Roden's Corner

CHAPTER IX. A SHADOW FROM THE PAST.

“Yes, it was long ago—'lang, lang izt's her'—you remember the song Frau Neumayer always sang. So long ago, Mr. Cornish, that——Well, it must be Mr. Cornish, and not Tony.”

Mrs. Vansittart leant back in her comfortable chair and looked at her visitor with observant eyes. Those who see the most are they who never appear to be observing. It is fatal to have others say that one is so sharp, and people said as much of Mrs. Vansittart, who had quick dark eyes and an alert manner.

“Yes,” answered Cornish, “it is long ago, but not so long as all that.”

His smooth fair face was slightly troubled by the knowledge that the recollections to which she referred were those of the Weimar days when she who was now a widow had been a young married woman. Tony Cornish had also been young in those days, and impressionable. It was before the world had polished his surface bright and hard. And the impression left of the Mrs. Vansittart of Weimar was that she was one of the rare women who marry pour le bon motif. He had met her by accident in the streets of The Hague a few hours ago, and having learnt her address, had, in duty bound, called at the house at the corner of Park Straat and Oranje Straat at the earliest calling hour.

“I am not ignorant of your history since you were at Weimar,” said the lady, looking at him with an air of almost maternal scrutiny.

“I have no history,” he replied. “I never had a past even, a few years ago, when every man who took himself seriously had at least one.”

He spoke as he had learnt to speak, with the surface of his mind—with the object of passing the time and avoiding topics that might possibly be painful. Many who appear to be egotistical must assuredly be credited with this good motive. One is, at all events, safe in talking of one's self. Sufficient for the social day is the effort to avoid glancing at the cupboard where our neighbour keeps his skeleton.

A silence followed Cornish's heroic speech, and it was perhaps better to face it than stave it off.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Vansittart, at the end of that pause, “I am a widow and childless. I see the questions in your face.”

Cornish gave a little nod of the head, and looked out of the window. Mrs. Vansittart was only a year older than himself, but the difference in their life and experience, when they had learnt to know each other at Weimar, had in some subtle way augmented the seniority.

“Then you never—” he said, and paused.

“No,” she answered lightly. “So I am what the world calls independent, you see. No encumbrance of any sort.”

Again he nodded without speaking.

“The line between an encumbrance and a purpose is not very clearly defined, is it?” she said lightly; and then added a question, “What are you doing in The Hague—Malgamite?”

“Yes,” he answered, in surprise, “Malgamite.”

“Oh, I know all about it,” laughed Mrs. Vansittart. “I see Dorothy Roden at least once a week.”

“But she takes no part in it.”

“No; she takes no part in it, mon ami, except in so far as it affects her brother and compels her to live in a sad little villa on the Dunes.”

“And you—you are interested?”

“Most assuredly. I have even given my mite. I am interested in”—she paused and shrugged her shoulders—“in you, since you ask me, in Dorothy, and in Mr. Roden. He gave the flowers at which you are so earnestly looking, by the way.”

“Ah!” said Cornish, politely.

“Yes,” answered Mrs. Vansittart, with a passing smile. “He is kind enough to give me flowers from time to time. You never gave me flowers, Mr. Cornish, in the olden times.”

“Because I could not afford good ones.”

“And you would not offer anything more reasonable?”

“Not to you,” he answered.

“But of course that was long ago.”

“Yes. I am glad to hear that you know Miss Roden. It will make the little villa on the Dunes less sad. The atmosphere of malgamite is not cheerful. One sees it at its best in a London drawing-room. It is one of the many realities which have an evil odour when approached too closely.”

“And you are coming nearer to it?”

“It is coming nearer to me.”

“Ah!” said Mrs. Vansittart, examining the rings with which her fingers were laden. “I thought there would be developments.”

“There are developments. Hence my presence in The Hague. Lord Ferriby et famille arrive to-morrow. Also my friend Major White.”

“The fighting man?” inquired Mrs. Vansittart.

“Yes, the fighting man. We are to have a solemn meeting. It has been found necessary to alter our financial basis——”

Mrs. Vansittart held up a warning hand. “Do not talk to me of your financial basis. I know nothing of money. It is not from that point of view that I contemplate your Malgamite scheme.”

“Ah! Then, if one may inquire, from what point of view....?”

“From the human point of view; as does every other woman connected with it. We are advancing, I admit, but I think we shall always be willing to leave the—financial basis—to your down-trodden sex.”

“It is very kind of you to be interested in these poor people,” began Cornish; but Mrs. Vansittart interrupted him vivaciously.

“Poor people? Gott bewahre!” she cried. “Did you think I meant the workers? Oh no! I am not interested in them. I am interested in your Rodens and your Ferribys and your Whites, and even in your Tony Cornish. I wonder who will quarrel and who will—well, do the contrary, and what will come of it all? In my day young people were brought together by a common pleasure, but that has gone out of fashion. And now it is a common endeavour to achieve the impossible, to check the stars in their courses by the holding of mixed meetings, and the enunciation of second-hand platitudes respecting the poor and the masses—this is what brings the present generation into that intercourse which ends in love and marriage and death—the old programme. And it is from that point of view alone, mon ami, that I take a particle of interest in your Malgamite scheme.”

All of which Tony Cornish remembered later; for it was untrue. He rose to take his leave with polite hopes of seeing her again.

“Oh, do not hurry away,” she said. “I am expecting Dorothy Roden, who promised to come to tea. She will be disappointed not to see you.”

Cornish laughed in his light way. “You are kind in your assumptions,” he answered. “Miss Roden is barely aware of my existence, and would not know me from Adam.”

Nevertheless he stayed, moving about the room for some minutes looking at the flowers and the pictures, of which he knew just as much as was desirable and fashionable. He knew what flowers were “in,” such as fuchsias and tulips, and what were “out,” such as camellias and double hyacinths. About the pictures he knew a little, and asked questions as to some upon the walls that belonged to the Dutch school. He was of the universe, universal. Then he sat down again unobtrusively, and Mrs. Vansittart did not seem to notice that he had done so, though she glanced at the clock.

A few minutes later Dorothy came in. She changed colour when Mrs. Vansittart half introduced Cornish with the conventional, “I think you know each other.”

“I knew you were coming to The Hague,” she said, shaking hands with Cornish. “I had a letter from Joan the other day. They all are coming, are they not? I am afraid Joan will be very much disappointed in me. She thinks I am wrapped up heart and soul in the malgamiters—and I am not, you know.”

She turned with a little laugh, and appealed to Mrs. Vansittart, who was watching her closely, as if Dorothy were displaying some quality or point hitherto unknown to the older woman. The girl's eyes were certainly brighter than usual.

“Joan takes some things very seriously,” answered Cornish.

“We all do that,” said Mrs. Vansittart, without looking up from the tea-table at which she was engaged. “Yes; it is a mistake, of course.”

“Possibly,” assented Mrs. Vansittart. “Do you take sugar, Miss Roden?”

“Yes, please—seriously. Two pieces.”

“Are you like Joan?” asked Cornish, as he gave her the cup. “Do you take anything else seriously?”

“Oh no,” answered Dorothy Roden, with a laugh.

“And your brother?” inquired Mrs. Vansittart. “Is he coming this afternoon?”

“He will follow me. He is busy with the new malgamiters who arrived this morning. I suppose you brought them, Mr. Cornish?”

“Yes, I brought them. Twenty-four of them—the dregs, so to speak. The very last of the malgamiters, collected from all parts of the world. I was not proud of them.”

He sat down and quickly changed the conversation, showing quite clearly that this subject interested him as little as it interested his companions. He brought the latest news from London, which the ladies were glad enough to hear. For to Dorothy Roden, at least, The Hague was a place of exile, where men lived different lives and women thought different thoughts. Are there not a hundred little rivulets of news which never flow through the journals, but are passed from mouth to mouth, and seem shallow enough, but which, uniting at last, form a great stream of public opinion, and this, having formed itself imperceptibly, is suddenly found in full flow, and is so obvious that the newspapers forget to mention it? Thus colonists and other exiles returning to England, and priding themselves upon having kept in touch with the progress of events and ideas in the old country, find that their thoughts have all the while been running in the wrong channels—that seemingly great events have been considered very small, that small ideas have been lifted high by the babbling crowd which is vaguely called society.

So Tony Cornish, who was dans le movement gently intimated to his hearers that what may be called a robuster tone ruled the spirit of the age. Charity was going down, athletics were coming up. Another Olympiad had passed away. Wise indeed was Solon, who allowed four years for men to soften and to harden again. During the Olympiads it is to be presumed that men busied themselves with the slums that existed in those days, hearkened to the decadent poetry or fiction of that time, and then, as the robuster period of the games came round, braced themselves once more to the consideration of braver things.

It appeared, therefore, that the Malgamite scheme was already a thing of the past so far as social London was concerned. A sensational 'Varsity boat-race had given charity its coup de grace, had ushered in the spring, when even the poor must shift for themselves.

“And in the mean time,” commented Mrs. Vansittart, “here are four hundred industrials landed, if one may so put it, at The Hague.”

“Yes; but that will be all right,” retorted Cornish, with his gay laugh. “They only wanted a start. They have got their start. What more can they desire? Is not Lord Ferriby himself coming across? He is at the moment on board the Flushing boat. And he is making a great sacrifice, for he must be aware that he does not look nearly so impressive on the Continent as he does, say in Piccadilly, where the policemen know him, and even the newspaper boys are dimly aware that this is no ordinary man to whom one may offer a halfpenny Radical paper——”

Cornish broke off, and looked towards the door, which was at this moment thrown open by a servant, who announced—“Herr Roden. Herr von Holzen.”

The two men came forward together, Roden slouching and heavy-shouldered, but well dressed; Von Holzen smaller, compacter, with a thoughtful, still face and calculating eyes. Roden introduced his companion to the two ladies. It is possible that a certain reluctance in his manner indicated the fact that he had brought Von Holzen against his own desire. Either Von Holzen had asked to be brought or Mrs. Vansittart had intimated to Roden that she would welcome his associate, but this was not touched upon in the course of the introduction. Cornish looked gravely on. Von Holzen was betrayed into a momentary gaucheness, as if he were not quite at home in a drawing-room.

Roden drew forward a chair, and seated himself near to Mrs. Vansittart with an air of familiarity which the lady seemed rather to invite than to resent. They had, it appeared, many topics in common. Roden had come with the purpose of seeing Mrs. Vansittart, and no one else. Her manner, also, changed as soon as Roden entered the room, and seemed to appeal with a sort of deference to his judgment of all that she said or did. It was a subtle change, and perhaps no one noticed it, though Dorothy, who was exchanging conventional remarks with Von Holzen, glanced across the room once.

“Ah,” Von Holzen was saying in his grave way, with his head bent a little forward, as if the rounded brow were heavy—“ah, but I am only the chemist, Miss Roden. It is your brother who has placed us on our wonderful financial basis. He has a head for finance, your brother, and is quick in his calculations. He understands money, whereas I am only a scientist.”

He spoke English correctly but slowly, with the Dutch accent, which is slighter and less guttural than the German. Dorothy was interested in him, and continued to talk with him, leaving Cornish standing at a little distance, teacup in hand. Von Holzen was in strong contrast to the two Englishmen. He was graver, more thoughtful, a man of deeper purpose and more solid intellect. There was something dimly Napoleonic in the direct and calculating glance of his eyes, as if he never looked idly at anything or any man. It was he who made a movement after the lapse of a few moments only, as if, having recovered his slight embarrassment, he did not intend to stay longer than the merest etiquette might demand. He crossed the room, and stood before Mrs. Vansittart, with his heels clapped well together, making the most formal conversation, which was only varied by a stiff bow.

“I have a friendly recollection,” he said, preparing to take his leave, “of a Charles Vansittart, a student at Leyden, with whom I was brought into contact again in later life. He was, I believe, from Amsterdam, of an English mother.”

“Ah!” replied Mrs. Vansittart. “Mine is a common name.”

And they bowed to each other in the foreign way.

CHAPTER X. DEEPER WATER.

“I have had considerable experience in such matters, and I think I may say that the new financial scheme worked out by Mr. Roden and myself is a sound one,” Lord Ferriby was saying in his best manner.

He was addressing Major White, Tony Cornish, Von Holzen, and Percy Roden, convened to a meeting in the private salon occupied by the Ferribys at the Hotel of the Old Shooting Gallery, at The Hague.

“The reasons,” continued Lord Ferriby, “why it is inexpedient to continue in our present position as mere trustees of a charitable fund are too numerous to go into at the present moment. Suffice it to say that there are many such reasons, and that I have satisfied myself of their soundness. Our chief desire is to ameliorate the condition of the malgamite workers. It must assuredly suggest itself to any one of us that the best method of doing this is to make the malgamite workers an independent corporation, bound together by the greatest of ties, a common interest.”

The speaker paused, and turned to Roden with a triumphant smile, as much as to say, “There, beat that if you can.”

Roden could not beat it, so he nodded thoughtfully, and examined the point of his pen.

“Gentlemen,” said Lord Ferriby, impressively, “the greatest common interest is a common purse.”

As the meeting was too small for applause, Lord Ferriby only allowed sufficient time for this great truth to be assimilated, and then continued—“It is proposed, therefore, that we turn the Malgamite Works into a company, the most numerous shareholders to be the malgamiters themselves. The most numerous shareholders, mark you—not the heaviest shareholders. These shall be ourselves. We propose to estimate the capital of the company at ten thousand pounds, which, as you know, is, approximately speaking, the amount raised by our appeals on behalf of this great charity. We shall divide this capital into two thousand five-pound shares, allot one share to each malgamite worker—say five hundred shares—and retain the rest—say fifteen hundred shares—ourselves. Of those fifteen hundred, it is proposed to allot three hundred to each of us. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes,” answered Major White, optimistically polishing his eye-glass with a pocket-handkerchief. “Any ass could understand that.”

That Lord Ferriby had again made himself clear was sufficiently indicated by the fact that Major White nodded his head at this juncture with portentous gravity and wisdom.

“As to the question of profit and loss,” continued Lord Ferriby, “I am not, unfortunately, a business man myself, but I think we are all aware that the business part of the Malgamite scheme is in excellent hands. It is not, of course, intended that we, as shareholders, shall in any way profit by this new financial basis. We are shareholders in name only, and receive profits, if profits there be, merely as trustees of the Malgamite Fund. We shall administer those profits precisely as we have administered the fund—for the sole benefit of the malgamite workers. The profits of these poor men, earned on their own share, may reasonably be considered in the light of a bonus. So much for the basis upon which I propose that we shall work. The matter has had Mr. Roden's careful consideration, and I think we are ready to give our consent to any proposal which has received so marked a benefit. There are, of course, many details which will require discussion——Eh?”

Lord Ferriby broke off short, and turned to Roden, who had muttered a few words.

“Ah—yes. Yes, certainly. Mr. Roden will kindly spare us details as much as possible.”

This was considerate and somewhat appropriate, as Tony Cornish had yawned more than once.

“Now as to the past,” continued Lord Ferriby. “The works have been going for more than three months, and the result has been uniformly satisfactory——Eh?”

“Many deaths?” inquired White, stolidly repeating his question.

“Deaths? Ah—among the workers? Yes, to be sure. Perhaps Mr. von Holzen can tell you better than I.”

And his lordship bowed in what he took to be the foreign manner across the table.

“Yes,” replied Von Holzen, quietly, “there have, of course, been deaths, but not so many as I anticipated. The majority of the men had, as Mr. Cornish will tell you, death written on their faces when they arrived at The Hague.”

“They certainly looked seedy,” admitted Tony.

“We will, I think, turn rather to the—eh—er—living,” said Lord Ferriby, turning over the papers in front of him with a slightly reproachful countenance. He evidently thought it rather bad form of White to pour cold water over his new whitewash. For Lord Ferriby's was that charity which hopeth all things, and closeth her eye to practical facts, if these be discouraging. “I have here the result of the three months' work.”

He looked at the papers with so condescending an air that it was quite evident that, had he been a business man and not a lord, he would have understood them at a glance. There was a short silence while he turned over the closely written sheets with an air of approving interest.

“Yes,” he said, as if during those moments he had run his eye up all the column of figures and found them correct, “the result, as I say, gentlemen, has been most satisfactory. We have manufactured a malgamite which has been well received by the paper-makers. We have, furthermore, been able to supply at the current rate without any serious loss. We are increasing our plant, and the day is not so far distant when we may, at all events, hope to be self-supporting.”

Lord Ferriby sat up and pulled down his waistcoat, a sure signal that the fountain of his garrulous inspiration was for the moment dried up.

With great presence of mind Tony Cornish interposed a question which only Roden could answer, and after the consideration of some statistics, the proceedings terminated. It had been apparent all through that Percy Roden was the only business man of the party. In any question of figures or statistics his colleagues showed plainly that they were at sea. Lord Ferriby had in early life been managed by a thrifty mother, who had in due course married him to a thrifty wife. Tony Cornish's business affairs had been narrowed down to the financial fiasco of a tailor's bill far beyond his facilities. Major White had, in his subaltern days, been despatched from Gibraltar on a business quest into the interior of Spain to buy mules there for his Queen and country. He fell out with a dealer at Ronda, whom he knocked down, and returned to Gibraltar branded as unbusiness-like and hasty, and there his commercial enterprise had terminated. Von Holzen was only a scientist, a fact of which he assured his colleagues repeatedly.

If plain speaking be a sign of friendship, then women are assuredly capable of higher flights than men. A lifelong friendship between two women usually means that they quarrelled at school, and have retained in later days the privilege of mutual plain speaking. If Jones, who was Tompkins's best man, goes yachting with Tompkins in later days, these two sinners are quite capable of enjoying themselves immensely in the present without raking about among the ashes of the past to seek the reason why Tompkins persisted, in spite of his friends' advice, in making an idiot of himself over that Robinson girl—Jones standing by all the while with the ring in his waistcoat pocket. Whereas, if the friendship existed between the respective ladies of Jones and Tompkins, their conversation will usually be found to begin with: “I always told you, Maria, when we were girls together,” or, “Well, Jane, when we were at school you never would listen to me.” A man's friendship is apparently based upon a knowledge of another's redeeming qualities. A woman's dearest friend is she whose faults will bear the closest investigation.

It was doubtless owing to these trifling variations in temperament that Joan Ferriby learnt more about The Hague and Percy Roden and Otto von Holzen, and lastly, though not leastly, Mrs. Vansittart, in ten minutes than Tony Cornish could have learnt in a month of patient investigation. The first five of these ten precious minutes were spent in kissing Dorothy Roden, and admiring her hat, and holding her at arm's length, and saying, with conviction, that she was a dear. Then Joan asked why Dorothy had ceased writing, and Dorothy proved that it was Joan who had been in default, and lo! a bridge was thrown across the years, and they were friends once more.

“And you mean to tell me,” said Joan, as they walked up the Korte Voorhout towards the canal and the Wood, “that you don't take any interest in the Malgamite scheme?”

“No,” answered Dorothy. “And I am weary of the very word.”

“But then you always were rather—well, frivolous, weren't you?”

“I did not take lessons as seriously as you, perhaps, if that is what you mean,” admitted Dorothy.

And Joan, who had come across to Holland full of zeal in well-doing, and as seriously as ever Queen Marguerite sailed to the Holy Land, walked on in silence. The trees were just breaking into leaf, and the air was laden with a subtle odour of spring. The Korte Voorhout is, as many know, a short broad street, spotlessly clean, bordered on either side by quaint and comfortable houses. The traffic is usually limited to one carriage going to the Wood, and on the pavement a few leisurely persons engaged in taking exercise in the sunshine. It was a different atmosphere to that from which Joan had come, more restful, purer perhaps, and certainly healthier, possibly more thoughtful; and charity, above all virtues, to be practiced well must be practiced without too much reflection. He who lets wisdom guide his bounty too closely will end by giving nothing at all.

“At all events,” said Joan, “it is splendid of Mr. Roden to work so hard in the cause, and to give himself up to it as he does.”

“Ye—es.”

Joan turned sharply and looked at her companion. Dorothy Roden's face was not, perhaps, easy to read, especially when she turned, as she turned now, to meet an inquiring glance with an easy smile.

“I have known so many of Percy's schemes,” she explained, “that you must not expect me to be enthusiastic about this.”

“But this must succeed, whatever may have happened to the others,” cried Joan. “It is such a good cause. Surely nothing can be a better aim than to help such afflicted people, who cannot help themselves, Dorothy! And it is so splendidly organized. Why, Mr. Johnson, the labour expert, you know, who wears no collar and a soft hat, said that it could not have been better organized if it had been a strike. And a Bishop Somebody—a dear old man with legs like a billiard-table—said it reminded him of the early Christians' esprit de corps, or something like that. Doesn't sound like a bishop, though, does it?”

“No, it doesn't,” admitted Dorothy, doubtfully.

“So if your brother thinks it will not succeed,” said Joan, confidently, “he is wrong. Besides”—in a final voice—“he has Tony to help him, you know.”

“Yes,” said Dorothy, looking straight in front of her, “of course he has Mr. Cornish.”

“And Tony,” pursued Joan, eagerly, “always succeeds. There is something about him—I don't know what it is.”

Dorothy recollected that Mrs. Vansittart had said something like this about Tony Cornish. She had said that he had the power of holding his cards and only playing them at the right moment. Which is perhaps the secret of success in life, namely, to hold one's cards, and, if the right moment does not present itself, never to play them at all, but to hold them to the end of the game, contenting one's self with the knowledge that one has had, after all, the makings of a fine game that might have been worth the playing.

“There are people, you know,” Joan broke in earnestly, “who think that if they can secure Tony for a picnic the weather will be fine.”

“And does he know it?” asked Dorothy, rather shortly.

“Tony?” laughed Joan. “Of course not. He never thinks about anything like that.”

CHAPTER XI. IN THE OUDE WEG.

The porter of the hotel on the Toornoifeld was enjoying his early cigarette in the doorway, when he was impelled by a natural politeness to stand aside for one of the visitors in the hotel.

“Ah!” he said. “You promenade yourself thus early?”

“Yes,” answered Cornish, cheerily, “I promenade myself thus early.”

“You have had your coffee?” asked the porter. “It is not good to go near the canals when one is empty.”

Cornish lingered a few minutes, and made the man's mind easy on this point. There are many who obtain a vast deal of information without ever asking a question, just as there are some—and they are mostly women—who ask many questions and are told many lies. Tony Cornish had a cheery way with him which made other men talk. He was also as quick as a woman. He went about the world picking up information.

The city clocks were striking seven as he walked across the Toornoifeld, where the morning mist still lingered among the trees. The great square was almost deserted. Holland, unlike France, is a lie-abed country, and at an hour when a French town would be astir and its streets already thronged with people hurrying to buy or sell at the greatest possible advantage, a Dutch city is still asleep. Park Straat was almost deserted as Cornish walked briskly down it towards the Willem's Park and Scheveningen. A few street cleaners were leisurely working, a few milkmen were hurrying from door to door, but the houses were barred and silent.

Cornish walked on the right-hand side of the road, which made it all the easier for Mrs. Vansittart to perceive him from her bedroom window as he passed Oranje Straat.

“Ah!” said that lady, and rang the bell for her maid, to whom she explained that she had a sudden desire to take a promenade this fine morning.

So Tony Cornish walked down the Oude Weg under the trees of that great thoroughfare, with Mrs. Vansittart following him leisurely by one of the side paths, which, being elevated above the road enabled her to look down upon the Englishman and keep him in sight. When he came within view of the broad road that cuts the Scheveningen wood in two and leads from the East Dunes to the West—from the Malgamite Works, in a word, to the cemetery—he sat down on a bench hidden by the trees. And Mrs. Vansittart, a hundred yards behind him, took possession of a seat as effectually concealed.

They remained thus for some time, the object of a passing curiosity to the fish-merchants journeying from Scheveningen to The Hague. Then Tony Cornish seemed to perceive something on the road towards the sea which interested him, and Mrs. Vansittart, rising from her seat, walked down to the main pathway, which commanded an uninterrupted view. That which had attracted Cornish's attention was a funeral, cheap, sordid, and obscure, which moved slowly across the Oude Weg by the road, crossing it at right angles. It was a peculiar funeral, inasmuch as it consisted of three hearses and one mourning carriage. The dead were, therefore, almost as numerous as the living, an unusual feature in civil burials. From the window of the rusty mourning coach there looked a couple of debased countenances, flushed with drink and that special form of excitement which is especially associated with a mourning coach hired on credit and a funeral beyond one's means. Behind these two faces loomed others. There seemed to be six men within the carriage.

The procession was not inspiriting, and Cornish's face was momentarily grave as he watched it. When it had passed, he rose and walked slowly back towards The Hague. Before he had gone far, he met Mrs. Vansittart face to face, who rose from a seat as he approached.

“Well, mon ami,” she asked, with a short laugh, “have you had a pleasant walk?”

“It has had a pleasant end, at all events,” he replied, meeting her glance with an imperturbable smile.

She jerked her head upwards with a little foreign gesture of indifference.

“It is to be presumed,” she said, as they walked on side by side, “that you have been exploring and investigating our—byways. Remember, my good Tony, that I live in The Hague, and may therefore be possessed of information that might be useful to you. It will probably be at your disposal when you need it.”

She looked at him with daring black eyes, and laughed. A strong man usually takes a sort of pride in his power. This woman enjoyed the same sort of exultation in her own cleverness. She was not wise enough to hide it, which is indeed a grim, negative pleasure usually enjoyed by elderly gentlemen only. Social progress has, moreover, made it almost a crime to hide one's light under a bushel. Are we not told, in so many words, by the interviewer and the personal paragraphist, that it is every man's duty to set his light upon a candlestick, so that his neighbour may at least try to blow it out?

Cornish had learnt to know Mrs. Vansittart at a period in her life when, as a young married woman, she regarded all her juniors with a matronly goodwill, none the less active that it was so exceedingly new. She had in those days given much good advice, which Cornish had respectfully heard. Fate had brought them together at the rare moment and in almost the sole circumstances that allow of a friendship being formed between a man and a woman.

They walked slowly side by side now under the trees of the Oude Weg, inhaling the fresh morning air, which was scented by a hundred breaths of spring, and felt clean to face and lips. Mrs. Vansittart had no intention of resigning her position of mentor and friend. It was, moreover, one of those positions which will not bear being defined in so many words. Between men and women it often happens that to point out the existence of certain feelings is to destroy them. To say, “Be my friend,” as often as not makes friendship impossible. Mrs. Vansittart was too clever a woman to run such a risk in dealing with a man in whom she had detected a reserve of which the rest of the world had taken no account. It is unwise to enter into war or friendship without seeing to the reserves.

“Do you remember,” asked Mrs. Vansittart, suddenly, “how wise we were when we were young? What knowledge of the world, what experience of life one has when all life is before one!”

“Yes,” admitted Cornish, guardedly.

“But if I preached a great deal, I at all events did you no harm,” said Mrs. Vansittart, with a laugh.

“No.”

“And as to experience, well, one buys that later.”

“Yes; and the wise re-sell—at a profit,” laughed Cornish. “It is not a commodity that any one cares to keep. If we cannot sell it, we offer it for nothing, to the young.”

“Who accept it, at an even lower valuation; and you and I, Mr. Tony Cornish, are cynics who talk cheap epigrams to hide our thoughts.”

They walked on for a few yards in silence. Then Tony turned in his quick way and looked at her. He had thin, mobile lips, which expressed friendship and curiosity at this moment.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

She turned and looked at him with grave, searching eyes, and when these met his it became apparent that their friendship had re-established itself.

“Of your affairs,” she answered, “and funerals.”

“Both lugubrious,” suggested Cornish. “But I am obliged to you for so far honouring me.”

He broke off, and again walked on in silence. She glanced at him half angrily, and gave a quick shrug of the shoulders.

“Then you will not speak,” she said, opening her parasol with a snap. “So be it. The time has perhaps not come yet. But if I am in the humour when that time does come, you will find that you have no ally so strong as I. Ah, you may stick your chin out and look as innocent as you like! You are not easy in your mind, my good friend, about this precious Malgamite scheme. But I ask no confidences, and, bon Dieu! I give none.”

She broke off with a little laugh, and looked at him beneath the shade of her parasol. She had a hundred foreign ways of putting a whole wealth of meaning into a single gesture, into a movement of a parasol or a fan, such as women acquire, and use upon poor defenceless men, who must needs face the world with stolid faces and slow, dumb hands.

Cornish answered the laugh readily enough. “Ah!” he said, “then I am accused of uneasiness of mind of preoccupation, in fact. I plead guilty. I made a mistake. I got up too early. It was a fine morning, and I was tempted to take a walk before breakfast, which we have at half-past nine, in a fine old British way. We have toast and a fried sole. Great is the English milord!”

They were in Park Straat now, in sight of Mrs. Vansittart's house. And that lady knew that her companion was talking in order to say nothing.

“We leave this morning,” continued Cornish, in the same vein. “And we rather flatter ourselves that we have upheld the dignity of our nation in these benighted foreign parts.”

“Ah, that poor Lord Ferriby! It is so easy to laugh at him. You think him a fool, although—or because—he is your uncle. So do I, perhaps. But I always have a little distrust for the foolishness of a person who has once been a knave. You know your uncle's reputation—the past one, I mean, not the whitewash. Do not forget it.” They had reached the corner of Oranje Straat, and Mrs. Vansittart paused on her own doorstep. “So you leave this morning,” she said. “Remember that I am in The Hague, and—well, we were once friends. If I can help you, make use of me. You have been wonderfully discreet, my friend. And I have not. But discretion is not required of a woman. If there is anything to tell you, you shall hear from me.”

She held out her hand, and bade him good-bye with a semi-malicious laugh. Then she stood in the porch, and watched him walk quickly away.

“So it is Dorothy Roden,” she said to herself, with a wise nod. “A queer case. One of those at first sight, one may suppose.”

The Rodens, of whom she thought at the moment, were not only thinking, but speaking of her. They had finished breakfast, and Dorothy was standing at the window looking out over the Dunes towards the sea. Her brother was still seated at the table, and had lighted a cigarette. Like many another who offers an exaggerated respect to women as a whole, he was rather inclined to Bohemianism at home, and denied to his immediate feminine relations the privileges accorded to their sex in general. He was older than Dorothy, who had always been dependent upon him to a certain extent. She had a little money of her own, and quite recognized the fact that, should her brother marry, she would have to work for her living. In the mean time, however, it suited them both to live together, and Dorothy had for her brother that affection of which only women are capable. It amounts to an affectionate tolerance more than to a tolerant affection. For it perceives its object's little failings with a calm and judicial eye. It weighs the man in the balance, and finds him wanting. This, moreover, is the lot of a large proportion of women. This takes the place of that higher feeling which is probably the finest emotion of which the human heart is capable. And yet there are men who grudge these sufferers their petty triumphs, their poor little emancipation, their paltry wrangler-ships, their very bicycles.

“You don't like this place—I know that,” Percy Roden was saying, in continuation of a desultory conversation. He looked up from the letters before him with a smile which was kind enough and a little patronizing. Patronage is perhaps the armour of the outwitted.

“Not very much,” answered Dorothy, with a laugh. “But I dare say it will be better in the summer.”

“I mean this villa,” pursued Roden, flicking the ash from his cigarette and leaning back in his chair. He had grand, rather tired gestures, which possibly impressed some people. Grandeur, however, like sentiment, is not indigenous to the hearth. Our domestic admirers are not always watching us.

Dorothy was looking out of the window. “It is not a bad little place,” she said practically, “when one has grown accustomed to its sandiness.”

“It will not be for long,” said Percy Roden.

And his sister turned and looked at him with a sudden gravity.

“Ah!” she said.

“No; I have been thinking that it will be better for us to move into The Hague—Park Straat or Oranje Straat.”

Dorothy turned and faced him now. There was a faint, far-off resemblance between these two, but Dorothy had the better face—shrewder, more thoughtful, cleverer. Her eyes, instead of being large and dark and rather dreamy, were grey and speculative. Her features were clear-cut and well-cut—a face suggestive of feeling and of self-suppression, which, when they go together, go to the making of a satisfactory human being. This was a woman who, to put it quite plainly, would scarcely have been held in honour by our grandmothers, but who promised well enough for her possible granddaughters; who, when the fads are lived down and the emancipation is over and the shrieking is done, will make a very excellent grandmother to a race of women who shall be equal to men and respected of men, and, best of all, beloved of men. Wise mothers say that their daughters must sooner or later pass through an awkward age. Woman is passing through an awkward age now, and Dorothy Roden might be classed among those who are doing it gracefully.

She looked at her brother with those wise grey eyes, and did not speak at once.

“Oranje Straat and Park Straat,” she said lightly, “cost money.”

“Oh, that is all right!” answered her brother, carelessly, as one who in his time has handled great sums.