The Kingdom Round the Corner: A Novel

On entering the house with the marigold-tinted curtains he had glanced round casually for any signs of Lady Dawn. After Porter had shown him into the drawing-room Terry had left him to go in search of Maisie. He walked over to the tall French-windows and found himself once more gazing out on the garden-rockery with its oval lake, its silent fountain and its toy-boat that never sailed anywhere. He made an effort to continue gazing out, for his impulse was to turn and look at the portrait over the fireplace. He tantalized himself by trying to ignore it. But it was strange the fascination that it held for him. He had the feeling that behind his back the face had changed from the profile position in which it had been painted, so that the steady stone-gray eyes were challenging his attention. At last he resisted no longer; walking over to the fireplace, he stood gazing up at it.

For a moment he tried to pretend to himself that his interest was purely an art-interest. It was Sargent's brush-work that he was admiring. Then he smiled, as much to the portrait as to himself. "Princess Czarina Bolsheviki," he murmured, "were you really looking at me when my back was turned? Did you flash your eyes away directly I obeyed your desire? It's the trick of every woman; but you're not like every woman, Princess Czarina Bolsheviki."

It seemed to him almost as though the woman on the canvas was about to relax her pose and quiver into life. The longer he looked, the less aloof she became and the more her serenity trembled. He felt that he knew so much about her—so very much more than he had ever been told. There were experiences of pride and terror which were common to them both—the pride and terror of appalling heart-hunger. He knew for certain, as though those painted lips had confessed it, that he was the one man in the world who had the power to make her cry. And yet he dissociated in his mind the woman of the portrait from the woman who had slipped past him out of the night with the taunting, sideways smile of feminine triumph. The living woman could wound and disappoint; the woman of the portrait was his friend entirely.

He was startled out of the mood into which he had fallen by the sound of footsteps crossing the hall. He was not going to be discovered in that position by Maisie for a second time. He had barely recovered his place by the French window, when she and Terry entered laughing. It would have been easy to have mistaken them for sisters, with their golden heads and clear complexions. Directly he caught sight of them he guessed by the mischief in their eyes that their laughter had been at his expense. It was Terry who spoke. "Oh, Tabs, how could you? It was like a little frightened boy."

He glanced from one to the other of them for further enlightenment. "Do what? If you'll let me know, I'll tell you."

"Run away, like you did last night," Maisie explained. "I've just been describing it to Terry. There was I sitting on the couch when Di entered. The first thing she asked me was, 'Who's your new butler?' I wouldn't tell her. 'He'll be here in a minute,' I said; 'I'll introduce him to you.' We waited for about a minute and, when you didn't come, I went out into the hall. 'He's gone, Madam,' Porter told me in her most Mayfair manner. 'Gone!' I exclaimed. 'He can't have gone without saying good-by.' But I was afraid you had, so I went on to the steps and called after you. I don't know whether you heard me. When I came back into the drawing-room, Di was smiling. 'I've read about lordly butlers,' she said, 'but it's the first time I ever met one.' So there you are! You can imagine what a trouble I had to clear myself. I only downed her suspicions when I assured her that you were on the point of becoming engaged to Terry."

Instantly Terry's eyes sought his; the laughter died out of them. He shared her annoyance that Lady Dawn should have received this piece of information—Lady Dawn of all persons. He wasn't engaged to Terry. He was a long way from being engaged to her—perhaps further at this moment than since his return.

The silence that followed made Maisie aware that she had been guilty of a mistake. He suspected that she had intended to be guilty of it from the start. Nevertheless, she played the part of innocence, making her cornflower eyes eloquent with apology. "Oh, I'm afraid I've put my foot in it. But you are almost engaged, aren't you?"

Tabs laughed good-humoredly. "It's all right, Mrs. Lockwood. You didn't mean to, but you've paid me back in more than my own coin."

Porter relieved the tension at that moment by announcing that lunch was served.

When they had taken their seats in the front-room, overlooking the make-believe village-green, Terry surprised them by saying carelessly, "Oh, Maisie, you remember General Braithwaite whom we nursed in our hospital?"

Maisie looked up sharply, trying to warn her that Porter was still present. "Of course I remember him," she said. "Since then we've both met him a hundred times. I think Lord Taborley would like some bread, Porter."

But Terry wasn't to be deterred. She seemed to be taking a perverse delight in introducing the one subject on which it would have been most fitting for her to have remained silent. "Since Tabs came back we've found out all about the General. You'll never guess who he really is or was. It's difficult to say whether he is or was, now that he's demobilized."

Tabs recognized the blaze of recklessness in her eyes, like the glare of lighted windows after nightfall from which the curtains have been suddenly thrown back. He had seen that look in her eyes at the hunt when, in disobedience to shouted warnings, she had looked back across her shoulder challengingly before taking an audacious jump. There was in her expression the fear of the thing she was about to do and the panic of determination to get it done. He attempted to turn her aside from the danger by slipping in quietly, "I don't think I'd discuss the General at this moment."

"At this moment!" she flashed back with a scared smile. The sound of her own voice seemed to clap spurs to her excitement. "Why not at this moment, dear Tabs? Everything comes out sooner or later. If there's going to be any spreading of gossip, one takes the sting out of it by being the first to spread it. Besides, you oughtn't to mind. You ought to feel most frightfully bucked."

"Nevertheless, I don't think I'd say it."

Then he held his breath for, paying no heed to him, she had turned to Maisie. "You mustn't laugh, but it's too good to keep to oneself. Before he was a General, what do you think he did for a living? He used to clean Lord Taborley's boots. You don't believe it, but it's a fact. Daddy's terribly grim with me over it. Of course it was infra dig to go footing all over town with your best friend's valet. But how was I to know that he'd been that? Daddy says I ought to have sensed it, if I'd had any sort of a social instinct. But here's the funniest thing of all, the way we made the discovery. I'd invited him to dine at our house on the very night that Tabs was Daddy's guest. I'll never forget your faces, Tabs, when Daddy introduced the two of you." She commenced to pantomime the scene with forced gayety; then she pretended to become aware for the first time that they weren't joining in her laughter.

"What's wrong? You look as solemn as a funeral. Don't you find it amusing?"

Porter was leaving the room. Maisie waited till the door had closed. Then, "You didn't intend it to be amusing. Why on earth did you say all this before her?"

Under the rebuke Terry's face flushed defiance. She was near to tears, but she contrived to go on smiling. "When I want all the world to know anything that's private, I mention it before servants. It always works."

"But——" Maisie was at a loss to find a motive for such indiscretion. She glanced helplessly at Tabs. "But," she objected, "surely you don't want all the world to know about this, Terry? You and the General have been such good pals, and—— I have to say it, even though Lord Taborley is present: there were a great number of your friends who were rather afraid——"

"Then they won't have to be afraid any longer," Terry cut in with icy sweetness. "When it's reported to the General that I've told this story, he won't have to be rather afraid either. It'll set all his doubts at rest."

Tabs had sat puzzled and horrified while she had been talking. Everything that he could remember about her was gentle; it wasn't like her to be cruel. Now at last he realized that it was for his sake that she was being cruel—far more cruel to herself than to any one else. She had so little faith in her strength to break with Braithwaite that she was building up a protective wall of contempt by the spread of this damaging story. If Braithwaite heard it, she might well hope to rouse his hatred and save herself further effort.

From across the table her eyes sought his in appeal; his answered hers with intuitive comprehension. But his mind was stunned with apprehension at the discovery that her passion for this man meant so much that his hate would be a lighter burden than his love.

Maisie turned to Tabs with veiled disdain. "I suppose it was you who told her this, Lord Taborley?"

He paid her scant attention and continued looking at Terry. "On the contrary." He spoke with unruffled urbanity. "It was General Braithwaite—Steely Jack as he was nicknamed in the Army. He never lost an inch of trench, so they say. Like your own first husband, Mrs. Lockwood, he's most to be feared when every one else would have given up hoping. Like myself, though he doesn't know it, he's a round-the-corner person. Curious, Terry, that you should have attracted two round-the-corner admirers! It makes one almost believe that you're a round-the-corner person yourself."

He had said it without consciousness of magnanimity. There was nothing magnanimous about stating the truth according to his code of honor. He was seeing the bleak look that would come into Braithwaite's face should he hear of this happening. He was wondering whether Braithwaite possessed the insight into feminine strategy not to take offense, but to interpret it as surrender.

Terry was speaking again. "My dear Maisie, if ever you get to know Lord Taborley, you'll learn to have a better opinion of him. He plays with all his cards on the table. I think most men play like that. It's we women who cheat and carry spare aces and revoke when the game's going against us." Then came her amazing burst of frankness, "Like you did when, to suit your own purpose, you pretended that we were on the point of becoming engaged. Like I did when I told that story just now about Steely Jack. And again like you've done all along in your dealings with Adair. Why, even now, when you're ready to give him up, you can't play the cards that are on the table; you have to try to borrow Lord Taborley from me. Don't get angry. I'm not accusing you especially. We women are all the same; there's not one of us who can stick to the rules of the game." Her glance shifted to Tabs. "You used to think that I was the exception. You see, I'm not. The wonder is that men can even pretend to respect us."

Long after she had finished and the conversation had taken a new turn, she went on gazing at him, raising and lowering her eyes as she ate her lunch, begging him to understand.

"You're wrong, Terry." In her capacity as hostess, Maisie was making an attempt to get away from personalities. She was too convicted by what had been said to consider it wise to defend herself. "You're wrong. Men don't want to respect us. They love us for having faults that they wouldn't tolerate in themselves. They encourage us to cultivate them. It flatters their integrity to discover our dishonesties. They like to believe that we're cowards. They don't expect us to tell the truth. They almost resent our having a sense of honor. The woman who cheats at every turn and then cries in their arms when she's found out, is the kind of woman who always has a man to take care of her. Look at my sister, Lady Dawn. She's never been known to cry. She's missed everything in life through being almost repellently honorable."

In the discussion that followed Tabs took no part, though he was often appealed to for an opinion. As he listened to their modulated flow of voices, their refined and gentle intonations, their evasive, slyly uttered words, he began to have an understanding of what was taking place. It was something primitive—the oldest of all battles. Neither of them wanted him, but each was prompted to covet the pretense of his possession. Their hunting instincts were aroused. He had taken on a sudden value in their eyes because each had discovered that the other was in pursuit of him.

His thoughts went back to Lady Dawn—to her pale aloofness. She wasn't like this—she was different from all other women. It was ridiculous that he should be so sure that she was different when his only proof was a portrait, quite certainly idealized. He began to argue with himself again as to whether he ought to seek her out and endanger her serenity by telling her about Lord Dawn. It would be useless to confide such intentions to Maisie. He would obtain no help from her. She could conceive of no sympathy between a man and woman into which sex did not enter. The thought of sex in connection with Lady Dawn seemed an impertinence.

The discussion went on. Luncheon was at an end. Coffee had been served. Cigarettes were being lighted. Again and again he was referred to. Did he think this and didn't he agree to that? Wasn't this true of the way in which men regarded women? Their differences of opinion seemed so trivial. Their views so immature and amateurish. He watched them with curious, brooding attention. They were so nobly tender in their outward forms. He appreciated the grace of their gestures, the fine-boned smallness of their bodies, the delicacy of their molding, the tendril thinness of their fingers, the sagacity of their tiny aristocratic heads, the seduction of their soft red mouths, the poetry of the fringe of golden lashes in which the pathos of their eyes hung enmeshed—their intrusive, penetrating frailty, which supplicated, denounced and astounded. They were so weak and yet so strong. A man could crush them with one arm. But they could slay a man's soul with their sweetness. They were equipped in every detail by their pale perfection to quicken and to disappoint. To disappoint! That was what they had been trying to persuade him for the past half-hour—that they were Nature's traps, cunningly contrived and baited. The Philistines be upon thee, Samson! Their self-traductions were undermining his faith in all sacredness.

In the silence of his brain he fought—fought against disillusion, claiming exemption for at least one woman from these sweeping denunciations—the woman in the portrait.

A man had been passing and repassing the windows, cut into triangles by the looped back, marigold-tinted curtains. At first he had mistaken him for a different man each time he had passed. Then the lazy certainty had grown up within him that it was always the same man. A man who wanted something—wanted something that was in that house. It wasn't possible to make out his features. He wore a morning-coat and was top-hatted. The swing of his carriage was indefinitely familiar.

And now he had vanished—lost courage, lost patience, given up his quest, perhaps. Through the triangular gaps in the panes the village-green showed untraversed, sunlit, tranquil, garnished.

Without knocking Porter entered, looking worried.

Maisie broke off from her conversation long enough to say, "A little later, Porter. We're not finished."

She was resuming, when Porter again interrupted. "It isn't that, Madam. It isn't——"

"Then what is it?"

With an elaborate air of caution Porter closed the door and set her back against it. "I've told him that it's no good. That you won't see him, Madam."

"Of course not. That's quite right." Maisie bestowed her approval with rapid tolerance. "I can't see any one at present." Then, as an after-thought, "By the way, who is it?"

It was then that Porter let fall her bomb. "It's no good my telling him. He won't go away." Her firmness crumbled. She bleated in a dramatic surrender to distress. The three who heard her caught the commotion of her alarm and waited breathless. Her explanation came at last. "It's Mr. Easterday." The moment she had said it, she turned and fled.

The door had scarcely closed, when Maisie rose from her chair and stood swaying. She sank back, closing her eyes and pressing her hands against her breast. The mask of placidity had been wrenched from her face, leaving it blanched with the conflict between yearning, temptation and loneliness.

"Adair!" she moaned. "My God, I daren't trust myself!"

Unclosing her eyes, she gazed burningly at Tabs.

"I was honest in what I promised. I do want to live as though Reggie weren't dead. How did you put it? As though he were round the corner. As though he were truly coming back."

In the silence that followed she stifled a sob, realizing that it wasn't Tabs who was the obstacle. Turning hysterically to Terry, she laid hold of both her hands. "I can't do it—can't, can't by myself. I can only do it if you'll tell Lord Taborley to help me."

IV

At a nod from Terry he left the table. In the hall he found an odd sight waiting for him. He had to look twice to make certain that this was the Adair Easterday whom he had known, and not a strayed and beflustered wedding-guest.

The man before him was worried to distraction. He had the unhappy, panic-stricken eyes of an over-driven bullock that scents the slaughterhouse. And yet his dress was immaculate; he was tailored and laundered as though for an occasion of joy. Everything that he wore was discreetly festive, from the lavender gloves and shiny topper to the striped trousers and canvas spats. One would have said that he was a caricature of George Grossmith on his way to a garden-party.

But he was hot—terribly hot; far more hot than he had any excuse for being in brisk spring weather. There were beads of perspiration on his forehead; his face was congested with excitement. To lend the touch of humor, which always lurks behind other people's tragedies, he held his top-hat by the brim in his right hand, as though he were taking a collection, while from his left, like a feather-duster, trailed an enormous bunch of roses. He was a short man in the late thirties, red-headed and inclined to be podgy. He was not built to express poetic passions—how many of us are, if it comes to that?—or to sustain their onslaught with dignity. Emotion seemed to have bloated him with unshed tears. There was nothing noble in his distress—only a farcical appearance of wretchedness.

As Tabs crossed the hall to the front-door, just inside of which Adair was standing, he felt an undeserved compassion for him—the kind of compassion one feels for a clumsy dog, which is always getting under people's feet. At the same time he couldn't help marveling that there should be two women at the same time in the world who were willing to compete for such a man's affections.

"I happened to be lunching here," Tabs commenced conventionally. But he altered his tactics promptly. In the presence of his friend's self-advertised misery nothing but the briefest truth seemed adequate.

"Old man, it's no good. She won't see you. She doesn't want you." Forgetting his sense of justice, he placed his hand affectionately on Adair's shoulder.

Adair stared in a full-blown way and nodded. "She never did want me."

He passed no comment on this unforeseen meeting in the little house with the marigold-tinted curtains. He manifested no resentment against this familiar angel who had been deputed to bar the gates of Eden to his approaches. He was incapable of surprise. He was obsessed by the solitary idea of his own forlornness. "I knew it. She never did want me." And then, in a rush of self-pity, "No one ever wanted me."

"Except Phyllis," Tabs suggested.

Adair appeared not to have heard. He stood like a living statue, his top-hat extended, his bunch of roses dangling—the picture of idiotic futility. Genuine emotion, however mean its origin, always has its grand moments. Tabs forgot the silly beginnings of this upset and the endless troubles it had caused. All he saw was a typical ragamuffin of humanity in the grip of the policeman, Nemesis. Adair had been caught trying to do what thousands of other ragamuffins achieved daily with success. He had been arrested red-handed in the act of stealing forbidden happiness. It was his first offense. He was inexpert and had bungled. He had bungled because, while assuming the rôle of roguery, he had remained at heart an honest man. Now that he was caught, he took the exposure of his dishonesty too seriously.

Tabs had almost forgotten that he had been the last to speak, when Adair repeated his exact words, "Except Phyllis!" And then, "Poor kid! She, too, is unhappy."

Through the marshy obscurities of his humiliation his conscience was building a path. With his two hands he crushed his topper back onto his head. The act had the vehemence of decision. In the doing of it he dropped the roses to the floor. There they lay forgotten—so forgotten that he placed his foot on them without noticing.

"Home! Best be going home," he muttered.

Without further explanation, he drew back the latch and let himself out into the sunlit Court. Delaying long enough to pick up his hat and cane, Tabs followed.

Adair gave no sign of recognition as he caught up with him. Failing to hail a taxi, they boarded a bus. Tabs paid the fares. Adair sat like Napoleon after Waterloo, taking no notice of anything. It was the intensity of his thoughts that kept him silent—not moroseness.

They had reached Clapham Common and had come to his garden-gate, before he acknowledged Tabs' presence.

"I was a fool. I deserved it," he said sadly. "It's ended in exactly the way that any sane man would have expected."

Kicking the gate open, he passed up the path. From the Common Tabs watched him, till he was safely within the house and the door had shut.

As he turned away, he scarcely knew whether to laugh or feel vexed. The misfortunes of others can always be traced to folly; it is only our own misfortunes that are never deserved and never anything less than august. If Adair's love-affair had appeared ridiculous in his eyes, probably his own would afford materials for jest to some one else.

He couldn't forget the top-hat and the trampled roses. The ineffectualness of all passion loomed large. It might have its value as an educative process, but what a waste of energy! For the moment he drew no distinction between Adair's guilty hankering after something which was forbidden and his own honorable love for Terry. The end of all passion was futility.

Then he laughed, for in imagination he saw the world as a crestfallen caricature of George Grossmith, top-hatted and bespatted, wending its unfestive way through the centuries to an eternal garden-party, from which Adam and his lineage were forever debarred.

V

His exit from Mulberry Tree Court had been so hurried that he had had no time to make arrangements with Terry.

He had no sooner knocked than the door was opened by Maisie. He was slightly embarrassed at being brought face to face with her thus suddenly after the last scene that they had shared. He entered in a tentative manner, only just crossing the threshold, as though he had not much time to spare.

"I called in," he apologized, "because I thought you'd like to know what happened—and to fetch Terry."

"Of course." She spoke with a cheerfulness that astonished him. "I was expecting you." With that she led the way across the hall to the drawing-room.

Carrying his hat, he followed. He clung to his hat purposely; it would serve as a reminder that he had not come to stay long. She was on the point of seating herself, when she spotted it. "Oh, how rude of me!" In the twinkling of an eye she had deprived him of it and vanished. "Captured once more!" he thought.

During the few seconds that she was gone, he looked about him. Everything was as it had been yesterday. A companionable fire glowed in the grate. On a table beside the couch tea was spread. Even as yesterday, the nearest chair to the couch was at least six feet away, making it necessary for any one who did not wish to appear boorish to share the couch with her. There was something else that he had noticed on entering: while he had been away she had made a complete change of toilet. She was now dressed in a filmy gown of emerald green, with shoes, stockings and buckles to match. It was a gown so chic that, had he been a woman, he would have guessed at once that it was the latest from Paquin's. Inasmuch as he was a man, his sole comment was, "Plucky little thorough-bred! You don't catch her owning that she's down." The emerald shade brought out all the values of her coloring, the faint rose of her complexion, the daffodil gold of her flaxen hair. He had expected to be bored by a Magdalene repentant; instead he had found himself confronted by a challenging young Diana. His admiration went out to her for her courage.

Having come back and resettled herself on the couch, she smiled up at him through flickering lashes. "A nice frock, don't you think? Nothing like a new frock after a knock-out for restoring your self-respect."

"It's a charming frock. Where's Terry?"

She clasped her small hands about her knees, leaning her head far back so that her eyes glinted up at his languidly. Perhaps it was necessary to do that in order to see him properly. He was still standing. And yet her attitude served another purpose; it called attention to the firm young lines of her bust and throat, and to the voluptuous curve of her lips, parted in patient expectancy.

"Terry!" Her voice sounded drowsy. "I forgot. I ought to have given you her message. She couldn't stop. She had another engagement."

"An engagement!" He was dumbfounded. "That's strange! She never said anything—— Are you sure she didn't invent it?"

"Certain." Maisie sat up fully awake now. "Quite positive. But she had made up her mind not to keep it till, through no fault of yours, you gave her the chance. You don't want to believe that; it sounds as though she had cheated. You don't know much about women, Lord Taborley. You don't know because you refuse to learn. You're determined, in the face of every proof to the contrary, to live and die in the faith that we're angels." She shook her finger at him. He was amused to discover that he was being scolded. "Angels! We're far from it. We're very much like you men, with this difference, that we're cowards. What you need—this may sound entirely wrong—is a good sensible woman to take you in hand, and give you a run for your money, and teach you your own value. Why, with your position and charm——"

"You must excuse my interrupting. Of course it all depends on what you mean by a run for my money. But are there many good and sensible women who are game for an adventure of that sort?"

"Heaps of them," she assured him, imitating his mock seriousness. "The more outwardly good and sensible, the more inwardly they're willing."

"Humph!" He pretended to be pondering this gem of information. And then, "But you have to own, Mrs. Lockwood, that Terry's not——"

She blocked his protest with a gay little laugh. "I make no exceptions. Terry's exactly like the rest of us—younger and more innocent looking, no doubt, but just as imperfect. As regards this engagement of hers, she breathed no word of it until you had gone. Then she began to flirt with the idea that she might be able to keep it. At last she couldn't resist the temptation any longer. Out she came with it, that she must be going. I'd lay a wager I could name the person with whom——"

"You'd lose your wager."

"I think not." She met the threatened tempest in his eyes with calmness.

"Would you give a name to this person?"

"Where's the good?" She shrugged her dainty shoulders. "We both know it? Steely Jack. Isn't that what you call him?"

Instantly she leant forward. Her whole instinct was to touch him. She hadn't intended to hurt him like that. He looked so defiant, and gaunt and deserted—such a huge, scarred boy of a man. He reminded her of one of those early war-posters, in which a solitary figure was depicted, knee-deep in barbed wire, head bandaged, hurling the last of his bombs.

"Please don't be angry," she pleaded. "I was clumsy; but I was trying to help. When you helped me yesterday, you too were clumsy. You can't put on a new frock, worse luck, the way I've done, to restore your self-respect. But I do wish you'd buy a new something—a new race-horse or a new car—I don't care what as long as it would make you swank. A little swanking would do you all the good in the world; it would keep Terry from knowing how much you care. Terry's not half good enough for you; one day you'll acknowledge it. Still, if you really do think you want her, you can bring her to heel any moment by putting on an indifferent air. Look how jealously she flared up at me at lunch. It makes a woman furious to see her rejections picked up as treasures by another woman. The only reason why Terry brought you here to-day was to see for herself just how deep an impression we'd made on each other."

At last she mustered the courage to touch him. Reaching out, she took his hand and drew him to her. He stood against her knees, looking down.

Her voice was tender. "Some one had to say these things to you, just as you had to say things to me that weren't altogether pleasant. So why shouldn't I to you? After all, we're both in the same box, and the box is labeled NOT WANTED. It pains me to see a man like you, wasting himself on a girl who hasn't the sense to appreciate what he's offering." She raised her eyes to his with a slow smile. "Don't mistake me, Lord Taborley, I'm not trying to secure what you're offering for myself."

He began to see the drift of her argument. Before he could formulate it, she herself had put it into words. "Can't we do a little missionary work, you and I, by appreciating each other just a little?"

Flinging prejudices to the winds, he took a place beside her on the couch. Why shouldn't he? Why should he go on conserving himself so scrupulously for a girl who didn't value his loyalty?

"I should consider it a privilege to be appreciated by you," he said gravely. "But let's start properly. How about dinner at the Berkeley? After that, if you felt like it, we could do a theatre. Would that suit you?"

It was close on midnight when they returned to Mulberry Tree Court. Not until he was handing her out of the taxi and Porter was standing framed in the open doorway, did he remember that he'd imparted none of his important news concerning Adair.

"About Adair——" he commenced. "Or shall I put him off till to-morrow?"

"Till forever." As her feet touched the pavement, she swung around on him with laughter. They had been very happy in the last six hours. She pressed close against him. He caught the sparkle of her eyes as he stooped above her and the faint, sweet fragrance of her hair. She rested an ungloved hand on his arm. It looked dim like a large white moth that had settled there.

"I have few principles to guide me," she whispered, "but the few that I have I observe. I never dig up my dead and I never botanize on the graves of the past. Good-night. Merry dreams to you, Lord Taborley."

With the suddenness of a phantom she went from him. There were a brief few seconds while he heard the ripple of her laughter and the rustling of her dress. Then the door closed. Save for the lamps of the waiting taxi night was again eventless and dark.

VI

That evening was the first of many such adventures. His tall limping figure became a familiar sight in Mulberry Tree Court.

Very early in their friendship he took her advice and delighted her by purchasing a smart two-seater runabout which he drove himself. Sometimes it was at her door shortly after breakfast to transport her to where saddle-horses were waiting in the Park. Sometimes it would turn up about lunch-time and stand impatiently chugging while she changed into sport's clothes, after which it would dash away with her, humming contentedly, into the depths of the country. It was the magic-carpet which obeyed all her desires. After war-days, with their petrol shortages and restricted travel, it seemed more than ordinarily magic. It made emphatic as nothing else could have done, the freedom and serenity which peace had restored. The very fleetness of its obedience prompted her to urge Tabs to take her farther and ever farther afield. There were evenings when they dined within sight of the sea beneath the red roofs of Rye and started back for London across the Sussex downs, driving straight into the eye of the sunset. There were afternoons when they drifted over the Chiltern hills to where the spires and domes of Oxford rise, placid as masts of a sunken ship in an encroaching sea of greenness.

But it was most frequently nearing midnight when the quiet of the secluded Court was wakened by the merry buzzing of the engine. At first it would come from far away, drowsily like the song of a belated bee. Then it would gather in volume and grow more lively, till it panted round the little village-green and quavered into silence in front of Maisie's door. Porter, with the gold light of the hall behind her, would always be there on the threshold to receive her mistress. It was difficult to guess what Porter thought. There were impromptu jaunts to theaters and dances. Porter had seen many gay beginnings and tearful endings. Her face was immobile and respectful at whatever hour he called.

It was a curious friendship that had developed between them—a friendship which lived from hand to mouth, which had the appearance of being more than a friendship, in which nothing was premeditated. Nothing could be premeditated so far as he was concerned. Terry had first call on all his leisure—not that she availed herself of it very often; nevertheless, he held himself in readiness to break every engagement for her. Maisie was his consolation prize when Terry had failed. Maisie was not deceived as to the spare-man place that she held in his affections. She was painfully aware that at any moment their friendship might end as abruptly as it had started. On either side it was based on a common need for kindness, a common tenderness and a common desire for protection from loneliness. In a sense they were each a substitute for something postponed and more satisfying. While he was making up to her for the loss of Adair, she was trying to save him from the rashness of committing himself too fatally to Terry. They were altruists, actuated by self-interested motives.

And yet it was a friendship not untinged by enmity. His enmity was awakened when she became too possessive in the demands which she made and especially when she let fall criticisms, however mild, concerning Terry. These occurrences set him thinking of the other casuals who had ventured on her doorstep, not meaning to stay, and had ended by hanging up their hats in her hall. Her enmity was roused by the courteous circumspection of his behavior. He never admitted her to the privacy of his inmost thoughts. He could be gay and gallant and bountifully generous, but he never permitted her to peep beneath the surface. He addressed her invariably as Mrs. Lockwood. The use of her surname held her at arm's length. She longed most frightfully to hear him call her by the name that was less safe. She denied to herself that she wanted him to make love to her; at the same time she was disappointed at the persistency with which he held her off. She liked to believe that, if he had made love to her, she would have rebuffed him. She rehearsed many times the indignant words with which she would have set him in his place; she would have reminded him that it was for Reggie Pollock she was waiting—as though he were not dead, but only round the corner. To her chagrin Tabs never gave her the least incentive to employ them.

He saw her never more and frequently less than once a day. There was a week at a stretch when he saw nothing of her. She bridged these tedious intervals of expecting by the length of her telephone conversations. Whenever he stayed away for long, she tortured herself with suspicions that his courtship of Terry had begun to prosper. If he returned debonair and smiling, she felt confirmed in these suspicions. He was most dear to her when he returned in an under-mood of distress. She knew then that she was necessary; to be necessary was the passion of her heart. Then she would become gay and tender and mothering—an altogether sweeter, gentler and more self-effacing Maisie.

Whither were they drifting—toward marriage or only toward infatuation? If you had asked Tabs, he would have replied promptly, "Toward neither." He had promised to tide her over the dull spots. She had advised him to take a course of education in his own value in order that he might increase his worth to Terry. She had told him that he ought to let some good sensible woman take him in hand and give him a run for his money. They had accepted each other at their word—that was all.

At the same time he knew that that was not all. He knew that if there was one thing more irritating to her than being addressed as Mrs. Lockwood, it was his way of treating her as if she were good and sensible. Most women would feel affronted at hearing themselves spoken of as anything other than sensible and good. Good and sensible women are the pillars of society, but they are not usually regarded as attractive companions for joyous excursions in two-seater runabouts.

Neither of them was entirely insensitive to the conjectures that their sudden intimacy had given rise to in the minds of onlookers. They were both too well-known and were seen together in too many different places to avoid the breath of gossip—even of scandal. Men were scarce after the wholesale butchery of the war, especially bachelors of Lord Taborley's class. Had he only had the conceit to know it, he had returned to London a strong favorite for the season's matrimonial sweepstakes. More than one anxious mother of unappropriated daughters had set him down for preference on her list of eligibles. When invitations poured in on him and were politely regretted, there was consternation and puzzlement. The puzzlement vanished when the explanation was whispered across a hundred dinner-tables, "Haven't you heard? It's Maisie Lockwood."

Then would follow details of how they had been seen at sundry theaters, at half-a-dozen fashionable hotels and riding together in the Park. "She mounted on one of Lord Taborley's horses of course."

"It's quite a case," people said. "If he doesn't mean matrimony, it would be decent to exercise more discretion. There used to be some talk of Terry Beddow; that's completely ended. Queer the women men fall for, even the quietest of them! No one's sane any longer. Had three husbands already, hasn't she? Quite a crowd! One would scarcely have supposed that an exclusive chap like Taborley would have joined in the queue to make a fourth. And he could have had almost any girl for the asking. There's never any telling."

Veiled references began to appear in the society columns; but not so veiled that they could not be recognized. "A romance is developing between a noble lord, who served in the ranks during the war, and a vivacious beauty, three times widowed, well-known in fashionable circles, etc." One paper published a photograph of them riding side by side. After that sceptics who had not seen for themselves, were persuaded.

It was a mad world—a world in which it was not safe to be censorious. The lid was off the conventions. Every one was shouting for happiness—happiness at all costs. When they could not get it for the asking, they were taking it without thought of law or penalties. There were few who could afford to sit in judgment and many who preferred to laugh. The day of authority was over. Traditions were no longer respected. While the war was on, men and women had been drilled into dumb acquiescence; now that the drilling was abolished, they had become a mob, avid, leaderless and uproarious.

Tabs came to realize that he was not alone in his lost sense of direction. The right to live had been restored, but neither individuals nor nations were sure what they wanted to do with it. After having been as one in their sacrificial certainty, they had arrived at a cross-roads where there was no policeman to take charge. They had broken up into little groups, gathered about their own vociferous stump-orators. The result was babel. Of orators there were a plenty. They abused one another across the Irish Sea. They tried to shout one another down across the Atlantic Ocean. But the hammer-head men of righteousness were gone. After the apocalyptic splendor of mailed knights of Christ charging stern-faced down to Armageddon, the results of victory had been consigned to the weakling care of a race of talkers.

And yet there was music and laughter. Spring rushed on. Feet that had marched, now moved in the rhythm of the dance. Theaters were crowded. Jazz-bands clashed. There were endless processions. Youth beckoned. Chestnut bloom grew white and fell in flurries. Women were no less beautiful. The sun shone thunderously.

If Tabs were foolish, which he did not concede, all the world was his companion in foolishness. Blindly and gropingly he was still going in search of his kingdom. He ignored the gossip which his championship of Maisie had called forth. He despised it. It made him the more compassionate toward her—the more determined to help her to weather the storm. Well-meaning friends undertook to warn him. "She's most beautiful and charming. And she's Lady Dawn's sister, of course. But—— Well, to put it frankly, a woman who's been married three times might just as well never have been married at all. Looks as though she'd only squandered her money in rising to the nicety of a marriage-license. I hope you don't mean to marry her, old chap, because she's not your sort."

When Tabs went to the trouble of assuring these well-wishers that he did not intend to marry her and that she was his sort, they slipped their tongues into their cheeks and opened their eyes wide, "Oh, so that's the way of it!"

Maisie reported to him similar experiences. "So you see how I'm regarded, as though I were no better than I should be. And I'm young and I've done nothing wrong. If it wasn't for your friendship, I should be tempted——"

"But you have my friendship!" he assured her.

He tried to rise superior to this petty talk of scandal-mongers, but it was not always possible when he remembered Terry.

VII

He met Terry as often as he could contrive, but he no longer forced himself upon her. He could effect nothing so long as her infatuation for Braithwaite lasted.

Now that Sir Tobias had lost faith in him as a lover, his opportunities for meeting her became more rare. When Sir Tobias lost faith in any one, he made no attempt to disguise it. In the case of Tabs, he let him know it with a fine air of magnanimity, as though he were doing him a kindness. His frankness took the form of communicating some new disparaging criticism, astutely attributed to Lady Beddow, every time he was paid a visit.

Having separated Tabs from Terry by carrying him off to his library on one pretext or another, he would carefully close the door and commence, "You men who've seen service are all unbalanced; it would be unfair to hold any of you responsible. You're no exception, my dear fellow, though you probably don't notice it in yourself. As Lady Beddow was saying to me this morning, 'Poor Lord Taborley, he has a rambling mind. Most likely it's a species of shell-shock. There's a queer look comes into his eyes. It's not always there. It's a look as if he were haunted. You ought to speak to him, Tobias—you're his oldest friend—and advise him to see a specialist. It's lucky we found his weakness out before things between him and Terry went too far.'"

Or he would say, "Lady Beddow and I were talking about you, my dear fellow. You know she's very fond of you. She loved your mother before you. 'The little big lady from America,' she used to call her. She's naturally very much upset at the way in which you're getting yourself talked about. Unfortunately she holds me partly responsible for having induced you to visit this Maisie woman. 'You ought to have known him better,' she says. 'There's an immoral streak in him—an inherited taint, which I, for one, always suspected.' She was wondering whether you have any knowledge of there having been insanity in your family."

After having invented such discomforting surmises and given his wife the credit for them, the old gentleman would blink his crafty eyes and rest his hand affectionately on Tabs' arm. At the end of each visit he was pressed to call again; but when he called, it was to find himself shepherded into the library, safely out of reach of Terry, in order that he might hear his conduct discussed afresh, either directly or by insinuation.

He was unable to defend himself without betraying Terry. She maintained her silence with regard to Braithwaite, refusing to take her parents into her confidence. They naturally attributed the hanging fire of the engagement to Tabs, supposing that on the eve of his proposal he had been ensnared in the net of Maisie. In their eyes he cut a shabby figure.

Behind his back Terry came to his defense. She would hear and believe no wrong of him. This only proved to her parents that her heart still followed him. They thought her very brave and became more gloomy in their accusations. Matters took a serious turn: her health began to fail. When the doctor was summoned, he ascribed the cause to secret worrying and prescribed a complete change. Tabs received no word of this happening, for Terry had become increasingly shy, so that she created the appearance of avoiding him. She quite definitely avoided Maisie.

There came a day in early June when he went to call on her and was informed by the velvet-plush James that Miss Terry was out of London on a visit of undetermined length. When he asked for her address, James shook his head mournfully. She had been ill and was to be spared all disturbing communications. His orders were that her address was to be given to nobody.

"But that order doesn't apply to me," Tabs urged.

James became more profoundly agitated. He averted his eyes, while he fiddled with the last button of his plump waistcoat. "I regret to say, to your Lordship most especially."

"Humph!" Tabs stroked his chin. "Is Sir Tobias at home?"

"Your Lordship would gain nothing by seeing Sir Tobias."

"You might mention to him that I called." With that he descended the steps and climbed into his runabout.

"Turned away!" he thought. "Turned away from Terry's house!" Then his mind went back to two months ago—the hopes he'd had, his meeting with her at the station, his asking her father for her hand in marriage. It was like the old front-line trench, when reënforcements had failed to come up: there was nothing for it but to dig one's self in and stick it out.

He had been shown the door with as little ceremony as an intruding peddler.

VIII

From Terry's house he went to Mulberry Tree Court, but the route that he chose was not direct. He drove all over the West End first, through Oxford Street, Bond Street, Piccadilly; then back by way of Regent Street, swinging to the left through Conduit Street, till he again struck Bond Street. He doubled and redoubled on his tracks, moving among crowds, feeling that he must hear the noise of crowds, yet seeing little of the sights on which his eyes rested. It had been like this with him before, after being in too close contact with calamity. It had been like this in war-days, when he had returned on brief leaves out of monstrous offensives to the appalling quiet of a normal world. He hadn't dared to be alone. He had felt that his sanity depended on his rubbing shoulders with people. He had been like a child in an empty house, leaning out of a window to catch the stir of life along the pavements.

The gayety of the London season was at its height. Khaki was growing rare. Signs of war had almost completely vanished. No one wanted to talk about it. No one wanted to read about it. Shops had redecorated their windows with the necessities and luxuries of civilian requirements. There was a wave of spendthrift extravagance abroad. Every one in the streets had the look of being out for a good time. The threat of torturing to-morrows no longer made life haggard. If there was one lesson that the past five years had taught it was that each new day was a gift from the gods, to be enjoyed separately and drained of every available drop of pleasure. The restraints of duty were indefinitely postponed. Men and women sauntered in pairs, aimlessly and joyously. Work was the bondage furthest from their thoughts. They seemed aware of no one but themselves in their ecstasy at being reunited. Racing had been restarted; up and down the gutters newsboys ran shouting the winners. London was a Tommy on leave, insubordinately, humorously, contagiously happy.

As he drove, Tabs argued out his problem. From house-top to house-top the June sky sagged like an azure canopy. Across pavements the afternoon sunshine lay in bars of gold. Flower-sellers stood at intervals along the curb, scenting the air with their country nosegays. A lazy breeze ruffled drooping flags which had been hung out for the latest festival. Everywhere there were girls in their blowy summer dresses—girls of all kinds and sorts. Single girls, married girls, girls who worked for their livings, girls whose business it was to be beautiful, girls who were merely drudges. There were both pathos and urgency in the sight of them. It was not good that they should live alone. They had wasted their youth too long. The great necessity for that waste was ended. Not one of them was a patch on Maisie.

If he did not desire Maisie, why did he miss her? Was it that he would not allow himself to desire her? Why did he encourage his passion for Terry—Terry who in her mild and gentle way had become almost insolently unappreciative? Wouldn't he be wiser to content himself with the woman who was within reach rather than——?

He frowned as the truth dawned on him. For the first time he had acknowledged it. He did love Maisie. Not as he loved Terry, of course; but in a more human way, to the extent of needing her companionship. He had made a discovery that amazed himself—a discovery that thousands of men had made before him: that it was possible for him to love two women at the same tune, utterly differently and yet with entire sincerity. He felt as lowered in his self-esteem as if he had committed bigamy. He was dumbfounded at this new twist that his emotions had developed. Without consulting him, they had played a trick on him which forever disqualified him for the larger rôle of constant lover. He felt himself pushed down to almost the level of a philanderer—a philanderer not much more august than Adair. The suspicion crossed his mind that, if he could believe himself in love with two women, he couldn't be very mightily in love with either.

But he was impatient of delays—worn out with procrastinations. The magnificent chances of the present were slipping past him. One day he would be old. "Now, now, now, is the appointed time," throbbed his engine. Out of the sheer disorganization of his thoughts a desperate scheme took shape. Why should he not go to Maisie and say, "We're neither of us first in each other's affections. It's a rough-and-tumble world! Why be thin-skinned about it? We may become first later. Let's stop dreaming of kingdoms round the corner and make the best of such kingdoms as are ours to-day."

The idea took hold of him with force. It fascinated him. He turned his car about. In passing through Mayfair he made a detour to glance at Taborley House. The American Hospital had vacated it. It looked ruined and forlorn. He tried to picture it as it might appear if Maisie were its mistress.

Twenty minutes later he drew up before the retiring little villa with its marigold-tinted curtains. He had by no manner of means decided on his course of action. He could not have told you what he was going to say to Maisie. In this as in so many other ways, he believed himself abnormal. No one had ever told him that ninety-nine out of a hundred married men, if they spoke the truth, would have to confess that they had been unaware thirty seconds before they proposed that they were going to do so; and that the most incredible happening in their lives had been when, thirty seconds later, they had discovered that not only had they proposed, but that they had been riotously accepted.

CHAPTER THE SEVENTH

Tabs had finished what he was doing. As he stepped out of the car, he threw a contemptuous glance at the man who could be so callous. He was a slightly built, fresh-complexioned young fellow of middle height, with amiable gray eyes and a fair, closely-trimmed mustache. He belonged to the demobilized subaltern type and had the weary, drawn expression of over-strained nerves that so many young faces had at that time. He was dressed in a smartly fitting suit of striped navy-blue flannel and carried himself with the plucky alertness of a highly bred fox-terrier. He had a clean and gallant bearing which it was difficult to reconcile with the ungenerosity of his last remark. In a neat, unforceful way he would have been handsome, had it not been for a badly healed scar which ran straight across his forehead, only just escaping his eyes.

Before Tabs could say anything, he was apologizing. "That sounded rotten. I'm sorry. But you see, I didn't know the chap. It's his wife that I'm trying to find. She was married to a man named Pollock when I knew her. I was rather a pal of Pollock's, belonged to the same squadron and was shot down at the same time. I've been a prisoner in Germany. Just got back, in fact. As you'll understand, I'm rather out of touch. I thought you'd be able to tell me whether she still lived here."

It was very damping to his ardor at this particular moment to have Maisie's matrimonial past raked up. Within the next half hour he would very possibly be asking her to be his wife. He wasn't sure that he was going to; but meeting this friend of her first husband on her doorstep didn't help him to make up his mind. He was no longer unsympathetic to the young fellow, but he was quite determined that he must be sent about his business.

"As a matter of fact," he said, "the lady you're in search of does live here. But she's not Mrs. Gervis any longer. She's married again. She's Mrs. Lockwood now."

A glint of enmity came into the stranger's eyes. "Then you're Mr. Lockwood, perhaps?"

Tabs answered him with a note of irritation. "I'm not Mr. Lockwood. She's a widow. Lockwood also was killed. But I really don't see why you should stop me on the pavement to ask so many questions. You can find out everything by ringing the bell."

"That's right." The young fellow stroked his mustache. "But I didn't want to do that until I had made certain. Surely you can see how embarrassing—— And now this third chap's gone West, you say. Poor little Maisie, she hasn't had much luck."

It was difficult to be brusque with a man of his own class, especially with a man so genuinely likeable. But he had to get rid of him. After having nerved himself up to the point of being at least prepared to propose to Maisie, he couldn't contemplate an evening of sharing her with a stranger and listening to the merits of her first husband.

"So you're an old friend! Well, I'm afraid she won't be free this evening. I have an appointment with her. But, if you like, I'll mention that I met you and I'll let her know that you'll call—when shall we say—to-morrow? Perhaps you'd care to give me your name——"

The young man smiled good-naturedly. "I couldn't think of troubling you to that extent."

"In that case, I'll have to ask you to excuse me. All kinds of luck to you on your return. It must be rather jolly not to be a prisoner. Good evening."

Tabs crossed the pavement and rang the bell. In order that he might afford no opportunity for further conversation, he stood with his face towards the door while he waited for it to be opened. He was very conscious that the stranger had not departed, but was hovering immediately in rear of him.

It was Porter who answered his summons. "I'm sorry, your Lordship, Mrs. Lockwood is out—— No, she didn't leave any word. She's bound to be back shortly—— Why, certainly, if your Lordship has the time."

While she was closing the front door, he walked across the hall and let himself into the drawing-room. He went directly over to the empty fireplace and gazed up at Lady Dawn's portrait. It always seemed to challenge him—seemed to be trying to say something to him. It was almost as though it were his conscience hanging there on the wall. He had an idea that it reproached him for his silence with regard to Lord Dawn. He felt that, were he to do what his instinctive sense of justice had first urged—go to Lady Dawn and tell her that her husband had cared for her—the painted face would be no longer turned away and the stone-gray eyes no longer averted.

He was haunted by the obsession that he would never have any luck till he had vindicated the dead man's memory.

It was Maisie who had prevented him up to now—Maisie with her laughter, her breezy arguments, her short views of life, her contempt for sentiment, her sledge-hammer motto, with which she shattered the past, "I never dig up my dead." She had made him hesitant about reopening the subject. Her sister was the most beautiful woman in England. A man never knows to what boundaries a woman's jealousy spreads. He feared lest, if he persisted, she might impute to him less lofty motives than the desire to play fair by a comrade-in-arms who had gone West.

Something stirred behind him. He swung about and found himself staring into the face of the stranger who had accosted him on the pavement.

"Sargent painted it ten years ago," the stranger said. "She's not as young as that now."

"How did you get in?" Tabs demanded.

The stranger laughed boyishly. "Not too loud or you'll give the show away. I followed you. The maid raised no objection. She thought we were together—which was exactly what I intended."

"But what do you want? What right have you here?"

"Want! I know what I want. As to my right, that's problematic."

He turned his back on Tabs and commenced to move about the room, picking things up and examining them with a purposeful curiosity. He showed no fear, yet in all his movements there was a calculated stealth. Tabs watched him in amazement, wondering what he ought to do. If it came to grappling with him, unless he carried fire-arms, there was little doubt as to who would get the better of the contest. The man might be a lunatic, a blackmailer, a burglar; by his odd mode of entry, he had laid himself open to every suspicion. But he looked perfectly normal; and if he had been a burglar, he surely would have selected an opportunity when no other man was present. It was an awkward situation, this being shut up alone in a husbandless woman's house with an unknown intruder. It seemed to be an occasion for tact rather than the possible fuss of police interference.

At this moment the stranger made a discovery.

He had been examining the five silver photograph-frames, each in turn, with close attention. With his back towards Tabs he remarked, "It looks as though she hadn't forgotten him. Five reminders of his homely mug and not a solitary one of the also-rans! Numbers Two and Three couldn't have made such a deep impression." He caught his breath in a nervous shudder. "It's queer. Everything's queer when one's just come back. One's so changed that he could court his own wife without being recognized. You, too, were out there I should judge by the way you limp. I wonder whether you've got over the queerness yet. I haven't had time——"

From in front of the empty fireplace, Tabs interrupted him. "Look here, my dear chap, I don't want to be rude and this isn't my house; but what's your game?"

The stranger turned and smiled. His frank gray eyes were amused and friendly. "Upon my word, I haven't any game. I'm like yourself—just paying a visit."

Tabs shook his head and gazed at him fixedly. "It won't do; you know that. You're a gentleman. Gentlemen don't get into unprotected women's houses by your kind of methods."

"They don't. That's a fact." He laughed carelessly. "I suppose this is what comes of having been a prisoner in Germany. One prefers to be underhand."

"Don't you think it's time you stopped fooling?" Tabs spoke in a conversational tone without temper. "There's Mrs. Lockwood to be considered; she may be here at any moment. It's no good coming this returned prisoner trick; all the prisoners in Germany were returned shortly after the Armistice. Eight months have elapsed."

"All right. Have it your own way."

The stranger ceased to wander and sat himself down at Maisie's end of the couch. Pulling out his cigarette-case, he offered it to Tabs. "Have a gasper?—— You don't need to refuse because of Maisie. If she's the Maisie she used to be, she won't object.—— Well, if you won't, I will."

Tabs noticed that his hand trembled in holding the match. The man was a bundle of nerves; he was only maintaining this display of coolness with an effort. Whatever the purpose of his bold intrusion, it was not social, as he had pretended.

"I don't like any man to think me a liar." The man spoke slowly between puffs at his cigarette. "You think it's all bunkum that I'm fresh out of Germany, but it isn't. Do you see that?" He ran his finger across the gash in his forehead. "That and the ill-treatment I received in the prison-camps made me go wuzzy. The only fact about myself that I could remember in all those years was Maisie. So it's natural that I should come to see her first. I wasn't sure of my own identity until a month ago. I suppose I was released at the Armistice, but for seven out of the past eight months I must have wandered in rags over Central Europe. However, all's well that ends well, and here I am."

"But you knew that she'd remarried," Tabs objected suspiciously; "you asked me if I were Gervis."

"A friend of Pollock's told me that," he explained. "Gervis was excusable. But this Lockwood fellow's the third. It's a bit thick! She certainly has been going it." He looked up suddenly. "I've been doing all the talking. What about yourself?"

Tabs crossed the room and opened one of the long French windows which led out into the rockery. The golden afternoon had faded into early evening and a refreshing coolness was in the air. When he came back, he seated himself at the other end of the couch. "Just to show that there's no ill-feeling, I'll accept one of your gaspers, if you'll allow me.—— There's nothing for me to explain. My name is Lord Taborley and I'm a friend of Mrs. Lockwood. There's nothing else."

The stranger leaned forward. His humor left him, revealing his premature haggardness. He laid a hand on Tabs' arm and asked a question. "You're fond of her?"

Tabs eyed him in silence, trying to divine what was intended. "At any rate, you are," he said kindly; "I see it now."

"Not fond of her, I'm in love with her." The man's face softened as he made the confession. "I was in love with her when she was still the wife of Pollock. I've been through deep waters. I've had to wait for her like Jacob did for Rachel. I've lost most things—my memory, my health, my very likeness! but never for five minutes have I lost my love for her. She was the only star in my darkness——" The words fell from him with somber sincerity. "I don't know whether you understand——"

But Tabs' thoughts had turned inwards. He was living again the englamored poignancy of the years when Terry had been for him precisely that—the only star in his darkness. The intensity of the vision was like a cry of warning rousing his sleeping idealism from its lethargy. His present errand became a treachery to be swept aside by his refound strength. He recognized the intruder with new eyes, not as an enemy, but as a comrade—a comrade marooned on the selfsame island of loneliness and bound to him by the common experience of a kindred adversity. He was like Crusoe discovering the footprint. Here, quite close to him, was a fellow waif who had drunk deep of his own bitter sense of desertion. With a thrill of sympathy, his heart turned to him.

"The only star in the darkness!" He repeated the stranger's words. "For most of us there's been one woman who was all of that. If she fails us——" He stifled his pessimism. "When stars fail, one waits for the morning."

"So you, too, had your woman!"

The stranger smiled and relaxed against the cushions. "Foolish of me! You can't blame me. Twice I've believed that I'd lost her. First there was Gervis and then this Lockwood. Poor devils, I cry quits on them. But when I found you so at home here, you can guess what I dreaded. And yet you'll never guess why I followed you into this house." He lit a cigarette and crossed his legs. "I didn't want you to escape me till I'd asked a question—— Has it ever entered your head that Pollock might not be dead?"

Tabs started. Then he sat very still. It was the commonplace tone in which the question had been asked that froze his blood. It was as though this man had said, "I can bring him back." For a moment he knew genuine fear—the non-physical fear which the impalpable can awake in the bravest mind. Through the open window the companionable mutter of London entered. The normality of everything on which his eyes rested did its best to reassure him—the mellow evening sunlight in the friendly room, the flowers in the rockery, the toy-boat on the pond. "I never dig up my dead." He remembered Maisie's motto. But what if the dead——