Scissors

CHAPTER III

I

In the art prospectus, printed on a glazed paper with many choice illustrations, Chawley School was a perfect place. The school, once a manor, celebrated for its architectural beauty, was situated in a magnificent park of five acres, with an ornamental lake and a drive one mile long. The gardens in front of the house were extensive and well kept. One of the illustrations showed fifty small boys, all dressed alike, in grey shorts and blue flannel jackets, with grey socks with red tops, and straw hats with red bands, squatted on the splendid lawn, all showing bended bare knees and round happy faces. In their midst were three masters, one middle-aged and two quite young, and a lady. The letterpress under this charming picture of sunlit foliage and smiling humanity, said "Afternoon Tea." The prospectus also mentioned the covered swimming pool in the grounds, the boys' own garden, the large airy dormitories and class rooms. It then drew rapturous attention to the staff. The school was run by the Rev. Shayle Tobin, M.A., Scholar of Balliol College, Oxford, with a double first, a blue for cricket, and for some years famous as a half-back.

One Sunday morning, six head boys, conscious of leadership and the great world of a public school approaching, shuffled their feet in the Manor pew in the village church. Behind them in other pews sat other little boys, more angelic in appearance and devilish in action. They were all dressed alike, in black Eton jackets, white collars, grey trousers and shoes. Even at the tender age of ten to thirteen their faces gave promise or otherwise. The new young assistant master who sat guarding them in the third pew found himself studying, during the dreary sermon, the shapes of the heads ranged in front of him like turnips on a table. There were long heads, round heads, oval, pointed, blunt, flat and dinted. Handsome, well-made, ugly, emaciated, intelligent, stupid, good-natured, deceitful, mischievous and lovable. John Dean ranged up and down the row. This was his first Sunday morning in church. It was his Sunday on duty; the other assistant master had gone into Southampton.

The young assistant master was not the only critical person letting his thoughts wander from the Harvest Festival Sermon. John gazed abstractedly at the figure of the Rev. Samuel Piggin, ringed round with bunches of carrots, a few grapes and six tomatoes balanced on the top of a sheaf of wheat, which demonstrated God's bounty, despite a ruinously wet summer and a harvest, half of which lay rotting in the fields.

Miss Piggin, twenty-nine years of age, with spectacles, and ardent in romance, was quite thrilled by the first glimpse, as she turned to the East in the recital of the Creed, of the handsome young master. His profile would have enhanced the wrapper of those shilling reprints to which, for want of romance, she was addicted. Nor was she alone in her sudden interest. Several young ladies sitting behind John found great fascination in the clean curve from the nape of the neck up to the wavy brown head. Other younger ladies, favourably placed in the side pews, could not have been more fascinated had Apollo himself renounced his pagan origin and come to church. The proud mouth, the dark eyes, the fine brow surmounted by a wavy mass of chestnut hair, the whole poised on an athlete's shoulders, were attractions against which the sermon competed in vain. The doctor's daughter, for three years determined to be a missionary's wife, found her gaze wandering from the altar to the school pew.

One little boy with a freckled face and a genius for mischief, ceased making chewed pellets from a hymn sheet when he noticed the rapt attention directed towards the pew in which he sat. He nudged the boy at his side, and both, suddenly conscious of the suppressed excitement that flowed over them, sniggered and brought a reproof from their new master. Something in the freckled boy's mute mirth as he looked at him, caused John to turn round, when he met the troubled gaze of a dozen pairs of amorous eyes. He quickly turned again and felt the blood mounting to his neck and face. The little boys sniggered again. John made a mental note not to the little boys' advantage. Miss Piggin also made one—to call when her father paid his formal visit; and not to be outwitted, the doctor's daughter decided she would motor in with her father on Monday morning, when he paid his usual visit to examine all the boys at the beginning of term.

Hitherto missionaries had absorbed her hero-worship, but then, assistant masters, as a class, had not seemed attractive. The former master drank, to the scandal of the village, which met him in the bar of the "Red Cow" where he grossly libelled all those, and their wives, who kept preparatory schools. His predecessor had a squint, the one before was lame, and the one before him was an old man of sixty, who had suddenly and most inconveniently died of bronchitis in term time. Sixty pounds a year and free board somewhat limited the available supply of assistant masters. Messrs. Sloggart and Slingsby, the scholastic agents, had told the Rev. Mr. Tobin that they were afraid he would have to add another ten pounds.

John liked Mr. Tobin on first contact. He was a man of about fifty years of age, with, a tanned face and kindly blue eyes. The famous athlete was fast disappearing in a bulky schoolmaster, who added weight each term with considerable anxiety, coupled with a feeling that his appearance at least was a good advertisement of the school. He had a genuine love of boys and worked hard with them, being strict and kind, with a determination to do his best for them! The boys, in fact, were watched day and night; convicts would not have had closer attention, and the same supervision extended to the two assistant masters.

Mr. Tobin had little imagination, and the whole of it had been expended in the prospectus.

The grounds of Chawley School were certainly extensive. The former tenant, like the present, had found them too much so, and let them go wild. The lawns on the front part of the house were kept tidy; elsewhere the walks were weed-grown. The ornamental lake stank, and might have been the death place of Shelley's "Sensitive Plant." The prospectus mentioned boating on the lake as one of the diversions of the fortunate boys. The only boat was an old punt, one end of which had been long submerged among the water lilies. It was the floating end that appeared in the prospectus photograph. Afternoon tea on the lawn was also slightly different from the photograph. Three quarters of the boys had never been on the lawn. Every Sunday, as a reward, six top form boys, with the assistant master, were invited to tea with Mrs. Tobin on the lawn. A fear of her presence was mingled with the love of her cake, and had the boys had a free will in the matter they had rather not have been rewarded.

Mrs. Tobin was a tall woman of about forty-eight years. She was cold and looked at people with eagle eyes. Her voice was deep, her features gaunt, framed in straight brown hair brushed severely back. She had the full equipment of a bishopric's conventions and never forgot her very reverend origin. She was the business woman, and constantly reminded her husband of the fact. She knew that to make a school pay, it required at least fifty boys. All over that number represented profit. Chawley School had forty-nine boys. She lived her days as though on the edge of a precipice. Mr. Tobin, as became a sportsman, delighted in feeding his boys, and invited them to a second helping of favourite puddings. Fortunate youngsters who sat at his end of the table! At Mrs. Tobin's end a second request did not bring a refusal, but, "Are you sure you have not had sufficient?" John, who struggled desperately with his pies, found a problem in the differential calculus easier than the elementary mathematics required for cutting a pie into fourteen portions to the satisfaction of twelve hungry boys.

Often, when his fourteenth turn came he received a small piece of pie crust as his share. Sawley, a sharp little fellow who sat at John's right, soon noticed this and generously offered his share. "We get more than usual now, sir," he explained. "Why don't you serve yourself first? The other masters always did."

"Masters?" queried John. "Why how many masters have you had?"

The boy smiled, then looked cautiously round to Mrs. Tobin's table.

"Six, sir," he whispered.

"And how long have you been here?"

"Six terms, sir."

John's heart sank.

"I don't expect you'll stay—will you, sir?" asked the boy in a burst of confidence.

John snubbed him, in duty bound. So he was one of a procession! He began to understand the bubbling curiosity which his arrival had aroused. His arrival! That had marked the end of a long mood of despondency which began as soon as he had left the cheerful faces of the Marshs. The misery he had endured in the three-mile ride from the station to the school! Peering out of the window he watched the long road with its straggling cottages, brown and gold in their autumnal creepers. Then the village stores with a fat man looking curiously at the school cab, next a rise and on the other side a glimpse, through the trees, of Chawley School, fronted by a broad stream and bordered by rook-haunted elm trees. As the cab drew up at the main door, the Rev. Shayle Tobin came to greet him. His box was taken up and he followed the head master into the wide hall. There was no furniture in it except a round mahogany table with an electro plate card tray, and a hat stand. The head-master's living apartments opened off on the right, and a wide corridor traversed the whole length of the building. John was led to the left, which contained the class rooms. If anything more had been needed to depress him the room, somewhat grandly called the Masters' Common Room, would have done it.

"We have not had time to get straight yet. The Matron will make this more comfortable soon," Tobin said. There was certainly room for improvement. A worn carpet covered the floor. On the left side stood a small table covered with a crimson cloth stained with ink. The wall paper was a faded, patternless drab colour. There were two chairs, one a basket chair with a short leg, the other a stiff Sheraton. There were no pictures on the walls, the fire grate had two broken bars and no fender.

The head-master next led the way to John's bedroom. This appeared to be a great improvement. The size of the room, in contrast to the Common Room, made John feel more lonely than ever, and he shuddered when he thought of winter mornings. But it was well furnished in a heavy mid-Victorian manner. There was a white, marble-topped wash stand with a red-flowered jug and basin, a large swinging mirror and wardrobe. The carpet was faded but good. This at least was an endurable room and he could live in it.

It was shortly before tea on the first day of term that John met his colleague. Gerald Woodman, a scholar of St. John's College, Oxford, was tall and heavily built for his twenty-five years. He appeared much older because of his great reserve and a perpetual melancholy. He had dark hair and dark eyes, an enormous appetite and no sentiment. In his short life he had arrived at a creed of absolute cynicism. He talked with reluctance, but John found later that at heart he was a good fellow whose foibles were the inheritance of a period of religious mania. He was now a robust atheist. The Church no longer seemed a desirable refuge; he had become a schoolmaster. Although fourteen stone in weight, he was possessed by a fear of starvation and deplored his thinness; when in cricket flannels, his thighs wobbled so much that all the boys grinned, but even this did not reassure him.

John had recently passed through the brief pimply period inseparable from youth, and in desperation one day bought a bottle containing five hundred blood pills. As if alarmed at the prospect, the pimples immediately disappeared. Mr. Woodman saw the pills on John's dressing table and asked if he might have a few to set his blood in order. John gave him them. Those pills probably saved the first assistant master from a second nervous breakdown. He swallowed five after each meal and declared with deep satisfaction that he was putting on weight; he was optimistic until the bottle was finished, when his habitual melancholy returned.

Their first evening at Chawley School was spent in a conference with the Head-master who drew up the curriculum. The hours were arranged between them. John received one afternoon per week off duty and the alternate Sundays. The class hours were 8:30 a.m. to 11, a break of half an hour during which they supervised games, then 11:30 to 1 p.m. An hour for lunch, then work until 3 p.m. Games followed until five, a period during which John changed into football shorts and raced about the field in a scrimmage of shouting boys. He enjoyed this and quite forgot all his woes. Tea was at five, a blessed interval of one hour's peace, then school again until 7:30, when the boys went up to bed. Dinner, in the household apartments, with Mrs. Tobin in an evening gown and facetiously cheerful, was at eight. After dinner the two masters left the rosy warmth of the dining room for their own bare quarters, where the interval between dinner and bedtime was spent in the correction of the day's exercise books; a monotonous routine, dulling the senses, and demoralizing human beings with its hopelessness. There was no sense of advancement. The end of the term came slowly, then the holidays, then term again, with the same subjects to drill into the same reluctant little boys.

Mr. Woodman, in a voice of deepest melancholy, foretold all this on the first night. When he learned that John was new to his profession he smiled at him like a butcher on a good sheep delivered for slaughter.

"Whatever made you do it?" he asked. "Do anything, be a scavenger, a policeman—you will at least retain your self respect. You will not have to endure the chilliness of schoolmasters' wives, the scorn of parents, the buffoonery of boys. We are fools out of motley, something masquerading as gentlemen on the stipend of stevedores. My God, Dean, pack your trunk and flee to-night. This is the end of all things. Have you dreams, ambitions, hope, courage, youth? Abandon all who enter this profession!"

John remonstrated. There was the great opportunity of forming character, surely it was a noble thing to teach the young, to gain the confidence, if not the affection of boys, to watch them grow in intelligence, to trace the operations of their fresh minds slowly opening on a wonderful world? Mr. Woodman listened patiently to John's panegyric, and peered at him over the top of the gold-rimmed spectacles he wore when correcting exercise books in the jumping incandescent light.

"Dear me! This is almost pathetic! Your innocence moves me. I hope you will pardon my saying you must be very young. Eighteen? Ah! that is a blessed age, but you have yet to learn what boys are. Let me warn you and save you much pain. They are devils incarnate. And don't cherish any illusion about being a schoolmaster. We are a race of pariahs. At forty we have no feelings left; we are desiccated text books. At fifty we are old fools haunting the doorsteps of the scholastic agents or short-sightedly sitting on the prepared pins of our loving pupils. Don't think you will receive any gratitude for your labour; you won't. Your cheque at the end of term wipes out all obligations. After three years' close attention, they are not even your boys. They pass on to a public school and repudiate you. Boys are sent to preparatory schools by lazy parents who wish to get rid of the responsibility of their offspring, or by upstarts who want to start the new generation in the grooves of social respectability. They will hold you in utter contempt because you cannot do anything better than bring up their children for them. Epictetus was a prince in comparison with the modern schoolmaster!"

Woodman's theory, nevertheless, was not strictly applied. He was firm with his boys, made them work hard and was a martinet in detail, but he was a sportsman and the boys responded to his sense of fair play. As for John, by the third day of term, he was devoted to them, although hating more and more the dreary routine of his life. It was fascinating to study this dozen or so of young lives given into his keeping, to note the amazing divergence of character which manifested itself so early. John found himself looking through them to the parents beyond. He had a perfect index to the home life and the characters that had influenced them. The generous boy and the greedy, the frank and the secretive, the imaginative and the stolid, the sharp and the dull, the graceful, the strong, the quick, the ugly, the slow, the boy of bright honour, and the boy with a tendency to deceit, the potential coward or hero—they were all here in embryo. Education after all was only a wind that could bend the branches, it could not change the nature of the plant.

II

At the end of the first week, John was in a highly nervous condition. The monotony of the work, the regularity of the hours, the seclusion in a small world, the absence of all friends and his isolation miles away from all who knew him and with whom he could talk intimately, preyed upon his mind until one evening he reached a point of frenzy. He banged down a pile of exercise books, kicked a cushion vigorously, and then swore at the wall, from the other side of which came sounds of a small boy practising Czerny's One Hundred and One Exercises for the pianoforte. Woodman watched this outburst of wild rage with amusement.

"Beat your wings, my poor little moth! You will soon tire and subside—we have all passed along that via dolorosa," he commented.

"It is unendurable!" cried John, flinging himself in a chair.

"The capacity of man to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortu—"

"Oh, shut up!" snapped John. Woodman regarded him sympathetically. He had grown to like this bright lad, so freshly enthusiastic, and bit by bit he had learned his story. In exchange he had shown John some of the poetry which he wrote secretly. Strangely enough it was highly sentimental, the safety valve of suppressed romanticism.

"Come on to the lake," he urged. John followed. It was their favourite pastime. They had resurrected the old punt, and in danger of a wetting, they often pushed it along through the thick water lilies that bent under its prow, and slowly closed again on the track they made. Meanwhile, the rooks, watching them from the elms above, cawed loudly, and the water hens showed alarm. The two masters became incredibly young once they were in the punt. They rocked it to see how near shipwreck they could go; they sang in a loud voice all the absurd ditties they could remember. Had their young charges seen and heard them, it would have been an amazing revelation of the humanity of masters out of school. As it was, Mr. Tobin complained that some of their noise had carried across the lawns to the open dormitory windows. But they simply had to sing; it was their one outlet of pent up youth within them. They would punt about until the dusk had given place to darkness, when the elms seemed gigantic and a rising moon peered in between the branches and watched the rippling reflection of her light. Around them all was quiet save for the weird squeal of a weasel in the woodland or the melancholy hoot of an owl.

One evening John was more noisy than ever, and Woodman threatened to capsize him, but there was good reason for this exhilaration. The mail had brought an acceptance of a long poem from the Editor of the British Review. He had written in competition with Woodman, who urged him to send it to an editor. With no faith, but some hope, John obeyed. His surprise, when the acceptance came, was unbounded. It was a long satirical story in the manner of Masefield. John had feared it was too long, for it took twenty pages, and here were the proof sheets and the offer of three guineas for his work! Those proof sheets kept him in a state of elation for several days. He had never seen himself in print except in the school magazine, and here was a great review printing his work! John cashed the cheque and ordered one pound's worth of copies of the review when it came out, which he distributed among his friends at some cost. Then he must see the reviewers' comments, and another guinea went to a press-cutting agency, which sent all the advertisements containing his name, and one criticism, if the slightly disparaging dismissal could be termed a criticism—"Mr. John Dean contributes some verses of a satirical nature." The net profit on the transaction was five shillings and sixpence which John invested in paper and envelopes. He had tasted printers' ink. John had seen a way out. He subscribed to the Bookman, devoured the Times Literary Supplement, and enquired the cost of joining the Society of Authors.

By the middle of November, with its dark winter nights when the wind howled among the chimneys, swayed the leafless branches, scurried along the cold flags of the corridors and rattled the shutters of the school-room windows, John had reached a point of nervous desperation. One night he beat his hands on the walls of his room in mere foolish impotence of rage. Even the placid Woodman, swallowing blood pills and putting on weight, became alarmed. There was an intensity in John's despair that made him apprehensive. It was in vain that he encouraged his literary work and discussed the novel which John had begun as a distraction, but had now discarded. He dragged him out for long walks down the bleak country lanes, but could not get him to talk. He was thin, with rings under his eyes, and the rose-red of healthy youth in his cheeks had given place to a hectic flush. He had moments of hilarious mirth, as alarming and as unnatural as his despair, and one night he had aroused Woodman in his bedroom, declaring he could not sleep alone in his room any longer and begged to be allowed to sleep on the couch. Woodman assented gladly but he was awakened later by a sound of sobbing in the darkness. He lit a candle and leaned up on his elbow.

"Dean—my dear fellow—you must not go on like this—you'll make yourself ill."

He heard John clear his voice.

"I know—I'm a fool—I'm horribly ashamed of myself—but—but, oh, my God, I am wretched."

"Why, you silly old thing, this morning you were making your boys yell with laughter."

"And got snubbed by Tobin for it," retorted John. "Put out the light, Woodman—I'll behave—and thanks awfully."

Woodman doused the candle with the matchbox. In the morning John was normal again. Neither made any allusion to the scene in the night. It was a bad dream.

CHAPTER IV

There were now rapid phases to John's character. He was beginning to apprehend all the wonderful interests of the world, interests from which he was being boxed up. He longed for the sound of a woman's voice and a glimpse of beauty; a violent nostalgia seized him. The mention of Asia Minor in the geography lesson—and he was leagues away swinging his bare legs on a verandah shaded with almond blossom, hearing the singing of the stream down the gorge at Amasia, watching the light silver, the waterfall as the moon came over the mountain cliff and flooded the valley. He recalled his father reading to him; he could hear the clatter of his pony's hoofs in the courtyard, hear Ali calling him out to play, Ali his bosom friend, whose last gift now lay on his chest, whence he had never removed it. Or he would be suddenly transported to Sedley by the sight of a familiar dictionary, and again sit working and chattering with Vernley and Marsh in their study. His longing for his friends increased with the passing days. Vernley wrote faithfully, chronicling doings at Cambridge, sometimes unconsciously causing pain by the enthusiastic mention of a new name, which John felt was taking the place of his own.

As anticipated, Marsh was a great success. In the freer atmosphere of the university he had blossomed into a man of power and influence. He had already made a brilliant debut at the Union, and prophets talked of him as a future President—"Marsh says the office would be yours for the asking, there is no one here who could stand up with you—and I agree; why on earth don't you come, you dear old obstinate Scissors!" John was almost persuaded, but pride held him back. He must work out his own salvation—a memory of Browning helped him:

"But after they will know me. If I stoop
Into a dark tremendous sea of doubt,
It is but for a time; I press God's lamp
Close to my heart; its splendour, soon or late,
Will pierce the gloom; I shall emerge one day."

Was he a coward? He had a fear of poverty, and an almost desperate fear of the future at times. He was immersed in the poetry of Shelley and Keats, and soon was longing ardently to die of consumption in Italy, long before he would be twenty-six. In another mood his ambition carried him to dizzy heights. Recollections of talks with Mr. Ribble came back. Downing Street was not such an impossibility after all. He could speak. What had Vernley said in his last letter? And Mr. Steer had written to him about his article on "The Rise of Naturalism in English Poetry" which had appeared in the Blue Review, and asked him to be sure to call when next in London, in order that he might meet "some of your contemporaries"! From that day on London began to call him. That was the battlefield. Woodman agreed. "This is a dead end," he said, "but useful for the future."

"Useful, how?" asked John.

"You're getting material to write about. Think what a story's here for you one day, when you look back. You'll smile then."

Gradually John's mood of desperation passed. The problems of life was yet to be solved or attempted, but he was young. He had intense ambition, good health, friends, and certain qualities which secured him notice. He became aware that he possessed what men call a personality; there was something that made persons ready to do him a service, and this asset was the latest of his discoveries. At the Vicarage, Miss Piggin had proved her friendship. She left him books; she knew something about art, having spent two terms at Newlyn; at least she knew the various schools of art, the names of the galleries in London, and the queer methods employed for achieving success.

For the first time he heard of the Vorticiste and the mad young men of the Backyard Gallery, which specialised in chimneyscapes and exalted the hideous. She told him of energetic young James Squilson, one part artist, and two parts publicist, the one part being good, the others impudent. The good was at present carefully hidden, while his monstrosities had created sufficient of an outcry to make those beardless Jews, Messrs. Riverton, give him a one-man show at the Trafford Galleries. This exhibition, Miss Piggin said, was a great success. Society flocked to it and declared it unique. It bought enigmatical canvases at fifty guineas each, which were cheap, considering they were fashionable and provocative of discussions at dinner parties. Major Slade, a charming man, who liked having artists to dinner, bought several and felt like a connoisseur for six months, which was as long as he liked any sensation. Squilson's third exhibition cooled Slade's waning enthusiasm. The perverse fellow had become an artist. His paintings might have been accepted by the Royal Academy. When Squilson declared, to the horror of society, that he would not object to being accepted, Slade dropped him and gave away his works as wedding presents.

Miss Piggin was musical also; she played Bach and cultivated an enthusiasm for Scriabine. John found that his musical intelligence ceased after Debussy—Ravel was his breaking point, although Stravinsky's L'oiseau de Feu seemed to give him a prospect of a new land where the animals were articulate.

John became rather a frequent visitor to the Vicarage. Mr. Woodman was asked to dinner also, but he was asked as a companion, and was useful in occupying Piggin's attention. Miss Piggin, accustomed to the role of hostess since her mother's death, devoted her attention to John. Formerly on festive occasions she had asked her friend, the the doctor's daughter, to assist her. She decided that she could manage well enough with such obliging young men. Miss Piggin also found a new incentive to dress rather better than usual. The sleepy life of a country Vicarage had caused her to become somewhat lax in the past; it was no use being a fashion plate when there was no one to notice. Now, however, she made a surprising resurrection; even the village publican commented on it, as also poor little Miss Timis, called in to do the sewing.

Although Miss Piggin was well aware that nature had not been lavish at her birth, she knew that fashion has given woman a good frame for an indifferent picture. Short sighted, out of doors she wore spectacles, but these were discarded in the evening. She was troubled with chilblains on her hands, it is true, but she had a wonderfully fresh complexion for a young woman of nearly thirty. John in fact thought she was about twenty-three, though she seemed to have seen a lot in her short life. But she could talk and had an eager interest in literature, of which she was no mean critic. As an artist she was sufficiently good to merit her asking John to sit to her, which he did, getting an ache in the neck, while she made a very idealised drawing of him. It was a little trying, for the sitting which he had been told would require a few hours, ran into weeks. Miss Piggin seemed everlastingly taking out the next day what she had achieved with such elation the previous day. The eyes and the mouth caused the most trouble. These required several visits from the easel for close study. His hair was comparatively easy, for she could arrange it to fall as it suited her. She told John he had sensitive nostrils and a perfect, but sensuous mouth.

"Not sensual?" he said laughing.

"It might become that—yet," she replied.

It was good fun and he liked the little teas they made in the studio, with the aid of a gas ring. Afterwards he insisted on washing up while she dried the tea things. It was a domestic moment and it gave Miss Piggin a thrill; he looked so fascinating with his sleeves rolled up above the elbows. Once, when he dozed while sitting, she had hoped that he would fall fast asleep. She would just kiss his head as it lay, with its tumbled hair, on the side of the chair. But he aroused himself, and Miss Piggin was grateful that she was saved from being so foolish.

She held John from a nervous breakdown. She took him for lone walks and encouraged him to talk. He found his idea of going to London to write, eagerly supported. What to write he hardly knew. Miss Piggin suggested journalism. She had met quite a lot of journalists near her rooms at Hampstead. They seemed very jolly and not hard-worked. It was true they had small private incomes or self-sacrificing parents. She gave John the address of a boarding house in Pimlico. If he went to London, he would find it cheap but not nasty.

It was on one of these walks one day an incident occurred that thrilled her with a revelation of the male in action. They were on a narrow and muddy road when a cart came into view, with a red-faced youth lolling on the top of a load. Although there was no space for the two walkers to stand in, he drove his cart forward, jamming them up against the wall and spattering them with mud. Miss Piggin gave a cry of despair at the sight of her muddy skirt. With a quick movement John ran to the horse's head, seized the rein and pulled up the cart.

"Why don't you look where you are going?" he shouted angrily.

The lout blinked at him.

"Shut yer —— mouth."

John flushed and tightened his grip.

"You'll get down and apologise to the lady," he said firmly. Another flow of indecent language.

"Let go that —— rein!" finished the carter.

"I shall not. Come down!" retorted John.

The carter raised his whip and brought the lash down across John's shoulders and neck. The horse reared, John started forward, seized the dangling leg of his aggressor, and brought him sprawling down into the muddy road. He was up in a minute bellowing obscenely with rage. John dodged the blow directed at his mouth.

"I'll fight yer! I'll fight yer, yer—" yelled the carter stamping around. John slipped off his coat and waistcoat; the carter followed suit.

"Oh, Mr. Dean, please, please!" implored Miss Piggin from the mound on which she had taken refuge. John's answer was to fling his discarded clothes into her arms. She looked around, meaning to shriek, but as no one was in sight it seemed useless. Meanwhile the battle had begun. The antagonists were as different in appearance as they were in method. The carter was a heavily built youth of about twenty. He was sandy-haired with a tanned face and neck. His arms were muscular, and the gaping shirt revealed a hairy chest. He was a fellow not likely to be knocked out, especially by the lightly built, slim youth, who looked almost delicate in contrast.

Could this determined, lithe fighter make any impression on an opponent so firmly built and muscular? Miss Piggin thought not, and began to think of intervention with her umbrella; but she might poke the wrong person. She was cheered to notice how quick her champion was. It was a contest between speed with intelligence and strength with obstinacy. Mr. Dean might set the pace, but would he wear down this bulwark of seasoned flesh? They had both received blows, and the nose of the slim youth was bleeding. The other, however, was also bleeding at the mouth. Miss Piggin felt faint and yet thrilled at the sight of these flushed youths, their hair falling into their eyes, one breathing hard, and the other looking implacably fierce. It reminded her of a fight she had witnessed between two stags on Exmoor. There was something exhilarating in the spectacle, though horrible.

Considerable in-fighting followed which evidently distressed the carter. Although Miss Piggin could not determine who was getting the blows—they were bent down together—the carter was letting forth "oughs" and "ahs" either as expressions of satisfaction or of receipt. The carter had opened with a wild but weighty swinging of the arms, which the other cautiously avoided. One blow from those sculpturesque forearms would have rendered him hors-de-combat. He waited his opportunity, backing slowly until he secured a favourable opening. One fist landed over the carter's eye. He grunted but his progress was not impeded. The next moment they had clinched, for which Miss Piggin felt grateful. She would have left them in this harmless position, if she could, until she had returned with the village constable. She now stood with bated breath, for when they broke away some one would receive a blow.

Here John's small supply of ringcraft, gathered in Sedley gymnasium, came into play. He used the clinch to rest himself upon the bulk of the carter, who pushed him around, tiring himself. Then seizing a propitious moment, he threw off his assailant's arms, feinted to the left cheek, and swung in with a sharp upper cut with the right. It caught the carter neatly under the chin, lifted him and sent his head back. He went down heavily with a lost balance. John walked round till his opponent was ready to rise. His blood was up, there was a grim expression on his face, and Miss Piggin, catching a glimpse of his steely eyes, cold and fierce under the mop of disordered hair, changed in her alarm. She feared now for the life of the carter, raised up on his elbow and contemplating things.

"Oh, Mr. Dean!" she whimpered.

He continued to walk round as though he had not heard. The carter painfully rose to his feet, and then with a torrent of abuse, rushed in mad fury at the waiting foe. A right from the shoulder caught John on the chest, breaking his guard, and sent him down to his knees with its sheer strength. The carter had no code to obey and was ready to follow up his advantage, but in this he was unwary. John waited until he stood over him, and with a crouching spring came up under the raw fellow's guard, reaching his chin again with some force. Shaken and somewhat dismayed with this surprising return of an apparently beaten adversary, he began to retreat, and John, still full of battle, saw his chance. There was some swift in-fighting which Miss Piggin could not follow, because now the amount of blood visible on both antagonists made her feel ill. She turned her head away. When she looked again, it was all over, John stood surveying the huddled up form of the beaten youth.

"Can you get up?" he asked coolly. The voice was almost cruel in its tone, thought Miss Piggin. Then John stooped and pulled the sullen fellow to his feet. They stood facing one another for a long interval.

"Will you shake hands?" said John, extending his. There was no response for a moment.

"Yer...." snarled the carter, his eyes still full of battle.

"I'm sorry then," said John unrolling his sleeves. There must have been something crossing the slow brain of the carter. His eyes changed expression.

"Yer've won ... boss," he said slowly. John heard the changed tone and again held out his hand. The carter took it.

But peace had left them both strange spectacles. The horse even seemed a little afraid of its master, and turned its head as he approached. He was wiping his face, which had begun to swell, with a red handkerchief. John was doing likewise. The absurdity of the whole affair was intensified in the process. Miss Piggin now approached and offered a diminutive handkerchief, which John accepted, for his own was soaked by a persistent nose. The right eye was slowly closing up.

Without further comment the carter took his horse's head and led it off down the road. As John looked up and caught Miss Piggin's piteous expression, he could not help laughing.

"I suppose I look a beautiful object?"

"Oh, Mr. Dean!" was all she could say. If only he would faint now, all was safe! Her womanly instinct for nursing the brave rose within her. She would dearly have loved to hold him in her arms and bathe his face, and tidy his hair. But romance gave place to the practical.

"You must come to the Vicarage first—you can't return like that."

"No—I can't—but I want washing now before it dries," he replied. There was a canal bordering the next field; the road led over the canal bridge. The Vicarage was two miles away.

"I'm going to swim in the canal!" he said.

Miss Pilgrim shivered at the idea. "It's terribly cold!" she cried. "You will get a chill."

"It's the tonic I want," he replied. "You stand on the bridge. I can strip underneath if you'll keep watch."

He led the way, and left her on the bridge. What an amazing man! A minute or so later she heard a splash, and shivered sympathetically in the cold November wind. She could not help just looking over the bridge a moment, and caught a glimpse of white shoulders, a dark head, and the strong arms thrashing the grey water into a foamy track. Then he turned and she looked away.

When he came up and joined her on the bridge later, he looked marvellously refreshed. It was true his eye had closed up but most of the horror of the battle had been the blood.

"But how have you dried yourself?" she asked, as he squeezed his hair with his hands.

He laughed at her with his merry eye—the right one, still visible.

"On my shirt."

She blushed crimson. Men had shirts, as she knew, but it was awkward to be told so by men. They walked home through the barren copse, burning red on the horizon where the sun left the winter day. For one person these were the woods of Broceliande, and her heart warmed towards the young knight fresh from the battle.

Mr. Woodman's expression, at the appearance of John just in time for tea in the study, was a mixture of surprise and disapproval.

"My dear fellow—" he began. "You have not been fighting? An assistant master! Whatever will Tobin say? Don't eat all that toast—here's the fork, make your own—he will want a full explanation of that eye. What an eye!"

John briefly recounted the episode.

"I should leave out Miss Piggin," said Woodman.

"Why?"

"Tobin strongly disapproves of masters walking about the country with young ladies, and as for fighting for them like bulls in a herd..."

"Oh, stop ragging. What's the best for a black eye?"

BOOK IV

LIFE

CHAPTER I

I

Two young men stood on a country platform saying good-bye to each other. One was bound for Cambridge, the other for London. Two trunks were in charge of the porter, but neither of these belonged to the bronzed young fellow who took his seat in the train. For although London was his destination, he had as much foreknowledge of his actual resting place in that metropolis as had Mr. Richard Whittington many years before him. The latter was supposed to have brought a cat with him; the young man in the carriage had no cat. He had health and ambition, also one hundred and twenty pounds in the bank. He had been able to save the whole of his salary for the second and final term at Chawley School, which he had left at Easter, to the sorrow of the boys, who had marked their adoration with some tears, and a presentation set of "Shelley's Poems." He had taken a bold step, highly applauded by Mr. Gerald Woodman. He had sacrificed an income of sixty pounds a year, with board, lodging and washing, for the uncertainty of London.

But there was no regret in his heart on this lovely spring morning. The song of the lark mounting to a southern cloud, the sense of budding things in hedge and tree, the sharp air, and the exuberance of his friend, Bobbie Vernley, all augured well for the adventure.

"You have given me a great time, Bobbie," he said, looking on the good-natured face of his friend. "Don't forget to tell Marsh to write, and let me have all the news. I will write as soon as I get my rooms."

There was a slamming of doors, the screech of the engine whistle, a final handshake, a look in Vernley's eyes that told him much, and they were parted again.

John sat back in the seat and watched the familiar station glide away. Somehow this place always marked the beginning and end of things. When next he came how would he stand—a success or a failure? He had weighed anchor and was putting to sea. He had youth, one hundred and twenty pounds, and determination.

Opening a note book, he glanced through a list of addresses which gave him a little comfort. He knew a few persons in London. There was Mr. Steer, and a renewal of his acquaintance warmed him with joyous expectation. There was Mrs. Graham, to whom he was confidential, and who, looking in upon his dreams knew to what starry pinnacles he aspired. Muriel had insisted on an early call on Mr. Ribble, but John felt doubtful. A busy politician would find courtesy and kindliness heavily taxed if every stray youth seeing London rang his door bell. But he made one promise to call formally. There was a hope of companionship in the presence in town of Lindon, who had just left Balliol to study at the Royal Academy of Music, but a certain shyness still hung over his relations with that brilliant person. There was something he never quite understood, a reservation in manner, if not in speech, which told John theirs could never be an equal friendship. Somehow he always felt the debtor to Lindon, perhaps owing to his manner. Despite his cordiality, his obvious liking of John's company, the latter always felt diffident; perhaps now he would learn to know Lindon better, relieved of the halo of a schoolboy's worship.

Interleaving his note book was Miss Piggin's card, and on it, in a pointed Italian hand, the address of a boarding house she recommended. "Mrs. Perdie, 108, Mariton Street, S.W." In his pocket, John carried another specimen of Miss Piggin's handwriting, on the flyleaf of "The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft," calmly setting forth the inscription—"To John Narcissus Dean from Elsa Piggin, in memory of walks and talks." Some of the letters had run, Miss Piggin explained, owing to the dew dripping from some roses just gathered, on her writing desk. The warmth of her pillow overnight had somewhat crinkled the dried page, but this Miss Piggin did not attempt to explain. She carefully hid from all eyes that, with his departure, Romance died. Henceforth, she accepted Fate with gentle compliance. No more rebellions, never again the false hope of Springtime; even photographs were resolutely put away, John's included, but she permitted one small snapshot taken on the football field, to remain on her dressing table. He had such a handsome leg, and her soul craved beauty. For the rest she was unwearied in attention to her father. He found clean nibs in his pens, his note-books carefully dusted and replaced. She had a great scheme that afternoon for the Ladies' Sewing Meeting, which foretold long months of patient work—an altar cloth, embroidered with scenes from the life of St. John. Appropriately therefore, the opening lesson was read from the Gospel according to St. John. She began it with loving reverence. St. John was such a beautiful name, she thought.

And John? Alas! he too dreamed, of a fair face, the laughter of maidenhood, the sudden shaking of curls beautiful in their agitation. Those last moments in the hall, awaiting the arrival of Tod with his car, were painful almost. One by one they had said good-bye. Mr. Vernley, red-faced, cheerful, friendly; Mrs. Vernley, motherly to the last, then Kitty, off for her morning ride, and Alice about to retire to her voice production; and then they were alone for a few precious moments.

"You will write?"

"Every day, darling," he vowed.

"I shall always think of you."

"Always?"

"Always!" she promised.

Their hands are locked—silence, and tears in Muriel's eyes.

"I shall soon be on my feet."

"I know."

"Muriel!"

"John, dearest!"

"London is nearer than Chawley."

"Yes, John, but—"

"But?"

"It is so new, such an adventure."

"That thrills me—our day draws nearer, our day, Muriel." There is another pause. Bobbie bangs the door open before approaching.

"Car's coming round, Scissors," he shouts. "Good-bye, Muriel, old thing! Remember me to the nuns!" He strides up and kisses her soundly on the cheek, sees tears in her eyes; she feels the reassuring pressure of her brother's hands upon her arms. And then they are gone.

As the train drew in through the panorama of chimney-pots, factory roofs and gasometers, it was her face John saw, over the wretchedness of the bewildering city. In the station he awoke to the reality of the things under the girders and glazed roofs. He carried only a bag; his trunk would be forwarded when he found rooms. He stood on the platform hesitating a moment. London frightened him. It was so vast and self-centred, so busy with people who had apparently solved the problem he had to solve. Where should he begin, and how would it all end? For the moment he had one rule, strict economy. He made his way slowly up the incline out of Liverpool Street Station, and asked a policeman the best means of reaching Mariton Street. "Where is it?" he asked the genial fellow whose robust countenance cheered him.

"Pimlico! No. 6 bus to Charing Cross, change to 24, that'll take you down to Mariton Street." John thanked him and clambered to the top of the bus. He watched the traffic, human and vehicular, streaming down Bishopsgate. At the Bank, he could not suppress a thrill as he looked on the restless tide surging into the vortex before the Mansion House. St. Paul's, lifting its sun-struck dome into the morning air, pigeon-haunted, floated away behind, and the short descent under the viaduct brought them to Ludgate Circus. There, narrow, mazed with telegraph wires, jammed with buses, cars, lorries, and hurrying humanity, rose Fleet Street. An incommunicable wonder stole in on the boy's heart. Here was the battle ground whereon he would throw down his gauge. The roar in his ears might have been applause, or was it the laughter of ridicule? The gold-lettered sign-boards announced the tributary channels on either hand. Names familiar on the breakfast table; names of power and wonder leapt forth from these insignificant buildings, behind those walls sat the men who held the world in leash. The fall of empires, the death of monarchs, the ruin of men, the fame that sprang upon them; all these things found their historians here. Man-made, this world was hedged round with the divinity of power. Within those drab buildings beat the pulse of Time. Mercury, wing-footed, swept down those narrow stairways, and leapt forth from fourth-storey dwellings of the Olympian "We."

It was soon passed. The roaring bus soared up the gradient towards the Griffin and Shield at the City entrance of Temple Bar. Beyond, a widening way diverged in two crescents around the pinnacled church. High up on the right, the solemn solidity of the Law Courts, its clock hung from the tower far over the narrow street; a swerve and a new vista. The Strand leading onwards past the wedge of the Australia House, the pillared colonnade of the Gaiety Theatre, and the narrows, with hotels and theatres on either hand. Then the railed front of Charing Cross, a brief right hand glimpse of St. Martin's Church, and John descended. Around the corner broke the wonder of the world, Trafalgar Square, flanked by the National Gallery, white against the blue sky, cumulus-banked with summits of sunlit snow. Aloft, Nelson, dark and solitary, looking riverwards far over the head of the unfortunate monarch, superbly seated and orientated; the four lions, symbols of British solidarity and regal magnificence, in whose ears the song of the nation's traffic sounded by day and by night, guardians of the hub of empire; and listeners, perforce, to the revolt of humanity.

Long stood the youth, gazing upon this scene, watching the brilliance of the fountains with their scintillating jets, about whose spray naked urchins as if strewn from a garland of Correggio, shouted and splashed. Into his heart stole the magic of the place. Here was the visible pulse of the nation, the England in which he lived, an Englishman. Here was the dream, tangible, carried in the hearts of a thousand pioneers across the wastes of far places, the music accompanying the hymn of duty, the thought that built the empire imperishable in the love of her children. He looked on the Roman magnificence of the Admiralty Arch, caught a swift translation of a Venetian moment when a cloudless azure dome encupped the towered church; and then, with a start, he returned to the business of the day. A few minutes later one view crowded out another, until amid ecstasy and wonder, he seemed to be riding through history. Whitehall, broad, official, stately; the sudden leap to sight of Westminster Hall; the familiar homeliness of the Abbey; the tracery of the Houses of Parliament; the clock tower and the bridge, and ere the tumult subsided in his heart, followed the long cathedral-greyness of Victoria Street, ending in the vulgar rout of traffic about the railed courtyard of Victoria Station. John laughed to himself, swaying on the bus. Was he seeking lodgings or El Dorado?

When the bell rang for the fifth time that morning, Mrs. Perdie let forth a protest.

"Sure there's no peace in a basement kitchen," she moaned, wiping her hands dry after peeling potatoes for the evening meal. It was no use expecting Annie to answer the bell; she was on the fourth floor making the young gentlemen's beds, and lost that moment in contemplation of a gaudy pair of pyjamas. So while Annie speculated on the cost of a blouse made out of the same silk, Mrs. Perdie climbed the stairs and opened the door to another exquisite young man. But she had a trained eye, and the first words of enquiry told her that this was the genuine article, the product which Mrs. Perdie, proud of being a connoisseur by virtue of seventeen years' service in the best families, reverenced and made adjustable terms for. The mention of Miss Piggin's name immediately confirmed her impression. Warmly she invited the young gentleman into the drawing room, hastening to draw up the Venetian blinds and apologising for her appearance.

"I'm not like this of a night-time. You see, when they are all out I give a hand to the maid." Then she was silent a space, while she absorbed the vision of the young man seated before her. A visit from Phoebus Apollo himself—the original of the plaster statue on the shelf over the aspidistra—would not have silenced her so effectively.

"I knew at once he was of quality," she confided to Annie later. "His hands, gloves and shoes—you can never go wrong there. You can't be sure of accent. Some people are regular parrots. And he was that shy I could have hugged him. Didn't like to ask how much, he didn't, or what it included. Different to that brazen pair on the fourth floor."

The interview was indeed somewhat painful to John. He had heard warning stories of the rapacity of landladies, of their dirty rooms, bad food and subtle extras. The most familiar jokes were based on the experiences of unfortunate lodgers. He had expected to find Mrs. Perdie rat-faced, with a withered neck and untidy wisps of hair. This round-faced woman with the pleasant smile and a straight-forward air was not the original of the caricatures; moreover he saw no cringing cat. There was not even a bunch of wax grapes under a glass dome, which Tod assured him monopolised the mantelpiece in all boarding houses.

At her invitation he made a tour of the bedrooms, and heard as he mounted the stairs, the separate histories of the occupants of each room. She halted on the third floor and led the way into a back bedroom. It was well-furnished as a bed-sitting room. A writing table stood under the window, which looked out on the wide expanse of a factory yard. The sky was cut by a huge chimney, belonging to the Army Clothing Factory, but this was not unpleasant, for it bore a slight resemblance to the Campanile of St. Mark's, Venice; at least with a blue sky an hour after sunset, the illusion was not impossible. There was a large mirrored wardrobe, a bed with a purple eiderdown, a boxed-in wash-stand, a small table, an easy chair and a gas stove.

"Gas is extra, sir, there's a shilling slot meter in the recess so that you only pay for what you burn. The bath room, with a geyser, is on the landing. This room and board, is two guineas a week, laundry and boot cleaning extra. There's breakfast and dinner in the evening, with midday dinner and tea on Sundays. All our guests have lunch out. I'm sure I could make you comfortable, sir."

Looking at the woman, John felt sure too. He was glad to have settled the problem so easily. Before he went, Mrs. Perdie gave him a latch key—a sign of confidence in view of the smallness of his bag, and in return he insisted on paying her a week in advance which caused her to say to Annie, "only a gentleman would think of that—handsome-like. There's nothing like the quality."

When she showed John out, he was reminded that dinner was at seven, and buses ran every ten minutes from the corner.

"I don't know your name, sir," said Mrs. Perdie finally, as the young man put on his hat.

"Dean—John Dean," replied John with a smile.

Mrs. Perdie smiled back as she closed the door, "Bless 'im," she said to the cat, which then appeared. "I wonder what he does—and such nice teeth and manners!"

When Annie descended from her dreams of glory, with a few loose feathers in her hair, Mrs. Perdie was rubbing a serviette ring.

"Annie—there's a new gentleman comin' in to-night; set a clean napkin and this ring between Miss Simpson and Captain Fisher, and get the back bedroom ready. Take the best towel up."

II

When John returned to Mariton Street that evening, the beauty of London burned in his blood. He had given himself up to pleasant vagabondage all that day, abandoning the quest of livelihood. On the morrow he would begin that grim task. So after sending the address for his luggage to be forwarded, noon found him walking along the road by the garden wall of Buckingham Palace, towards Hyde Park. It was sunny, and the pleasant hum of traffic, the bright-faced messenger boys, the nurse girls with their well-dressed children, the crescendo of an approaching bus, the lovely elegance of the lady whose car went parkwards for an airing, the stately fronts of the houses, the sun-gleamed masses of clouds that backed the dark figure of the charioteer on the quadriga near Green Park—all these things were part of this wonderful song of life. It was almost incredible that he should seek a niche in all this splendour. Those people around him seemed so well established; had they ever begun, or had they been mere victims of circumstances?

He watched a couple of riders turn in at Hyde Park Corner; a fresh-faced young man, stolid with good food and no worry, accompanied a fragile girl, whose well-tailored riding habit for a moment called up another figure he knew well in similar attire. He followed in at the gates and turned to the left, wondering if ever he and Muriel would ride together down that glorious stretch. He sat down on one of the chairs and watched the riders. Children accompanied by grooms, elderly army officers, a very stout lady who appeared to break down the fetlocks of her mount, a tall girl in black top-boots, who galloped, with splendid hands, and laughed back at two young men who made desperate efforts to keep with her.

Then his attention was attracted by an elegant apparition, which alighted like a bird of paradise from a car on the edge of the curb. It was a boy-officer in the Scots Guards. He was very tall and languid, but held himself stiffly erect as though there was a cavity between his shoulder blades which he wished to keep closed. It was difficult to know how he ever washed his face, so rigid were the arms. His hat which had a brass peak and a red and white diced band, half buried his face, the chin receding underneath a hairless upper lip, delicate and curved. His painfully erect carriage seemed derived more from mechanism within than from the operation of will. His tunic suggested a theatrical tailor, so flawlessly did it fit, with an exaggerated waist-line that made an hour-glass of a human trunk. And as if in fear that it was just possible some one might mistake the young elegant for an ordinary officer in an ordinary regiment, the tailor had descended from fashion to eccentricity in the cut of the trousers, which, receiving inspiration from golfing breeches, bulged below the knees, where they were caught up by puttees that wound about two stick-like legs ending in enormous booted feet. The young man was evidently delighted with himself. He turned round three times in the sunshine, like a parrot on a perch. Then it happened that a square-shouldered country youth, in a coarse copy of the same uniform, but with ruder brass embellishments, saluted and passed. The immediate effect was wonderful, if startling; a swift spasm, as of a Titan struggling with tetanus, galvanised the young officer into movement. By a terrific jerk, he succeeded in bringing his out-turned palm behind his right ear where it locked for a moment before being hurled downwards to its former rigidity, the disturbed flesh subsiding again into calm dignity. A few minutes later he was joined by a brother officer, an even more splendid figure wrapped in a long greatcoat of gorgeous blue, double-breasted and broad lapelled, with two vertical rows of buttons and a glimpse of scarlet lining within, where it gaped about his knees. The waist line was identical, a similar hat hid a similar face. One felt there might be a thousand of these in a box somewhere.

The Comédie Humaine continued. Two seats away from him a rather stout lady, accompanied by three Pomeranian dogs, seated herself. She was half-buried in furs above the waist, and half-naked below, but apparently suffered no discomfort. John could not help looking at her ankles, which were shapely, a diamond watch-bangle encircling the right. The lady noticed John's gaze and did not seem to mind, for she smiled. Slightly embarrassed, he thought it right to smile back, transferring his gaze to the Pomeranians, in suggestion that they were amusing. The exchange of smiles, however, made him aware that the lady was of indeterminable age, but had a very fresh complexion. The wind also told him that she liked expensive perfume. He continued to watch the horses and the people, and caught whiffs of conversation. He heard, from the young men, that certain things, he could not hear what, were "rather priceless" and "topping." One voice was ecstatic over Pavlova, "but Novikoff!" exclaimed an adoring feminine voice, "you've seen the Bacchanale?" Presently a long purple limousine drew up to the edge of the curb. The lady with the dogs rose and went towards it, the chauffeur opening the door. She was just entering the car when one of the leashes dropped from her hands. The dog immediately ran off in the direction of John.

"Naughty Topsie!" she called. "Come here!"

But Topsie welcomed liberty and sped on, John in pursuit. He soon retrieved the runaway and towed it back.

"Thank you so much," said the lady sweetly. "Topsie is such a rebel—I love dogs, don't you?"

"Yes," said John. He thought she looked critically at him.

"Have you got one?" she asked.

"No—I have just left school—it is difficult there."

"Oh—and are you starting business; I suppose you're quite thrilled!" She laughed again and John responded.

"I have not started yet—I have just come to London to-day."

"All alone?" asked the lady, arching her eyebrows.

"Yes."

"But how romantic! You sound like Dick Whittington, without a cat or a dog!" She laughed again at her joke. He noticed she had beautiful small teeth; a rope of pearls lay on her throat.

"Do you know London?" she asked again.

"No—I have never stayed here for any time," he answered. The chauffeur still waited with his hand on the door.

"This park is very lovely," she said, gathering her furs about her. "You should see it—will you drive through it with me?"

The invitation was so gracious and alluring John could not refuse; he followed the lady into the car, and with the dogs in their laps, they glided forward. It was a luxuriously appointed car. Three silver sconces held flowers whose perfume competed with that of the lady. The chauffeur in front wore a cerise uniform, with a broad green collar. Inside they were quite silent for a few minutes. John's shyness overcame him, while the lady, reclining on an air cushion, arranged her furs and played with the collars of the dogs on her lap. John knew that he was being closely scrutinised, and he resolved not to reveal any more of his personal history. This close contact showed that his companion's age was about thirty-five, and the fresh complexion had not been acquired in the open air. She made no secret of this, for she lifted her half veil, opened a vanity bag, took out what appeared to be a silver pencil, and raising a small mirror, carefully attended to her lips, which reddened in the process. John wondered who she was. There was a little pile of visiting cards in the wallet under the motor watch but they were upside down so he could not read them. She was evidently a wealthy woman, and in some respects reminded him of Mrs. Graham, who also had a green jade vanity bag. Mrs. Graham, however, on the one occasion when she used its contents, told him to turn his head away. The lady in the car, having completed her toilet, raised a lorgnette, looked out of the window for a few moments, dropped it, and addressed John.

"London can be a very lonely place," she said. "I know, because my husband is in India with his regiment."

John hesitated in reply. He could not just say, "Oh," and if he said "I'm sorry," it would be stupid. So he simply said, "Yes."

"Have you many friends here?" she asked. The question was kindly. He chatted brightly. Her first impression was correct, she thought, looking at him. He was a very handsome youth. When he looked down she saw how the long lashes swept his cheek, and when looking at her his eyes had wonderful depth. She liked the fine line of his profile, and the well-shaped, sloping ear; his hands too were fascinating, being strong and veinless. And in every movement and line, there was the symmetry of thoughtless youth, which was delightful. After a short time he, too, was admiring her intensely. She had an alluring voice—and he could not help noticing the ankles and small feet, so beautifully shod.

They turned and twisted, caught a glimpse of a sheet of water, an ornamental garden and bridge, then turned again, running parallel with a main road, whose roar could be heard behind the screen of trees. The watch hands pointed to ten minutes to one.

"I am lunching in Cumberland Place at one," she said. "Can I drop you on your way?"

He had no way, but did not care to confess it.

"At the gates will do, thank you."

When the car drew up near Marble Arch, she took a card from the wallet.

"This is my name and address. Since you are new to London, let me offer you hospitality. Will you not dine with me one evening at my house?"

He thanked her.

"Shall we say Thursday at seven? It will be quite en famille. You will be the only guest." She showed her beautiful teeth when he assented, and held out a diminutive gloved hand as he stepped out of the car.

"Good-bye," she smiled, as he raised his hat, a glance taking in the sweep of his brow with its clustered hair. The door closed, she leaned back with a parting glance, and as the car lurched forward, he replaced his hat. He looked calm enough, but there was tumult within. For a few moments he gave no thought to lunch. What a wonderful place London was! Then he became conscious of the large, neat-lettered card in his hand. "Lady Evelyn Warsett, 607, Queen Anne's Gate, S.W.," he read. Also he remembered he had not told her his name.

When John returned that evening to Mariton Street the dinner gong was creating pandemonium in the hall below, and there followed an opening of doors, a creaking of stairs and a babble of voices. He halted on the threshold of the dining room, dreading his entry into this strange circle. But Mrs. Perdie was waiting for him and piloted him to his place at the table, where she introduced him to Miss Simpson on his right, and Capt. Fisher on his left. The captain was very curt and ignored him throughout dinner. Miss Simpson was assiduous in polite attentions and small talk. When she discovered he had been in Asia Minor, life suddenly brightened for her. She had lived a year at Samsoon, with her brother, then the Consul, now a Governor in India. The Captain sniffed and fidgeted. He hated all his talk about Asia and India. He had spent most of his life on the Gold Coast, and knew it was not so fashionable.

When dinner was over the young men lingered behind.

"Perhaps you would like to have a smoke?" suggested Mrs. Perdie, going out and leaving John with the other boarders. He now looked more particularly at his companions. They had crossed to one of the windows where they began to bewilder the parrot by blowing smoke into its face. Presently one of them seemed aware that John was in the room. Pulling out a silver cigarette case he opened it and held it towards him.

"Have a gasper?" he drawled genially.

John presumed he meant a cigarette, and took one. The donor extended an elegantly ringed hand to light his own. There was an excessive length of cuff. John's eye moved along the arm, and noted the carefully knotted tie. The clothes were ultra-fashionable, the cut of the waist being much exaggerated. The trousers had a razor-edge crease and the patent boots, narrow and pointed, were topped by brown canvas spats. But despite the elegance there was something too pronounced in everything. The cloth was just too light in colour, too loud in check, the cameo ring too large, the pearl pin too pearly to be genuine. Even the hair was curled until it suggested a wig rather than a natural covering, and the skin had a curious poreless texture. But all these might have passed unnoticed by a less critical eye than John's, fresh to impressions after the plain severity of schooldays, had not the voice, and accent deliberately assumed, been so truly remarkable. It was a high-pitched voice, that rather sang than spoke. He turned from time to time to his companion, to whom, to John's amazement, he alluded as "my dear"—John wondering if that was the fashionable pet name in London. The friend was of similar type, but he talked less and giggled more. The teeth were profusely stopped with gold, and while they talked, he extracted a piece of washleather from his yellow waistcoat pocket and polished his nails. He was the younger by about two years.

"Mrs. Perdie didn't introduce us," said the elder—"my card."

John took the piece of pasteboard and read it. In Roman printed type it ran "Reginald de Courtrai. Greenroom Club, W.C."

"You are French?" asked John.

"By descent—my grandfather was a Courtrai de Courtrai."