AT ROYD AGAIN. THE BREAD OF IDLENESS. A GOOD PLAIN COOK. A DIALOGUE BETWEEN A PRIEST AND A PROFANE AUTHOR. THE RECTORY AND ITS GUEST, LIZARANN. HOW THE CARRIAGE DIDN'T STOP

That Whitsuntide the may-trees were thick with bloom at Royd when Marianne Challis once for all flatly decided not to accompany her husband there. As for him, he couldn't possibly refuse to go merely because she wouldn't. And when you particularly want to do anything, intrinsic impossibility to refuse to do it is always welcome. So on an early day in June Challis found himself again on the lawn at Royd; not exactly breathing freely because Marianne had refused to join the party, but distinctly glad that he was not called on to speculate as to what she would have said or done in this contingency or that, or which of the guests she would have fallen out with, or the extent to which he would have been bound to try to lubricate the situation, or the exact nature of the mess he would have made of it. Marianne had decided the matter, in spite of bona fide efforts on his part to reverse her decision. He had made them bona fide, in the interest of his conscience later on.

Anyhow, that was all settled, and he could inhale the aroma of the may-trees and the lilacs, and identify the note of the wood-pigeon—he was just bucolic enough for that—and pretend he meant blackbird when he said nightingale, and, in short, betray his Cockney origin ad libitum, while basking on the lawn in the first enjoyment of his escape from the hoots and shrieks and petroleum-stench of town. For even Wimbledon Common is not exempt. And nowhere can the music and the silence—strange compound!—of the world of growing trees go home more strongly to the jaded sense of a mere town-rat than in the charmed circle of a park-girt home, with centuries of repose behind and possible decades of conservation ahead. Not too many, because that would savour of sentimentalism; and it is always our duty to be prosaic in the interests of an advancing Civilization. Not too many, in this case of Royd, because that would imply too great a delay in the development of the wealth of coal that is known to exist below the beech and cedar of the three-mile drive, and the woods of ash and oak the deer and the keepers have pretty nearly kept to themselves since the days of William the Socialist. And when the coal comes, what that means in the end is—perhaps more people! Never mind what sort! Don't bother!

Don't bother! That was Alfred Challis's view of the Universe in two words as he settled down to the enjoyment of faultless afternoon tea, which would be a little stronger presently for those who waited; of the society of his hostess, the Rector, and two of the previous chits; of whom one, the young soldier's idol of last September, was drawling with sweetness, but without interest, to oblige. She was looking frequently towards the house. Challis said to himself that she need not be uneasy, because he would come, all right enough, in due time. He knew this, because they had ridden from Euston together, and talked about tobacco the whole way, that being their only topic in common. When the young man appeared, with the visible benediction on his head of two ivory-backed hair-brushes with no handles—which Challis had seen when a dressing-case was opened in the train for a moment—the young lady received him ceremoniously, almost distantly. Never mind!—thought the author to himself—they'll be romping like school-children the minute we oldsters are turned off.

There was no one else yet, of all a large house-party; nearly the same as in September, said Lady Arkroyd. She apologized for this to Mr. Challis, who replied that he, too, was nearly the same as in September, if not quite, and that it was a coincidence. He hoped his identity would be as welcome to the house-party as its would be to him. Lady Arkroyd smiled acquiescence without analysis. She remained gracefully on the surface of things, confident that all would go well below it in the hands, for instance, of an eminent, if sometimes puzzling novelist. Lady Arkroyd had not the insight of Judith, Challis perceived. He indulged a disposition to detect insight in Judith. Geist in that quarter made their relation—not that they had any, mind you!—plausible and warrantable.

There may have been concession to some such relativity in her ladyship's remark that Judith would not be back till dinner. Challis fell flat over it, not knowing whether he ought to say, "Cheer up!—I can wait," or shed tears. Athelstan Taylor relieved the position by saying that he hoped Miss Arkroyd had stopped on her way at the Rectory, as he wanted her to see the little girl. Then her ladyship bestowed on Challis, for a snack, as it were, the odd chit, who was at a loose end; devised her to him by name, and went back to a talk on local games at Providence with the Rector. The chit's name, however improbable it may seem, was Lady Henrietta Mounttullibardine, and she did not look as if she could live up to it. She coloured at intervals, and seemed hushed. Challis distinctly saw her want to say something several times, and give it up. He encouraged her tenderly, and in time she confessed that she really wanted to know whether it was Pepperstraw, in Challis's last novel, that hit upon the idea of using digitalis, or Bessie. He told her, and she retired on her information, in awe at having spoken to a live author. Challis could listen undisturbed to the conversation of the Parson and their hostess.

"There is something very engaging about the child," said the latter. "Of course, she has that defect. The mouth is too large for beauty. But she cossets up to you nicely, and opens her eyes wide. The eyes are fine in themselves, and remind me of ... oh dear!—what was that girl's name, now, in Somersetshire? I can't recollect the least." Athelstan Taylor felt helpless, and was wondering if it would be legitimate to say never mind, when her ladyship decided that it didn't matter, and continued: "Sir Murgatroyd is quite of our opinion, that it would never do to let the child lapse."

"Never do at all!" said the Rector. "Indeed, even if the child were not there, I should be very reluctant to lose sight of the father. I suspect, too, that the people at the cottage—where I put him to stay, you know—wouldn't thank me for taking him away. It's very curious to me how a man with such qualifications for being an encumbrance can manage to make himself welcome at all. But he's become very popular there, especially with old Margy. She says it's like a clock to hear him tell. I think she means that he goes on chatting in a pleasant, easy kind of way. Sea stories, you know—that sort of thing!"

"Didn't you say he was inclined to give trouble?—they are troublesome sometimes." She referred, no doubt, to the intransigeant pauper population, and their natural love of independence combined with outdoor relief.

"I didn't mean exactly troublesome in that sense. Troublesomely averse to giving trouble, perhaps I should have said. He never said anything to me, but old Margy is in his confidence. It seems that that sister of his—the Steptoe woman, you know? ... oh yes!—you know—the woman whose husband was drowned in the lock—the delirium tremens man...."

"Delirium tremens man?" said her ladyship dimly. And then suddenly, "Oh yes, I know, of course," almost in one word. Challis listened with stimulated attention, and Mr. Taylor continued:

"Well!—she's Jim Coupland's sister, you see—and it seems that she used to twit him with eating the bread of idleness before he took to the retail match-trade. He considers that he is eating the bread of idleness now. Perhaps he is. But he is submitting, until he is strong on his legs again—that's his expression. Besides, we have made a composition, and half his keep is to be deducted from his savings. By-the-bye...." The Rector paused, with recollection on his face.

Lady Arkroyd's speech is apt to have a superseding character—to pass by lesser folks' unimportant remarks. "I liked the father at the Hospital," she says indifferently. "I hope the child isn't going to be delicate." Mr. Taylor was arrested long enough to say, oh dear no!—oh no, it was or would be all right as far as that went—and then left it, whatever it was, to finish his own beginning.

"I was just going to say what an odd chance it was that Mr. Challis's housekeeping should have absorbed Mrs. Steptoe. How does the woman answer, Challis?" For, as we have heard, these two gentlemen had become fairly well acquainted last September, in spite of the cloth of the one and the predisposition of the other—a better word for the case than "antipathies," which had almost crept into the text. One or two country-walk chats had ended in Challis giving the Rev. Athelstan practical absolution for his black stock and silk waistcoat, and the latter reflecting much on the figments of mediÆval creed and formulary that make a gulf between so many intellects with concord at the root, and play into the hands of their common enemy, the Devil. Why was he glad that his friend Gus was safe in London dabbling in incense, coquetting with Holy Water, preaching Immaculate Conceptions, and not letting his left hand know that his right hand had renounced the Bishop of Rome—when a visitor like Challis might accrue at any moment at Royd Rectory, as per promise given eight months ago? Why?—simply because he felt that the bridge of his own liberality, however long the span of it, was not enough to cover the great gulf! And there was Ahriman, chuckling all the while!

"I am given to understand that Mrs. Steptoe is a good plain cook," was Challis's answer to the Rector's question. Something in the manner of it seemed to throw doubt on his good faith. Otherwise, why seek confirmatory evidence, as his hearers seemed to do?

"I suppose you dine at home?" said the Rector, going to the point.

"I don't judge so much by that. It wouldn't be fair to do so, because I gather that in our house the flues don't act, and the best kitchen-coal at twenty shillings has no burn in it, and goes to cender in no time. Also we have no saucepans the right size. Also our greengrocer supplies us with potatoes which on peeling turn out irregular polyhedrons. So it doesn't do to be biassed by what we get to eat. But I am convinced she is a good plain cook."

Lady Arkroyd was accepting all Challis said in the spirit of Bradshaw. A territorial lady knows nothing of the small domesticities of any middle class. The Rector, perceiving a danger ahead—a new-born interest in the peculiar potatoes obtaining in suburban villas—headed Lady Arkroyd off just as she had begun, "What very curious pota...!" without a smile.

"Challis isn't in earnest," said he. "It's only his chaff." Her ladyship said, "Oh!" and looked puzzled—awaited enlightenment. Challis laughed, admitting jurisdiction. But he pleaded in extenuation of his offence that it was difficult to fight against the conviction that Mrs. Steptoe was a good plain cook—whatever direct evidence there was to the contrary—in the face of her apron and the material of her dress, her punctual attendance at chapel, her handwriting and its blots, her arithmetic and its totals. She really had all the qualities of a good plain cook, except the bald and crude ability to do plain cookery—a thing no one who looks below the surface ever bothers over.

"I'm afraid the good woman's a bit of a humbug," was Athelstan Taylor's conclusion. It was welcomed by the lady, as a relief to the necessity for smiling in a well-bred way—a Debretticent way, call it—while queer arrivals from below uttered paradoxes on Olympus.

Judith might be late; she was at Thanes. Challis pretended he hadn't known this. But he knew well enough that the young lady had forgiven the Castle, because they were going to have theatricals; and she, with an imputed experience, had been petitioned to accept the principal part. All this was in her last letter, written to Challis at his club. It had also told him that William Rufus, her brother, would not be at Royd for a few days, as he was busy in town over the Great Idea, which was going to be a very great Idea indeed, as some men had come forward and were going to put a good deal of Capital into it. Challis had said, "Dear me!—how like!..." and had not finished the sentence.

A little thing occurred that amused the novelmonger's heart and stirred his sympathies. When he began talking with his hostess and the Rector, he had turned his back on the chit and the young soldier. When, as the Rector's departure provoked dispersal, he looked their way again—behold!—they had vanished, as by magic. "I think," said the second chit, "they have gone for a walk to Fern Hollow." And thenceforward there was a consciousness about this young couple and their destiny between Mr. Challis and the second chit. For had she not detected his thought about them, when his eyes looked for them and found them not?

The other visitors, some of whom were as identical with those of September as circumstance permits in such a case, were scattered about elsewhere, subject to well-grounded confidences that they would be back to dinner. And the only important variation of identity among these was that one had become a Confirmed Christian Scientist. Challis didn't know whether he was expected to be glad or sorry.

He became somehow aware that her ladyship was going to drive to Thanes Castle accompanied by the second chit, to bring Judith back. Also that he was not going to be asked to accompany her. "What is Mr. Challis going to do if we all forsake him?" spoken with a sweet smile, left no doubt on the point. Mr. Challis had a letter he must write; so that was settled.

"You haven't got a letter to write, Challis," said the Rector at the front gate, to which both had walked in company. "Come some of the way with me, and talk as profanely as you like. I won't go fast." For the resolute stride of a pedestrian had made Challis cry for mercy in September.

"Yes—it was a lie about the letter," said he. "But it was good and unselfish in me to tell it. Saved bother, in fact! Can you wait two minutes while I put on walking-boots?"

"I can wait five, luckily; which I take it is your meaning." He waited six, beguiling them by letting the gate swing to and fro, and noting what a long time it took to reach equilibrium. "Wait a second," said he to Challis, arriving booted at the end of the fourth experiment. "Let's see how long it means to go on!" And then, having settled the point, the two were walking along the great avenue through the murmur of the beeches, conscious of a dispute between the woodlands and the hay-fields as to which was adding the sweeter flavour to the air of heaven.

Neither spoke at first. Then Challis said, as though still thinking over recent words: "Why 'as profanely as I liked'? I am a Profane Author, certainly, in the old sense of the word. Was that what you meant?"

"Why—yes! That is, if that was the sense you used the word in the last time we talked together, in September. Do you remember? You said you always had diabolical promptings towards profanity in the presence of anything sacred. Then you said my cloth was conventionally sacred, and that made matters worse."

"I remember. We were getting very candid. You said you liked it."

"So I did. I said what I said just now because I wanted to go on where we left off. We were just going to quarrel healthily when Mr. Brownrigg pointed out that in the millennium of Graubosch the impious man would have no cause for despondency. The class of Insulated Ideas, evolved from the theory of Metaphysical Checks, will at once provide the Dogmatist with materials, and the Blasphemer with an object to give his attention to...."

"I remember. If I belonged to the latter class, I shouldn't be a Grauboschite. Too much like Temperance Drinks, that make you feel as if you were drunk...." Challis arrested his own speech, as if he had had enough of triviality, and spoke seriously. "I want you to tell me something, without any reserve."

"Go on. I will, if I can."

"You read one of my books, I know ... what!—two more since September!—fancy that!... Well—what was your impression? As to what we are speaking of, I mean. Did it strike you that I made light of subjects usually held sacred?"

"It struck me that you did not hold them sacred. I do not mean a syllable more than I say. Your writing, so far as I have read it, is negative."

"I have wished to keep it so. Why should any author try to disturb or unsettle beliefs that he cannot replace—even by a Metaphysical Check? You remember what I said to you last year, just the other side of where the brook runs across the road on its own account, by the little footbridge?... well!—it was quite true. I have no antipathy to any beliefs of other people, having none of my own. I merely take exception to the recitation of Creeds."

"Even when the reciter is free to choose silence."

"If he stands up it comes to the same thing."

"He needn't unless he likes. At least, in my Church."

"Then suppose he does believe some of it, is he to jump up and down? There must be what my Bob calls a good few persons who believe the first seven and the last four words of the Creed ... well!—the regular Creed—you know which one I mean ... and you could hardly expect them to sit still all through the business part of the recitation and cut in at the end."

"You're only half serious, Challis. Your inveterate propensity to quips of thought and paradox, as it is called, misleads you and spoils your talk. Surely a declaration of faith is an intrinsic necessity in a communion! How can it exist otherwise?"

"You must keep the disbelievers out—is that it?" Challis thought it time for a cigar. When he had got it lighted, he resumed: "Yes!—as a means of constructing communions, Creeds are invaluable. The communion that had none would be too big. As for me, I never can help thinking of those lines:

... Where do they come from, did you say? 'In Memoriam,' I suppose."

"Can't recollect them!... I wish you would tell me what you understand by the word 'believe.'"

"I'm very doubtful. It just depends on how I use it. When I tell my wife that I believe her letter has gone to the Post, my meaning is clear. I mean that I didn't see it on the hall-table when I last looked. When I say that I believe I am engaged on Thursday, it is equally unmistakable. I mean that I don't want to meet the So-and-so's at your house, morning-dress. But when I say, as I am apt to do, that I believe in God Almighty, I do so with a misgiving that my meaning is not intelligible to myself. Perhaps I regard my speech as a civility to the absolutely Unknown—I really couldn't say. Or it may be I only use it in fulfilment of a convention which, so long as I comply with its conditions, binds all the other signatories not to bother."

"You always make me think you are going to be serious, and then you go off at a tangent. I never have any doubt what I mean by the word...."

"What, for instance?"

"Whatever my mind does not question, I believe."

"Then the Creed might be reworded, 'I don't and won't question the existence of God the Father,' and so on. Somehow it doesn't sound convincing."

"Because it seems to imply that the question is an open one."

"And saying you believe it doesn't? I'm agreeable, if you're satisfied. But, then, you see, I stop away from Church, by hypothesis. And I should do so just the same if the re-wording were made. Nokes and Stokes and Styles and Brown and Thompson in a row, shouting that they didn't and wouldn't question the existence of God Almighty, would keep me out just as much as if they said they 'believed' in Him." They walked on a little in silence, the Rector very thoughtful. Presently he said, rather as one who comes to a sudden conclusion: "My definition of the word doesn't cover it. One means more...."

"And doesn't exactly know what," said Challis.

"Precisely. But isn't it possible that the common use of a word long received among many people may, from the habit of its usage, acquire a meaning to each and all alike, and yet continue to baffle definition?"

"Very possible indeed, and certain. I know a case in point. I went to a sort of spiritualistic sÉance once, and in the course of operations the audience was requested to will powerfully. To my surprise, all the habituÉs seemed prepared to comply as a matter of course. One young man said, 'How?' but was sat upon by public opinion. I heard him after ask a friend, 'How did you will'? And the reply was: 'I held my breath and caught firmly hold of four-and-sixpence in my breeches pocket. How did you?' He answered that he had shut his eyes tight and thought of his toes. But all the faithful—these two were outsiders, like myself—seemed to know what to do; and did it right, I suppose, because an accordion played. They had found out what willing meant, by habit and telepathic interchange. Probably believers know in the same way what is meant by belief. But it's no use outsiders holding their breath and thinking of their toes."

This sort of chat continued till the two reached the Rectory. It is given in the story to throw light on the friendship that sprang up between two such opposites, or seeming opposites.

When one walks part of the way home with a friend, Euclid's axioms get flawed sometimes, for the whole of the way is no greater than its part. Challis went all the way to the Rectory, of course; said he wouldn't come in, of course; said he mustn't sit down, of course; did so, of course; and kept his eye on his watch, of course. Having complied with all forms and precedents, he started to walk back.

His short visit had given him odds and ends of human things to think of. That was the Rector's sister-in-law, that dry lady who had made him feel tolerated; and that other one who had begged him not to throw his cigar away was only an old friend. Challis was sorry the reverse was not the case, for the Rector's sake. He felt that the old friend might be kissed with advantage to the kisser, while the officially permissible peck of the dry lady's cheek could not be a source of satisfaction to any connoisseur. It was a thought entirely on his friend's behalf—he himself was indifferent. However, he might be wrong. The dry lady seemed very congenial to the two little girls, her nieces, who, it appeared—hurriedly, for his visit was short—had engaged a nurse for their baby. Challis suspected that a dispute between the two children, which the dry lady peremptorily silenced, turned on a question of paternity. Which of them was to be the baby's papa? It seemed late in the day for considering the point, thought Challis. The oldest sister was always the papa, said that claimant; and confirmed it by adding, "Eliza Ann says so, and she knows." The colloquy was half-heard, but this seemed the upshot.

That little Eliza Ann in the blue cotton dress—the nurse in this drama—was, of course, the little girl whose mouth was too large for beauty; Mrs. Steptoe's brother's child. How small the world was! "So is the kid herself, for that matter," was Challis's reflection thereon; a typical instance of the whimsical way his mind twisted things. He would have said it aloud with perfect gravity to any hearer, had he had one.

She was a nice little wench, anyhow, the nurse, with her great big eyes and her Cockney-up-to-date accent. Also Challis had noted her quickness in repeating words just heard. "The biby is on no attount to be wyked," she had said, with an earnest sense of the reality of her part. "O si sic omnes!" Challis had thought to himself.

But the nurse forgot herself the moment after, saying: "I must sow this biby to my daddy, tomollow—maten't I?" However, she resumed her part at once, on assurance given. She was certainly to show that baby to her daddy. And he would feel it, and see how fat it was. Thereon Challis had remembered what had till then escaped his mind, that Mrs. Steptoe's brother was eyeless and half legless. Oh, what an indurated baby, for an appreciator dependent on touch alone! And, oh, the stony glare of its eyes fixed on the zenith, when roused from sleep by a practicable wire in its spine!

A man with a permanent source of disquiet always lights on something to remind him of it, go where he may. Challis had succeeded on his way from London in persuading himself that the warmth of his own farewell to Marianne had been more than skin-deep, whatever hers was; and had felt that he could justifiably stand his own self-reproaches over, and enjoy the day that was passing, without remorse. And then what must he needs come across, of all things in the world, but a sister-in-law! Not one certainly resembling in the least the sister-in-law of a decade past, whom she reminded him of! There was nothing in this one of the girl who then, in the language of Oliver, bestowed herself like a ripe sister, and was accepted with a sense that she more than made up for a too mature mother-in-law, and put the advantages of marriage outside all question. Nothing of Marianne then or now, for that matter, in the dry lady personally; but much to remind him of his own case in the way she had taken over the two little girls, much as Marianne had taken over Bob.

Was it his fault—the whole thing? For there was a "whole thing" by now. He could not disguise that whole thing from himself, and that it was a thing that had somehow grown, slowly and surely, since the first days when he and Marianne were rejoicing together in the dark front parlour of the Great Coram Street house over a letter just come from the publishers, Saxby's, Ltd., which accepted "The Spendthrift's Legacy," and named terms which led to a calculation that success, followed by a book per annum equally successful, would yield two thousand a year; and to castles in Spain, the building of which would have cost that sum twice over.

Or, if not from that hour exactly, it had grown since the days of the success that followed. It was hard to say when it began. Was he aware of it—of "the whole thing"—when Marianne refused to go with him to Lady Horse's because the Honourable Mrs. Diamonds had been rude to her first, and encouraged her after? These were not the ladies' real names, but everything else held good. Marianne had then said that once was quite enough, and she knew all along exactly how it was going to be, ever since that woman in skirts had given herself such airs—a reference to a previous delinquent. Oh dear!—now suppose the Honourable Diamonds had not "encouraged" her—how then? Anyhow, Challis could see now, too late, what he ought to have done. He ought to have taken bulls by the horns, and bits in his teeth, and opportunities by their forelocks, and said flatly that he wouldn't go to Lady Horse's unless Marianne came, too. It was his going that once without her that had done it! And all because of the confounded good-nature of that diamond woman, who must needs go encouraging her. That was what hurt the most, a thousandfold. The Diamonds might have stood on Marianne's lilac silk all day long, and broken that little crickly man's arm with her fan, if she chose, and her victim would have forgiven it. But when she came off, she scarcely apologized. And then, after that, to encourage her!

Still, in those days he was not aware of "the whole thing" that had "come about." Suspicion that something was amiss was followed by belief that the something had melted away. Intermittent phases succeeded, now and then with an appearance of concession to Society on Marianne's part; occasional acceptances of invitations to houses where Challis innocently hoped all had gone well, till he found himself driving home with a hurt and silent lady, and came to know that the very things he had fondly fancied almost angelic ebullitions of sweetness in their hostess were really only the woman's impertinence; and that what seemed to him good-humoured informality in her daughters was nothing but that sort of hoydenishness that seemed to be thought the proper thing nowadays. He could recall many incidents of this description, yet none that seemed to warrant the evolution of married discomfort—of disintegrated family life—that kept on gaining slowly, slowly on his resistance to it.

It had intensified, he knew, since his first visit to Royd in September. It was mixed up with his professional association with Judith Arkroyd. It was a professional relation, and nothing else. He called the ancestral beeches of the family to bear witness to the utter impossibility of its being anything else. If he, Alfred Challis, ex-accountant, ephemeral scribbler of an empty day, was conscious of a certain warmth in his admiration for that lady, that was his concern—not even the business of the beech-trees, or the new young fern he was treading underfoot. It would remain a buried secret, unknown to all men, most of all to Judith herself. He would even, as an act of discipline, never think of it but to question its reality, as he did now. It was to die, and should do so. At least he could keep his own counsel about this soul-quake, heart-quake, self-quake—call it what you will!—admitting that one existed. If he failed to do so successfully, would he be the first man that had ever loved two women, and been forced to hide away his love for one from the other and herself? But he was obliged to admit that this was the first time he had allowed the word "love" to be heard in his intercourse with himself on this subject, even as an hypothesis.

He was relieved to observe the pleasure he felt in the thought that, at any rate, Polly Anne need never know anything about it. She need never have any real cause for a moment's disquiet. Of course, any groundless suspicions she might choose to nourish were entirely her own look-out. He could only recognize those that had a warrant in reality. She should not be provided with materials for any such. Of course, Polly Anne was Polly Anne, after all, and her happiness must always be a first consideration with him. Think of all their old days together! Think of his hours of acute misery, when that young monkey Emmie, five years ago, must needs imperil her mother's life and her own by her indecent haste to see the World. Think, never too often, of his gratitude to her when she took him, a mere derelict, in tow, ten years since, and piloted him into safe waters. Think as much as possible of her many nursings of him—of the many pipes they had virtually had together, though he was the operative smoker—of the many welcomes he had looked forward to. And as little as possible of the shortness of temper that had certainly grown upon her, but was very likely only a phase of health that would one day pass away and be forgotten. Remember that confounded little monkey—bless her! of course—and be forbearing to her mother.

There was one thought about her that twisted and tortured this victim of over-self-examination beyond all reason. Look how utterly, how almost terribly, Polly Anne had replaced poor Kate! Surely the Great Unknown had made a record in cruelty when he created Love the Monopolist! Why feel shocked because, after Kate had ceased, her sister had taken over her inheritance so thoroughly? Besides, this entire supersession of poor Kate showed him how really devoted he was to Marianne, and how safe he and she were from intrusions from without. It never struck him as strange that he should be seeking for assurance that he loved his own wife.

It probably would have done so, in time, if his reflections had not been interrupted at this point. The sound of the carriage—with Judith in it, no doubt—returning from Thanes. Saladin, the huge boarhound, coming on the scene first, examined Mr. Challis without any sign of recognition, and seemed to decide that he had nothing contraband about him. Then he waited till the carriage he had charge of came in sight, and trotted on. The import of his demeanour was that an appointment awaited him at the house, but that he could find time to see that carriage and pair to the door—if only it wouldn't dawdle!

Whether it was from consideration for Saladin, or because it was haughty, that carriage hardly stopped. Its pause was barely long enough to say, through the mixed and hurried inspirations of its occupants, that it could bring itself to accommodate Mr. Challis on the front seat. Mr. Challis, alive to the importance of not sitting down on miscellanea, preferred walking; for all that the miscellanea professed readiness to be quite happy elsewhere. It was only a step to the house now. And Saladin was waiting. All right—go on!

Why should Challis feel something akin to pique because that carriage and pair took him at his word and went on, all right? Why need that unfortunate propensity of the foot-passenger beset him, the vice of mind that ascribes every action of a two-horse carriage to aristocratic pride? Perhaps he wanted to file an accusation against something or someone, and was not ready to admit that Judith's majestic smile and head-inclination had anything to do with it. Anyhow, the rest of his step to the house associated itself with a warm forgiving feeling towards Polly Anne the tiresome, the miffy; and an intensified sense of outsideness as to his own social whereabouts; the insidedness being that of a fold with Sir Bernard Burke for shepherd, and Rouge Dragon and Garter King-at-arms for collie dogs.

He arrived at the house to find the world flocking to dress for dinner, or doing it already, out of sight. Flying cordialities from members of the family, unseen till then, or visitors known to him previously, intercepted him in his flight up the great staircase; but innuendoes from well-informed contemporaries that dinner was at a quarter to eight justified abruptness and pointed to opportunities for explanation. Challis escaped to his room, and found his external self of the evening to come—all but the head and hands he had on—laid out upon the bed, waiting patiently to be scrambled into in a hurry, and have its studs and buttons sworn at.

But he was not destined to be the last in the drawing-room, although he thought it could not be otherwise. For when he arrived at the foot of the stairs, it was with a consciousness on him of having heard, as in a waking-dream, the sweetest possible drawl to the following effect: "It was awl yaw fault. It wawsn't mine one bit," and a male reply, with the climax of human contentment in every syllable, "I'm jolly glad—it lasted so much longer?" and then a headlong rush to a chaotic toilette.

And that young man's appearance seven minutes later, looking as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, would have done honour to a lightning transformationist. But the distant manner of the guilty couple was carried too far, as everybody guessed all about it, and would have done so even without the furtive looks they exchanged from either end of a long table.