1

"I hope you realize, Horatio, that it was Barbara who got you out of that mess?"

"Barbara showed a great deal of intelligence; but you must give me credit for some tact and discretion of my own," Mr. Waddington said as he left the drawing-room.

"Was he tactful and discreet?"

"His first letters," said Barbara, "were masterpieces of tact and discretion. Before he saw the danger. Afterwards I think his nerve may have gone a bit. Whose wouldn't?"

"It was clever of you, Barbara. All the same, it must have been rather awful, going for her like that."

"Yes."

Now that it was all over Barbara saw that it had been awful; rather like a dog-fight. She had been going round and round, rolling with Mrs. Levitt in the mud; so much mud that for purposes of sheer cleanliness it hardly seemed to matter which of them was top dog at the finish. All she could see was that it had to be done and there wasn't anybody else to do it.

"You see," Fanny went on, "she had a sort of case. He was making love to her and she didn't like it. It doesn't seem quite fair to turn on her after that."

"She did all the turning. I wouldn't have said a thing if she hadn't tried to put the screw on. Somebody had got to stop it."

"Yes," Fanny said. "Yes. Still, I wish we could have let her go in peace."

"There wasn't any peace for her to go in; and she wouldn't have gone. She'd have been here now, with his poor thumb in her screw. After all, Fanny, I only pointed out how beastly it would be for her if she didn't go. And I only did that because he was your husband, and it was your thumb, really."

"Yes, darling, yes; I know what you did it for. … Oh, I wish she wasn't so horribly badly off."

"So do I, then it wouldn't have happened. But how can you be such an angel to her, Fanny?"

"I'm not. I'm only decent. I hate using our position to break her poor back. Telling her we're Waddingtons of Wyck and she's only Mrs. Levitt."

"It was the handiest weapon. And you didn't use it. I'm not a Waddington of Wyck. Besides, it's true; she can't blackmail him in his own county. You don't seem to realize how horrid she was, and how jolly dangerous."

"No," Fanny said, "I don't realize people's horridness. As for danger, I don't want to disparage your performance, Barbara, but she seems to me to have been an easy prey."

"You are disparaging me," said Barbara.

"I'm not. I only don't like to think of you enjoying that nasty scrap."

"I only enjoyed it on your account."

"And I oughtn't to grudge you your enjoyment when we reap the benefit. I don't know what Horatio would have done without you. I shudder to think of the mess he'd have made of it himself."

"He was making rather a mess of it," Barbara said, "when I took it on."

"Well," said Fanny, "I daresay I'm a goose. Perhaps I ought to be grateful to Mrs. Levitt. If he was on the look-out for adventures, it's just as well he hit on one that'll keep him off it for the future. She'd have been far more deadly if she'd been a nice woman. If he must make love."

"Only then he couldn't very well have done it," Barbara said.

"Oh, couldn't he! You never can tell what a man'll do, once he's begun," said Fanny.

2

Meanwhile Mrs. Levitt stayed on, having failed to let her house for the winter. She seemed to be acting on Barbara's advice and refraining from any malignant activity; for no report of the Waddington affair had as yet penetrated into the tea-parties and little dinners at Wyck-on-the-Hill. Punctually every Friday evening Mr. Thurston of the Elms, and either Mr. Hawtrey or young Hawtrey of Medlicott, turned up at the White House for their bridge. If Mrs. Dick Benham chose to write venomous letters about Elise Levitt to old Mrs. Markham, that was no reason why they should throw over an agreeable woman whose hospitality had made Wyck-on-the-Hill a place to live in, so long as she behaved decently in the place. They kept it up till past midnight now that Mrs. Levitt had had the happy idea of serving a delicious supper at eleven. (She had paid her debts of honour with Mr. Waddington's five pounds; the fifty she reserved, in fancy, for the cost of the chickens and the trifles and the Sauterne.) In Mr. Thurston and the Hawtreys the bridge habit and the supper habit, and what Billy Hawtrey called the Levitty habit, was so strong that it overrode their sense of loyalty to Major Markham. The impression created by Mrs. Dick Benham only heightened their enjoyment in doing every Friday what Mrs. Thurston and Mrs. Hawtrey persisted in regarding as a risky thing. "There was no harm in Elise Levitt," they said.

So every Friday, after midnight, respectable householders, sleeping on either side of the White House, were wakened by the sudden opening of her door, by shrill "Good nights" called out from the threshold and answered by bass voices up the street, by the shutting of the door and the shriek of the bolt as it slid to.

And the Rector went about saying, in his genial way, that he liked Mrs. Levitt, that she was well connected, and that there was no harm in her. So long as any parishioner was a frequent attendant at church, and a regular subscriber to the coal and blanket club, and a reliable source of soup and puddings for the poor, it was hard to persuade him that there was any harm in them. Fanny Waddington said of him that if Beelzebub subscribed to his coal and blanket club he'd ask him to tea. He had a stiff face for uncharitable people; Elise was received almost ostentatiously at the rectory as a protest against scandal-mongering; and he made a point of stopping to talk to her when he met her in the street.

This might have meant the complete rehabilitation of Elise, but that the Rector's geniality was too indiscriminate, too perfunctory, too Christian, as Fanny put it, to afford any sound social protection; and, ultimately, the approval of the rectory was disastrous to Elise, letting her in, as she afterwards complained bitterly, for Miss Gregg. Meanwhile it helped her with people like Mrs. Bostock and Mrs. Cleaver and Mrs. Jackson, who wanted to be charitable and to stand well with the Rector.

Then, in the December following the Waddington affair, Wyck was astonished by the friendship that sprang up, suddenly, between Mrs. Levitt and Miss Gregg, the governess at the rectory.

There was a reason for it—there always is a reason for these things—and Mrs. Bostock named it when she named young Billy Hawtrey. Friendship with Mrs. Levitt provided Miss Gregg with, unlimited facilities for meeting Billy, who was always running over from Medlicott to the White House. Miss Gregg's passion for young Billy hung by so slender, so nervous, and so insecure a thread that it required the continual support of conversation with an experienced and sympathetic friend. Miss Gregg had never known anybody so sympathetic and so experienced as Mrs. Levitt. The first time they were alone together she had seen by Elise's face that she had some secret like her own (Miss Gregg meant Major Markham), and that she would understand. And one strict confidence leading to another, before very long Miss Gregg had captured that part of Elise's secret that related to Mr. Waddington.

It was through Miss Gregg's subsequent activities that it first became known in Wyck that Mrs. Levitt had referred to Mr. Waddington as "that horrible old man." This might have been very damaging to Mr. Waddington but that Annie Trinder, at the Manor, had told her aunt, Mrs. Trinder, that Mr. Waddington spoke of Mrs. Levitt as "that horrible woman," and had given orders that she was not to be admitted if she called. It was then felt that there might possibly be more than one side to the question.

Then, bit by bit, through the repeated indiscretions of Miss Gregg, the whole affair of Mrs. Levitt and Mr. Waddington came out. It travelled direct from Miss Gregg to the younger Miss Hawtrey of Medlicott, and finally reached Sir John Corbett by way of old Hawtrey, who had it from his wife, who didn't believe a word of it.

Sir John didn't believe a word of it, either. At any rate, that was what he said to Lady Corbett. To himself he wondered whether there wasn't "something in it." He would give a good deal to know, and he made up his mind that the next time he saw Waddington he'd get it out of him.

He saw him the very next day.

Ever since that dreadful Wednesday an uneasy mind had kept Mr. Waddington for ever calling on his neighbours. He wanted to find out from their behaviour and their faces whether they knew anything and how much they knew. He lived in perpetual fear of what that horrible woman might say or do. The memory of what he had said and done that Wednesday no longer disturbed his complete satisfaction with himself. He couldn't think of Elise as horrible without at the same time thinking of himself as the pure and chivalrous spirit that had resisted her. Automatically he thought of himself as pure and chivalrous. And in the rare but beastly moments when he did remember what he had done and said to Elise and what Elise had done and said to him, when he felt again her hand beating him off and heard her voice crying out: "You old imbecile!" automatically he thought of her as cold. Some women were like that—cold. Deficient in natural feeling. Only an abnormal coldness could have made her repulse him as she did. She had told him to his face, in her indecent way, that love was the most ridiculous thing. He couldn't, for the life of him, understand how a thing that was so delightful to other women could he ridiculous to Elise; but there it was.

Absolutely abnormal, that. His vanity received immense consolation in thinking of Elise as abnormal.

His mind passed without a jolt or a jar from one consideration to its opposite. Elise was cold and he was normally and nobly passionate Elise was horrible and he was chivalrously pure. Whichever way he had it he was consoled.

But you couldn't tell in what awful light the thing might present itself to other people.

It was this doubt that drove him to Underwoods one afternoon early in
January, ostensibly to deliver his greetings for the New Year.

After tea Sir John lured him into his library for a smoke. The peculiar smile and twinkle at play on his fat face should have warned Mr. Waddington of what was imminent.

They puffed in an amicable silence for about two minutes before he began.

"Ever see anything of Mrs. Levitt now?"

Mr. Waddington raised his eyebrows as if surprised at this impertinence. He seemed to be debating with himself whether he would condescend to answer it or not.

"No," he said presently, "I don't."

"Taken my advice and dropped it, have you?"

"I should say, rather, it dropped itself."

"I'm glad to hear that, Waddington; I'm very glad to hear it. I always said, you know, you'd get landed if you didn't look out."

"My dear Corbett, I did look out. You don't imagine I was going to be let in more than I could help."

"Wise after the event, what?"

Mr. Waddington thought: "He's trying to pump me." He was determined not to be pumped. Corbett should not get anything out of him.

"After what event? Fanny's called several times, but she doesn't care to keep it up. Neither, to tell the honest truth, do I…. Why?"

Sir John was twinkling at him in his exasperating way.

"Why? Because, my dear fellow, the woman's going about everywhere saying she's given you up."

"I don't care," said Mr. Waddington, "what she says. Quite immaterial to me."

"You mayn't care, but your friends do, Waddington."

"It's very good of them. But they can save themselves the trouble."

He thought: "He isn't going to get anything out of me."

"Oh, come, you don't suppose we believe a word of it."

They looked at each other. Sir John thought: "I'll get it out of him."
And Mr. Waddington thought: "I'll get it out of him."

"You might as well tell me what you're talking about," he said.

"My dear chap, it's what Mrs. Levitt's talking about. That's the point."

"Mrs. Levitt!"

"Yes. She's a dangerous woman, Waddington. I told you you were doing a risky thing taking up with her like that…. And there's Hawtrey doing the same thing, the very same thing…. But he's a middle-aged man, so I suppose he thinks he's safe. … But if he was ten years younger— Hang it all, Waddington, if I was a younger man I shouldn't feel safe. I shouldn't, really. I can't think what there is about her. There's something."

"Yes," said Mr. Waddington, "there's something."

Something. He wasn't going to let Corbett think him so middle-aged that he was impervious to its charm.

"What is it?" said Sir John. "She isn't handsome, yet she gets all the young fellows running after her. There was Markham, and Thurston, and there's young Hawtrey. It's only sober old chaps like me who don't get landed…. Upon my word, Waddington, I shouldn't blame you if you had lost your head."

Mr. Waddington felt shaken in his determination not to let Corbett get it out of him. It was also clear that, if he did admit to having for one wild moment lost his head, Corbett would think none the worse of him. He would then be classed with Markham and young Billy, whereas if he denied it, he would only rank himself with old fossils like Corbett. And he couldn't bear it. There was such a thing as doing yourself an unnecessary injustice.

Sir John watched him hovering round the trap he had laid for him.

"Absolutely between ourselves," he said. "Did you?"

Under Mr. Waddington's iron-grey moustache you could see the Rabelaisian smile answering the Rabelaisian twinkle. For the life of him he couldn't resist it.

"Well—between ourselves, Corbett, absolutely—to be perfectly honest, I did. There is something about her…. Just for a second, you know. It didn't come to anything."

"Didn't it? She says you made violent love to her."

"I won't swear what I wouldn't have done if I hadn't pulled myself up in time."

At this point it occurred to him that if Elise had betrayed the secret of his love-making she would also have told her own tale of its repulse. That had to be accounted for.

"I can tell you one queer thing about that woman, Corbett. She's cold—cold."

"Oh, come, Waddington—"

"You wouldn't think it—"

"I don't," said Sir John, with a loud guffaw.

"But I assure you, my dear Corbett, she's simply wooden. Talk of making love, you might as well make love to—to a chair or a cabinet. I can tell you Markham's had a lucky escape."

"I don't imagine that's what put him off," said Sir John. "He knew something."

"What do you suppose he knew?"

"Something the Benhams told them, I fancy. They'd some queer story.
Rather think she ran after Dicky, and Mrs. Benham didn't like it."

"Don't know what she wanted with him. Couldn't have been in love with him, I will say that for her."

"Well, she seems to have preferred their bungalow to her own. Anyhow, they couldn't get her out of it."

"I don't believe that story. We must be fair to the woman, Corbett."

He thought he had really done it very well. Not only had he accounted honourably for his repulse, but he had cleared Elise. And he had cleared himself from the ghastly imputation of middle-age. Repulse or no repulse, he was proud of his spurt of youthful passion.

And in another minute he had persuaded himself that his main motive had been the desire to be fair to Elise.

"H'm! I don't know about being fair," said Sir John. "Anyhow, I congratulate you on your lucky escape."

Mr. Waddington rose to go. "Of course—about what I told you—you won't let it go any further?"

Sir John laughed out loud. "Of course I won't. Only wanted to know how far you went. Might have gone farther and fared worse, what?"

He rose, too, laughing. "If anybody tries to pump me I shall say you behaved very well. So you did, my dear fellow, so you did. Considering the provocation."

He could afford to laugh. He had got it out of poor old Waddington, as he said he would. But to the eternal honour of Sir John Corbett, it did not go any further. When people tried to get it out of him he simply said that there was nothing in it, and that to his certain knowledge Waddington had behaved very well. As Barbara had prophesied, nobody believed that he had behaved otherwise. It was not for nothing that he was Mr. Waddington of Wyck.

And in consequence of the revelations she had made to her friend, Miss Gregg, very early in the New Year Elise found other doors closed to her besides the Markhams' and the Waddingtons'. And behind the doors on each side of the White House respectable householders could sleep in their beds on Friday nights without fear of being wakened by the opening and shutting of Mrs. Levitt's door and by the shrill "Good nights" called out from its threshold and answered up the street The merry bridge parties and the little suppers were no more.

Even the Rector's geniality grew more and more Christian and perfunctory, till he too left off stopping to talk to Mrs. Levitt when he met her in the street.

3

Mr. Waddington's confession to Sir John was about the only statement relating to the Waddington affair which did not go any further. Thus a very curious and interesting report of it reached Ralph Bevan through Colonel Grainger, when he heard for the first time of the part Barbara had played in it.

In the story Elise had told in strict confidence to Miss Gregg, Mr. Waddington had been deadly afraid of her and had beaten a cowardly retreat behind Barbara's big guns. Not that either Elise or Miss Gregg would have admitted for one moment that her guns were big; Colonel Grainger had merely inferred the deadliness of her fire from the demoralization of the enemy.

"Your little lady, Bevan," he said, "seems to have come off best in that encounter."

"We needn't worry any more about the compact, Barbara, now I know about it," Ralph said, as they walked together. Snow had fallen. The Cotswolds were all white, netted with the purplish brown filigree-work of the trees. Their feet went crunching through the furry crystals of the snow.

"No. That's one good thing she's done."

"Was it very funny, your scrap?"

"It seemed funnier at the time than it did afterwards. It was really rather beastly. Fanny didn't like it."

"You could hardly expect her to. There's a limit to Fanny's sense of humour."

"There's a limit to mine. Fanny was right. I had to fight her with the filthiest weapons. I had to tell her she couldn't do anything because he was Waddington of Wyck, and she was up against all his ancestors. I had to drag in his ancestors."

"That was bad."

"I know it was. It's what Fanny hated. And no wonder. She made me feel such a miserable little snob, Ralph."

"Fanny did?"

"Yes. She couldn't have done it. She'd have let her do her damnedest."

"That's because Fanny's an incurable little aristocrat. She's got more Waddington of Wyckedness in her little finger than Horatio has in all his ego; and she despises Mrs. Levitt. She wouldn't have condescended to scrap with her."

"The horrible thing is, it's true. He can do what he likes and nothing happens to him. He can turn the Ballingers out of their house and nothing happens. He can make love to a woman who doesn't want to be made love to and nothing happens. Because he's Waddington of Wyck."

"He's Waddington of Wyck, but he isn't such a bad old thing, really. People laugh at him, but they like him because he's so funny. And they've taken Mrs. Levitt's measure pretty accurately."

"You don't think, then, I was too big a beast to her?"

Ralph laughed.

"Somebody had to save him, Ralph. After all, he's Fanny's husband."

"Yes, after all, he's Fanny's husband."

"So you don't—do you?"

"Of course I don't…. What's he doing now?"

"Oh, just pottering about with his book. It's nearly finished."

"You've kept it up?"

"Rather. There isn't a sentence he mightn't have written himself. I think I'm going to let him go back to Lower Wyck on the last page and end there. In his Manor. I thought of putting something in about holly-decked halls and Yule logs on the Christmas hearth. He was photographed the other day. In the snow."

"Gorgeous."

"I wonder if he'll really settle down now. Or if he'll do it all over again some day with somebody else."

"You can't tell. You can't possibly tell. He may do anything."

"That's what we feel about him," Barbara said.

"Endless possibilities. Yet you'd think he couldn't go one better than
Mrs. Levitt."

For the next half-mile they disputed whether in the scene with Mrs. Levitt he was or was not really funny. Ralph was inclined to think that he might have been purely disgusting.

"You didn't see him, Ralph. You've no right to say he wasn't funny."

"No. No. I didn't see him. You needn't rub it in, Barbara."

"We've got to wait and see what he does next. It may be your turn any day."

"We can't expect him to do very much for a little while. He must be a bit exhausted with this last stunt."

"Yes. And the funny thing is he has moments when you don't laugh at him. Moments of calm, beautiful peace…. You come on him walking in his garden looking for snowdrops in the snow. Or he's sitting in his library, reading Buchan's 'History of the Great War.' Happy. Not thinking about himself at all. Then you're sorry you ever laughed at him."

"I'm not," Ralph said. "He owes it us. He does nothing else to justify his existence."

"Yes. But he exists. He exists. And somehow, it's pretty mysterious when you think of it. You wonder whether you mayn't have seen him all wrong. Whether all the time he isn't just, a simple old thing. When you get that feeling—of his mysteriousness, Ralph—somehow you're done."

"I haven't had it yet."

"Oh, it's there. You'll get it some day."

"You see, Barbara, how right I was? We can't keep off him."