The Project Gutenberg eBook of Scissors
    
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Scissors
        A novel of youth

Author: Cecil Roberts

Release date: April 27, 2025 [eBook #75969]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1923

Credits: Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCISSORS ***







  SCISSORS

  _A NOVEL OF YOUTH_


  BY

  CECIL ROBERTS



  NEW YORK
  FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
  MCMXXIII




  Copyright, 1923, by
  FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

  All Rights Reserved

  Published, March 29, 1923
  Second Printing, April 14, 1923
  Third Printing, June 29, 1923


  Printed in the United States of America


  VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY
  BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK




  TO
  H. C. BRODIE




CONTENTS


BOOK I

EAST


BOOK II

WEST


BOOK III

GROWTH


BOOK IV

LIFE


BOOK V

THE NEW WORLD


BOOK VI

EAST AGAIN




BOOK I

EAST



SCISSORS


CHAPTER I

A cold spray blew over the deck of the steamer as it left the calm
waters of the Bosphorus, making for the open and wind-swept expanse
of the Black Sea.  Although it was springtime, and the promise of
summer had made Constantinople a city of warmth and cheerfulness, the
wind cut through the shivering crowd on the deck of the
Austrian-Lloyd boat.  A north-easterly gale was blowing from the
Russian Steppes, and at intervals, through mists and clouds closing
and parting, the passengers caught glimpses of the Anatolian coast
with its long mountainous barricade rising from the surf-beaten strip
of shore.  In lee of the deck-houses there was also a nurse, a
fresh-complexioned English girl, in charge of a boy of seven,
evidently the son of the Englishman and his wife.  The Captain of the
steamer, an Austrian, regarded the strange party from time to time,
for it was rarely that Englishmen came to this part of the world, and
seldom were they accompanied by their women folk.  Impelled by his
curiosity, he approached the tall stranger who had now risen and was
surveying his fellow passengers with amused interest.

"You make to Trebizond, sir?" he asked, in broken English.

"No, for Samsoon."

"Ah--then you are of those who make the harbour there.  It is a good
scheme.  The English have much wisdom, but it is a terrible land," he
continued, and swept his hand expressively toward the grey coastland.
"Barbarians there--Turks, Armenians, Greeks, Syrians, Circassians,
Kurds, and some Americans, they go everywhere, like the English.  Ah,
a terrible land."  He shuddered and drew his fingers across his
throat, and then rolled his eyes as if the country transcended all
words at his command.

"Do you know Asia Minor?" asked the stranger.  "I am going to Amasia."

"That is inland--a place of the wolves, the bandits--no, I would
never tread that soil.  It is enough to sail the sea.  The Black
Sea--ough!"  And once more he shuddered.  "The lady--is it that she
goes there, and the child?"

"Yes, I have business in Amasia."

"That is the illness of the English,--business, for this they come to
these lands.  They are great fools, and brave fools, sir!  The sea is
more safe.  I hope soon never more to see this coast.  I will live in
Vienna.  Ah! one can live in Vienna, but there!--"  He gave a short
laugh and then went about his work.

But as Charles Dean leaned over the taffrail and watched the flowing
coastline dimly streaming into distance, it was not without a
stirring of deep interest.  This was the classic land of great
adventure; they were near the coast of Phoenicia; behind that range
was Sidon, looking towards Palestine.  This sea had seen Jason and
his Argonauts searching the coast of Colchis for the Golden Fleece.
All the ancient world of the Greeks was here, and the tides of
barbaric splendour had swept over that land; Greek, Roman, Byzantine
and Ottoman rulers had shaped its destiny.  It was the great
battlefield of the world; the Greeks sailing for Troy, the Ten
Thousand, had all known that shore and the mountains still slept by
the thundering seas as in the days of Alexander and of Caesar.  Peak
after peak of those mountains with their historic names arose and
looked inland, the mountains of Ionia, Ida and Casia, of Bithynia,
Pontus and Paphlogonia; violet and blue and amethyst, they stretched
like sleeping animals in the March sunlight, clothed with a forest
growth and fringed with pine trees.

So all day long the little steamer went along its pathway of foam;
during those hours, Charles Dean and his wife were sustained by the
excitement of their entry into a new world.  The last four years of
their lives had been spent in journeying from city to city, from
country to country.  Amsterdam, Berlin and Bordeaux had held them for
a short time.  Eastwards then Charles Dean received a call from the
trading company employing him, this time to Constantinople.  That had
been the pleasantest of all their sojournings in foreign lands.  The
city of mosques and minarets, with its beautiful gardens and golden
sea, had seemed like a dream from one of the Arabian Nights'
Entertainments.  And now the gradual extension eastwards of business,
was carrying them to Amasia, the city unknown, dwelling inland behind
that great mountain barrier.  It was a strange life, yet not without
its fascinations.  Mary Dean insisted upon accompanying her husband.
She had the choice of remaining in England, but she swept it aside
unhesitatingly.  Devoid of fear and devoted to her husband, she went
with him from land to land.  With them also went their young son,
John Narcissus Dean.  Narcissus! exclaimed everybody, hearing the
name.  "Yes, Narcissus," answered handsome Charles Dean solemnly,
while the light of humour danced in his grey eyes; and then followed
the story of that honeymoon in Naples, when Mary, after seeing the
famous statue of "Narcissus listening to Echo," had pleaded with her
young husband, assisted by a Jew curio shopkeeper, for a copy she
coveted.  "But I want a real Narcissus," whispered the young man,
pressing her hand quietly, while the Jew dusted the expensive bronzes
on his counter.

"You shall have one--if I can have this," she answered roguishly.  He
nearly kissed her in boyish ecstasy.  "Done!" he cried--"and we'll
call him 'Narcissus.'"

Charles Dean was not only a man who kept to his word, but also to his
joke.  The announcement of the birth of John Narcissus at the
historic manor of "Fourways" filled old Sir Neville, the grandfather,
with delight and protest; a boy--excellent, Narcissus--preposterous!
But Charles was obstinate, Mary amused, and Sir Neville protested
anew.  It was like Charles--independent, obstinate Charles, who had
always been so irrational.  It might have been expected of a man who
had thrown up a diplomatic career to breed horses, which he could not
afford to breed, who had married penniless Mary Loughton, his
land-agent's pretty daughter.  Charles had always been the fool in
contrast with Henry, his level-headed elder brother.  Sir Neville did
not protest long,--he died one month after the coming of the
grandchild with the freak name; and although all babies seem to look
alike, many ladies, calling on the young mother, vowed the child was
a veritable Narcissus--so handsome, so bonnie, so--

The new baronet made one formal protest, but Henry knew well he could
do nothing with his odd-minded brother; still, as uncle, head of the
family, and sixth baronet, he felt he had some right to protest
against "Narcissus," if not for himself, then for his own boys, who
were cousins to this piece of Greek mythology.  The young parents
only laughed, and John Narcissus, as if seeing the joke, gurgled
whenever he was shown the statue and told to grow up like it--not
altogether of course, for the statue proved to be cracked over the
left breast, where the dealer had carefully kept his thumb.

Sir Henry, annoyed, kept aloof.  When he heard that Charles had
ruined himself and lost "Fourways" in a mad scheme to sink a shaft,
over-persuaded by a gang of company promoters, he declared he was in
no way surprised, shrugged his shoulders, and waited to see what
would happen now.  The sale of "Fourways," its contents and its
horses, must have been a hard blow for Charles, but he certainly gave
no sign when he called to say "Goodbye," before taking a position as
continental agent offered him by an old friend.

"And--the boy?" asked Sir Henry, unable to make himself pronounce the
ridiculous name.

"He is going with us."

"What--all over the Continent!" cried the astounded baronet.  "You
can't take a boy there--why not send him to school?"

"He's too young--we want him--and I don't believe in preparatory
schools."

"Crank!" exclaimed Sir Henry to her ladyship when his brother had
gone.

Thus came John Narcissus Dean to be swinging his sturdy legs on a box
aboard an Austrian-Lloyd steamer bound for Samsoon.  He was a fine
boy, well matured for his seven years, and already he had a manner of
command which made a slave of his devoted nurse Anna, a big
fresh-coloured country girl, one of the small group that had
gathered, seven years before, at the foot of the staircase at
"Fourways."  Anna had never intended going to Asia Minor, which she
looked upon with the same horror as she did the South Sea Islands.
Her first excursion, to Amsterdam, had been taken with great daring.
Only love of the child she nursed and the mistress she served, could
have prevailed upon her to leave England, for as all the peasant
class, she had a loathing of foreigners.  But from Amsterdam to
Berlin had not seemed so far, and then the change to Bordeaux was
like coming half-way home, so she remained with the family, and, as
the years went by, became more tightly bound by affection to her
young charge.  For, however much she admired her mistress, she never
doubted for one moment that, without her, young John Narcissus could
not live.  She had nursed him from a baby, was familiar with all his
complaints, and also his moods, which were peculiar and trying.

It was Anna alone who could curb those terrible fits of passion which
so alarmed the fond parents.  The child had a way of working himself
into a fanatical frenzy when pleased by anything.  At first these
moods had been attributed to infant naughtiness and had been
punished, but without result.  An eminent Berlin specialist, whom
they had consulted in distress, had said that the child's brain was
abnormally developed.  He was to be humoured and closely watched.
With time and careful guarding he would outgrow those storms of
passion and ecstasy.  So Anna immediately took the specialist's words
to heart.  Without her the child would not live.  When the change to
Constantinople was announced, her first intention was to give notice.
She did not object to France or Holland, but Turkey was a barbarian
country where Christians were crowded together and shot at with bows
and arrows, or cut to a thousand pieces with terrible knives like
those which grocers used for carving hams.  But she could not think
of leaving the child; and, after all, she had been to Berlin, which
was almost half-way across Europe.  She decided to go to
Constantinople, for the more she considered the matter the firmer
grew her conviction that her master and mistress were mad.

When therefore, one morning, seated on the deck of the steamer as it
entered Samsoon roads, she was told by Mr. Dean that the white path,
climbing past the squalid little houses up the mountain side, winding
in and out like a ribbon, was the way to old Baghdad, the ancient
city of Haroun-al-Raschid and Sinbad the Sailor, she wondered
whatever her people, far away at home, would think when they heard
she was travelling in these fairy-tale lands.  The only real things
in her amazing life were John and his father and mother.  She looked
at John as he sat swinging his brown legs on the side of a box, and
wondered that such a morsel of life should drag her across the world
into strange and terrible lands.

The passage ashore was made in a small boat, and the adventure was a
somewhat perilous one, for the frail craft was swept by the waters.
They were finally landed on the beach some distance away from the
town.  Here a small crowd of customs officials and Turkish luggage
porters met them; then they were driven along the front of the town
in an _arabya_, a native conveyance with curtains for warding off the
sun, drawn by one horse in the control of a Turkish driver.

And now the irresistible glamour which the East throws over the
hearts of all who venture into her domain, entranced the small party
as it was driven for some two miles along the edge of a sandy yellow
beach into the town of Samsoon.

The buildings were low and inelegant; the streets narrow and filled
with that accumulation of smells and filth that are to be found in
all cities under Ottoman rule.  But there was, despite these
disadvantages, a definite charm in the little town of forty thousand
souls.  Samsoon is the one accessible port lying on the fringe of a
tableland containing the richest cornfields and tobacco country of
the world.  The city itself was built at the great gate of the
mountains over which the roads wind through the few low passes along
that impregnable coast.  It was the gate of that great historic
highway running through Turkey in Asia, along which all the traffic
had rolled for centuries.  It was traffic that had scarcely altered
in any detail since the day of the Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid; the
sight which met the eyes of Charles Dean and his family was one that
had greeted the traveller for the last ten hundred years.

As the _arabya_ climbed up the steep road leading to the centre of
the town, it breasted a stream of traffic coming down from the high
pass.  Young John shouted with glee as the solemn camels trudged by,
their bells tinkling, their backs loaded with great bales of
merchandise.  Wagons, bullock-carts, donkeys, packhorses, _arabyas_
and men carrying great bundles, all seemed destined for one place,
the block of warehouses above the harbour.  Here and there a tired
camel knelt for rest in the shade of a wayside tree.  The drivers
were vivid figures in their white cloaks, dusty and travel stained,
while beside them moved, talked, and gesticulated such a mixture of
races and colours that the eye was dazzled with the indistinguishable
medley of blue, scarlet, gold, yellow and green gowns and cloaks,
nearly all richly embroidered; and above all, rose the noise of
innumerable bells in all keys, some ringing deep and slow, others
tinkling incessantly as the donkeys wound by, urged on by cries and
blows.

Sounds, colours, smells, all mingled in this small town, along this
crowded highway, and Charles Dean was not slow to notice the
prosperity of the place.  Every man and animal was burdened with
merchandise of some kind.  Carts rolled by with shrieking axles,
loaded with wheat and barley.  The camels were weighed down under
great bales of wool, tobacco, mohair and boxes of fruit and nuts.
Brown-legged boys from the hills drove their flocks down the main
street.  They had started for the town at early dawn, and by eleven
were in Samsoon, a distance of twenty miles.  They were chiefly
Turks, but occasionally one noticed the sharp features and clear skin
of a Syrian youth, or the dark lean profile of a Circassian, always
mounted and belted with daggers and pistols.  The Greeks too were in
evidence, walking about with a superior air of possession, for they
and the Armenians were the chief citizens.  They kept the shops and
ran the small hotels and cafés.

That night, Dean and his family slept in Samsoon, but they were early
astir, and after a short call at the local office of his company,
Dean, with his wife, child and nurse, were seated in the curtained
_arabya_ with a Moslem driver urging his two cream ponies along the
high street.  They were now travelling on the Baghdad road, and they
had for companions on the way an unending line of betasselled camels,
with great bells clanging as they lurched forwards, caravans winding
slowly up the mountain side, and many _arabyas_ loaded with human
beings or boxes, which once, to Dean's amazement, included American
sewing machines destined for Baghdad.  There were also many
picturesque pedestrians or travellers on the humble donkey.  For
miles the broad road climbed up the side of the great ravine.  Early
in the afternoon they passed through Chakallu, the Place of Jackals,
a village in the deep valley, and twilight found them at their first
halting place.  The town of Marsovan lay amid vineyards, orchards,
and walnut groves.  Above the flat-topped houses towered the slender
minaret, rose tinted with the flush of waning light.  Around the
town, beyond the open plains, stretched the dark mountain ranges
running north and south.  As they descended into the town the driver
pointed with his whip to an enormous blue precipice which towered up
on the distant horizon some thirty miles away.

"Amasia," he said briefly, and Charles Dean and his wife looked at
the distant horizon where lay the city in which they were destined to
abide.  In Marsovan they were fortunate in finding an American
Medical Settlement where they were hospitably entertained for the
night.  It was with regret that they set out next morning for Amasia.
It had been a great delight to live for a space among English
speaking persons, to exchange opinions with the cheerful nurses and
listen to the tales of the resident doctors.  There was even an
English garden, a fresh, green, home-like space within the walled
compound, bordered with cherry trees and Easter lilies.  Here at
least was a place of refuge when the solitude of Amasia became
unbearable, and as Mary Dean drove out of the courtyard and waved
farewell to the little group of women gathered to speed their guests,
she looked back with a feeling of comfort.  She would be but a day's
journey from them, and those who know what the sound of one's native
speech means in an alien land will realise the comfort Mary Dean
derived from the workers of the Mission.

The road to Amasia was a gradual crescendo of delight.  The soft blue
mountain ranges towered up above the travellers as they approached
the entrance of the gorge.  Here and there a column of smoke wound up
the mountainside from the fires of the charcoal burners, whose little
tents were pitched on the slopes.  It was afternoon when they entered
the ravine along which the white road wound into the town.  Above
them they saw the Baghdad road, on the opposite side of the ravine,
half obscured by the clouds of dust thrown up by the miscellaneous
traffic of carts, herds, camels and donkeys driving into the town.
Now the plain appeared, and the vision stretched before them was like
a new garden of Eden, a land flowing with colour, and scents from
luxurious gardens.  The smooth, quickly flowing river tumbled over
its weirs; they could hear the singing of the water and the creaking
of water mills built along the banks.  The great crags stretched
sheer to the sky, blazing with crimson shrubs in the bright, hot
sunlight, and the further they progressed, the richer, the more
varied grew the colours of this wonderful land.

Presently with a sharp turn in the road, they emerged from the rocky
ravine into a tremendous gorge, with Amasia nestling between the
folds of the towering mountains.  The town itself was a maze of
little white houses, dotted here and there in the small fertile
valley, and stretching along the two banks of the Yeshil Innak.  A
dozen bridges, all of quaint design, some going back to Roman times,
spanned the bright river, and above the banks rose the minarets of
the mosques, khans, colleges and public buildings.  The best houses
built along the river each possessed wonderful hanging gardens
blazing with luxuriant growths of semi-tropical plants and fruits,
but the wonder of Amasia lay, not in the gardens or buildings, but in
the immense cliffs that walled in the town from the outer world.
These precipices, scarcely a mile apart, rose up on each side of the
town to heights of three thousand feet on the western and more than a
thousand on the eastern side.  They did not rise as mountains, but
seemed to be walls of rocks guarding the town.  A castle stood boldly
silhouetted against the bronze sky, perched on a frowning crag
dominating the town.  This was indeed an ancient dwelling place, an
old world town of wonder, where history seemed to sleep, for Amasia
was once the capital of Pontus, the home of the great Seljuks, the
birthplace of Mithridates the Great.  On the face of the western
precipice there were still the five rock-hewn Tombs of the Kings.
When Strabo wrote of them in B.C. 65, he was telling an ancient
story, yet they remained untouched as when he had seen them.

As Charles Dean and his family drove into the town it was early
afternoon, but already one half of the place was in shadow, the other
half blazed with sunlight streaming over the western precipice.  They
were driven through the main street, a well observed party, giving as
much interest as they found.  The company employing Dean had a house
for its agent on the outskirts of the town and to that they made
their way.  Presently they turned off from the road and went down a
slope which led them through a beautiful garden into a small
courtyard.  Here, their home came into view, and as the large, low,
white-faced building rose up among the trees, they all gave a cry of
delight.  On one side ran a large pergola built of yellow stone and
black wood, leading to a garden which, even at this early time,
rioted in colour.  Beyond the pergola, approached by broad stone
steps, lay the river, bordered with trees beneath which several boats
were moored.  One end of the house, raised upon piles, overlooked the
river, with a wonderful view down the gorge towards the dazzling
minarets and towers of the town.

They had scarcely noticed this enchanting vista when the _arabya_
pulled up in front of a large porch, screened with a swinging rush
curtain.  Before it, with a smile of welcome on their faces, stood
the bronzed Englishman and his wife, whom Dean had come to relieve.

Greetings exchanged, they were led into a large, yellow room with
French windows opening on to a verandah.  Passing through the windows
they were confronted once more with the view down the gorge.  Tea was
laid, and the travellers were soon exchanging the news.  The agent,
Mr. Price, and his wife had been in Amasia for twelve years.  It was
six years since they had had their last holiday in England.  Now they
were going there, never to leave it again.

"And to think--in six weeks we shall walk down Piccadilly!" cried
Mrs. Price, the delight of anticipation in her voice.  "It is just
the same I suppose--the same crowds, the same lights and hurry?"

They laughed like children.  It was so good to think they would be in
England again.  It was a little cruel to show their joy in view of
the new exiles.  But six years away from England had filled them with
irresistible longing.  Their questions too were all of home.  The
political crisis--was it over?  The new Premier, how long did they
think he would be in power?  They had a boy at Winchester--was the
tone there still considered good?  He was sixteen--his mother fetched
a photograph from the drawer to show them.  He was going into the
consular service.

And then Mrs. Price turned to the little boy standing beside Mrs.
Dean.  Until now, his whole attention had been divided between the
novelty of his surroundings and the piece of cake he held in his
hand.  They hoped the summer heat would not be too intense for the
child.

"The poor little chap will find it lonely here," said Price, "unless
he makes friends with the Turkish children."  Privately he wondered
what insane motive had caused that couple to bring a child to this
extraordinary land.

"John has always been with us," remarked Mrs. Dean, as if reading his
thoughts.  "The child seems to be quite happy without playmates,
though of course, I devote most of my time to him."

And then they passed to business matters; the two women discussed
domestic arrangements, the men their own trading affairs.  Dinner was
served in the long yellow room that evening.  It was only six o'clock
and yet it was quite dark.  The light departed rapidly from the
gorge, for the moment the sun had dipped below the precipice, the
valley below was plunged into darkness.  But as they sat at dinner,
and looked out westwards over the mountain barrier, they could still
see the daylight lingering in the glowing sky.  A few stars glimmered
in the twilight, their brightness and the light blue sky contrasting
vividly with the black gorge and the dark running river.

They were waited upon at dinner by two Armenian boys clad in white
jackets with brass buttons.

"We have practically brought them up in our service," said Price.
"Their parents were killed in the last massacre."

"Massacre!"  Mrs. Dean dropped her hand on to the table and looked
across at the speaker--"When did the last occur?"

"Four years ago--it was a bad one too.  Some squabble in a bazaar
began it, I believe.  The Armenians here are skilful in trade.  They
make hard bargains, and the Turks never forget the fact.  There was a
dispute in the bazaar; it set a light to smouldering passion, and the
town was ablaze in half an hour.  These Moslems are curious people,
they kill deliberately, and though the massacre begins with a
frenzied outbreak, it goes on with a dispassionateness which is
terrible.  The Armenians immediately flocked to the bazaar.  It's in
a walled compound with strongly barred gates.  I had been out in the
country that morning and knew that something was astir.  The Turks
looked askance at me and were sulky whenever I spoke to them.  On
returning my wife begged me to go down to the bazaar and see what I
could do, for it is wonderful the weight we English have here.  The
Turks will listen to an Englishman, for they have never forgotten our
Consuls and their firm, honest treatment of them.

"So I went.  In front of the bazaar door, I found a horde of Moslems,
rifles and pistols in hand, waiting for their victims to emerge.  The
outbreak had occurred at ten o'clock that morning.  It was now four
in the afternoon and they showed no signs of dispersing.  I knew they
would wait there five or six days if necessary.  It was useless to
argue with them.  Moslem blood had been shed.  The Armenians would
have to bleed for it.  Finally I succeeded in obtaining a concession.
They would allow the women and children to go to their homes.  But
not the men, they said.  So the door was opened and the terrified
women and children passed out between a sullen crowd of Moslems.
When the last appeared in the gateway there was a rush, and I saw a
helpless woman surrounded by a mob of angry faces.  Pushing my way
towards her, I attempted to give her my protection but before I could
reach her, she fell forwards, stabbed in the back, and as she fell, I
saw that the Turks had not broken their word.  Under the folds of the
garment covering her was the Armenian pastor who had tried to escape
in disguise.  There was a murmur of intense satisfaction at this
slaying of the leader of the hated community.  In all these affairs,
the pastor is the first to go; they seek him out as the figurehead,
and these poor leaders of a timid flock know that; you can see
perpetual melancholy in their faces, hear it in their voices.  But
they are brave men, and there is never any lack of pastors.  These
two boys who wait on us are the sons of that unfortunate man."

There was a long silence; then, fearing he had alarmed his guests,
Price added in a cheerful voice--

"Still, they never touch us you know.  European blood is sacred to
them, and I have always found the Turks very docile, but if you are
wise, you will keep in when the drums begin to drone."

"The drums?" asked Dean, eager for information, although he could see
his wife was being unnerved.

"Harry," interposed Mrs. Price, "don't you think this is very trying
for Mrs. Dean--she has only--"

"Oh! please go on!" cried Mrs. Dean, "--there's no safety in
ignorance."

"Well--you can generally surmise that trouble is brewing when you
hear the drums begin to drone.  They start at sunset and grow louder
towards midnight.  It is an awful sound, weird, oriental.  You will
probably hear a few of them to-night, there's always a strolling
drummer entertaining at one of the khans.  When trouble is brewing
however, there's not one drum, but hundreds.  They sound everywhere.
You hear them in the streets, down the gorge, up the mountain-side.
They sound as if Timur the Terrible was gathering his army again."
He broke off with a laugh, "Really, Dean, I shall give you all the
creeps--you are quite safe being English and life is very pleasant
here, but lonely at times.  You will find even Constantinople a
change--have you lived there?"

"We have been there two months," answered Dean.

"Two months!--then you will know Therapia--lovely Therapia!  We took
a bungalow there for two months each year.  I have a cousin at the
Embassy.  We had a delightful time--nights on the Bosphorus, gay
little parties embarking in _caiques_, sunset beyond Therapia, the
house parties at Buyukdereh.  Oh, it was enjoyable, but to think
now--Piccadilly, Oxford Circus, Henley week--days in Surrey!--there's
no place like England."

With a boyish gesture of delight, he pinched his wife's arm who
laughed gaily in response.

"We are now going to leave you to talk business," she said, rising.
"I am sure Mrs. Dean is tired and wants to go to bed, and we two will
have a busy day tomorrow."  And with that the two women said
good-night.  When they were gone, Dean and Price sat smoking for a
time.

"Come on to the verandah," said Price, leading the way.  "The moon
will be up soon, and moonrise here is one of the wonders of Asia."

They seated themselves in low wicker chairs.  It was so dark that it
was impossible to distinguish anything clearly.  There was a sound of
running water, and a muffled roar came back on the wind from the
place where the river leapt its weirs down in the gorge.  Price's
cigarette glowed red in the darkness with each draw he took.  The air
was perfumed and warm.  There was something in the atmosphere which
made the senses very acute.  It seemed as if one was waiting for
something to happen--the singing of the stream, the wandering breeze,
the perfume and the impenetrable darkness were all a prelude to the
first act of an unknown drama.  The silence grew so oppressive that
Dean felt he would have to speak or cry out.  He was about to force a
remark to his lips when his host suddenly sat erect, intently
listening, his face turned towards the valley.

"Listen!" he said after a pause.  "Can you hear anything?"

Even as he spoke, the other man heard a subdued sound.  It was borne
on a wind which died down, but gradually its note was more insistent,
deepening in tone until it seemed to make the darkness tremble.  As
Dean listened, he experienced a strange thrill creeping over him.
There was something so weird, so redolent of the strange land in that
music as it was borne along the gorge and gave expression to the
mystery of the night.  Such a sound it was as had been heard many
centuries ago when the invading Turkish hordes had swept over the
land.  Those drums had heralded the approach of Timur the Terrible on
his devastating march across Asia, leaving a track of blood behind,
his name sending terror in advance of his ruthless army.  The drum
now throbbing down the gorge had the same barbaric note, the same
sinister significance, and as Charles Dean listened he knew that this
city of old Asia had never changed from the days when the Seljuk
sultans ruled or Haroun-al-Raschid kept his court in Baghdad.

And then, as if to add to the wonder of the night, the two men became
aware of a slow change in the scene before them.  The objects in the
garden grew into vision slowly.  Along the gorge they could see the
houses and under them a chill light on the black swirling river.  The
dim minarets changed from blue sentinels of the darkness to long
white fingers pointing skywards.  And above the black edge of the
precipice it seemed no longer dark, for even as they looked and
wondered, the moon came up over the edge, round and full, with its
white face peering over the great wall shutting in the gorge.  The
scene before them was now one of indescribable beauty.  The little
white flat houses, the mosques and minarets and gardens, all
glimmered brightly in the serene light flooding the gorge.  As the
river ran between the banks, leaping the weirs and rocky
obstructions, it flashed silvery under the rays of the moon, and as
if to keep measure with this revelation, the drum-beats grew louder
and louder, throbbing in the perfumed air until the sound seemed to
be closing in from all sides.

How long they sat spellbound before this magic of the East they knew
not, but their inactivity was broken at last by the noise of a
footfall on the gravel below the verandah.  Instantly Price was on
his feet, peering over towards the garden.  His companion too had
heard the noise, and jumped up just in time to see a white figure
turn in the path and pass from sight under the darkness of the cherry
trees.

Both men looked at one another for the space of a second.

"I'm sure there's some one moving in the garden," said Dean.

"No one has any right in here."

They listened.  The drum droned louder than before and as the sound
died with the veering of the wind, they heard a footfall again, less
distinct.  The trespasser was going in the direction of the drum.

Without hesitation, Price vaulted lightly from the verandah to the
path below, his companion following.  Quickly they traversed the
downward slope until they reached a grove of cherry trees into which
Price plunged.  Behind him, Dean, following silently, heard his guide
give a short cry; peering into the shadow, he saw a small figure some
ten yards ahead, garbed from head to foot in a loose white gown,
which fluttered ghostlike in the moonlight.  Price, running now, had
caught the white form; when Dean came up, he turned to him with a
nervous laugh.  As the latter stopped, he gave a short cry of
surprise, wondering what trick the enchantment of the night was
playing upon his senses, for there, firmly held by Price, was his own
boy, barefooted, in his white nightgown, looking up with startled
eyes.

"John! what are you doing here?"  The father stooped and lifted up
his boy.  The child's face wore a half puzzled expression as if he
had suddenly been awakened from sleep and was dazzled by the light.
For a moment or so he gave no answer, but clutched the lapels of his
father's coat, his small frame shaking with fright.

"Daddy, I had to come!  Something called me, something--" and as if
unable or afraid to give words to the fear in his heart, he sobbed
violently in his father's arms.  It was in vain that Dean tried to
sooth the child; he shook from head to foot and clutched at his
father's hand in wild terror.  They carried the sobbing child
indoors, and when they had gained the lamplit drawing-room, calmness
had once more come over the child.  He looked about him and blinked
in the brilliant light like one waking from a dream.

Price pinched the boy's ear playfully--

"A nightmare, old son, eh?--you've been having too much cake!"

"How did you get out of bed?" asked the father, looking anxiously at
the boy.

"I don't know, Daddy--I can't remember until you found me."  It was
obvious that the child was speaking the truth.

"Well, we can't have you sleep-walking like this, John.  You'll
frighten your mother to death."

"Take the boy up to his room, Dean," said Price.  "What a good thing
it hasn't roused Mrs. Dean!  Come along, I'll show you the way, he's
sleeping next to your room."

They took the boy upstairs and placed him in his bed.  The child was
quite calm now and his head sank on the pillow as if heavy with
sleep.  For a minute Dean waited in the room and then stooped over
the bed.

"Will you be all right now, John?"  But there was no answer for John
was already fast asleep again, his head buried in the pillow.  The
two men tip-toed silently out of the room.  When they had gained the
verandah Price mixed himself a whiskey and soda.

"Drink?" he asked, with an ill-concealed attempt to be at his ease.

"No thanks."

There was a long silence; the two men were thinking.  Price knocked
the ash off his cigarette and watched its end until the glow died
down.

"Is John subject to those--er--to sleep-walking?" he asked at length,
making his enquiry as casual as possible.

"No, he's not.  I have never known him to do this before."

"H'm, perhaps the journey's upset him--the excitement; children are
easy victims of nightmare."

"Yes--do you think it was nightmare?" asked Dean.  His tone plainly
conveyed the belief that he thought otherwise.

"Of course!--why not?--the child has no reason for going down the
garden."

"Where does the path lead?"

"To the river--there's a footway into the town--it cuts off the bend
in the road."

"To the town?--towards the drum?"

Price started.  Dean had noticed then!  He gave a short laugh, and
got up and stretched his arms.

"Perhaps you'd like to turn in now?" he asked, and then as if
changing his mind, he sat down suddenly.

"Look here, Dean," he said earnestly, "I'll be quite frank--it is
perhaps better.  You've guessed what drew the boy out of his bed?"

"The drum?"

"Precisely--and you're right, I think, though we may be making a
silly mistake.  I would never have believed it myself, but it is
certainly curious."

"What?--the sleep-walking?" asked Dean.  "Because I'll say plainly
that I'm sure the boy wasn't sleep-walking, he was wide awake."

"You noticed it?"

"Yes, I did--but I can't account for his expression."

"His half-dazed look?"

"Yes--it was uncanny.  I've never seen John look like that before.
He seemed almost--"  Dean paused as if reluctant to use the word upon
his tongue.

"Hypnotised?" suggested Price.  The other nodded, and they both
relapsed into silence.

"I don't want to alarm you," said Price quietly, after a long pause,
"but this thing makes me half inclined to believe what I would never
credit.  Now, remember what I am going to tell you is only an old
legend.  There's hundreds of silly tales you will be told by the
natives here, if you encourage them to talk.  They spend nights
embellishing these yarns in the khans until they believe in their own
imaginations.  But it is as well you should know, in case to-night's
event may be repeated.  You noticed the boy went in the direction of
the drum?  Well, it's said that there are certain souls which can be
allured by the _saz_--that's the name of the drum.  They cannot
always be allured, only when the moon is full can the sound attract
the souls of its victims, but when that condition is fulfilled, there
is no power, save intervention by a person not under the influence,
which can break the spell--it's a silly tale of course, these old
khan entertainers always make the flesh creep."

"But the victims--you say they are allured--where?"

"I don't know, these old legend-spinners never say."

"But surely there is some point in this hypnotic influence--why are
they drawn by the sound?"

"It's a mystery--as I've said, there's no sense in the whole story.
What an ass I am to tell you all this.  It's late, hadn't we better
turn in?"

The change in the conversation was clumsy, and it did not deceive
Dean.

"You're keeping something back, Price--what is it?"

Price looked steadily at his interrogator.  It was evident that Dean
would go to the bottom of the subject.

"Oh,--er, there's not much else to be told, only a silly sort of
nightmare ending, that's all."

"What kind of ending--death?"

"Yes."

"Violent--dreadful?"

"Oh no, in fact, I should think rather sudden, or peaceful, that's
how it seemed to me."

"Then you've seen it?  Tell me all about it, Price."

"Really, Dean, you know this sort of thing is very stupid--a
coincidence, that's all, and I may have been mistaken."

"Perhaps so, but I want to hear."

"It happened three years ago, just such a night as this--full moon,
those damned drums droning away--when my _kavass_--the fellow who
takes me about the villages here, came running in.  He was in a
fearful state, so excited he could hardly speak.  Had I seen Hafiz?
he asked,--that was his son.  I told him I hadn't.  He said he had
seen him crossing the bottom garden, going towards the river path."

"Towards the drums?"

"Yes, we had heard them at dinner.  They were very loud that night.
I told the _kavass_ he was mistaken.  Hafiz couldn't have gone that
way, it was full moon and we should have seen him, but the old fellow
wouldn't be denied.  It was the drum of Timur, he said--no one could
resist it who heard.  I didn't know the story then, but the old
father was so distressed that I offered to go with him along the
path.  So taking my revolver, we set out.  We had gone about a mile
along the river's edge when we came to an old khan.  The drum was
being beaten inside, so we thought, but my _kavass_ said it was
impossible because the khan was roofless and no one lived in it.
Anyhow, we could hear the _saz_ droning away.  So we pushed open the
creaking old gateway.

"Inside the courtyard there was a pool, and a fountain that never
flowed.  The moon shone down on the pool which was so still that it
reflected the stars.  Round the old khan buildings ran the galleries,
in rectangular form.  The moon threw a deep blue shadow half across
the courtyard, and as we stood there, peering into the deserted
place, it seemed as if we had entered into a strange world where only
the shadows moved.  We stood there, I should think, for quite a
minute, transfixed by the silent beauty of the place, when the old
man suddenly gave a cry.  I followed his gaze and saw what he had
seen.  There, on the other side of the fountain, lay the naked body
of a youth.  At first I thought it was a marble statue, it was so
white and perfect in form, but the old man ran forward and as I came
up to him, I saw the head of the youth was covered with a mass of
loose, black curls.  The poor old father flung himself on his knees
and gathered up the body in his arms, sobbing as he did so.

"I never saw such a youth as Hafiz.  He was quite naked and the
whiteness of his flesh was intensified by the moonlight bathing his
body, and the head of black hair.  He had fallen sideways, with one
hand resting on his thigh, the other clenched and stretched out
towards the basin.  There was no sign of any struggle.  The face was
composed, just as if he had fallen asleep, and there was nothing on
the ground or anywhere about to suggest violence, but his clothes
were all missing and to me this was conclusive proof that robbery had
been the motive of the crime; no doubt he'd been strangled.  The poor
old father who had been speechless with grief for some time, shook
his head when I spoke of strangulation.  'No, effendi,' he said
quietly, with a touch of fatalism in his voice, 'It is the drum of
Timur--look!'  His finger pointed to the left breast of the youth,
and I saw what had escaped me in the first hurried examination.  Just
over the heart there was a short, red line, not the incision left by
a dagger, but such as a penknife might make.

"There was hardly any blood, a little stream had trickled down the
breast and dried.  I told the old fellow that his son had been shot,
but he only repeated, 'The drum of Timur,' and that was all he could
be got to say.  The _zaptiehs_ searched the khan the next day.  They
were stupid fellows, and shared the old man's conviction.  The fact
that the unfortunate youth's clothes were never found proved
conclusively, in my mind, that robbery had been the motive.  You
mustn't believe a tenth of all you hear out here.  Anyhow, Dean, when
the moon's full, watch your boy if you really think there's anything
in the tale.  I don't.  Why should John be attracted by the drum of
Timur, even if there were such a thing?--he's English, born in
England!  This is a native spell and only works upon those of Moslem
blood."

The two men talked on for a short time and Price watched his
companion closely; he was greatly relieved when he saw, on retiring,
that Dean had dismissed his strange apprehension.




CHAPTER II


I

On the verandah, under the shade thrown by the blossoming almond
tree, sat a boy who at first sight would seem to be some fourteen
years of age.  It was a hot day without the suspicion of a breeze,
and he stretched himself out in a wicker chair while he fanned
himself with a broad, soft-brimmed white hat.  He was dressed,
although it was only early spring, as boys in England dress in the
hottest days of summer, that is when they are holidaying and have
escaped the vigilance of their mothers.  A white cricket shirt, open
at the neck, showed a chest and throat tanned to a rich brown by the
suns of Asia Minor.  His face had the deep healthy tone of one who
had exposed himself to the fiercest heat of the sun, but the tan
could not hide the pink and red which mantled the clear skin of the
boy's face.  His head was covered with a disordered mass of brown
hair that had a tendency to curl.  The impression of all who saw
young John Dean, was that of a remarkably handsome English boy.  The
mouth was finely shaped, the nose straight, with a curious little
curve in the nostrils which gave at times an expression of disdain to
the face.  But the eyes were the arresting feature, they looked out
from beneath long lashes, with a light in them so luminous that they
appeared to be always on the verge of laughter.  John was now twelve
years of age, and not thirteen or fourteen as his robust frame
suggested.  Dressed in a pair of short white knickers, with a long
length of brown leg showing, his sleeves rolled up at the elbows, he
gave promise of a wonderful manhood.  For Charles Dean's whim was
daily growing true.  This straight tall boy had a classic mould that
followed the grace of the "Narcissus" which had given him his name.
And to this distinction was added a manner that attracted all.  The
boy's voice was clear, his laughter infectious; he had an air of
command which probably was half innate and partly due to being a
European among foreigners.  For he ruled his playmates imperiously.
The _arabya_ drivers who gave him many a lift along the roads, the
_zaptiehs_ whose rifles he handled, and whose stories he listened to
breathlessly, down to the Turkish and Armenian boys of his own age,
recognised without question his imperious will.  He was "John
effendi" in the eyes of all the inhabitants of Amasia, not only
because he was the son of the Englishman, but also by reason of that
will to rule.

But there was one follower of John effendi who not only respected and
obeyed, but worshipped silently.  It was Ali, the son of the
watermill owner.  Ali was a Turk and proud of his blood.  He was a
year older than John, tall, and in a different way quite as notable
as his friend.  He had fair wavy hair, always kept close-cropped.
His whole life had been spent playing on the banks of the Yeshil
Irmak, or the Iris as it was popularly called, and his young body was
lithe and brown as a panther's.  When he moved it was with the sleek
grace of that animal.  The muscles slid under their satiny sheaths
with a suggestion of cryptic strength.  He could run like a hare and
swim like an otter, accomplishments which quickly endeared him to
John who was his rival in all these things.  Ali, by his father's
position,--for he was a well-to-do, judged by oriental
standard--though more because of his own spirit and strength, was a
boy who reigned among his companions.  Only to one was he known to
give way, to John, whom he followed with an intense, doglike devotion.

It was of Ali that John was thinking this morning as he sat on the
verandah.  Where was Ali now?  Probably he had gone to the mosque
with his father, for it was nearing noon.  He wondered whether Ali
would come round to the house.  They had planned a great adventure
for that day.  They were to meet by the market drinking-fountain at
eleven o'clock and then to climb the great rock on whose summit stood
the castle.  Ali's uncle, the warden, was going to show them all the
dungeons and court rooms.  It would have been a wonderful treat, and
now he had been forbidden to leave the gardens because of a silly
suspicion of his father's.  Last night they had heard the drums
droning even louder than usual.  The sound grew to such a volume that
the whole gorge had reverberated with it, and it had awakened him
although he always slept soundly.  At breakfast his father had looked
worried, and it was plain to see from Anna's nervousness that
something was upsetting them.  His father had been in the garden soon
after rising, and he heard him tell Anna that Achmed was like a bear
with a sore head.  Then Anna did a mean thing.  She said, "Do you
think that John should go up to the Castle, sir," and his father
immediately said "No."  It was in vain that he pleaded that Ali
expected him.  Ali would have to go alone, he was forbidden to leave
the garden.

So John sat on the chair idly swinging one leg over the arm while he
fanned himself.  Anna was becoming a nuisance.  She had increased her
authority ever since his dear mother had died two years ago now.  The
thought of his mother led his mind back to the almond tree he and his
father had planted on the grave in the little cemetery of the
American Mission at Marsovan.  He remembered that day clearly,
because he could never forget seeing his father as he bent down,
stamping the soil about the roots of the sapling.  His father's
shoulders seemed to be twitching curiously and when John looked at
his face, he saw he was crying.  It was strange to see his father
cry, he did not know men could do that, and it hurt him so much, that
he had grasped his strong hand and cried "Don't Daddy!" which did not
improve matters, for his father had gathered him up in his arms and
pressed him to him until he could scarcely breathe.  And then John
too cried.  He would never forget that day.

If only his mother were living now, thought John; she would not let
Anna be so strict with him, although he knew that his nurse was like
a second mother.

As he sat there with nothing to do on this lovely morning, the spirit
of rebellion was strong within him.  Restless, he got up and ran down
the verandah steps towards the courtyard.  In front of the stable
door he paused, as if thinking, then swung back the door and entered.
It was but the work of a minute to saddle his pony.  There was just
time in which to reach the fountain and tell Ali that he could not go
and then be back for lunch with his father.

A few minutes later John was cantering down the highway into Amasia.
He passed the heavily laden camels trudging along with their
deep-sounding camel bells slowly tolling, a cloud of dust rising
about their pounding feet.  Now and then a Turk would greet the boy
with a profound salaam, but he could not help observing that the
greetings were not so cordial or numerous this morning.  A few of the
Turks he passed, who knew him well by sight, turned their faces away
as he went by, and John recalled his father's words when he had come
in from the garden before breakfast.  Had they all got sore heads, he
wondered.

In the market place he passed little groups that stood talking around
their merchandise spread out on the ground, but he had no time this
morning for sauntering in and out of the motley gathering.  When he
reached the fountain, it was exactly eleven o'clock but there was no
sign of Ali.  So dismounting, John slung the rein over his arm and
waited.  A number of dusty _arabyas_ rattled by, evidently coming in
from Marsovan.  Two Circassians, their coloured waist-bands gleaming
with dagger handles, and long breeched revolvers, rode up to the
fountain to water their horses, two superb animals which these wild
men rode as if born in the saddle.  With characteristic insolence
they pushed away a Turk who was watering his mule, and the angry old
fellow went off waving his arms and leaving a stream of abuse behind
him.

It was very hot and the increasing heat made John realise that it
must be getting near noon.  There was still no sign of Ali, but John
dared not wait any longer, for he knew the penalty he would have to
pay if his escapade were discovered.  So mounting his pony, he gave
it a flick with his whip and started off at a sharp canter on the way
home.  But he had not gone far before he became aware of a great
commotion in front of him where the street narrowed just at the
entrance to the bazaar.  A crowd of loose-cloaked Turks were seething
towards the door, and a frantic yelling broke on the boy's ears as he
approached.  Impelled by curiosity he urged his pony forward and soon
reached the fringe of the mob.  As he did so a Turk caught hold of
his rein and forced the pony back on its haunches.  The frightened
animal immediately wheeled and kicked out, scattering the dense crowd
left and right, and when the boy had managed to rein in his
frightened mount, he saw that he was hemmed in by the crowd, with his
back to the wall.

Even then he was not aware of the danger in which he stood, but at
his side in a heap, huddled against the wall, was a figure.  Hastily
looking down John saw it was a man.  One glance told him that the
Armenian was dead, and as he stared at the corpse, with its
bloodstained tunic, the yelling broke loose again, and the crowd
surged up towards him.  From the bazaar door another Armenian came
out.  Before the man saw his peril, his retreat was cut off, and he
flung himself behind the pony and the boy.  Mounted on his saddle,
John's head was just above those of the crowd, and as he looked down
upon the scowling angry mob, his heart thumped in his chest.

With set face, the boy backed his pony so as to cover the terrified
Armenian.  But the crowd would not be baulked of its prey, it was
determined to set blood flowing.  A bullet sang through the air and
hit the wall with a sharp thud, and a fat dirty Turk, drawing a
wicked-looking knife from his belt, tried to get between the Armenian
and his protector.  Instantly John raised his hand, the lash of his
whip whistled as it cut through the air, and the man backed with a
howl of rage and pain.  John raised his whip again, his eyes blazing
in his tense face.

"If any of you want a thrashing, come and get it!" he cried, his
young voice sounding shrilly above the low muttering of the crowd.
They stared at this young English boy, with his firm set face and
defiant head.  Perhaps his courage stirred them, or it may have been
the fury of this child bare-throated and slim, who looked at them
unflinchingly.  The crowd backed a little and as it did so John saw
in its midst, Mehmet, the brother of their gardener Achmed.

"Mehmet!" he cried, "if anything happens to this man I shall give
information to the _Zaptiehs_ about you."

The threat had its effect, the English never invoked the authorities
in vain.  Seeing his opportunity, the boy turned his pony sideways.

"Keep between me and the wall!" he shouted to the terrified Armenian,
as he urged the animal forwards.  Out-man[oe]uvred, the mob made no
attempt to follow, and the Armenian and his protector went their way
down the street.  When they were at a safe distance and the clamour
had died away, the boy pulled up his pony to give the man time to get
breath.

"Oh, master!" cried the man, "my poor brother!"  John looked down at
the Armenian.  He was a man of about fifty, thin, with black
straggling hair and pinched cheeks.

"Was that your brother?" asked John.

The man nodded his head, choked with tears.

"How did it begin?"

"A boy stole a ring from our stall.  He fled into the street and my
poor brother ran after him and was beating him when the father came
up--Usef the butcher."

The Armenian shook from head to foot, and John waited while he
gathered his breath, then they moved on again.  After going for about
half a mile, the Armenian stopped and clasped the boy's hand.

"Young master, God bless you for this!" he cried, kissing the boy's
hand.  "I am safe here, my home is near by.  I shall never forget
you, young master," and kissing this time the boy's knee, he turned
and disappeared down a narrow courtway.

On the outskirts of Amasia, John realised how near he had been to
disaster.  His courage was sinking rapidly, no longer sustained by
the excitement.  Whipping up his pony he cantered up the home drive
and rode with a clatter into the courtyard, and as he did so, he saw
that his thoughtlessness had betrayed him, for his father, hearing
the sound, came out on to the verandah.

John stabled the pony, and then entered through the dining room on to
the verandah where his father sat waiting.

"Well?" was his greeting.

John hung his head a little; he was still quivering with the
excitement of the last half hour, but he tensed his muscles and threw
his head up with a determined look.  Bean watching his son closely,
saw the lithe young body stiffen, and he mistook the effort of
self-control for one of defiance.

"You know I forbade you to go out: Have you anything to say?"

"No, father."

"Very well,--fetch the switch."



II

Three days later, John sat with his father having dinner on the
verandah, for it was a warm evening and the stars glimmered in a
cloudless sky.  Over the western precipice the daylight had not quite
disappeared, there was a strip of red which higher up changed to a
light green and gradually merged into the dark blue of the night.
They could hear the Iris singing along its bed, a deep full-toned
note now, for the melting of the mountain snows was increasing its
volume.  John did not usually sit up to dinner, but to-night he was
enjoying a special privilege which his father gave him occasionally.
After dinner he would sit on his father's knee while he was read to
from an exciting story book--a custom of his mother's which had been
faithfully retained.  So when the dinner had been served and the
servants had cleared the table and shut the windows behind them, John
fetched the book for his father to read.  As he handed it to him,
Dean took the child's hand in his own, holding it while the boy stood
between his knees.

"John, why didn't you tell me what happened when you disobeyed me the
other morning?"

John looked into his father's face; some one had told him then.

"I didn't think that was any excuse, Daddy," he said simply.

As he spoke, Dean looked at the boy.  What an astounding sense of
logic the child had!  Of course it was no excuse, he had disobeyed
and had accepted his punishment; but it was amazing that no advantage
had been taken of the incident at the bazaar.  For a minute there was
silence, in which neither spoke, and Dean's hand closed tightly over
his son's.  This boy was made of good stuff.  A great pride in him
leapt up in Dean's heart.

"John," he said gravely, "I am very proud of you.  You were a young
Englishman that morning.  You made no excuses--which I loathe, and
you didn't flinch in a tight corner, which makes me proud of you,"
and with that said, he lifted the boy up on to his knees and began
reading.

John's taste for fiction had undergone a change.  Once he had loved
tiger stories, and hunting yarns in India; now he wanted school
stories.  It fascinated him to know how English boys lived in that
far country where he had been born.  Their escapades at school, their
tricks on masters, their friendships, sports, quarrels, the fagging
and the lordly prefects, all filled him with wonder and delight.  As
he listened to these tales, a great desire grew up within him.  He
longed to be with them, to go to an English school.  It would be St.
Martin's or St. David's--for all big schools began with St. something
he discovered.  He would be among English boys there and perhaps
share a study with one of them.  They would be great friends and then
they would quarrel and "cut" one another.  He didn't like the idea of
the quarrel, but it was necessary, otherwise he couldn't get hurt on
the football field, scoring the goal that won the match for the
school.

Yes, he would have to quarrel, because how otherwise could his friend
help him to limp back to his study, and then shake hands, and sit
down to make toast, as in the days before they had quarrelled?  John
also wondered what the school chapel would be like.  He had never
been in a chapel.  He imagined there would be hundreds of boys bowing
their heads, and the stern-faced headmaster would speak in a deep
voice (that was really kind although it would seem terrible), and at
his side there would be a big boy crying, a prefect--for was not this
his last Sunday?  There would also be the pealing organ--he wondered
how an organ would sound--and the light would stream down through the
high-coloured windows and rest on the heads of the boys while the
lines of the last hymn died away.  For the light always streamed
through highly coloured windows in school chapels--that was what
helped the prefect to cry.  It would be---

"John, you are not listening--are you sleepy?" said his father.

"No, Daddy--I was only wondering--"

"What?"

"If only I could go to a big school like that, and have friends and--"

"Well, you will one day."

"Oh!  In England?" asked John, his eyes dancing with excitement.

"Yes--when you are a little older."

"O-o-oh!" cried John, flinging his brown arms round Dean's neck, and
wriggling his body until his face touched his father's.  "And shall I
have a study, and a big box with my name on it--'J. N. Dean' in great
black letters?"

"Yes, Anna will pack it full with your clothes."

"Oh, how glorious--and you will come too?"

Dean laughed, and pinched his son's leg.

"No, old son--they won't have daddies at school."  Then seeing the
young face cloud over, "But I shall take you there.  When you are
fourteen we will all go to England for a holiday, and I shall leave
you at school."

"And come back here?"

"Yes, you see your father has to make money to pay for your
schooling."

The young arm tightened around his neck, and in the dim light Dean
saw the boy's mouth quiver.

"I don't want to leave you, Daddy."

"It won't be for long, not very long," he said, "and when you have
grown up you will be able to keep your old Daddy always by your
side--if you want him."

"I shall always want you.  There's--there's only us."

There was a silence then between the man and the boy.  Dean stared
out across the valley.  The stars glittered frostily and the moon was
coming up behind the precipice.  But he hardly noticed that, for his
thoughts were far away in England.  In two years or so he would be
alone--out here, an exile, with his boy far away.

The moon slowly climbed, peered over the precipice and then flooded
the gorge.  A breeze came wandering along the night and stirred the
boy's hair as he lay sleeping in his father's arms.  It was growing
late, but Dean sat on, moving not, just looking down on the sleeping
face of the tired boy.




CHAPTER III

In the shadow of one of the walls of the castle of Amasia two boys
were resting during the hot noon-tide, for it was near the end of May
and the summer sun was already scorching the plains and reducing the
size of the Iris as it flowed along the gorge.

Another two years had wrought a change in John and his friend, Ali
the Turk.  They were fourteen and fifteen respectively, but John had
outgrown Ali, both in height and breadth.  This slight period had
further developed the English boy who now looked sturdy and thickset
in comparison with the slim Turk.  They had climbed all the morning,
starting out before the sun had dried the dew on the ground.  Ali's
uncle had shown them over the castle, a treat that had been postponed
through one cause and another until this day.  The excursion had been
made at last because the two boys would soon be parted.

In three days' time, John was setting out with his father for
England.  Of that journey and the wonder that awaited him at the end
of it, John had talked for months, and Ali eagerly listened to every
detail of the new life his friend would soon be living.  England, to
Ali, was a country of fabulous wealth, where great lords lived in
wonderful houses; most of them were soldiers, and the country in
which they lived was so small that open spaces were almost unknown.
It was from John that he gained his first conception of a public
school, which seemed something very unlike the great schools in
Constantinople where his father would send him one day.  As the two
boys rested in the shade they were busy with their own thoughts.
Below them, almost under the high rock where they lay, crouched the
town of Amasia.  They had a bird's-eye view down the gorge, and
across to the opposite precipice walling in the valley.  They could
see the course of the winding river until it abruptly turned from
sight in the bend of the valley; they counted the bridges
intersecting its silver stream, and saw behind the trees fringing its
banks, the flat-topped houses, the slender minarets, dwarfed by the
height from which they looked, and the patternless maze of baths,
domes, khan courtyards, and mosques covering the narrow valley.  Far
up the eastern precipice they could follow the winding highway,
climbing like a white ribbon, until it reached even higher than the
rock where they lay, and disappeared over the pass leading to
Marsovan.

As they watched and half dreamed, they heard the muezzin calling to
prayer.  Ali straightway arose, and as if John had not been present,
performed his elaborate genuflections, bowing his head to the ground.
John did not watch Ali closely.  On such occasions he always felt a
little awkward and hardly knew what he should do.  He did not wish to
give Ali an impression of irreverence; on the other hand, he was
English and a Christian, and felt he had something which he should
uphold.  He pretended therefore, whenever Ali performed his religious
exercises, not to be aware of them.  The subject was one they never
discussed, each avoiding it with caution.

When Ali had finished, he stood up and looked at John in silence for
a minute.  His friend lay on his back, one leg crossed over the
other, with a brown arm propping up the sunburnt face and head.  As
if aware that Ali was watching him, John sat upright.

"Ali," he said, "let's have a bathe, I'm baked!  Is there any water
near?"

"There's a stream half a mile down, it runs into the Iris, I've often
bathed there--shall we go?"

"Yes!" cried John, springing up.  They set off at a brisk pace over
the rocky ground.  They found the stream, and as if constructed for
bathing there was a deep pool where it turned into a rocky crevice.
Eager to cool their sun-weary limbs, the two boys were soon stripped,
and splashed and shouted in the clear water.  As they swam they
seemed like silver fishes in the crystalline stream, and long
practice had made them adept swimmers.  John who had been looking for
a place from which to dive, soon found a jutting rock lower down the
stream.  Calling to Ali, he mounted it and stood poised for the dive.
As he did so, he stood up straight, cutting the brilliant sky with
his slim brown body.  Ali, looking up stared at his friend, for
although only fifteen he had the Asian's keen appreciation of beauty.
Behind John's head the sunlight danced in his wind-fluttered hair, it
gilded his shoulders and rimmed with silver the outline of his young
body, and as the muscles quivered, the wet flesh gleamed like a
burnished shield.

As he watched, John raised his arms straight above his head, the slim
body was taut for a moment, the muscles contracted, then suddenly
relaxed themselves and rippled as the shining figure leapt through
the air and fell like a silver arrow into the blue pool below.  For a
moment the diver disappeared under a broken bubbled surface, and
then, spluttering and laughing, John had reappeared.  Ali stood on
the bank, shivering despite the heat.  He was unhappy and could not
shake off a heavy sense of doom.  What oppressed him he did not quite
know, he could only attribute it in some way to John going away from
him to a distant land.

Swimming to the side, John climbed the bank and was amazed to find
Ali not there.  Their clothes lay together all in a heap, so it was
impossible for him to have gone far.  There was nothing to be heard
save the hum of insects and the soft whisper of the grasses as they
bent under the breeze.  Ali would come back soon, he thought, as he
lay down in the grass.  It was delicious to feel the wind pass over
his body.  It touched him as though it delighted in rippling over the
flesh and he felt its cool hand play on his shoulders then run
swiftly down to his stomach, along his legs and finally make a queer
sensation on the soles of his feet.  He let his head fall and
half-turned on his side.  The wind blew down his back and between his
legs deliciously.  Why didn't Ali come, where had he gone?--it must
be nearly two o'clock, they would have a . . . .


When John awoke he had a feeling it was late afternoon.  The sky
above him was not such a brilliant blue, some of the lustre had gone
out of it.  The stream sang louder than before, otherwise there was
perfect quiet, for the insects had ceased humming.  All at once he
realised he was naked.  Of course, he had been bathing and had slept
in the grass, waiting for Ali!  Where was Ali?  John got up and then
gave a low cry.  His friend too, was fast asleep at his side.  John
stretched out his hand to wake him, when he felt something upon his
head.  It was a wreath, twined out of asphodel, pressed over his brow
like a crown.  He drew it off with a laugh.  Ali had been playing
tricks.  His laughter woke Ali, who sat up.

"Hadn't we better get dressed?" asked John, standing up.  "What's the
wreath for?"

"To crown you."

John laughed gaily, and then checked himself, for there was an
expression of pain on Ali's face.  His friend was now on his knees,
his sunburnt body erect, and he was looking at him from under a brow
half hidden with hair tousled by the wind.  John had never seen Ali
look like that before.  The eyes were no longer those of a merry lad,
but belonged rather to a suffering dumb brute.  As John looked down
at him, their eyes met, and a low cry escaped Ali's lips.

"What is it, Ali?" John asked, stooping, and his question seemed to
loose a floodgate of the emotions, for Ali flung his arms round the
boy's ankles, and sobbed as if his heart would break.

Like all males, John hated the sight of tears; it made him feel
awkward; he knew not what to say or do.  So he just stood still and
looked down at the bowed back of his friend.  Then, unable to watch
Ali's distress any longer, he bent down, and with sheer strength,
lifted him on to his feet and held him just as a mother would a
troubled child.  Somehow, John felt years older, and Ali seemed like
a baby--it was strange, because Ali had always been so silent, so
reserved, with a kind of hidden strength which had often made John
admire him secretly.

"I say, Ali--you mustn't go on like this,--what is the matter?"

"You are going away, John effendi."

"Yes, but I shall come back,--besides why do you worry so?"

"You are my friend, John effendi--I would never leave you--you are
more to me than a brother."

"Thanks, Ali--we--we've been great friends, and when I come back--"

"You will come back?"

"Of course I shall!  I shall spend my summer holidays at
Constantinople with my father.  He wants to take you there with him,
unless you are there at school.  I didn't know you--thought so
much--of me, All."

"Have I not always followed you, effendi?  You are English, I am a
Turk--but we are brothers--and now you are leaving me."

He stood there holding John as if he would hold him thus through
time.  The English boy, embarrassed, with the British instinctive
dislike of emotional display, knew not what to say.  He wanted to say
something that would express all he felt, his love for his friend,
and all the happy times they had had, but no adequate words would
come.  So he just gave a short, forced laugh, tightened his grip on
the other boy, and then turned and picked up his shirt.

"I say, we must get dressed!--it's getting late."

Ali was now calm.  The storm had passed.  They made their way down
the mountain side almost without words.  The sun had not set, but the
town below was already in deep shadow and they could see the lights
glimmering.  Now that the inevitable moment of parting was drawing
near, John began to feel something of the emotion which Ali had shown
by the pool.  It was a break in his life, this parting; the first he
had ever made.  They had been jolly days, and although the future had
its glamour, things would never be quite the same again.  Ali would
grow up, and he would grow up, each in different worlds, with
different customs.  They would meet in two years, but two years was a
long time.  Dear old Ali, if only he could take him with him!

They had now reached the fountain at the foot of the steep street
where the ways parted.  The inevitable moment had come.  John took
All's hand and gripped it, English fashion.

"Good-bye, Ali--I'll write to you often.  We'll meet in two years."

"Insh' Allah--God willing," said Ali gravely.  "I will make you a
gift, John effendi, will you give me a promise?"

"Yes, Ali--what is it?"

Ali opened his shirt at the neck, and lifted over his head a thin
chain.  At the end of the chain hung an oval moonstone; on one side
it had Turkish characters, on the other the etching of an eye.  John
had often seen this charm against the evil eye hanging on his
friend's neck, but as it no doubt had something to do with his faith,
John had refrained from asking any questions.

"See, effendi--I give you this talisman.  My father brought it from
Mecca.  It will keep you from harm, and also you will remember me by
it.  Will you wear it always?"

The tone was so earnest, and Ali spoke with such gravity that John
nodded his head, which he lowered while Ali passed the chain over him
until the talisman hung on his breast.  For a moment there was an
awkward pause.  Ali seemed about to say something, but his lips did
not move.  John feared another outburst; so gripping his friend's
hand, he looked into his eyes for the last time.

"Good-bye, Ali!" he said, and was quickly gone into the darkening
twilight.  Down the street he felt an overmastering impulse to turn
and wave to Ali, who, he knew, would stand watching his going, but
such an act would only prolong the agony.  With a firm resolve he
strode on along the way home.

It was dinner time when John reached the house, and he just had time
to wash before the gong sounded.  Seated at table he was very quiet
during the meal, and when coffee had been served and they had passed
out onto the verandah where so many happy evenings had been spent,
Dean drew John down into his big wicker chair.

"You are very quiet, John--anything the matter?"

"No, father--I was only thinking."

"What of?"

"Oh--of England, and leaving here, and--Ali."


The moon had come up over the precipice and flooded the garden in
soft light.  They could see the river, like a silver shield where it
turned in its course.  Not a leaf stirred in the garden, but there
were sounds floating about the night.  From the orchard came the
first notes of a bulbul; more distant, they could hear the musical
rippling of the water as it sang in and out among the rocks, and
further off, subdued, pulsating with mystery, sounded the low droning
of a native drum.  It rose and died in the night air with its
barbaric note insistently calling.  Calling what?--they did not know;
perhaps it drew towards it the Moslem spirits, as it had drawn them
on that night long ago when Timur came near, red with conquest.

Dean looked down at the boy sitting quietly by him.  The moonlight
glinted upon something on John's breast.  He slowly drew out the
chain with its talisman.

"What's this?" he asked, reading the Turkish characters--"Kismet!"

"Ali gave it to me for a keepsake--what does Kismet mean, father?"

"Destiny--all Moslems believe in it."

"Do we?" asked John.  Dean paused before replying.

"Some of us do, some of us don't," he said quietly.  Then there was
silence again, save for the drum calling through the night.




BOOK II

WEST



CHAPTER I

The guard's whistle sounded shrilly, and in John's ears it seemed to
be cutting through his life as he stood on the platform at Sedley and
felt his hand held in his father's farewell grasp.  The last carriage
door had been slammed, the perspiring porters mopped their brows
under the hot September sun, the train drew back a little with a
hissing of steam and a rasping of brakes, then slowly crawled
forward.  John ever afterwards carried a distinct impression of his
father as he saw him that afternoon leaning out of the carriage
window.  The tanned face, the clear grey eyes and clean-cut features
all stamped themselves upon his memory.  The ring in his father's
voice as he said--

"Good-bye, John--you'll soon settle down,"--then the long pause, the
last look into his eyes, and the tightened hand.  These impressions
burnt themselves upon the boy's brain, and, somewhat overwhelmed with
the pain of it all, he stood watching the train dwindle down the
line.  It drew out of sight, first the long length of carriage
windows, then the shortened perspective, until the back of the
guard's van covered the train, finally the lamps, the two buffers,
and a coiled up gas connection--and a long stretch of shining steel
rails that converged to a point.  He wanted to run along that iron
way, to catch that train, to get away from this terrible desolation
creeping over him.  He stood, lonely and miserable, in a crowd of
shouting boys and porters struggling with luggage.  Just outside the
station, beyond the white palings where the ticket collector stood,
was a waggonette packed with boys of all ages.  John looked at them
curiously.  They were to be his companions, to form his life in the
coming years.

In Amasia he had looked forward to mingling with boys of his own age
and race, but now their noisy behaviour and boisterous good humour
repelled him.  He thought how much preferable was Ali with his quiet
oriental manner.  There was also another disconcerting experience
which depressed him--his new clothes irritated him.  He had worn
trousers for a week now and hated them.  His waistcoat was like a
chain round his chest and he wanted to tear the vile Eton collar from
his throat in rage.  He longed for his loose open shirt, his easy
shorts and socks.  There were other clothes packed away in that white
wooden box, with black iron flanges.  John stared at his initials,
black-lettered on the front--"J.N.D."--did they belong to him?
Somehow they seemed to shout at him, to possess him, and the "N" in
the middle grew and swelled until it dwarfed its companions.  John
was terribly afraid of that "N".  Why hadn't the porter stuck the
luggage label over it?  He recalled what that awful boy, at the house
where his father went to dine one day, had said, when he told him his
name.

"Narcissus!  Good Lord, you will get ragged!"

"Ragged--what's that?" he had asked.

"Oh--knocked about--chivied."  And then, in a friendly tone, "You'd
better keep that name quiet."

John must have stood thinking on the platform for a considerable
time.  It was almost empty.  He would walk back to the school.  His
housemaster's wife had asked him to have tea with her.  He
instinctively liked Mrs. Fletcher.  She was motherly and there was
such a pleasant ring in her voice, also she was beautiful and
probably young.  Her cheeks were very fresh, as if she had walked in
the wind all day, and John liked the style in which she did her hair.
Fletcher too had attracted him, though he had not been able to notice
him much, for his father had talked to him about Eastern affairs.

When John reached the school, he tapped on his housemaster's study
door and entered.  He was in no genial mood, but full of warlike
thoughts.  Mrs. Fletcher smiled at him as he entered and motioned for
him to sit by her side.  There were other boys in the room, seven or
eight, all laughing and talking with Mr. Fletcher, and John wondered
whether he would ever be on such familiar terms with the master as
these boys were.  There was something about the book-lined study
which pleased John--it had such a homely look and Mr. Fletcher seemed
all the more attractive because of his study.  The books, portraits
and pictures were interesting, the chairs were very comfortable, and
Mrs. Fletcher gave attention to John.  Soon he was laughing at
something she had said which amused him immensely, and he laughed as
only a boy can laugh.  Mr. Fletcher turned from the group about him
and looked across at John.

"Now I wonder what I am missing, Dean?" he said.  "Come here.  This
is Mason--Rogers, Russell, Thomson, and Vernley."  He indicated the
boys with a sweep of his hand, and John surveyed his new
schoolfellows.  One boy attracted him, a heavily-built fellow with
carefully brushed hair that was thick and shiny.  John saw that he
was strong, so strong that he looked ungainly in his suit, which
tightened with every movement, but what attracted John was Vernley's
smile, it was so good natured, and warm, like sunshine.  He was
pleased when Mr. Fletcher added--

"Vernley is in your dormitory, Dean."  Then turning to the boy, "You
must take charge of Dean until he finds his way about.  Now you'd
better get along, all you.  Don't forget to see the Matron about your
things, and chapel's at seven-thirty."

John followed the boys out into the corridor.  He shivered as he
closed the study door.  On this side of it he was in the school and
it looked so depressingly barren after the cosy study.  He watched
the other boys with envy as they walked down the corridor to the
Matron's room.  Vernley was among them, and seemed to have forgotten
the master's injunction, but at the Matron's door he waited for John.

"Come along, our boxes are up in the dorm,--yours has been put next
to mine--I'll show you the way up."

Putting his arm in John's he led the way, talking as they went.  To
John it was a novel experience.  He had never talked to another
English boy in this free manner, and the friendliness with which
Vernley had taken his arm gave him a slight thrill.  It was pleasant
to be noticed like this, and already he liked his companion.  There
was something so placid and solid about him which appealed to John.
There was nothing Eastern about this boy, he talked without reserve
and his clear brown eyes seemed like those of a young animal rather
than a human being.

Vernley sat down on John's bed and explained the various contrivances
in the room.  It was a long well-lit chamber with eight beds on
either side, bordered by two long strips of carpet.  The middle of
the floor was bare.

"It's jolly cold too," said Vernley, "when you stand on it with the
wind blowing over you."

"Stand on it, why?"

"Oh, it's Lindon's fad--he's a physical culture crank, he's prefect
here.  He makes us all strip night and morning and has us squirming
on our backs with our legs in the air,--but he's quite a decent chap.
You'll get on with him well."

"Why?"

"Oh, you look so splendidly fit--he's simply mad on fitness.  He
spends half his time torturing me to get my fat down."

"But you're strong," said John admiringly.

"Oh, yes, but it is not strength he believes in--it's what he calls
form, the Greek ideal--he's always talking about some Greek johnny,
and he's rather like one himself.  What's the J.N. for?" Vernley
broke off abruptly and stared at the box.

"John Narcissus--"

"Narcissus!"

"Yes--it's Greek too," John smiled, and Vernley laughed.  John
noticed that he had teeth like an animal's--white and strong.

"Well--they'll call you 'Cissy' for short."

"Oh, please don't tell them--I hate it," he said, looking at Vernley
imploringly.

"Very well--then it'll be Scissors--that's more cutting!"

"I don't mind that--what's your name?"

"What do you think--there's only one name for all persons like
myself--Tubby--isn't it a libel?"

"Yes--you're not too fat.  I think you're--"  John hesitated,

"Well, what--let's hear."

"You're quite--splendid."

Vernley laughed again in his fascinating way.

"Thanks--I can return that compliment."

John flushed.  He was glad Vernley had laughed like that.

"That's strange, you know--saying that," added Vernley.

"Why?"

"Because most fellows never think about appearances--I always do, and
you do.  I loathe ugliness.  Lindon's always preaching on that text.
You'll hear him later, 'the good and the beautiful' that's his pet
phrase.  He's beautiful enough, but he isn't good."

"Why?--does he swear?"

"Good lord, yes--we all do, there's worse things than that."  He
stooped down and took a book out of the box at the foot of his bed.
Then he glanced at a watch on his wrist.

"Glory!" he exclaimed, "it's a quarter past seven.  Come along or
we'll be late."  He hurried out, John following.  He wished Vernley
had gone on talking, he interested him in Lindon.  What was it Lindon
did?  Perhaps he drank secretly, or cribbed, or--John hurried on, his
head filled with speculations.  He was looking forward to seeing the
terrible Lindon.




CHAPTER II


I

John's first week at Sedley passed with amazing rapidity.  It was all
new to him, and enjoyable also.  The masters were such a decent set
of fellows, and already John had formed a strong alliance with
Vernley.  He had had tremendous good luck in this.  Vernley was in
his second year and entitled to a study.  A small room at the end of
the corridor was vacant, but it was only large enough for two boys.
All the other studies had four occupants, save fellows in the fifth
and sixth forms who had attained to the dignity of separate rooms.
When Vernley discovered that he was the odd man out with a study of
his own, he went straightaway to Mr. Fletcher and asked permission
for John to share it, which was readily granted.  He and John entered
into partnership.  So far the alliance had been a great success.

It was the Wednesday half-holiday and John had just had his first
game of football.  Exhilarated by the exercise and the novelty of it
all, he had changed from his muddy shorts and red and white shirt,
wallowed in the bath, and now sat stiff and tired in a wicker chair,
holding toast to the fire, while Vernley got out the tea cups.  Tea
was the one meal they had in private, and both boys gloried in it.

John, burning the toast furiously, sniffed with delight.

"I say Verny--toast is the incense of the appetite--isn't it good?"
and he sniffed long and loud.  Vernley looked at him.  John's
curiously turned nostrils always fascinated him, they were just like
the faun's in the drawing class.

"You ought to be called Bunny, not Scissors," he said, pouring hot
water into the teapot.

"Why?" asked John turning round in the chair.

"Damn!--watch that toast, it'll be black!  Why, because you twitch
your nose like a rabbit.  That's enough, don't toast any more."

There was a long break in the conversation, filled with the noise of
crunching.

"I shall have to go in a minute--I forgot to fill Lindon's kettle,"
said John.

"Hang Lindon--he's always running you about.  I knew he would.  He
doesn't like your being here."

"Don't talk rot--he's been jolly decent to me, he was coaching me all
this afternoon.  He's going to give me an hour at racquets
to-morrow," said John, defending Lindon stoutly; then seeing that he
had hurt Vernley--

"I say, Verny--don't be jealous--only it is decent of him.  Why don't
you like him?"

He looked at Vernley, who shifted uneasily and kicked the fender.

"I never said I didn't like him," he answered.

"But I know you don't--what's the reason?"

"Well--it's because you're such a kid, Scissors."

"Thanks, you're a year older--but that's no reason."

"P'raps not--but I knew Lindon would go for you--I said so the first
night."

"To-day's the first time he's taken any notice of me."

"Is it?--he's watched you like a cat for a week.  You don't know
Lindon--I do."

"Then why are you so mysterious about him?"

Vernley got up and cut himself a piece of cake.

"Have a piece, Scissors?"

"Thanks."

"Look here, Scissors, you've said I'm jealous--well I am, but not for
the reason you think.  You're only a kid and a green one at that.
I'm a year older, which isn't much, but I've been at school five
years, in a prep, and here, and I know who's who.  Lindon's a clever
chap, captain of the first eleven, our best bat and all that--but
keep clear of him."

Vernley would say no more after that.  John went out and filled
Lindon's kettle and returned.  His forced manner made Vernley watch
him curiously; John was evidently upset.

"What is the matter," he asked John, abruptly.

"Nothing."

"That's a lie, Scissors--try again."

John flushed deeply--"Well, nothing much," he confessed.

"Has Lindon said anything?"

"Yes."

"About me?"

John was silent.

"I guessed so," said Vernley bitterly, "and you believe him?"

"No--I don't--and I don't understand,--and I don't want to
understand."

"But, Scissors, if--in the past," added Vernley.  He looked anxiously
at John, who had picked up Punch and was looking through it.

"Well--the past is the past, that's all.  I say, Verny, listen to
this," he said, reading from the paper.  He had dismissed the
subject, and Vernley sat and listened, looking at his friend with a
doglike affection.



II

John enjoyed the Saturday evenings when they all gathered in Mr.
Fletcher's study.  They sat wherever they liked, on the floor, the
lounge, or in the windows, while Fletcher talked and his wife poured
out the coffee.  Fletcher was a man of ideas and of sufficient
strength of mind to carry them out.  He was never so happy as when,
pipe in mouth, he debated with six or eight boys at a time.  It was a
time-honoured custom for the boys of his house to come in each
Saturday evening to talk over the school matches or any other topic
that presented itself.  There was no attempt to make the conversation
"improving."  Sometimes, led by a question, Fletcher would tell them
about his travels in Greece and Italy, illustrating them with
snapshots in his albums, or perhaps Mrs. Fletcher or one of the boys
would sing.  The repertoire was in no way restricted.  Occasionally
Vernley had to be forcibly deposed from the piano stool after an orgy
of music-hall ditties or waltz tunes, and any outburst of ragging was
quickly suppressed.  The boys were not compelled to enter into any
conversation.  They could take down the books and read if they wished
and sometimes complete silence reigned until Fletcher stood up,
knocked the ashes out of his pipe and said "Time, boys."

There was one particular pleasure to which John always looked
forward--that was Lindon's playing.  There was a magic quality in it
which held them spellbound; even Vernley admitted that Lindon knew
his way about on the piano.  The pianist would sit down in front of
the keyboard, wait for the preparatory hush which he commanded as a
brilliant performer, run his fingers up and down the keys once or
twice as if making their acquaintance, and then begin.  Sometimes it
was Beethoven he played.  John never forgot the thrill that ran down
his spine when he heard the _Pathetique_ for the first time.  Its
great soulful chords crashed through him, echoing along his brain
like thunder in a valley.

But on this particular evening, Lindon was in a more festive mood.
He had won glory on the field that afternoon; his swiftness, his
quick decision had brought victory to his house, and some of the
seriousness which usually invested his manner was forgotten.  It was
the last Saturday night of term.  The examinations were nearly over.
The holiday spirit already made the school restive.  So Lindon was in
good spirits.  He chose Chopin, and sent the melodies rippling from
beneath his wonderful fingers.

John, completely fascinated, stood leaning on the flat top of the
grand, it being his duty to turn over the music when the demi-god
nodded.  Lindon started off with the _Valse Brilliante_ in four
flats.  It was hackneyed, but not so to John who listened while the
magic movement seemed to lift him up with ecstasy.  Then the pianist
played _Op._ 64--he seemed scarcely to touch the keys, for they
whirred just like the wind blowing through a leafy tree.  It was the
speed, the superb vivacity of it all that entranced John.  Now they
were butterflies dancing rapturously, now a spinning wheel.  Here was
something that reached an eloquence beyond words, a joy greater than
anything he had ever known.  When Lindon ceased, John's eyes were
sparkling with intense delight.  The pianist, seeing his pleasure,
laughed lightly.  The applause he did not appear to notice; it was
John's boyish approval which he looked for and found at the
conclusion of each piece.

How long Lindon sat at the keyboard John had no idea.  His ecstasy
was suddenly shattered by the performer who said,

"Only one more, Scissors, then you can sit down."

And this time it was something that stirred John until he felt he
must cry out.  It was the exquisite pain of it.  As he watched Lindon
he was strangely attracted; the latter was no longer smiling.  He sat
with compressed lips and stern eyes.  The slender hands flew over the
thundering bass and swept like a whirlwind into the treble.  The
player's hair, shaken with the energy of his execution had fallen
over his brow.  There was something fierce about Lindon as he sat
there, something that made John draw in his breath with half fear and
wonder.  He had never seen this Lindon before.  The gracious,
laughing young hero whom he worshipped had changed into a being
capable of great passion, and perhaps cruelty.

It was the _Drum Polonaise_ which Lindon played.  It began like the
slow murmur of thunder, and then it broke into a wild ecstatic music
like the mad flight of a thousand horses across a prairie.  John
wondered how so much sound and furious activity could be torn out of
that piano, and the player's frenzy almost terrified him as he turned
the music, but his fear suddenly changed to a feeling of dread and
helplessness.  The second movement had begun with its monotonous
bass.  John listened, breathless; it was the sound of that drum which
enthralled him.  It grew in intensity and passion, it called, called,
called with a horrible fascination.  John looked at Lindon, but the
latter seemed oblivious of all but the page before him.  The sound
swelled up and smote on John's ears like a flood of waters; a curious
numbness stole over him--the drum seemed nearer now, it was soothing,
he would know nothing soon, already feeling had left him, he--

Lindon was the first to jump up as John swayed and fell in a heap on
the floor.  He sprang from the stool and lifted up the insensible
lad.  Fletcher and his wife were pending over John when he opened his
eyes again.  Where was he?  He did not quite know, yet he was very
tired.  Then he heard some one call "Scissors!" and looking up again
saw Lindon bending over him, with anxious face.  He was safe; he
could feel the rigid muscles of his arms as he held him.  He let his
head sink with a sigh.

"I think it's the air, sir, we're rather warm in here," said Lindon
to Fletcher.

"Carry him into the hall, Lindon--you boys stop here."

"Let me take him," said Mrs. Fletcher, all the mother nature of her
sounding in her voice.

"It's all right, Mrs. Fletcher, I can carry him.  I think the porch
would be the best place.  The cold air will bring him round."

Lindon lifted John like a baby and went out into the porch followed
by Fletcher and his wife.  He deposited his burden in a wicker chair.

"Don't wait, sir, I'll bring him in in a bit--look, he's all right
now."  John sat up and looked at the anxious trio.

"Better?" asked Fletcher, cheerfully.

"Yes, sir--I'm awfully sorry," replied John.

"Don't worry, my boy--you've played too hard to-day.  Now sit here a
bit with Lindon.  Ah, here we are!"

Mrs. Fletcher had returned with rugs and wrapped the boy round with
them.

When Fletcher and his wife had gone, John and Lindon sat in silence.

Lindon could see Dean's face in the dim light and his eyes were still
very bright as he looked up at the sky.

"Scissors," said Lindon quietly, "why did you faint?"

"I don't know, Lindon--you frightened me, I think."

"Am I so terrible?" the question was asked jokingly but not without
an undercurrent of feeling.

"No--but you fascinate me--you have done since the first.  It's only
when you are playing that I really seem to see you properly."

Lindon gave a short laugh.  "What a queer little beggar you are--I
suppose the East is in your blood.  I hope Vernley hasn't been
playing on your imagination too much--he talks about me?"

"No, he doesn't," said John shortly, "and you shouldn't ask me--I'm
his friend."

"I'm sorry, Scissors--it is caddish, only--" he broke off and looked
out into the night.  John sat in silence and waited.  He knew Lindon
wanted to say something.  Presently he spoke.

"You see, Scissors, I don't want anything to upset our--well, we get
on fairly well, don't we?  Somehow you've made me feel--oh, I'm
talking rot."

"I suppose you've seen how I watched you," said John, "--I simply
couldn't hide it--I'm a little fool I know."

"That's what made it all so difficult.  It's not easy being a god,"
responded Lindon.  "You've put me on a pedestal--and I want to keep
on it."  They talked more easily after that.




CHAPTER III


I

It had been arranged that John should spend the Christmas and Easter
holidays with his housemaster.  Fletcher had a cottage in Wales where
he went at the end of each term to repair his shattered constitution.
There, he dressed in a most amazing assortment of tweeds, smoked
endlessly, loved to sit in village bars and listen to village gossip,
and tramped over the mountains with inexhaustible energy.

John spent the first fortnight with the Fletchers, after which he
went on to Vernley's people, who sent him a cordial invitation to
their home in Essex.  It was there that John first became acquainted
with the amazing possibilities of life.

The Vernleys lived in a rambling old house with long corridors in
which John could lose himself.  Indeed, everything was on the
spacious side, with that heavy, solid prosperity stamped on it which
somehow fitted the Vernleys and all of John's preconceptions of them.
Mr. Vernley was a broad-shouldered man with a shock of black hair and
a tremendous voice.  Mrs. Vernley was stout and tall, talked rather
loudly and made a draught whenever she moved, but she radiated
kindliness.  The family, too, was on the large scale, for John found
himself being introduced to a crowd of brothers and sisters who
varied from being wonderfully beautiful to uncompromisingly ugly.

There was Kitty, aged twenty-two, a big-boned woman, who talked
horses all day long; then Alice two years her junior, the musical
genius of the family.  Vernley had great faith in his sister's future
as a singer because she was so fat.  Tod, twenty, and in the first
flush of glory at Balliol, was the Vernley Adonis.  He had the good
looks that wonderful health and spirits bestow.  His cheeks were
tanned, his laugh cheery, and when he didn't sing or talk, he
whistled.  Vernley said that sitting near Tod was like being near a
radiator, he warmed you like an animal.  With great cheerfulness, Tod
offered to teach the two boys how to box.  He took them up into a dim
roomy attic, stripped them, tied the gloves on to their hands, and
made them pound away at each other while he bellowed his
encouragement.  At the end of half an hour, the two boys being
utterly exhausted, he just tucked them under his arms, walked down to
the bathroom and turned the cold water tap on them as if they had
been two mice he had wished to drown.  They emerged from their first
boxing lesson with a black eye each.  In addition John had a swollen
nose and Vernley a cut lip.  When they both appeared at tea-time, the
family yelled with delight, save Mrs. Vernley, whose motherly
instinct forbade further boxing lessons.

And here it was that the amazing complexity of life first dawned upon
John's consciousness.  Mr. Vernley was a member of Parliament and he
brought his friends on week-end visits to "The Croft."  John looked
at these persons with considerable awe.  They were all doing, or
going to do something big.  Among them was Chadburn, quiet,
unassuming, strictly conscientious, with a fine face and a courteous
manner.

John walked with him through the woods one Sunday morning, and at the
end of half an hour, fell in love with him; all that night he had
visions of himself as a private secretary.  It would be glorious to
be near him each day, to go in on a thick-carpeted floor with a sheaf
of papers and say, "Will you sign these, sir?" or, "A deputation
wishes to see you, sir," or "Your speech is in your bag, sir," and
his hero would say, "Thank you, Dean; I shall be back to-morrow--take
cuttings from the _Times_ and _Telegraph_,"  Perhaps he could
accompany his chief to a big meeting and see him sway the crowd, hear
him cheered in the packed hall and he would want to get up, and say,
"That is my chief--I am his secretary."  John went to bed that Sunday
with life revealing a wonderful vista before him, for as he had
passed through the lounge where the men sat smoking, he had heard
Chadburn say, "That boy's as intelligent as he's handsome."  As the
two boys undressed, Vernley noticed his friend's elation.

"Are you enjoying yourself?" he asked.

"Oh, ripping!  It's glorious here, Vernley--I don't know how to thank
you," which sent the devoted Vernley to bed equally happy.

There were two other incidents of that holiday that stood out in his
memory for many years.  The first dawn of adolescence stirred in him,
disquieting, but wonderful.  Muriel awakened him, Muriel the
vivacious, sixteen, home from school in Belgium, the prettiest of the
Vernley girls and just ready to fall in love for the simple adventure
of it.  They liked each other at sight; she admired his slim grace,
the brown healthiness of his skin, the fine ring in his laughter; he,
her elusive charm and tomboyish air.  Her quick, witty chatter in
English or French was music to the enchanted John; and she rode her
horse like a princess.

Each morning, after breakfast, three or four mounts were brought
round from the stables, the groom waiting until the riding party was
ready.  Sometimes Vernley and Kitty made up the quartette, with John
and Muriel.  John sat his horse superbly, the legacy of Amasian days,
with the result that he and Muriel were often far in advance of the
other couple, for Vernley rolled on his seat like a sack, and Kitty
acted as whipper-in.

One morning, after a breathless gallop, John and Muriel found
themselves alone together on the white road running through a little
copse of birch trees.  The girth of Muriel's saddle had slackened,
and John helped her to dismount and tightened it.  Then slipping
their reins over their arms, they walked the horses on to the soft
turf bordering the road.  On a barren bough a robin began to sing
cheerfully.  Muriel gave a little cry of delight, and as John looked
at her, his flesh thrilled with her laughter.  She was flushed, with
her fair hair falling over two pink ears, and as she turned to him
with her beautiful eyes, she caught him in the act of open
admiration.  Muriel looked away, pretending she had not noticed.

"Shall we mount and get on?" she said awkwardly.  She placed one foot
in the stirrup, and John placed his hand under the other to help her
into the saddle.  It was the first time he had ever touched her and a
queer self-consciousness caused him to bungle, for she failed to gain
the saddle.  The horse moved, and Muriel fell back into his arms.  It
was an accident which John took as a gift from the gods.  He gave an
awkward little laugh as he looked down into her timid eyes and she
tried to hide her face on his shoulder.  The soft brushing of her
hair on his cheek gave him courage; holding her in his strong young
arms, he raised her face with one hand and saw the laughter in her
eyes.  Then deliberately he kissed her lips, her soft wavy hair
falling over his brow, her arms pressed tight and warm around his
neck.  It was a moment's delight, with no passion in it--only youth
discovering youth and thrilled with the wonder of it.

Almost gravely John helped her into the saddle, and they started off
at a canter.  The wind whipped their faces, the superb vitality of
the horses seemed to flow through their bodies.  Ahead lay the wooded
country and the chimneys of "The Croft."  John remembered that white
strip of road, the birch-tree copse and the laughter in Muriel's eyes
evermore.  In the years that followed he was to love, but it was
never quite the same, there was more intelligence in it, more
consciousness, more passion, but not the quick edge of sharp surprise.



II

John's Christmas at "The Croft" was his first experience of life at
an English country house, and he saw there how money and leisure
could make existence almost ideally tranquil.  He learned too, the
patrician order of things.  Hitherto, humanity for him had only been
classed in nationalities.  He had recognised, of course, that mankind
itself was divided into the rich and poor, those who did what they
wished, and those who laboured as they must.  But he now saw that
Society was more subtly divided; it had its rigorous caste systems,
and he was living in the strictest caste of all.  The county type
that he met at "The Croft" was something distinct.  It spoke very
definitely of humanity as "the masses."  Clearly they were a slightly
inferior people, to whom a duty must be performed.  They had to be
kept in their places, taught to recognise superiority and to render
homage without servility; in return for this recognition they were
rewarded with the influence and interest of those who controlled
their lives.

Down in the village John found that, as the guest of the Vernleys, he
was somebody.  The villagers touched their caps to him, the
postmistress was effusively polite.  All this seemed strange at first
to John, for accustomed to the deference of the Moslem before all
Englishmen, he had conceived a socialistic idea of the position and
powers of all who spoke his native tongue.  After a time he grew
accustomed to the patrician attitude.  It was so easy to assume the
air of command, to know that servants, even English ones, were there
to serve, and that one could be perfectly polite to them and forfeit
no respect or authority.

He admired the young squire manner of his friend Vernley--the way in
which he obtained all he wanted.  The whole country-side was his, the
farmhouses all gladly opened their doors at his approach.  The name
of Vernley was powerful.  The next thing John realised was that the
name was loved.  The Vernleys had lived on the land for generations,
and their knowledge of every family on the estate was unique.  They
knew the hereditary tendencies of Farmer Jenkins' children, the
constitutional inclination of the Wichsteeds to bronchitis, the
wanderlust that was in the blood of all the Wilkinsons' younger sons.
John's friend too was intimate with all the village boys.  He played
cricket with them, called them by their Christian names, and assumed
leadership in their midst without any rivalry or jealousy.

This was new and strange to John; but it all seemed part of the
landscape.  The village people were the natural possessions of the
Vernleys, just as much as the fine old copper beeches in their drive,
or the splendidly level lawn and flower-bordered terraces.  It had
always been so, and there was no reason why it should ever change.
The village church, with its tombs of dead Vernleys also showed that
their religion was a family affair, looked after by the vicar who
held his living by appointment of a Vernley.

Comfort too was so visible in that home.  There were solidarity and
security in those massive oak doors under the stone portico.  The
heavy carpets sank richly under the feet; one felt majestic ascending
the broad staircase with its crest-panelled pillars.  The bedrooms
with the blues, reds, and greens of carpets and eiderdowns and
couches had a solemn splendour, particularly after the coldness of a
school dormitory.  It gave John a peculiar sense of pleasure to watch
the maid in the morning enter his room with the hot water.  The
copper water can gleamed as the felt cover with its monogram came
off.  The curtains as they were drawn, fell back in heavy beautiful
folds, and his bed was a massive thing built to endure for
generations.

John revelled in all these things so new in his life and he looked at
Vernley closely when that young gentleman expressed no particular
delight, no pride of proprietorship.  John, of course, was careful
not to show his ecstasy.  He accepted everything without comment, but
secretly he exulted.  Life was going to be pleasant enough with such
splendid traditions and beautiful houses.  He would spend his days
visiting friends; he would find such a house himself, and entertain
large parties.  The wine should stand richly in beautiful glasses, as
it did on the Vernleys' table at night time, discreetly lit with
shaded candles in the silver candelabra.  He would find servants as
well trained, a butler as majestic, and the stables at the back of
his house should be filled with superb horses, flawlessly groomed.

Dreaming in this manner one night as he lay in bed, he suddenly
started with a recollection that his home had once been like the
Vernleys.  He had seen photographs of "Fourways," and heard his
father speak of Tom the groom--a splendid beater or loader.  With a
thrill of discovery John recalled his inheritance; it explained so
much, his joy in these surroundings, the feeling that somehow he was
at home again among the Vernleys.  This was no new life; it was the
old life, the one his father had known.

And then John realised how much he had lost.  The mention of family
misfortune had formerly conveyed nothing to him.  He had been quite
happy in his home at Amasia.  There was nothing wanting, and he had
often wondered at his father's ceaseless recollections of "Fourways."
Now he realised all that the change to that hard, bright, lonely life
in Amasia had meant, and the fuller knowledge clouded the boy's
happiness.  He would build up the family fortune again and take his
father back to "Fourways."  So thinking, he fell asleep to dream of
his father greeting Tom who came to welcome him back, and somehow in
that dream he mingled--but he was not alone.  There was Muriel with
him, flushed with riding, her cheeks whipped with the wind, her eyes
bright with happiness, and her hand, soft and warm, holding his as he
helped her down from the saddle.

John awoke in the morning to the sound of bells.  It was Christmas
Day, and springing out of bed he ran to the window that overlooked
the drive opposite the church gate.  The bells were clamouring
merrily and he could see the villagers making their way to the early
morning service.  Picking up his towel he rushed off to the bathroom,
shouted loudly at the shock of the cold shower, dressed quickly and
ran downstairs just as the breakfast gong sounded.  In the dining
room the family was busy opening presents.  There were three for him,
one from Vernley and two from his host and hostess.  With boyish
impulse he went up and kissed Mrs. Vernley delightedly.  Life was
good!




CHAPTER IV


I

On Christmas eve John had noticed another guest at dinner, but he had
no opportunity of studying the person, who was addressed as Mr.
Steer.  The next morning after breakfast, there was a walking party
to Holdfast Covert, about three miles, whence a fine view of the
surrounding country was obtainable.  John asked Vernley all about the
stranger, for he was attracted to him by his manner.

"The Governor's frightfully keen on Steer," said Vernley.  "He's a
poet and quite well-known--at least I think so.  There's always a
mild sensation in the district when Steer's down here."

"Have you read his books?"

"No, I've seen them of course--they're always prominent in the
drawing-room when he comes here.  He's not like most of those writing
people who everlastingly talk about themselves, and he's a sportsman.
He'll start love-thirty with any one on the tennis court and beat
'em."

It was on the way back from the covert that John had his first
conversation with Steer.  The boy had fallen behind to tie up a shoe
lace, and the poet was hacking away at a wand he had cut out of the
thicket.

"What are you making, sir?" asked John, overtaking him.

"A whistle--can you make one?"

"No--I'm not very handy with a pocket knife."

"Well, there you are--that's a sycamore pipe which you can play--like
the Idle Shepherd Boys," said Steer, giving the stick to John.

  "_On pipes of sycamore they play
  The fragments of a Christmas hymn,--_

I suppose you know that?"

John confessed his ignorance, but he liked the sound of it and wanted
to hear more.

"God bless me," said Steer, "you mean to say that you've not heard of
Wordsworth?  I thought every boy out of a nursery had been brought up
on 'We are Seven' and 'The Idle Shepherd Boys.'"

"I've never heard of Mr. Wordsworth," said John naïvely,--"do tell me
about him."

"Oh, he's quite dead now--he was what is called a Lake poet--he lived
at the English Lakes, Grasmere and Rydal to be precise, where there
was a group of these poets and essayists--Coleridge, Southey, De
Quincey, Christopher North--names you've probably heard.  'The Idle
Shepherd Boys' was a favourite poem when I was a lad.  I remember
reciting it to my mother for a penny.  She used to give me a penny
for every new poem I learned.  I remember how she laughed when I
pronounced 'vapours'--'vappers.'  The first stanza runs--

  _The valley rings with mirth and joy;
  Among the hills the echoes play
  A never, never ending song,
  To welcome in the May.
  The magpie chatters with delight;
  The mountain raven's youngling brood
  Have left the mother and the nest;
  And they go rambling east and west
  In search of their own food;
  Or through the glittering vapours dart
  In very wantonness of heart._"


"Oh, how jolly!  Do go on please!" shouted John eagerly, and his new
friend recited the whole poem.  The joy on the boy's face greatly
amused him.

"You've evidently got a taste for verse, John--but there's much
better stuff than that.  Wordsworth was a philosopher, he wrote
splendid things like--

  _Love had he known in huts where poor men lie;
    His daily teachers had been woods and rills,
  The silence that is in the starry sky,
    The sleep that is among the lonely hills._"


These words fell upon John's ears as music.  It was a spell upon him,
something that took him into a realm of wonderful sounds and visions.
On that walk home, he plied the poet with questions, and Keats,
Shelley, Browning and Byron became more than mere names.  He learned
how they had lived, of Byron's picturesque, turbulent career; of
Shelley's passion for reform; of Keats' struggle against disease and
the burning ardour for the glory that was Greece.  And then Steer
told him of living men who were writing.  "But don't meet them if you
can help," he advised.  "You should never meet authors of the books
you admire--they have conserved their best moments in a few pages,
and they cannot live up to your expectations--and authors, too, are
not the pleasantest of mankind.  There is sufficient egotism in a
room full of them to lift St. Paul's to the top of Everest."

"But you're a poet yourself, Mr. Steer--and you're not at all
objectionable!" said John laughingly.

"Perhaps that's why I'm such a bad one," answered Steer.  They had
now overtaken the others and Vernley, looking round, noticed John's
excited manner.

"Whatever's stirred you up, Scissors?" he asked.  "You look as if
you'd found a gold mine!"

"Mr. Steer's been telling me about the poets.  Oh, Verney, I'd no
idea they were such a ripping set.  Have you got a Wordsworth at
home?"

"Yes--but you haven't come here to read that stuff--you'll have to
read it when you get at your 'remove'--a horrible old man, always
grousing about some 'divine, far-off event'--no, that's Tennyson.
How does it run?  I've got it--

              _a sense sublime
  Of something far more deeply interfused,
  Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns
  And the round ocean and the living air--_"


"That's beautiful, it's--" exclaimed John.

"I call it utter tosh.  Parse and analyse.  Subject; there isn't one,
predicate; find it if you can; object--Good Lord, why don't these
fellows write sense?  Whoever saw a round ocean?"

"But that isn't what he meant--you mustn't take it pictorially."

"Bravo, John, you've got the sense of it," interjected Steer.
"Bobbie's attempted to analyse it,--that's fatal."

Vernley stared at John curiously for a moment, amazed at his friend's
enthusiasm, then--

"You are a rum beggar, Scissors; I believe you'd like to write stuff
like that yourself."

"Perhaps he will--alas," sighed Steer.

"Why do you say 'alas'?" asked John.  "You're not at all sad, you're
quite jolly and--"

"You can play tennis, sir," added Vernley in a consolatory voice.



II

For the remainder of the day, John's head was full of poetry.  He had
found a copy of Wordsworth in the library, and after lunch, when
every one disappeared for a nap, he stole up to his bedroom,
successfully evading Vernley, who, he knew, would cover him with
derision if detected.  Fortunately Vernley had gone across to the
vicarage with a message, and he was detained there with lemonade and
mince pies for a whole hour.  In that time John read through "The
Idle Shepherd Boys" and "Lucy Gray."  He then attempted "The
Excursion" and found it altogether too much for him, save one jolly
bit--

  "_He loved; from a swarm of rosy boys
  Singled me out, as he in sport would say,
  For my grave looks, too thoughtful for my years,_"

which ministered to his egotism, and helped him to build up visions
of long walks with Mr. Steer, in which he saw down into the soul of a
poet.  He had given up "The Excursion" in despair, but later, turning
over the pages, he recognised the lines Vernley had quoted.  Like an
old friend they seemed.  He had just finished the "Lines composed
about Tintern Abbey," when Vernley, or Bobbie as the household called
him, burst in, searching for him.

"Scissors, I've been all over the house--what are you doing?"

"Reading."  John closed the book and half hid it behind him, but
Vernley was too sharp and made a grab.  One look, and the secret was
out.

"Scissors!  I've a good mind to scrag you."

"If you can--but isn't it ripping--

  _Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
  And the round ocean and the living air--_

--it's like eating caramels."

"If you say it again, I will scrag you!"

"_Whose dwelling is the light--_" began John provocatively.

Vernley leapt upon him and they went down together, John underneath.

"Say it again, Scissors!" cried Vernley, holding John's head firmly
to the floor.  John wriggled and tried to shift the hand over his
mouth.

"Whose dwelling is the--" he managed to get out before he was choked.
There was a wild scrimmage which ended with a great crash.  They had
cannoned into the washstand, and the jug and basin lay in a thousand
fragments.

"Golly!--what a mess!" commented Vernley from where he lay, surveying
the ruins.

"Will your mater be angry?" asked John nervously.

"No--she's used to having things smashed--it's a family failing.
I've made a mess of your collar, you'll have to put a clean one on.
Old Crimp's coming to tea, I've just been to the vicarage.  He's a
dreadful old bore--but he's got a ripping kid.  I can't think how he
did it."

"Did what?" asked John naïvely.

Vernley looked a him for a moment, and then went scarlet.
"Scissors," he said, taking his arm, "you are a bit of an angel--"

"_Whose dwelling--_" began John derisively.

"Shut up!--do you want to smash the looking glass next?  Get your
collar on--there's the gong for tea."


Those days at "The Croft" went all too swiftly, and the morning came
when the two boys lifted their trunks into the car and were whirled
down the drive to the station.  John left feeling that the end of
life had come.  He had been among friends and had felt almost as if
he had been to his own home--the kind of home of which he had
dreamed.  Mrs. Vernley had mothered him, and John's secret pleasure
at being petted had been expressed in many little acts of devotion.

"What a lovable boy he is!" she said to her husband as she watched
the car recede down the drive.

"Yes, and sharp too.  They may well call him 'Scissors'--that boy
will cut his way through," replied Mr. Vernley.  "Where's Muriel?  I
thought she was going to the station with them?"

Mrs. Vernley looked intently at her husband, but his face told her
nothing.  Ten minutes before she had hurried a sobbing Muriel off to
her bedroom, where she was now going to lecture her on the absurdity
of falling in love at sixteen, but as she secretly sympathised with
her daughter she did not say anything to her husband.  Upstairs in
the bedroom she found Muriel with watery eyes, standing by the
window, and screwing up a miniature handkerchief.  Mrs. Vernley
looked at her and decided that further words would bring a deluge.
So she talked about everything but the thing in both their minds, and
the only allusion to John's departure was when she said,

"Now, Muriel, wash your face.  Miss Lane will be here for the music
lesson in a few minutes."

It was then that Muriel found courage to make her confession.

"I gave him a photograph, Mother--I hope you don't mind?"

"Well, it's a little immodest for you to be presenting your
photograph so freely."

"He asked me for it, Mother."

"Oh,--but really, you children are very absurd!  I shall dread Bobbie
bringing friends home with him if it means you are going to have red
eyes every time.  But there--you'll get over it," she said kindly, as
she stooped and kissed her.  "Now come along, dear, I'm afraid you
haven't done much practising for Miss Lane."

The subject was never alluded to again, but Mr. Vernley the following
morning almost provoked another flood of tears.

"You'll miss John, Muriel," he said genially at breakfast.  "No more
morning gallops together--you looked quite a loving pair on
horseback."  There was silence, then looking from Muriel to her
mother, a glance told him everything.

"Why, bless me!--you don't mean to tell me--"

Muriel had dropped her eggspoon in a desperate search for a
handkerchief.  "My dear child!" cried Mr. Vernley, pinching her ear,
"I'd no idea young Master Scissors had made such a conquest.  The
young beggar, I'll teach him to upset my daughter."  He laughed
good-heartedly, saw Muriel force a smile through her tears, and then
diplomatically prevented further observation by spreading out the
_Times_.



III

The two boys in the train were very silent.  Vernley immersed in a
copy of "The Hill."  John sat staring out of the window.  But it was
not the swiftly passing fields that engaged his attention, for at
that moment he was exercising what Mr. Steer, in the explanation of
Wordsworth's poem, had called "the inward eye, which is the bliss of
solitude."  John's thoughts were not at all blissful.  He was feeling
quite blue.  The end of a glorious holiday had come, and having what
another poet had called "the passion of the past," he was reluctantly
taking stock of his memories.  He had found delightful friends.
There were Mr. and Mrs. Vernley; he could never feel quite lonely in
England now.  They represented home for John, being people who could
understand and sympathise.  There was Mr. Chadburn who had talked to
him quite seriously.  John had found a great friend in Mr. Steer.
They had had wonderful walks together, when John had been taken into
a new world that awaited his discovery.  Steer had invited him to
call at his house when he was in London.  He wondered whether Mrs.
Steer would be just as delightful.

Then his thoughts turned to Muriel.  She would be having her music
lesson from Miss Lane now.  He had made her tell him all she was
going to do that day.  After the music lesson she was going to visit
the stables.  He saw her walking round the wing of the house, he saw
her small hand press the catch on the wicket gate, and her short
graceful steps as she crossed the cobbled stable-yard to the corner
where the horses were stabled.  He knew exactly how she would lift
the iron bar out of its socket, swing back the half-door, call
"Bess!" and then stroke the white patch running from between the eyes
down to the nose.  He could even smell the stable, with that
delightful manure and horsey aroma.

He could see the deftness with which she slipped the bridle over
Bess's head, and the firm way in which she led her out of the stable,
for she insisted on attending to Bess herself, and with a sharp
movement she would be in the saddle at his side, level with and
laughing into his face, and their horses would walk clattering across
the cobbles, before breaking into a canter in the lane.  He knew
every inch of that lane, just where the horses would gallop, and
where they would walk.  He remembered the crest of the hill, with its
pattern below of fields and farmhouses and stacks; with the dim blue
clumps of leafless trees, and the barren telegraph poles, carrying
the singing wires across the valley towards the railway siding.  Half
a mile over that crest was the copse where the robin sang as he
kissed her that wonderful morning when they had ridden ahead of the
others.

And now he was being carried away from all that happiness!  He was
going back to bare noisy rooms, to a crowd of boys and worried
masters.  Would such times as he had had ever come again?  His hand
at that moment rested on something hard in his pocket.  It was
Muriel's photograph which she had given him before breakfast.  He had
looked at it hurriedly then, in its tissue cover.  Now he wanted to
take it out and feast his eyes upon it.  He looked up; Vernley was
chewing butterscotch and still immersed in his book.  He did not want
the old lady sitting near to see him gazing at the photograph, so he
got up and went into the adjoining lavatory.  There he bolted the
door and pulled out the precious packet.

Slipping the photograph from its paper cover, he saw it was a small
cabinet in sepia by Neame, New Bond Street, of Muriel in her riding
coat and cap.  As he pulled it out something dropped to the floor.
It was a small piece of tissue paper.  He was disappointed, for he
thought it was a note.  Then seeing its shape, he knew it contained
something, which, after unwrapping, proved to be a strand of hair.
John immediately kissed it with all the sentiment of fifteen.  He was
about to wrap it up again, when he had an inspiration.  It was
another pledge of love and should be placed with Ali's gift.  John
pulled out the chain with its moonstone pendant, which he faithfully
wore, and tied the strand of hair around the link.  Then, putting the
photograph back into his pocket, he returned to the carriage.


The platform was crowded when they arrived at Sedley and there was a
fierce fight for seats in the brake.  John found himself separated
from Vernley, but half an hour later, as he was going towards Mrs.
Fletcher's room, he was caught by the arm.

"I say, Scissors, what do you think?" asked Vernley excitedly.
"We've got a new study!  Maitland told me, and I didn't believe him,
but it's on the list.  There's another fellow in with us--what a
nuisance!  I don't know who he is."

"What's his name?"

"Marsh--Maitland says he's a new kid, tons of money and a motor bike.
He was at Eton and has come here for some reason.  It looks queer--we
don't want Eton's cast-offs."

"I beg your pardon," said a quiet voice.  The boys turned to find
themselves surveyed by a calm young gentleman.  He smiled at them in
a superior way.

"My name is Marsh--of whom you speak.  If my presence is offensive to
your secluded domain, I'll remove myself."

"Pompous ass," thought John.  Vernley stared at him.

"Well, we are friends y' see," said Vernley at last.

"So I perceive," murmured the tall youth, looking at Vernley, who had
his arm in John's.  There might have been something offensive in the
fact, and the stranger impressed this upon them.  Vernley drew his
arm away.

"Do you always _perceive_ things?" asked John sarcastically.

"When they are worth it," retorted Marsh.  "When I've finished
unpacking, I'll speak to you again.  So long," and he turned and
walked down the corridor, with deliberate dignity.

"Well I'm snubbed," said Vernley.  "Does Fletcher think we'll put up
with that piece of skin and grief!"

"He'll speak to us again!--when he has finished unpacking!  Bobbie,
we are dismissed!" cried John.

Their next encounter with Marsh was more genial.  They found him
sitting in the new study.  When John and Vernley opened the door they
stood on the threshold and gasped.  It was an amazing spectacle they
beheld.  Two lounge chairs covered with chintz were placed on each
side of the fireplace.  A blue cloth covered the table on which lay a
shallow black bowl.  In the bowl was water on which floated, in
careless design, a dozen narcissi dropped in by the hand of Marsh.
The window was draped in chintz and in the far recess was a
magnificent bookcase.  It towered up to the ceiling and was crammed
with sumptuous books in highly-coloured leather bindings.  There were
four pictures on the walls, of a mysterious nature; those
sallow-faced maidens and thin-legged youths in red hose, John learned
later, were from the hand of Botticelli.  A lady with a curious smirk
occupied the place of honour over the fireplace.  When John asked
Marsh if it was his mother, the boy exclaimed sadly, "Alas, no!" and
going to the bookshelf read from a volume a long analysis of the
lady's smile written by a person called Pater in prose which, to
John, seemed a long time getting to the point.

After the reading was finished and Marsh had pronounced it to be
"luscious," he invited them to sit down, which was singular, since it
was their study,--but he was a person who evidently took command.
Appreciating comfort, and a little proud of the envy their study
would arouse in others, they settled down amicably.

At the end of the month, they were inseparable.  The trio became
famous.  Vernley was the athlete, Marsh the scholar, and John--that
amazing discovery was made by John almost by accident.  It filled his
dreams for a whole term.

It was in the school debating society that John made his great
discovery.  Mr. Fletcher was in the chair.  The meeting was in the
lecture theatre with its tiers of seats climbing up to the back
windows, in one of which John sat listening.  There was a mock
government in office, trying to introduce a bill for compulsory
military training.  The debate was opened by the captain of the
Officers' Training Corps, a man John disliked intensely, mainly
because he had prominent teeth that were not prolonged on parallel
lines.  John had attended three meetings of the society, but had not
spoken.  The small boys sat silent in the presence of the sixth form
gods.  John would not have spoken on this occasion except for an
accident.  He was sitting on the window seat, jammed in between two
other boys, who, in the course of an attack upon each other's head,
ejected John from his position.  He fell with an amazing noise on the
hollow boarding, and the Speaker, looking up, caught John's eye.  The
boy had no intention of speaking but Mr. Fletcher evidently
misconstrued his action, and very kindly paused to give John his
opportunity.  So there was nothing else for him to do but to open his
mouth.  He stammered for half a minute, uttered a witticism and
provoked a laugh, which encouraged him to proceed to a superb piece
of youthful cynicism.  The house gasped, but liked the sensation; the
leader of the debate sat amazed at the junior's audacity.

But John had tasted blood.  He felt the flattery of the attention he
was commanding.  He grew bolder.  A few of Marsh's grandiloquent
phrases came into his head, odd readings from those leather-bound
books pointed his arguments gracefully, his ear for a choice phrase
kept his listeners intent.  At the end of ten minutes John sat down
abruptly.  There was a great silence.  He had made a fool of himself,
he thought, and was blushing with shame when the tide of applause
caught him.  It seemed to rock the theatre.  He was being applauded,
the whole theatre was applauding him!  He was no longer a nonentity,
but somebody!  It dazed him a little.  For the next half hour he
heard his name mentioned in the debate.  When they all trooped out of
the theatre, he was smiled at, and patted on the back.  The crowning
moment came when Mr. Fletcher looked at him closely through his
spectacles and said--

"I hardly like to approve of your audacity, Dean, but I am pleased
that my house has such an eloquent representative.  I'm afraid the
bitterness of your spirit suggests a misspent youth and the
convictions of a Labour leader."  And with a good-natured smile, in
which John detected whole-hearted approval, Fletcher passed on.

A fortnight later, John was the leader of the Opposition.  It was an
unheard-of thing for a junior boy to sit on the front bench, but John
had broken all traditions.  He was aided by Marsh who loved to be
diplomatic.  Marsh carried on an insidious campaign against all who
opposed John's nomination.  He held tea-parties at which he collected
his forces.  He despatched his lieutenants to the fields, the five
courts, the common room, the quadrangles, the armoury and the tuck
shop.  Vernley brought round the athletic vote--"the blockhead
squirearchy," Marsh called it, and the fifth and sixth form 'bloods'
were bribed by the thoughtful loan of French novels.

"Scissors," announced March on the momentous day of the election,
"you should be eternally grateful to the French scribes.  Anatole
France, Flaubert, Maupassant and Daudet--these have won the day.
Thanks to the lasciviousness of Madame Bovary and the voluptuousness
of Sappho, the full-blooded gods of Upper School will nod in your
favour.  I have seduced them with questionable literature.  I have
undermined their morals and pandered to their secret viciousness.  In
grateful recollection of the delicious nights I have given them, they
are your henchmen to-day.  I have suffered in the cause.  This
morning, the Censor, in the heavy shape of Fletcher, produced his
warrant and searched my shelves.  His disgusting taste has been
satiated.  Look--'A Rebours,' 'Thaïs' and 'Sappho' have been
abducted.  Those bleeding gaps are the memorials of my enthusiasm in
the cause.  In your hours of triumph, O Scissors, forget not the hand
that raised you to your dizzy eminence.  Let me whisper in your ear,
and remind you, as the Cæsars of old, of the fickleness of Fate."

"Shut up, you ass," exclaimed Vernley.  "Scissors'll romp in.  I've
exhausted the bank in buns and lemonade, and have given away enough
cigarettes to smoke the enemy out."

"We shall probably be unseated for corruption," said John.  "Your
support, Marsh, is a questionable advantage."

"That's the kind of rotten remark one expects from a politician.
You've a great political career in front of you, Scissors--you have
the necessary lack of gratitude and want of principle.  Et tu, Brute!
O shades of the departed!  Bovary, Thaïs and Sappho, behold the
ingratitude of this friend who wades to glory over your dead bodies!
Scissors, the first day you're in power you've got to abolish the
censorship.  There shall be no peace in your Parliament until I can
read Wilde and Baudelaire in bed, without interruption or
confiscation."



IV

As anticipated, Scissors headed the poll, and henceforth he was
leader of the Opposition.  The result was a high political fever.
Immediately after breakfast each morning, he rushed round to the
library and read through the newspapers.  At first he modelled
himself upon Winston Churchill, to whom he was supposed to have some
facial likeness, but he found he had not the cool self-assumption of
his prototype.  He found himself more akin to Lloyd George, that
Welsh lawyer whose name was as blasphemy to some and holy song to
others.  The role suited John.  He was a born iconoclast.  He had the
Welshman's gift of stinging epithet, and he surprised himself with
the veneer of venom that added lustre to his sentences.  He learnt
from his prototype the art of swift descent from Parnassus to
Limehouse; he punctuated his periods with cheers provoked from the
blubber-headed section of his audience; he knew the pathetic touch,
the 'lump-in-the-throat' moment, as he called it, and he used them
until his opponents were powerless to stem the avalanche of his
invective.

All this alarmed Mr. Fletcher.  He saw his house becoming
socialistic.  The authority of the prefects was becoming undermined,
the junior boys no longer feared the Upper Remove.  They frankly
stated their dislikes.  In one debate they declared their hatred of
compulsory cricket with such vehemence that he had to move the
closure, whereupon John attacked him as a champion of tyranny, the
feeble upholder of bloated tradition.  This so alarmed Fletcher that
he had a private interview with John, who suggested very skilfully
that his overture was a form of corruption.  The fact was that John
was getting a swollen head.  Marsh, whose hornet-like nature
delighted in the stinging of authority, encouraged John in his most
daring attacks.  Vernley, lost in admiration at John's brilliance,
worshipped silently and approved without question.  The other boys
followed in John's path, hardly realising the power of his leadership.

The awakening came rapidly from an unseen quarter.  It fell like a
thundercloud over the sunshine of John's triumph, and he resented his
defeat all the more because it was the hand of a friend who brought
him low, and his fall had no dignity.  It was not intellectual.  He
would have borne that.  It was physical, and he felt sick with shame.
Inwardly he was conscious that he had provoked disaster, and most of
his anger fell upon himself for being such a fool and not realising
the need of tact.

It happened one Wednesday half, towards the end of term.  Lindon was
the instrument of Fate.  John was fagging that day and had been told
to lay tea at four in Lindon's study.  He had always been allowed
great liberty by his fagmaster and he took his own time to perform
his duties.  John did not worry, therefore, when four o'clock struck
as he finished a game in the fives' courts.  He leisurely walked
across to the bathroom, stripped and sat on the side of the bath,
whistling while the water ran in.  As he waited for the bath to fill,
Marsh appeared through the steam.

"London's been calling like blazes for you.  He said he told you to
lay tea at four."

"Let him call," said John, turning on the cold tap and hiding himself
in steam.

"You'd better hurry up, Scissors--he's quite scrubby."

John merely yelled as he plunged his leg into the hot water.  He had
just nicely soaped himself from head to foot, and was working up a
white lather on his head, when he heard his name called, and looking
up saw London.

"I asked you for tea at four," he said.

John's face was covered with white soap, but he smiled sweetly.

"I know, I'm coming when I've finished here."

"Indeed!--get out!"

"I say, Lindon, do be reasonable!"

"I have been--too much so.  Are you going to get out?"

"No!" answered John, sullenly, rubbing his head.

"Very well!"  A moment later the door slammed.  John lay back in the
bath.  He had won.  The warm water made him feel very comfortable.
He wondered if Lindon felt sick.  While he was contemplating, Lindon
reappeared.  He had a switch in his hand.  The business took on a
serious aspect.

"Are you coming out?" he asked severely.

John pouted.  "No!" he said obstinately.

Lindon immediately pulled out the plug and turned on the cold water
tap.  John sat still, getting colder every second.  Soon he was
shivering.  At last he had to stand up, and the moment he did so,
Lindon's switch whistled through the air and left a red weal across
John's thigh.  Involuntarily he yelled, then blazing with shame and
anger, he picked up the wet sponge and flung it full in Lindon's
face.  The squelch ruined the prefect's neat collar and tie, but
Lindon only looked cooler, which frightened John.  The next moment he
was lifted bodily out of the bath, and before he recovered from his
amazement at Lindon's strength, he was pinned head downwards over the
drying rack and being thrashed like a puppy.  He screamed at the top
of his voice, not in pain but in anger.  When he was released, he saw
three boys waiting in the doorway with towels.  They had seen all,
and overcome with wounded vanity and misery, John fell in a heap on
the floor and cried.  He lay there, moaning, and Lindon as he watched
him, relented.

"Scissors," he said kindly, bending down.

John looked at the face, and hated its strength.  Madly, he struck
Lindon full in the face with all his might.  The boys in the door
stood breathless at this act, watching.  The elder boy was the most
amazed of all.  For a moment he stared at John, with an angry red
mark under his right eye.  Suddenly turning, he strode out of the
room.

Utterly miserable and smarting, John dressed himself.  He had acted
like a little cad and Lindon would be quite just in refusing to
accept his apology.  He was miserable, not because he feared the
consequences of this act, serious as they were, but he had lowered
himself in the eyes of one whom he admired.  Nothing could hurt him
so much as that Lindon should hold him in contempt.  He hurried along
to the study, tapped and entered.  Lindon sat in a wicker chair with
his back to John, talking to three other fellows.  They had finished
tea.  John hesitated, he had expected to find him alone, and his
courage failed.

"I came to lay tea," he said feebly.

"We've had it," replied Lindon without turning his head.  John paused
awkwardly; there seemed no more to say so he went out of the room
quietly.  All the evening he hung about miserably.  Marsh tried to
cheer him up with witticisms about his being honoured with the
disorder of the bath.  Vernley quite bluntly told him that he had
acted like a cad, which John knew very well.  So he quarrelled with
them both, and was glad when it was bed time.  But in bed he could
not sleep.  He longed for the morning and the opportunity of
apologising.  Finally he buried his head under the sheets, and in
sheer wretchedness cried himself to sleep.

The next morning, immediately after prayers, he went round to
Lindon's study.  There was no one there, so he sat down and waited.
After ten minutes, as the bell rang for morning school, Staveley
looked in for a book he had lent.

"Hullo!" he said.

"Do you know where Lindon is?" asked John.

"Yes--in the 'San.'  He won't be here again I expect this term.  He's
suspect--chicken pox.  Seven of Field House are down.  You'd better
cut, that's second bell."

When the end of term came, a fortnight later, Lindon had not
reappeared.  John went across to the Sanitorium and learned that he
was convalescent, but could not be seen.  Yet he knew Staveley had
visited him.  It was obvious he did not wish to see John.  So ended a
wretched term.




CHAPTER V

John had been invited to spend the first half of his Easter holidays
at Marsh's.  The second half was to be taken with the Vernleys.  John
wondered whether his acceptance of Marsh's invitation would hurt
Vernley, but Marsh included Bobbie in the invitation.  Vernley,
however, was unable to accept; he was spending part of his time with
an aunt in the north of Scotland.  So they parted at Sedley Station,
and two hours later John was being driven in from Loughboro towards
Marsh's home.  The gardener with a trap had met the boys at the
station and they had about an hour's drive before they turned off the
main road which intersected the village of Renstone.  On the right
was the Vicarage, standing back from the little street; on the left,
across the road, stood the church, with its square tower, and near
by, the Hall.  Marsh's father was the Vicar of Renstone and Marsh had
been born in the Vicarage.  As the trap turned off the street, they
entered through two wide gates which completely shut off the Vicarage
from the village.  Inside the gates there was a small courtyard, in
the centre of which stood a great holly bush.  The yard was closed in
by the back of the house and in the middle was the main entrance
porch with a wing of the domestic building.  When John entered the
porch and the door opened, he gave a cry of delight.  He looked right
through a small hall on the opposite side where wide low windows with
small leaded panes overlooked two long lawns.  A gravel path led down
the centre to a line of magnificent elms that bordered the far edge
of the garden, and through the elms John caught a vista of the
country with the white main road, along which they had come,
stretching away to the horizon.

John's admiration of the Vicarage was cut short by the entrance of a
lady.  She wore a large straw hat, and a pair of washleather gloves.
In her hand was a basket full of clippings.  She placed the basket on
the settee and coming forward kissed Marsh, then turning to the boy
standing shyly in the shadow of the door, said,

"This is John--of whom I have heard so much?  How d'you do?  We are
so glad to see you."

After his momentary shyness, John found himself looking into the face
of a fair little woman with kind eyes.  She also examined John
closely, noticed the shy flush on his face, the darkness of his eyes
and the slim grace of his regular features and carriage.  They
immediately liked one another.  John was at home again.  She was one
of those women who are mothers to whatever humanity seeks their love.
So John looked long at her and knew that he had found a friend.  He
contrasted her with Mrs. Vernley, whom he also liked.  But Mrs.
Vernley was a woman of the world, determined, a lover of fashion.
Mrs. Marsh was quite of a different order.  John felt she was one who
would understand sympathetically when others would judge harshly.
She was the kind of woman to whom he would rather come if he had a
confession to make.

He noticed how very frail she was, almost like a saint who had
fasted.  Her white hair, loosely fastened, seemed as a halo while she
stood there in the dim hall with the sunlight behind rimming her head
with light.  Her hand was so thin that John could feel all the bones
in it and her flesh was almost transparent.

Meanwhile Marsh had superintended their boxes.

"Come up to our room, Scissors!" he cried, and John followed him up
an old oak staircase, along a narrow corridor that ran the whole
length of the house, overlooking the courtyard on one side.  Their
room was at the end, and the beauty of it made John's heart leap up.
It had two low casement windows, bordered with creeper drooping to
the lawns below.  Their two beds faced the windows; the dressing
table, mantelpiece and writing desk were decorated with fresh bunches
of violets.  The perfume pervaded the room and mingled with the
delightful smell of clean linen, which John had come to distinguish
as a 'country house smell.'

"What a jolly room!" cried John.

Marsh seemed pleased at his approbation.  "Not a bit like a parson's
hole, is it?" he commented.  "This room is modern--that's a copy of a
Cezanne; that's a real Pizarro--you won't find on these walls any
woolly legend 'God is Love,' or a dead aunt's knitting in five
colours--'Blessed are the meek.'  I ejected all those long ago."

"But what does your governor say?"

"Nothing--he merely smiles.  I am the cuckoo's egg in the family
nest."

John was a little shocked.  He felt uneasy when Marsh talked in this
strain.  It was not that Marsh wanted to shock, but John was in an
alien country, which his friend evidently knew well.  Every day John
was discovering some thing new about himself until his mind was in a
condition of fear.  Marsh was so splendidly cool about everything.
When John asked him questions, he showed no surprise, or superiority,
but explained and amplified from familiarity with his theme.  Marsh
dismissed certain things as "rotten," others he characterised as
"smuggy."  John always had a feeling that Marsh knew much more than
he said.  His knowledge of books, for instance, was extraordinary.
John was discovering new books every day of his life, but he no
sooner announced a fresh treasure than Marsh knew all about it, had
read it long ago and could supplement the knowledge with personal
information concerning the author and other books he had written.  He
was at home in French literature or English, which John accounted for
later when he found that Mrs. Marsh had spent her youth in a French
convent school.  This discovery was made at tea-time in the study, a
delightfully cosy room full of books and loose papers, and magazines,
with big chairs in which you sank low and all the cushions gradually
deflated as though the breath had been crushed out of them.  Marsh
talked to his mother in French, greatly to John's admiration.

"You mustn't mind Teddie talking French to me," said Mrs. Marsh, as
she handed him a tea cup.  "He thinks it is such a treat for me, as
indeed it is, and Teddie is greatly afraid that I might forget how to
speak French."

"I wish I could follow it all, Mrs. Marsh--you speak French so
frenchily," said John, munching toast.  He loved her already; there
was something so comfortable about her.

"Well, you see I was sent to a French school when quite a little girl.

"Jolly good thing for me, Mater, wasn't it?" cried Marsh, linking his
arm through his mother's.

"Why, dear?"

"'Cause I shouldn't have been here if you hadn't fallen in love with
a red-haired young curate on a walking tour through Provence!"

Mrs. Marsh laughed.

"You naughty boy--what would your father say if he knew you called
him a red-haired curate--his hair was golden then."

"That's the usual story--if a man has red hair they say it's golden;
if a girl, they call it auburn."

"My mother had au-red hair," said John flushing.  Mrs. Marsh looked
quickly at the boy at her side, mingling her love with admiration of
his courage.

"Sorry, Scissors--but it can't have been red, for you haven't a
freckle.  He's jolly good-looking, isn't he, Mother?"

John coloured; further confusion was checked by the abrupt opening of
the door.  A clerical collar told him that it was Mr. Marsh.  After
the formal introduction John was able to study the Reverend George
Marsh while the latter questioned his son.

He was a tall man of striking appearance.  His hair, although almost
white, was thick, and a great wave of it lay over his brow.  He had a
tanned healthy face and laughing eyes.  A smile was never long absent
from his face, which was handsome in a broad-featured way.  John
noticed how large and strong were his hands.  He had been a great
cricketer in his day, and the athlete still lingered in his frame.
He would have been recognised as an English country gentleman in any
community, and his geniality was blended with an exquisite courtesy.
Of the parson there was not a trace, and when afterwards he appeared
without a clerical collar, there was no indication whatever that he
was anything but a full-blooded English gentleman fond of his horse
and his pipe.

He was at least ten years older than his wife, whom he called the
"Skipper," greatly surprising and afterwards amusing John.  He
evidently troubled himself about nothing.  If Marsh wanted anything,
he was always told by the Vicar, "Ask the Skipper," or "Does the
Skipper know?"  On Saturday afternoon there was what Marsh assured
John was the weekly tragi-comedy.  He confessed he had not composed
his sermon for the following day, and, like a penitent boy, was
locked in his study with the threat that he should have no dinner
until the sermon was completed.  He must have been either a man of
quick inspiration or short patience, for half an hour later as John
walked by the study window he saw the vicar, pipe in mouth, stretched
in his wicker chair, reading the _Nation_ which he waved joyously at
John as though to say, "See!  I defy the Skipper!"

Later, John discovered that the Vicar was a rebel at heart.  He read
the _Nation_ religiously, and had an intense enthusiasm for the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was saying rude things about persons
who kept pheasants, greatly to the vicar's delight, who knew how
angry it would make the new tenant of Renstone Hall, who stood for
King, the Conservative party, a covert full of pheasants and a house
full of servants.  Teddie, partly from perversity, and partly because
he felt the lordship of youth, was a conservative, like his mother,
and they had fierce arguments, in which the Vicar bravely kept his
flag flying, despite assaults on either flank.

John's sympathies were with the Vicar.  The Chancellor had the gift
of phrase and epithet which he admired, and had also excelled in.  He
supported him therefore because that politician's brilliance
delighted him.  The Vicar was delighted.  He ragged Teddie
unmercifully, and commented gaily on the pleasure he derived from
seeing that the new race at Sedley was enlightened, a playful thrust
at his son's assumption of seniority in his attitude towards John in
political discussions.  John loved those tea-times when argument grew
merry.  It was all so good-humoured, the Vicar bantering his son and
wife with great joy, they in their turn exposing his "democracy" by
stories of a "brother" of the soil who had imposed upon him again and
again.

John loved these debates.  He felt he was one of the family, and
after the bleakness of schooldays this comfort and intimacy were
something to be treasured.  His admiration of Mrs. Marsh grew daily.
She was so clever that John no longer wondered at Teddie's amazing
ability in all things.  She could paint well, and had read deeply and
widely; was an authority on Bartolozzi engravings and made beautiful
jewellery as a hobby.  In the evenings after dinner, they always had
an hour's music in the drawing-room--an unique apartment decorated in
black and white, with silver fittings and massive candelabra, holding
twenty candles--"with enough dripping to make saute potatoes,"
commented Teddie.  The corner of the drawing room was filled by a
superbly-toned Beckstein grand, which Mrs. Marsh played with
consummate skill.

She had studied at Vienna under Leschetiscky and her interpretation
of Liszt and Brahms held John spellbound.  Her rendering was quite
unlike Lindon's.  He played _con fuoco_.  She caressed the piano so
that it sang as though its heart was filled with grief.  When she
played Debussy and Ravel, it was as though the wind were making the
aspens shake and glimmer in the sunlight.  There was a series of
delicate currents of sound which followed one another like the
reflections of rippling water on the sides of a boat, and one floated
down the stream with all the senses quiescent yet acute.

When the music ended and it was time for bed, for they retired early,
there was the ceremony of blowing out the candles.  Mrs. Marsh,
Teddie and John joined hands round the candelabra and a fierce
competition ensued.  In the small hall they parted.  The Vicar went
off to his study, where he sat reading until one or two in the
morning.  His lamp threw a long strip of light across the lawn long
after the boys had fallen asleep.  On the first night, after Mrs.
Marsh had kissed her son on the brow and said "Good night," she
turned and half held out her hand to John, then with one of those
sudden impulses, which endeared her to him, she asked,

"I wonder if my new boy is too big?" and smiling, she pressed John's
head towards her and kissed him on the brow, then turned and went
upstairs.  John stood still for half a minute.  He hoped the light
was too dim for his friend to see, for his eyes were blurred.  It was
silly to be so frightfully sensitive, but kindness like this always
upset him.  It increased his sense of loneliness and loss and yet it
made him happier.

Upstairs in their bedroom, John threw open a window and leaned out
into the night.  The air was warm, and a full moon hung low over the
elm trees at the bottom of the garden, throwing their long shadows
across the lawns.  The distant woods, black and distinct, were
silhouetted on the hills; there was a great silence over everything.
The moon would look just like that peering over the gorge at Amasia.
He wondered what his father was doing at that moment, and whether he
knew how happy he was.  Probably he was smoking his last cigarette on
the verandah, watching the stream as it ran and flashed along its
stony bed; perhaps the night was not silent like this, but full of
the droning of the _saz_.  And Ali?--he would be fast asleep, tired
after a long day in the sun.  Dear old Ali, how he longed to have him
with him, to show him this wonderful English house, and have him hear
Teddie talk--how he would stare at Teddie!

"I say, Scissors, how long are you going to hang out of that window?"
It was Marsh, tooth-brush in hand, already in his pyjamas.  "I'll bet
I know your thoughts."

"You don't."

"I do--you're thinking about another place the moon hangs over and
what everybody's doing there."

"How did you know?"

Marsh laughed delightedly at the confirmation of his guess.
"Easy--when you turned just now you'd got the East in your eyes."

"The East--what do you mean?"

"Well, you look a bit Eastern at times.  I thought so the first time
I saw you, but you looked very much so just now, just as I imagine
Lindon saw you."

"Lindon--" John gulped at the name--"saw me?  What did he tell you?"

"Oh, he was telling us one day how you fainted when he played the
_Drum Polonaise_--and how queer you looked at him just before you
went.  By the way, I don't think I ever told you Lindon lives near
here."


The days slipped by at the Vicarage.  Indeed, there was so little to
do and yet they were so industriously idle that the day was over
before all that was planned had been accomplished.  John had been at
the Vicarage just a week, when, one sunshiny Saturday morning, the
trap came round to the door, with its well-groomed pony and shining
harness, at which Marsh had laboured for an hour the previous evening
with a bottle of polish--and the promise of half a crown.  Mrs. Marsh
and John and Teddie got in, the latter taking the reins, and they
clattered merrily out of the courtyard, down the village street,
where the little boys gaped, and the women in the doors curtseyed,
out on to the highway stretching away beneath an avenue of
over-reaching elms.  They were bound for the market town of
Loughboro, on a shopping expedition.

"There's nothing worth buying there," said Marsh, "which is the
reason for the Mater's regular visit.  She drags me round in the trap
while she looks in every window.  There's nothing to see and less to
do."

"There's the Theatre, dear."

"What a show!  'East Lynne' by the celebrated London company or 'The
Girl at the Cross Roads' preceded by the one act comedy, 'Sarah in
the Soup.'"

"You should not run the place down--you will spoil John's
anticipations."

They passed a couple of ragged men, bronzed and unshaven, who stood
still while the trap passed.

"That's the ideal life," exclaimed Marsh, flicking the pony.
"Nothing to do and no desire to do it.  They remind me of Davies'
lines--he was a tramp too--

  _What is this life if full of care
  We have no time to stand and stare?_

This road's punctuated with these leisured gentlemen--that's another
attraction of Loughboro--there's a fine workhouse.  The Governor goes
to preach there once a month, and always comes away regretting he's
not an inmate--it fits in with his idea of the democratic communal
life.  But he always drinks sherry when he gets home--to kill the
taste I suppose."

There were now signs of the approaching town.  Cottages became more
frequent, and then villas, pathetically attempting to keep on good
relations with the country by burdening their windows with flower
boxes and their square little front gardens with shrubs.  Two
gasometers loomed up in the distance, long monotonous buildings with
tall chimneys suggesting some kind of industry.  Then with a turn,
they were trotting down the streets of the town itself.  They pulled
up under the Town Hall clock which projected itself over a market
place greatly animated with booths and wandering groups of buyers,
gossipers and gapers.  Mrs. Marsh disappeared in a chemist's shop,
where she exchanged her library books, and presently she emerged
laden with three novels, the _English Review_, the _Nineteenth
Century_ and _The Tatler_.  These were deposited in the trap,
whereupon she walked on again and disappeared in a dairy shop.  Marsh
flicked the pony and the trap jogged on, halting again outside the
shop.

"This is how we progress on a shopping expedition.  I follow the
mater all round the market place while everybody comes to the shop
doors, stares at me, asks, 'Do you know who that is?' until a
wiseacre says, 'That's the parson's son--him what preaches at the
workhouse.'  Last summer I came down here in shorts and socks and the
sight paralysed the market place; they had never seen so much male
leg before.  I shall bring my 'topper' home next term.  It'll have a
raging success."

For three quarters of an hour they slowly worked round the sides of
the market place, while the trap got fuller and fuller and Mrs. Marsh
redder and redder.  John was busy carrying parcels from the shop to
the trap.

"Thank heaven a market square has only four sides!" cried Marsh, as
John deposited a two gallon jar of cider in the well of the trap.

"There's more to follow!" cried Scissors, darting back to the shop.
He emerged a few minutes later, his arms full of small parcels with
Mrs. Marsh following behind.  He was so intent upon balancing his
precariously held pile that he did not notice a youth and a girl who
stood aside to let them pass, but as he turned to hand the things to
Marsh he caught a glimpse and his heart gave a great thump as he
coloured in confusion.  Marsh noticed John's sudden uneasiness and
turned in his seat.

"Lindon!" he cried.  "What luck--how are you?"

It was Lindon--cool, immaculate.  He raised his to Mrs. Marsh, with
the alert manner that distinguished him.  The girl at his side was
obviously his sister.  She had the same straight nose and keen eyes.
Her fresh beauty made John stare at her.  All that fascinated him in
Lindon was there with the added grace of girlhood.

"Good morning, Mr. Lindon--good morning, Miss Lindon.  You are
shopping too, I suppose," said Mrs. Marsh genially; then noticing
John nervously drawing back--"You know John, I think?"

"Rather," interrupted Marsh.  "John's his fag."

Lindon laughed.  "I'm afraid he knows me only too well."  He turned
to his sister.  "This is Scissors--John Dean, Mabel."  John raised
his cap and took the proffered hand.

"How d'you do," she asked, "I've heard so much of you from Henry."

Then Lindon had spoken of him!--he had called him Scissors!  A
hundred thoughts raced through John's head.  Had he forgiven--or was
this mere politeness?  He had talked about him to his sister, but
perhaps that was before this miserable affair happened.  He must
speak to Lindon somehow before they parted, and say how sorry he was.
The eye, he was relieved to see, showed no signs of his attack.  In
his imagination he had come to think of it as quite closed up.

Mabel Lindon looked at the boy who stood so silent before her.
Possibly he was tongued-tied, certainly he was flushed, or was it his
colour?  He was very attractive, she thought, and his embarrassment
flattered her.

"Will you not come over to see us?" she asked him.  John was in a
dilemma.  Lindon was busily talking to Marsh and his mother, he had
not heard the invitation.  John waited, hoping he would hear and
re-inforce it.

"I'm leaving here on Tuesday--so I'm sorry I shall be unable, thank
you."

"Oh, that is a pity, for we are leaving next month, we are going to
live in Worcestershire, and it is a shame, for we have such a
wonderful garden and pond--you would love it."

"I'm sure I should."

They were saying good-bye now.  He shook hands with Miss Lindon.
Mrs. Marsh had got into the trap.  John was about to follow, when
Lindon spoke.

"Having a good time, Scissors?" he asked, in a friendly voice.  John
stammered with joy and relief.  It was _Pax_.

"Awfully, thanks Lindon," he muttered.  The reins had been jerked,
the trap began to move.  Miss Lindon walked on.  Lindon raised his
cap.  "Good-bye!" he called to them.  It was now or never.

"Please Lindon--I--I'm awfully sorry I was such a cad to you--and
will you forgive me?  I--I--"

"That's all right, Scissors," said Lindon, shaking John's hand.  "I
like fire in a kid.  Are you coming over to see us?" he asked.

"I'm sorry I can't---I go on Tuesday--"

"Well--you must come to stay next hols.  Good-bye!" and with a smile
he was gone.  All John's hero worship swelled up within him.  How
splendidly Lindon had dismissed the beastly affair!  John hurried
after the trap and clambered in.  Marsh smiled at him with perfect
understanding, and John felt how good was life.  All the way back to
the Vicarage his heart was singing within him.  At the Vicarage door,
as he carried in the parcels, he could not help whistling.  Marsh
took his arm.

"That storm over?" he asked, sympathetically.

John could not answer, but he nodded.  They walked into the house.




CHAPTER VI


I

The following Tuesday John said good-bye to the Marshs and left for
"The Croft" to spend the remainder of his Easter holidays with the
Vernleys.  Mrs. Marsh and Teddie drove him to the station, and, as
the train left and he leaned out of the window to wave farewell, he
knew that once more he had found true friends and a house where his
return would be welcome.  At dusk he had arrived in the village
station nearest to "The Croft," where he found Bobbie and his brother
Tod waiting for him on the platform.

"Hello, Scissors!" shouted Tod, as the train drew in, "We've a
surprise for you.  Where's the luggage--give me that, I'll carry it."

"How's the great Marsh?" asked Vernley.  "As supercilious as ever?"

"Yes--in great form, he sends his love and recommends Mother
Wingate's syrup for fatuous persons," answered John.

"Cheek!" retorted Vernley, "and by Jove--don't you think I'm getting
thin--Tod's had me out on the under track every morning at six.  I'm
going to pull off the 'half' and mile race next term."

John looked at him critically, and although Vernley was as
delightfully substantial as ever, he had not the heart to disappoint
him.

"He's wasting away like our Narcissus," said Tod, banging his way
through the narrow booking hall.  "Look, my son, isn't she a beauty!"

He pointed to a racing car drawn up outside the station.  John
noticed its long rectangular bonnet, the beautiful gleam and hidden
strength of the thing, admiration showing in his eyes.

"It's mine!--the Governor's twenty-first birthday present!  She was
first in the trials at Brooklands last week," said Tod, dropping the
bag in.

"We're going on a tour next hols--all round this giddy old island,"
cried Vernley.  "There'll be a fringe of dead dogs and defunct old
ladies around these shores, that never did and never will stand under
the foot of the--how's the thing go?"

"--proud conqueror," added John.  "She is a lovely thing--what's her
name?"

"Haven't decided yet.  I've voted for the 'Silver Slayer.'  Tod
suggests 'The Gleam.'"

"The Governor says '[OE]dipus Rex' would be more appropriate," added
Tod, his brown hands on the steering wheel.

"Why?"

"Because of the murders at the cross roads that'll be committed.
Ready?"

There was a preparatory purr of the engine, then a delightful roaring
hum, and they glided forwards, imperceptibly gathering speed.  The
chill wind whipped John's face.  He looked joyously at Vernley seated
beside him and noted the disdainful pose of lordship.  Vernley's
utter contempt for a display of feeling always amused John.  The
villages tore by, fowls screeched, and flew with fluttered feathers
into the hedge bottoms; they roared up the hills and ran silently
down into the valleys.  Half an hour later they had turned in at the
familiar drive and, pulled up at the stone porch.  Inside the hall
Mrs. Vernley came to meet John.

"Here you are at last--we are so glad to see you, John."

"Thank you--it's good to be here, Mrs. Vernley."  The dogs, as if
welcoming an old friend, bounded forwards.

"Down, Tiger--down, Ruff--down, sir!" yelled Vernley, and they
cowered and wagged their tails, beating a tattoo on the parquet floor.

In the library, gleaming with a rosy fire, its light shining on the
silver tea service, John found Mr. Vernley.

"Hullo, my boy! well, how are you?  I hear we've found a great orator
at last!"

John smiled, then halted as he saw some one standing at Mr. Vernley's
side.

"Ribble," said Vernley turning to him, "this is our rising hope."
Then to John, "This is Mr. Ribble--you'll be great friends I'm sure,
though I don't know which side of him you'll like the better.  Mr.
Ribble has written some very clever books, and he's in the Cabinet,
so that politicians say he's a good author and a bad politician, and
authors say he's a good politician and a bad author."

"And my wife says I should have been a nonconformist divine.  How
d'you do, John; we must hear some of these famous flights of oratory."

"He's the real stuff, sir," said Vernley enthusiastically.--"Doesn't
half work 'em, makes the 'gods' boil over!"

"This empire, this realm upon which the sun has never looked--no,
that's not it, sir--I'm no orator," said Tod.  "Let's have tea,
Mother.  By Jove, Governor, you should have heard her sing up
Carshott Hill--did it on top, lots in hand.  When she's tuned up
she'll take a houseside."

"Lord!  You've done nothing but tune up since you had her," cried
Bobbie.

"Now boys, sit down, tea's ready," said Mrs. Vernley, pouring out.
John hoped every moment that Muriel would come in.  He was
disappointed when she was not in the hall to meet him, and his heart
sank when he did not find her in the library.  Perhaps she had gone
out for a walk.  He did not want to ask, for Vernley might think he
had come simply to see her.  It was not so, of course.  He was glad
to be with Vernley again, but he could not help looking forward to
seeing Muriel, of whom he had been thinking through all those weeks
at school.  The talk at the tea-table was chiefly political.  Mr.
Vernley was discussing a coming election with Ribble, whom John
thought was the most picturesque old man he had ever seen.  He had
long curly white hair, his eyes were surrounded by good-humoured
wrinkles, and he beamed through his spectacles.  The mouth was thin
and compressed and had a ghost of a smile always hovering about it
John wondered where he had seen such a face before, and then suddenly
remembered a portrait of Thackeray in Mr. Fletcher's study.  There
was a slight resemblance, and Mr. Ribble's character seemed to John
to be somewhat Thackerayish, for John was now half through "The
Newcomes," after a delighted discovery of "Pendennis" and "Henry
Esmond."

"Steer has just published a fine book," Mr. Ribble was saying.  "I
think that little poem on Muriel is masterly."

John was alert immediately, and Vernley, eating cake and drinking tea
at the same moment, contrary to all laws, noticed John's interest.

"When's Muriel coming home, Mother?" he asked.

"I read you her letter this morning--to-morrow.  You'll have to drive
the trap to the station to meet her in the afternoon."

"Why can't we motor?"

"I'm going to Brooklands in the morning," said Tod, "and I'm taking
Brown--so you'll have to drive the buggy."

"Oh, bother--I hate the old thing!"

But John would have ridden to Paradise in it if such a passenger as
Muriel had awaited him.  To-morrow!  He looked at Vernley, and it
occurred to him that his question had been what Mr. Fletcher, in
debates, had called a leading one.  Vernley had never shown much
interest in John's affair, but he was not so unobservant as the
latter thought.

When the boys were changing for dinner that evening, and while John
was struggling with a bow, his glance fell upon a silver frame
standing on the dressing table.  It contained a beautiful portrait of
Muriel who laughed at him out of the frame.  John looked long at it,
and finally he realised that the photograph had been placed there for
his delight.  It was on his dressing table and not on Vernley's.
Only one person could have placed it there.

"I say, Bobbie," said John, through the open door leading to his
friend's room.

"What?" asked Vernley, standing with one leg in his black trousers,
the other kicking its way through.

"You're a jolly decent sort--being here, you know--and in this room
again--and the--photograph--thanks awfully, old man."

"Thought you were a bit keen, you know--she's not at all bad for a
sister, is she?"

"Rather not!" said John ecstatically, giving his bow a confirmatory
pull.


That evening John knew Mr. Ribble much more intimately, for while one
of Vernley's sisters was accompanying the aspiring prima donna, John
was led off by the politician into the conservatory.  The boy began
asking questions about the House of Commons and Mr. Ribble had a
great fund of stories.  John learned of Mr. Balfour's aloof manner,
Mr. Churchill's imperturbable genius, Mr. Lloyd George's subtlety,
Mr. Asquith's classic weight and Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman's
personal charm; then he wished to know all about Mr. Austen
Chamberlain and the hereditary monocle, whether Mr. John Burn's
mother really had been a washerwoman, and what tactics were
legitimate in catching the Speaker's eye.  Leaving these
personalities, the conversation changed to political economy and John
found himself on new ground and in a world of unknown names.

John felt flattered by the fact that Mr. Ribble took it for granted
that he knew these persons and subjects, but the politician was
deliberately whetting the boy's appetite and trying to lead him into
a channel of serious study.  John Stuart Mill, Walter Bagehot, Edmund
Burke, Karl Marx, together with such queer names as Spinoza, Kant,
Schlegel, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, all rolled off Mr. Ribble's
tongue.  He was now in the realm of Philosophy, and John, for the
first time in his life, heard of Comte and Positivism, of Darwin and
the Origin of Species, of Huxley and Russell Wallace.  Mr. Ribble
talked and John listened, experiencing the wonderful thrill as when
Mr. Steer had shown him the world of poetry.

"I think you had better start with Ruskin's 'Unto This Last,'" said
Mr. Ribble when John asked where he should begin.  "He's easy to read
and somewhat superficial.  You'll find that philosophy and political
economy are closely related--half brothers in fact, and Ruskin
believes their parents were Social Morality and Private Duty."

Before going to bed that night, John had found a copy of "Unto This
Last" which he took up to bed.  The two boys often read before going
to sleep, and Vernley was engrossed in "Kim" so that he did not see
what absorbed John, until growing sleepy, he closed his book and came
into John's room with its light still burning.

"What are you reading?" he asked.

"Ruskin," replied John, deep in the book.

"Golly--what on earth are you reading that piffle for--what's the
book?"

"Unto This Last."

"Holy Moses--you're the queerest mixture I've ever known.  Last hols
it was "Whose dwelling is--"

  --"_The light of setting suns_"--began John--
  "_And the round ocean and the living air,
  And the blue sky and in the mind of man:
  A motion and a spirit, that impels
  All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
  And rolls through all things.  Therefore am I still
  A lover of the meadows and the woods,
  And mountains; and of all that--_"


A pillow landed on John's head.  It was returned with redoubled
energy.  Vernley made a grand attack, John defending with a bolster.
There was a frantic scuffle, the bed groaned, the electric light
swung furiously, Vernley's pyjama coat was torn down the back and
John was soon without a blanket or a sheet on his bed.  Suddenly they
were buried in a snowstorm of feathers that floated all over the
room; the pillow case had split; it called for an armistice.  John
and Vernley subsided on the bed, silently watching the feather-laden
atmosphere.

"Lord! what a mess!"

"We always seem to be smashing something in this room," said John
ruefully--"last time it was the wash basin."

"It's that infernal Wordsworth--there'll be nothing left now Ruskin's
on the scene too."

"Well--you shouldn't interrupt."

"Do you think I'm going to lie still while you pour out that bosh?"

"It isn't bosh--Mr. Ribble says--"

"Ribble's an old fool--'a nonconformist crank swaddled in the
longclothes of infantile ignorance'--that's what the Governor's
opponent called him last election."

The feathers had now settled.

"What a mess!" said Vernley surveying the room.  "I've got an idea!
Open the door, Scissors!"  Vernley threw open the two big windows and
the draught thus created swept the feathers out on to the landing.
The two boys followed and peered over the banisters as the white
cloud slowly settled down into the hall below.  At that moment the
drawing-room door opened.

"Father!--Just look at this--wherever--" came Mrs. Vernley's voice in
amazement.

"Shut the door, Scissors!"  They rushed into the room, switched off
the light and waited breathlessly.  All was quiet again.

"If you go on reading every author you're told about, there'll be
nothing left in this house," said Vernley, "and I don't agree, of
course, about that libel on old Ribble--he's a decent old boy.  Good
night, Scissors."



II

The next afternoon Vernley and John harnessed the pony and were on
their way to the station to meet Muriel.  Spring was in the air.  The
hedgerows were beginning to burst into leaf, and the birds singing in
the lanes filled the country-side with hope.  John's heart too was
singing.  It was so good to be driving through the sunlit lanes with
a crisp air blowing in their faces, the friendly jog-trot of the pony
beating upon their ears.  He looked at Vernley, the imperturbable
Vernley, who was flicking the pony's haunches with his whip.  There
was something comfortably solid about him.  He represented tradition
and the continuance of a settled conception of life.  John had no
difficulty in planning Vernley's future; unlike his own, it depended
upon no caprice of Fate.  He would go up to Oxford, travel, and then
settle down to the life of a country gentleman.  He would grow stout
and red-cheeked, marry a healthy, unimaginative wife and be the
father of a crowd of noisy, well-developed children.  The hunt, a
seat on the bench, June in London and August on the moors--that would
be Vernley's life.  And he would not bother his head about political
or religious faiths.  He would probably be a Conservative, despite
his father, who was a family renegade, and a Churchman.
Conservative, because caution and security were better than haste and
revolution, and the world on the whole was a jolly old place despite
Socialists and other disgruntled reformers.  A Churchman, because he
knew so little about religion, and a respectable ready-made creed,
tried and found suitable as an accommodating policy of living was the
safest and easiest to adopt.  Had he been born in Constantinople he
would have been a Mohammedan, in Bombay a Buddhist, in Hongkong a
Confucian, and in Paris a Catholic.  And whichever creed environment
had caused him to accept, he would have been a credit to it,
faithfully observing its tenets, a respectable, unthinking,
clean-living fellow.


Vernley looked at John as the station came into sight; the far-away
expression was in his face, a curious detachment that often puzzled
Vernley.  Sometimes John seemed to have left his body in another
world.  It was uncanny and he remembered that Marsh, referring to
this habit, had called it "the Eastern touch," though what that quite
meant Vernley did not know.

"The train's signalled," said Vernley.  "We shall just get there in
time.  I wonder whether Muriel is bringing her friend back, she said
she might--a topping girl."

"I hope not--I don't want any one monopolising Muriel," said John
boldly.

"That's all right--I shall look after her friend--so don't you worry."

They pulled up just as the train ran into the station.  Vernley sat
still in the trap.

"I must mind the pony,--you go in, Scissors!"

Dear old Vernley, thought John, what a tactician he was!  So leaping
out, he went on to the platform just as Muriel descended from the
carriage.  There was one glad look of recognition and then a
momentary shyness fell over them.  Muriel had brought her friend whom
she introduced with embarrassment.  John, scarlet in the face,
pretended to be frantically busy with the luggage, which filled the
trap.  Homewards turned, the pony trotted smartly.  John sat opposite
Muriel and kept looking at her furtively.  She was beautiful.  He
wanted to touch her soft flesh, and press back the little strand of
hair that fluttered over her ear and across the cheek.  He noticed
the full redness of her lips, and the wonderful beauty of her long
eyelashes.  The sight of her filled John with a kind of ecstasy
bordering on intoxication.  He was infinitely more in love with her
than on the previous occasion.  The absence of three months had
glorified her in his imagination, but now he saw that reality
transcended his most extravagant dreams of her physical perfection.
He was fifteen and this first flush of love left him breathless with
wonder.  He did not want to talk; it was enough to sit near her, to
hear her voice, to watch the elfin grace of her movements, to see her
eyes shine, and the whiteness of her small teeth when she laughed.
Had some one told him he was in love, he would have denied it.  He
was more a worshipper than a lover.  This revelation of the woman, as
he saw it in Muriel, was like sunrise on a new world; he was so lost
in wonder that familiarity became impossible.  He was filled with
awe, in which ran fear, the fear that she could not always be there,
that one morning he would get up and find her changed, an ordinary
being, moving on the old earth as he had always known it.  But this
afternoon was his time of ecstasy--the friendly trotting of the pony,
Bobbie talking away to Polly, and himself sitting there with Muriel
near him while the birds sang in the hedgerows, and the sunset clouds
in the west reddened behind a black fringe of trees.

"Polly," said Vernley, "you may think so, but my friend is not really
dumb--in fact John is a fearful talker at times."

He laughed at John.

"You've got the field, so I've retired," retorted John.  "And I'm
waiting for Muriel to tell me what she's been doing all the holidays."

Muriel responded to this invitation, and, the ice broken, they were
soon engrossed in each other.  At the top of Carshott Hill, Vernley
pulled up.  He was enjoying himself with Polly, who was sensible, and
to his great relief didn't giggle.

"I say, Scissors, shall we go round by Carshott?  It is two miles out
of the way, but we shall be in time for dinner."

"Oh yes," cried Muriel.  "It's such a glorious afternoon."

"I'm not a bit hungry," said John tactfully; any excuse for the
prolongation of the drive.  So they turned off to Carshott.  It was
dark when they arrived at "The Croft" gates and turned up the drive,
so dark that John had been able to hold Muriel's hand in his and
interlace his strong fingers with her slender ones, and he was so
overjoyed that he failed to notice that Vernley had done similarly.

Greetings over in the hall, they hurried off to dress for dinner.
The boys had a hot bath, and John sat on the side while Vernley
lathered himself.

"Polly's a very pretty girl," said John, rubbing hard with the towel.

"Of course!" cried Vernley, banging the sponge on his head, then
spluttering, "and Muriel?---well I suppose you've hardly noticed her
yet," he added satirically--"it was so jolly dark--but I know she has
soft hands."

John coloured, rubbing his head so that Vernley should not see.

"I say, Scissors!  I'll bet you I know what Muriel's going to wear
to-night."

"What?"

"That white dress with the blue insertion."

John remembered it.  It was all fluffy, and she looked like a fairy
in a cloud.  He had admired her in it and told her so.

"How do you know?"

"Why, in honour of the occasion, of course.  I called it the froth
and frolic dress, but probably Muriel calls it mode-a-la-Scissors."

"You are an ass!" said John.

"I am your friend," retorted Vernley.  "By their companions ye shall
know them."

"Are you coming out of that bath--the dressing bell went half an hour
ago!"

"I'm getting boiled all over--I want to look my freshest to-night.
You are not the only knight on the war-path; and I've got a deadly
rival."

"Who's that?"

"Tod," said Vernley.  "Personally I fear nothing from him--he's
harmless, but he's got a car, and that is usually a winner."

"You are a cynic," said John.

"I've had experience--I've been thrown over for a tennis racquet.
You don't know women, my boy."

"Being elderly, I suppose you know all about them."

"Almost, but there's one thing always puzzles me, Scissors, I always
wonder how much these girls confide in one another and giggle at us
for being such asses."

"I don't think Muriel would," said John seriously.

"Angel!" murmured Vernley, kissing the sponge ecstatically.



III

Mr. Ribble did not come down to breakfast the next morning.  He was
reviewing a book for the _Nation_ and kept in his room.  John saw
breakfast go in to him and wondered if ever the day would come that
he would be so important as to have breakfast sent up to his room.
He went to the window and sat there for a time enjoying the early
morning scene, the light on the distant hills, the sharp sound of a
passing cart down in the lane, and stray noises from the stable yard.
Then he watched the country postman cycle up the drive, his fresh
healthy face perspiring, a heavy mailbag on his shoulders.  John got
up and went out into the hall and received the letters, which he
spread out on the table in neat order.  There were fifteen for Mr.
Vernley, six for Mr. Ribble--John paused lovingly over these.  How
splendid they looked!

  "The Rt. Hon. Ellerton Ribble, M.P."

and as he looked the magic letters changed into--

  "The Rt. Hon. John N. Dean, M.P."

Day-dreaming he did not see that Mrs. Vernley had entered the hall
and was looking at him.

"Disappointed, John?" she asked.  "I am always disappointed when I
get no letters.  I like receiving them, but detest answering them."

"Good morning, Mrs. Vernley!  No--I was just thinking how splendid
Mr. Ribble's address looks."

"Wondering when your own will be like it?" asked Mrs. Vernley,
placing her hand on the boy's shoulder.  She detected the pleasure
her little guess gave him.

"Well, if Muriel has anything to do with it," she added, "you'll be
the youngest Cabinet minister in history."

"Muriel?" asked John.

"Yes, last night she gave Mr. Ribble the worst cross-questioning he
has had for many a long hour.  I believe she has planned your whole
career, but I hope, John," said Mrs. Vernley, opening her letters,
"that you are not going to waste yourself in politics.  It is the
most futile life a man can lead.  I never knew a member of Parliament
who wasn't a harassed mass of vanity.  Their lives are made wretched
by pulling wires for a thousand societies that threaten to extract a
dozen votes at their next election.  They are the prey of the
parsons, charity organisations and vested interests--"

"But surely Mr. Vernley--" began John.

"One's husband is always excepted from general criticism, John.  My
husband is such a bad member of Parliament because he is such a good
husband."

"The world has to be ruled, Mrs. Vernley."

"I do not deny it, but why presume that Parliament rules Britain?
I'm quite sure it doesn't, any more than Congress rules the United
States or the Chamber rules France.  There's the gong.  I wonder how
many of us will appear at breakfast!"

In the breakfast room they found Tod and Muriel, and a minute later
Vernley came in and took his seat.

"Let's see--this morning?  Ah! it's plaice and sausage," he cried.
"Lift the covers, Mother."

Sausage and plaice duly appeared.

"We have a Scotch cook with the mind of a mathematician," said Tod.
"Wednesday, bacon and eggs."

"Friday--kedgeree!" added Vernley.

"Saturday--grilled ham!" supplemented Muriel.

"Sunday--two eggs," contributed Alice.

"Monday--" began Tod.

He was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Vernley.

"I suppose you children are reciting the food calendar as usual?"

"Yes, Dad,--it's your turn," cried Vernley.  "Monday--?"

"Monday--liver and bacon!"

"Really," commented Mrs. Vernley, "if cook heard the way you make fun
of her infinite variety--"

"She might give us sausage twice a week which would please me!" said
Tod.  "By the way, Mother, is Mrs. Graham coming to-day?"

"Yes, I want you to meet the 11.15, she will arrive by that."

"Let's all go!" cried Vernley.  "Jove, she's a stunner, Scissors!"

"Bobbie dear!" remonstrated Mrs. Vernley, "you mustn't talk of Mrs.
Graham like that!"

"Why not, Mother?  I told her she was a stunner once and she pinked
with delight."

"I don't know where you boys pick up all your slang," said Mr.
Vernley.

"We get so many M.P.s in the house, pater," suggested Tod.  "Will you
play me a round of golf?  I did four and seven in bogie yesterday."

"When?"

"This afternoon--three o'clock," said Tod.

"Remember, dear, we have Mr. Crimp coming to tea," urged Mrs. Vernley.

"Then I'll play you, Tod," Mr. Vernley said decisively.  "My dear,
why do you ask that man?"

"Because, being a tactful wife, I know he is worth two hundred votes
to you."

"He turns my tea sour," complained Tod.  "The pater and I will stay
out to tea."

"That's not fair," cried Muriel.  "It means I shall have to talk to
Mr. Crimp."

"On foreign stamps," murmured Bobbie.  "He'll love Scissors--don't
look so glum, Scissors--you look quite crimpled up!"

Tod's aim was unerring; the tea cosy ruffled Vernley's well-plastered
hair.

"Stop!  I won't have my breakfast service smashed!" cried Mrs.
Vernley in alarm, but protest was useless.  The cosy flew back with
redoubled vigour.  Its flight was unimpeded by its destined
objective, for Tod ducked.  It went over his head.  Polly who had sat
very quiet all through breakfast, received it on her empty plate
where it ousted an egg cup with a clatter, and the familiar sound of
a crash followed as it broke into a dozen pieces.

"You awful children!" cried Mrs. Vernley.

"Never mind, Mum," said Tod, bending and kissing her.  "You know
you're proud of your bouncing offspring."



IV

It was no exaggeration to say that the arrival of Mrs. Graham was an
event in John's life.  Ever afterwards he could recall vividly the
first sharp impression of that bright Easter morning when he stood on
the country station platform.  His impression was always clear, even
in its detail.  Recalling her advent and attempting analysis, he was
never sure whether his first surprise was caused by beauty, by dress
or by aroma.  There was something distinctive in the perfume Mrs.
Graham used.  Only once afterwards did he encounter it, in the foyer
of a Paris theatre, when it brought back in swift vision the English
Easter morning, and the graceful lady extending her hand to him as he
stood, cap in hand, admiring every line of her figure.

True, on the way to the station, above the purr of the car, he had
heard the ecstatic praise of Tod, and the no less fervent admiration
of Bobbie.  But their tribute, faithful and generous, omitted the
something that caught John in the mesh.  Was it her voice, so rich
with its quality, a speaking voice that gave such distinction to all
she said, that made a trivial comment noteworthy?  Was it her
beauty?--that Romney-like picture of colour and contour, the shapely
nose, the lovely arched lips, the delicate rose-bloom of her cheeks
and the dark, quick vivacity of her eyes?  Or was it her ornaments,
the grace and style of their choice and use?  No earrings ever hung
like hers; they seemed to gather beauty from the lobes they
decorated.  The string of pearls that nestled about her throat,
shapely as a swan's neck, in its sheen seemed to derive lustre from
the sweetness of her flesh.  Was it those all-expressive hands, that
tapered so fascinatingly with nails that exhibited the charm of
nature and art?  Something perhaps of all these, yet something which,
without all these, would make her a woman of memorable beauty.

Her dress was elegant, noteworthy, but women had dressed so a hundred
times and achieved nothing distinctive.  John had seen features as
perfect, hands as lovely--but here was something not wholly
extraneous.  He knew now why she was always called, "the beautiful
Mrs. Graham"; why, to this woman of thirty-five, clung the air of a
tragedy queen; why, since that dread period of newspaper notoriety,
she had never been allowed to relapse into obscurity, but was
photographed and paragraphed.  Would her sin ever find full expiation?

Sin!  How absurd that word seemed.  Was there such a thing in the
presence of such perfection?  John gazed at her as she sat at his
side in the car, talking to Bobbie, while Tod drove.  She was alluded
to as a "notorious" woman, and as John thought of it, he almost
laughed aloud; what chance had all the dull, dingy, respectable women
at the side of this empress of life?  John, of course, did not know
the details of the divorce case which had made her, for six weeks,
the most discussed woman in the world.  The young peer who had ruined
his life and hers, and who, strangely enough, had found all the
sympathy while she took all the blame, who had declared himself
powerless in her presence.  Perhaps so, but if so, why so
contemptible in that power, why the ready surrender of her character,
the confession of impotence?  She was unfaithful, a married
experienced woman of thirty-five, and he a young boy of twenty-one.
But whose was the sacrifice?  She should have known better, said the
world, she corrupted a boy.  But if his was the ardour, if the
passion of first love and the lyrical song of youth were laid at her
feet, how could she resist, she a grown woman, who saw youth lapsing
like a spent wave on the shore of Life, one whose elderly husband
could not guess the tumult of nature beating at the doors of her
heart, about to close on summer for ever?

Seven hundred years ago, such love was romance; not even the dagger
of Giovanni had been needed to draw, with its blood, the tears and
sympathy of lovers of all ages for Paolo and Francesca.  But
Francesca in the twentieth century must stand in the witness box for
legal luminaries to torture, must hear every nameless act given the
label of lust, and finally, hear Paolo fling the insult of age and
cunning into her face, and plead the ignorance of youth.

And then, when the whole dreadful nightmare was over, another
reappearance in a hopeless battle for her child; then peace again,
while the world whispers of the disappearance from society of the
beautiful Mrs. Graham.  But Life would not leave her alone; five
years might have brought some healing to a heart that asked
forgetfulness.  The suicide of the young Earl, with a last love
declaration, set the world by the ears again.  So he loved her to the
last!  She laughed almost.  He had died for his love of her, said the
world.  Women envied her the compliment of his suicide.  He might
have loved her sufficiently to live, she reflected, and once more
passed through a nightmare of picture papers; herself as a bride,
bathing at Ostend; herself in the box; extracts from the trial; her
tears in the last scene, then--God in heaven!--her boy at school, not
in the first school he had had to leave, but another, which he would
now have to leave.  And through it all, as if to excite envy and
scandal by obstinacy, her beauty grew, and she remained "the
beautiful Mrs. Graham."

But it was not an aura of tragedy that fascinated John.  He had not
exchanged a dozen words when he recognised what he had heard, with
mirth, the school porter call "quality."  In the first place her
voice--that was a revelation.  What a wonderful instrument the human
voice was!  When she spoke her words were invested with alluring
music; then also there was a hint of--no, not worldliness--of--

"Bond Street, Rumpelmeyer's--cum Papier Poudre," supplied Tod a few
days later, alluding to the same hint.  She was one of those women of
whom one asked inwardly--was that rouge, was that carmine, did she
pencil? and you were never sure.  If so, it was wonderfully done and
fascinating.  If not, she was amazingly perfect and unbelievable.
But you never knew for sure.  Of her powder, she made no secret.  No
beautiful woman ever does, for it is an embroidery which beauty only
can justify.

And as John sat there he experienced a cheap sensation.  That it was
cheap he knew, and despised himself for it.  She was a divorced
woman--notorious even.  Were not the Vernleys bold?  Then a hot flush
of shame leapt to his face at the meanness of the thought--he was
like the rest.

His sudden colouring was noticed by Mrs. Graham, who, unaware of its
cause, thought the handsome lad at her side was shy.  She began to
talk to him and by the time they reached "The Croft," she had made a
fervent disciple.  At lunch he sat between her and Muriel, and felt
an uncomfortable twinge of his conscience.  Had Muriel felt
neglected?  But she would understand how fascinating it was to talk
to Mrs. Graham, or rather, to hear her talk, for she seemed to have
been everywhere.  Big-game shooting in Africa, the wonder of Lake
Louise, the views from Mons Pilatus, the charm of Copenhagen and
other diversions of the Tivoli; the house-fringed shores of the
Little Belt, the crowded Hohestrasse of a Sunday evening in Cologne,
the colour and _gelati_ of the Piazza San Marco, the brightness of
Unter den Linden on a June morning, the approach to the Brandenburg
Gate, Le Touquet and its golf, the winter sports at Murren--the
little glimpses of all these lighted her conversation.

She had dined at most of the Embassies in Europe; delightful little
anecdotes, pointed with the witty brevity of a French phrase,
scintillated in her talk.  Yes, she had met "Anatole France," and
told a story of his courtly grumpiness; she had crossed the Atlantic
with Paderewski, who had played for her his "Romance," on the evening
of its composition, played it in the lonely drawing-room while
passengers were at dinner, with such elegance, delicacy of touch and
strength of tone.  Had she read "Mr. Polly?" asked John.  That
reminded her immediately; they saw Mr. Wells in a Kent house writing
all the morning, playing hockey all the afternoon, and always the
busy little man in a blue serge suit, pouring out a medley of
history, theology, romance and hard-headed business talk.  There was
a flashlight of Rodin in his palatial studio.  "Madame has beautiful
hands--they must be immortalised," and one saw the robust personality
of Roosevelt at a small dinner party at the Plaza, New York, with a
later snapshot of him speechmaking from the platform of a Pullman at
a wayside station in Indiana.  "A lovable man--he made that speech
just to enable fifty country school children to say in after life
that they had heard the President."

What a luncheon hour, with Tod cross-questioning, Muriel laughing,
Vernley dumb, Mr. Vernley corroborating and Mrs. Vernley beseeching
her guest to get something to eat; and whenever a break in the
conversation came, Mr. Ribble restarted the flow of anecdote with a
query or a scholarly footnote.  John would have wished that luncheon
hour to last for ever, but before they had risen from the table Tod
had slipped away and a few minutes later the car was purring in the
drive.

"Come along, sir," he called as they rose.

"Not yet, not yet, Tod," protested Mr. Vernley.

"Yes, now--if you go upstairs for a nap, there'll be no golf this
afternoon.  Mrs. Graham is coming too."

"But Tod, I have no clubs," protested Mrs. Graham.

"I have--the car's waiting now.  Are you coming, Mr. Ribble?"

"No thank you, my boy--I am still ink-bound.  Muriel has promised me
a nice cup of tea in the study at four o'clock, and we have Mr. Crimp
coming, I believe."

"That's why we're going."

"Tod, dear!" protested his mother.  "How rude you are!"

"I loathe the fellow!"

"And you have no reason, dear."

"Loathing," said Mrs. Graham, "is perhaps the safest of all feelings,
it relies more on instinct than intellect."

"And what are you children going to do?" asked Mr. Vernley.

"Children, pater!" protested Bobbie.

"We are having a double on the lawn.  Thomson says it will be quite
good playing to-day.  He cut it this morning," said Muriel.

"Well, when we return, if you've any steam left in you, Mrs. Graham
and I will take on the winners."

"Good!" cried Bobbie.  "Come on, Scissors, let's change."  In his
room, Vernley found John a pair of flannel trousers.  There was nine
inches to spare round the waist, and a serious gap above the ankles.

"If I had known I was going to look ridiculous," said John "I
shouldn't have played--" He pulled out the top of the trousers.
"'The expanse of spirit in a waist of shame,' that's what I look
like."

"Don't be rude, Scissors--you know my figure fills you with envy.
Jove, I do hate playing this game with women.  Those kids have no
idea how to use a racquet.  They'll just stand and squeak every time
they miss a ball by a yard, and you're expected to say 'Hard luck.'"

"Can Mrs. Graham play?"

"Yes, she can make Tod work.  If Alice and Kitty were at home we'd
get a good set.  I say, Scissors, do you mind playing with Polly?"

"No--but why?"

"Because if I play with her and lose, as I shall, she'll be quite
huffy, whereas if she plays against me and wins, she'll be quite nice
to me," explained Vernley.

"But what about Muriel?"

"Oh--that doesn't matter.  Nothing will dim you in Muriel's eyes."
John bent over and tied his shoes.

"How do you mean?" he asked without looking up.

"Well, you're on a pedestal that six-love can't damage.  You know you
did talk brilliantly at lunch.  I don't know how you do it."

"But I was listening to Mrs. Graham."

"And she to you--why, together you held the table, and old Ribble
kept persuading you both to go on."

"I hope I didn't talk too--" began John.

"You old fraud, you were both soaring and you knew it.  You like it,
Scissors.  I've seen you take the platform before."

"Rot!" commented John, a little angry at being discovered.



V

When the tea bell rang, four red-faced youngsters trooped in to find
the Reverend Crimp mid-way in a monologue on the woes of the
Dodenesian Islanders.  On the appearance of the tennis party, he put
down his cup very deliberately, rose from the comfortable depths of
the divan, folded his puffy hands and beamed upon the young people.

"I think you know John," said Mrs. Vernley.

"Ah, yes," began Mr. Crimp in a minor key.  "Of course I know John.
I have a delightful memory of our last meeting.  How d'ye do?  I
perceive you have grown.  Fresh air, eh, and good food, I am sure.
It is a true maxim, early to bed, early to rise--"

"Not much good food at Sedley, Mr. Crimp," said Bobbie.  "We always
go to bed hungry."

"I'm sure," commented Mr. Ribble from a corner seat, "your remarks
are libellous; they are certainly belied by your figure."

"That's what I tell Bobbie," cried Muriel, "but he says the cause of
stoutness is atmospheric, not gastronomic."

A few minutes later the drawing room door abruptly opened and Tod
entered, followed by Mrs. Graham and Mr. Vernley.

"Any tea left, Mother?" he cried.  "Mrs. Graham has led us all the
way.  Jove, she took the last hole in four!"  Then, seeing the
clergyman, "Good afternoon, Mr. Crimp."  Mr. Vernley crossed the room
and shook hands with him, while Tod was just about to draw up a chair
for Mrs. Graham when Mr. Vernley said, "I do not think you have met
Mrs. Graham, Mr. Crimp?"--and turning--"this is Mr. Crimp, our
clergyman, Mrs. Graham."

Tod, still grasping the proffered chair, saw her hold out her hand to
the clergyman, who moved his in response and then suddenly faltered,
paused, and withdrew his hand.  Mrs. Vernley, teapot in action, held
it suspended.  Mr. Ribble seemed intent on selecting a cake.  John,
Bobbie, Tod and Mr. Vernley were transfixed, waiting the blow.
Surely the fellow would not be so insane, so incredibly rude, thought
Mrs. Vernley.  He would not dare!

Mr. Crimp was speaking in a hollow, affected voice.

"The lady's face is familiar to me--in circumstances I do not care to
recall," he said stiffly.

The blow had fallen.  It was followed with a painful silence.  How
would she take it?  With suspended breath, John, his heart aching,
watched her.  Yes, she was superb, and dignity did not desert her.
Her face was calm; there was no sign of surprise, not even
embarrassment--perhaps this scene was not new to her.  She looked at
Mr. Crimp, the ugly little man puffed out in his asserted dignity.

"I'm sorry," she said, "to awaken your unpleasant memories.  I will
retire."  She turned to go.

"Julie, dear," cried Mrs. Vernley, putting down the teapot and rising
suddenly to intercept her, "you mustn't listen to--"

"You cad!" blazed Tod, turning on the clergyman, who had gone pale.

"Really, sir, after insulting my guest I must ask you to retire."
Mr. Vernley's voice hardly restrained its anger.

"If there is any insult, it is I who have suffered," replied Mr.
Crimp.  "The dignity of my calling--"

"Damn your calling!" cried Tod.

"Sir!" flared Mr. Crimp.

"Tod, be quiet," pleaded Mrs. Vernley.

Mrs. Graham had now reached the door, Mrs. Vernley following, but
John was there first and opened it.

"Leave me dear, please," said Mrs. Graham, turning, and the other
woman saw how it was with her and stopped.  Mrs. Graham passed out;
John following, closed the door.  He had not meant to follow her but
in his confusion he had closed the door and shut himself out with
her.  Mrs. Graham looked at him half blindly, he thought.  He dropped
his hand from the handle, and followed her into the hall.

"Mrs. Graham," he called, "I--I'm--" but his lip trembled and the
words choked him.

She paused at the foot of the stairs, then impulsively caught his
outstretched hand, and pressed it.

"You dear boy--I know, I know!" she cried, holding his hand for a
moment, and then swiftly she mounted the stairs.  John watched her
go, the blood singing in his ears.  He heard her bedroom door close,
and then silence.  He turned and looked at the drawing-room door.
What was happening in there?  As if in answer, it opened and the Rev.
Crimp emerged, alone, closing it after him with a bang.  For a moment
he paused in the hall, flushed, uncertain which way to turn, then,
seizing his hat from the hall stand, he hurried out.  When the door
banged and he was gone, John started.  His brow was damp with
perspiration and he was trembling.  Tod came out.

"Come in, Scissors, and finish your tea."

"No--no, thanks Tod, I don't want any."

"None of us do--the swine!" said Tod fiercely.

John followed him into the drawing-room.

"Has Mrs. Graham gone to her room, John?" asked Mrs. Vernley.  He
nodded.

"I must go up to her--poor thing," she said.  Muriel, in distraction,
had lifted the piano lid and struck a chord.

"For God's sake!  Don't play that now!  Oh hell!" cried Tod.  Then
seeing the reproach in his mother's eyes, "I beg your pardon,
Mother--but I could murder some one!  Come on, boys--I'm going to the
garage."

Bobbie and John followed with alacrity.


Mrs. Graham did not appear at dinner.  She kept to her room, and
there was a cloud over the party throughout the evening, despite Mr.
Ribble's delicious sallies of humour, and a fascinating discussion in
the library afterwards between him and Mr. Vernley on Proportional
Representation, a discussion very tedious to Tod and Bobbie, who
slipped away into the billiard room after vehement signals to John to
follow, which he ignored.  He absorbed every detail, eager for a
political education, and very occasionally he ventured to ask a
question, which Mr. Ribble answered fully and seriously as though
John had been a grown-up person.  Here was a new theme for the
debating society!  So he sat, listening until the clock struck
eleven, and Mr. Vernley and Mr. Ribble lapsed into a silence filled
with tobacco smoke, whereon John rose and said good night.

He found Bobbie perched on the edge of his bed, pulling off a sock.

"Good Lord!" was the greeting.  "Have you been in the library all the
time?"

"Yes--isn't Mr. Ribble a wonderful man?"

"They say so," assented Vernley, "but I always want to yawn when he
and the pater get going.  It is an awful business having to live in a
house where M.P.s are always about.  They talk for ever about things
nobody would give a brass button for."

"But surely the method of government--" began John.

"My dear old Scissors--what does it matter how we are governed so
long as we are left alone?  Judging from those fellows who come down
here, you'd think the universe would cease to revolve if they went
out of office, and when they do go nobody would know, if it weren't
for their own newspapers which lament so over 'em.  And it's all a
game.  I've heard these fellows abuse one another, and use the vilest
terms, and, Lord bless us, they're playing bridge or golf together
the next day."

"But that reveals our sporting instinct."

"That's not yours, Scissors.  It's the pater's, I recognise it--he
always quotes that when he throws over what he said the night before
about a man."  Then ploughing his hands through his thick ruffled
hair, "Lord, what a mess!" he exclaimed.

"What, politics?"

"No--that filthy Crimp and Mrs. Graham."

John started; in his selfish interest he had forgotten the incident.

"There's one blessing," said Vernley, slowly squeezing out some
tooth-paste onto his brush, "we shan't be worried by that swine here
any more.  He always made me sick.  I wish I could generate a good
hate like Tod's."

"Tod always did dislike him, didn't he?"

"Yes.  Good night, Scissors."

"Good night."

John did not sleep for a long time.  He lived over that dreadful
episode in the drawing-room.  Was Mrs. Graham sleeping now?  Perhaps
she was crying, and women hated crying, for it made their eyes red,
and betrayed them in the morning.  It would be awkward at breakfast
to meet her as though nothing had happened.  Still he looked forward
to doing so.  They were friends, she trusted him--that pressure on
his hand told him so.  Then he wondered if Crimp was asleep down at
the Vicarage.  Probably the beast was snoring now--he looked like a
man who could snore, with those horrible protruding teeth.  Then he
fell asleep, and when he woke again Vernley was sitting on his chest.

"You've been snoring," said Vernley.

"I haven't," denied John indignantly.  "I couldn't, I don't know how
to."

"But I've heard you in my room--you woke me."

"That proves I haven't, I should have woked myself first," said John
with a fine disregard of grammar.  "I'm a lighter sleeper than you."

"You've been dreaming, I'm sure."

"Well, I have--of old Crimp," confessed John.

"That accounts for the snoring.  Hurry up, the first gong's gone."

Downstairs, Muriel was the first to meet John.

"Mrs. Graham's going," she told him.  "Isn't it a shame?"

"Going?--what, now?"

"No, soon after breakfast.  She told Mother she couldn't stay.  Of
course she knows we're all sympathetic and all that, but she says she
finds sympathy as hard to endure as the other things.  There are
always scenes like this wherever she goes, and she doesn't intend
ever going out again.  I'm dreadfully sorry for her."

"So am I, but Muriel, we mustn't show it; we must pretend nothing's
happened.  Let's joke with her at breakfast."

They went in together.  Mrs. Graham was there, and she was not
red-eyed.  Indeed, to John, she seemed more beautiful than ever.  She
talked wittily to them all, and Muriel and John found their desperate
resolution quite unnecessary.  After breakfast they all walked round
the grounds.  Mrs. Graham was leaving in half an hour.  To his
delight John found himself walking with her down the rhododendron
drive.

"I'm so sorry you're going, Mrs. Graham," he said.

"That's kind of you, Scissors--may I call you Scissors?" she asked,
smiling at him.

"Oh, please!" he answered.

"And I hope," she added, "this will not be our last meeting.  If ever
you come up to town, and would care, you must call at my little flat.
I will give you my address."  She opened her chatelaine and extracted
a card.  John took it.

"I should love to, Mrs. Graham--when the next holidays come--will you
be in town then?"

"Yes," and he noticed she hesitated before adding quickly, "but you
must ask your guardian first."

John's heart stopped.  The cruelty of it!

"I shall do nothing of the kind," he said hotly.  "I--I think you're
wonderful, Mrs. Graham," he added in boyish admiration, and he
noticed she turned her head away.  A moment later they had come out
of the drive and joined the others.




BOOK III

GROWTH



CHAPTER I


I

The chronicles of youth, filled with trivial incidents, but acute at
the moment of experience, swiftly pass.  John found himself, on his
seventeenth birthday, hardly aware that he was leaving boyhood behind
him.  He was very different from the shy sensitive youngster who on
that momentous day of his arrival at Sedley had stood miserably on
the platform watching with an aching heart the receding train.  He
had altered, almost incredibly, and yet he had not altered.  In the
handsome, self-possessed lad, a leader of his house, something of a
god to the younger boys, with already a distinguished 'career' behind
him, as athlete and scholar, a President of the Literary Society, a
leading light in debate, the Editor of the school magazine, Sedley
indeed had a creditable specimen of its training.

Had Mr. Fletcher, who had watched over him with a father's care, been
asked for his most reliable boy, it would have been John that he
named, or for his most promising, again, John, despite the dazzling
brilliance of the fitful Marsh; and yet Mr. Fletcher knew his
weaknesses--the tendency to dream, the sudden sensitiveness that made
John seem afraid of life, and occasionally, but rarely now, that
strange oriental preoccupation, that came over him, and shut him out
from his fellows.  There was always something a little mysterious,
thought Mr. Fletcher.  He loved and knew well all his boys.  Even
Marsh's fanciful versatility held no secrets from him.  But he never
quite plumbed the bottom of John's nature.  Affectionate, deeply so,
revealed in a hundred small acts of tribute, Mrs. Fletcher had drawn
out the fires of devotion in the boy's heart, even sometimes, to
little whimsical confessions that she knew were signs of his absolute
trust.  He had talked of his mother often.  It was in Mrs. Fletcher's
drawing-room, where she had first seen father and son together, that
they talked of the reunion, after a parting of three years' duration.
She laughed away all John's fears of that meeting, soothed his
feverish anticipation.

"Oh, Mrs. Fletcher, will father think I've grown?" he would ask.

"Why of course,--you're almost a man now."

"But do you think I have grown as he would wish?"--half fearfully
this, at which Mrs. Fletcher would laugh, "Why you silly boy, are you
afraid your father won't be glad to see you?"

"Oh,--it's not that--only you know Mrs. Fletcher--he thought so much
of me when I was a kid--I'm almost afraid he might be disappointed."

"Fathers and mothers never change, John, it's the children who do
that," she answered him.  "And look at all you've done and--" she was
going to add, what a handsome fellow you've grown into, but she
checked herself.  She didn't believe in turning a boy's head.

So the momentous day came.  John, up very early, very scrupulously
dressed, excited by a confirmatory telegram, was filled with anxiety
as to whether the taxicab would be in time to meet the train.  He
slacked shamelessly in form that morning, but the master was
indulgent.  Something of his anxiety and excitement permeated his
friends.  Even Vernley became aware of the meaning of nerves, good
old Vernley, fatter and more faithful than ever, sharer of all joys,
woes, triumphs, disasters, and food.

But the great moment came; the train drew up, the doors flew open, a
sudden flooding of the platform, a boy's flushed face under a straw
hat, an eager survey, with heart tremendously thumping, and a strong
resolution not to ran or cry, a terrible fear that he had not come
after all, and then--

There!  His father!  He had not changed!

"Dad!" he shouted rapturously, waving a hand.  The father stared a
while.

"John, my boy--what a great lad you are!"  There was a swift,
astonished survey.  This tall, clean-limbed, laughing boy his son!
This lad, with the glimmering grace of an athlete, the boy he had
nursed at Amasia?  His eyes lingered on every feature, noted the
broadening shoulders, the straightness of his carriage, the direct
level glance of the eyes.  Presently they were seated side by side in
the taxi, and then, absurdly enough, John found he had nothing to
say, not one of those thousand premeditated questions to ask.  The
father, too, felt restrained, and waited.

"Ali sends his love," he said, at last.

"Dear old Ali!  How is he, Dad?"

"Grown, but not like you, and quite a grave married man now."

"Married!  What a joke--Ali married!"

"He does not think it a joke, he is very serious about it.  He was
married the week before I left.  I met his father in Constantinople.
Ali seemed a little sad because you did not write oftener.  I showed
him your last photograph.  He looked at it for a long time and then
said you were a great lord.  I told him you were more probably a
great anxiety."

Then followed lunch at Mr. Fletcher's--just his father and Mr. and
Mrs. Fletcher, and, by the way of a great favour to John in
celebration of the event--Vernley and Marsh as special guests.  John
was frightfully anxious about his friends.  He wanted them to admire
his father as he did, and in turn he hoped desperately that his
father would take to Vernley and Marsh.  He was not long in doubt,
for the elderly man had soon won his way into the boys' hearts, and
had broken down their stiff reserve.

"Isn't he ripping, Scissors!" whispered Vernley, during the second
course, "and you're alike as two peas."  Under encouragement, Marsh
was radiant.  John felt his father was such a success that he would
ask Lindon to the great tea in his study.  A little in awe of the
hypercritical god, he had held Lindon in reserve, but Marsh had been
conquered and that young gentleman was critical and seldom approved
of parents.  "An outworn institution," he always declared as he
observed them on Prize Day.

Marsh, however, rose to great heights of enthusiasm and made the tea
party an unqualified success.  It was true there were not enough
buns, owing to the repetition of some guests before the plate reached
others, and the kettle fell off the fire and soaked the muffins.
These were incidents.  The great event was Mr. Dean's stories of Asia
Minor.  And it was Marsh who kept him going, Marsh with an incredible
knowledge of strange Eastern ways, and an insight and intelligent
curiosity that amazed John's father.  When the bell went and they all
trooped away, John knew it had been a triumphant day.

Mr. Dean left the next morning.  He had business to attend to before
his holidays, but he crowned his success with his last act.  He asked
Vernley, Marsh and Lindon to join him and John for the first
fortnight of the summer holidays.  He had taken a house at Grasmere
for a month, after which he and John were making visits to his
friends.  With this promise of a happy reunion, Mr. Dean left them.

That holiday became a great memory to John.  They had a small house
that nestled on the side of Fairfield, with wonderful views from all
its windows of Grasmere and the lovely little lake, the road to
sylvan Rydal, the fern covered side of Red Bank.  These were days
when they all set out, knapsack on backs, with stout boots, shorts
and sweaters, to climb the mountains.  And what talk was theirs!
There was Marsh with his inimitable irony; where did he gather all
that he knew?  Mr. Dean said that he must be a reincarnation.

"No, please!" retorted Marsh.  "Have you noticed how all the cranks
who profess to be reincarnations always claim something regal or
aristocratic or famous, for their previous existence?  Mr. Smith will
tell you he was Marc Antony, while little Miss Titmouse, who lives on
nuts and uncooked food, and believes bad thoughts make bad weather,
will assure you she was mother to Marcus Aurelius, which in some way
explains that fellow's incessant moralising.  Now if I have to be a
reincarnation, let me be original.  I don't want to be an echo of
Demosthenes, or a second edition of Hannibal, or Henry the
Eighth--I'm much more likely to have been dustman to Ptolemy the
First, providing there were dustmen in that era."


In the evening, after dinner, when tired in every limb with a long
jaunt across the mountains, with that pleasant ache that follows
exercise, they would sit in the lamp-light listening to a reading
from the poets; or a passage descriptive of the ground they would
explore on the morrow.  Perhaps, after many requests, Lindon would
sit at the piano and play a ballade or a sonata, while they looked
out across the gathering gloom at a solitary light on the opposite
side of the valley; and they would notice how bright and lonely were
the stars hanging over the mountain heights.  As John sat there in
the dimly lit room with his friends and his father, listening
intently, a deep melancholy stole into his heart.  This might never
happen again, this strange jolly time, and there was his future in
the world and all life so strange before him.  But the sadness of
these reflections brought him a glow of pleasure.  He felt so acutely
conscious of everything, he seemed so capable in this fresh
experience of Life to accomplish anything he wanted.  So he let
himself dream pleasantly, which Vernley would notice and suddenly
exclaim, "Scissors has gone East again!" for it was that old far-away
expression which had so often come into John's face, but was rarer
now.

So with crowded hours the end of the holiday came.  Invitations to
spend a week at Vernley's and at Marsh's were accepted, the rest of
the holiday was to be spent by John and his father together.  They
travelled down with Vernley from Windermere to his home, and here Mr.
Dean once more entered that large world of men and affairs with which
he had lost touch.  His holiday in England was not unconnected with a
proposal that might result in his permanent return a few years hence,
for which he was striving.  It was essential that John should be kept
in England and have a large field of opportunity at his disposal.  He
had made arrangements with Mr. Fletcher for John to enter at King's
College when his time ended at Sedley, as it would, next year.  It
would be time enough then to decide upon John's career, if the boy
had not revealed any preference.

He liked the Vernleys and was glad to find John had chosen his
friends so well.  He had hoped to take his son on a visit to some of
his own friends, but it was obvious that John had chosen his friends
with a regard for their quality of character.  There was something
very open and faithful about young Vernley and this was reflected by
the whole household.  However much Mr. Vernley might try to deceive
himself, and believe and attempt to impress the belief that he was a
man of affairs, Dean soon detected that he was naturally lazy and
extremely good-hearted, with a passion for horses, a glass of port
after dinner and a good cigar.

As for Muriel, that little fairy danced her way into the father's
heart as she had into the son's.  John had been very guarded in his
remarks about Muriel, so guarded, that his father guessed all
immediately.  Muriel herself soon decided that Mr. Dean should have
been Mr. Ribble's brother.  There was the same genial, somewhat
"curly-crinkly" appearance, as she called it, and as she confessed to
him one evening when he had begged a kiss in return for a box of
chocolates, she was glad he was not as serious as John, "who looks at
me like a collie dog and wags his tail when I smile."  Mr. Dean
laughed heartily at this, it was so truly descriptive of John, who
followed her in silence and devotion.  When Mr. Dean left, he took
Muriel on one side.

"I wonder if I can ask you a favour?--it's for John's sake," he
added, as she looked up at him.  "You see he has no brothers, and no
sisters, which is even more important for a boy, and living somewhat
lonely, I'm afraid he may become self-centred, which means being
selfish, so I want you to be his official sister.  He'll talk to you.
I think he'll even tell you his dreams and ambitions, things he would
never tell to other boys because he feels he is just a little
different from them.  I think he is, for instance, too highly
sensitive.  I want him to grow out of that; and only sharing
confidences will help him.  So I'm asking you, Muriel, to make a
brother of him, if you will?"

Muriel had never quite looked at it in this light; then she had a
swift intuition that Mr. Dean was not in the dark.  A sister--that
meant service in return.  It meant something more than having John as
a courtier--it meant, yes, running after him a little bit if
necessary, and--oh clever Mr. Dean!--sharing him with other friends.
She promised readily.  She was going to be a sister to John.

Another week and they had left the Vernleys and were at the Marsh's.
John's father had been doubtful regarding young Marsh for a day or
two.  There was no question of the boy's brilliance, but he
distrusted precocious persons, and Marsh's omniscient cynicism was
not healthy in a boy of seventeen.  He attached too much importance
to the smartness of a thing.  All his opinions were original and
brilliant, but they were dominated by those ends rather than by a
love of truth.  It was not good that John should see the ridiculous,
bizarre or cynical aspect of life before he had tasted its
wholesomeness; and there was that in Marsh's character, so restless,
so desirous of things because they were new rather than good or
genuine, which made his judgments unbalanced for all their refreshing
enthusiasm.

But fuller knowledge of the boy modified these reservations.  His was
a razor-edge intellect, and highly combative.  John, inclined to be
sensitive, introspective, was shaken up and drawn out of himself by
Marsh, who challenged all his ideas and made him defend them with
passion.  Moreover, Marsh had, for a mere youth, an amazing range,
not of experience, but of thought.  The literature of Greece, Rome,
Germany, France and England were not strange to him.  He read rapidly
and talked volubly; true, his ideas were ill-digested, but he had
ideas, and they flowed in his conversation.  His curiosity was
tireless as his enthusiasm.  On their Lakeland holiday Mr. Dean had
been amazed by his turbulent spirits, his readiness to rhapsodise,
argue, and run, swim, box, climb, read and eat at any time of the day
and night.  He had no temper in the meaning of the word.  His
equanimity was never shaken.

"You know, sir," he said one day, "old Scissors thinks I'm the
Voltaire of the party, but when he likes to wake up he can make us
all take a back seat.  Sometimes his quiet efficiency annoys me.  He
is always so infernally correct.  Something-like always does for me,
whether it's a quotation or a figure, but Scissors always has the
exact thing and knocks you down with it, and the queer thing is, that
he's got imagination--and they don't often go together; you don't get
the Scottish lawyer working with the Welsh preacher."

Mr. Dean was amazed at this bit of schoolboy psychology, but it
raised Marsh in his estimation, and from that time he saw there was
something more than scintillating wit in Marsh's observation.  With
this view of the boy, all his preconceptions of his parents were
shattered on meeting them.  How came this bird of such bright plumage
in so sombre a nest?

Teddy Marsh met them at Loughboro Station, in exuberant spirits as
usual.  "Good morning, sir," he cried, waving his straw hat as soon
as he sighted the guests on the platform.  "Hello, Scissors, you
rusty old blade!  Come along, sir, our wigwam on wheels awaits you.
The pony's in a vile temper this morning, and will probably insist on
going in the opposite direction.  Yes, they're all well, thanks.
Mother's got a new creed--let's see, what was it when you were here
last, Scissors, a Nutfooder or a Christadelphian, or was it
Rawsonism?--well now she's a Sunrayer.  You'll hear all about it;
they're a sect she's linked up with in middle America; they lie in
the sunshine all day, think violet thoughts, and achieve salvation by
sunburn.  The governor's horrified and threatens excommunication.
All aboard?--won't that bag topple over?  Hold on, I'm going to
tickle Flossie's flanks."

He whirled the whip and with a running fire of questions, answers and
comments, they rolled along the leafy lanes towards the vicarage.



II

As before, that visit was composed of long sunny days in the garden,
endless tennis sets, or cricket parties at the Hall, and always in
the evening, after dinner, there was Mrs. Marsh's wonderful playing
in the drawing-room.  Tea-time was the favourite hour with John.  He
always felt glad when he saw the maid, changed from her pink and
white dress for the morning into official black and white, with lace
cap, bearing the folding table which she set under the walnut tree.
Then hammock chairs appeared; after that a white tea cloth, and the
rattle of china and the glint of the silver sugar basin--how he knew
the design!--two folding lids, with soft white sugar like flour
inside--jampot and teaspoons and cake knives.  Then--after what
seemed a long time--the glad tinkle of the tea-bell, with Mrs. Marsh
crossing to the table, her first appearance for the afternoon.  Mr.
Marsh would follow a few minutes late, and sometimes Teddie would
rouse him in the study, where he dozed after lunch when the weather
was hot.  Generally there were a couple of guests to make a tennis
four, either the solicitor's daughter, or the governess from the
Hall, who played the best tennis of any lady in the county and was
always in danger of losing her situation because visitors at the Hall
would always mistake her for the mistress.

It was a merry tea-time.  Mr. Marsh was not always quite awake, and
he had, at this function, quite a gift for Spoonerisms.

"Pass me the plake, kease," he would say.

"Certainly, sad," would respond Teddie.

After tea, John's father and Mr. Marsh usually disappeared.  On two
occasions they were challenged to a tennis double and to the
amazement of exuberant youth, won.  But generally they disappeared at
the end of the garden.

"They've gone to talk roses again," commented Mrs. Marsh.

"The governor's mouth's watering with the names Mr. Dean's given
him--he'll go about talking Turkish to the gardener for the next two
months," said Teddie.

Dressing for dinner, too, was like a prelude to the delight of the
meal and the music to follow.  John's dress shirt and jacket and
trousers lay neatly spread out on the bed.

There was, at six-thirty prompt, the copper jug, filled with hot
water, with its initialled felt cover; and the country bathroom!
John always wanted to sing in his.  There was the low music of the
running water, the lucid green shimmer, reflected on the porcelain
sides, sending waves of rippling light over the ceiling.

Then, with gleaming shirt front and glossy hair, an immaculate boy
would descend to the drawing room and wait with the others for the
dinner gong.  John soon grew to love those country sounds just before
dinner; through the windows glowed long stretches of wooded country;
often a thrush marked even song, and there was the retiring twitter
of the birds.  A cow driven byre-wards lowed in the valley, and the
cawing of rooks in the Hall drive came on eddyings of the evening
breeze.

At lamplight in the drawing-room, after coffee, Teddie would raise
the dark reflective lid of the grand.

"Now, Mother, come and break the Beckstein," he said; almost a
formula, that sentence, to John.  And Mrs. Marsh would rise and seat
herself at the keyboard, carefully adjusting the height of the seat,
moving back the music-rack slide, playing a preparatory major scale,
that descended in the minor, before proceeding to the real business.

Then, a momentary silence, the death of talk, and the first notes
trembling into harmony.  Never would John forget that first night on
which, squatting on the floor at his father's feet, he heard Mrs.
Marsh play Schumann's _Papillons_, It opened a new world to him; he
seemed to be looking down a long grove of trees into a glade filled
with moonlight, where an intruding wind, lost and hesitating, ran
from bough to bough awakening whispers.  That hesitating prelude, the
slow, then quickening announcement of the theme, and the glad,
butterfly-flutter of the melody, dying away again into melancholy and
silence.

Somehow, as John sat there, with his father so near, it brought back
other nights, nights on that verandah overlooking the silver Yeshil
Irmak, as it flowed singing along the dark gorge, with the high moon
peering over the cliffs of Amasia; and a great longing filled him to
be back there again just once, to sit in that hot, spiced dusk, to
hear the tinkle of the camel bells from the highway, and perhaps the
soft voice of Ali, dear old Ali, dignified and melancholy, sitting
cross-legged, and reading every mysterious sound of that Eastern
night.

"There, that's enough for me," cried Mrs. Marsh, breaking across
John's reverie.  "Come along, John, you've got to sing."

"John, sing?" cried Mr. Dean.  "I never knew he could sing."

"I can't, Dad, it's Mrs. Marsh's idea!"

"But he can!  Come along, John," and she struck the opening chords of
"Drink to me only."  "Why, Mr. Dean, your lazy son used to sit here,
watching me work night after night, and it was only by accident I
found he had a voice--I heard him singing in the bathroom one
morning."

"Mother's heard me in the bathroom," said Teddie, "but that's why she
doesn't ask me."

"No shirking, John," called Mrs. Marsh, replaying the opening bars,
and obediently John stood up and sang in a light baritone voice.
When he had finished there was applause.  There was feeling in John's
voice; the spirit breaking through the flesh.

"You should hear him sing, 'Who is Sylvia?'  Mr. Fletcher makes him
sing it," said Teddie.

"But Mrs. Marsh has no music," answered John finding a loophole for
escape.

"You fraud--you know you can play it."

Mrs. Marsh jumped up.  "I believe he can do lots of things--and he
sits selfishly here listening to us all blundering."

John sat down, placed his hands on the keyboard, and began softly,
being very nervous, chiefly because his father was listening.

  "_Who is Sylvia, what is she?
  That all her swains commend her.
  Holy, fair and wise is she;
  The heavens grace did lend her,
  That adored she might be._"


"And now that's finished," said Teddie, "let's have Sedley Field
Song."

"You asked me to sing 'Who is Sylvia,'" retorted John.

"I know, but ours is better."

"All right then, here you are,"--and once more John's hands pressed
down the black and white keys while his voice went soaring into
"Field Song."

  "_Summer days, winter days, when a fellow's young
  And friends are many and pains are few,
  When the ball going over filled every fellow's lung
  With cheers for--_"


Yes, those were beautiful nights in the lamp-lit vicarage
drawing-room.  Their memories sank deep into the heart of a happy
impressionable boy.  But one more impression.  Enter, on Thursday
night, two days before the termination of their visit, Veronica, aged
seventeen and all the Spring sweetness thereof.  It was thoughtful of
Mrs. Marsh to ask a lonely girl from a neighbouring manor house, but
she could not have seen the effect on John.  He first saw her in the
hall.  He had just come down the stairs, immaculate and well-groomed,
with shining hair and the rose-red of health in his face.  He heard a
mingling of voices--Mrs. Marsh's and another--that other!  His heart
stopped.  It was like the trill of a bird.  Then he saw a flimsy
cloak fall away, revealing a thin, elfin girl, with gleaming
shoulders and a dress swan-like in the dim hall light.  She turned
and he could see her face--an oval, petite face with a little
whimsical mouth which might be just going to laugh or cry, and the
small head tumbling with curls, short and bobbed, and shaking as she
turned.  It was a vision and the youth on the stairs paused--would
she vanish into the darkness of the doorway again, or--

"Here's John," said Mrs. Marsh coming forward.  "Veronica, this is
John Dean, Teddie's friend."

"How d' you do," she said to John, and half held out her hand, but
John, embarrassed, withheld his, and then bowed stiffly.  Mrs. Marsh
noticed his gaucherie, and guessed the cause.

"You're to take Veronica into dinner," she said, leading the way to
the drawing-room.  He should have said something polite in response,
but he walked like a stick at the side of the girl, tongue-tied, and
furious at his own stupidity.  He had never known his self-possession
to desert him in this manner.  Even Muriel had not left him
speechless.  Here, he began a comparison with Muriel, and felt a
twinge of disloyalty.  Of course he was not disloyal---and disloyal
to what?  But the thought perturbed, with the result that Miss
Veronica Chase, used to adoration, found the good-looking youth at
her side very dull, despite his romantic appearance.  The entrance of
Teddie with "Hello, Veronica old thing!" relieved the tension, and by
the time they were seated at dinner, John had found his tongue.  He
had asked her if she lived thereabouts, when followed a minute
description of their old manor house, with one of the thousands of
beds which that poor restless queen, Elizabeth, was reported to have
slept on.

"Why don't you and Teddie came over to-morrow for tea?  It's only two
miles from here."

"I should like to very much," said John.  What an enchanting little
hand she had; he watched the thin fingers as they played with a fork.
When she turned to speak to Teddie, he took the opportunity to study
her profile, fascinated by the beautiful curve of her neck, the
little pink ear, half clouded in a curl, the mouth--with its pensive
corners.  This is perfection, thought John.

  "_Ah, Boy, it is a dream for life too high,
    It is a bird that hath no feet for earth:
  Strange wings, strange eyes, go seek another sky,
    And find thy fellows of an equal birth._"

--He recalled Richard le Gallienne's lines.  And the real John
disappeared that night--he was a creature of mono-syllables, and
Marsh had no flint on which to strike the sparks of his wit.  He
realised that John had been swamped in the flood of Beauty, and
gallantly came to the rescue.  True, John emerged somewhat in the
drawing-room, and to-night, he sang readily and well, his effort
being repaid by Veronica's "you sing beautifully--I could listen all
night," although she jarred somewhat slightly by adding, "Do you know
any comic songs?"  Though he abhorred them, John would gayly have
responded, and made a note to add a comic song to his repertoire.

The end of the evening came all too soon; the car waited outside to
bear her away.  The two boys lingered round it while the chauffeur
tucked the rugs about his young mistress.  Then she went with a
farewell wave of the hand and a musical "Good night," which John,
standing there in the porch, heard drift up to the star-light.

"Are you going to stand there forever, O stricken heart?" asked
Marsh.  "I want to fasten this door--and bar Love out."

John went in.  Upstairs, in their room, he was silent.

"Scissors, you poor impressionable young calf, I hope you're not
going to pine away in the night."

"Oh shut up!"

"That is not a gift of mine, as you know.  Scissors, old thing,
you're racing your phagocytes, as Metchnikoff would say, since all
love is stimulation.  She isn't worth it.  I know old Veronica.
She's a heart-cracker.  She counts her conquests by the hundred."

"I don't think it's very decent of you to--" began John, a little
peevish.  Marsh's flippancy irritated him.

"To abuse our guest?  No, it's not, Scissors, but I don't want to see
you going about with sticking plaster on your heart.  Old Veronica
and I understand each other perfectly.  She cracked me once, and then
laughed.  That kid hasn't the brains of a beetle; she's merely an
agitator of pink youth.  Flirt with her, yes, and she'll give you a
good time, for she's got a sporting instinct--but don't take her
seriously--she doesn't know what it means.  Did you hear her ask you
for a comic song?--and you did sing well to-night, Scissors--the
nightingale to his mate."

Marsh touched the tender spot.  That comic song request rankled.

"You didn't talk much with her?" asked Marsh.

"No."

"Well--do so to-morrow.  Ask her what she reads, what she likes, the
pictures she prefers.  She's got a mind like an illustrated Sunday
paper--you've had the comic supplement to-night."

John groaned.  Marsh's arrows always hit.

"I think you're beastly about her," he said desperately.

"No, I'm not.  Veronica and I are great pals, but she doesn't come
deer-stalking on this estate.  You're a sweet kid, Scissors, and I'm
not going to let you cry yourself to sleep for a butterfly with the
brains of a bat!"

"Oh rot--you do rag, Teddie."

"Well, well, dear infant, just investigate to-morrow."

Why did Marsh delight in pricking balloons?  He was right: horribly
right, thought John, as they drove away from the manor house next
evening.  That afternoon had been one long disillusionment.  She was
just as beautiful, just as attractive, and John feasted his eyes and
heart on her.  But she made a mistake when she took him down to pick
gooseberries, in the far end of the garden, away from the others.

"Give me your hand," she cried, and he helped her up the bank.  He
tried to master an impulse to squeeze it, and just failing, was going
to, when she anticipated him.  That sent the first cool little wind
around his heart.  She laughed frankly into his eyes.  She was
irresistibly beautiful, "and she knows it," thought John.

"Shut your eyes, Scissors, and open your mouth."

He obeyed.  A cool thin hand held his chin, the fingers of another
pushed a berry in his mouth.

"Swallow!"

He swallowed obediently.

"Open!" she commanded.

He opened his eyes, her face was very near to his, her bewitching red
mouth smiled at him, and he saw two little devils of mischief dancing
in blue eyes that looked straight into his.

John looked back into them.  There was a pause.

"You're shy," she said reproachfully.

"I know," he answered.  Her hand slid off his shoulder.

"I wonder who's winning the game," she said, moving towards a bush.
"Perhaps we ought to go back."

"But I want to talk to you," said John.

"Do you?--you are a strange boy," Veronica said.

"I'm not a boy--at least, no more than you are a girl," he retorted
somewhat resentfully.

Another silence.  They came to a summer house with a table in it, on
which a book was turned down.  John picked it up.  It was by a
popular woman novelist whose sex sentimentality swamped the
bookstalls.

"Do you read Amelia Serkle?" she asked.  "I love them."

"No---I've never read her books--are you fond of reading?"

"Awfully."

"What do you like?  Have you read Conrad?"

"No."

"Wells--or Bennett?" he added.

"Yes--one of Bennett's--I didn't like it.  I like Amelia Serkle and
Helena Thinne best."

"Oh," said John.  She was fast losing marks.

"And poetry, I adore poetry!" she said ecstatically.

"So do I," said John, warming.  "Isn't Masefield splendid, and
Thompson and Swinburne--"

"I haven't read any of those, I think.  I like Laurence Hope, and oh,
I love Ella Wheeler Wilcox!  Do you know her 'Poems of Passion?'"

"I looked at them--once," said John.  There was no hope left in his
voice.  He did not disguise the fact very successfully.

"We'd better go back," she said.

They joined the others, who had finished their set.  It was late and
Marsh suggested going.

"Good-bye," he said, at the end of the drive, down which Veronica
accompanied them.  Even then John marvelled at her beauty, enhanced
by the setting of those elms and the old manor house.

"Good-bye," she said, offering John her hand.

"Good-bye," he responded.  And as he said the word it was obvious
that they had lost all interest in each other.  It really was
"Good-bye," and neither minded.

Half a mile from the house, walked in comparative silence, Marsh
burst into laughter.

"What's the joke?" asked John.

"I can't help laughing at that poor kid--she's so crude."

"Who--Veronica--why?"

"I'm wondering how many romances she's killed in the gooseberry
bushes."

John glanced angrily at Marsh, and then the humour of it caught him
and he laughed also.

"How did you guess?" he asked.

"Because I've shut my eyes and opened my mouth," said Marsh.  "Poor
old Veronica.  She is a flirt!  If only she had brains--just a few.
And there are a lot like her.  Now, I'll tell you of a girl that's my
type, jolly sensible too.  I want to see more of her next Prize Day."

"Who?" asked John interested.

"Vernley's sister," replied Marsh.

"Oh--yes," said John, knocking down a nettle with a swish of his
tennis racquet.


Then came the end.  The train drew away from Loughboro Station.
John's father leaned back in his seat while John hung out of the
window, waving to Teddie and Mr. and Mrs. Marsh on the platform,
until the arch of the bridge shut them from sight.  John sank back
into his seat.

"Aren't they jolly, Dad!" he cried.

"Splendid, old son,--you make good friends."



III

There was one unsuccessful event in their holidays, that was the
visit to John's uncle.  Mr. Dean went, John thought, from a spirit of
duty rather than pleasure.  John had only seen his uncle once, when
he had come to the school on Prize Day and had treated John as a
child of five and adopted an air of patronage towards his father,
which the boy deeply resented.  They had not responded to each other
in a single detail.  "Just like his father," said Sir Henry to his
wife, the next day, "as impractical as Charles and as wayward.  The
boy wants strong handling.  I told his house-master so."  He had
departed without asking John home for the holidays, greatly to John's
relief, for he would have gone in a spirit of martyrdom.  John felt
he was resented because he was his father's son.  It must be galling
to the uncle with no sons and two daughters, to know, unless he was
more fortunate, that his nephew would inherit the title.  It was the
one unsuccessful fact in Sir Henry's life.  He could and did ignore
his brother, but hang it, he could not ignore his brother's son.  He
never read without anger in the Baronetage, "Heir-presumptive,
Charles Dean q.v."  and q.v. led him to John Narcissus Dean.
Narcissus!  What a preposterous name to give a boy--to an heir!

Their visit did not improve the mutual opinion.  Charles Dean
resented his brother's air of patronage, his smug self-satisfaction,
his ill-disguised vanity over his estates which somehow he seemed to
attribute to his own ability.  Four tedious days, in which every
minute held the possibility of friction, brought the visit to an end.
John's father did not say much afterwards, but John realised all he
thought.  Once only did he reveal in words what John surmised.

"I hope you will never have cause to ask help from any
relations--stand on your own feet, John," he said.

John accompanied his father down to Southampton.  It seemed almost
impossible that this was the end, that he would not see him again for
two years.  How far away was Amasia--and now that they were together,
so closely together, it seemed as if they had never been apart.

"Two more years, John--and I shall have a directorship here--it won't
be long, old son--you're seventeen and time flies at that age."

They stood at the top of the gangway.  A gong was sounding, and an
officer came down the deck.  "Visitors ashore, please!" he shouted.

Father and son grasped hands.  It was a long tight grip, with John
trying to look squarely into his father's eyes, summoning a stiff lip
to his aid, the father simply saying,

"Good-bye, dear lad."

"Good-bye, Father."

A loosening of the grip, a turn, and his feet were blundering down
the steep, trellised gangway.  He halted on the quay, while the ship
was being warped out.  They were too far apart for words, his father
high up above him, leaning over the deck rail.  Now the boat was
away, the last rope drawn aboard; the stern propellers thrashed the
waters into a white foam, the gulls cried, wheeled and followed.
John pulled out his handkerchief and waved it, though he felt soon he
might have to put it to another use.  There was a responding flutter,
and then distance grew between them, distance across which John's
heart was stretching until it well nigh broke; a grey spot on the
horizon, and it was all over.

He walked along the quay, the rain began to drizzle down.  It turned
cold and he shivered as he walked back to the station.

England seemed a lonely place to live in.




CHAPTER II


I

A busy year, a year filled with little successes, trials and
triumphs, and John, taller and a little quieter, perhaps too quiet
for a healthy lad of eighteen.  He had achieved his object by winning
the Mansell Exhibition, not of great value, it was true, but £50
would help and the real value of success lay in the fact that his
father would know he had worked since they had parted.  In June,
Vernley and he had gone to Cambridge for the King's College entrance
examination.  It had not troubled either of them greatly, although
Vernley, with an unshaken belief in his own stupidity, swore he had
been ploughed.  Their glimpse of Cambridge filled them with dreams of
a golden age.  They stayed on for a couple of days after the
examination and made visits and excursions.  Vernley's cousin was at
Trinity and had a large bare room, reached by a winding staircase
that looked on to the Backs, with a vista of bridges and elm-tree
walks.

The day after their return to Sedley, Mr. Fletcher sent for John.  It
was late in the evening when young Jones came to his study with the
summons, and John was just finishing a game of chess with Marsh.
Vernley sat in the window trying to read "Henry Esmond" in the sunset
light.  The Triumvirate, as they were called, had recently moved into
this large room in the corner of the quadrangle.  It was regarded as
the lap of luxury by the small boys who saw with envious eyes its
easy chairs, the cretonne curtains and the piano which Marsh had
imported.

"Shan't be long," said John going out.  What could Fletcher want him
for?  Perhaps a house matter--he was a prefect now.  He tapped at the
green baize door, pushed it open, then crossed the small hall of the
Fletcher household, and knocked again at the study door.  Mr.
Fletcher bade him enter.

"Oh--Dean, I want to see you--come in--sit down.  It's about a
matter--a--" he hesitated.  Why did the man fumble so, and fidget
with the blotter on his desk?  The room was almost dark, he could
hardly see the master's face.  Suddenly Mr. Fletcher got up and
walked across the room to the fireplace where he stood for a moment
with his back to John.  Then abruptly he turned.

"Dean--I hardly know what to say--how to tell you--I'm--I'm--you must
be brave, my dear lad, but I know you will be--you will be," he
repeated.  John just stared at him.  What had happened--and was he to
blame in any way?

"What's the matter, sir?" he asked.

Fletcher drew near and put his hand on John's shoulder.

"I have sad news, John.  Your father--"

John started to his feet; why had Mr. Fletcher's hand trembled so?

"There's nothing wrong, sir?" he asked, his heart sinking within him,
for he knew now something was wrong.

"No, not wrong, Dean--but everything that could be brave, and like
him.  My poor boy, your father is dead--there--there, it is terrible
for you, I know."  Mr. Fletcher pressed him down on to his seat again.

"Dead!" said John,--"not--not dead, sir?" he pleaded, raising his
hand as if to ward off a blow.

"This letter has just come, Dean, by express post."

John took it, and the master crossed the room to the electric switch.

"I'd rather it was dark, sir,--I think I can see it," said John.

"Certainly," replied Mr. Fletcher, and with an aching heart he
watched the boy go to the window and peer over the letter.  It seemed
an eternity before John turned and spoke.

"There--there seems no hope, sir--the company has none," he said in
an expressionless voice.

"No, Dean, I fear not--it is terrible."

"Yes," echoed John.

Why did the boy stand there so silent, so emotionless, with the
letter in his hand?  Anything was better than this unnatural calm.
Did he realise yet?

"Dad--died fighting," said John, jerkily.

"Yes--to the last, they say.  He defended them magnificently--you
have that to remember.  These massacres are terrible, terrible--I--"
he paused.  Still John stood there.  Mr. Fletcher had expected an
outburst, had prepared himself for it; and here they stood in the
dark facing each other, silent; nothing but the ticking of the clock
sounding in the abyss of these tense moments.  The entrance of Mrs.
Fletcher was welcome.  She moved to John's side, saying nothing, but
he felt her sympathy.

Then, folding up the letter, "Thank you, sir.  I will go now," he
said.

"Yes, Dean--if you would like to stay here--we can--"

"Thank you, sir, but I'll go--I'm--I'm all right, sir," he replied,
moving towards the door.  Mrs. Fletcher, saw his drawn face.  He was
so pitifully brave.  He had reached the door now, was turning the
handle.  He hesitated a moment, they saw him pause and turn, then
swiftly he moved towards them, flung himself face down on the couch,
buried his face in the cushions, and sobbed like a child.

Mrs. Fletcher sat down beside him, and motioned to her husband to go.
He went out silently, leaving them in the dark room.

"Oh, Mrs. Fletcher--my dear Dad!  My dear Dad!"

Mrs. Fletcher put her hand on the bowed head and stroked his hair.
There was nothing to say; she sat there, simply, her sympathy tending
him, until the storm passed.



II

John never forgot the details of those three days that followed.
First there was the anxiety of his father's fate.  That he was dead
he knew beyond hope, but there was a lack of details, of the manner
and the circumstances.  The letter from Messrs. Agnew & Cust merely
quoted the cable they had received stating the death of his father at
Amasia defending some Armenians who had taken refuge in his house
during a massacre.  That was all, and three days elapsed before they
wrote again, enclosing another cable which said that his father had
been shot through the head, had died instantaneously, while fighting
his way out, with his servants, to effect a juncture with a relief
detachment from the American hospital at Marsovan, where his body had
been conveyed and buried.  John wondered whether his father lay in
that cemetery where, on a memorable day he had seen him crying over
the grave of his mother.

During those days of waiting, John realised, more deeply then before,
the meaning of friendship.  Vernley and Marsh were always with him.
They said little, for what could they say?  They knew that John had
rather they did not touch upon the knowledge so heavy on their
hearts, and sometimes their watchfulness, their eagerness to serve
him brought him to a point of open breakdown.  For his own sake John
went on with his form work.  It was a slight distraction from the
anxiety of the days that must pass before a letter could come from
Asia Minor.  One night, about a week after the receipt of the news,
Vernley and Marsh sat in their study doing their preparation.  John
had been sent for by Mr. Fletcher, and had been absent some time.
Vernley looked at his watch.

"Shall I get supper?" he asked--"Are you finishing?"

"Yes," replied Marsh, closing his Euripides.  "I say, what a
miserable devil old Euripides was; he's always talking about death.
A good job some of his plays were burnt at Alexandria---there were
ninety of 'em.  I hate thinking about death."

"And just now--with poor old Scissors," added Vernley.

"By the way, Bobbie," said Marsh, flinging one leg over the arm of
his chair, "what's Scissors going to do?  I don't like asking him."

"Do--how do you mean?"

"His future--you see there's the money question.  I don't know much
about his affairs--but Cambridge means money--and I don't know
whether his governor had any--he seemed too jolly for money-making."

"Oh, he'll have left some--and there's the Exhibition," said Vernley.
Money matters were always easily dismissed in his presence.  "He'll
be all right, I expect."

"Well--we've got to see."

"But it's no business of ours."

"It is," retorted Marsh.

"It is?" asked Vernley.

"Yes--supposing there is no money?"

Vernley had never supposed such a thing.  He was silent a moment,
thinking.

"You mean--he must go to Cambridge with us?"

"Of course--and that's three hundred a year."

"Three hundred?" said Vernley.  He had never realised that so much
was being spent on him.  Then quietly, "Well--if old Scissors is
stuck, we'll find it somehow."

"That's what I'm driving at.  Three years at three hundred a year is
nine hundred pounds--and that's college expenses only.  It'll mean a
thousand all told."

"That's nothing--my guvnor'll never miss it.  He'd do anything for
Scissors," said Vernley, cutting the cheese.  "He'd adopt him and
depose me to-morrow."

"And there's my governor--he'd want to come in," said Marsh.

"Well, there you are, that's settled!"  Vernley took a large slice of
cucumber.  He disposed of money problems just as easily.

"But it's not settled, my child.  You've forgotten the chief person
in the settlement--there's Scissors."

"Well?"

"You can take a mule to the water, but you can't make him
drink--suppose he wouldn't be helped?"

"Oh--he would!--he'd be quite decent about it--he'd know it would
please us.  But I don't think we need worry.  He's sure to have some
money and there's his relations."

"From all I've heard of his relations--we've a better chance,"
commented Marsh.  "I suppose you guessed why Scissors refused the
captaincy of the beagles last winter?"

"He wanted to work for his Exhibition."

"It wasn't that--really--he couldn't afford it."

"How do you know?"

"I heard him making discreet enquiries as to how much it would
cost--and old Scissors wanted it awfully."

"I never knew that--I wouldn't have been captain had I known."

"That's why I didn't tell you," Marsh explained, "but it shows you
that Scissors gets pressed.  If he only--"

"Ssh," whispered Vernley as the door handle rattled.  John entered.
He looked worried and carried a letter.

"News?" asked Marsh eagerly.

"No--only a letter from the firm--about a job," said John.

"A job?" queried Vernley.

"Yes--they've offered me a junior clerkship at £80 a year in case I
need it."  He did not add that the wording had cut him to the quick
with its "in excess of the customary figure at which our junior
clerks begin, but in view of probable necessitous circumstances," etc.

"But you're going up to Cambridge with us!" cried Marsh.

"Of course, or we don't go," added Vernley.

"I don't know," said John, sitting down wearily.  "It depends,--I may
not be able.  I don't know yet how I'm--"

"If it's a matter of--" began Marsh, when a warning look from Vernley
cut him short.

"You're sure to hear soon, Scissors--I shouldn't worry yet," said
Vernley.  "We're all going up together, we've always said so.  You
know if you only think hard enough it always is so."

"Sounds like the mater and the Higher Thought circle," commented
Marsh, wondering what plan Vernley had suddenly conceived when he
sent that warning signal.

"Well--anyhow, I could eat something," said John, putting the letter
in his pocket.

"Righto!--draw up!" said Vernley, passing the bread and cheese.
"Oh--I've written home to say that you'll spend the holidays with us."

"He won't--at least he'll spend part with me," corrected Marsh.

"Thanks--but I can't make any plans, you see I don't know what's
going to happen yet."

"But you must go somewhere, Scissors," cried Vernley lightly.  The
moment he had said it, and saw the dumb pain in John's eyes he would
have torn his tongue out to retrieve the careless remark.  "Scissors,
I don't mean it that way--you know I don't!" he added desperately.

"No, I know you don't," agreed John, swallowing hard, and trying to
look steadily back.  They ate their supper in silence.  Even Marsh's
forced gaiety failed.


The weeks leading to the end of the term went swiftly.  Bit by bit
the news dribbled through, news of how his father had been
killed--this in a letter from the doctor at the American Mission.
His father had been buried next to his mother at Marsovan, under the
same almond tree whose blossom John could still picture in his mind,
so deeply was the first impression etched.  Then later came Mr. Glass
from his father's company, somewhat surprised and hurt at John's
refusal of the clerkship.  His father had been insured for £500.
There was that, and a small balance at the bank, not more than £600
in all.  Was he wise in refusing the opening, which would lead, in
years to come, to a very good position?  John looked at Mr. Glass,
with his bald head, large stomach and expressionless face, and the
result of success did not appeal to him.  Mr. Glass prepared to
depart.

"Well, you may think better of it, my boy.  Your father would have
wished it, I know.  I don't see what more we can do for you--but
there, if you do change your mind and need us, we are there,
remember."

Clumsily done, but well meant, and John realising this, thanked him
and shook the hand extended towards him.  After Mr. Glass had gone
Fletcher looked at John.

"I suppose you intend going up to King's?" he said.  "I think you
will pull through all right with care."

"No, sir, I feel I ought to begin doing what must be done--earn my
living.  Six hundred pounds is not much, and I shouldn't feel happy
knowing that I was using it up."

"But Cambridge may lead to opportunities--a Fellowship--at least a
degree, which is useful.  At the worst you can become a--a
schoolmaster."  He smiled apologetically for the joke against himself.

"And meanwhile, sir, make expensive friends and acquire expensive
tastes?  Why shouldn't I do the last thing first, and learn whether I
have the inclination."

"The last?" queried Mr. Fletcher.

"Yes, sir, I thought of getting a junior mastership--if I could.  A
year would not matter greatly.  If I failed at that--then I would go
up to Cambridge--it would not be too late."

"No, but you are wasting a year."

"Yes, sir, but I want--oh, I feel I must work it all out.  I'm afraid
you don't understand, sir," added John lamely.

"I think I do--this has altered your whole life, or at least you feel
so--nothing really does affect our lives to anything like the extent
we imagine it does.  Experience proves that we are always ourselves.
As for a mastership--it is not easy without a degree.  I have a
friend at a scholastic agency.  If you wish I will write to him--that
is, if you want to take this step.  Personally, I advise you to--no,
I won't advise you, John--you must decide for yourself."

Two weeks after that conversation, John was glad of the step he had
taken.  The insurance company had refused to pay the claim; the
policy did not provide for the contingency in which Mr. Dean lost his
life.  John's capital now was £132.  Mr. Fletcher's friend had
obtained for him a junior mastership at a preparatory school in
Hampshire.

"Sixty pounds a year, Dean, not much, but still you're a beginner--it
will give you time to think," said Mr. Fletcher, handing him the
letter.  John wrote accepting the offer.  There were vigorous
protests from Vernley and Marsh.  At the end of the term, after a
terrible wrenching from the school, his friends, the Fletchers, and
all the beloved corners and places and daily events of four happy
years, he went down with Vernley to his home.  The latter still
believed that John would accompany him to King's.  Marsh had gone
home with the same belief.  Vernley's faith was based on the ability
of his father to bring John round to common sense.  There was a talk
one afternoon in the library that brought a lump into John's throat,
and a mist into his eyes, as he listened to the self-effacing
generosity and kindly plans of the big, bluff man sitting in front of
him.  But he remained true to his decision.  Mr. Vernley mopped his
brow, hot with the attempt to suggest, as delicately as possible, a
way out, and afraid all the time of hurting the boy's feelings.  John
thanked him in a voice that trembled.

"Well, well, John, you're an obstinate boy, but I won't worry you.
You can do me a great favour by keeping an eye on Bobbie, and you
won't--and I'll owe you a grudge all my life.  But if you do want to
give me real pleasure--then come to me whenever you will--I won't say
more than that.  You understand, my boy, don't you?" and with that he
placed a kindly hand on the lad's shoulder.  "And--'pon my word, I
admire your grit--you're the right stuff!"

Dismay, blank dismay, was written on Vernley's face when he heard of
the result.  It was no use appealing to John--the latter had heard
him to the limit of his patience.  Vernley went to Muriel.  She could
act when others failed.  To his amazement she did not agree.

"Scissors is quite right.  You can say what you like, or put it how
you like, but it's charity, and John would know it, and you would
know--and it might make a difference.  I think you're blind."

"But why?" cried Vernley, plaintively.

"John refuses to be helped simply because he thinks so much of
us--he's not going to jeopardise his friendship by indebtedness or
reasonable gratitude.  But you men never can see these things.  Only
a woman understands."

"Rot!" said Vernley, but he began to understand.  That night he wrote
to Marsh.  "I shouldn't mention it any more, Scissors can't be
shaken--the Governor's failed, and if your Governor tried he might
suspect a plot and throw us all over.  Perhaps we'll have a chance
later.  School teaching's a hell of a life."  True to his advice,
Marsh dropped his own scheme, in which his father had concurred.
When John arrived to spend September at the Vicarage the choice John
had made was not opposed.  They had a jolly holiday, jolly in so far
as John, with the momentous events of the last two months in his
mind, could be light-hearted.  Often he looked into the future and
sometimes was seized by despair at its hopelessness.  It was not the
task confronting him.  Earning a living was the common lot of men,
and the one in which they found most happiness.  It was his
loneliness, the apparent futility of his life.  He was alone.  That
was the awful thought.  This great, passionate world, and of all its
millions, not one inseparably bound to him, to rise or fall with his
success or failure!  Ungenerous, perhaps, this thought.  He had
friends, such friends too!  But the possession of friendship meant
independence; he was not going to be behind and be pulled along in
the race of life.  They should have no cause to be sorry for him;
rather would he have them eager to know him, to cherish his
friendship the more for the success that he brought with it.  He was
of a class that found it easier to do a favour than receive one.  He
spent his life seeking, not a way out, but a way through.  He was now
braced for the contest, and the sternness of it exhilarated him with
the freshness of a morning sea.  He was diving from a great height of
sunlit friendship into the cold sea of life.




CHAPTER III


I

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Six, sir," he whispered.

"And how long have you been here?"

"Six terms, sir."

John's heart sank.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



II

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

He heard John clear his voice.

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

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

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

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




CHAPTER IV

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

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

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

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

"Useful, how?" asked John.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Not sensual?" he said laughing.

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

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

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

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

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

The lout blinked at him.

"Shut yer ---- mouth."

John flushed and tightened his grip.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Oh, Mr. Dean!" she whimpered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I suppose I look a beautiful object?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"On my shirt."

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


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

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

John briefly recounted the episode.

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

"Why?"

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

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




BOOK IV

LIFE



CHAPTER I


I

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You will write?"

"Every day, darling," he vowed.

"I shall always think of you."

"Always?"

"Always!" she promised.

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

"I shall soon be on my feet."

"I know."

"Muriel!"

"John, dearest!"

"London is nearer than Chawley."

"Yes, John, but--"

"But?"

"It is so new, such an adventure."

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



II

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Have you got one?" she asked.

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

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

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

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

"Yes."

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

"Do you know London?" she asked again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"At the gates will do, thank you."

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

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

He thanked her.

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

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

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

When dinner was over the young men lingered behind.

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

"Have a gasper?" he drawled genially.

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

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

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

"You are French?" asked John.

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

"Oh--I'm afraid I haven't a card yet--my name's Dean."

"Have you come to business?"

"No--I have not long left Sedley."

The companion also held out a card.  John accepted it and read,
"Vernon Wellington, Greenroom Club, W.C."

"I bet Reggie at dinner you were a public school boy," said the
donor.  "Good old public schools we always say!  Glad you've come.
We are trying to put some tone into this house.  Lord, it needs it,
look at this!"  He waved his hand derisively towards a
red-blue-and-gold china shepherdess on the mantelpiece.

"Fine place, Sedley," commented Mr. de Courtrai, puffing out smoke,
one leg crossed in the arm chair.  "Eton,--Harrow,--Sedley--I think I
should have chosen Sedley had I not been educated on the continent.
There's a fine tone about Sedley, what do you say, old dear?"

The old dear agreed.  "My people insisted on me going to a private
school.  Thought me too delicate.  Always regretted it."  He adjusted
his tie carefully, glanced at himself in the mirror and smoothed his
hair with a thin white hand.  "You're new to London I suppose?"

"Yes--I arrived to-day--but I shall like it."

De Courtrai blew more smoke into the air.

"You must get some cards--really, my dear."

"And a club," added Wellington.  "Every fellah must have a club.
We'd put you up, but ours is for the profession."

"Profession?" asked John.  He was eager to know what they were.  He
had never met any one quite like this.

"We're on the stage," replied Wellington.

"Oh--it must be very interesting work, acting."

"We aren't actors; we're in the ballet--the Empire.  We're opening
next Monday--'Scheherezade.'"  De Courtrai stroked his ankle.  "A
superb spectacle, you must come."

John had never seen a ballet and he could not imagine the parts
played by these young exquisites.  He remembered two pictures by an
artist called Degas, on which Mr. Vernley set great value.  They were
of ladies in short fluffy skirts with stumpy legs, on one of which
they stood, stork-like.  Bobbie said they were ballet-girls, and that
Tod had once run one, whereupon John naïvely asked "Which won?"
causing Vernley to collapse in shrieks of merriment.  He had never
heard of men doing ballet dancing.  Perhaps they had something to do
with the scenery.  He did not care to hint at this, however, and said
how much he would like to see the ballet.

"He'd better come on Wednesday, my dear," said de Courtrai,
addressing Wellington, "when we're doing 'Carnival.'  He'll fall in
love with Harlequin, won't he?"

Mr. Wellington giggled and exclaimed--

"S'nice!"

"Is she very beautiful?" asked John.

They opened their eyes wide.  Mr. Wellington again giggled, put his
hand delicately on his hips, shook himself and exclaimed, "Chase me!"

"My dear!" exclaimed de Courtrai, dabbing his nose with a
highly-scented handkerchief, "It isn't a she, it's a he!"  They
laughed again, in a high-pitched key which jarred on the young man,
and they saw that he resented their mirth.

"You mustn't mind, old thing," de Courtrai exclaimed apologetically,
touching John's arm.  "You're really rather sweet."

John got up.

"I'm afraid I must go and unpack now."

"Can we help?" volunteered Wellington.

"No, thanks, I haven't much," he replied and went out.  He could hear
them giggling as he went upstairs to his room, and felt furious with
them for making such a fool of him.  How was he to know that
Harlequin wasn't a ballet-girl?  He would talk less in future, and
not ask so many questions.  But he disliked their manner although
they had been very friendly.

Half an hour later there was a tap on his door.  With his head deep
in the almost empty trunk, John paused.  The tap was repeated.  In
reply to his call Wellington and de Courtrai entered, the latter
carrying a cup.

"We've brought you some coffee we've made in our room.  Ma Perdie
won't make it without a shilling extra."

"Oh, thank you," said John taking the cup.  They paused.

"Won't you sit down?--at least, there's only two chairs; I'll sit on
the bed."

They sat down and John sipped the coffee.  It was made from essence
and sickly sweet, but he had to drink it.

"You're very jolly in here," said de Courtrai thrusting his feet out
towards the gas fire.  "A nice warm room--we're at the top.  You're
getting your knick-knacks about, I see."

"Yes--just a few I've brought."

Suddenly from the other side of the room came a loud "Ooh!"  It was
from Wellington who had been walking round on a tour of inspection.
He had halted at John's ivory brushes, with his father's monogram and
crest.

"What charming brushes!" he sang.  "Look, my dear, aren't they just
too lovely!"  He carried the tray to de Courtrai.

The latter looked.

"Yes, I believe they're heavier than mine.  But Welly, you mustn't be
so rude."

"Oh, it's all right," said John weakly.  The next exclamation came
from de Courtrai, who suddenly saw the portraits on the dressing
table.

"Who's this?" he asked picking up Vernley's portrait.

"My friend."

"What a sweet face!"

John could hardly agree, and he thought with a smile, what Vernley
would have said if he had heard himself called "sweet."

"And this?"  Wellington picked up Marsh's photograph.

"Another friend," replied John briefly.  Next to it stood a portrait
of Muriel.  He didn't want them to probe all his secrets.  He was a
fool for putting it out.

But de Courtrai's eyes travelled over it without notice, to a Sedley
group.

"Who's this with the ball?"

"Oh--that's Lindon, the Captain."

"What a wonderful figure!"

"Yes--he weighed twelve-stone-four.  He was stroke in the first eight
too," said John, "and he's a fine pianist."

"You can tell he's an artist by his eyes," exclaimed Wellington.  "I
never make a mistake that way; do I, my dear!"  He giggled and sat
down.

"Never, Welly--you've a gift for the s'nice and s'naughty."

"Go h'on!" giggled Wellington, dabbing his face.  John stared, de
Courtrai saw the wonder in his eyes.

"We must hobble off--we're in the way--well see you again."

"Don't forget Wednesday," cried Wellington in the doorway.

"Ta-ta!" called de Courtrai.  The door closed.

What a pair!  John didn't know whether to laugh or be angry.  They
were very vulgar and inquisitive, but also very friendly.  He would
not encourage them, however.  He resumed his unpacking.  An hour
later he had finished, and was preparing for bed, when there was
another tap on the door.  This time he pretended not to hear; he did
not want them in again.  But when the tap was repeated, he went to
the door and opened it.  In the darkness of the landing, he could not
see who it was.

Captain Fisher paused on the threshold.  He had come out of the
darkness and stood blinking in the light.  John waited, for he seemed
about to say something.  There was a long pause, a clearing of the
throat, then--

"Permit me to introduce myself, sir, I am Captain Fisher, Fisher of
the 3rd Foot, sir.  Twelve years China Station, twelve Malta, six
Gold Coast--damn it.  Glad to know you, sir!" he stammered, then
bowed low.

Embarrassed, John bowed also.

"Those were days, sir,--days--days of--" he put a hand on the lintel
as though the memory was too much for him.  "Egad, sir, they _were_
days.  Fisher was a boy, sir, Lavington will tell you, sir--General
Lavington, God bless him--ninety-two to-day, sir--we've drunk his
health at the 'Rag' to-night.  A great Speeeech ... a wunnerful man
... ninety-two, not much longer, sir, any of us.  An' here we are, in
a Perdiferous house--pardon me, it's a great night--with foreign
meat, cats, parrots and a shilling in the slot.  If any had a' known
on China station that Charlie Fisher would have been living in this
manag--menag--caravanserai, as Omar would say--You've seen 'em,
sir,--the blighted blossom of India!  Ha!  Ha!  An' the eunuchs--yes,
sir, that's what they are!  Pouff!"  Here Captain Fisher steadied
himself from a fitful gust of indignation.  "Now there's a gel out
to-night--

  _Take a pair of sparklin' eyes
  an' a--_"

hummed the Captain.  "You'll see her, sir, what a glorious vision!
Wants breaking, sir!  A high stepper like her father's fillies, but
what a head--what a--I'm a connoisseur too, in my day, Dandy Fisher
they call me.  China Station twelve years, twelve years Malta, Gold
Coast--"

"So you said, sir," interrupted John, breaking the circle.

"You're a fine lad," exclaimed the Captain, looking at him keenly.
"Just such a lad as mine, God bless 'im.  What's y'name?"

"Dean, sir--John Dean."

"John--ha! so's mine--God bless him--dear ol' John--dear ol' John."
He swayed a little, as he surveyed his waistcoat.  "He was your age
too, and his hair too--just such hair--the gels loved him--dear ol'
John."

"Is he--is he dead, sir?" asked John.

The old man straightened himself proudly.

"For his King and Country, sir--in the Boer War--an' a V.C., sir,--a
V.C.--God bless 'im."  A tear trickled down his nose.  "The last to
leave me--the last.  General Lavington said to-night--ninety-two,
sir, he is, he referred to John, he knew 'im--signed his first
papers, sir--dear ol' John.  Come and have a drink, me lad."  Captain
Fisher turned and put a shaking hand on the banisters.

"Not to-night, sir, thank you, it's late."

"So 'tis--so 'tis.  Good night, my lad.  God bless you!"

"Good night, sir!"  John waited until the broken old man reached his
room, and then closed his door.

With a last look round his little room, John swiftly undressed, stood
pyjama clad and barefooted a moment after brushing his hair, looking
out on the bright moonlight night, and the quaint caricature of the
Campanile.  Then he turned off the light and leapt into bed.  But not
to sleep.  This was his first day, and he now slept for the first
night in the city he had come to conquer; so far he had done little
conquering, he thought, as he reviewed the events of this day.  The
moonlight flooded his room, making it still more unfamiliar.  He
watched the swiftly fading glow of the gas fire, and his eye caught
the portrait of Muriel, illuminated in a direct beam of moonlight on
the mantelpiece.  Mastered by an impulse, he threw back the clothes
and put a foot on the cold floor, then sprang out and took the
portrait from its place.  For a long moment he looked at it in the
dimness, then pressed his lips to the cold glass, and was about to
get into bed, when he did what he had not done for a long time.  He
had never given any serious thought to religion; perhaps he was
instinctively rather than formally religious.  The times when he had
sat in school chapel had been irksome, though occasionally a hymn,
and the high fresh voices of the choir had stirred him,
aesthetically, not spiritually.  But to-night he felt very lonely,
and just a little afraid.  Moreover there was a new faith in his
fervent love for Muriel, which somehow required expression.  So
quietly he slipped down to his knees, buried his face in his hands,
and prayed in a somewhat disordered fashion for something which he
could hardly define.  Then standing up again, he looked at the
photograph, wondering whether the head he saw, in reality lying on a
pillow in a quiet country room, flooded with light from this same
moon, would realise anything of what he had just done and said.  He
turned to replace the frame, then, on a thought, put it under his
pillow and got into bed.  Two minutes later, quiet breathing in a
silent room told of a dreaming head, smiling for some reason, buried
deep in the pillow.  He was oblivious even of Capt. Fisher's deep
bassoon in a room above.




CHAPTER II


I

He had never experienced anything like this before, and after the
dismal events of the day, the exhilaration he felt was heightened by
reaction.  The stall in which he sat was luxurious.  It was good to
see around him so many prosperous, well-groomed men, and smiling,
richly clad, or half-clad women.  Then the lights, streaming on the
gilding, the brass rails, the tall proscenium, and the gaudily
panelled ceiling, with its naked nymphs, rosy limbed, floating from
pursuing youths on banks of fleecy cumulus,--all tended to awaken the
senses.  But oh! the music and the ballet! that wild spontaneous rush
of thistledown feet and lovely limbs, the glitter, the elaborately
evolved design, the swift riot of colour swimming on a sea of soft
melody that poured out over the darkened auditorium!  From the white
beauty of "Lés Sylphides," dreamlike, as a stirring of lilies on a
moonlit pool, they had passed to the happy flirtations of "Carnival."
John, in ecstasy, forgot the sick misery of his heart, forgot those
cold refusals, the reluctant opening of numerous doors, the frigid
examination of self-confident men, the waiting, the snubbing, the
insolence of office boys and porters; his deep hatred of Fleet
Street, his apprehension of fruitless days, all passed away as he
peered into these glades of music and loveliness.  With the blaze of
prodigal splendour in "Scheherezade," the swift change of music from
revelry to terror, the hurrying and scurrying of silk-clad women, the
stern dignity of the departing Sultan, John's head swam.  He almost
forgot to look for Wellington and de Courtrai in that rapturous
release of the captives and the licentious abandon of the women on
their entry.  It was with difficulty that he penetrated their
disguise, for the effeminate dandies of Mariton Street were
half-naked dusky men with muscular torsos who leapt and danced with
fierce exultation before their adoring lovers.  John could hardly
realise that these superb athletes, masters of rhythm and gesture,
were the two vulgar youths who, despite his coolness, had shown him
nothing but kindness, with such insistence, that he had accepted
their pressing invitations to this performance.  And his amazement
passed to unbounded admiration when de Courtrai died from a stroke of
the Sultan's scimitar, in a magnificent somersault that laid his body
prone at the feet of his terrified mistress.  The curtain fell to a
tumult of applause.

The long interval enabled John to explore the promenade at the back.
He stood in a corner and watched the parade, and wondered if it was
always the same, night after night--what kind of lives these people
lived, where their money came from, their nationality, for there were
overdressed young Jews with patent-button boots and silver-topped
canes, elegant dandies with waisted coats, girlish-looking youths
that smirked and simpered, heavy-jowled men with pendulous stomachs
and evil gloating eyes under bald, shiny heads.  The women too,
French, German and Russian, dark, fair, loud-voiced, high-heeled,
arrayed in furs, small-footed and mincing, they passed, with quick
eyes and mechanical smiles, or sulky stare and--

"Penny for your thoughts, dearie," said a girl in a large white
stole, as she laid a kid-gloved hand on John's arm.

He started more in fear than surprise.

"Lord love us--I shan't bite yer!" she laughed.  "So shy! and a
pretty boy too," she added, giving her fur a twitch while she looked
audaciously into his eyes with a frank stare.  "How do you keep your
complexion, lovey?  That ain't Ligett's one and six in cardboard
boxes, I know."

John smiled, almost unintentionally.  She could only be about
eighteen, and despite the hard mouth, she had innocent, kind eyes.

"That's right--you're a regular Adonis with that showcase smile," she
exclaimed.  Several persons were watching them.  John coloured with
self-consciousness.

"Gawd!  I wish I could do that--an' I did once, dearie, before the
dirty work on the cross roads.  But I don't mind a Martini before
Strumitovski waves his stick again."

What could he do?  To say "No" might provoke an outburst.  He moved
towards the bar, her hand still on his arm.  He felt a thousand eyes
turn on them, heard a thousand whispers.  He was sure the bar-maid
smirked satirically when he ordered two Martinis.  He had never had a
cocktail in his life, and didn't know whether to drink or eat the red
cherry in the amber liquid.  His companion led the way and he saw she
expected another, although he had not swallowed half of the bitter
stuff.  He ordered two more, and while they talked a warm glow crept
over him, and with it a feeling of distance.  He seemed to be talking
to her down a corridor.  There was a loud ringing of a bell above the
babel.

"Where are you sitting?" she said, propelling him out.  Before he
could answer some one called "Dean!" rather excitedly.  The voice was
familiar, and turning, in the crush at the door, he saw Lindon.

"What on earth are you--?" began Lindon joyously.  Then, suddenly he
saw the gloved hand on John's arm and swiftly glanced at his
companion.  Lindon winked expressively.  "See you later, Scissors,"
he called.  "I'm at Jules, Jermyn Street," and then disappeared.
Utter confusion fell upon John.  He strode fiercely along.

"Lord! do you owe him a fiver?" simpered the girl.

"No--certainly not, it's you!" he returned fiercely.

She did not flinch, accustomed perhaps to such remarks.  John,
although slightly drunk, was aware of his cruelty and felt penitent.

"Don't flare, dearie," she said quietly.

He halted at the corner where he turned for the gangway.

"Good-bye," he said, somewhat ungallantly, to which she responded by
detaching her arm.

"Aren't you coming home with me, boysie?" she asked plaintively, her
eyes very serious.

"No--thanks, not to-night--I don't--I--" but he could not say it.
She divined it, however.

"I know you don't--and I'll not be the first.  You shy darling!" she
cried impulsively, taking his face between her hands and kissing his
mouth.  A moment later she had gone, leaving nothing but a faint
odour of stale scent.  Pale now, John leaned on the wall while the
blood surged to his brain, then, with a heart thumping tumultuously,
he found his way back to his seat.  The rest of the ballet passed
unheeded; his mind was tracking that plaintive little face through
the dark house.

When the curtain fell on the final divertissement, in accordance with
instructions John found his way round to the stage door, in a dark
back street, where stood several luxurious motor cars, a small group
of young men and women, autograph hunters chiefly, a tout or two, all
kept outside the stage door, blazing with light, by a hoarse-voiced
man in livery, to whom in turn, each member of the company called
"Good night, Billy."  At last Wellington and de Courtrai appeared and
with them, three young ladies of the ballet, called Fluffy, Pop and
Pansy respectively.  On the programme they had Russian names, as had
his two friends, but their accents betrayed familiarity with Balham.
They were pupils in the _corps de ballet_, and for ten
minutes--during which they all walked towards Piccadilly Circus,
there was an animated discussion of the performance, its errors, and
the wickedness of the conductor who had taken the last score through
in seven-eight time, causing a collapse of the principals the moment
the final curtain had fallen, whereupon he had been summoned to the
wings by Lydia Lamanipoff and had his face well slapped for his
insolence.  Pop declared that it would end that "affair" which had
been a subject of current gossip ever since Lydia had thrown over
Tamanski for biting her shoulder in the "Bacchanale."

John was swept along in the crowd, his own little group noisily
laughing and talking, Pansy hanging on his right arm, while her other
fondled a Pekinese dog with an enormous blue bow.  They turned in at
a restaurant on the corner of a street, descended some marble steps
that wound round a lift, and suddenly John, pulled through a couple
of swing doors, halted amazed in a marble panelled room, over-lit,
with innumerable small tables surrounded by men and women.
Wellington made his way down the centre of the room, glancing at
himself in the large mirrors on his left and enjoying the sensation
their entrance caused.  He commandeered a table down at the bottom,
near the noisy waitresses' buffet; above the babble of voices rose
the discordance of an orchestra on a dais.  Its chief function
appeared to be that of creating as much noise as possible, including
antics at the piano and on a small drum and an organ.  Wellington and
de Courtrai appeared to be well-known, for several dandified youths,
distinguished by spats, cuffs, side-whiskers or monocles, came over
to speak to them, and all were very convivial, ending their remarks
with, "Won't you introduce me?"  Handshaking was a great ceremony,
accompanied with "How d'ye do?" to which was allied its inseparable
bromide, "Pleased to meet you."

Pop distinguished herself by ordering steak and chips and a bottle of
stout; Pansy had a more delicate taste, ordering sardines on toast,
which de Courtrai declared was a specialty in this hall of many
tables.  Bewildered, John ordered the recommended dish, refused a
cigarette from a pale gentleman who insisted upon talking across
Pansy to him, and was suffocated with the heat and tobacco smoke.
The conversation was still of Lydia and her loves, punctuated by long
stories of the ladies, and other ladies' furs and "fellahs."  John,
desperate for a theme of conversation, began by praising the
Pekinese, and then narrated his experience with the lady and her
three dogs in the park.  To his surprise it awakened immediate and
deep interest.  At the end, the girls giggled and Wellington
exclaimed, "Chase me!"

"It's thumbs up," said de Courtrai, wisely.

"What a cheek!" asserted Pansy, rolling her eyes; Pop declaring,
"It's a shime to lead awy the young,"--whereupon there was loud
laughter.

"Mind what you drink," said Fluffy impressively.

"I should take Welly as chaperon," advised Pansy.

John, getting redder and redder, partly in anger at his own naïve
foolishness, partly at their insinuations, declared he was not going
at all.

"What!" they all screamed in amazement.

"Wish I'd the chance," commented de Courtrai, adjusting his tie.  "I
want some one to take a motherly interest in me."

There was another bellow of laughter.  All eyes were turned on their
table.  John wished he could get away.  But they sat on until the
lights began to go out, and when at last they were in the street
again, John discovered, to his dismay, they were not bound for home
but for Pop's flat off Jermyn Street.  He suggested going home alone.

"Rubbish, the fun's just beginning," cried Fluffy, taking his arm.
He was swept along with them.  Pop led the way, herded them into a
small lift that ran up out of a dark hall in the street.  It halted
on the fourth floor, where they all emerged.

"Wonder if the Colonel's in," said Pop, turning the key.  They all
followed and the question was answered in the diminutive hall by the
emergence from a brilliantly lit room of the Colonel himself.  He was
big fat man, with a treble chin and thin lips.  His eyes were beady
and their sockets were sunken and baggy.  On his enormous stomach he
displayed a heavy gold chain, and as if to augment the size of the
foundations of such an enormous superstructure, he wore white spats.
A diamond glittered on his finger, six black hairs trailed across his
gleaming head, and his teeth were stopped with gold.  Anyone more
unlike a colonel, John had never seen.  When John, later, asked de
Courtrai for his regiment, the wise young man laughed.

"Oh--he's one of the Nuts," answered de Courtrai.

Certainly he was.  He kissed the three girls in a fatherly way,
poured for them all a whiskey and soda, offered John a cigar, and
finally sprang amazingly on to the lid of the baby grand piano, where
he dangled his enormous legs.  Pop disappeared into an adjoining
room.  Then it was her home thought John, for she emerged a few
minutes later in a kimono, with slippers on and her hair down.  She
curled up on a cushion by the fireplace, lit a cigarette, and looked
up admiringly at the Colonel.  He had now dismounted, to permit
Fluffy to sing, Wellington accompanying, after which the latter
played with a skill and touch that surprised John.  When Pop had
contributed, "Keep on loving me," to which refrain the Colonel pursed
his lips frequently, they called for John to perform.  He pleaded
excuse, but they would not listen.

"I don't know anything, really," he urged, but they forced him down
to the piano.

"What is it?" asked Fluffy as he played the opening bars.

"_O Lovely Night._"

Pop looked at Wellington.

"My--he's rapid, ain't he?" she said, but John did not hear.

There was a strange stillness as he sang.  Even Fluffy stared into
space, her pretty little face, under the rose shade, pensive.  "Makes
me all shivery," she whispered, between the verses.

Why did he sing this, John was asking himself.  It was quite out of
keeping with the atmosphere.  He was a fool to court failure like
this, but he struggled through.  No one spoke when he finished.
Finally Pop asked for another cigarette.

"You've got a lovely voice," said the Colonel.  "Wish I could sing
like that.  Could once, when a kid--in a choir," he said with a wry
smile, pouring out a whiskey and soda.

"Lor--you in a choir," smirked Fluffy, pushing a thin finger into his
pendulous stomach.  The Colonel resented this familiarity.

"Yes, my gal, me in a choir--and solo tenor too, don't you forget
it!"  He gulped down his drink and sighed.  Pop put her arms round
his neck and kissed his bald head.

"Did 'ums den," she crooned, and they all laughed.

Soon afterwards they left, Pop and the Colonel standing in the
doorway until the lift had gone down.  Later, walking down Mariton
Street, after they had parted from Fluffy and Pansy, de Courtrai
discussed the girls.

"Orl right, of course, but, as you know, not ladies."

"Is the Colonel Pop's father?" asked John.

His two companions halted and stared at him.

"My dear child--" began de Courtrai.

"Dean's my name."

De Courtrai gaped.

"Really if you resent our--" Wellington drawled.

"I do resent being made a fool," said John, hotly.

The conversation was strained for the rest of the walk home.

The Viennese clock in the drawing-room struck three as they lighted
their candles in the hall.



II

The following morning, in a contemplative hour in bed, John was
conscience smitten.  He was on the road to ruin, exactly as in the
books he had scoffed at.  Flashy companions, the stage, the stage
door, actresses, fast places of resort, doubtful flats, men of loose
morals, and drink--yes, three drinks, two in the bar--the bar!--and
one at the Colonel's, and then, as ended all vulgar affairs, a
quarrel on the way home.  What would Muriel think if she knew?  Was
this the way he was winning through?  He had been in London four days
and was on the downward path.  Penitent, he sprang out of bed, and to
strengthen his will, denied himself even a dash of warm water in his
bath.  At breakfast de Courtrai and Wellington were missing, for
which he was grateful.  It was good to talk with the Irish girl,
enjoy her bright laughter and the fresh look in her eyes; what a
contrast to those bedizened ladies of the ballet.  Mrs. Perdie was in
her most motherly mood; she came up specially from the kitchen to
have a look at Mr. John.

"I wondered if you were coming in, Mr. Dean--I was awake with my
lumbago--but there you are.  It's a strange young man who can resist
the night air of London!"

He felt inclined to resent her comment, but it was so good-natured
that he laughed in reply.  The real mother emerged half an hour later
when she met him alone in the hall, where he came to enquire after
his laundry.

"You'll soon lose that lovely colour of yours, Mr. Dean, in this
whirlpool, if you deny yourself proper rest.  I've seen many a bright
young gentleman go dull through coming home with the milk.  Perhaps I
shouldn't say it, but lor, Mr. Perdie always said I was mother-mad,
an' p'raps I am.  You'll not wear yourself out chasing the moon down,
will you?"

Her good-natured face wore an anxious look.

"An' it's not for me to say really, but them young gentlemen upstairs
are not your kind, and I'm sorry if I'm presuming, Mr. Dean," she
said, wiping her hands on her apron.

"Not at all--I appreciate your anxiety, Mrs. Perdie," answered John.
"I shan't use my latchkey very often, you'll find."

"There, sir, I felt I must say it, seeing you might ha' been my own
son, sort of fashion, an' I'm easy now."  She disappeared suddenly
below.

At ten-thirty that morning, John sat in the office of the _New
Review_.  He had with him a letter of introduction from Mr. Vernley
to Melton Cane, the editor.  For one hour he sat in the waiting-room
overlooking Covent Garden, while he listened to the whirr of the
typewriter in the next room.  A door on his right opened into the
editor's den, wherein sat the assistant editor reading manuscripts,
which he took ceaselessly out of a big tin box.  The reader was a
tall heavy man, with sandy hair and a fresh complexion.  He had
chatted pleasantly with John and told him poetry was a drug on the
market, and they were choked with it.

"Ever since we discovered Mayfield's narrative epic, we've been
inundated with plagiaries of his work.  I wade through them until I
sink in despair."

"But I haven't brought any poetry," explained John.

The big man gave a sigh of relief.

"You look like a poet--which made me think there was no hope for
you--all those who look the part write dreadful rubbish.  You saw
that schoolgirls-dream come in a few minutes ago?"  He alluded to a
magnificent, leonine-headed youth with flaming tie and dark cloak
whom John had taken for one of the great on earth.  "Here's the stuff
he's left--without a stamped addressed envelope for return--

  _My soul is bitter within me,
  Long nights have I contemplated
  The ego that is mine
  And questioned to what immortality
  Destined I go--_

I can tell him at once--the waste paper basket."

The offending manuscript joined the pile of the rejected.

"You do write?" asked the assistant editor.

"A little."

"Prose or poetry?"

"Prose."

"Ah! there's some hope, but not much.  Are you aware, my dear boy,
that only three out of every hundred novels bring their authors
royalties, and that only one of those three provides a decent income?
Do you know that editors rely on big names, their directors' literary
shareholders and occasionally, when they have been out of town too
long and must go to press, the literary agent?"

John did not know this.  The assistant editor stood up and yawned.
"One day I'm going to run a school of authorship.  Having been a hack
for ten years with the income of a typist, I shall tell the aspirants
how to become authors, and get testimonials from all the editors in
whose papers I shall advertise my prospectus.  Have a cigarette?"

John took one.  They smoked in silence for a while.  The assistant
editor pointed to a portrait on the wall.  "That poor devil committed
suicide in Brussels last week.  He had a net income of £4 per month
from this _Review_.  Why do people write poetry, why do they write at
all?  Literature is not a profession, it's a form of vagrancy."

"You've been a vagrant?" said John.

"How did you know?"

"I read your travel books and liked them."

"Oh--well, I'm off for good this time.  I'm going to Capri where I
shall sleep all day and talk all night.  Been to Capri?  No?  Well,
it's a good place to fade away in.  Are you going to wait for Cane?"

"Yes."

"He'll come in with a rush and go out with one.  He's lunching with
the Irish Secretary.  He's in such a hurry that he's never sure
whether he is in Constantinople, Berlin or Paris.  His pet theory
just now is the German menace; have you anything on the German
menace?"

"No--I've--"

"That's the line at present.  Last month we were Malthusian, this, we
are standing for strong language in modern verse, next the German
menace--we don't know what after that; the menace may run to two
numbers.  You will notice I am discreet.  That is half my charm.
It's now twelve, I think you'd better wait half an hour, and then
come out to lunch with me."

"Oh thank you, but--"

"No, it's not kind of me, as you think.  You keep me from being bored
with myself.  Presently you shall tell me all the ambitions of your
white young soul, all the sinks you are going to flush with your
flood of zeal, the heights of fame you will scale, the way you
propose to pay for board and lodgings, how you'll persuade the
publisher you are the infallible boom he is waiting for.  But you
shall not read me any of your poetry."

"I don't write poetry.  I told you I didn't," began John.

"Almost I am persuaded," said the assistant editor.  "But you will;
the symptoms are there It is a mental measles you cannot escape."  He
stacked up the unread manuscripts.  "There are poets in that pile who
can write like Keats, like Shelley, like Byron, like Wordsworth, and
they do it just as well.  They've been born too late.  What they
can't do is to write like themselves.  There are over thirty
Swinburnes here, and enough suggested immorality to poison the
Vatican library.  Most of it is written by young ladies."

At this moment Mr. Cane came in.  He was a little man, going bald,
with scrubby moustache.  John was about to retire, but he bade him
stay.  Rapidly he glanced through half a dozen letters on his desk,
dictated social acceptances to his typist and then turned to John.

"Now--what can I do?"

John presented his letter.  Cane read it quickly.

"You want work, I see.  There's none worth having in the literary
world.  You're well informed, I'm told.  Do you know Elverton Thomas?"

"I've heard of him."

"He wants a secretary who can get points for his speeches.  If you
like, I'll give you a letter to him at the House of Commons."

"It isn't what I want, thank you," said John.

"We don't always get what we want," snapped Cane.  "I can't do
anything else for you," he added with an air of ending the matter.

"You can if you will, Mr. Cane, please.  You know Mr. Walsh."

"Well?"

"I want to see him."

"Newspaper editors are very busy men."

"They've always time for good business," urged John.

"H'm--how old are you?--you can get what you want, I see."

"Nineteen, with lots of drive in me."

"You want to get on a newspaper?"

"Yes--I'm determined to."

"I'll ring up Walsh.  Go to his office at five to-day.  He'll be in
then."

"Thank you very much."

Cane stood up, buttoned his coat, put on a glove.

"I'm going now," he said to his assistant.  "I'll sign those cheques
this afternoon.  Send back Professor Railing's articles on
Shakespeare--there's nothing bar his resurrection could make a noise
for him."  He strode to the door.

"How's Mr. Vernley?" he asked John.

"Very well, sir, thank you."

"And Muriel?--a bright child that!"

A light leapt in John's eyes.  The other man understood at once and
gave him the first warm human look.

"Oh--she's very well, sir."

The door closed, he was gone.

"There! what do you think of him?" asked the assistant, somewhat
proudly, John thought.  "He'll play bridge at the Reform until four,
dance at Murray's during tea, and rush back here before dressing for
the opera.  And those simpletons," with a wave towards the pile of
the rejected, "think he spends his time discovering them for the next
number.  Our next specialty in verse--is a mechanic poet.  There have
been navy poets, tramp poets, fishermen poets, postmen poets, porter
poets, but no one's found a mechanic poet.  I have, and strange to
say he doesn't write about lathes, cams or beltings.  He's gone back
to pure Greek.  Here's 'Iphigenia in Balham.'  Victorian bricks and
mortar mixed with ancient Greece.  We've prevailed on the Bishop of
London to quote it next month.  That'll start the _Church News_; an
interview in the _Daily Mail_ with the new poet, and we are well into
a second edition.  Now let's go to lunch.  I don't know your name.
I'll call you Narcissus--listening to my echoes."

"That's a lucky shot," said John.  "That is my nickname.  Dean's my
name."

"Ha!" said the assistant editor.  "You are a reincarnation.  I must
take you to a lady friend of mine.  She will see the aura of a
chlamys under your flannel shirt.  My name, too, is strange--not what
you would think for a moment.  Not poetical or suggestive, scarcely
practical even--just Smith--you start at the revelation.  It is
distinguished only by having neither a 'y' nor an 'e'.  We belong to
the original Smiths--the blacksmiths.  Ready?"

Crossing the Strand, John began to wonder if this was the inevitable
end of all attempts to do work in London.  It was good-natured of
this stranger to take him out.  He was amused at his torrential witty
chatter, but it was not solving the all-pressing problem of getting a
living.

After lunch they parted in the Strand, John promising to take Smith
the short story which he confessed he had written.  It was now a
quarter past three.  He walked slowly down towards Fleet Street.
Would Cane fulfill his promise and arrange his interview with Walsh?
He particularly wanted to join the staff of the _Daily Post_.  He had
read it regularly at school.  Three times they had published letters
of his, and they had taken two articles.

He found the Square, lying back from Fleet Street, in which the
offices of the _Daily Post_ were situated.  Through the swing doors
he came to an enquiry office, and asked for Mr. Walsh.  Had he an
appointment?  He thought so, through Mr. Cane.  The uniformed
attendant noted the fact on a slip of paper with John's name.  He was
then led into a small waiting-room.  It was opposite the lift and
contained a bare table and four chairs.  The walls were hung with
portraits of former editors and directors.  John waited, standing.
His heart was beating with suppressed anxiety; he felt he was on the
fringe of things.  A long wait, then a page boy asked him to follow.
He entered the lift, rose several storeys, walked down a long
white-bricked corridor, turned a corner and found himself in an oval
hall, with several doors leading out of it.  John was asked to wait.
Behind one of these doors sat the great man.  There was much coming
and going of clerks, and possibly reporters.  Half an hour dragged
by.  John stood up and paced the floor.  Then three quarters of an
hour, and still no summons.  Through a glass door he could see a
young man writing under a shaded light He tapped the door, and the
writer came to him.

"Is Mr. Walsh disengaged yet?"

"I don't know--have you an appointment?  What name?"

John told him.  The dark young man disappeared through another door.
He came back in a few seconds.

"Mr. Walsh is sorry, but he cannot see you."

Dismay covered John's face.

"But I have been kept--"

"He is very busy to-day ."

"Surely he knew that before?"

"Perhaps--but he can't see you."

"Then I shall sit here until he can."

The young man smiled.

"This office never closes," he said.

"But that door opens," retorted John, nodding at a a door.

It was a lucky guess.

"His secretary won't let you in--it is quite useless, really."

"We shall see," said John, now enjoying his obstinacy.  A door close
by opened, and a small clean-shaven man, of middle age with gold
pince-nez, stood by listening to the debate.  He suppressed a smile
as he looked at the flushed youngster, then came forward.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"I want to see the editor, sir, and if he's a gentleman--he'll see me
after waiting for him an hour."

The man peered at him through his eye glasses.

"I'm afraid he's not a gentleman, but you can see him."

"Oh, thank you, sir."

"Come along," he said and showed him into a large room littered with
papers and books.  He motioned John to a seat.

"Now what do you want?" he asked, standing with his back to the door.

"I want to see Mr. Walsh, please."

"On what business?"

"It's personal--" began John.

"Perhaps so--but he must know.  You want to write for the paper I
suppose?"

"You've guessed it, sir,--but do let me see him," John pleaded.

"He's engaged with the chief reporter at present--but he will see you
soon, if you're patient."

He then left the room by another door.

John looked out of the window, down across the flat top of temporary
buildings, and saw the traffic surging along Fleet Street.  He was
engrossed in the spectacle when his benefactor re-entered and seated
himself in the revolving chair before the littered desk.

"The editor will see you now," he said.

John jumped up.

"Oh, thank you sir," he cried, and walked toward the door.

"In here!" said the man, waving a hand for John to resume his seat.
"I am Mr. Walsh--though you may have expected a gentleman."

"Oh!" cried John, and collapsed in confusion.

"Mr. Cane tells me you are an enterprising young man.  I see you are
an obstinate one.  They are both qualities required on a newspaper.
I'm sorry we've no vacancies.  The principle on which a newspaper is
staffed is that we always have more men than we can employ--for
emergencies and for weeding out.  You have no experience?"

"No sir, but I--"

"Don't worry, experience is unnecessary to any but duffers.  You look
sharp.  Leave your address with my secretary.  If a vacancy occurs--"

"But it won't sir."

"How do you know?"

"I know that's the way every unsatisfactory interview ends," said
John, grimly, more desperate than insolent.

Mr. Walsh got up and crossed to the mantelpiece.

"How old are you?"

"Nearly twenty, sir.  You see, I must earn a living, my bit of money
won't last long.  That has nothing to do with you, but I know you
will be glad to have me when it is too late."

The editor smiled.

"You believe in yourself, and you'll succeed.  But I can't take you
on.  I'll attach you, however.  You can do a few theatres, and art
galleries and perhaps the literary editor can give you a little work."

"Oh, thank you sir."

"And one day we may be able to put you on the reporting staff."

"On what basis am I paid?" asked John.

"For what you do."

"And how much is that?"

"Depends on the chief reporter.  It's all I can offer you, it's a
chance."

"I'll take it, thank you."

John rose.

"See Mr. Merritt before you go."  He held out his hand.  "And I wish
you luck."

John was dismissed.  Outside the door he took a deep breath.  He had
won the first round.  All now depended on Mr. Merritt, who, he
learned, was out.  John left word to say he would call the following
afternoon.  His next job was to go into Philip's shop, and buy a map
of London.  At tea, in a Lyon's shop, he read down a list of
amusements.  Dramatic critic for the _Daily Post_--he murmured to
himself.  It sounded splendid.  And what a shock for Wellington and
de Courtrai!  That evening he wrote to Vernley, to Muriel and to
Marsh.  He also sent a letter to Mrs. Graham and Mr. Steer, saying he
was in London, and asking if he might call.




CHAPTER III


I

In the entrance of the Circle Theatre there were already several
loiterers awaiting friends with whom they were going to see the new
play.  Among them John.  There was of course, nothing unusual in his
appearance; the gallery queue which had filed past the main entrance,
after its long vigil, would not know he differed from any other of
those fortunate fellows who, well-groomed, drove up in taxis and cars
and walked to their reserved seats, carrying the undigested peacock
to the stalls.  It was all so new to him, this animated scene with
its types of humanity.  Merritt, a thoroughly good fellow who had
immediately shown a kindly disposition to the new man, had introduced
him to Bailey, the dramatic critic of the _Echo_, who now accompanied
him.  Together they stood by the portrait of a famous American
actress and scrutinised the arriving audience.  There were Jews, of
course, little men, with semi-bald heads and black curly fringes;
they all wore patent button boots, and very fancy dress waistcoats.
The cut of their clothes was ultra-fashionable, and there was a glint
of gold and a flash of diamonds at many points of their ostentatious
persons.  Gold-mounted walking sticks and cigars were noticeable.

"These are the inner circle of the dramatic world," said Bailey.
"That's Reinstein; he owns six theatres and a chain of restaurants;
you eat his dinners and then try to digest them and his plays in his
stalls.  I've seen great dramatists, men who can make you weep with
their beautiful sentiment, run across the street to speak to him."

"That's an awful looking beggar," said John, catching a vile leer
directed at an under-dressed young woman who waved an ostrich feather
fan as she passed, on the arm of an old man.

"A clever fellow--nine successes this season.  That's Wentz, his
scout, a word from him will make or mar an actor or actress."

"Who's the man he's talking to?"

"Ah--that's Lewis--he's one of us," replied Bailey.

"Us?"

"The most aggressive, the most feared and advertised of us all.  His
column every Sunday is said to be the only thing that Reinstein and
his crowd worry about."

John looked at him.  Hook-nosed he wore an ingratiating smile and his
voice purred as he spoke; when he laughed he emitted a high falsetto
note.  John's observation was broken by the entrance of an amazing
spectacle into the charmed circle.  A man, so diminutive that his
dress shirt dominated him like a plate on a plate-holder, was shaking
hands with Lewis.  On his fat nose he balanced, precariously, a pair
of pince-nez through which he peered bemusedly.  The tips of his
chubby hands just emerged from two prominent cuffs, his legs being
wholly lost in corkscrew trousers falling over the feet.

"Good heavens!" cried John, "just look at--"

But another apparition joined the circle.  Nature had created him as
an antidote to the little man.  He was huge; a behemoth.  His heavy
jaw, the massive head, the long teeth, made him a perfect ogre, and
in fulfilment he scowled at his companions.  His large hands hooked
themselves by the thumbs on to the pockets of voluminous trousers.

"They belong to us," said Bailey, enjoying the shock he administered.
John's pride in his vocation had been too obvious not to afford
amusement to a confirmed cynic who had sat in the stalls for twenty
years, and had never betrayed the weakness of enthusiasm.

"But--but surely," said John, "the newspapers don't send people like
these--what about their dignity?"

"Dignity!  There's no such thing in journalism.  That belongs to the
leader-writer--in print."

"Are they all like this?"

"Most of us," replied Bailey, lighting a cigarette from the stub of
another.  "We're working 'subs' by day and deadhead gentlemen by
night--the more respectable are civil servants--and they are the
least civil critics.  Still--there are a few presentable ones; we
have the Grand Old Man--he's not here yet.  He is a perfect contrast
to the Nut-food man--they'll be here later."

A curly-headed young man in a fur coat strolled in.  He gave himself
a side glance in the long mirror, approved of his classic beauty and
passed on.  Everybody nodded to him and he acknowledged their homage
graciously.  Several elderly ladies and a flashily dressed actress
hurried after him into the theatre.

"That's Ronnie Mayfair--the actor.  Freddie Pond will be here soon.
I've never known him to miss a first night."

Just then, John's attention was attracted by a swift glimpse of a
passing head.  Its unusual beauty arrested him, the dark vivacious
eyes flashing under a head of black bobbed hair.  She could not be
more than twenty, he thought, she was so slim.  The extreme
simplicity of her dress, falling without any decoration from shoulder
to the knee, emphasised the lightness of her poise.  She was a swift
darting creature, with a sensuous mouth, crimson and pensive.  But
there was determination, defiance almost, in every movement of her
body.  Passion merely smouldered: she could be a creature of sudden
contrary moods.  She threw John a quick but searching glance as she
passed, conscious of her power to attract, and the weakness of all
his sex to respond, and yet it was not a challenge so much as a
half-contemptuous provocation of his nature.  Bailey, observant and
detached, did not fail to see the magic fire that had leapt from one
to the other.  He saw this youth quiver with a sudden agitation, saw
the answering challenge of the lithe form that flitted by, sure of
the spoil if it cared to possess.

"No," said Bailey, laying a hand on John's shoulder, amused at his
false assumption of indifference, "don't be another moth.  There are
too many singed already."

The boy laughed, then, with a careless tone----"Who is she?"

"The Chelsea Poppy--she's Hoffmann's famous model."

He knew then in a moment.  So this was the Chelsea Poppy, the much
sonneted model of Hoffmann's famous heads.  He loathed this forceful
Jew's sculpture--its deliberate accentuation of the ugly, its cult of
the repulsive, its coarse workmanship, apologised for as the new art.
Like others he had wondered how foolish Society women could make
themselves so extravagant over this ugly little man, the jerseyed
king of the Café de l'Europe, with a court of disorderly disciples.
The head of Poppy was famous.  In the marble he had loathed its
sensuality, the ugliness of the contorted face.  But there was a
repulsive similarity to the original; it was a cruel travesty of the
flower-like beauty he had just seen.

"She's--amazing," said John, not trusting himself to say more.

"In many ways," added Bailey.  "Here's Freddie.  It is a perfect
first-night, if the Grand Old Man will come."

"Curtain up!" came the call.  The lounge emptied into the darkened
house.  The dramatic critics became very serious.



II

The end of the first act gave John another glimpse of the Chelsea
Poppy, a less assuring glimpse.  She was talking, at the entrance to
the bar, to a cadaverous fellow who leered at her, and an involuntary
shudder passed over John as he noticed the possessive look in the
eyes of the man; he resented the fact that the girl seemed in no way
perturbed.  Probably she was at home with that kind of man; certainly
she talked with absolute familiarity, and her hoarse little laugh
jarred on the ears of the youth ready to adore.  Twice she winked at
a pair of young cavalry officers who sat on a lounge opposite, partly
to display their seamless boots, partly to catch the girl's eye.
Snatches of their conversation floated over to the youth who stood
alone under the mirror.  They were enjoying themselves at the expense
of the promenaders.  The diminutive fat man provoked their scorn.

"How do such people get into this part of the house?" asked the pink
and white youth, twisting an auburn moustache.

"Can't say," drawled the pride of the regiment, regarding with
satisfaction his thin thighs.  "The fellow's a reporter I suppose!"
They yawned and then watched a girl's ankles until she drew near,
whereupon they coldly looked at her from head to foot.  She seated
herself on the lounge.  When John turned away she had taken a
cigarette from the proffered case.  They did not rise with the call
of the curtain.  In the interval after the second act, John let
Bailey point out more celebrities.  There was a distinguished looking
Jew, with dilated nostrils, iron grey hair and a stoop, handsome in
the manner of his race, bearing the impress of intellect.

"That's Luboff the novelist!"

The famous portrayer of Jewry passed; his face, despite its lineal
coarseness, had an amazing beauty in its character.  A few minutes
later Bailey was talking with the novelist and introduced John, who
found himself magnetised by an intense personality with great charm.
He was a man with a hundred fights against poverty, prejudice and
ill-health, but he had triumphed nobly.  He had interpreted the Jews
to a scornful world, displayed their poverty, revealed their poetry.
As a dramatist he had assumed the role of a reformer; he entertained
the crowd, but he lectured it.  After a few minutes' chat he left
them to speak to Lord Rendon, who, despite his elephantine exterior,
had a nimble mind versed in the subtleties of politics and
philosophy.  At this moment John's attention was arrested by the
re-appearance of the girl in red.  She was talking to an astounding
man whose hair straggled in disorder down to and over a soft brown
collar.  He wore a pair of black metal pince-nez, smoked a stubby
pipe, the bowl of which he pressed from time to time with fingers
that scorned the need of the manicurist.  The Socialist was written
all over him; there was sabotage in his eyes, repressed defiance in
his gestures.  He wore, to accentuate his untidy eccentricity, a
faded brown sports coat, the pockets bulging with papers, and most of
the buttons missing.

"Ah," said Bailey, "now you've seen the nut-food man--that's Adams of
the _Argus_--clever chap, but thinks untidiness is a sign of
intellect."

"I see he knows the model--he's a Bohemian?"

"Yes--at least he hopes so.  We haven't any real Bohemians in this
country.  They live on the Continent.  When Englishmen try to be
Bohemian they only succeed in being lazy or noisy.  You'll find that
each of them is regarded as a rising poet, a rising novelist or a
rising dramatist.  They're always rising until they are middle-aged,
when they disappear somewhere.  Really, Bohemians are the dullest
persons; they've no topics but their egotism.  Avoid them,
Dean--they're never hygienic.  I can enjoy a third-rate artist who is
ornamental, but these people are merely extravagant."

"But he looks interesting," urged John.

"So he is--you want to meet him?"

"Well--"  He was desperately anxious to know Adams, for Adams knew
the girl.  He must speak to her before the play ended.  Bailey
guessed the hope and buttonholed Adams who shook hands.

"This is Mr. Dean.  Tilly," he said, turning to the girl who had
drawn aside.

"Miss Topham," he informed John.  The girl looked at him casually,
and merely exclaimed, "Oh!"  It was a shock to the eager youth and
for two or three minutes she ignored him.  Then--

"You're new to London?" she said coldly.

"Yes, but who told you?" answered John.

"No one,--I could see you were by the way you've been looking at
people."

This was a set back.  John gave her a frightened look and she was
pleased by this success.

"Have I--I hope I don't appear--" he stammered.

"It doesn't matter--they like it; that's what they come here for."

John was a little uncertain who "they" meant.  It seemed to include
every one but herself.

"Have you a cigarette?" she asked, abruptly.

The boy's heart sank.

"I haven't--I don't smoke.  I can get some."

"Don't bother."  She looked at him curiously.  "You don't
smoke--you're a queer kid."  They stood alone now, for Adams and
Bailey had strolled on.  He noticed how transparently thin were her
hands, which she tucked in her belt.  Her neck had a lovely line in
its perfect sweep from the throat down.

"You are an art student?" she asked, with a faint smirk.

"Oh no--I'm on a paper--why?"

"You examine like one."

He flushed with the detection, and she gave a little laugh of triumph.

"Sit down and tell me all about yourself--you puzzle me," she said.
"You look as if you'll do all sorts of wonderful things, but people
who look like that hardly ever do anything."

He was easier now.  They sat side by side on the lounge.

"There's little to tell, Miss--"

"Oh, drop that, I'm Tilly to every one."

"Tilly then,--you see I haven't left school long."

"I can see that--the down's on you yet."  The remark hurt him and she
saw it, swiftly.

"Don't mind me," she said quietly, putting a hand on his arm.  "You
see I'm used to men that gloat and want rebuffing."

She laughed at the surprise in John's eyes.

"Don't look like that or I shall melt.  You're a nice boy, and I'm
afraid of you."

"Of me?"

"Yes--you make me think of lots of things I've given up thinking
about.  Harry must ask you to tea."

So she was married!  Of course she was married, he reflected, he was
a fool not to have known from the first.

"I should like very much to come."

She looked at him again, until he looked away, and with a little
laugh jumped up.  "We must get back now.  I'll see you soon.
Good-bye!" and she was gone.  What an off-hand creature!  He was
annoyed at her manner.  She had treated him like an infant.  She had
laughed at him.  He had let her see too much.  When the play was
ended and he stood in the crowded vestibule with Bailey, amid the
crush of fur-wrapped women and black-coated men, he was still
thinking of her.

"You've made a hit with Tilly," said Bailey.

"I!"

"Yes--and she doesn't pay compliments--but don't let her play with
you; she doesn't take any one seriously."

"I'm not likely to do that," replied John shortly.

"Come along then--we've to get our work done."



III

Merritt, chief reporter of the _Daily Post_, was a remarkable little
man.  He was quite aware of this and retained his reputation with
ease.  The life of a chief reporter is a desperate one.  The most
amazing news scoop to-day is dead twenty-four hours later, and a big
reputation can be lost in a day's idleness.  Merritt showed no signs
of anxiety.  He sat at his desk in the stuffy little room adjoining
the reporting room, whence he would dart out to send a man speeding
across London or to Aberdeen.  His totally bald head gleamed with
vitality.  He could be very rude and very rough, but men had rushed
to Ireland at his behest and accounted themselves rewarded when he
smiled and said "Good!"  He was part of the _Daily Post_ and could
not conceive how a man could wish to live for anything else.  No one
ever saw him go home and no one ever saw him come; he was the first
and the last, and when he had gone, he was not at rest.  His voice
often spoke over the wire from Brixton, disturbing the early morning
rest of a jaded reporter.  A fire at Muswell Hill, a murder in Camden
Town, a burglary in Knightsbridge or an assault at Tottenham--he knew
of it first, scented the clue, despatched the sleuth-hounds.

It was rumoured that he was married, but for years there was no
evidence, until one day he disappeared and returned wearing black.
He had buried his eldest boy of twelve.  The senior reporter to whom
he mentioned this was about to make a remark, and he saw Merritt's
mouth twitch, but the next second he was being told of an entry on
the diary.  It was work, work, work.  Other men fell ill, became
nervous wrecks, took to drink, were promoted, or left.  Merritt
remained chief reporter, known from one end of Fleet Street to
another, perhaps from one end of the world to the other.  He never
went out, save at four o'clock for an hour, when he would be seen in
a bar near by, within sound of the buses, and he went there for news.
He knew every one.  Men in the Lobby of the "House," on the Stock
Exchange, in Whitehall or at Epsom would ask "How's Merritt?"  He was
the link to publicity.  He knew enough about the lives of men to
equip a squad of blackmailers; and K.C.s consulted him when accepting
briefs.  He had saved a king from assassination and rescued a bishop
from a charge of being drunk and disorderly.  He had witnessed a
succession of editors.  Merritt stayed, for Merritt was the _Daily
Post_.

But above all, this stout little man of fifty knew men.  It was he
who discovered Burton Phipps, their star descriptive writer, had sent
him off to Norway to intercept and expose the sham explorer of the
Pole.  Jane, the finest parliamentary sketch writer in England, was
trained under his hands.  Merton, the editor of the _Morning
Telegraph_, Layman, the President of the Board of Trade, Reddington,
chairman of the United Banks--all had groaned in their youth under
his merciless yoke of discipline.  Loved and feared, he spared no
man, and he never encountered rebellion because he never pitied
himself.  "Merritt's a devil," every one said--"but a wonderful
devil," they added.

He took John in hand.  He made him compress a column of wonderful
writing to fifteen living lines.  He made him re-dress a plain
narrative in a style that "tickled."  He told John to use words of as
few syllables as possible.  "All sub-editors are ignorant and full of
malice," he said, with traditional jealousy.  He was never to worry
about what the public thought of this or that.  "The public don't
think, they follow."  It was a heartbreaking apprenticeship.  The
fine column on the Kennel Show went into the waste paper basket.
"There's two murders come in and the subs say we're overset."  He
ridiculed a "special" on teashop girls with rapier wit, told John he
wrote too fast to write well, and was as guileless as an infant in
arms.  Once, with a brusque committal of a much-esteemed article, he
brought misery to John's eyes, saw it, and growled,

"You're a journalist all right, but your stalk's green," and with his
wry smile brought a lump into the youth's throat.

"Am I--am I giving satisfaction, Mr. Merritt?"

The chief reporter looked over the top of his glasses--

"The Chief sent you to me for occasional work.  You've done a
banquet, a dog-show, four police courts, three inquests, two plays, a
poster show and several special enquiries.  You've been running about
like a hare for ten days--you've not been an occasional, but a daily
event.  And I don't waste my time!"

It was true, John was worked hard every day.  Each night the diary
had the initials J.D. with a cryptic assignation following.
Sometimes he accompanied a senior, a note-taker, and looked out for a
descriptive paragraph; more often he was alone.  On the night that he
had returned from his first play, after he had sent in his pencilled
copy to the subs room, he looked at the diary and almost jumped in
exultation.--"J.D.  7.15., Artists Union, Chelsea Theatre, half col."
Here was his chance!



IV

The members of the Artists Union were certainly artistic.  A novelist
who specialised in love and divorce in the Sunday newspapers and was
dignified with the title of 'publicist' made a long tirade against
the ignorant but prosperous industrial classes.  A young man followed
this, very nerve-racked and bordering on hysteria, with an oration
proving that hunger and genius were inseparable, whereupon a stout
lady at the back of the diminutive theatre rose up and declared that
all artists, musicians, and authors should be a direct charge on the
Government, a sentiment that was applauded loudly.  Thoroughly
enjoying himself, John sat next to a young lady in a gaudy kimono who
was busy sketching the speakers, while a young man with a red beard
that half hid a very weak mouth, drank tea out of a thermos flask.  A
wealthy lady, interested in art, occupied the chair, which must have
been very uncomfortable, for most of the brilliantly insulting things
said applied perfectly to her husband, a wholesale grocer, who, to
atone for disfiguring England with placards inciting the public to
drink Tiffinson's Tea, bought preposterous modern paintings at well
advertised figures.  John discovered it was a gathering of minor
notabilities; there was Mr. Shandon Gunn, the cubist painter who
laboriously disguised the fact that he had ever studied at the Slade
School, or knew the meaning of perspective.  When slightly drunk, he
was reputed to be epigrammatic.  His speech was cheered vociferously
for its cleverness in conveying absolutely nothing to the audience.
He was followed by Mr. Leslie Bumbo, a pallid fellow, the apostle of
art with an ego, who wrote art books, and kept a book shop in a slum,
which revealed a knowledge of business, since the bookshop kept him.
Moreover, he led a culture movement for leisured ladies, who gathered
every Wednesday in a shanty at the back of his house, where, in a dim
light and a dim voice, he droned out his latest discourses on art.
It was remunerative if mournful, for the ladies paid a shilling for
admittance, bought the discourses and went home feeling gloriously
advanced.  His speech this evening was confined to an embroidery on
"The Ugly as an incentive to Murder."

John was indebted for personal details to the young lady in the
kimono, who called him "kid" and smoked incessantly while she drew.
Towards the end of the meeting she waved her hand to a girl who had
pushed forward in the crowded doorway.  John looked and, with a
slight thrill of pleasure, recognised Tilly.  In the conversazione
that ensued when the formal meeting ended, they sat in a corner
together and drank coffee.  She knew everybody and introduced him
freely as "Scissors."  When the company was going, Tilly, who had
collected a small crowd, caught hold of John's arm.

"Come along, Scissors!" she cried, propelling him towards the door.

"Where?" he asked.

"To my studio--we're having a romp."

"But I can't go--I've to get my copy ready for the office."

"Oh damn!"

He wished she hadn't said it.  Perhaps he was old-fashioned, but
somehow, a girl who used that word was a little--er?  That was what
John could not precisely say; he had been trying to since their first
meeting.  He did not want to appear a prig, and yet--.  He knew
Muriel would not approve, but he laughed at the thought.  A speaker
had been attacking the Victorians for their smugness--well, he was
being very early Victorian.

"Come on, kid," cried the young lady in the kimono.  He stood between
Scylla and Charybdis.  A vision of Merritt nerved him to resistance.

"Then come after, we'll go on till three or four."  Weakly he
declined and weakly he surrendered.  He took the address and promised
to return as soon as he could.  It was half-past one when his work
was done, and he knocked at the door of Birch Lodge Studios, No. 4,
off the King's Road.  There was a great noise of revelry within.
When the door opened, he found himself in a large room, with a
half-roof of sloping glass through which the moon peered down.  A
dozen Chinese lanterns illuminated the room and were reflected in the
polished floor whereon about twenty couples were dancing to the music
of a gramophone.

"Scissors, you dear!" cried Tilly, as he entered.  "I didn't think
you'd come."

"But I promised," he said, as she took his overcoat.  The next moment
she had taken him in her arms and they were whirling through the maze
of the dance.  She was hot and the studio was stuffy, and there was a
languor in the manner in which she hung in his arms that was
half-trustful and half-seductive.  At the far end of the room, where
the candle of the lantern was guttering, it was almost dark as they
danced round.  She gave a little laugh as the candle went out, her
mouth provokingly near to his, her eyes softly luminous in the
moonlight falling through the glass.  The rhythm, the warmth, the
music worked upon him; he was whirling, he knew not where.  For a
moment he hesitated, then laughed as she laughed, and the next moment
quenched his boyish thirst on her lips.  Convulsively she clung a
moment, then collapsed softly in his arms, and he experienced a
strength that was weakness, a tenderness that was cruelty.  He
paused, floundering in a sea of the senses.

"Go on," she whispered, for the other couples in rotation were
crowding upon them.  She pushed him round, but not before the girl in
the kimono swirled by and laughed out.

"Caught you that time!"

The tone was vile, the accent inexpressibly vulgar; it jarred on the
excited youth who danced dizzily.  Tilly, more acutely alive and now
self-possessed, felt her partner give a shiver of disgust.

"Let's sit this out--I don't want to dance any more--please."

They sat on a camp bed along the main wall, in silence.

"You're angry," she whispered looking at him coyly.

"I'm not."

"Oh, yes you are--look at me, you sulky boy."

He looked into her mischievous eyes, and he had to laugh.

She twined her fingers with his.

"That's sensible," she said.  "We're only young once," and she let
her head rest on his shoulder, her soft hair warmly clouding his
cheek.  The next moment he was holding her with all the strength of
his lissome young body, and laughed delightedly when she winced at
his ardour.  Yes, he was only young once.

  "_--way down in Tennessee,_"

whined the gramophone.  Only a few were dancing now.  Little bursts
of laughter and chatter came from dusky groups around the studio.  It
was all rather unearthly in that aromatic atmosphere.  Some one wound
up the gramophone and put on a new record--

  "_While shepherds watched their flocks by night
  All seated on the--_"


"Oh, stop it," came a voice, and there was a laugh all round.

"Got 'em mixed," responded another.  "Here's 'In Alabama'--how's
that?"  The gramophone whirred on, and the dancing began again.

It was nearly three when the guests began to depart.  John knew none
of them.  He had not seen their faces clearly all the night, but they
somehow knew his name was "Scissors," and treated him familiarly.
Most of the men were about his own age, the women a little older.
The humourist of the party, whom they called "The Doc" was about
forty-five and seemed to father the assembly.

"Don't go yet," said Tilly as she stood by the door.  "I'm not a bit
sleepy and I want to talk."  He stood aside and let the others go.
At last only one girl remained.

John came back to earth abruptly.

"Where's Mr. Adams--I haven't seen him all the evening."

"Harry?--oh, I don't know--he comes in when he likes," replied Tilly,
drawing up a chair to the anthracite stove.  She began talking to the
other girl Fanny, who presently rose and said, "Good night,"
disappearing into another room.

"Is she staying with you?" asked John.

"Who--Fanny?--no, we live here together.  She's getting married next
week, poor kid, to a little blighter.  Lord knows why she picked
him--or why any girl marries at all."

"But--you're married!" said John, surprised.

She stared at him.

"Married--whatever makes you think that?"

"I thought Mr. Adams--"

Tilly interrupted him with a short laugh.

"You've been listening to gossip.  Everybody says I'm going to marry
him--but I say not.  I'm not going to keep any man, and that's what
marrying a man of genius means."

But John cared nothing for the philosophy.  He was relieved, for the
last two hours he had felt an unmitigated bounder.  A new
cheerfulness swept over him, and Tilly noticed it.

"Why, you're waking up--you've been like a bear with a sore head!"

"I'm sorry," he said, simply.

"All right, Scissors!"  She slid on to her knees at his feet.  "And
kissing's no harm," she sighed, looking up into his face.  "And oh,
I'm so lonely at times!"

She pulled his face downwards with her tiny hands, and ran her
fingers through his hair.  The sensation made him laugh as he slipped
his arms under hers and drew her upwards until their lips met.  In
the darkness he could hear the beating of their hearts, and the
silence singing in his ears.




CHAPTER IV

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He was awake in an instant.

"Good heavens--I've overslept!"

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

John laughed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He touched his forehead with the rolled-up copy of the _Daily Post_.

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

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

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

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

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

"Are you doing anything?" asked Phipps.

"No, sir."

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

"Good-bye--Phipps."

John followed as in a dream.

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

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

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

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

"Not for honour?"

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

"I suppose not," assented John.

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

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

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

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

He came back a moment later and ushered John in.

Walsh sat at his littered desk.

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

"A little, sir."

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

"I--I hope so sir."

Walsh smiled.

"And how much Danish?"

John looked surprised.  "Danish, sir?"

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

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

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

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

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

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




CHAPTER V


I

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

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

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

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


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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"No--I want you to play--"

"What, in the dark?"

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

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

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

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

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

John started, as if rudely awakened.



II

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"But I'm very serious, sir."

Mr. Vernley smiled in his kindly fashion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Am I hardening?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Don't be rude," interrupted John.

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

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

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

"An appendicitis operation," said John.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



III

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

"We?--is Tilly unwilling to wait?"

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

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

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

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

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

The younger man broke away from the frenzied grip.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"By Vernley?"

"Yes."

Lindon laughed rather grimly.

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

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

Lindon looked at him keenly.

"How do you know that?"

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

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

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

John half smiled in reply.

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



IV

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vernley got up and shook the sand off his legs.

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

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

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

"And Christianity," added Mrs. Vernley.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"But why?  Belgium is not affected."

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

"It may mean war for us."

"For us!"  They all echoed.

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

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

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

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

"Oh, bosh!" interrupted Marsh.

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

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

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

"But if our honour--" began Tod.

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

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

"I won't."

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

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

"No," he said quietly.

Mr. Vernley looked at him steadily.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Grey'll settle it," said John.

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

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

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

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

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

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



V

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

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

"To town, whatever for?"

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

"Righto--where is he?"

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

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

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

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

"Oh, yes--"

At that moment Bobbie burst in.

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

He caught a glance from John that checked him.

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

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

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

"I thought you did not realise."

"Realise what?" asked Vernley.

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

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

"I don't know."

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

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

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

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

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

"Same thing as soldiers," cried John.

"How?"

"According to you--green and empty."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Suddenly John gripped the paper.

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

And Muriel was in Belgium!

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

"Quickly, why?" asked Bobbie.

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

"They won't!" said John grimly.

"Why not?" asked Kitty.

"We shall stop them."

"We?" echoed Tilly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Nurses, all of you."

She shivered slightly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They walked on, arm in arm.

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

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

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

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

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




BOOK V

THE NEW WORLD



CHAPTER I


I

The crowded steamer from Folkestone reached Ostend in the last glow
of the sunset as it fell on the straggling Digue, domes, hotels,
casinos, verandahed houses, the pleasure haunt standing inviolate on
the edge of the plains, that beyond, were now drenched with blood.  A
fortnight had elapsed, full of irritating delays.  There were
interviews at the War Office, where every obstacle had been raised,
frantic journeys to the Foreign Office, the Belgian Legation, the
offices of the Newspaper Proprietors Association.  Nobody wanted war
correspondents out there, except the papers.  Then more delay while
John bought a car, a rare thing, for every one had been commandeered
by the War Office; and with all this work he had made desperate
attempts to get into touch with the _Daily Post_ resident
correspondent at Brussels, beseeching him to ask for Muriel at the
Convent of the Sacred Heart.  But all was chaotic at the other end of
the wire and day after day he had to return to poor Mrs. Vernley with
no news.  Then, the last day, at the last minute, news came from
Muriel herself.  She had joined the Belgian Red Cross; the convent
had been turned into a hospital.

The steamer was warped in at Ostend amid amazing scenes.  The harbour
was crowded with refugees, pitiable objects, sitting on their small
bundles hastily gathered before flight.  The moment his car was
landed, John pressed on towards Bruges.  Again and again he almost
told his chauffeur to turn round and pick up the wretched people
straggling along the road towards Ostend and England.  Tired women
trudged the long roads, carrying infants in their arms, while small
children clutched at their skirts.  There was no crying, no
complaining, only dull, voiceless despair on every face.  Old men and
women went by, pushing their worldly wealth, bedding for the most
part, on barrows.  Yes, they had seen the war, out there.  The German
bombardment was terrible.  They were destroying everything.  The
gallant army resisted every inch, but what could they do, little
Belgium, against these hordes?  John ran into Bruges soon after dusk.

At daylight, he was on the crowded road again, this time towards
Ghent, where the other correspondents had established their
headquarters.  There had been one topic at Bruges.  The wonderful
English army was over and fighting!  It had all been so swift and
silent.  The Germans were furious and amazed.  They had orders to
wipe out the contemptible little army.  Nearing Ghent there were
signs of war.  Ambulance vans swept by, in them inert swathed
figures, mud-stained and pallid.  The environs of Ghent were choked
with cars, lorries, refugees, detachments of men on the march.

John found his colleagues at the long low Hotel de la Poste in the
Place d'Armes.  There was Tompkins of the _Standard_, tall, lean, and
depressed with the hopelessness of it all; and V. E. A. Stevenson,
the veteran, who had seen ten wars, and hated them all.  He was a
cynic, a pacifist and a revolutionary.  He derived grim satisfaction
when ardent Belgians mistook him, with his red, weather-beaten face,
trim beard and white hair, and breast blazing with war ribbons, for
an English general.  He suffered them to embrace him ecstatically,
and sighed for his home at Hampstead,--"built out of the blood of the
Boers," he explained grimly.  Trevor of the _Times_ walked about
morose and self-important; the heavy brow of Willing of the _Express_
was seen towering above every group of Belgian generals.  He had a
miraculous knowledge of the disposition of the armies, and they
consulted him as a general staff.  Also, genial, and an optimist to
the core, Biddings of _Reuter_ walked about the lounge in carpet
slippers.  He refused to go out.  What was the good of running about
the highways and the byways?  Every general and person who was
somebody came to the hotel.  He picked their brains--"very poor
rubbish heaps"--gathered up the gossip and at tea-time had such a
store that the weary, muddy colleagues were glad to barter news.  He
was more eloquent, despite an impediment, with the poker in his
hands, when, with the cinders, he would show why the Germans could
not possibly get to Paris.

On the third day after John's arrival, Phipps turned up.  He had been
in the thick of it, at Termond and Alost.  He had had no food, was
nervy and on the verge of a breakdown.  His eagle features were
sharper than ever, and his brain wonderfully alert.  His despatches
had created something of a sensation in England, not only for their
news, but also for the humanity, the tenderness running through his
vivid epics of suffering and incredible heroism.  He was in Paris
when the war broke out, moved up with the French armies, had been
with the British Army in its great stand at Mons, had dragged back
through that dogged retreat, "a bloody terrible business,
Dean--walking on torn flesh all the way,"--and had passed on into
Belgium.

"God--how I hate it--it's insensate, blowing all these splendid lads
to atoms, for what?" he cried.

"For England," said Trevor, with disapproving dignity.

"England!  Rubbish!" snapped Phipps.  "They're giving the same reason
in Germany, Russia, Austria, Serbia--the same fierce old women are
brow-beating every timid lad, and the same stupid, red-faced Generals
are sitting at mess while their puppets are pulverised with something
they can't see, which doesn't give them a dog's chance before
bespattering the turf with their brains!  If this is civilisation,
why--" he broke off as though realising the futility of everything.
"I suppose we shall have to go on writing as if it were a football
match, and be censored every time we hint at such a thing as spilt
blood or a nasty mess."

He walked out, even more pallid, and went up to his bedroom where he
hammered out a long despatch on his "Corona."  Eight other
correspondents were doing the same thing in other bedrooms.  For an
hour there was a rapid clatter of typewriter keys.  At five o'clock
the despatch rider left for the Signal Station, whence their
despatches crossed the wires overnight, in time for the Englishman's
breakfast table.  Curiously, those at home knew more than these
correspondents.  They explored a corner, oblivious of the fate of the
world beyond.  In England every morning the public watched the ugly
black snake marked on the map, as it slowly curled its way towards
Paris.  In a top left hand corner another black line closed in upon
Antwerp and crept along the coast towards Ostend.

"We shall have to move out soon," said Riddings.  "The streets are
choked to-day with ambulances--that's a sure sign."  Every night
sleep was broken by the incessant roar of guns, and the night sky
flickered and quivered.  Those were the days when the name of Liége
was on every tongue.  Could General Leman hold out?  Then came news
of a terrible massacre at Malines.  The name sang in John's heart
like a bell.  Muriel--was she there?  Had she remained and met the
German invasion, or where was she?  He wired to the Vernleys'
beseeching news.  That same day a shell fell into the town.  The
British had marched through St. Nicolas; the fate of Antwerp hung in
the balance, the black snake was closing in on Ghent and curling
upwards towards the coast.

"If we don't move soon, we're luggage for Germany," said Biddings.
"The generals have all gone and they know when it gets chilly as well
as the swallows."

Walking down the Grande Place, John suddenly clutched Phipps' arm.
The next moment he had seized a car standing outside a shop and was
driving madly down a side street.  Phipps watched him go in silent
amazement, but John, half-crazed with fear that the car ahead would
give him the slip, drove furiously, without heeding the traffic
through which he miraculously raced.  For in the car ahead, he had
caught a glimpse of a face that had made his heart jump.  Muriel was
in it, a Muriel he knew despite her nurse's hood and cape!  He was
gaining on it now; it paused in front of a building.  He alighted on
the pavement simultaneously with the slim nurse.

"Muriel!"

She turned, then rushed into his arms.

"Oh, John!"

Two ragged children lifted their caps and yelled "Vive les Anglais!
Vive l'Angleterre!" but the lovers stood there alone in the world.

"Why are you here?" he asked.

She laughed, her fingers playing with the button of his tunic.

"And you?"

"Our headquarters are here--Hotel de la Poste--until to-night," he
replied.

Her face shadowed.

"I have just been fetched.  Tod--he is here--dying."

"Tod!"

"Yes--he came out with the Antwerp expedition--I am just going in to
him--come!"

She clasped his hand and they entered the gloomy porch together.  The
place had been a school--desks and chairs were piled up in the lobby.
A Belgian soldier saluted and conducted them to the matron, a pale
little Belgian woman.  Lieutenant Vernley?  Yes, he was here, but he
could not be seen, M'sieur was ill, very ill, "a la morte," she
added, raising her hands helplessly.  John explained.

"Ah!--his sister?--pardon!  We expected her.  Yes, come!  You shall
go in."

They followed down a long ward, with dozens of beds, and groaning
shapes beneath blankets, and entered a small room, very dull.  In the
corner was a bed and on it the figure of a boy.  His shirt was open
at the neck.  His unshaven chin was growing a sandy beard, which
contrasted with the green-grey pallor of his face; the hands which
lay over the brown blanket, were red and soiled.  Muriel slipped to
her knees at his side.

"Tod dear!" she whispered, taking his hand in hers.  But he lay
without response, his leaden head deep in the pillow.  John stood in
the doorway.

"In the stomach, m'sieur--a shell splinter," explained the matron.
"He has been delirious, 'Muriel,' that was all he cried, 'Muriel.'
We found a letter from Mademoiselle in his pocket, and sent for her
yesterday."

"He doesn't know me," said Muriel, turning pathetically, but a
pressure on her hand told her she was wrong.

"Oh Tod, darling, I've come.  I'm going to nurse you."

A glimmer of a smile faded across the lad's face.

John left her then, he would be back in an hour.


When he returned, Muriel, very quiet, was sitting in the matron's
room.  He knew in a moment it was all over.  Very gently he took her
into his arms, and let her cry, with her head on his shoulder.

They buried Tod the next morning.  Phipps was there, and an English
Army Chaplain, and two Belgian generals, carrying wreaths from the
town authorities.  Thus another Englishman was committed to the soil
for whose defence he had gladly given his young life.

After the funeral, they had to hurry away.  Shells were falling into
the town.  Melle had been heavily bombarded and the Town Hall was a
heap of ruins.  Half the inhabitants of Ghent seemed to be streaming
along the road to Bruges.  The inevitable moment of parting came for
John and Muriel.  She was rejoining her unit, now at Bruges.

When would they meet again?  For a long moment she clung to him in
the desperation of love.

"We will get leave together and be married, Muriel," he urged.

"Yes, John but not now--we must go on, these poor things need us.  I
am almost happy here.  I could not sleep in England, knowing what
happens day and night!"

"Muriel--promise you will take care, I shall be anxious for you."

"And you--you are running all the risks.  Oh, John, we must come
through!  Life is going to be so wonderful even yet."

He kissed her hungrily, wrapped the rugs round her in the car, and
saluted as it carried her away.  He waited until the traffic blotted
her from view.  Then he joined Stevenson who was waiting with his car
at the hotel.

It was burdened with their luggage, the precious typewriters
precariously balanced on the top.  They were going south into the
British lines and the welter of blood.  Antwerp had fallen; nothing
could now stop the Germans reaching the coast.  And England perhaps.
But that was an incredible thought to John.  England could not know
ruin like this.  He looked up at the moon hanging serenely over the
flat Belgian countryside.  The same moon peered down on English homes
and in silent glades where the birds slept.



II

So ran the drama, act by act, in those epic days.  While England
waited breathlessly, the terrible tides of war, now sweeping onwards,
now refluent, devastated the countryside of Europe.  The little fire,
lighted in Sarajevo, spread outwards until it lapped countries and
capitals and nations in its lurid glow; until the windy plain of
Troy, the desert slopes of the Holy Land, the forests of the
Caucasian mountains, and the shores of the Tigris and Danube shook
with the tramp of men.  Month after month, the war spread its leprous
hand across the face of splendid courageous manhood.  Sometimes, in
the agony of his soul, when coming from dressing stations where men
held in their entrails, by pools coloured like sunset with the blood
and limbs of men and horses, John cried out against the monstrous
infliction of pain.  Was it not better that the world should crash
into another planet, and find the peace of obliteration?  And to
heighten the useless agony of this drama, came the reports of
official squabbles, the blunders of statesmen, the rhetorical
recriminations of politicians, hurled from nation to nation with
cheap victories of words, while men struggled with mud under a
murderous hail of iron.

For fifteen months John rushed about the fringe of war in his great
car.  They were days of terrible strain, but his efforts seemed as
nothing beside the herculean labour of those wonderful boys who
tramped along the tree splintered roads of Flanders, singing in
defeat as in victory, dropping swiftly by the roadside in a
convulsive cough as death fell upon them from the air.  He was up
every morning at five, astir before daylight in the cold wintry air,
with a long motor journey to the lines, there to watch the coloured
panorama of a bombardment, the unearthly silence of "zero" when the
barrage lifted, to wait in those minutes when youth leapt forward
upon death; and then to visit the clearing stations where men who had
been splendid to look upon, so full of the vigour of youth, lay torn
in ribbons, demented, delirious.  Month after month he went through
the hideous routine when suddenly, one night, after writing his
despatch, he fell forwards upon his typewriter.  They found him in a
dead faint.

"I've seen this coming," said Biddings.  "He's worn himself away--and
he'll have company soon," he said, turning to Phipps, "if you don't
write and smoke less."

A week later John was at the Vernleys, lying about in their rooms,
and talking as though all those months had been a nightmare.  It was
not the same house; Kitty was nursing in London, Alice was on a farm.
Bobbie was back home with a wound, hoping to be released daily from a
luxurious private hospital in Sussex, "where the chambermaid's a
countess and the matron a snob."  Muriel--the saga of Muriel, they
all called it.  She had contributed to history.  The story of her
stand at Lens had made all England ring with her fame.  She had been
mentioned in despatches for her heroism under fire.  John had not
seen her since that memorable day in Ghent, but letters came and
went.  She wrote vividly of her experiences, and he began to be a
little in awe of her obvious efficiency.  News of one, he could not
gain.  There was no mention of Marsh among any of his friends.
Bobbie had been curtly silent when asked.  "Never heard of him--don't
expect he's wounded."  Was that a sneer? thought John.  Even Mr.
Fletcher, forwarding parcels from the boys of his House asked, "We
can't trace Marsh--do you know his regiment?  He does not reply to
letters."

With quiet, and Mrs. Vernley's assiduous attention, John quickly
recovered.  She had aged much since the death of her eldest boy, and
sorrow had rendered her more gentle and self-effacing than ever.
These were lonely days for her, with Mr. Vernley away as a Director
in one of the Ministries, her daughters all on war work.  They had
long talks at tea time, when John read the pages he had gathered
together of a book of despatches.  He was a famous man now, and he
rather enjoyed the experience.  There was nothing elating in being
famous, just because every one was glad to shake you by the hand or
because your name was a password whenever and wherever it was
uttered; it was indeed wearisome to be pestered with petitions for
your support of all kinds of fantastic charities, to be expected to
speak here, there and everywhere, or to be an afternoon's attraction
at an ambitious lady's drawing-room party.  What he enjoyed was the
freemasonry in which he could now move among the men and women of the
earth who did things, and were great, simply because their natures
were rich in character and prodigal with varying gifts.

After his sojourn at "The Croft," he spent a fortnight in town
looking up old friends.  It was a London strangely, terribly changed.
It was, in one phase, a London more interesting.  Down its pavements
in great variety of uniforms, passed the young men of all the earth;
youth from the plains, the jungle, the prairie, the veldt, the
backwoods and the ranch, youth in splendid careless vigour, snatching
hectically at joy, not turning to see the shadowy spectre over their
shoulders.  It was strange to stand in Piccadilly Circus, dimly lit,
and watch the theatres pour out their festive crowds, to sit in the
busy restaurants, to see mankind, strained, feverish, but debonair,
trying to laugh in the face of ruin and death.  It was a London of
extremes; the wounded silently borne from Charing Cross, the
beautiful living swept out in the deadly maelstrom at Victoria
Station; the painted women gaily surrendering to the rabid hunger of
youth in arms, full-blooded and reckless; the air of intense
expectation of fresh development, the swift rise and fall of national
heroes, the craving for a strong man to lead the nation to victory;
the silent evidence of the wreckage in those endless hospitals, the
fierce old women full of hate, and the beardless boys drilled and
transported like sheep under the charge of hard-voiced blasphemous
sergeants,--all these things revealed a nation at war, a nation
unnatural in its hopes, fears, suspicions, enthusiasms, yet
heroically treading the inevitable path through chaos to some kind of
ending, either of victory or defeat.

It was while watching the crowd surging into the Piccadilly Tube
entrance, that John's heart suddenly leapt up in surprise.
Surely--yes, it was the undisguisable Marsh--and yet!  John stared a
moment.  A tall, sun-browned youth in kilts, with the black and red
hose of the Black Watch, was laughing down into the face of a girl
whose hand rested persuasively on his arm.  She was pursuing her
profession, the oldest under the sun, with all the usual assets, the
flaunting white stole over the shoulders, the large beaded vanity
bag, one hand gloved, the other thin, manicured and nervous,
glittering with rings, too large to be genuine.  There was something
pathetically obvious in the loud declaration of her clothes, the
challenge of her carriage, the provoking tilt of her hat over large
observant eyes.  She had found her object of a night's passion and
pay--the human agent of bread and rent.  Here was another youth,
beautiful in his strength, snatching at a brief expression of manhood
as a pleasurable anodyne for an approaching ordeal.

She turned and the young officer half hesitated.  John moved forward.

"Marsh!" he said quietly.  A malevolent look glittered beneath the
dark hat, the tall youth peered at the intruder half-resentfully;
even then he seemed confused.  With a shock, more of pain than
disgust, John saw that Marsh was not quite sober.

"What are you--" began John, when Marsh's senses cleared.

"Scissors, by God, this is great!"  Then, awkwardly, he grew
conscious again of his company, insistently standing by him--

"This lady is--is--"

"That's all right, Marsh--where are you going?" asked John.

"He's coming home with me," said the girl sullenly.

John put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a note.

"This is an old friend I've not seen for a long time--I want to talk
to him," he said quietly, putting the note in her hand.  Defiantly
she thrust it back, and her mouth, hard and unpleasant, curled
malevolently; she was baulked of her prey.

"Keep yer bl---- money, I'm not depending on missionaries," she
snarled.

John looked at her calmly.

"I'm sorry, I did not mean to offend you.  Then you will join me at
supper with my friend?"

There was something so kind and disarming in his voice, that she
suddenly melted.  Her eyes assumed a tenderness surprising and almost
pathetic.

"I'll go--he's your pal I see, and you poor boys may not meet again."
.She turned away, but John put a detaining hand on her arm.

"I really meant my invitation," he said quietly.

Then (God! the horror of it!), she momentarily misinterpreted his
insistence, and involuntarily her professional air returned, only to
be dispelled again by the kind cleanliness of the young man's eyes.

"No--kid, thanks, I guess I'll pick up a boy."

John put his hand in hers.

"No--in memory of our meeting, have a--holiday," he added lamely.
This time she let the note rest in her hand.  He thought she was
going to cry, but suddenly she turned and was lost in the passing
crowd.  Marsh stood there, silent, bemused.  John said not a word,
but called a taxi, and pushed his friend into it.  In the darkness
Marsh sat huddled up.  They were speeding down Piccadilly and turning
by Hyde Park Gate when he seemed conscious that he was being carried
away.

"Where are you taking me, Scissors," he asked in a dull voice.
(Could this be Marsh, the debonair, the irrepressible?)

"Home," John replied laconically.

"I'm leaving Victoria at four a.m.--for France."

John started.

"But you--you were--" he began.

"Going to spend the night with a gay woman, like the filthy cad I am.
Oh, I know what you're thinking!  Well, I was--I'd have been one of
those deserters you see under escort."

"You're drunk, Teddie," said John.

"That's no excuse--in a court martial."

There was silence again.  It was now half-past eleven.  He would get
him home and make him rest for the few intervening hours.

Mrs. Perdie was up when they arrived.  Fortunately Marsh pulled
himself together, and was his graceful self, but when he gained
John's room, he collapsed on the bed.  John went below to ask for
coffee, a little apologetically.  But Mrs. Perdie was in a delightful
fluster.

"The bonnie laddie--oh, I want to cry when I see a kiltie.  His
mother must be proud of him.  An' the Black Watch!  Many's the time
in Edinburgh I've seen--"

John left her in ecstasies.  He wanted to pull the bonnie laddie
round, for the credit of his dear mother and himself.  But Marsh had
recovered and was sitting upright in a chair.  He had been brushing
his hair and straightening the thin khaki tie.

"I suppose you're thinking--" started Marsh, bitterly.

"What a stroke of luck it was--Jove, Teddie, it does me good to see
you!  But where have you been?" cried John.  And the other, seeing he
had no intention of alluding to the circumstances of their meeting,
took the hint.

"This is the end of two years' resistance to the folly of mankind,"
said Marsh in a laugh that had no mirth, as he stroked the sporran
over his knees.  "It's been a long disagreeable story!  Let's see, we
parted at Boston in August 1914--Lord, it seems ages ago.  I went
home, and then the battle began.  I didn't believe in war--I don't
believe in the war," he added with emphasis, "and I've gone through
hell for my belief.  I'm not going to give you a recital of it all.
The badgering of one's relatives, the sneers, the fierce old ladies
who asked if I didn't think I ought to go.  And the mater's had it
too.  They made it so unpleasant for her that she never goes out now.
Well, I've stuck it out for two years, and hell every minute of it.
Scissors, I'm just nowhere at all.  I went to some of the meetings
held by the conscientious objectors, but they made me ill.  Most of
'em are long-haired fanatics, living on vegetables and cram full of
isms.  They've got courage, there's no denying that; it takes more
courage to stay out of this war in face of public opinion and
calumny, than to go into it--but they seem to enjoy their persecution
and welcome it.  I can't--it's misery not to be along with all the
boys, but I've stuck to my belief until--until--oh, Scissors!"

He bent his head forward, burying his face in his hands, and cried
like a child.  John moved, and sat beside him on the arm of the
lounge chair, placing an arm across his shoulders.

"Teddie, old man--I know it must have been awful--you needn't tell
me."

Marsh lifted his head again, and blew his nose very hard.

"Until, Scissors--" he continued determinedly, "one day, a year ago,
I was at Paddington Station, and saw Bobbie coming down the platform.
He was in khaki, looking very fit.  I hadn't seen him since our
holiday.  You can guess what a joy it was.  I just rushed up to
him--and--"

Marsh's knuckles whitened as he gripped his handkerchief.

"Scissors, he cut me dead--he didn't even acknowledge that he heard
me--but he _saw_ me--he looked right through me, and went on, leaving
me like Lot's wife.  I'd had a hellish time--that just finished me.
A fellow can't go on fighting the world when his best friends quit
him.  I just went home and buried myself.  I didn't write to you--or
to any one; I wasn't going to risk a second incident like that.  I
kept in,--but--I've been in the war every minute.  I've gone up and
down those casualty lists, Scissors.  They're all going; there's
hardly any of the old set left.  Fletcher's House has been wiped
out--a whole bunch at Neuve Chapelle, and I'm going now.  I don't
believe in the damn war.  It's mad, it can't bring anything but
indemnities, starvation, hatred.  Every day I am more convinced of
the insanity--the beastly, selfish filthiness of it, with all these
horrible old politicians making speeches out of it, the business man
'doing his bit,' as he calls his plundering, the fierce old women
lapping up German blood like vampires.  I've deserted, Scissors, I've
funked the battle against it--I can't carry on this lone fight any
longer.  I enlisted a few months ago--been training at Salisbury and
here I am, a tailored product of Scott Adie, Highland outfitters, and
one of our 'darling brave lads' ready to die for his country."

He laughed bitterly at the wry humour of his position.

"I'm going to disembowel some mother's son I've never seen.  They
have been working us up to blood fury on stuffed sacks.  I've learned
how to draw out my bayonet with a twist, and when I've blotted out
the light of life in half-a-dozen mother's hearts, a more expert
pig-sticker than I am will blot out my mother's happiness.  And it'll
go on and on for years, till there's hardly a sane, able-bodied
fellow left, and then one side will crack, and the political and
financial ghouls will gather over Europe's corpse and exact terms and
wave flags of victory."

Marsh stood up and paced the room.

"Where's the sense of it?" he cried, stretching out his hands.  "What
has victory to do with justice--the strongest wins!--but it doesn't
follow the strongest is right!"

His eyes softened.

"And, Scissors, those kids in my platoon--there's not one of them
eighteen yet; they're just babies and I mother 'em night and day.
You know how puppies are, with clumsy paws and trusting eyes?---well,
they're just like that, Scissors--and when they're--they're sent into
the line--"

Here his words choked him.  Mrs. Perdie entered with the coffee, and
with further exclamations of delight offered all kinds of service.
With many thanks and refusals, John got her out of the room again,
but not before she had asked to give the young gentleman a kiss, "as
if I was your ain mother, bless her--and God keep you safe," she
said, retreating to the door with tearful eyes.  Marsh seemed better
for having unburdened himself.  John wanted him to have a nap, but he
would not.

"Let's talk, Scissors, till it's time.  We've such a lot to say and
you never know, we may--"

"Oh, rubbish, Teddie."

So they talked, and the old days with their golden careless hours all
came back again.  Remorselessly the clock crept on.  At three, Marsh
said he would have to go.  He had his kit to get at the luggage
office.  John went with him.  They walked along the silent unlit
streets.  At Victoria there were signs of life.  Figures in khaki
loomed out of the darkness; for a moment they halted, the sound of
marching feet came down the Buckingham Palace Road.  Ghostly they
sounded in the night hush; a little group under the flare of the
coffee stall watched them pass a thousand strong, burdened with kit,
obscurely leaving the homeland many would never see again.  Marsh and
John watched them pass, grim faces, pallid in the dim light, a few
whistling out of bravado, but apathetically silent, most of them.
They followed the detachment into the lighted station, passed the
barrier at the departure bay.  Marsh found a carriage full of other
officers, some half-sleepy after long night journeys, two saying
farewells to their lovers, one very drunk, alternately blasphemous
and maudlin, kept in control by a friend.  The doors slammed, a
shrill whistle cut off the useless scrappy conversation.

Their hands met in a firm farewell clasp.  They could not trust
themselves to speak.  The train moved.  Marsh with a final forced
smile looked at Scissors, equally mechanical in response.  A yard now
apart--two yards--the train diminished, the carriage faded--then two
red lights receded in the girdered darkness; after that a mist and
the heart's desolation.



III

The next morning, the _Daily Post_ rang up, asking him to call at
once, and the same voice told him that news had just come of the
death of Ronald Stream.  It was difficult for John to realise that
the death of one so exuberantly young was possible.  He had a vision
of a night in a room at Cambridge when he had talked there, so
radiant and intensely interested in anything, and so much the young
god in his beauty and zest, that John had felt shy of approaching
him.  And now he was dead, in the far away Dardanelles.  Fame too had
touched him by his legacy of a few immortal sonnets, in which beat
the heart of young England.  Death seemed impossible to that
pard-like spirit, swift and beautiful.  For a space, John thought of
his friend Freddie Pond.  He had encountered him only two nights ago
as he leaned against the box office in the vestibule of the Court
Theatre, during an interval.  John thought he had aged and looked sad
and tired, perhaps the act of watching the swift passing of so many
of the brilliant spirits he had herded, was wearing him.  In some
respects, waiting at home was worse than the struggle at the front.

He saw Merritt at the _Daily Post_, busy and tireless as ever.

"Don't know what the Chief wants--are you better?  You're looking
fit.  Just heard young Bewley's won the Distinguished Service Cross
for bombing Bruges docks--a bright kid always."

Walsh rang for John and he went in.

"You're fit, I see," said Walsh.  "Would you care to tackle a naval
job?"

"Anything," said John, "rather than be out of it."

"I'm sending you to the Dover Patrol.  I know little more, how you'll
live, on board or ashore.  I'll give you a note to Blackrigg at the
Admiralty, he'll tell you.  Good luck to you, Dean."

He was outside again.  This time the sea!


John called, in the afternoon, on Blackrigg and got his orders, then
he made his way to Gieve's in Bond Street for a ready-made uniform;
he was leaving for Dover the next day.  Outside the Admiralty Arch he
heard his name and turned.

A girlish figure in grey was calling him.

"Tilly!" he exclaimed in glad surprise, "wherever have you sprung
from?"

"I think I must ask that!" she laughed softly.

She was looking very beautiful and he wished he was not in such a
hurry; he had much to ask her and she came out of a happy past.

"Are you in the same studio?" he asked, in a string of questions.
She was thinking how big and strong he had grown, the boy had
disappeared in this rather stern looking young man.  But he had seen
things and was a name in the world.

"Oh--no--I'm at our flat," she replied.  Then, seeing the enquiry in
his face--"Oh, of course, you don't know--we were married a month
ago--I'm Mrs. Lindon now."

She saw his face brighten with sudden pleasure, and as he expressed
his wishes, she could not restrain the tears that gathered in her
eyes.

"You are--are not unhappy?" he asked, suddenly.  "Lindon's all
right?--where is he?" he added anxiously, as the tears trickled down
her face.  She choked, and he took hold of her arm to draw her aside
from the inquisitive glances directed to them.

"He's--he's not killed?" whispered John hoarsely, apprehensive of the
common answer of these days.

"No--no," she replied, in a quiet nerveless voice--

"worse."

"Worse?" he queried.

"He was wounded four months ago--his right hand shot away."

They stood still, while the traffic roared about them.  Strangely
detached from the scene, John watched the confluence of the traffic
around King Charles' statue, as it poured out of the Strand,
Northumberland Avenue and Whitehall.  He saw the pigeons fluttering
down upon the placarded base of the Nelson plinth in Trafalgar
Square, and over it all, his brain was repeating an awful echo, "His
right hand shot away," the hand that had threaded those swift
passages of Beethoven, Chopin and Debussy on many memorable nights,
one of the hands on which rested his future fame.

"Tilly, my poor girl!" he said quietly, as she stood there, frail and
tearful.  "Let's walk down the Mall--I want to hear all."  He took
her arm, and led her away from the traffic's vortex.  For a space she
did not speak, then she smiled wanly.

"Oh, I have him with me--he is so brave, and pretends he never misses
it--ties his own tie and is so proud when he gets it straight--but I
know all he's suffering.  Sometimes I have seen him looking at the
closed piano as if his heart would break."  She said no more, and
they walked on.  Then abruptly John stopped and looked down into her
face.

"Tilly--you have been married a month--then his--"

Her eyes met his and answered him simply.

"Oh, you poor brave child!" he cried, his own voice trembling this
time.

"He needed me so, Scissors--and it makes no difference to me; at
least I have him safe now.  But for him--"

They walked on in silence.  At the Marlborough Gate he left her, with
a promise to call on his next leave.




CHAPTER II


I

The months slipped, months of peril, of thrills, of human drama and
comradeship.  On Christmas Day, as they entered Dover Harbour, John
looked forward to the leave he had obtained.  It had been a dreary,
nerve-wracking experience, a life in which monotony gave place to
unexpected activity.  But the moment they reached the harbour, he was
told to report at the Admiral's office, and half an hour later was
under orders to proceed to Scapa Flow, the other extremity of Great
Britain, there to join H.M.S. Fanfare, of the Grand Fleet.  Hastily
collecting his things, including a bundle of letters awaiting him, he
bade hurried and warm farewells to his shipmates, good fellows all of
them, despite the fact that they growled night and day about the
Service, knowing well they would be broken-hearted if they had to
leave it.

On the evening of the same day, he was in the night express to
Edinburgh.  He had had a few hours in London and had made three
calls--first at Mariton Street to deposit clothes and get fresh ones.
Here he found Capt. Fisher in a state of high prosperity, as
something in the Ordnance Survey Department.  He was enjoying the war
tremendously and prophesied that it would last another five years.

"It has revived British character, sir--the tonic we needed!" he
said, blithely indifferent to the holocaust of youth.  Miss Simpson,
too, at the tea-table showed an indomitable spirit.  She had been
visiting the dear brave boys in a local hospital, and related with
gusto a story told her of a Ghurka soldier who carried eight Germans'
heads in a sack, which he had refused to give up.  "That's what
should happen to all the Germans," she added.

"It's very horrible!" said John.

Miss Simpson opened wide eyes in surprise.

Then he called on Mrs. Graham, for he remembered that her boy was a
midshipman stationed with the Grand Fleet; perhaps they could meet.
Her flat, with its exquisite taste, cast the old spell upon him, even
before she came into the room.  There was something so intimate in
the books, cushions, curtains, rugs and china, something that
revealed the hand of Mrs. Graham.  She greeted him with great
pleasure, made him talk, and as he did so, he sat wondering at her
beauty, the lovely order of her hair, the music of her voice.  She
had just had a letter from Muriel.  That opened the flood-gates and
for an hour a wonderful little nurse near Amiens was the sole topic
of conversation.

"It's more than a year since I saw her," he said, "and I am getting
more desperate every day."

"You poor thing!" smiled Mrs. Graham.  "This war is very hard for
young lovers; I pity them most of all.  But she writes?"

"Now and then--and wonderful letters too.  I'm going to make extracts
and publish them."

"You mercenary man!" she laughed.

The hour fled.  He had to go.  She pressed a little autographed copy
of Flecker's Poems into his hand.  He could smell the particular
perfume she used, for an hour afterwards.

It was not until John was seated in the train, speeding northwards
through the night, that he had time to open his letters.  There was
one from Marsh, in a base hospital, wounded but cheerful and
recommended for the M.C. "for conspicuous bravery in attack."


"_Just fancy how all the 'brave lad' stick-at-homes will be writing
to congratulate me on coming to my senses and showing my courage!
Ough!  Scissors, it makes me sick.  One hundred glad-eyed youngsters
were minced by steel in that attack--we gained eighty yards and lost
it all an hour afterwards.  What idiots we humans are!_"


A very short letter from Muriel.  She was resting after a nervous
breakdown.  How long was the war going to last?  It was very
wonderful being in the midst of things, but sometimes she wanted to
cry out; was Europe quite indifferent to all the suffering?


"_Oh, John, if only we could just romp into tea at 'The Croft' as in
those old days, with Dad and Mr. Ribble discussing the Insurance
Bill, and poor Tod banging in, covered with motor grease, and you and
Bobbie eating up all the bread and butter.  It is awful to think it
will never be like that again...  I feel ages old...  If this--_"


Here came a break in the letter.


"_I've been called away for half an hour--a poor fellow in my ward
who kept asking for me.  He's only twenty-five, and so young and
strong, with the dearest funny little smile.  He's so helpless.  I
feel just like a mother, with all these big babies around me--and
they're quite as troublesome, but very dear.  I begin to realise,
John, that I had never really lived.  I see things quite differently,
and you'll probably find me another kind of Muriel altogether.  I
expect you've changed also--haven't all values changed these days?
We lived in a very little world once, and thought too much of
ourselves._"


He dropped the letter, a chill had come over him.  Was it envy of
those big babies, and particularly the one "with the dearest funny
little smile?"  Changed!--what did she mean by that?  He hadn't
changed, why should she?  True, they hadn't met for a year--and she
had not written lately.  Why had he not insisted on their marriage?
He laughed then, a little uneasily at a thought that said, "You're
jealous!" and read on--


"_It was very wonderful when you wrote about our settling down when
it is over--if ever.  Somehow it seems too much to hope from life.
Things were getting very crazy in 1914 and I feel this war is putting
our relations on a more sensible basis._"


A more sensible basis!--what on earth did the girl mean.  Was she
getting unnerved?  He read the sentence over again.  Yes, he must
insist on their marriage.  She wanted a controlling hand; this war
was too much for her.  With this resolve, he read on again, and
became easier in mind.


"_John, I couldn't leave this now, like this, with all this life
going on.  It must be terrible for women to sit and wait at home.
Poor things.  I read some of their letters to the men here and I
nearly break down.  I am feeling a little shy of you, John, you are
so famous now.  The nurses here bring me cuttings about you, and in
the mess room, there's a Sphere photograph of you coming down a
gangway.  I love the naval uniform, and to think that I've never seen
you in it!  Be kind to all those dear little middies, they must feel
so lonely on that big dreary sea._"


John smiled as he put the letter away.  At that very moment, one of
those "dear little middies" lay with his head fast asleep on John's
shoulder, where he had slipped over.  He would have to tell Muriel
that they detested being called "dear," "little," or "middies," and
that the average "snotty" could be entrusted to look well after
himself.  There was another letter from Bobbie.  He was not fit for
foreign service and he had been given a post at the War Office.  Miss
Piggin sent a pair of woollen gloves she had knitted in "desperate
moments," for Chawley School was now a hospital for the wounded, with
Mrs. Tobin as commandant, "very successful, her firmness keeping the
men in order."  Mr. Tobin was a chaplain at the front.  She had had a
piece of Egyptian pottery sent by Mr. Woodman, who was a lieutenant
in the Yeomanry stationed near the Suez Canal.

Having read his letters John surveyed his carriage, thinking of
sleep.  He had been unable to get a sleeping berth, but there was
only the "snotty" and himself in the compartment.  That young
gentleman had been solacing himself for his departure from
home-worship and civilisation, with a copy of _La Parisienne_ and the
semi-nude mademoiselles therein, all of whom appeared to spend their
time dressed only in chemises, sitting on the knees of officers.
John reflected on the necessity of a press censor for the
safeguarding of "snotties'" morals.  The immediate problem was how to
dispose of this lad without waking him, if possible.  John looked at
the face on his shoulder; it might have been a baby's, so fresh and
unwrinkled, with a little red mouth through which a row of white
teeth just showed.

Very quietly he lowered the lad until he was reclining on the full
length of the seat; pulling his legs up entailed risk, but it was
done, and the Navy slept soundly.  John made himself comfortable and
dozed off.



II

He was awakened by a ray of sunlight striking his eyes.  The train
was standing in a small station.  Looking out of the window, he saw a
group of houses, all brightly yellow in the morning sun.  A slight
mist and a chill air told him it was early morning and there was the
smell of the sea in the air.  A great range of blue mountains loomed
in the distance, with a flat estuary between, and the tide out.  He
was alone in the compartment, but in a minute or so his companion
returned along the platform, fresh-coloured and bright-eyed in the
nipping air, bearing two cups of steaming coffee.

"Will you have one, sir?" he asked.  "I'm awfully sorry I went to
sleep on you last night--did I push you off the seat, sir?"

John laughed and explained.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"Bonar Bridge--we're on the Highland Railway now, sir.  We've passed
Cromarty Firth--we've got a dummy fleet in there to diddle
Fritz--then through Sutherlandshire--jolly wild and desolate over
those moors all the way to Thurso.  We'll be there by tea-time, sir."

The boy chatted away brightly.  This was his second journey, he was
proud of being a veteran.  He had been in the Jutland Battle, blown
into the sea and picked up from a grating by a submarine, along with
five survivors of a crew of eight hundred.

The day drew on; noon passed; still they climbed northwards.  They
were in desolate regions now, with tiny hamlets set in the wild
moors.  There was a feeling of great space and the silence was broken
only by the cry of a bird.  They passed Dunrobbin Castle, standing
high and lonely on its promontory overlooking the desolate sea.  As
prophesied, they reached Thurso at tea-time.

A motor omnibus took them along the coast from Thurso to Scrabster,
the point of embarkation.  Here John parted from his young companion,
who gave him the smartest little salute, bestowed on admirals and
admiring young ladies only.  John boarded a destroyer.  Half an hour
later, entering a gate made by two drifters which lowered a boom, he
saw the Fleet.  There it lay, enormous, like floating animals asleep
on the water, glittering with the afternoon sun.  Here was the
strength of England.  It was a sight to quicken the heart.  From his
place on the bridge, to which the skipper invited him, John surveyed
this grey steel city of the brotherhood of the brave.  The sea mist
seemed to cloud his eyes.

That night he met his fellow officers, walked over the ship, a new
model of the Dreadnought class, installed himself in his cabin, saw
his office with typewriter, clerk's desk, and telephone to the
wireless room.  He interviewed his marine orderly, a stocky little
Cockney youth, shining all over like the breach of a gun.  He slept
soundly that night, awakened early by his orderly with a hip-bath,
hot water can and carefully brushed clothes.  At ten a cutter came to
take him to the flag ship to present his much-examined credentials.
A smart flag officer met him at the top of the companion way and
conducted him below.  The Commander-in-Chief would see him in a few
minutes.  John waited on the deck flat.  Rear-admirals entered and
emerged from the white-enamelled, brass-handled door on his right.
There seemed to be a staff of flag officers in attendance, all young
and alert, with their gold lace and showy aiglettes drooping from
their shoulders.  Half an hour passed, John growing more nervous
every minute.  Then the young flag officer called his name and
ushered him into the presence.

It was a large room, with a fireplace and the far end completely
windowed, bow-shaped, under which ran a verandah round the stern of
the ship, where grew potted geraniums.  In the sunlit air above the
wind-flecked water, small seagulls cried and hovered.  The water
threw a shimmering reflection on to the white ceiling.  By a table,
on which stood a silver portrait frame, a small bookrest holding
novels, a "Who's Who" and an "Army Guide," was a baby grand piano.  A
red carpet covered the large floor up to the pilastered fireplace.
All this John saw in a glance before looking into the face of the
man, who stood, his back to a large flag-dotted map of the North Sea,
holding out his hand, his face puckered in a pleasant smile.

He was a small man, with dark penetrating eyes, a thin-lipped wide
mouth, with corners that suggested a vivid sense of humour.  The nose
was slightly hooked, and John immediately recognised the striking
resemblance to his brother, a Hampshire vicar who had stayed with the
Marshs.  But if the great position and fame of the man before him
made him nervous, it was immediately dispelled by the kindness of the
voice, and the charm of his personality.  For twenty minutes they
talked, their conversation touching many points of common interest,
and on this occasion only briefly upon the work of the new
correspondent.  Every minute an anxious officer looked into the room,
but the Chief ignored his hint of fretful persons without.  At the
end, another warm handshake and John passed out.  Back on his own
ship again, he was assailed and made to satisfy the general curiosity
concerning "the Old Man."

Thus he entered upon a new era of experience, and watched Spring give
place to Summer in the chilly northern waters; and upon the
precipitous cliffs of the lonely islands saw the bird life,
indifferent to mankind invading its hitherto unmolested domain.



III

The tranquillity of his new life, despite the atmosphere of constant
vigilance, brought a great calm to John.  He had been a silent
sufferer in the appalling devastation, human and material, he had
witnessed in Flanders, and under the fearful strain of the Dover
vigil.  Life on board was industrious but regular, and with the
cheerful companionship of these well-balanced philosophers around
him, he began to feel less acutely sensitive to the tragic action of
the world drama.  In a way he felt uneasy.  He was not quite taking
his share of the burden laid on the shoulders of youth.  He would
have liked to stand by the side of Vernley and Marsh and a dozen
others.  Here he was a spectator, waiting for something that might
never happen, something which he hoped never would happen, for the
event was fraught with immense and appalling possibilities.  Often
John stared, hypnotised by the sleek quiet power of the long guns,
that moved so slowly in the morning air, like cautious antennæ.  Yet
swift destruction could pour out of those harmless nozzles under the
obedience of hidden forces within the turrets.  It seemed incredible
that floating mammoths such as these ships might dissolve in air
under the battery of similar guns.

But as the weeks wore on, eventless save for rumours and the
variations of discipline, the idea of war receded, though
occasionally incoming destroyers or drifters brought grim little
stories of short encounters outside their tranquil anchorage.  They
read the newspapers and closely followed the vicissitudes of the war,
now spread to many fronts, in many climes, and affecting almost all
races on the earth, either directly or indirectly.  And the
incredible was happening, the successive war prophets, the weekly
commentators, fell into oblivion, for this war went on despite all
the carefully enunciated reasons why it could not go on.  According
to statistics, the German legions had been wiped out many times over,
but still they pressed hard the defending line, changed from the
defensive to the offensive with astounding virility for an army
pronounced exhausted and emaciated.

Letters from the front brought John into close touch with realities.
Muriel now wrote less frequently.  Her hospital work grew heavier; he
could discern the heartache underlying some of her words, sometimes
an impatient note of protest against the politicians gaining wordy
victories, while wrecked humanity poured into the hospitals to be
botched up and start out again, until the human shuttlecocks fell,
never to rise.  Then one day, a rare event, a letter from Vernley, a
poor writer, yet one whose disjointed chronicles were eagerly read.
John opened the letter in the messroom where he had been talking with
the ship's doctor, and read through it slowly; then on the fourth
page his heart seemed to stop.


"_Poor old Marsh!  I suppose we'll all go West sooner or later, but
somehow Scissors, I can't think of him as dead.  He was so full of
life, such a tireless beggar and such a fund of fun in him.  I'm
tormenting myself with the thought that I once behaved rather
silly--I cut him on a platform one day, before he joined up.  I know
it hurt--I wanted it to--he told me so later when I ran across him
here.  Thank God we put it right.  Still, I hurt him, Scissors, and
he was too dear a chap for me to behave like that, and I'm coming to
think he was right,--the more I see of this bloody mess, with no end
to it, and all of us wondering why we stand it._"


John put the letter down, numbed.  He watched a destroyer through the
porthole, passing on, saw a gull wheel and turn, with a silver glint
as the sun caught its wings, heard the siren of H.M.S. Oak, speeding
on its message-delivering mission; all these things went on about
him, yet they were in a picture; only he was the unreal thing.  Marsh
gone!  How could that be with the morning so fresh and active, with
so much life about?  Surely he would walk in here, and with a laugh,
clap him on the shoulder, with something thoroughly absurd to say.
Dead?  Why--fellows like Marsh could not die!

His thoughts flew away to the rambling vicarage.  He saw Mrs. Marsh
sitting at the piano, under the lamplight; saw Mr. Marsh in his
study, pipe going, the "_Nation_" in his hands.  Could life go on and
Marsh not be part of it?

Hours passed before the significance of it became clear to him, but a
week passed before he was able to take up a pen and write to Mrs.
Marsh.  That terrible task performed, he felt now prepared for
anything.  The world was falling to bits; nothing could be saved.
The bad news from the front affected him little.  He wondered at the
gloomy faces of the men around him.  Why be affected by the
inevitable?  It would all be enacted as relentlessly as in a Greek
play.  Another blow would come yet, of that he was sure; life was to
be wholly disintegrated.

But the weeks went on and nothing happened.  Letters came, curious
restrained letters, at longer intervals from Muriel.  Vernley, as if
conscious of the lessening circle, wrote more frequently.  Lindon, in
a big boyish left hand sent the town gossip; he had found a
consolation, he was composing, and Tilly was wonderful.  June came,
with warmer and longer days in those northern waters, and with it a
hurried note from Muriel saying she would be in London in a week;
could he meet her, as she wished to see him?  Her wish was a command
that found him eager to obey.  A few wires, an interview, and he was
released; his leave was overdue and the _Daily Post_ offered to send
a temporary substitute at once.  John waited impatiently four days
and almost embraced his successor when H.M.S. Oak brought him
alongside.  He wired to Muriel asking when and where they could meet.
On Friday night he was back in London, more wonderful, more beloved
than ever to the exile, and found a reply at Mrs. Perdie's bidding
him meet her in the lounge at Claridge's on Saturday evening at
seven.  He pictured her, waiting for him there, in a chic nurse's
uniform, and to be worthy of her and in celebration of the great
occasion, he put on his best service jacket.

He was there at five minutes before the hour, and to his surprise she
was already waiting for him.  He rushed towards her with impetuous
boyish joy, that raised smiles on many observant faces around.  Her
greeting was more restrained, and her calmness steadied him.  How
splendid she was and how lovely, he thought.  She had changed, of
course, but she was the more Muriel for all that.

"We've a private sitting room--let us go upstairs," she said, when he
had let her withdraw her hand.

"You're staying here?" he asked, surprised.

"Yes," she answered.  There was nothing said in the lift.  He could
only look at her, but once the door had closed upon them in the small
hall opening on the tiny sitting room, he put his arms out to take
her into them.

"Darling," he whispered, but she seemed too agitated with nervous joy
to respond, and led the way into the room, where she immediately sat
down.  Even then he did not see that she was slightly unnatural, as
under a strain.  The first indication was her voice as she pronounced
his name.  He looked at her more observantly; a dumb pain in her
eyes, which met his with a quiet strength, caused his heart to sink a
little.

"Muriel--there's nothing wrong?"

She looked down at her hands a moment, and then up at him as he stood
over her.  Something in her whole attitude struck him as piteous.  He
sat down opposite her.

"John--dear--I am going to hurt you terribly.  If you cannot forgive
me I shall understand.  I am no longer Muriel Vernley--I am Muriel
Harvey."

He looked at her.  What was she saying?  She was unnerved, he could
see that; this strain had been too much for her.  But in that brief
silence she saw by the kindness in his eyes that he had not
understood.

"I am Mrs. Frank Harvey, John--I'm married."  And to make her words
clear, she held out her hand, with its ringed finger.

Even then he just looked at her, and she saw that his eyes were those
of a troubled child.

"Muriel--you can't mean it!--how can you be married!" he cried, in a
low voice.

This time she could not look at him, she did not want to see the
agony that was coming.

"I cannot ask you to forgive me, John--I know that, and if you think
hardly, perhaps I deserve it--but oh, I don't want to hurt you--I
don't, John, I--"

He had risen now and had gone over to the window, his face turned
from her, looking down into the well of the building.  What was he
thinking?

"It's incredible!" he said huskily, after a pause.  "You cannot make
a fool of me like this, Muriel, you can't--why, it's impossible!" he
burst out, turning and spreading his hands wide; and then seeing her
face clearly for the first time, he knew it was true.

She was talking now--words, words, words.  What could a woman say
worth listening to by a man thrown on one side like a discarded doll;
and he knew it all.  Of course she had met him in hospital, there was
no need to narrate all that.  He had appealed to her sympathies.  But
he blamed her, not the man, who only pressed his opportunity.  He
assumed a calm attitude until she had finished, as though he had not
really heard, for he was busy putting on a mask, determined she
should not see how cruelly hurt he was.  Once out of the room, he
could face the thing squarely, but here, she must not see.

"Of course it has all been very silly--our boy and girl romance," he
said, as lightly as he could, and he found a slight pleasure in
noticing he had hurt her, for she paled as she stood up.

"Silly?--you cannot think it was that, John--" she pleaded, and his
heart smote him, but pride insisted on the mask.  He held out his
hand formally.

"Good-bye, Muriel."

Would he go like this, she thought, so blind to her terrible trial?
A noise behind made him turn.  A key was being fitted in the lock.
She saw his face set, and its sudden tension told her more than his
voice or words had betrayed.  There was the sound of voices.  One he
knew well, would have rejoiced at on any other occasion but this,--it
was Vernley's.  And the other?  John's eyes met Muriel's and they
felt their hearts throbbing in that long moment.  The door swung open
and Vernley entered, following a young man, an officer,
fresh-complexioned and of medium height and build.

"John!" cried Vernley, holding out an eager hand, but John was
looking at him.

"Frank," said Muriel quietly, "this--"

The man interrupted her eagerly.

"Muriel--I'm getting on fine.  I've put the key in myself.  Don't
move, I know where you are, watch me!  There's a window on the right,
the lounge on the left wall, you're standing by it--and a chair
here!" he cried, touching it lightly with his fingers as he walked
forward.

"Frank--this is my friend--Mr. Dean," she said.

The young officer halted, his hand raised for a moment.

"Oh, sorry," he cried, cheerfully.  "How d'you do?"

He turned and held out his hand, but in front of John, a little to
the left, as though he might be there, and the face turned that way,
smiling at him.

A glance, and John took the misdirected hand and looked into
sightless blue eyes.

"How d'ye do, Mr. Dean?--Glad to meet any of Muriel's friends.  I'm
rather sudden on the scene, eh!"

He laughed boyishly.

"And they'll wonder why she's got this blind old war horse--won't
they, Muriel?"

His laughter would have been infectious at any other time, but now it
echoed as in an empty room and was engulfed in silence.  Vernley
watching it all, stood by the door.  Muriel was crying now; the blind
man stood gripping the chair, sensing something unusual.

"I must hurry away now," said John.  "Good-bye."

He shook the soldier's hand again, then moved towards Muriel, and
without speaking raised her hand to his lips.  For a long moment he
held it so, while she looked down on his bowed head mistily.  A
moment later he had closed the door behind him and was in the
corridor.

But he was not to go alone.  Vernley hurried after him.

"Scissors, my dear old Scissors!" he cried, taking John's arm as they
walked towards the lift.  "It's a mystery, I don't understand it, I'm
sure she--she--oh damn! you know what I mean!  Let's go somewhere,
I'm all upside down!"

The lift took them out to the world again.




CHAPTER III


I

They were very patient with him at the office of the _Daily Post_.
He delayed his return to the Grand Fleet again and again.  Merritt,
with an observant eye saw that the young man was on the verge of a
nervous breakdown, but he could not disguise his surprise, when,
after fourteen days' absence, during which they had no word from him,
Dean entered his room and said he could not go back to Scapa Flow
again, and wished to resign.

Merritt stared for a moment and poured out a flood of reasons against
such preposterous folly.  There was his duty to the paper, which had
given him his chance and helped him to fame.  Would he let Walsh down
in this manner?  What of the public that read his despatches so
avidly?  It was base ingratitude, sheer folly.  The gods had poured
all the good gifts into his lap.

John laughed bitterly at this.

"What's come over you, Dean?  I've never seen you like this before;
you've been going about with a green hue on your face for the last
two weeks.  Are you crossed in love?"

"That's no business of yours!" flared John.

The suddenness and intensity of the reply startled him.

Merritt veiled his surprise: he had touched a secret spring somewhere.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Dean--but you're getting a little difficult to deal
with."

"I'm sick of life!" said John, dropping into a chair and beating a
tattoo upon the table with his hands.  Merritt let him brood awhile.

"What's the matter?" he asked, "are you tired of the Navy?"

"No--but I want to go away, right away!"

"Well--go back to France.  I'll speak to Walsh."

"No--that's too near--right away, if I go anywhere."

Merritt looked at him, but said nothing.  John rose.

"Come in to-morrow--Walsh may want to see you."

"Right--and I want to see him.  Merritt, I've decided to throw it all
up--this correspondent work--I'm going to join up."

If Merritt felt like falling, he did not show it.  He was sure now
that the strain had affected the boy's reason.

"Oh--well, you'll be a quitter if you do."

"How?"

"With a pen like yours, you've a duty to perform.  Haven't you
thought of all the people who read newspapers for a gleam of comfort?
You've a sympathetic note in your work--and many a worried mother's
had a little more hope to hold out with, after she's finished your
column."

It was the first time Merritt had praised him.

"If you want to go--you'll go, of course, and we can't stop you--but
you fall in my estimation.  If it's England you want to got out
of--well, we want a man in Mesopotamia."

Mesopotamia, the East!  Again and again John's thoughts had travelled
eastwards.  In the last few weeks a deep longing for the skies of his
boyhood had possessed him; he wanted to throw off all the Western
civilisation now curbing and fretting him.

"If you'll send me there," he replied quietly, "I'll carry on--but I
want to get right away."

Merritt had won his point.  John promised to return and see Walsh in
the afternoon.

The subsequent interview was short and satisfactory.  He was to sail
from Plymouth in a fortnight, his ultimate destination being Basra.

"It's strange, Dean, but I didn't care to propose this when I first
thought of it some time ago," said Walsh, as he bade him good-bye.
"I thought you'd dislike being so far from your home-base."

Downstairs again, John, with the words "home-base" echoing in his
ears, laughed to himself.  What home-base had he here in England,
with friends dying in every trench and the world tumbling in ruin
about his ears?  The East--that was, after all, his true home-base.
He should never have left it.  To this hour it called him; its
witchery was in his blood; almost he could smell the distinctive
odour, hear the jingle of camel bells as the caravans wound out along
the old highways.

And then a pang of regret smote him.  He had friends here, good
friends.  Ever since that terrible night when his whole future had
collapsed like a pack of cards, Vernley had been assiduous in his
attention.  They had passed the ensuing days together, doing nothing
in particular, strolling here, eating there, talking of everything
but the one thing that obsessed them both.  Once only had they faced
reality.

"I can't think why she did it, Scissors, I can't really.  She must
have been deranged with all she'd seen, and her pity overcame
her--women are at the mercy of moods.  I've not spoken to her yet
about it--I daren't trust myself at present, but when I do, I--"

John put a detaining hand on his arm.

"Bobbie--please don't.  It can make no difference now.  Perhaps we
are all wrong--the whole world's upside down somehow.  I don't want
to feel bitter--I'm not going to feel anything again, I think, and if
she's happy--"

"She can't be, Scissors!" interrupted Vernley vehemently.

"Then she is suffering too--don't make it harder."

"It's her fault--no, it's his, I think--he's played upon her
sympathy--he caught her with a--"

"Bobbie--don't!--We--we can't hit him--now, as he is."

Vernley whisked his stick through the air, as though beating his way
through a tangle.  They walked on in silence.  Suddenly he stopped,
and confronted his friend, his face quivering, his voice ringing with
suppressed emotion.

"Scissors--you're a wonderful chap to take it like this!  God! if it
had been me--I'd have--I'd have--"

"Faced it, Bobbie," said John simply, "but why talk about it any
more?"

But his calm belied him.  To the wondering Vernley, it was marvellous
self-control and astounding resignation.  Even Vernley did not
realise that his friend had sunk so low in the waters of despair,
that a numbness was upon him; that light and air were no longer the
craving of life.  He was drowning, and the first fearful struggle had
given place to a benumbed acquiescence in Fate.  Yes, light and air
had gone, that was certain.

They never mentioned the subject again, not even when they shook
hands for the last time, before John travelled down to the Marshs',
prior to sailing.  Vernley wanted to take him to "The Croft," but
that would have been too much for him, and Vernley realised the
artificial naturalness they would all assume, and dropped the project.

The sun had set, and the livid upper sky tinged the sullen waters of
the Thames, as in the final minutes, they paused at the bottom of
Mariton Street.  Vernley was walking back along the Embankment to the
hospital where he was still a patient, with a shell-splintered leg
now healing, two inches permanently short.

He grew philosophical in those speeding minutes, as the light died,
and the lamps began to glow dimly along the curve of the embankment,
running from the darkened East into the fiery West.

"What a mess it all is, Scissors--and some old blighters are making
speeches about the England that is to be after the war, the era of
reconstruction, of glory and peace; and here we are blasting each
other off the earth, many of us dead, half of us limping, and none of
us quite knowing ourselves as we were.  Jove!  Sedley seems like a
dream--poor old Marsh and Tod, and--my God, what a mess, what a mess,
I'm not sure that I care about seeing the end of it!  Scissors, it
has been wonderful though--we can't be robbed of that by all the
damned politicians and the butchering generals.  And to have had you
for a friend--why it's--"

He could not finish--with a silent handshake he suddenly turned, and
limped away in the gathering darkness.

When he had gained his room John sat down and thought.  He sat
silently there until the last gleam faded in the sky, until the room
grew totally dark, and outside a large moon climbed up from the
chimney stacks.  Mrs. Perdie found him there when she came in to
light the gas, preparatory to retiring for the night.  She thought
how worn he looked, and suggested a cup of cocoa, but he declined it
with a faint smile of thanks.  On her way to the top attic, she
reflected that only youth could plumb the full misery of these tragic
days.



II

In the train to Renstone, John wondered how he would find Mr. and
Mrs. Marsh.  He had had two letters from them since their son's
death, letters written by Mrs. Marsh, full of quiet grief and
patiently uncomplaining.  Somehow this journey to Renstone brought
Marsh's vivacious personality more vividly before him.  Their days
together had been without an open confession of friendship, but their
attachment was deep, and Vernley's part in it equal, so that the old
adage, "two's company, three's none," was proved utterly foolish.

At the station a trap met him, driven by the old gardener at the
Vicarage.  The sun beat down fiercely upon them on the slow drive
along the country road.  The regal splendour of June blazed on each
side, in the woodlands and on the hills.  Then the trap turned in at
the familiar gates, past the central holly bush in the drive, and
halted at the door.  It opened as he alighted, and Mrs. Marsh stood
there, hatless and smiling.

"You are just in time for tea," she said, as he moved towards her.
So she had remembered his love of the tea hour and their talks!  She
had not altered in any way, as he had feared.  Perhaps her hair was a
little greyer, but of that he could not be sure; as for signs of the
grief she had suffered, there was none upon that face of almost
childlike grace.  Far different with Mr. Marsh, however.  John met
him in the hall, and was shocked at the change in him.  His hair was
now wholly white, and the characteristic rectitude of his bearing had
gone.  He stooped slightly, and John felt, as he took the welcoming
hand, it was a little feeble; but the irradiating kindness of his
smile was there as ever, and the gentle humorous way of talking.

They had tea on the lawn, under the copper beech, with an arrogant
peacock attempting to disguise its interest in their proceedings.
The old cat came out from under the rose bush where it had slept in
the shadow; a few birds lazily twittered in the screen of elms at the
far end of the garden, audibly tremulous in their tops as the wind
passed through them.  The loudest noise was made by the wasps
crowding about the jam-dish.  They talked of a dozen things, with
never a mention of Teddie's name, until after half an hour, just
before Mr. Marsh went in to his study, he said--

"I'm afraid you'll find it very quiet here, my boy.  You see, we've
not marked the tennis lawn this summer--Teddie always did that, and
there's no young people call now, they're all away.  So you'll have
to amuse yourself."

He went indoors, sadly, thought John.  Mrs. Marsh watched him go.

"Poor father," she said at last.  "It has hurt him terribly."

John turned to her.

"And you?" he asked quietly.

She smiled at him.

"Perhaps I am less rebellious, John--I don't know.  But I feel,
always I have felt, he has not gone, Teddie's here all the time."

"Here?"

"Yes--in this garden.  Sometimes I sit here in the afternoon with my
sewing and listen to the wind in these trees.  Sometimes there's not
a murmur of sound, and yet I feel that Teddie's here, just behind my
chair, or pulling the lawn roller down there, or lying in the sun
with a cushion under his head, 'basking' as he called it.  I'm not
what you call psychic, John,--I've never given any thought to these
things, but I know he is not dead, that he moves with us here,
perhaps hears all we say.  You know how he loved to talk.  This is
foolish, perhaps,--but oh John, I am so sure I am right!"

He said nothing, but sat beside her.  It was beautiful in this old
vicarage garden.  Generations of vicars had tended it, and June came
year by year, with its profusion of roses, its climbing honeysuckle
and night-scented verbena.  Was it too much to believe that any one
who had loved this spot, whose boyhood had passed in its peace, whose
love still lingered here, should come back, unseen?  This was a
thought of faith, of love that would not countenance surrender; was
it a thought any the less reasonable because it sprang from abiding
love?  He was a child in such experience, it was not for him to
judge; happy for her if Faith's bright star shone in the darkness of
these days.

He did not speak, he could not; any words of his would have seemed
desecration.  He just sat there by her side, in the flower-scented
glow of the garden, while the sun dropped to the horizon and the
shadow of the elms lengthened along the lawn.  The birds were now
twittering before sleep overtook them; the rookery over by the hall
grew noisy as the sky changed from rose-red to translucent green,
with an adventurous star here and there in the silver grey of the
east.  The dinner bell tolled at the Hall.  Mrs. Marsh broke the
silence.

"There, it is time we dressed.  I have given you Teddie's room, I
thought you would like it," she said.

Under the pergola they paused and looked back over the gardens
towards the yew hedge, behind which the fading light of the horizon
flamed in the heart of the sunset.  Softly she repeated,

  "_Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns
  And the round ocean and the living air._"


"Oh, John, I know I am right--the living air!  I can't think of
Teddie as dead, he loved life too much for that; he was too joyous to
end in mere nothingness."

Her eyes shone with love as she spoke, and, that moment, her faith
became his.




CHAPTER IV

In those last few days he deliberately kept his thoughts away from
Muriel.  Not that he was distressed by any bitterness; perhaps a
little bitterness, a resentment of her injustice, would have
comforted him.  The inexplicable reasons of her action he ceased to
ponder, and the consequences, he felt, were not his.  Vernley had
wanted to talk.  Curiously, he now saw, Vernley revolted far more
than he against the accomplished fact of her marriage.  Why did she
marry him?  Was she in her right senses?  Was she a nervous wreck?
Could she possibly love this man?  How could she treat her lover so
callously?--all these aspects of the enigma worried Vernley in
succession, and ceaselessly he battered himself, mothwise, against
the undiminished, glaring fact of Muriel's marriage to a stranger.
All this had not helped John, and he had tried to make Vernley see
it, but the latter fretted ceaselessly against the finality of her
folly.

"I don't understand women--I don't really.  If ever a girl was madly
in love, she was with you.  She grew up with the idea of marrying
you--and suddenly she turns round and bolts without reason."

And John felt also that Vernley could not understand his attitude.
Vernley did not realise that henceforth he had ceased to feel
anything, that he was just numb to life.  Muriel had written after
that dreadful interview.  She made no excuses, gave no explanations,
only she wanted him to know that always he had been first in her
thoughts.  He laughed when he read the letter, and in a vindictive
moment felt he would like to ask her one question.  "Who is first
now?"  For he knew that would distress her intensely.  She could not
possibly love this man, he was sure of that.  She had mistaken
motherliness and the protective instinct for the deeper emotions of
love, and in a temporary aberration had seen in self-sacrifice
something greater than a love which had encountered no real obstacles.

Had he but known, as he thought this, she was sitting in Mrs.
Graham's flat seeking confirmation of her act.  Mrs. Graham listened
to her sympathetically, but gave her no comfort, for she affected no
compromise with the hard fact that Muriel had not married the man she
loved.

"Am I to blame, Mrs. Graham?--oh yes, I am, I am, but he must know I
am not callous--that I still--"

Mrs. Graham smiled gently, and took the nervously clasped hands in
hers.

"Muriel--in all you've said when you have said 'him', you have meant
John.  Need we disguise that?  You can no more explain than I can.
We women will never know why we throw away our lives."

At that the young wife broke down and wept in the other woman's arms.

"What can I do, what can I do?" she implored.

"Nothing," said Mrs. Graham.  "My dear child you are not the first or
the last sacrifice to impulse.  You are not going to suffer long;
your husband needs you so greatly and I think we women, if we realize
it early enough, are only lastingly in love when we are happy in
self-sacrifice."

She felt Muriel quiver in her arms and held her a while.  Half an
hour later, composed again, she went, but not before she had talked
of her husband, of his cheerfulness, his eagerness to follow all she
did.  He had planned their whole life together, and she was not to
realise she had a blind husband.

It was well she had not stayed to tea, for scarcely an hour had
elapsed when the bell rang.  Instinctively Mrs. Graham knew it was
John.  That he would come, she had never doubted.  His confidence in
her had touched her from that moment of boyish ardour in which he had
acted as self-appointed cavalier on their first meeting at "The
Croft."

When he entered she saw that he had changed.  He had put on a mask,
of that she was sure.

"Muriel has just gone," she said straightly, looking at him.

"Oh!" he replied, but with no surprise or embarrassment.

They sat down to tea.  He talked of the Marshs, of their garden, of
how Mrs. Marsh bore her loss.  Mrs. Graham watched and let him talk
of anything but the subject on which he really wished to talk.  Then
quickly, as he leaned over to take a piece of bread.  "How is
Muriel?" he asked, without a tremour in his voice.

"She has been here and talked to me, John.  It's no use our putting
masks on.  You know she loves you still."

He sat silent for a few moments, then twisted his handkerchief in his
hands, and looked down into his teacup.

"I never thought otherwise," he said at last.  And then,
dispassionately, he told her his plans.  He was going away, he was
going to keep away.  He would never forget, of course, but she might,
and that would be half the battle.  If they met later and she showed
that he had ceased to be first in her love, then he would not find it
so hard.  To go away, to stay away, only that offered hope for them
both.

Mrs. Graham smiled in his face as she said--

"That is a desperate remedy," and although nothing had betrayed him
in his voice, his eyes were full of dumb pain.  "But John dear,
perhaps you will be unable to stay away--had you thought of that?"

He laughed now, bitterly, she thought.

"Then I must make it impossible for me to return--but no woman can
mean all that to a man," he added fiercely.  "After all, love is the
whole of a woman's life, it's only part of a man's--he has other
interests."

"You don't mean that John, dear," said Mrs. Graham quietly.

"I do."

"You don't!" she reiterated, looking at him steadily.  For a moment
he returned her look boldly, while her hands closed over his on the
table; suddenly his eyes filled with tears and he bowed his head over
her hands.  Neither of them spoke for what seemed a long time.  She
saw he could not endure this strain, and came abruptly to earth.

"More tea, John?" she asked, withdrawing her hands, and smiling at
him, as though they had been foolish.

For the next hour they were very practical.  He explained his plans.
The prospect of his work filled him with lively anticipation.

"You know, I feel as if I were going home--as if I had a home," he
said, "and if I hear Turkish spoken, although I have forgotten it
all, I'm sure I shall lapse into those Amasia days again.  I had a
great friend there, a fellow called Ali--a Turk.  I often wonder
what's happened to him--whether he's been smashed up in it all.  It's
a silly world.  Here I am, his official enemy--and we were sworn
brothers.  Look, I've still got his talisman here."

He opened his shirt and pulled out the moonstone with the word
"Kismet" inscribed upon it.

"What a beautiful thing!" cried Mrs. Graham.

"Would you like it?" he asked, impulsively.

"No, John--you must not part with it, after all these years--and he
gave it to you to keep."

"But it's only silly sentiment, Mrs. Graham."

"Sentiment is not always silly, John--'Kismet' who knows?"

He laughed out gaily, and she was glad to hear him laugh so.  There
was the ring of youth in it still.

"Very well then--I'll wear it because of you," he said.

"And Ali?" she added.

"And Ali," he echoed lightly.  "But you shall have one gift for
remembrance."

"I would like something, certainly."

"I shall not give it you except in an eventuality."

She laughed at him.

"Dear me, how formal and serious we are!"

"It's a statue--my nickname too--'Narcissus listening to Echo.'  You
know it?  Dear old Marsh gave it to me in one of his whimsical moods.
It's damaged, but it's very lovely and I have a sentimental
attachment to it for his sake.  I want you to keep it safely for
me--and if I never come to reclaim it," he said quietly, "I want it
to become yours."

She regarded him a moment, and saw that he was very serious, full of
the drama of youth.

"John dear, you're talking like a novelette; 'if you never come
back'--that's always what the rejected hero says in the last chapter
but one.  You're not made of that kind of stuff.  But I'll keep it
gladly--and perhaps, when you come to claim it, I shall not be
willing to part with it."

He rose to go, but she saw that he had still something more to say.

"Well?" she asked him, as he stood, hat in hand, after making
arrangements for her to receive the statue.

"You are wonderful, Mrs. Graham," he said, frankly.  "You seem to
read my thoughts."

"Oh, no, but I see you have some.  Tell me, John."

He hesitated briefly, but her eyes helped him.

"There are some letters--Muriel's.  I have them all--she wrote great
letters from the Front.  They're all numbered in a despatch box.
Will you keep the box for me--and--" he hesitated again, but she
waited, uttering no word, "if I don't reclaim the statue--send them
to her?"

He saw that she assented, and after that he dare not trust himself
longer.  Almost abruptly he said good-bye and went.




BOOK VI

EAST AGAIN



CHAPTER I


I

John and young Sanderson were half asleep in the orange grove that
sheltered the row of tents from the merciless midday sun.  All the
afternoon they had dozed, just under the oranges that ripened within
their reach; but about four o'clock, the noise of a Ford car coming
up the boarded track to the aerodrome, from its journey to Jaffa,
woke them from their siesta.  A party had been down into the port on
a day's excursion.  It was their last probably, for early at dawn, on
the morrow, the great attack was to be made and every one of the
aeroplanes now receiving final touches from the mechanics would be
soaring in that blue and cloudless heaven whence death would rain
upon the trenches below.

"I haven't written those blessed letters after all," said Sanderson
yawning.  "I must do it to-night."

He stood up, a slim graceful youth in his shorts and khaki shirt.
The fierce Eastern sun had browned his legs and arms, though it had
not caught him so fiercely as John.  He rubbed his fingers through
his wavy hair and looked down at his companion.

"Do you know, Dean, I think you must be the re-incarnation of an arab
sheik--I never knew a fellow who loved the desert heat like
you--you're looking splendidly fit."  He laughed and threw an orange
at his companion as he lay in the shade.  "There's something feline
about the way you purr in this devilish climate."

John smiled, stood up and collected the letters he had written.

"Let's hear the news from Jaffa," he said to Sanderson--and strolled
across the clearing towards the fringe of tents.  They had been
together since John's arrival two months back, and this
happy-go-lucky lad of twenty reminded him at moments of poor Marsh.
He had the same volatile spirits, now very elated or full of
apprehension, tireless and restless, and very human and often
childlike in certain moods.  It was to John that he raved about Mary,
the little English girl in faraway Sussex, and so deep became their
intimacy that he entrusted her letters to John, for him to co-operate
in his intense admiration of her wonderful epistolary style, her
unbounded lovableness.  John soon knew much about his mother and
father, the latter a retired naval officer living in a little house
on the Devon Coast; through Sanderson, he could see the gentle little
lady who wrote in such a perfect hand with unbroken regularity,
chronicling the small events of the domestic round.  That Sanderson
loved her devotedly, John knew from the light that came into his eyes
when he talked of her.

"You must write those letters, Sandy," said John, as they entered the
mess-tent.  It was a task Sanderson hated, being always unable to
find anything to write about.  A letter meant much at home, and after
to-night they--

"I'll do 'em after dinner," promised Sanderson.

Dinner that evening was a merry affair.  The excitement of the morrow
was in their blood.  John looked round at his comrades, all very
young, not one giving any sign of the apprehension he might feel.
General Allenby was making a great push with his left flank,
stretching from the sandy coast to the Jordan basin and the rising
hills of Judæa.  The bombing squadron was engaged in the task of
cutting off the Turkish army on the line of retreat along the
Ferweh-Balata road.  The Turk was on the run and this might be a last
great opportunity.  They were to start before dawn.  Early in the
day, John had sought and obtained permission to accompany the
squadron.  Sanderson was to take him in his Bristol fighter.  The
spirit of victory was in the air.  That evening Sanderson twanged his
banjo with great spirit and sang "Glorious Devon" and his eyes
watered when MacDermott gave "Highland Mary," the heavy sentiment
assisted by many highland toasts.  Scottish or English, it was Mary,
and Sanderson almost broke down just before they retired to snatch a
few hours of sleep.

"Have you written those letters?" asked John,--Sanderson stood
stripped in the moonlight, shaking out his shirt.

"No."

"Then you're not coming into this tent until you have," said John
firmly.

"Well, I can't write like this, can I?"

John laughed, holding Sanderson's shorts firmly.

"You promise to write at once?"

"Yes--Lord, I'm cold."

"Here you are then, and here's my fountain pen; you can see in this
moonlight."

Sanderson sat down on a box and put a writing pad on his knees.  John
walked across the clearing for a final survey before turning in.  He
climbed a ridge behind the grove, and above the tree tops a vast
panorama swept into view.  Away to the left in the grey void, the sea
lay, the blue Mediterranean sea that glittered by day under the
changeless canopy of heaven.  In the night air he could hear the
far-off roar of the surf, fitfully borne on a wind blowing up the
ravine, laden with aromatic night-scents from the orange groves.  A
full moon hung in the sky, banishing many of the stars.  John stood
there, with a chill wind intermittently blowing upon him.


There had come to him in these days, here, in the hard adventure with
kindred spirits, in the intoxication of danger and human courage,
amid all that was splendid, perhaps the more splendid for its pitiful
transience, a contentment with life.  He was not maimed in the
spirit, though he had been sorely buffeted.  His greatest ally was
with him, the Future.  So much subservience to the omnipotent hand of
Fate had this East wrought in him, he would not rebel.  If Mrs.
Graham could see him now, see the change that had quieted him,
instead of recalling the tumult of those days when he had turned to
her in his blind agony, she might wonder at the quality of his love,
at a love that surrendered and was happy in the act.

"Muriel seems very happy," she wrote; "if I did not know I should
think she loved him deeply; they are never apart and she seems
unwearied in her service to him."  But did she know?  Who knew the
heart of any woman and who could apportion duty, sympathy and love?
Now he looked back, he saw that, tacitly, he and Muriel had loved,
without obstacles, without trials.  From the first dawn of instinct,
from that wintry day by the copse, when unknown temptings of Nature
and boyish impulse had made him gather her into his arms, they had
followed the natural course of their early affection.  For himself,
even now, he had never doubted but that the fulfilment of that first
impulse lay in his marriage to Muriel.  Painfully, but frankly, he
followed the remorseless logic of the facts.  It had comforted his
egotism, the eternal possessive instinct of man, to think that she
had married in a mood of pity; what if she also married for love,
suddenly awakened and all the stronger and more impetuous now it was
really awakened?

He saw now, that throughout he had insisted upon the requital of his
love, and perhaps his dominance had won until this stronger instinct
awakened in her.  He had banished all thought of her unfaithfulness,
all reproach for the blow he had suffered.  That day, for the first
time, he had written to her.  It had been a hard thing to do, because
he realised how kindness, understanding even, would hurt her.  But it
was not possible to go through life with a barrier of silence
separating lives that had such great memories in common, when the
morning hours had been so bright for them.  He had even referred to
meeting again, feeling in his heart there was nothing to forbid it;
and when he had written to Vernley, he had spoken of a "phase."  The
very word hurt him as he wrote, but it was a surgery he had to
perform, and this great distance made it easier.

Rising, he retraced his steps towards the camp.  He had just entered
the shade of the grove, when something suddenly tensed his whole
being into an attitude of listening.  His heart beat, and the blood
in his veins pulsed through a breathless pause.  Yes, he had heard
aright.  Once again on the still night air it swelled and died, the
old, never-to-be-forgotten, age-enduring drone of the _saz_, beaten
in the Turkish trenches.  Listening there, alert, his face turned to
the moon-bathed valley.  He was a boy again, the old impulse upon
him.  As a dream, his years fell from him.  This was Amasia and the
moon peered into the gorge, silvering the weirs of the old stream.
Louder and louder, changeless and potent as ever, the night air
pulsated with the immortal music of the East.  He turned and went
towards it, then halted with a short laugh at the strangeness of it
all, a medley of thoughts dancing through his brain to those exotic
strains, thoughts of deserted khans, crowded bazaars, a cowering
Armenian, the tragic dumb eyes of a Turkish boy, and another boy, in
a book-lined room playing a piano.

Then a voice suddenly cut sharply across the whispered suggestion of
the night.

"Dean!" it rang.

"Here--coming!" answered John, shivering with a nervous chill.  He
blundered across the stubble, scratching his bare knees.  The figure
of Sanderson loomed out of the darkness.

"Good heavens, Dean, I thought you'd been kidnapped--it's twelve
o'clock and we're off at four."

Sanderson had come up close now, and John's face shone clear and
blanched in the moonlight.  Its expression alarmed the younger man.

"I say--what's the matter?--you look hypnotised!"

"Rubbish," John laughed uneasily.  "I'm cold, that's all."

They walked back to the tent in silence and turned in.



II

It seemed only a few minutes later that the batman awakened them in
the dark tent.  Outside there was a movement of feet and voices
coming from the darkness.  Hastily John and Sanderson dressed, in
warm things this time, for the morning air was very cold.  All the
machines were out of the canvas hangars, lined up for the flight.
There were muffled figures and voices.  The mechanics stood by; there
was an intermittent roar of an engine as it started up and died down
again.

Sanderson climbs into his seat, John following.  This first five
minutes is trying to the nerves, his fingers are cold and he shivers
slightly.  They have said good-bye to the Wing Commander who has
wished them good luck.  Some will not return again, but their
thoughts do not dwell on the fact.

Sanderson turns his head and smiles.

"All right, Dean?" he calls.

"Yes."

The propeller in front moves round slowly and the engine fires and
begins with a roaring noise.  Now the propeller has vanished as it
gathers speed and they can see ahead, across the clearing, to the
orange groves and the blue ridge of moonlit mountains.  The mechanics
are wheeling the machine round for the run down the field, the engine
is tested with them hanging on to the wings, Sanderson waves his
hands, they let go.  They are off.  Imperceptibly they lift from the
ground up into the cold air of the moonlit night.  The grey-blue
country spreads around them.  The stars have vanished with a paling
moon; to the east the silver of the dawn creeps over a black ridge.
The low flat roofs of Jaffa are dimly visible, here and there they
catch a glimpse of moonlight rippling on the sea.  They are facing
the wind, but the roar of the engine is no longer audible, lulled by
the perpetuity of the sound.  The coast line grows more distant as
their eyes become accustomed to the light.  But dawn is breaking
rapidly.  They are flying, for the present, until the enemy lines are
reached, in close formation; to the left and right, like grey birds,
soar the other aeroplanes.  In a few minutes they will cross the
enemy's lines, over which they will have to deploy and run the
gauntlet of anti-aircraft fire.  Their crossing is well-timed, for
dawn is advancing.

"We're over--do you hear?" cried Sanderson.

Far below came on the wind a familiar sound.

_Ratatatattatatatatat!_

It was machine gun fire trying to find them in the darkness above.
They were flying down wind now and had lost their companions.  The
altimeter registered 8,000 feet.  And then suddenly the world was
transformed.  From a cloud-bank the sun emerged with a triumphant
blaze of yellow light.  John saw the light, like a live thing, go
streaming over the hills and valleys below, flooding in a thousand
hues the objects of day.  Behind them now, to the left, Jaffa, with
its white houses, sparkled on the edge of a blue expanse of sea,
wind-furrowed.  Back on the left like a dull mirror, lay the ghostly
outline of the Dead Sea, with the barren hills of Judæa.  The
coloured contours leapt up below them, the brown face of the
grain-land, the grey villages, the green patches of woodland.  A
silver spear shot athwart a green-gold valley, where the Jordan
twisted southwards to the Dead Sea.  From the sand dunes of the coast
to the Jordan basin a series of brown scars cut the earth's face.

"That's the last enemy line!" called Sanderson, pointing down.  "They
will be about, somewhere, now," and obedient to his wish, the machine
lifted her nose and climbed to 12,000 feet.  Already the change in
temperature was noticeable.  John had discarded his hat and tunic and
sat in shirt sleeves, the wind blowing through his hair.  They were
traversing the desolate hill-region of Lower Samaria with Nazareth,
highly situated to the West, and were now nearing the wild ravines
where they would find the Ferweh-Balata road.  John's heart beat
quicker at the approach of the desperate moment.  Far off, to the
north, a bright light flashed.  John noticed it twice before he
called Sanderson's attention to it.

"What is it?" asked Sanderson.  "A helio?"

"I don't know."

Again it flashed.

"I've got it!" cried John, putting his finger on the map.  "It's the
Sea of Galilee."

The next moment there floated up to them the sound of a dull report.

"That's a bomb--we've found 'em!  Look out, I'm going to
sweep--they're in one of these ravines.  We ought to pick up the road
here."

The wind sang down the planes as they banked and dropped, the
country-side slowly revolved as if on a disc.

"There!" cried John, pointing to a white, ribbon-like road threading
a deep gorge.  "Look--it's choked with transport!"

An aeroplane ahead hovered like a hawk, then, as if inert, fell to
within two hundred feet of the road, dropping its bombs.

Boom!  Boom!

There were two clouds of dust high over which the swerving aeroplane
swept.

_Ratatatatatatatatat!_--whirred its machine gun, ere the bird of
death leapt skywards again.

Below on the blocked road, pandemonium broke loose.  The mules reared
amid a debris of destroyed wagons; some of the drivers deserted their
seats and ran up the steep hillsides looking for shelter.  The
transport in front backed, the transport behind pressed forward, the
line swayed, bulged and writhed in confusion and noise.  A second
aeroplane swooped and increased the panic.  The road was now heaped
with dead and dying men and horses, abandoned lorries, guns, carts
and motor cars.  There was no place of refuge in that pitiless gorge.

"Are you ready?" called Sanderson.

John's hand sought the bomb release lever.

"Yes."

The next moment they had nose-dived; at the bottom of the dive,
Sanderson would pull out John waited for the moment, his eye on the
bomb-sight through which the road seemed leaping up to meet them.
Suddenly, the wind caught the rigid planes as the machine pulled out
of the dive.  Now!

John saw the two bombs go, turn over, fall in the distance; then a
pause, with the air singing in their ears and--

Boom!  Boom!

They were now climbing joyously.  Their companion, for some strange
reason, had turned to the west and was circling wide.

"What's he doing?" asked Sanderson, but the question was answered a
moment later when three enemy aircraft, their wings black-crossed,
emerged suddenly from a cloud-bank.

_Ratatatatatatatatat! ratatatat! ratatatatat!_ went several machine
guns.

Sanderson turned and climbed towards the trio swooping down upon the
lonely prey.  But his man[oe]uvre was seen.  Two of the enemy planes
detached themselves and turned to meet the aggressor.

"Phillips can look after himself," called Sanderson, but his optimism
changed when a fourth enemy machine came out of the clouds.  It was
four to two now.  Still Sanderson climbed.  His machine was faster
than theirs.  John saw his intention--to make an Immelmann turn and
get underneath the enemy and rake him with machine gun fire.

At the top of the climb there was a sudden _ratatata!_ which sounded
in their ears, ominously near.  It came from above them, a fifth
machine emerging from a cloud-bank, at a distance of eighty yards.
John felt a sudden buffet, as though the wind had struck him,
Sanderson's hand shot out to his gun, and there was an answering
burst of firing, full into the belly of the machine above.  It fell
swiftly out of control with a wounded or dead pilot.

"Oh, good!  Good!" yelled John.

Sanderson turned with a swift smile of triumph, ere tackling the
machine below, but his smile changed to a look of concern.

"Dean--you're hit!"

"Hit?" echoed John, and looked down.  His shirt was wet with blood.
He plunged his hand into the open neck.  A thin stream welled out
from the left breast.  Yet he had felt nothing.  He was about to
reassure Sanderson, when a sudden burst of firing broke on his ears.
The next moment, with a fearful roar, a machine swept over them, the
sparks from the exhaust trailing behind like a comet's tail.  They
swerved, climbed, and then fell.  Down they went, leaving the enemy
above; down, with an increasing roar of the wind, as they gathered
momentum.  Ten thousand, nine thousand, eight thousand, louder roared
the wind, and John caught a glimpse of the country below as it leapt
to meet them.  It seemed incredible that the planes could stand this
strain.  Every moment he expected the machine to open up, but
Sanderson knew his work; he was safe in his hands.  They were falling
still.  Surely only three thousand feet now?  Wasn't Sanderson
cutting it rather fine.  He could see his head in front, familiar and
reassuring.  Two thousand!

"Sanderson!" John called.  He had no right to, of course, but
something impelled him.  The roar of the wind carried his voice away.

"Sanderson!"

Loud, this time, yet the head of the pilot did not move.

"Sanderson!" screamed John.

A sudden swerve, and the machine shuddered from wing tip to tail.  He
Was pulling out at last.  No! they falling again.  John stretched
forward, dizzy now with loss of blood.

"Sander--"

The cry was unfinished.  Sanderson lay with his head inert on the
side of the fuselage.  They were out of control!  Faint, John fell
back; the wind screamed in his ears as they swept to earth.




CHAPTER II

An hour before sunset, a group of Arab horsemen came over the scrubby
hillocks, following the indistinct route worn by mules, which led,
five miles to the north, to the main route to Damascus.  Their horses
were tired, for they had been hard pressed, and on the faces of the
riders something of the panic of the early morning was still visible.
They were alive, indeed, and fortunate in the fact, for hundreds had
fallen in that dreadful massacre in the gorge.  Picturesque they
were, in an assorted fashion, but as soldiers they were not
impressive, dressed in ragged gowns and dirty head-dresses, their
beards untrimmed.  More like a band of brigands, than a part of the
routed 7th Turkish Army, they rode in disorder.  The level sunlight
flashed on the strange weapons stuck in their belts, ivory-handled
knives, murderously long, revolvers of an obsolete fashion and
pistols with heavy ebony handles.  The young officer in command of
them could ill-conceal his contempt of this rabble, and watched them
with a cautious eye, knowing that they would as readily plunge their
knives into him as into that of any luckless traveller.  Accompanied
by four juniors he rode behind, saddle-sore and depressed.

A cry at his side made him look up.  His sergeant was pointing to
something in the ravine below.  Half a dozen Arabs had broken away
from the column and were racing down the rocky steep to reach the
plunder.  The officer shaded his eyes from the glare of the sun.  The
stark outline of a shattered fuselage reared up on end from a twisted
mass of machinery.  A broken wing lay twenty yards apart, It was no
unfamiliar sight, this, of a crashed aeroplane.  He made no effort to
recall the Arabs, for his command would be ignored.  The possibility
of plunder shattered all discipline.  Contemptuously he reined up his
horse on the hillock and waited.  The transport halted behind them;
even in retreat they disliked hurry.

"There's nothing left, I'm sure--it's a bad crash," said the officer,
surveying the twisted frame-work through his glasses.  "The engine's
half buried--poor devil!"

The Arabs had soon finished their inspection, and with disappointment
were riding back, all but two, who suddenly turned aside and
dismounted.

"Why don't they come?" asked the young Turk, turning to his sergeant.
"Go--hurry them up--I will not wait."

The sergeant detached himself, his horse carefully testing its way
down the steep.  The officer gave the command to march, the column
jogged forward in disorderly fashion, the transport drivers behind
cracked their whips and swore at the jaded mules, the cloud of dust
rose again on their trail along the barren hills.  They had not gone
a mile ahead when the sergeant overtook the commandant again.

"It was a body--they'd stripped him, but I made them give up these
papers in his pocket, and this."

He handed a pocket book, some envelopes and a thin chain to the
officer.  On the end of the chain a pendant swung and glinted in the
sunset.  The officer examined it before looking at the papers.  A
thin strand of hair, brown hair, was tied round the link that held
the frame in which an oval moonstone was set.  On one side there was
a minute engraving of an eye, on the other, one word, in Turkish,
"Kismet."

For a long moment, the young officer spoke no word as he held the
stone in his hand.  The sergeant waited.  As they stood, the
transport column filed past them, lorries and guns, and all the
impedimenta of an army in retreat.  The men were badly shod, their
uniforms ragged.  They were ill-fed and half rebellious, but the
enemy were sweeping up behind and safety lay ahead; only the impulse
for safety spurred their flagging spirits.

"Where was the body?" asked the Turk, without apparent interest.

"About twenty yards from the aeroplane, sir."

"The other--there were two?"

"Yes, sir, the pilot probably--the machine fired and there's little
left."

The end of the column was in sight now.  The sergeant turned his
horse as if to join the line, but his officer did not move.  The last
lorry lumbered by in a cloud of dust.

"I will have a look at this machine, it may tell us something," said
the officer, turning his horse.  The sergeant followed.

"No," he said, sharply.  "You go on--I will overtake you in a few
minutes."

"Yes, sir."  The man saluted and rode off after the cloud of dust.
The lonely horseman waited.  Quiet was settling down in the hills
again.  The next transport column would be an hour's march away yet;
it would be dusk ere they arrived.  Spurring his horse, he went back
along the rutted road until the ravine with the crashed aeroplane at
the bottom came into sight.  Dismounting, he tethered his horse by
the path and made his way slowly down the slope, still holding in his
right hand the talisman taken from the dead Englishman.  If what he
feared was true it was a strange meeting after these many years.
Kismet indeed!

He had reached the bottom of the slope now, dusty and shaken by his
swift descent.  It was dusk already in the ravine and the level rays
of the sunset were gilding the ridges of the hills above.  He
shivered in the cool shade, and the silence grew oppressive.  The
call of a jackal came from a thicket near by, a horrible,
blood-chilling whine.  He stumbled.  The light would be gone if he
did not hurry.

He could see the object he sought, a small patch on the ground ahead;
breaking into a run, he approached the naked body of the dead man.
Those bandits had stripped him, and he lay stretched out, his set
face turned to the sky.  Two birds took sudden flight at the approach
of the man, and rose with a whirr of large black wings, sinister and
sickening to the sight in their repulsive portent.

Flinging himself to his knees, he bent over the slim body lying so
inert.  For a few moments he had no courage to look into the face.
Beautiful, he lay in death, like a perfect figure of marble,--the
whiteness only broken on the left breast, bloody and scarred.  Had
the miscreants murdered him in their plundering?  No, for this thin
stream of blood from the wound had dried long ago.

Bending forward, the living face looked on the dead, and in that
moment of recognition a sharp cry of pain broke on the desert hush.
Gathering him up in his arms, he pressed the lifeless body to his
breast.

"Oh, John effendi!  Oh, John effendi!" he sobbed, brushing back the
hair from the brow of the dead man.

"See, I have our token and thou wast faithful, John effendi!  Great
brother of my heart, what woe is come upon us!  Dost thou not hear
me?  'Tis I, Ali, thy friend of boyhood's days.  O thou unfortunate
one!  Unhappy the servant of Allah, that these eyes thus behold thee,
most beloved brother of my soul, John effendi!  Oh, John effendi!"

He bent over the lifeless form, peering into the unclosed eyes of the
dead man as if he would read therein some words of recognition, of
greeting.  He had not changed, this friend of happy days by Yeshil
Irmak's singing waters.  The face that had faded in distance from the
fountain at Amasia was this face of death found in the desert, and
the years had scarcely touched it, perhaps only to make it sterner,
more handsome.  Great was the will of Allah to bring them together
again across the ways of the world.  Thus had he beheld him on the
hill on that last day of parting when the night crept over the gorge
at Amasia; night crept on now, night with its stillness and its
stars, and he could not go hence again.  Brothers in life they were,
were they not brothers in death; were not their feet wedded to the
same great adventure?

With his handkerchief he wiped the sand and blood from the face of
the dead man, smoothed the bruised brow.  Beautiful he was, in this
hour of meeting.

"O John effendi," he cried, pressing his mouth to the cold brow.
"Our footsteps have gone out upon the dusty way and we are met again.
Allah in his greatness willed it so!"

The darkness of night gathered about the living and the dead.  Above,
the brazen dome held the last flush of day.  In the cool east a few
stars came on the flood of darkness.  From hill-top to hill-top the
greyness crept and the valleys filled with shadow.  The moon, low on
the dark horizon, brightened; the timorous stars spangled the
heavenly way with bright battalions.  The hill ridges, black in the
sunset, softened and sank in the encroaching tide of night.

Such silence, such peace, such coolness after the noisy, parching
day!  Foolish man, fretful with his bewildering schemes, his fears
and frenzy, his comings and goings over the face of the indifferent
earth--all, all engulfed in the enduring silence.  And for the end of
all--this beneficent peace.

But no, even now, the hush is broken.  Out of the darkness it comes,
mysterious, stirring, portentous,--the sound of a thousand years, the
low insistent droning of a drum.  Listening, the living hears its
mournful, suggestive music, even as he heard it in the khans at
Amasia.  It rises, it falls, undulating.  And if the dead hear, then
is the call familiar,--the call of a far-off night, when, under
almond blossom, a little white figure, dream-impelled, stepped
towards the moonlit stream.

Nearer it comes, nearer, nearer.  The night winds bear it afar down
the ravine; it is the music of war, the music of a thousand
conquerors marching in brief glory out to the silence of death.

Gently the living man lowers the dead from his arms.  He rises to his
feet, solitary and minute under the inquisition of the stars.  The
tethered horse on the highway stirs and whinnies.  The transport
column comes winding along the road of retreat.  Nearer now, sound
the drums; soon the riderless horse will be found.

Suddenly, shattering the night, a shot rings out, doing violence to
the quiet of the valley.  The echo ricochets from hill-top to
hill-top and faintly dies in the distance.  The deep hush flows
again, the eddies of sound fade out on the pool of silence.  Over the
grey crest of the eastern hills the moon climbs, pouring its light
into the ravine.  A jackal cries and slinks away among the scrub; and
again, the insistent calling of a drum.



THE END











*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCISSORS ***


    

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may
do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
license, especially commercial redistribution.


START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person
or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when
you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work
on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
    other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
    whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
    of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
    at www.gutenberg.org. If you
    are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws
    of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
  
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg™ License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format
other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
provided that:

    • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
        the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method
        you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
        to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has
        agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
        within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
        legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
        payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
        Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
        Literary Archive Foundation.”
    
    • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
        you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
        does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™
        License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
        copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
        all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™
        works.
    
    • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
        any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
        electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
        receipt of the work.
    
    • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
        distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.
    

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™

Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website
and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state
visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.