But he went with me to Cockington. More, he picked up the cheque, and cashed it, and let Pendarvon have his money before he went. He struck me as not being very far from drunk when we started. Having commenced to drink, he kept at it like a fish. He was in deliriously high spirits by the time we reached our journey's end. I began to suspect that there was literal truth in what he had said; that there was a strain of madness in his blood; and that, consciously or otherwise, he was in actual training for a madhouse. The more I considered it, the less his conduct for some time past smacked to me of sanity.

It was past nine when we reached Jardine's. At the door they told us that dinner had been kept waiting for our arrival. It was ready to be served as soon as we appeared. Making a quick change, I hurried down into the drawing-room. As I entered Dora Jardine advanced to meet me.

"We expected papa by the same train by which you came, but he is detained in town. I have just had a telegram from him to say so. He says that he hopes to be here for the shoot, so perhaps he will come down by the mail--it gets here in the middle of the night, just before four." I bowed. She added, in a lower tone of voice, "Isn't it odd how some people have too much to do, and others have too little?"

"I am afraid, Miss Jardine, that such inequality is characteristic; while, if you are referring particularly to me, I assure you that very shortly I hope to be overwhelmed beneath the pressure of innumerable engagements."

She turned to the others. I knew them all. There was her aunt, Mrs. Crashaw, fat, not fair, and more than forty, a childless widow, who was understood to be rich. Lady Mary Porteous, the Marquis of Bodmin's sister, who was not so young as she had been. And there was Miss Whortleberry, the daughter of Asa Whortleberry, late of Chicago, and the present possessor of all his millions. Miss Whortleberry was one of those young women who seem to be America's most peculiar and special product. To look at she was a graceful, slender little thing, with big eyes and a face that was almost angelic in its innocence. An unsuspecting stranger might have been excused for taking it for granted that in the frame of a delicate girl there was the simple spirit of a child. A more prolonged inspection would, however, have revealed to him the fact that her costume was, to say the least of it, more suggestive of Paris than Arcadia. But it was when she opened her mouth that she gave herself away. Her voice, quite apart from its nasal twang, always reminded me, in some queer way, of Lancashire streets; it was hard and metallic. Her conceit was simply monumental. You could not talk to her for half an hour without discovering that there was only one heaven for her, and that was the heaven of dollars, and that, in her own estimation at any rate, she was its uncrowned queen.

She was lolling back in a corner of a sofa as I advanced to her. She vouchsafed me the tips of her fingers.

"Ah, it's you."

That was all the greeting she condescended to bestow.

There were four men. George Innes--Lord George Innes--who, on the strength of being one of the finest shots in England, is in hot request wherever there are birds about. I believe Innes is one of the cleanest living men I know. He is not rich, but, I take it, he lives within his income. He is fond of a modest gamble, but he won't play for big stakes, and he will only sit down where there's ready-money. His manner is a trifle suggestive of a poker down his back, but if I had been run in a different mould I could have fraternised with Innes. The man to me rings true--he is a man. He dislikes me--it is perhaps, just as well for him that he should.

Then there was Tommy Verulam, an ass, if ever there was one. I suppose he was there because of his father. I don't know what other recommendation he has. Then there was Denton, the man who writes. Personally, I have no taste for men who write. They may be all right in print, but generally they are nothing out of it, and the worst of it is, they are apt to think they are. And Silcox, M.P. I am told that he is very popular in his party, as being the only man in the Radical gang who is a fool, and knows it.

Presently Archie appeared. He was flushed. I thought he looked uncommonly well. He is a handsome beggar in his way. Dora received him with a something in her air which made his flush mount higher. I guessed how she set all his pulses tingling. Even Miss Whortleberry extended to him a welcome which, for her, was quite affectionate--he was a son of the Duke of Glenlivet.

Dora went in with Innes, as being the biggest there. I came in with the tail. We would change all that!

After dinner I made straight for the drawing-room. Something seemed to tell me that I had better make the running while I could. It was the pace which would win. Besides, the consciousness that I was once more in Dora's near neighbourhood had on me the same queer effect which it evidently had on Archie. I found her talking to the Whortleberry. Presently the millionairess went off with Mary Porteous. I had Dora to myself.

It was odd how the recognition of this fact gave me what positively amounted to a thrill. And yet, for a moment or two, neither of us spoke. She sat opening and shutting her fan. I sat and watched her performance. And when I did speak at last, my voice actually trembled.

"I have been thinking of what you said to me the other evening."

"What was that?"

"Have you forgotten?"

"Haven't you?"

"I could scarcely have been thinking of it if I had forgotten."

"What did I say?"

"You gave me courage."

"Courage?"

"Yes."

"Were you in want of courage?"

"Of that particular sort of courage. Some men only get that particular sort of courage from a woman. I know you gave it me."

She glanced up with those strange eyes of hers.

"Tell me what you mean."

"It would take me an hour to explain. Don't you know?"

"You never struck me as being in want of courage of any sort or kind."

There was an ironic intonation in her voice, which, in some subtle fashion, recalled her father.

"Is that meant as a reproach?"

"No." She hesitated, as if to consider. Then went on, "It is not so much your courage which I should have questioned, as the direction in which it has been shown. It is a sufficiently rare quality to make it unfortunate that any of it should be wasted. How much of it has been wasted you know even better than I do."

"I understand you. I thank you, not only for what you say, but also for what you leave unsaid. I am not only going to turn over a new leaf, Miss Jardine; I am going to commence a new volume. Though I shall always feel, myself, that you have commenced it for me."

"I am content, so long as it is a volume of a certain kind."

What did she mean? I seldom knew quite what she did mean. She puzzled me almost as much as her father. She was not like the average girl one bit. As she looked at me with her curiously smiling eyes, with the suggestion of strength which they conveyed to me, I felt that it was probable that she knew much more of the contents of my volume, the one which I claimed to be just closing, than I was likely to know of hers.

"Do you know, Miss Jardine, that you are making of me a proselyte."

"In what sense?"

"I have never, hitherto, believed in the influence of women. You are making of me a believer."

"That certain women have influence over certain men I think there can be no doubt whatever. I have influence over you; you have influence over me. Only"--she stopped my speaking with a movement of her fan--"I should be on my guard against your influence over me until I felt that my influence over you had produced certain results."

"I suppose that any attempts on my part to guard against your influence would be vain."

"You would not attempt to make them. You are not that kind of man."

"Miss Jardine!"

"You are not. You would not attempt to resist the influence of any woman. You would rather welcome it as a sort of study in sensation, as far as it would go. But it would not go far. It would soon reach a bed-rock of resistance. As soon as it reached that rock it would vanish into nothing."

"You flatter me by making so close a study of my peculiarities."

"I do not flatter you. I take an interest in you, because, for one reason, you take an interest in me. Now, Mr. Townsend, I am sure that I should find that bed-rock of resistance at a greater distance from the surface. If ever you welcomed my influence you might find it go much farther than you had at first intended. So I warn you in advance."

I was silenced, not so much by her words as by her bearing. Her eyes had an effect on me which no eyes had ever had on me before. They mastered me, and made me conscious of a sense of satisfaction at being mastered.

"You make me afraid of you."

"Just now you said I gave you courage."

"The two things are compatible. Fear of you might give me courage."

"You mean fear of appearing contemptible to me?"

"Exactly."

"Then that sort of courage I should like to give you." A gleam came into her eyes which was almost like a flash of lightning. "Perhaps I will."

"Do I not tell you that you have given me a taste of it already?"

We might have reached delicate ground. When a man and a woman deal in personalities, and persevere in them, a situation of some sort is apt to ensue. Archie's appearance postponed the crisis which I was beginning to think was nearer even than I had supposed. Archie seemed in a condition of almost feverish exaltation. In the look with which he favoured me there was something which certainly was not altogether friendly. Dora did not seem to notice it. She welcomed him with a smile. As he sat down on the other side of her I got up. I left them together.

"Poor chap!" I told myself as I strolled off, "let him have his innings. He must be badly burned or he would make a more strenuous endeavour to avoid the fire."

Lounging into the little drawing-room beyond, I came into collision with the aunt. She had the place to herself. She appeared to be just waking up from the enjoyment of forty winks. I daresay if I had not come upon the scene she would have had another. At the sight of me she roused. She beckoned me to occupy an adjacent chair. She was the aunt, and I still was unattached. I sat beside her.

"What do you think of Dora?" Her tone was confidential. She spoke to me under cover of her handkerchief. Seeing that I was puzzled, she explained--"I mean, how do you think she's looking?"

"I think she's looking very well."

"Isn't she! Wonderfully well! Don't you think she's lovely?"

I hardly knew what to say. She could scarcely expect me to be ecstatic.

"Indeed I do."

"Of course you would!" She smiled--such a smile. "And she's all she looks, and more. She is good as she is beautiful, and so clever. Extraordinarily so! She's a wonderful girl!" She closed her eyes, as if the wonder was too great for visual contemplation. "I often think that it is unfortunate that she was not born a man."

"You can scarcely expect me to agree with you there."

"You wicked creature!" She prodded me with her fat fingers in the arm. Mrs. Crashaw was one of those old women who, whenever they can, punctuate their remarks on the persons of their listeners. She arranged her bracelets on her wrists. "Haselton tells me that he has a very high opinion of you, Mr. Townsend."

"I am very glad to hear it. I only hope he does not think more highly of me than I deserve."

"I hope not. Young men nowadays are so wicked. They deserve so little. As you probably are aware, Mr. Townsend, I am Haselton's only sister. He reposes in me his entire confidence. He has no secrets from me."

I believed her! She might be his only sister, but Sir Haselton Jardine was as likely to repose his entire confidence in a woman of Mrs. Crashaw's type as in the first town crier. Whatever he told her would probably be told with, at least, one eye to advertisement.

"My brother Haselton is a man of peculiar gifts. A remarkable man. A man of genius if ever there was one. He is, of course, respected by all of us, by his country and his Queen. He has a marvellous knowledge of the world, and a great esteem for those sacred things which are too often disregarded. And when I learn that he has a high opinion of any person I know that that person must be all right upon the moral side. I am glad, Mr. Townsend, to be able to think this of you."

I looked down. I could not help but smile.

"Thank you, Mrs. Crashaw; you are very good."

"In this age of flippancy, the most shocking things are suffered. I hear, I assure you, of things which would astound you. I have made Haselton's hair stand up on end. It always gives me pleasure to hear of a young man who is not only clever but good. For my part, let them say what they will, I think it is better to be good than clever. I hope, Mr. Townsend, that you will always bear that in mind."

Again she prodded me in the arm. I could but bow my head.

"The man who marries Dora will be a most fortunate man. She has money of her own. She will have money from her father. She may have money from me--mind, I make no promise--I say she may have. It depends." Mrs. Crashaw smoothed out her ample skirts in front of her. "Then there is the family influence and position. With a clever girl like Dora for a wife nothing ought to be impossible to her husband."

The dear old thing might be prosy, but it did me good to hear her talking. Such observations, coming from such a quarter, carried weight and meaning. They meant that my position looked already as if it was assured. They meant that the whole thing--spontaneously, so far as I was concerned--had been threshed out in family councils, and that then the decision had been given for me. The thing seemed too good to be true; and yet it was true--here was the living witness. I was in for a stroke of fortune so stupendous as to seem to verge on the miraculous.

If only I had known of it before last Sunday! If only I had suspected that the thing was even possible! Why had I been so blind? Why had I not seen it coming? Why had Sir Haselton not dropped a hint in time? Oh, if he only had!

But the game was not yet lost. Lost?--it was all but gained! I had but to breast the tape, and win. The riding would do it. Luck was on my side.

I turned in early. I had had little enough of bed the night before. I wanted to get up fit, with a clear eye and steady hand. I did not want Innes to beat me too badly with the birds. One likes to hold one's own, whatever is the game.

In the corridor, as I was making for the sheets, who should I meet but Dora. She thought that I was going to make changes in my costume, to fit me for the smoking-room.

"Going to change your coat?"

"Not I. I'm going to bed."

"Really?"

"Really. I want to make some additions to to-morrow's bag. Sir Haselton won't thank me if I don't."

She looked at me as if she was trying to read my face. When she tried to do that I felt, in some occult fashion, that she succeeded. I would have been prepared to wager that she had her father's power of reading faces--and more.

"I want you to promise me something."

"What is it?"

"I want you to promise to top Lord George's score."

"You ask a hard thing, Miss Jardine. I do not profess to be Lord George Innes's equal as a shot."

"I believe, if you like, you can do anything."

"You believe too much of me. Honestly, for my sake, I wish you would believe a little less."

"Will you promise?"

"I promise that I will try my hardest, that I will do my best; and, as the archer says in 'Ivanhoe,' no man can do more."

"You will hare to do more for me; you will have to promise, and you will have to keep your promise."

It seemed an unreasonable request to make--especially in that insistent fashion--such a promise no man could be sure of keeping. A thousand things might be against him. I might shoot better than I had ever shot in my life, and yet not be certain of topping the score. Yet, when I saw the something that was in her eyes, I cast caution to the wind.

"I promise."

She held out her hand.

"Good-night."

She allowed me to retain her hand for a moment in mine.

"I know you will keep the promise you have made."

She was gone. I turned into my room. And, when in it, I reflected.

"If she knows that I will keep the promise I have made she knows a good deal more than I do. I wonder what will happen if I don't. I can, as a rule, see pretty straight along the barrel of a gun, but I do hope to goodness the birds will be good enough to cross my line of fire. She's the sort of girl to take the miscarriage even of such a promise as an omen. I want the omen to be all the other way."

Some one knocked at the door. It was Archie. He had a smoking jacket on.

"Aren't you coming down into the smoking-room?"

"I am not. And, if you take my tip, you won't go either. You must be almost as much in want of a trifle of bed as I am."

"I am obliged to you. I make my own sleeping arrangements." His tone was snappy. He seated himself on the arm of a chair. "Were you in earnest in what you said to me this morning?"

"To what are you referring?"

"To what you said about Miss Jardine."

"Certainly I was in earnest."

He fixed his glance upon me in a fashion I did not relish.

"Haven't you a grain of pity? Is there nothing human about you, Townsend?"

I felt strongly that that sort of thing must cease. The idea of Lord Archibald BeauprÉ's mentorship was an idea not to be endured.

"There has been a good deal about your manner towards me lately, BeauprÉ, to which I have objected, and with good cause. You have presumed on the friendship which exists between us in a manner of which I should have thought you, of all men, would have been incapable." He flushed. I saw I had struck home. "You must excuse me saying that if you consider that the fact of our being acquainted with each other entitles you to unwarrantably interest yourself in my private affairs, I must request that that acquaintance shall cease."

"You don't understand me--or you won't."

"I understand you better than you imagine. You are not the first jealous man I have known."

He went white and red.

"It isn't jealousy; I swear it isn't."

"It is a matter of complete indifference to me what it is. I object to it in any case."

He was silent for some seconds. He stared at his toes.

"Tell me one thing--have you proposed to her?"

"I shall tell you nothing. After the tone which you have used towards me I decline to allow you to ask me questions."

He got off the arm of the chair.

"Then God help her." He went to the door. At the door he turned again. "I don't believe that He will suffer it."

Then he went

If Archie went on like that much longer, he and I should quarrel. Vicarious morality is a variety of the article to which the most liberal-minded inevitably objects.