If someone had had time to spend a lot of love about him his defects could have been patched up so as to be scarcely noticeable. As it was people only came to his help when he was on the point of tumbling down. They shored him up hurriedly and left him; but no one cared enough to give him new foundations. The right kind of woman could have rebuilt him throughout—the kind of woman who knows how to love a man for his faults as well as for his virtues. But few women are architects where their husbands are concerned—only those who marry to give more than they get. Nan could have done it; but she was married to Barrington. Glory could have done it; but she was only a little girl.—So the angels had to watch their good intentions crumble.

Ocky knew quite well what was the matter with him—heart-hunger: he required a wife who would sit on his knee and ruffle his hair, and call him the funniest old dear in the world. Such a wife he would have had to carry through life; her dependence would have educated his strength. A wife who was censorious made him weakly obstinate and foolishly daring. If he had been patted and hugged, he would have been a good man. His mother had done that; but Jehane—ah, well, she did her best.

Barrington, when he signed the check, had made Ocky promise to return to Jehane the thousand pounds she had lent. It wasn’t her thousand pounds, but Glory’s, held in trust for her till she married. Ocky had pledged his word to give it back on one condition—that Jehane was to be kept in ignorance of the transaction. At the time he had quite intended to carry out the agreement; but so much can be done with a thousand pounds and an ingenious mind can invent so many excuses for dishonesty.

The morning after his home-coming he hung about the house instead of going to his office. Already his methods of holding her closely were getting on Jehane’s nerves. His shiftless easy affection tried her patience beyond endurance.

“Aren’t you going yet?”

“Presently, old gel. I want to have a good look at you first.”

“I think you ought to go. You’ll have all your life to look at me—and I’ve got my work, if you haven’t.”

“All right, old gel.”

“I wish you wouldn’t ‘old gel’ me so much. It’s vulgar and silly.”

Lighting his pipe, he strolled into the hall and picked up his hat. He stood there fumbling with it. Only when she followed him did he set it on his head, retreating toward the door. With the street at his back, he turned.

“I say, about your money.”

“For goodness sake, go. We can talk about that at lunch.”

He glanced across his shoulder at the sunlit street; his flight would be unimpeded.

“Don’t lose your wool, old—— I mean, Jehane. I’ve something to tell you. Had a nice little stroke o’ luck. Made thirty pounds for you.”

The flame of hostility sank at the mention of money. They stood gazing at one another. Each was aware that, within twelve hours of peace being declared, the old feud had all but broken out. Jehane was frightened by the knowledge and self-scornful at her lapse into temper. Ocky was congratulating himself on the dexterous lie with which the crash had been averted.

“Thirty pounds! And you kept it so quiet!”

He twirled his mustaches fiercely, straddling the doormat, all boldness and bullying self-righteousness now. “This little boy may be vulgar sometimes, but he isn’t silly—far from it.”

“But how did you do it?” She leant against him with both her hands on his arm, trying to make his eyes meet hers.

“You wouldn’t understand. Watched the market, yer know. Sold out just in time—last moment in fact.”

“You are clever—that’s what I kept telling Billy and Nan.”

“Think so? I’ve sometimes thought so myself.” He held his face away from hers as she pushed to the door and put her arms about his neck. “And yet you were treating me like a fool just now. You’re too ready at calling me silly and vulgar. I get tired of it.” As he spoke he had in mind the firm way in which a masterful person like Barrington would act. “You’ve got to stop it, Jehane. It’s the last time I mention it.”

“I know I’m unfair—unfair to you, to myself, to all of us. Oh, Ocky, be patient with me; I do so want to be better.”

She hid her face against his shoulder in contrition and unhappiness. Ocky was a generous enemy. He found it easy to forgive, being a sinner himself.

“There, there! That’s awright, Duchess. Don’t cry about it—— But I brought this matter up ‘cause I think you ought to have your money back.”

She stared at him in surprise. “Ought to! Why, what d’you mean? Is it a punishment? I don’t understand.” He set his hat far back on his forehead.

“I’m not trying to hurt your feelin’s; but you don’t trust me. Never have. It’s anxious work handling the money of a woman who don’t trust you. If I were to make a mistake, you’d give me hell—I mean, the warmest time I’ve ever had. I’d rather—much rather—you took your money back.”

He was drifting away from her—already she had pushed him from her. Something must be done.

“It’s you who don’t trust me, if you think that.” Her tones quivered with reproach as she said it.

“Then you want me to go on investing for you?”

“Of course.”

“You’re sure of it?”

“Quite, quite sure of it.”

“Then always remember, I tried to make you take it back and you wouldn’t. Isn’t that so?”

“Yes, I wouldn’t.”

“Awright, I’ll do my best; but I do it under protest, don’t forget.”

“Oh, Ocky, everything that we have we share.”

He kissed her and passed out into the street with alacrity; she might get to considering his motives. But at the garden gate he hesitated, dawdled, and came back.

“Look here, I don’t want Barrington nosing into my affairs. If I do this for you it’s between ourselves.”

“I shouldn’t think of telling Barrington.”

“Well, if you breathe a word to Nan I’ll stop dead, and you can manage your investments yourself.”

So he kept to the letter of his agreement with Barrington—and he kept to Jehane’s capital. And he accomplished this by that small lie about the thirty pounds.

When Mr. Playfair had chosen Ocky Waffles to be office-manager of the Sandport Real Estate Concern, he had shown remarkable cunning. He was tricky himself and he required a subordinate who was no more scrupulous, yet a subordinate who could give to smart transactions an appearance of honesty. Mr. Playfair’s finances were scanty; in order to extend his credit it was necessary to pose in the eyes of Sandport as a civic benefactor. Outside investors were attracted by a not too truthful, but undoubtedly clever, series of advertisements for which Ocky was responsible, such as:—

“Houses Built on Sand! We all remember the Bible parable of the foolish man who built his house upon sand: when the winds blew and the floods came, it fell. Houses built at Sandport are the exception. We have a lower death rate here, etc., etc. OUR HOUSES STAND.”

This was all very well, but several important facts were omitted from the advertisements: that a number of the land lots offered for sale were too inaccessible to be of practical value and that those marked as sold, which connected them up with the town, were actually still on the market; and, again, that many of the immediate and promised developments, which would increase the value of the property, would be indefinitely postponed by lack of capital; and, again, that, in certain cases, building would be impossible by reason of fresh-water springs which undermined the sand.

In the promotion of a shaky enterprise Ocky was in his element. He could not have brought the same cleverness to bear on an honest transaction. The school of life from which he had graduated was one of shifts, evasions and shams. Even his experiences with Jehane kept his hand expert. He was so plausible in his gilding of falsity that he made it appear like the truth itself.

But if Playfair in selecting Ocky had shown his cunning, he had also shown his lack of business shrewdness, for Ocky was not the person to trust with money. And he had to trust him, so that he might make him the scape-goat if any infringment of the law should be found out. Some of the money which Barrington had given Ocky had gone toward the straightening of the Sandport Real Estate Concern’s accounts, before Playfair should discover that they had been juggled. Ocky had not meant to steal; he never meant to do anything improper. He borrowed the firm’s money to support his private speculations. While Jehane’s affection could only be purchased, he was continually tempted to borrow. He fully intended to pay back. He always fully intended.

The angels made three desperate efforts to prevent Ocky from crumbling. They gave him Glory. A curious sympathy had grown up between him and the child of Jehane’s first marriage. Perhaps it was that they both suffered from the unevenness of Jehane’s temper. At any rate, he much preferred her to his own long-lashed, slant-eyed little daughter. Riska, though she was only seven, had learnt to be both vain and selfish; at the same time, when there was anything she wanted, she knew how to be attractive. She was her mother’s favorite and belonged to her mother’s camp. And Madeira Lodge tended to become more and more divided into two silently hostile parties. Ocky had the unpleasant feeling that Riska was amused by the outbreaks which occurred, and turned them to her own profit. Whereas Glory——

Already at ten, Glory was a woman in her forethought for him. She would follow after him, hanging up his coat and hat, rectifying his habitual untidiness, and stamping out the sparks which were so often the beginnings of domestic conflagrations. Her gray eyes were always kind when they looked at him and she was never impatient under his caresses. “Poor little father,” she would whisper, putting her soft arms about him, “I’m sure mother didn’t mean to say that.”

And the angels gave him his baby-girl. Mary they called her, which was contracted to Moggs as she grew older. But Riska called her the M. L. O., which stood for Ma’s Left Over, because she was so small that it seemed as though Jehane had run short of material when she made her. Ocky was very glad of Moggs; Moggs was too young to judge him. Even Eustace judged him, saying, “You’s been naughty, Daddy; Mumma’s vewy angwy.” There was no pity in the little boy’s tone when he said it—only sorrowful accusation.

Sitting by Moggs’s cradle, Ocky would wonder whether the day would come when she, learning what a fool she had for a father, would turn against him. In the midst of his wondering, she would wake and he would see two blue glimpses of heaven laughing up at him. He would take her in his arms, promising her, because she could not understand a word he said, that for her sake he would try not to take so much “medicine.”

“Medicine,” as a means to bolstering up his courage, was a habit which grew upon him.

Peter, who was the third effort of the angels, noticed a change every time he visited Uncle Waffles. On those walks across the lonely sand-hills, Uncle Waffles no longer pretended that he drank the “medicine” for his health.

“You’re a ha’penny marvel, Peter—that’s what you are. You get me to tell you everything. It’s ‘cause I have to tell somebody, and I know you won’t split on me. Now about this ‘medicine’; I’m taking more and more of it. And why? Because it’s my only way of being happy. Before I married the Duchess I hardly ever touched it. I had my mother then. I wish you’d known her, Peter; she was a rare one for laughing. I only feel like laughing now when I’ve taken more ‘medicine’ than’s good for me. Not that I was ever drunk in my life. It never goes to my head—only legs.”

He had usually had too much when he made these confessions. Peter knew he had by the way in which he said, “I got a nacherly strong stomick. It’s a gif from God, I reckon.”

Peter kept these disclosures to himself and walked his uncle about till it was safe to return to Madeira Lodge. Ocky would retire as soon as they entered, saying that he had a bad headache. They became of such frequent occurrence that Jehane began to be suspicious.

During the next three years Ocky’s visits to Topbury were periodic. Barrington could usually calculate his advent to a nicety. One night there would be a ring at the bell and Mr. Waffles would enter unheralded. While others were present he would joke with his old abandon, as though he hadn’t a care in the world. Then Barrington would turn to him, “Shall we go upstairs to my study for a chat?”

The fiction was kept up that Ocky’s visits were of a friendly and family nature. The constant fear at Topbury was that the servants might guess and the scandal would leak out.

When the study door had shut behind them, Barrington would give vent to his indignation.

“How much this time?”

“I’ve had hard luck.”

“You mean you want me to clear off your debts and pay back the money you’ve taken?”

“It won’t happen again, Billy. Just this once.”

“You said that last time and the time before that, and every time as far back as I can remember. D’you remember what I said?”

Before the anger in Barrington’s eyes Ocky began to crouch. “It won’t happen again. I swear it. I’ve learnt my lesson.”

Barrington knew his answers before they were uttered. “I’ve told you each time,” he said, “that, if you repeated your thefts, you’d have to take the consequences. Last time I meant it.”

Then would follow from Ocky a series of pleadings and arguments. That exposure would entail disgrace all round. That he would be arrested. That his family would be ruined. That the story would get into the papers and would reflect discreditably on Barrington. When these failed, Ocky would appeal to their friendship and the common memories they shared. The scene would usually close with a warning from Barrington that this was really the last time he would come to his rescue; then the debts would be added up and the check book would be brought out.

The threat of Ocky became a nightmare to Barrington and Nan—the children were not supposed to know about it. The finding of so much money was an intolerable burden, and they were never safe from its recurrence. On several occasions Barrington had to sell some of his pictures to meet these sudden demands for ready cash. To add to their anxiety was the fact that they had so far refrained from telling Jehane, out of fear that her resentment against her husband would make matters worse. So her letters still arrived punctually, singing his praises and saying how splendidly he was making progress.

But the day was fast approaching when the shoring up of Ocky Waffles had to end. It ended when Barrington discovered that his cousin was tapping other sources for his borrowing.

On a trip to Oxford with reference to a manuscript, he surprised Ocky leaving the Professor’s house. Nan, when calling on the Misses Jacobite, recognized an envelope addressed in Ocky’s hand.

The next time he made his visit to Topbury, Barrington kept his promise. Ocky was shown directly into the study without any preliminaries of family enquiries. He was not asked to sit down. Barrington faced him, standing with his back to the fire.

“I’ve been expecting you. My mind’s made up. I don’t want to hear what you’ve come for or any of your excuses. You’ve lied to me. I know all about the Professor and the Misses Jacobite. Doubtless there are others. You can go to jail this time, and I hope it’ll cure you. I’ve been a fool to try and save you. You’re rotten throughout.”

Since the accidental meeting at Oxford, Ocky had been prepared for some such explosion. He had fortified himself with drink for the encounter. But he was stunned by this unexpected air of judicial finality. He began to pour out feverish words. Barrington cut him short.

“For three years you’ve poisoned my life. You’ve blackmailed me with the fear that your disgrace would be made known. You yourself have made that fear certain by applying to my friends. The scandal can become public as soon as it likes. That’s all I have to say. Good-night.”

The game was up. Ocky straightened himself to meet the blow. He ceased to be cringing and humble. The drink helped him to be bold; so did his desperate sense of the world’s injustice.

“You say I’m rotten throughout. Perhaps I am. But who made me like that? I wasn’t rotten when we were boys together, and I wasn’t rotten when my mother was with me. Who made me rotten? You and clever people like you. You never let me forget that I wasn’t clever.

“You never did anything but humiliate me by reminding me that I was on a lower level. Your gifts were always bitter because they were given without kindness, to get rid of me or in self-defence; and, in return, I was expected to admire you. Oh, you hard good man! You couldn’t make me clever just by saying to me, ‘Be clever,’ or good just by saying, ‘Be good’——— You say I lied to you. Of course I lied—lied as a child will to escape punishment. You never understood me. Even before I went crooked you were ashamed of me because I hadn’t the brains to think your thoughts and to speak your language. Your intellect despised me. Yes, and you taught my wife to despise me. Didn’t you call me an ‘ass’ before company on the very night I became engaged to her. She remembered that and took her tone from you. You were her standard. From the first she was discontented with me because I wasn’t you and couldn’t give her the home you’d given Nan—— So I tried to be rich, because to be rich is to be clever. I gambled with what didn’t belong to me to get money to buy my wife’s respect. And now, because you, you, you were always there setting the pace for me with your success, I’ve lost everything. But if I’d won by my sharp-practise, you and Jehane would have been the first to say that I was a clever chap—I wasn’t born bad. What you and my wife have thought about me has made me what I am. Damn you. I wouldn’t touch a farthing of your charity now. I want to go to the dogs where both of you’ve sent me and to make as big a scandal as I can.”

He was trembling with hysteric anger; his voice was thick and hoarse with passion. His weak and genial features were absurdly in contrast with the violence of what he said. His soaped mustaches and white spats made him a comic figure at any time, but doubly comic in the rôle of an accusing prophet.

Barrington eyed him quietly without the quiver of a muscle or the flicker of a lash. He had hardened his heart beforehand against the appeal of such a theatric outburst. “Is that all?”

Ocky hung his head; the fire of his self-pity was quenched by the restrained ridicule of the man who addressed him. He wiped the perspiration from his eyes with his tired hands. “That’s all.”

As he was passing into the hall, Peter looked over the banisters and saw him.

“Kay. Kay. Here’s dear old uncle,” he called and commenced running down the stairs.

At the landing his father stopped him. “Not to-night, my boy.”

Peter laughed and tried to wriggle past him; but his father held him firmly, saying, “I meant what I said.”

Looking down, Peter saw the face of his friend glance back at him; it was lined and tortured. Then the front door closed with a bang.

Barrington re-entered his study. Now that he had accomplished the difficult cruelty his mind was in doubt. If Peter loved Ocky, there must be some good left in him——

But he had used that argument with himself before. As he sat, pictures began to form of Ocky as he had been. He saw him about Peter’s age, the weakly schoolboy whose battles he had had to fight because he was strong. He recalled that term when he had had to take him to the doctor with his poisoned hand. He remembered how Ocky’s mother had always said of him that he was the most careful and dearest son in the world—— No, he hadn’t been always bad.

His thoughts became unbearable; he needed approval for his act. Stepping out on to the landing he called, “Nan, Nan.”

When she came he was again seated in his chair. The lights were out and a log of ship’s wood, spluttering on the coals, burnt violet and yellow, making the shadows wag accusing fingers. She curled herself up on the floor, leaning her head against his knees, like a small child at the story hour, before it goes to bed.

Nan always brought an atmosphere of kindness with her—of innocence and goodness. Her ways were those of a young girl, who walks on tiptoe with hands upon her breast, listening for life to call her. Barrington watched her shining head and how the fire glinted against the column of her throat. If Ocky had had a wife like Nan———-

It was some time before she spoke. Then, “Dearest?”

“I had to be a brute and I hate myself. I kicked him out.”

“Do you think you did right?”

“If I didn’t, I shouldn’t have done it. The thing had to end.”

“And what next?”

“We’ve got to think of Jehane and her children. I’m wondering how much she knows or suspects.”

“She’ll never tell—— I wonder will she stand by him?”

There was silence.

Barrington spoke. “Ocky hinted at something to-night. It might be true—something that I never thought about. It explains those letters of Jehane’s. It explains why they’ve never got on together. I’ve always said that a little love would have made Ocky a better man.”

“Dear, what was it?”

“It dates a long way back. He said that Jehane had made our home and my love for you the standard of what she expected from——”

“I understand. And it is true, Billy. She wanted a man like you from the first.”

Silence.

Nan said, “Once she used to talk about the penal servitude of spinsterhood.”

“And now,” said Barrington, “she’ll have to learn about the penal servitude of marriage. Whatever happens, unless he ill-treats her, he’ll be her husband to the end.”

“But—— But can’t we stop this dreadful something?”

Barrington stooped and took her hand.

“Little woman, we’ve been trying to stop it all these years. We can’t stop it; we can only postpone it and give him more time to drag Jehane and the children lower down. We’ve reached the point where things have got to be at their worst before they can grow better. It’s a question now of how many of them we can rescue. Ocky has to be allowed to sink for the sake of the rest.”

Nan’s forehead puckered at the cruelty of such logic. “But I don’t understand. It seems so horrible that we should sit here, with a fire burning and everything comfortable, saying things like that.”

“It is horrible. It’s so horrible that, if I were to give him everything I have, he’d still go to the devil. He’s a drowning man and he’ll drag down everyone who tries to drag him out.”

She clung to her husband aghast at this painful glimpse of reality. “But I still don’t understand. Why—— Why should he be like that? He’s kind, and he’s gentle, and he makes children love him.”

“You want to know? And you won’t be hurt if I say something very terrible?”

“I don’t mind being hurt—I’m that already.”

“I think it’s because of Jehane—because of what she’s left undone. She never brought any song to her marriage—never made any joy for him or happiness.”

“And because of that he’s to——”

“Yes. Because of that he’s to be allowed to go under. It’s chivalry, not justice. At sea one saves the women and children first. He’s a man.”

In quick revulsion from this ugliness of other people’s sordidness, he bent over her, brushing his lips against her cheek and hair. “Shall I ever grow tired of kissing you, I wonder, my own little Nan?”

And so, in one another’s arms, for a moment they shut out the memory of tragedy.

But the angels had not done with Ocky Waffles yet.