Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

She poured out a glass of water and drank it. Then she sat quite still in the easy-chair with her head in her hands. What was she to do? What on earth was she to do? A man had kissed her on the lips--a man who was not her husband. She had let him do it. She thought--she hardly knew--that her lips had answered to his. Such a thing had never happened to her before. She was wide awake now. But surely in the cab she must have been half asleep.

She had leaned back with her eyes half-closed, suffused with a pleasant warmth and tiredness, and had heard his caressing voice praising her as she had never before been praised. She had not guessed that he thought so much of her--that he admired her so much. Then as he spoke of the beauty of her hands, he took one of her hands in his. She knew what would come, and was without any power to prevent it. She had seen his face come near to her own and--no, she would tell the truth to herself. For a moment she had gone mad and let herself go completely. She had wanted to be kissed, and as she felt his lips upon her own her kiss had met his.

True, the next moment she had recovered herself; she chatted gaily, was merely amused when Mr Carver would have been sentimental, and would not let him get near her. Her one reference to what had happened was as the cab neared her own door. She said, "You know what you did when I had fallen asleep. Never try to do it again. And never speak of it to me. I couldn't forgive it twice, you know. To-night I've--I made some allowance for--well, here we are. I must get out."

She was not troubled about Mr Carver. She had told him that she was asleep, and had implied that he was under the influence of wine. She felt that she could always manage Mr Carver.

But what about Teddy? He must never, never know. It was one little slip, one moment of madness, and it would never happen again. It would be wicked to let Teddy know and to make him wretched.

On the other hand, if she did not tell him, how was she to quiet the voice of conscience? What became of their mutual confidence? She felt that she could never be happy again until she had told all and been forgiven.

She took the thing tragically. She saw the whole of her own happiness and Teddy's happiness ruined by that one moment of madness and the future of the little boys seriously imperilled. She was just wondering who, in the event of a separation, would have the custody of the children, when she heard the sound of Teddy's hansom as it stopped at the door.

What on earth was she to do? She could never face him. She would just burst into tears and tell him everything.

But she found herself quite unable to carry out this decision. Teddy looked so cheerful. He talked more than usual. How had she liked it? A rare good dinner, it seemed to him. And she had been by far the prettiest woman there. He had felt proud of her.

She smiled sadly, and said that he was prejudiced. "And how did you get on with Miss Holmes?"

"Oh, all right. The trouble with her is that she's rather affected, and affectation is just one of those things that I can't stand."

If only for one moment he would take his eyes off her. She felt distraught. She hardly knew what she was saying. She observed that sparkling Burgundy seemed rather a heady wine. He hastened to agree with her.

"I didn't take much of it. To tell the truth, it's not a wine I ever met before, and the taste seemed to me rather funny. I'd sooner have a whisky-and-soda any day."

"Have one now. Do. Why not? I'll run up to bed because I'm so tired. I daresay I shall be asleep by the time you come."

"Oh, I shan't be long," said Teddy, and Dora managed to get out of the room without being kissed.

The moment she had gone Teddy's cheerfulness vanished. He mixed himself a very stiff whisky-and-soda, and sipped gloomily, staring at the dead cigarette between his fingers.

Dora panted as she undressed. Tragedy seemed to be choking her. She hurried into bed. When Teddy came up she pretended to be asleep, but she got little sleep that night.

* * * * *

Two days had passed and Dora had not spoken. There were dark lines under her eyes, and she seldom smiled. Teddy, always kind, had been kinder to her than ever. He said complimentary things to her. Every evening he brought her fruit from the city, because she liked fruit; it was expensive fruit too. And every kind word or act seemed to cut her heart like a knife. She felt so unworthy of devotion. The position was unendurable, and on the third morning as they rose from breakfast she suddenly determined to end it there and then--to tell him everything and throw herself on his mercy.

"I want to speak to you for a minute before you go to the city," she said. "Will you come into the drawing-room?"

"Very well," said Teddy.

In the drawing-room she found that she was shaking all over and had to sit down. She was thinking how she would begin, when she heard a hollow voice say, "Wait. You need say nothing." It was Teddy's voice.

"What do you mean?" she asked in a choked whisper.

"Do you think I haven't seen?" said Teddy, almost fiercely. "You guessed it somehow when I came into the house that night. I suppose a bad conscience gives itself away. I thought you knew when you asked me how I got on with Miss Holmes. These last two days you've been upset. You've not been yourself. And that of course made me certain you knew. Only let me tell you how I came to do it."

"Yes," said Dora, with great self-possession, "tell me that."

"Well, she was talking about the loneliness of her life. It was as much pity as anything. And the cab was going down a dark street at the time. Mind, I only kissed her once. And the moment I did it I--I was ashamed of myself. You don't know what I've been through."

Dora thought she did, but she said nothing.

"I swear that I care for no woman in the world but you, Dora. I'm awfully sorry I've hurt you like this. Can you ever forgive me?"

Dora rose, and placed both hands on his shoulders. "Could you have forgiven me," she said, "if I had let a man kiss me?"

He paused a moment. "Yes, Dora," he said, "I think so."

Her face was like the face of an angel. "Then, Teddy dear, I forgive you absolutely. We will never speak of this again. And it will never happen again, will it?"

"Never," said the repentant sinner, and kissed her.

Mrs Bablove sang happily as she helped to make the beds that morning.

And they never did speak of it again. Once, two years later--this was after poor Aunt Mary had been called to her rest and the Babloves had become prosperous in consequence--Teddy gave it as his opinion that there was only one sparkling wine worth consideration and that wine was champagne. Dora cordially agreed with him, but changed the subject rapidly.

THE ACT OF HEROISM

I

Do not go outside your part, for whatever part in life you may be cast. If you are Nature's low comedian, do not usurp the business of the hero. Hear the plain story of Alfred Smithers, who stood five foot eight, had sandy hair and an apologetic eye, earned four pounds a week by book-keeping, and was a good husband until by the merest chance he was led into the paths of heroism.

Chance plays the devil at times. Emily Trimmins, housemaid by profession and hysterical by nature, found that the postman was walking out with another lady. Consulting her recollection of penny romances she saw that suicide was clearly indicated. The relics of sense which distinguish hysteria from madness made her choose the manner of her suicide. She went up on to the Heath one afternoon and flung herself into a pond, in the presence of several philosophical male loafers, one emotional nursemaid, and two fat-headed children. Her last thought as she entered the water was which of the male loafers would pull her out again.

The first loafer said that was as silly an act as ever he saw, and he should be moving home. The second loafer observed that something ought to be done at once. The third called for help. The fourth said the police were never there when they were wanted.

The emotional nursemaid sat down at once on the grass, removed her hat, unhooked her dress at the neck, fanned herself with a handkerchief, and said, "Oh! that _has_ give me a turn!"

The two fat-headed children cried, "Ain't that funny? Nurse, make her come out and do it again. Nurse, ain't that funny? Nurse, make her come out and do it again." _Da capo._

And at this moment chance--playing the devil as aforesaid--brought upon the scene Alfred Smithers, who had fished the pond and believed the depth nowhere exceeded three feet, who saw a policeman with a coil of rope under his arm rapidly approaching, who observed that he had an audience and was accordingly inspirited.

"Go in from where you are!" shouted the second loafer. "Don't waste time thinking abart it." Smithers removed his silk hat and frock-coat.

"That's couridge! That's a man!" screamed the emotional nursemaid.

That settled it. With a stentorian cry of "Stand back, there!" to the two fat-headed children--a cry which was not needed, but inserted by way of trimming--Smithers jumped feet foremost. There was a mighty splash. When it subsided, Smithers was observed standing in the pond, the water reaching up to the terminals of his string-mended braces.

The two children rolled over and over on the grass in fits of inextinguishable laughter. It was a good afternoon; they had had nothing quite so good since the pantomime.

"Don't wait for her to come up," roared the second loafer. "Dive. That's what you've got to do."

"I know what to do all right," replied Smithers, who, as a matter of fact, didn't. He took one step forward, and incontinently vanished down a fifteen-foot hole, of the existence of which, though he had fished that pond, he had previously been unaware.

As he was going down the hole he met Emily Trimmins coming up. She paused and soldered herself firmly on to as much of Smithers as she could reach. He trod water very fast and very furiously, like a child stamping its feet on the nursery floor because it mayn't begin tea cake first. He lashed out hard and indiscriminately with both hands, and might have succeeded in scraping off most of the half-drowned lady, but that he found in his struggles they had both become entangled and tied together by a rope. He could remember no prayer but the grace after meat, which he repeated to himself fervently. Then he gave up. His breath exploded into the green jelly. He gave one more kick, and lost his interest in things.

In the meantime the policeman, assisted by the loafers, was pulling hard at the other end of the rope, and brought to bank a job lot of mixed scarecrows. Those being sorted out on the grass proved to be one moiety Smithers and one moiety Trimmins. The treatment of the apparently drowned was then proceeded with energetically, to the great satisfaction of a considerable number of spectators. They had gathered in a moment.

Smithers came to himself, feeling ill but magnificent, and assured the policeman that he was all right. He was not much to look at at the moment, yet everywhere he felt the admiring gaze upon him. "Bravo!" exclaimed an old gentleman. A very chorus of bravos followed, in which the policeman and the doctor, who was busy with Emily Trimmins, joined enthusiastically. Oh, it was good. It was very joyous.

"You done splendid, sir," said the policeman; "the way you just managed to grab the end of the rope as you went down the hole to fetch her up was very smart. You must be pretty quick and neat with your hands, and pretty cool and collected too, for I daresay she give a lot of trouble when you got 'er."

"Well, you see," said Smithers, indulgently, "she'd quite lost her head."

"And yet you managed to get the rope under her armpits, tied a good knot, and wound the slack twice round yourself! And it couldn't have been done quicker if you had been on dry land, instead of under water and 'ampered by the woman."

Emily Trimmins was by this time so far recovered as to be ripe for removal in a four-wheeler, with a policeman on the box. She did not look pretty. Her hair had come down, and something had happened to her nose. It was suggested that she had struck it in entering the water. Alfred Smithers remembered at an early stage of the struggle he had kicked something; it was not worth mentioning. He took, under advice, another drop of the brandy, and was driven home. The crowd cheered.

Mrs Smithers was a woman of some energy. Smithers was wrapped in hot blankets and tucked away in bed in no time. He had a hot-water bottle at his feet, and steaming rum-and-water at his head. Mrs Smithers sent a polite note to Messrs Garson & Begg to say why her husband would be unable to be at work as usual on the following day. She threw the story over the right-hand wall of the back-yard to Mrs Warboys, and over the left-hand wall to the widow of the late Charles Push. In twenty minutes the story was all over the terrace and had not shrunk. There was great excitement, and three separate houses hoped that Mrs Smithers would look in for a cup of tea, and would be glad if they could do anything to help. She accepted two of the invitations, and would visit the third house on the morrow, and would be obliged by the loan of a nutmeg, it being necessary to keep up an internal glow after prolonged struggle in cold water--the dare-devil had dived six times before he found the woman--and the patient otherwise being likely to take a chill in the vitals and die hurriedly. Then she decided to have the newspaper cuttings framed. The medal would go on the mantelpiece, under glass.

Smithers lay upstairs, with the feeling that his head was a large lump of dough traversed by a steam-propelled roller, but satisfied that heroism and hot rum were both excellent. He was soon asleep.

Glory reached its flood on the following day. An offering was brought from the mother of Emily Trimmins--a box encrusted without with small shells and two pieces of looking-glass and lined with pink satin within. The slip of paper which accompanied it was inscribed--"A mother's tribute to her daughter's presserver" (_sic_). The newspapers on the whole did well, though the _Times_ was quite outclassed in the race for news, having but two lines to the half column of the local organ. The magistrate cautioned Miss Trimmins with some severity, and handed her over to the care of her mother. He said that the loafers were not men. He referred to the intrepid courage, cool head, strength wedded with skill, of Alfred Smithers--one of the men of whom England had good cause to be proud.

In the course of a week the postman had explained away the other lady and was _au mieux_ with Emily Trimmins, who, so far as this story is concerned, may now take a seat at the back.

A considerable number of Smithers' friends were waiting, when the magistrate had finished, to have the pleasure of shaking hands with Smithers, and congratulating him, and so on.

And that night one of the men of whom England had good cause to be proud went home most painfully and uncompromisingly drunk.

II

Alfred Smithers, as he made his modest breakfast of a cup of tea and two liver pills next morning, explained to his wife that it had not been the drink so much as the reaction.

She said that he needn't have taken the reaction. She should overlook it this time and say no more, knowing what he was when not misled. But no amount of ironing would make that hat look anything again. He went to work feeling that the glory had been turned a little lower.

There were more newspaper cuttings, and later there was something on vellum. Smithers said rather bitterly that the Society seemed to do things on the cheap. A medal came at last, presented by the vicar on behalf of a few friends and local inhabitants. It was of silver and very large. It was kept on the mantelpiece and shown to everybody who would look at it.

But the excitement was dying down. Glory was on the ebb. Mrs Smithers would sometimes allow two days to pass without alluding to the act of heroism. Smithers watched the ebbing of the tide with inward rage and with many vain efforts to stay it. The neighbourhood sickened slowly of conversations on the different ways of rescuing the drowning--conversations initiated by Smithers in order to lead to the case of the poor girl, Emily Trimmins. But he had eaten praise-poison, and no other diet was rich enough for him now. The neighbourhood wearying of him and hinting as much, he would slip the medal into his pocket on Saturday afternoons, get on his bicycle, and seek fresh fields. A little group and a bar-parlour sufficed. Whatever the group was discussing when Smithers first leaned his bicycle against the horse-trough outside, five minutes later they were listening while Smithers got in with "I remember once being on the Heath when some fool of a girl jumped into twenty feet of water. What did I do? Watched for the bubbles coming up and then dived. The devil of it was that there was a strong cross-current and--" etc. Later, the medal would be produced. Poor Alfred Smithers! Nature's low comedian, and yet smitten with a raging madness for the strut, the soliloquy, the limelight, the sympathetic music, the roar of applause!

In his new part of hero he invented business that was not good. He began to be, as he phrased it, "master in his own house." He interfered in matters which were the special province of Mrs Smithers. He gave detailed instructions in domestic subjects of which he was completely ignorant, and brought upon himself ridicule. He was rude to Mrs Smithers, and said that she needed to be driven with a firm hand. He told the eight-pound general that his word was law, and she forthwith gave notice on the ground that she could put up with anything except haughtiness.

Mrs Smithers told him with some frankness that she was glad to see his back when he went to business of a morning, for he was more nuisance in a house than a cartload of monkeys.

At business he had got, as a rule, just enough sense not to try any heroism. He was a good book-keeper and he had got a good place and he knew it. One day, however, as his mind strayed for a moment to high things, he made a small blunder affecting a large sum, and the sum got on to the wrong side of the book and caused trouble. In due course Mr Peter Begg said, "Send me Smithers." The clerk who took the message said to Smithers, "You're going to get beans." And at this all the heroism in Smithers arose and boiled over, and he spluttered out that he thought it would be rather the other way.

"Look here," said Mr Begg, "how do you come to make such an infernal fool of yourself as this, Smithers?" Smithers was now well alight.

"Kindly understand once for all that there are some expressions I don't permit to be used to me by any man."

Mr Begg gazed at Smithers pensively through his eye-glass and sighed. "Get out," he said, "I'll finish with you to-morrow morning. You may be sober by then. Get out, go on!"

Smithers got out, and a slight chill fell on him. Possibly he had gone too far. He was unusually civil to his wife at supper that night, and appeared somewhat preoccupied. After supper he asked his wife what she thought of Klondike.

"I wouldn't care to have much to do with it. Why?"

"Well, I had a few words with Begg to-day--Peter Begg, the old one. I was in the right, as it happened, but something I said seemed to sting him rather. I can't say how it will end. I've as good as promised to see him again to-morrow morning, but he may not meet my views. And you know how it is when either the senior partner's got to go or the book-keeper."

"You apologise and ask to be took on again," said Mrs Smithers, going right through the elegancies of her husband's version and getting straight down to the bedrock facts. "That's what you'll do if you're not silly. You don't want to lose a good place."

"I don't know," said Smithers, with an air of melancholy, "same old drudgery day after day, and what's it all to come to? Nothing. I might strike it if we went to Klondike."

"You aren't going to no Klondike," said Mrs Smithers.

"I'm not sure it wouldn't be the right life for me. I'm naturally a man of action. I do the book-keeping well enough, but adventures and emergencies are more my line. You remember what the magistrate said when--"

"I remember how drunk you were that night."

"Little you know!" said Smithers, though conscious that the retort was somewhat vague. After some meditation he managed to supplement it as follows: "And little you care either--top button's been off my wescut for the last four days."

"You've got a tongue in your head to ask with, haven't you? Give it here and don't grumble."

And a little later Alfred Smithers, with a distinct chill on the heroism, went up to bed.

The chill was even more distinct when in the small hours of the morning Mrs Smithers shook him by the shoulder, awoke him, told him that there was a burglar in the kitchen, and asked him to go down.

In the small hours of the morning one's vitality is low.

III

They had been unable to get any satisfactory sleep after the disturbance, and they breakfasted early. Mrs Smithers looked amused; Alfred Smithers looked conciliatory.

"I want you to understand how it was," he said pleadingly.

"I understand it all right. And how my poor sides do ache with laughing. 'Lock our door as quietly as you can,' you says, 'and don't make a sound,' you says, 'for,' you says, 'if he knows we've discovered him he'll have the lives of both of us.' Sounds funnier still when it's said over again by daylight. Oh, my poor sides!"

And even then Alfred Smithers did not become rebellious; on the contrary, in a mirthless and subservient way he smiled.

"I'm quite willing to own I blundered in what seems now rather a funny way. But it wasn't in the way you think, my dear. My dear Agnes, it really wasn't."

"Tell your own story," said Mrs Smithers, with a victor's easiness.

"I was awoke sudden," said Smithers. "I don't suppose I was more than half awake, which accounts for the error of judgment. I'm a man, and not a machine. We all blunder at times. I own I made a mistake, and I can afford to laugh at it." He managed to jerk up another semblance of a smile. "At first I said that what you'd heard was a rat, and what you'd seen was a shadow. Then when you made me look through the corner of the blind, and I saw the end of the man's leg drawn inwardly through the downstairs window, I, being half asleep, supposed that it was a regular professional burglar. And if it had been that, my advice would have been correct. Professional burglars carry revolvers in their 'ip-pockets, and they'll shoot anybody--policeman or any man--to destroy evidence against them. Very well. What good was I unarmed against an armed burglar? Foolhardiness isn't courage. If you knew life as I know it you'd realise that. You didn't agree with my ideas, and, as I was half asleep, I own you were right; you said--"

Mrs Smithers took up the story triumphantly.

"I said it was stuff and nonsense, and so it was. Burglars don't come to a penny-farthing place like this; and if they did, they wouldn't wake up the house opening a window. Two drops of ile, a shove with the knife, and a wad o' paper to deaden the sound of the spring when it comes back."

Smithers recovered himself sufficiently to ask how they put in the two drops of oil and the wad of paper.

"How should I know, not being a burglar myself? Anyhow, I was right. I said it was just some tramp new to the business, and hungry for a supper, and that he'd bolt as soon as he heard anybody moving. And didn't he?"

"Yes," said Smithers, "he did. I was just thinking of getting out of bed and following you down the stairs. But he bolted as soon as he heard our door open, and was out of the house before you were half-way down. That's my point. It was an error of judgment on my part, not a want of courage. It's a mercy he'd no time to take much."

"Well, 'e'd got the cold beef out, and precious little he'd have left of it. The bottle of beer he knocked over and broke in his hurry. The only thing he actually got away with was that--er--that medal."

At this point Mrs Smithers' face became dark and inscrutable.

"That's a sad pity," she added; "we shall miss it too, with that inscription, 'For Gallantry and Courage; Presented by a Few Admirers of Alfred Smithers.' But you'll inquire of the police, of course, and as likely as not you'll get it back. I believe I was right in saying you ought to have gone to the police there and then."

"I believe you were," said Alfred, with alacrity. "It's no good going now, for the medal's certain to be in the melting-pot. Besides, I've no fancy for having the police in, interfering with my private business. And I think it would be just as well if we neither of us said a word about it."

"Oh, I must tell Mrs Warboys," said Mrs Smithers. "I wouldn't miss seeing her laugh over that story were it ever so. As for pore Mrs Push, when I come to the part when I put your boots on my feet because yours squeaked louder, and you'd got your head under the bed-clothes, and I said--"

"Oh, look here," said Alfred, desperately, "I do wish you wouldn't. I'd really much rather not. It isn't often I ask for anything particular, but if that story's told it's almost certain to be taken up in the wrong way as far as it concerns me. I've made a blunder and I've lost my medal. Ain't that enough for you?"

"Then you've given up that Klondike idea," observed Mrs Smithers, with more consecutiveness than was immediately apparent.

"Certainly; oh, certainly! It was just a wandering notion that wouldn't stand thinking over. And I shall smooth old Peter Begg down all right. There will be a little give-and-take compromise on both sides. It only wants tactful handling. Garson & Begg have been very good friends to me, and I'm not going to throw them over. I couldn't do it, even if you asked it."

"I don't ask it," said Mrs Smithers, drily. "Get that fixed right by to-night and I won't say nothing."

On his way to the City he reflected that it would indeed require tact. However, he entered Mr Begg's room and did his best.

"I've come," he said, "to apologise, sir, very humbly for the way I spoke yesterday. As you saw, I wasn't myself, sir."

"Then you _were_ drunk?" said Mr Begg with mild interest.

"Oh, no, sir. At least it was more drugged. I'd suffered torments all day with toothache, and took a little laudanum for it, and that made me come over all anyhow. If I'd been myself I'd sooner have cut off my right hand--"

"That'll do," said Mr Begg. "No more need be said about it in that case. But when you are troubled with toothache again I should advise you either to take a little less laudanum _or to take a good deal more_. Now get on with your work."

Thus tact triumphed.

Mrs Smithers kept her word, and Mrs Warboys and the relict of the late Charles Push have missed a story which would undoubtedly have amused them. Smithers has returned to his natural _role_. The newspaper cuttings have been replaced by a chromo which happened to fit the frame exactly, and the happiness is general.

SOME NOTES ON CYRUS VERD

The name of Cyrus Verd, once so frequently seen in the newspapers and heard in conversation, has now for many years past been rarely mentioned. The absolute retirement of the latter part of his life helped the public--always ready to forget--to forget him. A few weeks ago at the club I happened to say something or other about him, and a man who, as a rule, knows his world turned to me and asked who Cyrus Verd was. The obituary notice of him in the _Times_ the other day may possibly have revived interest in what was really rather an extraordinary personality. But the notice was brief, and beyond names and dates said little more than that he was "an eccentric millionaire, who, at the age of forty-five, chose to surrender almost the whole of his wealth and live a life of comparative poverty. It is said that this step was the result of some curious religious convictions, but Cyrus Verd himself never in his lifetime offered any explanation of it."

The few notes which I propose to add, including as they do a personal reminiscence of the man, may possibly be of interest. A writer of fiction constantly arranges his problem to suit his solution of it; it is perhaps beneficial, though somewhat humiliating, that he should occasionally turn his attention to the problems that real life sets him, and see how much more difficult it is to find the solution then.

* * * * *

Cyrus Verd came to England in his thirty-fourth year, an age at which many men are only at the commencement of their career. He had already made his fortune. I cannot say exactly how rich he was. Many newspaper paragraphs at the time gave estimates of his annual income--all different. I should say that the only man who really knew was Cyrus Verd himself. He owned steamships, railways, factories, mines, and enough land for a small nation. On his arrival in London many stories were told of his extravagance and eccentricity.

He was debating where he should reside, and a friend suggested that he should take or build a house in Park Lane.

"Where is Park Lane?" asked Cyrus Verd. He had been only two days in London.

"Runs along the east side of Hyde Park, in the most fashionable quarter. Your coachman would know it."

Verd went to look at it, and returned.

"Yes," he said, "it would be a fair site for a house--one house. But there seems to be some brick tenements there of some sort or other already. I suppose I could get those cleared away?"

He made the attempt, and was very angry at first when he found that he could not "get those cleared away." But he soon grew more philosophical.

"Your people," he observed, "cling to their little homes, I guess."

He was always much disappointed at first if he found there was anything which he could not buy. He went over the National Gallery alone one morning; he was a judge of pictures, and occasionally he put a pencil cross on his catalogue. When he got downstairs again he said to the man who handed him his umbrella:

"My name's Cyrus Verd, and I'm at the Metropole. Write that down. Send me round the things I've marked on my list and my secretary will hand you the cheque."

This story was much exaggerated in the newspapers; it was said that he had offered to buy the entire National Gallery, building and all, as it stood. I cannot say whether or not there was any truth in the report which appeared about the same time, to the effect that he had endeavoured to buy the Crown jewels; but, as far as I can judge his character, it does not seem impossible.

At the same time it would be rash to attempt to judge his character only from such reports as these. The secretary of a well-known charitable institution made that mistake. He wrote to ask for a donation to the institution, and guaranteed that it should be acknowledged by public advertisement in four of the leading dailies. Cyrus Verd wrote back that he had much pleasure in accepting the offer, and enclosed fourpence in stamps. The acknowledgment appeared as promised, and once more made Cyrus Verd a common topic of conversation.

But one of the strangest things that he did never got into the newspapers at all. He left, intentionally, ten pounds in gold on the seat of a railway carriage. On the following day he inquired at the Lost Property Office if the money had been brought back. He was told, with a smile, that it had not been brought back, and that there was no earthly probability that it ever would be. He repeated the experiment, and again failed to recover the money. He repeated it twenty times on different lines, and at last a carriage-cleaner found the money and brought it back. Cyrus Verd took the name and address of that carriage-cleaner, made inquiries about him and then sent for him.

"I don't see why I should reward you at all. It's the company's business. You're their servant, and such actions as yours increase the feelings of security and confidence in their passengers. Are you suited to a better position than you've got?"

"Yes, I am," said the man, "I'm a steady man, and I've a talent for figures. I'm known for it among my mates."

"Call on the chairman of directors--here is his private address--give him my card, explain the circumstances, and tell him from me that he is to put you in a position of trust, with at least three times your present wages."

The man came back to say that the chairman had laughed at him--had said that he was not the man to whom the application should have been made, and that there was no chance of its being entertained in any case.

"I must go and see him myself then," said Cyrus Verd.

The chairman was not in a very good temper.

"Really, Mr Verd, you'll be asking me to carry your luggage next. It's no part of my duties as chairman of the directors to undertake business of this kind. What that man ought to have done--"

"He did what I told him. You can get this put through if you like. Will you?"

"Frankly, I won't. It creates a precedent. It--"

"One moment, sir. If you'll have a copy of Bradshaw brought in here I'll show you something."

Now, the chairman knew that Cyrus Verd was eccentric, and so he was not surprised. He did not respect eccentricity. But he respected capital; and he knew that Cyrus Verd had already--thanks to his capital--had some little games with railway companies. So he rang the bell, and a Bradshaw was brought.

When the servant had gone Verd drew a penny blue chalk-pencil from his pocket. He opened the Bradshaw, unfolded the map, and, without saying a word, made certain marks upon it.

The chairman watched him closely, and his face changed. "Who's going to do it?" he gasped. Then he repented, as a man does repent when he has given himself away. "Parliament?" he said.

"That's all right," remarked Cyrus Verd, replacing his blue pencil. "I've asked. They daren't block it."

"It wouldn't pay," the chairman said, with an effort at the careless smile.

"That matters only to the man who runs it. Either way it would wreck your line--and you. As my time here is short, don't pretend that it wouldn't, because, of course, I know that you know that it would."

"Am I to understand," said the chairman, angrily, "that you come here to threaten me with this new line?"

"Well, I was talking about a carriage-cleaner. I want him rewarded. I want it done right away. When I want anything done I don't tell myself that I won't spend more than a couple of millions on getting it done."

"Men like you ought not to be allowed to live. I tell you that plainly, Mr Verd."

"There are no men like me. Good-afternoon, then."

"Oh, wait, wait! The man deserves to be rewarded, only these things must be done in the regular way. If he will write to--"

"I'm going to no underlings," said Cyrus Verd, "and I'm in a hurry. Next time I mark that map, _those marks will stop there_!"

The chairman seemed suddenly to recollect something. "What was this about a carriage-cleaner? Oh, yes, it's irregular; but naturally you wouldn't understand. I'll see about it myself."

"When?"

"Within six weeks."

"Days?"

"Weeks."

"Then it shan't be days. It shall be within six hours--a position of trust and three times his present wages within six hours. The way you talk makes me tired. If you know enough to come in when it rains, I guess you'll drop this argument."

The chairman did drop it, and that same night the carriage-cleaner received the official intimation of his promotion.

* * * * *

Cyrus Verd was young, fabulously wealthy, and unmarried. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man. He was not exactly handsome, but he had that look of power which, in the eyes of women, does just as well. When he first came over he was the hope of many noble matrons with unmarried daughters. He afterwards became their despair; and this was in consequence of his marriage with Anna Fokes--a woman who had neither wealth nor high position--she had been a governess. She was remarkably beautiful, but her beauty was somewhat discounted by the fact that she had--or was said to have--a trace of negro blood in her veins. When this marriage was announced, a certain noble matron said a cruel thing to Cyrus Verd. She congratulated him sardonically on having no racial prejudices.

"I shall remember your kind words, countess," he said pleasantly.

Within a year the countess was a ruined woman. Evidence came to her husband's knowledge which led him to divorce her. This terrible fall was closely followed by the loss of a part of her private income. She was left without a friend in the world and with much reduced means--a disgraced woman. There were some who said that Cyrus Verd had "remembered those kind words"; but if he was responsible for her exposure and ruin he was careful not to let any evidence of his actions appear.

It was seven years after his marriage that, as the _Times_ obituary states, he gave up almost the whole of his property. He prepared a long list of relations and friends of himself and of his wife, and of certain charitable and religious institutions in which they were interested. He reserved for himself an annual income of five hundred pounds only, which to a man who had lived as a millionaire for years would be abject poverty. The remainder was divided among these relations, friends and institutions, and made over to them by deed of gift. Of course, many people said that he was mad. If he was, his wife was mad also, for the step that he took was planned by him with her, and she fully agreed to it.

* * * * *

Personally, I do not think he was mad. I had expected him to take that step, and I think I could produce evidence that in a private letter I actually foretold it. For it happened by chance that I came upon him when he was in the enjoyment of what he called his annual holiday, and it was significant.

It was in an out-of-the-way Welsh village, one year before his marriage. I was stopping there because it was out of the way chiefly--I had some work to do. Cyrus Verd was there in a caravan, and he was masquerading. He was "H. Jackson, photographer," a travelling photographer in a very small way of business, with show-cases of fly-blown photographs of posed rustics affixed to the outside of his caravan. He wore a shabby serge suit, much stained with chemicals, and a soft felt hat. He had not attempted to disguise his face; he had never allowed any portrait of himself to appear in any illustrated paper, shop window, or public gallery, and probably considered himself safe from recognition. But I had once been in the same drawing-room with Cyrus Verd, and he had been pointed out to me. He was not a man who could easily be forgotten. I never had the least doubt that the shabby man who stood touting for custom outside that caravan was Cyrus Verd.

I allowed him to photograph me. I remember that the price was seven shillings and sixpence for a dozen, and that he bothered me to take two dozen for fourteen shillings.

"No thanks, Mr Verd," I said.

He seemed to reflect for a moment, and then he asked me how I knew. I told him where I met him.

"It's my only enjoyment," he said. "You won't spoil it--everybody thinks I'm yachting."

"I won't spoil it," I said. "You might enjoy it always if you cared so much about it."

"No, I couldn't. Thank you. I am obliged to you."

"All right," I said. "Good-morning," and I moved off. He called me back again.

"You'll excuse me," he said, "but you've not paid for those photographs."

"You haven't printed them yet."

"My rule is that payment must be made at the time of sitting."

"Well, I won't pay for a thing until I get it."

We squabbled about it, and finally came to a compromise. Then rather abruptly he asked me to come to supper with him that night.

"And I warn you," he said, "that I live solely on what I make by this photographic business."

Of course I went. We had supper in the caravan. It consisted of chops and potatoes, which Cyrus Verd cooked. He cooked better than he photographed. We drank beer, which Verd had fetched from the public-house in a jug. He had no servant with him, and did everything for himself. I jeered at him gently all through supper.

"It's very pretty," I said, "but it is play-acting. It's not genuine."

"It is absolutely genuine. I tell you that I love simplicity. Had I my choice, I would always go on like this, and I like the work too. In this little village I've already picked up enough orders to keep me busy for a week. Every year I have a month of this, and I look forward to it as I look forward to nothing else."

"What?" I said. "Do you think that this sort of thing proves that you love simplicity? It proves the absolute contrary--that you love variety. No one is compelled to live the life of a rich man against his will. If you live that life for eleven months in the year, and the life of a poor man for one month, you like to be rich eleven times as much as you like to be poor."

"What you say," he said, "sounds plausible. But you don't know the circumstances. I am sorry I cannot offer you a cigar. 'H. Jackson, photographer,' cannot afford to smoke cigars."

"I have my own case here," I said.

I selected a cigar, lit it, put the case back in my pocket, and watched Cyrus Verd. The fragrance reached him. He grew uneasy. He rose, and began to put the supper things away in silence.

"Shall I help you?" I asked.

"No!" he said snappishly. He held out for about five minutes, and then said, "Give me one of those cigars."

He opened the case with trembling hands, and took no notice of my amusement at first. When his cigar was lit, and the first sigh of satisfaction was over, he appeared aggrieved, and asked me what I was laughing at.

"Go back and be a millionaire," I said. "You dress this part well, and"--glancing round the caravan--"it's very correctly staged; but you make the feeblest H. Jackson, peripatetic photographer, that ever disgraced the British drama."

"Listen," he said eagerly. "H. Jackson is a poor man. As a rule he smokes cheap shag in a clay. A gentleman comes along and offers him a cigar. H. Jackson jumps at the treat, of course. Where's the inconsistency?"

"I didn't offer you a cigar. You asked for it. Cyrus Verd could do that, but H. Jackson could not."

"I've half a mind to pitch your beastly cigar out of the window!"

But he did not. He smoked that, and others, and talked delightfully. He had a fine sense of humour, and was willing enough to laugh at himself as a millionaire; but in the character of H. Jackson he had an ardent belief in himself and a strong desire to be taken seriously.

After that, for a week, we always spent the evenings together. Gradually I guessed at the "circumstances" to which he had alluded. Near to the village was the country seat of a baronet, and Anna Fokes was governess to his children, and Cyrus Verd was in love with Anna Fokes. He had met her in the same place a year before. She and I knew who he really was; but no one else in the village did. Her method of procedure was simple. On the arrival of H. Jackson she took the baronet's children to be photographed; afterwards she called every day to see if the photographs were finished. He was, in fact, engaged to her before the night on which I first had supper with him.

A week after my return to town I got a note from Cyrus Verd, asking me to dine with him and "assist at the funeral of H. Jackson." I accepted. We were alone, and the dinner was ridiculously magnificent. I congratulated him on his engagement, which that morning had been made public. He seemed in the best of spirits. After dinner he said:

"I am going to explain the death of H. Jackson. Money has power, and the novelty of possession is attractive. But any other kind of power is better worth while, and the novelty ceases."

"Also," I observed, "time flies, and one must not judge by appearances."

"Yes, I quite understand what you would imply. I am talking platitudes. I guess, if the platitude happens to be the truth that doesn't matter. The actual enjoyment to be obtained from money must soon go, and can only be renewed in the enjoyment of another. I marry a poor woman who has worked in a subservient position; in her enjoyment I shall enjoy again. Wealth, and the power it gives, will be so new and attractive to her that I may safely calculate on a fair period of very decent second-hand enjoyment; consequently, H. Jackson may die."

"Wait," I said, "your wife's enjoyment will cease in the end, and yours with it. What then?"

"Some women have a special gift for enjoying wealth for ever," he said meditatively. "But you are right; Miss Fokes has not that gift. Then--then--there will be a revival of H. Jackson, or something very like it, perhaps in a less crude form."

* * * * *

This practically ended my acquaintance with Cyrus Verd. At first I still saw him occasionally, but I could not afford to know millionaires, and told him so. Afterwards, at the time when he renounced his wealth, I was away from England.

I can see, of course, that a practised author might make something of a character--a consistent whole--out of Cyrus Verd. I only give notes of what came to my knowledge, and confess that I have not the imagination requisite to connect them, supplement them, and give them that air of probability which is always found in the best fiction, and so seldom in real life.

THE FOUR-FINGERED HAND

Charles Yarrow held fours, but as he had come up against Brackley's straight flush they only did him harm, leading him to remark--by no means for the first time--that it did not matter what cards one held, but only when one held them. "I get out here," he remarked, with resignation. No one else seemed to care for further play. The two other men left at once, and shortly afterwards Yarrow and Brackley sauntered out of the club together.

"The night's young," said Brackley; "if you're doing nothing you may as well come round to me."

"Thanks, I will. I'll talk, or smoke, or go so far as to drink; but I don't play poker. It's not my night."

"I didn't know," said Brackley, "that you had any superstitions."

"Haven't. I've only noticed that, as a rule, my luck goes in runs, and that a good run or a bad run usually lasts the length of a night's play. There is probably some simple reason for it, if I were enough of a mathematician to worry it out. In luck as distinct from arithmetic I have no belief at all."

"I wish you could bring me to that happy condition. The hard-headed man of the world, without a superstition or a belief of any kind, has the best time of it."

They reached Brackley's chambers, lit pipes, and mixed drinks. Yarrow stretched himself in a lounge chair, and took up the subject again, speaking lazily and meditatively. He was a man of thirty-eight, with a clean-shaven face; he looked, as indeed he was, travelled and experienced.

"I don't read any books," he remarked, "but I've been twice round the world, and am just about to leave England again. I've been alive for thirty-eight years, and during most of them I have been living. Consequently, I've formed opinions, and one of my opinions is that it is better to dispense with superfluous luggage. Prejudices, superstitions, beliefs of any kind that are not capable of easy and immediate proof are superfluous luggage; one goes more easily without them. You implied just now that you had a certain amount of this superfluous luggage, Brackley. What form does it take? Do you turn your chair?--are you afraid of thirteen at dinner?"

"No, nothing of that sort. I'll tell you about it. You've heard of my grandfather--who made the money?"

"Heard of him? Had him rubbed into me in my childhood. He's in Smiles or one of those books, isn't he? Started life as a navvy, educated himself, invented things, made a fortune, gave vast sums in charity."

"That is the man. Well, he lived to be a fair age, but he was dead before I was born. What I know of him I know from my father, and some of it is not included in those improving books for the young. For instance, there is no mention in the printed biography of his curious belief in the four-fingered hand. His belief was that from time to time he saw a phantom hand. Sometimes it appeared to him in the daytime, and sometimes at night. It was a right hand with the second finger missing. He always regarded the appearance of the hand as a warning. It meant, he supposed, that he was to stop anything on which he was engaged; if he was about to let a house, buy a horse, go a journey, or whatever it was, he stopped if he saw the four-fingered hand."

"Now, look here," said Yarrow, "we'll examine this thing rationally. Can you quote one special instance in which your grandfather saw this maimed hand, broke off a particular project, and found himself benefited?"

"No. In telling my father about it he spoke quite generally."

"Oh, yes," said Yarrow, drily. "The people who see these things do speak quite generally as a rule."