William De Morgan

CHALLIS'S adieu TO MISS ARKROYD. A LONG RIDE HOME, AND A COLD WELCOME. BUT IT WAS JOLLY TO BE BACK, AT ANY RATE. MISS ARKROYD'S MESSAGE DELIVERED

Marianne's loving Tite did not come back at the time he had appointed—not by many days. He postponed doing so in order to go back on the same day as Mr. Brownrigg, whose society he had begun to find rather amusing. Their departure together was again postponed in order that they might travel up in company with William Rufus and Lord Felixthorpe, with whom both had come to be on the best of terms, after each had denounced either to the other, in the strictest confidence, as purse-proud, rank-proud, toffish, and standoffish. They had collated their respective observations of the ingrained vices of Aristocracy, and found that they agreed. But, then, after they had unpacked their hearts with unprejudiced and candid criticism, they had suddenly volte face'd, and discerned that there was always a Something you could not define about people of this sort. They had both noticed this singular fact, and each was supplied by it with an insight into the unusual powers of penetration of the other. It was a curious coincidence that both had acquired a consciousness of this Something by comparing the courteous demeanour and graceful hospitality of their host with what they found it impossible to describe as anything but the Plebeian Vulgarity of the sitting Conservative member for the borough. Mr. Ramsey Tomes caught it hot. Then look at the indescribable grace of Lady Arkroyd, and contrast it with the dowdy personnel and awkward manners of the political gentleman's wife. Why!—there was a woman, her ladyship to wit, who could be as rude as she pleased to anyone, and the indefinable Something came in and carried it off!

Was it the indefinable Something, or a very easily definable Nothing-of-the-Sort, that brought about a still further delay in Alfred Challis's return home? Probably the latter, in the form of the gradual cordiality that comes to folk living in the same house under auspicious circumstances, and goes on growing till quarrelling time. It was of less importance when once he had overstayed his return-ticket; and the final outcome of two or three postponements, each to await a reinforcement to the homeward-bound Londoners, was that the bulk of the Royd house-party caught the two o'clock train ten days behind the date of Mr. Challis's promised return to his domestic hearth, and arrived at Euston in a drizzling mist, which knew that summer had gone, and had the atmosphere all to itself.

The porter that carried his portmanteau and his game—a hare and partridges, with which was associated a promise of pheasants next month—to a four-wheeler, might have noticed that the literary-looking gentleman and the good-looking young lady in blue said good-bye a great deal—in fact, until a carriage called out to know whether the latter was coming or not. But this porter's name was Onions, and he had no soul, except one that was wrapped up in remuneration. So he accepted fourpence and saw nothing.

But he might have. And also he might have heard the following conversation between the good-looking—or best-looking—young lady and the gentleman, after the latter had made sure that his selected four-wheeler was prepared to go as far as Wimbledon.

"Now, Mr. Challis, I know you're not to be trusted to give my message to your wife...."

"Yes, I am. She's to write you a line to say when she'll be at home."

"Stupid man! Now you know quite well it was nothing as bold as that. No, dear Mr. Challis, tell her I don't want to make a formal 'call.' I want to know her—as well as I know you. And I never shall unless we see each other quietly, when there's no one else there. Oh dear!—if only people I want to know would give me a cup of tea and say 'not at home' to everyone else!"

"I should myself! But I quite understand. I'll wrap up the message to Marianne exactly to that effect. She shall write and fix a day. And I'm not to be there—that's it, isn't it?"

"That's it. Good man! And you understand that I'm entirely in earnest about Aminta Torrington—(all right! Nobody can hear. They're all in the carriage)—and you're to speak to Mr. Magnus at the Megatherium about it."

"Oh yes! I'm going to speak. Honour bright!"

"Very well, then! Now good-bye, Mr. Challis."

"Good-bye. I have had a pleasant time." But Mr. Onions heard none of this, as, while he was disposing of the portmanteau, his attention was engaged by conversation with the cabman.

"Where's Wimbledon, Honey?" the latter had said, as he took the box from him. He seemed over-ripe, did this cabman. He could not fall off the box, though, for he had bound himself to it by tarpaulins of an inflexible nature. "Honey" was not Irish: it was short for "Onions."

"What's the use of askin' me, when you know yourself? Mean to say you don't?"

"I was born there, my son. I've lived there ever since. Likewise, I'm going to hend my days there, exceptin' I should 'appen to live for ever. I was just a-puttin' the question to see if you knew."

"Couldn't say to harf an inch where it is. But it's a place you get a pint at, every wisit."

"Right you are, my son!... All right, governor—just off, as soon as these cloths are tucked in. You never mentioned any 'urry, or I'd have seen to it!"

And then Royd and its luxurious life have finally vanished, and everyday life has come back, as the cab growls through its rather long ride. Challis was paying the penalty of coming home by a different route, and now almost wished he hadn't made up his mind to cab the whole way. But you know what it is when you have a large portmanteau that won't go on a hansom.

If it had not been for the hare and partridges, he could have managed to consider the whole thing a dream. This would have been an advantage; for no one stickles at finding waking life dull after a fascinating sleep-experience. Do not we all rather love to rub it into our waking surroundings how sweet that place was in the dream, how bright those skies and seas were, how lovable that—well, usually—person of the opposite sex was? Are you, if you are a lady, prepared to deny this last item? Not that this concerns the story, for there they were—the hare and partridges. And the memories they brought back clashed with the long perspectives of street-lamps in the drizzle, and the reflections of them; and the male umbrellas and female umbrellas bobbing endlessly past below them, or waiting for a bus that somebody may get out of, just there; and the busses that stopped to shed their passengers and fill up again with Heaven-favoured fresh ones—while they, the umbrellas, waited—and made the hearts of those no umbrella could keep dry sick with Hope deferred. This hare and partridges, fur-soft and feather-soft, though cold to the touch, were full of suggestions of the life that had been switched off finally just now at Euston Station. But then, of course—Challis ought to have recollected this, and he felt it—they were equally full of suggestion of where they were going to be devoured. Was he not going home to Marianne, and the children, and his snug little writing-room looking out on the Common across the garden, where he was on no account to be disturbed? The very word "home" had a magic in it, and so forth: consult Literature, passim!...

No, really, it was too absurd to allow his nasty cynical tone to creep into his thoughts—here in Hyde Park; for that was the Marble Arch, and the cab was making a good record—when in less than an hour he would be back among his Lares and Penates. As he got nearer home he found that the fire of pleasurable anticipation he had lighted began to crackle and burn up of its own accord, without further effort on his part. How he wished he could invent a word for that confounded hypothetical wickedness—treachery or what not—that nervous imaginatives impute to themselves, knowing its unreality all the while!

He had never allowed himself to believe for one moment that Royd owed any of its charm for him to anything but ... well!—a sort of general summary of the charms of a big wealthy country-house full of pleasant people with balances at their Bankers'. So he expressly vetoed the idea that in the dream he was now waking from, as he neared the Hermitage and Marianne, there was any one individual that played a predominant part. He vetoed it in obedience to that groundless guilt of conscience he was going to find a name for. But for that he would have let it alone.

He would have to find that name, to brand the intolerable nuisance; to denounce it by it, when it appeared. Then he might look it in the face unflinchingly, when it told him to snub his memory for remembering so vividly the sunset-glow on his companion's face, that day they walked back from the Rectory. What a luxury it would be to give this phenomenon its proper place! As, for instance, Mental Astigmatism—something of that sort! The more syllables the better! Let him see!—didn't aischune in Greek mean disgrace, or guilt? How would pseudoeschynomorphism serve the turn? Long enough, anyhow, to convince a Grand Jury....

Well, it was this—no need to say the long name every time; at least, until the Jury should be empanelled!—that was galling the kibe of his mind at every chance thought of Judith Arkroyd that came into it. Why, in Heaven's name, should he not dwell with pleasure on her eyes, which were public property; on her lips, which he did not propose to interfere with; on the touch of her hand at parting, which, by-the-bye, had gone the round of the male units as the party broke up? He was not going to appropriate a larger share than Felixthorpe, for instance, whom he thought a very nice chap; or Brownrigg, for that matter! Or ... but no!—one must draw a line somewhere. Let Mr. Ramsey Tomes keep his fat hand to himself! At which point Pseudetcetera—(that would do for the present)—said aloud: "Come, Alfred Challis, what business have you with the word desecration in your mind in connection with this part of the business?" He rebuked the phenomenon, giving it its name in full.

He was no match for it, though; and it ended by scoring. "Should I be here at all," it said, "if Marianne were...?" He brushed the question aside, but his heart knew the end of it. Marianne wasn't....

However, it was all Pseudetcetera, anyhow! Judith Arkroyd was cultivating him from a purely selfish motive—this rather bitterly; and as for Marianne, was he not really glad to be back again, and wouldn't it be a pleasure to ... to present her with the hare and partridges, and facilitate the housekeeping?

As to Miss Arkroyd's proposal to call, he did not know how it would be received. Perhaps he would have to tell Marianne that she really must be a sensible woman, and a Woman of the World.

Anyhow—and he drifted into a self-interested channel with some sense of relief—it would never do to have what might be a golden prospect for his play thwarted. He had only imperfect means, so far, of guessing what Judith would sound like behind the footlights; but as to what she would look like, that was a thing there could be no misgiving about.... Why!—the horse was walking. Actually, Putney Hill! What a much better lot of four-wheelers had come on the streets lately! In a quarter of an hour he would be at home; and really very glad—honour bright!—to be back with Marianne.

---

When any lady or gentleman comes back from an absence, in a cab with luggage on it—however passionate may have been her or his longing for a corresponding him or her who may have been (or might have been) watching at the door for its arrival, or however much the two of them may feel disposed to

"Stand tranced in long embraces

Mixt with kisses sweeter, sweeter

Than anything on earth"—

they usually find, in practice, that it is necessary to stand matters over, because of the cab. This does not, of course, apply to where a man-servant is kept, who can pay fares dogmatically, and conduct himself like the Pope in Council. But where the yearnings of both parties have to be suppressed all through a discussion of the fare and a repulse of the unemployed, whose services have been anticipated by your own mercenaries ... well!—do what you will in the way of cordiality afterwards, it is chilling, and you can't deny it. We know we are putting this in a very homely way, but this is a very homely subject.

If that over-ripe cabman had shown a different spirit, and accepted the shilling or so too much that Challis offered him, and gone his way in silence, who knows what course events would have taken in the Challis household? But he not only said, "My fare's nine shillings!" but came down from his box as one comes down from a box when one's mind is thoroughly made up, and one ain't going to stand any more of one's ex-fare's trifling. He also unbuttoned a series of coats, and produced from his inner core a pocket-book, supposed to contain documentary evidence of some sort. It was eight mile o' ground, and three on 'em outside the radius. Challis was irritated at the low valuation put on his understanding by this cabman, and disputed a point he would have given way on had an appeal been made to the goodness of his heart to shut his eyes to obvious truth in the interest of extortion. He was also obsessed by a woe-begone creature who had run all the way from Putney Bridge to assist with the one portmanteau, but had been headed off by Martha and Elizabeth Barclay. Who, thus intercepted, had substituted a moral claim on account of the distance no one had asked him to cover for a legal claim for carrying a portmanteau into a house, and making the latter smell of his wardrobe till properly aired and the mats shook next day. The consequence of which was that, when the cabman had reconstituted himself on his box, under protest, and departed, Challis, eager to make up for the postponement of his greeting by a good husbandly accolade, found himself met by, "As soon as you've done with the man!" and, turning, perceived an injured being touching a soaked cap, and awaiting recognition or execration in a spirit of meekness, but quite determined not to go away without a settlement.

"Run all the way from Putney, have you? What the devil did you do it for? Nobody asked you." Here a gratuity, of coppers.

"Won't you make it up a shillin', Captain? It is 'ard, when a man's been out all day looking for a chance, and walked all over Battersea and Chelsea and round Brixton—ask anybody if I ain't!—and nobody to 'elp me to a job or say the word for me.... Thank ye kindly, Captain!"—here more coppers; this mode of address proving irresistible—"only if it was made up to a shillin' I could get my tools out of pawn, being a carpenter by trade...."

Challis pushed the door to in the man's face with something like an oath. Then at last he got a moment's leisure for his overdue kiss, which he paid liberally, as he said: "Well, it is jolly to be back, at any rate! How are the kids?" For, whatever the malady he had made the awkward name for had been, he wasn't going to show any consciousness of it.

"The children you mean? There's nothing the matter with them that I know of. Now make haste; because it's a small leg. If I'd thought you were going to be so late it could have been rump-steak."

Challis looked at his watch. "H'm!" said he. Which meant that seven-forty was not so enormously late, and really more elastic arrangements might have been contrived. "I shouldn't have time for a warm bath, should I?"

"I must tell Elizabeth Barclay, then. I dare say she can keep the meat back. Only say!"

"Oh, it don't matter, if there's any difficulty...."

"My dear!—why should there be any difficulty! You've only got to say.... Well!—am I to tell Elizabeth Barclay, or am I not?"

Challis decided, and said. That is, he did not formulate special instructions, his words being merely, "Half-past, then. I'll be sure not to be later," and went straight away to get a bath. It is the greatest of luxuries, as we all know, after a journey, and Challis had made up his mind to have one the moment he detected a flavour of roasting, because that implied plenty of hot water in the bath-room.

Those who measure events only by the bounce they manifest—by their rapidity, or unexpectedness, or by the clamour that accompanies them—will wonder why any narrator of a story should think such flat incident worth recording. But observe!—it was the very flatness of this conversation that gave it its importance, coming as it did on the top of the exhilaration of Mr. Challis's visit, and his parting with that large and lively company of friends less than two hours ago. It has its place—this flatness has—in the lives of these two folk we write of, and really accelerates the story, although it is certainly slow in itself.

How very much Challis would have preferred it if his wife had said, "I won't kiss you if you swear," and had then done it quandmÊme! His mind—a fictionmonger's—reconstructed his reception with things more palatable for Marianne to say, this one among them. Another thing he would have liked, quite inexplicably, was, "Well!—how's the fascinating Judith?" Possibly this was because he would have welcomed help from without to convince him he was indifferent about the young woman. The answer he imagined for himself, which would have been pleasant for him to give, was, "She's coming to see you next week, Polly Anne. So get your best bib and tucker ready!" But there had been none of this, nor the laughter—purely imaginary—that he garnished it with. Only the flatness as recorded.

"Perhaps it was all that confounded cabman," said Challis to himself and a bath-towel like a toga, after a very respectable warm bath—not equal to that at Royd, though—and a cold douche. He had to hurry up to keep his word at half-past eight. But he kept it.

"Well!" said he, as he joined his wife in the drawing-room, where she was awaiting the announcement of dinner, Challis conceived.

"Well what?" She touched the nearest bell-handle. "They'll know it's for dinner," she said, and the remark seemed relative. "Why well?"

"Well everything! Tell me all about the kids, about who's called, about where you've been, about everything. Come, Polly Anne, I think you might unbutton a little and be jolly when a chap's been away three weeks. How are John and Charlotte Eldridge?"

"Yes!—I think you might have asked about them. John has been at death's door. There's dinner!..." Challis made a sympathetic noise about Mr. Eldridge, but postponed inquiry. Nothing made it easy until he found himself a lonely soup-consumer; because, you see, Marianne wasn't hungry.

"What has it been?" Too concise, perhaps. But really death's door, with John on the step, had been the last thing mentioned.

"What has what been?"

"What you told me. What's been the matter with John?"

"Peritonitis. But he's going on well now. Dr. Kitt says he'll have to live very carefully for some time.... I know what you mean, but it's very unfeeling to laugh. Besides, I don't believe he eats more than other people." Challis felt indefensible. Just fancy!—there he was, eating gravy soup all by himself!

"I wasn't laughing, old girl," said he. "Poor Jack Eldridge! Peritonitis is no joke. I'll go round to-morrow."

"It won't be any use. He won't be able to see you. Yes—you can take the soup, Harmood. Mr. Challis isn't going to have any more...."

A mere rough sample of the conversation. It was not unlike others of the same sort on like occasions. But was Challis wrong in imagining that, this time, it was a little accentuated! Was it only his imagination, gathering suggestions from the atmosphere that his home had been that of self-denying endurance during his absence, and that his own selfish indulgences elsewhere were being actively forgiven for his sake? What had he done to deserve forgiveness? If he had known that he was incurring it, would he have committed the offence at all?

Also he did feel that Marianne hadn't played fair. What could have been more genial than her send-off, three weeks ago?—more apparently genuine than her refusal to accompany her husband to Royd on the ground of a real dislike for Society? To be sure, a throb of conscience reminded him of a certain breath of relief—almost—that he drew at the decisiveness of this refusal. Had Marianne been sharp enough to see it? His instinct told him that a woman might have a sharp department in her mind on points of this sort, and yet make a poor show in logic and mental philosophy.

The sense that he was a naughty boy that had been eating three-cornered jam-tarts, and giving no one else any, hung about him, and made him unlike himself. If only that abominable cabman had not spoiled the part he had sketched out for himself on his first arrival, one of exaggerated self-denunciation for his beastly selfishness, and tragi-comical commiseration for Marianne as Penelope or Andromeda! It would then have come so much easier to deliver that message from Judith Arkroyd. And now! Just look at now! Now, when he actually found himself fallen so low as to half-ask if he might smoke in the drawing-room! Not quite, of course; that would have been too absurd! But he said something or other, or Marianne would not have replied as she did.

"As if I ever minded! How can you be so ridiculous!" This was good and lubricative. But she spoilt it by adding that there was the little ash-pan. Nevertheless, by the time the incense from her husband's cigar, and an atmosphere of consolatory coffee, were bringing back the flavour of a thousand and one post-prandial hours of peace in days gone by, the malignant influence of that cabman began to lose its force, and there was concession in the way she added: "I suppose you weren't allowed to smoke in the drawing-room at Boyd's—Royd's—whatever it was?"

"Royd. Cigarettes—yes! Hardly cigars. At least, nobody did it. The young women smoked cigarettes." "Those sort of people do it now. At least, Charlotte Eldridge says so. I don't know."

"Wish you'd smoke, Polly Anne! Have a cigarette now."

"Oh no!—I've tried often enough to know I don't like it. You must go away to some of your Grosvenor Squares if you're not happy smoking by yourself."

Things were pleasanter. Why couldn't Challis let it alone, instead of at once discerning an opportunity of delivering Judith's message? To say, as he did, "No—I've had enough of the Grosvenor Squares for some time to come," wasn't unblemished truth, but it was an excusable stepping-stone under the circumstances, with poor dear slow Polly Anne waiting for consolation. The mistake was in what followed. Our own belief is he would have done much better to make a forget of that message until his life was running again in a married channel. He began badly for one thing. You should never say "By-the-bye!" in order to introduce the thing uppermost in your mind.

"By-the-bye, Polly Anne, it won't do to forget that the young female Grosvenor Square wants to call on you." To this Marianne made no answer, and her husband had to add: "Miss Arkroyd—Judith!"

It became difficult not to answer. Marianne fidgeted. "I suppose she'll have to come," she said.

"Well!—I suppose so." There was a shade of asperity in this. But what followed softened it. "You know, really, Polly Anne darling, you'll have to put up with the fascinating Judith a little, for the sake of the play. Besides, she sent you such a very nice message."

"Very kind of her!" However, Mrs. Challis has quite her share of human inquisitiveness, and if she wants to hear the message after her sardonic speech, she must make concession. "What was the very nice message?" she asks grudgingly.

Perhaps Challis's powers of fiction made him able to imagine exactly how he would have behaved if Judith Arkroyd had been merely a showy, smart-set sort of a girl—or merely an intelligent young woman, without a figure to speak of—or, still more merely, one of those excruciating well-informed persons of importance phrenologically, but with no figure at all. On this occasion he felt he knew exactly what his conduct would have been had he undertaken an embassage from the merest of these three—the last. And he modelled his conduct accordingly.

"Don't be miffy with the poor woman, Polly Anne," said he. He had thought of "poor girl," but decided on something bonier, with hair brushed on to the shape of the head, and a black dress. This refers, of course, to the provisional lay-figure he elected to give his message from.

"The poor woman!" Marianne repeated, looking rather suspicious over it. But the image of the lay-figure in his mind, telepathically communicated, produced a certain softening, so he thought. He moved from the bent wood rocking-chair he was smoking in to the sofa beside his wife.

"I'll tell you exactly her message word for word," he said. He did so, as from the lay-figure. And, indeed, he almost wished that fiction had been a reality, as far as this message went. He could have sketched out the proposed visit so much more easily, in his inmost mind; which was, to say truth, incredulous about its turning out satisfactory to either lady, their respective personalities being as supplied.

"I suppose she'll have to come," said Marianne drearily. "Why can't she come when other people are here?"

"Because she wants to see you, my dear. She doesn't want to see the other people."

"Why need I be in it at all? Can't you introduce her to Mr. Magnus, and let them settle it between them?" For in his last letter Challis had enlarged on the Aminta Torrington scheme, and his wife was quite au fait of the position so far.

He hummed and hawed, and flushed slightly. The removal of a column of ash from his cigar seemed to absorb him for a moment. "I don't think you quite see all the ins and outs of the situation, Polly Anne. Don't you understand?..."

"Understand what?"

"Well—I'm sure Miss Arkroyd really wishes to know you. You see, I've talked so much about you." This was not really a true truth, for conversation about Marianne had always been at Judith's instigation. "But there are other considerations, apart from that...."

"What considerations?"

"Well, you know, we do live in a world! Don't we now, Polly Anne?"

"I thought it was something of that sort. Charlotte Eldridge said it would be."

"What did Charlotte Eldridge say? I wish she'd keep her tongue to herself...."

"But you're getting angry before you know what she did say."

"No, I'm not! I mean I'm not getting angry at all. Why should I get angry? Come, old girl, be reasonable! What did Charlotte Eldridge say?" Nevertheless, it is clear that Mr. Challis is keeping his temper—keeping it admirably, perhaps, but still, keeping it! His wife's answer shows painfully how well she is keeping hers.

"Charlotte Eldridge said I should be wanted the moment I told her about Aminta Torrington.... No!—it's no use pretending, Tite!... Besides, I'm not hurt. Why should I be? Only I don't see why there need be a make-believe friendship between me and this young lady—and me to have to put on my black silk, and a new Madeira cake—and to give Harmood directions to say not at home! Charlotte Eldridge and I have talked it all over...."

"Oh!—you've talked it all over?" Challis either is, or pretends to be, inclined to laugh.

"Yes, we have. And you know how sensible Charlotte is about things of this sort.... No, Titus, you can try to make what I say ridiculous, and I dare say you'll succeed, but you know what a good friend Charlotte has been to me from the beginning...." Marianne pulls up short suddenly in the middle of her speech, with a suggestion in it of a tear corked in at its source. She gets the cork well in, and ends with: "I won't say any more about it. You shall arrange it just as you like your own way"—but this with the amenability of a traction-engine making concession to its handle.

Challis, who had felt it rather hard that a tearfulness derived from tender memories of Mrs. Eldridge's loyalty in past years should slop over into his department, became awake to the fact that brisk strategy would be needed to prevent that cork coming out. "Come, I say now, Polly Anne!" said he with jovial remonstrance. "Fancy you and me falling out about a Grosvenor Square young lady!" He burst out laughing, roundly. "We have shot up in the world. My word!" He got his arm round an unresponsive invertebrate waist, in spite of a collision with a hook, which rather took the edge off his caress. Why cannot ladies have some sort of little smooth tie, just at that point, in case? It was a very slight blot on the scutcheon, however, and, indeed, would have counted for nothing with Challis had not Marianne offered him her mole to kiss instead of her lips. For she had a mole—a small one, certainly—just on the cheek-bone. Now a liberal, unreserved warmth in this act of the drama would have been invaluable. It would have helped Challis to snap his fingers at whatever it was that was taunting him with having effected for politic purposes a half-derision of Judith as a Grosvenor Squarian—and that, too, after the cordial message to his wife! However, it was quite impossible to pretend—it would not be fair to say admit—that they were quarrelling, after that. In fact, it was so established an assumption that their old confidence was again on its old footing, that Challis felt it would be ungenerous to Marianne to change the subject for safety's sake. Besides, he wanted an answer to a question.

"You didn't tell me what it was Charlotte did say, Polly Anne.... I dare say she was all right, you know." The use of her Christian name alone was a concession—showed good-will. Speech is full of such niceties.

Marianne got up and broke a coal on the fire. She couldn't think of two things at once, naturally. This made a pause before answering, and a pretence of having omitted an answer because of the slightness of its subject was plausible.

"Oh—Charlotte? It really was the merest talk by the way. She only said it would keep people from talking nonsense."

"What would?"

"If the Grosvenor Square young lady and I were bosom friends. She was joking, you know."

"I see what she meant," said Challis; and seemed to, reflectively. But really he was crossing Mrs. Eldridge out of one or two passages in his good books where her name still occurred. Confound her! Couldn't she leave it to him to instruct Marianne—who was much too slow to find out anything for herself—on this point? However, it was best to confirm her, on the whole. He continued: "Of course, if it were thought that you and she were at daggers drawn, spiteful people would say things. They always do if they get a chance. But what I look at is that she is Aminta Torrington. It's quite miraculous. You never saw anything so happy." He quite forgot that lay-figure.

Marianne waived discussion of the dramatic aspect of the question. She knew nothing about these things—was an outsider. But she seemed to register concession on the main point. She supposed the young woman must come, and she could tell Charlotte and Maria Macculloch and Lewis Smithson to be sure not to call that day, and then Harmood could say "not at home." Better make it Thursday, and get it over.

"Didn't Charlotte say anything else?" This was chiefly conciliation on Challis's part. He did not wish to seem in a hurry to get away from Mrs. Eldridge, or to resent her discussion of his affairs.

"Oh—she talked, of course! You mean when I saw her yesterday? Only she was still so anxious about John." "He'll be all right, won't he? Did you say peritonitis? Are you sure? Because peritonitis is the dooce's own delight."

"The doctor says there is no occasion for the slightest uneasiness." Whereupon Challis settled in his own mind that John Eldridge would be spared to his wife and relatives, for the present at any rate. Peritonitis inside a week, and no need for uneasiness at the end of it! He allowed the medical report to lapse, and referred again to what Charlotte had said. It certainly seemed, to judge by Marianne's reply, "I thought she was quite mistaken, you know," that Charlotte had "talked, of course," although she was so uneasy about John.

"What about?" But he didn't want to seem to catechize, so he discovered that his cigar—which he was quite half through—didn't draw well, and lit another. Then he was able to say, "Let's see!—what were we talking about? What Charlotte said." He resumed his place beside his wife, too manifestly to receive the answer for her to withhold it.

"It was only general conversation, about what Miss Arkroyd's family—with all their ideas—would think of her going on the stage."

"My dear! I must say I do wish you hadn't mentioned Miss Arkroyd to her at all. I hope you made her understand she must be quiet about it?"

"Oh, she won't mention it—except perhaps to John." Challis looked alarmed. However, John couldn't talk much at present, even if peritonitis only meant obstruction. "Besides, I didn't really tell her anything. It was an accident. I showed her something else in your letter a week ago, and by the merest chance she read it by mistake. It wasn't her fault."

"Nor yours. I see! But what did she read?"

"Only where you said you would have to talk to the old boy about his daughter's stage-mania ... nothing that could possibly do any harm."

Now, Challis's conscience had been uneasy about the part he was going to play in helping Judith towards a secret arrangement which was sure to outrage the feelings of her family. So, when he said "Oh!" to this, he had to jump abruptly on to make it seem a casual, ordinary "Oh!" He succeeded pretty well. "What was Charlotte's idea?" said he.

"The same idea, of course. As long as Sir Thingummy knew all about it, no one could possibly blame you."

"I don't know that it's really my concern. I don't know that it's any of our...." A pause here is due to his duty to syntax.... "I mean to say—that it is the business of any one of us. Miss Arkroyd is no chicken. In fact, I'm not sure that her age won't stand in her way—for training, I mean. However, of course I shall take care that her family knows all about it." Challis's voice sounded well in his own ears, and he was convinced that no fault could be found with his behaviour so far. As to anyone saying he should not have made the promise about Mr. Magnus of the Megatherium while he was a trusted guest at Royd, that was sheer nonsense. He felt quite nettled with Marianne for saying, "Oh, haven't you done it?" But he wasn't going to prolong discussion about it.

He felt nettled, too, with himself for feeling, when Marianne left him to read, before going to bed, the letters that had come for him—with a charge to him not to make a noise when he came up—nettled for feeling that he had got through the evening well, which was absurd; and that to do so he had assumed a certain roughness in reference to Judith, to accentuate his equable indifference to her personally, which was absurder. What was it all about?—was the question he asked himself. And then another that arose from it naturally, What was what all about? The distraction afforded by a handful of miscellaneous correspondence gave him an excuse for ignoring the latter question, which, indeed, seemed to him the more unanswerable of the two.

One thing, however, he was glad of having achieved. Marianne would write that letter, he felt sure. Only he would just keep his eye on her to see that she did it. He would not have to write to Judith, "Please don't come and see my wife!" in any form, transparent or otherwise.

For anything the story shows at this point, Alfred Challis and Marianne might have tided over any little difficulties arising out of the visit to Royd, if they had only been judiciously let alone. It was those blessed Peacemakers!