could fancy myself back there again.  Why?"

Anne laughed.

"Which part of Norway?"

He answered promptly, "Gudvangen"; adding, meaningly, "And that was a
day of sunshine."

"Weather failing, you must be content with a frivolous association," she
said mirthfully; "it is merely that I am wearing the same hat and coat."

"You remembered, then?" he asked, gathering delicious assurance from the
fact.

"I don't think it is _I_ who have shown forgetfulness," said Anne, in a
low voice.  In the same tone he returned--

"Certainly I cannot be accused of it."

It will be seen that matters were proceeding merrily, and unchecked--
rather, one might say, assisted--by the modest presence of Miss Tempest.
She being there, Wareham knew that he could not go to the point which
was as yet forbidden, and, feeling himself safe from that temptation,
had the delight of dallying round it, and venturing more closely than he
yet had dared.  Anne, on her side, saw the advance, and not realising
that it was really favoured by limits, felt herself in the mood to be
swung along, and resolved as to the moment when her companion should
receive a hint to go.  Meanwhile she flung her a crumb or two.

"The rain has grown harmless.  You are not sorry I enticed you out,
Mary?"

"Sorry!  I think it delightful."

It appeared that she was almost as rapturous as Wareham.  Anne told him
of her step-mother's engagement, and found that he had guessed
something.  He asked whether it affected her unpleasantly.

"Oh no, I am glad.  We have never pulled together."  She stopped
abruptly.  "Pray where are we going?"

"Yesterday morning I came this way, and seeing a delightful path through
a wood," said Wareham eagerly, "I set my heart upon showing it to you."

"Well--" She walked on, holding her umbrella lightly poised, really
wondering whether Mary Tempest could be trusted to carry out her
directions naturally.  "We escaped from Mrs Martyn when we came out,"
she said, laughingly.  "I suspect they are all finding it rather dull,
shut up in the house.  What is your mother doing, Mary?"

"She was writing to father."  The girl came to a sudden stop.  "Oh!"

"What is the matter?"

"Horace!  Horace must be written to, and I have not done it!"

"The post goes out so early here, still--surely you will have time for a
not very long letter?"

"Oh, but this is to India, this must be a long letter.  Dear Miss
Dalrymple, I am so sorry, but I am afraid I must go back!"

"Yes, I see.  Well, we will all turn."

"No, no, I should never forgive myself; please go on, please don't think
of it!  See, it is nothing for me to go so far by myself."

"You are sure?"

"Certain."

"Well, what do you say, Mr Wareham?  Will you put up with but one
companion?  I confess your wood attracts me."

He exclaimed--

"Don't let us miss it," and then felt a grip of terror at his heart.  He
had been content to go to the brink of a precipice and lean over,
trusting to a barrier; here was the barrier withdrawn, and he left,
dizzily attracted by his danger, and already making a step nearer.  It
seemed, indeed, as if he were two men, the one pushing, urging towards
it, with taunt of cowardice, the other stiffening into resistance, and
stammering--"Unless Miss Tempest would like us to return with her?"

Anne glanced at him.  This second thought did not please her, though she
knew enough to be assured that there would be no hesitation with Mary,
who hurried shy protestations and fled.  The others walked on.  Anne was
sensitive, and marked a change in Wareham's manner; he talked of books
and impersonal matters, she listened unheedingly, occupied in reflecting
why, with Mary's presence withdrawn, he ceased to be expansive.  "He is
afraid," she said to herself, and set womanly wits to find out the why.
It was possible that he believed her to intend to accept Lord
Milborough.  Some remarks on the beauty of the park set her inveighing
against overgrown places.

"I can understand Alexander's sigh for worlds to conquer," she said,
"but not the joy of possession.  Persons may be found, I suppose, who
look at Lord Milborough with veneration because he is lord of half a
county.  That is inconceivable to me."

"You are not ambitious of power?"

"Of power, yes.  What woman is not?  But brains before acres, and the
owners of acres are apt to cultivate them and let their brains lie
fallow."

Wareham was indifferent to his rival.  He said--

"I dare say you are right.  Lord Milborough does not seem to me to be
wanting in brains, but rather in finding occasions to use them.
Politics--a national crisis--might develop them."

Anne shrugged her shoulders.  "He is wearisome.  Is this the wood?"

She expected Wareham to take advantage of her depreciation of their
host.  He merely answered the question.

"This is it, with such a broad path that I hope you will not get wet."

"Oh, the rain has stopped," said Anne, and shut her umbrella
impatiently.

"I see water.  Some one spoke of a lake, beautiful with rhododendrons in
spring, and a house by its side, where Lady Fanny and her friend Miss
Ravenhill spent a month together last year."

"That sounds very romantic.  I wonder what they talked of all the time."

"I heard they were very happy," said Wareham.

His voice was under control.  Anne, walking a little in advance, did not
know that his eyes, fastened on her, gathered torturing bliss from
watching her swift graceful movements.  She pictured him for a moment
thinking of Millie, then conviction rushed over her again and checked
her steps.

As they reached the lake rain once more fell heavily, honeycombing the
glassy water with an infinite number of tiny depressions.  The lake was
bordered with slopes of grass, and with magnificent clumps of
rhododendrons and kalmias.  Sweeping down in noble curves, they formed
an island, and sent deep purple and green shadows into the water.  On
the left, and close to the water, stood a long low house.

"Let us wait there until the storm has passed.  It is only a storm,"
urged Wareham.

Anne hesitated.  But they were as secure from interruption there as
anywhere else, and her umbrella hampered her.  They went, and were made
instantly welcome.  The house was kept always in order in case visitors
came from the big house, and a pleasant room received them--pleasant
now, it had to be owned, rather by right of a blazing fire and
comfortable chairs than from the situation which gave its charm in finer
weather.  Wareham, accustomed to take note of all around him, observed
so much; Anne, absorbed, thought only that fate had brought them to the
best possible place for her purpose.  He pulled a chair near the fire.

"Sit here, and get dry.  That last downpour was wetting."

She motioned to another opposite.  "You there, then."

"Thanks."  He walked restlessly to the window.  "I do not think it will
last."

"What does it matter?  As well here as anywhere else.  But man is a
discontented being, always desirous of being where he is not."

The reproach brought him back smiling to the chair she indicated.  But
something in his attitude laid him open to her next remark.

"You have the air of an unwilling victim.  What is the matter with you?"

"It must be sheer inability to look as I feel.  Do you think this can be
anything but delightful?"

"Confess that you have not tried to give the impression.  Or, no,
confess nothing, let bygones be bygones, and let us pick up our
friendship where you let it abruptly drop in Norway.  Where were we
then?"

She spoke jestingly, but his heart thrilled at the under-meaning her
words indicated.

"To remember would be to go back," he muttered.

Her face changed.

"And you would not?" she said amazedly.

He burst out--

"Who would, when hope lies in front?  To exchange hope for remembrance!"

Anne's dark eyes smiled contentment.

"No, you are right," she said.  "We are all fools in our idle talk about
the past; wreathing it with flowers which never grew, and turning it
into a fetish.  It is pathetic, after all," she added musingly.  "And I
don't think that the future holds me as it does you.  Perhaps I am too
unimaginative--"

"With your sympathy?  Never!"

"But I believe I find more satisfaction in the present."

The words were spoken gravely, with a quiet which pleaded against any
accusation of coquetry, had such an accusation crossed his mind.  But he
would have flung it from him as an infamy.  Was ever man so tried!

The hour was there, and the woman; he, close to her, heart leaping to
meet her heart, and no word permissible, possible!  The trial was, as he
had dreaded, almost beyond his strength.  To have to answer her with
cold words.  And what woman would not resent such an answer!  He dared
not even look, since the look he must have given, wanting words, would
be an insult.  He sat mute, downcast.

Anne waited, expectant.

When no answer came her breath quickened.  Her glance flew to Wareham,
and she beheld only a wretched drooping head.  Had she so utterly
deceived herself that the passion she had imagined was but a sham, a
mockery?  Here, when no obstacle stood between, were they parted by his
own want of will?  She had felt that with him by her side, urging,
sweeping her along, she might have yielded and turned her back upon her
world's prize, but--a reluctant lover!

Pride stormed, yet something softer held it back.  She looked intently
at him, trying to pierce to the truth.  That he was moved she saw.  He
could not be indifferent.  What withheld him?  She sent out another
feeler.

"Mr Wareham, you look as if what I said had displeased you.  What is
there at fault?  One must know one's sins to mend them."

He said in a voice strained because it tugged for freedom--

"Still more, one must know them to tell them."

"You are sitting there, and not accusing me of something?"

"I am heaping dust on my own head for a fool," he groaned.  "Give me
time, and you shall know."

She leaned back and stared at the fire, conscious of a thrill, but not
the thrill she expected.  Wareham's words hinting at a wall between them
raised immediate discontent, for obstacles should be cleared when she
was wooed.  And she had set herself this day as the limit of the time
accorded him, believing it possible that she might yield to impetuosity.
To this sluggish demand--never!  It was not for this that she could
give up what she felt it was heroic to reject.  She was colder now than
five minutes ago.

Wareham, not yet enlightened, and imagining himself to have told only
too much, leaned half across the table which was between them.

"Will you wait?" he breathed.  The words, "Only a few days," almost
choked him.

Anne's "I cannot," was inexorable, stunning.  She rose up directly and
went to the window, expecting to have raised a tempest, and for a moment
again, perhaps irresolute.  He stood, but did not follow her, and she
felt angrily indignant that her power was not equal to breaking the
silence.  To hide the humiliation, she said lightly--

"Let us go before another storm begins."

Had she looked at him, pity might have stirred, but she went out of the
room without turning her head.

Wareham followed.

She began to feel the position ludicrous.  A walk of a mile with a man
whom her impatience was ready to imagine had rejected her by his
obstinate silence, was so hateful in anticipation that she would have
been ready to bless Mary Tempest if she had brought a whole posse of
spies upon them.  Moreover, she foresaw that the weight of conversation
would fall upon her, the woman, and therefore expected to keep
conventionality in the front.  Wet rhododendrons and dripping
beech-trees suggested nothing beyond a passing remark, inane as it was
safe.  The dullness of Mary Tempest's home-life lasted longer, in the
midst of it she fancied a desperate "Anne!" was breathed in her ear, and
quickened her steps.  Her coldness now had reached the pitch of a shiver
at her own foolishness; above all, she wished to avoid the promise of an
explanation.  Luckily for her, the heavy drops falling from the trees
allowed her the shelter of an umbrella; she kept it at her ears, and
shot flying remarks from underneath, careful to avoid any which took the
form of questions.  Her endeavours did not prevent an angry
acknowledgment that if he had anything he burned to say, he would have
said it.

They were near the end of the wood, and her heart sank at thought of the
long stretch which still lay between it and the house, when, to her joy,
she heard voices.  The gate was reached simultaneously, she and Wareham
on one side, the other Colonel and Mrs Martyn with Lord Milborough.

"Are you surprised to see us?" asked Mrs Martyn, serenely smiling at
the situation, which she believed to be disconcerting to more than one.
"I was at my window when you crossed the park, and as Lord Milborough
and Tom came back long before they were expected, we all started forth
in pursuit.  Have you been far?"

The question was put to Wareham, and he answered it by saying that they
had taken refuge from the rain in a house by the lake.

"Where we admired your provident hospitality," Anne added, with a smile
to Lord Milborough.  "To be met by a cheery fire where one expected bare
shelter, was such a delicious surprise, that I feel as if we ought to go
back and do the honours to the owner."

"Oh, no, no," objected Mrs Martyn.  "It is growing dark, and tea will
be ready by this time."

Colonel Martyn announced that he should give himself a stretch, as he
wanted exercise.

"You won't come, I suppose?" he said to Lord Milborough, who excused
himself.

Mrs Martyn went on with Wareham, from whom she hoped to find out
something; the other two followed, Lord Milborough's face clearing like
magic.

"Stop, and let those people go ahead," he said.

"Shall we hurt them?"  Anne asked demurely.

After the humiliation of the past hour, it was balm to feel herself
again.  Never had she liked her companion so well.

"_I'm_ in the humour to do any one a harm who comes in my way," he
muttered.  "Anne!"

She lifted her eyebrows.

"Isn't she a new person?"

"Look here," he said, disregarding, "I got a hint that if I bothered you
to-day my chance was up.  I've tried, 'pon my soul I've tried, to keep
off, and I can't.  When I'd driven Martyn a few miles, I had to make an
excuse and turn back again, and here I am by your side, and--"

He tried to possess himself of her hand, but she drew it away.  Not so,
however, as to show displeasure.  The very audacity of ignoring her
commands pleased her, since she flattered herself he found the task
impossible, and contrasting the two, she scourged Wareham in her
thoughts.

"Anne, will you marry me?"

"What were you told?"

"That you were to be left in peace.  I vowed I would.  But when I heard
that you were with that fellow Wareham--"

"You broke your vow?"

"Like a shot--."

He was in earnest, she had never seen him so much in earnest.  Some good
elf had surely whispered in his ear what she craved for at that moment--
perhaps always--a forceful impetuosity of wooing, which should snatch
decision from her.  Her hand was in his again, and not withdrawn.  She
begged him to have some thought of eyes from the house.

"Say yes, or I'll not answer for myself."

He was told to give her five minutes for consideration, and at the end
of two was vowing that they were more than past, and pressing for his
answer.  To punish him, she lengthened the time, declaring that he
should hear nothing until they had reached a certain tree near the
house, and thus kept him fuming, at one moment uttering sincere vows, at
the next denouncing her cruelty.  Anne was in the mood to like
inconsistency.

"Now!" he exclaimed, when they were a hundred feet away.

"Do you call that reached?"

"If the sun were out, you'd be in its shadow.  Give me my word.  Just
yes, Anne--yes!  Such a small one!"

"No, is smaller."  Then she repented and looked at him.  "Yes, then."

"You are mine!"

"If you can keep me."

Wareham walked back with Mrs Martyn, for the first time in his life
grateful to her satisfaction with her own babble.  At intervals she
tried to catch him with an astute question; indifference protected him,
for his heart felt like nothing so much as an empty husk, and at this
moment there was nothing to show or conceal.  It was all over, for
Anne's manner had conveyed to him that he would never be forgiven.  In
place of sweet Love he hugged Honour, a prickly substitute!  Yet he
breathed thankfully.

Of Lord Milborough he was not thinking, Mrs Martyn's hints not even
reaching his ears.  Half-an-hour ago Anne, he believed, would have been
his, could he have claimed her, and to imagine that she was already won
by another, would have been to degrade womanhood.  He went mechanically
with his companion into the house; all the women and some of the men
were in the hall, where a big fire blazed cheerfully, and tea stood on a
table where Lady Fanny chatted.  Mary Tempest looked wistfully at
Wareham.

"Where is Anne?" murmured Lady Dalrymple languidly.

"Behind us."

And at this moment she came in and stood a central point for the
fire-light.  As she drew off her gloves, her eyes, softly brilliant,
wandered round the group, and passed Wareham unconcernedly; her beauty
had the effect of eclipsing all the other women.  Mrs Martyn touched
Wareham's arm.

"Look at Lord Milborough's face."

He looked, uncomprehending.

"Oh, men, men," said Mrs Martyn impatiently.  "Of course it is
settled."

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

A NOTE OF INTERROGATION INSTEAD OF A FULL-STOP.

The Milborough marriage was the event of the winter.  It was generally
conceded that Miss Dalrymple was rewarded for those contrarieties in
former love affairs which the world now forgave, but kept stored up for
future use--or chastisement.  Meanwhile it was at her feet as the most
beautiful of brides, and the splendour of her lot made Lady Fanny's
choice the more amazing.  Lord Milborough's consent flew out readily
enough when he was in the rush of his own triumph, and might have found
wife and sister difficult to harmonise.  Since his marriage, and since
he finds Lady Fanny quite content to pass her days with her aunt, Mrs
Harcourt, or the Ravenhills, he is disposed to grumble at her engagement
to a curate.  Anne takes her part.

"If she knows her own mind, for pity's sake let her go after it," she
said once.

As to that wedding, one may prophesy.

But as to other possibilities, on which the last chapter is expected to
pronounce, I can only express ignorance.  All that this story professes
to do is to take a few months out of the lives of certain men and women,
and, very imperfectly, show what the months did for them.  Now comes the
future, as to which I know no more than you do.  What do you think?
Will Wareham, as the past recedes, read in it confirmation of Anne's
verdict on herself--a heartless woman?  If he does, will it affect his
own heart?  This is certain, that the first effect on him of hearing of
her engagement was stupefaction.  And Anne contrived, perhaps in good
faith, to let him feel that she considered him to have behaved very ill.
Possibly--but guesses are like the rootless flowers with which children
deck their gardens, by to-morrow they may be worthless; and I am sorry,
for I should like to group them as I want my flowers to grow, and Millie
Ravenhill would make any garden fair.

What Wareham thinks he will do is to fling himself heart and mind into
his profession.  Certain, rash man, that he now knows a great deal about
women, his new book deals chiefly with their characteristics.  Cynicism
is unwholesome in the body, and one may pardon its victim for spitting
it out; since, thus got rid of, it often leaves the patient open to
sweeter influences.  One thing is certain, that whether his love for
Anne is dead or not, his respect is gone, and that when he read the
account of the great wedding in the _Morning Post_, he broke into
laughter to think how clever a fooling hers had been.

A week ago, Colonel Martyn overtook him in Piccadilly.

"I've just left Blanche in Grosvenor Square--Lady Milborough's, you
know.  By Jove, that young woman has done well for herself!"

"She was made for her position," Wareham remarked.

"She climbed for it, you should rather say.  She was a rare flirt."

"Stop," said Wareham suddenly.  He was not the man to belittle the woman
he had once loved.

The End.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Swing of the Pendulum, by Frances Peard


"It's an awful position," she said soberly. "The announcement will
be in the Morning Post the day after tomorrow. And then the letters
of congratulation will begin to pour in. And after that the
presents. And I simply can't see how we can convince them all that
there has been a mistake." Another aspect of the matter struck her.
"It's so hard on you, too."

"Don't think about me," urged George. "Heaven knows I'd give the
whole world if we could just let the thing go on, but there's no
use discussing impossibilities." He lowered his voice.  "There's no
use, either, in my pretending that I'm not going to have a pretty
bad time. But we won't discuss that. It was my own fault. I came
butting in on your life of my own free will, and, whatever happens,
it's been worth it to have known you and tried to be of service to
you."

"You're the best friend I've ever had."

"I'm glad you think that."

"The best and kindest friend any girl ever had. I wish . . ."
She broke off. "Oh, well. . ."

There was a silence. In the castle somebody had begun to play the
piano. Then a man's voice began to sing.

"That's Edwin Plummer," said Maud. "How badly he sings."

George laughed. Somehow the intrusion of Plummer had removed the
tension. Plummer, whether designedly and as a sombre commentary on
the situation or because he was the sort of man who does sing that
particular song, was chanting Tosti's "Good-bye". He was giving to
its never very cheery notes a wailing melancholy all his own. A dog
in the stables began to howl in sympathy, and with the sound came a
curious soothing of George's nerves. He might feel broken-hearted
later, but for the moment, with this double accompaniment, it was
impossible for a man with humour in his soul to dwell on the deeper
emotions. Plummer and his canine duettist had brought him to
earth. He felt calm and practical.

"We'd better talk the whole thing over quietly," he said.  "There's
certain to be some solution. At the worst you can always go to Lord
Marshmoreton and tell him that he spoke without a sufficient grasp
of his subject."

"I could," said Maud, "but, just at present, I feel as if I'd
rather do anything else in the world. You don't realize what it
must have cost father to defy Aunt Caroline openly like that. Ever
since I was old enough to notice anything, I've seen how she
dominated him. It was Aunt Caroline who really caused all this
trouble. If it had only been father, I could have coaxed him to let
me marry anyone I pleased. I wish, if you possibly can, you would
think of some other solution."

"I haven't had an opportunity of telling you," said George, "that I
called at Belgrave Square, as you asked me to do. I went there
directly I had seen Reggie Byng safely married."

"Did you see him married?"

"I was best man."

"Dear old Reggie! I hope he will be happy."

"He will. Don't worry about that. Well, as I was saying, I called
at Belgrave Square, and found the house shut up. I couldn't get any
answer to the bell, though I kept my thumb on it for minutes at a
time. I think they must have gone abroad again."

"No, it wasn't that. I had a letter from Geoffrey this morning. His
uncle died of apoplexy, while they were in Manchester on a business
trip." She paused. "He left Geoffrey all his money," she went on.
"Every penny."

The silence seemed to stretch out interminably. The music from the
castle had ceased. The quiet of the summer night was unbroken. To
George the stillness had a touch of the sinister. It was the
ghastly silence of the end of the world. With a shock he realized
that even now he had been permitting himself to hope, futile as he
recognized the hope to be. Maud had told him she loved another man.
That should have been final. And yet somehow his indomitable
sub-conscious self had refused to accept it as final. But this news
ended everything. The only obstacle that had held Maud and this man
apart was removed. There was nothing to prevent them marrying.
George was conscious of a vast depression. The last strand of the
rope had parted, and he was drifting alone out into the ocean of
desolation.

"Oh!" he said, and was surprised that his voice sounded very much
the same as usual. Speech was so difficult that it seemed strange
that it should show no signs of effort. "That alters everything,
doesn't it."

"He said in his letter that he wanted me to meet him in London
and--talk things over, I suppose."

"There's nothing now to prevent your going. I mean, now that your
father has made this announcement, you are free to go where you
please."

"Yes, I suppose I am."

There was another silence.

"Everything's so difficult," said Maud.

"In what way?"

"Oh, I don't know."

"If you are thinking of me," said George, "please don't. I know
exactly what you mean. You are hating the thought of hurting my
feelings. I wish you would look on me as having no feelings. All I
want is to see you happy. As I said just now, it's enough for me to
know that I've helped you. Do be reasonable about it. The fact that
our engagement has been officially announced makes no difference in
our relations to each other. As far as we two are concerned, we
are exactly where we were the last time we met. It's no worse for
me now than it was then to know that I'm not the man you love, and
that there's somebody else you loved before you ever knew of my
existence. For goodness' sake, a girl like you must be used to
having men tell her that they love her and having to tell them that
she can't love them in return."

"But you're so different."

"Not a bit of it. I'm just one of the crowd."

"I've never known anybody quite like you."

"Well, you've never known anybody quite like Plummer, I should
imagine. But the thought of his sufferings didn't break your
heart."

"I've known a million men exactly like Edwin Plummer," said Maud
emphatically. "All the men I ever have known have been like
him--quite nice and pleasant and negative. It never seemed to
matter refusing them. One knew that they would be just a little bit
piqued for a week or two and then wander off and fall in love with
somebody else. But you're different. You . . . matter."

"That is where we disagree. My argument is that, where your
happiness is concerned, I don't matter."

Maud rested her chin on her hand, and stared out into the velvet
darkness.

"You ought to have been my brother instead of Percy," she said at
last. "What chums we should have been! And how simple that would
have made everything!"

"The best thing for you to do is to regard me as an honorary
brother. That will make everything simple."

"It's easy to talk like that . . . No, it isn't. It's horribly
hard. I know exactly how difficult it is for you to talk as you
have been doing--to try to make me feel better by pretending the
whole trouble is just a trifle . . . It's strange . . . We have
only met really for a few minutes at a time, and three weeks ago I
didn't know there was such a person as you, but somehow I seem to
know everything you're thinking. I've never felt like that before
with any man . . . Even Geoffrey. . . He always puzzled me. . . ."

She broke off. The corncrake began to call again out in the
distance.

"I wish I knew what to do," she said with a catch in her voice.

"I'll tell you in two words what to do. The whole thing is absurdly
simple. You love this man and he loves you, and all that kept you
apart before was the fact that he could not afford to marry you.
Now that he is rich, there is no obstacle at all. I simply won't
let you look on me and my feelings as an obstacle. Rule me out
altogether. Your father's mistake has made the situation a little
more complicated than it need have been, but that can easily be
remedied. Imitate the excellent example of Reggie Byng. He was in a
position where it would have been embarrassing to announce what he
intended to do, so he very sensibly went quietly off and did it and
left everybody to find out after it was done. I'm bound to say I
never looked on Reggie as a master mind, but, when it came to find
a way out of embarrassing situations, one has to admit he had the
right idea. Do what he did!"

Maud started. She half rose from the stone seat. George could hear
the quick intake of her breath.

"You mean--run away?"

"Exactly. Run away!"

An automobile swung round the corner of the castle from the
direction of the garage, and drew up, purring, at the steps. There
was a flood of light and the sound of voices, as the great door
opened. Maud rose.

"People are leaving," she said. "I didn't know it was so late." She
stood irresolutely. "I suppose I ought to go in and say good-bye.
But I don't think I can."

"Stay where you are. Nobody will see you."

More automobiles arrived. The quiet of the night was shattered by
the noise of their engines. Maud sat down again.

"I suppose they will think it very odd of me not being there."

"Never mind what people think. Reggie Byng didn't."

Maud's foot traced circles on the dry turf.

"What a lovely night," she said. "There's no dew at all."

The automobiles snorted, tooted, back-fired, and passed away.
Their clamour died in the distance, leaving the night a thing of
peace and magic once more. The door of the castle closed with a
bang.

"I suppose I ought to be going in now," said Maud.

"I suppose so. And I ought to be there, too, politely making my
farewells. But something seems to tell me that Lady Caroline and
your brother will be quite ready to dispense with the formalities.
I shall go home."

They faced each other in the darkness.

"Would you really do that?" asked Maud. "Run away, I
mean, and get married in London."

"It's the only thing to do."

"But . . . can one get married as quickly as that?"

"At a registrar's? Nothing simpler. You should have seen
Reggie Byng's wedding. It was over before one realized it had
started. A snuffy little man in a black coat with a cold in his
head asked a few questions, wrote a few words, and the thing was
done."

"That sounds rather . . . dreadful."

"Reggie didn't seem to think so."

"Unromantic, I mean. . . . Prosaic."

"You would supply the romance."

"Of course, one ought to be sensible. It is just the same as a
regular wedding."

"In effects, absolutely."

They moved up the terrace together. On the gravel drive by the
steps they paused.

"I'll do it!" said Maud.

George had to make an effort before he could reply. For all his
sane and convincing arguments, he could not check a pang at this
definite acceptance of them. He had begun to appreciate now the
strain under which he had been speaking.

"You must," he said. "Well . . . good-bye."

There was light on the drive. He could see her face. Her eyes were
troubled.

"What will you do?" she asked.

"Do?"

"I mean, are you going to stay on in your cottage?"

"No, I hardly think I could do that. I shall go back to London
tomorrow, and stay at the Carlton for a few days. Then I shall sail
for America. There are a couple of pieces I've got to do for the
Fall. I ought to be starting on them."

Maud looked away.

"You've got your work," she said almost inaudibly.

George understood her.

"Yes, I've got my work."

"I'm glad."

She held out her hand.

"You've been very wonderful... Right from the beginning . . .
You've been . . . oh, what's the use of me saying anything?"

"I've had my reward. I've known you. We're friends, aren't we?"

"My best friend."

"Pals?"

"Pals!"

They shook hands.

CHAPTER 25.

"I was never so upset in my life!" said Lady Caroline.

She had been saying the same thing and many other things for the
past five minutes. Until the departure of the last guest she had
kept an icy command of herself and shown an unruffled front to the
world. She had even contrived to smile. But now, with the final
automobile whirring homewards, she had thrown off the mask. The
very furniture of Lord Marshmoreton's study seemed to shrink, seared
by the flame of her wrath. As for Lord Marshmoreton himself, he
looked quite shrivelled.

It had not been an easy matter to bring her erring brother to bay.
The hunt had been in progress full ten minutes before she and Lord
Belpher finally cornered the poor wretch. His plea, through the
keyhole of the locked door, that he was working on the family
history and could not be disturbed, was ignored; and now he was
face to face with the avengers.

"I cannot understand it," continued Lady Caroline. "You know that
for months we have all been straining every nerve to break off this
horrible entanglement, and, just as we had begun to hope that
something might be done, you announce the engagement in the most
public manner. I think you must be out of your mind. I can hardly
believe even now that this appalling thing has happened. I am
hoping that I shall wake up and find it is all a nightmare. How you
can have done such a thing, I cannot understand."

"Quite!" said Lord Belpher.

If Lady Caroline was upset, there are no words in the language that
will adequately describe the emotions of Percy.

From the very start of this lamentable episode in high life, Percy
had been in the forefront of the battle. It was Percy who had had
his best hat smitten from his head in the full view of all
Piccadilly. It was Percy who had suffered arrest and imprisonment
in the cause. It was Percy who had been crippled for days owing to
his zeal in tracking Maud across country. And now all his
sufferings were in vain. He had been betrayed by his own father.

There was, so the historians of the Middle West tell us, a man of
Chicago named Young, who once, when his nerves were unstrung, put
his mother (unseen) in the chopping-machine, and canned her and
labelled her "Tongue". It is enough to say that the glance of
disapproval which Percy cast upon his father at this juncture would
have been unduly severe if cast by the Young offspring upon their
parent at the moment of confession.

Lord Marshmoreton had rallied from his initial panic. The spirit of
revolt began to burn again in his bosom. Once the die is cast for
revolution, there can be no looking back. One must defy, not
apologize. Perhaps the inherited tendencies of a line of ancestors
who, whatever their shortcomings, had at least known how to treat
their women folk, came to his aid. Possibly there stood by his side
in this crisis ghosts of dead and buried Marshmoretons, whispering
spectral encouragement in his ear--the ghosts, let us suppose, of
that earl who, in the days of the seventh Henry, had stabbed his
wife with a dagger to cure her tendency to lecture him at night; or
of that other earl who, at a previous date in the annals of the
family, had caused two aunts and a sister to be poisoned apparently
from a mere whim. At any rate, Lord Marshmoreton produced from
some source sufficient courage to talk back.

"Silly nonsense!" he grunted. "Don't see what you're making all
this fuss about. Maud loves the fellow. I like the fellow.
Perfectly decent fellow. Nothing to make a fuss about. Why
shouldn't I announce the engagement?"

"You must be mad!" cried Lady Caroline. "Your only daughter and a
man nobody knows anything about!"

"Quite!" said Percy.

Lord Marshmoreton seized his advantage with the skill of an adroit
debater.

"That's where you're wrong. I know all about him. He's a very rich
man. You heard the way all those people at dinner behaved when they
heard his name. Very celebrated man!  Makes thousands of pounds a
year. Perfectly suitable match in every way."

"It is not a suitable match," said Lady Caroline vehemently.  "I
don't care whether this Mr. Bevan makes thousands of pounds a year
or twopence-ha'penny. The match is not suitable. Money is not
everything."

She broke off. A knock had come on the door. The door opened, and
Billie Dore came in. A kind-hearted girl, she had foreseen that
Lord Marshmoreton might be glad of a change of subject at about
this time.

"Would you like me to help you tonight?" she asked brightly.  "I
thought I would ask if there was anything you wanted me to do."

Lady Caroline snatched hurriedly at her aristocratic calm. She
resented the interruption acutely, but her manner, when she spoke,
was bland.

"Lord Marshmoreton will not require your help tonight," she said.
"He will not be working."

"Good night," said Billie.

"Good night," said Lady Caroline.

Percy scowled a valediction.

"Money," resumed Lady Caroline, "is immaterial. Maud is in no
position to be obliged to marry a rich man. What makes the thing
impossible is that Mr. Bevan is nobody. He comes from nowhere. He
has no social standing whatsoever."

"Don't see it," said Lord Marshmoreton. "The fellow's a thoroughly
decent fellow. That's all that matters."

"How can you be so pig-headed! You are talking like an imbecile.
Your secretary, Miss Dore, is a nice girl. But how would you feel
if Percy were to come to you and say that he was engaged to be
married to her?"

"Exactly!" said Percy. "Quite!"

Lord Marshmoreton rose and moved to the door. He did it with a
certain dignity, but there was a strange hunted expression in his
eyes.

"That would be impossible," he said.

"Precisely," said his sister. "I am glad that you admit it."

Lord Marshmoreton had reached the door, and was standing holding
the handle. He seemed to gather strength from its support.

"I've been meaning to tell you about that," he said.

"About what?"

"About Miss Dore. I married her myself last Wednesday," said Lord
Marshmoreton, and disappeared like a diving duck.

CHAPTER 26.

At a quarter past four in the afternoon, two days after the
memorable dinner-party at which Lord Marshmoreton had behaved with
so notable a lack of judgment, Maud sat in Ye Cosy Nooke, waiting
for Geoffrey Raymond. He had said in his telegram that he would
meet her there at four-thirty: but eagerness had brought Maud to the
tryst a quarter of an hour ahead of time: and already the sadness
of her surroundings was causing her to regret this impulsiveness.
Depression had settled upon her spirit. She was aware of something
that resembled foreboding.

Ye Cosy Nooke, as its name will immediately suggest to those who
know their London, is a tea-shop in Bond Street, conducted by
distressed gentlewomen. In London, when a gentlewoman becomes
distressed--which she seems to do on the slightest provocation--she
collects about her two or three other distressed gentlewomen,
forming a quorum, and starts a tea-shop in the West-End, which she
calls Ye Oak Leaf, Ye Olde Willow-Pattern, Ye Linden-Tree, or Ye
Snug Harbour, according to personal taste. There, dressed in
Tyrolese, Japanese, Norwegian, or some other exotic costume, she
and her associates administer refreshments of an afternoon with a
proud languor calculated to knock the nonsense out of the cheeriest
customer. Here you will find none of the coarse bustle and
efficiency of the rival establishments of Lyons and Co., nor the
glitter and gaiety of Rumpelmayer's. These places have an
atmosphere of their own. They rely for their effect on an
insufficiency of light, an almost total lack of ventilation, a
property chocolate cake which you are not supposed to cut, and the
sad aloofness of their ministering angels. It is to be doubted
whether there is anything in the world more damping to the spirit
than a London tea-shop of this kind, unless it be another London
tea-shop of the same kind.

Maud sat and waited. Somewhere out of sight a kettle bubbled in an
undertone, like a whispering pessimist. Across the room two
distressed gentlewomen in fancy dress leaned against the wall.
They, too, were whispering. Their expressions suggested that they
looked on life as low and wished they were well out of it, like the
body upstairs. One assumed that there was a body upstairs. One
cannot help it at these places. One's first thought on entering is
that the lady assistant will approach one and ask in a hushed voice
"Tea or chocolate?  And would you care to view the remains?"

Maud looked at her watch. It was twenty past four. She could
scarcely believe that she had only been there five minutes, but the
ticking of the watch assured her that it had not stopped. Her
depression deepened. Why had Geoffrey told her to meet him in a
cavern of gloom like this instead of at the Savoy?  She would have
enjoyed the Savoy. But here she seemed to have lost beyond recovery
the first gay eagerness with which she had set out to meet the man
she loved.

Suddenly she began to feel frightened. Some evil spirit, possibly
the kettle, seemed to whisper to her that she had been foolish in
coming here, to cast doubts on what she had hitherto regarded as
the one rock-solid fact in the world, her love for Geoffrey. Could
she have changed since those days in Wales?  Life had been so
confusing of late. In the vividness of recent happenings those days
in Wales seemed a long way off, and she herself different from the
girl of a year ago. She found herself thinking about George Bevan.

It was a curious fact that, the moment she began to think of George
Bevan, she felt better. It was as if she had lost her way in a
wilderness and had met a friend. There was something so capable, so
soothing about George. And how well he had behaved at that last
interview. George seemed somehow to be part of her life. She could
not imagine a life in which he had no share. And he was at this
moment, probably, packing to return to America, and she would never
see him again. Something stabbed at her heart. It was as if she
were realizing now for the first time that he was really going.

She tried to rid herself of the ache at her heart by thinking of
Wales. She closed her eyes, and found that that helped her to
remember. With her eyes shut, she could bring it all back--that
rainy day, the graceful, supple figure that had come to her out of
the mist, those walks over the hills . . . If only Geoffrey would
come! It was the sight of him that she needed.

"There you are!"

Maud opened her eyes with a start. The voice had sounded like
Geoffrey's. But it was a stranger who stood by the table. And not
a particularly prepossessing stranger. In the dim light of Ye Cosy
Nooke, to which her opening eyes had not yet grown accustomed, all
she could see of the man was that he was remarkably stout. She
stiffened defensively. This was what a girl who sat about in
tea-rooms alone had to expect.

"Hope I'm not late," said the stranger, sitting down and breathing
heavily. "I thought a little exercise would do me good, so I
walked."

Every nerve in Maud's body seemed to come to life simultaneously.
She tingled from head to foot. It was Geoffrey!

He was looking over his shoulder and endeavouring by snapping his
fingers to attract the attention of the nearest distressed
gentlewoman; and this gave Maud time to recover from the frightful
shock she had received. Her dizziness left her; and, leaving, was
succeeded by a panic dismay. This couldn't be Geoffrey! It was
outrageous that it should be Geoffrey! And yet it undeniably was
Geoffrey. For a year she had prayed that Geoffrey might be given
back to her, and the gods had heard her prayer. They had given her
back Geoffrey, and with a careless generosity they had given her
twice as much of him as she had expected. She had asked for the
slim Apollo whom she had loved in Wales, and this colossal
changeling had arrived in his stead.

We all of us have our prejudices. Maud had a prejudice against fat
men. It may have been the spectacle of her brother Percy, bulging
more and more every year she had known him, that had caused this
kink in her character. At any rate, it existed, and she gazed in
sickened silence at Geoffrey. He had turned again now, and she was
enabled to get a full and complete view of him. He was not merely
stout. He was gross. The slim figure which had haunted her for a
year had spread into a sea of waistcoat. The keen lines of his face
had disappeared altogether. His cheeks were pink jellies.

One of the distressed gentlewomen had approached with a
slow disdain, and was standing by the table, brooding on the
corpse upstairs. It seemed a shame to bother her.

"Tea or chocolate?" she inquired proudly.

"Tea, please," said Maud, finding her voice.

"One tea," sighed the mourner.

"Chocolate for me," said Geoffrey briskly, with the air of one
discoursing on a congenial topic. "I'd like plenty of whipped
cream. And please see that it's hot."

"One chocolate."

Geoffrey pondered. This was no light matter that occupied him.

"And bring some fancy cakes--I like the ones with icing on
them--and some tea-cake and buttered toast. Please see there's
plenty of butter on it."

Maud shivered. This man before her was a man in whose lexicon there
should have been no such word as butter, a man who should have
called for the police had some enemy endeavoured to thrust butter
upon him.

"Well," said Geoffrey leaning forward, as the haughty ministrant
drifted away, "you haven't changed a bit. To look at, I mean."

"No?" said Maud.

"You're just the same. I think I"--he squinted down at his
waistcoat--"have put on a little weight. I don't know if you notice
it?"

Maud shivered again. He thought he had put on a little weight, and
didn't know if she had noticed it! She was oppressed by the eternal
melancholy miracle of the fat man who does not realize that he has
become fat.

"It was living on the yacht that put me a little out of condition,"
said Geoffrey. "I was on the yacht nearly all the time since I saw
you last. The old boy had a Japanese cook and lived pretty high. It
was apoplexy that got him. We had a great time touring about. We
were on the Mediterranean all last winter, mostly at Nice."

"I should like to go to Nice," said Maud, for something to say. She
was feeling that it was not only externally that Geoffrey had
changed. Or had he in reality always been like this, commonplace
and prosaic, and was it merely in her imagination that he had been
wonderful?

"If you ever go," said Geoffrey, earnestly, "don't fail to lunch at
the Hotel Côte d'Azur. They give you the most amazing selection of
hors d'oeuvres you ever saw. Crayfish as big as baby lobsters! And
there's a fish--I've forgotten it's name, it'll come back to
me--that's just like the Florida pompano. Be careful to have it
broiled, not fried. Otherwise you lose the flavour. Tell the
waiter you must have it broiled, with melted butter and a little
parsley and some plain boiled potatoes. It's really astonishing.
It's best to stick to fish on the Continent. People can say what
they like, but I maintain that the French don't really understand
steaks or any sort of red meat. The veal isn't bad, though I prefer
our way of serving it. Of course, what the French are real geniuses
at is the omelet. I remember, when we put in at Toulon for coal, I
went ashore for a stroll, and had the most delicious omelet with
chicken livers beautifully cooked, at quite a small, unpretentious
place near the harbour. I shall always remember it."

The mourner returned, bearing a laden tray, from which she removed
the funeral bakemeats and placed them limply on the table. Geoffrey
shook his head, annoyed.

"I particularly asked for plenty of butter on my toast!" he said.
"I hate buttered toast if there isn't lots of butter. It isn't
worth eating. Get me a couple of pats, will you, and I'll spread it
myself. Do hurry, please, before the toast gets cold. It's no good
if the toast gets cold. They don't understand tea as a meal at
these places," he said to Maud, as the mourner withdrew.  "You have
to go to the country to appreciate the real thing. I remember we
lay off Lyme Regis down Devonshire way, for a few days, and I went
and had tea at a farmhouse there. It was quite amazing! Thick
Devonshire cream and home-made jam and cakes of every kind. This
sort of thing here is just a farce. I do wish that woman would
make haste with that butter. It'll be too late in a minute."

Maud sipped her tea in silence. Her heart was like lead within her.
The recurrence of the butter theme as a sort of _leit motif_ in her
companion's conversation was fraying her nerves till she felt she
could endure little more. She cast her mind's eye back over the
horrid months and had a horrid vision of Geoffrey steadily
absorbing butter, day after day, week after week--ever becoming
more and more of a human keg. She shuddered.

Indignation at the injustice of Fate in causing her to give her
heart to a man and then changing him into another and quite
different man fought with a cold terror, which grew as she realized
more and more clearly the magnitude of the mistake she had made.
She felt that she must escape. And yet how could she escape? She
had definitely pledged herself to this man.  ("Ah!" cried Geoffrey
gaily, as the pats of butter arrived.  "That's more like it!" He
began to smear the toast. Maud averted her eyes.) She had told him
that she loved him, that he was the whole world to her, that there
never would be anyone else. He had come to claim her. How could she
refuse him just because he was about thirty pounds overweight?

Geoffrey finished his meal. He took out a cigarette. ("No smoking,
please!" said the distressed gentlewoman.) He put the cigarette
back in its case. There was a new expression in his eyes now, a
tender expression. For the first time since they had met Maud
seemed to catch a far-off glimpse of the man she had loved in
Wales. Butter appeared to have softened Geoffrey.

"So you couldn't wait!" he said with pathos.

Maud did not understand.

"I waited over a quarter of an hour. It was you who were late."

"I don't mean that. I am referring to your engagement. I saw the
announcement in the Morning Post. Well, I hope you will let me
offer you my best wishes. This Mr. George Bevan, whoever he is, is
lucky."

Maud had opened her mouth to explain, to say that it was all a
mistake. She closed it again without speaking.

"So you couldn't wait!" proceeded Geoffrey with gentle regret.
"Well, I suppose I ought not to blame you. You are at an age when
it is easy to forget. I had no right to hope that you would be
proof against a few months' separation. I expected too much. But it
is ironical, isn't it! There was I, thinking always of those days
last summer when we were everything to each other, while you had
forgotten me--Forgotten me!" sighed Geoffrey. He picked a fragment
of cake absently off the tablecloth and inserted it in his mouth.

The unfairness of the attack stung Maud to speech. She looked back
over the months, thought of all she had suffered, and ached with
self-pity.

"I hadn't," she cried.

"You hadn't? But you let this other man, this George Bevan, make
love to you."

"I didn't! That was all a mistake."

"A mistake?"

"Yes. It would take too long to explain, but . . ." She stopped. It
had come to her suddenly, in a flash of clear vision, that the
mistake was one which she had no desire to correct. She felt like
one who, lost in a jungle, comes out after long wandering into the
open air. For days she had been thinking confusedly, unable to
interpret her own emotions: and now everything had abruptly become
clarified. It was as if the sight of Geoffrey had been the key to a
cipher. She loved George Bevan, the man she had sent out of her
life for ever. She knew it now, and the shock of realization made
her feel faint and helpless. And, mingled with the shock of
realization, there came to her the mortification of knowing that
her aunt, Lady Caroline, and her brother, Percy, had been right
after all. What she had mistaken for the love of a lifetime had
been, as they had so often insisted, a mere infatuation, unable to
survive the spectacle of a Geoffrey who had been eating too much
butter and had put on flesh.

Geoffrey swallowed his piece of cake, and bent forward.

"Aren't you engaged to this man Bevan?"

Maud avoided his eye. She was aware that the crisis had arrived,
and that her whole future hung on her next words.

And then Fate came to her rescue. Before she could speak, there was
an interruption.

"Pardon me," said a voice. "One moment!"

So intent had Maud and her companion been on their own affairs that
neither of them observed the entrance of a third party. This was a
young man with mouse-coloured hair and a freckled, badly-shaven
face which seemed undecided whether to be furtive or impudent. He
had small eyes, and his costume was a blend of the flashy and the
shabby. He wore a bowler hat, tilted a little rakishly to one side,
and carried a small bag, which he rested on the table between them.

"Sorry to intrude, miss." He bowed gallantly to Maud, "but I want
to have a few words with Mr. Spenser Gray here."

Maud, looking across at Geoffrey, was surprised to see that his
florid face had lost much of its colour. His mouth was open, and
his eyes had taken a glassy expression.

"I think you have made a mistake," she said coldly. She disliked
the young man at sight. "This is Mr. Raymond."

Geoffrey found speech.

"Of course I'm Mr. Raymond!" he cried angrily. "What do you mean by
coming and annoying us like this?"

The young man was not discomposed. He appeared to be used to being
unpopular. He proceeded as though there had been no interruption.
He produced a dingy card.

"Glance at that," he said. "Messrs. Willoughby and Son, Solicitors.
I'm son. The guv'nor put this little matter into my hands. I've
been looking for you for days, Mr. Gray, to hand you this paper."
He opened the bag like a conjurer performing a trick, and brought
out a stiff document of legal aspect. "You're a witness, miss, that
I've served the papers. You know what this is, of course?" he said
to Geoffrey. "Action for breach of promise of marriage. Our client,
Miss Yvonne Sinclair, of the Regal Theatre, is suing you for ten
thousand pounds. And, if you ask me," said the young man with
genial candour, dropping the professional manner, "I don't mind
telling you, I think it's a walk-over! It's the best little action
for breach we've handled for years." He became professional again.
"Your lawyers will no doubt communicate with us in due course. And,
if you take my advice," he concluded, with another of his swift
changes of manner, "you'll get 'em to settle out of court, for,
between me and you and the lamp-post, you haven't an earthly!"

Geoffrey had started to his feet. He was puffing with outraged
innocence.

"What the devil do you mean by this?" he demanded. "Can't you see
you've made a mistake? My name is not Gray. This lady has told you
that I am Geoffrey Raymond!"

"Makes it all the worse for you," said the young man imperturbably,
"making advances to our client under an assumed name. We've got
letters and witnesses and the whole bag of tricks. And how about
this photo?" He dived into the bag again. "Do you recognize that,
miss?"

Maud looked at the photograph. It was unmistakably Geoffrey. And it
had evidently been taken recently, for it showed the later
Geoffrey, the man of substance. It was a full-length photograph and
across the stout legs was written in a flowing hand the legend, "To
Babe from her little Pootles". Maud gave a shudder and handed it
back to the young man, just as Geoffrey, reaching across the table,
made a grab for it.

"I recognize it," she said.

Mr. Willoughby junior packed the photograph away in his bag, and
turned to go.

"That's all for today, then, I think," he said, affably.

He bowed again in his courtly way, tilted the hat a little more to
the left, and, having greeted one of the distressed gentlewomen who
loitered limply in his path with a polite "If you please, Mabel!"
which drew upon him a freezing stare of which he seemed oblivious,
he passed out, leaving behind him strained silence.

Maud was the first to break it.

"I think I'll be going," she said.

The words seemed to rouse her companion from his stupor.

"Let me explain!"

"There's nothing to explain."

"It was just a . . . it was just a passing . . . It was nothing
. . . nothing."

"Pootles!" murmured Maud.

Geoffrey followed her as she moved to the door.

"Be reasonable!" pleaded Geoffrey. "Men aren't saints!
It was nothing! . . . Are you going to end . . . everything
. . . just because I lost my head?"

Maud looked at him with a smile. She was conscious of an
overwhelming relief. The dim interior of Ye Cosy Nooke no longer
seemed depressing. She could have kissed this unknown "Babe" whose
businesslike action had enabled her to close a regrettable chapter
in her life with a clear conscience.

"But you haven't only lost your head, Geoffrey," she said.  "You've
lost your figure as well."

She went out quickly. With a convulsive bound Geoffrey started to
follow her, but was checked before he had gone a yard.

There are formalities to be observed before a patron can leave Ye
Cosy Nooke.

"If you please!" said a distressed gentlewomanly voice.

The lady whom Mr. Willoughby had addressed as Mabel--erroneously,
for her name was Ernestine--was standing beside him with a slip of
paper.

"Six and twopence," said Ernestine.

For a moment this appalling statement drew the unhappy man's mind
from the main issue.

"Six and twopence for a cup of chocolate and a few cakes?" he
cried, aghast. "It's robbery!"

"Six and twopence, please!" said the queen of the bandits with
undisturbed calm. She had been through this sort of thing before.
Ye Cosy Nooke did not get many customers; but it made the most of
those it did get.

"Here!" Geoffrey produced a half-sovereign. "I haven't time to
argue!"

The distressed brigand showed no gratification. She had the air of
one who is aloof from worldly things. All she wanted was rest and
leisure--leisure to meditate upon the body upstairs. All flesh is
as grass. We are here today and gone tomorrow. But there, beyond
the grave, is peace.

"Your change?" she said.

"Damn the change!"

"You are forgetting your hat."

"Damn my hat!"

Geoffrey dashed from the room. He heaved his body through the door.
He lumbered down the stairs.

Out in Bond Street the traffic moved up and the traffic moved down.
Strollers strolled upon the sidewalks.

But Maud had gone.

CHAPTER 27.

In his bedroom at the Carlton Hotel George Bevan was packing. That
is to say, he had begun packing; but for the last twenty minutes he
had been sitting on the side of the bed, staring into a future
which became bleaker and bleaker the more he examined it. In the
last two days he had been no stranger to these grey moods, and they
had become harder and harder to dispel. Now, with the steamer-trunk
before him gaping to receive its contents, he gave himself up
whole-heartedly to gloom.

Somehow the steamer-trunk, with all that it implied of partings and
voyagings, seemed to emphasize the fact that he was going out alone
into an empty world. Soon he would be on board the liner, every
revolution of whose engines would be taking him farther away from
where his heart would always be. There were moments when the
torment of this realization became almost physical.

It was incredible that three short weeks ago he had been a happy
man. Lonely, perhaps, but only in a vague, impersonal way. Not
lonely with this aching loneliness that tortured him now. What was
there left for him? As regards any triumphs which the future might
bring in connection with his work, he was, as Mac the stage-door
keeper had said, "blarzy". Any success he might have would be but a
stale repetition of other successes which he had achieved. He would
go on working, of course, but--. The ringing of the telephone bell
across the room jerked him back to the present. He got up with a
muttered malediction. Someone calling up again from the theatre
probably. They had been doing it all the time since he had announced
his intention of leaving for America by Saturday's boat.

"Hello?" he said wearily.

"Is that George?" asked a voice. It seemed familiar, but all female
voices sound the same over the telephone.

"This is George," he replied. "Who are you?"

"Don't you know my voice?"

"I do not."

"You'll know it quite well before long. I'm a great talker."

"Is that Billie?"

"It is not Billie, whoever Billie may be. I am female, George."

"So is Billie."

"Well, you had better run through the list of your feminine friends
till you reach me."

"I haven't any feminine friends."

"None?"

"That's odd."

"Why?"

"You told me in the garden two nights ago that you looked on me as
a pal."

George sat down abruptly. He felt boneless.

"Is--is that you?" he stammered. "It can't be--Maud!"

"How clever of you to guess. George, I want to ask you one or two
things. In the first place, are you fond of butter?"

George blinked. This was not a dream. He had just bumped his knee
against the corner of the telephone table, and it still hurt most
convincingly. He needed the evidence to assure himself that he was
awake.

"Butter?" he queried. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, well, if you don't even know what butter means, I expect it's
all right. What is your weight, George?"

"About a hundred and eighty pounds. But I don't understand."

"Wait a minute." There was a silence at the other end of the wire.
"About thirteen stone," said Maud's voice. "I've been doing it in
my head. And what was it this time last year?"

"About the same, I think. I always weigh about the same."

"How wonderful! George!"

"Yes?"

"This is very important. Have you ever been in Florida?"

"I was there one winter."

"Do you know a fish called the pompano?"

"Yes."

"Tell me about it."

"How do you mean? It's just a fish. You eat it."

"I know. Go into details."

"There aren't any details. You just eat it."

The voice at the other end of the wire purred with approval.  "I
never heard anything so splendid. The last man who mentioned pompano
to me became absolutely lyrical about sprigs of parsley and melted
butter. Well, that's that. Now, here's another very important point.
How about wall-paper?"

George pressed his unoccupied hand against his forehead.
This conversation was unnerving him.

"I didn't get that," he said.

"Didn't get what?"

"I mean, I didn't quite catch what you said that time. It
sounded to me like 'What about wall-paper?'"

"It was 'What about wall-paper?' Why not?"

"But," said George weakly, "it doesn't make any sense."

"Oh, but it does. I mean, what about wall-paper for your den?"

"My den?"

"Your den. You must have a den. Where do you suppose you're going
to work, if you don't? Now, my idea would be some nice quiet
grass-cloth. And, of course, you would have lots of pictures and
books. And a photograph of me. I'll go and be taken specially. Then
there would be a piano for you to work on, and two or three really
comfortable chairs. And--well, that would be about all, wouldn't
it?"

George pulled himself together.

"Hello!" he said.

"Why do you say 'Hello'?"

"I forgot I was in London. I should have said 'Are you there?'"

"Yes, I'm here."

"Well, then, what does it all mean?"

"What does what mean?"

"What you've been saying--about butter and pompanos and wall-paper
and my den and all that? I don't understand."

"How stupid of you! I was asking you what sort of wall-paper you
would like in your den after we were married and settled down."

George dropped the receiver. It clashed against the side of the
table. He groped for it blindly.

"Hello!" he said.

"Don't say 'Hello!' It sounds so abrupt!"

"What did you say then?"

"I said 'Don't say Hello!'"

"No, before that! Before that! You said something about getting
married."

"Well, aren't we going to get married? Our engagement is announced
in the Morning Post."

"But--But--"

"George!" Maud's voice shook. "Don't tell me you are going to jilt
me!" she said tragically. "Because, if you are, let me know in
time, as I shall want to bring an action for breach of promise.
I've just met such a capable young man who will look after the
whole thing for me. He wears a bowler hat on the side of his head
and calls waitresses 'Mabel'. Answer 'yes' or 'no'. Will you marry
me?"

"But--But--how about--I mean, what about--I mean how about--?"

"Make up your mind what you do mean."

"The other fellow!" gasped George.

A musical laugh was wafted to him over the wire.

"What about him?"

"Well, what about him?" said George.

"Isn't a girl allowed to change her mind?" said Maud.

George yelped excitedly. Maud gave a cry.

"Don't sing!" she said. "You nearly made me deaf."

"Have you changed your mind?"

"Certainly I have!"

"And you really think--You really want--I mean, you really
want--You really think--"

"Don't be so incoherent!"

"Maud!"

"Well?"

"Will you marry me?"

"Of course I will."

"Gosh!"

"What did you say?"

"I said Gosh! And listen to me, when I say Gosh, I mean Gosh! Where
are you? I must see you. Where can we meet?  I want to see you! For
Heaven's sake, tell me where you are. I want to see you! Where are
you? Where are you?"

"I'm downstairs."

"Where? Here at the 'Carlton'?"

"Here at the 'Carlton'!"

"Alone?"

"Quite alone."

"You won't be long!" said George.

He hung up the receiver, and bounded across the room to where his
coat hung over the back of a chair. The edge of the steamer-trunk
caught his shin.

"Well," said George to the steamer-trunk, "and what are you butting
in for? Who wants you, I should like to know!"