“You shouldn’t decide a question like that too hastily, my dear.”
“I didn’t—not too hastily for Lord Dreever, at any rate, poor dear.”
“It was in your power,” said Mr. McEachern portentously, “to make a man happy.”
“I did,” said Molly, bitterly. “You should have seen his face light up. He could hardly believe it was true for a moment, and then it came home to him, and I thought he would have fallen on my neck. He did his very best to look heartbroken—out of politeness—but it was no good. He whistled most of the way back to the house—all flat, but very cheerfully.”
“My dear! What do you mean?”
Molly had made the discovery earlier in their conversation that her father had moods whose existence she had not suspected. It was his turn now to make a similar discovery regarding herself.
“I mean nothing, father,” she said. “I’m just telling you what happened. He came to me looking like a dog that’s going to be washed——”
“Why, of course; he was nervous, my dear.”
“Of course. He couldn’t know that I was going to refuse him.”
She was breathing quickly. He started to speak, but she went on looking straight before her. Her face was very white in the moonlight.
“He took me into the rose-garden. Was that Sir Thomas’s idea? There couldn’t have been a better setting, I’m sure—the roses looked lovely. Presently I heard him gulp, and I was so sorry for him. I would have refused him then, and put him out of his misery, only I couldn’t very well till he had proposed, could I? So I turned my back and sniffed at a rose, and then he shut his eyes—I couldn’t see him, but I knew he shut his eyes—and began to say his lesson.”
“Molly!”
“He did—he said his lesson. He gabbled it. When he had got as far as ‘Well don’t you know, what I mean is, that’s what I wanted to say, you know,’ I turned round and soothed him. I said, I didn’t love him. He said, ‘No, no, of course not.’ I said he had paid me a great compliment. He said, ‘Not at all,’ looking very anxious, poor darling, as if even then he was afraid of what might come next. But I reassured him, and he cheered up, and we walked back to the house together, as happy as could be.”
McEachern put his hand round her shoulder. She winced, but let it stay. He attempted gruff conciliation.
“My dear, you’ve been imagining things. Of course he isn’t happy. Why, I saw the young fellow——”
Recollecting that the last time he had seen the young fellow—shortly after dinner—the young fellow had been occupied in juggling, with every appearance of mental peace, with two billiard-balls and a box of matches, he broke off abruptly.
“Father?”
“My dear?”
“Why do you want me to marry Lord Dreever?”
“I think he’s a fine young fellow,” he said, avoiding her eyes.
“He’s quite nice,” said Molly quietly.
McEachern had been trying not to say it. He did not wish to say it. If it could have been hinted at, he would have done it, but he was not good at hinting. A lifetime passed in surroundings where the subtlest hint is a drive in the ribs with a truncheon does not leave a man an adept at the art. He had to be blunt or silent.
“He’s the Earl of Dreever, my dear.”
He rushed on, desperately anxious to cover the nakedness of the statement in a comfortable garment of words.
“Why, you see, you’re young, Molly. It’s only natural you shouldn’t look on these things sensibly. You expect too much of a man. You expect this young fellow to be like the heroes of the novels you read. When you’ve lived a little longer, my dear, you’ll see that there’s nothing in it. It isn’t the hero of the novel you want to marry, it’s the man who’ll make you a good husband.”
This remark struck Mr. McEachern as so pithy and profound that he repeated it.
He went on. Molly was sitting quite still, looking into the shrubbery. He assumed she was listening, but whether she was or not he must go on talking. The situation was difficult. Silence would make it more so.
“Now, look at Lord Dreever,” he said. “There’s a young man with one of the oldest titles in England. He could go anywhere and do what he liked, and be excused for whatever he did because of his name; but he doesn’t. He’s got the right stuff in him. He doesn’t go racketing around——”
“His uncle doesn’t allow him enough pocket-money,” said Molly, with a jarring little laugh. “Perhaps that’s why.”
There was a pause. McEachern required a few moments in which to marshal his arguments once more. He had been thrown out of his stride.
“Father dear, listen,” she said. “We always used to understand each other so well.” He patted her shoulder affectionately. “You can’t mean what you say. You know I don’t love Lord Dreever, you know he’s only a boy. Don’t you want me to marry a man? I love this old place; but surely you can’t think that it can really matter in a thing like this? You don’t really mean that about the hero of the novel? I’m not stupid, like that. I only want—oh, I can’t put it into words; but don’t you see?”
Her eyes were fixed appealingly on him. It only needed a word from him—perhaps not even a word—to close the gulf which had opened between them.
He missed the chance. He had had time to think, and his arguments were ready again. With stolid good humour he marched along the line he had mapped out. He was kindly and shrewd and practical, and the gulf gaped wider with every word.
“You mustn’t be rash, my dear—you mustn’t act without thinking in these things. Lord Dreever is only a boy, as you say, but he will grow. You say you don’t love him. Nonsense! You like him, you would go on liking him more and more. And why? Because you could make what you pleased of him. You’ve got character, my dear. With a girl like you to look after him, he would go a long way, a very long way. It’s all there; it only wants bringing out. And think of it, Molly—Countess of Dreever! There’s hardly a better title in England. It would make me very happy, my dear. It’s been my one hope all these years to see you in the place where you ought to be. And now the chance has come. Molly dear, don’t throw it away.”
She had leaned back with closed eyes. A wave of exhaustion had swept over her. She listened in a dull dream. She felt beaten. They were too strong for her. There were too many of them. What did it matter? Why not give in and end it all and win peace? That was all she wanted—peace now. What did it all matter?
“Very well, father,” she said listlessly.
McEachern stopped short.
“You’ll do it, dear?” he cried. “You will?”
“Very well, father.”
He stooped and kissed her.
“My own dear little girl,” he said.
She got up.
“I’m rather tired, father,” she said. “I think I’ll go in.”
Two minutes later Mr. McEachern was in Sir Thomas Blunt’s study. Five minutes later Sir Thomas pressed the bell.
Saunders appeared.
“Tell his lordship,” said Sir Thomas, “that I wish to see him for a moment. He is in the billiard-room, I think.”
The game between Hargate and Lord Dreever was still in progress when Jimmy returned to the billiard-room. A glance at the board showed that the score was seventy—sixty-nine in favour of spot.
“Good game,” said Jimmy. “Who’s spot?”
“I am,” said his lordship, missing an easy cannon. For some reason he appeared in high spirits. “Hargate’s been going great guns. I was eleven ahead a moment ago, but he made a break of twelve.”
Lord Dreever belonged to the class of billiard-player to whom a double-figure break is a thing to be noted and greeted with respect.
“Fluky,” muttered the silent Hargate deprecatingly. This was a long speech for him. Since their meeting at Paddington Station Jimmy had seldom heard him utter anything beyond a monosyllable.
“Not a bit of it, dear old son,” said Lord Dreever handsomely. “You’re coming on like a two-year-old. I shan’t be able to give you twenty in a hundred much longer.”
He went to a side-table and mixed himself a whisky and soda, singing a brief extract from musical comedy as he did so. There could be no shadow of doubt that he was finding life good. For the past few days, and particularly that afternoon, he had been rather noticeably ill at ease. Jimmy had seen him hanging about the terrace at half-past five, and had thought that he looked like a mute at a funeral, but now, only a few hours later, he was beaming on the world and chirping like a bird.
The game moved jerkily along. Jimmy took a seat and watched. The score mounted slowly. Lord Dreever was bad, but Hargate was worse. At length, in the eighties, his lordship struck a brilliant vein. When he had finished his break his score was ninety-five. Hargate, who had profited by a series of misses on his opponent’s part, had reached ninety-six.
“This is shortening my life,” said Jimmy, leaning forward.
The balls had been left in an ideal position. Even Hargate could not fail to make a cannon. He made it.
A close finish to even the worst game is exciting. Jimmy leaned still farther forward to watch the next stroke. It looked as if Hargate would have to wait for his victory. A good player could have made a cannon as the balls lay, but not Hargate. They were almost in a straight line, with white in the centre.
Hargate swore under his breath. There was nothing to be done. He struck carelessly at white. White rolled against red, seemed to hang for a moment, and shot straight back against spot. The game was over.
“Great Scot! What a fluke!” cried the silent one, becoming quite garrulous at the miracle.
A quiet grin spread itself slowly across Jimmy’s face. He had remembered what he had been trying to remember for over a week.
At this moment the door opened and Saunders appeared. “Sir Thomas would like to see your lordship in his study,” he said.
“Eh? What does he want?”
“Sir Thomas did not confide in me, your lordship.”
“Eh? What? Oh, no. Well, see you later, you men.”
He rested his cue against the table and put on his coat. Jimmy followed him out of the door, which he shut behind him.
“One second, Dreever,” he said.
“Eh? Halloa! What’s up?”
“Any money on that game?” asked Jimmy.
“Why, yes; by Jove! now you mention it, there was—an even fiver. And—er—by the way, old man, the fact is, just for the moment, I’m frightfully——. You haven’t such a thing as a fiver anywhere about, have you? The fact is——”
“My dear fellow, of course. I’ll square up with him now, shall I?”
“Fearfully obliged if you would. Thanks, old man. Pay it you to-morrow.”
“No hurry,” said Jimmy; “plenty more in the old oak chest.”
He went back to the room. Hargate was practising cannons. He was on the point of making a stroke when Jimmy opened the door.
“Care for a game?” said Hargate.
“Not just at present,” said Jimmy.
Hargate attempted his cannon and failed badly. Jimmy smiled.
“Not such a good shot as the last,” he said.
“No.”
“Fine shot, that other.”
“Fluke.”
“I wonder.”
Jimmy lit a cigarette.
“Do you know New York at all?” he asked.
“Been there.”
“Ever been in the Strollers’ Club?”
Hargate turned his back; but Jimmy had seen his face and was satisfied.
“Don’t know it,” said Hargate.
“Great place,” said Jimmy. “Mostly actors and writers, and so on. The only drawback is that some pick up queer friends.”
Hargate did not reply. He did not seem interested.
“Yes,” went on Jimmy. “For instance, a pal of mine—an actor named Mifflin—introduced a man a year ago as a member’s guest for a fortnight, and this man rooked the fellows of I don’t know how much at billiards. The old game, you know—nursing his man right up to the end, and then finishing with a burst. Of course, when that happens once or twice it may be an accident, but when a man who poses as a novice always manages by a really brilliant shot——”
Hargate turned round.
“They fired this fellow out,” said Jimmy.
“Look here!”
“Yes?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a dull yarn,” said Jimmy apologetically. “I’ve been boring you. By the way, Dreever asked me to square up with you for that game, in case he shouldn’t be back. Here you are.”
He held out an empty hand.
“Got it?”
“What are you going to do?” demanded Hargate.
“What am I going to do?” queried Jimmy.
“You know what I mean. If you’ll keep your mouth shut, and stand in, it’s halves. Is that what you’re after?”
Jimmy was delighted. He knew that by rights the proposal should have brought him from his seat, with stern, set face, to wreak vengeance for the insult, but on such occasions he was apt to ignore the conventions. His impulse, when he met a man whose code of behaviour was not the ordinary code, was to chat with him and to extract his point of view. He felt as little animus against Hargate as he had felt against Spike on the occasion of their first meeting.
“Do you make much at this sort of game?” he asked.
Hargate was relieved. This was business-like.
“Pots,” he said, with some enthusiasm—“pots I tell you, if you’ll stand in——”
“Bit risky, isn’t it?”
“Not a bit of it. An occasional accident——”
“I suppose you’d call me one?”
Hargate grinned.
“It must be pretty tough work,” said Jimmy. “You must have to use a tremendous lot of self-restraint.”
Hargate sighed.
“That’s the worst of it,” he said—“the having to seem a mug at the game. I’ve been patronised sometimes by young fools who thought they were teaching me till I nearly forgot myself and showed them what real billiards was.”
“There’s always some drawback to the learned professions,” said Jimmy.
“But there’s a heap to make up for it in this one,” said Hargate. “Well, look here; is it a deal? You stand in——”
Jimmy shook his head.
“I guess not,” he said. “It’s good of you, but commercial speculation never was in my line. I’m afraid you must count me out of this.”
“What! You’re going to tell——”
“No,” said Jimmy, “I’m not. I’m not a vigilance committee. I won’t tell a soul.”
“Why, then——” began Hargate, relieved.
“Unless, of course,” Jimmy went on, “you play billiards again while you’re here.”
“But, damn it, man! if I don’t, what’s the good? Look here, what am I to do if they ask me to play?”
“Give your wrist as an excuse.”
“My wrist?”
“Yes. You sprained it to-morrow after breakfast. It was bad luck. I wonder how you came to do it? You didn’t sprain it much, but just enough to stop you playing billiards.”
Hargate reflected.
“Understand?” said Jimmy.
“Oh, very well,” said Hargate sullenly. “But,” he burst out, “if I ever get a chance to get even with you——”
“You won’t,” said Jimmy. “Dismiss the rosy dream. Get even! You don’t know me! There’s not a flaw in my armour. I’m a sort of modern edition of the Stainless Knight. Tennyson drew Galahad from me. I move through life with almost a sickening absence of sin. But hush! We are observed—at least, we shall be in another minute—somebody is coming down the passage. You do understand, don’t you? Sprained wrist is the watchword.”
The handle turned. It was Lord Dreever, back again from his interview.
“Halloa, Dreever!” said Jimmy. “We’ve missed you. Hargate has been doing his best to amuse me with acrobatic tricks. But you’re too reckless, Hargate, old man. Mark my words, one of these days you’ll be spraining your wrist. You should be more careful. What, going? Good night. Pleasant fellow, Hargate,” he added, as the footsteps retreated down the passage. “Well, my lad, what’s the matter with you? You look depressed.”
Lord Dreever flung himself on to the lounge and groaned hollowly.
“Damn! Damn!! Damn!!!” he observed.
His glassy eye met Jimmy’s and wandered away again.
“What on earth’s the matter?” demanded Jimmy. “You go out of here carolling like a song-bird, and you come back moaning like a lost soul. What’s happened?”
“Give me a brandy and soda, Pitt, old man, there’s a good chap. I’m in a fearful hole.”
“Why? What’s the matter?”
“I’m engaged,” groaned his lordship.
“Engaged? I wish you’d explain. What on earth’s wrong with you! Don’t you want to be engaged? What’s your——”
He broke off as a sudden, awful suspicion, dawned upon him. “Who is she?” he cried.
He gripped the stricken peer’s shoulder and shook it savagely. Unfortunately he selected the precise moment when the latter was in the act of calming his quivering nerve-centres with a gulp of brandy and soda, and for a space of some two minutes it seemed as if the engagement would be broken off by the premature extinction of the Dreever line. A long and painful fit of coughing, however, ended with his lordship still alive and on the road to recovery.
He eyed Jimmy reproachfully, but Jimmy was in no mood for apologies.
“Who is she?” he kept demanding. “What’s her name?”
“Might have killed me,” grumbled the convalescent.
“Who is she?”
“What? Why, Miss McEachern.”
Jimmy had known what the answer would be; but it was scarcely less of a shock for that reason.
“Miss McEachern?” he echoed.
Lord Dreever nodded a sombre nod.
“You’re engaged to her?”
Another sombre nod.
“I don’t believe it,” said Jimmy.
“I wish I didn’t,” said his lordship wistfully, ignoring the slight rudeness of the remark. “But worse luck, it’s true.”
For the first time since the disclosure of the name Jimmy’s attention was directed to the remarkable demeanour of his successful rival.
“You don’t seem over-pleased,” he said.
“Pleased! Have a fiver each way on ‘pleased’! No, I’m not exactly leaping with joy.”
“Then what the devil is it all about? What do you mean? What’s the idea? If you don’t want to marry Miss McEachern, why did you propose to her?”
Lord Dreever closed his eyes.
“Dear old boy, don’t. It’s my uncle.”
“Your uncle?”
“Didn’t I explain it all to you?—about him wanting me to marry? You know—I told you the whole thing.”
Jimmy stared at him in silence.
“Do you mean to say——” he said slowly.
He stopped. It was a profanation to put the thing into words.
“What, old man?”
Jimmy gulped.
“Do you mean to say you want to marry Miss McEachern simply because she has money?” he said.
It was not the first time that he had heard of a case of a British peer marrying for such a reason, but it was the first time that the thing had filled him with horror. In some circumstances things come home more forcibly to us.
“It’s not me, old man,” murmured his lordship—“it’s my uncle.”
“Your uncle? Good heavens!” Jimmy clenched his hands despairingly. “Do you mean to say that you let your uncle order you about in a thing like this? Do you mean to say you’re such a—such a—such a gelatine-backboned worm——”
“Old man, I say!” protested his lordship, wounded.
“I’d call you a wretched knock-kneed skunk, only I don’t want to be fulsome. I hate flattering a man to his face.”
Lord Dreever, deeply pained, half rose from his seat.
“Don’t get up,” urged Jimmy smoothly; “I couldn’t trust myself.”
His lordship subsided hastily. He was feeling alarmed. He had never seen this side of Jimmy’s character. At first he had been merely aggrieved and disappointed. He had expected sympathy. Now the matter had become more serious. Jimmy was pacing the room like a young and hungry tiger. At present, it was true, there was a billiard-table between them; but his lordship felt that he could have done with good, stout bars. He nestled in his seat with the earnest concentration of a limpet on a rock. It would be deuced bad form, of course, for Jimmy to assault his host, but could Jimmy be trusted to remember the niceties of etiquette?
“Why the deuce she accepted you I can’t think,” said Jimmy, half to himself, stopping suddenly and glaring across the table.
Lord Dreever felt relieved. This was not polite, perhaps, but at least it was not violent.
“That’s what beats me, too, old man,” he said. “Between you and me, it’s a jolly rum business. This afternoon——”
“What about this afternoon?”
“Why, she wouldn’t have me at any price.”
“You asked her this afternoon?”
“Yes; and it was all right then. She refused me like a bird, wouldn’t hear of it, came pretty near laughing in my face; and then to-night,” he went on, his voice squeaky at the thought of his wrongs, “my uncle sends for me and says she’s changed her mind and is waiting for me in the morning-room. I go there and she tells me in about three words that she’s been thinking it over and that the whole fearful thing is on again. I call it jolly rough on a chap. I felt such a frightful ass, you know, I didn’t know what to do—whether to kiss her, I mean——”
Jimmy snorted violently.
“Eh?” said his lordship blankly.
“Go on,” said Jimmy, between his teeth.
“I felt a fearful fool, you know. I just said ‘Right-O!’ or something—dashed if I know what I did say—and legged it. It’s a jolly rum business, the whole thing. It isn’t as if she wanted me—I could see that with half an eye—she doesn’t care a hang for me. It’s my belief, old man,” he said solemnly, “that she’s been badgered into it. I believe my uncle’s been at her.”
Jimmy laughed shortly.
“My dear man, you seem to think your uncle’s persuasive influence is universal. I guess it’s confined to you.”
“Well, anyhow, I believe that’s what’s happened. What do you say?”
“Why say anything? There doesn’t seem to be much need.”
He poured some brandy into a glass and added a little soda.
“You take it pretty stiff,” observed his lordship, with a touch of envy.
“On occasions,” said Jimmy, emptying his glass.
As Jimmy sat smoking a last cigarette in his bedroom before going to bed that night Spike Mullins came in. Jimmy had been thinking things over. He was one of those men who are at their best in a losing game. Imminent disaster always had the effect of keying him up and putting an edge on his mind. The news he had heard that night had left him with undiminished determination, but conscious that a change of method would be needed. He must stake all on a single throw now. Young Lochinvar rather than Romeo must be his model. He declined to believe himself incapable of getting anything that he wanted as badly as he wanted Molly. He also declined to believe that she was really attached to Lord Dreever. He suspected the hand of McEachern in the affair, though the suspicion did not clear up the mystery by any means. Molly was a girl of character, not a feminine counterpart of his lordship, content meekly to do what she was told in a matter of this kind. The whole thing puzzled him.
“Well, Spike?” he said.
He was not too pleased at the interruption. He was thinking, and he wanted to be alone.
Something appeared to have disturbed Spike. His bearing was excited.
“Say, boss! Guess what. You know dat guy dat come dis afternoon?—de guy from de village, dat came wit old man McEachern.”
“Galer?” said Jimmy. “What about him?”
There had been an addition to the guests at the castle that afternoon. Mr. McEachern, walking in the village, had happened upon an old New York acquaintance of his, who, touring England, had reached Dreever and was anxious to see the historic castle. Mr. McEachern had brought him thither, introduced him to Sir Thomas, and now Mr. Samuel Galer was occupying a room on the same floor as Jimmy’s. He had appeared at dinner that night, a short, wooden-faced man, with no more conversation than Hargate. Jimmy had not paid any particular attention to him.
“What about him?” he said.
“He’s a ‘sleut’, boss.”
“A what?”
“A ‘sleut’.”
“A detective?”
“Dat’s right. A fly cop.”
“What makes you think that?”
“T’ink! Why, I can tell dem by deir eyes and deir feet, and de whole of dem. I could pick out a fly cop from a bunch of a t’ousand. He’s sure a ’nough ‘sleut’ all right, all right. I seen him rubbering at you, boss.”
“At me! Why at me? Why, of course, I see now. Our friend McEachern has got him in to spy on us.”
“Dat’s right, boss.”
“Of course you may be mistaken.”
“Not me, boss. And, say, he ain’t de only one.”
“What, more detectives? They’ll have to put up ‘House Full’ boards at this rate. Who’s the other?”
“A mug what’s down in de soivants’ hall. I wasn’t so sure of him at foist, but now I’m on to his curves. He’s a sleut all right. He’s vally to Sir Tummas, dis second mug is; but he ain’t no vally! He’s come to see no one don’t get busy wit de jools. Say, what do youse t’ink of dem jools, boss?”
“Finest I ever saw.”
“Yes, dat’s right. A hundred thousand plunks dey set him back. Dey’re de limit, ain’t dey? Say, won’t you really——”
“Spike, I’m surprised at you! Do you know you’re getting a regular Mephistopheles, Spike? Suppose I hadn’t an iron will, what would happen? You really must select your subjects of conversation more carefully. You’re bad company for the likes of me.”
Spike shuffled despondently.
“But, boss——”
Jimmy shook his head.
“It can’t be done, my lad.”
“But it can, boss,” protested Spike. “It’s dead easy. I’ve been up to de room, and I seen de box what de jools is kept in. Why, it’s de softest ever! We could get dem as easy as pullin’ de plug out of a bottle. Why, say, dere’s never been such a peach of a place for gettin’ hold of de stuff as dis house. Dat’s right, boss. Why, look what I got dis afternoon, just snoopin’ round and not really trying to get busy at all. It was just lying about.”
He plunged his hand into his pocket and drew it out again. As he unclosed his fingers Jimmy caught the gleam of precious stones.
“What the——” he gasped.
Spike was looking at his treasure-trove with an air of affectionate proprietorship.
“Where on earth did you get those?” asked Jimmy.
“Out of one of de rooms. Dey belonged to one of de loidies. It was de easiest old t’ing ever, boss. I just went in when dere was nobody around, and dere dey was on de toible. I never butted into anyt’ing so soft.”
“Spike!”
“Yes, boss.”
“Do you remember the room you took them from?”
“Sure. It was de foist on de——”
“Then just listen to me for a moment, my bright boy. When we’re at breakfast to-morrow you want to go to that room and put those things back—all of them, mind you—just where you found them. Do you understand?”
Spike’s jaw had fallen.
“Put dem back, boss?” he faltered.
“Every single one of them.”
“Boss!” said Spike plaintively.
“Remember—every single one of them, just where it belongs. See?”
“Very well, boss.”
The dejection in his voice would have moved the sternest to pity. Gloom had enveloped Spike’s spirit. The sunlight had gone out of his life.
It had also gone out of the lives of a good many other people at the castle. This was mainly due to the growing shadow of the day of the theatricals.
For pure discomfort there are few things in the world that can compete with the final rehearsals of an amateur theatrical performance at a country house. Every day the atmosphere becomes more heavily charged with restlessness and depression. The producer of the piece, especially if he is also the author of it, develops a sort of intermittent insanity. He plucks at his moustache, if he has one; at his hair, if he has not. He mutters to himself. He gives vent to occasional despairing cries. The soothing suavity which marked his demeanour in the earlier rehearsals disappears.
He no longer says with a winning smile, “Splendid, old man, splendid! Couldn’t be better. But I think we’ll take that over just once more, if you don’t mind.” Instead, he rolls his eyes and snaps out, “Once more, please. This’ll never do. At this rate we might just as well cut out the show altogether. What’s that? No, it won’t be all right on the night! Now, then, once more; and do pull yourselves together this time.” After which the scene is sulkily resumed; and conversation, when the parties concerned meet subsequently, is cold and strained.
Matters had reached this stage at the castle. Everybody was thoroughly tired of the piece, and, but for the thought of the disappointment which (presumably) would rack the neighbouring nobility and gentry if it were not to be produced, would have resigned their places without a twinge of regret. People who had schemed to get the best and longest parts were wishing now that they had been content with First Footman or Giles, a villager.
“I’ll never run an amateur show again as long as I live,” confided Charteris to Jimmy, almost tearfully. “It’s not good enough. Most of them aren’t word-perfect yet.”
“It’ll be all right——”
“Oh, don’t say it’ll be all right on the night.”
“I wasn’t going to,” said Jimmy. “I was going to say it’ll be all right after the night. People will soon forget how badly the thing went.”
“You’re a nice, comforting sort of man, aren’t you?” said Charteris.
“Why worry?” said Jimmy. “If you go on like this, it’ll be Westminster Abbey for you in your prime. You’ll be getting brain fever.”
Jimmy himself was one of the few who were feeling reasonably cheerful. He was deriving a keen amusement at present from the manoeuvres of Mr. Samuel Galer, of New York. This lynx-eyed man, having been instructed by Mr. McEachern to watch Jimmy, was doing so with a thoroughness which would have aroused the suspicions of a babe. If Jimmy went to the billiard-room after dinner, Mr. Galer was there to keep him company. If, during the course of the day, he had occasion to fetch a handkerchief or a cigarette-case from his bedroom, he was sure, on emerging, to stumble upon Mr. Galer in the corridor. The employees of Dodson’s Private Inquiry Agency believed in earning their salaries.
Occasionally, after these encounters, Jimmy would come upon Sir Thomas Blunt’s valet, the other man in whom Spike’s trained eye had discerned the distinguishing marks of the sleuth. He was usually somewhere round the corner at these moments, and when collided with apologised with great politeness. Jimmy decided that he must have come under suspicion in this case vicariously, through Spike. Spike, in the servants’ hall, would, of course, stand out conspicuously enough to catch the eye of a detective on the look out for sin among the servants; and he himself, as Spike’s employer, had been marked down as a possible confederate.
It tickled him to think that both these giant brains should be so greatly exercised on his account.
He had been watching Molly closely during these days. So far no announcement of the engagement had been made. It struck him that possibly it was being reserved for public mention on the night of the theatricals. The whole county would be at the castle then. There could be no more fitting moment. He sounded Lord Dreever, and the latter said moodily that he was probably right.
“There’s going to be a dance of sorts after the show,” he said, “and it’ll be done then, I suppose. No getting out of it after that—it’ll be all over the county. Trust my uncle for that! He’ll get on a table and shout it, shouldn’t wonder, and it’ll be in the Morning Post next day and Katie’ll see it. Only two days more! Oh, Lord!”
Jimmy deduced that Katie was the Savoy girl, concerning whom his lordship had vouchsafed no particulars save that she was a ripper and hadn’t a penny.
Only two days! Like the Battle of Waterloo, it was going to be a close-run affair. More than ever now he realised how much she meant to him, and there were moments when it seemed to him that she, too, had begun to understand. That night on the terrace seemed somehow to have changed their relationship. He thought he had got closer to her—they were in touch. Before she had been frank, cheerful, unembarrassed; now he noticed a constraint in her manner, a curious shyness. There was a barrier between them, but it was not the old barrier. He had ceased to be one of a crowd.
But it was a race against time. The first day slipped by, a blank, and the second, till now it was but a matter of hours. The last afternoon had come.
Not even Mr. Samuel Galer, of Dodson’s Private Inquiry Agency, could have kept a more unflagging watch than did Jimmy during those hours. There was no rehearsal that afternoon, and the members of the company, in various stages of nervous collapse, strayed distractedly about the grounds. First one, then another, would seize upon Molly, while Jimmy, watching from afar, cursed their pertinacity.
At last she wandered off alone, and Jimmy quitting his ambush, followed.
She walked in the direction of the lake. It had been a terribly hot, oppressive afternoon. There was thunder in the air. Through the trees the lake glistened invitingly.
She was standing at the water’s edge when Jimmy came up. Her back was turned. She was rocking with her foot a Canadian canoe that lay alongside the bank. She started as he spoke. His feet on the soft turf had made no sound.
“Can I take you out on the lake?” he said.
She did not answer for a moment. She was plainly confused.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I—I’m waiting for Lord Dreever.”
Jimmy saw that she was nervous. There was tension in the air. She was looking away from him, out across the lake, and her face was flushed.
“Won’t you?” he said.
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
Jimmy looked over his shoulder. Down the lower terrace was approaching the long form of his lordship. He walked with pensive jerkiness, not as one hurrying to a welcome tryst. As Jimmy looked up he vanished behind the great clump of laurels which stood on the lowest terrace. In another minute he would appear round them.
Gently, but with extreme despatch, Jimmy placed a hand on either side of Molly’s waist. The next moment he had swung her off her feet and lowered her carefully on to the cushions in the bow of the canoe.
Then, jumping in himself with a force that made the boat rock, he loosed the mooring-rope, seized the paddle and pushed off.
In making love, as in every other branch of life, consistency is the quality most to be aimed at. To hedge is fatal. A man must choose the line of action which he judges to be best suited to his temperament, and hold to it without deviation. If Lochinvar snatches the maiden up on to his saddlebow he must continue in that vein. He must not fancy that, having accomplished the feat, he can resume the episode on lines of devotional humility. Prehistoric man, who conducted his courtship with a club, never fell into the error of apologising when his bride complained of headache.
Jimmy did not apologise. The idea did not enter his mind. He was feeling prehistoric. His heart was beating fast and his mind was in a whirl, but the one definite thought that came to him during the first few seconds of the journey was that he ought to have done this earlier. This was the right way—pick her up and carry her off and leave uncles and fathers and butter-haired peers of the realm to look after themselves. This was the way—alone together in their own little world of water with nobody to interrupt and nobody to overhear. He should have done it before. He had wasted precious, golden time hanging about while futile men chatted to her of things that could not possibly be of interest. But he had done the right thing at last—he had got her. She must listen to him now. She could not help listening. They were the only inhabitants of this new world.
He looked back over his shoulder at the world they had left. The last of the Dreevers had rounded the clump of laurels, and was standing at the edge of the water, gazing perplexedly after the retreating canoe.
“These poets put a thing very neatly sometimes,” said Jimmy, reflectively, as he dug the paddle into the water. “The man who said ‘Distance lends enchantment to the view’, for instance. Dreever looks quite nice when you see him as far away as this, with a good strip of water in between.”
Molly, gazing over the side of the boat into the lake, abstained from feasting her eyes on the picturesque spectacle.
“Why did you do it?” she said, in a low voice.
Jimmy shipped the paddle and allowed the canoe to drift. The ripple of the water against the prow sounded clear and thin in the stillness. The world seemed asleep. The sun blazed down, turning the water to flame. The air was hot with the damp, electric heat that heralds a thunderstorm. Molly’s face looked small and cool in the shade of her big hat. Jimmy, as he watched her, felt that he had done well. This was, indeed, the way.
“Why did you do it?” she said again.
“I had to.”
“Take me back.”
“No.”
He took up the paddle and placed a broader strip of water between the two worlds, then paused once more.
“I have something to say to you first,” he said.
She did not answer. He looked over his shoulder again. His lordship had disappeared.
“Do you mind if I smoke?”
She nodded. He filled his pipe carefully and lit it. The smoke moved sluggishly up through the still air. There was a long silence. A fish jumped close by, falling back in a shower of silver drops. Molly started at the sound and half turned.
“That was a fish,” she said, as a child might have done.
Jimmy knocked the ashes out of his pipe.
“What made you do it?” he asked abruptly echoing her own question.
She drew her fingers slowly through the water without speaking.
“You know what I mean. Dreever told me.”
She looked up with a flash of spirit, which died away as she spoke.
“What right?” She stopped and looked away again.
“None,” said Jimmy. “But I wish you would tell me.”
She hung her head. Jimmy bent forward and touched her hand.
“Don’t,” he said. “For Heaven’s sake, don’t! You mustn’t.”
“I must,” she said miserably.
“You shan’t! It’s wicked.”
“I must. It’s no good talking about it—it’s too late.”
“It’s not. You must break it off to-day.”