it, Barbara?"

"I love it. "

Compunction stung her when she thought of her drawings, especially theone where he was getting into bed. She said to herself: "I'll never doit again. Never again.... And I won't show it to Ralph. "

"Put it on, " he commanded, "and let me see you in it. "

She lifted it from the case. She raised her arms and clasped it roundher neck; she went to the looking-glass. And, after the first raptmoment of admiration, Mr. Waddington possessed himself of the uncoveredsketch-book. Barbara saw him in the looking-glass. She turned, with acry:

"You mustn't! You mustn't look at it. "

"Why not?"

"Because I don't let anybody see my sketches. "

"You'll let _me_. "

"I _won't_!" She dashed at him, clutching his arm and hanging her weighton it. He shook himself free and raised the sketch-book high above herhead. She jumped up, tearing at it, but his grip held. 

He delighted in his power. He laughed. 

"Give it me this instant, " she said. 

"Aha! She's got her little secrets, has she?"

"Yes. Yes. They're all there. You've no business to look at them. "

He caracoled heavily, dodging her attack, enjoying the youthful violenceof the struggle. 

"Come, " he said, "ask me nicely. "

"Please, then. _Please_ give it me. "

He gave it, bowing profoundly over her hand as she took it. 

"I wouldn't look into your dear little secrets for the world, " he said. 

They sat down amicably. 

"You'll let me stay with you a little while?"

"Please do. Won't you have one of my cigarettes?"

He took one, turning it in his fingers and smiling at it--a lingering, sentimental smile. 

"I think I know your secret, " he said presently. 

"Do you?" Her mind rushed to Ralph. 

"I think so. And I think you know mine. "

"Yours?"

"Yes. Mine. We can't go on living like this, so close to each other, without knowing. We may try to keep things from each other, but wecan't. I feel as if you'd seen everything. "

She said to herself: "He's thinking of Mrs. Levitt. "

"I don't suppose I've seen anything that matters, " she said. 

"You've seen what my life is here. You can't have helped seeing thatFanny and I don't hit it off very well together. "

"Fanny's an angel. "

"You dear little loyal thing.... Yes, she's an angel. Too much of anangel for a mere man. I made my grand mistake, Barbara, when I marriedher. "

"She doesn't think so, anyhow. "

"I'm not so sure. Fanny knows she's got hold of something that'stoo--too big for her. What's wrong with Fanny is that she can't graspthings. She's afraid of them. And she can't take serious thingsseriously. It's no use expecting her to. I've left off expecting. "

"You don't understand Fanny one bit. "

"My dear child, I've been married to her more than seventeen years, andI'm not a fool. You've seen for yourself how she takes things. How shebelittles everything with her everlasting laugh, laugh, laugh. In timeit gets on your nerves. "

"It would, " said Barbara, "if you don't see the fun of it. "

"You can't expect me to see the fun of my own funeral. "

"Funeral? Is it as bad as all that?"

"It has been as bad as all that--Barbara. "

He brooded. 

"And then you came, with your sweetness. And your little serious face--"

"_Is_ my face serious?"

"Very. To me. Other people may think you frivolous and amusing. Idaresay you are amusing--to them. "

"I hope so. "

"You hope so because you want to hide your real self from them. But youcan't hide it from me. I've seen it all the time, Barbara. "

"Are you sure?"

"Quite, quite sure. "

"I wish I knew what it looked like. "

"That's the beauty and charm of you, my dear, that you don't know. "

"What a nice waistcoat you've got on, " said Barbara. 

He looked gratified. "I'm glad you like it I put it on for yourbirthday. "

"You mean, " she said, "my adoption day. "

He winced. 

"It _is_ good, " she said, "of you and Fanny to adopt me. But it won't befor very long. And I want to earn my own living all the same. "

"I can't think of letting you do that. "

"I must. It won't make any difference to my adoption. "

He scowled. So repugnant to him was this subject that he judged itwould be equally distasteful to Barbara. 

"It was Fanny's idea, " he said. 

"I thought it would be. "

"You didn't expect me to have paternal feelings for you, Barbara?"

"I didn't _expect_ you to have any feelings at all. "

The wound made him start. "My poor child, what a terrible thing for youto say. "

"Why terrible?"

"Because it shows--it shows--And it isn't true. Do you suppose I don'tknow what's been going on inside you? I was blind to myself, my dear, but I saw through you. "

"Saw through me?" She thought again of Ralph. 

"Through and through. "

"I didn't know I was so transparent. But I don't see that it mattersmuch if you did. "

He smiled at her delicious naivete. 

"No. Nothing matters. Nothing matters, Barbara, except our caring. Atleast we're wise enough to know that. "

"I shouldn't have thought, " she said, "it would take much wisdom. "

"More than you think, my child; more than you think. You've only got tobe wise for yourself. I've got to be wise for both of us. "

She thought: "Heavy parent. That comes of being adopted. "

"When it comes to the point, " she said, "one can only be wise foroneself. "

"I'm glad you see that. It makes it much easier for me. "

"It does. You mustn't think you're responsible for me just becauseyou've adopted me. "

"Don't talk to me about adoption! When you know perfectly well what Idid it for. "

"Why--what _did_ you do it for?"

"To make things safe for us. To keep Fanny from knowing. To keep myselffrom knowing, Barbara. To keep you.... But it's too late to camouflageit. We know where we stand now. "

"I don't think _I_ do. "

"You do. You do. "

Mr. Waddington tossed his cigarette into the fire with a passionategesture of abandonment. He came to her. She saw his coming. She saw itchiefly as the approach of a canary yellow waistcoat. She fixed herattention on the waistcoat as if it were the centre of her own mentalequilibrium. 

There was a bend in the waistcoat. Mr. Waddington was stooping over herwith his face peering into hers. She sat motionless, held under his faceby curiosity and fear. The whole phenomenon seemed to her incredible. Too incredible as yet to call for protest. It was as if it were nothappening; as if she were merely waiting to see it happen before shecried out. Yet she was frightened. 

This state lasted for one instant. The next she was in his arms. Hismouth, thrust out under the big, rough moustache, was running over herface, like--like--while she pressed her hands hard against the canaryyellow waistcoat, pushing him off, her mind disengaged itself from thestruggle and reported--like a vacuum cleaner. That was it. Vacuumcleaner. 

He gave back. There was no evil violence in him, and she got on herfeet. 

"How could you?" she cried. "How could you be such a perfect pig?"

"_Don't_ say that to me, Barbara. Even in fun.... You know you loveme. "

"I don't. I don't. "

"You do. You know you do. You know you want me to take you in my arms. Why be so cruel to yourself?"

"To myself? I'd kill myself before I let you.... Why, I'd kill you. "

"No. No. No. You only think you would, you little spitfire. "

He had given back altogether and now leaned against the chimneypiece, not beaten, not abashed, but smiling at her in a triumphant certitude. For so long the glamour of his illusion held him. 

"Nothing you can say, Barbara, will persuade me that you don't care forme. "

"Then you must be mad. Mad as a hatter. "

"All men go mad at times. You must make allowances. Listen--"

"I won't listen. I don't want to hear another word. "

She was going. 

He saw her intention; but he was nearer to the door than she was, and bya quick though ponderous movement he got there first. He stood beforeher with his back to the door. (He had the wild thought of locking it, but chivalry forbade him. )

"You can go in a minute, " he said. "But you've got to listen to mefirst. You've got to be fair to me. I may be mad; but if I didn't carefor you--madly--I wouldn't have supposed for an instant that you caredfor me. I wouldn't have thought of such a thing. "

"But I _don't_, I tell you. "

"And I tell you, you do. Do you suppose after all you've done forme--"

"I haven't done anything. "

"Done? Look at the way you've worked for me. I've never known anythinglike your devotion, Barbara. "

"Oh, _that_! It was only my job. "

"Was it your job to save me from that horrible woman?"

"Oh, yes; it was all in the day's work. "

"My dear Barbara, no woman ever does a day's work like that for a manunless she cares for him. And unless she wants him to care for her. "

"As it happens, it was Fanny I cared for. I was thinking of Fanny allthe time.... If _you'd_ think about Fanny more and about Mrs. Levitt andpeople less, it would be a good thing. "

"It's too late to think about Fanny now. That's only your sweetness andgoodness. "

"Please don't lie. If you really thought me sweet and good you wouldn'texpect me to be a substitute for Mrs. Levitt. "

"Don't talk about Mrs. Levitt. Do you suppose I think of you in the samesentence? That was a different thing altogether. "

"Was it? Was it so very different?"

He saw that she remembered. "It was. A man may lose his head ten timesover without losing his heart once. If it's Mrs. Levitt you're thinkingabout, you can put that out of your mind for ever. "

"It isn't only Mrs. Levitt. There's Ralph Bevan. You've forgotten RalphBevan. "

"What has Ralph Bevan got to do with it?"

"Simply this, that I'm engaged to be married to him. "

"To be married? To be married to Ralph Bevan? Oh, Barbara, why didn'tyou tell me?"

"Ralph didn't want me to, till nearer the time. "

"The time.... Did it come to that?"

"It did, " said Barbara. 

He moved from the doorway and began walking up and down the room. Shemight now have gone out, but she didn't go. She _had_ to see what hewould make of it. 

At his last turn he faced her and stood still. 

"Poor child, " he said, "so that's what I've driven you to?"

Amazement kept her silent. 

"Sit down, " he said, "we must go through this together. "

Amazement made her sit down. Certainly they must go through it, to seewhat he would look like at the end. He was unsurpassable. She mustn'tmiss him. 

"Look here, Barbara. " He spoke in a tone of forced, unnatural calm. "Idon't think you quite understand the situation. I'm sure you don'trealize for one moment how serious it is. "

"I don't. You mustn't expect me to take it seriously. "

"That's because you don't take yourself seriously enough, dear. In someways you're singularly humble. I don't believe you really know how deepthis thing has gone with me, or you wouldn't have talked about Mrs. Levitt.... 

"... It's life and death, Barbara. Life and death.... I'll make aconfession. It wasn't serious at first. It wasn't love at first sight. But it's gone all the deeper for that. I didn't know how deep it wastill the other day. And I had so much to think of. So many claims. Fanny--"

"Yes. Don't forget Fanny. "

"I am not forgetting her. Fanny isn't going to mind as you think sheminds. As you would mind yourself if you were in her place. Things don'tgo so deep with Fanny as all that.... And she isn't going to hold meagainst my will. She's not that sort.... Listen, now. Please listen. "

Barbara sat still, listening. She would let him go to the end of histether. 

"I'll confess. In the beginning I hadn't thought of a divorce. Icouldn't bear the idea of going through all that unpleasantness. But I'dgo through it ten times over rather than that you should marry RalphBevan.... Wait now.... Before I spoke to you to-day I'd made up mymind to ask Fanny to divorce me. I know she'll do it. Your name shan'tbe allowed to appear. The moment I get her consent we'll go off togethersomewhere. Italy or the Riviera. I've got everything planned, everythingready. I saw to that when I was in London. I've bought everything--"

She saw forked lightnings on a magenta Waddington. 

"What are you laughing at, Barbara?"

He stood over her, distressed. Was _Barbara_ going to treat him to a fitof hysterics?

"Don't laugh. Don't be silly, child. "

But Barbara went on laughing, with her face in the cushions, abandonedto her vision. From far up the park they heard the sound of Kimber'shooter, then the grinding of the car, with Fanny in it, on the graveloutside. Barbara sat up suddenly and dried her eyes. 

They stared at each other, the stare of accomplices. 

"Come, child, " he said, "pull yourself together. "

Barbara got up and looked in the glass and saw the green jade necklacehanging on her still. She took it off and laid it on the table besidethe forgotten sketch-book. 

"I think, " she said, "you must have meant this for Mrs. Levitt. But youmay thank your stars it's only me, this time. "

He pretended not to hear her, not to see the necklace, not to know thatshe was going from him. She stood a moment with her back to the door, facing him. It was her turn to stand there and be listened to. 

"Mr. Waddington, " she said, "some people might think you wicked. I onlythink you funny. "

He drew himself up and looked noble. 

"Funny? If that's your idea of me, you had better marry Ralph Bevan. "

"I almost think I had. "

And she laughed again. Not Mrs. Levitt's laughter, gross withexperience. He had borne that without much pain. Girl's laughter it was, young and innocent and pure, and ten times more cruel. 

"You don't know, " she said, "you don't know how funny you are, " and lefthim. 

Mr. Waddington took up the necklace and kissed it. He rubbed it againsthis cheek and kissed it. A slip of paper had fallen from the table tothe floor. He knew what was written on it: "From Horatio ByssheWaddington to his Little April Girl. " He took it up and put it in hispocket. He took up the sketch-book. 

"The little thing, " he thought. "Now, if it hadn't been for herridiculous jealousy of Elise--if it hadn't been for Fanny--if it hadn'tbeen for the little thing's sweetness and goodness--" Her goodness. Shewas a saint. A saint. It was Barbara's virtue, not Barbara, that hadrepulsed him. 

This was the only credible explanation of her behaviour, the only one hecould bear to live with. 

He opened the sketch-book. 

It was Fanny, coming in that instant, who saved him from the worst. 

When she had restored the sketch-book to its refuge in the bureau andlocked it in, she turned to him. 

"Horatio, " she said, "as Ralph's coming to dinner to-night I'd bettertell you that he and Barbara are engaged to be married. "

"She has told me herself.... That child, Fanny, is a saint. A littlesaint. "

"How did you find that out? Do you think it takes a saint to marryRalph?"

"I think it takes a saint to--to marry Ralph, since you put it thatway. "

4

"Dearest Fanny:

"I'm sorry, but Mr. Waddington and I have had a scrap. It's made thingsimpossible, and I'm going to Ralph. He'll turn out for me, so therewon't be any scandal. 

"You know how awfully I love you, that's why you'll forgive me if Idon't come back. 

"Always your loving

"Barbara. "

"P. S. --I'm frightfully sorry about my birthday dinner. But I don't feelbirthdayish or dinnerish, either. I want Ralph. Nothing but Ralph. "

That would make Fanny think it was Ralph they had quarrelled about. Barbara put this note on Fanny's dressing-table. Then she went up to theWhite Hart, to Ralph Bevan. She waited in his sitting-room till he cameback from Oxford. 

"Hallo, old thing, what are _you_ doing here?"

"Ralph--do you awfully mind if we don't dine at the Manor?"

"If we don't--why?"

"Because I've left them. And I don't want to go back. Do you think Icould get a room here?"

"What's up?"

"I've had a simply awful scrap with Waddy, and I can't stick it there. Between us we've made it impossible. "

"What's he been up to?"

"Oh, never mind. "

"He's been making love to you. "

"If you call it making love. "

"The old swine!"

As he said it, he felt the words and his own fury fall short of thefantastic quality of Waddington. 

"No. He isn't. " (Barbara felt it. ) "He was simply more funny than youcan imagine.... He had on a canary yellow waistcoat. "

In spite of his fury he smiled. 

"I think he'd bought it for that. "

"Oh, Barbara, what he must have looked like!"

"Yes. If only you could have seen him. But that's the worst of all hisbest things. They only happen when you're alone with him. "

"You remember--we wondered whether he'd do it again, whether he'd go onebetter?"

"Yes, Ralph. We little thought it would be me. "

"How he does surpass himself!"

"The funniest thing was he thought I was in love with _him_. "

"He didn't!"

"He did. Because of the way I'd worked for him. He thought that provedit. "

"Yes. Yes. I suppose he _would_ think it.... Look here--he didn't doanything, did he?"

"He kissed me. _That_ wasn't funny. "

"The putrid old sinner. If he _wasn't_ so old I'd wring his neck forhim. "

"No, no. That's all wrong. It's not the way we agreed to take him. We'dthink it funny enough if he'd done it to somebody else. It's pureaccident that it's me. "

"No doubt that's the proper philosophic view. I wonder whether Mrs. Levitt takes it. "

"Ralph--it wasn't a bit like his Mrs. Levitt stunt. The awful thing washe really meant it. He'd planned it all out. We were to go off togetherto the Riviera, and he was to wear his canary waistcoat. "

"Did he say that?"

"No. But you could see he thought it. And he was going to get Fanny todivorce him. "

"Good God! He went as far as that?"

"As far as that. He was so cocksure, you see. I'm afraid it's been a bitof a shock to him. "

"Well, it's a thundering good thing I've got a job at last. "

"_Have_ you?"

"Yes. We can get married the day after tomorrow if we like. Blackadder's given me the editorship of the _New Review_. "

"No? Oh, Ralph, how topping. "

"That's what I ran up to Oxford for, to see him and settle everything. It's a fairly decent screw. The thing's got no end of hacking, and it'sup to me to make it last. "

"I say--Fanny'll he pleased. "

As they were talking about it, the landlady of the White Hart came in totell them that Mrs. Waddington was downstairs and wanted to speak toMiss Madden. 

"All right, " Ralph said. "Show Mrs. Waddington up. I'll clear out. "

"Oh, Ralph, what am I to say to her?"

"Tell her the truth, if she wants it. She won't mind. "

"She will--frightfully. "

"Not so frightfully as you think. "

"That's what _he_ said. "

"Well, he's right there, the old beast. "

5

"Barbara _dear_, " said Fanny when they were alone together, "what onearth has happened?"

"Oh, nothing. We just had a bit of a tiff, that's all. "

"About Ralph? He told me it was Ralph. "

"You might say it was Ralph. He came into it. "

"Into what?"

"Oh, the general situation. "

"Nonsense. Horatio was making love to you. I could see by his face.... You needn't mind telling me straight out I've seen it coming. "

"Since when?"

"I don't know. It must have begun long before I saw it. "

"How long do you think?"

"Oh, before Mrs. Levitt. "

"Mrs. Levitt?"

"She may have been only a safety valve. That's why I made him adopt you. I thought it would stop it. In common decency. But it seems it onlybrought it to a head. "

"No. It was his canary waistcoat did that, Fanny. "

The ghost of dead mirth rose up in Fanny's eyes. 

"You're muddling cause and effect, my dear. He wasn't in love because hebought the waistcoat. He bought the waistcoat because he was in love. And those other things--the romantic pyjamas--because he thought they'dmake him look younger. "

"Well then, " said Barbara, "it was a vicious circle. The waistcoat putit into his head that afternoon. "

"It doesn't much matter how it happened. "

"I'm awfully sorry, Fanny. I wouldn't have let it happen for the world, if I'd known it was going to. But who could have known?"

"My dear, it wasn't your fault. "

"Do you mind frightfully?"

Fanny looked away. 

"It depends, " she said. "What did you say to him?"

"I said a lot of things, but they weren't a bit of good. Then I'm afraidI laughed. "

"You laughed at him?"

"I couldn't help it, Fanny. He was so funny. "

"Oh!" Fanny caught her breath back on a sob. "That's what I can't bear, Barbara--his being laughed at. "

"I know, " said Barbara. 

"By the way, when you're dying dear, if you should be dying at any time, it'll be a consolation to you to know that he didn't see yourdrawings--"

"Did _you_ see them?"

"Only the one he was looking at when I came in. "

"Was it--was it the one where he was getting into bed?"

"No. He was only hunting. "

"God has been kinder to me than I deserve then. "

"He's been kinder to him, too, I fancy. "

She went on. "I want you to see this thing straight. Understand. I don'tmind his being in love with you. I knew he was. Head over ears in love. And I didn't mind a bit. "

"I think he was reckoning on that. He knew you'd forgive him. "

"Forgive him? It wasn't even a question of forgiveness. I was _glad_. Ithought: If only he could have one real feeling. If only he could carefor something or somebody that wasn't himself.... I think he cared foryou, Barbara. It wasn't just himself. And I loved him for it. "

"You darling! And you don't hate me?"

"You know I don't But I'd love you even more if you'd loved him. "

"If I'd loved him?"

"Yes. If you'd gone away with him and made him happy. If you hadn'tlaughed at him, Barbara. "

"I know. It was awful of me. But what could I do?"

"What could you do? We all do it. I do it. Mrs. Levitt did it. "

"I didn't do it like Mrs. Levitt. "

"No. But you were just one more. Think of it. All his life to be laughedat. And when he was making love, too; the most serious thing, Barbara, that anybody can do. I tell you I can't bear it. I'd have given him toyou ten times first. "

"Then, " said Barbara, "you _have_ got to forgive me. "

"If I don't, it's because it's my own sin and I can't forgive myself.... 

"... Besides, I let it happen. Because I thought it would cure him. "

"Of falling in love?"

"Of trying to be young when he didn't feel it. I thought he'd see howimpossible it was. But that's the sad part of it. He _would_ have feltyoung, Barbara, if you'd loved him. If I'd loved him I could have kepthim young. I told you, " she said, "it was all my fault. "

"You told me Ralph and I would never be old. Is that what you meant?"

"Yes. "

They sat silent a moment, looking down through Ralph's window into theMarket Square. 

And presently they saw Mr. Waddington pass the corner of the Town Halland cross the wide, open space to the Dower House. 

"You must come back with me, Barbara. If you don't everybody'll knowwhat's happened. "

"I can't, Fanny. "

"He won't be there. You won't see him till your wedding day. He's goingto stay with Granny. He says she isn't very well. "

"I'm sorry she isn't well. "

"She's perfectly well. That isn't what he's going for. "

Across the Square they could see the door of the Dower House open andreceive him. Fanny smiled. 

"He's going back to his mother to be made young again, " she said.