HOW CHALLIS CALLED ON MISS ARKROYD IN GROSVENOR SQUARE. A SPRAINED ANKLE. ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE. KING SOLOMON AND HIS DJINN BOTTLE

Mr. Elphinstone, responsible for No. 101, Grosvenor Square, and the morals and dignity of the family that dwelt in it, was not without uneasiness about the literary and artistic circles that his two young ladies had elected to move in. This description is superficial; it judges from externals. Say that Mr. Elphinstone's appearance conveyed that he, like Atlas, had the whole house on his shoulders—was practically answerable for the honourable repute of all his subordinates, and morally for that of his superiors. That was the construction Alfred Challis felt obliged to put on such flawless shaving; such a weighty deference to the slightest personalities—his own, for instance—on production of adequate credentials; such a hypnotic suggestion of having foregone an episcopate elsewhere to take service with a beloved family whose interests he had at heart. It was a construction not free from the derision Mr. Challis was in the habit of meting out to dignitaries of all sorts. In this case he may not have been free from personal feeling; for he must have been aware that Elphinstone regarded him as an interloper—one who outraged the sacred traditions of the household, calling at unearthly hours in a soft felt hat, and smoking on the doorstep until compelled to throw away too much cigar by hearing that the family was at home.

This is substantially what was happening about two hours after Mr. Eldridge had declined to shed any light on anything at all, and his wife had departed enjoining silence about Heaven-knows-what. Challis, dÉsoeuvrÉ by the mystification, had found himself unable to invent any single thing a Scythian mercenary would have been likely to say in English blank verse, and an approach towards Marianne of a conciliatory sort was met by, "I must see Steptoe now about the dinner." Unfortunately, this speech was absolutely passionless; if it had only been tempersome, there might have been a row. And a row—as the Press delights to phrase it—might have spelt salvation. But Challis could see in it nothing that justified more than a languid "All right!" on his part. And he had departed to the banks of the Danube again, with no better success than before.

Presently his wife knocked at his door in an excluded, ostracised sort of way, and he got up to open it. She was dressed for going out. "I won't disturb you," she said. "Don't come out. I only wanted to say that if the man comes about the gas you had better see him, because he won't believe Steptoe, and the meter is certainly out of order. That's all."

It was one of those queer little turning-points of existence. Challis was not ready with any reply that would have caused a moment's delay and saved the situation. Before he could manage more than general assent, Marianne was gone, too far for anything short of demonstrative recall. He did not see his way to this, and the chance was lost.

He was unable to work, and wanted to go out. But he had been, as it were, put in bond on account of the gas-man, who wouldn't believe. He failed to console himself by an accusation of Sadduceeism against that functionary, and repeated Blake—

—without benefit to his ill-temper. Then he impatiently wrote a note about the meter to leave with Steptoe, to whom he said with immovable gravity: "Is it a Sapphic or an Alcaic meter, do you know?" Aunt Stingy's reply, without a shadow of suspicion in her voice, "I could not say, myself, sir, but The Man would be sure to know," put him in a much better humour. He actually chuckled as soon as he was sure the good woman was out of hearing.

He wanted a book from the London Library, and could get it easily and come back to lunch. He really did not admit to himself, when he left home, that he had any good grounds for suspecting that he meant to call in Grosvenor Square to inquire about that sprained ankle. He took pains to disbelieve in any such intention till he had got the volume he was in want of from the Library, and then it occurred to him that it would be unfeeling not to inquire after the victim of an accident which might prove serious, after all. His image of the injury done became very bad as he told his cabman to drive to 101, Grosvenor Square. Was he aware that he welcomed this solicitude about the sprained ankle because it disguised, for the comfort of his conscience, his disposition to call upon its owner?

The only palliative to the disgust of that doorstep in Grosvenor Square—to which it is time to return—was that this time Mr. Challis was not actually smoking on its brink; as, when his cab pulled up, he was descried, before he had time to descend, by Mr. Elphinstone himself, who had come out tentatively into the Universe to look round at it, with a sense upon him of possible sudden retractation through the open door, like a hermit-crab. A Piccadilly hansom, equal to bespoke for Royalty, had in this case levelled its occupant up. Even so a growler of the deepest dye, lurching, springless, effluvial, knacker-destined as to its horse, drags down the noblest blood that dares to ride in it—yes! even a Duke's; but who can cite a case in point? Only, when Mr. Elphinstone crossed the pavement, he did it to confer with the contents of the cab, as such; not with Mr. Alfred Challis, thank you!

He was reassuring about the ankle; a slight strain that with care—his own and Sir Rhyscombe Edison's—would disappear in a day or two. Oh no!—in answer to inquiry—Miss Arkroyd had not been compelled to keep her bed; a phrase that entered a respectful protest against "stop in bed," the coarse, familiar expression Mr. Challis had made use of. But he was, after all, a married man with a family, so it might be overlooked, this once. He went on to say that Miss Arkroyd, he believed, was up, though nursing the injured limb on a sofa. He arrived, after responsible doubts, at the conclusion that he might send Mr. Challis's card up, in case of any message. Delicacy dictating a female emissary, Samuel was despatched with it to Miss Arkroyd's maid; who presently, being an unpolished sample from the dairy at Royd, came down and said briefly that Mr. Challis was to come up. Mr. Elphinstone's expression was well-restrained protest.

But it may not have been so much the little dairy-maiden's bluntness that provoked it, as an indescribably small shade of demeanour of Mr. Challis's. As the girl came along the passage, and before she spoke, Challis threw his cigar away, or the two-thirds that was left of it. Such a little matter! But unless he had known what she was going to say, he surely would have kept it till he did, to finish at leisure. How came he to be so positive?

Anyhow, there it was!—the cigar—not half smoked, on the pavement when the house door closed. And the cabman's eye rested on it. And he spoke thus to a butcher's boy, who appeared from an area: "Wipe your fingers on your apron, young dripping, and just hand me up that cigar, and I'll see if I'll smoke it. I ain't proud. Only don't you discharge off any of your natural grease upon it!"

To be addressed, even in disparaging terms, by such a hansom, was flattering to this butcher-boy's vanity, and he did not resent it. "Licked, but not busted, that I can see!" was his comment as he handed the cigar up to the cabman, who went on with it, contentedly.

It is two months of the story since it saw, or rather heard of, Miss Arkroyd and Mr. Challis driving up to this door after midnight in another hansom. All that it said, or implied, at that time amounted to little more than that a not very strait-laced lady and gentleman had been rather free and easy over some theatrical schemes interesting to both, and that the lady's sister, being less free or less easy, had intimated that the conduct of the two might be laced a little more straitly, with advantage. It is over six months of the story since they discussed "The Spendthrift's Legacy" and "Ziz" in the garden at Royd. If Charlotte Eldridge, as an authority, had been asked, "On which of these two occasions, madam, should you suppose the chances were best of this gentleman and lady supplying you with a story made to your hand, akin to the one Robert Browning never went on with?" what would her answer have been?

Our own impression is that at this present date of writing, when Challis, smelling rather strongly of tobacco, is following the little ex-dairymaid up the second flight of stairs to what is known as the young ladies' sitting-room—at this very moment, with the cabman making the most of his inherited Havana, and Judith forming to receive visitors, the position would have been much less likely to supply copy for Mrs. Eldridge than the previous one, but for one thing. Challis's relations with Marianne were, at the moment—say—of the parroquets, intact. What were they now?...

They were something, or Challis's last unspoken speech to himself on the stairs would not have been, "At any rate, it isn't my fault!" It needed the atmosphere of Judith—amused, if irritated, at her absurdity in getting a sprained ankle—to enable him to shake free—though always under protest—of the Hermitage.

"Wasn't it ridiculous of me!... No!—don't sit there; I can't see you.... Wasn't it ridiculous of me to do this—just now of all times in the year?"

"I thought you were a passive agent. I mean I didn't know that you did do anything."

"No more I did! No more than one does. You know what I mean?"

"Couldn't be better expressed! Like when one chokes and thinks one could have helped it, and what a fool one is! But how did it happen?" "Perfectly simple! I was getting down out of the carriage, and forgot to think about my feet. Fenton Arkroyd was passing, and if he's not taken notice of he's sensitive, because he married a laundress, or something. So I forgot to think about my feet. It might have been so easily avoided—with a little common-sense."

"So might so many things." Challis isn't the least clear how the common-sense would act in the cases he is talking at—the plagues that beset his own path. But what a capital thing to say!—on general grounds, of course, with a little esoteric meaning all to oneself.

Judith, perhaps, thinks it too early in the morning for ethics, as she changes the conversation. "How did you like my little maid?" she says, keeping her eyes closed; which seems absurd after stipulating for visibility on Challis's part. But it all belongs to a certain imperious humour in the grain of her character. And rights of translation are reserved. She can open them if she pleases.

"She's new, isn't she? Jolly little party!" Thus Challis.

"You're not warm enough! Didn't you want to kiss her?"

"Yes, badly—when she gave your message—half-way up...."

Judith opened her eyes. You can't laugh with your eyes shut; you snigger. "She really gave it? Do tell me exactly! What did she say?" she asks delightedly, keeping her eyes open to hear the answer.

"She turned round on the landing, and became for the moment a mere mass of blooming conscience...."

"Is that—excuse me!—to be taken as language, or how?"

"No, no!—literally.... Blown flowers of intense truthfulness, and buds on the burst.... Well!—she said, as near as I remember: 'Miss Arkroyd said if Mr. Challis didn't smell too strong of smoke, only Mr. Elphinstone wasn't to hear.' And then she got away up the second flight with some alacrity. I thought she was afraid I might propose investigation, and Elphinstone was still in the neighbourhood."

Judith is intensely amused. "I shall have to give that child one of Sibyl's bead necklaces. Turquoise. It goes with her eyes exactly—they have just the violet tinge." She closed her own again on the slight subject, but it has suggested a weightier one. "Couldn't you give Estrild a little Visigoth ingÉnue—I mean Ostrogoth—to wait upon her?"

"What!—and train the little Rankshire beauty to the part? Think of her parents—the stage!—merciful Heaven!..." But Challis stops suddenly, discomposed by a discomposure in his hearer. "Never mind," says she, shaking it off. "You didn't mean it. You're forgiven! Go on."

"I naturally didn't think of it from that point of view. The cases are so entirely different."

"Never mind!" Judith repeats her words with more emphasis. "You are forgiven. Now go on about the Ostrogoths."

"I could put the little beauty in; she would be very useful as a set-off to Estrild. Besides, I want to get rid of Isarnes the Cappadocian, and she would work in...."

Judith interrupts him, calling to the little attendant, who comes in answer from somewhere within hearing. "Child!" she says—"bring me that hand-mirror off my dressing-table," and when it comes, continues, interrupting a recommencement of the Cappadocian, "That's right!—give it me. Now put your face over my shoulder and look in."

The order is complied with, but an inexplicable apology follows: "Please, miss, I know. Because I looked. And I've tried monkey-soap, and it won't wash out." The seriousness of the young voice is heart-rending. Judith bursts out laughing, but consoles: "It wasn't that, child! But I like you to be a funny little goose, so don't stop! Now take away the glass, and let the monkey-soap alone, for Heaven's sake!... You got a good view, Mr. Dramatist?... Well!—you saw what I mean. Now, tell me what you were saying about the Cappadocian."

"Why, you see, he ought to make a showy end, after dyeing his hands in the blood of so many inoffensive persons, and killing a Sarmatian bison with a single blow in the arena. He might be just giving a hideous laugh of triumph, and his innocent victim might be struggling vainly in the grasp of a giant—it would be Jack Potter; you know what a biceps he has—and a sudden arrow would be shot from across the Danube and pierce his brain through the eye...."

"Of course—shot by What's-his-name?—the man that wouldn't embrace Christianity, but does heroic deeds. You know, Challis, you'll have to make him embrace Christianity. What is the use of being unpopular?"

"Of course he embraces Christianity in the end. The high-priest or bishop elevates a crucifix. I've been trying to think of a good name for him. Ingomar or Anthrax...."

"That won't do. It's what the sheep die of. How would Zero do?"

"Something between Zeno and Nero. Very good name, only the thermometer's been beforehand with us...." And so the conversation ran on for a little, throwing an interesting light on the human drama in its connection with Gibbon. But it was a conversation that murmured continually: "You know you did not allow me to go my own way because you thought I was going to be disagreeable. Finish me piecemeal as I arise, or take the consequence—misgiving on either part about what the other did or didn't think." Judith, who, after all, was the one responsible for the discontinuity, gave in to these murmurs first, and harked back.

"I know you think, Challis, that I am keeping the madre and papa in the dark about what I mean to do. But I'm not, because Sibyl knows, and they can know perfectly well if they like; it's only that they don't choose to know. Besides, what on earth is the use of making scenes, when I've made up my mind? I'll confess when the time comes."

The levity or laxity of Challis's voice is gone from it in his reply, scarcely a sequel to the words just spoken: "When I said that about your little maid, I had no thought that it could possibly apply in your case. The child, remember, is under the legal control of parents. How old is she?—sixteen?..."

"Yes, perhaps—not more, certainly. You mean that I'm...."

"Over twenty-one. I don't say you would assert a legal independence against the wishes of your family. But it separates the two cases. I wouldn't have any hand in getting a very young girl on the stage in any case. And I think I should avail myself of the existing legal ... well!—call it pretext, if you will ... to excuse myself from doing so."

"That's just like you, Challis! You really are a disciple of Mr. Brownrigg's Groschenbauer—what's his name? You deride every existing usage, merely because it exists, and then you make use of it for your own purposes! You're just the same about the parsons, and all religion! You tolerate it, or pose as tolerating it, because you dislike wickedness on the whole, and can't see your way to a substitute—not even to a Metaphysical Check."

Challis's laugh left his face twinkling with paradoxical intention. "I believe I am the only known example," said he deliberately, "of a person apparently of sound mind who has never once succeeded in justifying a single position he has taken up...."

"Don't talk like Felixthorpe! At any rate, you can justify the position you have taken up that I'm more than twenty-one."

"Because you told me!"

"Yes—the day after my birthday. I was twenty-six the day you came to Royd. I remember telling you the day we went to the Rectory. Six months ago! Oh dear!—how the time does run away!"

In obedience to a mysterious law, which dictates that no speech of any good-looking woman to any passable man shall mean to him nothing beyond its obvious meaning, this little reminiscence of Judith assumed an identity. It reminded Challis of the existence of that soul-brush, which had become—it is useless to deny it—so much a part of his relation with Judith that he had ceased to hear the machinery. He denied it, mind you!—denied it systematically. Yet he was indignant with anything that reminded him that it was time to deny it. Plague take this necessity for walking guardedly! How acceptable it would have been to be able to say, "How we enjoyed that walk back through the sunset!" Another type of man—the type that says, "Let Charlotte Eldridge do her worst, and be blowed!"—would have had no scruples on the subject. But Challis was a nervous person, and his Self was perplexing him—very especially now, with poor, dear, stupid Polly Anne making life a weariness, with her tempers and her fancies.

Was Judith Arkroyd aware, all the time, that this man's bark was in troubled waters, while she was floating in a secure haven—secure, at least, for now? Did she ask herself any questions?

Or was Challis just a shade priggish to show a stony front to such a very meek little reminiscence? His actual reply was: "I thought it was a good deal more, since my visit to Royd, I mean."

"I hope you'll pay us another visit." Judith thought to herself that two could play that game. And Challis immediately felt chilly, illogically; rather as though the soul-brush had slacked off. He would have to say something serious now, to merge this little fault in the stratification of their conversation.

"I hope to, certainly. Well!—what were we saying?... Oh yes!—you told me your age, you know. But even then I had misgivings about Aminta Torrington. I can't say I wasn't glad when old Magnus put his foot down. It's an odious part, and it wouldn't have suited you. Thyrza Schreckenbaum won't look so well on the stage, but it's more her part than yours."

"I should have thought Estrild was wicked enough for anything."

"So she is. But it's mediÆval—good, honest, outrageous atrocity. It's almost Scriptural. Suppose, now, you had to apologize to the papa of your little tire-maiden for putting her on the stage, think how much easier it would be if she was only to play Messalina or Lucrezia Borgia than if it was Frou-frou, for instance!" "That little sugar-plum—just fancy! No, I shouldn't like her to play Frou-frou at all. The atmosphere is purer in the other cases. How ridiculous one is! But point your moral, Mr. Dramatist."

"Let me see!—what are we talking about?" For Challis had forgotten. "I believe I'm on a line of self-justification. Didn't I tell you I never succeeded? I believe I'm creeping round to a sneaking apology for having offered you Aminta Torrington at all. I wouldn't have written the part for you—even then. But there it was, and you asked for the chance, and it was the only thing I had to offer."

Judith's laugh rang out. She had a capital stage laugh, musical but penetrating. "Nobody's finding fault with you, stupid man! But why 'even then'? It's not four months since. Where is the difference?" She had opened her eyes full on him to laugh at him, and now closed them again to wait for an answer. Had Challis been at his best, observing nature with a view to copy, he would have noticed that last time she laughed—about the sugar-plum's message—she had left her eyes open, full flash on him.

But he was too busy with a difficulty to do his duty by human nature, that it behoved him to know, like Peter Ronsard. That unfortunate "even then" that he had blundered out had brought him face to face with a fact that—so it struck him now—he had never felt properly ashamed of. How came it that, up to this moment, he had scarcely seen in it a matter to be ashamed of at all; and now, almost involuntarily, he had drawn a distinction between now and then that seemed to place Judith Arkroyd then on a lower level? It was actually true that three months ago he was trying for all he was worth to negotiate this girl into the good graces of his stage Jupiter; to get her on the boards to represent a woman whose wickedness he had specially invented, thereby to fall into the fashion of a time that he himself accounted an age of stark fools. For he had never come across an Aminta Torrington; but he conceived, for all that, when he put her on the stage, and set Mr. Guppy and Dick Swiveller off being up-to-date about her, that he was performing his part in the dance—the dance of fools! He felt he was in difficulties, and even for a moment contemplated an appeal to the Artist's Love for His Work, as an excuse for his own attempt to get the help of Judith's beauty for his corps dramatique. He hesitated, negatived it, and said to himself uncandidly that—thank God!—he had not fallen as low as that. But he never suspected, as this story has begun to do, that his sense of shame was due to the fact that this lady had become less cheap to him in these three months—dangerously less. But he could not leave that "Why even then?" unanswered, with his questioner waiting there behind her closed eyelids for whatever excuse he might see his way to. Why even then? He felt he was flushing a little, and hoped she would not open her eyes. But his speech hung fire too long; and when they turned on him suddenly to see what it was going to be, he was caught, and could only see his way out through frankness. "I know," he said—"I know. Of course, I was wrong to suggest it. Still, it was the only thing that came to hand. It was either that or nothing. And you wished it ... and besides...."

"I am not blaming you. Go on ... 'and besides'...." The beautiful eyes that were to make so much mischief on the Danube were almost cruel in the way they waited for what Challis felt he had better not have begun to say.

But there was no help for it now. He had to continue, and did so: "... And besides, I did not know you so well as I do now.... I mean, I saw the thing differently...." He was getting deeper and deeper in the mire, and the eyes showed no signs of letting him off. "No; it's no use," he said abruptly. "I did wrong. But then, can you understand me?—how could I know it was you?" Then he made a weak attempt to dispersonalize his words. "No one of us remains the same." And then, feeling he wasn't shining, settled to hold his tongue. But he did not look Judith in the face over it.

She, for her part, being perfectly collected and thoroughly mistress of herself, only saw in his confusion a clear token that she was also mistress of the situation. She had done this sort of thing before—love of power being always her chief incentive—and had come out scathless. If a doubt now crossed her mind that she might be playing with edged tools, it was not strong enough to stop her.

"How true that is! Do you know, Challis"—please note this habit of address; it has somehow become natural to Judith—"I was thinking only just now, before you came in, how completely you have changed your identity since those days. Do you remember when we played chess?... Well, I'm almost ashamed to tell you how I thought of you then...."

"You owe it me. See how I've been at the confessional myself!" Challis submits to the soul-brush without protest. It is no use. Why resist?

"You were merely an author whose works I hadn't read—yes!—that's true; authors never have any idea what a lot of people haven't read their books. I thought you would just come and go, like the rest of them. But I fancied you seemed at a loose end, and I would take pity on you. I never thought...."

"Never thought what?"

"Don't look so empressÉ over it, Challis!" Really, this woman's faculty for going close to precipices, foot-sure, is something perfectly marvellous. Tenderness outright seemed the only natural sequel just now. But she will get back to safety, after gazing coolly over the edge. Trust her! "I couldn't say it all in one word, you see.... Never thought that in six months you would be writing a tragedy for me to play in. That's all that it comes to. At any rate, you seemed quite a different person then." Had she recoiled too abruptly from the precipice? Is there slight concession, just to accommodate a working equilibrium, in her last words? Her own working equilibrium, mind you;—in which to dangle her victim over that precipice at leisure, and yet to keep able to deny its proximity undisturbed, or pooh-pooh it altogether, at choice. For a thorough-paced female flirt enjoys driving her quarry mad best, when she knows she has plausible innocent unconsciousness enough left in the cellar to quench any fever of self-accusation of her own. "Who ever said a word, or thought a thought, about love-making?..." Don't we know the sort of thing?

Challis's own frame of mind—for the story must needs try to define it, however difficult it is to deal with—was one of a sort of thankfulness that he had perturbation of feeling all to himself. Therein lay his safety; he could keep it secret. He could and would pay for it by additional tenderness to poor dear Polly Anne—who was Polly Anne, after all, mind you!—when this last stupid bit of purposeless quarrelsomeness should have cleared away. But he wanted security that the conflagration whose smouldering he could not disguise from himself would be local. He had just, only just, stamped out a spark that might have become a flame at that precipice-edge, now a moment since. He was willing to go great lengths in persuading himself that there were no fires smouldering elsewhere; for to what end, in Heaven's name, should he recognize them?

But suppose he should be forced to! Suppose he should find one day that he could no longer parade before his mind this creed that was his security—this impossibility that he was ever present in his absence to this woman; as he had to confess perforce, struggle as he might against growing conviction, she was so often—nearly always—present to him. He built this faith upon a rock of friendship, genial and firm, but always cold, that an exaggerated respect for her character—which really did him honour—chose to assign as the only leasehold her heart could accommodate him with. Perhaps unfounded hallucinations about the beauty of Judith's character were the most dangerous features of the disease Alfred Challis was sickening for, if it had not developed already.

All this may seem too many words about a simple thing. Perhaps Sibyl's way of disposing of the subject was more intelligible—saved trouble, certainly. "That man admires you too much, Judith, for it to be safe to play tricks with him. You'll do this sort of thing once too often. And then you'll be sorry." However, it was clear that there could be no real danger as long as the lady remained detached, and very little as long as the gentleman was convinced that she was so.

And he may have been so convinced—one would have said—when he found himself able to answer Judith with a philosophical, "Have you ever known a new acquaintance not to change completely in the first six months?" And she may have thought he was running too much to abstractions when she said, "I did not say you had changed completely"; as though she would not have him suppose her too unconcerned. He was not to slip from the web she was weaving round him by a device of gossipy discussion. Her remark just met the case; and the soul-brush, which had got a little out of gear, got to work again.

They went back to the tragedy, and talked of it so long that at length it came to measuring the minutes by his watch. Then Judith said to him, as though she had but just recollected it: "You found my letter, I suppose?" No, he had not—had she written? Oh yes!—it was posted last thing last night. There was nothing in it, or she would have spoken about it. The fact that she had written lubricated that soul-brush. But he must go, or he would be late. A few more words, mostly about how last night's entertainment had missed her presence, and the lady the Ross Tarbets had brought in her stead had proved a failure, and then Challis was standing beside her to say adieu—her hand in his. Really inevitable, if you think of it, on the supposition that the forms of civilization are to continue to hold good.

It was a perversity of Fate that chose this very moment for the only other frequenter of that room to open the door unheard. Judith could not see her sister through Challis as he stood there. He turned to go.

"Oh, Mr. Challis. I did not see it was you. Perhaps you are talking business. Don't let me disturb you."

"Not at all. I am just going." "Stop one minute, Mr. Challis." Thus Judith. "Never mind Sibyl! You must try to persuade Mrs. Challis to come and see us. Now promise you will!" She had not referred to Marianne before, by the way.

"I'll try what I can do. But my wife goes her own way. Good-bye! Good-bye, Miss Sibyl!"

"How long had he been here?"

"Over an hour. I can't say exactly. You must ask Elphinstone when he came, if you want to know."

"It doesn't matter to me when he came."

"You asked." Sibyl made no reply. A lunch-gong sounded below, and she vanished, but presently returned.

"You are not coming down to lunch?" she said. "At least, are you? Or not?"

"Of course not! How could I, without flying in Sir Rhyscombe's face?"

But Sibyl's question had been mere conversation-making, or skirmish-seeking. She said what she meant directly after. "I suppose it's perfectly useless my saying anything. But you know what I think."

"I know what you think, dear! Go to lunch."

"Very well, Judith!" And Sibyl departed for lunch as Judith sounded her bell for her little handmaid, the reputed sugar-plum.

"How long will it take you to get to Wimbledon?" Challis asked the driver of the waiting cab.

"A tidy long time, the rate I'm going now!" was the reply. "Jump in!" Challis, feeling he was in the hands of a master-mind, obeyed without question, and the cab was off, at speed. Presently the master-mind said briefly, through his orifice above—as King Solomon may have spoken to the evil djinn he bottled—"Within the hour," and closed it on his fare for that period. The djinn was in for a lifer, and was immortal; so thought Challis to himself. That was too long, but short of that, something over an hour would not be unwelcome—just to think things over a little!