E-text prepared by Al Haines



THE PARTS MEN PLAY

by

ARTHUR BEVERLEY BAXTER

Author of "The Blower of Bubbles"

With Foreword by Lord Beaverbrook







McClelland & Stewart
Publishers ======== Toronto
Copyright, Canada, 1920
By McClelland & Stewart, Limited, Toronto





  THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED

  TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER

  JAMES BENNETT BAXTER

  WHO BELIEVED THOUGHT TO BE MORE IMPORTANT
    THAN THINGS, AND WHO WENT THROUGH THIS
      WORLD DISPENSING GENIAL PHILOSOPHY
        AND KINDLY HUMOUR TO ALL
          WHO CAME WITHIN
            HIS CIRCLE




FOREWORD.

Mr. Baxter is my countryman, and, as a Canadian, I commend _The Parts
Men Play_, not only for its literary vitality, but for the freshness of
outlook with which the author handles Anglo-American susceptibilities.

A Canadian lives in a kind of half-way house between Britain and the
United States.  He understands Canada by right of birth; he can
sympathise with the American spirit through the closest knowledge born
of contiguity; his history makes him understand Britain and the British
Empire.  He is, therefore, a national interpreter between the two
sundered portions of the race.

It is this rôle of interpreter that Mr. Baxter is destined to fill, a
rôle for which he is peculiarly suited, not only by temperament, but by
reason of his experiences gained from his entrance into the world of
London journalism and English literature.

I do not know in what order the chapters of _The Parts Men Play_ were
written, but it seems to me that as Mr. Baxter gets to grip with the
realities of his theme, he begins to lose a certain looseness of touch
which marks his opening pages.  If so, he is showing the power of
development, and to the artist this power is everything.  The writer
who is without it is a mere static consciousness weaving words round
the creatures of his own imagination.  The man who has it possesses a
future, because he is open to the teaching of experience.  And among
the men with a future I number Mr. Baxter.

Throughout the book his pictures of life are certainly arresting--taken
impartially both in Great Britain and America.  What could be better
than some of his descriptions?

The speech of the American diplomat at a private dinner is the truest
defence and explanation of America's delay in coming into the war that
I remember to have read.  The scene is set in the high light of
excitement, and the rhetorical phrasing of the speech would do credit
to a famous orator.

But I fear that I may be giving the impression that _The Parts Men
Play_ is merely a piece of propagandist fiction--something from which
the natural man shrinks back with suspicion.  Nothing could be farther
from the truth.  Mr. Baxter's strength lies in the rapid flow and sweep
of his narrative.  His characterisation is clear and firm in outline,
but it is never pursued into those quicksands of minute analysis which
too often impede the stream of good story-telling.

I am glad that a Canadian novelist should have given us a book which
supports the promise shown by the author in _The Blower of Bubbles_,
and marks him out for a distinguished future.

If in the course of a novel of action he has something to teach his
British readers about the American temperament, and his American public
about British mentality, so much the better.


BEAVERBROOK.




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER

     I.  LADY DURWENT DECIDES ON A DINNER
    II.  CONCERNING LADY DURWENT'S FAMILY
   III.  ABOUT A TOWN HOUSE
    IV.  PROLOGUE TO A DINNER-PARTY
     V.  THE OLYMPIANS THUNDER
    VI.  A MORNING IN NOVEMBER
   VII.  THE CAFE ROUGE
  VIII.  INTERMEZZO
    IX.  A HOUSE-PARTY AT ROSELAWN
     X.  GATHERING SHADOWS
    XI.  THE RENDING OF THE VEIL
   XII.  THE HONOURABLE MALCOLM DURWENT STARTS ON A JOURNEY
  XIII.  THE MAN OF SOLITUDE
   XIV.  STRANGE CRAFT
    XV.  DICK DURWENT
   XVI.  THE FEMININE TOUCH
  XVII.  MOONLIGHT
 XVIII.  ELISE
   XIX.  EN VOYAGE
    XX.  THE GREAT NEUTRAL
   XXI.  A NIGHT IN JANUARY
  XXII.  THE CHALLENGE
 XXIII.  THE SMUGGLER BREED
  XXIV.  THE SENTENCE
   XXV.  THE FIGHT FOR THE BRIDGE
  XXVI.  THE END OF THE ROAD
 XXVII.  A LIGHT ON THE WATER




THE PARTS MEN PLAY.


CHAPTER I.

LADY DURWENT DECIDES ON A DINNER.


I.

His Majesty's postmen were delivering mail.  Through the gray grime of
a November morning that left a taste of rust in the throat, the
carriers of letters were bearing their cargo to all the corners of that
world which is called London.

There were letters from hospitals asking for funds; there were appeals
from sick people seeking admission to hospital.  There were long, legal
letters and little, scented letters lying wonderingly together in the
postman's bag.  There were notes from tailors to gentlemen begging to
remind them; and there were answers from gentlemen to their tailors, in
envelopes bearing the crests of Pall Mail clubs, hinting of temporary
embarrassment, but mentioning certain prospects that would shortly
enable them to . . . .

Fat, bulging envelopes, returning manuscripts with editors' regrets,
were on their way to poor devils of scribblers living in the altitude
of unrecognised genius and a garret.  There were cringing, fawning
epistles, written with a smirk and sealed with a scowl; some there were
couched in a refinement of cruelty that cut like a knife.

But, as unconcerned as tramps plying contraband between South America
and Mexico, His Majesty's postmen were delivering His Majesty's mail,
with never a thought of the play of human emotions lying behind the
sealed lips of an envelope.  If His Majesty's subjects insisted upon
writing to one another, it was obvious that their letters, in some
mysterious way become the property of His Majesty, had to be delivered.

Thus it happened, on a certain November morning in the year 1913, that
six dinner invitations, enclosed in small, square envelopes with a
noble crest on the back, and large, unwieldy writing on the front, were
being carried through His Majesty's fog to six addresses in the West
End of London.

Lady Durwent had decided to give a dinner.

An ordinary hostess merely writes a carelessly formal note stating that
she hopes the recipient will be able to dine with her on a certain
evening.  The form of her invitations varies as little as the
conversation at her table.  But Lady Durwent was _unusual_.  For years
she had endeavoured to impress the fact on London, and by careful
attention to detail had at last succeeded in gaining that reputation.
She was that _rara avis_ among the women of to-day--the hostess who
knows her guests.  She never asked any one to dine at her house without
some definite purpose in mind--and, for that matter, her guests never
dined with her except on the same terms.

Therefore it came about that Lady Durwent's dinners were among the
pleasantest things in town, and, true to her character of the
_unusual_, she always worded her invitations with a nice discrimination
dictated by the exact motive that prompted the sending.


II.

H. Stackton Dunckley looked up from his pillow as the man-servant who
valeted for the gentlemen of the Jermyn Street Chambers drew aside a
gray curtain and displayed the gray blanket of the atmosphere outside.

'Good-morning, Watson,' said Mr. Dunckley in a voice which gave the
impression that he had smoked too many cigars the previous evening--an
impression considerably strengthened by the bilious appearance of his
face.

'Good-morning, sir.  Will you have the _Times_ or the _Morning Post_?
And here are your letters, sir.'

The recumbent gentleman took the letters and waved them philosophically
at the valet.  'Leave me to my thoughts,' he said thickly, but with
considerable dignity.  'I am not interested in the squeaky jarring of
the world revolving on its rusty axis.'

Being an author, he almost invariably tried out his command of language
in the morning, as a tenor essays two or three notes on rising, to make
sure that his voice has not left him during his slumber.

Mr. Watson bowed and withdrew.  H. Stackton Dunckley lit a cigarette,
opened the first letter, and read it.


'8 CHELMSFORD GARDENS.

'MY DEAR STACKY,--Next Friday I am giving a little dinner-party--just a
few _unusual_ people--to meet an American author who has recently come
to England.  Do come; but, you brilliant man, don't be too caustic,
will you?

'Isn't it dreadful the way gossip is connecting our names?  Supposing
Lord Durwent should hear about it!--Until Friday,

'SYBIL DURWENT.

'P.S.--How is _the_ play coming on?  Dinner will be at 8.30.'


H. Stackton Dunckley put the letter down and sighed.  He was an author
who had been writing other men's ideas all his life, but without
sufficient distinction to achieve either a success or a failure.  He
had gained some notoriety by his wife suing him for divorce; but when
the Court granted her separation on the ground of desertion, it cleared
him of the charge of infidelity--and of the chance of advertisement at
the same moment.  Later, by being a constant attendant on Lady Durwent,
he almost succeeded in creating a scandal; but, to the great
disappointment of them both, London flatly refused to believe there was
anything wrong.  For one thing, she was the daughter of a commoner--and
the morality of the middle classes is a conviction solidly rooted in
English society.  And then there were his writings.  How could one
doubt the character of a man so dull?

Undiscouraged, they still maintained their perfectly innocent
friendship, and, like kittens playing with a spool, invested it with
all the appearances of an intrigue.

Dismissing his depressing thoughts, H. Stackton Dunckley noticed that
his cigarette was out, and closing his eyes, fell asleep once more.


III.

Madame Carlotti, clothed in a kimono of emphatic shade, sat by the fire
in her rooms in Knightsbridge and read her mail while sipping coffee.
She was the wife of an Italian diplomat, a sort of wandering
plenipotentiary who did business in every part of the world but London,
and with every Government but that of Britain.  It was the signora's
somewhat incomprehensible complaint that her husband's duties forced
her to live in that fog-bound metropolis, and having thus achieved the
pedestal of a martyr, she poured abuse on everything English from
climate to customs.  Possessed of a certain social dexterity and the
ability to make the most ordinary conversation seem to concern a
forbidden topic, Madame Carlotti was in great demand as a guest, and
abused more English habits and attended more dinner-parties than any
other woman in London.

From beneath seven tradesmen's letters she extracted one from Lady
Durwent.


'8 CHELMSFORD GARDENS,

'DEAREST LUCIA,--I am counting on you for next Friday.  A young
American author studying England--I suppose like that Count
Something-or-other in _Pickwick Papers_--is coming to dinner.  I
understand he drinks very little, so I am relying on you to thaw him.

'Stackton Dunckley _insists_ upon coming, though I tell him that it is
dangerous; and of course people are saying dreadful things, I know.  He
is _so_ persistent.  There will be just half-a-dozen _unusual_ people
there, my dear, so don't fail me.  Dinner will be at 8.30.--So
sincerely,    SYBIL DERWENT.

'P.S.--Don't you think you could make Stackton interested in you?  Your
husband is away so much.'


Madame Carlotti smiled with her teeth and drank some very strong coffee.

'It ees deefficult,' she said, with that seductive formation of the
lips used by her countrywomen when speaking English, 'for a magnet to
attract putty.  Still--there ees the American.  At least I shall not be
altogether bored.'


IV.

That noon, in a restaurant of Chelsea, the district of Pensioners and
Bohemians, two young gentlemen, considerably in need of renovation by
both tailor and barber, met at a table and nodded gloomily.  One was
Johnston Smyth, an artist, who, finding himself possessed neither of a
technique nor of the industry to acquire one, had evolved a
super-futurist style that had made him famous in a night.  He was
spoken of as 'a new force;' it was prophesied that English Art would
date from him.  Unfortunately his friends neglected to buy his
paintings, and as his art was a vivid one, consisting of vast
quantities of colour splashed indiscriminately on the canvas, it took
more than his available funds to purchase the accessories of his
calling.  He was tall, with expressive arms that were too long for his
sleeves, and a nose that would have done credit to a field-marshal.

The other was Norton Pyford, the modernist composer, who had developed
the study of discord to such a point that his very features seemed to
lack proportion, and when he smiled his face presented a lop-sided
appearance.  He had given a recital which set every one who is any one
in London talking.  There was but one drawback--they talked so much
that he could persuade no one to listen, and he carried his discords
about with him, like a bad half-crown, unable to rid himself of them.
He was short, with a retreating forehead and an overhanging wealth of
black, thread-like hair, gamely covering the retreat as best it could.

'Hello, Smyth!' drawled the composer, who affected a manner of speech
usually confined to footmen in the best families.  'Hah d' do?'

'Topping, Pyford.  How's things?'

'Rotten.'

'Same here.'

'I say, you couldn't'----

'Just what I was going to ask you.'

The composer sighed; the artist echoed the sigh.

'Have you seen Shaw's show?'

'Awful, isn't it?'

'Putrid--but the English don't'----

'Ah!  What a race!'

'Just so.  I say, are you going to Lady Durwent's on Friday?'

'Yes, rather.'

'Look here, old fellow--don't dress, eh?'

'Right.  Let's be natural--what?  Just Bohemians.'

'The very thing.  By-the-by, you don't know a laundry that gives'----

'No, I can't say I do.'

'Well, so long.'

'Good-bye.'

'See you Friday.'

'Right.'


V.

Mrs. Le Roy Jennings looked up from her task of drafting the new
Resolution to be presented to Parliament by the League of Equal Sex
Rights and Complete Emancipation for Women, as a diminutive,
half-starved servant brought in a letter on a tray.

Mrs. Jennings took the missive, and frowning threateningly at the girl,
who withdrew to the dark recesses of the servants' quarters, opened it
by slitting its throat with a terrific paper-knife.


'8 CHELMSFORD GARDENS.

'DEAR MRS LE ROY JENNINGS,--An American author is coming to dinner next
Friday.  There will just be a few _unusual_ people, and I have asked
them for 8.30.  I want him to meet one of England's intellectual women,
and I _know_ he will be interested to hear of your ideas on the New
Home.

'My daughter joins with me in wishing you every success.--Until Friday,
dear,

'SYBIL DURWENT.'


Mrs. Jennings, who had made a complete failure of her own home, and
consequently felt qualified to interfere with all others, scribbled a
hasty note of acceptance in a handwriting so forceful that on some
words the pen slid off the paper completely.

Then, with a look of profundity, she resumed the Resolution.


VI.

And so, by the medium of His Majesty's mail, a little group of actors
were warned for a performance at Lady Durwent's house, No. 8 Chelmsford
Gardens.

Through the November fog the endless traffic of the streets was
cautiously feeling its way along the diverging channels of the
Metropolis--a snorting, sliding, impatient fleet of vehicles
perpetually on their way, yet never seeming to get there.  Taxi-cabs
hugged the pavements, trying to penetrate the gloom with their meagre
lights; omnibuses fretted and bullied their way, avoiding collision by
inches, but struggling on and on as though their very existence
depended on their reaching some place immediately or being interned for
failure.  Hansom-cabs, with ancient, glistening horses driven by
ancient, glistening cabbies, felt for elbow-space in the throng of
motor-vehicles.  And on all sides the badinage of the streets, the
eternal wordy conflict of London's mariners of traffic, rose in
cheerful, insulting abundance.

On the pavements pedestrians jostled each other--men with hands in
their pockets and arms tight to their sides, women with piqued noses
and hurrying steps; while sulky lamps offered half-hearted resistance
to the conquering fog that settled over palaces, parks, and motley
streets until it hugged the very Thames itself in unholy glee.

And through the impenetrable mist of circumstance, the millions of
souls that make up the great city pursued their millions of destinies,
undeterred by biting cold and grisly fog.  For it was a day in the life
of England's capital; and every day there is a great human drama that
must be played--a drama mingling tragedy and humour with no regard to
values or proportion; a drama that does not end with death, but renews
its plot with the breaking of every dawn; a drama knowing neither
intermezzo nor respite: and the name of it is--LONDON.




CHAPTER II

CONCERNING LADY DURWENT'S FAMILY.


I.

Lady Durwent was rather a large woman, of middle age, with a high
forehead unruffled by thought, and a clear skin unmarred by wrinkles.
She had a cheerfulness that obtruded itself, like a creditor, at
unpropitious moments; and her voice, though not displeasing, gave the
impression that it might become volcanic at any moment.  She also
possessed a considerable theatrical instinct, with which she would
frequently manoeuvre to the centre of the stage, to find, as often as
not, that she had neglected the trifling matter of learning any lines.

She was the daughter of an ironmonger in the north of England, whose
father had been one of the last and most famous of a long line of
smugglers.  It was perhaps the inherited love of adventure that
prompted the ironmonger, against his wife's violent protest, to invest
the savings of a lifetime in an obscure Canadian silver-mine.  To the
surprise of every one (including its promoters), the mine produced
high-grade ore in such abundance that the ironmonger became a man of
means.  Thereupon, at the instigation of his wife, they moved from
their little town into the city of York, where he purchased a large,
stuffily furnished house, sat on Boards, became a councillor, wore
evening-dress for dinner, and died a death of absolute respectability.

Before the final event he had the satisfaction of seeing his only child
Sybil married to Arthur, Lord Durwent.  (The evening-clothes for dinner
were a direct result.)  Lord Durwent was a well-behaved young man of
unimpeachable character and family, and he was sincerely attracted by
the agreeable expanse of lively femininity found in the fair Sybil.
After a wedding that left her mother a triumphant wreck and appreciably
hastened her father's demise, she was duly installed as the mistress of
Roselawn, the Durwent family seat, and its tributary farms.  The
tenants gave her an address of welcome; her husband's mother gracefully
retired to a villa in Sussex; the rector called and expressed
gratification; the county families left their cards and inquired after
her father, the ironmonger.

Unfortunately the new Lady Durwent had the temperament neither of a
poet nor of a lady of the aristocracy.  She failed to hear the tongues
in trees, and her dramatic sense was not satisfied with the little
stage of curtsying tenantry and of gentlefolk who abhorred the very
thought of anything theatrical in life.

On the other hand, her husband was a man who was unhappy except on his
estate.  He thought along orthodox lines, and read with caution.  He
loved his lawns, his gardens, his horses, and his habits.  He was a
pillar of the church, and always read a portion of Scripture from the
reading-desk on Sunday mornings.  His wife he treated with simple
courtesy as the woman who would give him an heir.  If his mind had been
a little more sensitive, Lord Durwent would have realised that he was
asking a hurricane to be satisfied with the task of a zephyr.

They had a son.

The tenants presented him with a silver bowl; Lord Durwent presented
them with a garden fête; and the parents presented the boy with the
name of Malcolm.

Two years later there came a daughter.

The tenants gave her a silver plate; Lord Durwent gave them a garden
fête; and he and his wife gave the girl the name of Elise.

Three years later a second son appeared.

There was a presentation, followed by a garden fête and a christening.
The name was Richard.

In course of time the elder son grew to that mental stature when the
English parent feels the time is ripe to send him away to school.  The
ironmonger's daughter had the idea that Malcolm, being her son, was
hers to mould.

'My dear,' said Lord Durwent, exerting his authority almost for the
first time, 'the boy is eight years of age, and no time must be lost in
preparing him for Eton and inculcating into him those qualities which
mark'----

'But,' cried his wife with theatrical unrestraint, 'why send him to
Eton?  Why not wait until you see what he wants to be in the world?'

Lord Durwent's face bore a look of unperturbed calm.  'When he is old
enough, he must go to Eton, my dear, and acquire the qualities which
will enable him to take over Roselawn at my death'----

At this point Lady Durwent interrupted him with a tirade which, in
common with a good many domestic unpleasantries, was born of much that
was irrelevant, springing from sources not readily apparent.  She
abused the public-school system of England, and sneered at the county
families which blessed the neighbourhood with their presence.  She
reviled Lord Durwent's habits, principally because they _were_ habits,
and thought it was high time some Durwent grew up who wasn't just a
'sticky, stuffy, starched, and bored porpoise--yes, PORPOISE!' (shaking
her head as if to establish the metaphor against the whole of the
English aristocracy).  In short, it was the spirit of the Ironmonger
castigating the Peerage, and at its conclusion Lady Durwent felt much
abused, and quite pleased with her own rhetoric.

Lord Durwent glanced for courage at an ancestor who looked
magnificently down at him over a ruffle.  He adjusted his own cravat
and spoke in nicely modulated accents: 'Sybil, nothing can change me on
this point.  In spite of what you say, it is my intention to keep to
the tradition of the Durwents, and that is that the occupant of
Roselawn'----

'What! am not I his mother?' cried the good woman, her hysteria having
much the same effect on Lord Durwent's smoothly developing monologue as
a heavy pail dropped by a stage-hand during Hamlet's soliloquy.

'Sybil,' said Lord Durwent sternly, 'it was arranged at Malcolm's birth
that he should go to Eton.  I shall take him next Tuesday to a
preparatory school, and you must excuse me if I refuse to discuss the
matter further.'

Lady Durwent rushed from the room and clasped her eldest child in her
arms.  That young gentleman, not knowing what had caused his mother's
grief, sympathetically opened his throat and bellowed lustily, thereby
shedding tears for positively the last time in his life.

When he returned for the holidays a few months later, he was an
excellent example of that precocity, the English schoolboy, who cloaks
a juvenile mind with the pose of sophistication, and by twelve years of
age achieves a code of thought and conduct that usually lasts him for
the rest of his life.  In vain the mother strove for her place in the
sun; the rule of the masculine at Roselawn became adamant.

Life in the Durwent _ménage_ developed into a thing of laws and customs
dictated by the youthful despot, aided and abetted by his father.  The
sacred rites of 'what isn't done' were established, and the mother
gradually found herself in the position of an outsider--a privileged
outsider, it is true, yet little more than the breeder of a
thoroughbred, admitted to the paddock to watch his horse run by its new
owner.

She vented her feelings in two or three tearful scenes, but she felt
that they lacked spontaneity, and didn't really put her heart into them.

During these struggles for her place in a Society that was probably
more completely masculine in domination than any in the world (with the
possible exception of that of the Turk), Lady Durwent was only dimly
aware that her daughter was developing a personality which presented a
much greater problem than that of the easily grooved Malcolm.

The girl's hair was like burnished copper, and her cheeks were lit by
two bits of scarlet that could be seen at a distance before her
features were discernible.  Her eyes were of a gray-blue that changed
in shade with her swiftly varying moods.  Her lower lip was full and
red, the upper one firm and repressed with the dull crimson of a fading
rose-petal.  Her shapely arms and legs were restless, seemingly
impatient to break into some quickly moving dance.  She was
extraordinarily alive.  Vitality flashed from her with every gesture,
and her mind, a thing of caprice and whim, knew no boundaries but those
of imagination itself.

Puzzled and entirely unable to understand anything so instinctive, Lady
Durwent engaged a governess who was personally recommended by Lady
Chisworth, whose friend the Countess of Oxeter had told her that the
three daughters of the Duchess of Dulworth had all been entrusted to
her care.

In spite of this almost unexampled set of references, the governess was
completely unable to cope with Elise Durwent.  She taught her (among
other things) decorum and French.  Her pupil was openly irreverent
about the first; and when the governess, after the time-honoured
method, produced an endless vista of exceptions to the rule in French
grammar, the girl balked.  She was willing to compromise on _Avoir_,
but mutinied outright at the ramifications of _Être_.

Seeing that the child was making poor progress, and as it was out of
the question to dismiss a governess who had been entrusted with the
three daughters of the Duchess of Dulworth, Lady Durwent sent for
reinforcement in the person of the organist of their church, and bade
him teach Elise the art of the piano.  With the dull lack of vision
belonging to men of his type, he failed to recognise the spirit of
music lying in her breast, merely waiting the call to spring into life.
He knew that her home was one where music was unheard, and his method
of unfolding to the girl the most spiritual and fundamental of all the
arts was to give her SCALES.  He was a kindly, well-intentioned fellow,
and would not willingly have hurt a sparrow; but he took a nature
doomed to suffer for lack of self-expression, and succeeded in walling
up the great river of music which might have given her what she lacked.
He hid the edifice and offered her scaffolding--then wondered.


II.

Elise was consistent in few things, but her love for Richard, the
youngest of the family, was of a depth and a mature tenderness that
never varied.  Doomed to an insufficient will-power and an easy,
plastic nature that lent itself readily to the abbreviation 'Dick,' he
quickly succumbed to his fiery-tinted sister, and became a willing dupe
in all her escapades.

At her order he turned the hose on the head-gardener; when told to put
mucilage on the rector's chair at dinner, he merely asked for the pot.
On six different occasions she offered him soap, telling him it was
toffy, and each time he bit of it generously and without suspicion.
Every one else in the house represented law and order to him--Elise was
the spirit of outlawry, and he her slave.  She taught him a dance of
her own invention entitled 'The Devil and the Maiden' (with a certain
inconsistency casting him as the maiden and herself as the Devil), and
frequently, when ordered to go to bed, they would descend to the
servants' quarters and perform it to the great delight of the family
retainers.

A favourite haunt of theirs was the stables, where they would persuade
the grooms to place them on their father's chargers; and they were
frequent visitors at feeding-time, taking a never-ending delight in the
gourmandism of the whinnying beasts, and finding particular joy in
acquiring the language and the mannerisms of the stablemen, which they
would reserve for, and solemnly use at, the next gathering of the
neighbouring gentry.

When Elise was ten and Dick seven, she read him highwaymen's tales
until his large blue eyes almost escaped from their sockets.  It was at
the finish of one of these narratives of derring-do that she whispered
temptation into his ear, with the result that they bided their
opportunity, and, when the one groom on duty was asleep, repaired to
the stables armed with a loaded shot-gun.  After herculean efforts they
succeeded in harnessing Lord Durwent's famous hunter with the saddle
back to front, the curb-bit choking the horse's throat, the brow-band
tightly strapped around the poor beast's nostrils, the surcingle
trailing in the dust.

With improvised masks over their faces, they mounted the steed and set
out for adventure, the horse seeming to comprehend its strange burden
and stepping as lightly as its tortures would permit, while the saddle
slid cheerfully about its back, threatening any moment to roll the
desperados on to the road.

They had just emerged from the estate into the public highway, when a
passing butcher's cart stopped their progress.  The younger Durwent,
who had been mastering the art of retaining his seat while his steed
was in motion, was unprepared for its cessation, and promptly
overbalanced over the horse's shoulder, reaching the road head first,
and discharging a couple of pellets from the shotgun into a fleshy part
of the butcher-boy's anatomy.

The groom was dismissed; the butcher-boy received ten pounds; Richard
(when it was certain that concussion of the brain was not going to
materialise) was soundly whipped; and Elise was banished for
forty-eight hours to her room, issuing with a carefully concocted plan
to waylay the rector coming from church, steal the collection, and
purchase with the ill-gotten gains the sole proprietary interests in
the village sweet-shop.

There is little doubt but that the _coup_ would have been attempted had
not Lord Durwent decided that the influence of his sister was not good
for Dick, and sent him to a preparatory school at Bexhill-on-Sea, there
to imbibe sea-air and some little learning, and await his entrance into
Eton.

Robbed of her brother's stimulating loyalty, Elise relapsed into a
sulky obedience to her governess and her mother.  To their puny vision
it seemed that her attitude towards them was one of haughty aloofness,
and everything possible was done to subdue her spirit.  Being unable to
see that the child was lonely, and too proud to admit her craving for
sympathetic companionship, they tried to tame the thoroughbred as they
would a mule.

Only when Dick returned for holidays would her petulant moods vanish,
and in his company her old vitality sparkled like the noonday sun upon
the ocean's surface.  And if her affection for him knew no variation,
his was no less true.  The friendships and the adventures of school
were forgotten in the comradeship of his sister as, over the fields of
Roselawn or on the tennis-court, they would renew their childhood's
hours.  He taught her to throw a fly for trout, and she initiated him
into the mysteries of answering the calls of birds in the woods.
Mounted on a couple of ponies, they became familiar figures at the
tenants' cottages, and though the spirit of outlawry mellowed with
advancing years, Lady Durwent never saw them start away from the house
without the uneasy feeling that there was more than a chance they would
get into some mischief before they returned.

In the meantime the elder son was bringing credit to his ancestors and
himself.  His accent became a thing of perfection, nicely nuanced, and
entirely free of any emphasis or intensity that might rob it of its
placid suggestion of good-breeding.  His attitude towards the servants
was one of pleasant dignity, and the tenantry all spoke of Master
Malcolm as a fine young gentleman who would make a worthy ruler of
Roselawn.

Between him and Richard there was little love lost.  The elder boy
disapproved of his hoydenish sister, and sought at all times to shame
her tempestuous nature by insistence on decorum in their relations.
Richard, who invariably brought home adverse reports from school, could
find no fault in his colourful sister, and blindly espoused her cause
at all times.

On one occasion, when Malcolm had been more than usually censorious,
Dick challenged him to a fight.  They adjourned to the seclusion of a
small plot of grass by a great oak, where the Etonian knocked Dick down
five times in succession, afterwards escorting him to the cook, who
placed raw beefsteak on his eyes.

It was characteristic of the worthy Richard that he bore his brother no
malice whatever for the punishment.  He had proposed the fight,
conscious of the fact that he would be soundly beaten, but he was a bit
of a Quixote--and a lady's name was involved.

And no nurse ever tended a wounded hero more tenderly than the little
copper-haired creature of impulse who bathed the battered face of poor
Dick.  Wilful and rebellious as she was, there was in Elise a deep well
of love for her brother that no other being could fathom.  And it was
not his loyalty alone that had inspired it.  Her solitary life had
quickened her perceptive powers, and intuitively she knew that, in the
years before him, her weak-willed, buoyant-natured brother would be
unable to meet the cross-currents of his destiny and maintain a steady
course.

But he thought it was because of his swollen eyes that she cried.




CHAPTER III.

ABOUT A TOWN HOUSE.


I.

It was perhaps not inconsistent with the character of Lady Durwent
that, although she had striven to secure the guiding of Malcolm's
development, she should find herself totally devoid of any plan for the
training of a daughter.

Vaguely--and in this she mirrored thousands of other mothers--there was
a hope in her heart that Elise would grow up pretty, virtuous, amiable,
and would eventually marry well.  It did not concern her that the girl
was permeated with individuality, that the temperament of an artist lay
behind the changing eyes in that restless, graceful figure.  She could
not see that her daughter had a delicate, wilful personality, which
would rebel increasingly against the monotony of a social regime that
planned the careers of its sons before they were born, and offered its
daughters a mere incoherency of good intentions.

Full of the swift imaginativeness which makes the feminine contribution
to life so much a thing of charm and colour, Elise pursued the paths
which Youth has for its own--those wonderful streets of fantasy that
end with adolescence in Society's ugly fields of sign-posts.

Lacking the companionship of others of a similar age, she wove her own
conception of life, and dreamed of a world actuated by quick and
generous emotions.  With every pulsing beat of the warm blood coursing
through her veins she demanded in her girl's mind that the world in
which her many-sided self had been placed should yield the wines to
satisfy the subtle shades of thirst produced by her insistent
individuality.

And the world offered her sign-posts.  This must you do and thus must
you talk; hither shall you go and here remain: these are the Arts with
which you may enjoy a very slight acquaintance, but do not aspire to
genuine accomplishment--leave that to common people; be lady-like, be
calm and reserved; behold your brothers, how they swank!--but they are
men, and this is England; desire nought but the protected privileges of
your class, and in good season some youth of the same social stratum as
yourself will marry you, and, lo! in place of being a daughter in a
landed gentleman's house, you will be a wife.

Into this little world of a kind-hearted, chivalrous aristocracy (whose
greatest fault was their ignorance of the fact that the smallest
upheaval in humanitarianism, no matter what distance away, registers on
the seismograph of human destiny the world over) Elise Durwent found
her path laid.  Increasingly resentful, she trod it until she was
fourteen years of age, when her mother, who had long been bored with
country life, made an important decision--and purchased a town house.

Having done this, Lady Durwent sent her daughter to a convent, a move
which enabled her to get rid of the governess discreetly, and left her
without family cares at all, as both boys were now at school.
Unencumbered, therefore, she said _au revoir_ to Roselawn, and set her
compass for No. 8 Chelmsford Gardens, London.


II.

Chelmsford Gardens is a row of dignified houses on Oxford Street--yet
not on Oxford Street.  A miniature park, some forty feet in depth, acts
as a buffer-state between the street itself and the little group of
town houses.  It is an oasis in the great plains of London's dingy
dwelling-places, a spot where the owners are rarely seen unless the
season is at its height, when gaily cloaked women and stiff-bosomed men
emerge at theatre-hour and are driven to the opera.  Throughout the day
the Gardens (probably so styled on account of the complete absence of
horticultural embellishments) are as silent as the tomb; there is no
sign of life except in the mornings, when a solemn butler or a
uniformed parlour-maid appears for a moment at the door like some
creature of the sea coming up for air, then unobtrusively retires.

No. 8 was exactly like its neighbours, consisting of an exterior
boasting a huge oak door, with cold, stone steps leading up to it, and
an interior composed of rooms with very high ceilings, an insufficient
and uncomfortable supply of furniture, large pictures and small grates,
terrific beds and meagre chairs, and a general air of so much marble
and bare floor that one could almost imagine that house-cleaning could
be accomplished by turning on the hose.

After Lady Durwent had taken possession she sent for her husband, but
that gentleman reminded her that he was much happier at Roselawn,
though he would be glad if she would keep a room for him when business
at the 'House' or with his lawyers necessitated his presence in town.
Unhampered, therefore, by a husband, Lady Durwent prepared to invade
London Society, only to receive a shock at the very opening of the
campaign.

The Ironmonger had preceded her!

It is one of the tragedies of the _élite_ that even peers are not
equal.  The law of class distinction, that amazing doctrine of
timidity, penetrated even the oak door of 8 Chelmsford Gardens.  The
Ironmonger's daughter found that being the daughter of a man who had
made an honest living rendered her socially the unequal of the
daughters of men who, acting on a free translation of 'The earth is the
Lord's,' had done nothing but inherit unearned substance.

Then there was her cheerfulness, and the menacing voice!

Turning from the aloofness of the exclusive, Lady Durwent thought of
taking in famous performing Lions and feeding them.  Unfortunately the
market was too brisk, and the only Lion she could get was an Italian
tenor from Covent Garden, who refused to roar, but left a poignant
memory of garlic.

It was then that a brilliant idea entered her brain.  Lady Durwent
decided to cultivate _unusual_ people.

No longer would she batter at oak doors that refused to open; no more
would she dangle morsels of food in front of overfed Lions.  She would
create a little Kingdom of remarkable people--not those acclaimed great
by the mealy mob, but those whose genius was of so rare and subtle a
growth that ordinary eyes could not detect it at all.  Her only fear
was that she might be unable to discover a sufficient number to create
a really satisfactory _clientèle_.

But she reckoned without her London.

For every composer in the Metropolis who is trying to translate the
music of the spheres, there are a dozen who can only voice the
discordant jumble of their minds or ask the world to listen to the
hollow echo of their creative vacuum.  For every artist striving to
catch some beauty of nature that he may revisualise it on canvas, there
are a score whose eyes can only cling to the malformation of existence.
For every writer toiling in the quiet hours to touch some poor, dumb
heart-strings, or to open unseeing eyes to the joy of life, there are
many whose gaze is never lifted from the gutter, so that, when they
write, it is of the slime and the filth that they have smelt, crying to
the world that the blue of the skies and the beauty of a rose are
things engendered of sentimental minds unable to see the real, the
vital things of life.

To this community of _poseurs_ Lady Durwent jingled her town house and
her title--and the response was instantaneous.  She became the hostess
of a series of dinner-parties which gradually made her the subject of
paragraphs in the chatty columns of the press, and of whole chapters in
the gossip of London's refined circles.

Her natural cheerfulness expanded like a sunflower, and when her son
Malcolm secured a commission in the --th Hussars, her triumph was
complete.  Even the staggering news that Dick had been taken away from
Eton to avoid expulsion for drunkenness proved only a momentary cloud
on the broad horizon of her contentment.

When she was nineteen years of age Elise came to live with her mother,
and as the fiery beauty of the child had mellowed into a sort of
smouldering charm that owed something to the mystic atmosphere of
convent life, Lady Durwent felt that an ally of importance had entered
the arena.

Thus four years passed, and in 1913 (had peeresses been in the habit of
taking inventories) Lady Durwent could have issued a statement somewhat
as follows:


  ASSETS.

  1 Husband; a Peer.
  1 Son; aged twenty-five; decently popular with his regiment.
  1 Daughter; marriageable; aged twenty-three.
  1 Town House.
  1 Country Estate.
  The goodwill of numerous _unusual_ people, and the envy of a
  lot of minor Peeresses.


  LIABILITIES.

  1 Son; aged twenty; at Cambridge; in perpetual trouble,
  and would have been rusticated ere now had he not been the
  son of a lord.
  1 Ironmonger.


      *      *      *      *      *      *

'My dear,' said Lady Durwent, glancing at her daughter, who was reading
a novel, 'hadn't you better go and dress?'

'Is there a dinner-party to-night?' asked the girl without looking up.

'Of course, Elise.  Have you forgotten that Mr. Selwyn of New York will
be here?'

'Is he as tedious as Stackton Dunckley?'

Lady Durwent frowned with vexation.  'My dear,' she said, 'you are very
trying.'




CHAPTER IV.

PROLOGUE TO A DINNER-PARTY.


I.

Even _unusual_ dinner-parties begin like ordinary ones.  There is the
discomfiture of the guest who arrives first, subjected to his hostess's
reassurances that he is not really early.  After what seems an
interminable length of time, during which a score of conversational
topics are broached, and both hostess and guest are reduced to a state
bordering on mutual animosity, the remainder of the party arrive _en
masse_, as if by collusion.  The butler (who likes to chew the cud of
reflection between the announcements) is openly pained, while the
distracted hostess must manage the introductions, and, as friendships
are begun or enmities renewed, endeavour to initiate the new-comer into
the subject of conversation immediately preceding his or her entrance.
As the good woman's subconscious mind is in the kitchen, and as she is
constantly interrupted by the necessity of greeting new arrivals, she
usually succeeds in mystifying every one, and creating that atmosphere
of 'nerves' so familiar to denizens of the best sets.

But we had almost forgotten--there is always one guest who is late.

The fateful hour mentioned in the dinner invitation arrives, strikes,
and floats down the mists to the eerie catacombs of the Past.  The
hostess knows that the cook, with arms akimbo, is breathing rebellion,
but tries to blot out the awful vision by an extra spurt of hollow
gaiety.

Ten minutes pass.

Conversation flags.  The portly bachelor who lives at his club wonders
why he didn't have a chop before he came.  His fellow-diners try to
refrain from the topic, but it is as hopeless as trying to talk to an
ex-convict without mentioning jails.  Finally, in an abandon of
desperation, they all turn inquiringly to the hostess, who, affecting
an ease of manner, says pleasantly, 'Dear me!  What _can_ have detained
Mr. So-and-so?  I wonder if we had better go in without him?'

And then he arrives--the jackass--and in a sublime good-humour!  He
tells some cock-and-bull story about his taxi breaking down, and
actually seems to think he's done rather a smart thing in turning up at
all.  In short, he brings in such an air of geniality and
self-appreciation that the guest who arrived first has more than a
notion to 'have him out' and send him to a region where dinner-parties
are popularly supposed to be unknown.

No--the lot of a lady who gives dinners is not a happy one.


II.

On this Friday night of November in the year 1918, Lady Durwent sat by
the fire in the drawing-room and discussed music with Norton Pyford.
Having sacrificed his watch on the altar of art, he had been compelled
to rely on appetite, with the result that he arrived just as eight was
striking.  Lady Durwent did her best, but as she knew nothing of music,
nor he anything of anything else, the situation was becoming difficult,
when the entrance of Madame Carlotti brought welcome relief.

That lady was wearing a yellow gown rather too tight for her, so that
her somewhat ample flesh slightly overran the confines of the garment,
giving the effect that she had grown up in the thing and was unable to
shed it.  This impression was heightened by a mannerism, repeated
frequently during the evening, of grasping her very low bodice with her
hands, exhausting her breath, pulling the bodice up, and compressing
herself into it.  It was an innocent enough performance, but invariably
left the feeling that she should retire upstairs to do it.

She wore a yellow flower in her hair; her stockings were a rich yellow
with a superimposed pattern like strands of fine gold, and her dainty
feet were enclosed in a pair of bronzed shoes.  As her lips were
heavily carmined and her eyes brilliantly dark, Madame Carlotti's was a
distinctly illuminating presence.

But the sunniness of her entrance was dimmed by the lack of audience.
She had not expended her genius to throw it away on a strangely dressed
young man whose hair fell straight and black over a large collar that
had earned a holiday some days before, and whose velvet jacket was
minus two buttons, the threads of which could still be seen,
out-stretched, appealing for their owners' return.

'Lucia, my dear,' said Lady Durwent, just like an ordinary hostess,
'you look' (_sotto voce_) 'simply wonderful!  I think you have met Mr.
Norton Pyford, _the_ Norton Pyford, haven't you?'

'Hah d' ye do?' said the Pyford.

'Chairmed,' minced Madame Carlotti.

'Lucia, take this chair by the fire.  You must be frozen.'

'Ah, _grazie_, Sybil.  What a perfectly meeserable climate you have in
this London!'

'Just what I tha-a-y,' bleated Mr. Pyford, sinking into his chair in an
apparently boneless heap.  'The other night, at a fella's
thupper-party, I'----

'MRS. LE ROY JENNINGS.'

The resolutionist swept into the room clothed in black disorder, much
as if she had started to dress in a fit of temper and had been
overtaken by a gale.

She knew Madame Carlotti.--She did _not_ know Mr. Norton Pyford, _the_
Norton Pyford.--She was glad to know him.

He muttered something inarticulate, and glancing at the ring of women
about him, shrank into his clothes until his collar almost hid his
lower lip.

'We were discussing,' said Lady Durwent, vaguely relying on the last
sounds retained by her ear--'discussing--suppers.'

'Don't believe in 'em,' said Mrs. Jennings sternly; 'three regular
meals--tea at eleven and four, and hot milk with a bit of ginger in it
before retiring--are sufficient for any one.'

The Italian took in the forceful figure of the New Woman and smiled
with her teeth.

'Madame Jennings,' she said, 'perhaps finds sufficient distraction in
just ordinary life--and _una tazza di tè_.  But we who are not
so--_comment dirai-je?_--so self-complete must rely on frivolous things
like _una buona cena_.'

'Don't believe in 'em,' reiterated the resolutionist; 'three
regular'----

'_Ah, c'est mauvais_,' gesticulated Madame Carlotti, who alternated
between Italian and French phrases in London, and kept her best English
for the Continent.

'Mr. Pyford,' put in Lady Durwent, descrying a storm on the yellow and
black horizon, 'has just written'----

'MR. H. STACKTON DUNCKLEY,' announced the butler, with an appropriate
note of _mysterioso_.  Lady Durwent summoned a blush, and rose to meet
the ardent author, who was dressed in a characterless evening suit with
disconsolate legs, and whose chin was heavily powdered to conceal the
stubble of beard grown since morning.

'You have come,' she said softly and dramatically.

'I have,' said the writer, bowing low over her hand.

'I rely on you to be discreet,' she murmured.

'Eh?'

'Discreet,' she coquetted.  'People will talk.'

'Let them,' said Mr. Dunckley earnestly.

'Madame Carlotti, I think you know Mr. Dunckley--H. Stackton
Dunckley--and you too, Mrs. Le Roy Jennings; you clever people ought to
be friends at once.--And I want you to meet Mr. Pyford, _the_'----

'Hah d'ye do?'

'How are you?'

'Ro--splendid, thanks.'

'We were discussing,' said Lady Durwent--'discussing'----

'MR. AUSTIN SELWYN.'

Every one turned to see the guest of the evening, as the hostess rose
to meet him.  He was a young man on the right side of thirty, with
dark, closely brushed hair that thinned slightly at the temples.  He
was clean-shaven, and his light-brown eyes lay in a smiling setting of
quizzical good-humour.  He was of rather more than medium height, with
well-poised shoulders; and though a firmness of lips and jaw gave a
suggestion of hardness, the engaging youthfulness of his eyes and a
hearty smile that crinkled the bridge of his nose left a pleasant
impression of frankness, mingled with a certain _naïveté_.

'Mr. Selwyn,' said Lady Durwent, 'I knew you would want to meet some of
London's--I should say some of England's--accomplished people.'

'_Oimè_!  I am afraid that obleeterates me,' smiled Madame Carlotti,
whose social charm was rising fast at the sight of a good-looking
stranger.

'No, indeed, Lucia,' effused the hostess.  'To be the personification
of Italy in dreary London is more than an accomplishment; it--it'----

'It is a boon,' said Dunckley, coming to the aid of his floundering
loved one.

'Exactly,' said Lady Durwent with a sigh of relief.  'Madame Lucia
Carlotti--Mr. Selwyn of New York.'

'_Buona sera, signora_.'

'_Buona sera, signore_.'

He stooped low and pressed a light kiss on the Neapolitan's hand, thus
taking the most direct route obtainable by an Anglo-Saxon to the good
graces of a woman of Italy.

'How well you speak Italian!' cooed Madame Carlotti; 'so--like one of
us.'

The American bowed.  It was rarely he achieved a reputation with so
little effort.

The remaining introductions were effected; the clock struck
eight-thirty; and there followed an awkward silence, born of an
absolute unanimity of thought.

'Of course, you two authors,' said Lady Durwent, forcing a smile, 'knew
of each other, anyway.  It's like asking H. G. Wells if he ever heard
of Mark Twain.'

The smile in the American's eyes widened.  'Lady Durwent flatters me,'
he said.  'I am not widely known in my own country, and can hardly
expect that you should know of me on this side of the Atlantic.'

'What,' said Mr. Dunckley--'what does New York think of "Precipitate
Thoughts"?'

The American considered quickly.  He wished that in conversation, as
well as in writing, people would use inverted commas.

'Whose precipitate thoughts?' he ventured.

'Mine,' said H. S. D., with ill-concealed importance.

'Oh yes, of course,' said Selwyn, wondering how any one so stationary
as the other could project anything precipitate.  'New York was keenly
interested.'

'Ah,' said the English author benignly, 'it is satisfactory to hear
that.  Of course, the great difference between there and here is that
in New York one impresses: in London one is impressed.'

An ominous silence followed this epigrammatic wisdom (which Dunckley
had just heard from the lips of a poet who had succeeded in writing
both an American and an English publishing house into bankruptcy) while
the various members of the group pursued their trains of thought along
the devious routes of their different mentalities.

'Dear me!' said Lady Durwent anxiously, 'what _can_ have detained'----

'MR. JOHNSTON SMYTH.'

With a jerky action of the knees, the futurist briskly entered the room
with all the easy confidence of a famous comedian following on the
heels of a chorus announcing his arrival.  He looked particularly long
and cadaverous in an abrupt, sporting-artistic, blue jacket, with
sleeves so short that when he waved his arms (which he did with almost
every sentence) he reminded one of a juggler requesting his audience to
notice that he has absolutely nothing up his sleeves.

'Lady Durwent,' he exclaimed, striking an attitude and looking over his
Cyrano-like nose with his right eye as if he were aligning the sights
of a musket, 'don't tell me I'm late.  If you do, I shall never speak
to the Duke of Earldub again--never!'

As he refused to move an inch until assured that he was not late, and
as Lady Durwent was anxious to proceed with the main business of the
evening (to say nothing of maintaining the friendship between Smyth and
the Duke of Earldub, whose part in his dilatory arrival was rather
vague), she granted the necessary pardon, whereupon he straightened his
legs and winked long and solemnly at Norton Pyford.

'Good gracious!' cried Lady Durwent just as she was about to suggest an
exodus to the dining-room, 'I had forgotten all about Elise!'  She
hurriedly rang the bell, which was answered by the butler.  'Send word
to Miss Elise that'----

'Milady,' said the servitor, addressing an arc-light just over the
door, 'she is descending the stairs this very minute.'


III.

There are moments when women appear at their best--fleeting moments
that cannot be sustained.  Sometimes it is a tremor of timidity that
lends a fawn-like gentleness to their movements, and a frightened
wistfulness to the eye, too subtle a thing of beauty to bear analysis
in words.  A sudden triumph, noble or ignoble, the conquering of a
rival, the sound of a lover's voice, will flush the cheek and liberate
the whole radiancy of a woman's being.  Such moments come in every
woman's life, when the quick impulse of emotion achieves an unconscious
beauty that defies the ordinary standards of critical appreciation.  It
is that little instant that is the torch to light a lover's worship or
a poet's verses--to send strange yearnings into a young man's breast
and set an old man's memory philandering with the distant past.

It was such a moment for Elise Durwent as she stood in the doorway, the
overhanging arc touching her hair and shoulders with the high lights of
some master's painting.  Conversation ceased, and in every face there
was the universal homage paid to beauty, even though it be tendered
grudgingly.

She was dressed in a gown of deep blue, that colour which renders its
ageless tribute to the fair women of the world, and from her shoulders
there hung a black net that subdued the colour of the gown and left the
graceful suggestion of a cape.

'I am so sorry, mother,' she said.  'I was reading, and quite forgot
the time.'

Austin Selwyn stroked the back of his head, then thrust both hands into
his pockets.  There was something in the girl's appearance and the
contralto timbre of her voice that left him with the odd sensation that
she was out of place in the room--that her real sphere was in the
expanse of unbridled nature.  He could see her wealth of copper-hued
hair blown by the western wind; he could picture her joining in
Spring's minuet of swaying rose-bushes.

'My daughter Elise--Mr. Austin Selwyn.'

He bowed as the words penetrated his thoughts; then, glancing up, he
felt a sudden contraction of disappointment.

The girl's eyes had narrowed, and were no longer sparkling, but
steady--almost to the point of dullness; her lower lip was full, and
too scarlet for the upper one, which chided its sister for the wanton
admission of slumbering passion; and her voice was abrupt.  He almost
cried out '_Legato, legato_,' to coax back the lilt which had caressed
his ear a moment before.

He was dimly conscious that dinner was announced, and that amidst a
babel of tongues he was being led by, or was leading, Lady Durwent into
the dining-room.  He heard the resolutionist and Dunckley both talking
at once, and felt the melancholy languor of Pyford floating like
incense through the air.  He had an obscure recollection of sitting
down next to his hostess; that the table, like Arthur's, was a round
one; that Johnston Smyth was seated beside Miss Durwent and was ogling
one of Lady Durwent's maids.  Then he remembered that he had heard some
voice in his ear for several minutes past, and, growing curious, took a
surreptitious glance, to find that it belonged to Madame Carlotti.

'Meester Selwyn,' she said indignantly, 'you have not been listening to
me.'

'That is true, signora,' he said; 'but I have been thinking of you.'

'Yes?' she purred, leaning towards him.  'What did you thought?'

He turned squarely to her in an impassioned counterfeit of frankness.
'Are all Italian women beautiful?' he murmured.

'Hush-sh!'  Her hand touched his beneath the table, reprovingly and
tenderly.

'Mr. Selwyn,' said Lady Durwent, 'you have not tasted your soup.'




CHAPTER V.

THE OLYMPIANS THUNDER.


I.

Lady Durwent was blessed in the possession of a cook whose artistry was
beyond question, if the same could not be said of the guests to whom
she so frequently ministered.  She was a descendant of the French, that
race which makes everything tend towards development of the soul, and
consequently looks upon a meal as something of a sacrament.  She
prepared a dinner with a balance of contrast and climax that a composer
might show in writing a tone poem.

On this eventful evening, therefore, the dinner-party, stimulated by
her art and by potent wines (gazing with long-necked dignity at the
autocratic whisky-decanter), rapidly assumed a crescendo and an
accelerando--the two things for which a hostess listens.

H. Stackton Dunckley had held the resolutionist in a duel of
language--a combat with broadswords--and honours were fairly even.  The
short-sleeved Johnston Smyth had waged futurist warfare against the
modernist Pyford, while the Honourable Miss Durwent sat helplessly
between them, with as little chance of asserting her rights as the
Dormouse at the Mad Hatter's tea-party.  The American had held his own
in badinage with the daughter of Italy on one side and his hostess on
the other, the latter, however, being too skilled in entertaining to do
more than murmur a few encouragements to the spontaneity that so
palpably existed.

'Let me see,' said Lady Durwent as the meal came to a close and the
butler looked questioningly at her.  'Shall we'--she opened the caverns
of her throat, producing a volume that instantly silenced every
one--'SHALL WE HAVE COFFEE IN HERE OR IN THE DRAWING-ROOM?  I suppose
you gentlemen, as usual, want to chat over your port and cigars alone.'

H. Stackton Dunckley protested that absence from the ladies, even for
so short a time, would completely spoil his evening--receiving in
reward a languorous glance from Lady Durwent.  Johnston Smyth, who had
done more than ample justice to the wines, offered to 'pink' at fifty
yards any man who would consider the proposition for a moment.  Only
Norton Pyford, in a sort of befuddled gallantry, suggested that the
ladies might have sentimental confidences to exchange, and leered
amorously at Elise Durwent.

'Well,' said Lady Durwent, 'I am sure we are all curious to hear what
Mr. Selwyn thinks of England, so I think we shall have coffee here.  Is
it agreeable to every one?'

Unanimous approval greeted the proposal, and, at a sign from the
hostess, cigarettes, cigars, and coffee made their appearance, with the
corresponding niceties of 'Just one, please,' 'Well, perhaps a
cigarette might be enjoyable,' 'I know men like a cigar,' 'After you,
old man,' and all those various utterances which tickle the ear,
creating in the speaker's breast the feeling of saying the right thing
and doing it rather well.

Throughout the dinner the daughter of the house had sat practically
without a remark, and even when chorus effects were achieved by the
rest, remained with almost immobile features, merely glancing from one
to another, momentarily interested or openly bored.  Several times the
American had looked furtively at the arresting face, marred by too
apparent mental resentment, but the barricade of Johnston Smyth's
angular personality had been too powerful for him to surmount with
anything but the most superficial persiflage.

He had watched her take a cigarette, accepting a light from Smyth, who
surrounded the action with a ludicrous dignity, when she looked up and
met his eyes.

'Mr. Selwyn,' she said, speaking with the same rapidity of phrasing
that had both held and exasperated him before, 'we are all waiting for
the verdict of the Man from America.'

'Over there,' he smiled, 'it is customary to take evidence before
giving a verdict.'

'Good,' boomed the resolutionist; 'very good!'

'Then,' said Lady Durwent, 'we seven shall constitute a jury.'

'Order!'  Johnston Smyth rose to his feet and hammered the table with a
bottle.  '_Oyez, oyez_, you hereby swear that you shall well and truly
try'----

'Can't,' said Norton Pyford, pulling himself up; 'I'm prejudiced.'

'For or against?'

'Against the culprit.'

'My discordant friend,' said Smyth, producing a second bottle from an
unsuspected source and making it disappear mysteriously, 'means that he
is prejudiced against England.  Am I right, sir?'

'Not exactly,' drawled the composer.  'I don't mind England--but I
think the English are awful.'

'That is a nice point,' said Lady Durwent.

'Ah,' broke in Madame Carlotti, 'but, much as I detest the English, I
hate England more.  _Nom de Dieu_!  I--a daughter of the Mediterranean,
where the sun ees so rarely a stranger, and the sky and the water it
ees always blue.  In Italy one lives because she ees alive--it ees
sufficient.  Here it ees always gray, gray--always g-r-ray.  When the
sun comes--_sacramento_! he sees his mistake and goes queek away.  Ah,
Signor Selwyn, it ees _désolant_ that I am compelled to live here.'

A roar of unfeeling laughter greeting her familiar plaint, Madame
Carlotti took a hitch in her gown and reimprisoned some of her person
which had escaped from custody.

'Then,' said Johnston Smyth, 'if we are all of a mind, there is no need
to have a trial.  You have all seen the accusation in Mr. Selwyn's eye,
you have considered the unbiassed evidence of the lovely Carlotti'----

'But jurors can't give evidence,' muttered Mr. Dunckley.

'My dear sir, I know she can't, but she did,' said Smyth triumphantly.
'_Oyez, oyez_--all in favour'----

'But,' interrupted the American, 'are we not to hear any one for the
defence?'

'No,' said Smyth, who was thoroughly happy as a self-constituted master
of ceremonies.  'No one would accept the brief.'

'Then,' said Selwyn, 'I apply for the post of counsel for the defence,
for in the limited time I have been in your country I have seen much
that appeals to me.'

'Of course, it is a well-known fact,' said Dunckley sententiously,
'that American humour relies on exaggeration.'

'No, no,' said Johnston Smyth, hushing the voices with a _pianissimo_
movement of his hands, 'it is not humour on Mr. Selwyn's part, but
gratitude.  In return for Christopher Columbus discovering America,
this gentleman is going to repay the debt of the New World to the Old
by discovering England.'

'SHALL WE HAVE SOME PORT?' said Lady Durwent, opening the sluice-gates
of her vocal production.


II.

'Speaking of America,' said Mrs. Le Roy Jennings a few minutes later,
Johnston Smyth having sat down in order to do justice to the wine of
Portugal, 'she is in the very vanguard of progress.  Women have
achieved an independence there unknown elsewhere in the world.'

'That is true,' said Lady Durwent, who knew nothing whatever about it.

'You are right,' said Madame Carlotti.

'The other day in Paris I heard an American woman whistling.  "Have you
lost your dog?" I asked.  "No," she says; "my husband."'

A chorus of approval greeted this malicious sally, followed by the
retailing of various anti-American anecdotes that made up in sting what
they lacked in delicacy.  These showed no signs of abatement until,
slightly nettled, Selwyn put in an oar.

'I had hoped,' he said, 'to find some illuminating points in the
conversation to-night.  But it seems as if you treat not only your own
country in a spirit of caricature, but mine as well.  We are a very
young race, and we have the faults of youth; but, then, youth always
has a future.  It was a sort of post-graduate course to come to England
and Europe to absorb some of the lore--or isn't it one of your poets
who speaks of "The Spoils of Time"?  Your past is so rich that
naturally we look to you and Europe for the fundamental things of
civilisation.'

'And what have you found?' asked Elise Durwent.

'Well,' said the American, 'much to admire--and much to deplore.'

'In other words,' said Johnston Smyth, 'he has been to Edinburgh and to
London.'

'That is so,' smiled Selwyn; 'but I don't'----

'All people,' said Smyth serenely, 'admire Edinburgh, but abuse London.
Over here a man will jest about his religion or even his grandfather,
but never about Edinburgh.  On the other hand, as every one damns
London, and as an Englishman is never so happy as when he has something
on hand to grouse about, London's population has grown to some eight
millions.'

'I think, Mr. Smyth,' said Lady Durwent, 'that you are as much a
philosopher as a painter.'

'Lady Durwent,' said the futurist, 'all art is philosophy--even old
Pyford's here, though his amounts almost to theology.'

For a few minutes the conversation drifted in inconsequential channels
until H. Stackton Dunckley becalmed everything with a laborious
dissertation on the lack of literary taste in both England and America.
Selwyn took the opportunity of studying the elusive beauty of Elise
Durwent, which seemed to provoke the eye to admiration, yet fade into
imperfection under a prolonged searching.  Pyford grew sleepy, and even
Smyth appeared a little melancholy, when, on a signal from Lady
Durwent, brandy and liqueurs were served, checking Mr. Dunckley's
oratory and reviving every one's spirits noticeably.

'Mr. Selwyn,' said Mrs. Le Roy Jennings in her best manner, 'after you
have subjected England to a microscopic examination for a sufficient
length of time, you will discover that we are a nation of parasites.'

'I would rather you said that than I, Mrs. Jennings.'

'Parasites,' reiterated the speaker, fixing an eye on some point on the
wall directly between Selwyn and the hostess.  'We sprawl over the
world--why?  To develop resources?  No!  It is to reap the natural
growth of others' endeavours?  Yes!  The Englishman never creates.  He
is the world's greatest brigand'----

'Too thoroughly masculine to be really cruel,' chimed in the
irrepressible Smyth.

'Brigand,' repeated Mrs. Jennings, not deigning the artist so much as a
glance, 'skimming the earth of its surface riches, and rendering every
place the poorer for his being there.'

There was an awesome silence, which no one seemed courageous enough to
break.

'Yes,' said H. Stackton Dunckley finally, 'and in addition England is
decadent.'

'But, Mr. Selwyn'--again the American heard the voice of Elise Durwent,
that quick intensity of speech that always left a moment of startled
silence in its wake--'you have discovered something admirable about
England.  Won't you tell us what it is?'

'Well,' he said, smiling, 'for one thing, no one can deny the beauty of
your women.'

'All decadent nations,' said H. Stackton Dunckley, 'produce beautiful
women--it is one of the surest signs that they are going to pieces.
The Romans did at the last, and Rome and England are parallel cases.
As Mrs. Le Roy Jennings says, they are parasitic nations.  What did the
Romans add to Greek art?  The Greeks had this'--he made an elliptical
movement of his hands--'the Romans did that to it'--he described a
circle, then shrugged his shoulders, convinced that he had said
something crushing.

'So you think English women beautiful, Mr. Selwyn?' said Lady Durwent,
trying to retrieve the conversation from the slough of her inamorato's
ponderosity.

'Undoubtedly,' answered the American warmly.  'It is no doubt the
out-of-door life they lead, and I suppose the moist climate has
something to do with their wonderful complexions, but they are womanly
as well, and their voices are lovely.'

'I smell a rat,' said Smyth, who had in his mouth an unlit cigarette,
which had fastened itself to his lip and bobbed up and down with his
speech, like a miniature baton.  'When a man says a woman's voice is
sweet, it means that she has bored him; that what she has to say
interests him so little that he turns to contemplation of her voice.
This American is a devilish cute fellow.'

A babble of voices took up the charge and demanded immediate
explanation.

'To a certain extent,' said Selwyn stoutly, 'there is much in what Mr.
Smyth says.'

'List to the pigmy praising the oracle,' chanted the artist.

'I do not think,' went on the American, 'that the English girls I have
met are as bright or as clever as the cultured young women of the
continent of America.  In other words, with all her natural charm, the
English girl does not edit herself well.'

'In that,' said H. Stackton Dunckley, 'she reflects the breed.  The
Anglo-Saxon has an instinctive indifference to thought.'

'As soon as an Englishman thinks,' minced Madame Carlotti, 'he leaves
England with its _cattivo_ climate and goes to the Colonies.  _C'est
pourquoi_ the Empire ees so powerful--its brains are in the legs.'

'Come, come,' laughed Selwyn, 'is there no one here but me who can
discover any merit in Old England?'

'Yes,' said Pyford gloomily; 'London is only seven hours from Paris.'

'Ah--_Parigi_!' ejaculated Madame Carlotti with the fervour born of the
feeling in all Latin women that Paris is their spiritual capital.

'And yet,' said Selwyn, after a pause to see if Madame Carlotti's
exuberance was going to develop any further, 'in literature, which I
suppose is the natural art of the Anglo-Saxon temperament, we still
look to you for the outstanding figures.  With all our ability for
writing short stories--and I think we are second only to the French in
that--England still produces the foremost novelists.  In the sustained
effort required in the formation of a novel, England is yet first.  Of
course, musically, I think England is very near the bottom.'

'And yet,' said Johnston Smyth, 'we are the only people in the world
candid enough to have a monument to our lack of taste.'

Every one looked at the artist, who stroked his left arm with the back
of his right hand, like a barber sharpening a razor.

'In that part of London known as Kingsway,' he said, 'there is a
beautiful building called "The London Opera House"!'  He thrust both
hands out, palms upwards, as if the building itself rested on them.
'It stands in a commanding position, with statues of the great
composers gazing from the roof at the passing proletariat emanating
from the Strand.  Inside it is luxuriously equipped, as bents the home
of Opera.'

'Yes,' said the American, as the speaker paused.

Smyth produced a watch from nowhere in particular.  'It is just past
ten,' he said.  'I am not sure whether it is Charlie Chaplin or Mary
Pickford showing on the screen at this hour, at the London Opera House.'

A murmur of applause acknowledged the artist's well-planned climax.  He
looked about with a satisfied smile, then replaced the watch with the
air of pocketing both it and the subject.

'But--you have opera?' said Selwyn wonderingly.

'Of course,' said Smyth; 'and where?  In a vegetable-market.  In Covent
Garden.  Yet England has been accused of hypocrisy!  What other nation
is so candid?'

By one of those unspoken understandings that are the rules of mobs and
dinner-parties, it was felt that the topic was ceasing to be exhaustive
and becoming exhausting.  Lady Durwent glanced, interrogatively about
the table; Madame Carlotti took a hitch in her gown; Norton Pyford
emptied his glass and sat pensively staring at it as if it had hardly
done what he expected, but on the whole he felt inclined to forgive it;
Johnston Smyth made a belated attempt to be sentimental with the
Honourable Miss Durwent, whose lips, always at war with each other,
merely parted in a smile that utterly failed to bring any sympathy from
her eyes; Mrs. Le Roy Jennings took a last sip of coffee, and finding
it quite cold, put it down with a gesture of finality.

'Lady Durwent,' said Austin Selwyn--and the quality of his voice was
lighter and more musical than it had been--'I suppose that a man who
deliberately goes to a country to gather impressions lays himself open
to the danger of being influenced by external things only.  If I were
to base my knowledge of England on what her people say of her, I think
I should be justified in assuming that the century-old charge of her
decadence is terribly true.  Yet I claim to have something of an
artist's sensitiveness to undercurrents, and it seems to me that there
is a strong instinct of race over here--perhaps I express myself
clumsily--but I think there is an England which has far more depth to
it than your artists and writers realise.  For some reason you all seem
to want to deny that; and when, as to-night, it is my privilege to meet
some of this country's expressionists, it appears that none has any
intention of trying to reveal what is fine in your life as a
people--you seek only to satirise, caricature, or damn altogether.  If
I believe my ears, there is nothing but stupidity and insularity in
England.  If I listen to my senses, to my subconscious mind, I feel
that a great crisis would reveal that she is still the bed-rock of
civilisation.'

Madame Carlotti raised her glass.

'To America's next ambassador to England!' she cried.


III.

The momentous evening was drawing to a close.

Rain, in fitful gusts, had been besieging the windows, driven by an
ill-tempered wind that blustered around the streets, darting up dark
alleys, startling the sparks emerging from chimney-pots, roaring across
the parks, slamming doors, and venting itself, every now and then, in
an ill-natured howl.

Inside the refuge of No. 8 Chelmsford Gardens a fire threw its merry
warmth over the large music-room, and did its best to offset the
tearful misery of the November night.

Conversation had dwindled in energy with the closing hour of the
affair, and seizing an auspicious moment, Norton Pyford had reached the
piano, and for twenty minutes demonstrated the close relation of the
chord of C Minor to the colour brown.  Modernist music, acting on
unusual souls as classical music on ordinary souls, stimulated the
flagging conversational powers of the guests, and he was soon
surrounded by a gesticulating group of dissenting or condoning critics.

Selwyn noticed that Elise Durwent had not left her seat by the fire,
and absenting himself from the harmonic debate, he took a chair by hers.

'You are pensive, Miss Durwent,' he said.

She smiled, with a slight suggestion of weariness, though her eyes had
a softness he had not seen in them before.

'I am very dull company to-night,' she said, 'but ever since I was a
child, rain beating against the windows has always made me dreamy.  I
suppose I am old-fashioned, but it is sweeter music to me than Mr.
Pyford's new harmonies.'

He laughed, and leaning towards the fire, rubbed his hands
meditatively.  'You must have found our talk wearisome at dinner,' he
said.

'No,' she answered, 'it was not so bad as usual.  You introduced a note
of sincerity that had all the effect of a novelty.'

Her mannerism of swift and disjointed speech, which broke all her
sentences into rapidly uttered phrases, again annoyed him.  Though her
voice was refined, it seemed to be acting at the behest of a whip-like
brain, and she spoke as if desirous rather of provoking a retort than
of establishing any sense of compatibility.  Yet she was
feminine--gloriously, delicately feminine.  The finely moulded arms and
the gracefulness of body, indicated rather than revealed beneath her
blue gown, intrigued the eye and the senses, just as the swiftly spoken
words challenged the brain and infused exasperation in the very midst
of admiration.  The complicated elements of the girl offered a peculiar
fascination to the eternal instinct of study possessed by the young
American author.

'Miss Durwent,' he said, 'if I was sincere to-night, it was because you
encouraged me to be so.'

'But I said nothing.'

'Nevertheless, you were the inspiration.'

'I never knew a girl could accomplish so much by holding her tongue.'

A crash of 'Bravos' broke from the group around the piano; Pyford had
just scored a point.

'You know,' resumed Selwyn thoughtfully, 'a man doesn't go to a
dinner-party conscious of what he is going to say.  It is the people he
meets that produce ideas in him, many of which he had never thought of
before.'

She tapped the ground with her foot, and looked smilingly at his
serious face.  'It is the reverse with me,' she said.  'I go out to
dinner full of ideas, and the people I meet inspire a silence in me of
unsuspected depth.'

'May I smoke?' asked Selwyn, calling a halt in the verbal duel.

'Certainly; I'll join you.  Don't smoke your own cigarettes--there are
some right in front of you.'

He reached for a silver box, offered her a cigarette, and struck a
match.  As he leaned over her she raised her face to the light, and the
blood mounted angrily to his head.

Though a man accustomed to dissect rather than obey his passions, he
possessed that universal quality of man which demands the weakness of
the feminine nature in the woman who interests him.  He will satirise
that failing; if he be a writer, it will serve as an endless theme for
light cynicism.  He will deplore that a woman's brains are so submerged
by her emotions; but let him meet one reversely constituted, and he
steers his course in another direction with all possible speed.

Selwyn had come to her with a comfortable, after-dinner desire for a
_tête-à-tête_.  He expected flattering questions about his writings,
and would have enjoyed talking about them; instead of which this
English girl with the crimson colouring and the maddening eyes had
coolly kept him at a distance with her rapier brain.  He felt a sudden
indignation at her sexlessness, and struck a match for his own
cigarette with such energy that it broke in two.

'Miss Durwent,' he said suddenly, lighting another match, 'I want to
see you again--soon.'  He paused, astonished at his own abruptness, and
an awkward smile expanded until it crinkled the very pinnacle of his
nose.

'I like you when you look like that,' she said.  'It was just like my
brother Dick when he fell off a horse.  By the way, do you ride?'

'Yes,' he said, watching the cigarette-smoke curl towards the
fireplace, 'though I prefer an amiable beast to a spirited one.'

'Good!' she said, so quickly that it seemed like the thrust of a sword
in tierce.  'You have the same taste in horses as in women.  Most men
have.'

'Miss Durwent'--his face flushed angrily and his jaw stiffened--'I'll
ride any horse you choose in England, and'----

'And break the heart of the most vixenish maiden in London!  You are a
real American, after all.  What is it you say over there?  "Shake!"'

She slapped her hand into his, and he held it in a strong grip.

'But you _will_ let me see you again soon?'

'Certainly.'  She withdrew her hand from his with a firmness that had
neither censure nor coquetry in it, and the heightened colour of her
cheeks subsided with the sparkle of her eyes.

'When?' he said.

'To-morrow morning, if you like.  I shall have horses here at eleven,
and we can ride in the Row, providing you will put up with anything so
quiet as our cattle.'

'That is bully of you.  I shall be here at eleven.'

'I thought all Americans used slang,' she said.

'You are the first English girl I have met,' he answered with
extraordinary venom in his voice, 'who has not said "ripping."'

      *      *      *      *      *      *

Twenty minutes later Austin Selwyn, unable to secure a taxi, tramped
along Oxford Street towards his hotel.  He had just reached the Circus
when the malignant wind, hiding in ambush down Regent Street, rushed at
him unawares and sent his hat roistering into the doorway of a store.
With a frown, Selwyn stopped and stared at the truant.

'Confound the wretched thing!' he said.




CHAPTER VI.

A MORNING IN NOVEMBER.


I.

Austin Selwyn rose from his bed and looked at Berners Street glistening
in a sunlight that must have warmed the heart of Madame Carlotti
herself.  With a lazy pleasure in the process, he recalled the picture
of Elise Durwent sitting in the dim shadows of the firelit room; he
felt again the fragrance of her person as he leaned over her with the
lighted match.  On the canvas of his brain was thrown the rich
colouring of the English girl, with the copper-hued luxury of hair and
the eyes that seemed to steal some magic from the fire; and he saw
again those warring lips, the crimson upper one chiding the passionate
scarlet of its twin.

Idly, while enjoying the unusual dissipation of a pre-breakfast
cigarette, he tried to imagine the course of incident and heredity that
had produced her strange personality.  That there was a bitterness
somewhere in her disposition was obvious; but it certainly could not
have come from the mother, who was the soul of contentment.  He found
himself speculating on the peculiar quality of personality, that
strange thing which makes an individual something apart from others of
his kind, that gift which singles out a girl of ordinary appearance and
leaves one of flawless beauty still wagging her pretty head in the
front row of the chorus.  From that point he began to speculate on the
loneliness of personality, which so often robs its owner of the cheery
companionship of commonplace people.

On the whole, he regretted that he was going to see her again so soon.
Her pertness, which had seemed fairly clever the previous night, would
probably descend to triteness in the morning; he could even see her
endeavouring to keep up the same exchange of short sentences.  Bah!  It
was like a duel with toothpicks.  The stolid respectability of Berners
Street lent its aid to the conviction that the morning would hold
nothing but anti-climax.

And he was poet enough to prefer an unfinished sonnet to one with an
inartistic ending.


II.

Austin Selwyn was twenty-six--an age which has something in common with
almost every one of the seven celebrated by Shakespeare.  Like most men
in their twenties, he had the character of a chameleon, and adapted
himself to his surroundings with almost uncanny facility.  At college
he had been an ardent member of a dozen cliques, even falling under the
egotism of the men who dabbled in Spiritualism, but a clarity of
thought and a strain of Dutch ancestry kept his feet on the earth when
the rest of him showed signs of soaring.

Some moderate wit had said of him at college that he was himself only
twice a day--when he got up in the morning and when he went to bed at
night.  This Stevensonian theory was not quite true, for a chameleon
does not cease to be a chameleon because it changes its colour.

It was perhaps his susceptibility to the many vintages of existence
that had impelled him to write, authors being more or less a natural
result of the economic law of intake and output.  As is the habit of
most young writers, he wrote on various subjects, put enough material
for a two-volume novel into a short story, and generally revelled in
the prodigality of literary youth.  He was prepared to be a social
satirist, a chronicler of the Smart Set, a champion of the down-trodden
masses, or a commercial essayist, according to the first public that
showed appreciation of his work.

Although he had lived in Boston, that city which claims so close an
affinity to ancient Athens (as a matter of fact, has it not been said
that Athens is the Boston of Europe?), he was drawn to the great vortex
of New York, that mighty capital of modernism which sucks the best
brains of an entire continent.  For some time he wrote beneath his own
standard and with considerable success.  Following the example of
several successful New York authors, he plunged into a hectic portrayal
of 'high' society, a set of people that makes one wonder as to the
exact meaning of the adjective.  For a short space he came under the
influence of the studied Bohemianism of 'Greenwich Village,' and wrote
deucedly clever things for the applause of the villagers, then sneered
at American taste because people in Arkansas did not like his work.
Still retaining his love of Greenwichery, he next succumbed to the
money lure of the motion-picture industry, which offered to buy the
picture-rights of his stories, provided he would introduce into them
the elements which go to make up successful American films.

With the prospect of a bank president's income before him, he succeeded
in writing his share of that form of American literature which has a
certain love interest, almost obscured by a nasty sexual diagnosis, an
element of comedy relief, and, above all, a passionate adherence to the
craze of the moment--a work that fades from the mind with the closing
of the book, as the memory of the author's name vanishes almost before
the last sound of the earth dropped upon his coffin.

He knew that there were sincere _literati_ writing of the abiding
things that do not die with the passing of a season, but the clamour of
commercialism drowned their voices.  As though they were stocks upon an
exchange, he heard the cries: 'Brown's getting five thousand dollars a
month writing serials for Hitch's;' 'Smith sold two novels on synopsis
for thirty thousand dollars;' 'Green's signed up with Tagwicks for four
years at two thousand dollars a month writing problem novels.'  Into
the maelstrom of 'Dollars, Dollars, Dollars,' the sensitive brains of
all America were drifting, throwing overboard ideals and aspirations in
order to keep afloat in the swirling foam.

And then--the Fates stooped and touched his destiny with a star.

A New York publisher (one of that little group which has for its motto,
'Art for Art's sake,' not 'Art, for God's sake!') noticed him, and
spoke of literature as an expression of the soul, a thing not of a
season or a decade, but as ageless as a painting.

His ear caught the new song of attainment just as readily as it had
received the chorus of 'Dollars.'  He wrote a novel of New England
life, full of faults, but vibrant with promise; and having gathered
together quite a nice sum of money, he went to England, at the advice
of the before-mentioned publisher, there and elsewhere in Europe to
absorb the less oxygenic atmosphere of older civilisations, which still
gives birth to the beginnings of things.

Twice he had visited Paris.  The first time, with the instinct of the
tourist, he had discovered the vileness of the place--a discovery
fairly easy of accomplishment.  The second time he had ignored the
tourist-stimulated aspect of Paris life, and had allowed his senses to
absorb the soul of the Capital of all the Latins, the laboratory of
civilisation.  And he who has done that is never the same man again.
Germany had ministered to his reason, and Italy to his emotions; but he
found his greatest interest in London, which offered to him an endless
inspiration of changing moods, of vagrant smells, and the effect of a
stupendous drama of humanity.

Under the spell of Europe's ageless artistry and the rich-hued meadows
of England's literary past he had grown humble.  The song of 'Dollars'
was less clamorous than the echo of the ocean in the heart of a
sea-shell.  When he wrote, which was seldom, he approached his
paper-littered desk as an artist does his canvas.  It was the medium by
which he might gain a modest niche in the Hall of the Immortals--or,
failing that, his soul at least would be enriched by the sincerity of
his endeavour.

In that highly artistic frame of mind he suddenly secured the _entrée_
into London Society.  For some reason, as unaccountable as the reverse,
a wave of popularity for Americans was breaking against the oak doors,
and he was carried in on the crest.  The result was not ennobling.  The
dormant instinct of satire leaped to life and the idealist became the
jester.

But then he was twenty-six and most agreeably susceptible to hap-hazard
influence.  Being a Bostonian, he acquitted himself with creditable
_savoir faire_; and being an American, his appreciation of the
ridiculous saved him from the quagmire of snobbery, though he made many
friends and dined regularly with august people, whose family trees were
so rich in growth that they lived in perpetual gloom from the foliage.

Lady Durwent's dinner-party had been an expedition into the artistic
fakery of London, and he would have dismissed the whole affair as a
stimulating and amusing diversion from the ultra-aristocratic rut if
the personality of Elise Durwent had not remained with him like a
haunting melody.

He looked at his watch.  'By Jove!' he muttered; 'it's nine o'clock;'
and hurriedly completing his ablutions, he dressed and descended to
breakfast.


III.

Into the row of splendidly inert houses known as Chelmsford Gardens,
Austin Selwyn turned his course.  A couple of saddle-horses were
standing outside No. 8, held by a groom of expressionless countenance.
From No. 3 a butler emerged, looked at the morning, and retired.
Elsewhere inaction reigned.

Ringing the bell, Selwyn was admitted into the music-room of the
previous night's scene.  The portrait of a famous Elizabethan beauty
looked at him with plump and saucy arrogance.  In place of the
crackling fire a new one was laid, all orderly and proper, like a set
of new resolutions.  The genial disorder of the chairs, moved at the
whim of the Olympians, had all been put straight, and the whole room
possessed an air of studied correctness, as though it were anxious to
forget the previous evening's laxity with the least possible delay.

'Good-morning.'

Elise Durwent swept into the room with an impression of boundless
vitality.  She was dressed in a black riding-habit with a divided
skirt, from beneath which a pair of glistening riding-boots shone with
a Cossack touch.  Her copper hair, which was arranged to lie rather low
at the back, was guarded by a sailor-hat that enhanced to the full the
finely formed features and arched eyebrows.  There was an extraordinary
sense of youthfulness about her--not the youthfulness of immaturity,
but the stimulating quality of the spirit.

'I came here this morning,' began Selwyn vaguely, 'expecting'----

'Expecting a frumpy, red-haired girl with a black derby hat down to her
nose.'

He bowed solemnly.  'Instead of which, I find--a Russian princess.'

'You are a dear.  You can't imagine how much thought I expended on this
hat.'

'It was worth it.  You look absolutely'----

'Just a minute, Mr. Selwyn.  You are not going to tell me I look
charming?'

'That was my intention.'

She sighed, with a pretty pretence at disappointment.  'That will cost
me half-a-crown,' she said.

'I beg your'----

'Yes; I wagered myself two-and-six to a "bob" that you wouldn't use
that word.'

'It is really your fault that I did,' he said seriously.

She curtsied daintily.  'I make money on Englishmen and lose it on
Americans,' she said.  'I have a regular scale of bets.  I give ten to
one that an Englishman will say in the first ten minutes that I look
"topping," five to one on "absolutely ripping" in the first thirty, and
even money on "stunning" in the first hour.'

His face, which had been portraying an amusing mixture of perplexity
and admiration, broke into a smile which encompassed all his features.
'Do all bets cease at the end of the first hour?' he asked.

'Yes, ra-_ther_.  An Englishman never pays compliments then, because he
is used to you.  Isn't it awful seeing people getting used to you?'

'Do they ever?'

'Umph'm.  The only chance of bagging one of the nobility as a husband
is to limit interviews to half-an-hour and never wear the same clothes
twice.  Startle him!  Keep him startled!  Save your most daring gown
for the night you're going to make him propose, then wear white until
the wedding.  An Englishman will fall in love with a woman in scarlet,
but he likes to think he's marrying one who wears white.  Costume, my
dear Americano--costume does it.  Hence the close alliance between the
nobility and the chorus.  But come along; we're snubbing the sunlight.'

With something like intoxication in his blood, he followed his
imperious, high-spirited companion from the house.  He hurried forward
to help her to mount, but she had her foot in the stirrup and had swung
herself into the saddle before he could reach her side.  With less
ease, but with creditable horse-management, Selwyn mounted the chestnut
and drew alongside the bay, who was cavorting airily, as if to taunt
the larger horse with the superior charm of the creature that bestrode
him.

'We'll be back, Smith, at twelve-thirty,' she called; and with the
tossing of the horses' heads, resentful of the restraining reins, and
the clattering of hoofs that struck sparks from the roadway, they made
for the Park.


IV.

London is a stage that is always set.  The youthful Dickens watching
the murky Thames found the setting for his moments of horror, just as
surely as cheery coach-houses, many of them but little changed to this
day, bespoke the entrance of Wellers senior and junior.  London gave to
Wilde's exotic genius the scenes wherein his brilliantly futile
characters played their wordy dramas; then, turning on the author,
London's own vileness called to his.  Thackeray the satirist needed no
further inspiration than the nicely drawn distinction between Belgravia
and Mayfair.  Generous London refused nothing to the seeking mind.  Nor
is it more sparing to-day than it was in the past; it yields its
inspiration to the gloom of Galsworthy, the pedagogic utterances of Mr.
Wells, the brilliant restlessness of Arnold Bennett, and the
ever-delightful humour of Punch.

On this morning in November London was in a gracious mood, and Hyde
Park, coloured with autumn's pensive melancholy, sparkled in the
sunlight.  Snowy bits of cloud raced across the sky, like sails against
the blue of the ocean.  November leaves, lying thick upon the grass,
stirred into life, and for an hour imagined the fickle wind to be a
harbinger of spring.  Children, with laughter that knew no other cause
than the exhilaration of the morning, played and romped, weaving dreams
into their lives and their lives into dreams.  Invalids in chairs
leaned back upon their pillows and smiled.  Something in the laughter
of the children or the spirit of the wind had recalled their own
careless moments of full-lived youth.

Paris, despite your Bois de Boulogne; New York, for all the beauties of
your Central Park and Riverside Drive--what have you to compare with
London's parks on a sun-strewn morning in November?

Reaching the tan-bark surface of Rotten Row, Selwyn and the English
girl eased the reins and let the horses into a canter.  With the motion
of the strong-limbed chestnut the American felt a wave of exultation,
and chuckled from no better cause than sheer enjoyment in the morning's
mood of emancipation.  He glanced at Elise Durwent, and saw that her
eyes were sparkling like diamonds, and that the self-conscious bay was
shaking his head and cantering so lightly that he seemed to be borne on
the wings of the wind.  Selwyn wished that he were a sculptor that he
might make her image in bronze: he would call it 'Recalcitrant Autumn.'
He even felt that he could burst into poetry.  He wished----

But then he was in the glorious twenties; and, after all, what has the
gorged millionaire, rolling along in his beflowered, bewarmed,
becushioned limousine, that can give one-tenth the pleasure of the grip
on the withers of a spirited horse?

Sometimes they walked their beasts, and chatted on such subjects as
young people choose when spirits are high and care is on a vacation.
They were experiencing that keenest of pleasures--joy in the _present_.

They watched London Society equestrianising for the admiration of the
less washed, who were gazing from chairs and benches, trying to tell
from their appearance which was a duke and which merely 'mister'--and
usually guessing quite wrongly.  Ladies of title, some of them riding
so badly that their steeds were goaded into foam by the incessant pull
of the curb bit, trotted past young ladies and gentlemen with
note-books, who had been sent by an eager Press to record the
activities of the truly great.  Handsome women rode in the Row with
their children mounted on wiry ponies (always a charming sight); and
middle-aged, angular females, wearing the customary riding-hat which
reduces beauty to plainness and plainness to caricature, rode
melancholy quadrupeds, determined to do that which is done by those who
are of consequence in the world.

But pleasures born of the passing hour, unlike those of the past or of
anticipation, end with the striking of the clock.  It seemed to Austin
Selwyn that they had been riding only for the space of minutes, when
Elise asked him the time.

'It is twenty minutes to one,' he said.  'I had no idea time had passed
so quickly.'

'Nor I,' she answered.  'Just one more canter, and then we'll go.'

The eager horses chafed at their bits, and pleaded, after the manner of
their kind, to be allowed one mad gallop with heaving flanks and
snorting triumph at the end; but decorum forbade, and contenting
themselves with the agreeable counterfeit, Selwyn and the girl
reluctantly turned from the Park towards home.

The expressionless Smith was waiting for them, and looked at the two
horses with that peculiar intolerance towards their riders which the
very best groom in the world cannot refrain from showing.

'Won't you come in and take the chance of what there is for lunch?' she
said as Selwyn helped her to dismount.

'N-no, thanks,' he said.

She pouted, or pretended to.  'Now, why?' she said as Smith mounted the
chestnut, and touching his hat, walked the horses away.

'There is no reason,' he said, smiling, 'except----  Look here; will
you come downtown and have dinner with me to-night?'

'You Americans are refreshing,' she said, burrowing the toe of her
riding-boot with the point of the crop, 'As a matter of fact, I have to
go to dinner to-night at Lady Chisworth's.'

'Then have a headache,' he persisted.

'Please,' as her lips proceeded to form a negative.

'Some one would see us, and Lady Chisworth would declare war.'

'Then let us dine in some obscure restaurant in Soho.'

'There's no such thing, old dear.  Soho is always full of the best
people dining incog.  Almost the only place where you are free from
your friends is Claridge's.'

'Well'--his nose crinkled at her remark--'then let us go to Claridge's.
Miss Durwent, I know I'm too persistent, but it would be a wonderful
ending to a bully day.  You know you'll be bored at Lady Chisworth's,
and I shall be if you don't come.'

'Humph!'  She stood on the first of the stone steps, her agile
gracefulness lending itself to the picture of healthy, roseate youth.

'Where could we meet?'

'Let me call for you.'

'N-no.  That wouldn't do.'

'Would your mother object?'

'Heavens, no!--but the servants would.  You see, English morality is
largely living up to your servants--and we met only last night.'

'But you will come?'  He crossed his hands behind his back and swung
the crop against his boots.

'Mr. Selwyn,' she said, 'your books should be very interesting.'

'From now on they will be,' he said, 'if'----

'All right,' she interrupted him with something of the staccato
mannerism of the evening before.  'I'll motor down in my little car,
and we'll go to the Café Rouge.'

'Good--wherever that may be.'

'No one has discovered it yet but me,' she said.  'Then I shall have a
headache at four, and meet you outside Oxford Circus Tube at seven.'

'You're a real sport, Miss Durwent.'

'Ah, monsieur'--she smiled with a roguishness that completely unsettled
him for the remainder of the day--'have you no sympathy for my
headache?'




CHAPTER VII.

THE CAFÉ ROUGE.


I.

Monsieur Anton Beauchamp was the proprietor of the Café Rouge in
London.  Monsieur Anton Beauchamp was once proprietor of the Café Bleu
in Paris.

For many years he had cast envious eyes on London.  Did not always his
guests, those strange blonde people with the clothes like blankets, pay
his prices without question?  Did they not drink bad wine and never add
the bill?  _Pardi_! if he could have only English as patrons, madame
and himself could purchase that wine-shop in the Bou' Mich', and never
worry again.

For years the thought of London haunted Anton; and then one day, in a
superb moment of decision, he announced his intention of journeying
thither.  A large entourage followed him to the Gare du Nord, and, with
much the same feelings as those of an explorer leaving for the North
Pole, he bade a dramatic farewell, and almost missed his train by
running back to give a final embrace to Madame Beauchamp.

With no undue mishap he reached London the same night, and next day he
lunched at a famous London restaurant.  At night he dined at a
fashionable establishment in Shaftesbury Avenue.  In both places he
received ordinary food served without distinction, reckoned up the
bill, and found that in each case _l'addition_ was correct--and rushed
madly back to Paris, where he sold the Café Bleu, packed up his
belongings, and explained matters to his wife, doing all three things
simultaneously.

'The dinner,' he exclaimed in a fever of excitement, 'is served--so!
As a funeral.  I order what I like, and the waiter he stands there
_comme un gendarme_, as if it is my name I give.  "Any vegetables?"
demands he.  _Mon Dieu_!  As if vegetables they are no more to him than
so much--so much umbrellas.  I say, "_Garçon, la carte des vins_!" and,
quite correct, he hands it me with so many wines he has not got, just
as in Paris, but--_que penses tu_?--he permits me to order what wine I
choose, so--by myself.  _C'est terrible_!  I give him three pennies and
say, "_Garçon_, for such stupidity you should pay the whole bill."'

Monsieur Beauchamp was a man of shrewdness.  He knew he could not
compete with the established solidity of the Trocadero, the Ritz, the
Piccadilly, or the garishness of Frascati's, so he purchased and
remodelled an unobtrusive building in an unobtrusive street between
Shaftesbury Avenue and Oxford Street, but clear of Soho and its
adherents.  He decorated the place in a rich red, and arranged some
_cabinets particuliers_ upstairs, where, by the screening of a curtain,
Madame the Wife and Monsieur the Lover could dine without molestation
of vulgar eyes.

Monsieur Beauchamp felt himself a benefactor, a missionary.  He argued
that the only reason Londoners were not so flirtatious as Parisians was
lack of opportunity.  He, the proprietor of the Café Rouge, would bring
light to the inhabitants of the foggy city.  To assist in this
philanthropic work he brought with him an excellent cook, who had
killed a dyspeptic Cabinet Minister by tempting him with dishes
intended only for robust digestions, and three young and ambitious
waiters; while madame engaged what unskilled labour was required.

Unobtrusively they opened for business, for he knew that publicity
would spoil his chance of success.  (Once convince a Londoner that he
is one of a select few who know a restaurant, and he will stand an hour
waiting for a table.)  The first customer to enter received such
attention that he brought his family the next night.  Monsieur
Beauchamp issued orders that he should be snubbed.  _Parbleu_! was the
Café Rouge for _families_?

Gradually the justification of Monsieur Beauchamp's policy became
evident.  Ladies of the Chorus brought their admirers there, and to the
former Monsieur Beauchamp paid particular courtesy.  Long study of
feminine psychology had taught him that, whereas a woman may change her
lover, she will not change her favourite café.  Therefore, though the
man may pay the bill, the woman is the one to please.  Artists from
Chelsea would come as well to the Café Rouge, celebrating the sale of a
picture, and drinking plentifully to the confounding of all art
critics.  Also, the _cabinets particuliers_ were the scene of some
exceedingly expensive and recherché dinners--and almost no one added
the bill.  When any one did, Monsieur Beauchamp was mortified, and
invariably dismissed the same waiter on the spot--thereby gaining for
himself and France a reputation for sterling integrity.

'_Ma foi_!  London may be gray,' thought Monsieur Beauchamp, 'but she
pays well.'


II.

One November evening Monsieur Anton Beauchamp's critical eye noted the
entrance of a dark-haired young man in well-fitting evening clothes,
and with him a young lady whose deep-green cloak and white fur round
the shoulders set off to perfection her radiant colouring and
well-poised figure.  Monsieur Beauchamp did not hesitate.  After all,
he was an artist, and subject to inspiration like other men of genius;
so, hurrying downstairs, he waved the waiter aside, and greeted them
with a bow which almost amounted to virtuosity.

'_Bon soir, monsieur et madame_.'  He cast an anxious glance about the
café, which was two-thirds filled.  'This tabil will do?--_Ah, mais
non_!  He grew indignant at the very thought.  '_Pardon, monsieur_,
that one is very nice--_par ici_--_Non, non_!  Ah--perhaps you would
like a _cabinet particulier_?'

The sirenic tone of voice and the gesture of his hands indicated the
seraphic pleasure to be obtained only in one of those secluded spots.

The American turned inquiringly to the girl.

'When I was here before,' she said, 'I was at a table just upstairs to
the right.  Have you one there, Monsieur Beauchamp?'

_Nom d'une pipe_!  She knew him.  And she was beautiful, this English
lady.  As he personally escorted them upstairs, with the importance of
a Lord Chamberlain at a Court function, Monsieur Beauchamp speculated
on the flirtatious potentialities of the young woman.  If she were only
clever enough to be fickle, what a source of profit she might be to the
Café Rouge!  And was she not in appearance much like Mademoiselle
Valerie, for whom a member of the Chamber of Deputies had blown out the
brains of Monsieur P---- de l'Académie Française?

With the assistance of a waiter, he ushered them to a table almost
hidden by a pillar, where a crimson-shaded light sent a soft glow that
was guaranteed to make the most of a woman's eyes.  Monsieur Beauchamp
with his own hands brought them the menu card, while the waiter stood
expectantly, crouched for an immediate start as soon as he received the
signal.  A small waitress appeared with the butter and rolls, and made
her way underneath the arms of the proprietor and the waiter like a tug
running round two ocean liners.  Monsieur Beauchamp could recommend the
_Barquettes Norvégienne_--No?  Madame did not so desire?  Of course
not.  He frowned terrifically at the waiter, who glared ferociously at
the diminutive waitress.  _Morbleu_!  What imbecile suggested
_Barquettes Norvégienne_?  Monsieur Beauchamp mentioned other dishes as
an overture to the meal, waxing increasingly wrathy towards the waiter
on each veto.  Ah! monsieur desired _Consommé Anton_.  The proprietor's
face beamed and his arms were outstretched towards heaven.  That this
gentleman should order _Consommé Anton_, the soup of which he alone
knew the secret, and which had been named after himself!  Truly, the
life of a restaurateur was not without compensations.  He turned on the
waiter--but that worthy had darted away to execute the order.


III.

The soup appeared.  Monsieur Beauchamp stood by with the attitude of an
artist watching the hanging of his first painting in the Academy.

'You might let me see the wine list,' said Selwyn.

Monsieur Beauchamp struck an attitude of horror.  Had it come to this
in the Café Rouge, that a patron must _ask_ for the wine list?
Brandishing his arms, he rushed from the table, almost colliding with
the little waitress, flew downstairs to the very farthest table near
the door, seized a wine card, and puffing generously, arrived with the
trophy at the table, much as Rothschild's messenger must have reached
London with the news that the British were winning at Waterloo.  Having
then succeeded in making the American order a red wine when he wanted
white, Monsieur Beauchamp withdrew in a state of histrionic
self-satisfaction.

With a smile of relief Selwyn looked across the table at the girl.
Even in the soft glow of the lamp, which made for flattery, it seemed
to him that the vivacity of the morning had disappeared, and in its
place was the petulance of the previous evening.  Her eyes, which
seemed when they were riding to have caught something of the alchemy of
the skies, were steady and lighter in shade.  Again he noticed the
suggestion of discontent about the mouth, and the upper lip looked thin
and lacking in colour.

'It is your turn to-night to be pensive,' she said.

'I was thinking,' he answered, 'that it is hardly twenty-four hours
since we met, and yet I have as many impressions of you as an ordinary
woman would give in six months.  For instance, last night when you
entered the room'----

'But, Mr. Selwyn, any girl knows enough to arrive late when there is no
woman within twenty years of her age in the room.  The effect is
certain.'

There was no humour in her voice, but just a tone of weary, world-wise
knowledge.  A look of displeasure clouded his face.

'Surely,' he said, 'with your qualities and appearance, you don't need
such an elaborate technique.'

'In a world where there is so little that is genuine, why should I
debar myself from the pleasure of being a humbug?'

'Come, come,' he said, smiling, 'you are not going to join the ranks of
England's detractors?'

She shrugged her shoulders.  'I'm certainly not going to become a
professional critic like Stackton Dunckley, who hasn't even the excuse
that he's an Irishman; or Lucia Carlotti, who hardly ever leaves London
because her dinners cost her nothing.  But I reserve the right of
personal resentment.'


IV.

They were interrupted by a waiter, who removed the soup-plates with
studied dexterity, and substituted _Tronçon de turbotin Duglère_;
_pommes vapeur_, the dish which had delivered the fatal blow against
the Cabinet Minister's digestive armour.

'Perhaps I am too personal,' resumed Selwyn after the completion of
this task, 'but last night one of the impressions I took away with me
was your critical attitude towards your surroundings.  Then this
morning you were so completely'----

'Charming?'

'----bewitching,' he said, smiling, 'that I thought myself an idiot for
the previous night's opinion.  But, then, this evening'----

'Mr. Selwyn, you are not going to tell me I'm disappointing, and we
just finished with the soup?'

More than her words, the forced rapidity with which she spoke nettled
him.  With bad taste perhaps, but still with well-meant sincerity, he
was trying to elucidate the personality which had gripped him; while
she, though seemingly having no objection to serving as a study for
analysis, was constantly thrusting her deflecting sentences in his
path.  To him words were as clay to the sculptor.  When he conversed he
liked to choose his theme, then, by adroit use of language, bring his
artistry to bear on the subject, accentuating a line here, introducing
a note of subtlety elsewhere, amplifying, smoothing, finishing with the
veneer of words the construction of his mind.  Another quality in her
that troubled him was the apparent rigidity of her thoughts.  Not once
did she give the impression that she was nursing an idea in the lap of
her mentality, but always that she had arrived at a conclusion by an
instantaneous process, which would not permit of retraction or
expansion.  As though by suggestion he could reduce her phrasing to a
_tempo_ less quick, his own voice slowed to a drawl.

'Miss Durwent,' he said, 'you are unique among the English girls I have
met.  I should think that contentment, almost reduced to placidity, is
one of their outstanding characteristics.'

'That is because you are a man, and with a stranger we have our company
manners on.  England is full of bitter, resentful women, but they don't
cry about it.  That's one result of our playing games like boys.  We
learn not to whine.'

'I suppose the activities of your suffragettes are a sign of this
unrest.'

'Yes--though they don't know what is really the trouble.  I do not
think women should run the country, but I do feel that we should have
something to say about our ordinary day-to-day lives.  Man-made laws
are stupid enough, but a man-made society is intolerable.  Just a very
little wine, please.'

For a moment there was silence; then she continued: 'Oh, I suppose if
it were all sifted down I should find that it is largely egotism on my
part.'

He waited, not wanting to alter her course by any injudicious comment.

'Mr. Selwyn,' she said abruptly, 'do you feel that there is a Higher
Purpose working through life?'

'Y-yes,' he said, rather startled, 'I think there is.'

'Sometimes I do,' she went on; 'then, again, I think we're here on this
earth for no purpose at all.  It often strikes me that Some One up
above started humanity with a great idea, but lost interest in us.'

'I think,' he said slowly, 'that every man has an instinctive feeling
sometime in his life that he is a small part of a great plan that is
working somehow towards the light.'

'Yes.  It's a comfortable thought.  It's what makes good Christians
enjoy their dinner without worrying too much about the poor.'

He made no answer, though he was not one who often let an epigram go by
without a counter-thrust; but he could see that the girl was struggling
towards a sincerity of expression much as a frightened horse crosses a
bridge which spans a roaring waterfall, ready to bolt at the first
thing that affrights it.

'Mr. Selwyn,' she said--and for the first time her words had something
of a lilt and less incision--'do you think women are living the life
intended for them?'

'Why not?' he fenced.

'Well, it seems to me that when any living creature is placed in the
world it is given certain powers to use.  You saw this morning how our
horses wanted to race, and couldn't understand our holding them back.
A mosquito bites because that's apparently its job in the world, and it
doesn't know anything else.  I was once told that if animals do not use
some faculty they possess, in time Nature takes it away from them.'

'You are quite a student of natural history, Miss Durwent.'

'No--but every now and then mother unearths a man who teaches us
something, like last night.'

He acknowledged the compliment with a slight inclination of his head.
The waiter leant expectantly beside him.

'To descend from the metaphysical to the purely physical,' he said,
glancing in some perplexity at the terrific nomenclature of Monsieur
Beauchamp's dishes, 'do you think we might take a chance on this
_Poulet reine aux primeurs; salade lorette_?  I gather that it has
something to do with chicken.'

'It's rather artful of Monsieur Beauchamp to word it so we poor English
can get that much, isn't it?'

'Yes.  He apparently acts on the principle that a little learning is a
common thing.'


V.

As Selwyn gave the necessary order to the waiter, a noisy hubbub of
laughter from an adjoining _cabinet particulier_ almost drowned his
words.  There was one woman's voice that was rasping and sustained with
an abandon of vulgarity released by the potency of champagne.

Elise Durwent looked across the table at her companion.  'Are you bored
with all my talk?' she said.  'You Americans aren't nearly so candid
about such things as Englishmen.'

'On the contrary, Miss Durwent, I am deeply interested.  Only, I am a
little puzzled as to how you connect the usual functions of animals
with woman's place in the world.'

With an air of abstraction she drew some pattern on the table-cloth
with the prongs of a fork.  'I don't know,' she said dreamily, 'that I
can apply the argument correctly, 'but--Mr. Selwyn, when I was a child
playing about with my little brother "Boy-blue"--that was a pet name I
had for him--I was just as happy to be a girl as he was to be a boy.  I
think that is true of all children.  But ask any woman which she would
rather be, a man or a woman, and unless she is trying to make you fall
in love with her she will say the former.  That is not as it should be,
but it's true.  Yet, if we are part of your great plan working towards
the light, we're entitled to the same share in life as you--more, if
anything, because we perpetuate life and have more in common with all
that it holds than men have.  There, that is a long speech for me.'

'Please don't stop.'

There was a howl in a man's voice from the noisy _cabinet particulier_,
followed by a laugh from the same woman as before, which set the teeth
on edge.

'That woman in there,' she went on, 'will partly show what I mean.  In
the beginning we were both given certain qualities.  She has lost her
modesty through disuse; I'm losing my womanliness and power of sympathy
for the same reason.  She's more candid about it, that's all.  When
Dick and I were youngsters I dreamed of life as Casim Baba's cave full
of undiscovered treasures that would be endless.  Now I look back upon
those days as the only really happy ones I shall ever have.'

'You are--how old?'

'Twenty-three.'

'You will grow less cynical as you grow older,' he said, from the
altitude of twenty-six.

'I agree,' she said.  'As, unlike the Japanese, we haven't the moral
courage of suicide, I shall get used to the idea of being an
Englishman's wife; of living in a calm routine of sport, bridge,
week-ends, and small-talk--entertaining people who bore you, and in
turn helping to bore those who entertain you.  In time I'll forget that
I was born, as most women are, with a fine perception of life's
subtleties, and settle down to living year in and year out with no
change except that each season you're less attractive and more petty.
After a while I shall even get to like the calm level of being an
Englishman's wife, and if I see any girl thinking as I do now, I'll
know what a little fool she is.  That's what happens to us--we get used
to things.  Those of us who don't, either get a divorce, or go to the
devil, or just live out our little farce.  It is a real tragedy of
English life that women are losing through disuse the qualities that
were given them.  That is why an American like you comes here and says
we do not edit ourselves cleverly.'

The rapid succession of sentences came to an end, and the colour which
had mounted to her cheeks slowly subsided.


VI.

'I feel,' he said, 'that I can only vaguely understand what you mean.
But is it not possible that you are looking at it too much from the
standpoint of an individualist?'

'Women are all individualists,' she broke in; 'or they are until
society breaks their spirit.  This lumping of people into generations
and tuning your son's brain to the same pitch as his medieval
ancestors' doesn't interest women--that's man's performance.  The great
thing about a woman is her own life, isn't it?  And the great event in
a woman's life is when she has a child--because it's _hers_.  This
class and family stuff comes from men, because their names are
perpetuated, not ours.  There is no snobbery equal to men's; it is more
noticeable with women, because it isn't instinctive with them, and they
have to talk to show it.'

'Then,' said Selwyn, 'in addition to an Irish Rebellion, we may look
for one from English women?'

'Yes.  I don't know when, but it will come.'

He produced a cigarette-case.  'Would you care for a cigarette now?' he
asked.

'No, thanks.  But you smoke.'

'Poor England!' he said in pretended seriousness, tapping the table
with the end of the cigarette, 'with two revolutions on her hands, and
neither party knowing what it wants.'

'We may not know what we want,' she said, 'but, as an Irishman said the
other day, "we won't be satisfied till we get it."  If the rebellion of
our women doesn't come, I prophesy that in a couple of thousand years,
when the supermen inhabit the earth, they will find a sort of land
mermaid with an expressionless face, perpetually going through the
motion of dealing cards or drinking tea.  Then some old fogy will spend
ten years in research, and pronounce her an excellent example of the
extinct race "_Femina Anglica_."'

'As one of the tyrants who wishes you well,' said Selwyn, after a laugh
in which she joined, 'may I be permitted to know what women want--or
think they want?'

'Mr. Selwyn, revolutions never come from people who think.  That is why
they are so terrible.  The unhappiness of so many Englishwomen comes
from the life which does not demand or permit the use of half the
powers they possess.  Nor does it satisfy half their longings.  Such a
condition produces either stagnation or revolution.  Our ultimatum
is--give us a life which demands all our resources and permits women
unlimited opportunity for self-development.

'And if the men cannot do this?'

'The women will have to take charge.'

'And when does the ultimatum expire?'

She shrugged her shoulders.

'When will the next great earthquake be?'


VII.

The noise of the party in the _cabinet particulier_ had been growing
apace with the reinforcement of champagne-bottles.  The strident
laughter of the women dominated the lower level of men's voices, and
there was a constant clinking of glasses, punctuated by the occasional
drawing of a cork, which always whipped the gaiety to a feverish pitch.
Monsieur Beauchamp rubbed his hands rather anxiously.  He would have
preferred a little more intrigue and not quite so much noise.  But,
then, was it not a testimony to his wine?--and certainly there would be
an excellent bill.

One of the men in the party called on some one for a song.  There was a
hammering on the table, a promise of a kiss in a girl's voice that
trailed off into a tipsy giggle, the sound of shuffling chairs and
accompanying hilarity as the singer was apparently hoisted on to the
table.  There came a crash of breaking glass as his foot collided with
some dinner-things.

Monsieur Beauchamp winced, but consoled himself with the reflection
that he could charge what he wished for the damage.  The voices were
hushed at the order of the singer, who was trying to enunciate the
title of his song.

'I shall shing,' he said, with considerable difficulty, '"Moon, Moon,
Boo--(hic)--Booful Moon," composhed by myself at the early age of
sheven months.  It ish very pash--pashesh--it ish very shad, so, if ye
have tearsh, pre--(hic)--pare to shed 'em now.'

There was loud applause, which the singer interrupted by commencing to
sing in a bass voice that broke into falsetto with such frequency that
it was difficult to tell which voice was the natural one.  He started
off the verse very stoutly, but was growing rather maudlin, when,
reaching the chorus, he seemed to take on a new lease of vitality and
bellowed quite lustily:


  'Moon, Moon, boo-oo-oo-ooful Moon,
  Shining reshplendantly, radiant an' tenderly;
  Moon, Moon, boo-oo--(hic)--booful Moon--
  Tell her I shy for her, tell her I die for her,
  Booful, BOO-OO-ooful Moon.


'Now then, fellow Athenians, chorush, chorush!'  With an indescribable
medley of discordant howling the party broke into a series of 'Moon,
Moon, boo-oo-ooful Moon,' which came to an abrupt ending as the singer
fell back, apparently unconscious, in the arms of his friends.  There
was a murmuring of voices, and a waiter was sent for some water to
revive the young man.

Considerably disgusted at the ending to the incident, Selwyn, who had
turned to look towards the _cabinet particulier_, once more sought his
companion's eyes.

Her face was white; there was not a vestige of colour in the cheeks.

'Miss Durwent,' he gasped, 'you are not well.'

'I am quite well,' she answered quickly, but her voice was weak and
quivering.  'I--I thought I recognised the singer's voice.  That was
all.'

The curtain of the _cabinet particulier_ was drawn aside, and two
youths in evening-dress emerged, supporting between them the
dishevelled singer, who was miserably drunk, and whose hat almost
completely obscured his right eye.  They were followed by three girls
with untidy hair, whose flushed, rouged faces had been made grotesque
by clumsy dabs of powder.

The singer's hat fell off, and Monsieur Beauchamp, who was hovering
about with the bill, had just stooped to recover it, when Selwyn heard,
a suppressed cry of pain from Elise Durwent.  Thrusting her chair away
from her, she made for the emerging party, and halted them at the top
of the stairway.

'Dick!' she said breathlessly.  'Dick!'

The drunken youth raised his heavy eyelids and looked with bewildered
eyes at his sister.  One of the girls tried to laugh, but there was
something in the insane lightness of his eyes and the agony of hers
that stifled the ribaldry in its birth.  His face was as pale as hers,
a pallor that was accentuated by dark hair, matted impotently over his
forehead.  But there was a careless, debonair charm about the fellow
that made him stand out apart from the other revellers.

'Hello, sis!' he muttered, trying to pull himself together.  'My li'l
sister Elise--friends of mine here--forget their names, but jolly good
fellosh--and ladies too; nice li'l ladies'----

'Bravo, Durwent!' cried one of his friends, emitting a dismal howl of
encouragement.

'Dick!  Boy-blue!'  The breathy intensity of her voice seemed to rouse
some latent manhood in her brother.  He stiffened his shoulders and
threw off his two supporting friends--a manoeuvre which enabled
Monsieur Beauchamp to present his trifling bill to the more sober of
the two.  'Why aren't you at Cambridge?'

'Advice of conshul,' he muttered.  'Refushe to answer.'  He shook his
head solemnly from side to side.

With a swift gesture she turned to the American.  'This is my brother,'
she said, 'and I know where his rooms are in town.  If you will bring
my cloak, I'll get him to my car and take him home.'

Selwyn nodded his understanding.  He hardly knew what words he could
speak that might not hurt her.

'Listen, Dick dear,' she said, stepping very close to him and taking
his hand in hers.  'Please don't say anything.  Just come with me, and
I'll take you to your rooms.'

Through the befuddled wits of the young fellow came the sound of the
voice that had dominated his childhood.  He smelt the freshness of the
long grass in the Roselawn meadows; with his disordered imagination he
heard again the clattering of horses' hoofs on the country-road, and he
saw his sister with her copper-tinted hair flung to the breeze.  With a
look of mixed wonder and pain in the yellowish blue of his eyes, he
allowed her to take his arm, and together they went slowly downstairs
and through the throng of diners craning their necks to see, while the
party he had left emitted snorts and howls of contempt.

Selwyn reached the door in time to help the drunken youth into the car,
and then placed the cloak about Elise's shoulders.  She put out her
hand.

'Good-night,' she said.

'But you will permit me to come?' he said.  'I could be of assistance.'

'No--no,' she said tensely, 'please--I want to be alone with him.  Have
no fear, Mr. Selwyn.  Poor old Dick would do anything for me.'

He held her hand in his.  'Miss Durwent,' he said, 'I cannot express
what I mean.  But if this makes any difference at all, it is only that
I admire you infinitely more for'----

'No--please--please say nothing more,' she cried with a sound of pain
in her voice.

'But may I come and see you again?'

She withdrew her hand and pressed it against her brow.

'Yes.  I--I don't know.  Good-night.  Please don't say any more.'  The
words ended in a choking, tearless sob.  She stepped into the car, and
with no further sign to him threw in the clutch and started away.

Huddled in the corner, his pale face glistening in the lamplight of the
street, the Honourable Richard Durwent lay in a drunken sleep.




CHAPTER VIII.

INTERMEZZO.

It was several months later--May 1914, to be precise--when Austin
Selwyn made the determination, common to most men, to remain in for an
evening and catch up in his correspondence.

After the manner of his species, he produced a small army of letters
from various pockets, and spreading them in a heap on his desk,
proceeded to answer the more urgent, and postpone the less important to
a further occasion when conscience would again overcome indolence.  For
an hour he wrote trivial politenesses to hostesses who had extended
hospitality or were going to do so; there was a reply to a literary
agent, one to a moving-picture concern, an answer to a critic, and a
note of thanks to an admirer.

Having disposed of these sundry matters, he sat back in his chair and
read a long letter that had been enclosed in an envelope bearing the
postage-stamp of the United States of America.  At its finish he
settled himself comfortably, lit a cigar, and, squaring his shoulders,
wrote a reply to the Reverend Edgerton Forbes, Rector of St. Giles'
Episcopal Church, Fifth Avenue, New York:


'LONDON, _May 12, 1914_.

'MY DEAR EDGE,--I've been supplying your friend the Devil with all
sorts of cobblestones recently, but, my dear old boy, if I had written
you every time I intended to, you would have had no time to prepare
those knock-out sermons of yours.

'In your letter you hint at possible heart entanglements for me.  Has
it not been said that to a writer all women are "copy"?  Even when he
falls in love, your author is so busy studying the symptoms that he
usually fails to inform the lady until she has eloped with some other
clown.

'In fairness, however, I must admit that you were partly correct in
your surmise.  I almost fell in love last November with a girl who
invariably angered me when I was with her, but clung to my mind next
day like an unfinished plot.  I saw her quite frequently up to
February, when I went to the Continent, but have not called on her
since my return.

'I met her first at her mother's town house, where there were several
people who admitted their greatness with an aplomb one was forced to
admire.  This girl sort of sat there and said nothing, but her silence
had a good deal more in it than some of the talk.  We had our first
chat that night by the fire, next morning went riding in Rotten Row,
and had dinner together the same night.  Fast travelling, you say?  On
paper, yes; but actually I don't know the girl any better now than the
night I met her.  She's a strange creature--self-willed, fiery, sweet,
and sometimes as clever as your Ancient Adversary.  But friendship with
her makes me think of the days when I was a kid.  My great hobby was
building sky-scrapers with blocks, and very laboriously I would erect
the structure up to the point when "feeding-time" or "washing-time" or
"being shown to the minister" used always to intervene.  When I
returned, the blocks had always fallen down.  Well, friendship with
Elise (pretty name, isn't it?) is not unlike my experience with the
blocks.  You can leave her, firmly convinced that at last you are on a
basis of real understanding; and two or three days later, when you meet
her again, you find all the blocks lying around in disorder.  Instead
of a friend, one is an esteemed acquaintance.  The only way to win her,
I suppose, would be to call at dawn and stay until midnight.  It would
be a bit trying, but I get awfully "fed up" (as they say over here)
with being constantly recalled to the barrier.

'Of course, you old humbug, I can see you pursing your lips and saying,
"Does Austin really love her?  If he did, he would be unable to see her
faults."  It's an exploded theory that love is blind.  Good heavens! if
a man in love can see in a girl beauty which doesn't exist, is there
any reason to suppose he will be unable to see the faults that _do_?

'But, candidly, I don't think I am in love with this young lady.  I
might be if I were given half a chance; but, then, emotional icebergs
were always my specialty.  I meet a dozen girls who treat me with a
tender cordiality that is touching; then there comes into my course one
who expresses a sort of friendly indifference, and there I stay
scorching my wings or freezing my toes--whichever figure of speech you
prefer.

'She makes me think of a painting sometimes, one that changes in
appearance with the varying lights and shadows of the sky.  But, Edge,
given the exact light that her beauty needs, she is a masterpiece.  In
some strange way her personality has given me a new pleasure in Corot
and Diaz.  It is difficult to explain, but it is so.  I feel my powers
of description are inadequate really to picture Elise to you.  She is
truly feminine, and yet when she is with other women her unique gift of
personality makes them _merely_ feminine.  "Lordy, Lordy," as a nigger
of mine used to say, "dis am becomin' abtuse."

'As a matter of fact, the girl is a result of conflicting elements of
heredity.  I haven't met her father, but I gather that he is a good old
Tory of blameless respectability, and has a deep-seated disbelief in
evolution.  On the other hand, the girl's mother is rather a buxom and
florid descendant of a vigorous North of England family, the former
members of which, with the exception of her father, were highly
esteemed smugglers.  The lady's grandfather, Elise tells me, was known
as "Gentleman Joe," and was as adventurous a cut-throat as a small
boy's imagination could desire.

'Well, Mr. Parson, you can imagine what happened when these conflicting
elements of heredity were brought together.  In the language of
science, there was one negative result and two positive.  The first
mentioned is a son Malcolm, whom I have not met.  He has a commission
in the cavalry, is a devil at billiards, can't read a map, and rides
like a Centaur.

'Of the positive results it seems to me I may have already mentioned
one--Elise.  The other is Richard, the tragedy of the family.  Poor
Dick was practically kicked out of Eton for drunkenness when he was
about sixteen.  For the past year or so he has been at Cambridge, but
he got in with a bad set there, and after several warnings has been
"sent down"--or, in ordinary language, expelled.  It appears that the
old combination of "booze" and women got the better of him, though
there's something oddly fine about the fellow too.  He was hitting an
awful pace at Cambridge, and when he tried to pass off a fourth-rate
chorus-girl as the Duchess of Turveydrop, the axe descended.  As the
masquerading duchess was rather noisy and very "elevated," you can see
that there must have been complications.

'Of course, his governor was furious, and, settling a very small
allowance on the poor beggar, turned him out of the family home, and
forbade him to ever darken, &c., &c.  (see, split infinitive and all,
any "best seller" of a few years back).

'Does this seem at all incongruous to you?  These so-called aristocrats
bring a son into existence, and, providing he's a decent-living,
rule-abiding chap, he is sheltered from the world and kept for the
enriching of their own hot-house of respectability.  But--if one of
them upsets the ash-can and otherwise messes up the family escutcheon,
the father says, "You have disgraced our traditions.  Get thee hence
into the cold, outside world.  After this you belong to it."

'Damned generous of paterfamilias, isn't it?  Only, as one of the cold,
outside world, I can't help wondering why, if Milord is going to keep
his good apples for himself, we should have to accept the rotten ones.

'Concerning Cambridge--I spent a weekend there recently with Doug
Watson of Boston, who is taking Engineering.  Cambridge is quite a
little community, as separate from the rest of England as the Channel
Islands.  On the Saturday evening I was there Watson took a punt, and
with considerable dexterity piloted me along the Cam, with its green
velvet banks and overhanging trees.  The river is an exquisite thing,
and there was a sensuous drowsiness in the beauty of the hour before
dark.

'The lawns from the backs of the colleges slope down to the river, and
as we passed along we noticed group after group of students drinking
coffee made in percolators in their possession.  There was something
almost pastoral in the sight of those young Britishers in such complete
repose.  Perhaps I should have enjoyed it all without question if it
had not been that, a week before, I had visited a poor little
Nonconformist preacher who labours on an empty stomach to a little
congregation in a chain-making district.  Edge, the sights I saw there
were not good for any man to see and remain quiet.  Women work at the
fires when pregnant, and fuddle themselves with beer at night; the men
are a shiftless lot, who spend their lives hand-in-hand with poverty
and think only of beer, "baccy," and loafing.  You know I'm no
prohibitionist, but I hate to see beer the goal of men's ambitions.  In
one school there was a class with forty "backward" children.  That's
the kinder word, Edge, but the real one is "imbecile."  Think of
it--forty human destinies that must be lived out to a finish!  They
tell me that conditions are improving there.  I hope so, in Heaven's
name.

'It was that visit I had in mind when punting along the Cam.  A man is
a fool to pit his little mind against so vast and wonderful an edifice
as a great university like Cambridge, but one thought which occurred
more than once to me was whether or not a man can be considered
educated if he be ignorant of human misery existing beyond the college
gates.  In the Scottish universities the Professor of Latin is called
Professor of Humanity.  I wonder, Edge, if the time is not ripe for a
chair of Humanity in a wider sense in all universities.

'On Sunday we went to one of the churches, and, with eleven others,
managed to present a formidable congregation of thirteen.  The
preacher's prayer, which he read, was a superb piece of work.  He
started off with the King and the Royal Family, passed on to titled and
landed gentry, after them the higher orders of the clergy, leaders of
the navy, the army, and all those in more or less authority, then the
lower orders of the clergy, and after several categories I have
forgotten, he reached the commoners, and (in an appropriate tone of
voice) hoped we should live in peace, one with another.

'Think of it, Edge, in this enlightened age!  I wanted to go up to him
after the service and ask him why he had left out the minor poets, but
Doug stopped me--which is perhaps just as well.  He might have added a
prayer for Americans after the commoners.

'Sometimes I think that the English Church is losing its grip.  I don't
mean that snobbery of the kind I have described is common, but in the
development of Church character it seems to me that the truth of
Christ's birth into a humble walk of life is drifting steadily farther
from the clerical consciousness.  The timid snobbery which permeates so
much of English life, and reaches its wretched climax in the terms
"working class" and "lower classes," finds condonement in the ranks of
the clergy.  Even in its humorous aspect, when Mrs. Retired Naval
Officer starts to swank it over Mrs. Retired Army Officer (senior
service, deah boy, y'know), and so on down the line, the local rector
too often takes an active part in seeing that the various grades are
punctiliously preserved.  Of course, there are glorious exceptions to
all this, and they are the men who count.

'I suppose at home we are just as bad, and that even so democratic a
preacher as yourself doesn't take supper on Sunday night with the
poorest parishioner.  Perhaps living in a strange country makes a man
see many things he would not notice in his own.

'To finish with Cambridge--we joined a party of two large punts on
Sunday afternoon, and with about twelve college chaps and local
(approved) girls we went for a picnic up the river.  The girls were
fairly pretty and terrifically energetic, insisting upon doing an equal
share in the punting, and managing to look graceful while they
manoeuvred the punts, which were really fair-sized barges.  And when we
reached the picnic-place, they made all the preparations, and waited on
us as if we were royal invalids.  Bless their hearts!  Edge, to restore
a man's natural vanity, commend me to life in England.  Coming home we
played the gramophone, and, with appropriate flirtation, floated nearly
the whole way to the holding of hands and the hearing of music.

'And, theologian as you are, if you deny the charm of that combination,
I renounce you utterly.

'Just one more Cambridge thought.  (This letter has as many false
endings as one of your sermons.)  There were quite a number of native
students from India in attendance, and I noticed that these men, many
of them striking-looking fellows, were left pretty much to themselves.
The English answer when spoken to, and offer that well-bred tolerance
exerted by them so easily, but the Indian student must feel that he is
not admitted on a footing of equality.  I'm not certain that the dark
races can be admitted as equals; but what effect on India will it have
if these fellows are educated, then sent back with resentment
fermenting their knowledge into sedition?  It may be another case where
the Englishman is instinctively right in his racial psychology; or,
again, it may be a further example of his dislike to look facts
squarely in the face.

'Of course, we have our own racial problem, and have hardly made such a
success of it that we can afford to offer advice.

'Well, Edge, this letter has run on to too great a length to permit of
any European treatment.  That will have to wait.  Of course, I have
paid several visits to Paris, and understand as never before the
saying: "Every man loves two countries--his own and France."

'Edge, why is it that people who travel always have the worst
characteristics of their nationality?  On the Continent one sees
Englishmen wearing clothes that I swear are never to be seen in
England, and their women so often appear angular and semi-masculine,
whereas at home--but, then, you know what an admirer I am of English
women.  And our own people are worse.  Tell me: at home, when a
gentleman talks to you, does he keep his cigar in his mouth and merely
resonate through his nose?  Or is that a mannerism acquired through
travelling?

'But enough, old boy.  This has covered too vast an acreage of thought
already.  Oh yes--about my writing.  I have been doing very little
recently, but can feel the tide rising to that point where it will of
necessity overflow the confines of my lethargy.  I have had the honour
of meeting several of the foremost writers here, and there is no
question about it, they are doing excellent work.  But I wish that I
could feel a little more idealism in their work.  The whole country
here is parched for the lack of Heaven's moisture of idealism.  People
must have an objective in their lives, and the Arts should combine with
the Church in creating it.

'Of course, there is an amazing amount of drivel written over here,
most of which, I think, would never get past the office-boy of an
American publication.  The English short story and the English
music-hall are things to be avoided.

'Before I end, have you seen Gerard Van Derwater recently?  I heard
that he joined the diplomatic service at Washington after leaving
college.  I often think of him with his strange pallor, but suggestion
of brooding strength.  Did it ever strike you that every one respected
him, and yet he really never had a close friend?  It always seemed to
me that he carried about with him a sense of impending tragedy.  Find
out what he is doing, and let me know.

'Well, old boy, in another few months I shall pack up and return to
America, and once more woo the elusive editor.  I am looking forward to
our sitting by your fireside and, through the cloud of tobacco-smoke,
weaving again our old romances.  I am really proud of you, Edgerton,
and know that you must be a tremendous power for good.

'A letter any time addressed c/o The Royal Automobile Club, Pall Mall,
will find me.--As ever, your old chum,

'AUSTIN SELWYN.'


      *      *      *      *      *      *

The writer addressed an envelope, inserted the letter, sealed and
stamped it, then yawned lazily.  Gathering his outgoing correspondence
and the old letters, he took his hat and sauntered into the street,
conscious of having done his duty--also that he had unearthed some
thoughts the existence of which he had not suspected beneath the
surface shrubbery of everyday existence.




CHAPTER IX.

A HOUSE-PARTY AT ROSELAWN.


I.

As is the habit of the year, June followed May, and in its turn gave
way to the yellow hours of July.  Lady Durwent, wearying of London and
its triumphs, returned to Roselawn to share the solitary, rural reign
of her husband.

As she drove in a sumptuous car through the village and into the wide
confines of the estate she purred with contentment.  Men doffed their
caps, women curtsied, and the country-side mingled its smile with
theirs.  It was not unlike the return of a conqueror from a campaign
abroad, and after the incognito forced by London on all but the most
journalised duchesses, it was distinctly pleasant to be acknowledged by
every one she passed.

In this most amiable of moods she dined with her husband, and was so
vivacious that, looking at her over his glass of port, he thought how
little she had changed since, years before, she had first affected his
subnormal pulse.  Together they wandered over the lawns, and he showed
the improvements wrought since her last visit.  She gave the
head-gardener the benefit of her unrestricted smile, and shed among all
the retainers a bountiful largesse of good-humour.

Still noting the beauties of Roselawn, they discussed their children.
She learned that Malcolm was on leave from the --th Hussars, and was
golfing in, and yachting off, Scotland with scions of the Scottish
nobility.  The mention of Dick brought a pang to her heart, and a cloud
that marred the serenity of her husband's brow.  Lord Durwent regretted
the necessity of his actions, but the boy had proved himself a 'waster'
and a 'rotter.'  He had been given every chance, and had persistently
disgraced the family name.  If he would go to Canada or Australia, he
could have money for the passage; otherwise----

After that imperialistic pronouncement, Lord Durwent turned to more
congenial topics, and spoke of additions to the stables and
improvements to the church.  His wife answered mechanically, and it was
many minutes before the heart-hunger for the blue-eyed Dick was lulled.
She said nothing, for the development of her sons' lives had long since
passed from her to a system, but in the seclusion of their country home
the domestic tragedy made a deeper inroad on her feelings than it had
done in London.

It was perhaps not unnatural that they barely spoke of Elise at all.
She was visiting a county family in the north, and would be home in a
couple of days.  As there was no immediate suitor on the horizon, what
more was there to be said of the daughter of the house?

Next morning Lady Durwent was still amiable, but rather dull.  The
following day she was frankly bored.  On Sunday, during the sermon, she
planned a house-party; and so, in due course, invitations were issued,
and accepted or regretfully declined.  She possessed sufficient sense
of the fitness of things to refrain from transplanting any of her
_unusual_ varieties from their native soil, but asked only those
persons whose family connections ensured a proper tone to the affair.

Perhaps it was just a kindly thought on her part to ask Austin Selwyn.
It may have been the desire of having an author to lend an exotic touch
to the gathering.  Or, being a woman, she may have wanted an American
to see her at the head of the table in two widely different settings.

Perhaps it was all three motives.


II.

In preparation for the arrival of guests, 'a certain liveliness'
pervaded the tranquil atmosphere of Roselawn.  The tennis-court was
rolled and marked; fishing-tackle was inspected and repaired; in view
of the possibility of dancing, the piano was tuned; bridge deficiencies
were made good at the local stationer's; and gardeners and gamekeepers
hurried about their tasks, while flapping game-birds signalled to
trembling trout that the enemy was mobilising for the yearly campaign.

Roselawn differed little from the hundreds of English country-houses,
the seclusion and invulnerability of which have played so great a part
in forming the English character.  A lodge at the entrance to the
estate supplied a medieval sense of challenge to the outside world, and
the beautifully kept hedges at the side of the mile-long carriage-drive
gave that feeling of retirement and emancipation from the world so much
desired by tranquil minds.

It was the setting to produce a poet, or a race of Tories.  Once within
the embracing solitude of Roselawn, the discordant jangling of common
people worrying about their long hours of work or the right to give
their offspring a decent chance in the world became a distant murmur,
no more unpleasant or menacing than the whang of a wasp outside the
window.

Not that the inhabitants of Roselawn were any more callous or selfish
than others of their class, for the record of the Durwent family was by
no means devoid of kindly and knightly deeds.  Tenantry lying ill were
always the recipients of studied thoughtfulness from the lord and lady
of the place, and servants who had served both long and faithfully
could look forward to a decent pension until death sent them to the
great equality of the next world.

If one could trace the history of the Durwent family from the
beginning, it would be seen that among the victims of a hereditary
system there must be numbered many of the aristocracy themselves.
Caricaturists and satirists, who smear the many with the weaknesses of
the few, would have us believe that the son of a lord is no better than
the son of a fool; yet, if the vaults of some of the old families were
to unfold their century-hugged secrets, it would be seen that, as
Gray's country churchyard might hold some mute inglorious Milton, so
might these vaults hold the ashes of many a splendid brain ruined by
the genial absurdity of 'class' wherein it had been placed.  A boy with
a title suspended over his head like the sword of Damocles may enter
life's arena armed with great aspirations and the power to bring a
depth of human understanding to earth's problems, but what chance has
he against the ring of antagonists who confront him?  Flunkeyism,
'swank,' the timid worship of the peerage, the leprosy of social
hypocrisy, all sap his strength, as barnacles clinging to the keel of a
ship lessen her speed with each recurring voyage.

It is not that the hereditary system injures directly; its crime lies
in what it engenders--the pestilence of snobbery, which poisons nearly
all who come into contact with it, titled and untitled, frocked and
unfrocked, washed and unwashed.  The very servants create a comic-opera
set of rules for their below-stairs life, and the man who has butlered
for a lord, even if the latter be the greatest fool of his day, looks
with scorn upon the valet of some lesser fellow who, perchance, is
forced to make a living by his brains.


III.

The house at Roselawn was large, and, with its ivy-covered exterior,
presented a spectacle of considerable beauty.  The front was in the
form of a 'hollow square,' creating an imposing courtyard, and giving
the windows of the library and the drawing-room ample opportunity for
sunshine.  From these windows there was a charming vista of well-kept
lawns, margined with gardens possessed of a hundred tones of exquisite
colour.  At the back of the house the windows looked out on receding
meadows that melted into the solidarity of woods.

The drawing-room (Lady Durwent tried to designate it 'the music-room,'
but the older name persisted) had all the conglomeration of contents
which is at once the charm and the drawback of English country homes.
Furniture of various periods indulged in mute and elegant warfare.
Scattered in graceful disorder about the room were relics procured by
an ancestor who had been to Japan; there was a Spanish bowl gathered by
Lord Dudley Durwent; there was an Italian tapestry, an Indian tomahawk,
a Chinese sword that had beheaded real Chinamen, all procured by Lord
Dingwall Durwent in the eighteenth century.  There was a massive Louis
Seize table and a frail Louis Quinze chair; a slice of Chippendale
here, and a bit of Sheraton there; portraits of ancestors who fought at
Quebec, Waterloo, Sebastopol, and a very military-looking gentleman on
a terrific horse, who had done all his fighting in Pall Mall clubs.
There were 'oils' purchased by Durwents who liked to patronise the
arts, and 'waters' by Durwents who didn't like oils.

And year after year, generation after generation, the ancient
drawing-room received its additional impedimenta without so much as a
creak of protest.

In the impressive seclusion of Roselawn, therefore, the house-party
began to gather.  They were an admirably assorted group of people who
never objected to being bored, providing it was accomplished in an
atmosphere of good breeding.  The soothing balm of the Roselawn meadows
offered its potency of healing to fatigued minds or weary bodies, but,
like the fragrance of the unseen flower, it was wasted on the desert
air.  Lady Durwent's guests had not been using either their brains or
their bodies to a point where honest fatigue would seek healing in the
perfume of clover.  If a hundred gamins from Whitechapel's crowded
misery had been brought from London and let loose in summer's
sweet-scented prodigality, the incense of fields and flowers might have
brought sparkle to young eyes dull with the wretchedness of poverty,
and colour to pale, unnourished cheeks.  But Lord and Lady Durwent,
denying themselves the luxury of such a treat, asked people who lived
in the country to come and enjoy the country.

The pleasure of their guests was about as keen as would be that of a
party of bricklayers invited by a fellow-labourer to spend a Saturday
with him laying bricks.


IV.

To the insatiable curiosity of Austin Selwyn the party presented an
infinite chance for study, as well as an unlooked-for opportunity to
meet Elise Durwent under circumstances which should either cement their
friendship or else demonstrate its utter impracticability.

He listened to the chat of men who did the same things all the year
round with the same people, and he wondered a little at their
persistency in conversing at all.  They rarely disagreed on anything,
partly because they were all of the same political faith, and it seemed
an understood thing that, so far as it was humanly possible, no one
would introduce any subject which would entail controversy.  When
Selwyn, who was almost too thorough a believer in the productive powers
of fiction, used to drop conversational depth-bombs, they treated him
with easy tolerance as one who was entitled to his racial
peculiarities.  Sometimes they would even put to sea clinging to the
raft of one of his ideas, but one by one would grow numb and drop off
into the waters of mental indifference.  They had a nice sense of
satire, and it was a delight for the American to indulge in an easy,
inconsequential banter which was full of humour without being labelled
funny; but it used to fill him with sorrow to see many of his best
controversial subjects punctured by a lazily conceived play of words.
He felt that, coming from the New World, he was in a position to give
knowledge for knowledge, but his fellow-guests were impervious to his
geographical qualifications, and persisted in their pleasant task of
rolling vocabulary along the straight grooved channels of their
well-bred thoughts.

The women were less of a type, but their little lives were so lacking
in horizon that they seemed to live in a perpetual atmosphere of
personalities.  As pretty much the same topics of conversation did them
for a whole season, they were not unlike a travelling theatrical
company producing the one show wherever they went.  One woman
occasioned some mirth to Selwyn by her familiarity with the obscure
royalties of Europe, whom she thrust forward on every possible
occasion.  On dowager-duchesses and retired empresses she was without
parallel, and she went through life expressing perpetual regret that
she had not known you were going to Ruritania, because she would have
insisted upon your calling on her friend the Empress Lizajania.

It was perhaps an unfortunate circumstance that had brought together a
group of women none of whom was artistically accomplished, although
they were by no means lacking in social charm.  Music for them was not
a refreshing stream which ran by the road of everyday life, but
something which was to be heard at the Opera, and which enjoyed a close
alliance with sables and diamond tiaras.  Pictures were of the Academy,
and, like all the best people, they invariably said, 'Have you seen
this year's show at Burlington House?  My dear, it's frightful.'  Nor
did they neglect literature in their curriculum.  Though literature
lacks a yearly exhibition, such as is possessed by music and painting,
they made it a subject for gossip, and denounced H. G. Wells as a
'bounder.'  'I never read him, Mr. Selwyn,' said the obscure-royalist
person.  'My cousin the Duchess of Atwater met him, and says--well,
really, she says he's quite impossible.'

With a mixture of wonder and amusement Selwyn watched the spectacle of
these people of more than average education and intelligence contenting
themselves with a perpetual routine of small-talk and genteel
insularity, and he wondered how it was that a race so gifted with the
blessed quality of humour could evolve a state of society offering such
a butt to the shafts of ridicule.

He liked Lord Durwent, whose unfailing gentleness and courtesy would
have stamped him as a gentleman in any walk of life.  Although his mind
was comparatively unimpressionable to new ideas, it was saturated with
the qualities of integrity and fairness, and in his attitude towards
every one of his guests there was an old-world dignity, born of the
respect in which he held both himself and them.  The study of this man
moving contentedly about his daily tasks, never making any one's day
harder by reason of his passing that way, was the first jolt Selwyn had
received in his gathering arraignment against English social life.  By
way of contrast he pictured certain successful gentlemen of his
acquaintance in America, and the vision was not flattering to his
national self-esteem.

He also enjoyed the refreshing vitality of Lady Durwent, who never
quite lost her optimism no matter how tight was the grip of good form;
and he admired without stint the devotion of every one, regardless of
sex, to sport.  Throughout the day there were constant expeditions that
necessitated long, invigorating hours in the open air; and it seemed to
the American that they were never so free from affectation, that the
comradeship between the men and the women was never so marked, as when
they were indulging their wise instinct for out-of-door sports.

He had been at Roselawn a couple of days before he had a chance to do
more than observe Elise Durwent as one of the party.  She had been his
partner at tennis and bridge, and a dozen times he had exchanged light
talk with her, but there was always about her the defensive shield of
impersonal cordiality.  When he spoke to her it was almost in a drawl,
but no matter to what a lackadaisical level he reduced his voice, her
replies were always punctuated by a retort that had in it the sense of
sting, as Alfio in _Cavalleria Rusticana_ accompanies his song with the
crack of a driving-whip.

He watched her with the men of the party, and wondered at their
good-natured endurance of her sharpness, as reckless as it was
disturbing; and he saw that her inclusion among the women made them
less at ease and disinclined to chatter.  No matter what group she
joined, she was never of it; and even when it was obvious that she was
doing everything in her power to reduce her personality to the pitch of
the others, her individuality branded her as something apart.

Studying her, partly subconsciously and partly with the keen
observation prompted by the attraction she held for him, Selwyn began
to feel the loneliness of the girl.  Not once did he see the melting of
eyes which comes when one person finds close affinity in the
understanding of a friend.  When she spoke at the table her suddenness
always left a silence in its wake.  At bridge her moves were so
spasmodic that, when opposite dummy, she seemed to play the two cards
with a simultaneous movement.  The same mannerisms were in her outdoor
games, a second service at tennis often following a faulty first so
rapidly that her opponent would sometimes be almost unaware that more
than one ball had been played.

Selwyn's original feeling of exasperation mellowed to one of genuine
pity in contemplation of her solitary life--a life directed by a
restless energy that only grew in intensity with the deepening
realisation of her purposelessness.  Yet she was so confident in her
bearing, and so capable of foiling with repartee any approach of his,
that he contented himself with a studied politeness that was no more
personal than the grief of an undertaker at a funeral.


V.

One evening, after dressing for dinner, Selwyn found that he had
half-an-hour to fill in, and as the smell of grass was scenting the
air, he sauntered from the house and strolled across the lawn to a path
which led to the trout-stream.

His mind was drowsy with a thousand half-formed ideas that lazily lay
in the pan of his brain waiting the reveille of thought.  A skylark
twitted earth's creatures from its aerial height.  A cow, munching in
endless meditation on its unfretful existence, emitted a philosophic
moo.

Selwyn smiled, and let his mind wander listlessly through the fields of
his impressions.  He thought of Britain, and wondered what there is in
the magic of that little island that fastens on one's heart-strings
even while the brain is pounding insistent criticism.  For the first
time the insidious beauty of Roselawn's tranquillity was cloying the
energy of his mind--a mind that never gave him rest, but was always
questioning and seeking the truth in every phase of human endeavour.
The peacefulness of the twilight hour was lulling his mental faculties,
and the perfumes of summer's zenith were stirring his senses like music
of the Nile.

As though he were picturing inhabitants of another world, he conjured
to his vision the feverish traffic of New York, deluged with human
beings belched from their million occupations into the glare of
lunch-hour.  It gave him a strange sensation of being among the gods to
be able to look at the lowering sun and know that at the same moment it
held New York in the pitiless heat of midday. . . .  And he wondered
dreamily why people lived such a mockery of existence as in its
towering streets.  The pastoral atmosphere was so perfect, so
completely soothing in its cool fragrance of evening, that he thought
if he could only remain there, away from the conflict of the world, he
could write of such things as only poets dream and painters see.

He had readied the stream, and was about to retrace his steps, when he
heard the rustle of a dress, and coming round a bend in the path he saw
Elise Durwent.  She was in an evening gown that looked oddly exotic in
those surroundings, and, still in a haze of reverie, he stood in
perplexed silence until she stopped opposite him.

'Have I interrupted the muse?' she said.

'On the contrary, you have awakened it.  I was just thinking how vivid
you looked with that setting of overhanging bushes and the background
of fields.  I--I think it must have been your gown that gave such a
quaintly incongruous effect.'

'And, of course, there is nothing incongruous in a dinner-jacket near a
trout-stream?  If I were an artist I should paint you, and call the
picture "Despondency."'

'Well,' he smiled, 'that would be an improvement on most Academy
titles.  An ordinary artist would simply name it "Young Gentleman by
Trout-Stream."  Haven't you often gone through a gallery picturing all
sorts of dramatic meanings in paintings, only to have your illusions
shattered by the catalogue?'

She nodded.  'You have expressed no surprise at my coming,' she said
abruptly.  'Are women in the habit of tracking you in this way?'

'I'm sorry,' he answered, lazily thrusting his hands into his pockets.
'As a matter of fact you are never very far from my thoughts.  Perhaps
that is why I felt no surprise.'

'How are you enjoying your visit?'

'Tremendously.'

'How do you like the guests?'

'Is this a catechism, Miss Durwent?'

She shrugged her shoulders and pulled a leaf from a bush.  'I was
wondering,' she said, 'whether they bored you as much as me.'

'Why,' he said with a slight laugh, 'to be frank, people never bore me.
The moment they become tedious they are of interest to me as a study in
tediousness.'

'Just the same,' she said quickly, 'as when a woman interests you she
becomes an object of analysis.  I wish I could detach myself like that.'

'And yet,' he said gently, wondering at the intensity of her eyes, 'I
should have thought you possessed the gift of detachment to a greater
degree than I.  You always seem separate and distinct from your
associates.'

She said nothing in reply, and as if by tacit agreement they started
back along the path.  He did not break the silence, feeling that words
might be provocative of a retort that would dispel the growing feeling
of mutual confidence.

'No,' she said, after a long pause, 'I do not possess the power of
detachment.  It's just that I don't mix well.  Have you read Robert
Service's poem about the men that don't fit in?'

'Yes.'

'Well, it's far worse for the women who don't.  A man can go out and
try to find some place for himself.  We have simply to stay and endure
things.'

Half in compassion he watched her from the corner of his eye, but again
refrained from saying anything.  He felt intuitively that she was
trying to break down the barrier of impersonality, but he knew that she
must do it in her own way of timid starts and quick withdrawals.

Although her movements were more restricted by her gown than when she
wore ordinary walking-garments, her vitality and limitless energy lent
a lilt to her step, and even touched the shoulders with a suggestion of
restless virility.  When she walked there was an imperious tilt to her
head; but no matter how carefully planned her toilette, or how cleverly
her coiffure might have been arranged by her maid, there was nearly
always some stray bit of colour or carelessly chosen flower that
combined with her nature in a suggestion of outlawry: the same instinct
of rebellion that had dominated her brother Dick during their
childhood.  Inside the house she would sometimes look, in her quickly
changing moods, as if she were some creature of Nature imprisoned
within the walls.

Selwyn wondered if heredity, in one of its strange jests, had recalled
the spirit of the smuggler ancestor and recast it into the soul of the
girl.

They were nearing the house, when, emerging upon a clearing, they came
to a rustic bench looking across a short field lined with shrubbery.

'Let us sit down a minute,' she said.  'We can hear the dinner-gong
from here.'

He took his seat beside her, and dreamily watched the yellow rays of
the sun casting their receding tints along the bushes opposite them.
It was strangely quiet, and the hum of insects seemed like a soft
orchestral accompaniment to the crickets' song.

'It is not very sporting of me, Mr. Selwyn,' she said softly, but with
her old staccato mannerism, 'to force my mood on you like this.  I did
it once before--that dreadful night at the Café Rouge--and I know that
you must think it is just selfishness on my part that makes me so
unhappy.  But--you know I never had a real friend--except little
Dick--and I felt to-night as if I had lost all my courage about life.
That's why I followed you.  I knew you would be patient and kind.'

'My dear girl,' said Selwyn gently, speaking almost listlessly for fear
the smouldering power of retort should be fanned into being, 'for
months I have been hoping that some day we should be able to talk like
this, as friends.  Perhaps it was my fault, but there always seemed a
sort of third-person-singular attitude in our talk, as if we were
speaking at each other, which served to block our friendship from
becoming anything of value to each other.  Naturally I have seen that
you are not happy, though there have been moments when you were the
very personification of light-hearted ness, and I have known for a long
time that the motif of your whole nature is resentment.  Believe me,
Miss Durwent, if I could be a friend--and I mean that to the last
ditch--I should be deeply grateful for the privilege.'

'Thanks,' she said simply, and placing her hand in his, let it remain
there.

The hot blood of his impressionable nature mounted to his cheeks, and
his heart was aflame with a sudden intoxication of desire.  But
chivalry told him how much it had cost this girl, whose whole being
rebelled at the thought of being physically conquered, to show such a
mark of confidence.  And reason warned him that any triumph he might
obtain would be only for the moment.  He watched the flight of a hawk
in the sky--and his lips were parched and hot.

'For a long time,' she said, 'I have had a growing sensation of
suffocation in life.  It's stifling me.  When I look ahead and see
nothing but this kind of life--visiting, visiting, entertaining,
entertaining, listening to that endless talk in London--well, I think I
understand why some women go to the devil.  At least there's something
genuine about sin.'

A rabbit leaped from a bush opposite as though it bad seen something
terrifying, and scampered madly across the field to some burrowed
refuge by a great oak.  Selwyn felt the hand in his tighten
convulsively.

'Look!' she cried.  'Austin--look!'

Her face blanched with sudden alarm.  He sprang to his feet.

'What is it?' he cried.

'The bush--there--where the rabbit darted out.'

He looked at the spot indicated by her trembling hand, but the
dwindling sunlight had just passed it, and he could see nothing but a
clump of shrubbery.

'It was a man,' she said, her voice shaking querulously.  'I saw his
face.  He was crouching there and watching us.'

Selwyn frowned.  'Some poacher fellow,' he said, 'that's all.  At any
rate, I'll make sure.'

He started for the bush, when, with a tearful laugh, she stopped him,
her hands clinging to his arm.

'No--no,' she said swiftly, 'it's nothing.  It was just my nerves.
There is no one there.  The rabbit startled me.'

He hesitated momentarily, then, turning to her, gripped her arms with
his hands.  A great feeling of pity for the high-strung girl welled up
in him, and he wished that it were possible to impart some of his own
strength to her.  'Elise,' he began hoarsely, his whole being in a
cloud of passion through which his brain slashed its lightning shafts
of warning--'Elise'----

The hall gong, growing in a clamant intensity, rang out on the quiet
air.  With the lightness of a fawn she released herself from his grip,
and gathering her skirts in her hand, moved towards the path.  'Come
along,' she cried; 'we shall be late for dinner.'

He followed her slowly, his hands in his pockets and his mind besieged
with countless thoughts.  As he crossed the lawn he looked up.

From a window in the tower of Roselawn there was shining an angry,
blood-red reflection of the sun's dying moments.


VI.

It was a few minutes after midnight when the party at Roselawn retired
to their rooms.  There had been an impromptu dance, following some
spirited bridge, and there was more than the usual chaffing and
laughter as the guests dispersed to the various wings of the house.

Tired with the many events of the day, the American quickly undressed,
and soothed by the comfort of cool sheets, lay in that relaxation of
mind and body which prefaces the panacea of sleep.  With half-closed
eyes and drowsy semi-consciousness he heard the sounds of life growing
less and less in the roomy passages of Roselawn, as his mind lingered
over the burning memory of Elise's proximity a few hours before.  He
felt again the perfume of her hair and the radiant freshness of her
womanhood, with its inexplicable sense of spring-time.  And memory,
with its power of exquisite torture, recalled to his mind the
questioning eyes and the trembling, beckoning lips.

The soft chime of a clock downstairs sounded the passing of another
hour.  Its murmuring echo died to a silence unbroken by any sound save
that of the summer breeze playing about the eaves and towers of the
house.

Minutes passed.  His thoughts blurred into the gathering shadows of
sleep.

Of a sudden he was awake, his eyes staring into the dark, his whole
body nervously, acutely, on the alert.  He had heard a cry--of a
nightjar--but so strange and eerie that it made him hold his breath.

The call was repeated.  An owl answered with a creepy cry of alarm.
Selwyn muttered impatiently at the trick played upon him by his nerves,
and turning over, was about to settle again to slumber, when he heard a
door softly opening.  Light footsteps passed in the hall, stopping at
each creaking board as though suspicious that some one might hear; then
their sound was lost in the thick carpet of the stairway.

For a minute there was complete silence.  He heard from below the
cautious opening of the side-door leading to the lawn.

Wondering what mischief was on foot, he rose from his bed, and peering
through the window, tried to penetrate the gloom.  A sullen sky kept
the stars imprisoned behind deep banks of clouds, and only the trees,
by reason of their solid blackness, were discernible in the darkness of
the night.  Slipping on a dressing-gown, he stealthily left his room,
and creeping downstairs, found the open door.  Emerging on the lawn, he
looked quickly about.

Beneath a near-by tree he saw a woman in white, and the figure of a man
pleading for something.  Suddenly Selwyn saw the woman take some
article from around her neck and hand it to the man.  The fellow took
it, and seemed to be turning away, when, with a suppressed sob, she
caught him in her arms, murmuring incoherent endearments through her
tears.

The black scudding clouds left the sky-clear for a moment overhead--and
Selwyn felt a contraction of pain in his heart.

The woman was Elise, and the man--her brother Dick.




CHAPTER X.

GATHERING SHADOWS.


I.

Breakfast at Roselawn was a studiously inconsequential meal.  Places
were set as usual by the servants, but the viands and the paraphernalia
necessary for their preparation were placed on a separate table in the
alcove by the great window overlooking the lawn.  Having performed this
duty, the servants did nothing more; but one could not help feeling
that they were just outside the door, like a group of prompters, ready
to render instantaneous assistance should the amateurs falter.

Lord Durwent made a kindly and efficient supervisor of the commissariat
table, and--there was no question of it--could boil an egg with any one
in the county.  And the guests plying between the source of supply and
the breakfast-table proper created a vagabondish camping-out air of
geniality that did much to dispel the natural stiffness of the morning
intercourse.  As the meal had no formal opening, every one arrived at
any time during the breakfast period, and though constant apologies
were offered for the frequent interruptions to Lord Durwent's own meal,
it could be seen that his enjoyment of buffet proprietorship was almost
a professional one.

Lady Durwent's part in the function was to supervise the coffee, and
ask each guest how he or she had slept, expressing regret that the
night had not been cooler, warmer, calmer, or fresher, according to the
polite customs of social dialogue at breakfast.

At nine-fifteen the papers used to arrive from the village, always
causing a flutter of excitement.  The sense of solitude at Roselawn
made the outside world something so remote and apart that there was
genuine curiosity to discover what the deuce it had been doing with
itself during the house-party's retreat.

Lord Durwent read the _Morning Post_ as a sort of 'prairie oyster' or
'bromo-seltzer.'  It settled him.  There was something about that
journal's editorial page and its dignified treatment of events that
made Roselawn seem the embodiment of British principle.  Being a man
who prided himself on a catholicity of view-point, he also subscribed
to the _Daily Mail_--that frivolous young thing that has as many
editions as a _débutante_ has frocks, and by its super-delicate
apparatus at Carmelite House can detect a popular clamour before it is
louder than a kitten's miaow.

As a concession to the ladies of the household, he took, in addition,
the _Daily Sketch_ and the _Daily Mirror_, those two energetic
illustrated papers, which, benefiting from the remarkable geographical
fact that every place of consequence in England is exactly two hours
from London, are able to offer photos of riders in Rotten How, bathers
at Brighton, rowers at Oxford, and foreign monarchs walking at Windsor,
the very morning after all these remarkable persons have astonished the
world by riding, bathing, rowing, or walking.

But to Lord Durwent these papers and the _Daily Mail_ were but
interludes.  The _Morning Post_ was the real business of life, and
after reading through its solid columns of type, he enjoyed the
sensation of somehow having done something for his country.


II.

It was just before the arrival of the morning papers that Selwyn
descended to the dining-room.  Helping himself to porridge, he answered
Lady Durwent's polite conventional questions.

'And _how_ did you sleep?' asked his hostess, putting into the inquiry
that artistic personal touch which made it seem as if this were the
first time she had asked the question, and he the first guest to whom
it had been propounded.

'Lady Durwent,' he answered, smiling, 'I haven't the faintest idea.'

'Then,' said his hostess, triumphantly explaining the obvious, 'you
must have slept well.'

Selwyn thought that when he answered Lady Durwent's query a quick look
of relief had passed across the face of Elise.  It was for her peace of
mind he had lied, as into the hours of dawn he had lain awake, trying
to unravel the meaning of the nocturnal scene.  He knew that her
prodigal brother had been forbidden the ancestral home, but it was
hardly necessary that he should lie in hiding like a negro slave
dreading the hounds upon his track.  And yet, as he recalled the sudden
glimpse of Dick's face, Selwyn remembered that there had been a hunted
look in the dark-shadowed, luminous eyes.  Vaguely he felt that this
new development would hinder the understanding reached by Elise and
himself during the evening.  If only he could go to her and offer his
help or solace; or if she would come to him frankly and let him share
the unhappy secret, whatever it was, it might prove a bond of
comradeship instead of another element to deepen her consciousness of
aloofness.

Still churning these various thoughts, he smiled his greetings to her,
and affecting an easy unconcern, took his part in the fashionable
agricultural conversation which marks the morning intercourse of
country-living gentle-folk.  If it had not been that the pigs mentioned
were Lord Fitz-Guff's, and the cabbages Lady Dingworthy's--and the
accents of the speakers beyond question--Selwyn could have imagined
that he was sitting around Hank Myer's stove in Doanville, N.Y.,
listening to the gossip of the local Doanvillians on earth's produce.

'Ah,' said Lord Durwent, sighting a messenger from over the egg-timer,
'here are the papers.'

Directly afterwards the butler entered with the four morning journals,
solemnly presented them to his master (with a little more dignity than
a Foreign Minister displays in handing the ambassador of an enemy
country his passports), then made his exit with his eyes sedately
raised, to avoid noting more than was necessary of the 'behind-stage'
aspect of his domain.

'Hello!' said Lord Durwent, perusing the _Morning Post_; 'what's this?
Austria has delivered an ultimatum to Servia.'

'What!' cried one of the ladies; 'over that unpronounceable
assassination?'

'Dear me!' said the woman who kept record of retired royalties, 'that
will upset my dear friend Empress----'

But her voice was lost in the clamour, as every one, deserting
breakfast, crowded about Lord Durwent, and half in jest demanded to
know what the ramshackle empire had to say for itself.

In a voice that grew tremulous with anger, the host read the details,
point by point, and as the seriousness of the thing broke upon the
hearers, even the very lightest tongues were for the moment stilled.

With a frown the nobleman looked up as he reached the end of the
ultimatum, in which one nation, for its pride, demanded that another
should hand over its honour, debased and shackled.

'It is infamous,' said Lord Durwent.

'I tell you what,' said a bland youth named Maynard, who was always in
high spirits at breakfast, bored at lunch, 'frightfully bucked' by a
cup of tea at four, and invariably sentimental after dinner; 'it would
do these nasty little Balkans a lot of good to hold 'em all under water
for about three minutes--what?'

'But this is more than a Balkan quarrel,' said Lord Durwent.

'Balkan quarrels always are,' said the youth amiably.

In a chorus of quick questions and answers, in which surmise and
conjecture played ducks and drakes with fact, the party divided into
two camps, the majority taking the stand that it was a local affair and
would lead to nothing; the minority, led by a retired army captain
called Fensome, reading a dark augury for the future.  In the midst of
all the chaffing Selwyn noticed, however, that the placidity of decorum
had been dropped, and both men and women were leaning forward in the
unaccustomed stimulus of their brains rallying to meet a new and
powerful situation.

The men did not lose that note of easy banter which seemed the rule
when women were present, but in the faces of the little group who
contended that danger was ahead he could detect the stiffening of the
jaw and the steadying of the eye which come to those who see events
riding towards them with the threat of a prairie fire driven by a wind.

'But, good heavens!' said Selwyn, in answer to some one's prophecy that
war would result, 'surely the big nations can stop it.  Germany and you
and America--we three won't let Austria cut Servia's throat in full
daylight.'

The retired army captain turned a monocle on him.  'You have been in
Germany, Mr. Selwyn?'

'Yes, just recently.'

'Did you ever hear them toasting _Der Tag_?  My friend, it has
arrived.--Durwent, old boy, if you will excuse me, I think I shall go
to town at noon.  If my old bones aren't lying, the thing which a few
of us fossils have been preaching to deaf ears has come to pass, and
there may be a job for a belivered old devil like me yet.'

'But,' cried Lady Durwent, whose easily roused theatrical instinct gave
her the delightful sensation of presiding at a meeting of the Cabinet,
'what have we to do with Austria and Servia?'

'Hear, hear,' said the bland youth.  'Let 'em hop aboard each other if
they like.  I think it would be deucedly splendid for us to have
another war; we're all fed up--aren't we?--with just enjoying
ourselves.  But I don't see how we can intrude into those blighters'
little show.'

'Exactly,' said Selwyn; 'it's an isolated incident in European affairs.
In what possible way can it lead to a rupture between Britain and
Germany, as Captain Fensome here predicts?'

The officer referred to shrugged his shoulders.  'It's fairly simple,'
he said.  'If, as I think, Germany is behind all this, Servia will
appeal to Russia; and remember that the Great Bear is mother to all the
Slavs.  There will, of course, be jockeying for position, bluff,
bravado, and all the rest of it; but France is bound to act with
Russia, and with all that explosive hanging around it will be strange
if some spark doesn't fall among it.'

'But what has that to do with England?'

'Nothing and everything.  The greatest hope of maintaining peace lies
with Great Britain.  If we had the army we should have, I don't think
there would be a war; but, thanks to our ostrich temperament, we are
reduced to a handful of men and our action is robbed of everything but
merely moral strength.'

'But that is a tremendous factor,' said Selwyn.

'Yes,' admitted the other dryly; 'but I prefer guns.'

'Then you don't think Britain powerful enough to steady the situation
if it comes?'

'N-no.  Not unless'----  The monocle dropped from the speaker's eye,
and with annoying coolness he paused to replace it.  'Do you think
America will swallow her doctrine and throw in her lot with us?'

Selwyn bit his lip to keep himself from too impetuous an answer.  For
the first time he felt an envy for the cool imperturbability of the
Island Race.

'If you ask me,' he said, 'whether America will plunge into war at the
bidding of a group of diplomats who shuffle the nations like a pack of
cards, then I say no.  If you older nations over here allow this thing
to come to a crisis with a rattling of swords and "_Hock der Kaiser!_"
and "Britannia Rules the Waves," count us out.  But should the occasion
arise when palpable injustice is being done, and the soul of Britain
calls to the soul of America that Right must be maintained, then the
Republic that was born--if you will permit me to say so--born out of
its resentment against injustice will act instantly.'

'Supposing,' said the other, 'that Germany invades Belgium?'

'But--I understand that Germany has guaranteed Belgium's neutrality.'

The ex-officer showed no signs of having heard him, but shook his head
impatiently as one does when annoyed by a fly.  'Supposing,' he
repeated, 'that Germany invades Belgium.'

'In that case,' said Selwyn sternly, 'America will be the first to
protest.'

'To protest?'

'And fight,' said the American, swallowing a desire to hurl a plate at
the monocle.

'You will pardon me,' said Lord Durwent, 'but I do not think we can
expect America to become mixed up in this thing.  She has her own
problems of the New World, and it is too much to hope that she is going
to come over here and become embroiled in a European conflict.'

'But, dad,' said Elise Durwent, speaking for the first time, 'if, as
Mr. Selwyn says, it is clear that a wrong is being committed, America
will insist upon acting.'

'Oh, I don't know,' broke in the youth who was always lively at
breakfast, but who was beginning to be bored; 'it's one thing to get
waxy about your own corns, and quite another when they're on some other
blighter's foot--what?  I mean, you chaps over there got awfully hot
under the collar when dear old Georgius Rex--Heaven rest his
soul!--tried to jump down your throat with both spurs on and gallop
your little tum-tums out.  But the question is, does it hurt in the
same place if old Frankie-Joseph of Austria pinks Thingmabob of Servia
underneath the fifth rib--what, what?'

'Is Britain great enough for such a situation?' asked Selwyn,
repressing a smile.  'Would she accept Belgium's crisis as her own?'

'Oh, that's another thing,' said the young man a little uncomfortably.
'We've signed the bally thing, and of course we'll play the game,
and'----

'As Maynard says,' interrupted the former army man, 'it's a bigger
thing for America than for us.  Mind you, I don't say we need America
to help us to make war, but we do need her help if war is to be
averted; and any move of such a nature on her part demands what you
author fellows would call "a high degree of altruism."  How's that,
Durwent, for a chap who never reads anything but the _Pink Un_?'

'Oh, well,' said Lady Durwent complacently, 'it's probably all a storm
in a teacup, anyway.  Some Austrian diplomat has been jilted for a
Servian, I suppose.  Isn't that the way wars always happen?' and she
sighed heavily, recalling to her mind the classic features of H.
Stackton Dunckley.

'That's what I say,' said the bright youth of the morning splendour.
'Why make a horse cross a bridge if it won't drink?  Here goes--heads,
a European war; tails, another thousand years of peace.--Ah, tough
luck, Fensome, old son; it's tails.'

'Then let's begin the thousand years with some tennis,' cried Elise,
whose eyes were sparkling, 'immediately after breakfast.'

'Shall us?  Let's,' cried the talkative Maynard.  'So lay on,
comrades--the victuals are waiting--and "damned be he that first cries,
'Hold, enough!"'


III.

With an animated burst of chatter the house-party had given itself over
to a thorough enjoyment of the remainder of breakfast.  Ultimatums and
the alarums of war vanished into thin air, like mists dispelled by the
sun.  The serious face of the ex-officer and the unwonted air of
distraction on Lord Durwent's countenance were the only indications
that the morning was different from any other.  Tongues and hearts were
light, and airy bubbles of badinage were blown into space for the
delectation of all who cared to look.

It was during a fashionable monologue of the Court-Circular lady that
Maynard, the man of moods, who was sitting next to Selwyn, leaned over
and whispered, 'Get hold of the _Sketch_.  It's on your right.  Pretend
you're looking at the pictures.  I've got the _Mirror_.'

Wondering what asinine prank was in the young man's mind, but not
wanting to disturb the monologuist by untimely controversy, Selwyn
reached for the _Sketch_, and assumed a deep interest in the very
latest picture of London's very latest stage favourite who could
neither sing, dance, nor act, and was tremendously popular.

'Excuse me, Lady Durwent,' said the gilded youth when a lull permitted
him to speak, 'but would you pass the _Daily Mail_, please?'

'My dear Horace,' said Elise, 'you haven't taken to reading the _Mail_?'

'No, dear one.  Heaven forbid!  I merely write for it.'

'What!'  There was an _ensemble_ of astonishment.

'Ra-ther.  I sent their contributed page a scholarly little thing from
my pen entitled "Should One Kiss in the Park?"  If it's in I get three
guineas, and I'm going to start for Fiji to escape old Fensome's war.'

'Mr. Selwyn,' said Lady Durwent, passing the journal along, 'you have a
rival.'

With an air of considerable embarrassment the fair-haired contributor
to newspapers opened the pages of the _Daily Mail_, but protesting that
he was too bashful to endure the gaze of the curious, he begged
permission to retire to the library, there to search in privacy for his
literary child.

'I say, Selwyn,' he said, 'you come along too if you're through
pecking.  Nothing like having the opinion of an expert, even if he is
jealous.'

With a promise to return immediately and read the effort aloud, the two
men left the table and adjourned to the adjoining room.  With a frown
of impatience Selwyn was about to demand the reason for his inclusion
in the silly affair, when the other stopped him with a gesture and
closed the door.

'Quick!' he said.  'Grab that knife--here's the _Sketch_.  Look through
it for anything about Dick Durwent.'

Seeing that the other was serious, Selwyn spread the paper before him
and hurriedly searched its columns.

'Great Scott!' he cried.  'Here it'----

'Sh-sh!  Hurry up and cut it out.  Right.  I'll fix up the _Mirror_ in
the same way.  Now skim through the _Mail_.  Got it?  By Jove! damn
near a whole column.  Here'--Maynard ran the knife down the side of the
column.  'Now then, old Fensome has promised to get the thing out of
the _Post_, and to tell Lord Durwent before he goes to town.  But he
mustn't hear of it this way, and those women are not to know a word
about it while they're in the house.'

Selwyn nodded and looked at the ragged clippings in his hand:


  'ATTEMPTED MURDER IN WEST END.'
  'WELL-KNOWN NOBLEMAN ATTACKED BY PEER'S SON.'
  'QUARREL OVER DEMI-MONDAINE.'


'Gad, those are juicy lines, aren't they?' said Maynard.  'Won't some
of our worthy citizens lick their chops over them, and point to the
depravity of the upper classes?  Do you know Dick Durwent?'

'I have seen him a couple of times.'

'Awfully decent chap.  Screw loose, you know, and punishes his Scotch
no end, but a topping fellow underneath.  I don't know who the bit of
fluff is that they're fighting about, but you can wager a quid to a bob
that Dick thought he was doing her a good turn.'

'I wonder who the nobleman is.'

'Can't say, I'm sure.  Probably he can't either just now, seeing what
Durwent did to him.  Of course, it's a rotten thing to say, but if the
blighter's really going to die, I hope he's one of the seventeen who
stand between me and the Earldom of Forth.'

There was a knock at the door, and an inquiry regarding the newly
discovered author.

'Coming,' called Maynard, reaching for the _Daily Mail_.  'Shove those
clippings in your pocket, Selwyn, and for the love of Allah help me to
select something here that I can pretend to have written.  Fortunately
I can play the blithering idiot without much trouble.'




CHAPTER XI.

THE RENDING OF THE VEIL.


I.

The house-party at Roselawn had hurriedly broken up, and only Selwyn
remained.  In view of the scandal about Dick Durwent, although it was not
spoken of by any one, he felt that it would have been more delicate to
leave with the other guests.  But it seemed as if the Durwents dreaded to
be alone.  His presence gave an impersonal shield behind which they could
seek shelter from each other, and they urged him so earnestly to remain
that it would have been ungracious to refuse.

It was the evening of August 4th, and the family circle, reduced to four,
had just finished dinner.  There had been only one topic of
conversation--there could be but one.  Britain had given Germany until
midnight (Central European time) to guarantee withdrawal from Belgium.

After dinner the family adjourned for coffee to the living-room, and, as
was his custom, Lord Durwent proffered his guest a cigar.

'No, thanks,' said Selwyn.  'If you will excuse me, I think I will do
without a smoke just now.--Lady Durwent, do you mind if I go to my room
for half-an-hour?  There are one or two matters I must attend to.'

Half-way up the stairs he changed his mind, and went out on the lawn
instead.  Darkness was setting in with swiftly gathering shadows, and he
found the cool evening air a slight solace to a brow that was weary with
conflicting thoughts.

America had not acted.  There towards the west his great country lay
wrapped in ocean's aloofness.  The pointed doubts of the ex-army captain
had been confirmed--America had stood aside.  Well, why shouldn't she!
It was all very well, he argued, for Britain to pose as a protector of
Belgium, but she could not afford to do otherwise.  It was simply
European politics all over again, and the very existence of America
depended on her complete isolation from the Old World.

Yet Germany had sworn to observe Belgium's neutrality, and at that very
moment her guns were battering the little nation to bits.  Was that just
a European affair, or did it amount to a world issue?

If only Roosevelt were in power! . . .  Who was this man Wilson, anyway?
Could anything good come out of Princeton? . . .  In spite of himself,
Selwyn laughed to find how much of the Harvard tradition remained.

If America had only spoken.  If she had at least recorded her protest.
Supposing Germany won. . . .

Supposing----

He kicked at a twig that lay in his path, and recalled the wonderful
regiments that he had seen march past the Kaiser only three months ago.
Who was going to stop that mighty empire?  Effeminate France?  Insular,
ease-loving England?

Passing the stables, he started nervously at hearing his name spoken.

'Good-evening, Mr. Selwyn.  It's pleasant out o' doors, sir.'

It was Mathews, the head-groom of the Durwents.

'Yes,' said the American, pausing, 'very pleasant.'

'It looks sort of as if we was going to 'ave some ditherin's wi' Germany,
Mr. Selwyn.'

'It does.  I don't see how war can be averted now.'

'It's funny Mister Malcolm ain't 'ome yet, sir.  Has 'is moberlizin'
orders came?'

'There's a War Office telegram in the house.  I suppose his instructions
are in it.'

The groom shook his head and swung philosophically on his heels.  He was
a broad-faced man of nearly fifty, with an honest simplicity of
countenance and manner engendered of long service where master and man
live in a relation of mutual confidence.  He sucked meditatively at a
corn-cob pipe, and Selwyn, changing his mind about a cigar, produced a
case from his pocket.

'Have one, Mathews?' he asked.

'No, thank 'ee, sir.  I'm a man o' easy-goin' 'abits, and likes me old
pipe and me old woman likewise, both being sim'lar and the same.'

With which profound thought he drew a long breath of smoke and sent it on
the air, to follow his philosophy to whatever place words go to.

'If Germany and us puts on the gloves,' ruminated Mathews, 'I'll be real
sorry Mas'r Dick ain't 'ere.  He's a rare lad, 'e is--one o' the right
breed, and no argifyin' can prove contrariwise.  I always was fond o'
Mas'r Dick, I was, since 'e was so high, and used to come in 'ere and ask
me to learn 'im how to swear proper like a groom.  Ah, a fine lad 'e was;
and--criky!--'e were a lovely sight on a hoss.  Mister Malcolm 'e's a
fine rider hisself, but just a little stiff to my fancy, conseckens o'
sittin' up on parade with them there Hussars o' hisn.  But Mas'r Dick--he
were part o' the hoss, he were, likewise and sim'lar.'

Selwyn nodded and smoked in silence.  He was rather glad to have run into
the garrulous groom.  The steady stream of inelegant English helped to
ease the torture of his mind.

'Has milord said anything about the hosses, Mr. Selwyn?'

'No.  What do you mean?'

'Nothing much, sir, excep' that it's just what you can expeck from a
gen'l'man like him.  He comes in 'ere this arternoon and says to me,
"Mathews," he says, "if this 'ere war comes about it'll be a long one,
and make no mistake, so I estermate we'd better give the Government our
hosses right away, in course keepin' old Ned for to drive."  Never
twigged an eyelash, he didn't.  No, sir.  Just up and tells it to me like
I'm a-doin' to you.  "Then," I says, "you won't be wanting me no longer,
milord?"  And he says, "Mathews, as long as there's a home for me,
there's one for you," and he clapped me on my shoulder likewise as if him
and me were ekals.  It kind o' done me in, it did, what with the prospick
o' losin' my hosses--them as I'd raised since they was runnin' around
arter their mothers like young galathumpians--and what with his speakin'
so fair and kindly like.  Well--criky!--I could ha' swore; I felt so bad.'

'It will be a great loss for Lord Durwent to lose his stable.'

'Ah, that it will.  But this arternoon, arter what I'm a-tellin' you, he
just goes through with me and says, "Nell's lookin' pretty fit," or
"How's Prince's bad knee?" just as if nothink had happened at all.  I
says to myself, "Milord, you're a thoroughbred, you are," for he makes me
think o' Mister Malcolm's bull-terrier, he do.  Breed?  That there dog
has a ancestry as would do credit to a Egyptian mummy.  I've seen Mister
Malcolm take a whip arter the dog had got among the chickens or took a
bite out o' the game-keeper's leg, him never liking the game-keeper,
conseckens o' his being bow-legged and having a contrary dispersition,
and do you think that there dog would let a whimper out o' him?  No, sir.
He would just turn his eye on Mister Malcolm and sorter say, "All right,
thrash away.  I may hev my little weaknesses, but, thank Gord! I come of
a distinkished fam'ly."'

They smoked in silence for a few minutes.

'No, sir,' resumed the groom, pushing his hat back in order to scratch
his head, 'he never whimpered, did milord; but I saw when he got opposite
Mas'r Dick's old mare Princess that he felt kind o' bad, and he didn't
say much for the better part o' a minute.  Mr. Selwyn, I'm a bit creaky
in my jints and ain't as frisky as I were, but I'd be werry much obliged
to be sent over to this 'ere war and see if I couldn't put a bullet or
two in some o' them there sausage-eaters.'

'Well,' said the American moodily, 'you may get your chance.'

'Thank 'ee, sir.  I hope so, sir.'

'Good-night, Mathews.'

'Good-night, sir.  Thank 'ee, sir.'

Selwyn moved off into the network of shadows.  Looking back once, he saw
the weather-beaten groom with hands on his hips, tilting himself to and
fro in benicotined enjoyment of some odd strain of philosophy.  Good
heavens! was that the way men went to war,--as if it were a hunt with an
equal chance of being the hound or the hare?  'Sausage-eaters'--what a
phrase to describe those eagle-helmeted supermen of Prussia's cavalry!
And this little island of pipe-smoking, country-side philosophers and
pampered, sport-loving youth--this was the country, heart of a crumbling
empire, that had ordered the gray torrent of Germany to alter its course
and flow back to its own confines.  It was absurd.  It was grotesque.  It
was a sporting thing to do, but would it mean the collapse of the
sprawling, disjointed British Empire, linked together by a flimsy
tradition of loyalty to the Crown?

Scotland would be faithful, not so much to England as to her own
instincts.  Even if England were the heart of things, Scotland was the
brain, and more than any other part supplied the driving-power for the
wheels of empire.  But what of rebellious Ireland and the distant
Dominions isolated by the seas?  Would they seize this moment of
Britain's mad impetuosity and declare for their own independence?  It was
the history of nations--and did not history repeat itself?

Canada, of course, would be governed in her actions by the mighty
neighbouring Republic.  That was inevitable when the young Dominion's
life was so dominated by that of the United States.  But what of the
others? . . .

Thus for half-an-hour queried the man from America.  He was about to turn
into the house, when he glanced once more in the direction of the
stables.  It was too dark to distinguish anything, but there was the glow
from Mathews's pipe as it faintly lit the surrounding darkness.


II.

Eleven o'clock.

'Austin.'

He had been sitting in the library talking to Lord Durwent, but the
latter had just left the room to answer a phone-call from London.  Elise,
who had been playing the gramophone in the music-room, shut the
instrument off and hurried to the American's side.

'Yes, Elise?'  He tried to rise, but she pressed him back and sat on the
arm of the huge chair, looking down at him with a face that was glowing
with excitement.  Her eyes were like jewels of fate lit from within by
some magic flame, and a mutinous lock of hair fell on the side of her
face, almost touching the crimson lips.  There was so much magnetism in
her beauty, such a heaven in the unconquered warmth of her impetuous
being, that Selwyn gripped the arms of his chair to help to restrain the
mad impulse to grasp her in his arms and smother those lips and the
flushed, satin cheeks in a tempest of kisses.

'Yes, Elise?' he repeated, clearing his throat.

'Listen, Austin.  I can't stay inside any longer.  I think my blood is on
fire.  Will you come with me to the village?'

'At eleven o'clock?'

'Yes.  The news from London will reach the village first, and I want to
be there when it comes.  We shall have to hurry if we are to make it in
time.'

'I'm at your service, Elise.'

'Right-o.  I'll let the mater know.  I'll just run upstairs and put
something easy on, and I'll meet you at the front of the house.  You had
better change too.'

A few minutes later she joined him on the lawn.  They had just reached
the road which led to the porter's lodge, when, without a word of
warning, she grasped his hand, and, half-running, half-dancing, pulled
him forward at a rapid pace.  With a laugh he joined in her mood, and,
running side by side, they sped along the drive, while startled rabbits
leaped across their path, and melancholy owls hooted disapprobation.  As
if the fumes of madness had mounted even to the skies, dark flecks of
cloud raced headlong across the starry heavens.

They were mad.  The world was mad.  He wondered whether his brain might
be playing some prank, and this absurd thing of two young people laughing
and running to discover whether or not a nation was at war would prove a
pointless jest of unsound imagination.

'Come along,' she cried.  'You're dragging.'

Then it wasn't a dream.  The sound of her voice whipped the wandering
fantasies of his brain into coherency.  With a shout he jumped forward,
and ran as he had not done since that one great game when, as a 'scrub,'
he had his chance against Yale.

'Oh-oh-oh,' she laughed, 'I'm--winded.'

He caught her up in his arms as if her weight were no more than a
child's, and carried her forward a hundred paces.  His strength was
limitless.  He felt as if his body would never again know the lassitude
of fatigue.

His pulses were throbbing with double fever: that of the world and his
own hot love for her.  Yes, it was love.  What a fool he had been ever to
doubt it!  His last thoughts at night were of her; the last word
whispered was her name; the last picture shrouded by the approaching
mists of sleep was of her face.  What was morning but a sunlit moment
that meant Elise?  What was the day, what were the years, what was life,
but one great moment to be lived for Elise--Elise?

'Put me down, Austin.  There! you'll be tired.'

'Tired!'

But her feet had touched the ground, and she was away again by herself,
like a tantalising sprite of the woods.  The errant lock had been joined
in its mutiny by a wealth of dark-hued, auburn hair, blowing free in the
reckless summer breeze.

Out of the estate and along the highway, shadowed by tall bushes; past
cottages hiding in snug retreat of vines and flowers; past the
cross-roads, with their sign-post standing like a gibbet waiting its
prize; past the inn on the outskirts of the village, with its creaking
sign, and its neighing horses in the stable; past the church on the rise
of the hill, with its graveyard and its ivy-covered steeple--and then the
village.

Gathered in the square they could see a group of people listening to a
man who was reading something aloud.

'It's the rector,' said Elise.  'Let us wait a minute.  Can you hear what
he is saying?'

The voice had stopped, and the crowd broke into a cheer that echoed
strangely on the night-air.  It had hardly died away when a quavering,
high-pitched voice started 'God Save the King,' and with a sturdy
indifference to pitch the rest followed, the octogenarian who had begun
it sounding clear above the others as he half-whistled and half-sang the
anthem through his two remaining teeth.

'That's old Hills!' cried Elise, laughing hysterically.  'He was at
Sebastopol.'

The crowd was coming away.

Some were boisterous, others silent.  A girl was laughing, but there was
a strange look in her eyes.  Bounding ahead in high appreciation of the
village's nocturnal behaviour, a nondescript hound was preceding an
elderly widow who was weeping quietly as with faltering step she clung to
the arm of her son, who was carrying himself with a new erectness.

Behind them walked Mathews the groom, corn-cob pipe and all, shaking his
head argumentatively and squaring his shoulders.

An Empire had declared war.


III.

Elise entered the post-office to telephone the news to Roselawn, and
Selwyn was left alone.  It was only for a few minutes, but in that brief
space of time his whole being underwent a vital crisis, which was not
only to change the course of his own life, but was to affect thousands
who would never meet him.

The creative mind is ever elusive and unexpected in its workings.  In it
the masculine and feminine temperaments are fused.  It leaps to
conclusions--erroneous maybe, but sustained by the feminine conviction
that what is instinctive must be true.  Selwyn's was essentially a
creative mind, prone to emotionalism and to inspiration.  With men of his
type logic is largely retrogressive: the conclusion is reached first; the
reasons follow.

A few days before his imagination had been strangely stirred by the
swiftness of thought which at twilight in England could visualise New
York at noon.  Simple though the scientific explanation might be, it had
left him with a sense of detachment, almost as if he were on Olympus and
the world spread out below for him to gaze upon.

That feeling now returned with redoubled force.

The group of villagers had parted into many human fragments.  He could
hear the hearty invitation of the innkeeper for all boon spirits to join
him, free of expense--and regardless of the liquor laws--in a pint of
bitter, to drink confusion to the enemy.  But to Selwyn they seemed
creatures of another planet--or, rather, that he was the visitor in a
world of strange inhabitants.

All the resentfulness of an idealist whose ancestry was steeped in
liberty of action rose to a fury at this unwarrantable interference of
war with the lives of men--a fury maddened by his feeling of utter
impotence.  Was it possible, he argued, that a group of men drunk with
pomp and lust of conquest could wreck the whole fabric of civilisation?
What of science and education?  Had they risen only to be the playthings
of madmen?  What kind of a world was it that allowed such things?

Was it possible, however, that this war was different from any other?
Granted that Austria had willed the crushing of Servia, and that Germany
was instigator of the crime--had not the rest of the world proved false
to their creeds by allowing the war-hunger of the Central Powers to
achieve its aim?  Supposing France, Britain, America, and Italy had
joined in an immediate warning to Germany and Austria that if they did
not desist from their malpractices the area of their countries would be
declared a plague-spot, commercial intercourse with the outside world
would be brought to an end, and their citizens treated as lepers.  If
that had been done, men could have gone on leading the lives to which
they had been called, and by sheer cumulative effect could have exerted a
moral pressure on the war-lust of Germany that would have been
irresistible.

Yet, like a bull that sees red, the nations had rushed madly at each
other, thirsting to gore each other's vitals with their horns.  Men of
peaceful vocations were at that very moment slaughtering their
brother-men.  It was wrong--hideously wrong!

And the charge of responsibility could not be laid at the door of those
idiots of Emperors.  Their crime was evil enough, but the responsibility
for war was with the people who allowed themselves to be led to murder by
a mad, jingoistic patriotism.  Supposing that when Europe was mobilising,
the people of Great Britain had sent a message to the Germans: 'Brothers,
justice must be done and malefactors punished.  Fearing nothing but the
universal conscience, we refuse to fight with you, but demand in
humanity's name that you join with us in establishing the permanent
supremacy of Right.'  Some such message as that coming from a Power
steeped in a great past would have been ashes to smother the smouldering
flames of world-war.

But there was no machinery for such a thing.  There was no method by
which the great heart of one country could speak with that of another.
Our obsolete diplomatic envoys, the errand-boys of international
politics, were mere artifices, tending to cement rather than to dispel
the mutual distrust of nations.  What, then, stood in the way of
world-understanding?  What was the cause of the blindness which permitted
men to be led like dumb cattle to the slaughter?

_Ignorance_.

That was the answer to it all.  It was ignorance that kept a nation
unaware of its own highest destiny; it was ignorance that fomented
trouble among the peoples of the earth.  Suffering, sickness, crime,
tyranny, war, were all growths whose roots were buried in ignorance and
sucked its vile nourishment.

An impetuous wave of loyalty towards his own country swept over Austin
Selwyn at the thought.  Other peoples had declared war on each other:
America by her silence had declared war on Ignorance.  He felt a sudden
shame for his previous doubts.  He saw clearly that his great
continent-country was a rock to which the other baffled, despairing
nations might cling when disaster overtook them.

And as he was joined by Elise Durwent, the American swore an eternal oath
of vengeance against Ignorance.


IV.

With her arm in his, their subdued voices trembling with the repression
of emotion, they retraced their steps.  Back past the church with its
white gravestones so curiously peaceful in the midst of it all; past the
inn, jovial with light and the clamour of village oracles; past the
forge, with its lifeless fires a presage of things to come; past the
cross-roads, where the sign-post, silhouetted against the sky, seemed no
longer a gibbet, but a crucifix; past cottages stirring with unaccustomed
life, unconscious of the unbidden guest that was soon to knock with
ghostly fingers at almost every door.

Along the quiet English lane they walked, but though the closeness of the
girl beside him was ministering to the senses, his mind remained so
clutched in the grip of thought that his head throbbed with pain with
each step of his foot jarring upon the road.

They had reached the entrance to the estate and were nearing the house,
when his reverie was broken by the sound of a quivering breath and a
trembling of the hand on his arm.  Like a conflagration that is already
out of control, his brain flared into further revolt with the stimulus of
a new resentment--he had not thought of woman's part in the thing.

'Elise,' he cried, 'this is monstrous.  It is only the vile selfishness
of men that makes it possible.  They are not giving a thought to the
women, yet you are the real sufferers.  Now I know what you meant when
you said that women don't have their place in the world.  If they did,
this never could have happened; for their hearts would never permit the
men that are born of women to slaughter each other like bestial savages.
Now is the time for you to speak.  This is the hour for your rebellion.
Let the whole world of women rise in a body and denounce this inhuman,
insufferable wrong.  If your rebellion is ever to come, let it come now.'

The hand on his arm was wrenched free, and Elise stood facing him with
fury in her eyes.

'Are you mad, Mr. Selwyn?  Or is this your idea of a joke?'

He stared at her, dumbfounded.  Her eyes were glowing, and her lips were
parched with the fever of the breath passing through them.

'A joke?' he said.  'Great heavens!  Do you think I would jest on such a
subject?'

'But----  You mean that we women should organise, rise up, to hinder our
men from going to war?'

'Doesn't your heart tell you how infamous war is?'

'What does that matter?'

'But, Elise,' he pleaded desperately, 'some one must be great enough to
rise to the new citizenship of the world even if martyrdom be the
condition of enrolment.  It is far, far harder than snatching a musket
and sweeping on with the mob, but it is for people like you and me to
have the courage to try to stem this flood of ignorance, to stop this
butchery of women's hearts.'

'Women's hearts!'  She laughed hysterically.  'And you believe that you
understand women!  Do you think war appals us?  Do you think because we
may shed tears that it is from self-pity?  Rubbish!  There are thousands
of us to-night who could almost shout for joy.'

'Elise!'

'I mean it.  Don't you see that to-night our whole life has been changed?
Men are going to die--horribly, cruelly--but they're going to play the
parts of men.  Don't you understand what that means to us?  _We're part
of it all_.  It was the women who gave them birth.  It was the women who
reared them, then lost them in ordinary life--and now it's all justified.
They can't go to war without us.  We're partners at last.  Do you think
women are afraid of war?  Why, the glory of it is in our very blood.'

'But,' cried Selwyn, 'you can't think what you are saying.'

'I don't want to.  All I know is that I could sing and dance and go mad
for the wonder of it all.'

He took a step forward and grasped both her wrists in his hands.

'Listen to me,' he said, his jaw stiffening as he spoke; 'some of us have
got to keep our sanity in this crisis.  You know better than I, for you
have described it to me, that this country has been darkened with
ignorance just as Germany and the rest have been.  This is the climax of
it all--and you're going to help it on, instead of having the courage to
take your stand.  Elise, to-night I pledged my whole life to a crusade
against the darkness that men are forced to endure.  It is going to be a
long fight, and perhaps a hopeless one, although some day, somehow, the
cause must win.  And I need your inspiration.  Oh, my dear, my dear, you
must know how much I love you.  Every minute that you're away I'm hungry
for you.  When we were together that evening by the stream I longed so to
take you in my arms that my heart ached with the repression I forced on
myself.  I have known that there were a thousand difficulties in the way,
and I was not going to speak, but the other night when you met your
brother by the oak'----

'Oh! you were spying.'

'It was an accident.  I said nothing to you about it, but I thought that
perhaps you needed me a little, that it might be my privilege to share
your sorrow.  And to-night, dear, I know that together we could work and
live, and be a tremendous power for good.'

Her face, which had gone strangely pale, was darkened by a return of the
crimson flush.

'Do you think I'd marry you,' she exclaimed scornfully--'a man who
counsels treason?'

'I counsel loyalty to the higher citizenship.'

'H'mm!'  Her shoulders contracted, and forcing her wrists free of his
hands, she looked haughtily into his burning eyes.  'You had better go
back to America and tell them there of this ignorant little island whose
men are so crude and stupid that when the King calls they go to war.'

'Elise'----

'I would rather marry the poorest groom in our stables than you.  He
would at least be a man.'

'I have not deserved this, Elise.  God knows I am no more a coward than
other men, but I feel that I have seen a great truth which demands my
loyalty.'

'It is easier to be loyal to a truth than to a country.'

'You know you are wrong when you say that.  Come--we are both unnerved
to-night.  Perhaps I was injudicious to speak at a time when I should
have known that you would be overwrought, but I could not keep back the
love which you must have read'----

'Please, Mr. Selwyn, you must never mention that again.  I don't want to
marry you.  I don't want to marry any one.  I always said that a women's
rebellion would come, and I feel in my blood that it has started
to-night.  I don't know how, or when, or where, but I am going to join it
and'----

'Then you agree with me?' he cried eagerly.  'You feel that the women of
this country should rise, and try to prevent this catastrophe?'

'You fool,' she said, half in pity, but with a sneer; 'you poor blind
American!  Yes, there's going to be a revolution against conventions,
Society, customs, morality, for all I know.  They're all going overboard.
We've hoisted the black flag to-night, but with one, and only one,
object--to help Britain and the men of Britain to fight!'

      *      *      *      *      *      *

And the British Fleet, at the King's command, was steaming out into the
night.




CHAPTER XII.

THE HONOURABLE MALCOLM DURWENT STARTS ON A JOURNEY.


I.

An early morning mist hung over the fields of Roselawn.  From his nest in
the branches of a tree, a bird chirruped dubiously, as though to assure
himself even against his better judgment that the rain was only a threat.
The woods which bordered the meadows were blurred into a foreboding,
formless black, like a fringe of mourning, and the distant hills stood
sentinels at the sepulchre of nature.

Flowers, rearing their lovely necks for the first caress of the sun,
drooped disconsolately, their petals like the lips of a maid who has
waited in vain for the coming of her lover.  Cattle in the fields moved
restlessly from one spot to another, finding the grass sour and
unpalatable.  Through the damp-charged air the melancholy plaint of a
single cow sounded like the warning of rocks on a foggy coast.

In the air which was unstirred by a breath of wind the very buildings of
Roselawn seemed strangely motionless, with their roofs glistening in
their covering of moisture.  And through an archway of trees the distant
spire of the church on the hill rose above the mist as a symbol held
aloft by some smoke-shrouded martyr of the past.

A hound with apologetic tail came stealthily from the house and made for
the cover of the stables.  A horse rattled its headstall and pawed the
flooring with a restless hoof.

With a feeling of chill in the air, Selwyn rose at seven, and dressing
himself quickly, left the house for a walk before breakfast.  His body
was fatigued from the long vigil of the mind which had kept at bay all
but a short hour of sleep, but he felt the necessity of exercise, as
though in the striding of limbs his torturing thoughts might lessen their
thumbscrew grip.

His feet grew heavy in the thick dew of the grass, as he plunged across
the fields to a path which led through the woods, where squirrels,
coquetting with the intruder, dared him to follow to the summit of the
oaks.

Heedless of the morning's melancholy, yet unconsciously soothed by its
calm solace, he went briskly forward, and his blood, sluggish from
inaction, leaped through his veins and coloured the shadowed pallor of
his face with a glow of warmth.

He had lost her.

That was the dominant note of his thoughts.  What a jest the Fates had
prepared for him that the very moment when the incoherencies of his life
were crystallised by a great flash of truth--the very moment when he had
felt the overwhelming impulse to consecrate his life in a crusade against
Ignorance--that same instant should witness the snapping of the silk
threads of his love!

How scornful she had been--as if he were something unclean, too low a
thing for her to touch!  This girl, whom he had pitied for her
loneliness--this woman who had ridiculed the life of England and declared
that it was stifling her--had said that the glory of war was in her
blood.  She had called him a fool because he dared to say that carnage
was wrong.  He had thought her an advanced thinker; she was a reactionary
of the most pronounced type.

A feeling of fury whipped his pulses.  Confound her and her unbridled
tongue!  What a fool he had been to woo her!  One might as well try to
coax a wild horse into submission.  She would have to be conquered; she
should be brought into subjugation by the stronger will of a man, for
only through surrender would she achieve her own happiness.  At present
she resented equally the conquering of herself physically and mentally.
For her own sake she must be taught the perversion of her outlook on life.

And Austin Selwyn, the idealist, little thought that he was applying to
Elise Durwent the same philosophy as Prussia was applying to Europe.

But of one thing he was certain--much as he loved her (and at the thought
his heart grew heavy with longing), his words on war had not been the
idle declaimings of a sophist.  There was a higher citizenship; the world
was wrong to allow this war; and ignorance was the foe of mankind.

He would not withdraw from that platform.  Duty was not something from
which a man could step lightly aside.  All his writings, all his
thoughts, all his half-worked-out philosophies had been but training for
this great moment.  And now that it had come he would not prove renegade.

He would write with the language of inspiration.  The agony of Man would
be his spur, so that neither fatigue nor indifference could impede his
labours.  With the tears of the world he would pen such works that people
everywhere would see the beacon-light of truth, and by it steer their
troubled course.

Five miles he covered in little more than an hour, and with the returning
sense of strength his purpose grew in firmness.

The call of the Universal Mind had penetrated through the labyrinth of
life as the sound of the hunting-horn through leafy woods.  There must be
millions, he knew, who were of that great unison, kept from _ensemble_ by
the absence of co-ordination, by the lack of self-expression.  It might
not be for him to do more than help to light the torch, but, once lit, it
would burst into flame, and the man to carry it would then come forward,
as he had always done since ages immemorial when a world-crisis called
for a world-man.

A sudden weakness crept into his blood.  He was nearing home, and in a
few minutes would see her again.  If only he could have left the previous
night on some pretext--but now he would have to wait until the afternoon
at least.  How strange it was to think of losing her!  How wedded his
subconscious thoughts had been to living out the future with her as his
revelation of Heaven's poetry!  Would he have the courage to maintain his
purpose, or, at the sight of her, would he throw himself at her feet,
and, admitting failure, plead for mercy to the vanquished?

No.  A thousand times no.  Anything but that.

Reaching the clearing in the woods, he paused as the ivy-covered towers
of Roselawn were presented to his gaze.  With a characteristic working of
his shoulders he drew himself to his full height, and his jaws and lips
were set in implacable determination.

The mist still clung to the earth, but over the north-east tower of
Roselawn he could see the sun, monstrous and red, looming with its sullen
threat of heat.


II.

It was nearing the end of a breakfast that had been trying for every one.
Lord Durwent's usual kindly affability was overcast by a fresh worry--the
non-appearance of his son Malcolm.  Four telegrams had been despatched to
Scotland, but no answer had come.  Elise had been gay and talkative with
a forced vivacity; and Lady Durwent had been bordering on hysteria.  Not
that the dear lady was of sufficient depth to be profoundly moved by the
world's tragedy, but her unsatisfied sense of the dramatic gave her a new
thrill every time she said, 'WE ARE AT WAR--THINK OF IT!' as if she were
afraid that without her reminder they might forget the fact.

Selwyn sat in almost complete silence, merely acknowledging Lady
Durwent's proclamations of a state of war by appropriate acquiescence,
but his eyes remained fixed on the table.  He could not trust them to
look at Elise for fear they should prove traitor and sue for an ignoble
peace.  As for her, she met the situation with a smile, using woman's
instinct of protection to assume a cloak behind which her real feelings
were concealed.

They had just risen from the table, when the sound of a motor-car was
heard in the courtyard, and Elise hurried to the window.

'It's Malcolm, dad,' she said.

More in hysteria than ever, Lady Durwent hurried from the room, followed
more slowly by her husband and her daughter, and greeting the Honourable
Malcolm at the door, smothered him in a melodramatic embrace.

'My dear, brave Malcolm,' she cried.

With as good grace as possible the young man submitted to the maternal
endearments, disengaging her arms as soon as he decently could.

'Where's the governor?' he asked.  'Ah, there you are.--Hello,
Elise!--I'm frightfully sorry, pater,' he went on, shaking hands with
Lord Durwent and patting his sister on the shoulder, 'about those
telegrams of yours, but we were on M'Gregor's yacht miles from nowhere,
and didn't even know the dear old war was on until a fishing-johnny told
us.  Are my orders here?'

'Yes,' answered Lord Durwent; 'there are two telegrams for you.  One came
last night, and one this morning.  I will just go into the library and
fetch them.'

'But, Malcolm,' said Lady Durwent, 'let me introduce our guest, Mr.
Selwyn of New York.

The young Englishman smiled with rather an attractive air of
embarrassment.  'I'm frightfully sorry,' he said amiably, proffering his
hand, 'I didn't see you there.  Have you had any kind of a time?  It's
rather a bore being inland in the summer, don't you think?'

'I have enjoyed myself very much,' said the American, 'in spite of the
tragic end to my visit.'

'Eh,' said the Honourable Malcolm, startled by the seriousness of the
other's voice, 'what's that?  Ah yes--you mean the war.  Excuse me if I
look at these, won't you?--Thanks, pater.'

'WE ARE AT WAR----THINK OF IT!' cried Lady Durwent in a gust of emotion,
assuming the duties of a Greek chorus while her son examined the
telegrams brought by her husband.

'Well, well!' said the cavalry lieutenant, reading the first message,
which was signed by the adjutant of his regiment; 'dear old Agitato.  How
he does love sending out those sweet little things: "Leave cancelled;
return at once"!  Ah, my word!  "Secret and Confidential"--good old War
Office.  What a rag they'll have now running their pet little regiments
all over the world!  Humph!  By Jove! we're to move to-morrow.  Good
work!  Let me see, pater.  What train can I catch to town?  I must throw
a few things together'--he looked at his watch--'but I'll be in heaps of
time for the 11.50.  The Agitato always has a late lunch and never drinks
less than three glasses of port, so I'll throw myself on his full stomach
and squeal for mercy for being late.  I say, pater, do come up while I
toss a few unnecessaries into my case.--That's right, Brown; put my bag
in my room.  And, Brown, you might put some vaseline on those golf-clubs.
I sha'n't be wanting them for some little time.--Come along,
pater.--Excuse me, Mr.--Mr.'----

'SELWYN,' cried Lady Durwent.

'Mr. Selwyn, I'll see you later, eh?'

'The old nobleman ascended the stairs with his son, and the agreeable
chatter of the younger man, with its references to 'topping sport' and
'absolutely ripping weather,' came to an end as they disappeared along
the western wing of the house.  Lady Durwent, wiping her eyes, went into
the library, and Selwyn, who was not particularly enamoured of solitude
and its attending tyranny of thoughts, followed her.

Elise, who had stood in mute contemplation of her brother, neither
addressing a remark nor being addressed, hesitated momentarily, then went
into the drawing-room by herself and closed the door.

'Oh, Mr. Selwyn,' said Lady Durwent, breathing heavily, 'you have no idea
what a mother's feelings are at a time like this.'

'I can only sympathise most sincerely,' said the American gravely.

'He has been such a good boy,' she said vaguely, 'and so devoted to his
mother.'

'I can see that, Lady Durwent.'

'I shall never forget,' she went on, her own words creating a deliciously
dramatic trembling in her bosom, 'how he wept when his father insisted
upon his leaving home for school.  It was all I could do to console the
child; and when he came home for the holidays he was just my shadow.'

At that satisfactory thought (though Selwyn was a little puzzled at the
picture of the diminutive Malcolm serving as a shadow for Lady Durwent's
bulk) she expanded into a smile, but immediately corrected the error with
a burst of unrestrained grief.

'THINK OF IT, MR. SELWYN,' she cried, reversing the formula--'WE ARE AT
WAR!'

He murmured assent.  'I am afraid, Lady Durwent,' he said, 'that I must
return to London this afternoon.'

'Oh, Mr. Selwyn!'

'Yes, I must.  I have a great deal of work before me, and only the
cordiality of your welcome and the pleasure I have felt in being here
would have allowed me to stay so long.  You have been wonderfully kind,
and perhaps the fact that I was here when war broke out will lend a
special significance to our friendship for the future.'

'Oh, I shall never forget you,' murmured his hostess, whose emotions were
so near the surface that almost any remark was sufficient to tap them.
'You have been the truest of friends, and Elise is so fond of you.'

'I am very fond of Elise,' blurted Selwyn, feeling his cheeks grow red.
'Her companionship and inspiration were something'----

'Ye-es.'  An instinct of caution plugged the emotional channel.  Lady
Durwent saw that she had been indiscreet.  It was not in her plan of
things that her daughter should become enamoured of a commoner.  Selwyn
was all very well for company, and no doubt his books were very good, but
Elise Durwent would have to marry in her own station of life.

'You feel that you must go this afternoon?' said the Ironmonger's
daughter dismally, but with an inflection that made it more a reminder
than a question.

'Yes, Lady Durwent,' he answered, with a cynical smile creeping into his
lips, which seemed thin and almost cruel.  'I shall catch the 3.50.'

'Then you must come again and see us sometime, Mr. Selwyn,' she said,
with that vagueness of date used by polite persons when they don't mean a
thing.  Lady Durwent rose with great dignity.  'Will you excuse me, Mr.
Selwyn?  I always meet my housekeeper at ten to discuss domestic matters.
Elise is somewhere around.  Is it too damp for tennis?'

She paused at the door.  She had to.  It is one of the traditions of the
stage that a player must stop at the exit and utter one compelling,
terrific sentence.

'WE ARE AT WAR,' she cried--'TH'----

'Think of it!' he said maliciously, bowing and closing the door after her.


III.

Going to his room, Selwyn packed his own bags, dispensing with the
services of the valet, and with more than one sigh of regret glanced
about at the luxury which he was soon to quit.  The great bed with its
snowy billows of comfort; the reading-lamp on the little table with the
motley collection of books borrowed from the library with the very best
intentions--books which had hardly been opened before sleep would
obliterate everything from his sight; that merry picture of the two
medieval enthusiasts playing chess, and those jolly Dickensian paintings
of huntsmen at luncheon with grinning waiters and ubiquitous dogs.  What
a charm they all had!  What a merry little spot England had been in those
good old days!

A ray of sunshine stole through the curtains as if it were not quite sure
of its welcome, and shyly rested against the farthest wall of the room.
With an exclamation of pleasure Selwyn threw open the window and looked
out upon the lawns.

The sun had won its battle, and the countryside was cleared of the
invading mist, which was ingloriously retreating to its own territory
behind the distant hills.  There was a sparkle in the air, and the rich
colourings of the flowers vied with each other in Beauty's quarrel.  The
birds flew from tree to tree, singing their paean of the sun's victory,
and a light summer breeze was scattering perfume over the earth.

As a sick man emerging from a fever, Selwyn let the refreshing vigour of
the morning lave his temples with its potency.  Looking towards the
stables, he saw Mathews, the groom, come out of his domain to cast an
approving glance on Nature's performance.  Selwyn decided that he would
go and say good-bye to the fellow.  There was something both sturdy and
picturesque about him, and the American presumed that even the head-groom
of the Durwents would not be averse to a ten-shilling gratuity.  He
therefore left his room, and reaching the lawn, strolled over to the
stables.

'Good-morning, Mr. Selwyn,' said the groom cheerily, touching his
forehead in a semi-nautical greeting.

'Good-day, Mathews.  How are all your family this morning?'

'Meaning the hosses, sir, or opposite-like, my old mare and her colt?
Likewise and sim'lar, and no disrespeck meant, meaning my old woman and
little Wellington.'

'Well,' Selwyn smiled at the worthy man's ramifications, 'I did mean the
horses, but I am even more anxious to know how Mrs. Mathews is.'

'She's a-bloomin', Mr. Selwyn, she is.  When I sees 'er t' other night
dancin' at the village, I says to myself, "Criky!  If she hain't got a
action like a young filly!"  Real proud I was of 'er, and 'er being no
two-year-old neither, but opposite-wise free of the rheumatiz, as is
getting into my withers like.'

'And how is--did you say his name was Wellington?'

'That's 'is 'andle, Mr. Selwyn, conseckens o' 'is being born with the
largest nose I ever sees on a hoffspring o' his age.  He's only four year
and a little better, but--criky!--if 'e ain't the knowingest little colt
as ever I raised!  When my old woman gives 'im 'is bath 'e goes "Hiss-ss,
hiss-ss," just like a proper groom rubbin' down a hoss.  But 'e's a
hunfeeling wretch, 'e is, for when I goes 'ome arter feedin'-time o'
nights, and thinks I'll just smoke a quiet pipe, 'e ups and says,
"Lincoln Steeplechase, guv'nor, and I'm a-riding you."  And there he has
everything around the room--'is little table and chairs and toy pianner,
and I've got to jump over 'em on my 'ands and knees with that there
wicious scoundrel a-sitting on my neck and yelling, "Come on, you d--d
old slow-coach!  Wot did I give you them oats for?"  Now I puts it to
you, Mr. Selwyn, if a himp as makes 'is fayther jump over a toy pianner
is the kind o' child as is like to be a comfort to a feller in 'is old
age.'

With which harrowing query the groom slapped his pipe on his heel and
blew violently through it to try to disguise his gratification at the
paternal reminiscence.

'I don't think I've seen all the horses,' said Selwyn.  'Can you spare a
few minutes to show them to me?'

'Wi' all the pleasure in life, sir.  Come in, sir.  I know it ain't
becomin' o' me for to boast,' said the groom as they entered the
building, 'but if there's a better stable o' hosses than them there, then
my name ain't Mathews, nor is my Christian names William John neither.
There ain't many in England as knows a hoss quicker 'an me, Mr. Selwyn,
though I says it that shouldn't ought to, but I knows a hoss just as soon
as I sets eyes on 'im.  Milord, 'e's just a small bit better, though
likewise and sim'lar we usually thinks exac'ly the same.  Only once we
disergreed on a hoss.  I says it were wicious, and 'e said as 'ow it
weren't.  So we bought it.'

'And who was right?'

'Well, sir, I sort of estermate as 'ow 'e was, for just arter we got 'im
Mas'r Dick, who ain't afraid o' any beast as walks on four legs, took 'im
out for a airing.  Well, sir, that hoss--powerful brute 'e were, with a
eye like Sin--goes along like as if 'e 'adn't a evil thought in 'is 'ead;
but all on a sudden 'e comes to a ditch, and sort o' rolls Mas'r Dick
into it, and bungs 'is 'ead against a stone.'

'Then he was vicious, after all?'

'No, sir--that's the extr'ord'nary part of it.  He comes right back to
the stables to me and pulls up short.  I goes up and looks into that
there sinful eye.  "You hulk o' misery," I says; "you willainous son of a
abandoned sire!"  You know, sir, I always likes to make a hoss feel real
bad by telling him what's what, for they got intelligence.  Mr. Selwyn, I
should say, by Criky! a 'uman being ain't in the same stall as a hoss for
intelligence.'

'I think you may be right,' said Selwyn decisively.

'May be?  There ain't no doubt about it nowise.'

'And what happened to your horse?'

'Ah yes, sir.  Well, sir, I gets on 'im, and pullin' 'is face around by
'is ear, I give 'im another look in 'is sinful eye.  "Where's Mas'r
Dick?" I says.  And--criky!--off 'e goes, lickerty-split, like as if we
was entered for the Derby, and, sure enough, 'e stops right at the ditch
where Mas'r Dick was a-lying all peaceful and muddy like a stiff un.
Well, sir, I gets off and lifts 'im up, and then mounts be'ind 'im, and
that there hoss 'e never moved until I tells 'im, and then 'e goes home
so smooth-like that a old lady could 'ave rid 'im and done 'er knitting
sim'lar.  And arter that 'e were as gentle as a lamb, 'e were--and there
'e is right afore your eyes, Mr. Selwyn.  He's a old hoss now, and ain't
much to look on, but every morning when I comes in 'e takes a look with
that there bad eye o' hisn and says, just like I says to 'im that day,
"Where's Mas'r Dick?"  I sometimes feels so sorry for the old feller that
I swears something horrible just to cheer 'im up.'

With considerable interest, though with a certain doubt as to the strict
authenticity of the narrative, the American looked at the horse, which,
after a melancholy survey of the visitors, vented its grief in an attempt
to bite a large-sized slice from the neck of a neighbour.

'Nah, then, you ---- ---- ----,' remarked Mathews unfeelingly, catching
the old beast a resounding thump on the rump with a stick he carried.
'That'll learn you, you old hulk o' misery.'

'There's a beautiful mare, said the American, pausing at the stall of a
superb charger whose graceful limbs and shapely neck spoke of speed and
spirit.

'Ah!  Now that there is a beauty and no mistake.  She's got the spirit of
a young pup, but is as amiable and sweet-tempered as a angel.  She's
Mister Malcolm's hunter, she is, and 'is favourite in the whole stables.
He never rides anything but 'er to hounds; leastways, 'e never did but
once, and then Nell--that's 'er name--Nell was took so sick with frettin'
that she kicked a groom as 'ad come to feed 'er clean across the floor
agin' that there far wall.  Never I see a feller so put out as that there
groom--never.  Well, sir, she wouldn't let no one come nigh 'er, and just
as we was thinkin' as 'ow we'd 'ave to forcible-feed 'er, in comes Mister
Malcolm.  She 'ears 'im, but don't make no sign, and just as 'e comes up
close she lets fling 'er 'eels at 'is 'ead.  But 'e was watchin' for it,
and just says "Nellie" kind o' sorrowful and reproachful, sim'lar to the
prodigal son returnin' to 'is aged fayther.  Well, sir, the mare she just
gives in at the knees and rubbed 'er nose agin' 'im, and says just as
plain as Scripter that she was real sorry, and 'oped 'e 'd forget it as
one gen'l'man to a lady.'

With sundry anecdotes of a like nature, Mathews guided the visitor past
the long line of stalls, whose inhabitants kept their stately heads
turned to gratify the insatiable curiosity of the equine.  To the weary
mind of the American there was an agreeable balm in the groom's fund of
anecdote, and even in the odoriferousness of the stable itself.

Reaching the end of that line, Mathews proposed that before they went any
farther they should go to an adjoining shed and inspect a litter of
little hounds that were blinking in amazement at their second day's view
of the world.  From a near-by kennel there was the discordant yelping of
a dozen hounds, and between the two places a kitten was performing its
toilet with arrogant indifference to the canine threat.

They were just about to retrace their steps, when Selwyn felt Mathews's
hand on his arm.

'Sh-sh!' the groom whispered.  'There's Mister Malcolm a-come to say
good-bye to Nellie.  I knew 'e would, sir.  She'd ha' fretted 'er heart
out if 'e hadn't.'


IV.

Selwyn looked down the stable, and in the dull light he saw the Hussar
officer standing in the stall by the mare, crooning some endearing words,
while the beast, in her delight, rubbed her face against his clothes and
whinnied her plea to be taken for a gallop over the fields.

Not wanting to disturb him, or give the impression that he had been
watching, Selwyn softly withdrew by a door near the dogs, and after
giving Mathews a half-sovereign, made a circuit of the lawns and
approached the house as if he were coming from the woods.  As he did so
young Durwent emerged from the stables, followed by a collie-dog that
jumped and frolicked about him as he walked.  Noticing the American,
Malcolm crossed over to where he stood, proffering a cigarette.

'Have a gasper, Selwyn?' he asked.

'Thanks very much.  I suppose it will be some time before the British
Army will get into action?'

'I don't know, I'm sure,' answered Durwent, holding a match for the
other, 'but three weeks at the outside ought to see us over there and
ready.'

'The Germans have a tremendous start.'

'Yes, haven't they?  Damned plucky of Belgium to try to hold them up,
isn't it?  Though, of course, you can't expect the Belgian johnnies to
keep them back more than a few days.'

'You think, then, that she will be conquered?'

'Ra-ther.  That's a cert.  But I don't think it will be for long.'

'You mean that the British will drive the Germans back?'

'Not all at once, but sooner or later.  Of course, I'm an awful muff on
strategy--always was--but the general idea seems to be that we go over
now and stop the bounders, and then our dear old citizens gird up their
loins, train themselves as soldiers, and chase the Germans back to
Berlin.'

'But--isn't it an open secret that your regular army is very small?  Can
you seriously expect to stop that huge force once it sweeps through
Belgium?'

The Englishman picked up a stone and sent it hurtling across the lawn for
the collie to chase.

'Ever play "Rugger"?' he asked.

'Rugby?  Yes.'

'Then you've often seen a little chap bring a big one an awful cropper.'

'That is true, but the cases are hardly parallel.'

'Perhaps not,' said the other, rather relieved at not having to maintain
the analogy any further; 'but, then, the beauty of being a junior officer
is that one doesn't have to worry.  I wouldn't be in old man French's
shoes for a million quid, but for us subaltern johnnies it looks as if
we'll have some great sport.'

As the two young men, almost of an age, stood on the rich carpet of the
lawn with their figures outlined against the open background of the
fields, they presented a strange contrast.  The Englishman was dressed in
a rough, brown tweed, and though there was a looseness about his
shoulders that almost amounted to slouchiness, they gave a suggestion of
latent strength that could be instantly galvanised into great power.
When he moved, either to throw something for his dog or just to break the
monotony of standing, his movements were slow and deliberate, and he took
a long pace with a slight inclination towards the side, as is the habit
of cavalrymen and sailors.  His eyes were a clear, unsubtle blue, and
though his skin was tanned from exposure to the elements, its texture was
unspoiled.  His hair was light brown, and, while closely cropped, in
keeping with military tradition, was naturally of thick growth; in the
centre where it was parted there was more than a tendency towards curls.
From his lip a slight moustache was trained to point upwards at the ends,
and beneath the tan of his face could be seen the glow of health, token
of a decent mode of living and a life spent out of doors.

There was a frankness of countenance, a certain humour which one felt
would rarely rise above banter, and the whole bearing was manly and
attractive.  But search the features as he would, Selwyn could not
discover any lurking traces of undiscovered personality.  Malcolm's very
frankness seemed to rob him of possession of any hidden, unexpected vein
of individuality.  He was essentially a type, and of as clear Anglo-Saxon
origin as if he were living in the days before his breed was modified by
inter-association with other tribes.

Selwyn recalled the words of Mathews: 'Milord, you're a thoroughbred, you
are.'  This youth was of a race of thoroughbreds.  Maternal heredity had
skipped him altogether; he was a Durwent of Durwents, and heir to all the
distinction and lack of distinction which marked the long line of that
family.

And opposite him was an American whose two generations of Republican
ancestry led to the paths of Dutch and Irish parentage.  Selwyn had never
tried to discover the cause why his paternal ancestor had left the Green
Island, or his maternal ancestor the land of dikes and windmills; it was
sufficient that, out of resentment against conditions either avoidable or
unavoidable, each had resolved to endure the ordeal of making his way in
a land of strangers.  Austin Selwyn bore the marks of that inheritance no
less clearly than Malcolm Durwent bore the marks of his.  In his features
there was a certain repose, as became the part-son of a race that had
produced the art of Rembrandt, but there was a roving Celtic strain as
well that hid itself by turn in his eyes, in his lips, in his smile, in
the lines of his frown.  In contrast to the clear Saxon steadiness of
Malcolm Durwent, his own face was constantly touched by lights and
shadows of his mind, lit by the incessant prompting of his thoughts that
demanded their answer to the riddle of life.

Although his build was fairly powerful, Selwyn's well-knit shoulders and
alert movements of body spoke of a physique that was always tuned to
pitch, but one missed the impression of limitless endurance which lay
behind the easy carelessness of Malcolm Durwent's pose.

'I want to ask you, Durwent,' said the American, 'more from the
stand-point of a writer than anything else, if these men of yours who are
going out to fight are actuated by a great sense of patriotism, or a
feeling that the liberty of the world depends on them or--well, in other
words, I am trying to discover what it is that makes you men face death
as if it were a game.'

'My dear chap,' said the Englishman, with a slightly embarrassed smile,
'there again we leave it to the fellows higher up.  Naturally, if Britain
goes to war, it isn't up to her army to question it one way or another.
Of course, back in our heads we like to feel that she is in the
right--but, then, I don't think Britain would ever do the rotten thing;
do you?'

'N--no, I suppose not.'

'You see, a chap can't help looking at it a bit like a game, for there's
Belgium doing an absolutely sporting thing, and there isn't one of us
that isn't straining at the bit to get over and give them a hand.'

With a slight blush at this admission of fervour, the Englishman grasped
his collie-dog by the forepaws and rolled him on his back.

'But,' said Selwyn, unwilling to let the bone of discussion drop while
there was one shred of knowledge clinging to it, 'supposing that Britain
were in the wrong and you fellows knew it, yet you were ordered to
war--what then?'

His companion laughed and thrust his hands in his pockets.

'Oh, we'd fight anyway; and after we had knocked the other chap out we'd
tell him how sorry we were, then go back and hang the bounders who had
brought the thing on.  But then, you see, you're riding the wrong horse,
because soldiering's my job, and I was always an awful muff when it came
to jawing on matters I don't know anything about.  You had better get
hold of some of our politician johnnies; they've always got ideas on
things.'


V.

A little later the Honourable Malcolm Durwent left Roselawn in a
motor-car.

As it rounded the curve in the drive he turned and waved at the little
group who were standing in the courtyard, and then he was lost to sight.
And in the hearts of each of the three there was a poignant grief.  Lord
Durwent's head was bowed with regret that at Britain's call he had been
able to give one only of his two sons.  Dry-eyed, but with aching heart,
Elise stood with an overwhelming remorse that she had never really known
her elder brother.  And Lady Durwent, free of all theatricalism, was dumb
with the mother's pain of losing her first-born.

And as the heir to Roselawn went to war, so did the sons of every old
family in the Island Kingdom.  In something of the spirit of sport, yet
carrying beneath their cheeriness the high purpose of ageless chivalry,
the blue-eyed youth of Britain went out with a smile upon their lips to
play their little parts in the great jest of the gods.

Not with the cry of 'Liberty!' or 'Freedom!' but merely as heirs to
British traditions, they took the field.  Of a race that acts more on
instinct than on reason, they were true to their vision of Britain, and
asking no better fate than to die in her service, they helped to stem the
Prussian flood while home after home, in its ivy-covered seclusion,
learned that the last son, like his brothers, had 'played the game' to a
finish.

Let the men who cry for the remodelling of Britain--and progress must
have an unimpeded channel--let them try to bring to their minds the
Britain that men saw in August 1914, when catastrophe yawned in her path.
That picture holds the secret for the Great Britain of the future.


VI.

It was almost the last day in August, when the little British Army was
fighting desperately against unthinkable odds, that a brigade of cavalry
made a brave but futile charge to try to break the German grip.  The --th
Hussars was one of the regiments that took part, and only a remnant
returned.

Staring with fixed, unseeing eyes at the blue of the sky, which was not
unlike the colour of his eyes, the Honourable Malcolm Durwent lay on the
field of battle, with a bullet through his heart.




CHAPTER XIII.

THE MAN OF SOLITUDE.


I.

In a large room overlooking St. James's Square a man sat writing.  In
the shaded light his face showed haggard, and his eyes gleamed with the
brilliancy of one whose blood is lit with a fever.

The clocks had just struck nine when he paused in his work, and
crossing to the French windows, which opened on a little terrace,
looked out at the darkened square.  The restless music of London's life
played on his tired pulses.  He heard the purring of limousines gliding
into Pall Mall, and the vibrato of taxi-cabs whipped into action by the
piercing blast of club-porters' whistles.  The noise of horses' hoofs
on the pavement echoed among the roof-tops of the houses, and beneath
those outstanding sounds was the quiet staccato of endless passing
feet, losing itself in the murmur of the November wind as it searched
among the dead leaves lying in the little park.

He had remained there only a few minutes, when, as though he had lost
too much time already, the writer returned to the table and resumed his
pen.

There was a knock at the door, and he looked up with a start.  'Come
in,' he said; and a man-servant entered.

'Will you be wanting anything, Mr. Selwyn?'

'No, Smith.'

'You haven't been out to dinner, sir.'

'I am not hungry.'

'Better let me make you a cup of tea with some toast, and perhaps boil
an egg.'

'N--no, thanks, Smith.  Well, perhaps you might make some coffee, with
a little buttered toast, and just leave them here.'

'Very good, sir.'

Although less than a year had elapsed since Austin Selwyn had first
dined at Lady Durwent's home, experience, which is more cruel than
time, had marked him as a decade of ordinary life could not have done.
His mind had been subjected to a burning ordeal since summer, and his
drawn features and shadowed eyes showed the signs of inward conflict.

As he had said of himself, all his previous experiences and education
were but a novitiate in preparation for the great moment when truth
challenged his consciousness and illuminated a path for him to follow.
From an intellectual dilettante, a connoisseur of the many fruits which
grace life's highway, he had become a single-purposed man aflame with
burning idealism.  From the sources of heredity the spirit of the
Netherlands fighting against the yoke of Spain, and the instinct of
revolt which lies in every Celtic breast, flowed and mingled with his
own newly awakened passion for world-freedom.

He had left Roselawn with a formal good-bye taken of the whole family
together.  He had avoided the eyes of Elise, and she had made no
attempt to alter the impersonal nature of the parting.  Reaching
London, he had been offered these rooms in St. James's Square by an
American, resident in London, whose business compelled him to go to New
York for an indefinite period.  As Selwyn felt the need for absolute
aloofness, he had gladly accepted.

Hardly waiting to unpack his 'grips,' he at once began his battle of
the written word, his crusade against the origin and the fruits of
Ignorance as shown by the war.

Always a writer of sure technique and facile vocabulary, he let the
intensity of his spirit focus on the subject.  He knew that to make his
voice heard above the clamour of war his language must have the
transcendent quality of inspiration.  No composer searching for the
_motif_ of a great moving theme ever approached his instrument with
deeper emotional artistry than Selwyn brought to bear on the language
which was to ring out his message.

He felt that words were potential jewels which, when once the rays of
his mind had played upon them, would be lit with the fire of magic.
Words of destiny like blood-hued rubies; words fraught with ominous
opal warning; words that glittered with the biting brilliance of
diamonds--they were his to link together with thought: he was their
master.  The necromancy of language was his to conjure with.

Day after day, and into the long hours of the night, he wrote,
destroying pages as he read them, refining, changing, rewriting, always
striving for results which would show no signs of construction, but
only breathe with life.  When fatigue sounded its warnings he
disregarded them, and spurred himself on with the thought of the
thousands dying daily at the front.  He saw no one.  His former London
acquaintances were engrossed in affairs of war, and made no attempt to
seek him out.  It was his custom to have breakfast and luncheon in his
rooms; at dinner-time he would traverse the streets until he found some
little-used restaurant, and then, selecting a deserted corner, would
eat his meal alone.  The walk there and back to his rooms was the only
exercise he permitted himself, except occasionally, when, late at
night, cramped fingers and bloodshot eyes would no longer obey the
lashing of the will, and he would venture out for an hour's stroll
through night-shrouded London.

Prowling about from square to square, through deserted alleys, and by
slumbering parks, he would feel the cumulative destinies of the
millions of sleeping souls bearing on his consciousness.  Solitude in a
metropolis, unlike that of the country, which merely lulls or tends to
the purifying of thought, intensifies the moods of a man like strong
liquor.  He who lives alone among millions courts all the mad fancies
that his brain is heir to.  Insanity, perversion, incoherent idealism,
fanaticism--these are the offspring of unnatural detachment from one's
fellows, and in turn give birth to the black moods of revolt against
each and every thing that is.

Living as he did in a sort of ecstasy by reason of his suddenly
realised world-citizenship, Selwyn's incipient feeling of godlikeness
developed still further under the spell of isolation.  The fact that he
trod the realm of thought, while all around him men and women grappled
with the problems of war, only accentuated this condition of mind.

He suffered--that was true.  He missed the companionship of kindred
spirits, and sometimes his memory would play truant, recalling the
pleasant glitter of sterling silver and conversational electroplate
which accompanied his former London dinner-parties.  He did not dare to
think of Elise at all.  She was the intoxicating climax of his past
life.  She was the blending of his life's melodies into a brief, tender
nocturne of love that his heart would never hear again.

In place of all that, he had the spiritual vanity of martyrdom.  Few
voyagers but have felt the exultation of mid-ocean: that desire of the
soul to leap the distance to the skies and claim its kinship to the
stars.  It comes to men on the Canadian prairies; it throbs in one's
blood when the summit of a mountain is reached; it is borne on the
wings of the twilight harmonies in a lonely forest.

Unknown to himself, perhaps, that was Selwyn's compensation.  From his
hermit's seclusion in the great metropolis he felt the thrill of one
who challenges the gods.


II.

His man-servant had hardly left the room when the bell in the front
hall rang, and Smith reappeared to announce a visitor.

'Who is it?' asked Selwyn.

'A Mr. Watson, sir.'

'I wonder if it can be Doug Watson of Cambridge.  Bring him right up.'

A moment later a young man entered the cosily shaded room, and they met
with the hearty hand-clasp and the sincere good-feeling which come when
a man who is abroad meets a friend who is a fellow-countryman.  The
new-comer was younger than Selwyn, and though of lighter complexion and
hair, was unmistakably American in appearance.  Like the author, he was
clean-shaven, but there was more repose in the features.  His face was
broad, and in the poise of his head and thick neck there was the clear
impression of great physical and mental driving-power.  Although still
a student, the mark of the engineer was strongly stamped on him.  He
was of the type that spans a great river with a bridge; that glories in
the overcoming of obstacles by sheer domination of will.

'Well, Doug,' said Selwyn as they drew their chairs up to the fire,
'when did you leave Cambridge?'

'Last week,' said the other.  'I couldn't stand it any longer with
every one gone.  I don't think that one of the bunch I played around
with is there now.'

'That was a bully week-end I had with you at the university.'

'We sure had a good time, didn't we?'

'But how did you know I was here?'

'Jarvis sent me a note that he and his wife were running hack to New
York, and that you were taking his rooms.  Damn fine place, isn't it?
There's a woman's touch all over here.  But you're looking precious
seedy.'

'I feel all right.'

'You don't look it.'

'I have been very busy, Doug.'

'Glad to hear it.  Putting over a killing in the literature game?'

'The biggest thing yet,' said Selwyn, opening a drawer and searching
for the cigars.  'I am making a sincere attempt to write something
which will sway people.  Have one of these?'

'Thanks.  I guess I'd better smoke one while I have the chance.  It
might get the sergeant-major's goat if he found a buck private smoking
half-crown cigars.'

'You haven't joined the army?'

'Not yet; but I shall to-morrow.  You can do it by graft, old boy.  For
three weeks I've courted a colonel's daughter so as to get next to the
old man, and to-morrow I receive my reward.  I am to become a
full-fledged Tommy Atkins.'

'And the daughter?'

The younger man grinned and cut off the end of his cigar with a
pocket-knife.  'Can you see the colonel's daughter "walking out" with a
Tommy?  My dear Austin, patriotism excuses much, but the social code
must be maintained.  I'd render that in Latin if I wasn't so rusty on
languages.  What are the chances of your coming along with me tomorrow?'

Selwyn reached for an ash-tray and matches.

'America is neutral,' he said quietly.

'America is not neutral,' replied Watson with a decisiveness that one
would hardly have suspected to lie beneath the calm exterior and the
veneer of good-breeding polished by Cambridge associations--a veneer
that made his occasional lapses into crudity of language seem oddly out
of place.  'The German-Americans, the Irish-Americans, the
Jewish-Americans, the God-knows-who-else-Americans may be neutral, but
the America of Washington and Lincoln, the America of Lee and Grant,
isn't neutral.  Not by a long sight.'

'Doug,' said Selwyn reproachfully, 'you are the last man I thought
would be caught by this flag-waving, drum-beating stuff.'

The younger man's brows puckered as he looked through the haze of
tobacco-smoke at his host.  'Austin,' he said abruptly, 'you've
changed.'

'Yes,' said Selwyn thoughtfully.  He was going to say more, but,
changing his mind, remained silent.

'I thought you looked different,' went on Watson.  'What's up?'

Selwyn's eyes narrowed and his lips and jaw stiffened resolutely.  'I
am writing,' he said, enunciating each word distinctly, 'in the hope of
arousing the slumbering conscience of the world against this war.'

'Canute the Second,' commented Watson dryly.

'Doug,' said the other, frowning, 'I deserve better than sarcasm from
you.'

'I'm sorry,' said Watson with a laugh, 'but I can't just get this new
Austin Selwyn right off the bat.  Of course war is wrong--any boob
knows that--but what can you hope to do with writing about it?'

Selwyn rose to his feet, and thrusting his hands in his pockets, strode
up and down the room.  'What can I hope to do?' he said.  'Remove the
scales from the eyes of the blind; recall to life the spirit of
universal brotherhood; destroy ignorance instead of destroying life.'

'Some platform!' said Watson, making rings of tobacco-smoke.

'Take yourself, for example,' said Selwyn vehemently, pausing in his
walk and pointing towards the younger man.  'You are a man of
international experience and university education.  On the surface you
have the attributes of a man of thought.  You are one that the world
has a right to expect will take the correct stand on great human
questions.  Yet the moment the barriers are down and jingoism floods
the earth you give up without a struggle and join the great mass of the
world's driftwood.'

'H'm,' mused Watson, 'so that's your tack, eh?'

'I tell you, Doug, you have no right to fight in this war.'

'Thanks.'

'You should have the courage to keep out of it.  Even assuming that
Germany is wholly in the wrong and Britain completely in the right,
can't you see that when the Kaiser and his advisers said, "Let there be
war," you and I and the millions of men in every country who believe in
justice and Christianity should have risen up and answered, "_You shall
not have war_"?'

Watson rose to his feet, and crossing to the fireplace, flicked the ash
from his cigar, and leaned lazily against the stone shelf.  'You're a
member of the Royal Automobile Club, aren't you?' he drawled.

Selwyn nodded and resumed his nervous walk.

'Take my advice, Austin.  Every time you feel that kind of dope
mounting to your head, trot across the road to the club and have a swim
in their tank.  You'd be surprised how it would bring you down to
earth.'

'You talk like a child,' said Selwyn angrily.

'Well,' retorted the other, 'that's better than talking like an old
woman.'

With an impatient movement of his shoulders the younger man left the
fireplace, and walking over to the piano, picked up a Hawaiian ukulele
which had been left there by Mrs. Jarvis.  Getting the pitch from the
piano, while Selwyn continued his restless march up and down the room,
he studiously occupied himself with tuning the instrument, then
strummed a few chords with his fingers.

'Sorry not to fit in with your peace-brother-peace stuff,' said Watson
amiably, strumming a recent rag-time melody with a certain amount of
dexterity, 'but I always played you for a real white man at college.'

'Doug,' said Selwyn, stopping his walk and sitting on the arm of a big
easy-chair, 'if there is a coward in this room, it's you.'

The haunting music of the ukulele was the only response.

'Here you are at Cambridge--an American,' went on Selwyn.  'Just
because the set you know enlists with an accompaniment of
tub-thumping'----

'That isn't the way the English do things,' said Watson without pausing
in his playing.

'My dear fellow,' said Selwyn, 'don't let the pose of modesty fool you
over here.  They profess to hold up their hands in horror when we get
hold of megaphones and roar about "The Star-Spangled Banner," but what
of the phrases, "The Empire on which the sun never sets," "What we have
we'll hold," "Mistress of the Seas"?  Is there so much difference
between the Kaiser's "_Ich und Gott_" and the Englishman's "God of our
far-flung battle-line"?  Jingoism!  We're amateurs in America compared
with the British--and you're caught by it all.'

'Nothing of the sort,' said Watson, putting down the ukulele.  'All I
know is that Germany runs amuck and gives a mighty good imitation of
hell let loose.  I am not discounting the wonderful bravery of France
and Belgium, but you know that the hope of everything lies right in
this country here.  Well, that's good enough for me.  I'm a hundred per
cent. American, but right now I'm willing to throw over my citizenship
in the United States and join this Empire that's got the guts to go to
war.'

'Listen, Doug,' said Selwyn, moving over to the younger man and placing
his hands on his shoulders; 'can't you see that Germany is not the
menace?  She is only a symptom of it.  War, not Germany, is the real
enemy.  I admire your pluck: my regret is that you are so blind.  The
whole world is turning murder loose; it is prostituting Christian
civilisation to the war-lust--and you imagine that by slaughter Right
may prevail.  The tragic fallacy of the ages has been that men, instead
of destroying evil, have destroyed each other.  If every criminal in
the world were executed, would crime end?  Then, do you think the
annihilation of this or that army will abolish war?'

'I haven't your gift of plausible argument,' said Watson, 'and I
suppose that theoretically you are sound in everything you say.  Yet,
instinctively, I know that I am doing the right thing.'

'A woman's reasoning, Doug.'  Selwyn relit his cigar, which had gone
out.  'For a few days after the outbreak of war I will admit that I
doubted, myself, and wondered if, after all, there was a universal
heart-beat.  Then came the news of the silent march of those thousands
of women down Fifth Avenue, marching to the beat of muffled drums as a
protest against war--not against Germany--higher than that.  It was a
symbol that the cry of Rachel for her children still rings through the
centuries.  It was the heart of America's women calling to the mothers
of France, Germany, and Britain against this butchery of their sons.'

Selwyn sank into a chair, and a look of weariness succeeded the
momentary flush of excitement.

'That ended my last doubt,' he went on quietly.  'I knew then that if I
could summon the necessary language to express the vision I saw, my
message would sound clear above the guns.  I completed three
articles--"A Fool There Was," "When Hell Laughed," and "Gods of
Jingoism."  I gave them to my London agent, but you would have thought
they held germs of disease.  He brought them back to me, and said that
no one would dare to publish them in England.  In other words, the
English couldn't stand the truth.  I sent them on to New York.  This is
my agent's reply.'

He took a letter from a file on the table and handed it to his guest.
'Read it,' he said.

With an inscrutable smile the Cambridge-American looked at the paper
and read:


'NEW YORK, _10th October 1914_.

DEAR MR. SELWYN,--You will be pleased to know that I have succeeded in
placing your articles "When Hell Laughed," "A Fool There Was," and
"Gods of Jingoism" with a prominent newspaper syndicate.  The price
paid was $800 each, and I herewith remit my cheque for $2160, having
deducted the usual commission.  I have every reason to believe that any
further articles you send will meet with a ready market, especially if
they follow along the same lines of exposing the utter futility of war.
As a matter of fact, this syndicate is prepared to pay even a higher
price if these articles, which will be published all over the United
States, meet with the approval they confidently expect.

'Assuring you of my desire to be of service to you, I remain, yours
very sincerely,

'S. T. LYONS.'


'Very nice, too,' murmured Watson at the conclusion of the letter.
'Who says that high ideals don't pay?'

'What do you mean?' said Selwyn sternly.  The younger man got up from
his chair and looked at his watch.  'Don't get shirty,' he said.  'I
was only thinking that 800 per is a fairly healthy figure for that
dope.'

'I don't give a damn for the money,' said Selwyn hotly, 'except that it
shows there is a demand in America for the truth.  Britain has always
been afraid to face facts.  Thank God, America isn't.'

'Well,' said Watson with a slight yawn, 'it's quite obvious that we're
as far apart as the poles on that question, so I think I'll cut along.'

'Stay and have a cup of coffee.  There's some being made; it will be
here in a minute.'

'No, thanks.  To be brutally frank, Austin, the ozone around here is a
little too rarefied for me.  I'm going out to a cab-stand somewhere to
have a sandwich and a cup of tea with any Cockney who hasn't joined the
Citizenship of the World.'

With the shadows under his eyes more pronounced than before, but with
the unchanging look of determination, Selwyn helped the younger man on
with his coat, and handed him his hat and stick.  'I am sorry you won't
stay,' he said calmly, 'for your abuse and sarcasm are nothing to me.
When I took this step I foresaw the consequences, and, believe me, I
have suffered so much already that the loss of another friend means
very little.'

The powerfully built young American twirled his hat uncomfortably
between his fingers.  'Look here, Austin,' he said vehemently, 'why in
blazes can't you get all that hot air out of your system?  Come
on--meet me to-morrow, and we'll join up together.  It'll be all kinds
of experience, you'll get wagon-loads of copy, and when it's all over
you'll feel like a man instead of a sissy.'

With a tired, patient smile Selwyn put out his hand.  'Good-night,
Doug,' he said.  'I hope you come through all right.'

When he heard the door close downstairs as Watson went out, Selwyn
re-entered the room.  The light of the electric lamp glaring on his
manuscript pained his eyes, and he turned it out, leaving the room in
the dim light of the fire.  The man-servant entered with a tray.

'Will you have the light on, sir?'

'No, thanks, Smith.  Just leave the things on the table.'

'Thank you, sir.  Good-night, sir.'

'Good-night, Smith.'

The room was strangely, awesomely quiet.  There was no sound from the
deserted square; only the windows shook a little in the breeze.  He
reached for the ukulele, and staring dreamily into the fire, picked
softly at the strings until he found four notes that blended
harmoniously.

The fire slowly faded from his gaze, and in its place, by memory's
alchemy, came the vision of _her_ face--a changing vision, one moment
mocking as when he first met her, turning to a look of pain as when she
spoke of Dick, and then resolving into the wistful tenderness that had
crept into her eyes that evening by the trout-stream--a tenderness that
vanished before the expression of scorn she had shown that fateful
August night.

The night stole wearily on, but still Selwyn sat in the shadowy
darkness, occasionally strumming the one chord on the strings, like a
worshipper keeping vigil at some heathen shrine and offering the
incense of soft music.




CHAPTER XIV.

STRANGE CRAFT.


I.

One slushy night in December Selwyn was returning from a solitary
dinner at a modest Holborn restaurant, when a damp sleet began to fall,
making the sickly street-lamps darker still, and defying the protection
of mufflers and heavy coats.  With hat pulled over his eyes and hands
immersed in the pockets of his coat, he made his way through the
throng, while the raucous voices of news-venders cried out the latest
tidings from the front.

To escape the proximity of the crowds and the nerve-shaking noises of
traffic, he turned down a wide thoroughfare, and eventually emerged on
Fleet Street.  Again the seething discontent of rumbling omnibuses and
hurrying crowds irritated him, and crossing to Bouverie Street, where
Mr. Punch looks out on England with his genial satire, he followed its
quiet channel until he reached the Thames.

In contrast to the throbbing arteries of Holborn and Fleet Street, the
river soothed his nerves and lent tranquillity to his mind.  Following
the Embankment, which was shrouded in heavy darkness, he reached the
spot where Cleopatra's Needle, which once looked on the majesty of
ancient Egypt, stands, a sentinel of incongruity, on the edge of
London's river.  Giving way to a momentary whim, Selwyn paused, and
finding a spot that was sheltered from the sleet, sat down and leaned
against the monument.

In the masque of night he could just make out the sketchy forms of a
river-barge and two steamers anchored a few yards out.  From their
masts he could see the dull glow of red where a meagre lamp was hung,
and he heard the hoarse voice of a man calling out to some one across
the river.  As if in answer, the rattle of a chain came from the deck
of some unseen craft, like a lonely felon in a floating prison.

The river's mood was so in keeping with his own that Selwyn's senses
experienced a numbing pleasure; the ghostly mariners of the night, the
motionless ships at their moorings, the eerie hissing of the sleet upon
the water, combined to form a drug that left his eyelids heavy with
drowsy contentment.

How long he had remained there he could not have stated, when from the
steps beneath him, leading towards the water, he heard a man's slovenly
voice.

'Are you going to stay the night here?'

As apparently the remark was intended for him, Selwyn leaned forward
and peered in the direction from which the voice had come.  At the foot
of the dripping steps he could just make out a huddled figure.

'If you're putting up here,' went on the speaker, 'we had better pool
resources.  I've got a cape, and if you have a coat we can make a
decent shift of it.  Two sleep warmer than one on a night like this.'

In spite of the sluggish manner of speech, Selwyn could detect a faint
intonation which bespoke a man of breeding.  He tried to discern the
features, but they were completely hidden beneath the pall of night.

'Well,' said the voice, 'are you deaf?'

'I am not staying here for the night,' answered Selwyn.

'Then why the devil didn't you say that before?'  For a moment the
fellow's voice was energised by a touch of brusqueness, but before the
last words were finished it had lapsed into the dull heaviness of
physical lethargy.  'Tell me,' said the stranger, after a silence of
several minutes, 'how is the war going on?'

'You probably know as much as I.'

'Not likely.  I've been beating back from China for three months in a
more or less derelict tramp.  Chased into every blessed little port,
losing our way, and cruising for days without water--we were a fine
family of blackguards, and no mistake.  Grog could be had for the
asking, and a scrap for less than that; but I'd as lief not ship on the
_Nancy Hawkins_ again.'

Selwyn leaned back against the obelisk and speculated idly on the
strange personality hidden in the dark recess of the descending stairs.
It was not difficult to tell that, though he spoke of himself as a
sailor, sailoring was not his calling.  There was a subtle cadence of
refinement in his voice, an arresting lilt on certain words, that
remained on the air after the words had ended.

'Did the Germans get to Paris?'

'No,' said Selwyn; 'though they were very near it.'

'Good!  How did our chaps do?'

'I believe they fought very bravely, but were pretty well wiped out.'

'I suppose so,' said the other quietly--'wiped out, eh?  Tell me--did
the Colonies throw in their lot with us?'

'All of them,' said Selwyn, 'even including South Africa.'

'What about Canada?'

'She has over thirty thousand men in England now, ready to cross.'

'Splendid!' muttered the fellow.  'So they're British after all, in
spite of the Yankees beside them. . . .  The cubs didn't leave the old
mother to fight alone, eh?  Jove! but it's something to be an
Englishman today, isn't it?'

Selwyn made no response, but his brow contracted with the thought that
even the flotsam, the dregs thrown up on the river's bank, were imbued
with the overwhelming instinct of jingoism.  He glanced up from the
steps, and saw on either side of the obelisk a sphinx, woman-headed,
with the body of a lioness, monuments to the memory of Cleopatra.  How
little had been accomplished by humanity since the first sphinx had
gazed upon the sands of Egypt!  It had seen the treachery and the lust
of Antony, the slaughter of men by men led blindly to the
carnage. . . .  Was not the smile, perhaps, its hoarded knowledge of
the futility of the ages?

'Can you give me a match?' asked the man from the steps.  'Everything
on me is soaked.  I'll come up if you have one, but I don't want to
shift otherwise.'

'Don't bother,' said Selwyn, getting up and stamping his feet to
restore their warmth.  'I'll bring you one, and then I'll have to move
along.'

He produced a silver match-box, and feeling his way carefully down the
slippery steps, handed it to the stranger.  Acknowledging the action
with a murmur of thanks, the fellow took it, and making a protection
with his cape, struck a match to light his pipe.  It flickered for a
moment and flared up, illuminating his features grotesquely.

Selwyn uttered a sharp ejaculation of surprise and stepped back a pace.
'Durwent!' he cried.

'Eh?' snapped the other, dropping the match on the wet stone, where it
went out with a faint splutter.  'What's your game?'

'I could not see you before,' said the American quickly; 'but though I
heard your voice only once, there was something about it I remembered.'

The Englishman struck a second match, and with a casual air of
indifference lit his pipe.

'Thanks,' he said, handing the box to the American.  Selwyn reached
forward to take it, when suddenly his wrists were caught in a grip of
steel.

'Damn you!' said Dick Durwent hotly, springing to his feet.  'Are you
tracking me?  I didn't come back to be caught like a rat.  Are you a
detective?  If you are, by George!  I'll drown you in the river.'

'Don't be a fool,' said Selwyn, writhing in pain with the other's
torture.

'Who are you?'

'My name is Selwyn.  I am an American; a friend of your mother and your
sister.'

'Where have you seen me before?'

'At the Café Rouge--a year ago.'  Beads of perspiration stood out on
Selwyn's head, and his body was faint with the pain of his twisted
wrists.

'You're not lying?' said Dick Durwent, slowly relaxing his grip, and
peering into the American's eyes.  'No.  I seem to remember you
somewhere with Elise.  I'm sorry.'  He released the clutch completely,
and resumed his seat on the steps.  'I hope I didn't hurt you.'

'No,' said Selwyn, rubbing each wrist in turn to help to restore the
circulation.

Durwent laughed grimly.  'It's a wonder I didn't break something,' he
said.  'Once more--I'm sorry.  But you can understand the risk I am
running in returning here with the police wanting me.  They're not
going to get me if I can help it.'

'Why didn't you stay away?'

'With the Old Country at war!  Not likely.  Do you think I should ever
have gone if I had known what was going to happen?'

'What are your plans?'

'Fight,' said the other briefly.  'Somewhere--somehow.  I'll get into a
recruiting line about dawn to-morrow. . . .  But--what can you tell me
about Elise?'

'I have neither seen nor heard of her since August,' said Selwyn,
wondering at the calm level of his own voice in spite of tumultuous
heart-beats.

'Too bad.  Then you don't know anything about the rest?'

'No.  I'----  He paused awkwardly.  'I suppose you haven't heard about
your brother?'

There was no response, but Selwyn could feel the Englishman's eyes
steeled on his face.  'He was killed,' he went on slowly, 'last August.'

Still there was no sound from the younger son, now heir to his father's
title and estates.  For the first time Selwyn caught the ripple of the
river's current eddying about the steps at the bottom.  From the great
bridges spanning the river there was the distant thunder of lumbering
traffic.

'I understand that he died very bravely,' said the American in an
attempt to ease the intensity of the silence.

'Yes,' muttered Durwent dreamily, 'he would. . . .  So old Malcolm is
dead. . . .  Somehow, I always looked on his soldiering as a joke.  I
never thought that those fellows in the Regulars would ever really go
to war. . . .  Yet, when the time came, he was ready, and I was
skulking off to China like a thief in the night.'

The Englishman's voice was so low that it seemed as if he were talking
more to himself than to his listener.

'What happened to that swine?' he ejaculated suddenly.  'I mean the one
I almost killed.  By any chance, did he die?'

'I saw in a paragraph last week,' said Selwyn, 'that he was out on
crutches for the first time.  The paper also commented on your complete
disappearance.'

'I wish I had killed him,' said the young man grimly.  'If I ever get a
chance I'll tell you about him.  I was drunk at the time--that's what
saved his life.  If I had been sober I should have finished him.  Well,
it's a damp night, my friend, and I won't keep you any longer from a
decent billet.'

'Look here, Durwent,' said Selwyn; 'come along to my rooms.  You're
soaked to the skin, and I could give you a change and a shakedown for
the night.'

'Thanks very much; but I'm accustomed to this kind of thing.'

'You won't be seen,' urged Selwyn.  'I have accepted so much from your
family that you would do me a kindness in coming.'

'Well, I must say I'm not married to this place.  If you don't mind
taking in a disreputable wharf-rat'----

'That's the idea,' said Selwyn, helping him to his feet.  The
Englishman shivered slightly.

'You haven't a flask, have you?' he queried.  'I didn't know how cold I
was.'

'I haven't anything with me,' said the American; 'but I can give you a
whisky and something to eat at my rooms.'

'Right!  Thanks very much.'

Tucking the cape under his arm, and shaking his waterproof cap to clear
it of water, Dick Durwent followed the American on to the Embankment,
where the two sphinxes of Egypt squatted, silent sentinels.


II.

To avoid the crowds as much as possible, the two men followed the
Embankment, and had reached the Houses of Parliament, intending to make
a detour into St. James's Square, when Selwyn felt a hand upon his
shoulder.  He turned quickly about, and Durwent moved off to one side
to be out of the light of a lamp.

'Sweet son of liberty,' said the new-comer, 'how fares it?'

It was Johnston Smyth, more airily shabby than ever.  Over his head he
held an umbrella in such disrepair that the material hung from the ribs
in shreds.  A profuse black tie hid any sign of shirt, and both the
legs of his trousers and the sleeves of his coat seemed to have shrunk
considerably with the damp.

'How are you?' said Selwyn, shaking hands.

'Temperamentally on tap; artistically beyond question; gastronomically
unsatisfied.'  At this concise statement of his condition, Smyth took
off his hat, gazed at it as if he had been previously unaware of its
existence, and replaced it on the very back of his head.

'Things are not going too well, then?' said Selwyn, glancing anxiously
towards Durwent, and wondering how he could get rid of the garrulous
artist.

'Not going well?'  Smyth straightened his right leg and relaxed the
left one.  'In the last three weeks a pair of pyjamas, my other coat,
two borrowed umbrellas, and a set of cuff-links have gone.  If things
go much better I shall have to live in a tub like Diogenes.  But--do
the honours, Selwyn.'

'I beg your pardon,' said the American.  'Mr--Mr. Sherwood,' he went
on, taking the first name that came to his lips, 'allow me to introduce
Mr. Johnston Smyth.'

'How are you?' said the artist, making an elaborate bow and seizing the
other's hand.

'As you may have gathered from my costume and the ventilated condition
of my umbrella, I am not in that state of funds which lends
tranquillity to the mind and a glow of contentment to the bosom.  Yet
you see before you a man--if I may be permitted a sporting
expression--who has set the pace to the artists of England.  I am glad
to know you.  Our mutual friend from Old Glory has done himself proud.'

With which flourish Smyth left off shaking hands and closed his
umbrella, immediately opening it and putting it up again.  Dick Durwent
replaced his hands in his pockets, and Selwyn heard his quivering
breath as he shivered with cold.

'However,' went on the loquacious artist, 'though my art has been
heralded as a triumph, though it has filled columns of the press,
though my admirers can be found on every page of the directory, I can
only say, like our ancient enemy across the Channel after Austerlitz,
"Another such victory and I am ruined!" . . .  Selwyn, shall we indulge
in the erstwhile drop?'

'Have you a flask?' broke in Durwent, his dull eyes lighting greedily.

'I think not,' said Smyth, handing the umbrella to Selwyn, and
carefully searching all his pockets.  'I am afraid my valet has
neglected that essential part of a gentleman's wardrobe.  But what do
you say, gentlemen, to a short pilgrimage to Archibald's?'

'No, Smyth,' said the American, putting his hand in Durwent's arm.
'For certain reasons, Mr. Sherwood'----

'Ha!' said Smyth, with a dramatic pose of his legs, 'Archibald is the
soul of discretion.  Compared to him, an Egyptian mummy is a pithy
paragrapher.  _Mes amis_, Archibald's is just across the bridge, and I
can assure you that the Twilight Tinkle, in which I have the honour to
have collaborated, is guaranteed to change the most elongated
countenance of glum into a globular surface of blithesome joy.'

'No,' began Selwyn impatiently.

'Let us try it,' said Durwent eagerly.  'I think this chill has got
into my blood.  I'd give a lot for a shot of rum or brandy.'

'We can have anything in my rooms,' protested the American.  'You want
to get your wet things off--and, besides, it's a risk going in there.'

'No risk--no risk,' said Durwent, laughing foolishly and rubbing his
hands together.--'Where is this hole, Smyth?'

'Gentlemen,' said the artist, 'after the custom of these military days,
I urge you "fall in."'

Getting in the centre and adjusting his hat at a precipitate angle on
the extreme left of his head, Smyth took Dick Durwent's arm, and
extending the other to Selwyn, marched the pair across the bridge,
holding the absurd umbrella over each in turn as if it offered some
real resistance to the scurvy downpour.


III.

'This way, gentlemen,' said Smyth, leading them up an alley, across a
court, and into a lane.  'Permit me to welcome you to Archibald's.'

They entered a dimly lit tavern, where a dozen or so men sat about the
room at little tables.  Instead of the usual pictures one sees in such
places, pictures of dancers with expressive legs, and race-horses with
expressive faces, the walls were hung with dusty signed portraits of
authors, artists, and actors, most of whom had attained distinction
during the previous half-century.  Sir Henry Irving as Othello held the
place of honour over the bar, with Garrick as his _vis-à-vis_ on the
opposite wall.  The divine Sarah cast the spell of her eternal youth on
all who gathered there; and Lewis Waller, with eyes intent on his
sword-handle, seemed oblivious to the close proximity of Lily Langtry
and Ellen Terry, those empresses of the dual realms of Beauty and
Intelligence.  Without any companion portrait, the puffy sensuality of
Oscar Wilde held a prominent place.  And between the spectacled face of
Rudyard Kipling on one side and the author of _Peter Pan_ on the other,
Forbes-Robertson in the garb of the Melancholy Dane looked out with his
fine nobility of countenance.  The room was heavy with tobacco-smoke,
which seemed to have been accumulating for years, and to have darkened
the very beams of the ceiling.  Over the floor a liberal coating of
sawdust was sprinkled.

'Strange place, this,' whispered Johnston Smyth as they took a table in
an unfrequented corner.  'It's an understood thing that the habitués of
Archibald's are trailers in the race of life.  If you have a fancy for
human nature, gentlemen, this is the shop to come to.  We've got some
queer goods on the shelves--newspaper men with no newspapers to write
for; authors that think out new plots every night and forget 'em by
morning; playwrights that couldn't afford the pit in the Old Vic.--Do
you see that old chap over there?'

'The little man,' said Selwyn, 'with the strange smile?'

'That's right.  He's been writing a play now for twenty years, but
hasn't had time to finish the last act.  "There's no hurry," he says;
"true art will not permit of haste"--and the joke of it is that he has
a cough that'll give him his own curtain long before he ever writes it
on his play.  There he goes now.'

The old playwright had been seized with a paroxysm of coughing that
took his meagre storehouse of breath.  Weakly striking at his breast,
he shook and quivered in the clutch of the thing, leaning back
exhausted when it had passed, but never once losing the odd, whimsical
smile.

'What about something to drink?' broke in Dick Durwent hurriedly, his
eyes narrowing.

'Directly,' said Smyth, beckoning to the proprietor, a small man, who,
in spite of his years and an oblong head undecorated by a single hair,
appeared strangely fresh and unworried, as if he had been sleeping for
fifty years in a cellar, and had just come up to view the attending
changes.

'Archibald,' said Smyth, 'these are my friends the Duke of Arkansas and
Sir Plumtree Crabapple.'

The extraordinary little man smiled toothlessly and fingered his tray.

'Gentlemen,' said Smyth, 'name your brands.'

'Give me a double brandy,' said Durwent, blowing on his chilled
fingers.  'Better make it two doubles in a large glass.'

'Soda, sir?' queried the proprietor in a high-pitched, tranquil voice.

'No,' said Durwent.  'You can bring a little water in a separate glass.'

'What is your pleasure, your Grace?' said Smyth, addressing the
American.  'If you will do Archibald and myself the honour of trying
the Twilight Tinkle, it would be an event of importance to us both.'

'Anything at all,' said Selwyn, sick at heart as he saw the nervous
interlocked fingers of Dick Durwent pressed together with such
intensity that they were left white and bloodless.

'This is a little slice of London's life,' said Smyth after he had
given the order, crossing his left leg over the right, 'that you
visitors would never find.  You hear about the chaps who succeed and
those who come a cropper, but these are the poor beggars who never had
a chance to do either.  There's genius in this room, gentlemen, but
it's genius that started swimming up-stream with a millstone round its
neck.'

With a profound shaking of the head, Smyth straightened his left leg,
and after carefully taking in its shape with partially closed eyes, he
replaced it on its fellow.

'How do they live?' queried Selwyn.

'Scavengers,' said Smyth laconically.  'Scavengers to success.  Do you
see that fellow there with the poached eyes and a four-days' beard?'

Selwyn looked to the spot indicated by Smyth, and saw a heavily built
man with a pale, dissipated face, who was fingering an empty glass and
leering cynically with some odd trend of thought.  It was a face that
gripped the attention, for written on it was talent--immense talent.
It was a face that openly told its tale of massive, misdirected power
of mentality, fuddled but not destroyed by alcohol.

'That's Laurence De Foe,' said Smyth; 'a queer case altogether.
Barnardo boy--doesn't know who his parents were, but claims direct
descent from Charlemagne.  He's never really drunk, but no one ever saw
him sober.  If he wanted to, he could write better than any man in
London.  Last year, when the critics scored Welland's play _Salvage_
for its rotten climax, the author himself came to De Foe.  All night
they sat in his stuffy room, and when Welland went away he had a play
that made his name for ever.  I could tell you of two of the heavy
artillery among the London leader-writers who always bring their big
stuff to De Foe before they fire it.  Last July, when the war was
making its preliminary bow, and Hemphill was thundering those
editorials of his that warned the Old Lion he would have to wake up and
clean the jungle, Hemphill was simply the errand urchin.  There's the
man who wrote "To Arms, England!" one day after the Austrian note to
Serbia.  Hemphill got the credit and the money--but Laurence De Foe did
it.'

Smyth's stream of narrative, which carried considerably less
impedimenta of caricature and persiflage than was usual with him, came
to an end with the arrival of two Twilight Tinkles and a generous-sized
tumbler, more than half-full of brandy.  After an elaborate search of
his coat and trousers pockets to locate a five-pound note, Smyth was
forced to allow Selwyn to pay for the refreshment, promising to knock
him up before six next morning and repay him.

'Well, gentlemen,' said the conscientious artist, 'here's success to
crime!'

Not waiting to honour the misanthropic toast, Dick Durwent had reached
greedily for his glass, and poured its contents down his throat.  With
a heavy sigh of gratification, he leaned back in his chair, and the
pallor of his cheeks showing beneath the weather-beaten surface of tan
was flecked with patches of colour.  For an instant only his eyes went
yellow, as on the night at the Café Rouge; but the horrible glare died
out, and was succeeded by the calm, blue tranquillity that had reigned
before.

'By St. George!' said Smyth admiringly, 'but we have no amateur with
us, Selwyn.'

The solitary figure of De Foe, who had been watching them, left his
table, and lurching over to them, stood swaying unevenly.

'_Bon soir_, gentlemen,' he said, speaking with the deep sonorousness
which comes of long saturation of the vocal cords with undiluted
spirits, 'I think one or two of these faces are new to Archibald's.  Am
I right?'

'Yes, sir,' said Smyth, rising.  'Permit me, Mr. De Foe, to
introduce'----

The writer stopped him with a slow, majestic movement of the hand.
'What care I who they are?' he said heavily.  'Names mean
nothing--pretty labels on empty vessels.  By what right do these
gentlemen invade the sanctity of Archibald's?'  He drew a chair near
them and sat down sullenly, hanging his arm over the back.  'Do I see
aright?' he queried thickly, opening his eyes with difficulty, and
revealing their lustreless shade.  'There are three of you?  Humph!
The one I know--a clumsy dauber in a smudgy world.'

Smyth nodded delightedly to his companions to indicate that the
compliment was intended for him.

'Or your friends,' went on the heavy resonant voice, 'one has the face
of a dreamer.  Come, sir, tell me of these dreams that are keeping you
awake of nights.  I am descended from Joseph by the line of
Charlemagne, and I have it in my power to interpret them.  Are you a
writer?'

'I am,' said Selwyn calmly.

'You are not English.  You haven't the leathery composure of our race.'

'I am an American.'

'I thought as much.  You show the smug complacency of your nation.  How
dare you write, sir?  What do you know of life?'

'We have learned something on that subject,' said Selwyn with a slight
smile, 'even over there.  You see, we have the mistakes of your older
countries by which we can profit.'

'Bah!' said the other contemptuously.  'Cant--platitudes--words!  Since
when have either nations or individuals learned from the mistakes of
others?  Take you three.  Which of you lies closest to life?  Which of
you has drunk experience to the dregs?  The dauber?--You,
author-dreamer, fired by the passion of a robin for a cherry?--No,
neither of you. . . .  That boy there--that youngster with the blue
eyes of a girl; he is the one to teach--not you.  He has the stamp of
failure on him.  Welcome, sir--the Prince of Failures welcomes you to
Archibald's.'

He lurched forward and extended an unsteady hand to Dick Durwent, who
rose slowly from his chair to take it.  As Selwyn watched the two men
standing with clasped hands over the table, he felt his heart-strings
contract with pain.

Although separated by more than thirty years, there was a cruel
similarity in the pair--in the half-bravado, half-timorous poise of the
head; in the droop of sensuous lips; in the dark hair of each, matted
over pallid foreheads.  It was as if De Foe had summoned some black art
to show the future held in the lap of the gods for the youngest Durwent.

'My boy,' said De Foe drunkenly, but with a moving tenderness, 'life
has refused me much, but it has left me the power to read a man's soul
in his eyes.  The world brands you as a beaten man--and by men's
standards it is right.  But Laurence De Foe can read beyond those
sea-blue eyes of yours; he it is who knows that behind them lies the
gallant soul of a gallant gentleman.  End your days in a gutter or on
the gibbet--what matters it where the actor sleeps when the drama is
done?--but to-night you have done great honour to the Prince of
Failures by letting him grasp your hand.'

He slowly released the young man's hand, and turned wearily away as
Durwent sank into his chair, his eyes staring into filmy space.  Moving
clumsily across the room, De Foe reached the bar and ordered a drink.
When it had been poured out for him he turned about, and, leaning back
lazily, looked around the room, with his eyes almost hidden by the
close contraction of thick, black eyelashes.  Such was the unique power
of his personality that the disjointed threads of conversation at the
various tables wound to a single end as if by a signal.

'_Mes amis_,' said De Foe--and his voice was low and sonorous--'I see
before me many, like myself, who have left behind them futures where
other men left only pasts.  I see before me many, like myself, who had
the gift of creating exquisite, soul-stirring works of art and
literature.  But because we were not content to be mere mouthy clowns,
with pen or brush, jabbering about the play of life, we have paid the
penalty for thinking we could be both subject and painter, author and
actor.  Because we chose to live, we have failed.  The world goes on
applauding its successful charlatans, its puny-visioned authors pouring
their thoughts of sawdust in the reeking trough of popularity; while
we, who know the taste of every bitter herb in all experience--we are
thrust aside as failures. . . .  But the gift of prophecy is on me
to-night.  There is a youth here who has a soul capable of scaling
heights where none of us could follow--and a soul that could sink to
depths that few of us have known.  He is one of us, and he has chosen
to fight for England.  I can see the glory of his death written in his
eyes.  Gentlemen--you who are adrift with uncharted destinies--drink to
the boy of the sea-blue eyes.  May he die worthy of himself and of us.'

Throughout the dimly lit room every one rose to his feet, incoherently
echoing the last words of the speaker. . . .  Still with the filmy
wistfulness about his eyes and a tired, weary smile, Dick Durwent sat
in his chair beating a listless tattoo on the table with his hand.

From across the room came the sound of the old playwright's hacking
cough.




CHAPTER XV.

DICK DURWENT.


I.

Late that night Selwyn lay in his bed and listened to the softened
tones of his two guests conversing in the living-room, Johnston Smyth
having conceived such an attachment to his newly found friend that it
was quite impossible to persuade him to leave.  At his own request,
blankets had been spread for Durwent on the floor, and after a hot bath
he had rolled up for the night close to the fire.  Johnston Smyth had
also disdained the offer of a bed and ensconced himself on the couch,
where he lay on his back and uttered vagrant philosophies on a vast
number of subjects.

Wishing his strangely assorted guests a good night's repose, Selwyn had
retired to his own room shortly after midnight, but, tired as he was,
sleep refused to come.  Like an etcher planning a series of scenes to
be depicted, his mind summoned the various incidents of the night in a
tedious cycle.  The huddled figure at the foot of Cleopatra's steps;
the fantastic airiness of Smyth with his shredded umbrella; the smoky
atmosphere of Archibald's, with its strange gathering of derelicts; the
two chance acquaintances spending the night in the adjoining room--what
vivid, disjointed cameos they were!  If there was such a thing as Fate,
what meaning could there be in their having met?  Or was their meeting
as purposeless as that of which some poet had once written--two pieces
of plank-wood touching in mid-ocean and drifting eternally?

It seemed that the low voices of the others had been going on for more
than an hour when the sense of absolute stillness told Selwyn that he
must have fallen asleep for an interval.  He listened for their voices,
but nothing could be heard except the sleet driven against the windows,
and a far-away clock striking the hour of two.

Wondering if his visitors were comfortable, he rose from his bed, and
creeping softly to the living-room door, opened it enough to look in.

Smyth's heavy breathing, not made any lighter by his having his head
completely covered by bed-clothes, indicated that the futurist was in
the realm of Morpheus.  Durwent was curled up cosily by the fire, the
blankets over him rising and subsiding slightly, conforming to his
deep, tranquil breaths.

In the light of the fire, and with the warm glow of the skin caused by
its heat and the refreshing bath, the pallor of dissipation had left
the boy's face.  In the musing curve of his full-blooded lips and in
the corners of his closed eyes there was just the suggestion of a
smile--the smile of a child tired from play.  There was such refinement
in the delicate nostrils dilating almost imperceptibly with the intake
of each breath, and such spiritual smoothness in his brow contrasting
with the glowing tincture of his face, that to the man looking down on
him he seemed like a youth of some idyl, who could never have known the
invasion of one sordid thought.

A feeling of infinite compassion came over Selwyn.  He rebelled against
the cruelty of vice that could fasten its claws on anything so fine,
when there was so much human decay to feed upon.

The eyelids parted a little, and Selwyn stepped back towards the door.

'Hullo, Selwyn, old boy!' murmured Durwent dreamily.  'Is it time to
get up?'

'No,' whispered Selwyn.  'I didn't mean to wake you.'

Durwent smiled deprecatingly and reached sleepily for the other's hand.
'It's awfully decent of you to take me in like this,' he said.

There was a simplicity in his gesture, a child-like sincerity in his
voice, that made Selwyn accept the hand-clasp, unable to utter the
words which came to his lips.

'Selwyn,' said Dick, keeping his face turned towards the fire, 'are you
likely to see Elise soon?'

'I hardly think so,' said the American, kneeling down and stirring the
coals with the poker.

'If you do, please don't tell her I've come back.  She thinks I'm in
the Orient somewhere, and if she knew I was joining up she would worry.
I suppose I shall always be "Boy-blue" to her, and never anything
older.'

Selwyn replaced the poker and sat down on a cushion that was on the
floor.

'It may be a rotten thing to say,' resumed the younger man, speaking
slowly, 'but she was more of a mother to me than my mother was.  As far
back as I can remember she was the one person who believed in me.  The
rest never did.  When I was a kid at prep. school and brought home bad
reports, every one seemed to think me an outsider--that I wasn't
conforming--and I began to believe it.  Only Elise never changed.  She
was the one of the whole family who didn't want me to be somebody or
something else.  You can hardly believe what that meant to me in those
days.  It was a little world I lived in, but to my youngster's eyes it
looked as if everything and every person were on one side, doubting me,
and Elise was on the other, believing in me. . . .  I'm not whining,
Selwyn, or saying that any one's to blame for my life except myself,
but I do believe that if Elise and I had been kept together I might not
have turned out such a rotter.  Sometimes, too, I wonder if it wouldn't
have been better for her.  She never made many friends--and looking
back, I think the poor little girl has had a lonely time of it.'

He relapsed into silence and shifted his head wearily on the pillow.
Johnston Smyth murmured something muffled and unintelligible in his
sleep.  Selwyn placed some new lumps of coal on the fire, the flames
licking them eagerly as the sharp crackle of escaping gases punctured
the sleep-laden air.

'It does sound rather like whining to say it,' said Durwent without
opening his eyes, 'but after I was rusticated at Cambridge I tried to
travel straight.  If I had gone then to the Colonies I might have made
a man of myself, but I hung around too long, and got mixed up with one
of the rottenest sets in London.  I went awfully low, Selwyn, but booze
had me by the neck, and my conscience wasn't working very hard either.
And then another woman helped me.  She was one of those who aren't
admitted among decent people.  She came of poor family, and had made a
fairly good name for herself on the stage, and was absolutely straight
until she met that blackguard Moorewell about three years ago.'

'The man you nearly killed?'

'Yes.  At any rate, she and I fell in love with each other.  I know
it's all damned sordid, but we were both outcasts, and, as that chap
said to-night, it's the people who have failed who lie closest to life.
Once more a woman believed in me, and I believed in a woman.  We
planned to get married.  We were going away under another name, to make
a new world for ourselves.  For weeks I never touched a drop, and it
seemed at last that I could see--just a little light ahead.  You don't
know what that means, Selwyn, when a man is absolutely down.'

The smile had died out in the speaker's face and given way to a cold,
gray mist of pain.

'Moorewell heard about it,' went on Durwent, 'and though the blackguard
had discarded her, he grew jealous, and began his devilry again.  She
did not tell me, but I know for a long time she was as true to me as I
was to her.  Then they went to Paris--I believe he promised to marry
her there.  A week later I got a letter from her, begging forgiveness.
He had left her, she said, and she was going away where I should never
find her again.  My first impulse was to follow her--and then I started
to drink.  God! what nights those were!  I waited my time.  I watched
Moorewell until one night I knew he was alone.  I forced an entrance,
and caught him in his library. . . .  As I said before, I was drunk;
and that's what saved his life.  I thought at the time he was dead; and
having no money, I caught a late train, and hid all night and next day
in the woods at Roselawn.  Three times I saw Elise, but she was never
alone; but that night I called her with a cry of the night-jar which
she had taught me.  She came out, and I told her as much as I could;
and with her necklace I raised some money and got away.'

Again the murmured words came to a close.  Selwyn searched his mind for
some comment to make, but none would come.  He could not offer sympathy
or condolence--Durwent wasn't seeking that.  It was impossible to
condemn, or to suggest a new start in life, because the young fellow
was not trying to justify his actions.  Yet it seemed such a tragedy to
look helplessly on without one effort to change the floating course of
the driftwood.

'Durwent,' he said haltingly, 'it's not too late for you to start over
again.  If you will go to America, I have friends there who would give
you every opening and'----

'You're an awfully decent chap,' said Durwent, once more touching
Selwyn's hand with his; 'but I shall not come back from the war.  I
felt _that_ the moment I stepped on shore yesterday.  I felt it again
when that fellow spoke to me in the tavern.  It may come soon, or it
may be a long time, but this is the end.'

'No, no,' said Selwyn earnestly; 'all that's the effect of your chill.
It has left you depressed.'

'You don't understand,' said the lad, smiling with closed eyes, 'or you
wouldn't say that.  I said before that it means a lot, when a man's
down, to be able to see a little light ahead. . . .  I can see that now
again. . . .  It doesn't matter what I've been or done--I can go out
there now, and die like a gentleman.  War gives us poor devils that
chance. . . .  You know what I mean.  My life has been no damned use to
any one, Selwyn, but they won't care about that in France.  To die in
the trenches--that's my last chance to do something . . . to do
something that counts.'

Selwyn leaned over and patted the lad on his shoulder.  'Dick,' he
said, 'wait until the morning, and all these fancies will clear from
your mind.  We'll discuss everything then together.'

The musing smile lingered again about the boy's lips.

'You're tired out, old man,' went on the American.  'I shouldn't have
waked you.  Good-night.'

The other stopped him from rising by catching his arm with his hand.
'Do you mind,' said Dick, his eyes opening wide, 'just staying here
until I go to sleep? . . .  There are all sorts of wild things going
through my head to-night . . . waves pounding, pounding, pounding.  It
never stops, Selwyn. . . .  And I seem to hear shouts a long way
off--like smugglers landing their stuff in the dark.  I'm an awful
idiot to talk like this, old boy, but I've lost my courage a bit.'

And so for nearly half-an-hour the American remained watching by the
lad as sleep hovered about and gradually settled on him.

As Selwyn quietly stole from the room the City's clocks were striking
three.


II.

It was after nine o'clock when Selwyn woke from a deep, refreshing
sleep.  Hurrying into the other room, he found no sign of his guests.

'When did these gentlemen leave?' he asked of his servant, who had
answered his ring.

'It must have been about six o'clock, sir.  I heard the door open and
shut then.'

'Why didn't you call me?'

'I wasn't wanting to disturb you, sir.  It's the first good sleep
you've had for a long time.'

It was true.  The sinking of himself into the personality of another
man had released the fetters of his intensive egotism.  For a whole
night he had forgotten, or at least neglected, his world-mission in
simple solicitude for one who had fallen by the wayside.

After the stimulus of a cold shower and a hearty breakfast, he resumed
his crusade against the entrenched forces of Ignorance, but in spite of
the utmost effort in concentration, the memory of the lonely figure by
the Thames intruded constantly on his mind.  It was not only that Dick
was the brother of Elise--although Selwyn's longing for her had become
a dull pain that was never completely buried beneath his thoughts; nor
was it merely the unconscious charm possessed by the boy, a charm that
seized on the very heart-strings.  To the American the real cruelty of
the thing lay in the existence of a Society that could first debase so
fine a creature, and then make no effort to retrieve or to atone for
its crime.

Putting aside the day's work he had planned, he flung his mind into the
arena of England's social conditions.  Exerting to the full his gift of
mental discipline, he rejected the promptings of prejudice and of
sentiment, and brought his sense of analysis to bear on his subject
with the cold, callous detachment of a scientist studying some cosmic
phenomenon.

For more than an hour his brain skirmished for an opening, until,
spreading the blank sheets of paper before him, he wrote: 'THE ISLAND
OF DARKNESS.'  Tilting his chair back, he surveyed the title critically.

'Yes,' he said aloud, squaring his shoulders resolutely, 'I have
generalised long enough.  Without malice, but without restraint, I will
trace the contribution of Britain towards the world's débâcle.'

With gathering rapidity and intensity he covered page after page with
finely worded paragraphs.  He summoned the facts of history, and
churning them with his conceptions of humanity's duty to humanity,
poured out a flood of ideas, from which he chose the best.  Infatuated
by the richness of the stream, he created such a powerful sequence of
facts that the British began to loom up as a reactionary tribe fighting
a rearguard action throughout the ages against the advancing hosts of
enlightenment.  The Island of Britain, the 'Old Country,' as its people
called it, began to shape in his eyes like a hundred-taloned monster
sprawling over the whole earth.  This was the nation which had forced
opium on China, ruled India by tyranny, blustered and bullied America
into rebellion, conquered South Africa at the behest of business
interests. . . .  Those and endless others were the counts against
Britain in the open court of history.

And if those had been her crimes in the international sphere, what
better record could she show in the management of human affairs at
home?  She had clung to the feudal idea of class distinction, only
surrendering a few outposts reluctantly to the imperious onslaught of
time; she had maintained a system of public schools which produced
first-class snobs and third-rate scholars; she had ignored the rights
of women until in very desperation they had resorted to the crudities
of violence in order to achieve some outlet for the pent-up uselessness
and directionlessness of their sex; she had tolerated vile living
conditions for the poor, and had forced men and women to work under
conditions which were degrading and an insult to their Maker. . . .
One by one these dragons reared their heads and fell to the gleaming
Excalibur of the author.

Selwyn made one vital error--he mistook facts for truth.  He forgot
that a sequence of facts, each one absolutely accurate in itself, may,
when pieced together, create a fabric of falsehood.

There were many contributing influences to Austin Selwyn's denunciation
of Britain that morning.  Although he had ordered sentiment and
prejudice to leave his mind unclogged, these two passions cannot be
dismissed by mere will-power.

He was keenly moved by the meeting with Dick Durwent, and, almost
unknown to himself, his love for Elise was a smouldering fever whose
fumes mounted to his head.  Love is so overpowering that it overlaps
the confines of hate, and his hunger for her was mixed with an almost
savage desire to conquer her, force homage from her.  And she was
English!

In addition to these undercurrents affecting his thoughts, there was
the dislike towards England which lies dormant in so many American
breasts.  Gloss it over as they will, no political _entente_ can do
away with the mutual dislike of Americans and Englishmen.  It is a
thing which cannot be eradicated in a day, but will die the sooner for
exposure to the light, being an ugly growth of swampy prejudice and
evil-smelling provincialism that needs the darkness and the damp for
life.

Mingling these subconscious elements with those of logic and reason,
Selwyn wrote for two days, almost without an hour's rest, and when it
was finished 'The Island of Darkness' was a powerful, vivid, passionate
arraignment of England, the heart of the British Empire.  It was
clever, full of big thoughts, and glowed with the genius of a man who
had made language his slave.

It lacked only one ingredient, a simple thing at best--_Truth_.

But that is the tragedy of idealism, which studies the world as a
crystal-gazer reading the forces of destiny in a piece of glass.


III.

A week later, in the early afternoon, Selwyn was going up Whitehall,
when he heard the sound of pipes, and turned with the crowd to gaze.
With rhythmic pomposity a pipe-major was twirling a staff, while a band
of pipes and drums blared out a Scottish battle-song on the frosty air.
Following them in formation of fours were five or six hundred men in
civilian clothes, attested recruits on their way to training-centres.

With the intellectual appetite of the psychologist, Selwyn looked
searchingly at the faces of the strangely assorted crowd, and the
contrasts offered would have satisfied the most rapacious student of
human nature.

His eyes seized on one well-built, well-groomed man of thirty odd years
whose slight stoop and cultured air of tolerance marked him a ''Varsity
man' as plainly as cap and gown could have done.  Just behind him a
costermonger in a riot of buttons was indulging in philosophic quips of
a cheerfully vulgar nature.  A few yards back a massive labourer with
clear untroubled eye and powerful muscles stood out like a superior
being to the three who were alongside.  Half-way a poet marched.  What
form his poesy took--whether he expressed beauty in words, or, catching
the music of the western wind, wove it into a melody, or whether he
just dreamed and never told of what he dreamed--it matters not; he was
a poet.  His step, his dreamy eyes, the poise of his forehead raised
slightly towards the skies, were things which showed his personality as
clearly as the mighty forearm or the plethora of buttons bespoke the
labourer or the costermonger.

With a great sense of pity the American watched them pass, while the
skirl of the bagpipes lessened in the distance.  In spite of the
dissimilarity of type, there was a community of shyness that embraced
almost every one--a silent plea not to be mistaken for heroes.  As they
passed the Horse Guards and saw the two sentries astride their horses
still as statues (their glorious trappings, breastplates, helmets, and
swords, the embodiment of spectacular militarism) an apologetic,
humorous smile was on the face of almost every recruit.  The sight was
a familiar enough one to the large majority, but in the presence of
those grim, superb cavalrymen they felt the self-conscious
embarrassment of small boys about to enter a room full of their elders.

In its own way it was Britain's mob saying to Britain's Regulars that
it was to be hoped no one would think they imagined themselves soldiers
in the real sense of the word.

But to Selwyn the noise of their marching feet on the roadway had the
ominous sound of the roll of the tumbrils, bearing their victims to the
guillotine.

The procession was nearly ended and he was about to turn away, when his
eye was attracted by a peculiar pair of knees encased in trousers that
were much too tight, working jerkily from side to side as their owner
marched.  Although his face was almost hidden by reason of his vagabond
hat being completely on one side, it was not difficult to recognise the
futurist, Johnston Smyth.  He appeared to be in rare form, as an
admiring group of fellow-recruits in his immediate vicinity were almost
doubled up with laughter, and even the grizzled Highland sergeant
marching sternly in the rear had such difficulty in suppressing a loud
guffaw that his face was a mottled purple.

And marching beside the humorist, with a slouch-cap low over his eyes,
was the lad who was known as 'Boy-blue.'


IV.

_As this tale of the parts men play unfolds itself a passing thought
comes._

_From the standpoint of fairness, economics, and efficiency,
conscription should have been Britain's first move.  But nations, like
individuals, have great moments that reveal the inner character and
leave beacons blazing on the hills of history._

_In a war in which every nation was the loser, Britain can at least
reclaim from the wreckage the memory of that glorious hour when the
Angelus of patriotism rang over the Empire, and men of every creed,
pursuit, and condition dropped their tasks and sank themselves in the
great consecration of service._

_What is the paltry glory of a bloody victory or the passing sting of a
defeat?_

_War is base, senseless, and degrading--that was one truth that Selwyn
did recognise; but what he failed to see was that in the midst of all
the foulness there lay some glorious gems.  When battles are forgotten
and war is remembered as a hideous anachronism of the past, our
children and their children will bow in reverence to that stone set
high in Britain's diadem_--THEY SERVED.




CHAPTER XVI.

THE FEMININE TOUCH.


I.

In a small South Kensington flat a young woman was seated before a
mirror, adding to her beauty with those artifices which are supposed to
lure the male to helpless capitulation.  Two candles gave a shadowy,
mysterious charm to the reflection--a quality somewhat lacking in the
original--and it was impossible for its owner to look on the picture of
pensive eyelashes, radiant eyes, and warm cheeks without a murmur of
admiration.  She smiled once to estimate the exact amount of teeth that
should be shown; she leaned forward and looked yearningly, soulfully,
into the brown eyes in the glass.  With a sigh of satisfaction she lit a
cigarette from one of the candles, and leaning back, watched the smoke
passing across the face of the reflection.

'Hello, Elise!' said the beauty casually, as the door opened and Elise
Durwent entered, dressed in the uniform of an ambulance-driver.

'You'll find the room standing on its head, but chuck those things
anywhere.'

'Going out again?' asked the new-comer, stepping over several feminine
garments that had been thrown on the floor.

'Just a dance up the street--in Jimmy Goodall's studio.  Listen, old
thing; do put on some water.  I'm croaking for a cup of tea.'

Without any comment, Elise went into the adjoining room, used as a
kitchen, while the voluptuary dabbed clouds of powder over her neck and
shoulders.  With a tired listlessness, Elise returned and sank into a
chair, from the back of which an underskirt was hanging disconsolately.

'You didn't do the breakfast-dishes, Marian.'

'Didn't I?  Oh, well, they're not very dirty.  Had a rotten day at the
garage?'

'It was rather long.'

'You're a chump for doing it.  Working for your country's all very well,
but wait until after the war and see if the girl who's spoiled her hands
has a chance with the men.  Why don't you wangle leave like I do?  You
can pull old Huggin's leg any day in the week--and he likes it.  All you
have to do is to lean on his shoulder and say you won't give up--you
simply _won't_.  Aren't men a scream?'

'I suppose so,' said Elise after a pause.  'Who is your cavalier
to-night?'

'Horry.'

'Horace Maynard?'

'Absolutely.  You know him, don't you, Elise?'

'Yes.  He was visiting at our place in the country when war broke out.
When is he going back to France?'

'Monday.'

'He's been dancing pretty constant attendance, hasn't he?'

'Ra-_ther_.  He says if I don't write him every day after he buzzes back,
he'll stick his head over the parapet and spoil a Hun bullet.'

'Those things come easily to Horace.'

'Oh, do they?  I notice he doesn't go to you to say them.'

'No,' said Elise with a smile, 'that is so.  Think of the thrills I miss.'

'Now don't get sarcastic.  If Horry wants to make a fuss over me, that's
his business.'

'What about your husband at the front?'

'My husband and I understand each other perfectly,' said the girl,
glancing critically at the picture of two parted, carmined lips in the
mirror.  'He wouldn't want me to be lonely.  He knows I have my boy
friends, and he's not such a fool as to be jealous.  You want to wake up,
Elise--things have changed.  A woman who sticks at home and meets her
darling hubby at night with half-a-dozen squalling kids and a pair of
carpet slippers--no thanks!  The war has shown that women are going to
have just as much liberty as the men.  We've taken it; and I tell you the
men like us all the better for it.'

'You think that because every man you meet kisses you.'

'Elise!'

'Good heavens!  Don't they?'

'Well, I never!  Anyhow, what if they do?  Is there any harm in it?'

Elise smiled and shook her head.  'None, my dear Marian,' she said.
'There is no possible harm in it.  There's no harm in anything now.  The
old idea that a woman's purity and modesty----  But what's the use of
saying that to you?  Of course you're right.  Who wants to stay at home
with a lot of little brats, if you can have a dozen men a week standing
you dinners, and mauling you like a bargee, and'----

'Elise!'

'There's the water getting near the boil.'  Elise rose with a strange
little laugh and looked at a yellow silk stocking which dangled over the
side of a wicker table.  As if trying to solve a conundrum, she glanced
from it to the shapely form of the young woman at her toilet.  'When the
war's over,' she said ruminatingly, 'and our men find what kind of girls
they married when they were on leave'----

'There you go again.  For Heaven's sake, Elise, if you can't attract men
yourself, don't nag a girl who does.  You're positively sexless.  The way
you talk'----

'There's the water.  When Horace comes I don't want to see him.'

'I guess he can live without it,' said the patriotic, leave-wangling
war-worker, with an angry glance at Elise as she disappeared into the
kitchen.  Catching a glimpse of the frown in the mirror, she checked it,
and once more leaned towards the reflection as if she would kiss the
alluring lips that beckoned coaxingly in the glass.


II.

Marian had gone, radiant, and exulting in her radiance; and Elise sat by
the meagre fire trying to take interest in a novel.  Although she had
found it easy to be confident and self-assertive when the other girl was
there, the solitariness of the flat and the silence of the street
undermined her courage.  The dragging minutes, the meaningless
pages. . . .  She wished that even Marian were there in all her
complacent vulgarity.

Although she had drawn many people to her, the passing of the years had
left Elise practically friendless.  It was easy for her to attract with
her gift of intense personality; but the very quality that attracted was
the one that eventually repelled.  The impossibility of forgetting
herself, of losing herself in the intimacies of friendship, made her own
personality a thing which was stifling her life.  Since she was a child
she had craved for understanding and sympathy, but nature and her
upbringing had made it impossible for her to accept them when they were
offered.  Lacking the power of self-expression, and consequently
self-forgetfulness, her own individuality oppressed her.  It was like an
iron mask which she could not remove, and which no one could penetrate.

Going to London soon after the outbreak of war, she had been taken on the
strength of a motor-ambulance garage; and to be near her work she had
leased a small flat in Park Walk, sharing it by turn with various
companion drivers.  Although her desire to be of service was the prime
reason of her action, it was with unconcealed joy that she had thrown off
the restraints of home.  Freedom of action, a respite from the petty
gossip of her mother's set, had loomed up as the portals to a new life.
The thought of sharing the discomforts and the privileges of patriotic
work with young women who had broken the shackles of convention was a
prospect that thrilled her.

To her amazement, she discovered that the feminine nature alters little
with environment.  It was true, her new companions had broken with all
the previous conceptions of decorum, but they had used their newly found
liberty to enslave themselves still further with the idea of
man-conquest.  Officers--callow, heroic, squint-eyed, supercilious,
superb, of any and every Allied country--officers were the quarry, and
they the hunters.  To love or not to love?  Their talks, their thoughts,
their lives concerned little else.  They fought for the attentions of men
like starving sparrows for crumbs.

In such an environment, where she had hoped to lose the burden of
persistent self, Elise found emancipation farther away than ever.  The
_abandon_ of the others first created a reversion to prudery in her
breast, and then developed a cynical indifference.  The others treated
her with friendly insouciance.  Had she been ill, or had she met with an
accident, there was probably not one who wouldn't have proved herself a
'ministering angel.'  As it was, they largely ignored her, indulging the
instinct of inhumanity which so often is woman's attitude towards woman.

So she sat alone, the Elise who had always been so resolute and
independent, feeling very small and pathetic, yearning for far-off
things--utterly lonesome, and a little inclined to cry.

The words of the book grew dim, and her thoughts drifted towards Austin
Selwyn.  He had been contemptible!  A pacifist!  His idealism was a pose
to try to ennoble utter cowardice.  At a time when men's blood ran high
he had prated of brotherhood, and peace, and suggested that the infamous
Hun had a soul!  How she hated him! . . .  And when she had finished with
that thought her heart's yearning returned more cruelly than before.

That evening by the trout-stream when she had seen Dick hiding in the
bush, Selwyn had caught her when she had almost swooned.  He had gripped
her arms with his hands, and, quivering with emotion, had lent his
strength to her.  At the memory the crimson of her cheeks deepened.  They
had been so close to each other.  His burning eyes, his lips trembling
with passion--what strange impulse in her heart had made her thrill with
a heavenly exhilaration?  For that instant while his hands had gripped
her a glorious vista had appeared before her eyes--a world of dreams
where the tyranny of self could not enter.  For that one instant her
whole soul had leaped in response to his strong tenderness.

She tried to dismiss the recollection as an admission of cowardice
engendered of the night's mood.  But she could not do away with the
memories which lingered obstinately.  Not since the days when Dick had
offered his blind loyalty had any one tried to understand her as Austin
Selwyn had done.  She was grateful for that.  She might even have valued
his friendship if he had not been so despicable that awful night.  To
insult her with his talk of pacifism, and then, heedless of her
intensity, to propose to her!  She could not forgive him for that.  She
was glad her words had stung him!

Minutes passed.  The fire would not answer to any attention, but sulkily
lived out its little hour.  The evening seemed interminable.

It was shortly after ten o'clock when there was a knock at the door, and
Elise hurried to open it, thinking there might be a message from the
garage.

'It's only me, Elise,' said a familiar voice.

'Oh!--Horace,' she laughed.  'What's the trouble?  Did Marian leave
anything behind?'

'No.  I was just absolutely fed up; and when she told me you were here
alone, I thought I'd jolly well come down and talk to you.'

'Good!  Come in.  You mustn't stay long, though.  Please don't notice
this horrible mess.'

In sheer pleasure at the breaking of the solitude, her vivacity made her
eyes sparkle with life.  Her sentences were crisp and rapid, and as she
led the young officer to a seat by the fire it would have been difficult
for Elise herself to think that a few minutes before she had been
helplessly and lonesomely on the brink of tears.

'How is the dance going on up the street?' she asked, as Maynard inserted
a cigarette between his lips without lighting it.

'It's a poisonous affair.'

'Poor boy!'

'I'm fed up, Elise.  I'm--I'm _gorged_.  When I heard you were down here,
I said, "By George!  I'll go and see her.  I can talk to Elise.  She's
got some sense."'

'What a thing to say about a woman!'

'Don't chaff me, Elise.  I can't stand it.  I'm frightfully
upset--really.'

'What has Marian been doing to you?''

'Nothing, except making a blithering ass of me.  You know, I was
fearfully keen on her, and I've passed up all sorts of fluff so as to do
the decent; but when that brute Heckles-Jennings advised me to-night to
be sure and sit out a dance with Marian because she was such hot stuff,
he said . . .  Of course, he's an outsider and all that, and I told him
to go to hell--but you don't blame me for feeling cut up, do you, Elise?'

'Didn't you know she was that kind?'

'What kind?'

'Oh--the--the universal kisser--the complete osculator--the'----

'I say'----

'But surely you don't think you are the only one she has made a fool of?
To begin with, there's her husband in France--a brother-officer, Horace.'

Maynard wriggled uneasily, sliding down the chair in the movement until
his knees were very near his chin.

'He's a rotter, Elise.'

'Do you know him?'

'N-no.  But Marian says he absolutely neglects her.  He's one of those
cold-blooded fish--doesn't understand her a bit.  After all'--the extra
vehemence shifted him another few inches, so that he presented an
extraordinary figure, like the hump of a dromedary--'women must have
sympathy.  They need it.  They'----

'Oh, Horace!' Elise burst into a laugh.  'Are there really some of you
left?  How refreshing!  Why don't you put it on your card: "2nd Lt.
Horace Maynard, Grenadier Guards, soul-mate by appointment"?'

'I wish you wouldn't laugh like that.'

He was a picture of such utter dejection that, checking her mirth, Elise
laid her hand on his arm.  'Sorry, Horace.  You know, if it hadn't been
for this war we might never have known how _nice_ our men are.  I only
wonder how it is that the women have the heart to make such fools of you.'

The unhappy warrior pulled himself up to a fairly upright posture and
tapped his cigarette against the palm of his hand.  'I'm glad,' he said
with a slight blush, 'that you don't quite put me down as a rotter.  I
don't know what's come over us all.  Before the war, when you met a
chap's wife--well, hang it all!--she was his wife, and that was all there
was about it.  But nowadays'----

'I know, Horace, it's a miserable business altogether--partly war
hysteria, and partly the fact that women can't stand independence, I
suppose.  Marian's a splendid type of the female war-shirker.  You know
she's married; yet, because she lets you maul her'----

'I say, Elise!'

'----and she murmurs pathetically that her husband in France neglects
her--at least, that's what she tells you.  When she was dressing to-night
Marian said that she and her husband absolutely trusted each other.'

'By Jove!  You don't mean that?'

'She also said that all men, including you, were a scream.  Probably she
considers you a perfect shriek.'

Trembling with indignation, Maynard suddenly collapsed like a punctured
balloon and relapsed dejectedly into his recumbent attitude.  'What an
ass I have been!' he lamented sorrowfully.  'What a sublime ass!  And
Marian--the little devil!'

'Rubbish!'

'Eh?  I suppose you think I am an idiot for----  Well, perhaps you're
right.'

For a couple of minutes nothing was said, and the melancholy lover, with
his chin resting on his chest, ruminated over his unhappy affair.

'Hang it all!' he said at last, hesitatingly, 'when a chap gets leave
from the front he's--he's sort of woman-hungry.  You don't know what it
feels like, after getting away from all that mud and corruption, to hear
a girl's voice--one of our own.  It goes to the head like bubbly.  It's
a--a dream come true.  There's just the two things in your life--eight or
nine months in the trenches; then a fortnight with the company of women
again.  It's awfully soppy to talk like this'----

'No, it isn't, Horace.  It's the biggest compliment ever paid our women.
I only wish we could try to be what you boys picture us.  That's what
makes me feel like drowning Marian every few days.  Horace, I'm proud of
you.'

She patted his hand which was grasping the arm of the chair, and he
blushed a hearty red.

'Elise!'  He sat bolt-upright.  'By gad!  I never knew it until this
minute.  _You_ are the woman I ought to marry.  You are far too good and
clever and all that; but, by Jove! I could do something in the world if I
had you to work for.  Don't stop me, Elise.  I am serious.  I should have
known all along'----

'Horace, Horace!'  Hardly knowing whether to laugh or to cry, Elise put
her hand over his mouth and checked the amorous torrent.  'You're a
perfect dear,' she said, 'and I'm ever so grateful'----

'But'----

'But you mustn't be silly.  This is only the reaction from Marian.'

'It's nothing of the sort,' he blurted, putting aside her hand.  'I--I
really do--I love you.  You're different from any other girl I ever met.'

'My dear, you mustn't say such things.  You know you don't love me as you
will the right girl when you meet her.'

He got out of the chair by getting over its arm.  'I beg your pardon,
Elise,' he said, not without a certain shy dignity.  'I meant every word
I said--but I suppose there's some one else.'

'Only a dream-man, Horace.'

'What about that American?'

'What--American?'  Her agitation was something she could hardly have
explained.

'That author-fellow at Roselawn.  He was frightfully keen on you.  I
remember half-a-dozen times when he would be talking to us, and if you
came in he'd go as mum as an oyster, and just follow you with his eyes.
Is _he_ the chap, Elise?'

'Good gracious!'--she forced a laugh-- 'why, I don't even know where he
is.'

'Don't you?  He's in London; I can tell you that much.  Last month in
France I ran across that Doosenberry-Jewdrop fellow---you know--the
futurist artist.'

'Do you mean Johnston Smyth?'

'That's the chap.'

'I didn't know he was in France.'

'Rather.  I thought your brother would have told you.'

'_My brother?_'  There was not a vestige of colour in her cheeks.  'What
do you mean?'

Maynard scratched the back of his head.  'Smyth told me,' he said,
wondering at the cause of her agitation, 'that Dick and he enlisted
together some months ago.  By Jove!  I remember now.  He told me that
this American fellow put them up at his rooms in St. James's Square one
night.  Smyth didn't know who Dick was until they got to France.  He was
travelling under the name of Sherlock, or Shylock, or Sherwood'----

'I--I thought Dick was in China.'  She wrung her hands nervously.  'You
didn't see him?'

'No.  That's all I know about him, except that he was transferred to some
other battalion than Dinglederry Smyth's.'

She went over to a table and took a piece of notepaper from a drawer.
'Mr. Selwyn used to belong to the R.A.C.,' she said quickly.  'Would you
do me a favour, Horace dear?'

He murmured his desire to be of service in any capacity.  Hesitating a
moment, she wrote hurriedly:


'_4th March 1915_, 2lA PARK WALK.

'DEAR MR. SELWYN,--Will you please come and see me as soon as you can?  I
am not on night-duty this week.--Yours sincerely, ELISE DURWENT.'


She sealed the envelope and handed it to Maynard.  'Please find out from
the R.A.C.  where he is, and ask them to send this note to him.  I am
ever so grateful, Horace.'

'I suppose,' he said, looking at the envelope, 'that this means the--the
finish of my chances?'

She answered the question by wishing him good luck in France, but there
was a strange tremulousness in the softly spoken words.

He put out his hand shyly.  'Good-night, old girl,' he said, smiling with
a sort of rueful boyishness.

She took his proffered hand, and then, obeying an impulse, stooped and
pressed her burning cheek against it.  'Good-night, Horace,' she said
softly.  'I hope you'll come back safe to be a fine husband for some nice
girl.'

When he had gone, and his footsteps died away, she returned to the table.
Burying her face in her hands, she fought back the tears which surged to
the surface.  Her love for Dick, her own loneliness, a mad joy in the
thought of seeing Selwyn again, a motherly pity for Maynard, a fury
towards Marian, an incomprehensible yearning--she felt that her heart was
bursting, but could not have said herself whether it was with grief or
with joy.


III.

From the time that Austin Selwyn received the note there was nothing else
in his mind--as in Elise's--but the coming meeting.  As playwrights
planning a scene, each went through the encounter in prospect a dozen
times, reading into it the play of emotions which was almost certain to
dominate the affair.  Although completely ignorant of her motive in
writing to him, Selwyn invented a hundred different reasons--only to
discard them all.  Nor was Elise more able to satisfy herself as to the
outcome of the meeting.  It was not his actions that were difficult to
forecast, but her own.  Would her dislike of him be intensified?  Would
she experience again the momentary rapture of that summer afternoon?

It was fortunate that another lover had appeared for Marian, so that the
desertion of Maynard did not leave her moping untidily about the place.
She was one of those women who are so singularly lacking in
self-sufficiency that, except when in the company of men, they are as
fiat as champagne from which the sparkle has departed.

It so happened, therefore, that Elise was again alone the following
evening, dreading Selwyn's arrival, yet impatient of delay.

A few minutes after eight she heard him knock, and going to the street
door, opened it for him.  The night was a vapourish, miserable one,
blurring his figure into indistinctness, and when he spoke his voice was
hoarse, as though the damp tendrils of the mist had penetrated to his
throat.

Answering something to his greeting, she led him through the hall into
the sitting-room.  He paused as he entered.  Without looking back, she
crossed to the fireplace, and kneeling down, stirred the fire.

'May I help?'

'No, thanks.  I prefer to do it.'

Her answer had followed so swiftly on his question that he stopped in the
act of stepping forward.  She looked over her shoulder with a swift,
searching glance.

His face was a tired gray, and the silk scarf thrown about his neck
looked oddly vivid against the black evening-clothes and overcoat.  But
if his face suggested weariness, his eyes were alive with dynamic force.
The intensity of the man's personality strangely moved Elise.  She felt
the presence of a mind and a body vibrating with tremendous purpose--a
man who drew vitality from others, yet charged them in return with his
own greater store.

To her he seemed to have divorced himself from type--he had lost even the
usual characteristics of race.  With the thought, she wondered how far
his solitary life had effected the transition, if his idealism had
brought him loneliness.

'Won't you sit down?' she said hesitatingly.

He acquiesced, and took a seat in the chair from which Maynard had run
the emotional gamut the previous evening.

'You look pale,' she said, drawing a chair near the fire.  'I hope you
have not been unwell.'

'No--no; it is merely that I have been so little out of doors.  I could
not gather from your note what kind of work you were engaged in.  I see
you are an ambulance-driver.  I congratulate you.'

His voice conveyed nothing but polite interest in an obvious situation.
With over-sensitive apprehension she listened for any suggestion of
sarcasm that lay behind his words, but she could detect nothing beyond
mere impersonal courtesy--that, and a far-off weariness, as of one who
has passed the borders of fatigue.

'I wrote to your mother,' he said, 'when I heard of your elder brother's
death.  It must have been a great grief to you all.'

She did not answer him.  His manner was so cold that he might have been
deliberately disposing of a number of prepared comments rendered
imperative by the laws of polite intercourse.

'Why didn't you let us know you had seen Dick?' she said abruptly.

'Then--you have heard?'  He raised his eyebrows in surprise.

'Only last night, by the merest accident.  He might have been killed in
France, and we should never have known about it.'  Her words were
resentful and swift.  'Will you please tell me about him?'

Omitting the incident of Archibald's tavern, Selwyn told of the chance
meeting with Dick, the encounter with Johnston Smyth, the night at the
rooms in St. James's Square, and the subsequent glimpse of them marching
through Whitehall.

'Your brother asked me to say nothing,' he said calmly.  'That is one of
the reasons why I did not let you know.'

'Had Dick changed at all?' she asked, trying to make her words as
listless as his.  'I wish that you would tell me something that he said.
You must know more about him than just'----

'I don't think he had changed,' said Selwyn; and for the first time his
voice was tinged with compassion.  'He spoke of you with a kind of
worship.  I suppose you know how he idolises you.'

His dark eyes looked at her through partially closed eyelashes, but only
the manner in which her fingers compressed the fold of her skirt betrayed
the turmoil of her feelings.

'Is that all you can tell me?'

'That is all.'  He made no attempt to elaborate the conversation or to
introduce any new theme.  The scene which had promised to be so dramatic
was actually dragging with uncomfortable silences.  She waited long
enough for him to speak, but when he remained silent--it was a sardonic
silence to her--she rose from the chair with the manner of one who has
determined to bring an interview to a close.

'Thank you for coming so promptly,' she said.  'I am most grateful for
your kindness to Dick--and I know enough of the law to realise that you
were taking a risk in hiding him.'

'It was nothing at all,' he said.  He looked at her for an indication
that her questions were at an end.

'I hope you will be able to get a taxi,' she ventured helplessly.

For the first time he smiled, and she reddened with mortification.  He
had been so cool and unyielding, so bloodless, that he had forced her to
a disadvantage.  She knew he could not be ignorant of the strain of the
affair on her, yet he had done nothing to ease it.  If she could have
projected her mind into his, she would have seen that his conduct was as
inexplicable to himself as to her.  He knew he was hurting her.  Perhaps
it was because her warm lips and crimson cheeks were creating a torment
in his soul that he could not curb the impulse to wound her.  It may have
been the subconscious knowledge that where one can hurt one can conquer
that dominated his actions.  While she resented the invulnerability with
which he guarded his own feelings, it is probable that any different
attitude on his part would have brought forth a more active unkindness on
hers.  When men and women love, strange paradoxes are found.

They went to the door together, and in the brighter light of the hall
Elise saw for the first time that he was considerably thinner, and that
his brow was like marble.  She felt a little stab of pity for him,
forgetting his own lack of sympathy towards herself; she caught a faint
realisation of what he must have endured for it to have marked him so
indelibly.

'Don't you think,' she said, 'that you ought to go to the seaside for a
while?  You are not looking at all well.'

His lips grew firmer, but there was a curious look in his eyes as he
turned towards her.  'I have work to do here,' he said crisply.

'I know--but surely'----

'In London,' he said--and there was a suggestion of the fanatic's ecstasy
in his voice--'it is impossible to forget life.  I don't want my mind
soothed or lulled.  You can always hear the challenge of the human
destiny in London.  It cries out to you everywhere.  It'----  He had held
his head erect, and had spoken louder than was his custom; but, checking
himself, he made a queer, dramatic gesture with his hands.

The fire of his spirit swept over her.  Once more she stood close to him,
as she had done so many times in her thoughts.  She did not know whether
she loved or detested him.  She was fascinated--trembling--longing for
him to force her to surrender in his arms--knowing that she would hate
him if he did.  She gave a little cry as Selwyn, almost as if he read her
conflicting thoughts, took her arms with his hands once more.

'If we had both been English,' he said, and his voice was so parched that
it seemed to have been scorched by his spirit, 'or if we had met in other
times than these, things might have been different.  I know what you
think of me for the work I am doing, but it would be as impossible for me
to give it up as for you to think as I do.  We come of two different
worlds, you and I. . . .  I am sorry we have met to-night.  For me, at
least, it has reopened old wounds.  And it is all so useless.'

She made no reply; but as his eyes were lowered to her face, and he saw
once more the trembling lips, her unsoiled womanliness, her whole vivid,
lonely, gripping charm, a look of suffering crossed his face.  He
realised the hopelessness of it all, but the admission was like tearing
out a thread which had been woven into the whole scheme of his being.

'We both have our work to do,' he said wearily, letting his arms drop to
his side.

'Good-night.'

She answered, but did not give him her hand.  With a repetition of the
farewell he left her, and she walked musingly into the room again.  She
felt a flush of anger at his daring to say their friendship was
impossible, when she had not even suggested that it could ever be
resumed.  His vanity knew no bounds.  She was furious at having let him
hold her as he did--even more furious with the knowledge that she would
not have resisted if he had kissed her.




CHAPTER XVII.

MOONLIGHT.


I.

Two summers came and went, and the little park in St. James's Square
rested once more beneath its covering of autumn leaves.

Selwyn, who was still occupying the rooms of the absent New Yorker, was
looking over his morning mail.  The thinning of his hair at the temples
was more pronounced, and here and there was the warning of premature
gray.  He had lost flesh, but his face had steadied into a set
grimness, and his mouth had the firmness of one who had fought a long
uphill fight.

Looking through a heavy mail, he extracted a letter from his New York
agent:


'_Oct. 2nd, 1916_.

'DEAR MR. SELWYN,--You will be interested to know that the
extraordinary sensation caused by your writings in America has resulted
in the sale of them to Mr. J. V. Schneider for foreign rights.  They
have been translated, and will shortly appear in the press of Spain,
Norway, Holland, and the various states of South America.

'It would be impossible for me to forward more than a small percentage
of the comments of our press on your work, but in my whole literary
experience I don't remember any writer who has caused such a storm of
comment on every appearance as you.  As you can see by the selection I
have made, the papers are by no means entirely favourable.  I feel that
you should know that you are openly accused of pro-Germanism, of being
a conscientious objector, &c., &c.--all of which, of course, means
excellent advertisement.

'I have had many inquiries as to whether you would care to conduct a
lecture-tour.  There is a Mr. C. B. Benjamin, who is financially
interested in Mr. Schneider's affairs, and who is willing to pay you
almost anything within reason, if you care to state your terms.

'Of course, the most discussed article of all is "The Island of
Darkness," in which you accuse Britain of contributing so largely
towards bringing about the present war.  The German-American
organisations and the strong Irish section here were especially
jubilant, and every one concedes that it has awakened a great deal of
resentment against Britain that had been forgotten since the beginning
of the war.  Even your detractors admit that "The Island of Darkness"
will live as a literary classic.

'Your first ten articles have been made into book form under the title
_America's War_, and are selling most satisfactorily.  The first
edition has gone into 40,000 copies.  The attached clipping from the
_New York Express_ is fairly typical of the reception given the book by
the pro-Entente press.

'Your September statement will go forward to-morrow with cheque
covering foreign rights, royalties, &c.--I am, Mr. Selwyn, yours very
truly,

S. T. LYONS.'


With hardly more than a merely casual interest, Selwyn glanced at the
clipping attached to the letter.  It was from the editorial page of the
_Express_.


'THE MENACE OF SELWYN.

'In 1912 Austin Selwyn was known as a younger member of New York's
writing fraternity.  He had done one or two good things and several
mediocre ones, but promised to reach the doubtful altitude of
best-sellership without difficulty.  To-day Selwyn is the mouthpiece of
neutrality.  He has preached it in a language that will not permit of
indifference.  He has succeeded in surrounding his doubtful idealism
with a vigour that commands attention, even if not respect.  Right in
the heart of London he is turning out insidious propaganda which is
being seized upon by every neutral American who has his own reasons for
wanting us to keep out of war.  It would be absurd to say that one
man's writing could in itself sway a great nation, but nevertheless it
is a vehicle which is being used to the limit by every pro-German
agency in this free land.

'Truly we are a strange people.  We have a President who deliberately
cuts his political throat with a phrase, "too proud to fight;" but
because we think Wilson is a greater man than he himself knows, we sew
up the cut and send him back for another term.  In the same way,
although every red-blooded American has in his heart been at war with
Germany since the _Lusitania_, we permit this man Selwyn to go on
cocaining the conscience of our people until our flag, which we have
loved to honour, is beginning to be a thing of shame.  He should be
brought back from England and interned here with a few "neutral"
German-Americans.  He certainly can write, and perhaps from confinement
he might give us a second _De Profundis_.  His book, _America's War_,
which is now on the market, is a series of arguments showing that
America is at war with the causes of the war.  It is a nice conceit.
Our advice is to add the book to your library--but don't read it for
ten years.  In that time it will be interesting to see the work of a
brilliant mind prostituted (and in this we are placing the most
charitable construction on Mr. Selwyn's motives) by intellectual
perversion.'


Without the expression of his face undergoing any change, Selwyn
carefully placed the letter on his file, and took from the envelope a
number of American press clippings.  Choosing them at random, he
contented himself with reading the headings:


'Author of "The Island of Darkness" again hits out.'

'"Britain has thrived on European medievalism," says Austin Selwyn.'

'More hot air from the super-Selwyn.'

'Selwyn is the spokesman for enlightened America.'

'Masterful thinker, masterful writer, is the author of "The Island of
Darkness."'

'What does Selwyn receive from Germany?'

'The arch-hypocrite of American letters.'


With a shrug of his shoulders he threw them to one side.  'A pack of
hounds,' he muttered, 'howling at the moon!'

He leaned back in his chair and pondered over the written word that
could leap such spaces and carry his message into countries which he
had never seen.  It was with a deeper emotion than just the author's
pleasure at recognition that he visualised his ancestor leaving Holland
for the New World, and the strange trend of events which was resulting
in the emigrant's descendant sending back to the Netherlands his call
to higher and world citizenship.

Still ruminating over the power that had become his, he noticed a
letter, on the envelope of which was written 'On Active Service,' and
breaking the seal, found that it was from Douglas Watson, written at a
British hospital in France.  As Selwyn read it the impassiveness of his
face gave way to a look of trouble.  For the first time in many months
there was the quick play of expression about his lips and his eyes that
had always differentiated him from those about him.

At the conclusion of the letter he put it down, and crossing to the
French windows, leaned against them, while his fingers drummed
nervously on the glass.  With a gesture of impatience, as though he
resented its having been written at all, he picked up the letter once
more, and turning the pages, quickly reached the part which had
affected him so:


'They tell me I'm going to lose my arm, and that I'm out of it; but
they're wrong.  I'm going back to America just as soon as they will let
me, and I'm going to tell them at home what this war is about.  And,
what's more, I'm going to tell them what war is.  It isn't great armies
moving wonderfully forward "as if on parade," as some of these
newspaper fellows tell you.  It's a putrid, rotten business.  After
Loos dead men and horses rotted for days in the sun.  War's not a thing
of glory; it's rats and vermin and filth and murder.  Three weeks ago I
killed a German.  He hadn't a chance to get his gun up before I stuck
him with my bayonet like a pig.  As he fell his helmet rolled off; he
was about eighteen, with sort of golden hair, and light, light blue
eyes.  I've been through some hell, Austin, but when I saw his face I
cried like a kid.  To you that's another argument for our remaining
neutral.  To me that poor little Fritzie is the very reason America
should have been in it from the first.  Can't you see that this
Prussian outfit is not only murdering Frenchmen and Russians and
Britishers, but is murdering her own men as well?  If America had been
in the war it would have been over now, and every day she holds back
means so many more of the best men in the world dead.

'For the love of Mike, Austin, clear your brains.  I have seen your
stuff in American papers sent over to me, and it's vile rot.  Tomorrow
they're going to take my left arm from me, but'----


Selwyn crumpled the letter in his hand and hurled it into the
fireplace.  Plunging his hands into his pockets, he paced the room as
he had done that night when Watson had called to tell him he was going
to enlist.  He was seized with an incoherent fury at it all--the
inhumanity of it--the degradation of the whole thing.  But through the
formless cloud of his thoughts there gleamed the one incessant phrase
'about eighteen, with sort of golden hair, and light, light blue eyes.'
Why should that groove his consciousness so deeply?  He had heard,
unmoved, of the death of Malcolm Durwent.  A month ago he had read how
Captain Fensome, of Lady Durwent's house-party, had been killed trying
to rescue his servant in No Man's Land.  The sight of Dick Durwent and
Johnston Smyth marching away had been only a spur to more intensive
writing.  Then why should that haltingly worded sentence lie like ice
against his heart?

A sharp pain shot through his head.

Stopping his walk, he leaned once more against the windows, and rested
his hot face on the grateful coolness of the glass.

What, he questioned, had he accomplished, after all?  He had gained the
ears of millions, but the war was no nearer a close.  America was
neutral--that was true.  _But why was America neutral_?  Had he falsely
idealised his own country?  Was her aloofness from the world-war the
result of a passionate, overwhelming realisation of her God-deputed
destiny, as he had imagined?

Hitherto he had paid no attention to the writings in the English press
chronicling the passing of the world's gold reserve from London to New
York.  He had ignored the evidence of nation-wide prosperity from the
Atlantic coast to San Francisco.  All such things he had dismissed as
unavoidable, unsought material results of America's spiritual
neutrality.

Yet, while the wheels of prosperity were turning at such a pitch, there
was a boy lying dead--about eighteen.

He beat his fist into the palm of his hand.  Who was this Schneider who
had purchased the foreign rights of his articles?  What sort of a man
was this Benjamin who wanted him to lecture?  Were they, as he had
supposed, men of vision who wished to co-operate in achieving the great
unison of Right? . . .  Or were they . . . ?

The thought was hideous.  Was it possible that those writings, born of
his mental torture, robbing him of every friend he valued---was it
thinkable that they had been used for gross purposes?

His fingers again played rapidly against the windows as he wrestled
with the sudden ugly suspicion.  At last, utterly exhausted, he sank
into a chair.

'There is only one thing I can do,' he said decisively; 'return to
America at once.  If, as I have thought, her neutrality is in tune with
the highest; if my fellow-countrymen are imbued with such a spirit of
infinite mercifulness that from them will flow the healing streams to
cure the wounds of bleeding Europe, then I have carried a lamp whose
light reflects the face of God. . . .  But if . . .'


II.

That night a glorious moonlight silvered the roof-tops of old London,
touching its jumbled architecture with fantastic beauty.

Vagrant towers and angular church spires, uninspired statuary, and
weary, smoke-darkened trees shed their garments of commonplaceness and
shimmered like the mosques and turrets of an enchanted city.

It was one of those nights that are sent to remind us that Beauty still
lives; a night to challenge our mad whirl of bargaining and barter, to
urge us to raise our eyes from the grubbing crawling of avarice; a
night to awaken old memories, and to stir the pent-up streams of poetry
lying asleep in every breast.

It was a moonlight that descended on Old England's troubled heart as a
benediction.  Her rivers were glimmering paths winding about the
country-side; her villages and her heavy-scented country lanes shared
its caress with open meadows and murky cities.  The sea, binding the
little islands in its turbulent immensity, drew the night's beauty to
its bosom, and the spray of foam rising from the surf was a shower of
star-dust leaping towards the moon.

As a weary traveller drinks thirstily at a pool, Selwyn wandered about
the streets trembling with emotion in the breathless ecstasy of the
night.  All day the conjured picture of the German boy, guilty of no
crime save blind devotion to his Fatherland, had haunted him like the
eyes of a murdered man.  It had robbed him of the power of constructive
thought, and stopped his writing with the decisiveness of a sword
descending on his wrist; it had made the food on his table tasteless,
and given him a dread of the solitude of his rooms.

With nerves that contracted at every untoward sound, he had gone out at
dark, and gradually the peacefulness of the night had soothed and
calmed him as the dew of dusk cools the earth after the heat of a
summer's day.  The familiar strains of Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata'
came to his mind, and as he walked he idly traced the different
movements of the music in the moods of the evening's witchery.

His steps, like his thoughts, pursued a tangled course, and led him
into the prosaic brick-and-mortar monotony of Bayswater, but the moon
was lavish in her generosity, and strewed his path with glinting
strands of light.  He paused in a quiet square to get his bearings.
There was the heavy smell of fallen leaves from the gardens on the
other side of the railing.

His mind was still playing the slow minor theme of the sonata's opening
movement.

Suddenly the air was shattered with the noise of warning guns.  As if
released by a single switch, a dozen searchlights sprang into the sky,
crossing and blending in a swerving glare.  There was the piercing
warning of bugles and the heavy booming of maroons.

Dazed by the swiftness of it all, Selwyn leaned against the low iron
fence.  A Boy Scout whirled past on a bicycle, his bugle hoarse and
discordant; an old woman went whimpering by, hatless, with a protesting
child in her arms; an ambulance, clanging its gong, rounded the corner
with reckless speed; a mightier searchlight than any of the rest swept
the sky in great circles.

It seemed only a matter of seconds, though in reality much longer, when
the American heard a faint crunching sound in the distance, followed by
a deep, sullen thud.  In rapid succession came three more, and the
defence guns of London burst into action, changing the night into
Bedlam.

Still motionless, he listened, awe-struck, to the din of the weird
battle with an unseen foe, when the cough of exploding shells in the
air grew appreciably louder.  Raising a whirlwind of dust, a motor-car
swerved dangerously into the square, and with a roar sped up the road,
carrying to their aerodrome three British airmen.  As if driven by a
gale, the battle of the clouds drew nearer and nearer, the whine and
barking of the shells like a pack of dogs trying to repel some monster
of the jungle.

There was a deafening crash.

Selwyn was thrown against the fence, and almost buried beneath a shower
of bricks and earth.  With the roar of a rushing waterfall in his ears,
and blood streaming from a wound in his forehead, he sank to his knees
and for a moment lost consciousness; but mastering his weakness, he
staggered to his feet and looked wildly about.  On the other side of
the street, where there had been a house, there was a smoking chaos.  A
little crowd had appeared seemingly from the bowels of the earth, and a
woman was shrieking horribly.

Selwyn wiped his forehead with his hand and gazed stupidly at the blood
which covered it.  The roar of the guns was louder than it had yet
been, and from a few streets away came the crunch of another bomb,
shaking the earth with the explosion which followed.  Selwyn leaned
impotently against a post, and a quivering uncanny laugh broke from his
lips.  It was all so grotesque, so absurd.  _Human beings didn't do
such things_.  It was a joke--a mad jest.  He held his sides and
laughed with uncontrollable mirth.

Then his whole form became rigid in a moment.  A man had shouted
something.  There had been a wail from the crowd.  Was it true?  Some
one buried alive--a little girl?

With a blasphemous curse Selwyn staggered across the road, and roughly
elbowing his way through the crowd, found a solitary policeman,
hindered by willing undirected hands, digging in the wreckage as best
he could, while a couple of women sobbed hysterically and wrung their
hands.

Those who watched hardly knew what had happened, but they saw a
hatless, bleeding figure appear, and, with the incision of snapping
hawsers, question the policeman and the weeping women.  They heard his
quick commands to the men, and saw him jump into the centre of the
debris.  With the instantaneous recognition of leadership his helpers
threw themselves to the work with a frenzy of determination.  Lifting,
digging, pulling with torn hands and arms that ached with strain, they
struggled furiously towards the spot where it was known the girl was
buried.  They were like starving wolves tearing at the carcass of an
animal.  They yelled encouragement and fought through the chaos--and
still the stranger whipped them into madness with his cries.

There in the smoke and the choking dust Austin Selwyn shook in the grip
of the greatest emotion he had ever known.  A girl was buried--a
fraction of a minute might mean her life.  With hot breath and pulses
on fire, he led his unknown men through the choking ruins to where one
small, insignificant life was imprisoned.

An ambulance sounded its gong, and drew up by the crowd; the storm of
the guns continued to rage, but no one thought of anything but the
fight of those men for one little unknown life.

At last.  They had uncovered a great iron beam which had struck on a
stone foundation and left a zone of safety beneath.  Eager hands
gripped it, dragging it aside, and there was hardly a sound as the
stranger lowered himself into the chasm.  A minute later he reappeared,
and a shout broke from the on-lookers.  He was carrying a little form
in his arms.

But when they saw his face a hush fell on every one.  She was dead.

Wild-eyed, with the ghastliness of his pallor showing through the
coating of grime and blood, Austin Selwyn stood in the ruins of the
house, and the brown tresses of the child fell over his arm.

Kind hands were stretched out to him, but he shook them off angrily.
He was talking to the thing in his arms--muttering, crooning something.

Slowly he raised his face to the skies.  In the glare of the
searchlights a gleaming, silvery, oblong-shaped form was turning and
twisting like an animal at bay.  They heard him catch his breath; then
their blood was frozen by a choking, heart-rending cry of agony and
rage.

It was the cry of the crystal-gazer who has had his crystal dashed from
his eyes, to find himself in the presence of murder.

The crowd remained mute, helpless and frightened at the spectacle, when
they saw a young woman approach him, a woman dressed in the khaki
uniform of an ambulance-driver.

'Austin,' they heard her say, 'please give me the little girl.'

With a stupid smile he handed the child to her, and she laid it on a
stretcher.  When it had been taken away, she took Selwyn's hand in hers
and led him, unresisting, to the ambulance.




CHAPTER XVIII.

ELISE.


I.

Early next morning, in a large military ward of a London hospital, Austin
Selwyn woke from a sleep that had been charged with black dreams, and
tried to recall the events leading to his present whereabouts.

By slow, tortuous process he reconstructed the previous evening as far as
the moment when he had heard the warning guns.  After that the incidents
grew dim, and faded into incoherency.  He seemed to remember rushing
somewhere in a motor-vehicle.  He distinctly recalled seeing a policeman
in Trafalgar Square.  Yes, that was very clear--quite the most vivid
impression of the whole night, indeed.  He would hang on to that
policeman.

With the care of an Arctic explorer establishing his base before going
farther into _terra incognita_, he attached the threads of his wandering
mind to that limb of the law, and groped in all the directions of his
memory's compass.  But it was of no avail.  Tired out with the futile
efforts he had made, his bandaged head sank back in the pillows, and the
vivid policeman in Trafalgar Square was reluctantly surrendered as a
negligible means of solution.

When he next awoke, it was to the sound of many voices.  There were two
that were very close--one on either side of him, in fact.  Affecting
sleep, Selwyn listened carefully.

'Wot's that you say, Jock?' said a Cockney voice to his left.

'I was obsairvin',' said the other, 'that Number Twenty-sax is occupied
this mornin'.'

'Ow yus, so it is.  I was 'oping as 'ow me pal the Duke of Mudturtle
would buy the plice next to mine.  But he don't look a bad cove, wot you
can see under 'is farncy 'ead-dress.'

'I dinna think he can be o' the airmy.  His skin's as pale as a lassie in
love.'

'In the army, Jock?  Don't hinsult 'im.  'E's one of the 'eroes of the
'ome front--hindispensibles, they calls 'em.'

'Weel, weel, noo,' expostulated the Scot, 'dinna tak' ower muckle for
granted.  We canna a' gang tae the war, or wha wud bide at hame an' mak
the whusky?'

'By Gar!' said a third patient opposite, sitting up suddenly and speaking
in the disjointed but strangely musical dialect of the French-Canadian,
'she is a wise feller, dis Scoachie.'

'Bonn swoir, Frenchy,' said the Cockney graciously.  ''Ow alley you
mantenongs?'

'Verra good, Tommee.  How is de godam bow bells?'

'Well, the last toime I sees me old side-kick the Lord Mayor, 'e says as
'ow they was took by a Canadian for a soovenir.'

'Na,' said the Scotsman reprovingly; 'I'm thinkin' yon's exaggerated.'

'By Gar!' said the French-Canadian.  'See, the orderly come now with
water for shav'.  Back in de bush or on de long portage I shav' once,
twice, perhaps tree time a month.  Always before I meet my leetle girl I
shav'.  But when I say good-bye and go to war--by gollies! de army make
me for do it every day.  My officier, he say, "What for you no shav' dis
morning?"  "Sair," I say, "I no kees de Boche--I keel him."  He say
noding to dat excep', "Look at you.  I shav' every day.  Do you preten' I
doan' fight?"  "Well," I say, "if de cap feets you, smoke it."  And for
no reason he give me tree time extra for carry de godam ration.'

At this stage the arrival of wash-basins interrupted further anecdote and
philosophy, and the entire ward became animated with soldiers performing
their ablutions, some sitting up in bed, others on the edge of their
beds, and a few so weak that they could just turn painfully on their side
and wait for other hands to help.

A burst of hearty greetings told Selwyn that some one must have entered
the ward, and a few minutes later he felt the presence of a nurse beside
him.

'Good-morning,' she said, gently touching him on the shoulder.  'How is
your head feeling?'

He opened his eyes and looked into the face bending over his.  'I think
it's all right,' he said weakly.  'But, nurse, won't you tell me how I
got here?'

She dipped a cloth into a basin and bathed his hands and face.

'You were hit by a piece of shrapnel in last night's air-raid.  I wasn't
on duty when you came in, but the night-sister said you were quite
delirious--though you seem ever so much better this morning, don't you?
I'll take your temperature, and after you've had some breakfast I'll put
a new dressing on your wound.'

She was just going to insert the thermometer between his lips, when he
stopped her with his hand.  'Nurse,' he said, 'why was I brought
here--among soldiers?'

'Because every hospital is filled to overflowing.   The casualties are so
heavy just now.'  Her voice was still kind, but there was a look of
resentment in her eyes at his question.

'Please don't misunderstand me,' said Selwyn wearily.  'It is only the
feeling that I have no right here.  This cot should be for a soldier, and
I'm a civilian.  I'm an American, and--and if you only knew'----

'Just a minute, now, until we get this temperature, and then you can tell
me all about it.'

With his lips silenced, but his doubts by no means so, he watched her
move down the ward in commencement of the countless duties of her day.
She was a woman of thirty-three or thirty-four years, still young, and
possessed of a womanliness that softened her whole appearance with a
tranquil restfulness.  But beneath her eyes and in the texture of the
skin faint wrinkles were showing, thinly pencilled protests against
overwork, that no treatment could ever eradicate.  On the red collar of
her uniform was a badge which told that she had gone to France with the
first little army of Regulars in 1914.

Noting her calloused hands and the too rapid approach of life's
midsummer, Selwyn watched her, and wondered what recompense could be
offered for those things.  In ordinary life, given the privileges and the
opportunities which she deserved, she would have been another of those
glorious English women whose beauty is nearest the rose.  She would have
been a wife to grace any home, and as a mother her charm would have been
twofold.  But for more than two years incessant toil and endless
suffering had been the companions of her days, and the not over-strong
body was giving to the ordeal.

But as his heavy thoughts drifted slowly through this channel, he saw
grinning patients who were well enough get out of bed to help her.  As if
she carried some magic gem of happiness, her soft voice and deft touch
brought smiles to eyes that had been scorched in the flames of hell.  Men
looked up, and seeing her, believed once more in life; and hope crept
into their hearts.   Men in the great shadowy valley murmured like a
child in its sleep when a ray of morning sunshine, stealing through the
curtains, plays upon its face.

And of the many things which Selwyn learned that day, one was that those
ministering angels, those women of limitless spirit and sympathy, have
memories of mute, unspoken gratitude, beside which the proudest triumphs
of the greatest beauties are but the tawdry, tinsel glory of a pantomime
queen.


II.

After the nurse had taken the thermometer from Selwyn and marked his
temperature on a chart which she placed beside him, breakfast was brought
in, and he was propped up with pillows.

'Guid-mornin',' said the Highlander.  'I hope ye're nane the waur o' your
expeerience.'

'Not 'im,' broke in the Cockney, eating his porridge with great relish.
'It done 'im good.'

'I am very well,' said Selwyn haltingly.  'I hope my arrival did not
disturb any of you last night.'

At the sound of his carefully nuanced Bostonian accent there was a
violent dumb-play of smoothing the hair and arranging the coats of
pyjamas, while one Tommy placed a penny in his eye in lieu of a monocle.

'I was 'oping,' said the Cockney, with a solemn wink to the gathering,
'as 'ow Number 26 would be took by a toff, and, blime, if it ain't!  It
were gettin' blinkin' lonesome for me with only Jock 'ere and Frenchy
opposite, who ain't bad blokes in their wy, but orful crude for my
likin'.'

'Where did it hit ye?' asked the Scot encouragingly.

'On the head,' said Selwyn, pointing to his bandage.

'Mon, mon, that's apt to be dangerous.'

'Nah then!' cried the Cockney, reaching for his temperature-chart, 'we'll
open the mornink proper with the 'Ymn of 'Ate.  In cise you don't know
the piece, m'lud, you can read it off your temperacher-ticket.  Steady
now--everybody got a full breath?  Gow!'

With great zest all the patients who were able to sit up broke into a
discordant jumble of scales as they followed the course of their
temperatures up and down the chart.  Gradually, one by one, they fell out
and resumed their breakfast, until the Scotsman was the only one singing.

'Ye ken,' he said, pausing temporarily and looking at Selwyn, 'yon should
be rendered wi' proper deegnity.'  With which explanatory comment he
finished the last six notes, and solemnly replaced the chart on the ledge
behind him, as if it were a copy of Handel's _Messiah_.

The last note had hardly died away when a violent controversy broke out
between a pair of Australian soldiers on one side and almost the entire
ward on the other.  The thing had started by one of the Anzacs venturing
the modest opinion that if Britain had had a million Australian troops,
they, the present gathering, would be 'hoch, hoching' in Berlin
(apparently a delightful prospect) instead of being cooped up in a London
hospital.

The little Cockney was just going to utter a crushing sarcasm, the
French-Canadian had taken in a perfectly stupendous breath, the
Highlander was calmly tasting the flavour of his own reply, when the
impending torrent was broken by the entrance of the chaplain, who wished
every one a somewhat sanctimonious 'Good-day.'

'I shall read,' he said, putting on a pair of glasses, 'the latest
_communiqué_ from the front.  We have done very well.  The news is quite
good--quite good.  "_This morning, on a front of three miles, after an
intense artillery preparation, the Australians_"'----

''OORAY!' roared the Cockney.

The glasses popped off the chaplain's startled nose, and he just managed
by a brilliant bit of juggling to rescue them before they reached the
floor.

'I--I,' he ventured, smiling blandly, 'am delighted at your enthusiasm,
but you did not let me finish.  "_This morning_"--um, um, ah--"_three
miles_"--um, um, yes--"_three miles, after an intense artillery
preparation, the Australians_"'----

''OORAY!'  It was a deafening roar from the whole crowd.

'"_The Australians_"'----

'OORAY!'

'"_The_"'----

'Oo'----

Really, men, you must control yourselves.  We are all glad and sustained
by any victory, however slight, but you must not give way to unmeaning
boisterousness.  "_This morning, on a front of three miles, after an
intense artillery preparation, the Australians_"'----

There was a medley of submerged, prolonged snores.  The chaplain looked
up indignantly.  With the exception of Selwyn and the two Australians,
every one had followed the lead of the Cockney and disappeared underneath
the bed-clothes.

'This,' said the good man--'this frivolity at such a harrowing moment in
our country's destiny is neither seemly nor respectful.  Cheerfulness is
admirable, until it descends to horseplay.'

With which parting salvo the worthy chaplain, who had never been to
France, and who was doing the best he could according to his clerical
upbringing, left his unruly flock, taking the _communiqué_ with him.

A little later the doctor made his rounds, pronouncing Selwyn's wound as
not dangerous, but assuring him he was lucky to be alive.  Another inch
either way and----  Passing on to the Scotsman, he stayed a considerable
length of time; but as the screen was set for the examination, the
American had no way of knowing its nature.

And so, with constant badinage, seldom brilliant, but never unkind, the
morning wore on.  It was nearly noon when Selwyn saw a wheeled stretcher
brought into the ward and the Highlander lifted on to it.

'Jock,' said the little Cockney, 'I 'opes as 'ow everythink will come out
orlright.'

'By Gar, Scoachie!' cried the French-Canadian, 'I am sorree.  You are one
dam fine feller, Scoachie.'

'Dinna worry yersel's,' said the man from the North.  'I'm rare an' lucky
that it's to be ma richt leg an' no the left, for that richt shank o'
mine was aye a wee thing crookit at the knee, and didna dae credit tae
the airchitecture o' tither ane.'

Thus, amid the rough encouragement of his fellows, and by no means
unconscious of the dignity of his position, the Highland soldier was
taken away to the operating-room.

The French-Canadian made a remark to Selwyn, but it was not until the
second repetition that he heard him.


III.

About three o'clock that afternoon a little stream of visitors began to
arrive, and Thomas Atkins, with his extraordinary adaptability, gravely,
if somewhat inaccurately, answered the catechism of well-meaning old
ladies, and flirted heartily and openly with giggling 'flappers.'

To the visitors, however, Austin Selwyn paid no heed.  He was enduring
the lassitude which follows a fever.  He knew that the crisis had come,
the hour when he must face fairly the crash and ruin of his work; but he
put it off as something to which his brain was unequal.  Like slow
drifting wisps of cloud, different phrases and incidents floated across
his mind, shadows of things that had left a clear imprint upon his
senses.  With the odd vagrancy of an undirected mind, he found himself
recalling a few of Hamlet's lines, and smiled wanly to think how, after
all those years, the immortal Shakespeare could still give words to his
own thoughts: 'This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile
promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, . . . this brave
overhanging firmament--this majestical roof fretted with golden fire,
why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent
congregation of vapours.'

The wings of memory bore him back to Harvard, where once in a scene from
_Hamlet_ he had mouthed those very words, little dreaming that in a few
short years he would lose the sense of euphony in the cruel realisation
of their meaning.

Then, before he saw her or heard her step, he knew that SHE had come.
His heart quickened, and his breathing was tremulous with mingled
emotions.

'Well,' she said, coming to his bedside and offering her hand, 'how is
the invalid?'

'Elise,' he said, 'it is wonderful of you to come.'  He looked at her
khaki uniform, at the driver's cap which imprisoned her hair.  'Now,' he
went on dreamily, 'it all comes back to me.  It was you who brought me
here.'

'Had you forgotten that already?' she said, bringing a chair to the
bedside.

'I couldn't remember,' he answered weakly.  'All I know is that I was
walking alone--and there came a blank.  When I woke up I was here with a
head that didn't feel quite like my own.  But I knew, somehow, that you
had been with me.'

'What does the doctor say about your wound?'

'It is not serious.'

'You have heard since what happened?'

'Yes.'

'It was absolutely topping the way you fought for that child's life.'

He made a deprecatory gesture, and for a moment conversation ceased.  He
was wondering at her voice.  A subtle change had come over it.  Her words
were just as uncomfortably rapid as in the first days of their
friendship, but there was a hidden quality caught by his ear which he
could not analyse.  Looking at her with eyes that had waited so long for
her coming, he felt once more the affinity she held with things of
nature.  Her presence obliterated everything else.  They were alone--the
two of them.  The hospital, London, the world, were dimmed to a distant
background.

'After such a night,' he said, 'it is very kind of you to make this
effort.'

'Not at all.  We're cousins, you know.'

'I--I don't'----

'The Americans and the English, I mean.  Relatives always go to each
others' funerals, so I thought I might stretch a point and take in the
hospital.'

'Oh!  That was all?'

'Goodness, no!  You automatically became a protégé of mine when I picked
you up last night.  Isn't that a horrid expression?--but frightfully
fashionable these unmoral days.'

'You must excuse me,' he said slowly, 'but I was foolish enough to think
you came here because--well, because you wanted to.'

'So I did.  An air-raid casualty is ever so much more romantic than a
wounded soldier.  If he lives through it, he always proposes the very
next day either to the nurse or to the ambulance-driver, whereas a Tommy,
after his third wound, becomes so _blasé_.'

'You shouldn't torture me,' he said, wincing noticeably under the
incision of her words.

Just for a fleeting instant her eyes were softened with a tender look of
self-reproach.  His heart warmed at the sight, but before he could
convince himself that it was not a creation of his own fancy, it had
passed, and once more she was holding him at bay with her impersonal
abruptness.

'Will you tell me about yourself?' he urged.  'Please.'

'What do you want to know?'

'Everything--everything!' he blurted out, impetuously leaning forward.
'My heavens!  Don't you know how I've longed and waited for this moment
ever since that night at your flat?  I want to hear all about you--what
you've done, where you've been, and--and in what mysterious way you've
changed.'

'Have I changed?'

'Of course you have.  You're trying to appear just as you were when we
first met, but you can't do it.  Even if I hadn't noticed the difference
in you, I should have known that no one could live through these times
and remain the same.'

'Why not?  Haven't you?'

He laughed grimly, and his head sank back on the pillows.  'I want to
know all about you, Elise,' he repeated dully.

'Very well.'  She smoothed her skirt with her hands, and folded them
Quakeress-fashion.

'As you know, I once had a flat in Park Walk--which I shared with various
and variegated female patriots, also engaged in guiding the destinies of
motor-cars.  Edna was the first one to follow Marian, after she and I
quarrelled; but Edna couldn't break herself of the habit of wandering
into the Ritz for luncheon every second day with only a shilling in her
pocket.'

'But I don't see how'----

'You poor innocent!  Some one always paid--don't worry.  So we parted
company on that issue, and I asked Mabel to take Edna's place.  Mabel was
frightfully nice, but took to opium cigarettes, and then to heroin.  She
disappeared one night, and never came back.  Poor girl!  Her going made
room for Lily, who read the very nicest modern novels, and always cried
through the love scenes.  I wish you could have seen her sitting up in
bed reading a book, eating chocolates, and sobbing like a crocodile.
Lily had only one weakness--marrying Flying Corps officers.  It was
really the army's fault giving two of her husbands leave at the same
time.'

Selwyn frowned,  'What a dreadful experience!' he said.

'Oh, I don't know.'  She gave a little shrug of her shoulders, but the
spirit of badinage had vanished both from her face and from her voice.
'It didn't take long to lose most of one's illusions.  It is one thing to
meet people as Lord Durwent's daughter, and quite another as a free-lance
ambulance-driver.  I've seen what people really are since I've been on my
own, and I'm sick of the whole thing.'

'You don't mean that, Elise?'

'I do.  Men are rotten, and women are cats.'

He smiled quizzically, but she kept her eyes averted from his.  It almost
appeared as if she were determined to retain her pose of callousness at
any effort, but his sense of psychology told him that his first
conjecture was correct.  The girl who had endured was trying to hide
herself behind the personality of her old self.

'My dear girl,' he said slowly, 'it is an old trick of women to talk for
the purpose of convincing themselves.  I don't care what you have
seen--you could not have passed through the ordeal of these long months
and believe in your innermost soul that either men or women are rotten.
In many ways I feel as if what little knowledge I possess dates from last
night; and I have learned things about men right here in this ward to-day
that have made me humble.  These chaps that we call ignorant, the lower
classes--why, they are superb, wonderful.  I tell you they have greatness
in them.  I wish you could have seen them'----

'Haven't I seen them,' she cried, with a little catch in her throat,
'hundreds and hundreds of times?  Almost every day, and at all hours of
the night, I've gone to meet the Red Cross trains.  I have seen men die
while being lifted out of the ambulance--men who would try to smile their
thanks to us just before the end came.  I have'----  She caught her hands
in a tight grip, and her eyes welled with tears.  'But they're just
jingoes, I suppose,' she said, blending a scornfulness with her repressed
grief.

'I have deserved this,' said Selwyn, his face drawn.  'Nothing that you
can say is half so bitter as my thoughts.'

'I didn't mean to hurt you,' she said.

'If ever a man was sincere, I was, Elise.  Since I left you at Roselawn I
have followed the one path, thinking there was a great light ahead.  Now
I am afraid that, perhaps, it was only a mirage.'

'No, it wasn't,' she replied vehemently.  'I hated you for thinking
English women would not aid their men to fight, and I wanted never to see
you again.  But do you remember when I said that the glory of war was in
women's blood?  There was a certain amount of truth in it at the
beginning; for when I first saw the wounded arrive I was madly excited.
I wanted to shout and cheer.  But as the months have gone on, and I have
seen our soldiers maimed and bleeding and suffering, while thousands of
their women at home have simply broken loose and lost all sense of
decency or self-respect--oh, what's the use?'

'But you mustn't forget the women who have done such great things for the
country.'

'I know--but what's it all for?  Since this battle of the Somme our
casualties have been frightful, and every day means so many of our real
men killed, and so many more shirkers and rotters in proportion to carry
on the life of England.  We've had our women's revolution all right.
There are not many of the old barriers left; but what a mess we have made
of our freedom!  When I think of all that, and then recall what you said
about war, I know that you were right, and we were wrong.'

'You are wonderfully brave,' said Selwyn, 'not only for having done so
much, but in telling me that.'

'No,' she said, lowering her eyes to the gloves which she held in her
hand; 'I have lost all my courage.  Every night I feel as if another day
of meeting the wounded will kill me. . . .  If it could only end!
Anything would be better than these awful casualty lists.'

'Elise'--he raised himself on his elbow and leaned towards her--'you
prove yourself a woman when you say that; but you're wrong.  I can't give
my reasons yet, but since last night I have been seeing clearer and
clearer that Britain not only must not lose, but must _win_.  I know
other men have said it ten thousand times, but only to-day have I begun
to see that, in its own strange, unidealistic manner, this Empire is
fighting for civilisation.'

'Then'--her eyes were lit with sudden, glistening radiancy--'then you
don't think our men have died uselessly?'

'I could not believe in God,' he answered, wondering at the calm
certainty of his voice uttering things which would have infuriated him a
few hours before, 'if I thought that this war's dead had fallen for
nothing.'  His hand, which had been raised in gesture, fell limply on the
bed.  'Up to yesterday,' he went on slowly, 'I reasoned truth; to-day--I
feel truth.  I wonder if it is not always so, that higher knowledge
begins with the end of reasoning.'

For a couple of minutes neither spoke, and his head was throbbing with
anvil-beats.  Twice she started to speak, but stopped each time as though
distrustful of her own words.

'I am going back to America, Elise.'  His dreamy eyes were gazing beyond
her into the distance, or he might have noted that the colour in her
cheeks fluctuated suddenly and the fingers on her gloves tightened.

'Why?'  There was nothing in her voice to indicate anything but casual
interest.

'I must go back,' he said, leaning towards her--'back to my own country.
You don't understand. . . .  There comes a moment when every fibre of a
man's being craves for his own people, for the very air that he breathed
as a boy.  All these wasted months and last night's climax of damnable
murder have left me dazed.  I am floundering hopelessly--but at home I
shall be able to clear my mind of its mists and see this whole thing as
it really is.'

A wall of pain pressed against his head, and his face went gray with
agony.  In an instant she was standing over him arranging his pillows,
and soothing his temples with the gentle pressure of her hands.

For the first time in many months he knew the help and compassion of a
woman--and the woman was Elise.  He was weak from loss of blood, weary
from the long travail of the mind, and her presence, with its indefinable
fragrance of clover and morning flowers, was as exquisite music to his
senses.

'If you only knew,' he murmured, 'how I have longed for this moment.  It
has been very lonely for me--and I have wanted you so much, Elise.  God!
I've wanted you until I had to struggle to keep from crying out your name
in the very streets.  Forgive me talking like this.'  He groped for her
hand and held it tightly in his.  'I never had any right to tell you what
you meant to me--and less now than before--but when I come back'----

'You will never come back.'  She laughed with a strange tremulousness,
but in her eyes  there was something of the scorn she had shown towards
him at Roselawn.

'You are wrong,' he said; 'I must'----

'You are an American,' she answered quickly, 'and that comes first with
you.  Your country has nothing to do with this war, and you are going
back to it.  You will stay there.  I know you will.'

With his old decisive mannerism he sat up, and his eyes flashed with
vigour.

'I will come back,' he said firmly.  'Life has separated us--it has not
been your fault or mine--but some day, Elise, when I get my grip on
things again, I shall come to you, and you will have to listen.  We need
each other, and nothing on the earth can alter that'----

'Except America!'  She laughed again, and withdrew her hand from his.

'Elise!' he cried, reaching towards her, 'listen to me'----

The Cockney patient leaned over with a bag in his hand.  ''Ave a gripe?'
he said genially.

'No, th'---- began Selwyn.

'Thanks so much,' said Elise, taking the bag and picking a small cluster
for the American, afterwards handing the bag back to the Tommy.

''Ave a few yourself, won't yer?' said the warrior.

'May I?'

''Ere,' said the Cockney, with mock brusqueness.  'Tike a bunch.'

Perhaps from the very intensity of their previous talk, the threads
snapped, and her quickly uttered sentences, with the accompanying sparkle
in her eyes, showed him that he could hope for little more than badinage
for the rest of her visit.  Almost as if she desired to eradicate the
memory of her emotional admission, she gave her vivacity full play.  For
a few minutes he tried to bring back the close intimacy of their souls,
but she fenced him off, and met his heart-hungry glances with the gayest
of smiles.

Roselawn, she told him, had been transformed into a convalescent home,
and Lord and Lady Durwent were living in one of the wings.  Practically
all the servants had enlisted or gone into war-work; and even Mathews,
the groom, after perjuring himself before a whole regiment of army
doctors, had been accepted (with grave official doubts) for military
service.

Interspersed with these details she recounted incidents of her London
life as an ambulance-driver, and it was all her listener could do to
follow the swift irrelevance of her course.  Only once did she pause
when, in answer to his question, she told him she had heard nothing of
Dick.


IV.

A few minutes later she rose to go.

'I have stayed much too long,' she said.  'I do hope you'll get better
quickly.'

He took her hand in his, but made no attempt to translate the meaning of
the moment into language.   He had worked against her country; while she
plied her rounds of mercy, he had written on the debasement and the
fallacy of it all.  Lying in the wreck of his idealism, in the grip of
physical pain, dreading the torture of his own thoughts, could he express
what her coming had meant?  He wanted to tell her of his heart-hunger, of
his loneliness, his gratitude, understanding, reverence, and, above all,
of his love.  There was so much that it made him silent.

'Good-bye, Elise,' he said.

'Good-bye,' she answered.

That was the end.  Of such paltry substance are words.

'By Gar!' said the French-Canadian, looking after her as she disappeared
down the ward, 'she mak me tink of my leetle girl Marie; only Marie,
mebbe, is only so high, _comme ça_, and got de black hair, so!  I am
homeseek.  Yes.  It mak me verra homeseek.  _Godam_!'


V.

She did not come again.  Every morning his heart quickened with hope, and
each afternoon grew heavy with discouragement as the hours passed by
without the step he listened for.  The arrival of the mail was an instant
of mad expectancy and mute resignation.  But every day carried its cargo
of renewed hope, and he grudged the very hours of sleep that separated
him from it.

He wrote to her three times--pleaded with her to come again.  He begged
forgiveness for omitted or committed things which might have hurt her,
but no reply came.  He thought of writing to Roselawn, fancying she might
have gone there, but he was certain that before the letter could reach
her she would have come again, and they would only laugh at the idea of
any misunderstanding.

He blamed himself for a hundred imaginary crimes.  He had not asked her
if she would return.  Perhaps he had carelessly uttered words that
wounded her.  He knew her pride; knew that after their parting at the
flat it must have been hard for her to make the first move towards
reconciliation--and she might have mistaken his joy for petty personal
triumph.

Or--had he been an utter fool?  Was this her punishment of him?  With the
consummate artistry of her sex, had she simulated sympathy and
forbearance to make his torture all the more exquisite?  He dismissed the
suggestion as something vile, but, feeding on his doubts and longings, it
grew stronger and more insistent with every hour's passing.  A hundred
times a day he closed his eyes and lived the sweet memory of her visit;
but with the gathering arraignments of his doubts, he wondered if it had
all been the studied act of the English girl's reprisal on the American
who had dared to challenge her nation.

Weary, weary hours--the inactivity of the body lending fuel to the flames
of his mind.  He determined to dismiss her from his thoughts, and with
his power of mental discipline he reduced his mood to one of mute
resignation.

Then the thought of America came to him, and he was seized with an
impetuous craving for his own country, his own land, where men's natures
were broad and mountainous, like America itself.  He pictured New York
towering into the skies, the charming homes of Boston, where so many
happy hours had been spent in genial, cultured controversy.  He smelt the
ozone of the West, where sandy plains melted into the horizon; where men
lived in the open, and a man was your friend for no better reason than
that he was following the same trail as yourself.

America. . . .  He was impatient now of every day that kept him in
England.  He felt that his emotions, his brain, his convictions would all
be rudderless until he breathed once more the air of the New World, with
its vassal oceans bringing tribute to both Eastern and Western coasts.

He would not call himself a failure or a success until he looked on his
handiwork in the light of the great Republic.  As his ancestors leaving
the shores of Holland and Ireland, as millions of men and women had done
with the Old World dwindling away in the distance, he looked towards
America for the answer to existence.

Ten days after his admission he was allowed to leave the hospital for his
rooms in St. James's Square.

He took his leave of the little group who had been his companions
for the time--the little Cockney with his incessant exuberance; the
French-Canadian, picturesque of language and imagination; the one
remaining Australian, vigorous of thought and forceful of temperament;
the nurse, carrying Florence Nightingale's lamp through the
blackness of war.  He tried to say a little of what was bursting for
utterance, but they only laughed and fenced it off.  They wished him
'Cheerio--good-bye--good luck;' and he wondered if the whole realm of
lived or written drama held any farewell more sublimely expressive of a
great people enduring to the uttermost.

His servant had a taxi-cab waiting for him.  Driving first to a
florist's, he purchased roses for the nurse; then, stopping at a
tobacconist's, he left a generous order for all the occupants of the
ward.  After that he went directly to the American Consul's office and
made arrangements for his return to New York.


VI.

It was late in December when, driving to Waterloo to catch the boat-train
to Southampton, Selwyn was held up in the Strand by the crush of people
welcoming the arrival of Red Cross trains from the front.

Leaning out of the window, he watched the motor-cars and ambulances
coming out from the station courtyard, while London's people, as they had
done from the beginning, welcomed the unknown wounded with waving
handkerchiefs and flowers, with hearts that wept and faces that bravely
smiled.

With a suppressed cry, Selwyn opened the door and leaped into the crowd.
He had seen her driving one of the ambulances, and he fought his way
furiously through the human mass to the open roadway.  But it was
useless.  The ambulance had disappeared.

Struggling back to the taxi, he re-entered it, and turning round, made
for Waterloo Bridge by way of the Embankment.




CHAPTER XIX.

EN VOYAGE.

From a sheltered position on the hurricane-deck, Austin Selwyn watched
the curtain of night descending on England's coast.  Portsmouth, with
its thousand naval activities, was already lost to view off the ship's
stern; and the Isle of Wight was but a dark margin on the water's edge.

Not a light was to be seen on shore.  Like an uninhabited island,
England lay in the mingled menace and protection of the sea, while
unseen eyes kept their endless vigil.

The vibration from the ship's engines told him she was gathering speed.
Impatient of the six days that must elapse before harbour could be
reached, he walked to the front of the deck and watched the officers on
the bridge peering into the darkness ahead.

When he retraced his steps he could no longer distinguish land.  Two
searchlights playing on the surface of the water revealed a cruiser
steaming silently out to sea.

A feeble star appeared in the sky.

      *      *      *      *      *      *

Mid-ocean.

A clear winter sunlight touching the green, swirling water with strands
of yellow gold; a wind sweeping the ship's decks, blowing boisterously
down companion-ways and along the corridors; a few shimmering
snowflakes from an almost cloudless sky; everywhere the vastness of
ocean.  And the ship buffeting its way towards the New World.

Mid-ocean.

      *      *      *      *      *      *

The City of New York.

Anchored down the bay just after sunset, Selwyn watched the great
metropolis as her form was vitalised with a million lights.  From the
ship's side, it seemed to the eyes watching the birth of New York's
night that the buildings had come to the very water's edge to gaze into
its depths, and see their own reflection.

Here and there in the outline of great buildings a mammoth structure
raised its head above all others, losing itself in the foam of light
that floated mist-like over the city's towering majesty.

For more than two hours Selwyn remained motionless in the thrill of
patriotism.  The burst of light challenging the reign of darkness was a
symbol to him.  The Old World was crouching in darkness, fingering and
fearing the assassin's knife. . . .  But America was the Spirit of
Light.

How many times, he thought, emigrants must have looked on just as he
was doing!  How many times that sight must have brought hope to weary,
discouraged souls that never thought to hope again!

To the idealist returning to his own country, New York was not a
citadel guarding the entrance to a Nation, but a gateway opening to the
Continent of Opportunity.




CHAPTER XX.

THE GREAT NEUTRAL.


I.

One afternoon a tall, heavily built young man entered his house on
128th Street, New York, and after divesting himself of his coat and
hat, rubbed his hands in genial appreciation of his own hearth and the
exclusion of the raw outside air.  He was dressed in a gray lounge
suit, a clerical collar alone denoting his vocation.

'There's a gentleman in your room, Mr. Forbes,' said his housekeeper,
appearing from the kitchen.  'He said he was an old friend, and would
wait.'

'What's his name?'

'Mr. Selwyn, sir.'

'Austin Selwyn?  By George!'  Taking the stairs three at a time, the
energetic clergyman burst into the library and advanced with both hands
outstretched.  'For the love of Pete!' he ejaculated most unclerically.
'How are you, my boy?  Let me have a look at you.  Still the same old
Sel, eh?  A little thinner, I think, and not quite so much hair--humph!
Sit down; have that easy-chair; tell me all about yourself.  Well,
well! this is an unexpected treat.'

The Rev. Edgerton Forbes, who had been looking Selwyn over after the
custom of tailors about to offer sartorial advice, ceased his
inspection, and shook hands all over again.

'Edge,' said Selwyn, speaking for the first time, 'you can't imagine
what your welcome means to me.'

'My dear boy, you never doubted its warmth?'

'Yes I did, old man--after what I've been writing.'

The athletic clergyman laughed uproariously.  'I suppose you're a
dyed-in-the-wool Englishman now, and want your cup of tea.  Well, I'll
join you.--Mrs. Perkins.'  Going to the door, he gave the necessary
orders, and returned rubbing his hands, and venting his surplus energy
in a variety of hearty noises expressive of pleasure at seeing his old
friend.

'Now, start at the beginning,' he said, 'and give me everything.  The
semaphore's up, and there's a clear track ahead.'

'But I want to know about things here first.'

'After you, my son.  Put it over now.  By the way, that's a nasty scar
on your head.  How did you get it?'

In a few words Selwyn traced the course of events which had led to his
crusade against Ignorance, a crusade which had in an inexplicable way
turned particularly against England.  He spoke of Doug Watson's letter
with its description of the slaughtered German boy, and he told of the
air-raid in the moonlight, the climax to his long orgy of idealism.  He
touched lightly and humorously on his hospital experience, but not once
did he mention the inner secret of his heart.  To the whole recital
Forbes listened with a genuineness and a bigness of sympathy which
seemed to belong to his body as well as his mind.

'That is pretty well everything,' said Selwyn.  'I have come back here,
humble and perplexed, to try to get my bearings.  There have been two
men financing my stuff, and they must account to me for the uses to
which they have put it.  Edge, I was sincere.  Not one word was written
but I put my very life-blood into it.'

The arrival of tea put a temporary stop to the author's
self-revelation, and his host busied himself with his hospitable duties.

Selwyn passed his hand querulously over his face.  The clergyman looked
at him with a feeling of pervading compassion.

'I was going to ask about Gerard Van Derwater,' said Selwyn, 'How is
he?'

'Van's very well.  He is in the Intelligence Division right here in New
York.'

'I heard he was engaged to Marjory Shoreham.'

'Yes--he was.  They broke it off a few weeks ago; or, rather, she did.'

'I am sorry to hear that,' said Selwyn earnestly.  'I always liked her
immensely, and I was glad that poor old Van had been the lucky suitor.
You remember how I used to say that he always carried a certain
atmosphere of impending tragedy, although he was never gloomy or moody
about it.'

'Well, Austin, I think the tragedy has come.'

'I must see him,' said Selwyn.  'In coming back here, you and he were
the two I wanted most to meet.  I knew that neither of you would
withdraw your friendship without good reason; but also I knew you would
tell me bluntly where I stood.  Why did Marjory break off with Van?'

The clergyman told what he knew, and at the conclusion of the story
Selwyn rose to his feet.

'I must see Van at once,' he said.  'There's more in this than appears
on the surface.  If you will give me his number, I'll find out when we
can get together.'

Receiving the necessary information, Selwyn went downstairs to the
telephone, returning in a couple of minutes to the den.

'I just caught him,' he said to his host, 'and I am going to his rooms
at nine tonight.'

'Good work.  Now sit down and tell me about the English.  You'll find
me the most attentive audience you ever had.'


II.

It was theatre-time when Selwyn left his hotel and walked over to
Broadway.  That diagonal, much-advertised avenue of Gotham was ablaze
with light.  From shop windows, from illuminated signs, from office
buildings, street-cars, and motors, the carnival of theatre-hour was
lit with glaring brilliancy.  Women, in all the semi-barbaric
costliness with which their sex loves to adorn itself of a night,
stepped from limousines with their tiny silvery feet twinkling beneath
the load of gorgeous furs and vivid opera-cloaks; while well-groomed
men, in the smart insignificance of their evening clothes, guided the
perilous passage of their fair consorts from the motor's step to the
pavement.

Momentarily reduced to the democracy of pedestrianism, they would lose
themselves in the surging mob of passers-by--shop-girls on their way to
a cinema; rural visitors shocked and thrilled with everything;
keen-faced, black-haired Jews speculating on life's profits;
sallow-faced, lustrous-eyed girls hungry for romance, imagining every
begowned woman to be an adventuress, and every man a Prince Charming;
here and there an Irish policeman, proving that his people can control
any country but their own.  Of such threads is woven the pattern of New
York's theatre-hour on Broadway.

From sheer inability to stem the traffic, Selwyn stepped into a
doorway.  On the opposite side of the street a theatrical sign
announced that 'Lulu' was 'the biggest, most stupendous, comedy of the
season.'  He wondered what constituted largeness in a comedy.  Surely
not the author's wit!  Before he could formulate a solution of the
mystery, a great overhead sign suddenly ignited with the searching
question--

  DO YOU CHEW SWORDSAFE'S GUM?


Hastily detaching his mind from the biggest, most stupendous, comedy of
the season, he stared at the interrogation of the gum company.  It
suddenly disappeared, however, and then he saw that, like the goblins
who chased the small boy who was lost, the business interests of New
York had assumed a violent interest in his personal habits.  What
underwear did he buy?  Did he know that Hot-door's shaving-soap was
used by 76 per cent. of the entire manhood of America?  There was only
one place humanly conceivable where lingerie could be purchased; to
prove it, the illuminated signboard promptly showed a lady in a costume
usually confined to boudoirs.  To equalise the immodesty of the sexes,
a near male neighbour, at a height of two hundred odd feet, did an
electrified turn by putting on and taking off a pair of
trousers-suspenders.


  DO YOU CHEW SWORDSAFE'S GUM?

That was the question.  What importance could a mere war have in
comparison with that?  Blinking in the glare, Selwyn left the doorway
and made for Madison Avenue, where Van Derwater's rooms were.

The clocks were just striking nine when he reached the number he
wanted, and a negro servant led him upstairs.  As Selwyn entered Van
Derwater rose from his chair and greeted him with a restrained
courtliness that was gentlemanly to a degree, but had an instantly
chilling effect on the visitor.  It was the room the owner used for
lounging or reading, and the only light was the shaded one on the table.

Van Derwater had just passed thirty, but the premature thinness of his
hair in front, the listless droop of his heavy shoulders, and the
bluish pallor about his firm jaw contrived to make him appear older
than he was.  There was a kindliness in the wrinkles about his eyes,
and his mouth, though solid, was not lacking in indications of
intuitive understanding.  It was perhaps the formality of his bearing,
the stiffness of his body from the hips, that gave him the air of one
who belonged by right to a past and more ceremonious age.

Although Van Derwater encouraged his guest, after the exchange of
greetings, to talk of his voyage and its attendant experiences, Selwyn
was aware that he was placing a cold impersonal wall between them.  His
old friend was interested, courteous, intellectually even cordial, but
Selwyn knew he was being kept at a distance.  He forced the talk to old
intimacies--recalled the game when, together, they had crossed Yale's
line in the closing moments of the great Rugby match--brought back a
host of joint experiences, trivial in themselves, but hallowed by time.

Van Derwater remembered them all.  For each one he had the slight smile
of his mouth and the quizzical weariness of his eyes; but when the
conversation would droop after each outburst of reminiscence, he would
not make the least attempt to lift it up again.  Finally, being
convinced that nothing could come of so bloodless a meeting, Selwyn
dropped the impersonal mask.

'I was mighty sorry,' he said, 'to hear that you and Marjory have
broken off your engagement.'

'It was her wish: not mine.'  Van Derwater's voice was deep and rich,
but almost monotonous in its lack of inflection.

'I was talking to Forbes to-day,' went on Selwyn tenaciously.  'He had
been to see Marjory.'

'Yes?'

'Marjory told him that you didn't care enough for her to go overseas.
I should think she would realise that such a matter concerns you only.'

'Not a bit of it.'  For the first time the other's manner showed signs
of vitality.  'It means everything to her.  She wants to feel that the
man she marries is big enough to go and help France.  I admire her for
it.  I wish there were more women with her character.'

Selwyn shifted his chair uneasily.  'But--I don't understand,' he
stammered.  'You told her you wouldn't go.'

'Well, what of it?'

'Look here, Van,' said Selwyn vehemently; 'we have been friends for
many years.  I came to you to-night because my whole career is at a
standstill.  I want to tell you everything--I must do it--but I can't
as long as you withhold your confidence.  It isn't curiosity on my
part--you know that.  I want to bring back the old sense of
understanding we once had.'

'You haven't changed,' said Van Derwater, an inscrutable smile playing
about his mouth.  'You always had a habit of piercing people's moods,
no matter what defence they put up.  But if you want candour, I'll tell
you frankly I am sorry you came here this evening.  I knew that it
would be difficult to keep from hurting you, and for old-times' sake I
didn't want to do that.  As you know, I have never made friends.  You
and Forbes were the nearest thing to it, and I suppose you two meant
more than I would ever care to admit.  You might ring the bell over
your head.  The fire needs more coal.'

As the negro obeyed his master's instructions and stoked the fire into
vigour, the two friends sat without speaking.  Selwyn was mute with
apprehension of what he was to hear; the older man was dreading the
words he had to utter.  To certain strong natures it is more painful to
inflict than to receive a wound.

'If you want my story,' resumed the host, after the servant had left
the room, 'and as you are concerned you have a right to hear it, this
is how it goes.  I went into the diplomatic service.  Then I met
Marjory.  I needn't say what that meant to me.  For the first time, I
think, I knew what living was.  Shortly after came the war.  At first I
thought that if America remained neutral as a country, it was not up to
individuals to quarrel with that attitude.  Then came the _Lusitania_.
I wanted to go over at once, but hated to suggest it to Marjory.  One
night, though, to my delight, the plucky little girl mentioned it
herself.  I hurried back to Washington and offered my resignation, but
the chief urged me to remain three months longer, saying that I was
absolutely necessary in the reorganisation of a certain branch of the
Intelligence Division in New York.  To cut the story short, months and
months went on, and they refused to release me.  As a matter of fact I
was directing an investigation into German foreign diplomacy that was
of so delicate a nature I dared not mention it to Marjory.  At its
conclusion I went to Washington and demanded that they let me go--I
gave my exact reason.  The chief said he would give me a reply in a
week; but I told him that, no matter what he wrote, I would go at the
expiration of that time.  It was while I was waiting for the answer
that Marjory said it rested with me whether or not the engagement was
to be broken.  I told her that I should be able to state my position in
a couple of days.  Well, the letter came.  Perhaps you had better see
it.  You can read it to yourself.'

He went to his desk, and searching among the papers, produced a
correspondence-form bearing an official stamp.  He handed it to Selwyn.


'WASHINGTON, November 2, 1916.

'_Personal and Confidential_.

'MY DEAR VAN DERWATER,--As a boyhood friend of your father's I have
been most anxious to accede to your request for release from your
present duties.  I may say that in my desire to do the fairest thing by
you, I went so far as to place the facts of the matter before the
President himself.  He agreed with me that your services entitled you
to every possible consideration; but he also pointed out that the
intimate knowledge of our secret diplomacy which you have gained marks
you as too valuable a man to let go lightly.  I finally secured his
consent, but an hour later he sent for me again.  It was to talk over a
new enemy that has arisen in this fight of the present administration
to weld the conflicting elements of our nation into a single-thinking
whole.  I refer to the ultra-pacifist section which has grown so large
recently.

'You told me once that you knew this fellow, Austin Selwyn.  I am sorry
to set friend against friend, but his influence over the cultured and
pacifist elements has to be met sternly and at once.  We cannot take
personal action against him, because he is within his rights as a
citizen of a neutral country; but nevertheless his writings are proving
a strong disrupting force--stronger, in fact, than many of the clumsier
methods employed by subjects of belligerent nations.

'Word has reached us that in all probability this nation will be faced
shortly with the most momentous decision of the war.  Therefore I must
insist that you take charge of the anti-disruptionist propaganda.  I
shall be in New York next Wednesday, and will discuss with you the
methods by which we can stem the tide of disloyal pacificism as
exemplified by this man Selwyn.

'We have no hold over you, my boy; but in the name of this great
Republic which is struggling against such odds for unification of her
national life, I bid you remain at your post.  I know that the son of
my old friend Colonel Van Derwater will not question an order.--Yours
faithfully,

A. WALTER GALLEY.'


As Selwyn finished the letter, a flush swept into his cheeks and his
jaw stiffened with his old fighting mannerism.

'This is infamous!' he cried hotly.  'Do you accuse me of disloyalty to
my own country?'

'I do,' said Van Derwater calmly.

Selwyn's fists clenched with fury.  'Van,' he said, his voice quivering
with suppressed passion, 'I may have been blind--I can see where I have
injured you and many others--but when you or Galley say that I have
been trying to disrupt America, you lie.  There is no one more
passionately devoted to his country than I.'

'Which is your country?' said Van Derwater.

Through the dim light of the room the eyes of the two men met.
Selwyn's were blazing like hot coals; Van Derwater's were cold and
steely.

'What have I done,' said Selwyn, twice checking himself before he could
trust his voice, 'but tried to show that war is wrong--that men without
quarrel are killing each other now--that every nation has contributed
to this terrible thing by its ignorance?  What is there in that which
merits the name of traitor?'

Van Derwater shrugged his shoulders, and taking a book from the table,
idly studied its cover.  'Since the war began,' he said, his tones calm
and low, 'the United States has been trying to speak with one voice,
the voice of a united people.  It was the plain duty of every American
to aid the Administration in that.  Instead, what have we found?
Pro-Germans plotting outrage, and pro-Britishers casting slurs;
conspiracy, political blackmailing, financial pressure--everywhere she
has looked, this country has found within her borders the factors of
disruption.  We have fought them all.  We have refused to be bullied or
cajoled into choosing a false national destiny.  At the moment that we
seem to have accomplished something--with Europe looking to us for the
final decision that must come--you, and others of your kind, contrive
to poison the great educated, decent-thinking class that we always
thought secure.  Your cry of "Peace--peace--at any price let us have
peace," has done its work.  Consciously or unconsciously, Austin, you
have been a traitor.'

Selwyn rose furiously to his feet.  'This is the end of our
friendship,' he said, with his voice almost choking, and his shoulders
chafing under the passion which possessed him.  'Your chief has chosen
to name me as a reason for keeping you in America, and so it is I who
have come between you and Marjory.  For that I am sorry.  But when you
question my loyalty to America--that is the finish.'

Van Derwater had also risen to his feet and with the utmost courtesy
listened to Selwyn's outburst.  More than ever there was a mystic
atmosphere of the Past in his bearing.  He might have been a diplomat
of the sixteenth century bidding adieu to a thwarted enemy
plenipotentiary.

'Austin,' he said, with the merest inclination of his head, and his
arms hanging wearily by his sides, 'we live in difficult times.'

With an angry gesture, Selwyn left the room, and taking his coat and
hat from the negro, went again into the street.

Closing his study door, Van Derwater moved slowly to his chair, and
lifting his book, opened it.  For a long time he gazed at the open page
without reading a line.  'Difficult times,' he murmured.


III.

Still in the grip of uncontrollable fury, Selwyn stamped his way
through the streets.  Colliding heavily with a passer-by, he turned and
cursed him for his clumsiness.  He cherished a mad desire to return to
Van Derwater's rooms and force an apology by violence.  He had expected
criticism, reproach, even abuse; but that any man should brand him
treasonous! . . .

He spat into the gutter, and a sound that was almost a snarl escaped
from his throat.  He stopped, irresolute, and the wound in his head
burst into a violent pain.  He leaned against a post until the agony
had passed, and once more he made for Broadway.  At the sight of his
face glowing-red with passion, girls tittered and men drew aside.

Crossing the road, he stood to let a street-car pass, its covered
wheels giving an odd resemblance to an armoured car, when an extra
burst of light made him look up.

It was the gum advertisement again.




CHAPTER XXI.

A NIGHT IN JANUARY.


I.

Next morning, when Selwyn left his hotel, a few desultory snowflakes
were falling through the air, and moistly expiring on the asphalt
pavements.  It lacked a few minutes of nine, and the thousands who man
the machinery of New York's business were hurrying to their appointed
places.  People who had to catch trains were hurrying to stations; and
people who had nowhere to go were hurrying still faster.  Taxi-cabs
were rushing people across the city; and other taxi-cabs were rushing
them back again.  The overhead railway was rattling and roaring its
noisy way; the surface cars were clattering and clanging through the
traffic; and every half-minute the subways were belching up cargoes of
toilers into the open air.

New York was in a hurry.

All night the great engine of a million parts had lain idle, but
morning was the signal that every wheel must leap into action again,
driven by the inexhaustible army of human souls.  Hurry, noise,
clamour, greed, fever, progress. . . .  Another day had dawned!

Crossing Broadway to reach Fourth Avenue, Selwyn could not repress a
smile at the stricken glory of the great Midway.  The illuminated signs
that had searched the secret crevices of the mind, and had aided the
iridescent foam seen from the harbour, looked tawdry and vulgar, like a
circus on a rainy morning.  Even the theatres, with their sign-borne
superlatives, were garish and illusion-shattering.  There was almost an
apologetic air about the bill-boards proclaiming their nightly offering
to be the 'biggest ever.'

Selwyn began to resent that word 'biggest.'  One of the sad things
about America is that she started out to make language her slave--only
to find that it is becoming her master.

Entering a great office-building, he consulted the directory-board, and
was swooped up to the twenty-fourth floor in a non-stop elevator.
Finding the room of his literary agent, he went in, but a young lady
told him Mr. Lyons was in Chicago.

'It doesn't matter,' said Selwyn.  'I shall see him when he returns.
But I want a couple of addresses.  Have you the file of letters to me?
Austin Selwyn is my name.'

The young lady was gratifyingly flustered at the announcement, and by
her haste to produce the required letters indicated the esteem in which
her employer held the author.

'It was early last September,' said he.  'Mr. Lyons mentioned two
names: a Mr. Schneider, who purchased the foreign rights of my stuff;
and some one who wanted me to lecture--yes, that is the letter.  Could
you give me the addresses of these gentlemen?'

She wrote them on a card and gave it to him.  'Mr. J. V. Schneider,'
she said, 'is in the Standard Exchange Building, just one block below
here; and Mr. C. B. Benjamin is on 28th Street, in the United
Manufacturing Corporation.'

Thanking her for her courtesy, Selwyn left the office, and going
directly to Mr. Schneider's place of business, sent in his card.  He
was ushered through a large room where a dozen typewriters were
clicking noisily, and reaching the private office of Mr. Schneider,
found himself in the presence of a small, crafty-faced man, whose oily
smile and air of deference did not harmonise with his eyes, which were
as shifty and gleaming as those of a rat.  He shook hands with his
visitor, and then clawed at the papers on his desk with moist fingers
that were abnormally long.

'Vell, Mister Selvyn,' said Mr. Schneider gutturally, 'to vot do I
attribute dis honour?  Have a cigar--sit down.'

'May I break the rule of your office?' said the author, indicating a
sign on the wall which read: 'NIX ON THE WAR.'  'If you will be so
kind, I want to speak of matters not far removed from that subject.'

Mr. Schneider shifted his cigar to the corner of his mouth, and laughed
immoderately.

'Ha, ha, ha!' he roared, leaning forward, and thrusting a long, dirty
finger into Selwyn's chest.  'That is vot I call mine adjustable creed.
For most peoples vot gom' here--Nix.  But for fine fellers like you'----

With a greasy chuckle, he mounted his chair and turned the sign about.
On the reverse side there was a coat-of-arms, and the words:
'DEUTSCHLAND ÜBER ALLES.'

'Vot you tink?' grinned Mr. Schneider, speaking from the altitude of
the chair.  'Goot, ugh?'  He turned the thing about and stepped down
again, wringing his hands in huge enjoyment of the whole thing.  'You
can spik blainly, Mister Selvyn,' he went on amiably.  'Ve unnerstan'
each odder, hein?  Von't you smoke one of dem cigars?'

'No,' said Selwyn.  He looked at the little man for about ten seconds,
then, crossing to the wall, wrenched the sign away, nail and all.

'Here, here,' protested Mr. Schneider, backing warily to the door, 'vot
for you do dis?  Vot you mean, you great big fourflusher?'

The young man eyed the sign and then the German's head, apparently with
the idea of bringing them together.  Mr. Schneider further developed
his plan of retreat by taking a grasp of the door-handle.

'That's for people who say "Nix on the War,"' said Selwyn, breaking the
sign in his hands as if it were made of matchwood.  'And this is for
your damned Deutschland!'

He broke the remainder over his knee, and threw the pieces on the flat
desk, upsetting an ink-bottle, the contents of which dripped juicily to
the floor.

'But ain't you,' said Mr. Schneider, in a voice that was almost a
squeal--'don't you got no resbect for Chermany?  Only yesterday der
ambassador, he tole me that after the var, for all you wrote to help
der Faderland, der Kaiser, himself, vill on you bestow'----

Before the speaker could acquaint the author with the exact nature of
the honour in store for him, Selwyn had seized him by the coat-lapels,
and was shaking him so violently that Mr. Schneider's natural talent
for double-facedness was developed to a pitch where an observant
looker-on might have counted at least five of him vibrating at once.

'You dirty little hound,' said Selwyn, without relaxing in the least
the shaking process, 'if you ever use my name again, or send out
anything written, or supposed to be written, by me, I'll'----

For once words failed him, and lifting the little man almost off the
floor, he deposited him violently on his own desk, in the midst of the
pool formed by the ink.

'Nix on the war!' snorted Selwyn defiantly, putting on his hat.  He was
going to add a few more crushing remarks, but, altering his mind, went
out, slamming the door so violently that all the typewriters engaged in
sending out German propaganda were startled into an instant of silence.

As for Mr. Schneider, he sat still amidst the wreck of his desk,
pondering over a famous definition of war given by an American general
named Sherman.


II.

Without waiting to catch the driver's eye, the impetuous idealist
overtook an empty taxi-cab, and jumped into it.

'United Manufacturing, 28th Street,' he called.  'Make it fast.'

On arrival at his destination he found that Mr. C. B. Benjamin was the
president of the United Manufacturing Corporation, which--so a large
calendar stated--was the biggest business of its kind in the universe.
It had more branches, more output, more character, more push than any
other three enterprises in America.

Mr. Benjamin was in, but could be seen only by appointment, so said a
sleek-haired young man of immaculate dress.

'Give him that card, and tell him I want to see him _at once_,' said
Selwyn, with a forcefulness that caused a look of pain to cross the
young man's countenance.

'Please sit down,' he said, 'and I'll see what I can do.'

As a result of his efforts, Selwyn received a summons to go right
in--which he did, going past a number of people who had various big
propositions to put before the big man when they could gain his ear.

'Good-morning, Mr. Selwyn,' said the president, a smartly dressed Jew,
with a shrewd face and an unquestionable dignity of manner.  'You have
returned to America, I see.'

'Yes, Mr. Benjamin.  Do you mind if I come right down to business?'

'Mind?  How else could I have built up the United Manufacturing
Corporation?  Have a cigar?'

'No, thanks.  Mr. Benjamin, you wrote my agent that you wanted me to
lecture on the fallacy of war.'

'Sure,' said the president.

'May I ask why?'

Mr. Benjamin removed his spectacles and wiped them carefully.  Putting
them on, he surveyed his visitor through them.  After that he took them
off again, and winked confidentially.  'Mr. Selwyn,' he chuckled, 'you
ain't a child, and I see that I can't put over any sob stuff with you.
I told your agent I would pay him real money for you to lecture.  Well,
take it from me, when the president of the United Manufacturing
Corporation pays out any of his greenbacks he don't expect nothing for
something, eh?'

'I don't understand you--yet,' said Selwyn quietly.

Mr. Benjamin leaned back in his swivel-chair and cut the end of a cigar
with a little silver knife.  'Business,' he said, 'is business, eh?'

'Agreed,' was the terse response.  'I am still waiting to know why you
offered your money to me.'

Mr. Benjamin leaned forward, and taking up his glasses, waved them
hypnotically at the young man.  'Simply business,' he said.  'Same with
you--same with me.  You write all this dope against war--why?  Because
you know there's big money in it.  I pay you to lecture because you can
help to keep America out of the war.  In 1913 I was worth two hundred
thousand dollars.  To-day I have ten million.  We are wise men, Mr.
Selwyn, both of us.  While all the rest of the peoples fight, you and I
make money.'

As if his bones were aching with fatigue, Austin Selwyn rose wearily to
his feet, and, without comment, walked slowly out of the office.  But
the clerks noticed that his face was ashy-pale, like that of a prisoner
who has received the maximum sentence of the law.


III.

The days that followed were the bitterest Austin Selwyn had ever known.

It is not in the plan of the Great Dramatist that men shall look on
life and not play a part.  It is true that there are a few who escape
the call-boy's summons, and gaze on human existence much as a passing
pageant, but even for them is the knowledge that there is a moment
called Death when every man must take the stage.

For years Austin Selwyn had stood apart, mingling with those who were
enduring the sword-thrusts of fate, as an author chats with the players
on the stage between the acts.  Even the great tragedy of war had
served only to enrich the processes of his mind.  It is true he had
known compassion, sorrow, and anger through it, but they were only
counterfeit emotions, born of the grip of war on his imagination.

But at last life had reached out its talons and grasped him.  Every
human experience he had avoided, he was now to know, multiplied.
Stripped of his last hope of justifying his idealism, he saw remorse,
discouragement, a sense of utter futility, the scorn of friends, the
applause of traitors--he saw them all as shadows closing into blackness
ahead of him.

He tried to return to England, but passport difficulties were made
insurmountable.  He went to Boston, only to find that those he valued
turned against him, and those he detested welcomed him as comrade.  He
returned to New York, but every avenue of activity was closed to him,
save the one he had chosen for himself--that of world-pacificism.

He had always been a man of strong, underlying passions, and in his
veins there was the hot undissipated blood of youth; but his brain had
been the controlling force in every action of his life.  Hitherto he
had never questioned its complete mastery; but as he pondered over his
fall he knew that it was his brain that had ridden him to it.  He no
longer trusted its workings.  It had proved rebel and brought him to
disaster.

And with that inner challenge came the supreme ordeal of his life.

As rivers, held imprisoned by winter, will burst their confines in the
spring and overrun the land, all the passions which had been cooled and
tempered by his intellectual discipline swarmed through his arteries in
revolt.  No longer was the brain dominating the body; instead, he was
on fire with a hundred mad flames of desire, springing from sources he
knew nothing of.  They clung to him by day and haunted him at night.
They sang to him that vice had its own heaven, as well as hell--that
licentiousness held forgetfulness.  He heard whispers in the air that
there were drugs which opened perfumed caves of delight, and secret
places where sin was made beautiful with mystic music and incense of
flowers.

When conscience--or whatever it is in us that combats desire--urged him
to close his ears to the voices, he cursed it for a meddlesome thing.
Since Life had thrown down the gauntlet, he would take it up!  If he
had to travel the chambers of disgrace and discouragement, he would go
on to the halls of sensual abandonment.  Life had torn aside the
curtain--it was for him to search the recesses of experience.


IV.

One night towards the end of January Selwyn had tried to sleep, but the
furies of desire called to him in the dark.  He got up and dressed.  He
did not know where he was going, but he knew that his steps would be
guided to adventure, to oblivion.

There was a drizzling rain falling, and, with his coat buttoned close
about his throat, he walked from street to street, his breath
quickening with the ecstasy of sensual surrender which had at last come
to him.  Men spoke to him from dark corners; women called at him as he
passed; he caught faint glimmers down murky alleys, where opium was
opening the gates to bliss and perdition; but, with a step that was
agile and graceful, he went on, his arteries tingling in anticipation
of the senses' gratification.  Once a mongrel slunk out of a lane, and
he called to it.  It crawled up to him, and he stooped down to stroke
its head, when, with a yelp of terror, it leaped out of his reach and
ran back into the lane.  As if it was the best of jests, he laughed
aloud, and picking up a stone, sent it hurtling after the cur.  Then he
was suddenly afraid.  The loneliness of the spot--the horrors lurking
in the dark--the dog's howl and his own meaningless laughter.  He felt
a fear of night--of himself.  He hurried on, but it was not until he
reached a lighted street of shops that his courage returned, and with
the courage his fever of desire, greater than before.

An extra burst of rain warned him to seek shelter, and hurrying down
the street, he paused under the canopy of a shabby theatre.  There was
one other person there--a woman.  She came over to speak to him; but
when she saw the mad gleam of his eyes she drew back, and, with a
frightened exclamation, pressed her hand against her breast.

He made an ironic bow, then, with a smile, looked up at her, and she
heard him utter an ejaculation of amazement.

For a moment he had fancied that it might be true.  The likeness was
uncanny!  The burnished-copper hair, the silk-fringed eyes, the poise
of her head, the tapering fingers--even in the scarlet of her rouged
cheeks, there was a similarity to the high colouring of the English
girl.  What a jest of the Fates--that they should cast this poor
creature of New York's streets in the same mould with her who was the
very spirit of chastity!

'What a mockery!' he muttered aloud.  'What a hideous mockery!'

He was touched with sudden pity.  Perhaps this woman had been born with
the same spirit of rebellion as Elise.  Perhaps her poor mind had never
been developed, and so she had succumbed to the current of
circumstance.  She might have been the plaything of environment.  The
wound in his head was hurting again, and he covered the scar with his
moist hand.  Horrible as it seemed, this creature had brought Elise to
him once more--Elise, and everything she meant.  He wanted to cry out
her name.  His hands were stretched forward as if they could bridge the
sea between them.

Like a man emerging from a trance, he looked dreamily about him--at the
street running with streams of water--at the silent theatre--at the
woman.  A weakness came over him, and his pulses were fluttering and
unsteady.

A peddler of umbrellas passed, and Selwyn purchased one for a dollar.

'Won't you take this?' he asked, stepping over to the woman, who
cringed nervously.  'It is raining hard, and you will need it.'

She took the thing, and looked up at him wonderingly, like a child that
has received a caress where it expected a blow.

'Say,' she said, in a queer nasal whine, 'I thought you was a devil
when I seen you a minute ago.  Honest--you frightened me.'

He said nothing.

'Why'--there was a weak quaver in her whine, and she caught his wrist
with her hand--'why, you're kind--and I thought you was a devil.  Gee!
ain't it funny?'

With a shrill laugh that set his teeth on edge, she put up the umbrella
and walked out into the rain.  And only a passing policeman saw, by the
light of a lamp, that her eyes were glistening.

Selwyn remained where he was, blinking stupidly into the rain-soaked
night, as one who has been walking in his sleep and has waked at the
edge of an abyss.




CHAPTER XXII.

THE CHALLENGE.


I.

It was nearly noon next day before Selwyn woke from a heavy, dreamless
sleep.  Both in mind and in body there was the listlessness which follows
the passing of a crisis, but for the first time in many days he felt the
impulse to face life again, to accept its bludgeonings, unflinching.

He was almost fully dressed, when a messenger arrived with a letter.  It
was from Edgerton Forbes.


'MY DEAR AUSTIN,--I have been trying to get hold of you for the past
week, but you are as elusive as a hundred-dollar bill.  Douglas Watson
has returned from the front, minus an arm, and he has asked as many
ex-Harvard men as possible to meet him at the University Club.  We are
having dinner there to-night in one of the smaller rooms, and I want you
to come with me.  I'll pick you up at your hotel at seven, and we can
walk over.  If it is all right, send word by the messenger.--As ever,
FORBES.'


Selwyn's first instinct was to refuse.  He had no desire to meet Watson
again just yet, nor did he want to face men with whom he had lived at
Harvard.  But the thought of another lonely night arose--night, with its
germs of madness.

'Tell Mr. Forbes,' he said, 'that I shall expect him at seven.'

A few minutes before the time arranged the clergyman called, and they
started for the club.  The air was raw and chilling, and people were
hurrying through the streets, taking no heed of the illuminated shop
windows, tempting the eye of woman and the purse of man.  In almost every
towering building the lights of offices were gleaming, as tired,
routine-chained staffs worked on into the night tabulating and recording
the ever-increasing prosperity of the times.

The times!

Ordinary forms of greeting had changed to mutual congratulations on
affluence.  Anecdotes of business men were no longer of struggle and
privation, but of record outputs and maximum prices.  Theatres, cafés,
cinema palaces, churches, hotels--they had never seen such times.
Success was in the very dampness of the air as thousands of people looked
at it from the cosy interior of limousines, people who had never aspired
higher than an occasional taxi-cab.  The times!  Dollars multiplied and
begat great families of dollars--and Broadway glittered as never before.

It is difficult to state what trend of thought made conversation between
the friends difficult, but after two or three desultory attempts they
walked on without speaking.  As they were entering the majestic portals
of the club, Selwyn was reminded of a question he had intended all day to
ask.

'Edge,' he said, 'have you heard anything of Marjory Shoreham?'

'She sailed two weeks ago for France,' answered the clergyman.

They were directed to an upper floor, where they found a hundred or so
guests who claimed Harvard as their _alma mater_.  Although most of his
old acquaintances were quite cordial, Selwyn felt oddly self-conscious.
He caught sight of Gerard Van Derwater with his impassive courtliness
dominating a group of active but less impressive men; and behind them he
saw Douglas Watson of Cambridge surrounded by a dozen guests; but he
pleaded a headache to Forbes, and sought a secluded corner, where he
remained until dinner was announced.

Like all affairs where men are alone and the charming artifices of
femininity are missing, there was a severity and a formality which did
not disappear until the ministrations of wine and food had engendered a
glow which did away with shyness.  The table was arranged in the form of
the letter U, with Watson beside the chairman at the head.

Towards the end of the dinner conversation and hilarity were growing
apace.  Men were forgetting the scramble of existence in the recollection
of old college days, when their blood was like wine and the world a thing
of adventure.  Mellowed by retrospect, they laughed over incidents that
had caused heart-burnings at the time; and as they laughed more than one
felt a swelling of the throat.  It was, perhaps, just an odd streak of
sentiment (and the man who is without such is a sorry spectacle); or it
may have been the memory of ideals, aspirations, dreams--left behind the
college gates.

'Gentlemen.'  The chairman had risen to his feet.  Cigars were lit; and
he was greeted with the usual applause.  'Gentlemen, we have gathered
here at short notice to welcome an old boy of Harvard--Douglas Watson.
He has a message which he wants to deliver to us, and not only because he
is one with us in tradition would we listen, but his empty sleeve is a
mute testimony that he has fought in a cause which--though not our
own--is one which I know has the sympathy of every man in this room.  I
shall not detain you, gentlemen, but ask your most attentive hearing for
Mr. Watson.'

As the guest of the evening rose to speak he was greeted with prolonged
applause, which broke into 'For he's a jolly good fellow,' and ended in a
college football yell.  During it Selwyn sat motionless, his alert mind
trying to decipher the difference between Watson's face and the others.
It was not only that they were, almost without exception, clean-shaven,
and that Watson wore a small military moustache; the dissimilarity went
beyond that.  Although he was obviously nervous, Watson's eyes looked
steadily ahead as those of a man who has faced death and looked on things
that never were intended for human vision.  It had left him aged--not
aged as with years, but by an experience which made all the keen-faced
men about him seem clever precocities whose mentalities had outstripped
the growth of their souls.

And studying this phenomenon, Selwyn became conscious of the American
business face.

Although differing in colouring and shape, practically every face showed
lips thin and straight, eyes narrowing and restlessly on the _qui vive_,
the nervous, muscular tension from the battle for supremacy in feverish
competition, the dull, leaden complexion of those who disregard the
sunshine--these combined in a clear impression of extraordinary abilities
and capacities with which to meet the affairs of the day.  What one
missed in all their faces was a sense of the centuries.

No--not in all.  At the table opposite to Selwyn was Gerard Van Derwater,
whose self-composure and air of formal courtliness made him, as always, a
man of distinctive, almost lonely, personality.

'Thank you very much,' said Watson, as the applause and singing died
away.  His fingers pressed nervously on the table, and his first words
were uneven and jerky.  'I needn't tell you I am not a speaker.  I have a
great message for you chaps, but I may not be able to express it.  That
was my reason for asking to speak to ex-Harvard men.  I did it because I
knew I should have men who thought as I did--men who looked on things in
the same way as myself.  I knew you would be patient with me, and I was
certain you would give an answer to the question which I bring from
France.'

He paused momentarily, and shifted his position, but his face had gained
in determination.  A few of his listeners encouraged him audibly, but the
remainder waited to see what lay behind the intensity of his manner.

'I don't want pity for my wound,' he resumed.  'The soldier who comes out
of this war with only the loss of an arm is lucky.  Put that aside.  I
want you to listen to me as an American who loves his country just as you
do, and who once was proud to be an American.'

He raised his head defiantly, and when he spoke again, the indecision and
the faltering had vanished.

'Gentlemen, the question I bring is from France to America.  It is more
than a question; it is a challenge.  It is not sent from one Government
to another Government, but from the heart of France to the conscience of
America.  They don't understand.  Month after month the women there are
seeing their sons and husbands killed, their homes destroyed, and no end
in sight.  And every day they are asking, "Will America never come?"  My
God!  I've seen that question on a thousand faces of women who have lost
everything but their hope in this country.  I used to tell them to
wait--it would come.  I said it had to come.  When the Hun sank the
_Lusitania_ I was glad, for at last, I told them, America would act.  Do
you know what the British Tommies were saying about you as we took our
turn in the line and read in the papers how Wilson was _conversing_ with
Germany about that outrage?  I could have killed some of them for what
they said, for I was still proud of my nationality; but time went on and
the French people asked "When?" and the British Tommy laughed.

'If I'm hurting any of you chaps, think of what I felt.  One night behind
the lines a soldiers' concert-party gave a show.  Two of the comedians
were gagging, and one asked the other if he knew what the French flag
stood for, and he said, "Yes--liberty."  His companion then asked him if
he knew what the British flag stood for, and he replied, "Yes--freedom."
"Then," said the first comedian, "what does the American flag stand for?"
"I can't just say," said the other one, "but I know that it has stood a
hell of a lot for two years."  The crowd roared--officers and men alike.
I wanted to get up and fight the whole outfit; but what could I have said
in defence of this nation?  America--our country here--has become a
vulgar joke in men's mouths.'

He stopped abruptly, and poured himself out a glass of water.  No one
made a sound.  There was hot resentment on nearly every face, but they
would hear him out without interruption.

'The educated classes of England,' he went on, 'are different in their
methods, but they mean the same thing.  They say it is America's business
to decide for herself, but the Englishman conveys what he means in his
voice, not in his words.  When I was hit, I swore I would come back here
and find out what had changed the nation I knew in the old days into a
thing too yellow to hit hack.  Mr. Chairman, you said I had fought in a
cause that is not yours.  I beg to differ.  There are hundreds of
Americans fighting to-night in France.  They're with the
Canadians--they're with the French--they're with the British.  Ask them
if this cause isn't ours.  I lay beside a Princeton grad. in hospital.
He had been hit, serving with the Durhams.  "I'm never going back to
America," he said.  "I couldn't stand it."  As a matter of fact, he
died--but I don't think you like that picture any more than I do.'

Bringing his fist down on the table with a crash, Watson leaned forward,
and with flashing eyes poured out a stream of words in which reproach,
taunts, accusations, and pleading were weirdly mixed.  He told them they
should remove the statue of Liberty and substitute one of Pontius Pilate.
In a voice choking with emotion, he asked what they had done with the
soul left them by the Fathers of the Republic.  He pictured the British
troops holding on with nothing but their indomitable cheeriness, and
dying as if it were the greatest of jokes.  In one sentence he visualised
Arras with refugees fleeing from it, and New York glittering with
prosperity.  With no relevancy other than that born of his tempestuous
sincerity, he thrust his words at them with a ring and an incision as
though he were in the midst of an engagement.

'That is all,' he said when he had spoken for twenty minutes.  'In the
name of those Americans who have died with the Allies, in the name of the
_Lusitania's_ murdered, in the name of civilisation, I ask, _What have
you done with America's soul?_'

He sat down amidst a strained silence.  Everywhere men's faces were
twitching with repressed fury.  Some were livid, and others bit their
lips to keep back the hot words that clamoured for utterance.  The
chairman made no attempt to rise, but by a subconscious unanimity of
thought every eye was turned to the one man whose appearance had
undergone no change.  As if he had been listening to the legal
presentation of an impersonal case, Gerard Van Derwater leaned back in
his chair with the same courtly detachment he had shown from the
beginning of the affair.


II.

'Mr. Van Derwater,' said the chairman hoarsely; and a murmur indicated
that he had voiced the wish of the gathering.

Slowly, almost ponderously, the diplomat rose, bowing to the chairman and
then to Watson, who was looking straight ahead, his face flushed crimson.

'Mr. Chairman--Mr. Watson--Gentlemen,' said Van Derwater.  He stroked his
chin meditatively, and looked calmly about as though leisurely recalling
a titbit of anecdote or quotation.  'Our friend from overseas has not
erred on the side of subterfuge.  He has been frank--excellently frank.
He has told us that this Republic has become a jest, and that we are
responsible.  I assume from several of your faces that you are not
pleased with the truth.  Surely you did not need Mr. Watson to tell you
what they are saying in England and France.  That has been
obvious--unpleasantly obvious--and, I suppose, obviously unpleasant.'

He smiled with a little touch of irony, and leaning forward, flicked the
ash from his cigar on to a plate.

'Mr. Watson,' he resumed, 'has asked what we have done with America's
soul.  That is a telling phrase, and I should like to meet it with an
equally telling one; but this is not a matter of phraseology, but of the
deepest thought.  Gentlemen, if you will, look back with me over the
brief history of this Republic.  There are great truths hidden in the
Past.

'In 1778 Monsieur Turgot wrote that America was the hope of the human
race--that the earth could see consolation in the thought of the asylum
at last open to the down-trodden of all nations.  Three years later the
Abbé Taynals, writing of the American Revolution, said: "At the sound of
the snapping chains our own fetters seem to grow lighter, and we imagine
for a moment that the air we breathe grows purer at the news that the
universe counts some tyrants the less."  Ten years after that the editor
Prudhomme declared: "Philosophy and America have brought about the French
Revolution."

'I will not weary you, gentlemen, with further extracts, but I ask you to
note--_and this is something which many of our public men have forgotten
to-day_--that at the very commencement of our career we were inextricably
involved with European affairs.  Entangling alliances--no!  But
segregation--impossible!'

For an instant his cold, academic manner was galvanised into emphasis.
His listeners, who were still smarting under Watson's words, and had been
restless at the unimpassioned tone of Van Derwater's reply, began to feel
the grip of his slowly developing logic.

'Thus,' the speaker went on, 'at the commencement, our national destiny
became a thing dominated by the philosophy of humanitarianism.  When we
had shed our swaddling-clothes and taken form as a people, the issue of
the North and the South began to rise.  Because of his realisation of the
part America had to play in human affairs, Lincoln, the great-hearted
Lincoln, said we must have war.  Against the counsel of his Cabinet,
loathing everything that had to do with bloodshed, this man of the people
declared that there could be no North or South, but only America.  And to
secure that he plunged this country into a four years' war--four years of
untold suffering and terrible bravery.  When, during the struggle,
Lincoln was informed that peace could be had by dropping the question of
the slaves' emancipation, his answer was the proclamation that all men
were free.  With his great heart bleeding, he said, "The war must go on."
Philosophy and America brought on the French Revolution.  Philosophy and
humanitarianism brought on the war of North and South.

'The psychology of America, which had been hidden beneath the physical
side of our rebellion, took definite form as a result.  The gates of the
country were open to the entire world.  The down-trodden, the persecuted,
the discouraged, the helpless, no matter of what creed or nationality,
saw the rainbow of hope.  By hundreds of thousands they poured into this
country.  Slav and Teuton, Galician, Italian, Belgian, Jew, in an endless
stream they came to America, and, true to Washington and Lincoln, she
received them with the words, "Welcome--free men."  And so we shouldered
the burdens of the Past, and men who had been slaves--white as well as
black--drank of freedom.'

There was no applause, but men were leaning forward, afraid they might
miss a single word.  Van Derwater's depth of human understanding, his
lack of passion, his solitariness that had been likened to an air of
impending tragedy, held his listeners with a magic no one could have
explained.  He might have come as a spirit of times that had passed, so
charged with the ages was his strange, powerful personality.

'From an open sky,' he continued, 'came the present war.  The older
nations, knit by tradition and startled by its imminence, flew to arms at
a word from their leaders.  France, who had been our friend, looked to
us; but what was our position?  In fifty tongues our citizens cried out
that it was to escape war that they had come to America.  Could we tell
the Jew that Russia, which had persecuted him to the point of madness,
was on the side of mercy?  Could we convince the Teuton that his
Fatherland had become suddenly peopled with savages?  Could we say to the
Irishman, bitterly antagonistic to England, that Britain was fighting for
the liberation of small nations?  Could we ask the Greek, the Pole, the
Galician, to go back to the continent from which they had come, and give
their blood that the old order of things might go on?

'But, you ask, what of the real American, descended from the men who
fought in the War of Independence and the Civil War.  Yes--what of him?
From earliest boyhood he has been taught that Britain is our traditional
enemy.  To secure existence we had to fight her.  To maintain existence
we fought her again in 1812.  When we were locked in a death-struggle
with the rebellious South, she tried to hurt our cause--although history
will show that the real heart of Britain was solidly with the North.  In
our short life as a people we find that, always, the enemy is Britain.
In one day could we change the teaching of a lifetime?  The soul of
America was not dead, but it was buried beneath the conflicting elements
in which lay her ultimate strength, but her present weakness.

'What, then, was the situation?  Events had outridden our national
development.  Whether it could have been avoided or not I do not know.
Whether our education was at fault, or whether materialism had made us
blind--these things I cannot tell you.  I only know that this war found
us potentially a nation, but actually a babel of tongues.  Without
philosophy and humanitarianism this nation could not go to war--and in
those two things we were not ready.

'I do not belittle the many gallant men who have left these shores to
fight with the Allies, but I say that in a world-crisis the voices of
individuals cannot be heard unless they speak through the medium of their
nationality.  The question from France is not "Will Americans never
come?" but "Will America never come?"  When the war found the
Americanisation of our people unfinished, it became the duty of every
loyal man in the Republic to give his very life-blood to achieve
solidarity.  Do you think we could not see that the Allies were fighting
our battle?  It was impossible for this nation that had shouldered the
problems of the Old World not to see it; so we began the education of all
our people.  We could have hurled this nation into war at almost any hour
by an appeal to national dignity, but our destiny was imperative in its
demands.  Not in heat, which would be bound to cool; not in revenge,
which would soon be forgotten; but by philosophy and humanitarianism
alone could this great Republic go to war.

'Yet, when this Administration looked for help, what did it find?  The
two races that come to this country and never help its Americanisation
are the Germans and the English.  They remain true to their former
citizenship, and they die true to them.  Gentlemen, that must not be
again.  America will always be open to the world, but he who passes
within these gates to live must accept responsibilities as well as
privileges.

'I am almost finished.  For two years and a half we have fought against
the disintegrating forces within our country.  We have endured the sneers
of belligerents, the insults of Germany, and the tolerance of
Britain--and still we have fought on.  Literally we were struggling, as
did our forefathers, for nationhood.  But let me ask Mr. Watson if our
psychological unpreparedness was entirely our fault.  When Britain allied
herself with Russia, did she give a thought to the effect it would have
on the American mind?  To us, Russia was the last stronghold of barbaric
despotism, and yet Britain made that alliance, identifying herself with
the forces of reaction.  I do not say that we would have entered into a
similar or any agreement with Britain, but there are alliances of the
spirit far more binding than the most solemn treaties.  I accuse Britain
of failing to make the advances toward a spiritual covenant with the
United States, in which lay--and still lies--the hope of this world.'

A messenger had entered the room and handed a note to the chairman.  It
was passed along to Van Derwater's place and left in front of him.  He
took it up without opening it, and fingered it idly as he spoke.

'A nation does not need to be at war,' he went on, 'to find that traitors
are in her midst.  The struggle of this Administration for unity of
thought has been thwarted right and left by men of no vision, men drunk
with greed, men blinded with education and so-called idealism.  Mr.
Watson, you ask what we have done with America's soul.  I will tell you
what we have done _for_ it.  There are many of us in this room who have
given everything we have--our time, our friends, and things which we
valued more than life--because we have respected the trust imposed on us
of maintaining America's destiny.  I am sorry for your empty sleeve.  But
let me assure you that we, also, have known suffering.  Because we
believe in America--_first, last, and always in America_--we have stayed
here, enduring sneers and contumely, in order that when America speaks it
will be like the sound of a rushing cataract--one voice, one heart, but
the voice and heart of Humanity.  In no other way can America go to war.
. . .  And until that moment arrives I shall wear this garb of neutrality
as proudly as any soldier his uniform of honour.'

He sat down, and in an instant the whole crowd was on its feet.  Men
cheered and shouted, and, unashamed, tears ran down many faces.  With his
heart pounding and his eyes blinded with emotion, Selwyn did not make a
move.  He could only watch, through the mist, the figure of Gerard Van
Derwater with its cloak of loneliness.  He saw him look down at the
message and break the seal of the envelope.  He saw a flush of colour
sweep into the pallid cheeks and then recede again.  Still with the air
of calmness and self-control, Van Derwater rose again to his feet.
'Gentlemen,' he said.  The room was hushed instantly and every face was
turned towards him.  'Gentlemen, I have received a message from my
headquarters.  Germany has announced the resumption of unrestricted
submarine warfare.'

For a moment the room swam before Selwyn's eyes.  The shouts and
exclamations of the others seemed to come from a distance.  And suddenly
he found that he was on his feet.  His eyes were like brilliants and his
voice rang out above all the other sounds.

'Van!' he cried, 'does this mean war--at last?'

With steady, unchanging demeanour his former friend looked at him.
'Yes,' he said.  'At last.'

And as they watched they saw Van Derwater's hands contract, and for a
moment that passed as quickly as it came his whole being shook in a
convulsive tremor of feeling.  Then, in a silence that was poignant, he
sank slowly into his chair, his shoulders drooping, listless and weary.
With eyes that were seeing into some secret world of their own he gazed
dreamily across the room, and a smile crept into his face--a smile of one
who sees the dawn after a long, bitter night.

'Thank God,' he said, with lips that trembled oddly.  'Thank God.'




CHAPTER XXIII.

THE SMUGGLER BREED.


I.

On an April evening, fifteen months later, a certain liveliness could
have been noted in the vicinity of Drury Lane Theatre.  The occasion
was another season of opera in English, and as the offering for the
night was _Madam Butterfly_, the usual heterogeneous fraternity of
Puccini-worshippers were gathering in large numbers.

Although the splendour of Covent Garden (which had been closed for the
war) was missing, the boxes held their modicum of brilliantly dressed
women; and through the audience there was a considerable sprinkling of
soldiers, mostly from the British Dominions and America, grasping
hungrily at one of the few war-time London theatrical productions that
did not engender a deep and lasting melancholy--to say nothing of a
deep and lasting doubt of English humour and English delicacy.

In one of the upper boxes Lady Erskin had a small unescorted party.
Lady Erskin herself was a plump little miniature who was rather
exercised over the dilemma of whether to display a huge feathery fan
and obliterate herself, or to sacrifice the fan to the glory of being
stared at by common people.  With her was her sister, the wife of a
country rector, who assumed such an elaborate air of _ennui_ that any
one could have told it was her first time in a box.  Between them was
Lady Erskin's rather pretty daughter, and behind her, with all her
vivid personality made glorious in its setting of velvety cloak and
creamy gown, was Elise Durwent, enjoying a three days' respite from her
long tour of duty.

The lights went out, and with the rising of the curtain the little
drama of tenderness and cruelty held the stage.  From the distance,
Butterfly could be heard approaching, her voice coming nearer as the
typical Puccini progressions followed her ascent.  There was the
marriage, the cursing of Butterfly by the Bonze, and the exquisite love
duet, so full of passionate _abandon_, and yet shaded with such
delicacy.  At the conclusion of the act, where the orchestra adds its
overpowering _tour de force_ to the singers', the audience burst into
applause that lasted for several minutes.  It was the spontaneous
gratitude of hundreds of war-tired souls whose bonds had been relaxed
for an hour by the magic touch of music.

'Do you think the tenor is good-looking?' asked Lady Erskin of no one
in particular.

'Who is that in the opposite box, with the leopard's skin on her
shoulders?' queried the rector's wife.

'I think Butterfly is topping,' said Lady Erskin's daughter.  'I always
weep buckets in the second act.'

'I should like to die to music like that,' said Elise, almost to
herself.


II.

Close by a communication-trench, Dick Durwent stood shivering in the
cool night-air.  He was waiting to go forward on sentry-duty, the
remainder of the relief having gathered at the other end of the
reserve-trench in which he was standing; but though it was spring,
there was a chill and a dampness in the air that seemed to breathe from
the pores of the mutilated earth.  A desultory shelling was going on,
but for a week past a comparative calm had succeeded the hideous
nightmare of March and early April, when Germany had so nearly swept
the board clean of stakes.

He heard the voices of a carrying-party coming up, and suddenly he
crouched low.  There was a horrible whine, growing to a shriek--and a
shell burst a few yards away.  Shaken and almost deafened, Durwent
remained where he was until he saw an object roll nearly to his feet.
It was a jar of rum that was being brought up for issue.  He lifted the
thing up, and again he shivered in the raw air like one sickening of
the ague.  Quick as the thought itself, he put the jar down, and
seizing his water-bottle, emptied its contents on the ground.  Kneeling
down, he filled it with rum, and leaving the jar lying at such an angle
that it would appear to have spilled a certain amount, he hurriedly
joined the rest of the relief warned for duty.

Dick had been on guard in the front line for an hour, when he received
word that a patrol was going out.  A moment later they passed him, an
officer and two men, and he saw them quietly climb over the parapet
which had been hastily improvised when the battalion took over the
position.  They had been gone only a couple of minutes when
pistol-shots rang out, and the flares thrown up revealed a shadowy
fight between two patrols that had met in the dark.  The firing
stopped, and Durwent's eyes, staring into the blackness, saw two men
crouching low and dragging something after them.  He challenged, to
find that it was the patrol returning, and that the one they were
bringing back was the officer, killed.

The trench was so narrow that they could not carry him back, and they
left the body lying on the parapet until a stretcher could be fetched.

Dulled as he had become to terrible sights, the horror of that silent,
grotesque figure began to freeze Dick Durwent's blood.  A few minutes
before it had been a thing of life.  It had loved and hated and
laughed; its veins had coursed with the warm blood of youth; and there
it sprawled, a ghastly jumble of arms and legs--motionless, silent,
_dead_.  He tried to keep his eyes turned away, but it haunted him.
When he stared straight ahead into the dark it beckoned to him--he
could see the fingers twitching!  And not till he crept near could he
be satisfied that, after all, it had not moved.

'Sherwood!'  He heard a quivering voice to his right.  It was the
nearest sentry, an eighteen-year-old boy, who had called him by the
name given him by Austin Selwyn, the name under which he had enlisted.

'What's the matter?' called Durwent.

Without his rifle, the little chap stumbled towards him, and, dark as
it was, Dick could see that his face was livid and his eyes were wide
with terror.

'Sherwood,' whimpered the boy, 'I can't stand it--I've lost my
nerve. . . .  That thing there--there. . . .  It moves.  It's dead, and
it moves. . . .  Look, it's grinning at me now!  I'm going back.  I
can't stay here--I can't.'

'Steady, steady,' said Durwent, gripping the boy by the shoulder and
shaking him roughly.  'Pull yourself together.  Don't be a kid.  You've
seen far worse than this and never turned a hair.'

'I can't help it,' whined the boy.  'There's dead men walking out there
all over.  Can't you see them?  They whisper in the dark--I can hear
them all the time.  I'm going back.'

'You can't, you little idiot.  They'll shoot you.'

'I don't care.  Let them shoot.'

'Where's your rifle?  Get back to your post.  If you're caught like
this, there'll be a firing-party at daybreak for you.'

'I don't care,' cried the lad hysterically.  'They can't keep me here.
I'm going'----

'Here'----  Throwing the young fellow against the parapet and holding
him there by leaning heavily against him, Durwent felt for his
water-bottle and withdrew the stopper.  'Drink this,' he said, forcing
the mouth of the flask between the boy's lips.  'Take a shot of rum.
It will put the guts back into you.'

The young soldier choked with the burning liquid, and tears oozed from
his eyes, but the chill of the body passed, and with it the chill of
cowardice.  With a half-whimper, half-laugh, he forced a silly, coarse
jest from his lips.  'Where did you get it, Sherwood?'

'Never mind,' said Dick.  'Come on now.  Back you go--and stick it out.'


III.

The second act of _Madam Butterfly_ was in progress.

With the sure touch of high artistry, both composer and librettist had
delineated the result of Pinkerton's faithlessness--a faithlessness
that was obvious to every one but Cho-cho-san, who still believed that
her husband would return with the roses.  Firm in her trust, she
pictured to Sazuki the day when he would come, 'a little speck in the
distance, climbing the hillock'--how she would wait 'a bit to tease him
and a bit so as not to die at our first meeting'--ending with the
triumphant assurance (born of her woman's intuition, which, alas!
proves so frequently unreliable) that it would all come to pass as she
told.  She _knew_ it.

And so to the visit of the American consul, who tries to tell her that
her husband has written that he has tired of her--she, poor soul,
reading in his words the message that he still loves her.  Then the
final tableau of the act with Butterfly, her baby and Sazuki standing
at the Shosi facing the distant harbour where his ship has just been
signalled.  Softly the humming of the priests at worship ceases, and
the curtain descends on what must always remain a masterpiece of
delicate pathos--a story that will never lose its appeal while woman's
trust in man lends its charm to drab existence.

'The tenor didn't come in at all in that act,' said Lady Erskin.

'Really,' said the rector's wife, fixing her lorgnette on the opposite
box, 'that person with the leopard's skin looks absolutely like a
cannibal.'

'I'm just swimming in tears,' was the comment of Lady Erskin's daughter.

Elise said nothing; nor did she hear them speak.  Her heart was
fluttering wildly, and her hands were clasped tightly together.  She
had heard a far-away cry--and the voice was Dick's.


IV.

The raw air of the night, the dread of that loathsome, silent thing,
the haunting terror of the boy's eyes a few minutes before, the whine
of shells, all bored their way into Dick Durwent's brain.  He began to
tremble.  With every bit of will-power he fought it off, but he felt
the fumes of madness coming over him.

For days on end he had had no rest.  In the Fifth Army _débâcle_ of
March his battalion had been one of the first to break, although
remnants had fought as few men had ever fought before; and when they
had been reorganised they were moved back into the line, undermanned,
ill-equipped, and branded with disgrace.  It was the culmination of
three years' service at the front, and his nerves were at the
breaking-point.  Mounds of earth ahead of him, and gnarled, dismembered
trees, began to take the ghostly shapes that the frightened boy had
told of.

Mumbling meaningless things, he reached for his water-bottle and poured
a mouthful of rum down his throat.  It set his heart beating more
firmly, and his blood was no longer like ice in a sluggish river.  He
replaced the stopper and resumed his watch, but every fibre of his body
was craving for more of the alcohol.  With set teeth he struggled for
self-control, but every instinct was fighting against him.  He took
another sip, then a long draught of the scorching liquid, and leaned
against the parapet.  He pressed his hot face against the damp earth,
and burrowed his fingers into it in a frenzied effort for self-mastery.
Again he drank, and his mouth burned with the stuff.  His head was
swimming, and he could hear surf breaking on a rocky coast.  The dead
man was grinning at him, but death no longer held any terrors for him.
He raised the bottle in a mock toast and drank greedily of the rum
again.

The pounding of the waves puzzled him.  He could not remember that they
were near any water.  But more and more distinctly he could hear the
roll of surf dashed into spray against the shore. . . .  It was
strange. . . .  Once more he pressed the bottle to his lips, and it set
his very arteries on fire.  Yes.  Over to the left he could see the
glimmer of the ocean.  There was a light; some one was beside it.  It
was Elise!  She was giving a signal.  That was it--the smugglers were
landing their contraband, and she was signalling that all was clear.

He looked over to the dead man.  The corpse was rising to its feet.  It
had all been a hoax on its part--it was an excise officer.  His eyes
were fixed on the light, too.  His men would be near, and they would
capture Elise--and afterwards the smugglers, led by their
great-grandfather.  He would have to warn her.  He couldn't shout, for
that would give everything away.  He would crawl near to her first.

He finished the rum, draining the bottle to the last drop, and started
to creep along the trench, his heavy, powerless limbs carrying him only
inches where his imagination made it yards.  He looked back once.  The
dead man was following him.  It had become a race between himself and a
corpse.  He kept his eye on the light.  He could see Elise quite
plainly.  She was looking out towards the sea.

Feeling his muscles growing weaker, and fearful that the dead man would
overtake him, he struggled to his feet and clapped his hands to his
mouth.

'_Elise_!' he yelled.  '_Elise_!'

And with the roar of surf in his ears, he sank to the ground in a
drunken stupor.


V.

The last act of _Madam Butterfly_ was ending.  The cruel little
story wound to a close with the return of Pinkerton and his
sympathy-uninspiring American wife, and then the suicide of
Butterfly--the logical, but comparatively unmoving, finale to the opera.

But Elise neither saw the actors nor heard the music.  With her hands
covering her eyes, she had been listening for the voice of Dick.  She
could hear it, distant and faint, growing nearer, as if he were coming
towards her through a forest.  There was in it a despair she had never
heard before.  He was in danger--where or how she could not fathom--but
over the surging music of the orchestra she could hear the voice of
Boy-blue crying through the infinity of space.

The opera was over, and there was a storm of applause that developed
into an ovation.

'The tenor isn't really handsome, after all,' said Lady Erskin.

'I think the women of to-day are shameless,' said the rector's wife,
casting a last indignant glance at the box across the theatre.

'I feel a perfect rag,' said Lady Erskin's daughter.  'Good heavens!
Elise, what's the matter?'

'Nothing.  I--I don't know,' Elise answered, looking up with
terror-stricken eyes.  'I'm just overwrought.  That's all.'

'You poor dear!' said Lady Erskin.  'You shouldn't take the opera so
seriously.  After all, it didn't really happen--and I have no doubt in
real life the tenor is quite a model husband, with at least ten
children.'


VI.

'Drunk,' said the company commander, stooping over the prostrate body
of Dick Durwent.  'He was all right when he took over.  Where did he
get the stuff?'

'Smell that, sir,' said the subaltern of the night, handing him a
water-bottle.

'Humph!  This looks bad.  Have him carried to the rear and placed under
arrest.'




CHAPTER XXIV.

THE SENTENCE.


I.

On the outskirts of a village near the junction of the British and
French armies, two guards with loaded rifles kept watch at the doors of
a hut.  The warm sunlight of May was bathing the fields in gold, where
here and there a peasant woman could be seen sprinkling seed into the
furrows.  Across a field, cutting its way through a farmyard, a light
railway carried its occasional wobbling, narrow-gauged traffic; and
outside half-a-dozen huts soldiers were lolling in the warmth of early
afternoon, polishing accoutrements and exchanging the lazy philosophy
of men resting after herculean tasks.  Elsewhere there was no sign of
war.  Cattle browsed about the meadows, and the villagers, long since
grown used to the presence of foreign soldiers, pursued their endless
duties.

A sergeant walked briskly from a cottage in the village and went
directly to the field where lay the hut guarded by the sentries.  'Fall
in outside!' he said sharply, opening the door.

Bareheaded, and with his dark hair seeming to cast the shadows that had
gathered beneath his eyes, Dick Durwent emerged and took his place
between the guards.

'To receive the sentence of the court,' said the sergeant in answer to
his questioning glance.  'Escort and prisoner--'shun!  Right turn!
Quick march!'

Past the lounging soldiers to the road, and on to the village, they
marched.  Women glanced up, curious as to the meaning of the little
procession, but with a shrug of their shoulders resumed their work, and
soon forgot all about it.  The escort halted outside the cottage from
which the sergeant had come, and he entered it alone.  A minute later
he reappeared, and marched prisoner and guards into the room where the
court-martial had been held that morning.  The three officers were
sitting in the same places--a lieutenant-colonel, whose set, sun-tanned
face told nothing; a captain, whose firmness of jaw and steadiness of
eye could not hide his twitching lip; and a subaltern, pale as Dick
Durwent himself.

As president of the court, the senior officer handed a sealed envelope
to the prisoner.  Not a word was spoken on either side.  The sergeant's
command rang out, and the noise of metalled heels upon the floor was
startlingly loud.

Still without a word, carrying the unread sentence in his hand, Durwent
was marched back to the hut.  Again the women cast curious glances, and
a little urchin in a cocked-hat stood at the salute as they passed.

When he was alone once more, Dick broke the seal of the envelope, and
without his face altering, except that the shadows grew darker beneath
his eyes, he read the finding of the court.

He was to be shot.

He read it twice.  With a long, quivering intake of the breath, he tore
the thing slowly into a dozen pieces and threw them into a corner.

Walking to the end of the hut, he leaned against the ledge of a little
window, and looked out towards the horizon where the great blue of the
sky stooped to earth.  There was the laughter of soldiers, and from an
adjoining meadow came the neighing of a restive horse.  The sunlight
deepened, and from a hundred branches birds were trilling welcome to
the promise of another summer.

Two hours passed.  The warmth of early afternoon was giving way to the
cool mood of twilight--but the solitary figure had not moved.


II.

Nine days had passed when a motor-lorry drew up on the road, and the
same sergeant ordered Dick Durwent to take his place outside the hut
with his escort.  The prisoner asked as to his destination, and was
told that the sentence, having been confirmed, was to be promulgated
before his unit.

They had been travelling for half-an-hour when they reached a field in
which Durwent saw two companies of his battalion drawn up in the form
of a hollow square.  Faint with shame, staggering under the hideous
cruelty of the whole thing, he was marched into the centre and ordered
to take a pace forward, while the commanding officer read the sentence
of court-martial to the men: that Private Sherwood, being found guilty
of drunkenness while on guard--it being further proved that he had
obtained unlawful possession of the liquor--was to be shot at dawn, and
that the sentence would be carried out the following morning.

Although his senses reeled with the shock and ignominy of it all, the
prisoner's bearing showed no sign of it.  With his head erect, he
looked into the faces of the men whom he had lived and slept and fought
beside; men with whom he had shared privation and danger; men who had
been his comrades through it all.  But as he searched their faces he
felt an overpowering loneliness.  In the eyes of every one there was
horror; To be killed in battle--what was that?  But to be shot like a
cur in the grizzly morning!  Yet their horror, their anger, was against
the military law, and was born of a fear that the same thing might come
to them.  It was that which cut him to the quick.  It was not that _he_
was to be shot the next day, but that _they_ might meet a similar fate.
That was the fear which drove the blood from their cheeks and left
their lips parted in awe.

And then he saw a face which almost broke down his manhood, and sent
scalding tears to the very brink.  It was the face of the lad he had
saved from deserting that terrible night.  The boy's agony was for him
alone; it was pleading for understanding; it was trying to tell him
that he would never forget--that the condemned man would not go to his
death unmourned by one human heart.


III.

It was his last night.  All evening the chaplain had been with him,
offering the solace of divine mercy and forgiveness; but though he was
grateful for the good man's ministrations, Durwent felt that he wanted
to be alone.  He hardly knew why; but there were many things to think
of, things which would be remembered more easily if he were by himself.
Towards eleven o'clock he made the request of the chaplain, who left
him, promising to return shortly after midnight; and, with his hands
clasped behind his back, Dick walked slowly up and down the hut.

His mind journeyed to Roselawn--and Elise.  At least--and at the
thought he struck his hands together with joy--she would never know.
She would think he had died in China.  For several minutes he walked
without his thoughts taking any other form than that, but gradually the
realisation of his surroundings began to leave him.  He was roaming
through the woods with Elise; they were climbing a great tree for
birds' eggs; they were casting flies for trout in the stream that ran
through their estate; they were riding across country on ponies that
whinnied with pleasure at the feel of the soft turf.  But wherever his
hungry imagination painted her, there was in her face the womanly
tenderness that had always been hers in their companionship.

He stopped in his walk and pressed his clenched fingers against his
lips.  She had always believed in him.  Through all the hell in which
the Fates had cast his destiny, she had been one star towards which he
could grope.  But now--a drunkard--a renegade soldier of a renegade
battalion--to be shot.  He had killed her trust!  The horrors of the
night closed on him like hounds on a dying stag.

Uttering a dull cry of agony, he staggered across the hut with
outstretched hands--and in the darkness his poor disordered fancy saw
once more the vision of his sister's face.  It was as he had seen her
when, as a boy bruised by life, he had gone to her for solace.  She had
not changed.  She could not change.  Her eyes, her lips, were saying
that in the morning she would stand beside him, holding his hand in
hers, until the levelled rifles severed his soul and his body for
eternity.

He sank to his knees, and for the first time in many years he prayed.
It was a prayer to an unknown God, in words that were meaningless,
disjointed things.  It was a soul crying out to its source, a soul
struggling towards the throne of Eternal Justice, through a darkness
lit only by a sister's love and the gratitude of an eighteen-year-old
boy saved from shameful death.

The commands of the sergeant of the guard could be heard as sentries
were changed.  Durwent rose to his feet and tried to look from the
window, but the night was as black as the grave which had already been
dug for him.  Once more there was no sound but the wind moaning about
the deserted fields.

'Mas'r Dick.'

Dick's body grew rigid.  Was it a prank of his mind, or had he really
heard the words?

'Mas'r Dick.'

The door had opened an inch.  His heart beat wildly, and he crouched
close to the crevice.

'Mathews!' he gasped.

'Sh-sh.'  An admonishing hand touched him.  'Come close, sir.  This is
a dirty business, Mas'r Dick.  If you hear me cough noticeable, get
back and pretend like you're asleep.'

'But--but, in God's name, what are you doing there?'

'I'm a-guardin' you, sir.  Sh-sh.'

The old groom moved a couple of paces away from the door, humming a
song about a coachman who loved a turnkey's daughter.  Almost mad with
excitement, Dick stood in the darkness of the hut with his outstretched
arms shaking and quivering.  He was afraid he would shout, and bit his
finger-nails to help to repress the wild desire.

'Mas'r Dick.'

In an instant he was crouching again by the door.

'There'll be a orficer's inspection,' whispered the sentry, 'a minute
or two arter midnight.  When that there little ceremony has took place,
you and me is goin' for a walk.'

'Where?'

'Anywheres, Mas'r Dick.'

'You mean--to escape?'

'Precisely so, sir.'

For a moment his pulses beat furiously with hope; but the realisation
of what it meant for the old groom killed it like a sudden frost.  'No,
Mathews,' he whispered.  'It isn't fair to you.  I am not going to try
to escape.  Give me your hand; I want to say good-bye.'

For answer, the imperturbable Mathews moved off again, and, in a soft
but most unmusical bass, sang the second verse about the amorous
coachman and the susceptible turnkey's daughter.  Dick listened,
hanging greedily on every little sound with its atmosphere of Roselawn.

'Mas'r Dick.'  Mathews had returned.  'No argifyin' won't get you
nowhere.  If I have to knock you atwixt the ears and drag you out by
the 'eels, you're comin' out o' that there stall to-night.  I ain't
goin' for to see a Durwent made a target of.  No, sir; not if I have to
blow the whole army up, and them frog-eaters along with 'em.  Close
that door, Mas'r Dick.  I've got a contrary temper, and can't stand no
argifyin' like.  Close that door, sir.'

Almost crazed with excitement, Dick strode about the hut.  Even if he
were to get away, the chances of capture were overwhelming.  But--to be
shot in an open fight for freedom!  That would be a thousand times
better than death by an open grave.  Freedom!  The word was
intoxication.  To breathe the air of heaven once again--to feel the
canopy of the stars--to smell the musk of flowers and new grass!  If
only for an hour; yet, what an hour!

And then the chance, remote, but still within the realm of possibility,
of reaching the front line, where men died like men.  Of all the
desires he had ever known, none had gripped him like the longing for
battle, where death and honour were inseparable.

But once more the thought of Mathews chilled his purpose.  It would
mean penal servitude or worse for the old groom, and he was not going
to be the means of ruining him for his faithfulness.  He could not
stoop so low as that.

These and a hundred similar thoughts flashed through his mind, and he
was no nearer their solution when the door was opened and a sergeant
shouted a command.  He started.  For a second he thought that dawn
might be breaking, and that his hour had arrived; but an officer came
up the steps, and he saw with a quiver of relief that it was the
nightly inspection.

'Everything all right?'

'Yes, sir,' he answered.

'Where's the chaplain?'

'He'll be back directly, sir.'

'Food all right--everything possible being done for you?'

'I have no complaints, sir.'

In the light of the lamp held by the sergeant the two men looked at
each other.  Without saying anything more, the officer glanced about
the hut.  'That will do, sergeant.--Good-night.'

'Good-night, sir,' answered Durwent.

The officer had hardly reached the door, where the sergeant had
preceded him with the light, when he turned back impulsively and put
out his hand.  'I suppose this sort of thing is necessary,' he said
hoarsely; 'but it's a damned rotten affair altogether.'

They clasped hands; and turning on his heel, the officer left the hut.

'Take every precaution, sergeant,' Dick heard him say; 'and send a
runner to the chaplain with my compliments.  Tell him he must not leave
the prisoner.'

'Very good, sir.'

Silence again--and the crunching of the sentries' heels on the sparsely
sprinkled gravel.  The ordeal was becoming unbearable.  Dick feared the
passing of the minutes which would bring back the chaplain, and yet
every minute seemed an eternity.  The conflict ravaged his very soul.
Was he to take the chance offered him by the strangest trick of
Destiny, or remain and die like a rat caught in a trap?

'Mas'r Dick.'

The door was quietly opened.  The old groom's hand fell on his arm and
drew him firmly outwards.  He tried to pull back, but with unexpected
strength the older man exerted pressure, until Dick found himself
outside.

It was so dark that he could not see a yard ahead of him as Mathews,
retaining his grip on his companion's arm, led him towards the road.
They were nearly clear of the field, when the groom stopped abruptly,
and they lay flat on the ground.  It was the orderly officer and the
sergeant returning from the inspection of a hut some distance off.

'Sentry.'  The officer had paused opposite the hut where the prisoner
had been.

'Yes, sir,' came the answer from the soldier still on guard at the
other door.

'Has the chaplain returned?'

'Not yet, sir.'

With an impatient exclamation, the officer went on towards the village;
and gaining their feet, the two men reached the road.

'There's a path alongside, sir,' whispered Mathews, 'and you and me is
goin' to put as much terry-firmy atwixt this village and us as our four
legs can do.  Now, sir, we're off!'

With lowered heads, they broke into a run.  Stumbling over unseen
stones, lacerating their hands and faces against bushes which over-hung
the path, they ran on into the dark.  Once a staff car passed them, and
they huddled in a ditch; but it was only for a few seconds, and they
were up again.  Unless they were unfortunate enough to run right into
the arms of the military police, the night was offering every chance of
success.  A barking dog warned them that they had come to the outskirts
of another village.  Leaving the road, they circled the place by
tortuously making their way through uneven fields, until they thought
it safe once more to take the path.  On they ran--past silent
fields--by streams--by murky swamps.

Towards dawn Dick was faint with fatigue.  The ordeal of the last month
had cruelly sapped his vitality, and as he ran he found himself
stumbling to his knees.

'Hold hard, sir,' said the groom, who was leading.  'Another mile or
so, and you and me, sir, will breathe ourselves proper.'

Only another mile--but a mile of utter anguish.  Twice Dick fell, and
the second time he could not rise without assistance.

'Mas'r Dick,' pleaded the groom, 'look 'ee, sir.  Up yonder hill
somewheres about I knows there is a cornfield, for I have noted it many
a time.  'We can't hide here, sir, in this stubble.  Lean on me, Mas'r
Dick--that's the way.  Now, sir, for England, 'ome, and beauty.'

Struggling to retain his consciousness, Dick limped beside the old
servitor, until, gaining the hill, they saw an abandoned cornfield.
There was a roll of guns as they made their way into the field, and
through the dense blackness of the night a few streaks of gray could be
seen towards the east.

Without a sound, Dick sank to the ground in complete exhaustion.  The
groom unstrapped his own greatcoat, which had been carried rolled, and
covered the lad with it.  Taking a thermos bottle from his haversack,
he poured some hot tea between Dick's lips, and saw a little glow of
warmth creep into the cheeks.

'Now, sir,' he said, 'take a bit 'o' this sandwich.  'Ave another swig
o' the tea.  Bless my heart, sir, won't them fellers be surprised when
they finds as how they ain't got no corpse for their funeral?  That's
better, sir.  I will say about army tea that even if it ain't what my
old woman would make, it's rare an' strong, Mas'r Dick--rare an' strong
an' powerful, likewise and sim'lar.'

'Mathews,' said Dick weakly, 'how was it--you were on guard--last
night?  Was it just an accident?'

'Yes, sir.  Just a accident.  Well, not precisely a accident neither,
sir.  I be what the War Office calls "a headquarter troop," and do odd
jobs behind the lines.  Sometimes I dig graves, and other times I be a
officer's servant, and likewise do a turn o' sentry-go.  Well, sir,
when I heard that you was a prisoner and was goin' for to be shot, I
persuades the corp'l to put me on guard, exchangin' a diggin' job with
a bloke by the name o' Griggs, so as not to incormode the records o'
the War Office.  That's all, sir.  There I were, and here we be; and
arter you've had a sleep, you and me will have a jaw on our immed'ate
future.  'Ave a good snooze, Mas'r Dick, and I'll keep an eye trimmed
on the road.'

With the same boyishness he had shown that night in Selwyn's rooms,
Dick put out his hand and pressed the old groom's arm.  With a paternal
air, Mathews patted the hand with his own and reached for his pipe,
explaining that he would steal a smoke before daylight.  But the lad
did not hear him.  He was lost in a deep, dreamless sleep.




CHAPTER XXV.

THE FIGHT FOR THE BRIDGE.


I.

It was nearly noon when the tired youth awoke.  He looked wonderingly
about, and there was a haunting fear in his light eyes, like those of a
stag that dreads the hunters.  From the north there came the sound of
drum-fire, a weird, almost tedious, rhythm of guns working at a feverish
pace; and the near-by road was a mass of jumbled traffic.  Ambulances,
supply-wagons, field-artillery, lorries, with jingling harness or
snorting engines--streams of vehicles moved slowly up and down their
channel.  At a reckless speed motorcyclists, carrying urgent messages,
swerved through it all; and in the ditches that ran alongside, refugees
were stumbling on, fleeing from the new terror, their crouching,
misshapen figures like players from a grotesque drama of the Macabre.

'The sausage-eaters,' said Mathews philosophically, 'must be feelin'
their oats, sir.'

At the sound of the familiar voice the fear passed from Dick's face.
Memory had returned, and he smiled, though his body trembled as if with a
chill.  'I'm starved,' he said, 'and I have nothing with me.  How long
did I sleep, Mathews?'

'Pretty near seven hours, Mas'r Dick.  Here you are, sir--feedin'-time,
and the bugle's went.'

He handed Durwent a sandwich, which the young man devoured ravenously,
washing it down with some cold tea.  Mathews also munched at a sandwich,
and through the cornstalks they watched the two currents of war-traffic
eddying past each other.  There was a roar of engines behind them, and,
flying low, a formation of sixteen British aeroplanes made in a straight
line for the battle area.

With a map which the groom had thoughtfully borrowed from an officer the
previous day, Dick managed to gain fairly accurate information as to
their position.  By calculation he figured out that they had travelled
seventeen or eighteen miles during the night, and identifying the main
road on which they had come, he saw that after two or three miles it
would take a rectangular turn to the right, running parallel to the line
of battle.  Four miles to the south-east of the turning-point there was a
river, and this the fugitives decided to reach that night.

'If we can locate that,' said Dick eagerly, 'it is bound to lead us into
the French lines.'

'Werry good, sir,' said the groom, with an air of resignation.  His
contempt for maps and their unintelligibility was deep-rooted, but if his
young master thought he could locate a river with one, he would keep an
open mind on the subject until it had, at least, been given a fair trial.

'You see,' said Durwent, 'a great many of these troops on the road are
French, so when we follow that route we must get into French territory.'

'Yezzir,' said Mathews profoundly.  'I won't go for to say as 'ow you
mayn't be right.  All the same, Mas'r Dick, when it comes to enterin' the
ring wi' them sausage-eaters I'd raither 'ave a dozen Lancashire or Devon
lads about me than all the Frenchies you could put in Hyde Park.  It
ain't that these here spec'mens don't 'ave a good sound heart as far as
standin' up and takin' knocks is concerned, but they be too frisky and
skittish for my likin'.  I see 'em all wavin' their arms like as if a
carriage and pair has run away, and talkin' all at once and together,
likewise and sim'lar.  Wot's more, they does it in a lingo that no one
can't go for to make out, not even a Frenchy hisself, because I never see
one Frog listenin' to another--did you, sir?  Wot's more, sir, they gets
all of a lather over things which is only fit for women-folk to worry
on--such as w'ether a hen has laid its egg reg'lar; or the coffee, was it
black enough?  From wot I see as puts a Frog in a dither, I sez to myself
that if you was to take him to a real hoss-race, he'd never see the
finish.  No, sir; he'd be dead o' heart-failure afore the hosses was off.'

Dick smiled at the tremendous seriousness of the old groom, and lay back
wearily on the ground.  'We had better both turn in for another nap,' he
said.  'We'll need all our strength to-night, and if we stay awake we're
sure to get hungry.'

'Werry sound advice, Mas'r Dick,' said Mathews.  'But would I be
presumin', sir, to ask you a favour?  I got a letter yesterday from my
old woman, and wot with her writin' and me bein' nought o' a scholar, I
was wonderin', Mas'r Dick, if you would just acquaint me with any fac's
that you might think the old girl would like me for to know.'

'Willingly,' said Dick, taking a sealed letter from the groom, who
squatted solemnly on the ground, assuming an air of deep contemplation,
as one who has to give an opinion on a hitherto unread masterpiece.

'It begins,' said Dick, with some difficulty making out the writing,
which was extremely small in some words and very large in others, and
punctuated mainly with blots--'"Dear Daddy"'----

'That,' said Mathews, 'is conseckens o' me bein' sire to little
Wellington.'

'Oh yes,' said Dick.  '"Dear Daddy, ther ain't nothing to tell you
Wellington has took the mumps and the cat had some more kittens"'----

'That's a werry remark'ble cat,' observed Mathews.  'I never see a animal
so ambitious.  Wot does the old girl say Wellington has took?'

'Mumps.'

'By Criky!  I hope it don't go for to make his nose no bigger.  Wot a
infant he is!  Mumps!  Go on, Mas'r Dick--the old girl's doin' fine.'

'"The day,"' resumed Dick--'"the day afor Tuesday come last week"'----

'Don't pull up, sir,' said Mathews as Dick paused to re-read the puzzling
words.  'You has to take my old woman at a good clip to get her
meanin'--but you'll find it hid somewere, Mas'r Dick.  I never see the
old girl come a cropper yet.'

With this to guide him, the reader found his place again with the aid of
a blot, a half-inch square, which surrounded the first word.  '"The day
afor Tuesday,"' he went on, '"come last week Wellington and the rector's
boy Charlie fit."'

'Werry good,' said Mathews approvingly.

'"Wellington's nose were badly done in and he looks awful bad but the
rector's boy"'----

'Wot does she say about him?' asked Mathews, staring into space.

'"The rector's boy could not see out of neither eye for 3 days."'

Repressing a chuckle by a great effort, Mathews hastily fumbled for his
corncob pipe, and placing it unlit in his mouth, continued to look into
space with a face that was almost purple from smothered exuberance.

'"Milord and Lady,"' resumed Dick, '"is just the same and Milord always
asks how you was and will I remember him to you."'

'A thoroughbred--that's wot he is,' said Mathews, apparently addressing
the distant refugees.

'"Miss Elise was heer last week and is that sweet grown that all the
woonded tommies fit with pillos to see who wud propos to her.  There
ain't no news.  Bertha the skullery maid marrid a hyland soldier and they
are going for to keep a sweet-shop after the war.  Wellington sprayned
his ankil yesterday by clyming out of the windo where I had locked him in
as he has the mumps."'

'Wot a infant!' commented Mathews admiringly.

'"I am sending you a parsil and a picter of me and Wellington.  We are
very lonesum, daddy, and I'll be reel glad when the war is over and you
come back.  It is awful lonesum and Wellington is to.  This morning he
cut his hand trying to carv our best chair into the shape of a horse.  I
am feeling fine and hope the reumatiz don't worry you no more.  With
heeps of love from me and Wellington, your wife, Maggie."'

It was a strange contrast in faces as the young man folded the letter and
handed it back.  In the countenance of the groom there was a sturdy pride
in the epistolary achievement of his wife--a pride which he made a
violent but unsuccessful effort to conceal.  In the pale, handsome face
of the young aristocrat there was a whimsical pathos.  By the picture
conjured up in the crudely written letter he had seen his parents, his
sister, the humble cottage of the groom, and the wife's faithfulness and
cheeriness.  He had seen them, not as separate things, but hallowed and
unified by a common sacrifice for England.

For the first time since his escape Dick Durwent regretted it.  He could
see no safety ahead for Mathews, no matter how long they evaded arrest.
Although a cool, fretful wind was blowing over the fields, the warm noon
sun made his eyelids heavy.

Against the wish of the groom, he insisted upon spreading the greatcoat
over them both, and in a few minutes master and man were resting side by
side as comrades.

'Mathews,' said Dick quietly.

'Yezzir?'

'Give me your word that if you ever reach England you will never tell my
family about this.  They don't know I am in France, and'----

'Mum as a oyster, sir--that's the ticket.  Werry good, Mas'r Dick.  A
oyster it is.'

Ten minutes had passed without either of them speaking, when Mathews
partially raised himself on one elbow.  'If women,' he said ruminatingly,
'was to have votes, my old girl would run for Parlyment, sure as
skittles.  I wonder, Mas'r Dick, if a feller who courted a girl in good
faith, and arter a few years found she were Prime Minister of
England--would that constitoot grounds for divorce?'

But Dick was asleep, and dreaming of days when happiness was in the air
one breathed; when brother and sister had revelled in nature's carnival
of seasons.  After several minutes' contemplation of the uncertainty of
married life, the old groom followed him into a slumber which was
unattended by dreams, but did not lack a sonorous serenade.


II.

The night was streaked with tragedy as the fugitives stole to the road.
The drum-fire of the guns had grown to a roar, through which there came
the blast and the crash of siege artillery, shaking the earth to its very
foundations, as if the gases of hell had ignited and were bursting
through.  As though by lightning striking low, the night was lit with
flashes illuminating the fields and the roads about; and shells were
screaming and whining through the air, winged, blood-sucking monsters
crying for their prey.  Across a yellow moon broken clouds were driven on
a gale that whipped the dust of the roads into moaning whirlpools.

Dense traffic moved sullenly on, the ghostly figures of drivers astride
horses that whinnied in terror of the night.  Not a light was shown.
There were only the glimpses of the sickly moonlight and the flame-red
flashes of the guns; and, unnoticed, Durwent and the groom followed
beside a lorry.

Once, as they strode forward in the roar and horror of the dark, they
heard the explosion of a shell that, by a trick of ill-luck, had found
the road.  There followed the shriek of wounded horses, quick commands
penetrating the darkness.  Corpses of men, dead horses, and shattered
vehicles were drawn aside, and the long line that had been halted for
four minutes closed the gap and moved on.

When they reached the turn in the road, they left the shadowy procession
and made for the river by following a soft wagon-path that cut across the
fields.  For two hours they hurried on through the night's madness.  More
than once they were almost thrown to the ground by the terrific explosion
of heavy guns that had taken up positions by the path; and by the flashes
in the fields they could see the weird figures of the gunners toiling at
their work of death.

As they neared the river they caught a glimpse of coloured flares not far
ahead, and there came a momentary lull in the confused bombardment.

'Listen!' cried Dick.

From somewhere on the banks of the river there was the sound of
rifle-fire, and the rat-tat-tat-tat of machine-guns, like the rattle of
riveters at work on a steel structure.

Following a tow-path which ran by the river, they appeared to be entering
a zone of comparative quiet.  Although the sound of rifle-fire grew more
clear, the noise of the guns came from behind them, but to the right and
the left.  For an hour they ran rapidly forward, and it seemed that the
tide of battle had swept to the north, leaving this area denuded of
troops.  They saw neither guns nor infantry, although a renewed burst of
machine-gun fire told them they were nearing their unknown destination.

They had not started from their hiding-place until nearly midnight, and
as they reached a slight rise of the ground they could see that the
darkness was slowly lifting with day's approach.

'See, sir,' said the groom, pointing ahead, 'yonder side o' the river to
the right.'

'I can't see anything,'

'Look 'ee, Mas'r Dick.  Follow the river.  I think that that there gray
streak is a bridge.'

It was not until they had gone ahead a considerable distance that Durwent
could make out a heavy bridge spanning the river, which ran with a swift
current, and was more than two hundred feet in width.  A blurring red was
tinting the black clouds in the east as they crept along the path, when
they heard a sharp challenge.

'Friends,' cried Dick, and halted.

'Stand still until I give you the once over.'  An American corporal, who
had apparently been running and was out of breath, came up to them,
carrying a revolver, and looked closely into their faces.

'What are you doing here?' he asked.

'Stragglers,' answered Durwent, 'separated from our unit.'

'Where in Samhill is the rest of your army?'

'There are no troops back here for ten miles,' answered Dick.

The American took off his helmet and wiped his brow.

'Jumping Jehosophat!' he exclaimed ruefully, 'do I have to marathon ten
miles and back?  They sure are generous with exercise in the army.  Say,
you guys--if you're on the level about being stragglers, and want a real
honest-to-God showdown scrap, you hike over that bridge.  Do you see that
big tree over in the bush?  Can you make it out?  Well, when you get
across the river, just line your lamps on that tree, and after half a
mile or so you'll come to a sunken road.  Report to Major Van Derwater,
and tell him you're the only army M'Goorty--that's me--has found so far.
And tell him I'll discover the French admiral who is supposed to be
bringing up reinforcements, if I have to search this whole one-horse
country for him.  You'd better get a move on before the light comes up,
for, believe me, Lizzie, those Boches can shoot, and if ever they see you
coming across that bridge you may as well kiss yourselves good-bye.'

Having delivered himself of this expressive monologue, the corporal
replaced the revolver in its holster and took a seaman's hitch in his
breeches.  Again the machine-guns spat out, the sound seeming to be borne
on the wind as the bullets traversed the air.

'Gosh!' said the corporal, 'but I'd give a year's tips to see that scrap
out.  They had the bulge on us by about three to one, and we had to back
up to keep the line straight, but now we're holding them great.
Say--we've got a bunch of bowhunks there who could shoot the wart off a
snail.  Some scrap, believe me.  Well, so long.'

He had just started off at a run, when he stopped and turned round.  'If
you ever come to New York, look me up at the Belmont.  I'm a waiter
there, and I can put you wise to a lot of things.  Chin, Chin!'

'Cheerio,' answered Dick, as the energetic corporal disappeared.

'I'm gettin' 'ard o' 'earin',' said the old groom.  'Leastways I ain't
sure I 'eerd 'im correct.  Wot did 'e say?'

'Mathews!'--Dick turned to his servant, and his voice shook with
excitement--'there's a battle going on the other side of the river, and
we're to report to Major Van Derwater.  By heavens, Mathews!  I feel
half-mad with joy.  They didn't get us after all, did they?  We sha'n't
be shot like curs, at any rate.  Think of it, old man--we've won out!
They can't stop us now'----  His words stopped suddenly.  'Mathews,' he
said, 'you must not come.  Stay here, and join the reinforcements when
they turn up.  You have to consider your wife and little Wellington.'

For answer the groom started along the path towards the bridge, and
Durwent was forced to break into a run before he could head him off.

'Mathews,' he said sternly.

'Mas'r Dick,' replied the groom, snorting violently, 'you shouldn't go
for to insult me.  Beggin' your pardon and meanin' no disrespeck, this
here war is as much mine as yourn.  Orders or no orders, I'm agoin' to
have a howd'ee with them sausage-eaters, and, as that there free-spoke
young gen'l'man observed, the bridge ain't exactly a chancery in the
daylight.  Come along, sir; argifyin' don't get nowhere.'

Realising that further expostulation was useless, Dick followed the groom
to the bridge.  As they crossed it he noted that it was strongly built of
steel, with supports that would bear the heaviest of weights.  Gaining
the opposite side, they waited as Dick took his bearings by the tree; and
crossing a hard, chalky field, they stole towards the sunken road.  They
could hear the occasional crack of a rifle, and there was the _ping_ of a
bullet passing over their heads as they pressed on through the lightening
gloom.

'Halt!'

A voice rang out, and they were questioned as to their identity.  On
being ordered to advance, they jumped down into a sunken road which
constituted an admirable trench, and were at once surrounded by American
soldiers.

'I was ordered to report to Major Van Derwater,' said Durwent.

They were asked various questions, and were then escorted a few yards to
the right, where an officer was looking over the bank which hid the road.

'British stragglers, sir,' said the sergeant who had taken charge of them.

'What unit are you from?' asked the officer.

His voice was calm and deep, but gave no indication as to how he felt
disposed towards the two fugitives.  In answer to his question Dick gave
the name of his battalion, and Mathews did the same.

'How did you know my name?'

'We met your corporal, sir,' said Durwent.

'Where are your rifles?'

'Lost them, sir.'

'In what engagement were you cut off from your units?'

Dick tried to reply, but not only was he ignorant of the locality through
which he had travelled, but his soul burned with resentment at being
forced into lying.  Mathews said nothing, and seemed quite untroubled.
He was prepared to accept his young master's choice of engagements for
his own, no matter where or when it might have taken place.

'I don't like this,' said the officer.  'These men are a long way from
the British lines, and are either deserters or worse.  Guard them
closely, and if things get hot, tie their arms together so they will give
no trouble.'

'Very good, sir,' answered the sergeant, preparing to lead them away; but
Durwent, whose blood, had run cold with dismay at the officer's words,
struggled forward.

'Sir,' he cried, 'if you think I'm not to be trusted, give me a dirty
job--anything.  A bombing-raid, or a patrol--I'll do anything at all,
sir, if you'll only give me a chance.'

'Well spoke, Mas'r Dick,' said Mathews proudly.  'Werry well spoke
indeed.'

The officer, who had been about to issue a peremptory order, stopped at
the sturdy honesty of the groom's voice.  'Send for Captain Selwyn,' he
said.  'You will find him at the creek.'


III.

By a creek that trickled across the road, Captain Austin Selwyn was
watching the brushwood which concealed the enemy.  Beside him, lining the
bank, every available man was on the alert, waiting the developments
which would follow the raising of night's curtain.  In the misty gray of
dawn they looked fabulous in size, and indistinct.

The night in January at the University Club in New York had marked a
reconciliation between Selwyn and Van Derwater.  With the issue between
America and Germany so clearly defined, they had both lent their voices
to the insistent demand for war.  At first people had been incredulous,
and hazarded the guess that the young author was endeavouring to cover
his own tracks; but when he enlisted in the ranks at the outbreak of
hostilities, they made a popular hero of him.  They spoke of him as the
Spirit of the Cause; but he paid little attention to the clamour.  His
joy in the prospect of action, and the release from all his mental
tortures, had produced in him a kind of frenzy, that crystallised into an
intense hatred of Germany.

The pendulum had swung to its extreme.  Once a man animated with a
passionate humanitarianism, in whom the spirit of universal brotherhood
burned with an inextinguishable force, he had become a creature drunk
with lust for revenge.  Patriotism, Justice, Freedom--they were all
catch-words to hide the brutal, primeval instinct to kill.

In the little thought which he permitted himself, Selwyn argued that the
ignorance of many nations had made war possible, but only Germany had
been vile enough to try to exploit it for the achievement of world-power.
For that reason alone she was a thing of detestation.

His enthusiasm and quickly acquired knowledge of army routine marked him
for promotion.  He was given a commission, and at the request of Van
Derwater was attached to the same regiment as himself.  Together they had
crossed to France, and were among the first American troops in action.

In the months that followed, Selwyn had revelled in the carnage and the
excitement of war.  He was reckless to the point of bravado, and his keen
dramatic instinct drove him into unnecessary escapades where his senses
could enjoy a thrill not far removed from insanity.  Only when out of the
line, when the mockery and the hideousness of the whole thing demanded
his mind's solution, would the mood of despondency return.  But in the
trenches he knew neither pity nor fear.  Men fought for the privilege of
serving under him, and with their instinct for euphony and love of the
bizarre gave him the name of 'Hell-fire.'  He gloried in the physical
ascendancy of it all--in the dangers--in the discomforts.  He was an
instrument of revenge, a weapon without feeling.

On the other hand, Van Derwater had undergone no appreciable change.  He
carried himself with the same dignity and formality as in his days at
Washington--except when emergency would scatter the wits of his
fellow-officers, and he would suddenly become a dynamic force, vigorous
in conception and swift of action.  Yet success or failure left him
unmoved, once a crisis had passed.  His men respected but did not
understand him.  They wove a legend about his name.  They said he had
come to France wanting to be killed, but that no bullet could touch him.
And even those who scoffed, when they saw him, unruffled and strangely
solitary, moving about with almost ironic contempt of danger, wondered if
there might not be some truth in the story.

'Major Van Derwater would like to speak to you right away, sir.'

Telling a non-commissioned officer to take his place, Selwyn followed the
messenger along the road until they came to the spot which Van Derwater
had chosen for his headquarters.  Daylight was emerging from its retreat,
and there was the promise of a warm day in the glowing east.

'You sent for me, sir?' he said.

'Yes.  You might question these two British stragglers.  Their story is
not straight, but they seem decent enough fellows.  If you are not
satisfied'----

He was interrupted by an exclamation of astonishment from Selwyn, who had
noticed the Englishmen for the first time.

'Great Scott!' gasped Selwyn.  'Dick Durwent!'

Dick looked up, and at the sight of the American's face he uttered a cry
of relief.  'Is that really you, Selwyn?  What luck!  You remember
Mathews at Roselawn, don't you?  You can say'----

'Good-mornin', sir,' said the unperturbed groom.  'This is a werry
pleasant surprise, to be sure.  How are you, sir?'

'Van,' said Selwyn, after shaking hands with them both, 'this is Lord
Durwent's son, and the other is his groom, Mathews.  I will vouch for
them absolutely.'

'Good!'  Van Derwater slightly inclined his head as an indication that he
was satisfied.  'We need every man.  You had better take them in your
section and equip them with rifles from casualties.'


IV.

A few minutes later, after he had procured food for the two men, who were
growing faint with hunger, Selwyn resumed his post.  The heavy grass
fringing the bank made it possible to keep watch without being directly
exposed as a target; but beyond a desultory rifle-fire about a mile on
their right, there was no indication of enemy activity.

When Durwent had been equipped with a steel helmet and a rifle, Selwyn
called him over to his side, and as concisely as possible explained the
military situation.  In the German attack against the French forces (with
which the Americans were brigaded) the line had been swept back.  Deep
salients had been driven in on both their flanks, but orders had been
received to hold the bridge at all costs, as, if a counter-attack could
be launched, it would be an enfilading one made by troops brought across
the river.  Relying on their machine-gun and rifle fire to overcome the
Americans' resistance, the enemy's artillery had been drawn into the
deepening salients; but in spite of all-day fighting the straggling line
had held.

After a few questions from Durwent they relapsed into silence, gazing at
the undulating expanse of country revealed by the ascending sun.

'Selwyn.'  Dick cleared his throat nervously.  'I must tell you the
truth.  You were decent enough to stand sponsor for Mathews and me, and I
want you to know everything.  The major was right.  We're not
stragglers--we're deserters.'

Selwyn made no comment, and both men stared fixedly through the long
grass that drooped with heavy dew.

'Yesterday morning,' said Durwent dully, 'I was to have been shot.  I was
drunk in the line, and deserved it.  It's no use trying to excuse myself.
I fancy my nerves were a bit gone after what we'd been through the last
few months, but----  Well, I suppose I am simply a failure, as that chap
said in London--there isn't much more to it than that.  By a queer deal
of the cards, Mathews was on guard, and helped me to escape.  It was
rotten of me to let him take the chance; but it's been that way all
through.  Even at the end of everything--after being a waster and a
rotter since I was a kid--I have to drag this poor chap down with me.
Promise, Selwyn, if you come out of this alive, that you'll fight his
case for him.'

Selwyn murmured assent, but he was trying to shake off a haunting feeling
that was enveloping him like a mist--a feeling that everything the young
Englishman was saying he had heard before.  It left him dazed, and made
Durwent's voice sound far away.  He tried to dismiss it as an illogical
prank of the mind, but the thing was relentless.  He could not rid
himself of the thought that sometime in the past--months, years, perhaps
centuries ago--this pitiful scene had been enacted before.

It chilled his soul with its presage of disaster.  He saw the hand of
destiny, and everything in him rebelled against the inexorable cruelty of
it all.  It was infamous that any life should be dominated by a whim of
the Fates; that any creature should enter this world with a silken cord
about his throat.  Destiny.  Does it mould our lives; or do our lives,
inundated with the forces of heredity, mould our destinies?  He tried to
grapple with the thought; but through the pain and confusion of his mind
he could only feel the presence of unseen fingers spelling out the words
written in a hidden past.

'I wonder,' said Durwent, after a pause of several minutes, during which
neither had spoken, 'what happens when this is finished.'

'Do you mean--after death?' said Selwyn, forcing his mind clear of its
clouds.

Durwent nodded and leaned wearily with his arms on the bank.  'I tried to
think it out the night before I was to be shot,' he said.  'I can't just
say what I did think--but I know there's something after this world.
Selwyn, is there a God?  I wonder if there will be another chance for the
men who have made a mess of things here.'

The American turned towards the young fellow, whose pale face looked
singularly boyish, and had a wistfulness that touched him to his very
heart.  Durwent was gazing over the grass into the distance, oblivious of
everything about him, and in the blue of his eyes, which borrowed lustre
from the morning, there was the mysticism of one who is searching for the
land which lies beyond this life's horizon.

'I wonder,' repeated Durwent dreamily.

Selwyn tried to frame words for a reply, but skilled as he was in the
interpretation of thought, he was dumb in confession of his faith.  He
longed to speak the things which might have brought comfort to the lad's
harassed soul, but everything which came to him, echoing from his former
years, was so inadequate, so tinctured with smug complacency.  Was there
a God?

The question left him mute.

'There are times,' went on Durwent, almost to himself, 'when my head is
full of strange fancies--when I'm listening to music--or at dawn like
this.  While I was under arrest, a little French girl who had heard I was
to die brought some flowers she had picked for me.  When I think of that
girl, and her flowers, and Elise, and the faithfulness of old Mathews, I
do believe there is some kind of a God. . . .  Selwyn'--unconsciously his
hands stretched forward supplicatingly--'surely these things can't
die? . . .  There's been so much that's ugly and lonely in my life. . . .
Don't you believe that we fellows who have failed will be able to have a
little of the things we've missed down here?'

'Dick,' said Selwyn hoarsely, 'I believe'----

The words faltered on his lips, and in silence the two men stood together
in the presence of the day's birth.  There was a strange calm in the air.
The dew on the grass caught a faint sparkle from a ray of sunlight that
penetrated the eastern skies.


V.

'_The Boches, sir!  They're coming!_'

The sergeant's warning rang out, and in an instant the air was shattered
with battle.  Protected by the fire from a nest of machine-guns, the
Germans launched a converging attack towards the bridge.  Waiting until
the advancing troops were too close to permit the aid of their own
machine-gun fire, the Americans poured a deadly hail of bullets into
their ranks.  The attack broke, but fresh troops were thrown in, and the
line was penetrated at several points.

Van Derwater rallied his men, directed the defence, and time after time
organised or led counter-attacks which restored their position.  His
voice rose sonorously above everything.  Hearing it, and seeing his
powerful figure oblivious to the bullets which stung the air all about
him, his men yelled that they could never be beaten so long as he led
them.

Half-mad with excitement, Selwyn repelled the attacks on his sector,
though his casualties were heavy and ammunition was running low.
Durwent's mood of reverie had passed, and he fought with limitless
energy.  Once, when the Huns had penetrated the road, one of their
officers levelled a revolver on him, but discharged the bullet into the
ground as the butt of Mathews's rifle was brought smashing on his wrist.
The old groom followed his master with eyes that saw only the danger
hanging over him.  For his own safety he gave no care, but wherever Dick
stepped or turned, the groom was by his side, with his large, rough face
set in a look that was like that of a mastiff protecting its young.

As waves breaking against a rock, the Huns retreated, rallied, and
attacked again and again, and each time the resistance was less
formidable as the heroic little band grew smaller and the ugly story
passed that ammunition was giving out.

They had just thrown back an assault, and Van Derwater had sent for his
section commanders to advise an attack on the enemy in preference to
waiting to be wiped out with no chance of successful resistance, when he
heard a shout, and bullets spat over their heads.  Turning swiftly about,
they saw a tank lurching across the bridge.  Amidst wild shouting from
the Americans, the clumsy landship stumbled towards them, with bullets
glancing harmlessly off its metal carcass.  Lumbering on to the road, the
tank stopped astride it.

In almost complete forgetfulness of the impending enemy attack, the
jubilant Americans crowded about the machine and cheered its occupants to
the echo, as a small door was opened and two French faces could be seen.
In a few words Van Derwater explained the situation, receiving the
discouraging information that no troops were anywhere near the vicinity.
The tank had been discovered by the ex-Belmont waiter and sent on to the
bridge.

'Pass word along,' said Van Derwater crisply, 'to prepare for an attack.
The tank will go first, and when it is astride their machine-gun position
we will go forward and drive them out of the brushwood into the
open.--Messieurs, the machine-guns are gathered there--straight across,
about forty yards from the great tree.'

The Frenchmen tried to locate the spot indicated, but were obviously
puzzled and too excited to listen attentively.  Van Derwater was about to
repeat his instructions, when Dick Durwent shouldered his way into the
group.  Men's voices were hushed at the sight of his blazing eyes.

In a bound he was on the bank, and stood exposed to the enemy's fire.
With something that was like a laugh and yet had an unearthly quality
about it, he threw his helmet off and stood bareheaded in the golden
sunlight.  '_En avant, messieurs_!' he cried.  '_Suivez-moi_!'

There was a grinding of the gears and a roar of machinery as the tank
reared its head and lunged after him.

'Stop that man, Selwyn!'

Van Derwater's voice rang out just in time.  The old groom had scrambled
to the bank to follow his master, but four hands grasped him and pulled
him back.  With a moan he clung to the bank, following Dick with his
eyes.  And his face was the colour of ashes.

With their voices almost rising to a scream, the chafing Americans
watched the Englishman walk towards the enemy lines.  Bullets bit the
ground near his feet, but, untouched, he went on, with the metal monster
following behind.  Once he fell, and a hush came over the watchers; but
he rose and limped on.  His face pale and grim, Van Derwater moved among
his men, urging them to wait; but they cursed and yelled at the delay.

Again Dick fell, and with difficulty stumbled to his feet.  For a moment
he swayed as if a heavy gale were blowing against him, and as his face
turned towards his comrades they could see his lips parted in a strange
smile.  Raising his arm like one who is invoking vengeance, he staggered
on, and by some miracle reached the very edge of the enemy's position.
There he collapsed, but rising once more, pointed ahead, and lurched
forward on his face.

With a roar the American torrent burst its bounds and swept towards the
enemy.  Selwyn leaped in advance of his men, his voice uttering a long,
pulsating cry, like a bloodhound that has found its trail.

He did not see, over towards the centre, that Van Derwater had stopped
half-way and had fallen to his knees, both hands covering his eyes.




CHAPTER XXVI.

THE END OF THE ROAD.


I.

One noonday in the November of 1918 a taxi-cab drew up at the
Washington Inn, a hostelry erected in St. James's Square for American
officers.  An officer emerged, and walking with the aid of a stout
Malacca cane, followed his kit into the place.

It was Austin Selwyn, who a few days before had come from France, where
he had hovered for a long time in the borderland between life and
death.  Although he had been severely wounded, it was the nervous
strain of the previous four years that told most heavily against him.
Week after week he lay, listless and almost unconscious; but gradually
youth had reasserted itself, and the lassitude began to disappear with
the return of strength.  The horrors through which he had passed were
softened by the merciful effect of time, and as the reawakened streams
of vitality flowed through his veins, his eyes were kindled once more
with the magic of alert expression.

Having secured a cubicle and indulged in a light luncheon, he went for
a stroll into the street.  Looking up, he saw the windows of the rooms
where he had spent such lonely, bitter hours crusading against the
world's ignorance.  It was all so distant, so far in the past, that it
was like returning to a boyhood's haunt after the lapse of many years.

Going into Pall Mall, he felt a curiosity to see the Royal Automobile
Club again.  He entered its busy doors, and passing through to the
lounge, took a seat in a corner.  The place was full of officers, most
of them Canadians on leave; but here and there in the huge room he
caught a glimpse of sturdy old civilian members, well past the sixty
mark, fighting Foch's amazing victories anew over their port and cigars.

Inciting his eyes roam about the place, Selwyn noticed a group of six
or seven subalterns surrounding a Staff officer, the whole party
indulging in explosive merriment apparently over the quips of the
betabbed gentleman in the centre.  Selwyn shifted his chair to get a
better view of the official humorist, but he could only make out a
tunic well covered with foreign decorations.  A moment later one of the
subalterns shifted his position, and Selwyn could see that the
much-decorated officer was wearing an enormous pair of spurs that would
have done admirably for a wicked baron in a pantomime.  But his knees!
Superbly cut as were his breeches, they could not disguise those
expressive knees.

Selwyn called a waitress over.  'Can you tell me,' he said, 'who that
officer is in the centre of the room--that Staff officer?'

'Him?  Oh, that's Colonel Johnston Smyth of the War Office.'

'Colonel--Johnston Smyth!' Selwyn repeated the words mechanically.

'That's him himself, sir.  Will you have anything to drink?'

'I think I had better,' said Selwyn.

About ten minutes later, after perpetrating a jest which completely
convulsed his auditors, the War Office official rose to his feet,
endeavoured to adjust a monocle--with no success--smoothed his tunic,
winked long and expressively, and with an air of melancholy dignity
made for the door, with the admiring pack following close behind.

'Good-day, colonel,' said Selwyn, crossing the room and just managing
to intercept the great man.

The ex-artist inclined his head with that nice condescension of the
great who realise that they must be known by many whom it is impossible
for themselves to know, when he noticed the features of the American.
'My sainted uncle!' he exclaimed; 'if it isn't my old sparring-partner
from Old Glory!--Gentlemen, permit me to introduce to you the brains,
lungs, and liver of the American Army.'

The subalterns acknowledged the introduction with the utmost
cordiality, suggesting that they should return to the lounge and
inundate the vitals of the American Army with liquid refreshment; but
Selwyn pleaded an excuse, and with many 'Cheerios' the happy-go-lucky
youngsters moved on, enjoying to the limit their hard-earned leave from
the front.

'May I offer my congratulations?' said Selwyn.

'Come outside,' said the colonel.

They adjourned to the terrace, and Smyth placed his hand in the other's
arm.  'Do you know who I am?' he said.

'Eh?' said Selwyn, rather bewildered by the mysterious nature of the
question.

'I, my dear Americano, am A.D. Super-Camouflage Department, War
Office.'  The colonel chuckled delightedly, but checking himself,
reared his neck with almost Roman hauteur.  'I have one major, two
captains, five subalterns, and eleven flappers, whose sole duty is to
keep people from seeing me.'

'Why?' asked the American.

'I don't know,' said the colonel; 'but it's a fine system.'

'You have done wonderfully well.'

'Moderately so,' said the A.D. Super-Camouflage Department.  'I have
been decorated by eleven foreign Governments and given an honorary
degree by an American university.  I also drive the largest car in
London.'

'You amaze me.'

'As an opener,' said the colonel, forgetting his dignity in the recital
of his greatness, 'I am in enormous demand.  I can open a ball, a
bottle, or a bazaar with any man in the country.'

'But,' said Selwyn, 'how did it all come about?'

'Ah!' exclaimed Smyth, glancing up and down the terrace after the
manner of a stage villain.  'Three years ago I was an officer's
servant.  I polished my subaltern-fellow's buttons, cleaned his boots,
and mended his unmentionables.  One day this young gentleman and myself
were billeted on an old French artist.  When I saw those canvases, I
felt the old Adam in me thirsting for expression.  Before all I am an
artist!  I made a bargain with the old Parley-vous--a pair of my young
officer's boots for two canvases and the use of his paints.  Agreed.
On the one I did a ploughman wending his weary thingumbob home--you
know.  The following day happened to be my precious young officer's
birthday, and we celebrated it in style.  I would not say he was an
expert with his Scotch, but he was very game--very game indeed.  After
I had put him to bed, I determined to paint my second masterpiece, "St.
George to the Rescue!"  I did it--and fell asleep where I sat.  When I
woke next morning, imagine my astonishment!  I had done both paintings
on the one canvas!  The ploughman was toddling along to the left, and
St George was hoofing it to the right, but the effect one got was that
a milk-wagon was going straight up the centre.  It gave me an idea.  I
waited for my leave, and took the painting to the War Office.  I told
them if they would give me enough paint I could so disguise the British
Army that it would all appear to be marching sideways.  That tickled
the "brass hats."  They could see my argument in a minute.  They knew
that if you could only get a whole army going sideways the war was won.
I was put on the Staff and given a free hand, and in a very short time
was placed in complete charge of the super-camouflage policy of the
Allies.  The testimonials, my dear chap, have been most gratifying.  We
have undisputed evidence of an Australian offering a carrot to a
siege-gun under the impression it was a mule.  There was a Staff car
which we painted so that it would appear to be going backwards, and the
only way that a certain Scottish general would ride in it was by
sitting the wrong way, with his knees over the back.  In fact, my dear
sir, if the war only lasts another year, I shall reduce the whole thing
to a pastime, blending all the best points of "Blind Man's Buff" with
"Button, button, who's got the button?"'

Having reached this satisfactory climax, the worthy colonel shifted his
cap to the extreme side of his head, and walked jauntily along with his
knees performing a variety of acrobatic wriggles.

'I am most gratified,' said Selwyn, repressing a smile.  'I had no
idea, when I saw you and poor Dick Durwent marching away together, that
you would rise to such fame.'

'Alas, poor Durwent!' cried Smyth, pulling his cap forward to a
dignified angle.  'I never knew who he was until we got to France.  You
passed him along as Sherwood, you know.  His people are frightfully cut
up about him.'

'They heard of his death, of course?'

'It isn't that, old son; it's the horrible disgrace.  It only leaked
out a couple of weeks ago from one of his battalion, but it's common
property now.  The old boy was absolutely done in--looked twenty years
older.'

'What has leaked out?' said Selwyn, stopping in his walk.

'Didn't you hear?  Durwent was shot by court-martial--drunk, they say,
in the line.'

Selwyn's hand gripped his arm.  'Where is Lord Durwent now?' he said
breathlessly.

'In the country, I believe.  But why so agitated, my Americano?'

There was no answer.  As fast as his weary limbs could take him, Selwyn
was making for the door.


II.

It was nearly eight o'clock that night when Selwyn alighted from a
train at the village where he and Elise had heard the fateful
announcement of war.  He walked through the quaint street, silent and
deserted in the November night.  Except for two or three people at the
station, there was no one to be seen as his footsteps on the cobbled
road knocked with their echo against the casement windows of the
slumbering dwellings.  Reaching the inn, he bargained for a conveyance,
and after taking a little food, and arranging for a room, he went
outside again, and climbed into a dogcart which had been made ready.

After three or four futile attempts at conversation, the driver retired
behind his own thoughts, and left the American to the reverie forced on
him by every familiar thing looming out of the shadows.  There was not
a turn of the road, not one rising slope, that did not mean some memory
of Elise.  The very night itself, drowsy with the music of the breeze
and the heavy perfume of late autumn, was nature's frame encircling her
personality.  He had dreaded going because of the longings which were
certain to be reawakened, but he had not known that in the secret
crevices of his soul there had been left such sleeping memories that
rustling bushes and silent meadows would make him want to cry aloud her
name.

He told himself that she must be in London, and had forgotten him--and
that it was better so.  But the night and the darkened road would not
be denied.  They held the very essence of her being, and left him weak
with the ecstasy of his emotion.

At the lodge gate they found a soldier, who allowed them to pass, and
they drove on towards the house.  So vivid was the sense of her
presence that he almost thought he saw her and himself running
hand-in-hand together again down the road.  By that oak he had picked
her up in his arms--and he wondered at the human mind which can find
torture and joy in the one recollection.

Driving into the courtyard, he told the man to wait, and knocked at the
great central door.  An orderly admitted him, and took him to a nurse,
who offered to lead him to the wing occupied by Lord and Lady Durwent.
With wondering eyes he glanced at the transformation of the rooms once
so familiar to him.  There were beds even in the halls, and everywhere
soldiers in hospital-blue were combining in a cheerful noise which was
sufficient indication that their convalescence was progressing
favourably.  In the music-room a local concert-party (including the
organist who had tried to teach Elise the piano) were giving an
entertainment, with the utmost satisfaction to themselves and the
patients.

The nurse led him upstairs and knocked at a door.  On receiving a
summons to enter she went in, and a moment later emerged again.

'Will you please go in?' she said.

Thanking her for her trouble, Selwyn stepped into the room, which was
lit only by the light from a log-fire, beside which Lord Durwent and
his wife were seated.  Lady Durwent, who had just come from her nightly
grand-duchess parade of the patients, was busying herself with her
knitting, and was in obvious good spirits.  Lord Durwent rose as Selwyn
entered, and the good lady dramatically dropped her knitting on the
floor.

'Mister Selwyn!' she exclaimed.  'This is an unexpected pleasure!'

The American bowed cordially over her proffered hand; but when he
turned to acknowledge the old nobleman's greeting he was struck silent.
No tree withered by a frost ever showed its hurt more clearly than did
Lord Durwent.  Although he stood erect in body, and summoned the gentle
courtesy which was inseparable from his nature, his whole bearing was
as of one whom life has cut across the face with a knotted whip,
leaving an open cut.  He had thought to live his days in the seclusion
of Roselawn, but destiny had spared him nothing.

'Have you had dinner?' asked Lord Durwent.  'We are strictly rationed,
but I think the larder still holds something for a welcome guest.'

'Isn't the war dreadful?' said Lady Durwent gustily.

'I had something to eat at the inn,' said Selwyn, 'so I hope you won't
bother about me.'

The older man was going to press his hospitality further, but as it was
obvious from the American's manner that he had come for a special
purpose, he merely indicated a chair near the fire.

'You move stiffly,' he said.  'Have you been wounded?'

'Yes,' said Selwyn, continuing to stand; 'but there are no permanent
ill effects, luckily.  Lord Durwent, I came from London to-day to speak
about your son Dick.'

At the sound of the name Lady Durwent checked a violent sob, which was
of double inspiration--grief for her son and pity for her own pride.
Her husband showed no sign that he had heard, but ran his hand slowly
down the arm of his chair.

And, for the first time, Selwyn became conscious of her presence--Elise
had come noiselessly into the room, and was standing in the shadows.
She walked slowly towards him.

'Is it necessary,' she said, with an imperious tilt of her head, 'to
talk of my brother?  We all know what happened.'

By the firelight he saw that, only less noticeably than in her father's
case, she too had been stricken.  Her rich-hued beauty, which had
become so intense with her spiritual development, bore the marks of
silent agony.  In her eyes there was pain.

'Without wishing to appear discourteous,' said Lord Durwent, 'I think
my daughter is right.  My family has been one that always put honour
first.  My son Malcolm maintained that tradition to the end.  My
younger son broke it.  And it is perhaps as well that our title becomes
extinct with my death.  If you don't mind, we would rather not speak of
the matter further.'

'He was such a kind boy--they both were,' sobbed Lady Durwent in an
enveloping hysteria, 'and so devoted to their mother.'

Putting Elise gently to one side, Selwyn faced her father.

'Lord Durwent,' he said, 'I was with your son when he was killed.  In
the long line of your family, sir, not one has died more gloriously.'

Lord Durwent's hands gripped the arms of his chair, and Lady Durwent
looked wildly up through her tears.  Elise stood pale and motionless.

'It is true,' said Selwyn.  'I tell you'----

'There is nothing,' said the older man-- 'there can be nothing for you
to tell that would make our shame any the less.  My son was shot'----

'Lord Durwent'----

'----shot for disgracing his uniform.  That he was brave or fearless at
the end cannot alter that truth.'

'Elise!'  Selwyn turned from Lord Durwent, and his clenched hands were
stretched supplicatingly towards her.  'Your brother was not shot by
the British.  He was killed as he went out alone and in the open
against the German machine-guns.'

'What are you saying?'  Lord Durwent half rose from his chair.  'Why do
you bring such rumours?  What proof is there'----

'Would I come here at this time,' said Selwyn desperately, 'with
rumours?  Do you think I have so little sympathy for what you must
feel?  I saw your son killed, sir.  It was in the early morning, and he
went to his death as you would have had him go.  As you know he did go,
Elise.'


III.

In a voice that shook with feeling he told of the fight for the bridge;
how Dick, and Mathews, who had saved him, reached the Americans; of the
desperate hand-to-hand fighting; how the groom had guarded his young
master; the impending disaster; and the death of Dick.

'It meant more than just our lives,' he concluded, in a silence so
acute that the crackling of the logs startled the air like
pistol-shots, 'for as Dick fell we went forward and gained the
brushwood.  Less than three hours afterwards the French arrived, and
largely by the use of that bridge a heavy counter-attack was launched.
We buried Dick where he fell--and, Lord Durwent, it is not often that
men weep.  The French general, to whom the tank officer had made his
report, pinned this on your son's breast, and then gave it to me to
have it forwarded to you.  He asked me to convey his message: "That the
soil of France was richer for having taken so brave a man to its
heart."'

He handed a medal of the _Croix de Guerre_ to Lord Durwent, who held it
for several moments in the palm of his hand.  From the distant parts of
the house came the noise of singing soldiers, and a gust of wind
rattled the windows as it blew about the great old mansion.  Elise had
not moved, but through her tears an overwhelming triumph was shining.

'And Mathews?' asked Lord Durwent slowly.

'We found him after the attack,' the American answered.  'He must have
dragged himself several yards after he had been hit, and was lying
unconscious, with his hand stretched out to touch Dick's boot.  Have
you heard nothing from him, sir?'

'Nothing.'

Again there was a silence fraught with such intensity that Selwyn
thought the very beating of his pulses could be heard.  At last Lord
Durwent rose, and with an air of deepest respect placed the medal in
the hands of his wife.  Her theatricalism was mute in a sorrow that was
free from shame.

'Captain Selwyn,' said Lord Durwent, 'we shall never forget.'

Feeling that his presence was making the situation only the more acute,
Selwyn pleaded the excuse of the waiting horse to hasten his departure.

'But you will stay here for the night?' said Lady Durwent.

'No--thank you very much.  I have left my haversack at the inn; and,
besides, I must catch the 7.45 train to London in the morning to keep
an important appointment.  Good-night, Lady Durwent.'

Amidst subdued but earnest good wishes from the peer and his wife, he
wished them good-bye and turned to Elise.

'Good-night,' he said, his face flaming suddenly red.

'Good-night,' she answered, taking his proffered hand.

'I shall go with you,' said Lord Durwent.

The two men walked through the corridors, which were growing quieter as
the night advanced, and, with another exchange of farewells, Selwyn
went out into the dark.

He was weak from the ordeal through which he had passed, and both his
mind and his body were bordering on exhaustion.  He called to the
sleeping driver, who in turn roused the horse from a similar condition,
but just as the wheels grinding on the gravel were opposite him Selwyn
heard the door open and the rustle of skirts.

'Austin!' cried Elise, running through the dark.

He almost stumbled as he went towards her, and caught her arms in his
hands.

'I didn't want you to go,' she said breathlessly, 'without saying
thanks.  If Boy-blue had really been shot as they said, I--I'----

She did not finish the sentence, but clasping his hand, pressed it
twice to her burning lips.

'Elise,' he cried brokenly--but she had freed herself and was making
for the door.

No longer weary, but with every artery of his body on fire with
uncontrollable love for her, he intercepted the girl.  'Elise,' he
cried, 'I thought I could go from here and carry my heart-hunger with
me--but now I can't.  I can't do it.'

'You went away to America.'  Her flashing eyes held his in a burning
reproach.  'You did not need me then--and you don't now.'

'But--you didn't care?  You never came back to the hospital, and I
wrote to you every day.  Tell me, Elise, did you really care--a little?'

'Yes, I did--more than I would admit to myself.  But you didn't.  All
you could think of was going back to America.'

'But, my dearest'--his heart was throbbing with a tumultuous joy--'if I
had only known.  There was so much work for me to do in America'----

'You will always have work to do.  You don't need me.  I shouldn't have
come out to-night.  Please let me go.'

'Then you don't care--now?'

'No.  You have your work to do still.  You said yourself that we come
of different worlds'----

'Elise, my darling'--he caught her hands in his and forced her towards
him--'what does that matter--what can anything matter when we need each
other so much?  I have nothing to offer you--not so much as when we
first met--but with your help, dear heart, I'll start again.  We can do
so much together.  Elise--I hardly know what I am saying--but you do
understand, don't you?  I can't live without you.  Tell me that you
still care a little.  Tell me'----

Her hands were pressed against his coat, forcing him away from her,
when, with a strange little cry, she nestled into his arms and hid her
face against his breast.

For a moment he doubted that it could be true, and then a feeling of
infinite tenderness swept everything else aside.  It was not a time for
words or hot caresses to declare his passion.  He stooped down and
pressed his lips against her hair in silent reverence.  She was his.
This woman against his breast, this girl whose being held the mystery
and the charm of life, was his.  The arms that held her to him pressed
more tightly, as if jealous of the years they had been robbed of her.

'I must go in,' she whispered.

He led her to the door, her hand in his, but though he longed to take
her in a passionate embrace, he knew instinctively that her surrender
was so spiritual a thing that he must accept it as the gift of an
unopened spirit-flower.

'Good-night, dear.'  She paused at the door, then raised her face to
his.

Their lips met in the first kiss.


IV.

The following Saturday Selwyn met Elise at Waterloo, and with her hand
on his arm they walked through London's happy streets.

It was 9th November.

News had come that the Germans had entered the French lines to receive
the armistice terms, and hard on that was the official report that the
German Emperor had abdicated.

London--great London--whose bosom had sustained the shocks, the hopes,
the cruelties of war, was bathed in a noble sunlight.  For all its
incongruities and jumbled architecture, it has great moments that no
other city knows; and as Selwyn and Elise made their way through the
crowds, there was an indefinable majesty that lay like a golden robe
over the whole metropolis.

Above St. Paul's there floated shining gray airships, escorted by
encircling aeroplanes.  Hope--dumb hope--was abroad.  Not in an
abandonment of ecstasy, or of garish vulgarity which was soon to
follow, but in a spirit of proud sorrow, Londoners raised their eyes to
the skies.  Passengers on omnibuses looked with new gratitude at the
plucky girls in charge who had carried on so long.  People stood aside
to let wounded soldiers pass, and old men touched their hats to them.
The heart of London beat in unison with the great heart of humanity.

From crowded streets, from domes and spires and open parks, there
soared to heaven a mighty _Gloria--gloria in excelsis_.'

After a lunch, during which they were both shy and extraordinarily
happy, they took a taxi-cab and drove to a house in Bedford Square.

Leaving Elise, Selwyn knocked at the door, and was admitted to a room
where a girl in an American nurse's outdoor costume waited for him.

'I got your letter in answer to mine, Austin,' said she, giving him
both her hands, 'and I am all ready.  Did you see him?'

'I did--yesterday afternoon.  But, Marjory, I told him nothing of you,
and if you want to withdraw there is yet time.  Have you really thought
what this means to you?'

Her only answer was a patient smile as she opened the door and led him
outside.

'Elise,' said Selwyn, as they entered the cab, 'I want to introduce
Miss Marjory Shoreham of New York.'

'Austin has told me all about you,' said Elise, 'and I think you are
wonderfully brave.'

She took the nurse's hand and held it tightly in hers as the car drove
towards Waterloo.

An hour later they reached a Sussex station, and hiring a conveyance,
drove to a charming country home which was owned by a Mr. Redwood, whom
Selwyn had met on board ship.  A servant told them as they drove up to
the door that the master of the house had gone to the village, but that
they were to come in and make themselves at home.

As he helped the girls to alight Selwyn heard the nurse catch her
breath with a spasm of pain.  He glanced over his shoulder and saw a
man standing on the lawn facing the sun, which was reaching the west
with the passing of afternoon.

'Please remain here,' said Selwyn, 'and I will motion you when to come.'

He walked towards the solitary figure, who heard him, and turned a
little to greet him.

'Is that you, Austin?'

'Yes, Van,' answered Selwyn.  'How could you tell?'

With his old kindly, tired smile the ex-diplomat put out his hand,
which Selwyn gripped heartily.

'I suppose it is nature's compensation,' said Van Derwater calmly.
'Now that I cannot see, footsteps and voices seem to mean so much more.
I was just thinking before you came that, though I have seen it a
thousand times, I have never _felt_ the sun in the west before.
Look--I can feel it on my face from over there.  Sir Redwood tells me
that the news from France is excellent.'

'It is,' said Selwyn.  'I think the end is only a matter of hours.'

'A matter of hours; and after that--peace.  Austin, I haven't much to
live for.  It was in my stars, I suppose, that I should walk alone; but
there is one fear which haunts me--that all this may be for
nothing--for nothing.  If I thought that on my blindness and the
suffering of all these other men a structure could be built where
Britain and America and France would clasp the torch of humanity
together, I would welcome this darkness as few men ever welcomed the
light.  But it is a terrible thought--that people may forget; that
civilisation might make no attempt to atone for her murdered dead.'

He smiled again, and fumbling for Selwyn's shoulder, patted it, as if
to say he was not to be taken too seriously.

'The world must have looked wonderful to-day in this sunlight,' he went
on.  'Do you know, I hardly dare think of the spring at all.  I
sometimes feel that I could never look upon the green of a meadow
again, and live.'

Selwyn had beckoned to the nurse, who was coming across the lawn
towards them.

'Van,' he said, taking his friend's arm, 'don't be too surprised, will
you?  But--but an old friend has come back to you.'

'Who is it?'  Van Derwater's form became rigid.  'I can hear a step,
Austin!  Austin, where are you?  What is this you're doing to me?
Speak, man--would you drive me mad?'

Without a sound the girl had clutched his hand and had fallen on her
knees at his feet.

'Marjory!'  With a pitiful joy he felt her hair and face with his hand,
and in his weakness he almost fell.  Vainly he protested that she must
go away, that he could not let her share his tragedy.  Her only answer
was his name murmured over and over again.

Creeping silently away, Selwyn rejoined Elise.  Once they looked back.
The girl was in Van Derwater's arms, and his face was raised towards
the sun which he was nevermore to see.  But on that face was written a
happiness that comes to few men in this world.




CHAPTER XXVII.

A LIGHT ON THE WATER.


I.

A sulky winter came hard upon November, and the war of armies was
succeeded by the war of diplomats.

One day in January the same vehicle that had driven Selwyn to Roselawn
deposited another visitor there.  He was a sturdy, well-set-up fellow,
but a thinness and a certain pallor in the cheeks conflicted with their
natural weather-beaten texture.

The morose driver helped him to alight, and handed him his crutches,
which he took with a snort of disapproval.  He made his way at a
dignified pace around the drive, pausing _en route_ to look at the
gables and wings of Roselawn as one who returns to familiar scenes
after a long absence.

Without encountering any one he reached the stables, and opening a
door, mounted the stairs that led to the dwelling-quarters above.

There was no one in the cosy dining-room, and sitting down, he hammered
the floor with his crutch.  The homely sound of dishes being washed
ceased suddenly in the adjoining room, and Mrs. Mathews threw open the
door.

'Who is it?' she cried.

'Me,' said Mathews.

Uttering a pious exclamation that reflected both doubt and confidence
in the all-wise workings of Providence, his wife fell heavily upon him,
with strong symptoms of hysteria.

'Heavenly hope!' she cried, after her exuberance permitted of speech;
'so you've come home?'

'I hev,' said her husband solemnly; 'and I'm werry pleased to observe
you so fit, m'dear.  Is the offspring a-takin' his oats reg'lar?'

'Lord!' said Mrs. Mathews irrelevantly, subsiding into a chair, 'I
thought you was dead.  You never writ.'

'That,' said Mathews, 'was conseckens of a understanding clear and
likewise to the point, atwixt me and Mas'r Dick.  "Mum's the word," sez
he.  "Mum's the word," sez I.  And that there was as it should be, no
argifyin' provin' contrairiwise.  But Milord he found me out, and sez
as how he knows it all, and would I come home?--which, bein' free from
horspital, I likewise does.  Now, m' dear, if you will proceed with any
nooz I would be much obliged to draw up a little forrader, as it were.'

'Did Milord tell you about Miss Elise?' said his wife, after much
thought.  'She's gone and got herself engaged.'

'To who?'

'Captain Selwyn.  Him as was visiting here when the war begun.'

'Now that there,' said Mathews, nodding his head slowly and admiringly,
'_is_ nooz.  That there is what a feller likes to hear from his old
woman.  You're a-doin' fine.'

'The wedding,' went on his wife, her eyes sparkling with the universal
feminine excitement about such matters, 'is next week, and Wellington
is bespoke for to pump the organ.  Ain't that wonderful grand?'

'That,' said Mathews with great dignity, 'is werry gratifyin' to a
parent, that is.  Pump the organ at a weddin'!  I hopes he won't go for
to do nothing to give inconwenience to the parties concerned.  Where is
he, old girl?'

'Upstairs in bed, daddy, with the whooping-cough something horrid.'

'Wot a infant!' commented the groom proudly.  'I never see such a
offspring for his age--never.  Whoopin'-cough something horrid?  Well,
well!'

For a full minute he reflected with such apparent satisfaction on his
son and heir's vulnerability to human ailments that there is no telling
when he would have left off, if his reverie had not been broken by his
wife placing a pipe in his hands and a bowl on the table.

'It was always waiting on you, daddy,' said the good woman.  'I sez to
Wellington, "That's his favourite, it is, and we'll always have it
ready for him when he comes home."'

Without any display of emotion or undue haste, the old groom filled the
pipe, lit it, drew a long breath of smoke, and slowly blew it into the
air, regarding his good partner throughout with a look that clearly
showed the importance he attached to the experiment.

He took a second puff, raised his eyes from hers to the ceiling, and
his broad face crinkled into a grin, the like of which his wife had
never seen before on his countenance.

'Old girl,' he said, 'when I sees you first I sez, "There's the filly
for my money;" and so you was.  And, by Criky! you and me hevn't
reached the last jump yet--no, sir.  Give me a kiss. . . .
Thar--that's werry "bon," as them queer-spoke Frenchies would say.  M'
dear, I hev some nooz for _you_ now.'

He puffed tantalisingly at the pipe, and surveyed his wife's intense
curiosity with studied approbation.

'When Milord come to see me last week,' he said, measuring the words
slowly, 'he tells me as how he won't go for to hev no more hosses, and
conseckens o' me bein' all bunged up by them sausage-eaters, he sez as
how would I like to be the landlord o' "The Hares and Fox" in the
village, him havin' bought the same, and would I go for to tell you as
a surprise, likewise and sim'lar?'

'Heavenly hope!' cried the good woman, bursting into tears; 'if that
ain't marvellous grand!'

'That,' said Mathews, beckoning for her to hand him his crutches, 'is
what Milord has done for you and me.  And, missus, as long as there's a
drop in the cellar none o' the soldier-lads in the village will go for
to want a pint o' bitter nohow.  Now, old girl, if you'll give a leg up
we'll go and see how the infant is lookin'.'


II.

A few days later, in the chapel decked with flowers, the marriage of
Selwyn and Elise took place.

In spite of her disappointment that Elise was not marrying a title,
Lady Durwent rose superbly to the occasion.  She led the weeping and
the laughing with the utmost heartiness, and recalled her own wedding
so eloquently and vividly that those who didn't know about the
Ironmonger supposed she must have been the daughter of a marchioness at
least, and was probably related to royalty.

Just before the ceremony itself the youthful Wellington, who had
confounded science by a remarkable recovery from his ailment, was
confronted with the offer of half-a-crown if he acquitted himself well,
and threatened with corporal punishment if he didn't.  With this double
stimulus, he pumped without cessation and with such heartiness that the
rector's words were at times hardly audible above the sound of air
escaping from the bellows--necessitating a punitive expedition on the
part of the sexton, and engendering in Wellington a permanent mistrust
in the justice of human affairs.

Late in the afternoon bride and groom left for London, on their way to
America.

When the train came in and they had entered their compartment, Selwyn,
with feelings that left him dumb, looked out at the little group who
had come to say farewell.

Lord Durwent stood with his unchangeable air of gentleness and
courtesy, but in his eyes there was the look of a man for whom life
holds only memories.  Lady Durwent alternated dramatically between
advice and tears; and Mathews stood proudly beside his wife (whose hat
was of most marvellous size and colours), nodding his head sagaciously,
and uttering as much philosophy in five minutes as falls to the lot of
most men in a decade.

And so, with his wife's hand trembling on his arm, Austin Selwyn leaned
from the window and waved good-bye to the little English village.


III.

A year went by, and, with the passing of winter, Selwyn and Elise, in
their home at Long Island, watched the budding promise of another
spring.

Their home was by the sea, and in the presence of that great majestic
force they had lived as man and wife, taking up the broken threads of
life, and knitting them together for the future.

The task of resuming his literary work had been next to impossible for
Selwyn.  He had tried to mould the destinies of nations--and they had
fallen back upon him, crushing him.  His thoughts cried out for
utterance, but self-distrust robbed him of courage.  Months went by,
and his chafing, restless longing for self-expression grew more intense
and more intolerable.

And then the woman who was his wife lost her own yoke of self-restraint
in solicitude for him.  Timidly, hesitatingly at first, she invaded the
precincts of his mind.  With subtle persistence, yet never seeming to
force her way, she wove her personality about his like a web of silken
thread.  Her purity of thought, her innate artistry, her depth of
feeling, played on his spirit like dew upon the parched earth.

As the passing hours took their course, each nature unconsciously gave
to the other the freedom that comes only with surrender.  His strength
and his care for her liberated her womanhood, and, like a flower that
has lived in shadow, her soul blossomed to fullness in that warmth.

And his troubled mind, directionless, yet rebellious of inaction, found
again the meaning and the hidden truths of life, then gained the
courage to be life's interpreter.

Once more Austin Selwyn wrote.

One evening towards the summer Elise was sitting on the veranda, when
he came from his study and joined her.  The first pale stars were
shining through a sheen of blue that rose from the horizon in an
encircling, shimmering mist.

'Are you through with your writing?' she said.

'Not yet,' he answered, sitting beside her; 'but I could not resist the
call of you and this wonderful night.'

'Isn't it glorious?' she said softly, taking his hand in hers.  'I
think that blue over the sea must be like the Arabian desert at night
when the camel-trains rest on their way.  Don't you love the sound of
the waves?'

With a little sigh she leaned her head on his shoulder, and he held her
close to him.

'Happy, Elise?'

'So happy,' she whispered, 'that I am afraid some day I shall find it
isn't true.'

He laughed gently, and for a few moments neither spoke, held by the
wonderful intimacy of the spirit that does not need words for
understanding.

'Austin dear,' she said at length, 'before you came out I was counting
the stars--and playing with dreams.  Don't think me silly, will you?
But I was planning, if we have a son, what I should like to call him.'

'I think I know,' he said, pressing his lips against her hair.  'Dick?'

'And Gerard for his second name.  I should want him to be strong and
true like Gerard--but he must have Dick's eyes and Dick's smile.  But,
then, I want so much for this dream-boy of ours--for, most of all, he
must be like my husband.'

With a sudden shyness she hid her face against his breast, and he ran
his hand caressingly over her arm, which was like cool velvet to the
touch.

The glimmering stars grew stronger, and a breeze from the sea crept
murmuringly over the spring-scented fields.

'There are times,' he said, 'when I long for the power to reach out for
the great truths that lie hidden in space and in the silence of a night
like this--to put them in such simple language that every one could
read and understand.  If I could only translate the wonder of you and
the spirit of the sea into words.'

She looked up into his face, and something of the mystic blue of the
skies lay in the depths of her eyes.


IV.

Late that night he resumed work in his study, but a thousand memories
and fancies came crowding to his mind.  He tried to shake them off, but
they clung to him--memories of the war--memories of the times when the
world was drunk with passion.  He heard, as if afar off, the whine and
shriek of shells, and he saw the dead--grotesque, silent, horrible.

That was the great absurdity--_the dead_.

It was hopeless to write.  He was no longer pilot of his thoughts.

He rose to his feet and threw open the door with an impatient desire
for fresh air.  Though the cool breeze refreshed his temples, the
restlessness of his mind was only increased by the hush of nature's
nocturne, through which the sound of the sea came like a drone.

Beneath the canopy of that same sky the dead were lying.  Across the
seas a breeze of spring was stealing about the graves, as now it played
about his face.

What was his part towards them--to mourn, and fill his life with
useless melancholy?  To forget, and turn his face towards the future?

Forget . . . ?

'There are times'--he found himself repeating mechanically the words
which, a few hours before, he had spoken to Elise--'when I long for the
power to reach out for the great truths--hidden in space--and in the
silence of the night.'

Suddenly his brow grew calm.  The baffled, questioning look left his
eyes, and he smiled strangely.

Closing the door, he turned back to his desk, and taking the pen,
looked for a full minute at the paper before him.

'_To My Unborn Son_.'

He gazed at what he had written as though the words had appeared of
their own volition.

'_To My Unborn Son_.'

With a far-away dreaminess in his eyes he dipped his pen in the ink and
commenced to write:

'Somewhere beyond the borders of life you are waiting.  I cannot speak
to you, nor look on your face, but the love of a father for his child
can penetrate the eternal mysteries of the unknown.  To those who love
there is no death; and in the hearts of parents, children live long
before they are born.

'My son, this letter that I write now to you will lie hidden and unseen
by other eyes until the time when you alone shall read it.  I shall be
changed by then: like the world, I may forget; but you, my son, must
read these words, and know that they are truth--truth as unchangeable
as the tides of the sea, or the hours of dawn and sunset.

'_Civilisation has murdered ten million men_.

'The human mind cannot encompass that.  It is beyond its comprehension,
so it is trying to forget.

'Ten million men--murdered.

'Read these words, my son, written in the hush of night, when men's
souls stand revealed.

'Nearly six years ago there came the war.  History will prove this or
that responsibility for it, but the civilisation that made war possible
is itself responsible.  The nations sprang to arms; but soon, by that
strange destiny which seems to guide mankind, the issue was one not of
nations against nations, but of Humanity against Germany.  Do not ask
me how the land of Goethe, Schiller, and Beethoven became so vile.  I
only know that Germany was the champion of evil, and on Britain and
France men's hopes were rested.

'America held aloof.  When this is read by you, my son, you will have
known the noble thrill of patriotism, the pride of race and
citizenship.  But it is because of that that you must read what I write
now about the country I love best.

'Less than any other nation, America is to be blamed for the war.  Her
life was separate from the older world, and the spoils of victory made
no appeal.  Yet this great Republic, born of man's desire for freedom,
remained silent even when the whole world saw that the war was one of
Justice against Evil.  Men, like myself, were blind, and fed the flames
of ignorance with ignorance.  Others knew we were not ready, and called
upon us to prepare; and others made great fortunes while Youth went to
its Cross.

'Month after month passed by, and Britain and her Allies fought
Humanity's fight; and the murder of men went on.

'At last we came of age, and our young men stormed across the seas, not
to save America--for we had nothing to fear--but to rid the world of an
intolerable curse.  Look fearlessly at the truth, but do not forget
that when we went it was for an ideal--just as years before, when North
and South fought the issue of preserving the Union, the impulse that
drove our fathers on to their deaths was their souls' demand of freedom
for the negro.  By her delay was America defamed; by the spirit of her
coming was she great.'

Selwyn put down his pen, and rested his head between his hands.  Ten
minutes passed before he looked up and began to write again.

'The war is over.  _America is debtor to the world_.  Read this, my
son, with both humility and pride--humility that it is so, pride that
we yet can pay.

'Those awful years while we stood apart, the homes of Britain gave
their sons--the sons for whom their parents yearned, as I am yearning
now for you.  Through Britain's broken hearts, and through the grief of
women throughout the world, the youth of America were saved.  I know
that we have our thousands of stricken homes and ruined lives, but the
end of the war left America debtor to civilisation, even though she
gave the strength which brought the war to an end.

'Faced with our indebtedness, what did we do?

'Europe lay stricken.  The spectres of ruin, starvation, anarchy,
hovered about her form.  The world was through with war; men groped for
light; and from the peoples of the earth a universal cry went up that
these things must not be.

'It was our chance.  We still were strong.  We held the charter of
mankind within our hands, and men looked to us.  Over prostrate Europe
the conquering nations gathered, and men in all the distant corners of
the earth listened for the voice of him who would cry in the wilderness
that a new age was born.

'Vital days went by.  At last the man who spoke for us outlined his
plan that all the Powers of the world should join together in a
covenant that war should be no more.

'Men waited, and still waited.  The plan was argued, ridiculed,
applauded--and sucked of its inspiration by talk.  Already the agony of
Man was hardening into the cynicism of despair.  Nations that had bled
together grew wary and drew apart.

'And still men waited, for they knew that only America's voice could
allay the clamour.  Then we spoke.  Angered by the methods of our
leader, angered by the spirit of revenge that was settling over Europe,
angered by delay, once more we failed to see the great truths written
across the face of the sun.

'America--debtor to the world--America cried out that she alone of all
the nations would stand aloof.  Let history gloss it over as it will,
we held back the hand of succour that Europe craved for.

'From the land of scented mists came the Japanese; from Greece, that
once was first in all the arts; from South America and the countries of
Europe, men gathered to the League of Nations, hoping, groping for the
light--_and we were not there_.

'As I write to you, my son, the League is an impotent, powerless thing,
at which the men who know only nationality and not humanity sneer and
make jest.  The body is there--America alone could be the heart.

'Bloodless, helpless, it is in semblance a living thing, but all men
know it has no life, and already the diplomats who have no other way
are using it as a shield for their methods that cannot bear the light.

'My son, in the hush and loneliness of night, ponder over these words.
Because of those things, avoidable and unavoidable, that kept us
silent; because so many of us were false to the trusteeship that fell
on our generation; because we had not learned that America was greater
than Americans, but tried to imprison the spirit of the Republic within
the little confines of our souls--because of these things thousands of
men were foully done to death.  How many Miltons, how many Lincolns,
were crucified in that army of the young?

'_We must repay_.  Our destiny is clear, and no people can thwart its
destiny without the gravest danger.  Our duty is to restore.  Whatever
our resources, in things material or of the spirit, this generation and
yours and the generation to follow must give unsparingly.  Our minds
and hearts must turn to Europe, for only in service to mankind can
America fulfil that for which she was created.

'Across the seas lies England.  She has done much that is unworthy of
her in the past; she has much to teach and much to learn; but within
the heart of Old England there is majestic grandeur and great
mercifulness, and with that heart ours must beat in unison.  The solemn
splendour of Britain's sacrifice must never be forgotten.

'Believe in life, my son.  Believe in men.  Take on my charge and fight
the flames of Ignorance, not as I did, but with the power of Reason and
of Right.  The universal mind is still alive.  Trust in it as Wagner
when he wrote his music, as Shelley when he sang of beauty, as
Washington when he founded this great Republic.  Men speak through
their nationalities, but in every country of the world there is an
aristocracy of thought; and if you have the power, I charge you work
towards the end when that great aristocracy will flood the earth with
splendour and Ignorance will be no more.

'These words I leave with you, my son, on this silent night in May.
Perhaps you will never read them.  Perhaps you will live only in our
two hearts.  But on the borders of life we reach out for you, praying
that you may come to stay the hunger of our hearts, to be our living
son.'

Selwyn dropped his pen and rose slowly from his chair.  Passing his
hand across his brow, he went to the door, and opening it, looked out.

From the thin crescent of a waning moon, a narrow path of light was
glimmering on the water.