Chapter V: Part 5

“I guess you’d read it if you found it lying about?”

“You’re right, I should. I’d have opened the envelope yesterday by the steam of the kettle, only Dolly’d been at the pains to seal it, confound her!”

Lucian gave him a queer glance. That cynical confession did not alienate him; for one thing, he knew that it was necessary to make a large discount upon Farquhar’s revelations of iniquity, and for another, had it been true to the last word it could not have changed his feeling. Strong, quiet, and immovable, that lay welded, into his life; it almost equalled his love for Dolly; it outweighed his love for himself. He moved to give his letter to Farquhar, but checked his hand in mid-air; Dolly’s affectionate words might so easily be misconstrued by a jealous eye. Instead, he plunged the envelope over the side, and let it float away.

“There goes temptation,” he said, as the chain of bubbles ended.

“There’ll be others to come, though. There _is_ some one calling.”

It was Charlesworth hailing them from the shore; Farquhar took up the oars and rowed back. The huge figure of the American loomed up against the twilit sky, quiet as a rock; he never was impatient.

“Way up at the hotel I heard you singing, and I made out you must be down here, sir; higher up the water’s not deep enough to drown a kitten,” he said, as Farquhar secured the boat. A stake and a rope were all that was needed, without bars or locks; theft was unfashionable at Petit-Fays.

“Nothing wrong, is there?” Farquhar asked.

“I’d not go so far as to say that; but I told you we were running into some dirt, and it’s come up pretty close.”

“Ah! what’s up, then?”

Charlesworth fell in beside him and told his tale. The path was narrow, the grass dewy, and the American had shown pretty plainly that he took his orders from one master only. Lucian dropped behind and meekly held his peace. It appeared that the lad who had been injured was demanding compensation; Charlesworth, who was ready to give, had refused to concede; and a venomous little dispute had sprung up, which was breeding bad blood between him and the men. Added to this, they were asking higher wages.

“I couldn’t put up with him, and that’s the square truth,” Charlesworth frankly acknowledged. “If he’d come to me and said, ‘I was knocked silly, and I’ve lost a couple of weeks; I know I’d no business to be where I was, and I deserved all I got, but can you do anything for me?’—then I don’t say but what I might have turned to and helped him out; that’s talking. But when he swaggers up and says, ‘Show us the colour of your money and be hanged to you, else I’ll make you,’ why, then I tell him that he’s at liberty to go to Hades if he likes, but not a red cent shall he get from me. I don’t know whether that’s your way of doing business, sir, but I guess it’s mine.”

“My dear fellow, I’d not have you back down, don’t think it! I’ve a preference myself for fighting things out. When was this?”

Farquhar’s words were exemplary, but his face was less discreet; it was manifest that he did prefer to fight things out, and Charlesworth, who laid no claim to the Christian grace of meekness, hailed a spirit akin.

“This evening, after pay-time. I came right round to you.”

“What’s the next move to be?”

“Well,” said Charlesworth, deliberately: “I guess it’s me they’ve got a down on now; but when the time comes they won’t stop to sort us out. They’re pretty sick about your newfangled machinery for one thing, and then there’s the business about the Britishers: taking one thing with another, and this compensation racket on the top, you may bet they’re sure-enough mad. And I’ve no use for a funeral at present. So before we go any further, sir, I’d ask you to come round to the works; for there’s a job there I’d like you to see.”

He would not explain any further, and the trio walked on past the gold-litten windows of the hotel towards the quarry. All was silent there and dark save for the signal-lamp of the watchman, sparkling on the brow of the pit among the constellations high in the dark sky, like a topaz among diamonds. Picking their way among the truck lines, which converged like so many silver cords from all directions towards the mouth of the quarry, they came up to the splendid block of granite marked out by Charlesworth for their first serious essay in carving. Its rich, even colour and fine-grained texture made it very valuable. A pillar hewn from it, overrun by curly-tailed dragons and roses of strange design, was assigned to stand in a temple of the Flowery Land. Another part was to misrepresent the king in the market-place of a country town; and they had accepted other orders as well, for the whole mass weighed some thousands of tons. Upon the fulfilment of these conditions the future of the quarry depended. For three weeks past they had been hard at work loosening the granite from its bed and getting it free from the other blocks which wedged it in: an operation involving nice calculation and accurate obedience. Under Charlesworth’s directions, shot-holes three feet deep and six inches apart were bored along the line of cleavage, cleaned out, charged with a cartridge, and filled up or tamped with clay. With each cartridge a length of slow fuse was connected, the different strands being gathered together in a metal case called the igniter, so that the cartridges could be fired simultaneously. Some use electricity to explode the charge, Charlesworth did not. The operator, generally himself, had to betake himself nimbly out of the way while the fuse burned on at three feet per minute till it came to the cartridge and finished its work. Already several small blasts had taken place, preparatory to the large final explosion which was to dissever the whole block from its bed.

“I guess _that’s_ what they’ve got their eye on,” said Charlesworth, coming to a stand in front of the cliff.

Farquhar thrust his hands into his pockets and said nothing.

“Dmitri Dmitriyevitch vows to be avenged of his enemies,” suggested Lucian at his ear.

“What’s that?—Shut up, De Saumarez, I’m doing a little thinking. So you think they mean to spoil the stone, eh, Charlesworth?”

“I guess they mean to,” said the American, austerely, “but I guess I don’t mean them to.”

“Well, yes, I guess the same; but how do you think they’d set about it?”

“Tamper with the cartridges. Overcharge them, I’d bet: smash the whole place up, so’s you couldn’t cut a lady’s paper-weight out of the bits. And if we went up along with it I guess they wouldn’t go into mourning. That’s the kind of crowd they are: measly little city-bred slushes who’ll do anything so long as they can keep their own skins whole.”

“I don’t want to lose my granite, and still less to lose my life,” said Farquhar. “How do you propose to circumvent them?”

“Well, there’s three of us, sir; I reckon we should be able to keep things straight. I dare say you know the difference between a one-pound charge and a two-pound, and I know I do, and so does Mr. de Saumarez here. What we shall have to do is to watch. There’s a matter of a couple more blasts to run, besides the last. It’ll mean testing every charge every time; but that’s how I made out we’d do it. Or, of course, if you like it better, we could cave in, and give the little beggar his solatium, and raise the men; that’d quiet them for a bit, and then I dare say they’d let us get this job through and we could fight it out after, when we don’t stand to lose so much. I’m not boss here; it’s for you to choose, sir.”

“What do you say, De Saumarez?”

“What the dickens is the use of me saying anything, when you’ve already made up your mind like unto the solid earth that cannot be moved?”

“Well, I think we’ll fight it out, then,” said Farquhar, with a laugh.

“Fight goes,” concluded Charlesworth.

And they went back to the hotel.

XIV

SMALL BEER

A white cloth, white lilies and scarlet geraniums, red-tiled floor, flax-blue china: the low sun of evening painted their colours afresh; the lily petals glistened and sparkled like frosty snow. All the windows were open, and the soft little wind that stirred the straight muslin curtains filled the empty room with the scent of unseen pinks. Then came in Dolly, carrying a squat rounded jug of brown earthenware smoothly overlaid in silver; the spot of light dancing inside showed that the jug was full. She set it down by the wooden elbow-chair at the table’s foot, put straight a sprig of parsley on the dish of cold meat, glanced at the clock, which said five minutes to seven, and then sat down, half in sunshine and half in shade, with her hands in her lap. For no longer than a minute was she idle; a book lay open on the table, its leaves ruffling and flying over and over, and she pulled it across and began to read at haphazard, as one visiting an old friend. For between those covers her old friends dwelt in an army, and Dolly’s favourite was named Jonis d’Artagnan. Since the age of seven she had read Dumas in his native tongue. Her brow was clear, her breath was even, she only moved to turn her page; tranquillity was Dolly’s dower, bestowed on her by perfect health and peaceful nerves.

At seven o’clock Bernard came in, and Dolly quitted the oak of Fontainebleau to make the tea. “Have you washed your hands?” was her greeting, for Bernard was not as careful about such things as he might have been. Bernard answered: “Yes.”

“Had a good day?”

“Pretty fair.”

Standing before the tray, Dolly put a piece of sugar into her cup, then some milk, then some cream, and, lastly, the clear, auburn, aromatic tea. Authorities agree that this is the only correct method of tea-making, but Dolly kept their laws without knowing them. Bernard tilted up the silver jug and looked inside, and glanced across at his sister. “Have you got another cup?” he inquired. “I guess I’ll have tea to-night.”

“_Tea_, Bernard?”

“Isn’t there enough to go round?”

“Oh! plenty,” said Dolly. “Aren’t you well?”

“I’m off beer for the present; that’s all.”

“It’s quite good; I tasted some when I drew it,” said Dolly, after a pause.

“Dare say,” said Bernard, regarding the silver jug as though he thought the beer very good indeed, “but I don’t want it to-day. Are you going to give me some tea?”

Dolly made a step towards the cupboard, checked herself, and sat down. “You’d better fetch the cup yourself; it’s the proper thing for you to wait on me.”

“I don’t see why we should always be on our best behaviour here at home,” observed Bernard, as, in complying, he knocked over the sugar basin.

“Because if you don’t practise at home you go wrong when you are out. You pushed past me on Sunday as we came out of church.”

The charge being true, Bernard felt annoyed. He essayed to drink his tea, pursed up his lips, and put down the cup in a hurry.

“If you won’t drink the beer, I will; it would be a pity to waste it,” said Dolly, who was watching him.

“You’d get tipsy if you drank all that.”

“I was not proposing to drink all that; I could not do it if I tried. I cannot understand how men can dispose of so much.”

“Girls don’t work like men do.”

“It’s a good thing you are giving it up, then; I’ve noticed that you were beginning to get stout.”

Bernard continued to look stolid. Out of patience, Dolly launched at him a sudden question.

“Are you turning teetotaller to please Miss Laurenson?”

“I’m not turning teetotaller. I’m only trying it for a time.”

“But is it to please Miss Laurenson?”

“Well, yes; I guess it is.”

“Not really, Bernard?” asked Dolly, with a change of tone.

“Why not?”

“She isn’t your sort. And you’ve only known her for six weeks.”

“Come to think of it, I wouldn’t say the dude is your sort; but you seem to like talking to him.”

“Bernard, do you want to marry her?” asked Dolly, after a pregnant pause.

“I’m going to.”

“Hasn’t it occurred to you that she may have something to say about that?”

“I dare say she’ll refuse me, but if she does I can ask her again.”

“And if she refuses you again?”

“Then I’ll go on asking till she accepts.”

“In fact, if you persevere you think she is bound to give in?”

“Girls generally do.”

“Do they? I shouldn’t.”

“You aren’t like most girls. You’ve been brought up with men.”

“But, Bernard, Miss Laurenson is an heiress; she has eight hundred a year of her own, and more to come. Mrs. Merton told me so.”

“Has she? Well, eight hundred a year’ll come in handy; I’m glad to hear it. If it’s true, that is.”

“And she is very pretty, and she dresses well, and her family is unexceptionable,” pursued Dolly. “I expect she could marry a peer if she liked, or at any rate a courtesy title.”

“Yes, but all those titled chaps are pretty rotten,” said Bernard, cheerfully damning the aristocracy in a lump. “She’d do a sight better to take me. I’m pretty strong and free from vice, and sound in wind and limb; and as for family, I guess ours is good enough for anybody, isn’t it?”

Dolly was reduced to silence, but she was so completely preoccupied that she poured cream and sugar into Bernard’s cup and filled it up with beer, producing a mixture which he denounced in emphatic language and emptied out of the window. Presently she interrupted his talk about the farm by asking:

“Bernard, are you fond of her?”

“She’s getting a bit long in the tooth, it’s true, but she’s a pretty creature still. I guess she suits me as well as any,” was the surprising answer.

“I mean Miss Laurenson.”

“Oh, I thought you were talking about old Empress; I was.”

“Are you fond of her?”

“Yes,” said Bernard, composedly. “I am.”

Dolly shrugged her shoulders. “I hope it will turn out well.”

“Hope so, too,” said Bernard. “She ought to take me simply out of gratitude. Anything more beastly than tea with this cold beef I never did taste!”

* * * * *

On the morrow, while Dolly was sweeping her room out, Maggie came up, gasping, to announce “Miss Lawson”; she had a happy knack of confounding names. It was, in truth, Angela, driven up by the pair of donkeys, as Ella Merton said, though only one was in the shafts. Mrs. Merton herself would not come in, because, she declared, Jehoshaphat would eat the reins if he were left. Jehoshaphat had a satanic temper and was more completely omnivorous than an ostrich; beside devouring reins and boots and tin-tacks, he had a craving for any human flesh except that of his mistress, an exception which Ella triumphantly adduced in support of her self-bestowed name, since, said she, dog doesn’t eat dog.

Therefore Angela was alone in the parlour when Dolly came down; rather hot, in a faded old dress: Angela, very cool and dainty in white muslin, now feeling that the advantage of appearance had fallen to her. Yet, in spite of her dress and her daintiness, she was still like a delicate sketch by the side of a beautiful painting.

“I’m sorry Mr. Fane isn’t in,” she began, rather stiffly. Angela could not approve of Dolly, and would not pretend that she did.

“The regret will be all on his side. Won’t you sit down?” quoth Dolly, very polite.

“I’m afraid I can’t stay, I am keeping Mrs. Merton. May I leave a message for him?”

“I shall be charmed to deliver it,” Dolly assured her; and Angela sought consolation by mentally dubbing her accent provincial. Dolly exasperated her to such an extent that she was ready to imagine a Kentish twang in Miss Fane’s foreign intonation.

“I believe Mr. Fane is interested in temperance reform”—here Dolly smiled—“and I thought under the circumstances he might care to attend the great unsectarian conference which is to be held at Swanborough next week. I dare say you have heard of it.”

“No; we have severed our connection with the chapel.”

“This meeting is undenominational.”

“Essence of chapel, isn’t that? Or so I have always understood.”

“Perhaps you will tell your brother that it begins at three o’clock,” Angela trusted herself to say.

“I am sure Bernard will be delighted to go. Of course, he might speak himself almost as a reformed drunkard.”

“Mr. Fane?”

“You converted him, did you not?”

“I converted him? From what?”

“Oh! from his habit of drinking beer. I am so glad; I have often told him that he took too much.”

“Really, Miss Fane?” said Angela, in accents of serious concern. “I had no idea of it! What a shocking thing! I am indeed thankful that I have been instrumental in helping him to reform.”

Dolly’s lips twitched, but she instantly followed Angela’s lead. “Of course it was not yet very serious, and he did not often—well—exceed. But I assure you I am most grateful for all you have done; you have a wonderful influence over him—truly wonderful!”

“Then I shall hope to see him at Swanborough; and perhaps you will come, too? You need not feel embarrassed; there will be plenty of girls of your own age to keep you in countenance,” said Angela, pleasantly.

“Thank you so much,” said Dolly, as she opened the front door.

She stood on the step to speed the parting guests. When the last flicker of Angela’s white parasol had vanished, she remarked to herself: “Certainly Bernard has a better right to trust his own judgment than any one I know!”

Both she and Bernard went to Swanborough for the meeting. They drove; and, after putting up the horse, had the satisfaction of encountering Miss Laurenson and her brother outside the station. Bernard went straight to Angela’s side, and Dolly found herself walking with Mr. Laurenson. Lal was no talker; and as the uncivilized Dolly had not yet learned to speak when she did not want to, they walked on in silence.

Swanborough was a town of twenty thousand people, mostly wicked. Standing on a tidal river, it harboured the vessels of all nations and the peculiar vices of each; there were, besides, barracks in the town, which brought their special dangers. High wages and a high standard of living prevailed: the head of one family would be calling for green peas in April, while the head of another, discharged from the same position, perhaps for drunkenness, would send his children, filthy, barefoot, and famishing, into the street to beg. That popular vice, drunkenness, flourished like a green bay-tree. A public-house blossomed at every street’s corner, and its devotees lounged in its shade with their hands in their holey pockets. Passing one such palace as a youth pushed open the door, Dolly had a view of the crowded bar, and breathed in a puff of hot vapour wherein the scents of tobacco and gin and old clothes contended for the mastery.

“There are too many of those places!” she exclaimed, averting her offended face.

“There are,” Lal answered her, rather bitterly.

“I cannot see why the licenses are renewed.”

“Can you not? Every English government lives by this traffic; do you expect pious sons to commit parricide?”

“You feel very strongly about it,” said Dolly, wondering.

“I see the results of the present system.”

“Then do you believe in Prohibition or in Local Option?”

“I? I believe in putting the whole trade under public control, in reducing the number of licenses, and in giving the publicans a fixed salary independent of the number of men they turn into drunkards.”

“But those are not Miss Laurenson’s views, surely?” asked Dolly, somewhat taken aback. Lal was already repenting of his candour.

“It’s one of the questions of principle on which we differ,” he said, in his soft, lazy voice. “Don’t betray me, Miss Fane; it will be time for me to reveal my heresies when Prohibition comes down out of the clouds. Angela herself is not where her theories are; she does plenty of practical hard work.”

“Mr. Laurenson, what practical hard work do you do?”

“I?”

“You. I know you do something.”

“Who told you anything about me?”

“No one. I gathered it from the way you speak.”

“Oh, I see.” Lal was unmistakably relieved.

“I wish you would tell me how you set about it.”

“I’d rather not discuss the question.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Dolly. Twice, now, had he shut up like an oyster and pinched her fingers; and she was half angry, until she recognised that he meant no rudeness. To this conclusion was she brought by the study of his face. Lal, when he spoke of himself, had a trick of drooping his eyelids, so that, as the lashes were long, his eyes were hidden completely; he was foolish enough to be modest. The compression of his sensitive lips notified Dolly of another extenuating circumstance: namely, that he was uncomfortable to the point of frenzy. In escaping her inquiries he was ready to leap clear over the bars of politeness; surely, then, since he so valorously defended their privacy, his convictions must be very dear to him. As she was musing thus, the drooped lids were raised with disconcerting abruptness, and Lal’s beautiful dark-grey eyes looked down appealingly.

“I did not mean to be rude. I would rather be rude to any one than you,” he said.

Dolly’s breathing quickened; a warm spring rose in her heart. “I had no business to ask you; but I thought perhaps I might do something myself,” she said.

“It is only that I—” Here Lal stopped. “I don’t think—” he began again; and finally clothed his thought in a general law, altogether eliminating the painful personal pronoun _I_. “An amateur’s private opinion is never very interesting.”

“And you would rather not talk about your private opinions.”

“I’m not very good at it,” Lal admitted. “In fact, I generally make a fool of myself when I try—as on the present occasion.” The victim of aphasia had put off his apology until they were close to the hall, and further conversation was stopped by their arrival at the door.

“You’re coming in?” said Dolly, as he paused.

He shook his head.

“Don’t you approve of _this_?”

“I’m afraid I don’t like religion when it’s vulgar,” said Lal. He raised his hat and walked off down the street, and Dolly and her friends went in.

No cause needs salvation from its friends as does this of temperance. Intolerance, exaggeration, bad logic, bad taste, and bad grammar have all supported and do support it still, estranging men who would be content to work with the reformers if they took their stand on the noble charter given them by St. Paul: “_If meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth._” At Swanborough there were two evangelists, whose names appeared on the programme as Rev. Dr. Brown and Rev. S. Jones, for your true temperance evangelist eschews the adjective _the_ as rigidly as temperance in his speeches. The one spoke on “Gospel Dynamics”; the other proved the Bible a total-abstinence book and, incidentally, himself no orator. Angela found it hard to feel pleased; she looked at Bernard, and saw him yawning undisguisedly, and then at Dolly, who sat with hands folded, inattentive but composed.

And Dolly was composed, though she was conscious of a strange exaltation which rosed her cheek and set her heart throbbing and pulses beating in time with it in every finger. A well-spring of soft warmth suffused her frame; she shut her eyes and saw visions, she who was no dreamer—visions in which one figure alone was constant. She owned the truth. “I love him,” she told herself. Shame she did not feel; she believed that Lal loved her back, and even if he did not there was no humiliation, since her gift was voluntary, since she was proud of her love. He won her by being better than herself. Dolly was a little pagan; her love was wild as a bird; but in it ran a puritan strain which claimed an answering purity in the man she loved. Irreproachable though he was, Noel Farquhar could not give her that, nor yet could Lucian, though he was nearer to her ideal. But in Dolly’s room at home she had an engraving of Watts’s fine picture of Sir Galahad; and the artist might have drawn his young knight’s face from Lal as he looked on a Sunday morning in church, when he sat in his corner behind a pillar which hid him from sight, as he thought. Had he known that Dolly had a clear though narrow view of his profile against the black marble of a mural tablet, it would have made him retrospectively very unhappy.

Love left Dolly the same girl as before, save that it illumined a side of her nature which had been hidden, as the sunlight, creeping across from the first faint rim of the crescent, slowly enlightens the disk of the moon. True, she now felt quite charitable towards Angela; but Angela was Lal’s sister. She was also more lenient to the ungrammatical orators on the platform; for the excellent reason that she did not listen to them. These were accidents of circumstance. But when a stout lady in front ecstatically planted the hind-leg of her chair upon Dolly’s instep and sat heavily down, the ennobling power of love did not hold her back from feeling annoyed.

When they came out Dolly listened to a discussion of the meeting, and herself added her word with moderate indifference. They walked together to the station, but Dolly, whose mood was dreamy, soft, and languorous, dissociated herself from the others and walked alone. As she passed the Sailors’ Arms, which seemed a popular hostelry, the door again stood open, and again Dolly glanced in, and again saw the crowded bar; but this time Sir Galahad was leaning across the counter conversing with the bar-maid.

XV

COLLOQUIES WITH AN OUTSIDER

Dolly did her best to get Bernard away from the station before Lal came up; but as she had only that morning been preaching the duties of man to unprotected females, and as Bernard’s desires went wholly along with his duty, she could not detach him from Angela. She went away herself, on the pretext of ordering the dog-cart, met Lal in the station yard, looked full in his face, and refused to know him.

Angela was waiting impatiently; Lal had promised to meet her at six o’clock, their train went at six-fifteen, and it was now five minutes past. Lal was always exact in keeping his engagements. Angela felt uneasy, and was cross. Bernard stayed with her till ten minutes after the hour, and then hurried off to consult his sister. Dolly was quite ready to drive back alone; perhaps because the route through Hungrygut Bottom was in her mind as the best way home, and to it Bernard might have demurred on the horse’s account, for it was steep and stony, the roads having been recently repaired. She had an idea that Lal might be waiting in the high-road to see her pass. Bernard, having her consent, hurried back; he was just in time to install Angela in a first-class carriage, with himself as guardian for their half-hour’s journey. Then Angela, discovering that she was shut up alone with Bernard Fane, began to wish herself idiotic, dead, buried, anywhere out of the world, and plunged into a fresh discussion of temperance.

* * * * *

Lal had stood like a statue till Dolly was out of sight, and then tried to follow her. He had not seen which road she took, and his wanderings led him far from the station. At last he bethought him that the horse must be stabled somewhere, and began to inquire; and half an hour later tracked her down at the Railway Hotel. While he was still questioning the waiter, a man passed through the hall and would have gone out had not Lal interrupted himself and sprang forward, crying out, “Meryon!”

The gambler turned round, colouring with pleasure. “I didn’t know you were home!” he said. “I heard you’d got no end of stars and orders, but I didn’t know you were home! I’m so awfully glad.”

“I’m staying with the Mertons; what are you doing?”

“I’m here for the night. Come to my room, will you? There’s heaps I want to know.”

Lal, who had just heard that Dolly had departed full half an hour ago, abandoned his quest for the nonce, and went. Meryon and he had been friends for years, though the guardian angel knew it not; she would have feared the effect of pitch on Lal’s innocence if she had. They met rarely; in the intervals their friendship hibernated, coming out unspoiled when times of refreshing arrived. Meryon wrote never, Lal rarely, and when he did his stiff little letters were mere catalogues of events. But friendship, like the python, can live for years unfed.

Meryon’s room was full of untidy properties tidily arranged. A discreditable old Collard & Collard was its only luxury. He had been playing patience, and the cards were scattered about the table; Lal sat down on a bedroom chair, leaning his elbow on the wash-stand and his chin on his hand, and watched Meryon gather them up.

“You haven’t given up playing, then?” he said.

“No, I never shall now—the cards have got their grip on me. You’re looking sick, Lal,” said the elder man, earnestly; “what’s the matter?”

“I got hurt, you know.”

“Oh yes, I heard about that in the papers. You came back in a regular blaze of glory; I was awfully proud of knowing you. Is your sister all right?”

“Angela? Perfectly—about to marry, I fancy.”

“Is the man a good sort?”

“Oh, very. I think she will be happy.”

“Been doing any more of your own work?”

“At intervals. When the chance comes.”

Meryon jerked the bottom of the pack down on the table, and pressed and patted it straight between his palms. “Try a game of écarté?” he suggested.

Lal shook his head.

“I’ll play without stakes, for once.”

“No. I never play.”

“I don’t see why not. Even father used to play whist in the evenings, he and mother and two of the canons, awfully decent old chaps; and I used to stand behind mother and give her tips. Father was no end of a good player. I don’t see why you won’t, Lal. It’s wonderful how it takes you out of yourself.”

Lal shook his head again. “I never have played and never shall.”

“Are you afraid?”

“Perhaps.”

Meryon looked at him earnestly. “You’re very queer, Lal,” he said. “I believe you’ve got heaps of things in you that no one ever suspects. I believe you’re a born gambler—I hope you won’t mind my saying so. But there’s no harm; you aren’t like me, you’d never give way to it.”

“If I once began I should never stop,” Lal took him up, swiftly. “You’re right; I’m not like you, Meryon. I haven’t your pluck. I had to give up motoring because I could not keep my head while I was driving. I’m as weak as water.”

“But you never do the things, you only want to and don’t let yourself. I call that being strong, not weak. That’s just what I like. You’re so excitable, you have to keep tight hold of yourself for fear you should go to the bad, and yet you never do anything you shouldn’t.”

Lal only shrugged his shoulders. Meryon, who was still standing, dropped the cards and put his hand on Lal’s arm. “What _is_ the matter?” he said, tenderly. “What’s worrying you, old fellow?”

Lal did not answer, because he was incapable of explaining. It was necessary for his interlocutor to drag the truth out of him by questions. Dolly had found out this; but whereas Lal’s desire had been to escape from her, he was anxious to make confession to Meryon.

“I say, old fellow, is it a girl?” questioned the gambler.

“Yes.”

“Then, of course, it’s serious; it would be with you. Won’t she have you?”

“I haven’t asked her.”

“Have you had a quarrel?”

“I have just met her, and she cut me dead. Heaven knows why; I don’t.”

Meryon, by a string of questions, contrived to elicit the story of Lal’s courtship. The cause of Dolly’s coldness puzzled him, as it had puzzled Lal, but after several abortive inquiries he hit at last on the right track.

“I don’t see what could have happened while the meeting was going on to make her change so. What were you doing all the time?”

“Business.”

“What, your own sort of business?”

Lal nodded.

“Whereabouts?”

“Oh, in the town.”

“Tell me where, old fellow—that is, if you don’t mind me meddling.”

“At the Sailors’ Arms; you know the place.”

“It’s a hell of a hole,” said Meryon, soberly. “Did you go in?”

“For a few minutes.”

“I say, it’s on the way from the Corn Exchange to the station. I say, do you think she could have seen you?”

Lal was silent. Remembering that Dolly had noticed the place before, he thought it possible.

“It’s all very well to say girls don’t mind that sort of thing—like a man to sow his wild oats, and all that; but they do mind, the nicest of them. And she’d think you must be such an awful humbug, too. You know, old fellow, the thing for you to do is to go and ask her, and tell her right away.”

“I could not possibly do it, and I would not for the world if I could,” said Lal, with great decision.

“Why not?”

Lal shrugged his shoulders.

“I expect you mean you’re too shy, and don’t like talking about that sort of thing to a girl. Is that it?”

“I dare say.”

“Old fellow, can’t you get over that?”

“I _cannot_,” said Lal, impatiently. “What, tell Miss Fane that I—that the girl—Besides, she doesn’t care a straw for me. I shall ask her if she’ll have me, and then go. Angela, at least, will be heartily glad.”

“Is her name Fane? Not Dolly Fane, by any chance?”

“Yes, it is. Do you know her?”

“I took her in to dinner once at the Mertons,” said Meryon. After a pause he went on: “Do you know, Lal, there’s two other men after her. De Saumarez, who I’ve told you about, is one, and Farquhar, the M.P.”

“Of course she likes one of them,” said Lal, after another pause. “I hope it isn’t Farquhar. I dislike that fellow.”

“I thought he was all that’s virtuous. You never caught him out in any tricks, did you?”

“Not I! But I’d rather she married a gentleman.”

“I always thought he was an awful swell,” said Meryon, meekly.

Lal coloured and laughed, and glanced up through his eyelashes. “I am a conceited, dogmatic prig; how can you possibly tolerate me, Meryon?” he said. “I’ve talked about myself long enough; now let’s hear what you’ve been doing.”

They talked on for an hour or more, and then Meryon persuaded Lal to play to him, listening the while in quiet, uncritical enjoyment, and caressing the black kitten asleep on his knee. Meryon always stipulated for a piano in his room when his resources could be stretched to cover such a luxury. He was very fond of strumming out airs from the overtures and selections which he heard from bands at casinos; he had an ear for melody, but had never learned music. Lal, on the contrary, was a practised pianist; he played correctly, an achievement rare in these days; his execution was sure and delicate, his touch very clear, bright, and firm. He was very careful to hide this talent of his in a napkin. Meryon had come to hear of it by accident. Lal sat down and very quietly played through first a sonata by Mozart, then a _courante_ of Bach’s. His taste was for the orderly, old-fashioned music; he hated Wagner, and thought even Mendelssohn too fond of innovations. Did not he say of himself that he was dogmatic? But he gave Meryon great pleasure.

Later, Lal went home; and Meryon, after seeing him off by one train, waited on the platform and himself followed by the next. From Monkswell station he walked to Fanes, but Dolly had not yet come in, nor had Bernard. Meryon would not wait; he strolled up the Swanborough road in the hope of meeting her. Nor was he disappointed. A mile up the road he saw a girl leading a horse down the hill, and by her supple, slim young figure and the brightness of her hair he recognised Miss Fane. The steepness of Hungrygut Bottom plus the violent snortings of a steam-roller had again proved too much for the nerves of the chestnut; he bolted down the hill and almost kicked the cart to pieces before Dolly, who had jumped out, could catch and quell him. She left the dog-cart for repair at Dove Green, the next village, and led Vronsky home. Her dark cloth dress had a long skirt, which she held up gracefully, like a French girl, with curved wrist and prettily bent hand. She came on, looking straight before her; her lips were hard and her face was hard; no melting mood was hers. Irony, and a stiff-necked refusal to bend before the blast were Dolly’s armour against trouble; she was bitterly humiliated, and would not cede an inch to humiliation. Certain constricting bands seemed to have closed round her heart; she had not spent so long a day since she was seven and waited outside her mother’s room for the news of her death.

“Let me lead the horse, won’t you?” said Meryon, turning to walk with her. Meryon was polite by instinct, as Dolly was graceful.

“Thanks, no; he bites.”

“I suppose you got smashed up. I hope you weren’t hurt.”

“Not in the least, thank you.”

This was unpromising. Meryon despaired of introducing his subject tactfully; he was not, therefore, discouraged, but plunged straight into it.

“I’ve just been seeing Lal Laurenson,” he said. “I beg your pardon, I hope you won’t think it awful cheek of me to shove my oar in, but I can’t help it. I’ve been friends with Laurenson ever since we were at Eton together. He’s been so awfully good to me, I can’t help speaking now. You cut him in Swanborough this afternoon.”

“I did.”

“What for?”

“I am not going to tell you. I mean,” said Dolly, “I don’t want to be rude, but I can’t explain my reason. I had one.”

“Was it because you saw him in at the Sailors’ Arms?”

Dolly hesitated for a minute; then she answered: “Yes.”

“I’m awfully glad—I thought that was it. I can explain why he was there.”

“Wait,” said Dolly. “Who told you this?”

“I got it out of Laurenson. I met him at the Railway Hotel, where he was asking for you.”

“Does he know you have come to me?”

“Him? Rather not; I came right away without telling; he wouldn’t have let me if he’d known. He said he’d never explain, himself, and he wouldn’t; he can’t bear talking about it.”

“I can believe it.”

“No, really you’re quite wrong, you are indeed, Miss Fane. Laurenson isn’t like that. He went there after a girl. She had run away from her home and he wanted her to go back. He goes in for that kind of thing. He and Miss Laurenson have got a Home in London which they run out of their own money, but it’s Lal that has to do with working it; he’s better than a parson, for he doesn’t ever preach, he just lives. If he’d been anywhere in Europe that time I had to break my promise, I’d never have given way as I did and become the beast I am. He’d have seen me through. He respects you, and you simply can’t help being what he thinks. He never told me about that Home, I just found it out. I’ve been over it with him. I never shall forget it.”

“Do you know the name of the girl he saw at the Sailors’ Arms?”

“Hilda Davis. She comes from here.”

“I see. Thank you,” said Dolly. “Yes; I am glad to know.”

Meryon stopped. “I’m glad you don’t think it was cheek of me. I’d better go back now; I’ll just catch my train.”

“Did you come here simply to tell me this?” said Dolly. “You’re a good friend.”

“There wasn’t anything in it. I didn’t think you’d snub me; and if you had I’d have been bound to tell you just the same. Laurenson’s been no end good, being friends with an outsider like me,” said Meryon, with simplicity.

Poor outsider! From a great way off his tired eyes had seen the bright circle of happiness; he came to the light, passed through it, and so out into the cold and lonely twilight, where his own lot was cast. He was made for the life of a home: sociable, contented, affectionate, fond of quiet pleasures, a lover of little children. But the tyrannous demon who had ruled him would grant no peace; Meryon was driven out into the wilderness, where he lived and where he died.

XVI

A NIGHT-PIECE

It might have been supposed that Dolly would be anxious to make amends for her injustice. When Bernard came in, saying that Mrs. Merton had invited them both to dinner the next day but one, and that he had accepted her kindness, she should have been pleased; in place of which she declared that she could not go. She had no dress, she said. Bernard pointed out that she had dined with the Mertons before. “Oh yes,” said Dolly; “but one can’t wear the same thing twice over,” and she stood upon her argument till Bernard calmly told her that he should go and she could stay. Dolly came near to a quarrel with him; she did actually provoke one with her father; and then she went to bed.

In the morning she awoke reasonable and sweeter-tempered, and begged her father’s pardon in words, and Bernard’s in deeds by making hot cakes for breakfast. Peace reigned over the house of Fanes, except in Dolly’s mind, which was still disturbed. For yesterday, in the flush of her indignation and reasonable anger, she had taken a step that she could not retrace. Waiting under the white sign-post at Dove Green for the smith’s report on her shattered dog-cart, Dolly had made up her mind upon one point, and had clinched the matter at once in the post-office adjoining the smithy; and now the contemplation of the consequences filled her with lively discomfort. She calculated that these consequences could not arrive for two days, or possibly three; she had two days to prepare; but how she was to do so presented a problem of weight. Dolly felt that she had made a fool of herself, a sensation disagreeable to a girl so proud as she; of all troubles she could least stomach humiliation. Then, also, she knew that her blunder would bring distress on Lucian, and was heartily sorry, for she loved him dearly. But there was another, darker thought which would stay in her mind, despite of reason and despite of resolution. Dolly had felt the merciless power of Farquhar’s strength; she feared his jealousy, cruel as the grave. Vainly she told herself that he was Lucian’s friend; he was her lover, but that had not shielded her. Imagination offered lurid pictures of a battle to the death between the rivals. Vague ideas of sending Bernard out to Petit-Fays as peace-maker crossed her mind, but the irrepressible voice of common-sense pointed out that her brother’s attitude towards Noel Farquhar was not usually conciliatory; also that, even if she sent him at once, he could not possibly get there in time to do any good. In view of this last consideration, Dolly let the matter drop; but her mind was ill at ease.

Next evening when Bernard came down into the hall he found her waiting, muffled in a big white shawl. Bernard’s hands and head were too fully occupied with his white kid gloves to allow him to draw deductions, and he discerned nothing until she walked out in front of him; then he said:

“Thought you weren’t coming?”

“I’ve changed my mind.”

Z-z-p, a button jumped off. “Oh, dash the thing!” said Bernard, disgusted.

“I’ll do it,” said Dolly, taking his wrist. “What a pity it is your hands are so large. Mine are at least small, though I’ve spoiled the skin with hard work. What did you talk about in the train yesterday?”

“That temperance rot, most of the time.”

“You do waste your chances, Bernard.”

“Well, she seemed to like it.”

“Why didn’t you ask her to marry you? You mean to, don’t you?”

“All in good time; I’m in no such mighty hurry.”

“I know _I_ wouldn’t take you,” said Dolly, viciously linking the final button.

“I guess I shouldn’t be such a fool as to ask you,” responded her brother. “As it happens, I mean to get an answer out of her to-night.”

Dolly was silent. His name was the first word that rose to her lips: his Christian name, the usual preface of an appeal.

“Bernard.”

“Well?”

“Bernard, Angela Laurenson isn’t like me. You ought to be careful; it’s easy to hurt her feelings.”

“I know all about that.”

“_Do_ you?”

“Yes,” said Bernard. “I do. I’m not an idiot.”

Trying to draw sentimental confessions from Bernard was like trying to pull a worm out of its hole by the tail. Dolly felt that he was slipping away, and put one last question.

“You do really care for her, Bernard?”

He deliberated for a minute; a most literal truthfulness informed all Bernard’s assertions.

“Well, I wouldn’t jump down into the lions after her glove, like that chap in what’s-his-name,” he said at last: “because I call that silly. But if it was a question of her or me—I guess I’d give my life for hers. I’m not quite a fool, Dolly; I can manage for myself. I say, do you think I ought to keep on these beastly gloves at dinner? If they have birds or things of that kind, they’ll split down the back.”

Bernard had not been quite open with his sister. At that very moment Miss Laurenson was sitting in her room with her face in her hands and an outspread letter before her. She had received it in the afternoon, and thus it ran:

“DEAR MISS LAURENSON,—You showed yesterday that you did not want
me to speak, so I am not going to bother you with a tête-à-tête.
I am writing this instead, to tell you that Fanes brings in about
three-fifty a year net, and in the past five years I have saved over
a thousand out of this, which invested in Guaranteed Egyptians at
four per cent. brings it up to four hundred. I also expect the value
of the property to go up. My age is twenty-eight, and I am in sound
health. I have a fairly good temper. I have not done anything that I
should be ashamed of you seeing, barring getting tipsy half a dozen
times before I was twenty, and carting manure. I used to poach on
Merton’s land one time, but only when I thought he sold the game.
I never have thought about any other girl but you. Will you, if
you think you can take me, just put some white roses in your dress
to-night? If you wear red ones, I shall take it to mean No. I hope
very much you won’t wear red ones. I am sorry I can’t send you any
flowers, but our roses were all blighted this year, and anyway I know
Merton has plenty in his garden.

“Ever yours with devotion,

“BERNARD DE BEAUFORT FANE.”

Having laughed over this letter till she cried, Angela was now almost ready to cry in good earnest. After great searchings of heart she had come to admit that Bernard was all the world to her; but she would much have preferred to renounce the world and remain her maiden self. Angela was a little ascetic. Though she loved him truly, it cost her a bitter struggle to admit a man into her life; especially a man such as Bernard, who would gently brush away all her delicate scruples and cobwebs of privacy, and take possession of her, body and soul. She could trust him to be gentle, but would he understand? To Angela, wifehood seemed a strange and terrible thing. She feared it—she feared its prelude of betrothal: seeing herself more clearly than at other times, she confessed that hers was the nature for obeying, Bernard’s for ruling. And how she should fare if her lover turned tyrant?

“I’ve brought your flowers,” Lal said, coming in with a cluster of white roses and ferns. They were prettily arranged, though a little stiff. But Angela looked doubtful.

“Don’t you care for them? I thought they went well with your dress.”

“I do like them; but—” Angela pushed over Bernard’s letter and looked away. Lal smiled as he read it.

“Well, and aren’t you going to wear them?”

“Shall I?”

“Are you in doubt?”

“Yes, rather.”

“Why?”

“I’m afraid, Lal.”

“Is it that you don’t care—?”

Angela shook her head.

“Then you must wear them,” Lal said. He came to her and fastened them. Angela looked down at the roses and up at his face; suddenly she threw her arms round his neck.

“I’m a humbug, Lal,” she said. “You always ruled, not I.”

“Do you think so?”

“Yes. And he will. And I’m afraid.”

Lal held her quietly. Presently he said: “I think you’re mistaken, Angel.”

“_Do_ you?” Angela said, looking up with tears on her lashes. “Do you really, Lal?”

“I do. Fane isn’t exactly an ogre, you know.” Lal smiled. “I shall be quite ready to give you away to him.”

“And glad, too, I expect: ungrateful boy that you are!” Angela released herself, and began with unsteady fingers to pull out her crushed curls. “Wait till you’re married yourself, and see how you like it!”

“I see no immediate prospect of that,” said Lal. “And now, does it not occur to you that we might go down to dinner?”

Angela slipped her hand through his arm, and so they descended the stairs. They made a handsome couple, though Lal looked quieter and lazier even than was his wont. On the last step, Angela came to a pause of dismay; she coloured crimson, snatched her hand from Lal’s arm, and fled into the drawing-room. Lal hesitated; he also changed colour; finally, he made a very formal little bow, and followed his sister without speaking. Dolly and Bernard had just been admitted to the hall.

“I guess that chap’s gone cracked!” said Bernard, sotto voce. But Dolly held her peace.

There were present at the dinner only the house party, the Laurensons and Mrs. Prideaux, besides Dr. Maude, whose faint, acidulated cynicism, said Ella Merton, was like a sauce piquante. The voice of justice told Dolly that she must let Lal know he was out of disgrace, but it did not say that she was bound to explain herself; and so, after smiling at him and taking his hand when they met in the drawing-room, she eschewed his society like the very plague. She set herself to behave nicely; she said little, and that little discreetly, and kept under the wing of her hostess. She was amused to see that Angela Laurenson was pursuing the same tactics, except that she had chosen Maud Prideaux for her house of defence.

Dolly went down with Norman Merton, and found herself placed at table between him and Lal. She gave Lal the view of a neck as white as milk, and a rich sweep of chestnut hair glossed with light like the roll of a stream at a weir; and she talked to her host all the evening. Merton was shrewd and pleasant, and had plenty to say. Twice Lal addressed her: to his first speech she gave a brief, cool answer over her shoulder; to the second she gave no answer at all. Lal did not repeat his words, nor did he again try to catch her attention. He turned quietly to his partner; he could afford to be patient because he was resolute.