CHAPTER I

Colonel Munro drew the ends of his white tie through the loop in the middle with infinite care. In a very wide circle of acquaintances he was universally known as "Charlie" Munro; and you had only to look at him to see how appropriate was this gallant diminutive. His head was bald at the top, but cleanly and beautifully bald, like a head of the finest marble; on either side and behind, his hair was both white and curly; his eye was bright, his features remarkably handsome, his mustache a slender ornament of silver, and his figure tall and slender. At sixty-three he was probably handsomer than he had ever been before in his life; and that was saying a great deal. He lived in very pleasant bachelor chambers in St. James' under the charge of a competent valet.

"Let me see that card again," he said, as he gave his tie those little finishing touches that converted it from an elegant accessory into a work of art.

The valet went to his sitting-room and returned with a calling card on a tray. Colonel Munro studied it a trifle lugubriously.

"James Heriot Walkingshaw," he read, with this addendum in pencil, "Shall call for you 7:30. Count on your company at dinner."

The Colonel buttoned his white waistcoat.

"Didn't you tell Mr. Walkingshaw that I would probably be engaged?" he asked.

"Well, sir," said the valet smoothly, "the gentleman seemed such an old friend of yours, I thought perhaps you wouldn't like to miss him."

"One's oldest friends are sometimes d——d nuisances, Forman."

The Colonel saw the pleasant evening he had contemplated spending in the society of two or three of the gayest old bloods in London darkening into a tÊte-À-tÊte with Mr. Walkingshaw at his portentously respectable club, and regretted he had allowed Forman to lay out a clean white waistcoat; for he was, by force of circumstances, economical as well as gallant.

"I tell you what," said he, "I don't mean to wait a minute after 7:30. If he turns up late, you can make my apologies, and say I'll be happy to lunch with him to-morrow."

He put on his coat, added an overcoat and white scarf, cocked his opera hat on his shapely old head, and sat confronting his sitting-room clock. At 7:29 he rose briskly, and then with a sigh sank back into his chair. He heard a footstep on the stair.

"Mr. Walkingshaw," announced the valet.

The Colonel advanced with that courteous smile for which he was renowned.

"My dear Charlie!" cried his visitor.

"Well, Heriot," smiled the Colonel, looking a little surprised at the remarkable joviality of this greeting.

He surveyed his old friend up and down, and seemed still more surprised.

"What a buck you are!" he exclaimed.

In truth, Mr. Walkingshaw, arrayed in a new opera hat, a new and shining pair of dress boots, and a fashionable new overcoat, cut a very different figure from the sedate W.S. of the Colonel's previous acquaintance.

Heriot looked a trifle self-conscious.

"I hope I haven't overdone the thing," said he.

"Not a bit," smiled the Colonel, as a bright inspiration struck him. "The only criticism I'd make is that you are really thrown away on the members of your very sedate club, Heriot."

"Oh, but I didn't mean to dine you at my club."

Colonel Munro opened his eyes and smiled again.

"Where do you propose?"

"Well, I thought perhaps you might advise me."

"Let me see," mused Charlie, with a pleasant air.

"What about the Carlton?"

"First-rate, if you care to run to that."

"I've booked a table there on spec," said Heriot.

The Colonel beamed.

"I say, you're coming out, Heriot. Blowing the expense this time, what?"

"I don't care what I spend!" replied his old friend, in a burst of confidence.

"Then let's start," said the Colonel. "Like to take a cab?"

"I've got one waiting."

"After you," said Charlie, holding the door open.

He was struck by the agility with which his old friend descended the stairs, and smiled afresh at the increasing possibilities of the situation.

"I say, this is very pleasant," beamed Mr. Walkingshaw as they jingled off in a hansom.

Rather bashfully he took from his overcoat pocket a pair of dazzling white kid gloves.

"These are the proper things in the evening, aren't they?" he inquired. "I notice you've got on a pair."

His guest chuckled.

"They'll do to dance in afterwards if we go on to Covent Garden," he laughed, and then added waggishly, "How would you like to go to a fancy dress ball, Heriot?"

"Is there one on to-night?" asked Heriot.

"Yes."

"Are you going?"

"Oh, I've given up that sort of thing years ago; but of course, if you're keen to go, I might stretch a point."

Mr. Walkingshaw looked at him doubtfully out of the corner of his eye and answered nothing.

A little later the two old friends had grown more merrily confidential than they had been since the days of their youth. Charlie Munro was a little puzzled by the subtle alteration in his host, but he was not in the least disposed to criticize it. He felt more and more inclined to tempt him into a further display of frivolity.

"Well, now, what about the Covent Garden ball?" he suggested.

Heriot's eyes grew bright, but his mouth pursed cautiously.

"Aren't they rather—er—fast?" he inquired.

"As fast as you choose to make 'em."

"But aren't the ladies rather—er—rather—well—"

"Not a bit," said the Colonel. "There's a mixture, that's all."

"But I say, Charlie, what about being seen by any one we know?"

"We'll get a disguise for you," smiled Charlie.

"Really, can you?"

"Oh, I'll see to that."

He began to picture a very amusing evening with his old friend Heriot.

Mr. Walkingshaw drank off his glass of champagne.

"Well, if you're game—" said he.

"I'm game for anything, my dear fellow, so long as I've you by my side," laughed Charlie. "When you're tired, I'll promise to take you away. Shall we call it arranged?"

"I'll risk it," said Heriot stoutly.

---

CHAPTER II

Round came the big man in the purple domino and the long false nose, hopping blithely to the crashing waltz, his arm encircling the waist of a little lady attired to represent a hot cross-bun. Then he was lost in the crowd, and the Colonel's eyes, in which for a moment a spark of wonder had burned, grew old and tired again. As he stood there alone, with youth and recklessness gamboling before him, he realized somberly that for him this revel was ended. How he would have enjoyed it once! But never, never again. His straight, soldierly back bent with weariness; he jerked back his shoulders, but they slipped forward, forward, and he let them stay. How little the fair faces interested him; how stupidly riotous these young fellows were!

Round came the false nose again, and this time the empurpled figure unclasped one hand of the hot cross-bun and waved a genial greeting as they stampeded by. And again a gleam, almost of fear, lit the Colonel's weary eyes. It was horrible, grotesque, inhuman, to see the friend of his youth, a man older than himself, the honored head of a respectable firm, the father of five grown-up children, going on like this. The Colonel had thought it would be funny, but as hour succeeded hour, and the ringleader of the frolic gradually became a wearied spectator, this superhuman display of high-spirited energy grew long past a joke. Charlie had never been austere, but there were limits to all things. Good Gad, there were limits! If the man had got drunk or grown vicious, he might have excused him. But to see him interminably bounding round that floor behind six inches of pasteboard nose! He began to move away. He could stand the spectacle no longer.

Again the false nose hopped by, and this time disengaged himself hurriedly from his partner and hastened after the retiring Colonel.

"You're not going, Charlie?" he cried.

His friend turned and stared at him piteously.

"For Heaven's sake, take off that nose, Heriot!"

The W.S. removed it with a laugh.

"Put it on yourself, Charlie, and have a turn with my partner," he urged. "She dances really magnificently, you know."

Colonel Munro laid his hand beseechingly upon his arm.

"Come home, Heriot! You'll be devilish sorry for this to-morrow, as it is; and if you dance any more, by Gad, you may kill yourself! My dear fellow, think of your age."

Heriot received this objection with a cheerful laugh.

"You're not going yourself, surely?" he inquired.

"I am."

Mr. Walkingshaw looked at him anxiously.

"I say, you do look tired, Charlie. How's that?"

"I am sixty-three," replied the Colonel, with an instinctive lowering of his voice. He never stated his age if he could help it.

Mr. Walkingshaw continued to gaze at him oddly.

"I had forgotten how one feels at that time of life," he said musingly, "quite forgotten. Poor old Charlie; I oughtn't to have kept you up so late. I'd have felt like that at sixty-three myself. Well, my dear fellow, I'm glad we were able to have this night together before it became too late. It has made me feel quite old again to see you."

Colonel Munro seized his arm and drew him towards the door, with all the vehemence of which he was capable.

"Come along—come along, Heriot!" he implored him; "you have had a little more to drink than you quite realize!"

Heriot disengaged himself very easily from his trembling grip.

"My poor old boy," he smiled, "I'm as sober as you were when you started! I positively require the exercise. Besides, you must remember that this sort of thing is only just beginning for me; don't grudge me my fling. Get you to bed as quick as you can, Charlie. Sleep is what you're needing."

"And do you know what you need?" exclaimed the Colonel, with another grab at his sleeve.

"A taste of life!" cried Heriot, evading his old fingers with wonderful agility, and slipping on his pasteboard nose.

He waved a gay farewell, threw his arm round the waist of the hot cross-bun, and waltzed out of the Colonel's vision.

It was not till two hours later that Heriot Walkingshaw, smiling with reminiscent pleasure and perspiring freely, set out on foot for his hotel. A brisk walk in the early morning air was the only pick-me-up he needed.

---

CHAPTER III

During their descent upon the Metropolis of England, Mr. Walkingshaw and his son were residing at the Hotel Gigantique, that stately new pile in Piccadilly, so styled, it is understood, from the bills presented when you leave. On the morning after his evening spent with Charlie Munro, they met as usual at breakfast. Fortunately, the state of Mr. Walkingshaw's health did not in the least seem to justify the forebodings of his friend. On the contrary, he tackled a fried sole with confidence, even with ardor, and put a great deal of cream into his coffee.

"What were you about last night?" he inquired genially.

"I dined with one or two fellows at the Rag," said Frank.

"Doesn't sound very lively," observed his father, "that's to say, at your age," he hastened to add; for he still believed in retaining the confidence of his children.

Frank smiled dreamily. This "bust" in town was proving less solacing than he had hoped. Now that he had got here, he found himself too lovelorn to bust with any relish. At the same time, it was pleasant and soothing to enjoy each day the society of so charming a parent. Any disquietude he felt at the singular nature of the change had been allayed by one of his friends, an R.A.M.C. man, who assured him that a serious illness at his father's time of life was not infrequently followed by a marked rejuvenation of the patient; so that he was able to regard with unqualified gratitude the generosity and kindness of the truant Writer to the Signet.

"What were you doing yourself?" he inquired presently.

"Dining with Colonel Munro," replied his father, truthfully if a trifle meagerly.

He sipped his coffee, and then remarked—

"Poor Charlie Munro is growing old, I'm afraid. He knocks up very easily."

He sighed and added, "It's a melancholy thing, Frank, my boy, to see one's old friends slipping away from one."

"What! Is he seriously ill?" asked Frank.

"Oh, I don't mean that. I mean—well, everything has its compensating disadvantages. Mine is that my contemporaries are outgrowing me. Charlie and I started the evening in capital style; he was up to anything, and I was on for anything. But by the end of the night we were quite out of sympathy. The fact is, he is still in the sixties. However, my duty has been done; I've seen him, and that's over."

He helped himself to some more fish, and continued with animation—

"Now I can carry out my idea! I may or may not set about it the right way, but I do want to make you all happy Frank."

It was perhaps well for his continued equanimity that during the first part of this speech Frank was lost in contemplation of a singularly vivid image of Ellen Berstoun. She had a distracting habit of appearing like that to the young soldier, of which he was unable to cure her. He started out of his reverie with the last words.

"My dear father, you're the best sportsman I know," he replied warmly.

Mr. Walkingshaw looked highly gratified at this compliment.

"That's what I'm aiming at," he answered.

He leaned over the table and continued confidentially—

"Of course you are happy, Frank. There's really nothing Providence could do for you except put a little money in your pocket, and give you a good time—eh?"

"Oh—er—nothing."

"What's the matter? That doesn't sound very cheerful."

"I assure you I'm as cheerful as—er—er—anything," said Frank heroically.

"I was sure of it. But poor Jean—she's got her troubles, eh, Frank?"

Frank warmed up at his sister's name.

"She has," he admitted.

Mr. Walkingshaw thoughtfully piled several slices of bacon on his plate. It would have reassured Colonel Munro greatly to have seen him.

"I wish I was sure that Vernon was good enough for her."

Frank looked up quickly.

"I don't think anybody is quite good enough for Jean; but Lucas Vernon is really a deuced fine fellow."

Mr. Walkingshaw still seemed doubtful.

"A bit lazy, I'm afraid."

"I assure you he's not," said Frank. "He works, sir, like the very dickens."

"He can't sell his pictures," replied his father. "I'll never believe in an artist till he can sell what he paints."

"The difficulty for a painter is to get hold of the right man—the fellow with the money," urged Frank.

"That's a mere matter of time," said his father; "they are sure to meet sooner or later, and then the point is, has he painted anything worth selling? If Vernon can manage to prove that, I may begin to believe in him. If he's a fraud it is time the thing was stopped for Jean's sake."

He looked much more like the old Heriot Walkingshaw than he had for some weeks. Then he smiled, though still with an exceedingly shrewd air.

"Well," he concluded, "we'll see."

---

CHAPTER IV

There is a by-street which opens out of the King's Road, Chelsea, and for a short distance pursues a course as respectable as the early career of Mr. Walkingshaw. Then, not unlike that gentleman, it diverges at right angles; and having once begun, goes on doubling for the remainder of its existence, shedding, as it gets round each corner, the more orthodox houses that once bore it company, till at last it becomes a mere devious lane, the haunt of low eccentric buildings; in places, owing to a casual tree or two, positively shady. The eccentric buildings, one is not greatly surprised to hear, are nothing more decorous than the studios of Bohemian painters. Such are the dangers of deviating from a straight and adequately lamp-lit route.

In one of these studios a young man fiercely painted. His powerful, loosely clad figure stepped nervously back and forward, his brush now poised trembling in the air, now dabbing and swishing on the long-suffering canvas. His mop of brown hair had started the day brushed back and comparatively sleek; it was now a mere tousel. His butterfly tie had been a thing of some esthetic pretensions; it was become a tangle of silk. His smile had been bland and his manner courteous; he now resembled a buffalo with a bullet in it.

"The beastly thing won't come right!" he roared.

Another young man reclined upon a deck-chair in company with three cushions. His appearance was equally artistic, but he seemed less strenuous. He was pale, slim, rather pretty than handsome, and engagingly polite.

"Cheer up, dear old fellow," he suggested.

"Damn!" muttered Lucas.

He toiled in agitated silence for some minutes, and then burst out again.

"No one will ever exhibit the thing; no one will ever look twice at it; there's not a fool big enough in England to buy it! And it's all but the best bit of work I've ever done."

"That 'all but' lets you down, I suppose," observed the other gently.

"One could fill a lunatic asylum with you alone," replied the painter. "Why don't you go off and do some work instead of exhibiting your incompetence here?"

"I told you I'd a headache," said the young man in the chair languidly.

"What the devil's in your head to ache beats me," declared Lucas, accompanying this unkind speech by a brutal onslaught on the canvas.

"Dear Lucas!" smiled his friend. "You seem to have come under some softening influence lately. Can you be in love?"

The painter turned and confronted him with a less furious air.

"You know I am," he replied, and strode to the end of the studio and back, while the other contemplated him in pitying silence.

"I feel a fraud, Hillary," he resumed.

"So long as you aren't found out—" began Hillary.

"I have found myself out," retorted Lucas. "I boasted I could make an income for her—and look at this daub!"

"The public likes daubs."

"If they know the signature; yes, by all means. But who knows mine?"

"Some Jews are great picture-buyers," suggested Hillary.

An answering gleam lit Lucas's eye for an instant, and then burned out.

"For the artist there are three ways of making a living," he pronounced. "One is painting for the million—children with rosy cheeks and large wheelbarrows; beds with angels hovering over them and kind doctors with stethoscopes sitting beside them—that sort of thing—the obvious road to the heart. The second is hitting the superior kind of idiot in the eye—inventing a cheap new formula—putting a goblin upside down in one corner, an immoral-looking woman in another, and passing the arrangement off as an allegory. Then up jumps an interpreter and booms you. The third is slowly making your name by the sweat of your brow, and selling your pictures when you are fifty-five to people who never recognized their merit till they had been told you were famous."

"Well," said Hillary, "that gives you a biggish target."

"Does it? I have no popular knack; I lack the conjurer's instincts; and I don't mean to wait for Jean Walkingshaw till I am fifty-five."

"Must it be she?" asked Hillary.

"It must!"

"Her father won't help?"

"If he wasn't so infernally respectable he'd shoot me at sight."

"Run away with her. Once you've got her, he won't be heathen enough to let her starve."

"In the first place," replied Lucas, "she wouldn't run away with me. That's the infernal, charming, irritating, splendid thing about her—she is true to us both."

"Won't chuck you and won't chuck the old boy either?"

Lucas nodded.

"The thing can be done," said Hillary languidly; "it only wants a little energy and enterprise. Great achievements are never accomplished by slackness. Woman was created to yield to the energetic advances of man. Remember that, Luc—"

"Besides," interrupted the painter, who had paid singularly little attention to this stirring speech, "I happen to be handicapped by a little pride. Can you imagine me helping her to compose begging letters to her father? 'We are in great distress this winter, and a check for twenty pounds will be gratefully, etc. etc. etc.!' Can you see me stooping to that sort of thing? What?"

"I merely threw out the idea as it were tentatively," said Hillary mildly.

Lucas gave his mustaches a fierce twist and planted himself firmly with his back to the despised picture.

"It must have been a practical joke of the Devil's that gave Jean that father and then threw me in her way. Old Heriot Walkingshaw is one of those men who were created as an antidote to human affection. He stands between his children's hearts and the sunshine outside like the brick wall of a prison. His virtues are those of a paperweight. Neither his daughter nor his fortune are likely to blow away while he is planted on them; and there his merits end."

"What a dreadful fellow," murmured Hillary.

"And the worst of such fellows is that they are infectious. One can catch grimness and hardness of soul just as one can catch high spirits and courage. Bah! I won't think of him any more. I'll have another shot at this thing."

He took his brush again and faced the canvas. For a few minutes he labored painfully, and then turned with an exclamation.

"The memory of the old devil has got into my brush—" he began, and then stopped.

There was a knock upon the studio door.

"Hullo! A patron?" said Hillary.

"A dun more probably," muttered Lucas.

He opened the door and found himself confronting the rubicund countenance and imposing form of Heriot Walkingshaw. Over the shoulder of this apparition he looked into the clear eyes of Frank. They were trying to convey a caution to use whatever tact he possessed; but the artist was too dumbfounded to heed them.

"Well?" he demanded.

---

"Good-day, Mr. Vernon," said his guest.

He held out his hand, and Lucas mechanically shook it.

"May we come in?" he asked.

"If you want to—certainly," said Lucas; and they entered.

"A fellow-artist, I presume?" inquired Mr. Walkingshaw, glancing at the pale and pretty youth.

Lucas automatically introduced them.

"Very happy to meet you, Mr. Hillary," said the W.S. genially. "Let me introduce my son."

Leaving the two young men to entertain each other, he walked aside for a few paces with his host. His countenance was composed and his air dignified; though, as he thoughtlessly took Vernon's arm to direct his partially paralyzed movements, the artist began dimly to apprehend that no overt outrage was premeditated.

"I say," he began in that pleasantly unconventional vein which appeared to afford his vigorous reflections the readiest outlet, "this must seem a bit odd and so on, but why the deuce should we go on quarreling just because we've once begun? We're above that, eh?"

"I have no wish—" began the artist.

"Exactly, exactly," interrupted his visitor breezily; "we both mean the same thing, so that's all right. Perhaps we misunderstood each other on a previous occasion. Of course perhaps we didn't—we may be a couple of scoundrels just as we imagined, eh? Ha, ha! Still, let's assume there was a little misunderstanding. Now what have you been painting?"

The artist's blue eyes looked at him fixedly.

"I am addressing the same Mr. Heriot Walkingshaw?" he inquired in a voice compounded of several emotions.

"The same, my dear fellow—essentially the same. I look better—younger—fitter, I dare say, eh?"

"Yes," said Lucas, still eyeing him curiously, "you do."

"But you see I am still Frank's father."

He laughed genially, and this argument at last seemed to convince the young man that he was not the victim of a strange delusion.

"I am sorry for being a little hasty—" he began, with a candid smile.

"Not at all," interrupted Mr. Walkingshaw good-humoredly. "Don't mention it. There was a lady in the case; that's excuse enough for any two men quarreling. By the way, my daughter is not with me, but she would no doubt wish to have her kind regards—that is to say—well, well, let me see the pictures."

In the course of this speech the affable gentleman had been reminded by the senior partner that one must be careful not to commit oneself rashly. It was odd how often he required these warnings nowadays—and how frequently they came just half a sentence too late.

"Brush been busy?" he added hastily.

Lucas pointed to a dozen or more canvases stacked against the wall.

"Fairly," he said.

"May I look at them? Oh, don't trouble to take them off the floor. I'll just turn them over for myself, if I may."

He stooped over the stack and moved each canvas in turn till he could catch a glimpse of its face. With this ocular demonstration that there actually were pictures upon all of them he seemed content, for he turned to his host with an approving smile.

"You have not been altogether idle, then?"

"Altogether idle!"

Hillary turned at the exclamation.

"Poor old Lucas is working himself to death," he said, with his gentle and insinuating air.

"Indeed!" exclaimed Mr. Walkingshaw, and surveyed the artist with increased respect.

"Hillary is inclined to talk—" began Lucas, but was silenced by a ferocious stamp of Frank's boot.

"Hush, you idiot!" he murmured.

"No, Lucas," said his friend readily, "I am not inclined to talk as a rule, but I cannot bear to hear you maligned. I never saw a man work as you do."

"Is that your candid opinion of our friend?" smiled Mr. Walkingshaw with a pleasant air.

"It feebly endeavors to express my opinion," replied the engaging young man. "He paints on an average one picture per six hours of daylight; and the most astounding thing sir, is their consistently high merit."

Lucas looked decidedly uncomfortable.

"I don't sell them, unfortunately," he blurted out.

The W.S. turned grave.

"None of them?" he inquired.

"I haven't sold much lately."

"How's that?"

"The public is not yet educated up to him," said Hillary. "But between ourselves, Mr. Walkingshaw, if I had a thousand pounds at this moment, I should put it all in Vernons; they'll be worth five thousand in ten years' time at a modest estimate—a very modest estimate."

"You are a critic?" inquired the W.S.

"I am considered so," answered the youth modestly.

Mr. Walkingshaw turned to the embarrassed artist.

"At the same time, I gather that whatever your merits, this is one of your lean years, eh?"

"Devilish," said Lucas.

"That must be discouraging?"

"It might be if I let it."

"That is a damned good answer, Vernon," said Mr. Walkingshaw emphatically.

Before the three young men had recovered from the sympathetic surprise which this reply occasioned, he had planted himself in front of the unfinished picture on the easel.

"What's this you're doing? A wood? Ah, yes, I recognize the trees. Very lifelike indeed—most creditable. What's the price of it, if I may ask?"

"What I can get," replied Lucas, with a reminiscence of his afternoon's despair.

"Still the same unpractical fellow!" smiled Mr. Walkingshaw. "You're not very strong on figures, eh?"

"I don't meet many," said the artist candidly.

"Well," suggested his visitor kindly, "what about fifty pounds?"

"I'd think myself devilish lucky."

"May I have it at that?"

"You?"

"It isn't booked already, I trust?"

"N—no."

"That's a bargain, then?"

Lucas's eyes were again fixed in a strange stare. Then a quick change of expression broke over his face.

"You're very kind, Mr. Walkingshaw!" he said warmly.

"Tuts, tuts, not a bit. I want to warm up my study with a splash of color. That's the way you artists would put it. Eh?"

"A splash of color—yes."

"You see, I'm getting the hang of your lingo already, Vernon. And now, what else have you got for sale? What do you recommend, Hillary, eh?"

That young man displayed a sudden aptitude for business which had never characterized his own efforts to make a livelihood.

"As a work of art likely to rise enormously in value, I conscientiously recommend that," he said, pointing to another canvas.

"A nice head," commented Mr. Walkingshaw. "High-toned yet spiritual, one might term it. I like the way the eyes seem to look out of the paper—or is it canvas it's done on?"

"Oh—er—I beg your pardon," said Lucas, waking suddenly from his reverie; "I—I'll let you have that thrown in."

"Wits a wool-gathering, Vernon?" smiled his patron indulgently. "But I dare say you've some excuse. I'll take the picture with pleasure, but I insist on paying for it. Let us put this at twenty-five pounds."

"I won't let you!" cried Lucas. "I give it you—I make you a present of it. You've been so kind already—"

"Pooh! Come, come," interrupted Mr. Walkingshaw kindly, yet firmly. "You've got to make your way, and how will you do that if you give away your—fruits of the brush you'd call them, I suppose, eh?"

The artist could not but admit the force of this argument, and in the course of an hour had the satisfaction of selling, at considerably above his usual market price, no fewer than four of his masterpieces; while Mr. Walkingshaw, on his part, became the fortunate possessor of a promising but unfinished sylvan scene, the portrait of an unknown lady, a rainy day upon the Norfolk coast, and (what he considered the gem of the collection) a recognizable panorama of Edinburgh from the north, including among its minor details a splash of red ocher which he felt certain was the grand stand at the Scottish Union's football field. This recalled the sympathetic widow, and gave the picture a sentimental as well as an artistic value. He could have wished that on this, as indeed on most other occasions, the artist had paid more attention to verisimilitude and less to mere vague harmonies and so forth, but as he was assured by that intelligent young Hillary that this method was all the Go at present, and that his friend Lucas was recognized as a rising Dab at it. That at least is how he retailed the argument afterwards.

At the conclusion of these arrangements he again drew the artist aside.

"Would you like a check immediately," he inquired, "or upon delivery of the pictures?"

With considerable animation Lucas assured him there was no hurry at all.

"There is a distinction between punctuality and hurry," replied Mr. Walkingshaw. "I recommend it to your notice, Vernon. As to the date of payment, I suggest by the first post after the delivery of the pictures. Does that satisfy you?"

"Quite," said the painter, with a subdued air.

"Strenuous work, patience, and the cultivation of business habits are the recommendations I make to you, my dear fellow—as I would to any other young man. They have been, if I may say so, the secret of any little success I may have achieved myself. Good-by, Vernon, good-by!"

He departed thus upon a note of austere benevolence, leaving behind him a grateful yet chastened artist.

"Well, Frank," said he, as they drove back together, "that young fellow has managed to sell one or two pictures, I'm glad to find."

His eyes twinkled merrily as he spoke, but before his son had time to reply the senior partner spoke again.

"I only hope he keeps it up," was his addendum.

For a young man, Frank had remarkable discretion (apart from his one lamentable lapse). He dutifully agreed with this sentiment, and then proceeded to congratulate his parent on the taste with which he had selected his pictures and the excellence of the investment he had made. Mr. Walkingshaw appeared gratified by his approval.

"I don't throw my money away, Frank," he said complacently. "By the way, what's the cab fare?"

"One and six," said Frank.

In the temporary absence of the senior partner, Mr. Walkingshaw handed the man half a crown, and entered the hotel humming a romantic melody.

As he crossed the hall a deferential attendant approached with a telegram.

"Hullo!" said he, "a wire. I wonder who the deuce this is from."

---

CHAPTER VI

It is a lamentable fact, remarked upon even by popular politicians, that the very measures which give the highest satisfaction to some people produce the profoundest depression in others. And it is worth adding that it is not always the most original reflections which have procured for their authors the widest reputation (though, if one wanted to quote an authority for this last axiom, one would perhaps turn rather to the popular theologians).

Of the truth of the first proposition, that worthy young man, Andrew Walkingshaw, was an unhappy example. It is the case that his parent's disappearance was not without compensating advantages. He was spared a number of minor annoyances, which of late had been the undeserved accompaniment of his blameless life; but then, the mystery of that disappearance, its unorthodoxy, its appalling suggestions of scandal! He knew now what it must feel like to have a relative engaged upon fashionable divorce proceedings or conspicuously notorious on the music-hall stage. For, despite his industry in circulating a circumstantial account of the business that had called the head of the firm so suddenly away, he thought he observed in the face of every acquaintance a kind of sly and knowing expression. "Aha!" every one of them seemed to say, "I've got my knife into you, Andrew!"

Beneath the roof of the respectable mansion in which he had hitherto spent a life unsullied by mystery or romance he found, to his horror, that these sinister manifestations were even more marked than in his club. The restored happiness of Jean was a bad sign, very ominous under the circumstances. It is true that she professed complete ignorance of their father's movements, but Andrew was too astute a lawyer to pay much attention to what people said; it was how they behaved that he went by; and Jean's conduct was suspicious. Why should she be smiling while this dark cloud hung over their reputations? The like of that looked very bad. He resolved to probe the matter a bit further.

"There's some one wanting to know where Frank has got to," he began, with an ingenuous air, when he met her next.

"What does he want to see him about?" inquired Jean.

"He didn't say, but I thought perhaps you had heard Frank mention where he was going. Did you by any chance?"

His air remained as ingenuous as ever, but Jean looked at him doubtfully. For a moment she hesitated.

"Yes," she said.

"Oh, where was it?"

"Of course I don't know whether he has gone there."

"The chances are he has," said Andrew. "What was his intention?"

"Who was the man that wanted to know?"

Andrew was particularly scrupulous never to deviate far from the high road of truth. Of course there were footpaths alongside that led to the same place, and gave one a certain amount of latitude; but beyond these no moral or respectable man should venture. Supposing one were caught in an adjoining field cutting a corner!

"That's neither here nor there," he said evasively.

"Was there really anybody at all asking for him, or is the 'some one' yourself?"

Her brother looked severe.

"Look here, Jean," said he, "you know where he has gone—I've got that much out of you; and it's your duty to tell me."

Her eyes were fixed on him steadily.

"You think Frank and father have gone off together?"

"I know nothing about that."

"And that's why you are suddenly so curious about Frank?"

He regarded her in injured silence; but instead of appearing affected by his unspoken reproach, she continued with an air of knowing both his intentions and her own.

"If father wanted you to know he would have told you himself."

"It is for his own sake I want to find out."

"Then you admit you were trying to find out about father! What benefit would it be to him if you knew?"

"It is most inconvenient at the office not knowing his address."

"If it really were very inconvenient, father would be certain to think of that and send you his address himself."

"He has not thought of it."

"Well then, there can't be any great inconvenience."

Not for the first time in his life Andrew wished that all humanity belonged to his own sensible, candid, trustworthy sex.

"I tell you there is," he insisted.

"I trust father implicitly," she replied.

"Oh, you think his recent behavior has been the kind of thing to inspire confidence?"

"It has in me!" she answered enthusiastically.

"You have a high opinion of his sense," he sneered.

"A great deal higher than I have of anybody else's in the world—in Edinburgh, anyhow!" she retorted, and with her chin held high broke off the conference.

This was sufficiently exasperating, but it was not the worst that treacherous sex could do. The widow's demeanor was a hundred times more menacing. She was so motherly towards Jean, so sisterly towards his unfortunate aunt, so skittishly condescending towards himself, that his previous suspicions of her were sunshiny compared with the dark convictions that lay heavier upon him each day. Her black eyes danced mockingly whenever he looked into them; she seemed always to be hugging the most delicious secret. Andrew doubted she had hugged more than a secret in this house.

It was a further confirmation of her perfidy that ever since his father's flight she had made a point of being down to breakfast before him, so that he could never see what letters she received. That was damning evidence against her—damnable evidence, in fact, for it argued a degree both of intelligence and energy for which he had not given her credit. Like his father before him, he was discovering that there was more up this sparkling lady's sleeve than met the eye.

A few mornings after the disappearance he thought he had caught her. When he entered the room she was reading a letter. He snapped up the chance instantly.

"Is that my father's writing?" he inquired, dissimulating his acuteness under an easy conversational air.

"It's a little like it," she replied, with an amiable smile, slipping the letter into its envelop and turning that face downwards on the table.

The W.S. began to respect as much as he detested her. All through breakfast she rippled with the happiest smiles and the gayest conversation. At the end, his detestation had again got its head in front of his respect.

But the following morning he himself received a letter which threw the widow and her smiles so completely into the background that for the next forty-eight hours he was scarcely aware of her existence. It ran thus:

The firmament seemed to darken as though a thunderstorm brooded over the devoted house. Already in fancy Andrew could hear the first crashings and flashes of the coming scandal. His appetite vanished, his coffee grew cold, and presently he rose and silently left the room. Yet the man of superior mental equipment rarely fails to extract some crumbs of consolation out of the direst disaster. Andrew extracted his by summoning Jean before he started for the office and handing her the terrible letter. As he watched her read it, the phrase shaped by his countenance might be read without the aid of any signal-book—

"What did I tell you?"

Certainly there was a well-earned morsel of satisfaction to be derived from her startled eyes and the little catches in her breath. She could believe him now! When she spoke at last her first words were exceedingly gratifying.

"What a horrid old man he must be!"

He looked suitably reproachful.

"That is strong language to use of your father."

Her eyes blazed.

"I am talking of Colonel Munro! The idea of giving father away like that. It's one of the very meanest things I ever heard of! I sincerely hope he may be in bed for a month."

She swept away, and her brother was left to brood gloomily upon the selfish perversity that thus actually defrauded him of his legitimate triumph.

---

CHAPTER VII

"Well," said Andrew, "what is to be done?"

The problem was undoubtedly delicate. He had paid it the compliment of summoning his two sensible married sisters to aid him with their counsel; and even they, though not lacking in decision as a rule, regarded first the Colonel's letter and then their brother with disturbed and doubtful eyes. He gave them no hint of the dreadful and disreputable change in their father's very being; that was positively too shocking to confide even to a sister (besides, they wouldn't have believed him), but he considered that the essentials of the problem were now fairly grasped by them both, and he was pleased to find a sympathetic unanimity of horror.

"He can't be allowed to go on disgracing himself in London; that much is perfectly clear," said Mrs. Ramornie.

"Not to speak of ruining us all," added Andrew.

"Can you not go and fetch him home?" asked Mrs. Donaldson.

Andrew pursed his lips.

"In the first place, would he come? You know how infernally obstinate he can be. In the second place, do we want him making an exhibition of himself here?"

"He would not have quite the opportunities here."

"Not for spending money, I admit; but we don't want him taking the chair and making speeches at the W.S. dinner to-morrow night in his present condition."

"Will he not remember and come back for it, anyhow?" suggested Mrs. Ramornie.

He shook his head.

"He has never spoken about it for a long while. I'm practically positive he has forgotten."

"But do you not need him at the office?" asked Mrs. Donaldson.

"Need him!"

"I can only tell you," she replied, "that Hector says he gets through business in a most surprising way, for all his eccentricity."

"Very surprising," he retorted sarcastically.

"Oh," she said airily, "I know you fancy yourself, but Hector declares father is the man for his money nowadays."

Andrew's cheeks drooped gloomily. He had heard hints of this preposterous opinion once or twice lately, and they disgusted his sense of fitness. How could a man possibly be good at business if he rushed through it like a steam-engine? Supposing one of the telegraph posts at the side wanted a touch of tar, how could you notice it going at that pace! But what was the use in arguing with a woman?

"Well, I can only tell you this," he snapped: "there's Madge Dunbar waiting for him here with her mouth open."

The two sisters immediately relinquished all idea of bringing him home.

"But if we let him stay in London, he'll be bankrupt in a month!" cried Andrew desperately.

"What the deuce is to be done?"

They pondered for a few minutes in silence, and then Mrs. Ramornie exclaimed, with an inspired air—

"He must go abroad!"

"And how are you going to manage that?" inquired Andrew.

"You've got to go and take him."

"Me!" he cried. "But—but, dash it, Maggie, he'll never go with me."

"You will have to dissemble a little, of course; pretend you want a holiday too, and take him to—to, well, we must look up some inexpensive French watering-place."

Gertrude smiled her approval.

"That's the idea, Andrew! Go up in a white felt hat, and tell him you know of a naughty little place in France where you can get dancing. He'll jump at it!"

Their brother regarded them with ever-increasing gloom.

"That kind of thing is not in my line—" he began; but once more he was impressed with the disadvantages of a bi-sexual world. The two ladies seemed positively incapable of grasping his objections, either to wearing a Homburg hat or recommending a naughty French watering-place.

"I don't insist on its being white; grey will do," said Mrs. Donaldson.

"Of course, I should never dream of taking him to a really disreputable place," said Mrs. Ramornie; "you only want a Casino and a little promenading, and so on."

"It will be great fun, Andrew!"

"It is your duty, Andrew."

"Yes, yes; of course we know you are an Elder of the Kirk and all the rest of it; but on an occasion, don't you know, Andrew!"

"What alternative do you suggest, Andrew?"

Yet he was still hanging fire when Jean entered. It had been tacitly understood that her presence was not required at the council of war, and the marked silence which followed her entry might reasonably have warned her that matters were being discussed too complicated for young unmarried girls. Yet she closed the door behind her and came forward with a quietly resolute air.

"I've only just heard you were here," she said. "You are talking about father, I suppose."

"We are," replied Mrs. Ramornie briefly.

Jean sat down.

"What have you decided?" she asked.

"We have decided he should go abroad with Andrew for a little change."

"Why?"

"Do you need to ask why, Jean? Surely you don't want him to go on making a fool of himself in London?"

"I don't see why he shouldn't go to a dance occasionally if he wants to."

"Go to a dance!" exclaimed Mrs. Donaldson.

"My dear Jean! do you suppose this was an ordinary—"

"Hush, Gertrude," said their brother austerely.

"Anyhow," said Mrs. Ramornie, "it is quite settled that he must leave London at all costs, and that it is inadvisable he should return to Edinburgh at present."

"But Aunt Mary was only saying to-day that he has to preside at a dinner to-morrow night."

"Oh, he'll forget all about that," said Gertrude, "and, of course, we don't mean to remind him."

"Why not?"

"Because he is not to be trusted at present," said Andrew.

A quick flush irradiated Jean's clear face.

"He is to be trusted. He is to be trusted far more than ever before in his life!"

The three counselors exchanged glances.

"We know better than you do," said Mrs. Ramornie severely.

But Jean was not easily to be quelled.

"I think it will be a perfect shame if you allow father to forget his engagement," she protested.

Her eldest sister's face grew more like Andrew's than ever.

"He must not come home at present, and we trust that Andrew will do his duty and not permit him to stay in London."

"Andrew!" exclaimed Jean. "How can he prevent him?"

Their brother hung back no longer.

"I shall go up to London to-morrow morning," he announced.

"Splendid!" cried Gertrude.

He looked at her coldly.

"I do not propose to do anything ridiculous. If I can get him to go to some place in the south of England and stop for a month or two, that will be quite sufficient; and I do not propose, either, to wear any other clothes than what I've got at present."

Having thus asserted his independence of conduct and apparel, he turned again to Jean.

"That is what we have decided," he said.

She jumped up, her lip quivering a little. Then she controlled herself, and as she left the room only said quietly—

"Thank you for telling me."

The council was then able to conclude its deliberations without further interruption.

---

CHAPTER VIII

After dinner that night, Andrew found Mrs. Dunbar alone in the drawing-room, and immediately turned to withdraw.

"Are you not going to have coffee, Andrew?" she asked.

There was something different in her manner; something almost nervous; something apparently less hostile. Andrew glanced at her suspiciously. What new move in her diabolical game did this signify?

"I've got letters to write," he answered coldly, and shut the door decisively behind him.

The fair widow sighed, and again picked up a letter lying in her lap and looked at it unhappily. She had kept her word and written to Charlie Munro, and unfortunately Heriot had forgotten to warn him that his answer to any such communication must be exceedingly discreet. No wonder she seemed distressed.

Naturally, the junior partner gave his fair enemy no information regarding his movements. She saw him leave in the morning as usual, apparently to go to the office, and it was not till some time later that she learned from his aunt of his departure for London. Curiously enough, she seemed rather pleased than otherwise by this move. Her correspondence with Colonel Munro had left the most unsettling effects.

Meanwhile, Andrew was nearing London. He was pleased to find his train arrive upon the stroke of 6:15, for he valued punctuality above everything except his reputation. From the station he drove to the large political club where he always put up, ate a dinner that exactly accorded with his station in life, and took a horse bus to the Hotel Gigantique. (Motor buses were only just beginning to be seen upon the streets at that time, and he was always suspicious of noisy innovations.)

By the merest chance, the first person he saw in the hall of the hotel was Frank, attired in overcoat and opera hat, and evidently bound for some extravagant expedition, the cost of which would no doubt be defrayed by his parent to the detriment of his brother's and sisters' patrimony.

"Well, Frank," said the elder brother, "where's your father?"

The "your" was a subtle indication of the depth to which Mr. Walkingshaw had fallen in the estimation of the right-minded.

"Out of town," said Frank briefly.

"Where's he gone?"

Frank shook his head.

"You can ask at the office," he suggested.

"Do you mean to say you don't know?"

"I mean to say it's none of my business."

Andrew had begun the conversation in a decidedly hectoring manner. He now began to alter his key a little.

"Look here, Frank, things are pretty serious. We've got to stop this tomfoolery."

The other interrupted him.

"What tomfoolery?"

"Making an exhibition of himself all over London, and wasting his money at a place like this. You know perfectly well what I mean."

"I only know that he's in the best form I've ever seen him in my life. He's just a devilish kind and sporting guv'nor, that's what he is."

"If you mean going about the most disreputable places in London in a half-intoxicated condition—"

"That's a lie, anyhow," said Frank calmly, yet with a glint in his eye.

His brother recoiled a pace, but his manner grew none the less uncompromising.

"I suppose you'll say he's moving in fine high-class society, do you?"

"It's a lot better than anything he ever found in his office."

"Thank you," replied the junior partner; "and now perhaps you'll tell me when he's expected back?"

"Day or two," said Frank shortly.

Andrew pondered for a moment.

"Oh?" he remarked at length, and without so much as a good-night he turned on his heel and walked out of the hotel.

Frank's conscience harassed him for a long time after this interview. He wished he could be quite certain that his manner towards his brother was entirely the result of Andrew's disagreeable references to their father. He would be the most ill-conditioned sweep unkicked, the most dishonorable sneaking blackguard, if by any chance he had allowed his luckless passion to prejudice him! He began to wish he were back in India again. Was this beastly furlough never coming to an end? And so he drove off in his hansom, alternately sighing and cursing himself, to watch what he had selected from the pictures in the illustrated papers as the most sentimental drama in town.

The advantage of living a well-regulated life was never better illustrated than in the person of his brother Andrew. No qualms of conscience annoyed him as he drove back economically in his bus. He knew that he was right, and that people who violated his standards, and disagreed with him impertinently were wrong; and secure in that knowledge, he was enabled to hug against his outraged feelings the warm consolation of a grievance. All through his life this form of moral hot-water bottle had kept Andrew snug during many a painful night. It is worth being consistently righteous for the mere privilege of possessing this invaluable perquisite.

He decided to wait in London for twenty-four hours longer on the chance of his father returning, and so it happened that he found himself in his club reading-room on the following afternoon at the hour when the Scotsman appeared to cheer the exiles from the north. He secured it at once, and with a consoling sense of homeliness proceeded to turn its familiar pages. All at once he was galvanized into the rigidity of a fire-iron—

"Writers to the Signets' Annual Dinner. Remarkable speech by Mr. Heriot Walkingshaw."

---

It was a few minutes before he summoned up his courage to read any further.

Andrew read no further. Half an hour later he was driving for King's Cross as fast as a cab could take him.

---

CHAPTER IX

It was characteristic of Andrew's serviceable and soundly unimaginative intellect that it should decline to grasp such a phenomenon as a father who was rapidly approaching his own age. It accepted the fact, since the evidence was now becoming overwhelming, but it firmly refused to go an inch beyond this concession. If one were seriously to regard his conduct as the natural result of youth and high spirits, there would be in a kind of way an excuse for it; and once you started that line of reasoning, where were you? You would be pardoning beggars because they were hungry, and bankrupts because they had no money, and all kinds of things. Andrew's conceptions of justice were not to be tampered with like that. It therefore followed (since he was extremely logical) that his parent must be looked upon simply as an erring and impenitent man. His age did not matter. That was his business. His son's was to see that, whether Mr. Heriot Walkingshaw professed to be eighty or eighteen, he conducted himself in a manner befitting the head of so respectable a family and firm.

The only defect in this pre-eminently honest way of regarding the matter was that it handicapped the junior partner when it came to forecasting his parent's probable movements. If you persist in basing your calculations on the assumption that a bird ought to be too old to fly, when it actually isn't, you will probably be wrong in expecting to find it always in your garden.

Andrew let himself into the house about the hour of 8:30 a. m., and almost fell into the arms of the agitated widow.

"Have you found him? Where is he? What has happened?" she implored him.

It was another of Andrew's wholesome peculiarities that, having once distrusted a person, his suspicions could hardly be allayed, even by evidence that would have satisfied a hypochondriacal ex-detective. This safeguard against deception effectually preserved him from the dangerous extremes both of indigence and greatness. He looked upon his second cousin with a shocked and doubtful eye. She had come very close. Did she expect him to toy with her?

"Have I found who?" he inquired coldly.

"Heriot!"

"If you mean my father, I did not find him."

He looked at her sarcastically, and added, "He didn't mention that himself, of course?"

"I haven't seen him!" she almost shouted.

He looked thoroughly startled now.

"Hasn't he been here?"

"He was only in the house for an hour. That was the day before yesterday. He didn't let me know he was here—he didn't let his sister know—nobody knew but Jean!"

"Where was he staying?"

"At an hotel."

"An hotel!" exclaimed Andrew in horror. "Going to all that expense, with his house standing waiting for him? That beats everything I've heard yet! Is he there still?"

"No, no, he's not!" she cried, almost sobbing. "He's gone back to London."

"Gone back to London!"

"And Jean's gone with him!"

"Jean! Has he not got enough bills to pay at that infernal millionaire's hotel without hers?"

"I don't know," wailed the lady. "I don't understand him. I thought he cared for me—and he didn't even let me know he was here!"

In spite of his anger with his erring parent, he was sufficiently master of his emotions to feel a lively concern at all this speech suggested.

"I must get my breakfast," he observed icily, and was starting for the dining-room.

She collected herself instantly.

"Andrew!" she said, "you've got to go after him."

He stared at her, first in extreme surprise, then with an exceedingly sophisticated smile.

"Thank you, I've got my business to attend to."

"You can go to the office first. There's a train about two."

"I'll not be on it," he replied.

"Some one's got to go and fetch him back."

"It won't be me."

She looked at him for a moment with an expression which did not interest him. He neither professed to understand women nor to think it worth while trying.

"Very well," she answered.

They went in to breakfast, but throughout the meal she never referred to Heriot again. Andrew flattered himself he had choked her off that subject.

---

CHAPTER X

While Andrew was still patiently waiting in London, a south-bound express swung down the long slope from Shap; past Oxenholme, past Milnthorpe, past Carnforth, out into the green levels of Lancashire. In one corner of a first-class carriage sat Jean Walkingshaw, her eyes smiling approval at that very paper which was to disturb her brother's serenity a few hours later. Her father sat opposite watching her.

"Well, what do you think of it?" he inquired.

"I think it's most amusing and—and—"

"Spirited?"

"Oh, very spirited!" she laughed. "In fact, I think it's a splendid speech."

He seemed gratified.

"Some fellows didn't seem to care for it," he observed.

"They must have been very stupid, then!"

"Old buffers generally are," he replied. "Some of the young chaps thought it first-rate, even though they were a little startled for the moment. Though why people should feel startled by anything so self-evident as my remarks beats me. Be hanged to them for silly idiots! Eh, Jean?"

His momentary expression of chagrin made way for a merry smile, which set his daughter smiling gaily back.

"If they disagree with you, father, they must be!" she laughed.

They sat silent for a few minutes, Jean watching the green fields and trees and gates and walls rush past to join the jagged fells behind them, her father watching her.

"It's awfully good of you taking me back with you," she said presently.

"If it's a treat for you, you deserve it," he answered affectionately; "and if it's not—well, anyhow, it's pleasant for me having your company."

"It is a treat for me, though I don't quite see what I've done to deserve it."

"You have stood by your father, my dear; and one good turn deserves another. I'd have been most infernally sick if I'd forgotten that dinner. It gave me the very chance of saying a word or two in season I'd been longing for. I only hope it will do the old fogies good."

He took up the paper and glanced again at the report.

"'Remarkable speech,' they call it," he continued complacently. "Well, they are not very far wrong. It was a remarkable speech. Eh, Jean?"

The good gentleman seemed unable to obtain his daughter's approval often enough. The fact was he had been a trifle disappointed with the attitude of some of his old friends last night. There was no doubt about it, he must go to the young folks for the meed of sympathy he deserved.

Jean again looked out of the window, but she ceased to pay much attention to the backward-drifting landscape. Her heart was too full of hopes and questionings and restless wonder. In a little she turned to her father again and said, with an eye so candid and a smile so kind that many members even of her own sex would never have suspected a hint of ulterior design—

"Do you know, you are the very best of fathers!"

He replied in the same spirit of affection, and she continued—

"I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to being in London again! You couldn't have done anything I'd have liked better."

"Yes," he confessed, "London is an amusing place."

"And one always meets so many people one knows there. That is one of its attractions."

He agreed that it was.

"I wonder who I'll meet this time?"

She spoke with an air of the most innocent speculation, but the nature of her parent's smile changed subtly.

"Goodness knows who one will meet in London," he replied. "Not Andrew, we'll hope, eh? I wonder where he is now."

At this change of subject her breast gave a quick little heave that might have marked a stifled sigh, but she dutifully joined in what she could not but think an unnecessarily prolonged series of speculations regarding the movements of a quite uninteresting young man.

But her eyes were very bright indeed and her face distinct with suppressed excitement as they drove from Euston Station into the life of the streets. All the while she kept looking out of the cab window, as though amid the passing myriads she might happen already to recognize one of those acquaintances she hoped to meet. At last she was in London! And London in early spring; London with the smuts washed off by torrential showers and then flooded with glorious sunshine; London with the young leaves like a thin veil of green on the limes and elms, and the tassels hanging from the poplars, and the sycamores and horse chestnuts already casting grateful shade; London with the mowing machines whirling in the parks and the watering-carts swishing down the streets—is a fairy city for a young girl with a large hotel to live in, a generous father, and a lover somewhere hidden in those mysterious miles of crowds and houses. Jean half wished she could feel a little less impatient, so that she might relish every passing moment to its dregs.

Her father, Frank, and she dined sumptuously and went to the most entertaining play afterwards—a stimulating medley of waltz refrains and gorgeous clothes and a funny man and fifty pretty girls. She did not pose as a dramatic critic, and thought it splendid. Then they had supper at the Savoy, and—so to bed.

But though she had gone to her room, Jean lingered for long before her open window, looking wistfully over the humming, lamp-lit town. His name had not been mentioned.

---

CHAPTER XI

Lucas painted, but not so fiercely as before; and again from the deck-chair Hillary watched him. He rented the studio next door, and having a comfortable private income of £80 a year, generally spent his afternoons encouraging his friend. Occasionally, however, he considered it advisable to supply chastening reflections.

"I don't like it," he observed.

"Don't like what?"

"If he really meant to buy those pictures, I can't help thinking you would have heard from him again."

The artist turned abruptly.

"It was only three days ago. I don't expect to hear yet."

"Dear old Lucas, I don't want to discourage you, but I call it fishy. Supposing he has met some one since who really knew something about pictures?"

His friend resumed work in silence.

"There is also another possibility," continued Hillary in his gentle voice. "He struck me as suspiciously extravagant—supposing he has gone bankrupt? I noticed, too, that his complexion was somewhat rubicund—supposing he has had an apoplectic fit? In that case, would his executors be bound by his verbal promise? Honestly, Lucas, I don't think so."

There came a sharp rap on the door.

"It will relax the strain on your intellect if you go and see who that is," suggested the painter.

"A telegram," said Hillary, strolling back from the door.

"Good heavens!" cried Lucas. "Read that."

Hillary read—

"Come immediately. Unfortunate complication here. Require you to explain fully.—Heriot Walkingshaw."