Title:      Maid in Waiting
            Book I of End of The Chapter
Author:     John Galsworthy
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A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook

Title:      Maid in Waiting
            Book I of End of The Chapter
Author:     John Galsworthy





To Frank Galsworthy




MAID IN WAITING



CHAPTER I


The Bishop of Porthminster was sinking fast; they had sent for his
four nephews, his two nieces and their one husband.  It was not
thought that he would last the night.

He who had been 'Cuffs' Cherrell (for so the name Charwell is
pronounced) to his cronies at Harrow and Cambridge in the 'sixties,
the Reverend Cuthbert Cherrell in his two London parishes, Canon
Cherrell in the days of his efflorescence as a preacher, and
Cuthbert Porthminster for the last eighteen years, had never
married.  For eighty-two years he had lived and for fifty-five,
having been ordained rather late, had represented God upon certain
portions of the earth.  This and the control of his normal
instincts since the age of twenty-six had given to his face a
repressed dignity which the approach of death did not disturb.
He awaited it almost quizzically, judging from the twist of his
eyebrow and the tone in which he said so faintly to his nurse:

"You will get a good sleep to-morrow, nurse.  I shall be punctual,
no robes to put on."

The best wearer of robes in the whole episcopacy, the most
distinguished in face and figure, maintaining to the end the
dandyism which had procured him the nickname 'Cuffs,' lay quite
still, his grey hair brushed and his face like ivory.  He had been
a bishop so long that no one knew now what he thought about death,
or indeed about anything, except the prayer book, any change in
which he had deprecated with determination.  In one never
remarkable for expressing his feelings the ceremony of life had
overlaid the natural reticence, as embroidery and jewels will
disguise the foundation stuff of vestment.

He lay in a room with mullion windows, an ascetic room in a
sixteenth-century house, close to the Cathedral, whose scent of age
was tempered but imperfectly by the September air coming in.  Some
zinnias in an old vase on the window-sill made the only splash of
colour, and it was noticed by the nurse that his eyes scarcely left
it, except to dose from time to time.  About six o'clock they
informed him that all the family of his long-dead elder brother had
arrived.

"Ah!  See that they are comfortable.  I should like to see Adrian."

When an hour later he opened his eyes again, they fell on his
nephew Adrian seated at the foot of the bed.  For some minutes he
contemplated the lean and wrinkled brownness of a thin bearded
face, topped with grizzling hair, with a sort of faint astonishment,
as though finding his nephew older than he had expected.  Then, with
lifted eyebrows and the same just quizzical tone in his faint voice,
he said:

"My dear Adrian!  Good of you!  Would you mind coming closer?  Ah!
I haven't much strength, but what I have I wanted you to have the
benefit of; or perhaps, as you may think, the reverse.  I must
speak to the point or not at all.  You are not a Churchman, so what
I have to say I will put in the words of a man of the world, which
once I was myself, perhaps have always been.  I have heard that you
have an affection, or may I say infatuation, for a lady who is not
in a position to marry you--is that so?"

The face of his nephew, kindly and wrinkled, was gentle with an
expression of concern.

"It is, Uncle Cuthbert.  I am sorry if it troubles you."

"A mutual affection?"

His nephew shrugged.

"My dear Adrian, the world has changed in its judgments since my
young days, but there is still a halo around marriage.  That,
however, is a matter for your conscience and is not my point.  Give
me a little water."

When he had drunk from the glass held out, he went on more feebly:

"Since your father died I have been somewhat in loco parentis to
you all, and the chief repository, I suppose, of such traditions as
attach to our name.  I wanted to say to you that our name goes back
very far and very honourably.  A certain inherited sense of duty is
all that is left to old families now; what is sometimes excused to
a young man is not excused to those of mature age and a certain
position like your own.  I should be sorry to be leaving this life
knowing that our name was likely to be taken in vain by the Press,
or bandied about.  Forgive me for intruding on your privacy, and
let me now say good-bye to you all.  It will be less painful if you
will give the others my blessing for what it is worth--very little,
I'm afraid.  Good-bye, my dear Adrian, good-bye!"

The voice dropped to a whisper.  The speaker closed his eyes, and
Adrian, after standing a minute looking down at the carved waxen
face, stole, tall and a little stooping, to the door, opened it
gently and was gone.

The nurse came back.  The Bishop's lips moved and his eyebrows
twitched now and then, but he spoke only once:

"I shall be glad if you will kindly see that my neck is straight,
and my teeth in place.  Forgive these details, but I do not wish to
offend the sight . . ."

Adrian went down to the long panelled room where the family was
waiting.

"Sinking.  He sent his blessing to you all."

Sir Conway cleared his throat.  Hilary pressed Adrian's arm.
Lionel went to the window.  Emily Mont took out a tiny handkerchief
and passed her other hand into Sir Lawrence's.  Wilmet alone spoke:

"How does he look, Adrian?"

"Like the ghost of a warrior on his shield."

Again Sir Conway cleared his throat.

"Fine old boy!" said Sir Lawrence, softly.

"Ah!" said Adrian.

They remained, silently sitting and standing in the compulsory
discomfort of a house where death is visiting.  Tea was brought in,
but, as if by tacit agreement, no one touched it.  And, suddenly,
the bell tolled.  The seven in that room looked up.  At one blank
spot in the air their glances met and crossed, as though fixed on
something there and yet not there.

A voice from the doorway said:

"Now please, if you wish to see him."

Sir Conway, the eldest, followed the bishop's chaplain; the others
followed Sir Conway.

In his narrow bed jutting from the centre of the wall opposite the
mullion windows the bishop lay, white and straight and narrow, with
just the added dignity of death.  He graced his last state even
more than he had graced existence.  None of those present, not even
his chaplain, who made the eighth spectator, knew whether Cuthbert
Porthminster had really had faith, except in that temporal dignity
of the Church which he had so faithfully served.  They looked at
him now with all the different feelings death produces in varying
temperaments, and with only one feeling in common, aesthetic
pleasure at the sight of such memorable dignity,

Conway--General Sir Conway Cherrell--had seen much death.  He stood
with his hands crossed before him, as if once more at Sandhurst in
the old-time attitude of 'stand at ease.'  His face was thin-
templed and ascetic, for a soldier's; the darkened furrowed cheeks
ran from wide cheek-bones to the point of a firm chin, the dark
eyes were steady, the nose and lips thin; he wore a little close
grizzly dark moustache--his face was perhaps the stillest of the
eight faces, the face of the taller Adrian beside him, the least
still.  Sir Lawrence Mont had his arm through that of Emily his
wife, the expression on his thin twisting countenance was as of one
saying:  "A very beautiful performance--don't cry, my dear."

The faces of Hilary and Lionel, one on each side of Wilmet, a
seamed race and a smooth face, both long and thin and decisive,
wore a sort of sorry scepticism, as if expecting those eyes to
open.  Wilmet had flushed deep pink; her lips were pursed.  She was
a tall thin woman.  The chaplain stood with bent head, moving his
lips as though telling over internal beads.  They stayed thus
perhaps three minutes, then as it were with a single indrawn breath
filed to the door.  They went each to the room assigned.

They met again at dinner, thinking and speaking once more in terms
of life.  Uncle Cuthbert, except as a family figure-head, had never
been very near to any one of them.  The question whether he was to
be buried with his fathers at Condaford or here in the Cathedral
was debated.  Probably his Will would decide.  All but the General
and Lionel, who were the executors, returned to London the same
evening.

The two brothers, having read through the Will, which was short,
for there was nothing much to leave, sat on in the library, silent,
till the General said:

"I want to consult you, Lionel.  It's about my boy, Hubert.  Did
you read that attack made on him in the House before it rose?"

Lionel, sparing of words, and now on the eve of a Judgeship,
nodded.

"I saw there was a question asked, but I don't know Hubert's
version of the affair."

"I can give it you.  The whole thing is damnable.  The boy's got a
temper, of course, but he's straight as a die.  What he says you
can rely on.  And all I can say is that if I'd been in his place, I
should probably have done the same."

Lionel nodded.  "Go ahead."

"Well, as you know, he went straight from Harrow into the War, and
had one year in the R.A.F. under age, got wounded, went back and
stayed on in the army after the war.  He was out in Mespot, then
went on to Egypt and India.  He got malaria badly, and last October
had a year's sick leave given him, which will be up on October
first.  He was recommended for a long voyage.  He got leave for it
and went out through the Panama Canal to Lima.  There he met that
American professor, Hallorsen, who came over here some time ago and
gave some lectures, it appears, about some queer remains in
Bolivia; he was going to take an expedition there.  This expedition
was just starting when Hubert got to Lima, and Hallorsen wanted a
transport officer.  Hubert was fit enough after his voyage and
jumped at the chance.  He can't bear idleness.  Hallorsen took him
on; that was in December last.  After a bit Hallorsen left him in
charge of his base camp with a lot of half-caste Indian mule men.
Hubert was the only white man, and he got fever badly.  Some of
those half-caste Indian fellows are devils, according to his
account; no sense of discipline and perfect brutes with animals.
Hubert got wrong with them--he's a hot-tempered chap, as I told
you, and, as it happens, particularly fond of animals.  The half-
castes got more and more out of hand, till finally one of them,
whom he'd had to have flogged for ill-treating mules and who was
stirring up mutiny, attacked him with a knife.  Luckily Hubert had
his revolver handy and shot him dead.  And on that the whole
blessed lot of them, except three, cleared out, taking the mules
with them.  Mind you, he'd been left there alone for nearly three
months without support or news of any kind from Hallorsen.  Well,
he hung on somehow, half dead, with his remaining men.  At last
Hallorsen came back, and instead of trying to understand his
difficulties, pitched into him.  Hubert wouldn't stand for it; gave
him as good as he got, and left.  He came straight home, and is
down with us at Condaford.  He's lost the fever, luckily, but he's
pretty well worn out, even now.  And now that fellow Hallorsen has
attacked him in his book; practically thrown the blame of failure
on him, implies he was tyrannical and no good at handling men,
calls him a hot-tempered aristocrat--all that bunkum that goes down
these days.  Well, some Service member got hold of this and asked
that question about it in Parliament.  One expects Socialists to
make themselves unpleasant, but when it comes to a Service member
alluding to conduct unbecoming to a British officer, it's another
matter altogether.  Hallorsen's in the States.  There's nobody to
bring an action against: besides, Hubert could get no witnesses.
It looks to me as if the thing has cut right across his career."

Lionel Cherrell's long face lengthened.

"Has he tried Headquarters?"

"Yes, he went up on Wednesday.  They were chilly.  Any popular gup
about high-handedness scares them nowadays.  I daresay they'd come
round if no more were said, but how's that possible?  He's been
publicly criticised in that book, and practically accused in
Parliament of violent conduct unbecoming to an officer and
gentleman.  He can't sit down under that; and yet--what can he do?"

Lionel drew deeply at his pipe.

"D'you know," he said, "I think he'd better take no notice."

The General clenched his fist.  "Damn it, Lionel, I don't see
that!"

"But he admits the shooting and the flogging.  The public has no
imagination, Con--they'll never see his side of the thing.  All
they'll swallow is that on a civilian expedition he shot one man
and flogged others.  You can't expect them to understand the
conditions or the pressure there was."

"Then you seriously advise him to take it lying down?"

"As a man, no; as a man of the world, yes."

"Good Lord!  What's England coming to?  I wonder what old Uncle
Cuffs would have said?  He thought a lot of our name."

"So do I.  But how is Hubert to get even with them?"

The General was silent for a little while and then said:

"This charge is a slur on the Service, and yet his hands seem tied.
If he handed in his Commission he could stand up to it, but his
whole heart's in the Army.  It's a bad business.  By the way,
Lawrence has been talking to me about Adrian.  Diana Ferse was
Diana Montjoy, wasn't she?"

"Yes, second cousin to Lawrence--very pretty woman, Con.  Ever see
her?"

"As a girl, yes.  What's her position now, then?"

"Married widow--two children, and a husband in a Mental Home."

"That's lively.  Incurable?"

Lionel nodded.  "They say so.  But of course, you never know."

"Good Lord!"

"That's just about it.  She's poor and Adrian's poorer; it's a very
old affection on Adrian's part, dates from before her marriage.  If
he does anything foolish, he'll lose his curatorship."

"Go off with her, you mean?  Why, he must be fifty!"

"No fool like an--She's an attractive creature.  Those Montjoys are
celebrated for their charm.  Would he listen to you, Con?"

The General shook his head.

"More likely to Hilary."

"Poor old Adrian--one of the best men on earth.  I'll talk to
Hilary, but his hands are always full."

The General rose.  "I'm going to bed.  We don't smell of age at the
Grange like this place--though the Grange is older."

"Too much original wood here.  Good-night, old man."

The brothers shook hands, and, grasping each a candle, sought their
rooms.



CHAPTER II


Condaford Grange had passed from the de Campforts (whence its name)
into possession of the Cherrells in 1217, when their name was spelt
Kerwell and still at times Keroual, as the spirit moved the scribe.
The story of its passing was romantic, for the Kerwell who got it
by marrying a de Campfort had got the de Campfort by rescuing her
from a wild boar.  He had been a landless wight whose father, a
Frenchman from Guienne, had come to England after Richard's
crusade; and she had been the heiress of the landed de Campforts.
The boar was incorporated on the family 'shield,' and some doubted
whether the boar on the shield did not give rise to the story,
rather than the story to the boar.  In any case parts of the house
were certified by expert masons to go back to the twelfth century.
It had undoubtedly been moated; but under Queen Anne a restorative
Cherrell, convinced of the millennium perhaps, and possibly
inconvenienced by insects, had drained off the water, and there was
now little sign that a moat had ever been.

The late Sir Conway, elder brother of the bishop, knighted in 1901
on his appointment to Spain, had been in the diplomatic service.
He had therefore let the place down badly.  He had died in 1904, at
his post, and the letting-down process had been continued by his
eldest son, the present Sir Conway, who, continually on Service,
had enjoyed only spasmodic chances of living at Condaford till
after the Great War.  Now that he did live there, the knowledge
that folk of his blood had been encamped there practically since
the Conquest had spurred him to do his best to put it in order, so
that it was by now unpretentiously trim without and comfortable
within, and he was almost too poor to live in it.  The estate
contained too much covert to be profitable, and, though
unencumbered, brought in but a few hundreds a year of net revenue.
The pension of a General and the slender income of his wife (by
birth the Honourable Elizabeth Frensham) enabled the General to
incur a very small amount of supertax, to keep two hunters, and
live quietly on the extreme edge of his means.  His wife was one of
those Englishwomen who seem to count for little, but for that very
reason count for a good deal.  She was unobtrusive, gentle, and
always busy.  In a word, she was background; and her pale face,
reposeful, sensitive, a little timid, was a continual reminder that
culture depends but slightly on wealth or intellect.  Her husband
and her three children had implicit confidence in her coherent
sympathy.  They were all of more vivid nature, more strongly
coloured, and she was a relief.

She had not accompanied the General to Porthminster and was
therefore awaiting his return.  The furniture was about to come out
of chintz, and she was standing in the tea room wondering whether
that chintz would last another season, when a Scotch terrier came
in, followed by her eldest daughter Elizabeth--better known as
'Dinny.'  Dinny was slight and rather tall; she had hair the colour
of chestnuts, an imperfect nose, a Botticellian mouth, eyes
cornflower blue and widely set, and a look rather of a flower on a
long stalk that might easily be broken off, but never was.  Her
expression suggested that she went through life trying not to see
it as a joke.  She was, in fact, like one of those natural wells,
or springs, whence one cannot procure water without bubbles:
'Dinny's bubble and squeak,' her uncle Sir Lawrence Mont called it.
She was by now twenty-four.

"Mother, do we have to go into black edging for Uncle Cuffs?"

"I don't think so, Dinny; or very slight."

"Is he to be planted here?"

"I expect in the Cathedral, but Father will know."

"Tea, darling?  Scaramouch, up you come, and don't bob your nose
into the Gentleman's Relish."

"Dinny, I'm so worried about Hubert."

"So am I, dear; he isn't Hubert at all, he's like a sketch of
himself by Thom the painter, all on one side.  He ought never to
have gone on that ghastly expedition, Mother.  There's a limit to
hitting it off with Americans, and Hubert reaches it sooner than
almost anybody I know.  He never could get on with them.  Besides,
I don't believe civilians ever ought to have soldiers with them."

"Why, Dinny?"

"Well, soldiers have the static mind.  They know God from Mammon.
Haven't you noticed it, dear?"

Lady Cherrell had.  She smiled timidly, and asked:

"Where is Hubert?  Father will be home directly."

"He went out with Don, to get a leash of partridges for dinner.
Ten to one he'll forget to shoot them, and anyway they'll be too
fresh.  He's in that state of mind into which it has pleased God to
call him; except that for God read the devil.  He broods over that
business, Mother.  Only one thing would do him good, and that's to
fall in love.  Can't we find the perfect girl for him?  Shall I
ring for tea?"

"Yes, dear.  And this room wants fresh flowers."

"I'll get them.  Come along, Scaramouch!"

Passing out into September sunshine, Dinny noted a green woodpecker
on the lower lawn, and thought:  'If seven birds with seven beaks
should peck for half a term, do you suppose, the lady thought, that
they could find a worm?'  It WAS dry!  All the same the zinnias
were gorgeous this year; and she proceeded to pick some.  They ran
the gamut in her hand from deepest red through pink to lemon-
yellow--handsome blossoms, but not endearing.  'Pity,' she thought,
'we can't go to some bed of modern maids and pick one for Hubert.'
She seldom showed her feelings, but she had two deep feelings not
for show--one for her brother, the other for Condaford, and they
were radically entwined.  All the coherence of her life belonged to
Condaford; she had a passion for the place which no one would have
suspected from her way of talking of it, and she had a deep and
jealous desire to bind her only brother to the same devotion.
After all, she had been born there while it was shabby and run-
down, and had survived into the period of renovation.  To Hubert it
had only been a holiday and leave-time perch.  Dinny, though the
last person in the world to talk of her roots, or to take them
seriously in public, had a private faith in the Cherrells, their
belongings and their works, which nothing could shake.  Every
Condaford beast, bird and tree, even the flowers she was plucking,
were a part of her, just as were the simple folk around in their
thatched cottages, and the Early-English church, where she attended
without belief to speak of, and the grey Condaford dawns which she
seldom saw, the moonlit, owl-haunted nights, the long sunlight over
the stubble, and the scents and the sounds and the feel of the air.
When she was away from home she never said she was homesick, but
she was; when she was at home she never said she revelled in it,
but she did.  If Condaford should pass from the Cherrells, she
would not moan, but would feel like a plant pulled up by its roots.
Her father had for it the indifferent affection of a man whose
active life had been passed elsewhere; her mother the acquiescence
of one who had always done her duty by what had kept her nose to
the grindstone and was not exactly hers; her sister treated it with
the matter-of-fact tolerance of one who would rather be somewhere
more exciting; and Hubert--what had Hubert?  She really did not
know.  With her hands full of zinnias and her neck warm from the
lingering sunshine, she returned to the drawing-room.

Her mother was standing by the tea table.

"The train's late," she said.  "I do wish Clare wouldn't drive so
fast."

"I don't see the connection, darling."  But she did.  Mother was
always fidgety when Father was behind time.

"Mother, I'm all for Hubert sending his version to the papers."

"We shall see what your Father says--he'll have talked to your
Uncle Lionel."

"I hear the car now," said Dinny.

The General was followed into the room by his younger daughter.
Clare was the most vivid member of the family.  She had dark fine
shingled hair and a pale expressive face, of which the lips were
slightly brightened.  The eyes were brown, with a straight and
eager glance, the brow low and very white.  Her expression was old
for a girl of twenty, being calm and yet adventurous.  She had an
excellent figure and walked with an air.

"This poor dear has had no lunch, Mother," she said.

"Horrible cross-country journey, Liz.  Whisky-and-soda and a
biscuit's all I've had since breakfast."

"You shall have an egg-nogg, darling," said Dinny, and left the
room.  Clare followed her.

The General kissed his wife.  "The old boy looked very fine, my
dear, though, except for Adrian, we only saw him after.  I shall
have to go back for the funeral.  It'll be a swell affair, I
expect.  Great figure--Uncle Cuffs.  I spoke to Lionel about
Hubert; he doesn't see what can be done.  But I've been thinking."

"Yes, Con?"

"The whole point is whether or not the Authorities are going to
take any notice of that attack in the House.  They might ask him to
send in his commission.  That'd be fatal.  Sooner than that he'd
better hand it in himself.  He's due for his medical on October the
first.  Can we pull any strings without his knowing?--the boy's
proud.  I can go and see Topsham and you could get at Follanby,
couldn't you?"

Lady Cherrell made wry her face.

"I know," said the General, "it's rotten; but the real chance would
be Saxenden, only I don't know how to get at him."

"Dinny might suggest something."

"Dinny?  Well, I suppose she HAS more brains than any of us, except
you, my dear."

"I," said Lady Cherrell, "have no brains at all."

"Bosh!  Oh!  Here she is."

Dinny advanced, bearing a frothy liquor in a glass.

"Dinny, I was saying to your mother that we want to get into touch
with Lord Saxenden about Hubert's position.  Can you suggest any
way?"

"Through a country neighbour, Dad.  Has he any?"

"His place marches with Wilfred Bentworth's."

"There it is, then.  Uncle Hilary or Uncle Lawrence."

"How?"

"Wilfred Bentworth is Chairman of Uncle Hilary's Slum Conversion
Committee.  A little judicious nepotism, dear."

"Um!  Hilary and Lawrence were both at Porthminster--wish I'd
thought of that."

"Shall I talk to them for you, Father?"

"By George, if you would, Dinny!  I hate pushing our affairs."

"Yes, dear.  It's a woman's job, isn't it?"

The General looked at his daughter dubiously--he never quite knew
when she was serious.

"Here's Hubert," said Dinny, quickly.



CHAPTER III


Hubert Cherrell, followed by a spaniel dog and carrying a gun, was
crossing the old grey flagstones of the terrace.  Rather over
middle height, lean and erect, with a head not very large and a
face weathered and seamed for so young a man, he wore a little
darkish moustache cut just to the edge of his lips, which were thin
and sensitive, and hair with already a touch of grey at the sides.
His browned cheeks were thin too, but with rather high cheek-bones,
and his eyes hazel, quick and glancing, set rather wide apart over
a straight thin nose under gabled eyebrows.  He was, in fact, a
younger edition of his father.  A man of action, forced into a
state of thought, is unhappy until he can get out of it; and, ever
since his late leader had launched that attack on his conduct, he
had chafed, conscious of having acted rightly, or rather, in
accordance with necessity.  And he chafed the more because his
training and his disposition forbade him giving tongue.  A soldier
by choice, not accident, he saw his soldiering imperilled, his name
as an officer, and even as a gentleman, aspersed, and no way of
hitting back at those who had aspersed it.  His head seemed to him
to be in Chancery for anyone to punch, most galling of experiences
to anyone of high spirit.  He came in through the French window,
leaving dog and gun outside, aware that he was being talked about.
He was now constantly interrupting discussions on his position, for
in this family the troubles of one were the troubles of all.
Having taken a cup of tea from his mother, he remarked that birds
were getting wild already, covert was so sparse, and there was
silence.

"Well, I'm going to look at my letters," said the General, and went
out followed by his wife.

Left alone with her brother, Dinny hardened her heart, and said:

"Something must be done, Hubert."

"Don't worry, old girl; it's rotten, but there's nothing one can
do."

"Why don't you write your own account of what happened, from your
diary?  I could type it, and Michael will find you a publisher, he
knows all those sort of people.  We simply can't sit down under
this."

"I loathe the idea of trotting my private feelings into the open;
and it means that or nothing."

Dinny wrinkled her brows.

"I loathe letting that Yank put his failure on to you.  You owe it
to the British Army, Hubert."

"Bad as that?  I went as a civilian."

"Why not publish your diary as it is?"

"That'd be worse.  You haven't seen it."

"We could expurgate, and embroider, and all that.  You see, the Dad
feels this."

"Perhaps you'd better read the thing.  It's full of 'miserable
Starkey.'  When one's alone like that, one lets oneself go."

"You can cut out what you like."

"It's no end good of you, Dinny."

Dinny stroked his sleeve.

"What sort of man is this Hallorsen?"

"To be just, he has lots of qualities: hard as nails, plenty of
pluck, and no nerves; but it's Hallorsen first with him all the
time.  It's not in him to fail, and when he does, someone else has
to stand the racket.  According to him, he failed for want of
transport: and I was his transport officer.  But if he'd left the
Angel Gabriel as he left me, he'd have done no better.  He just
miscalculated, and won't admit it.  You'll find it all in my
diary."

"Have you seen this?"  She held up a newspaper cutting, and read:

"'We understand that action will be taken by Captain Charwell,
D.S.O., to vindicate his honour in face of the statements made in
Professor Hallorsen's book on his Bolivian Expedition, the failure
of which he attributed to Captain Charwell's failure to support him
at the critical moment.'  Someone's trying to get a dog-fight out
of it, you see."

"Where was that?"

"In the Evening Sun."

"Steps!" said Hubert bitterly; "what steps?  I've nothing but my
word, he took care of that when he left me alone with all those
dagoes."

"It's the diary then, or nothing."

"I'll get you the damned thing. . . ."



That night Dinny sat at her window reading 'the damned thing.'  A
full moon rode between the elm trees and there was silence as of
the grave.  Just one sheep-bell tinkled from a fold on the rise;
just one magnolia flower bloomed close to her window.  All seemed
unearthly, and now and then she stopped reading to gaze at the
unreality.  So had some ten thousand full moons ridden since her
forebears received this patch of ground; the changeless security of
so old a home heightened the lonely discomfort, the tribulation in
the pages she was reading.  Stark notes about stark things--one
white man among a crew of half-caste savages, one animal-lover
among half-starved animals and such men as knew not compassion.
And with that cold and settled loveliness out there to look upon,
she read and grew hot and miserable.



"That lousy brute Castro has been digging his infernal knife into
the mules again.  The poor brutes are thin as rails, and haven't
half their strength.  Warned him for the last time.  If he does it
again, he'll get the lash. . . .  Had fever."

"Castro got it good and strong this morning--a dozen; we'll see if
that will stop him.  Can't get on with these brutes; they don't
seem human.  Oh! for a day on a horse at Condaford and forget these
swamps and poor ghastly skeletons of mules . . ."

"Had to flog another of these brutes--their treatment of the mules
is simply devilish, blast them! . . .  Fever again . . ."

"Hell and Tommy to pay--had mutiny this morning.  They laid for me.
Luckily Manuel had warned me--he's a good boy.  As it was, Castro
nearly had his knife through my gizzard.  Got my left arm badly.
Shot him with my own hand.  Now perhaps they'll toe the mark.
Nothing from Hallorsen.  How much longer does he expect me to hold
on in this dump of hell?  My arm is giving me proper gee-up. . . ."

"The lid is on at last, those devils stampeded the mules in the
dark while I was asleep, and cleared out.  Manuel and two other
boys are all that's left.  We trailed them a long way--came on the
carcases of two mules, that's all; the beggars have dispersed and
you might as well look for a star in the Milky Way.  Got back to
camp dead beat. . . .  Whether we shall ever get out of this alive,
goodness knows.  My arm very painful, hope it doesn't mean blood-
poisoning . . ."

"Meant to trek to-day as best we could.  Set up a pile of stones
and left despatch for Hallorsen, telling him the whole story in
case he ever does send back for me; then changed my mind.  I shall
stick it out here till he comes or till we're dead, which is on the
whole more likely . . ."



And so on through a tale of struggle to the end.  Dinny laid down
the dim and yellowed record and leaned her elbow on the sill.  The
silence and the coldness of the light out there had chilled her
spirit.  She no longer felt in fighting mood.  Hubert was right.
Why show one's naked soul, one's sore finger, to the public?  No!
Better anything than that.  Private strings--yes, they should be
pulled; and she would pull them for all she was worth.



CHAPTER IV


Adrian Cherrell was one of those confirmed countrymen who live in
towns.  His job confined him to London, where he presided over a
collection of anthropological remains.  He was poring over a
maxilla from New Guinea, which had been accorded a very fine
reception in the Press, and had just said to himself:  'The thing's
a phlizz.  Just a low type of Homo Sapiens,' when his janitor
announced:

"Young lady to see you, sir--Miss Cherrell, I think."

"Ask her in, James"; and he thought:  'If that's Dinny, where did I
put my wits?'

"Oh!  Dinny!  Canrobert says that this maxilla is pre-Trinil.
Mokley says Paulo-post-Piltdown; and Eldon P. Burbank says propter
Rhodesian.  I say Sapiens; observe that molar."

"I do, Uncle Adrian."

"Too human altogether.  That man had toothache.  Toothache was
probably the result of artistic development.  Altamiran art and
Cromagnon cavities are found together.  Homo Sapiens, this chap."

"No toothache without wisdom--how cheery!  I've come up to see
Uncle Hilary and Uncle Lawrence, but I thought if I had lunch with
you first, I should feel stronger."

"We shall," said Adrian, "therefore go to the Bulgarian café."

"Why?"

"Because for the moment we shall get good food there.  It's the
latest propaganda restaurant, my dear, so we are probably safe at a
moderate price.  Do you want to powder your nose?"

"Yes."

"In here, then."

While she was gone Adrian stood and stroked his goatee and wondered
exactly what he could order for eighteen and sixpence; for, being a
public servant without private means, he rarely had more than a
pound in his pocket.

"What," said Dinny, when they were seated before an omelette
Bulgarienne, "do you know about Professor Hallorsen, Uncle Adrian?"

"The man who set out to discover the sources of civilisation in
Bolivia?"

"Yes; and took Hubert with him."

"Ah!  But left him behind, I gather?"

"Did you ever meet him?"

"I did.  I met him in 1920, climbing the 'Little Sinner' in the
Dolomites."

"Did you like him?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Well, he was so aggressively young, he beat me to the top, and--he
reminded me of baseball.  Did you ever see baseball played?"

"No."

"I saw it once in Washington.  You insult your opponent so as to
shake his nerve.  You call him doughboy and attaboy, and President
Wilson and Old Man Ribber, and things like that, just when he's
going to hit the ball.  It's ritual.  The point is to win at any
cost."

"Don't you believe in winning at any cost?"

"Nobody says they do, Dinny."

"And we all try to when it comes to the point?"

"I have known it occur, even with politicians, Dinny."

"Would you try to win at any cost, Uncle?"

"Probably."

"You wouldn't.  I should."

"You are very kind, my dear; but why this local disparagement?"

"Because I feel as bloodthirsty as a mosquito about Hubert's case.
I spent last night reading his diary."

"Woman," said Adrian, slowly, "has not yet lost her divine
irresponsibility."

"Do you think we're in danger of losing it?"

"No, because whatever your sex may say, you never will annihilate
man's innate sense of leading you about."

"What is the best way to annihilate a man like Hallorsen, Uncle
Adrian?"

"Apart from a club, ridicule."

"His notion about Bolivian civilisation was absurd, I suppose?"

"Wholly.  There are, we know, some curious and unexplained stone
monsters up there, but his theory, if I understand it, won't wash
at all.  Only, my dear, Hubert would appear to be involved in it."

"Not scientifically; he just went as transport officer."  And Dinny
levelled a smile at her Uncle's eyes.  "It wouldn't do any harm,
would it, to hold up a stunt like that to ridicule?  You could do
it so beautifully, Uncle."

"Serpent!"

"But isn't it the duty of serious scientists to ridicule stunts?"

"If Hallorsen were an Englishman--perhaps; but his being an
American brings in other considerations."

"Why?  I thought Science paid no regard to frontiers."

"In theory.  In practice we close the other eye.  Americans are
very touchy.  You remember a certain recent attitude towards
Evolution; if we had let out our shout of laughter over that, there
might almost have been a war."

"But most Americans laughed at it too."

"Yes; but they won't stand for outsiders laughing at their kith and
kin.  Have some of this soufflé Sofia?"

They ate in silence, each studying sympathetically the other's
face.  Dinny was thinking:  'I love his wrinkles, and it's a nice
little beard for a beard.'  Adrian was thinking:  'I'm glad her
nose turns up a little.  I have very engaging nieces and nephews.'
At last she said:

"Well, Uncle Adrian, will you try and think of any way of strafing
that man for the scurvy way he's treated Hubert?"

"Where is he?"

"Hubert says in the States."

"Have you considered, my dear, that nepotism is undesirable?"

"So is injustice, Uncle; and blood is thicker than water."

"And this wine," said Adrian, with a grimace, "is thicker than
either.  What are you going to see Hilary about?"

"I want to scrounge an introduction to Lord Saxenden."

"Why?"

"Father says he's important."

"So you are out to 'pull strings,' as they say?"

Dinny nodded.

"No sensitive and honest person can pull strings successfully,
Dinny."

Her eyebrows twitched and her teeth, very white and even, appeared
in a broad smile.

"But I'm neither, dear."

"We shall see.  In the meantime these cigarettes are really tiptop
propaganda.  Have one?"

Dinny took a cigarette, and, with a long puff, said:

"You saw great-Uncle 'Cuffs', didn't you, Uncle Adrian?"

"Yes.  A dignified departure.  He died in amber, as you might say.
Wasted on the Church; he was the perfect diplomat, was Uncle
'Cuffs.'"

"I only saw him twice.  But do you mean to say that HE couldn't get
what he wanted, without loss of dignity, by pulling strings?"

"It wasn't exactly pulling strings with him, my dear; it was
suavity and power of personality."

"Manners?"

"Manner--the Grand; it about died with him."

"Well, Uncle, I must be going; wish me dishonesty and a thick
skin."

"And I," said Adrian, "will return to the jawbone of the New
Guinean with which I hope to smite my learned brethren.  If I can
help Hubert in any decent way, I will.  At all events I'll think
about it.  Give him my love, and good-bye, my dear!"

They parted, and Adrian went back to his museum.  Regaining his
position above the maxilla, he thought of a very different jawbone.
Having reached an age when the blood of spare men with moderate
habits has an even-tempered flow, his 'infatuation' with Diana
Ferse, dating back to years before her fatal marriage, had a
certain quality of altruism.  He desired her happiness before his
own.  In his almost continual thoughts about her the consideration
'What's best for her?' was ever foremost.  He had done without her
for so long that importunity (never in his character) was out of
the question where she was concerned.  But her face, oval and dark-
eyed, delicious in lip and nose, and a little sad in repose,
constantly blurred the outlines of maxillae, thighbones, and the
other interesting phenomena of his job.  She and her two children
lived in a small Chelsea house on the income of a husband who for
four years had been a patient in a private Mental Home, and was
never expected to recover his equilibrium.  She was nearly forty,
and had been through dreadful times before Ferse had definitely
toppled over the edge.  Of the old school in thought and manner,
and trained to a coherent view of human history, Adrian accepted
life with half-humorous fatalism.  He was not of the reforming
type, and the position of his lady love did not inspire him with a
desire for the scalp of marriage.  He wanted her to be happy, but
did not see how in the existing circumstances he could make her so.
She had at least peace and the sufficient income of him who had
been smitten by Fate.  Moreover, Adrian had something of the
superstitious regard felt by primitive men for those afflicted with
this particular form of misfortune.  Ferse had been a decent fellow
till the taint began to wear through the coatings of health and
education, and his conduct for the two years before his eclipse was
only too liberally explained by that eclipse.  He was one of God's
afflicted; and his helplessness demanded of one the utmost
scrupulosity.  Adrian turned from the maxilla and took down a
built-up cast of Pithecanthropus, that curious being from Trinil,
Java, who for so long has divided opinion as to whether he shall be
called man-ape or ape-man.  What a distance from him to that modern
English skull over the mantelpiece!  Ransack the authorities as one
might, one never received an answer to the question:  Where was the
cradle of Homo Sapiens, the nest where he had developed from
Trinil, Piltdown, Neanderthal man, or from some other undiscovered
collateral of those creatures?  If Adrian had a passion, indeed,
except for Diana Ferse, it was a burning desire to fix that
breeding spot.  They were toying now with the idea of descent from
Neanderthal man, but he felt it wouldn't do.  When specialisation
had reached a stage so definite as that disclosed by those brutish
specimens, it did not swerve to type so different.  As well expect
development of red-deer from elk!  He turned to that huge globe
whereon were marked all discoveries of moment concerning the origin
of modern Man, annotated in his own neat handwriting with notes on
geological changes, time and climate.  Where--where to look?  It
was a detective problem, soluble only in the French fashion by
instinctive appreciation of the inherently probable locality,
ratified by research at the selected spot--the greatest detective
problem in the world.  The foothills of the Himalayas, the Fayoum,
or somewhere now submerged beneath the sea?  If, indeed, it were
under the sea, then it would never be established to certainty.
Academic--the whole thing?  Not quite, for with it was conjoined
the question of man's essence, the real primitive nature of the
human being, on which social philosophy might and should be
founded--a question nicely revived of late:  Whether, indeed, man
was fundamentally decent and peaceful, as examination into the
lives of animals and some so-called savage peoples seemed to
suggest, or fundamentally aggressive and restless, as that
lugubrious record, History, seemed to assert?  Find the breeding
nest of Homo Sapiens, and there would emerge perhaps some evidence
to decide whether he was devil-angel or angel-devil.  To one with
Adrian's instincts there was great attraction in this revived
thesis of the inherent gentleness of man, but his habit of mind
refused to subscribe easily or wholesale to any kind of thesis.
Even gentle beasts and birds lived by the law of self-preservation;
so did primitive man; the devilries of sophisticated man began
naturally with the extension of his activities and the increase of
his competitions--in other words, with the ramifications of self-
preservation induced by so-called civilised life.  The uncomplicated
existence of uncivilised man might well afford less chance to the
instinct of self-preservation to be sinister in its manifestations,
but you could hardly argue anything from that.  Better to accept
modern man as he was and try to curb his opportunities for mischief.
Nor would it do to bank too much on the natural gentleness of
primitive peoples.  Only last night he had read of an elephant hunt
in Central Africa, wherein the primitive negroes, men and women, who
were beating for the white hunters, had fallen upon the carcasses of
the slain elephants, torn them limb from limb, flesh from flesh,
eaten it all dripping and raw, then vanished into the woods, couple
by couple, to complete their orgy.  After all, there was something
in civilisation!  But at this moment his janitor announced:

"A Professor 'Allorsen to see you, sir.  He wants to look at the
Peruvian skulls."

"Hallorsen!" said Adrian, startled.  "Are you sure?  I thought he
was in America, James."

"'Allorsen was the name, sir; tall gentleman, speaks like an
American.  Here's his card."

"H'm!  I'll see him, James."  And he thought:  'Shade of Dinny!
What am I going to say?'

The very tall and very good-looking man who entered seemed about
thirty-eight years old.  His clean-shaven face was full of health,
his eyes full of light, his dark hair had a fleck or two of
premature grey in it.  A breeze seemed to come in with him.  He
spoke at once:

"Mr. Curator?"

Adrian bowed.

"Why!  Surely we've met; up a mountain, wasn't it?"

"Yes," said Adrian.

"Well, well!  My name's Hallorsen--Bolivian expedition.  I'm told
your Peruvian skulls are bully.  I brought my little Bolivian lot
along; thought I'd like to compare them with your Peruvians right
here.  There's such a lot of bunk written about skulls by people
who haven't seen the originals."

"Very true, Professor.  I shall be delighted to see your Bolivians.
By the way, you never knew my name, I think.  This is it."

Adrian handed him a card.  Hallorsen took it.

"Gee!  Are you related to the Captain Charwell who's got his knife
into me?"

"His uncle.  But I was under the impression that it was your knife
that was into him."

"Well, he let me down."

"I understand he thinks you let him down."

"See here, Mr. Charwell--"

"We pronounce the name Cherrell, if you don't mind."

"Cherrell--yes, I remember now.  But if you hire a man to do a job,
Mr. Curator, and that job's too much for him, and because it's too
much for him you get left, what do you do--pass him a gold medal?"

"You find out, I think, whether the job you hired him to do was
humanly possible, before you take out your knife, anyway."

"That's up to the man who takes the job.  And what was it?  Just to
keep a tight rein on a few dagoes."

"I don't know very much about it, but I understand he had charge of
the transport animals as well."

"He surely did; and let the whole thing slip out of his hand.
Well, I don't expect you to side against your nephew.  But can I
see your Peruvians?"

"Certainly."

"That's nice of you."

During the mutual inspection which followed Adrian frequently
glanced at the magnificent specimen of Homo Sapiens who stood
beside him.  A man so overflowing with health and life he had
seldom seen.  Natural enough that any check should gall him.  Sheer
vitality would prevent him from seeing the other side of things.
Like his nation, matters must move his way, because there was no
other way that seemed possible to his superabundance.

'After all,' he thought, 'he can't help being God's own specimen--
Homo transatlanticus superbus'; and he said slyly:  "So the sun is
going to travel West to East in future, Professor?"

Hallorsen smiled, and his smile had an exuberant sweetness.

"Well, Mr. Curator, we're agreed, I guess, that civilisation
started with agriculture.  If we can show that we raised Indian
corn on the American continent way back, maybe thousands of years
before the old Nile civilisation of barley and wheat, why shouldn't
the stream be the other way?"

"And can you?"

"Why, we have twenty to twenty-five types of Indian corn.
Hrwdlicka claims that some twenty thousand years was necessary to
differentiate them.  That puts us way ahead as the parents of
agriculture, anyway."

"But alas! no type of Indian corn existed in the old world till
after the discovery of America."

"No, sir; nor did any old-world type cereal exist in America till
after that.  Now, if the old-world culture seeped its way across
the Pacific, why didn't it bring along its cereals?"

"But that doesn't make America the light-bringer to the rest of the
world, does it?"

"Maybe not; but if not, she just developed her own old
civilisations out of her own discovery of cereals; and they were
the first."

"Are you an Atlantean, Professor?"

"I sometimes toy with the idea, Mr. Curator."

"Well, well!  May I ask if you are quite happy about your attack on
my nephew?"

"Why, I certainly had a sore head when I wrote it.  Your nephew and
I didn't click."

"That, I should think, might make you all the more doubtful as to
whether you were just."

"If I withdrew my criticism, I wouldn't be saying what I really
thought."

"You are convinced that you had no hand in your failure to reach
your objective?"

The frown on the giant's brow had a puzzled quality, and Adrian
thought:  'An honest man, anyway.'

"I don't see what you're getting at," said Hallorsen, slowly,

"You chose my nephew, I believe?"

"Yes, out of twenty others."

"Precisely.  You chose the wrong man, then?"

"I surely did."

"Bad judgment?"

Hallorsen laughed.

"That's very acute, Mr. Curator.  But I'm not the man to advertise
my own failings."

"What you wanted," said Adrian, dryly, "was a man without the
bowels of compassion; well, I admit, you didn't get him."

Hallorsen flushed.

"We shan't agree about this, sir.  I'll just take my little lot of
skulls away.  And I thank you for your courtesy."

A few minutes later he was gone.

Adrian was left to tangled meditation.  The fellow was better than
he had remembered.  Physically a splendid specimen, mentally not to
be despised, spiritually--well, typical of a new world where each
immediate objective was the most important thing on earth till it
was attained, and attainment more important than the methods of
attainment employed.  'Pity,' he thought, 'if there's going to be a
dog-fight.  Still, the fellow's in the wrong; one ought to be more
charitable than to attack like that in public print.  Too much ego
in friend Hallorsen.'  So thinking, he put the maxilla into a
drawer.



CHAPTER V


Dinny pursued her way towards St. Augustine's-in-the-Meads.  On
that fine day the poverty of the district she was entering seemed
to her country-nurtured eyes intensely cheerless.  She was the more
surprised by the hilarity of the children playing in the streets.
Asking one of them the way to the Vicarage, she was escorted by
five.  They did not leave her when she rang the bell, and she was
forced to conclude that they were actuated by motives not entirely
connected with altruism.  They attempted, indeed, to go in with
her, and only left when she gave them each a penny.  She was
ushered into a pleasant room which looked as though it would be
glad if someone had the time to enter it some day, and was
contemplating a reproduction of the Castelfranco Francesca, when a
voice said:

"Dinny!" and she saw her Aunt May.  Mrs. Hilary Cherrell had her
usual air of surmounting the need for being in three places at
once; she looked leisurely, detached, and pleased--not unnaturally,
for she liked her niece.

"Up for shopping, dear?"

"No, Aunt May, I've come to win an introduction off Uncle Hilary."

"Your Uncle's in the Police Court."

A bubble rose to Dinny's surface.

"Why, what's he done, Aunt May?"

Mrs. Hilary smiled.

"Nothing at present, but I won't answer for him if the magistrate
isn't sensible.  One of our young women has been charged with
accosting."

"Not Uncle Hilary?"

"No, dear, hardly that.  Your uncle is a witness to her character."

"And is there really a character to witness to, Aunt May?"

"Well, that's the point.  Hilary says so; but I'm not so sure."

"Men are very trustful.  I've never been in a Police Court.  I
should love to go and catch Uncle there."

"Well, I'm going in that direction.  We might go together as far as
the Court."

Five minutes later they issued, and proceeded by way of streets
ever more arresting to the eyes of Dinny, accustomed only to the
picturesque poverty of the countryside.

"I never quite realised before," she said, suddenly, "that London
was such a bad dream."

"From which there is no awakening.  That's the chilling part of it.
Why on earth, with all this unemployment, don't they organise a
national Slum Clearance Scheme?  It would pay for itself within
twenty years.  Politicians are marvels of energy and principle when
they're out of office, but when they get in, they simply run behind
the machine."

"They're not women, you see, Auntie."

"Are you chaffing, Dinny?"

"Oh! no.  Women haven't the sense of difficulty that men have;
women's difficulties are physical and real, men's difficulties are
mental and formal, they always say:  'It'll never do!'  Women never
say that.  They act, and find out whether it will do or not."

Mrs. Hilary was silent a moment.

"I suppose women ARE more actual; they have a fresher eye, and less
sense of responsibility."

"I wouldn't be a man for anything."

"That's refreshing; but on the whole they get a better time, my
dear, even now."

"They think so, but I doubt it.  Men are awfully like ostriches, it
seems to me.  They can refuse to see what they don't want to,
better than we can; but I don't think that's an advantage."

"If you lived in the Meads, Dinny, you might."

"If I lived in the Meads, dear, I should die."

Mrs. Hilary contemplated her niece by marriage.  Certainly she
looked a little transparent and as if she could be snapped off, but
she also had a look of 'breeding,' as if her flesh were dominated
by her spirit.  She might be unexpectedly durable, and impermeable
by outside things.

"I'm not so sure, Dinny; yours is a toughened breed.  But for that
your uncle would have been dead long ago.  Well!  Here's the Police
Court.  I'm sorry I can't spare time to come in.  But everybody
will be nice to you.  It's a very human place, if somewhat
indelicate.  Be a little careful about your next-door neighbours."

Dinny raised an eyebrow:  "Lousy, Aunt May?"

"Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say not.  Come back to tea, if
you can."

She was gone.

The exchange and mart of human indelicacy was crowded, for with the
infallible flair of the Public for anything dramatic, the case in
which Hilary was a witness to character had caught on, since it
involved the integrity of the Police.  Its second remand was in
progress when Dinny took the last remaining fifteen square inches
of standing room.  Her neighbours on the right reminded her of the
nursery rhyme:  'The butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker.'
Her neighbour on the left was a tall policeman.  Many women were
among the throng at the back of the Court.  The air was close and
smelled of clothes.  Dinny looked at the magistrate, ascetic and as
if pickled, and wondered why he did not have incense fuming on his
desk.  Her eyes passed on to the figure in the dock, a girl of
about her own age and height, neatly dressed, with good features
except that her mouth was perhaps more sensuous than was fortunate
for one in her position.  Dinny estimated that her hair was
probably fair.  She stood very still, with a slight fixed flush on
her pale cheeks, and a frightened restlessness in her eyes.  Her
name appeared to be Millicent Pole.  Dinny gathered that she was
alleged by a police constable to have accosted two men in the
Euston Road, neither of whom had appeared to give evidence.  In the
witness-box a young man who resembled a tobacconist was testifying
that he had seen the girl pass twice or three times--had noticed
her specially as a 'nice bit'; she had seemed worried, as if
looking for something.

For somebody, did he mean?

That or the other, how should he know?  No, she wasn't looking on
the pavement; no, she didn't stop, she passed HIM, anyway, without
a look.  Had he spoken to her?  No fear!  Doing?  Oh, he was just
outside his shop for a breath of air after closing.  Did he see her
speak to anyone?  No, he didn't, but he wasn't there long.

"The Reverend Hilary Charwell."

Dinny saw her uncle rise from a bench and step up under the canopy
of the witness box.  He looked active and unclerical, and her eyes
rested with pleasure on his long firm face, so wrinkled and
humorous.

"Your name is Hilary Charwell?"

"Cherrell, if you don't mind."

"Quite.  And you are the incumbent of St. Augustine's-in-the-
Meads?"

Hilary bowed.

"For how long?"

"Thirteen years."

"You are acquainted with the defendant?"

"Since she was a child."

"Tell us, please, Mr. Cherrell, what you know of her?"

Dinny saw her uncle turn more definitely to the magistrate.

"Her father and mother, sir, were people for whom I had every
respect; they brought up their children well.  He was a shoemaker--
poor, of course; we're all poor in my parish.  I might almost say
they died of poverty five and six years ago, and their two
daughters have been more or less under my eye since.  They work at
Petter and Poplin's.  I've never heard anything against Millicent
here.  So far as I know, she's a good honest girl."

"I take it, Mr. Cherrell, your opportunities of judging of her are
not very great?"

"Well, I visit the house in which she lodges with her sister.  If
you saw it, sir, you would agree that it requires some self-respect
to deal as well as they do with the conditions there."

"Is she a member of your congregation?"

A smile came on her uncle's lips, and was reflected on the
magistrate's.

"Hardly, sir.  Their Sundays are too precious to young people
nowadays.  But Millicent is one of the girls who goes for her
holidays to our Rest House near Dorking.  They are always very good
girls down there.  My niece by marriage, Mrs. Michael Mont, who
runs the house, has reported well of her.  Shall I read what she
says?


"'DEAR UNCLE HILARY,

"'You ask about Millicent Pole.  She has been down three times, and
the matron reports that she is a nice girl and not at all flighty.
My own impression of her is the same.'"


"Then it comes to this, Mr. Cherrell: in your view a mistake has
been made in this case?"

"Yes, sir; I am convinced of it."

The girl in the dock put her handkerchief to her eyes.  And Dinny
felt, suddenly, indignant at the extreme wretchedness of her
position.  To stand there before all those people, even if she had
done as they said!  And why shouldn't a girl ask a man for his
companionship?  He wasn't obliged to give it.

The tall policeman stirred, looked down at her, as if scenting
unorthodoxy, and cleared his throat.

"Thank you, Mr. Cherrell."

Hilary stepped out of the witness box and in doing so caught sight
of his niece and waved a finger.  Dinny became aware that the case
was over, the magistrate making up his mind.  He sat perfectly
silent, pressing his finger-tips together and staring at the girl,
who had finished mopping her eyes and was staring back at him.
Dinny held her breath.  On the next minute--a life, perhaps, hung
in the balance!  The tall policeman changed his feet.  Was his
sympathy with his fellow in the force, or with that girl?  All the
little noises in the Court had ceased, the only sound was the
scratching of a pen.  The magistrate held his finger-tips apart and
spoke:

"I am not satisfied that this case has been made out.  The
defendant will be dismissed.  You may go."

The girl made a little choking sound.  To her right the
candlestick-maker uttered a hoarse:  "'Ear! 'ear!"

"'Ush!" said the tall policeman.  Dinny saw her uncle walking out
beside the girl; he smiled as he passed.

"Wait for me, Dinny--shan't be two minutes!"

Slipping out behind the tall policeman, Dinny waited in the lobby.
The nature of things around gave her the shuddery feeling one had
turning up the light in a kitchen at night; the scent of Condy's
Fluid assailed her nostrils; she moved nearer to the outer door.
A police sergeant said:

"Anything I can do for you, Miss?"

"Thank you, I'm waiting for my uncle; he's just coming."

"The reverend gentleman?"

Dinny nodded.

"Ah!  He's a good man, is the Vicar.  That girl got off?"

"Yes."

"Well!  Mistakes will 'appen.  Here he is, Miss."

Hilary came up and put his arm through Dinny's.

"Ah!  Sergeant," he said, "how's the Missis?"

"Prime, Sir.  So you pulled her out of it?"

"Yes," said Hilary; "and I want a pipe.  Come along, Dinny."  And,
nodding to the sergeant, he led her into the air.

"What brought YOU into this galley, Dinny?"

"I came after you, Uncle.  Aunt May brought me.  Did that girl
really not do it?"

"Ask me another.  But to convict her was the surest way to send her
to hell.  She's behind with her rent, and her sister's ill.  Hold
on a minute while I light up."  He emitted a cloud of smoke and
resumed her arm.  "What do you want of me, my dear?"

"An introduction to Lord Saxenden."

"Snubby Bantham?  Why?"

"Because of Hubert."

"Oh!  Going to vamp him?"

"If you'll bring us together."

"I was at Harrow with Snubby, he was only a baronet then--I haven't
seen him since."

"But you've got Wilfred Bentworth in your pocket, Uncle, and their
estates march."

"Well, I daresay Bentworth will give me a note to him for you."

"That's not what I want.  I want to meet him socially."

"Um!  Yes, you can hardly vamp him without.  What's the point,
exactly?"

"Hubert's future.  We want to get at the fountain-head before worse
befalls."

"I see.  But look here, Dinny, Lawrence is your man.  He has
Bentworth going to them at Lippinghall on Tuesday next week, for
partridge driving.  You could go too."

"I thought of Uncle Lawrence, but I couldn't miss the chance of
seeing you, Uncle."

"My dear," said Hilary, "attractive nymphs mustn't say things like
that.  They go to the head.  Well, here we are!  Come in and have
tea."

In the drawing room of the Vicarage Dinny was startled to see again
her Uncle Adrian.  He was sitting in a corner with his long legs
drawn in, surrounded by two young women who looked like teachers.
He waved his spoon, and presently came over to her.

"After we parted, Dinny, who should appear but the man of wrath
himself, to see my Peruvians."

"Not Hallorsen?"

Adrian held out a card:  'Professor Edward Hallorsen,' and in
pencil, 'Piedmont Hotel.'

"He's a much more personable bloke than I thought when I met him
husky and bearded in the Dolomites; and I should say he's no bad
chap if taken the right way.  And what I was going to say to you
was:  Why not take him the right way?"

"You haven't read Hubert's diary, Uncle."

"I should like to."

"You probably will.  It may be published."

Adrian whistled faintly.

"Perpend, my dear.  Dog-fighting is excellent for all except the
dogs."

"Hallorsen's had his innings.  It's Hubert's turn to bat."

"Well, Dinny--no harm in having a look at the bowling before he
goes in.  Let me arrange a little dinner.  Diana Ferse will have us
at her house, and you can stay the night with her for it.  So what
about Monday?"

Dinny wrinkled her rather tip-tilted nose.  If, as she intended,
she went to Lippinghall next week, Monday WOULD be handy.  It
might, after all, be as well to see this American before declaring
war on him.

"All right, Uncle, and thank you very much.  If you're going West
may I come with you?  I want to see Aunt Emily and Uncle Lawrence.
Mount Street's on your way home."

"Right!  When you've had your fill, we'll start."

"I'm quite full," said Dinny, and got up.



CHAPTER VI


Her luck held, and she flushed her third Uncle contemplating his
own house in Mount Street, as if he were about to make an offer for
it.

"Ah!  Dinny, come along; your Aunt's moulting, and she'll be glad
to see you.  I miss old Forsyte," he added in the hall.  "I was
just considering what I ought to ask for this house if we let it
next season.  You didn't know old Forsyte--Fleur's father: he was a
character."

"What is the matter with Aunt Em, Uncle Lawrence?"

"Nothing, my dear.  I think the sight of poor old Uncle 'Cuffs' has
made her dwell on the future.  Ever dwell on the future, Dinny?
It's a dismal period, after a certain age."

He opened a door.

"My dear, here's Dinny."

Emily, Lady Mont, was standing in her panelled drawing-room
flicking a feather brush over a bit of Famille Verte, with her
parakeet perched on her shoulder.  She lowered the brush, advanced
with a far-away look in her eyes, said "Mind, Polly," and kissed
her niece.  The parakeet transferred itself to Dinny's shoulder and
bent its head round enquiringly to look in her face.

"He's such a dear," said Lady Mont; "you won't mind if he tweaks
your ear?  I'm so glad you came, Dinny; I've been so thinking of
funerals.  Do tell me your idea about the hereafter."

"Is there one, Auntie?"

"Dinny!  That's so depressing."

"Perhaps those who want one have it."

"You're like Michael.  He's so mental.  Where did you pick Dinny
up, Lawrence?"

"In the street."

"That sounds improper.  How is your father, Dinny?  I hope he isn't
any the worse for that dreadful house at Porthminster.  It did so
smell of preserved mice."

"We're all very worried about Hubert, Aunt Em."

"Ah!  Hubert, yes.  You know, I think he made a mistake to flog
those men.  Shootin' them one can quite understand, but floggin' is
so physical and like the old Duke."

"Don't you feel inclined to flog carters when they lash overloaded
horses up-hill, Auntie?"

"Yes, I do.  Was that what they were doin'?"

"Practically, only worse.  They used to twist the mules' tails and
stick their knives into them, and generally play hell with the poor
brutes."

"Did they?  I'm so glad he flogged them; though I've never liked
mules ever since we went up the Gemmi.  Do you remember, Lawrence?"

Sir Lawrence nodded.  On his face was the look, affectionate but
quizzical, which Dinny always connected with Aunt Em.

"Why, Auntie?"

"They rolled on me; not they exactly, but the one I was ridin'.
They tell me it's the only time a mule has ever rolled on anybody--
surefooted."

"Dreadful taste, Auntie!"

"Yes; and most unpleasant--so internal.  Do you think Hubert would
like to come and shoot partridges at Lippinghall next week?'

"I don't think you could get Hubert to go anywhere just now.  He's
got a terrible hump.  But if you have a cubby-hole left for me,
could _I_ come?"

"Of course.  There'll be plenty of room.  Let's see: just Charlie
Muskham and his new wife, Mr. Bentworth and Hen, Michael and Fleur,
and Diana Ferse, and perhaps Adrian because he doesn't shoot, and
your Aunt Wilmet.  Oh! ah!  And Lord Saxenden."

"What!" cried Dinny.

"Why?  Isn't he respectable?"

"But, Auntie--that's perfect!  He's my objective."

"What a dreadful word; I never heard it called that before.
Besides, there's a Lady Saxenden, on her back somewhere."

"No, no, Aunt Em.  I want to get at him about Hubert.  Father says
he's the nod."

"Dinny, you and Michael use the oddest expressions.  What nod?"

Sir Lawrence broke the petrified silence he usually observed in the
presence of his wife.

"Dinny means, my dear, that Saxenden is a big noise behind the
scenes in military matters."

"What is he like, Uncle Lawrence?"

"Snubby?  I've known him many years--quite a lad."

"This is very agitatin'," said Lady Mont, resuming the parakeet.

"Dear Auntie, I'm quite safe."

"But is Lord--er--Snubby?  I've always tried to keep Lippin'hall
respectable.  I'm very doubtful about Adrian as it is, but"--she
placed the parakeet on the mantelpiece--"he's my favourite brother.
For a favourite brother one does things."

"One does," said Dinny.

"That'll be all right, Em," put in Sir Lawrence.  "I'll watch over
Dinny and Diana, and you can watch over Adrian and Snubby."

"Your uncle gets more frivolous every year, Dinny; he tells me the
most dreadful stories."  She stood still alongside Sir Lawrence and
he put his hand through her arm.

Dinny thought:  'The Red King and the White Queen.'

"Well, good-bye, Dinny," said her Aunt, suddenly; "I have to go to
bed.  My Swedish masseuse is takin' me off three times a week.  I
really am reducin'."  Her eyes roved over Dinny:  "I wonder if she
could put you on a bit!"

"I'm fatter than I look, Auntie."

"So am I--it's distressin'.  If your uncle wasn't a hop-pole I
shouldn't mind so much."  She inclined her cheek, and Dinny gave it
a smacking kiss.

"What a nice kiss!" said Lady Mont.  "I haven't had a kiss like
that for years.  People do peck so!  Come, Polly!" and, with the
parakeet upon her shoulder, she swayed away.

"Aunt Em looks awfully well."

"She is, my dear.  It's her mania--getting stout; she fights it
tooth and nail.  We live on the most variegated cookery.  It's
better at Lippinghall, because Augustine leads us by the nose, and
she's as French as she was thirty-five years ago when we brought
her back from our honeymoon.  Cooks like a bird, still.
Fortunately nothing makes me fat."

"Aunt Em isn't fat."

"M-no."

"And she carries herself beautifully.  We don't carry ourselves
like that."

"Carriage went out with Edward," said Sir Lawrence; "it was
succeeded by the lope.  All you young women lope as if you were
about to spring on to something and make a get-away.  I've been
trying to foresee what will come next.  Logically it should be the
bound, but it may quite well revert and be the languish."

"What sort of man is Lord Saxenden, really, Uncle Lawrence?"

"One of those who won the war by never having his opinion taken.
You know the sort of thing:  'Went down for week-end to Cooquers.
The Capers were there, and Gwen Blandish; she was in force and had
much to say about the Polish front.  I had more.  Talked with
Capers; he thinks the Boches have had enough.  I disagreed with
him; he is very down on Lord T.  Arthur Prose came over on Sunday;
he estimates that the Russians now have two million rifles but no
bullets.  The war, he says, will be over by January.  He is
appalled by our losses.  If he only knew what I know!  Lady Thripp
was there with her son, who has lost his left foot.  She is most
engaging; promised to go and see her hospital and tell her how to
run it.  Very pleasant dinner on Sunday--everybody in great form;
we played at comfits.  Alick came in after; he says we lost forty
thousand men in the last attack, but the French lost more.  I
expressed the opinion that it was very serious.  No one took it.'"

Dinny laughed.  "Were there such people?"

"Were there not, my dear!  Most valuable fellows; what we should
have done without them--the way they kept their ends up and their
courage and their conversation--the thing had to be seen to be
believed.  And almost all of them won the war.  Saxenden was
especially responsible.  He had an active job all the time."

"What job?"

"Being in the know.  He was probably more in the know than anybody
else on earth, judging by what he says.  Remarkable constitution,
too, and lets you see it: great yachtsman."

"I shall look forward to him."

"Snubby," sighed her uncle, "is one of those persons at whom it is
better to look back.  Would you like to stay the night, Dinny, or
are you going home?"

"Oh, I must go back to-night.  My train's at eight from
Paddington."

"In that case I'll lope you across the Park, give you a snack at
Paddington, and put you into the train."

"Oh! don't bother about me, Uncle Lawrence."

"Let you cross the Park without me, and miss the chance of being
arrested for walking with a young female!  Never!  We might even
sit, and try our luck.  You're just the type that gets the aged
into trouble.  There's something Botticellian about you, Dinny.
Come along."

It was seven o'clock of the September evening when they debouched
into Hyde Park, and, passing under the plane trees, walked on its
withered grass.

"Too early," said Sir Lawrence, "owing to Daylight Saving.
Indecorum isn't billed till eight.  I doubt if it will be any use
to sit, Dinny.  Can you tell a disguised copper when you see him?
It's very necessary.  The bowler hat--for fear of being hit on the
head too suddenly; they always fall off in books; tendency to look
as if he weren't a copper; touch of efficiency about the mouth--
they complete their teeth in the force; eyes a trifle on the ground
when they're not on you; the main man dwelling a little on both
feet, and looking as if he had been measured for something.  Boots
of course--proverbial."

Dinny gurgled.

"I tell you what we might do, Uncle Lawrence.  Stage an accost.
There'll be a policeman at the Paddington Gate.  I'll loiter a
little, and accost you as you come up.  What ought I to say?"

Sir Lawrence wrinkled up an eyebrow.

"So far as I can recollect, something like:  'How do, ducky?  Your
night out?'"

"I'll go on, then, and let that off on you under the policeman's
nose."

"He'd see through it, Dinny."

"You're trying to back out."

"Well, no one has taken a proposition of mine seriously for so
long.  Besides, 'Life is real, life is earnest, and the end is not
the gaol'!"

"I'm disappointed in you, Uncle."

"I'm used to that, my dear.  Wait till you're grave and reverend,
and see how continually you will disappoint youth."

"But think: we could have whole columns of the newspapers devoted
to us for days.  'Paddington Gate accosting incident:  Alleged
Uncle.'  Don't you hanker to be an alleged uncle and supersede the
affairs of Europe?  Don't you even want to get the Police into
trouble?  Uncle, it's pusillanimous."

"Soit!" said Sir Lawrence:  "One uncle in the Police Court per day
is enough.  You're more dangerous than I thought, Dinny."

"But, really, why should those girls be arrested?  That all belongs
to the past, when women WERE under-dogs."

"I am entirely of your way of thinking, Dinny, but the
Nonconformist conscience is still with us, and the Police must have
something to do.  Without adding to unemployment it's impossible to
reduce their numbers.  And an idle police force is dangerous to
cooks."

"Do be serious, Uncle!"

"Not that, my dear!  Whatever else life holds for us--not that!
But I do foresee the age when we shall all be free to accost each
other, limited only by common civility.  Instead of the present
Vulgate, there will be revised versions for men and women.  'Madam,
will you walk?'  'Sir, do you desire my company?'  It will be an
age not perhaps of gold, but at least of glitter.  This is
Paddington Gate.  Could you have had the heart to spoof that noble-
looking copper?  Come along, let's cross."

"Your Aunt," he resumed, as they entered Paddington Station, "won't
rise again, so I'll dine with you in the buffet.  We'll have a spot
of the 'boy,' and for the rest, if I know our railway stations,
oxtail soup, white fish, roast beef, greens, browned potatoes, and
plum tart--all good, if somewhat English."

"Uncle Lawrence," said Dinny, when they had reached the roast beef,
"what do YOU think of Americans?"

"No patriotic man, Dinny, speaks the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth, on that subject.  Americans, however, like
Englishmen, may be divided into two classes--Americans and
Americans.  In other words, some are nice and some are nasty."

"Why don't we get on better with them?"

"That's an easy one.  The nasty English don't get on better with
them because they have more money than we have.  The nice English
don't get on as well as they ought with them, because Americans are
so responsive and the tone of the American voice is not pleasing to
the English ear.  Or take it the other way round.  The nasty
Americans don't get on well with the English because the tone of
the English voice is unpleasing to them.  The nice Americans don't
get on as well with us as they should, because we're so
unresponsive and sniffy."

"Don't you think they want to have things their own way too much?"

"So do we.  It isn't that.  It's manner, my dear, that divides us,
manner and language."

"How?"

"Having what used to be the same language is undoubtedly a snare.
We must hope for such a development of the American lingo as will
necessitate our both learning each other's."

"But we always talk about the link of a common tongue."

"Why this curiosity about Americans?"

"I'm to meet Professor Hallorsen on Monday."

"The Bolivian bloke.  A word of advice then, Dinny:  Let him be in
the right, and he'll feed out of your hand.  Put him in the wrong,
and you'll not feed out of his."

"Oh!  I mean to keep my temper."

"Keep your left up, and don't rush in.  Now, if you've finished, my
dear, we ought to go; it's five minutes to eight."

He put her into her carriage and supplied her with an evening
paper.  As the train moved out, he added:

"Give him the Botticellian eye, Dinny.  Give him the Botticellian
eye!"



CHAPTER VII


Adrian brooded over Chelsea as he approached it on Monday evening.
It was not what it used to be.  Even in late Victorian days he
remembered its inhabitants as somewhat troglodytic--persons
inclined to duck their heads, with here and there a high light or
historian.  Charwomen, artists hoping to pay their rent, writers
living on four-and-sevenpence a day, ladies prepared to shed their
clothes at a shilling an hour, couples maturing for the Divorce
Court, people who liked a draught, together with the worshippers of
Turner, Carlyle, Rossetti, and Whistler; some publicans, not a few
sinners, and the usual sprinkling of those who eat mutton four
times a week.  Behind a river façade hardening into the palatial,
respectability had gradually thickened, till it was now lapping the
incurable King's Road and emerging even there in bastions of Art
and Fashion.

Diana's house was in Oakley Street.  He could remember it as having
no individuality whatever, and inhabited by a family of strict
mutton-eaters; but in the six years of Diana's residence it had
become one of the charming nests of London.  He had known all the
pretty Montjoy sisters scattered over Society, but of them all
Diana was the youngest, the prettiest, most tasteful, and wittiest--
one of those women who, without money to speak of or impeachment
of virtue, contrive that all about them shall be elegant to the
point of exciting jealousy.  From her two children and her Collie
dog (almost the only one left in London), from her harpsichord,
four-poster, Bristol glass, and the stuff on her chairs and floors,
taste always seemed to him to radiate and give comfort to the
beholder.  She, too, gave comfort, with her still perfect figure,
dark eyes clear and quick, oval face, ivory complexion, and little
crisp trick of speech.  All the Montjoy sisters had that trick, it
came from their mother, of Highland stock, and had undoubtedly in
the course of thirty years made a considerable effect on the accent
of Society, converting it from the g-dropping yaw-yaw of the
'nineties into a rather charming r- and 1-pinching dialect.  When
he considered why Diana, with her scant income and her husband in a
Mental Home, was received everywhere in Society, Adrian was
accustomed to take the image of a Bactrian camel.  That animal's
two humps were like the two sections of Society (with the big S)
joined by a bridge, seldom used after the first crossing.  The
Montjoys, a very old landed family in Dumfriesshire innumerably
allied in the past with the nobility, had something of an
hereditary perch on the foremost hump--a somewhat dull position
from which there was very little view, because of the camel's head--
and Diana was often invited to great houses where the chief works
were hunting, shooting, hospitals, Court functions, and giving
debutantes a chance.  As Adrian well knew, she seldom went.  She
was far more constantly seated on the second hump, with its wide
and stimulating view over the camel's tail.  Ah!  They were a queer
collection on that back hump!  Many, like Diana herself, crossed
from the first hump by the bridge, others came up the camel's tail,
a few were dropped from Heaven, or--as people sometimes called it--
America.  To qualify for that back hump Adrian, who had never
qualified, knew that you needed a certain liveliness on several
fronts; either a first-rate memory so that anything you read or
listened to could be retailed with ready accuracy; or a natural
spring of wit.  If you had neither of these you might appear on the
hump once, but never again.  Personality of course, you must have,
though without real eccentricity; but it must not be personality
which hid its light under a bushel.  Eminence in some branch of
activity was desirable, but not a sine quâ non.  Breeding again was
welcome, but not if it made you dull.  Beauty was a passport, but
it had to be allied with animation.  Money was desirable, but money
alone wouldn't get you a seat.  Adrian had noted that knowledge of
Art, if vocal, was of greater value than the power to produce it;
and directive ability acceptable if it were not too silent or too
dry.  Then, again, some people seemed to get there out of an
aptitude for the 'coulisses,' and for having a finger in every pie.
But first and last the great thing was to be able to talk.
Innumerable strings were pulled from this back hump, but whether
they guided the camel's progress at all he was never sure, however
much those who pulled them thought so.  Diana, he knew, had so safe
a seat among this heterogeneous group, given to constant meals,
that she might have fed without expense from Christmas to
Christmas, nor need ever have passed a week-end in Oakley Street.
And he was the more grateful in that she so constantly sacrificed
all that to be with her children and himself.  The war had broken
out just after her marriage with Ronald Ferse, and Sheila and
Ronald had not been born till after his return from it.  They were
now seven and six, and, as Adrian was always careful to tell her,
'regular little Montjoys.'  They certainly had her looks and
animation.  But he alone knew that the shadow on her face in repose
was due more to the fear that she ought not to have had them than
to anything else in her situation.  He, too, alone knew that the
strain of living with one unbalanced as Ferse had become had so
killed sex impulse in her that she had lived these four years of
practical widowhood without any urge towards love.  He believed she
had for himself a real affection, but he knew that so far it
stopped short of passion.

He arrived half an hour before dinner time, and went up to the
schoolroom at the top of the house, to see the children.  They were
receiving bed-time rusks and milk from their French governess,
welcomed him with acclamation and clamoured for him to go on with
the story he was telling them.  The French governess, who knew what
to expect, withdrew.  Adrian sat down opposite the two small
sparkling faces, and began where he had left off:  "So the man who
had charge of the canoes was a tremendous fellow, brown all over,
who had been selected for his strength, because of the white
unicorns which infested that coast.'

"Boo!  Uncle Adrian--unicorns are imaginative."

"Not in those days, Sheila."

"Then what's become of them?"

"There is only about one left, and he lives where white men cannot
go, because of the 'Bu-bu' fly."

"What is the 'Bu-bu' fly?"

"The 'Bu-bu' fly, Ronald, is remarkable for settling in the calf of
the leg and founding a family there."

"Oh!"

"Unicorns--as I said before I was interrupted--which infested that
coast.  His name was Mattagor, and this was his way with unicorns.
After luring them down to the beach with crinibobs--"

"What are crinibobs?"

"They look like strawberries and taste like carrots--crinibobs--he
would steal up behind them--"

"If he was in front of them with the crinibobs, how could he steal
up behind them?"

"He used to thread the crinibobs through a string made out of
fibre, and hang them in a row between two charm trees.  As soon as
the unicorns were nibbling, he would emerge from the bush where he
would be hiding, and, making no noise with his bare feet, tie their
tails together two by two."

"But they would feel their tails being tied!"

"No, Sheila; white unicorns don't feel with their tails.  Then he
would retire to the bush, and click his tongue against his teeth,
and the unicorns would dash forward in wild confusion."

"Did their tails ever come out?"

"Never.  That was the great thing, because he was very fond of
animals."

"I expect the unicorns never came again?"

"Wrong, Ronny.  Their love of crinibobs was too great."

"Did he ever ride on them?"

"Yes; sometimes he would leap lightly on to two of their backs and
ride off into the jungle with one foot on each back, laughing drily
to himself.  So under his charge, as you may imagine, the canoes
were safe.  It was not the wet season, so that the landsharks would
not be so numerous, and the expedition was about to start when--"

"When what, Uncle Adrian?  It's only Mummy."

"Go on, Adrian."

But Adrian remained silent, with his eyes fixed on the advancing
vision.  Then, averting from it his eyes and fixing them on Sheila,
he proceeded:

"I must now pause to tell you why the moon was so important.  They
could not start the expedition till the half-moon was seen
advancing towards them through the charm trees."

"Why not?"

"That is what I am going to tell you.  In those days people, and
especially this tribe of Phwatabhoys, paid a great deal of
attention to what was beautiful--things like Mummy, or Christmas
carols, or little new potatoes, had a great effect on them.  And
before they did anything they had to have an omen."

"What is an omen?"

"You know what an amen is--it comes at the end: well, an omen comes
at the beginning, to bring luck.  And the omen had to be beautiful.
Now the half-moon was considered to be the most beautiful thing in
the dry season, so they had to wait till it came advancing to them
through the charm trees, as you saw Mummy just now walking towards
us through the door."

"But the moon hasn't got feet."

"No; she floats.  And one fine evening she came floating, like
nothing else on earth, so lovely and so slim, and with such an
expression in her eyes that they all knew their expedition was
bound to be successful; and they abased themselves before her,
saying:  'Omen! if thou wilt be with us, then shall we pass over
the wilderness of the waters and the sands with thee in our eyes,
and be happy in the happiness that comes with thee for ever and
ever.  Amen!'  And when they had put it like that, they got
into the canoes, Phwatabhoy by Phwatabhoy and Phwatanymph by
Phwatanymph, till they were all in.  And the half-moon stayed there
at the edge of the charm trees and blessed them with her eyes.  But
one man stopped behind.  He was an old Phwatabhoy who wished for
the half-moon so much that he forgot everything, and started
crawling towards her, hoping to touch her feet."

"But she hadn't feet!"

"He thought she had, for to him she was like a woman made of silver
and ivory.  And he crawled in and out of the charm trees, but never
could he quite reach her, because she was the half-moon."

Adrian paused, and there was for a moment no sound; then he said:
"To be continued in our next," and went out.  Diana joined him in
the hall.

"Adrian, you are corrupting the children.  Don't you know that
fables and fairy-tales are no longer to be allowed to interfere
with their interest in machines?  After you'd gone Ronald said:
'Does Uncle Adrian really believe you are the half-moon, Mummy?'"

"And you answered?"

"Diplomatically.  But they're as sharp as squirrels."

"Well!  Sing me 'Waterboy' before Dinny and her swain come."

And while she sat and sang, Adrian gazed and worshipped.  Her voice
was good and she sang well that strange and haunting song.  The
last 'Waterboy' had barely died away when the maid announced:

"Miss Cherrell.  Professor Hallorsen."

Dinny came in with her head held high, and Adrian augured but
poorly from the expression of her eyes.  He had seen schoolboys
look like that when they were going to 'roast' a new-comer.  After
her came Hallorsen, immensely tall in that small drawing-room, his
eyes swimming with health.  He bowed low when presented to Dinny.
"Your daughter, I presume, Mr. Curator?"

"No, my niece; a sister of Captain Hubert Cherrell."

"Is that so?  I am honoured to make your acquaintance, Ma'am."

Adrian, noting that their eyes, having crossed, seemed to find it
difficult to disengage, said:

"How are you liking the Piedmont, Professor?"

"The cooking's fine, but there are too many of us Americans."

"Perching just now like the swallows?"

"Ah!  In a fortnight we'll all have flitted."

Dinny had come brimful of Anglo-femininity, and the contrast
between Hallorsen's overpowering health and Hubert's haggard looks
had at once sharpened the edge of her temper.  She sat down beside
that embodiment of the conquering male with the full intention of
planting every dart she could in his epidermis.  He was, however,
at once engaged in conversation by Diana, and she had not finished
her soup (clear, with a prune in it) before, stealing a look round
at him, she revised her plan.  After all, he was a stranger and a
guest, and she was supposed to be a lady; there were other ways of
killing a cat beside hanging it.  She would not plant darts, she
would 'charm him with smiles and soap'; that would be more
considerate towards Diana and her uncle, and more effective warfare
in the long run.  With a cunning worthy of her cause, she waited
till he was in deep water over British politics, which he seemed to
regard as serious manifestations of human activity; then, turning
on him the Botticellian eye, she said:

"We should treat American politics just as seriously, Professor.
But surely they're not serious, are they?"

"I believe you are right, Miss Cherrell.  There's just one rule for
politicians all over the world:  Don't say in Power what you say in
Opposition; if you do, you only have to carry out what the other
fellows have found impossible.  The only real difference, I judge,
between Parties is that one Party sits in the National 'Bus, and
the other Party strap-hangs."

"In Russia, what's left of the other Party lies under the seat,
doesn't it?"

"So it does in Italy," said Diana.

"And what about Spain?" added Adrian.

Hallorsen uttered his infectious laugh.  "Dictatorships aren't
politics.  They're jokes."

"NO jokes, Professor."

"Bad jokes, Professor."

"How do you MEAN--jokes, Professor?"

"Bluff.  Just one long assumption that human nature's on the mark
the Dictator makes for it.  The moment his bluff's called--Why!
Wump!"

"But," said Diana, "suppose a majority of the people approve of
their dictator, isn't that democracy, or government by consent of
the governed?"

"I would say no, Mrs. Ferse, unless he was confirmed by majority
every year."

"Dictators get things done," said Adrian.

"At a price, Mr. Curator.  But look at Diaz in Mexico.  For twenty
years he made it the Garden of Eden, but see what it's been ever
since he went.  You can't get out of a people for keeps what isn't
yet in them."

"The fault," replied Adrian, "in our political system and in yours,
Professor, is that a whole lot of reforms latent in the common-
sense of the people don't get a chance of being carried out because
our short-term politicians won't give a lead, for fear of losing
the power they haven't got."

"Aunt May," Dinny murmured, "was saying:  Why not cure Unemployment
by a National Slum Clearance effort, and kill the two birds with
one stone?"

"My!  But that's a mighty fine idea!" said Hallorsen, turning on
her the full of his brimming face.

"Vested interests," said Diana, "slum landlordism and the building
trades are too strong for that."

Adrian added:  "And there's the cash required."

"Why! that's all easy.  Your Parliament could take what powers they
need for a big national thing like that; and what's wrong with a
Loan, anyway?--the money would come back; it's not like a Loan for
war, all shot away in powder.  What do you pay in doles?"

No one could answer him.

"I judge the saving would pay the interest on a pretty big Loan."

"It just, in fact," said Dinny, sweetly, "needs simple faith.
That's where you Americans beat us, Professor Hallorsen."

A look slid over the American's face as though he were saying:
'Cats!'

"Well, we certainly had a pieful of simple faith when we came over
to fight in France.  But we ate the lot.  It'll be the home fires
we keep burning next time."

"Was your faith so simple even last time?"

"I fear it was, Miss Cherrell.  Not one in twenty of us ever
believed the Germans could get a cinch on us away over there."

"I sit rebuked, Professor."

"Why!  Not at all!  You judge America by Europe."

"There was Belgium, Professor," said Diana; "even we had some
simple faith at the start."

"Pardon me, but did the case of Belgium really move you, Ma'am?"

Adrian was drawing circles with a fork; he looked up.

"Speaking for onself, yes.  I don't suppose it made any difference
to the Army people, Navy people, big business people, or even to a
large section of Society, political and otherwise.  They all knew
that if war came we were practically committed to France.  But to
simple folk like myself and some two-thirds of the population not
in the know, to the working classes, in fact, generally, it made
all the difference.  It was like seeing What's-his-name--the Man
Mountain--advancing on the smallest Flyweight in the ring, who was
standing firm and squaring up like a man."

"Mighty well put, Mr. Curator."

Dinny flushed.  Was there generosity in this man?  Then, as if
conscious of treachery to Hubert, she said acidly:

"I've read that the sight even ruffled Roosevelt."

"It ruffled quite a few of us, Miss Cherrell; but we're a long way
off over there, and things have to be near before they stir the
imagination."

"Yes, and after all, as you said just now, you did come in at the
end."

Hallorsen looked fixedly at her ingenuous face, bowed and was
silent.

Bet when, at the end of that peculiar evening, he was saying good-
night, he added:

"I fear you've gotten a grouch against me, Miss Cherrell."

Dinny smiled, without reply.

"All the same, I hope I may meet you again."

"Oh!  But why?"

"Well, I kind of have the feeling that I might change the view you
have of me."

"I am very fond of my brother, Professor Hallorsen."

"I still think I've more against your brother than he has against
me."

"I hope you may be right before long."

"That sounds like trouble."

Dinny tilted her head.

She went up to bed, biting her lip with vexation.  She had neither
charmed nor assailed the enemy; and instead of clean-cut animosity,
she had confused feelings about him.

His inches gave him a disconcerting domination.  'He's like those
creatures in hairy trousers on the films,' she thought, 'carrying
off the semi-distressed cow-girls--looks at one as if he thought
one was on his pillion.'  Primitive Force in swallow-tails and a
white waistcoat!  A strong but not a silent man.

Her room looked over the street, and from her window she could see
the plane trees on the Embankment, the river, and the wide expanse
of starry night.

"Perhaps," she said to herself, aloud, "you won't leave England so
soon as you thought."

"Can I come in?"

She turned to see Diana in the doorway.

"Well, Dinny, what think you of our friend the enemy?"

"Tom Mix, mixed with the Giant that Jack killed."

"Adrian likes him."

"Uncle Adrian lives too much with bones.  The sight of red blood
goes to his head."

"Yes; this is the sort of 'he-man' women are supposed to fall for.
But you behaved well, Dinny, though your eyes looked very green at
first."

"They feel greener now I've let him go without a scratch."

"Never mind!  You'll have other chances.  Adrian's got him asked to
Lippinghall to-morrow."

"What!"

"You've only to embroil him with Saxenden there, and Hubert's trick
is done.  Adrian didn't tell you, for fear your joy might show
itself.  The Professor wants to sample British 'hunting.'  The poor
man doesn't in the least realise that he's walking into a lioness's
den.  Your Aunt Em will be delicious with him."

"Hallorsen!" murmured Dinny:  "He must have Scandinavian blood."

"He says his mother was old New England, but married out of the
direct succession.  Wyoming's his State.  Delightful word,
Wyoming."

"'The great open spaces.'  What is there about the expression 'he-
man' which infuriates me, Diana?"

"Well, it's like being in a room with a burst of sunflowers.  But
'he-men' aren't confined to the great open spaces; you'll find
Saxenden one."

"Really!"

"Yes.  Good-night, my dear.  And may no 'he-men' come to you in
dreams!"

When Dinny had disrobed, she again took out the diary and re-read a
passage she had turned down.  It ran thus:  "Feel very low to-
night--as if all my sap had run out.  Can only keep my pecker up by
thinking of Condaford.  Wonder what old Foxham would say if he
could see me doctoring the mules!  The stuff I've invented for
their colic would raise hair on a billiard ball, but it stops the
thing all right.  God was in luck when He planned the inside of a
mule.  Dreamed last night I was standing at the end of the home
spinney with pheasants coming over in a stream, and for the life of
me I couldn't pull my trigger; ghastly sort of paralysis.  Keep
thinking of old Haddon and his:  'Go it, Master Bertie.  Stick your
'eels in and take 'old of 'is 'ead!'  Good old Haddon!  He was a
character.  The rain's stopped.  Dry--first time for ten days.  And
the stars are out.


     'A ship, an isle, a sickle moon,
      With few but with how splendid stars.'


If only I could sleep! . . ."



CHAPTER VIII


That essential private irregularity, room by room, which
differentiates the old English from every other variety of country
house, was patent at Lippinghall Manor.  People went into rooms as
if they meant to stay there, and while there inhaled an atmosphere
and fitted into garniture different from those in any of the other
rooms; nor did they feel that they must leave the room as they
found it, if indeed they knew how that was.  Fine old furniture
stood in careless partnership with fill-up stuff acquired for the
purposes of use or ease.  Portraits of ancestors, dark or yellow,
confronted Dutch or French landscapes still more yellow or dark,
with here and there delightful old prints, and miniatures not
without charm.  In two rooms at least were beautiful old
fireplaces, defiled by the comfort of a fender which could be sat
on.  Staircases appeared unexpectedly in the dark.  The position of
a bedroom was learned with difficulty and soon forgotten.  In it
would be, perhaps, a priceless old chestnut wood wardrobe and a
four-poster bed of an excellent period; a window-seat with
cushions, and some French prints.  To it would be conjoined a small
room with narrow bed; and bathroom that might or might not need a
stroll, but would have salts in it.  One of the Monts had been an
Admiral; queer old charts, therefore, with dragons lashing the
seas, lurked in odd corners of the corridors; one of the Monts, Sir
Lawrence's grandfather, seventh baronet, had been a racing man, and
the anatomy of the thoroughbred horse, and jockey of his period
(1860-1883) could be studied on the walls.  The sixth baronet, who,
being in politics, had lived longer than the rest, had left
imprints of the earlier Victorian period, his wife and daughters in
crinolines, himself in whiskers.  The outside of the house was
Carolean, tempered here and there by Georgian, and even Victorian
fragments where the sixth baronet had given way to his feeling for
improvement.  The only thing definitely modern was the plumbing.

When Dinny came down to breakfast on the Wednesday morning--the
shoot being timed to start at ten--three of the ladies and all the
men except Hallorsen were already sitting or wandering to the side-
tables.  She slipped into a chair next to Lord Saxenden, who rose
slightly with the word:

"Morning!"

"Dinny," called Michael from a sideboard, "coffee, cocoatina or
ginger beer?"

"Coffee and a kipper, Michael."

"There are no kippers."

Lord Saxenden looked up:  "No kippers?" he muttered, and resumed
his sausage.

"Haddock?" said Michael.

"No, thank you."

"Anything for you, Aunt Wilmet?"

"Kedgeree."

"There is no kedgeree.  Kidneys, bacon, scrambled eggs, haddock,
ham, cold partridge pie."

Lord Saxenden rose.  "Ah!  Ham!" and went over to the side table.

"Well, Dinny?"

"Just some jam, please, Michael."

"Goose-gog, strawberry, black currant, marmalade."

"Gooseberry."

Lord Saxenden resumed his seat with a plate of ham, and began
reading a letter as he ate.  She did not quite know what to make of
his face, because she could not see his eyes, and his mouth was so
full.  But she seemed to gather why he had been nicknamed 'Snubby.'
He was red, had a light moustache and hair, both going grey, and a
square seat at table.  Suddenly he turned to her and said:

"Excuse my reading this.  It's from my wife.  She's on her back,
you know."

"I'm so sorry."

"Horrible business!  Poor thing!"

He put the letter in his pocket, filled his mouth with ham, and
looked at Dinny.  She saw that his eyes were blue, and that his
eyebrows, darker than his hair, looked like clumps of fish-hooks.
His eyes goggled a little, as though he were saying:  "I'm a lad--
I'm a lad."  But at this moment she noticed Hallorsen coming in.
He stood uncertain, then, seeing her, came to the empty seat on her
other side.

"Miss Cherrell," he said, with a bow, "can I sit right here?"

"Of course: the food is all over there, if you're thinking of any."

"Who's that fellow?" said Lord Saxenden, as Hallorsen went
foraging:  "He's an American."

"Professor Hallorsen."

"Oh!  Ah!  Wrote a book on Bolivia?  What!"

"Yes."

"Good-looking chap."

"A he-man."

He looked round at her with surprise.

"Try this ham.  I used to know an uncle of yours at Harrow, I
think."

"Uncle Hilary!" said Dinny.  "He told me."

"I once laid him three strawberry mashes to two on myself in a race
down the Hill steps to the Gym."

"Did you win, Lord Saxenden?"

"No; and I never paid your uncle."

"Why not?"

"He sprained his ankle and I put my knee out.  He hopped to the Gym
door; but I couldn't move.  We were both laid up till the end of
term, and then I left."  Lord Saxenden chuckled.  "So I still owe
him three strawberry mashes."

"I thought we had 'some' breakfast in America, but it's nil to
this," said Hallorsen, sitting down.

"Do you know Lord Saxenden?"

"Lord Saxenden," repeated Hallorsen with a bow.

"How de do?  You haven't got our partridge in America, have you?"

"Why, no, I believe not.  I am looking forward to hunting that
bird.  This is mighty fine coffee, Miss Cherrell."

"Yes," said Dinny.  "Aunt Em prides herself on her coffee."

Lord Saxenden squared his seat.  "Try this ham.  I haven't read
your book."

"Let me send it you; I'll be proud to have you read it."

Lord Saxenden ate on.

"Yes, you ought to read it, Lord Saxenden," said Dinny; "and I'll
send you another book that bears on the same subject."

Lord Saxenden glared.

"Charming of you both," he said.  "Is that strawberry jam?" and he
reached for it.

"Miss Cherrell," said Hallorsen, in a low voice, "I'd like to have
you go through my book and mark the passages you think are
prejudicial to your brother.  I wrote that book when I had a pretty
sore head."

"I'm afraid that I don't see what good that would do now."

"So I could get them cut out, if you wish, for the second edition."

"That's very good of you," said Dinny, icily, "but the harm is
done, Professor."

Hallorsen said, still lower:  "I'm just terribly sorry to have hurt
you."

A sensation, perhaps only to be summed up in the words:  'You are--
are you!' flushed Dinny from top to toe with anger, triumph,
calculation, humour.

"It's my brother you've hurt."

"Maybe that could be mended if we could get together about it."

"I wonder."  And Dinny rose.

Hallorsen stood up too, and bowed as she passed.

'Terribly polite,' she thought.

She spent her morning with the diary in a part of the garden so
sunk within yew hedges that it formed a perfect refuge.  The sun
was warm there, and the humming of the bees over zinnias,
pentstemons, hollyhocks, asters, Michaelmas daisies, was very
soothing.  In that so sheltered garden the dislike of casting
Hubert's intimate feelings to the world's opinion came on her
again.  Not that the diary whined; but it revealed the hurts of
mind and body with the sharpness of a record meant for no eye but
the recorder's.  The sound of shots kept floating to her; and
presently, leaning her elbows on the top of the yew hedge, she
looked out over the fields towards where they were shooting.

A voice said:

"There you are!"

Her aunt, in a straw hat so broad that it covered her to the very
edges of her shoulders, was standing below with two gardeners
behind her.

"I'm coming round to you, Dinny; Boswell, you and Johnson can go
now.  We'll look at the Portulaca this afternoon."  And she gazed
up from under the tilted and enormous halo of her hat.  "It's
Majorcan," she said, "so shelterin'."

"Boswell and Johnson, Auntie!"

"We had Boswell, and your uncle would look till we found Johnson.
He makes them go about together.  Do you believe in Doctor Johnson,
Dinny?"

"I think he used the word 'Sir' too much."

"Fleur's got my gardenin' scissors.  What's that, Dinny?"

"Hubert's diary."

"Depressin'?"

"Yes."

"I've been lookin' at Professor Hallorsen--he wants takin' in."

"Begin with his cheek, Aunt Em."

"I hope they'll shoot some hares," said Lady Mont; "hare soup is
such a stand-by.  Wilmet and Henrietta Bentworth have agreed to
differ already."

"What about?"

"Well, I couldn't be bothered, but I think it was about the P.M.,
or was it Portulaca?--they differ about everything.  Hen's always
been about Court, you know."

"Is that fatal?"

"She's a nice woman.  I'm fond of Hen, but she does cluck.  What
are you doin' with that diary?"

"I'm going to show it to Michael and ask his advice."

"Don't take it," said Lady Mont; "he's a dear boy, but don't take
it; he knows a lot of funny people--publishers and that."

"That's why I'm asking him."

"Ask Fleur, she has a head.  Have you got this zinnia at Condaford?
D'you know, Dinny, I think Adrian's goin' potty."

"Aunt Em!"

"He moons so; and I don't believe there's anywhere you could stick
a pin into him.  Of course I mustn't say it to you, but I think he
ought to have her."

"So do I, Auntie."

"Well, he won't."

"Or she won't."

"They neither of them will; so how it's to be managed I don't know.
She's forty."

"How old is Uncle Adrian?"

"He's the baby, all but Lionel.  I'm fifty-nine," said Lady Mont
decisively.  "I know I'm fifty-nine, and your father is sixty; your
grandmother must have been in a great tear at that time, she kept
on havin' us.  What do YOU think about this question of havin'
children?"

Dinny swallowed a bubble and said:

"Well, for married people, perhaps, in moderation."

"Fleur's going to have another in March; it's a bad month--
careless!  When are you goin' to get married, Dinny?"

"When my young affections are engaged, not before."

"That's very prudent.  But not an American."

Dinny flushed, smiled dangerously and said:

"Why on earth should I marry an American?"

"You never know," said Lady Mont, twisting off a faded aster; "it
depends on what there is about.  When I married Lawrence, he was so
about!"

"And still is, Aunt Em; wonderful, isn't it?"

"Don't be sharp!"

And Lady Mont seemed to go into a dream, so that her hat looked
more enormous than ever.

"Talking of marriage, Aunt Em, I wish I knew of a girl for Hubert.
He does so want distracting."

"Your uncle," said Lady Mont, "would say distract him with a
dancer."

"Perhaps Uncle Hilary knows one that he could highly recommend."

"You're naughty, Dinny.  I always thought you were naughty.  But
let me think: there WAS a girl; no, she married."

"Perhaps she's divorced by now."

"No.  I think she's divorcin' him, but it takes time.  Charmin'
little creature."

"I'm sure.  Do think again, Auntie."

"These bees," replied her aunt, "belong to Boswell.  They're
Italian.  Lawrence says they're Fascists."

"Black shirts and no after-thoughts.  They certainly seem very
active bees."

"Yes; they fly a lot and sting you at once if you annoy them.  Bees
are nice to me."

"You've got one on your hat, dear.  Shall I take it off?"

"Stop!" said Lady Mont, tilting her hat back, with her mouth
slightly open:  "I've thought of one."

"One what?"

"Jean Tasburgh, the daughter of our Rector here--very good family.
No money, of course."

"None at all?"

Lady Mont shook her head, and the hat wobbled.  "No Jean never has
money.  She's pretty.  Rather like a leopardess."

"Could I look her over, Auntie?  I know fairly well what Hubert
wouldn't like."

"I'll ask her to dinner.  They feed badly.  We married a Tasburgh
once.  I think it was under James, so she'll be a cousin, but
terribly removed.  There's a son, too; in the Navy, all there, you
know, and no moustache.  I believe he's stayin' at the Rectory on
furlong."

"Furlough, Aunt Em."

"I knew that word was wrong.  Take that bee off my hat, there's a
dear."

Dinny took the small bee off the large hat with her handkerchief,
and put it to her ear.

"I still like to hear them buzz," she said.

"I'll ask him too," answered her aunt; "his name's Alan, a nice
fellow."  And she looked at Dinny's hair.  "Medlar-coloured, I call
it.  I think he's got prospects, but I don't know what they are.
Blown up in the war."

"He came down again whole, I hope, Auntie?"

"Yes; they gave him something or other for it.  He says it's very
stuffy in the Navy now.  All angles, you know, and wheels, and
smells.  You must ask him."

"About the girl, Aunt Em, how do you mean, a leopardess?"

"Well, she looks at you, and you expect to see a cub comin' round
the corner.  Her mother's dead.  She runs the parish."

"Would she run Hubert?"

"No; she'd run anybody who tried to run him."

"That might do.  Can I take a note for you to the Rectory?"

"I'll send Boswell and Johnson," Lady Mont looked at her wrist.
"No, they'll have gone to dinner.  I always set my watch by them.
We'll go ourselves, Dinny; it's only quarter of a mile.  Does my
hat matter?"

"On the contrary, dear."

"Very well, then; we can get out this way," and moving to the far
end of the yew-treed garden, they descended some steps into a long
grassy avenue, and, passing through a wicket gate, had soon arrived
at the Rectory.  Dinny stood in its creepered porch, behind her
aunt's hat.  The door stood open, and a dim panelled hallway with a
scent of pot-pourri and old wood, conveyed a kind of invitation.  A
female voice from within called:

"A--lan!"

A male voice answered:  "Hal--lo!"

"D'you mind cold lunch?"

"There's no bell," said Lady Mont; "we'd better clap."  They
clapped in unison.

"What the deuce?"  A young man in grey flannels had appeared in a
doorway.  He had a broad brown face, dark hair, and grey eyes, deep
and direct.

"Oh!" he said.  "Lady Mont . . .  Hi!  Jean!"  Then, meeting
Dinny's eyes round the edge of the hat, he smiled as they do in the
Navy.

"Alan, can you and Jean dine to-night?  Dinny, this is Alan
Tasburgh.  D'you like my hat?"

"It's a topper, Lady Mont."

A girl, made all of a piece and moving as if on steel springs, was
coming towards them.  She wore a fawn-coloured sleeveless jumper
and skirt, and her arms and cheeks were fully as brown.  Dinny saw
what her aunt meant.  The face, broad across the cheek-bones,
tapered to the chin, the eyes were greenish grey and sunk right in
under long black lashes; they looked straight out with a light in
them; the nose was fine, the brow low and broad, the shingled hair
dark brown.  'I wonder!' thought Dinny.  Then, as the girl smiled,
a little thrill went through her.

"This is Jean," said her aunt: "my niece, Dinny Cherrell."

A slim brown hand clasped Dinny's firmly.

"Where's your father?" continued Lady Mont.

"Dad's away at some parsonical Conference.  I wanted him to take
me, but he wouldn't."

"Then I expect he's in London really, doin' theatres."

Dinny saw the girl flash a look at her aunt, decide that it was
Lady Mont, and smiled.  The young man laughed.

"So you'll both come to dinner?  Eight-fifteen.  Dinny, we must go
back to lunch.  Swallows!" added Lady Mont round the brim of her
hat, and passed out through the porch.

"There's a house-party," said Dinny to the young man's elevated
eyebrows.  "She means tails and white tie."

"Oh!  Ah!  Best bib and tucker, Jean."

The two stood in the porchway arm in arm.  'Very attractive!' Dinny
thought.

"Well?" said her aunt, in the grass avenue again.

"Yes, I quite saw the cub.  She's beautiful, I think.  But I should
keep her on a lead."

"There's Boswell and Johnson!" exclaimed Lady Mont, as if they were
in the singular.  "Gracious!  It must be past two, then!"



CHAPTER IX


Some time after lunch, for which Dinny and her aunt were late,
Adrian and the four younger ladies, armed with such shooting sticks
as had been left by the 'guns,' proceeded down a farm lane towards
where the main 'drive' of the afternoon would debouch.  Adrian
walked with Diana and Cicely Muskham, and ahead of them Dinny
walked with Fleur.  These cousins by marriage had not met for
nearly a year, and had in any case but slender knowledge of each
other.  Dinny studied the head which her aunt had recommended to
her.  It was round and firm and well carried under a small hat.
The pretty face wore a rather hard but, she decided, very capable
expression.  The trim figure was as beautifully tailored as if it
had belonged to an American.

Dinny felt that she would at least get common-sense from a source
so neat.

"I heard your testimonial read in the Police Court, Fleur."

"Oh! that.  It was what Hilary wanted, of course.  I really don't
know anything about those girls.  They simply don't let one.  Some
people, of course, can worm themselves into anybody's confidence.
I can't; and I certainly don't want to.  Do you find the country
girls about you any easier?"

"Round us they've all had to do with our family so long that one
knows pretty well all there is to know before they do themselves."

Fleur scrutinised her.

"Yes, I daresay you've got the knack, Dinny.  You'll make a
wonderful ancestress; but I don't quite know who ought to paint
you.  It's time someone came along with the Early Italian touch.
The pre-Raphaelites hadn't got it a bit; their pictures lacked
music and humour.  YOU'LL have to be done with both."

"Do tell me," said Dinny, disconcerted, "was Michael in the House
when those questions were asked about Hubert?"

"Yes; he came home very angry."

"Good!"

"He thought of bringing the thing up again, but it was the day but
one before they rose.  Besides, what does the House matter?  It's
about the last thing people pay attention to nowadays."

"My father, I'm afraid, paid terrific attention to those
questions."

"Yes, the last generation.  But the only thing Parliament does that
really gets the Public now, is the Budget.  And no wonder; it all
comes back to money."

"Do you say that to Michael?"

"I don't have to.  Parliament now is just a taxing machine."

"Surely it still makes laws?"

"Yes, my dear; but always after the event; it consolidates what has
become public practice, or at least public feeling.  It never
initiates.  How can it?  That's not a democratic function.  If you
want proof, look at the state of the country!  It's the last thing
Parliament bothers about."

"Who does initiate, then?"

"Whence doth the wind blow?  Well, the draughts begin in the
coulisses.  Great places, the coulisses!  Whom do you want to stand
with when we get to the guns?"

"Lord Saxenden."

Fleur gazed at her:  "Not for his beaux jeux, and not for his beau
titre.  Why, then?"

"Because I've got to get at him about Hubert, and I haven't much
time."

"I see.  Well, I'll give you a warning, my dear.  Don't take
Saxenden at his face value.  He's an astute old fox, and not so old
either.  And if there is one thing he enjoys more than another,
it's his quid pro quo.  Have you got a quid for him?  He'll want
cash down."

Dinny grimaced.

"I shall do what I can.  Uncle Lawrence has already given me some
pointers."

"'Have a care; she's fooling thee,'" hummed Fleur.  "Well, I shall
go to Michael; it makes him shoot better, and he wants it, poor
dear.  The Squire and Bart will be glad to do without us.  Cicely,
of course, will go to Charles; she's still honey-moonish.  That
leaves Diana for the American."

"And I hope," said Dinny, "she'll put him off his shots."

"I should say nothing would.  I forgot Adrian; he'll have to sit on
his stick and think about bones and Diana.  Here we are.  See?
Through this gate.  There's Saxenden, they've given him the warm
corner.  Go round by that stile and come on him from behind.
Michael will be jammed away at the end, he always gets the worst
stand."

She parted from Dinny and went on down the lane.  Conscious that
she had not asked Fleur what she had wanted to, Dinny crossed to
the stile, and climbing over, stalked Lord Saxenden warily from the
other side.  The peer was moving from one hedge to the other in the
corner of the field to which he had been assigned.  Beside a tall
stick, to a cleft in which was attached a white card with a number
on it, stood a young keeper holding two guns, and at his feet a
retriever dog was lying with his tongue out.  The fields of roots
and stubble on the far side of the lane rose rather steeply, and it
was evident to Dinny--something of an expert--that birds driven off
them would come high and fast.  'Unless,' she thought, 'there's
fresh cover just behind,' and she turned to look.  There was not.
She was in a very large grass field and the nearest roots were
three hundred yards away at least.  'I wonder,' she thought, 'if he
shoots better or worse with a woman watching.  Shouldn't think he
had any nerves.'  Turning again, she saw that he had noticed her.

"Do you mind me, Lord Saxenden?  I'll be very quiet."

The peer plucked at his cap, which had special peaks before and
behind.

"Well, well!" he said.  "H'm!"

"That sounds as if you did.  Shall I go?"

"No, no!  That's all right.  Can't touch a feather to-day, anyway.
You'll bring me luck."

Dinny seated herself on her stick alongside the retriever, and
began playing with its ears.

"That American chap has wiped my eye three times."

"What bad taste!"

"He shoots at the most impossible birds, but, dash it, he hits 'em.
All the birds I miss he gets on the horizon.  Got the style of a
poacher; lets everything go by, then gets a right and left about
seventy yards behind him.  Says he can't see them when they sit on
his foresight."

"That's funny," said Dinny, with a little burst of justice.

"Don't believe he's missed to-day," added Lord Saxenden,
resentfully.  "I asked him why he shot so darned well, and he said:
'Why!  I'm used to shoot for the pot, where I can't afford to
miss.'"

"The 'beat's' beginning, my lord," said the young keeper's voice.

The retriever began to pant slightly.  Lord Saxenden grasped a gun;
the keeper held the other ready.

"Covey to the left, my lord," Dinny heard a creaky whirring, and
saw eight birds stringing towards the lane.  Bang-bang . . . bang--
bang!

"God bless my soul!" said Lord Saxenden:  "What the deuce--!"

Dinny saw the same eight birds swoop over the hedge at the other
end of the grass field.

The retriever uttered a little choked sound, panting horribly.

"The light," she said, "must be terribly puzzling!"

"It's not the light," said Lord Saxenden, "it's the liver!"

"Three birds coming straight, my lord."

Bang! . . .  Bang--bang!  A bird jerked, crumpled, turned over and
pitched four yards behind her.  Something caught Dinny by the
throat.  That anything so alive should be so dead!  Often as she
had seen birds shot, she had never before had that feeling.  The
other two birds were crossing the far hedge; she watched them
vanish, with a faint sigh.  The retriever, with the dead bird in
his mouth, came up to the keeper, who took it from him.  Sitting on
his haunches, the dog continued to gaze at the bird, with his
tongue out.  Dinny saw the tongue drip, and closed her eyes.

Lord Saxenden said something inaudibly.

Lord Saxenden said the same word more inaudibly, and, opening her
eyes, Dinny saw him put up his gun.

"Hen pheasant, my lord!" warned the young keeper.

A hen pheasant passed over at a most reasonable height, as if aware
that her time was not yet.

"H'm!" said Lord Saxenden, resting the butt on his bent knee.

"Covey to the right; too far, my lord!"

Several shots rang out, and beyond the hedge Dinny saw two birds
only flying on, one of which was dropping feathers.

"That's a dead bird," said the keeper, and Dinny saw him shade his
eyes, watching its flight.  "Down!" he said; the dog panted, and
looked up at him.

Shots rang out to the left.

"Damn!" said Lord Saxenden, "nothing comes my way."

"Hare, my lord!" said the keeper, sharply.  "Along the hedge!"

Lord Saxenden wheeled and raised his gun.

"Oh, no!" said Dinny, but her words were drowned by the report.
The hare, struck behind, stopped short, then wriggled forward,
crying pitifully.

"Fetch it, boy!" said the keeper.

Dinny put her hands over her ears and shut her eyes.

"Blast!" muttered Lord Saxenden.  "Tailored!"  Through her eyelids
Dinny felt his frosty stare.  When she opened her eyes the hare was
lying dead beside the bird.  It looked incredibly soft.  Suddenly
she rose, meaning to go, but sat down again.  Until the beat was
over she could go nowhere without interfering with the range of the
shots.  She closed her eyes again; and the shooting went on.

"That's the lot, my lord."

Lord Saxenden was handing over his gun, and three more birds lay
beside the hare.

Rather ashamed of her new sensations, she rose, closed her shooting
stick, and moved towards the stile.  Regardless of the old
convention, she crossed it and waited for him.

"Sorry I tailored that hare," he said.  "But I've been seeing spots
all day.  Do you ever see spots?"

"No.  Stars once in a way.  A hare's crying is dreadful, isn't it?"

"I agree--never liked it."

"Once when we were having a picnic I saw a hare sitting up behind
us like a dog--and the sun through its ears all pink.  I've always
liked hares since."

"They're not a sporting shot," admitted Lord Saxenden; "personally
I prefer 'em roast to jugged."

Dinny stole a glance at him.  He looked red and fairly satisfied.

'Now's my chance,' she thought.

"Do you ever tell Americans that they won the war, Lord Saxenden?"

He stared frostily.

"Why should I?"

"But they did, didn't they?"

"Does that Professor chap say so?"

"I've never heard him, but I feel sure he thinks so."

Again Dinny saw that sharp look come on his face.  "What do you
know about him?"

"My brother went on his expedition."

"Your brother?  Ah!"  It was just as if he had said to himself out
loud:  'This young woman wants something out of me.'

Dinny felt suddenly that she was on very thin ice.

"If you read Professor Hallorsen's book," she said, "I hope you
will also read my brother's diary."

"I never read anything," said Lord Saxenden; "haven't time.  But I
remember now.  Bolivia--he shot a man, didn't he, and lost the
transport?"

"He had to shoot the man to save his own life, and he had to flog
two for continual cruelty to the mules; then all but three men
deserted, stampeding the mules.  He was the only white man there,
with a lot of Indian half-castes."

And to his frosty shrewd eyes she raised her own suddenly,
remembering Sir Lawrence's:  'Give him the Botticellian eye,
Dinny!'

"Might I read you a little of his diary?"

"Well, if there's time."

"When?"

"To-night?  I have to go up after shooting to-morrow."

"Any time that suits you," she said, hardily.

"There won't be a chance before dinner.  I've got some letters that
must go."

"I can stay up till any hour."  She saw him give her a quick, all-
over glance.

"We'll see," he said, abruptly.  And at this minute they were
joined by the others.

Escaping the last drive, Dinny walked home by herself.  Her sense
of humour was tickled, but she was in a quandary.  She judged
shrewdly that the diary would not produce the desired effect unless
Lord Saxenden felt that he was going to get something out of
listening to it; and she was perceiving more clearly than ever
before how difficult it was to give anything without parting from
it.  A fluster of wood-pigeons rose from some stooks on her left
and crossed over to the wood by the river; the light was growing
level, and evening sounds fluttered in the crisper air.  The gold
of sinking sunlight lay on the stubbles; the leaves, hardly turned
as yet, were just promising colour, and away down there the blue
line of the river glinted through its bordering trees.  In the air
was the damp, slightly pungent scent of early autumn with wood
smoke drifting already from cottage chimneys.  A lovely hour, a
lovely evening!

What passages from the diary should she read?  Her mind faltered.
She could see Saxenden's face again when he said:  "Your brother?
Ah!"  Could see the hard direct calculating insensitive character
behind it.  She remembered Sir Lawrence's words:  "Were there not,
my dear? . . .  Most valuable fellows!"  She had just been reading
the memoirs of a man, who, all through the war, had thought in
moves and numbers, and, after one preliminary gasp, had given up
thinking of the sufferings behind those movements and those
numbers: in his will to win the war, he seemed to have made it his
business never to think of its human side, and, she was sure, could
never have visualised that side if he HAD thought of it.  Valuable
fellow!  She had heard Hubert talk, with a curling lip, of
'armchair strategists'--who had enjoyed the war, excited by the
interest of combining movements and numbers and of knowing this and
that before someone else did, and by the importance they had gained
therefrom.  Valuable fellows!  In another book she had lately read,
she remembered a passage about the kind of men who directed what
was called progress: sat in Banks, City offices, Governmental
departments, combining movements and numbers, not bothered by flesh
and blood, except their ow