Jeremy Chiddingfold had established himself in London greatly to his satisfaction. He had hired a bedroom in Ebury Street, an attic, and had made friends with one Alec Turner, a journalist, who lodged in the same house. Alec Turner took him often to the Metropolitan Radical Club, and had proposed him for membership. Here he could eat at moderate charges, play chess, smoke, and argue about all things in heaven (assuming heaven) and earth (which, anyhow, was full of matter for argument). And at Ebury Street he was not only within easy reach of the Imasons in Sloane Street, but equally well in touch with the Selfords in Eccleston Square, and the Raymores in Buckingham Gate. A third-class on the Underground Railway from Victoria carried him to Liverpool Street, whence he proceeded to the dyeing-works near Romford, in Essex. For the dyeing-works project was taking shape. Jeremy had been down to Romford several times to look round and see what the processes were like. He had digested the article on dyeing in the EncyclopÆdia Britannica, and had possessed himself of the Dictionary of Dyeing and the Manual of Dyeing. His talk both at the Metropolitan Radical Club and at the houses he frequented was full of the learning and the terminology of dyeing—things you dyed, and things you dyed the things with, and the things you did it in, and so forth. He fascinated Eva Raymore by referring airily (and at this stage somewhat miscellaneously) to warm vats, and copperas, and lime vats, to insoluble basic compounds, to mordants and their applications, to single and double muriate of tin. You could go so far on the article without bothering about the Dictionary or the Manual at all; but then Eva did not know that, and thought him vastly erudite. In fact Jeremy was in love with dyeing, and rapidly reconsidered his estimate of the Beautiful—the Beautiful as such, even divorced from Utility—in the scheme of nature and of life. On Alec Turner's recommendation he read Ruskin and William Morris, and thought still better of the Beautiful.

He soon made himself at home both at the Selfords' and at the Raymores', dropping in freely and casually, with an engaging confidence that everybody would be glad to see him and pleased to allow him to deposit his long angular body in an armchair, and talk about dyeing or the Social Armageddon. He was, however, interested in other things too—not so much in pictures, but certainly in dogs. He had country lore about dogs and their diseases, and so won Mrs. Selford's respect. He found Anna Selford's keen mind an interesting study, and delighted to tease the pretty innocence of Eva Raymore. In neither house was there a young man—no son at the Selfords', and the Raymores' house was empty of theirs; and Jeremy, in his shabby coat, with his breezy jollity and vigorous young self-assertion, came like a gust of fresh wind, and seemed to blow the dust out of the place. Mrs. Raymore, above all, welcomed him. He went straight to her heart; she was for ever comparing and contrasting him with her own boy so far away—and only just the inevitable little to his disadvantage. Jeremy, in his turn, though unconsciously, loved the atmosphere of the Raymores' house—the abiding sense of trouble, hard to bear, but bravely borne, and the closeness of heart, the intimacy of love which it had brought. Being at the Selfords' amused him; but being at the Raymores' did more than that.

And what of his broken heart? Anna Selford had heard the story and asked him once in her mocking way.

"You seem so very cheerful, Mr. Chiddingfold!" said she.

Jeremy explained with dignity. His heart was not broken; it had merely been wounded. Not only did he consider it his, and any man's, duty to be cheerful, but as a fact he found no difficulty in being cheerful, occupied as he was with the work of life, and sustained by a firm purpose and an unshaken resolve.

"Only I don't care to talk about it," he added, by which he meant, really, that he did not care to talk about it to persons of a satirical turn. Mrs. Raymore could get him to talk about it very freely, while to Eva he would sometimes (usually for short times) be so moody and melancholy as to excite an interest of a distinctly sentimental nature. It is to be feared that, like most lovers, Jeremy was not above a bit of posing now and then. He was having a very full and happy life, and, without noticing the fact, began gradually to be more patient about the riches and the fame.

None the less, affairs were in train. Selford's working partners were disposed to be complaisant about Jeremy and the dyeing-works; they were willing to oblige Selford, and found themselves favourably impressed by the young man himself. But business is business. They could give him a pittance for ever, no doubt. If he wanted that very different thing—an opening—other considerations came to the front. Good openings are not lightly given away.

In fine, Jeremy could come and try his hand at a nominal salary. If he proved his aptitude, they would be willing to have him for a junior partner; but in that case he must put five thousand pounds into the business. The sum was not a large one to ask, they said; and with all their good opinion of Jeremy and all their desire to oblige Selford, they could not, in justice to themselves, their wives, and their families, put the figure any lower.

It was rather a shock to Jeremy, this first practical illustration of the pervading truth that in order to get money you must have some first. He might give all he had in the world, and not realise five thousand pounds. He went to tea at the Raymores' that evening with his spirits dashed. He had consulted Alec Turner, but that young man had only whistled, implying thereby that Jeremy might whistle for the money too. The journalistic temperament was not, Jeremy felt, naturally sympathetic; so he laid the question before Mrs. Raymore.

To her it was the opening of the sluice-gates. She was full of maternal love, dammed up by distance and absence. She was tender and affectionate towards Eva, but her love for her daughter was pale and weak beside her feeling for her only son; and now a portion of the flow meant for far-off Charley was diverted to Jeremy. She loved and could have wept over his brave simplicity, his sincere question as to how he could speedily make five thousand pounds. He was not a fool; he knew he could not break the bank at Monte Carlo, or write a play or a novel, or get the desired sum thereby if he did; but he had the great folly which clings to men older than he was—the belief that blind impartial fortune may show special divine favour. Kate Raymore smiled and sighed.

"Have you no friends who would guarantee it—who would advance it? You could pay interest, and pay off the capital gradually," she suggested.

That was not at all Jeremy's idea.

"No, I don't want to do that. I don't want to be indebted to anybody."

"But it's a pity to let the chance slip, from a feeling of that sort," she urged.

"Besides there's nobody in our family who ever had such a lot of money to spare," said Jeremy, descending to the practical. He sighed too, and acknowledged the first check to his ardent hopes, the first disillusionment, in the words: "I must wait."

When a man says that he must wait, he has begun to know something of the world. The lesson that often he must wait in vain remains behind.

"But I shall find out some way," he went on (the second lesson still unlearnt). "I've got a fortnight to give my answer in. They'll keep it open for me till then."

Eva came in, with her large learning eyes, and her early charming girl's wonder at the strength and cleverness of the young men she liked. In a very few minutes Jeremy was confident and gay, telling her how he had the prospect of a partnership in quite a little while. Oh, yes, a junior partnership, of course, and a minor share. But it ought to be worth four or five hundred a year anyhow—yes, to start with. And what it might come to—in vigorous hands, with new blood, new intellect, new energy—well, nobody could tell. Mr. Thrale's casks and vats were not really—as a potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice—comparable to Jeremy's vats and mordants and muriates. Eva was wonderfully impressed, and exclaimed, in childish banter:

"I hope you'll know us still, after you're as rich as that?"

Jeremy liked that. It was just the sort of feeling which his wealth was destined to raise in Dora Hutting. Meanwhile, pending the absence and obduracy of Dora, it was not unpleasant to see it reflected in Eva's wondering eyes. Mrs. Raymore listened and looked on with a fixed determination to lose no time in telling Grantley Imason that for a matter of five thousand pounds the happiness of a life—of a life or two—was to be had. The figure was often cheaper than that, of course; less than that often meant joy or woe—far less. Witness Charley in Buenos Ayres, over youthful folly and a trifle of a hundred and fifty! But Grantley was rich—and she did not know that he had recently lent John Fanshaw fifteen thousand pounds.

In requital for services rendered at the Metropolitan Radical, Jeremy had introduced his friend, Alec Turner, to the Selfords. Alec had come up to town from the staff of a provincial journal, and found very few houses open to him in London, so that he was grateful. He had a native, although untrained, liking for art, and could talk about pictures to Selford, while Jeremy talked about dogs to Mrs. Selford; and both the young men sparred with Anna, whose shrewd hits kept them well on their defence. Alec went about his avocations in a red tie, a turned-down collar, and lively mustard-coloured clothes. A dress suit he assumed reluctantly when he was sent to report the speeches of prosperous Philistine persons at public dinners. He hated prosperous Philistine persons, especially if their prosperity (and consequent Philistinity) came from art or letters, and delighted in composing paragraphs which should give them a little dig. He was, however, not really ill-natured, and would not have hurt the prosperous persons seriously, even if he could have; he was anxious to declare that neither he nor anybody else could, in fact, hurt them seriously, owing to the stupidity of the public—which was incalculable. He was a decided assistance to Jeremy in enlivening the Selford household and in keeping Anna's wits busy and bright.

"I suppose nothing would induce you to be successful?" she said to him with malicious simplicity.

"Success for me means something quite different," Alec explained. "It lies in influencing the trend of public opinion."

"But the public's hopelessly stupid! It seems to me rather foolish to spend your time trying to influence hopelessly stupid people."

Jeremy chuckled. He did not see how Alec was going to get out of that.

"I spoke of the bulk. There is a small intelligent minority on whom one can rely."

"If you can rely on them already, why do they want influencing?" objected Anna.

"On whom one can rely for a hearing and for intelligent appreciation, Miss Selford."

"Then the fewer people who care what you say, the more successful you really are?"

"That's hardly the way I should put it——"

"No, I don't suppose you would," interrupted Anna. "But it comes to that, doesn't it, Jeremy?"

"Of course it does," agreed Jeremy. "The fact is, writing about things is all rot. Go and do something—something practical."

Dyeing was doing something practical.

"Oh, yes, go into business, of course, and get rich by cheating. Trading's only another name for cheating."

"Well, you're right there for once," said Anna.

"Right?" cried Jeremy fiercely. "Well, then, why isn't it cheating when he" (he pointed scornfully at Alec) "charges a ha'penny for his beastly opinion about something?"

"Oh, it's not for me to say! You must ask Mr. Turner that."

In fact the discussions were of a most spirited order, since everybody was always quite wrong, and each in turn could be rapidly and ignominiously refuted, the other two uniting in a warm but transient alliance to that end.

This young and breezy society was good for Selford and for his wife too. It gave them something to think about, and did not leave each so much time to consider the unreasonableness of the other. Tiffs became less frequent, the false sentimentalism of their reconciliations was less in demand; and as they watched Anna's deftness and brightness, they began to ask whether they had been as proud of her as they ought to be.

"She's got brains, that girl of ours," said Selford, nodding his head complacently.

"And a taking manner, don't you think, Dick?"

"Those boys find her attractive, or it looks like it, anyhow!"

"Of course she's not exactly pretty, but I do think she's rather distinguished somehow."

"Your daughter would be sure to be that, my dear Janet," he remarked gallantly.

"No, I really think she's more like you," insisted Janet amiably. "I must make an effort" (Mrs. Selford was fond of that phrase) "and take her out into society more. I don't think we're quite giving her her chance."

"Ah, you've begun to think of match-making!" he cried in playful reproof.

But it pleased him highly to think that he had, after all, an attractive daughter. He took much more notice of her than he had been used to take, and Mrs. Selford eyed her with critical affection. Decidedly the increase of human interest, as opposed to artistic and canine, was a good influence in the Selford household.

Anna soon saw how her position had improved. She was not demonstrative about it, but she appreciated it. She was also sharp enough to use it. The next time an invitation to a party came, she refused to go unless she might have a frock of her own choosing.

"I won't go if I'm to look a guy!" she said.

There was a battle over that; a battle between her and Mrs. Selford, and a tiff between father and mother to boot. For Selford was with Anna now. They won the day, and Anna, with a cheque in her pocket, went off to consult Christine Fanshaw, nursing in her heart that joy which only the prospect of being dressed really just as you'd like to be dressed seems able to excite.

"Merely a malicious desire to cut out the other girls," commented Alec loftily.

"I really don't think you ought to talk about dress," retorted Anna, eyeing the mustard suit.

But when Anna appeared in the frock which Christine had sedulously and lovingly planned, she carried all before her. She was most undoubtedly distinguished.

"Well, I suppose you've come to an age when that charming simplicity which used to suit you so well must give way to something more stylish," even Mrs. Selford admitted, capitulating and marching out—but with the honours of war.

Grantley Imason was rich; yet fifteen thousand pounds is a solid sum of money. To put that sum at John Fanshaw's disposal had not caused him serious inconvenience, but it had entailed a little contriving. To lay out another five thousand in Jeremy's service would involve more contriving, and the return of the money rested, of necessity, in a distant and contingent future. Nevertheless, when Kate Raymore suggested that the happiness of a life should be secured, he found the proposition attractive. He was a man lavish of money and appreciative of all the various pleasures of giving it away—both those of a more and those of a less self-regarding order. He enjoyed both the delight of the recipient and the sense of his own generosity and his own power. He would like Jeremy to be indebted to him for the happiness of his life—of course that was an exaggerated way of putting it, but it was a telling exaggeration. He also liked Jeremy very much for his own sake. And it would be altogether a handsome thing to do—under present circumstances a peculiarly handsome thing. For Sibylla had left him and gone down to Milldean, accompanied by the boy, without a word of friendship or a hint of reconciliation; and Jeremy's welfare was very dear to his sister. To help Jeremy, and thereby prepare for her the pleasure of seeing Jeremy prosper, to do this secretly, to have it as a private merit and a hidden claim on her, was an idea which appealed strongly to Grantley. In his imaginings she was to discover what he had done in the future, but not till after their reconciliation. Would it not have an effect then? One effect it was to have was, in plain words, to make Sibylla feel ashamed; but Grantley did not put it so simply or so nakedly as that—that would have been to recognise the action as almost pure revenge. He blinked that side of it, and gave prominence to the other sides. But that side was there among the rest, and he would suffer wrong at her hands with the more endurance the greater were the obligations she was under to him. His love for her and his quarrel with her joined hands to urge him. Commanding Kate Raymore to respect his desire for secrecy, he undertook to consider the matter. But his mind was really made up; and since the thing was to be done, it should be done liberally and splendidly. He had lent his money to Fanshaw, as Caylesham had surmised, with a very satisfactory prospect of repayment; to Jeremy he was ready to lend it on no security, careless about repayment, because he loved Sibylla and because he had so grievous a quarrel against her. It was all a part of his broad and consistent plan of conquering her by his unchanging patience, unchanging love, unchanging persistence in being just what he had always been to her from the beginning, however sore a trial her unreasonableness and her vagaries might put him to. This generosity to Jeremy would be a fine example of his chosen attitude, a fine move in the strategy on which he had staked the ultimate success of his campaign against Sibylla.

"If I decide to do it, I'll tell Sibylla myself, at my own time, and in my own way—remember that," he said to Kate Raymore.

She had an idea that things had not been going quite smoothly, and nodded in a wise fashion. She was picturing a pretty scene of sentiment when Grantley confessed his generosity. Of the real state of his mind she had no idea, but her own conception of the case was enough to ensure her silence.

Grantley went to work quietly, saying nothing to Jeremy, approaching the working partners through Selford, learning what they thought of Jeremy, not letting them suppose that the sum required was lightly to be come by, or was considered a small one, making, like a good man of business, the best bargain that he could for the object of his bounty. These negotiations took some days, and during those days Jeremy's heart lost something of its buoyancy, though nothing of its courage. London was having its effect on his receptive mind—the crowd, the stress, the push, the competition. Courage and brains enough to rise by? Perhaps, but not enough to rise by quickly. A walk about the streets, a look at the newspapers, the talk at the Metropolitan Radical, all taught him that. Wait and work—wait and work! That was what they all said—and they none of them said that it was easy to lay your hands on five thousand pounds.

The light of truth began to glimmer through those folds of young self-confidence. Jeremy grew sober; he was no more so gay and so assured in talking with Eva Raymore. He allowed himself to dwell less on that mythical return to Milldean with fame and riches. Now and then, it must be confessed, he had to brace himself up lest his very courage should falter. He contrived to keep it; but with it there came now a feeling new to Jeremy—a humility, a sense that he was, after all, as other men were, and neither by natural endowment nor by any rare caprice of fortune to be different from them or to find his life other than theirs. He too was not above the need of a helping hand; for want of it he too might have to tread very long and very dreary paths before he made much impression on the hill which he had set out to climb so gaily, and with so little provender for the journey. In such a mood as this he was as incapable of expecting any sudden interposition of outside aid as of refusing it when it came. He would protest, he would declare that he must refuse, but refuse in the end he could not. The fierce jealousy of his independence was cooled by his new experience of the world.

He heard first of what was being done from one of the partners down at Romford. The matter was practically concluded, he was told; in two years' time he was to have the junior partnership, and the share allotted to him at that date would be somewhat larger in consideration of the stipulated capital being paid immediately—it happened to be wanted for an extension of the buildings. Jeremy threw over work for that day, and hurried back to London—to refuse. But all the way he was thinking of the incredible difference this benevolent interposition would make.

He found Grantley in his study after lunch. The deed regulating the arrangements between the partners on the one side and Jeremy and himself on the other was before him. A look at Jeremy's face told him that Jeremy knew.

"I—I can't take it, you know," Jeremy blurted out.

"You can't escape the obligations Sibylla has brought on you by marrying me," smiled Grantley.

"Of course Sibylla's been at you—told you she couldn't be happy unless——"

"Nothing of the kind. Sibylla knows nothing about it; and, what's more, she isn't to know till I choose to tell her—till I choose, not you—that's part of the bargain, Jeremy."

Jeremy sat down. Anxious to avoid a formal talking-over of the matter, Grantley got up and lit a cigarette.

"Then why have you done it?" asked Jeremy.

Grantley shrugged his shoulders.

"Of course it's the one thing in the world for me; but—but I wanted to do it for myself, you know." Grantley still smiled on him, with a touch of mockery now. "Yes, well, I know I couldn't." He looked at Grantley in a puzzled way. "What makes it worse," he went on, "is that I've been doing you an injustice in a kind of way. I knew you were always kind and—and jolly, but somehow I thought you were a fellow who wouldn't put himself out very much for—for anybody else."

"I am not putting myself out. I like it."

"Planking down five thousand, and not knowing when you'll get it back, if you ever do? If you like that for its own sake, it's rather a rare taste."

"Now don't jaw any more," said Grantley with friendly impatience. "I was just going to sign the deed when you came in—I should have done it by now, but I must have a witness, and I didn't want to ring Thompson up from his dinner. We'll ring for him now."

"I'm not an ass," said Jeremy. "I don't think that because a man marries a woman he's bound to provide for her family—or to like them either."

"You grow in worldly wisdom."

"Yes, I fancy I do. I know a bit more about myself too. I might have worked ten years and not got this money."

"Oh, thank my forefathers! I've not worked ten years, or ten minutes either, for you!" His back had been to Jeremy. He turned round now as he said slowly, "You may consider it as a thanksoffering for my happiness with Sibylla."

"And why isn't she to know?"

"I like it better that way for the present. I'm entitled to make that condition."

Jeremy went back to his defence of himself against himself.

"A week ago I—I'd have backed myself to make it somehow. But—well, one soon learns how devilish hard it is to get what one wants. What a conceited young idiot you must have thought me when we used to talk down at Milldean!"

"You were always an excellent companion. Let's ring for Thompson and execute the deed."

Jeremy could not refuse, and could not yet consent. Grantley stood smoking airily and looking at him with a whimsical smile. Then the door opened and the butler came in, unsummoned.

"Ah, the fates decide!" exclaimed Grantley with a laugh. "Where's a pen, Jeremy?"

"For you, sir," said Thompson, holding out a salver with a letter on it.

"Oh!" Grantley laid down his pen, took the letter, and sat down at the writing-table. "Wait a minute; I want you to witness something for me," he said to the butler.

Thompson stood in serene immobility. His thoughts were far away, engrossed in a discussion he had been having with the groom as to the "form" of that same horse of Caylesham's about which Mrs. Bolton had wanted to know. Jeremy sat making up his mind to endure being helped, and poignantly remorseful about the view he had taken of Grantley. The view was earnestly disclaimed now; the help seemed very fine and wonderful. He did so want hope, scope, a chance, a start, and that all his talk of what he would do should not come to naught. In turn Dora, Eva, and Anna passed through his mind, each bringing her own influence to bear, giving him a new picture of the future. And why refuse? If ever a gift had been freely, grandly offered, this was. Would it not be even churlish to refuse? Reasons or no reasons, his heart and his hand went out instinctively; he could not refuse the beginning of all things.

Giving his head a restless little jerk as at last he accepted this decision, he chanced to turn his eyes on Grantley's face. Their attention was caught and arrested by it. There was something strange there. The cheeks were rather pale, the jaw set rigidly. Grantley read his letter with a curious engrossment—not hurriedly nor off-hand, as a man generally reads when other business is at a standstill till he reaches the end. He turned back, it seemed, once or twice, to look at another sentence again. Jeremy could not stop staring at him. Even Thompson awoke to the fact that he was being kept waiting a long while, and that the groom would probably finish the beer and go away, leaving their important discussion unfinished and the proper odds unascertained.

Grantley had recognised Christine Fanshaw's large irregular handwriting, and had expected nothing more serious than an invitation to dinner. But he was not reading an invitation to dinner now.

"I have just heard from Sibylla—from Milldean. She encloses a letter for you, which she says I am to send on to you to-morrow. She insists that I am not to send it before; and if I won't do as she asks, I am to burn it. You are not to have it to-day. I cannot disobey her in this; but she says nothing about my telling you she has sent a letter; the only thing is that I must not deliver it to you till to-morrow. I had no idea you had let her go down to Milldean alone. How could you let her do this? There is one other thing I must say to you. Walter Blake was to have dined here to-night. This morning he wired excuses, saying he was going for a cruise in his yacht. You must consider what that means. I beg you not to wait for the letter, but to go to Milldean this afternoon. Say nothing of having heard from me. Just go as if it was by accident; say you got your work done sooner than you expected, or anything you like; but go. I believe you'll be sorry all your life if you don't go. Let nothing stop you, for your own sake, and still more for hers.—C.F."

That was the letter; the sentence he had turned back to re-read was the one in which Walter Blake's movements were mentioned.

Grantley looked across to Jeremy.

"Have you heard from Sibylla since she went to Milldean?" he asked.

"Not a line. But she doesn't write much to me."

Again Grantley looked at the paper. Then he laid it down and took up his pen.

"Now for the deed," he said, and drew it to him.

He signed. Thompson fulfilled the formality for which he was required, and then left them alone. Jeremy did not break out into new thanks. That unexplained something in Grantley's face forbade him.

"I can only say that I'll try to justify your extraordinary kindness," he said soberly.

Grantley nodded absently, as he rose and put Christine's letter into the fire. It was better there—and there was no danger that he would forget the contents.

"I say, there's no bad news, is there?" Jeremy could not help asking.

"No news at all, good or bad," answered Grantley, as he held out his hand. "Good-bye and good luck, Jeremy."

Jeremy took his hand and gripped it hard, emotion finding a vent that way. Grantley returned the pressure more moderately.

"Remember, under no circumstances, a word about it to Sibylla!" he said.

"I give you my honour."

"Good."

He released Jeremy's hand and turned away. He had much self-control, but he could not be sure of what was showing on his face.

Jeremy had his great good-fortune, but his joy was dashed. Grantley looked like a man whom heavy calamity finds unprepared.

"All the finer of him to sign the deed then and there," Jeremy muttered as he left the house. "Whatever has happened, he didn't forget his word to me."

But it had not been of Jeremy or of his word that Grantley had been thinking when he signed. His signature was a defiance of his wife and of his fate.