XVIII

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Ben, left alone, thought, she tells me (to my great pride) first of me. But I was abroad and without an address. It was a matter, she felt, that must be discussed with a third person. And it was complicated by the girl having already given a promise.

By lunch-time she seemed no nearer any course of action, but on her way through the shop suddenly remembered Patrick's oracle.

"What was that way of getting guidance called?" she asked him. "When you told me not to bother about ever paying my rent?"

"Was it as definite as that?" he asked. "I'd forgotten." He laughed. "The 'Sortes VirgilianÆ,'" he went on. "Every one his own diviner. If you're in a difficulty, try it again. Take any book at random and read where it opens."

Ben put out her hand and found that it had alighted upon "Coleridge's Poems."

"Now open it and glance quickly," said Patrick.

Opening it, Ben's eyes came instantly upon "The Ancient Mariner."

"Do I have to read the whole page?" she asked.

"No," said Patrick. "The title is enough. Isn't it helpful?"

"I don't see how," said Ben, and she left the shop.

"It's never failed yet," he called after her. "Either up or down, it's bound to work."

At intervals during the rest of the day Ben repeated the words "ancient mariner," "ancient mariner," "venerable salt," "antique navigator," "senile sailor." Nothing suggested anything. Perhaps, she thought, it means the sea. But what could the sea do for Miss Marquand? She couldn't—no, impossible—have meant to suggest committing suicide; and certainly she was not going to run away: that was not a solution to this kind of problem. Facing the music here.

Ancient mariner, ancient mariner.... Ben racked her brains to think of any elderly naval men that she might know. There was her father's friend, the Admiral, old Sir Albert Ross; but he was dead. Nor had he possessed a very sympathetic or understanding mind. The quarter-deck manner. "Damn it," he would have said, "you've got to take your punishment. People who play cards for stakes they can't afford get no pity from me." Well, the Admiral was dead, anyway.

Ancient mariner, ancient mariner. What was the next thing to a real mariner? Why, a longshoreman, a boatman on the river. And the next thing to the real sea? The Thames. Ought she to go down to the docks and see what happened there? But why the Thames? Why not a lake? There were boats on the Serpentine, close by, and this was a lovely evening and the attendants would certainly be there and one of them might be old. In fact they were sure to be old. And in conversation something useful might occur.

Ben was on her way to the Serpentine when she thought of the Round Pond, and in a second Coleridge's meaning flashed upon her. Of course. Why hadn't she thought of it at once? Uncle Paul. Uncle Paul was the only ancient mariner in her acquaintance: Uncle Paul with his toy boats, and, even more, Uncle Paul with his kind old heart and wise if simple old head. She would go to see him directly after dinner. Of course!

Uncle Paul, if he had known of Ben's approach, could not have been employed more suitably, both for her and for Coleridge, for he was rigging a ship. A three-masted schooner. And he looked quite old enough to be called ancient.

"Well, my dear," he said. "How nice of you to call!"

He moved away from the model and fetched the cigarettes.

"Please don't stop, Uncle Paul," said Ben. "I shall be much happier if you go on with your work. In fact, you must. And it isn't nice of me to call, really. Because I've come for advice. To bother you."

"Don't apologize for that," he said. "People like to be asked for advice. It's flattering."

Ben told him the whole story—without names—while his busy fingers were deftly binding spars and threading cordage through tiny blocks.

"And she struck you as being all right?" he asked at the end. "You felt the thing to be genuine? She really seemed to mean it when she said that this time it really was the end of her gambling?"

"Absolutely," said Ben.

"She must be helped," said Uncle Paul, and he went to his desk and wrote a cheque for two hundred pounds made out to his niece. "Give her this. But see that she pays it back to you, no matter in how small instalments, beginning with her next allowance. I'm afraid she must deny herself a lot of little luxuries; but that will be good for her. Yes," he said, "she ought to go without all kinds of things she's used to. But you'll talk to her like a mother and tell her so, of course."

"A mother!" Ben exclaimed. "Why, I'm not more than three years older."

"Age has nothing to do with it," said Uncle Paul.

"You are the sweetest thing," said Ben, as she folded the cheque and put it in her bag. And she hurried home.

"Well," said Patrick, putting his head in at Ben's door the next afternoon, "did it work?"

"To perfection," said Ben.

"It's a wonderful method," said Patrick.

"I prefer it to all others," said Ben. "And, by the way, I've got a new assistant. A Miss Marquand. We're getting on, you see."


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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