Scissors

CHAPTER IV

Annie had been upstairs three times that morning to see if Mr. Dean's shoes had been taken inside his room. But the door was still closed and the shoes on the mat outside. At last she gave away her secret hero.

"Mr. Dean's not up yet," she said reluctantly to Mrs. Perdie, as she came downstairs to the kitchen. "Shall I keep his breakfast 'ot?"

"What?—not down? Why it's half past ten! Have you cleared away yet?" cried Mrs. Perdie, emerging wet-handed from the scullery and a brisk encounter with saucepans. "We can't keep breakfast going into lunch time."

Annie halted, she did not expect an order that would deprive her favourite of his breakfast.

"You'd better take it up on a tray to his room," said Mrs. Perdie, relenting—"and I'll speak to him when he comes down." She disappeared again into the scullery where she thought long on the ways of young men and how cruelly the wicked city corrupted them. Lying in bed late had been the first sign of Mr. Perdie's breakdown. Once a man began to lie late, his backbone went, of that there was no question. She tolerated such a thing with de Courtrai and Wellington on the top floor. It was in keeping with their characters. Weedy young men in a fast profession might be expected to lie in bed in the morning, even at the cost of losing breakfast.

Strange to say, the one who suffered most, Annie, who carried up the breakfast, grumbled least. She tapped, gently at Mr. Dean's door, to absolve her conscience, but not to wake him, then she tiptoed in. He was fast asleep—though she could see very little of him, with his head buried in the pillow and the sheets hunched up round his shoulders. Cautiously she drew up the blind and flooded the room with light. Then she placed a small table at the side of the bed. Still he slept. For a few moments she stood in romantic contemplation of his tousled head, with its ravelled locks. How lovely he looked, with his boyish colour and his strong throat. His pyjama jacket, unbuttoned, gave a glimpse of a strong chest. Greatly daring, she leaned forward. Just once she would do it—she might never have the chance again—and oh, she had wanted to, so many times. Often she had longed he would just come and put his arms round her and kiss her fiercely—she wouldn't have minded if he had been cruel even. She stooped and very lightly kissed his hair, just where it fell in a mass to one side of his brow, and she felt her very heart would betray her. But he slept on, unconscious of all the love poured out over him. Softly Annie went out. She halted on the threshold with the tray in her hand, flushed and trembling with excitement.

"Lor—I'm daft!" she thought, and then walked loudly into the room and deposited the tray on the table with a bang.

"Here's breakfast, Mr. Dean. It's half past ten and missus says she can't keep it any longer!"

He was awake in an instant.

"Good heavens—I've overslept!"

"I should think y'ave, Mr. Dean—that's being up 'o nights at them dances."

John laughed.

"Captain Fisher's been asking for you, Mr. Dean, He's very excited at breakfast about something in the papers. He says you're a remarkable gentleman. He was so excited."

"But what about, Annie?" asked John stretching.

"I don't know that, sir, but he wants to see you—come in drunk last night 'e did, and was 'orribly rude to Miss Simpson, on the landing. Said he hated damn gramophones grinding hymn tunes over his head. He apologised this morning and now says he's been grossly insulted because Miss Simpson didn't say anything, but gave him a temperance tract. The missus had to speak to them both and the Captain gave notice."

"When does he go?" asked John, cracking his egg. The gossip of this caravanserai amused him.

"He never does go; he always gives notice when Mrs. Perdie says what she thinks," replied Annie. "'Ow could he go anywhere else when all know 'is little 'abbits? But I've got a lot to do. The tea orl right, Mr. Dean?" she said, moving to the door.

"Quite, Annie, thank you," he replied smiling at her. She closed the door on her hero with a resolute sniff.

Drinking his tea, with a head clearing, John became reflective. This would really not do. Half of the morning gone, and he was due at the office at twelve! Then his mind went back to the night before, and to Tilly. It had all been rather hectic. Now he thought of it, he had been a decided fool, sitting there until the early morn, just holding in his arms and kissing a girl whom he had not known six hours, and who called him "a dear kid." Why had he behaved like that? He was lonely perhaps—and he had amused himself, that was all. He didn't, couldn't love her, and certainly she had never for a moment thought of him in that way. Turning to pour out some more tea, his eyes fell on a framed photograph on his dressing table. Yes, he had been a bounder—he couldn't tell her, she wouldn't understand, for even he did not. And yet, if he met Tilly again—he dismissed the idea deliberately, but remembered in doing so that he would meet her again. There was a dance at the Studio next Friday. No,—he must not go there again.

He slipped out of bed, and bath towel in hand, surveyed himself critically in the glass. Did he look a rake? Was dissipation stamping its marks upon him? But the vision in the mirror was that of youth, flawless in careless health and grace.

When he appeared in the hall downstairs, and Mrs. Perdie hurried forth to give a little motherly advice, he looked such a slim picture of radiant youth, his dark eyes shining, his face gleaming, with high spirits bubbling over, that she lost the opening words of her prepared overture, and worshipped for a moment, after which her chance was gone, for Captain Fisher emerged from the drawing-room, newspaper in hand. He flourished it in John's face.

"Egad, sir, it's great—I've not laughed so much for years—you've got the real touch—I always thought those Bohemians were mad."

He touched his forehead with the rolled-up copy of the Daily Post.

"May I look a moment?" asked John, a little bewildered. He opened the paper on the third page and saw his name in black type. The editor had put it to the description of the Artists Union meeting. John suppressed a shout of triumph. There was his name true enough, "John Dean," with three quarters of a column of close print following! Of course, the House of Commons was not sitting, so space was plentiful; still there was his name, for all the world to see!

The omnibus that carried him on its top that gay spring morning as it wound its way past the Victoria Station down Victoria Street, under the grey front of Westminster Abbey façade, on up lordly Whitehall, might have been the steeds of Apollo the sun-god, so radiantly rode youth through the world, all civilisation singing about him, organised for his delight. He remembered hearing an odd remark of Merritt's one night.

"The first time you hit a bull's eye with the Chief, he gives you credit for it—there's your name on the target—but you've to be a marksman for that to happen." And it had happened. For the first time he experienced confidence, he was now conscious of approval. Before, it had been like dropping his articles down a drain. They disappeared for ever.

Merritt said nothing to him at the office, but in the afternoon, as he sat writing a letter in the reporters' room, the door of Merritt's little office opened. There was a sound of laughter within, and John caught sight of Phipps, who had just returned from a conference at Vienna, on which he had been writing with customary brilliance. John had never spoken to their leading man, who was as dizzily remote from his humble inquest-police-court haunting orbit, as the Pleiades from the sun.

"Dean," called Merritt, putting his head round the doorway. John went in. "I want to introduce you to Burton Phipps," he said. Phipps rose and held out his hand to him. John could not see him clearly in the sensation of the moment. Why was he so ridiculously sensitive that his eyes watered, whenever something really wonderful happened? He gulped and heard Phipps praising and laughing about his article.

"Are you doing anything?" asked Phipps.

"No, sir."

"Come out and have tea with me then. Good-bye, Merritt."

"Good-bye—Phipps."

John followed as in a dream.

Outside they crossed the square, plunging into the five o'clock traffic vortex below Ludgate Circus, walked a short way and then turned into a narrow entry. Through a couple of swing doors they found a hall, whose walls were plastered with notices, and then a lounge with small tables. A few men nodded to Phipps, the diminutive waiter smiled as on an old friend when taking the order for tea.

Now for the first time John was able to look critically at his new friend. It was a face and head of arresting dignity, beauty almost. Of small build, he was a slim, compact man of about thirty-five with a boyish expression. He was pale, his eyes a steely grey, very intense, with points of light in the pupils, glowing and alive in contrast to the general pallor of the brow. His hair was short and slightly wavy, the nose arched and Roman. It was a chiselled face, that of a man of thought, into whose lines had passed the experience of emotion, suffering perhaps. It was, in a curious way, a face, ascetic and carven, that suggested sorrow, sprung from contemplation rather than life's trials. And the voice was in accordance with this impression, for it was deep, with notes of rich melancholy, the voice of a great preacher. To John, he seemed much as he would have expected to find one of the knights of the Round Table, a strong, handsome personality—yet human, and sensitive to the beauty of life as well as its ugliness. There was a quick nervousness in the shape and movement of the hands, the right fingers being stained with nicotine, for he was an incessant smoker of cigarettes. In his talk he had a sense of humour which seemed to belie the seriousness of his expression, but that may have been due to his subject, for John had got him to talk of his famous adventure at a Grand Duke's wedding when he had figured as a foreign statesman and given Fleet Street an "inside" story that kept it talking for twenty-four hours—a long time for Fleet Street to discuss any subject.

Then he told John something of his experiences as a war correspondent in the Balkan War.

"A bloody, horrible business. I can hardly forgive the folly of men, Dean. There are people here talking about our next war—with Germany. What insanity—and what wickedness! If only they had seen and not read about war. I don't think there's any war worth fighting."

"Not for honour?"

"Were they ever fought for that?" Phipps looked at him piercingly.

"I suppose not," assented John.

"And in future, there'll be no war worth winning," he said in his deep voice. "The price of the effort will out-value the prize. Well, if another war comes along, thank heaven I shall be too old for sending telegrams to the British Public about its picturesque bloodiness."

When they had parted John felt he had made a new friend. That was the marvel of London. You met the men who did things; you were at the hub of creation, their names and faces were familiar with the day. Steer, Ribble, Phipps—what would some men have given for his good fortune?

When he arrived back at the office, word came that the Chief wanted to see him. He went through to the Secretary's room.

"Oh—Mr. Walsh's just going—I'll ask if he'll see you."

He came back a moment later and ushered John in.

Walsh sat at his littered desk.

"Sit down, Dean. Do you know French?"

"A little, sir."

"Do you speak it?—can you be understood and understand?"

"I—I hope so sir."

Walsh smiled.

"And how much Danish?"

John looked surprised. "Danish, sir?"

The editor laughed and then got up, putting his hand on the youth's shoulder.

"Don't let that worry you—England was proud of possessing a Viking's daughter as queen, but few of us know a word of her language. On Friday, I want you to go to Copenhagen to an international telegraph conference. It will last a fortnight. Merritt will tell you what we want, and our man in Copenhagen will look after you. You will go to Harwich and cross to Esbjerg. The cashier will give you the necessary money. I hope you'll enjoy the trip. Good-bye."

He touched a bell, his secretary came in, John went out. Dizzily he walked back to his room. Travel! And he was a special correspondent! He could envision the italicised words, the magic words he had seen under Phipps' name. "Our Special Correspondent." To Merritt he stammered out the news, but the unimpressionable Merritt seemed to know all about it.

"Keep your mouth shut until you go—or others will be green with envy. They can't help it, poor fellows. Half of them are plodders, and you don't work for all you do—it's just in you, that's all. That's half the tragedy of life—to the plodders. You needn't come in to-morrow. I'll look up the boats and trains."

Outside, in the street, John stood for a moment, while the world went by him. A queer fellow Merritt. How he had humbled that triumph—"half the tragedy of life—to the plodders." Somehow it made his exultation seem childish and mean. They were such good fellows too, full of kindness, and a spirit of give and take, and he, the newest among them, the cub, was racing ahead. It must be bitter. They filed before him—merry little Bewley, daring and audacious, Lawton, the dreamer and writer of rejected verse, Russell, the ponderous, saving hard for a home and sentimental about children, Johnson, who longed to retire on a farm—name after name, each coupled with hopes and ambitions.

And now his chance had come. He must tell some one. He went back into the clerk's office and rang up Mrs. Graham. Yes, she was in and would be delighted if he would dine with her. At the Temple Station he booked for Sloane Square, his nearest point to her flat in Cheyne Walk.

CHAPTER V

I

The success that fell upon John Dean did not delude him. He had been unnerved too young to feel trustful toward life. While everybody called him lucky or blessed by the gods, and prophesied the dizzy heights to which good fortune would carry him, he was, nevertheless, suspicious. Twelve months had gone by since he had secured his position with fine work at Copenhagen. That mission, which from an incident had developed into an important European situation, he had handled in a masterly manner for his years and inexperience. Some men in Fleet Street called him precocious, others, less complimentary and less successful, brazen-faced. Phipps, with whom a warm friendship had grown up, called him "an amazing child," and laughed good-naturedly over the adroitness with which he had got his despatches through ahead of his colleagues. They had met, about mid-June, at Warsaw, whence Phipps was bound for Constantinople to report on the Young Turk party and the revolutions. It was the following Spring when they met again, and greatly to John's delight, Phipps had hunted up Ali, at college in Constantinople, and had brought back news that the finely grown young Turkish gentleman, now a keen follower of Enver Bey, had talked rapturously of John and the early days at Amasia.

"You must be one of his gods, Dean, by the way he spoke of you."

"We were great friends, I remember. I often wondered if he still recalled me. We have ceased to write—how strange to think he is now a big fellow—he used to be so shy."

Phipps had brought a letter for him. Later, in his own room, John had broken the seal and read it. It was a strange epistle, one moment full of the formality of the Orient, and then suddenly passionate, breaking into ornate declarations of eternal friendship. But it was Ali, as of old, and as John read, there were the old scents of that gorge in his nostrils; he could hear the tinkle of the Yeshil Irmak as it ran down, moon-silvered, over the stones, and, as the moon peered into the dark ravine, the distant drone of the drums in the valley. The old thrill was still in his blood.

"O sworn brother, I clasp your hands and look into those wonderful eyes of yours. Still am I Ali, your proud servant, still would I follow you, John effendi. Often I think of you in the night time when the caiques are at rest by the Galata Bridge, and the moon floods the cypress groves. Often I wonder if still that gift of mine is with you. Your friend tells me that you prosper, that you are fair to behold, a leader among men. It is well. I knew this would be, of old. Sad that manhood is upon us and that we hear not the voice of each other. Still in my heart you linger. In time, it may be we meet, and oh, beloved friend, the joy that shall fall upon us, Insh'allah."

On the night he received the letter, John went round to Lindon's flat at Battersea, which overlooked the river and Chelsea on the opposite bank. It was a grey Spring evening, and the great flood ran linked with lights reflected in the stream; the beauty of melancholy was on the face of things. John stood staring out of the window. Lindon was playing by candle light; now grasping fame as a pianist, he was attractive and forceful as ever. John watched his splendid head between the candles on either side, as it moved with the rhythm of a Brahms waltz. Suddenly the player stopped.

"A penny, Scissors," he said, seeing the deep gaze. John laughed and looked out of the window again.

"They're not worth it—only—I often wonder, Lindon, if ever we quite realize the whole wonder of life—of this—of friendship, of youth? It's all slipping by and it's so good, and we make so little of it."

Lindon rose, walked across to the window and put his arm in John's.

"Scissors, you're quite an old sentimentalist. Of course it's good—and we enjoy it, at least I know I do."

They watched the sunset fade in silence. When a last line of flame had died into the grey bank of cloud, John spoke. It was evidently the end of some thoughts.

"It will have been worth it—when it all ends and we look back. I've been lucky."

"Ends? What a morbid fellow you are! Why ends? It's all just beginning, Scissors! Why we've got the world at our feet!" Lindon laughed. It was so hearty and infectious that at any other time, John would have laughed too. All's letter had upset him a little. He shivered in his chair.

"You know, it's silly, Lindon—but I feel there's a tragedy coming. Life's just too good—it won't behave always like this. It waits and then pounces and you are in its grip."

"Rot!—Scissors. Let's have the light on, it's getting creepy."

"No—I want you to play—"

"What, in the dark?"

"Please—play that Brahms again—I can see all kinds of pictures."

For a moment, Lindon hesitated and then, seeing the earnest appeal in John's eyes, shook him playfully and went over to the grand.

"I shall have to feel my way, Scissors."

But he played very softly and with great feeling. John sat in the window and let the rich music flow over him in that growing darkness. It was of Ali he thought; and then he was a little boy on the verandah, in the arms of a grown man; suddenly he was standing with him under an almond tree in blossom, and the man's head was bowed in grief; out of the dusk came face after face; what did they here in this scented Eastern Garden? He caught the swift animation of Marsh's glance, about to speak; there was Vernley, the old poise of the head he knew so well; and, somehow, Mr. Fletcher was with them. How wonderfully Lindon was playing—and how insistently came the muffled pulse of a drum, perhaps down the gorge in the old deserted Khan. He must follow it—how it beat through his brain, insistent and full of wonder. He was going towards it, strangely elated.

It was quite dark when Lindon struck the last chord and let the sound flow through the room before the pedal-release curtained the room in silence.

John started, as if rudely awakened.

II

It was a London he knew now. He had followed the long social programme reaching its climax in June. He watched the fashionable crowd at Burlington House on private view day; the smaller, but more interesting gathering at the Grosvenor Galleries when the International Society's show opened; concerts at Queen's Hall, first nights at the theatre, garden parties, polo at Hurlingham, the Derby and Goodwood,—all these things occupied his days. It was a vivid, everchanging experience, this life of the journalist, and with it all he touched many circles and found new friends. The cranks, the idealists, the hard relentless men of affairs, the propagators of creeds,—he met them all, and from them learned something. There was a soft spot in the heart of most men if you could touch it; they were very human in one aspect, though he stood appalled at the pace humanity set itself in the mad race to success. How many of these hectic men and women ever realized what life was? They dared not stop to contemplate. On, on, on, lest the horror of their own entity should frighten them. They feared themselves, they must never be left to themselves. Solitude meant madness—there was forgetfulness flowing down the crowded thoroughfares.

"Only artificial people praise the country—they feel so superior to it," said Harry Merivale, brightly, as he sat at lunch in the Union Club, where John was the guest of Major Slade. The company laughed at this statement; it was the applause that always spurred Merivale to further efforts in the preposterous. At thirty he had been considered a wit and a man of promise. Now at forty cautious men shook their heads and looked suspiciously at the flippant monologue-artist. Merivale was an advanced revolutionary on five thousand a year. Three years as private secretary to Lord Eastbourne had filled him with contempt for those who did not decorate their titles. Merivale, who developed his sense of the theatre assiduously and derived pleasure from the fact that persons thought must be descended from the famous historian of the Roman Empire, was a precisian. He pronounced his words, despite the pace of an utterance made to prevent interruption, with unction; he was as careful about their use as he was careless about their meaning. He would have sacrificed his grandmother for an epigram.

His attire was as precise as his small flat in Mayfair. He hoped he was the last to preserve the traditions of the Augustan age. He read Locke "On the Human Understanding" in a room hung with choice examples of Signorelli, Lippo Lippi and Angelico. His furniture was Chippendale, his books were all leather bound. Sometimes in a long monologue on the bad government of the age, he quoted John Stuart Mill. He refused to recognise any novelist since Fielding, any musician since Handel. The last statesman died with Pitt the younger. The only persons he really respected were his valet and his banker. They both moved in the best circles. Major Slade collected his epigrams and performed the office of an enlarging mirror. He spoke of Merivale with a note of melancholy as of a man who could have been great had it not been vulgar. Merivale himself found comfort in this reflection; after all, he was, among the crowd, the one man self-possessed.

His day was perfectly ordered, his trousers perfectly creased. A vellum bound copy of "Marius the Epicurean" always lay on a bedside table. He had a model bachelor's rooms, and kept a full diary. He envied the poor their indifference to dirt and despised the rich for their contempt of brains. He had a beautiful voice, an unfailing eloquence and a safe income; few men had attacked the dinner tables of Mayfair with more perfect, if restricted, assets.

John met Merivale at the Phyllis Court Club, where he had been staying for Henley Regatta. Marsh was rowing for his college, Vernley and his people were also at the club. Merivale was known to Mr. Vernley, who delighted in pairing him with Marsh, now a brilliant extempore antagonist. Those had been great days at Henley. Marsh was radiant. Never had John seen him more audacious, more triumphant. Merivale, disconcerted, admired, and, being an astute tactician, adopted Marsh as his pupil. Their dinner table was the noisiest, their little set the most conspicuous. They all registered a vow to spend August together on the East Coast.

These were days of supreme happiness. Evenings in Mrs. Graham's charmed circle, the intellectual stimulus of a supper gathering at Mr. Ribble's house, the glimpse of home, obtained at Steer's, where the nursery woke to riotous mirth with the advent of "Uncle John"—or those marvellously perfect dinner parties at Slade's house in Braham Gardens, with guests as carefully chosen as the menu; the air of self-possession and quiet mannered ease, the atmosphere in short which is the inseparable adjunct of the Wykehamist the world over—or, turbulent and youthful, the late dance-parties in Tilly's studio—with Tilly, deep in love this time with the attractive young pianist whom John had brought along one evening—yes, it was a splendid life, with every hour booked ahead, and heights of glory for youth to scale.

But, in all these things the most ardent, John turned aside at moments and his thoughts were far away. If Muriel were here among his friends, to share this wine of youth! At night-time, often in the stillness of the long stone streets, so solemn at mid-night, as he walked home, he would wonder just how she lay pillowed in her bed in a room he knew not in the Convent of the Sacred Heart. A momentary glimpse held him in the spell of recollection—the way her little hand tucked away a rebellious curl behind the ear, even the way she had of nibbling at a concert programme! And to see her run up a flight of steps—up the terrace at "The Croft," and then turn at the top, breathless and flushed, her eyes shining! Why was she exiled from him? It was cruel to waste the ardour of their youth in this senseless fashion.

On his last visit to the Vernleys, he could no longer keep silent upon his dream. Quickly, bluntly almost, he poured out his whole heart before Mr. Vernley, who listened to him with a kindly tolerance. It might end everything; he would have to leave the house, of course, but this dual existence was intolerable. To his surprise Mr. Vernley just placed his hand on his shoulder, and said very kindly—

"You must be patient, my boy—you are but boy and girl yet. Twenty-one—and so much before you yet. Just wait, John, and then we'll talk seriously."

"But I'm very serious, sir."

Mr. Vernley smiled in his kindly fashion.

"That is why you should wait. Come, John—suppose we talk of this in a year?" He looked at the intense young face before him.

"Then you—you don't forbid me, sir—I mean I may hope—" he stammered.

"The verdict is with Muriel, John. She will know her own mind soon, and when she is home and has been presented, then you two can decide. I am not so old-fashioned as to think a father can do other than advise. If I say 'Good luck' to you, will that suffice for the present?"

"Oh, thank you, sir!" cried John, gladly.

So ended the overture. It was a phase successfully passed. The young lovers breathed freely again. Time was the enemy now.

The summer wore on. There were visits to the Fletchers and to Marsh's.

"Mother's another 'ism," said Marsh, meeting him at the station. "They come and go like Dad's pipes. She's a Sunphoner this time—all gladness and love is transmitted on rays of light. To smile is to love. Clouds, which obstruct sunshine, are agglomerations of sin. When you frown you are abetting the devil. Mother carefully cultivates the gladsome wrinkles of the sunphoners. Dad calls it the Cheshire Cat Society."

John found her as sweet and gentle as before. Always in her hands there seemed to be flowers, and the birds sang louder in her garden. Were any evenings, anywhere, more restful than those around her lamp? Mr. Marsh came and went from the study. His hair was a little whiter, his belief in the Nation even more unshakable. As for Marsh, was there any one in the world quite like this tall, perverse, quick-spoken humourist? Mrs. Marsh sat and worshipped, her hands ever busy in his service, and John thought he treated her like a fluttered bird, something to be petted and soothed.

"It is splendid to watch over your success, John," she confided one evening. "But please don't let success harden you."

"Am I hardening?"

"No—perhaps not—it's youth changing, I suppose—I would like to keep that first glimpse of you—when Teddie brought you here—so nervous."

John laughed happily, and held her hand which, somehow, had found its way into his.

"What a silly little woman I am," she whispered.

"I think you're a darling," he responded, "and Teddie's a lucky boy."

It was good to fall asleep in that little chintz-curtained room, to watch the moon climbing through the elm-tree branches, to hear the owl screech and the church clock strike in the dead of night, or to wake with bird song in the cold freshness of the country morning. Then Teddie would bang about, pyjama-clad with tousled hair, uttering some fantastic epigram, or a new plan for exasperating the conservative-minded.

It was he who, one morning in Grafton Street, saw in the shop window of an antique dealer, a small bronze statue labelled "Narcissus listening to Echo."

"Scissors!" he cried, clutching his arm. "There's your namesake, minus tailor's trimmings!"

In a moment he had rushed into the shop. A fierce discussion ensued with the bespectacled Jew, who began a recital starting at Herculaneum B.C., but was interrupted in the Italian Renaissance by Marsh, who calmly offered him half what he asked. They haggled and scorned each other while John wondered which traced his ancestry to Judæa; then Marsh conquered at his original bid.

They bore it home, swaddled in The Times, to John's room. John protested, he could not let Marsh pay so much for a present, but all his protests were over-ruled.

"Of course you must have it—and offer libations to your great ancestor. What a leg he's got—he could do with more meat on his torso and less on his toes, while you could—"

"Don't be rude," interrupted John.

"It was a trick of the Phidian period of sculpture to lengthen the tibia to ensure—" on went the dissertation. Mid-way through a comparison of Michael Angelo with Benvenuto Cellini, there was a sudden explosion.

"The old devil!" cried Marsh, looking closely at the statue. "He's swindled us—it's cracked over the thigh—look!"

John looked. There was a fissure in the bronze about an inch long.

"An appendicitis operation," said John.

"I'll take it back," cried Marsh indignantly.

"Don't—I like the lad better for his imperfections—he's more human."

So the statue remained, raising its finger in a listening attitude on the bookshelf, recalling with an antique grace an artist's triumph in a dead civilisation. It revived, indeed, a pagan creed in the Perdie household. True, Mrs. Perdie was shocked by "that 'eathen thing without its coverings," and Annie simpered whenever she swept the feather brush over it, but Miss Simpson's eyes watered when she saw it, for she recalled how her dear brother, the Governor, had shown it to her in the museum at Naples—"when I was quite a girl, and Lieutenant Ranson, a charming young gentleman, was going to buy me a copy, but—"

John had seen his portrait on her table, and had looked silently at the laughing face of the lover, drowned a week after it was taken.

Wellington and de Courtrai borrowed "Narcissus" for a tea party they gave, with great success, to a crowd of ladies and gentlemen from the theatre.

"Yer can't see fer face powder in the air," commented Annie, after taking in the tea. John was a guest. He enjoyed hearing them lie so magnificently to each other about the salaries they earned and the promises made by managers. Yet they were good-hearted backbiters, loving the venom for the chameleonic skill with which their tongues struck the victims, intending no permanent harm to any one. They all showed the worst side to the world and kept their private griefs smothered in the dreary back rooms of dingy lodging houses. For all their cheapness, Wellington and de Courtrai had hearts of gold. They had nursed him through a bad attack of influenza, with unwearying devotion, and no woman's hand could have ministered more skilfully and patiently. Their artificiality was on the surface, their feminine air companioned a feminine tenderness to each other—and on this occasion, to John. Even Captain Fisher, when they cooked his breakfast, on the sudden collapse of Mrs. Perdie and Annie with influenza, declared they were born batmen.

"If they'd take a cold bath every morning and crop their hair, they might pass as men," he growled. They would have won him completely by their attentions during those influenza days had they not called him "dear," in conversation on the third morning, whereupon Captain Fisher spilt his coffee in an apoplectic rage.

III

It was during those weeks of July that Lindon arrived at a condition which to John seemed hysterical. Ever since he had taken him to Tilly's studio he had haunted the place like a silent ghost; that he was madly in love with her he made no attempt to hide, and she, no less than he, found the day dull when he was absent. He vowed that Tilly was necessary to his music; he could not work without her, there was no quality in his playing unless he played to her. One night, after John had dined at his flat, Lindon walked up and down the room, pouring out his agony of mind. His people had refused to allow him to marry yet. "I'm tied up with an allowance, Scissors—and I can't go on—we can't go on—it's hell!"

"We?—is Tilly unwilling to wait?"

"Yes, to wait—like me—why should we lead this miserable divided life, when we belong to each other, when there's no existence apart? I tell you it's immoral! Why shouldn't I marry—in the vigour of youth, with a girl in a million. It's natural, it's right—and we're told to wait—for what? Till we're wiser, if you please. Wiser!—oh my God! Madness, that's how it'll end!"

Suddenly he turned upon his heel and looked at John, who sat quietly in a chair.

"Scissors, sometimes you make me want to kick you—you agree with 'em! Have you got an ounce of passion in you? Do you know what sex means? I doubt it. Why, there are nights I can't sleep, when I think such things as—but you never seem to be aware of anything. I have seen you dancing with girls, your face like a wax mummy. Why when I take hold of them, sometimes I want to make them cry out in my grip, and when their hair touches my face, I—I—"

He halted then, and caught John's wrists in a vice.

"I don't believe you've ever felt like crying about a girl just because she's been pleasant to another fellow, or wanted to gather her up in your arms and carry her off to a secret place."

The younger man broke away from the frenzied grip.

"Lindon, I shall think you are mad in a minute."

"I am—do you wonder? Here am I, a vigorous man, with abundance of life singing through every vein, all nature crying out for me to express myself, and night and day I fight the desire down, hold myself in leash, shut up in these four walls—you must know what it means, you're no longer a kid. Nature never intended this, she meant us to break the barriers. We're all defying her; I am, you are, Tilly is—and it's all wrong!" He looked desperately at John.

"I don't think love is a thing that you can talk about in this way," said the other quietly.

"For you—perhaps not—you're not hot-blooded like me—you're self-contained. But I'm not like that, I must have somebody I worship. Why, do you know at Sedley, it was you—there, now you know I'm mad." He laughed bitterly.

"I knew," said John, looking out of the window.

"You knew that I cared about you?" asked Lindon. They heard the clock tick in the long interval of silence.

"Yes—I could see you liked me very much, and I was afraid of you—I was told you were very jealous."

"By Vernley?"

"Yes."

Lindon laughed rather grimly.

"You see how I torture myself—I don't suppose I'm normal," he added bitterly.

"No one in love is," added John, half to himself.

Lindon looked at him keenly.

"How do you know that?"

"You're not the only lover, I suppose?"

For a moment Lindon stared at him; there was such a depth of feeling in those simple words. Impulsively, he linked his arm in John's.

"Scissors, old thing, forgive me. I'm a selfish beast—why do you let me carry on in this childish way?"

John half smiled in reply.

"Because I've often wanted to myself. After all, you know, you should be grateful—Chelsea's nearer than Belgium."

IV

The last week in July saw a great re-union. The Vernleys had taken a house at Mablethorpe, on the East Coast, for the summer. Its chief attraction was that it possessed no distractions. There were neither pierrots, promenades, theatres, nor any of the other feeble forms of amusement with which people in search of a holiday disguise their boredom. And to increase the solitude of their retreat, the Vernleys' house was a mile out of the village, snugly ensconced behind the high sand dunes with which early settlers had fought the encroaching sea, and kept for themselves a lowland intersected with dykes and devoid of trees. Bobbie grumbled all day long at the obvious insanity of his people in choosing such a place. A lover of the flesh pots, he contemplated the house and surrounding country with supreme disgust. His disapproval was obviously artificial, however. They had brought their horses with them, with which to explore the Lincolnshire lanes. A short car journey took them to Skegness, "which is Mablethorpe, only more so," commented Bobbie. Kitty found great excitement in riding her mare down the sand dunes, until the authorities protested against the breaking down of the sky line and Mablethorpe's one claim to singularity. But the tennis and the bathing were without fault. Even Bobbie was silent upon these, and his frequent indulgence in both betrayed almost enthusiasm. Mrs. Vernley had chosen the place for the air, although Mr. Vernley swore that it was because no friends would come there to visit them. He was consoled somewhat by the discovery of a radical parson in a near village, who knew all the quaint little inns and the merits of beer.

For the greater part of the day they all lived in bathing costumes since, as Marsh expressed it, the weather was hot and as perversely pleasant as the landscape. London was with them, Lindon dwelling in a wonderful July heaven, for diplomatic John had contrived for an invitation to be sent to Miss Topham, whose pleasure coincided with the business of painting Kitty on horseback. Their open delight in each other supplemented the mirth of the party, though perhaps John felt lonelier in contrast, for Muriel was visiting the home of a school friend at Liége until the second week in August. John's sky had just a little shadow in it, but with Marsh and Vernley at hand, there were no silences for self-commiseration.

They breakfasted at seven, with the sea wind blowing through the room. It was Mr. Vernley's great complaint that there were neither letters nor newspapers until eleven o'clock. A great strike was threatened, and he watched it carefully day by day.

"Have the silly beggars struck yet?" asked Bobbie, one morning as they all lay, after bathing, on the slopes of the sand dunes facing the sea and the wide flat beach. As he asked the question he was industriously trickling sand down John's bare leg.

"No—the Prime Minister receives a conference to-day. There seems to be more trouble over the Sarajevo incident."

"What's that, sir?" asked Vernley.

"One of the Hapsburgs potted at by a Serbian—those blighters are always shooting one another in the Balkans," interrupted Marsh.

"There's a report from Copenhagen that Russia's mobilising," said Mr. Vernley.

"Oh, you must never believe reports from Copenhagen, sir," cried Lindon, looking sideways at John. The next moment he just escaped a shoe by ducking.

"The Kaiser says that Austria must have guarantees from Serbia, with penalties, and that Russia must acquiesce."

"I wish somebody would have a shot at that idiot," said John.

"Well you can, when he's had one at us, as he intends," replied Vernley.

"Oh, bosh!" cried Marsh, "every half-pay major who wants conscription and has had a week's holiday in Berlin, propagates that yarn. The Germans would no more think of fighting us than the Chinese—they wouldn't have a dog's chance."

"With twelve million disciplined troops?" queried Mr. Vernley, over the top of his glasses.

"Why, sir, we'd never meet 'em on land. How would they get here—with our navy?"

Vernley got up and shook the sand off his legs.

"Come on, Scissors—let's have that tennis four—if we let Lindon and Marsh go on there'll be war in England; I can see Lindon's gorge rising at the little Englander!"

"Little Englander—why of course! We are the wealthiest race on the earth, have the greatest possessions, and the worst slums!" cried Marsh. "What good is the wealth of India when there's Sheffield, or the possession of Egypt when it can't wipe out the slums of Lancashire—we have the largest national debt, the heaviest taxation! And there are idiots banging the big drum, raising the German bogey, because they want to go and grab more countries, when we can't manage what we have got!" Marsh was flushed and the wind had blown the hair down into his eyes.

"But we do manage it—and well," asserted Tod, usually silent, and just appointed to a commission in the Guards. "We have civilised India, brought justice and liberty to its people as well as health—"

"And Christianity," added Mrs. Vernley.

"Yes, and thrown away hundreds of lives and millions of money on South Africa—only to realise we had no right there and to give it back again," retorted Marsh.

"You must admit, Teddie, we have a genius for government," said John.

"Not while we've Ireland threatening insurrection every minute," flared Marsh, his blood up.

"I think you boys had better play tennis," called Mr. Vernley, from behind the newspaper. "You'll get hot to some purpose then. But unless I'm mistaken, this old country will be in the balance soon. Austria has attacked Serbia, and is bombarding Belgrade. Russia has sent an ultimatum on behalf of her ally, and the Kaiser is hurrying back to Berlin."

"That idiot will only stir up the mess," said Bobbie. "What's it all about, Dad?"

"The Austrian Archduke was assassinated at Sarajevo. Austria demands penalties and will not accept Serbia's offer. It is reported Germany is strengthening Austria's hand, and Russia stands behind Serbia. Sir Edward Grey has offered his services as mediator."

"Oh, he'll settle it!" cried Bobbie. "Clever dog, Grey."

"It looks to me like a European conflagration unless great tact is shown," said Mr. Vernley. He turned to his wife, "I think we ought to wire for Muriel to come home."

"But why? Belgium is not affected."

The whole circle looked at Mr. Vernley who took off His glasses and tapped the newspaper.

"It may mean war for us."

"For us!" They all echoed.

"We've too much sense, sir, to be messed up in these ludicrous Balkan squabbles. The blighters are always nibbling at one another's ears. Well, here's one who won't join in. If every man thought and acted as I do, there wouldn't be any wars!" declared Marsh.

"Why?" asked John. He had never seen Marsh quite so excited before.

"Because if there were no feeble fools willing to be made into gun fodder, there'd be no wars. You can't have wars without soldiers."

"But supposing Germany declared war on us," began Tod.

"Oh, bosh!" interrupted Marsh.

"Germany will not declare war on us," said Mr. Vernley quietly, "but if this unrest spreads, she may declare war on France—and that would involve our honour; we should have to help France."

"It seems a terrible mix-up, all these entangling alliances," sighed Mrs. Vernley, "and it is unthinkable that the world's rulers will let us slip into war. To-day war would be terrible with all the science and inventions of this age."

"It would be insane!" cried Marsh loudly. "We must refuse to be pushed in by the financiers and land-grabbers. Think of the millions it means, the homes ruined, the sons and fathers butchered—why it's incredible!"

"But if our honour—" began Tod.

"Honour be damned!" snapped Marsh. Then quickly, "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. But it's wicked to think of war. I refuse to think of it."

"We may have to, Marsh," said Mr. Vernley.

"I won't."

"If we had to fight, wouldn't you?" asked Kitty.

Marsh stood up, looking very handsome in his flushed indignation but John noticed how his lip trembled as he paused before answering, and looked out to sea.

"No," he said quietly.

Mr. Vernley looked at him steadily.

"I'm afraid, Marsh, you would be—" he began to say.

"Called a coward, sir—I know. But war's insanity, and only the corrupt, the insane and the ignorant will allow it. I'll consider it my duty to refuse to condone it at any cost."

"Oh—you're—you're impossible," muttered Tod.

"You're—you're a professional soldier," retorted Marsh, and the moment he uttered it, turned white in the face.

"Oh—Tod—please I didn't mean it like that—I didn't really." There were tears in his eyes as he turned appealingly. Tod put his hand on his shoulder and smiled at him.

"It's all right, Teddie—you were always volcanic. I believe you're the kind of fellow that would win the V.C."

"I think," said Mrs. Vernley breathing freely again, "that it is very silly to take things as seriously as this—there won't be a war."

"Grey'll settle it," said John.

"We hope so," added Mr. Vernley, folding up his paper. "But I shall go to town to-morrow to be at the centre of things and I shall wire to Muriel."

"But she will be home in a week, father," cried Mrs. Vernley.

"And she's quite safe in Belgium," declared Bobbie.

"Perhaps—I hope so, but it's too near the storm centre," replied Mr. Vernley. "And now, my dear, what about lunch?"

Walking back to the house, John expressed fears about Muriel to Bobbie.

"Oh, she's all right," he replied, confidently. "The guv'nor always takes a serious attitude to things—it's a parliamentary habit, Scissors—and Muriel can look after herself." Marsh walked silently with them. He seemed depressed. The sky was blue, the sun shining, but John felt the air was heavy. He slipped his arm through Marsh's.

V

Rumours followed rumours, and one morning as John came down into the hall before breakfast, Tilly met him. She looked very attractive and girlish in her white jersey with its blue collar encircling her pretty neck. John could understand Lindon's infatuation. He had watched her slim figure in the water, a graceful sprite, so light and vivacious that she might have been a fairy's child. Her cream skirt this morning was short, revealing two shapely legs in white stockings, and he could not help looking intently at the little bare patch beneath her throat, red with the sun, running down to a channel of milky whiteness, dimpled by the suggested proximity of her breasts. She noticed his admiring observation, and placed her hand, light as a bird on his arm.

"Scissors, what do you think—Tod's going to town with Mr. Vernley this morning! I tell him he'll spoil the men's four we arranged to play the doctor's friends."

"To town, whatever for?"

"I don't know, you persuade him to stay."

"Righto—where is he?"

Tilly nodded towards the dining room. John walked in, and as he did so, he realised something.

"Morning, Tod!" he called brightly. "I hear you're going to town."

"Yes, Scissors—I've got to see a few friends."

"Oh—you'll be coming back before I go?"

"Oh, yes—"

At that moment Bobbie burst in.

"I say, Tod, what's this nonsense about going to town! You simply can't, you'll bust up the—"

He caught a glance from John that checked him.

"I must see some friends," said Tod. "I'll be back in a few days."

"Oh, very well," assented Bobbie, lamely. John had gone out. He followed quickly, overtaking him in the hall.

"What on earth did you look like that for, Scissors?" he asked. John drew him aside from where Mrs. Vernley stood watering a flower pot.

"I thought you did not realise."

"Realise what?" asked Vernley.

"Why Tod's going to town—it isn't to see friends." Then seeing the mystified expression on his friend's face, "I'll bet he visits the War Office to find out whether his regiment's likely to get orders."

"Good God!" exclaimed Vernley, "but—surely we're not going to war!"

"I don't know."

"We must keep this from the mater," whispered Vernley. Then, to John, "You're a wise old bird, Scissors—I'd never have guessed."

Immediately after breakfast Mr. Vernley and Tod left for London. Their going brought one little hope to John. Muriel would be here now in a few days. This was the last week in July—Tuesday. He had to return in a week, the Tuesday following Bank Holiday, on August the fourth. Muriel would be here by the 1st at the latest. They would have a few days together before he could come back again, early in September. On the fifth he had to leave for Paris, to relieve Phipps, who was there on a special mission.

Those jolly days went quickly. They bathed, boated, played tennis and lolled on the dunes. Marsh made frequent excursions into Mablethorpe, where he had contracted a mania for shooting at bottles in a booth, returning with a cocoanut and a German watch as prizes. He was elated with his great success as a deadly shot.

"I'm surprised you should like shooting," laughed Mrs. Vernley when he presented her with a cocoanut, and pinned the watch on the cook's blouse.

"But at bottles, not human beings, Mrs. Vernley!"

"Same thing as soldiers," cried John.

"How?"

"According to you—green and empty."

There was a laugh all round and Marsh shied the cocoanut at John, who split his white ducks in performing a somersault. That afternoon he infected Lindon and Tilly with his craze and dragged them off to Mablethorpe.

John dozed on the lawn, Bobbie was engrossed in a novel, Mrs. Vernley was taking her siesta. Only Kitty was alert. She had been writing to Alice who was singing on the morrow at Manchester. Suddenly she put down her pen.

"Bobbie, I say, just look at Teddie tearing along—has he gone mad?"

She pointed and they looked in the direction of the Mablethorpe road that ran between a deep dyke and the sandhills. He was running breathlessly, his shirt wide open at the neck. He was a lonely figure on the road, but, catching sight of them on the lawn, waved a paper in the air. John woke up.

"He's won another prize!" he suggested.

"But where's Lindon and Tilly?" asked Bobbie.

Then John started up and went across the lawn, and Marsh, now within hailing distance, shouted—

"Special out—Germany's at war with France—threatening Luxembourg!"

A minute later, panting, he reached the gate, where they ran to meet him.

"Hoo! I'm blown—there!" He thrust the paper into eager hands. "Tilly and Lindon are coming—I've run all the way. It looks like business, doesn't it?"

They read down the column. It was brief, with messages from many sources, none authoritative, but the fact was clear—Germany and France were at war.

"Germany has delivered a request to Luxembourg asking for the free passage for her troops to the French frontier; her neutrality will be respected in the event of acquiescence," read John aloud.

"Neutrality respected—after walking across them!" snorted Bobbie.

Suddenly John gripped the paper.

"Brussels. From our special correspondent. It is rumoured that a demand for the free passage of German troops, as in the case of Luxembourg, has been made to the Belgian Government. No official statement was made at noon, but the Belgian army is being mobilised as a precautionary measure."

And Muriel was in Belgium!

At tea they had a thousand hopes, fears, views. All the evening Marsh walked about muttering, "It's incredible—the twentieth century, and civilisation to come to this! But it'll all be over quickly, there's that in it."

"Quickly, why?" asked Bobbie.

"The Germans will be in Paris in a fortnight!"

"They won't!" said John grimly.

"Why not?" asked Kitty.

"We shall stop them."

"We?" echoed Tilly.

"Yes—France is our ally, we must stand by her."

"There's no definite treaty compelling us," said Mrs. Vernley.

"It's not a matter of compulsion—it's a matter of honour," asserted Lindon.

"Honour!" cried Marsh. "Honour—and spread the massacre!"

"The French are our allies. Germany knows that, and has thrown down the gage. We are challenged," said John grimly.

"Then—it—it means war for us?" asked Mrs. Vernley.

"Yes."

"Oh dear—oh dear—oh dear!" she murmured, clasping and unclasping her hands. Marsh sat silent with the rest. The net was closing. Not one of them mentioned Muriel's name, chiefly because she was in all their minds.

That evening a wire came from Mr. Vernley. The Belgian Legation refused to issue passports. He had wired Muriel to return at once. He was coming down in the morning. Charlton, of the Foreign Office, said there was every hope that they would keep out of the war.

Mr. Vernley arrived in the morning, and with him came the news that Belgium had refused Germany the right of access across her territory and Germany had declared war and was hacking her way through the country.

"That means we are all in," said Lindon.

"We shall know soon. England has sent an ultimatum declaring she will defend Belgian neutrality according to the treaty."

Those were hours of suspense to the Vernley household, all their thoughts turned to Muriel. Where was she? Mr. Vernley was sure she was on her way to England; she had had ample time to reach Ostend.

"Just think, all of these people in a few days will be living in apprehension—and every one of us shouldering a gun!" said John, looking at the crowd on the shore. A group of red-faced youths sauntered by, hatless, in vivid blazers.

"There goes gun-fodder," muttered Marsh. The strain was telling on him; he had lost his buoyancy.

"You pessimist—youth's going to have the time of its life—action, a world in the making! Why Marsh, it's our age, this. It means the old men take a back seat!" cried Lindon, laughing at Tilly, who hung on his arm.

"And what of us?" she asked, a little jealous.

"Nurses, all of you."

She shivered slightly.

"I should be ill at the sight of blood."

It was evening when they sat on the sandhills and saw the wide-winged sunset spread across the fen-land. Suddenly a cry from Bobbie made them turn. There, on the grey horizon, where sea dissolved into approaching night, they saw a twinkle of lights, flashing through the greyness. The slim forms of ships were just discernible as they slipped northwards into the gathering darkness.

"Warships!" cried Lindon. "We're ready and watching."

It began to rain. Bobbie and John were the last to enter the house. They halted for a moment in a cutting of the sandhills and looked over the dark expanse of sea. That slow procession northwards of ships had given a sudden reality to the rumours.

John took Vernley's arm as they walked on in silence.

"I wonder where we'll all be next year at this time," said Vernley. "I suppose this is the end of things—well—we've had a good time—haven't we, Scissors?"

John could not speak. The great drama rendered him speechless. Out there, across the North Sea, lay Germany. In millions of homes, their windows bright in the dusk, mothers and wives were saying farewell to their loved ones; in Austria too, in Russia, thousands of leagues across the Balkans, from the Bretagne coast to the sunny Riviera, the hand of Mars knocked on the door of castle and cottage. Already the sky was stabbed with flame, the silence of the harvest fields broken with the battery of guns.

John looked across the peaceful fenland. Here and there a light shone in a farmstead; the silence was broken only by the low sighing of the sea, fitfully borne inland. England, his country, sinking to sleep, guarded by her inviolate seas. A great love of this land rose in his heart. God keep her secure!

"Dulce et decorum pro patria mori," he half murmured to himself, but Vernley heard him.

"Yes, and there's one thing, Scissors—we're all in it together, that'll be the good part of it."

They walked on, arm in arm.

So passed Tuesday, August the fourth; the suspense of the ultimatum, and then the fifth, with "WAR" flaring in great letters on the bookstall posters. The station was crowded with the general exodus. All the Vernley household were going up to town. The platform was a scene of good-byes. Hatless lads were bidding one another cheerful farewells, the girls, jerseyed and laughing, hung on their arms. There was an air of suppressed excitement; they might have been going to a picnic, but deeper observation revealed a nervous tension. At Boston, Marsh left them to go on to his people. He had been very silent for the last two days. He said good-bye gravely. Only to John did he unburden himself in the last minute.

"This is the end of us all, Scissors. This war will go on for years. We shall be worked up into a fierce hate. The Press will keep it going, it'll get bloodier and bloodier—and no one will win in the end. There'll be nothing but widows and cripples, famine and debt. Good-bye, Scissors, write to me at home."

They shook hands; neither dared say more. The next minute, the train moved out, leaving Marsh standing amid his luggage, raising his hat to them, a graceful figure of youth, outwardly calm.

Intensity increased when they reached London. They all parted hurriedly. Bobbie was going to enlist at once, Tod had received orders. Lindon hoped to get out as a despatch rider. John, what was he going to do? He did not know, he was bewildered. In his head there was only one idea, to get to Belgium at all costs, to find Muriel, from whom no word had been received.

At his rooms he found a wire from Merritt, bidding him call. Walsh saw him at once. His wish was miraculously fulfilled. He was to leave immediately for Belgium as special correspondent of the Daily Post.