“I DON’T say,” observed the Colonel, “that limited liability companies haven’t great advantages. In fact, I’m a director myself—it’s a big grocery—and draw three hundred a year—a very welcome addition to my half-pay—and, for all I know, I may supply some of you fellows with your morning bacon. If I do, it just exemplifies the point I was about to make; which is this—When it comes to limited companies, you never know who anybody is. I could tell you a little story to illustrate that; it’s rather a sad one, though.”

The club smoking-room was cheerfully lighted, the fire burned brightly, we each had a cigar and a drink. We intimated to the Colonel that we felt in a position to endure a touch of tragedy.

“It’s some years ago now,” he said, “but it affected me considerably at the time. Do any of you go to Stretchley’s for your clothes?”

Three of us shook our heads wistfully. The fourth—a young man, and a new member, whom none of us knew, but who had a legal look about him and wore admirable trousers of a delicate grey—answered the Colonel’s question in the affirmative.

“If I may say so, you and Stretchley do one another credit, sir,” said the Colonel, with an approving glance at the new member’s trousers. “And I needn’t tell you that Stretchley’s have few equals—and no superiors. When you say Stretchley’s, you say everything. I have never gone to them myself: partly because I couldn’t afford it, more perhaps from motives of delicacy—from consideration for poor George Langhorn’s feelings. He has always preferred not to act professionally for his personal friends, even though he lost money in consequence.”

“How does George Langhorn come in?” I ventured to ask.

“He is Stretchley’s, to all intents and purposes. It’s a small family company. The business was founded by George’s maternal grandfather, and carried to greatness by his mother’s brother, Fred Stretchley, whom I used to see at Brighton years ago. Fred made it into a company, but of course kept the bulk of the shares to himself, besides the entire control; and when he died he left all he had to George, on condition—mark you, on condition—that George remained in the business, and in active control of it. He did that because he knew that George hated it, and, at the same time, had a wonderful turn for it.”

“Rather odd, that!” the new member observed.

“I don’t think so, sir,” said the Colonel. “He had a knack for it, because it was in his blood; and he hated it, because he’d had it crammed down his throat all his life. He’d been right through the mill from a boy; the only holiday he’d ever had from it was a year at Bonn—and that was to learn German, with a view to business. It was at Bonn that I became acquainted with him, and a very nice fellow he was—quite a gentleman, and extremely well-informed. We became great friends. His only fault was his exaggerated dislike of his own occupation. On that subject he was morbid—and, I’m afraid I must add, a trifle snobbish. All the same, he was unmistakably proud of Stretchley’s. He was quite alive to the fact that, if he had to be a tailor, it was a fine thing to be Stretchley’s, and in moments of confidence he would thank Heaven that he hadn’t been born in the ready-made line—‘reach-me-downs,’ he called it. ‘It might have been worse,’ he would say manfully. At those times I felt a great respect for him.”

“They do know how to make a pair of breeches,” murmured the new member, regarding his own legs with pensive satisfaction.

“Nobody better, nobody better,” the Colonel agreed, with a solemn cordiality—and we all looked at the new member’s legs for some moments. “Well, as I was saying,” the Colonel then resumed, “George Langhorn and I became real friends; but I was abroad on service for two or three years after he came back from Bonn and got into harness in Savile Row, and so I lost sight of him for a bit. But after I’d been home a few months, I was passing through town on my way to the Riviera, on six weeks’ leave, and I dropped in at his place and saw him. I found him in a sad way—very depressed and down in the mouth, railing against the business, utterly sick of it. He told me he couldn’t endure the sight of a frock-coat, and spent all his time at home in pyjamas and a dressing-gown—just because those were portions of apparel not supplied by Stretchley’s. Morbid, of course, but sad, very sad! It looked to me as if he was on the verge of a breakdown, and I took a strong line with him. I told him that he owed it to himself to take a complete holiday—to get right away from the shop for a bit, to forget all about it, to put plenty of money in his pocket, and give himself a real holiday—he told me he hadn’t taken more than a week here and there for two years. I said: ‘I’m just off to Monte Carlo. You come with me. Sink the shop—dismiss it from your mind—and come along.’ Well, he saw how wise I was, made his arrangements, and joined me at Charing Cross three days later. Off we went, and a very good time we had of it. George was a handsome young fellow of four or five and twenty, with lots to say for himself, and a very taking way with women. Nobody knew who he was, but I and my friends gave him a good start, and he could take care of the rest for himself. In point of fact I received a great many compliments on the good taste I showed in choosing my travelling companion. Ah, yes, we had very good fun!” The Colonel leant back in his chair for a moment, with a smile of pleasant—possibly of roguish—reminiscence.

“No signs of the tragedy yet, Colonel,” said I.

“Wait a bit; I’m just coming to it. When we’d been there about a fortnight, a young lady appeared on the scene. She was one of the prettiest creatures I ever saw—and I’ve seen some in my day—and as merry as she was pretty. Besides that, she was evidently uncommonly well off; she travelled with a companion, a maid, and a toy-poodle, and threw away her money at the tables as if she were made of it. I needn’t tell you that such a girl didn’t want for attentions at Monte Carlo, of all places in the world. The fortune-hunters were hot on her track, besides all the young fellows who were genuinely smitten with her. If I’d been ten years younger, I’d have had a shot myself. But it wouldn’t have been any use. From the very first George was the favourite, just as from the first George had been drawn to her. There seemed really to be what they call an affinity between them. I never saw an affair go so quickly or so prosperously. Yes, there seemed to be an affinity. George was carried right off his feet, and I was intensely pleased to see it. He wasn’t thinking of Stretchley’s now, and he was putting on weight every day! My treatment was being a brilliant success, and I didn’t mind admitting that more than half the credit was due to pretty Miss Minnie Welford—that was her name.

“I was only waiting to hear the happy news when one morning George came down looking decidedly pale and with a face as long as your arm. I made sure he’d received a telegram calling him back to Savile Row. But it wasn’t that. This was it. In conversation, in the garden of the Casino the evening before, somebody had begun talking about mÉsalliances and that sort of thing. One took one side, and one another—the people who had nothing in particular to boast about in the family way being the loudest in declaring they’d never make a low marriage, as they generally are. Minnie, who was sitting next George, took the high romantic line. She said that if she loved a man (George told me she blushed adorably as she said this—you can believe that or not, as you like) neither family nor fortune would weigh for a minute with her. That made George happy, as you can imagine. Then some fellow said: ‘You’d marry the chimney-sweep, would you, Miss Welford?’ ‘Yes, if I loved him,’ says she. ‘Absolutely nobody barred?’ the man asked, laughing. She blushed again (or so George said) and laughed a little and said: ‘Well, just one—just one class of man; but I won’t tell you which it is.’ And no more she would, though they all tried to guess, and chaffed her, and worried her to tell. When the talk had drifted off to something else, George seized his opportunity—he told me he had a horrid sort of presentiment—and whispered in her ear: ‘Tell me!’ She looked at him with eyes full of fun and said: ‘Well, I’ll tell you; but it’s a secret. Swear to keep it!’ George swore to keep it, and then she leant over to him, put her lips close to his ear, and whispered—— Well, of course, you’ve guessed what she whispered?”

“Tailors!” said the new member in a reflective tone.

“Yes, ‘tailors,’” said the Colonel mournfully. “She just whispered ‘Tailors!’ and ran off with a merry glance (so George said)—a merry glance. And he hadn’t had a wink of sleep all night, and came to tell me the first thing in the morning. I never saw a man so broken up.”

“Had she found out about him?” I asked.

“No, no, sir; not a hint—not an idea. You’ll see later on that she couldn’t have had the least idea. But there it was—tailors! And what the dickens was poor George Langhorn to do? He took one view, I urged the other. His was the high-flying line. He must tell her the whole truth before he breathed as much as a word of love to her! Fatal, of course, but he said it was the only line an honourable man could take. I denied that. I said: ‘Tell her you love her first. Get her consent—because you will get it. Let the matter rest for a week or two—let her love grow, let the thing become fully settled and accepted, so that to break it off would cause talk and so on. Then, when it’s all settled, just casually observe, in a laughing kind of way, that you’re sorry she has a prejudice against a certain estimable occupation, because you happen to be indirectly connected with it.’ Machiavellian, you’ll say, no doubt; but effective, very effective! ‘Indirectly connected’ I consider was justifiable. Yes, I do. I am, as I said a little while ago, a director of a grocery business, but I don’t consider myself directly—not directly—connected with lard and sugar. No, I didn’t go beyond the limits of honour, though possibly I skirted them. In helping one’s friends, one does. However, George wouldn’t have it, and at last I had to be content with a compromise. He wasn’t to speak of the business before he spoke of love, nor to speak of love before he spoke of the business. He was to speak of them both at once. That was what we decided.”

“Rather difficult,” commented the new member, with that reflective smile which I began to recognise as habitual.

“Pray, sir, would you expect such a thing to be easy?” demanded the Colonel, with an approach to warmth. “We did the best we could, sir, under exceptionally awkward and delicate circumstances.” The Colonel leant back again and took a sip of barley-water. That is his tipple.

We all waited in silence for the Colonel to resume his narrative. I remember that, owing perhaps to the associations of the subject, my regard was fixed on the new member’s grey trousers, to which he himself continued to pay a thoughtful attention. The Colonel took up the tale again in impressive tones.

“It has been my lot,” he said, “to witness many instances of the perverse working of what we call fate or destiny, and of the cruel freaks which it plays with us poor human creatures. I may mention, just in passing, the case of my old friend Major Vincent, who, himself a vegetarian, married a woman whom he subsequently discovered to be constitutionally unable so much as to sit in the same room with a cabbage. But neither that case nor any other within my experience equals the story which I am now telling you. You will agree with me when you hear the dÉnoÛement, which is of a nature impossible for any of you to anticipate.”

“I think I know it,” observed the new member.

“It’s impossible that you should, sir,” said the Colonel firmly, though courteously: “and when you have heard me out, you yourself will be the first to admit as much. Where was I? Ah, I remember. Well, George Langhorn left me in the condition which I have attempted to describe, and with the understanding which I have mentioned. How, precisely, he carried out that understanding, I am, of course, unable to say, as his interview with Miss Welford was naturally a private one, and he never volunteered any detailed account of it, while it would have been absolute cruelty to press him on the subject; for if his state of mind was lamentable when he left me, it was as nothing to the dismay and horror which held possession of him on his return some two hours later. He rushed into my room really like a man distraught—I am in the habit of measuring my words, and I don’t use that one unadvisedly—plumped himself down on my sofa, and ejaculated: ‘Merciful heavens, she owns half the Sky-high!’”

At this climax—for such his manner obviously indicated it to be—the Colonel looked round on us in sombre triumph. We were all gravely attentive (except the new member, who still smiled), and the Colonel continued, well satisfied with the effect which he had produced.

“There’s fate for you, if you like!” he exclaimed, with uplifted forefinger. “There’s the impossibility of evading destiny or escaping from a foreordained environment! Out of all the girls in the world, George had fixed his affections on that particular one; he had gone straight to her, as it were; and, for my part, I can’t doubt that the very thing he hated, and she hated too, had, all the same, served in some mysterious way to bring them together. And there was the situation! Not only was George, as a man, forbidden the escape which he had prayed for, but Stretchley’s was brought into contact with the ‘Sky-high Tailoring Company’! No doubt you are all familiar with its advertisements—chubby boys in sailor suits, square-legged little girls in velveteen, dress-suits at thirty-seven and sixpence! I need not enlarge on the subject; it’s distasteful. It is enough to say that any connection between Stretchley’s and the Sky-high was to George’s mind almost unthinkable. Observe, then, the curious and distressing psychological situation. As a man, he hated Stretchley’s; as Stretchley’s, he loathed and despised the Sky-high. His love—his most unfortunate love—was in conflict at once with his personal feelings and with his professional pride. And what of her? When he grew calmer, George entered on that subject with some fulness. She had suffered, exactly as he had, from the obsession of the family business, in the shadow of which she had been bred, to a half-share in which she had succeeded on her father’s death. In early days, before fortune came, she had even been dressed from the stock! Like George, she had looked to marriage for a complete change of life and associations. It was not to be. And, more than that, she was acutely conscious of what George must feel. Her training and the family atmosphere had not failed to teach her that. She knew only too well how Stretchley’s would feel towards the Sky-high. And George was Stretchley’s, and she was the Sky-high! One sometimes reads of mÉsalliances in the papers or meets them among one’s acquaintance. Never have I met one like this. The very fact of the occupation being in essence the same intensified the discrepancy and the contrast. Which, gentlemen, would surprise and, I may say, shock you more—that a duke should marry oil or soap, or that a really first-class purveyor should take his bride from a fried fish shop? No man of perception can hesitate. It is within the bounds of the same occupation that the greatest contrasts, the greatest distance, the greatest gulfs of feeling are to be found. I value an otherwise painful experience because it exhibited that philosophic truth in so vivid and striking a manner. You would sooner ask the Commander-in-Chief to lend a hand with a wheelbarrow than propose to him to take command of a corporal’s guard. Your chef would no doubt put on the coals to oblige a lady, but not to oblige a thousand ladies would he wash the dishes!”

“I daresay that’s all true,” I made bold to observe, “but, nevertheless, your pair of lovers seem to me rather ridiculous.”

“Exactly, sir,” said the Colonel—and I was relieved that he took my interruption so well. “They would seem to you ridiculous. Probably the chef seems ridiculous too? A man of another profession can’t have the feeling in its full intensity. It seems ridiculous! But think—doesn’t that very fact increase the tragedy? To suffer from a feeling deep and painful, and to be aware that it is in the eyes of the world at large ridiculous—can you imagine anything more distressing?”

“Your story illustrates more than one great truth, I perceive, Colonel.”

“If it did not, sir, I should never have troubled you with it,” he answered with lofty courtesy.

“And what happened? Did love triumph over all?”

“I hesitate to describe the issue in those terms,” said he, with a slight frown. “They are conventional—designedly, no doubt—and I don’t think that they fit this particular case. George and Miss Welford were, beyond question, deeply attached to one another, and they got married in due course—nor am I aware that the marriage has turned out otherwise than well in the ordinary sense. Mrs Langhorn is a very charming woman. But was it a triumph of love? I look deeper, gentlemen. In my view love was but an instrument in the hands of Fate. The triumph was the triumph of Fate, and I am persuaded that, when they went to the altar, resignation to destiny was the most prominent feeling in the minds of both of them. That is why I said at the beginning that the story was rather a sad one. The very night before the wedding I found George poring over the Sky-high’s illustrated catalogue! What does that fact carry to your minds?”

“It looks bad,” I admitted, with a sigh.

“It speaks volumes,” said the Colonel briefly, and he finished his barley-water.

The new member flung the end of his cigar into the grate and rose to his feet. His face still wore the reflective smile which had decorated it throughout the Colonel’s story.

“And what,” I asked the Colonel, “are the present relations between Stretchley’s and the Sky-high?”

“It would be curious to know,” he answered; “but as to that I have no information. I’ve never ventured to interrogate George Langhorn on the point.”

“I think I can answer the question,” said the new member, flicking an ash off his trousers. “The two companies were privately amalgamated last week. I drew the articles of association myself. Mr Langhorn is to be chairman of the joint concern.”

The Colonel might plausibly have resented a silence so long maintained as to border on deceit. He showed no anger. He nodded his head gravely, as though to say: “Here is the Epilogue! Here is the Catastrophe complete!”

“Stretchley’s and the Sky-high!” he murmured. “Poor George Langhorn! Poor George!”

I went home to dinner really quite depressed.