CHAPTER XV
SUCCESS

HE felt less certain of his freedom when he watched, three months later, the white coast of England take visible shape on the horizon. He should have been feeling very happy. He was returning to his friends, his home, his girl. And he was returning with credit. He had not made, it is true, large profits for the firm, but that had not been expected of him. He had done what he had been told to do. He had established important connections, made friends with two large business men, and, incidentally, brought several thousand pounds’ worth of business to the firm of Marston & Marston. He had done better than had been expected. When he had written home and told Mr. Marston that M. Rocheville was prepared to sign a contract for varnish on behalf of the Belgian Government, Mr. Marston had dropped the letter on his desk and had sat back in his chair amazed at this good fortune; and when, a fortnight later, the news arrived of a possible combination with the German firm of Haupsehr & Frohmann, Mr. Marston had jumped from his seat and walked backwards and forwards, up and down the office. And for two days he disconcerted his secretary by muttering in the middle of his dictation: “Marvelous boy! marvelous boy!”

And he had been marvelous both in his fortune and in his audacity. He had met M. Rocheville under circumstances of ridiculous improbability. He was dining at a small restaurant in Antwerp; he had just ordered his meal and had commenced his study of the wine list when he became conscious of a commotion at the table on his left. There was a mingling of voices, reproachful, importunate, and one in particular feebly explanatory. Roland listened, and gathered from the torrent of words that the owner of the feeble voice had lost his purse and was trying to explain that he had friends in the town and would return and settle the account on the next day. But the proprietor, from a long experience of insolvent artists, actors, courtesans and other dwellers on the fringe of respectability, demanded a more substantial guarantee than the card which the subject of the misfortune was offering him.

“No, no,” he was saying, “it is not enough; you will leave me your watch and that ring upon your second finger and you may go. Otherwise——” And he shrugged his shoulders. To this the prosperous little gentleman, whom an empty bucket beneath the table proved to have dined expensively, would not agree. It was a personal affront, an insult to his name, and he brandished his card in the face of the proprietor; it availed little, and the intervention of the police was imminent when Roland heard the name “Rocheville” flung suddenly like a spear among the waiters.

On the waiters it had no effect; they winked, nodded, smiled to one another. They had heard that tale before. Many indignant customers had flourished the trade-mark of their reputation. Had not a poet produced once from his pocket the review of his latest book as a proof of his nobility? To the waiters the word “Rocheville” meant nothing; to Roland it meant much. The most important man in the Army Ordnance Department was named Rocheville. He might not be the same man, of course, but it was worth the experiment; certainly it was worth the loss of fifty francs that he would charge to the firm as a “special expense.”

He rose from his seat and walked across to M. Rocheville.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “I trust you will forgive me if I am committing an impertinence, but from what I overheard I gathered that you had lost your purse. If that is so, please allow me to lend you whatever you may need to settle your account.”

“But, sir—no, really I couldn’t; it would be an unthinkable liberty.”

But Roland insisted. And having appeased the proprietor, who retired in a profusion of bows, he turned again to meet M. Rocheville’s thanks.

“But it was nothing, sir, really it was nothing, and I could not endure the sight of a gentleman being submitted to such an inconvenience.”

Monsieur Rocheville executed an elaborate bow.

“It is too kind of you, and if you will give me your address I will see that a cheque is sent to you to-morrow.”

“But I’m afraid that I go to Brussels first thing to-morrow, and I am not certain at which hotel I shall be stopping. But it does not matter.”

“But it does, of course it does,” M. Rocheville expostulated. “How shall we manage it?”

For a moment he paused, his hand raised to his forehead, essentially, Roland thought, the gesture of a bureaucrat.

“Yes, yes, I have it,” said M. Rocheville: “you will come back with me to some friends of mine that live here and we will arrange it.”

“Well, then,” said Roland, “if that is so, will you not do me the honor first of sitting at my table while I finish my meal and sharing a bottle of wine with me?”

M. Rocheville had already drunk a full bottle of champagne, but he had lived on perquisites for so long that he could not resist the temptation of accepting any offer that put him under no pecuniary obligation. And, besides, this was a confoundedly pleasant young man, who had saved him from an undignified situation, and in whose company he would no doubt pass agreeably a couple of hours.

“I should be delighted,” he said; “and do you know my name?”

“I’m afraid not,” said Roland.

With a slightly diffident flourish M. Rocheville handed his card to his young companion. It was for this moment that Roland had arranged his dramatic sequence. He examined the card carefully, then looked up with a surprised, half-modest, half-excited expression on his face.

“You aren’t—you aren’t the Monsieur Rocheville?”

A slow smile spread itself over the ample features of the bureaucrat. It was a long time since his vanity had been so delicately tickled, and after the insults he had received from the waiter this recognition of his value was very pleasant.

“Yes,” he said, “I suppose I am.”

“The Monsieur Rocheville who manages the Ordnance administration?” Roland persisted.

It was a sweetly sugared pill. To think that this young foreigner should know all about him. He, himself, was perhaps more important than he had been led to think—a prophet in his own country; but abroad, in England, they estimated truly the value of his services. He was inclined to agree with them; too much praise was given to the Generals and Commanders of Army Corps. He always experienced a slight impatience when he heard eulogies of the exploits of Malplaquet and Marshal Ney and Turin. They had done the spectacular work. The light of popular approval had to be focused somewhere, but that in itself proved nothing. Mankind was an ass. Was not authority delegated? Was not the private soldier less valuable than the colonel? Was not the colonel less valuable than the general? In the same way might not the general be less valuable than the organization which provided him with food, with cannons, with rifles, with ammunition, and, as far as that went, with his army too? The farther one was from the firing line the more important one became. The organization, was it not himself? A sound line of argument. And he sat back contentedly in the chair that Roland offered him and lifted the glass that Roland had filled for him.

He raised it to the light, then gently, very gently advanced his lips to it. He rolled the rich, heavy Volnay on his tongue. It was good. A little shudder ran through his body. The wine had warmed him. He sat back in his chair and smiled. It was good to be appreciated. And Roland in this respect accommodated him to the full. By the time Roland had finished his dinner the old man was in a state of maudlin self-pity and self-complacency. “I am not understood”; that was the burden of his complaint.

And then, very carefully, very gently, Roland introduced his own subject—the sale of varnish. Monsieur Rocheville lamented the inferiority of the Belgian species. It would not polish and it was so dear. But what would you! The Belgians were interested only in husbandry and food and wantonness. Monsieur Rocheville’s eyes glistened as he brought out the word, and in another minute Roland would have been forced to attend to a recital of the Rocheville enterprises in the lists of gallantry; this, however, he evaded. If varnish in Belgium was so dear, why did he not send for it elsewhere—to Germany, or France, or Italy? He had heard there was very good varnish to be obtained in Italy. And when M. Rocheville advanced the theory that one should encourage national industries, Roland persuaded him that there was nothing that could better encourage the Belgian varnish industry than a removal of the Government’s patronage.

“If they think they are certain of your custom they won’t work. Why should they? Commerce is competition. You stimulate competition and you’ll find your industry is a hundred per cent more healthy in five years’ time than it will be if you let it go on on the old lines: buying dear and buying bad.” M. Rocheville agreed. How true it all was and how clearly this young man understood it—a delightful young man, on the whole the most delightful young man he had ever met. It was a pity that he insisted on talking about varnish all the time. There were so many much more interesting things that they could have found to discuss together. Still, it was all very warm and nice and comfortable.

Looking back the next day, and trying to reconstruct the sequence of their conversation, M. Rocheville found it impossible to recall the exact moment at which Roland had stated his interest in Marston & Marston’s varnish and made his proposal that the Belgian Government would do well in the future to deal with his firm direct. As far as he could remember, there had been no such exact statement in so many words. They had discussed varnish from every point of view—from the international standpoint, from the financier’s standpoint; they had even touched on the vexed question of retail business, and also the refractory behavior of trade unions. They had discussed varnish indeed so thoroughly that it was impossible to recall what had, and what had not, been said. One thing alone M. Rocheville could recall with painful distinctness—that there had come a point in the conversation when he had realized that this engaging young man was offering to sell him a very large quantity of varnish—good varnish—better than the Belgian firms could supply and at the same price. There was no question of buyer or seller, no bargaining, no haggling. It was altogether different from his usual harsh business interviews, that were so distressing to a man of taste. In the same way that this young man had rendered him assistance in that trying altercation with the proprietor, so did he now in this matter of varnish lay his undoubted talents and experience at his disposal. It was a charming, friendly action, and the young man was so business-like. He had produced from his pocket a printed contract in which he had made certain alterations “between friends,” he had called it, the cancellation of two or three small clauses; he had spread the document on the table for him to sign. He had then given M. Rocheville a similar agreement signed by his firm, and he had then ordered another glass of Benedictine, and the conversation turned from varnish into more intimate channels. He could not remember about what he had talked, but he felt that, at such an hour, their comments on whatever topic they had chosen to discuss must have been profound. In describing the occasion to a friend he waved a hand vaguely: “For two hours, he and I, we talked of life.”

Then they had visited a M. Villeneuve to settle the matter of the loan. Roland had demurred, but M. Rocheville had insisted. And this part of the evening, owing to the sudden change of air, he could recall more clearly. Monsieur Villeneuve was in bed when they arrived and did not extend to him a very cordial welcome. But the loan was at last successfully negotiated, and Roland then discovered that in five hours’ time he would have to catch a train and that it would be agreeable to spend those five hours in sleep. But M. Rocheville was very loath to part with him. For a long while he stood in the porch and, as far as Roland could discern any clear intention behind his confused utterances, appeared to be suggesting that Roland should still further trespass on the hospitality of M. Villeneuve.

“Then, perhaps, if you cannot do that,” M. Rocheville persisted, “you will come and spend a week-end with me before you return. You have my card. I have a nice house in Brussels, very quiet and comfortable. I am not married.”

But Roland had reminded him that he was very busy, and that he did not know if he would have time, but that he would certainly try to arrange a lunch at their next visit.

“And in the meantime I will see that you get that varnish.”

“Ah! that varnish,” said M. Rocheville. And observing that he was now standing alone in the porch, with no one to whom he might address his profound reflections upon the mortality of man, he walked slowly towards the gate, a little puzzled by Roland’s conduct and by his own.

“A delightful young man,” he said, then paused as though he must qualify this estimate, but his Latin cynicism saved him. “Well, well,” he said, “an agreeable interlude.”

That was Roland’s first triumph, and the other, if less adroitly stage-managed, was more audacious, and owed its success to skill quite as much as to good fortune.

Haupsehr & Frohmann directed one of the largest polish factories in the south of Germany; they supplied, indeed, practically the whole of the Rhineland with their goods, and Roland had considered that a meeting between them might prove profitable. He found, however, that it was impossible to obtain an interview with either Herr Haupsehr or Herr Frohmann. “They will not look at English goods.” That was what everyone told him, and a carefully worded request for an interview that he addressed to the head of the firm was answered by return of post with a bald statement that Herren Haupsehr and Frohmann did not consider a personal interview would further the interests of either Mr. Roland Whately, representative of Marston & Marston, or of themselves. And Roland was thus driven to the reluctant conclusion that his advisers were correct. If he were to effect an introduction it would have to be done by guile.

He awaited his opportunity, and the opportunity came to him in the passport office. He had gone to fulfill some trifling by-law concerning the registration of aliens. For a long time he had sat in a draughty corridor, and then for a long time he had stood beside a desk while a busy bureaucrat attended to someone else’s business, and when at last he had succeeded in making his application a bell rang in the next room, and without an apology his interlocutor rose from his chair and hurried to the next room.

“How terrified they are of their chiefs,” Roland thought. He had by now become accustomed to the trepidation of officials. How typical was that desk of the words that were written and the sentences framed at it; precise, firm, tabulated and impersonal: the plain brass inkstand, with red and black ink-pots; the two pens, the blotter, the calendar, the letter files, the box for memoranda; and the mind of that fussy little official was exactly like his desk, and, leaning over, Roland tried to see to whom the letter on the blotter was addressed.

As he did so, his eye fell on a slip of pasteboard that had been put behind the inkstand. It was a calling card, the calling card of a Herr Brumenhein, and on the top, in handwriting, was inscribed the words: “To introduce bearer.” The name Brumenhein was familiar to Roland, though in what connection he could not recall. At any rate, the fact that he recollected the name at all proved that it was the appendage of an important person, and as it was always useful to possess the means of being introduced under the auspices of a celebrity, Roland picked up the card and placed it in his pocketbook.

When he returned to the hotel he made inquiries about the unknown patron, and learned that Herr Brumenhein was a very distinguished Prussian minister, and one who was honored by the confidence of the Crown Prince. “He will be a great man one day,” said the hotel proprietor.

“As great as Griegenbach?”

“Who knows?—perhaps, and it is said the Crown Prince is not too fond of Griegenbach.”

And then Roland’s informant proceeded to enlarge on the exaggerated opinion Griegenbach had held of his own value since his successful Balkan diplomacy. “He thinks he is indispensable and he makes a great mistake. No one is indispensable. The post of minister is more important than the man who fills it.”

Roland, of course, agreed; he always agreed with people. It was thus that he had earned the reputation of being good company, and at this moment, even if he had held contrary opinions as to the relations of the moment and the man, he would have been unable to develop them in an argument. He was too busy wondering how best he could turn this discovery to his advantage. And it was not long before the thought was suggested to him that this card might very easily procure him the desired interview with Herr Haupsehr. It was a risky game of course, but then what wasn’t risky in high finance? It was quite possible that Herren Haupsehr and Brumenhein were the oldest of friends, that awkward questions would be asked and his deceit discovered. But, even if it was, he could, at the worst, only be kicked downstairs, and that was an indignity he could survive. It would destroy for ever the possibility of any negotiations between himself and the German firm, but that, also, was no serious drawback, for, as things were, there seemed little enough prospect of opening an account. He could not see how he would be in any the worse position were he to fail—whereas if he brought it off.... It was a dazzling thought.

And so at eleven o’clock next morning Roland presented himself at the entrance of Herr Haupsehr’s office. He asked no questions; he made no respectful inquiry as to whether at that moment Herr Haupsehr was, or was not, engaged. He assumed that whatever occupied that gentleman’s attention would be instantly removed on the announcement that a friend of Herr Brumenhein’s was in the building. Roland said nothing. He flourished his card in the face of the young lady who stood behind the door marked “Inquiries.”

“You wish to see Herr Haupsehr?”

Roland bowed, and the young lady disappeared. She returned within a minute.

“If you will please to follow me, sir.”

He was conducted through the counting-house and into the main corridor, up a flight of stairs, along another corridor, till they reached a door marked “Private,” before which the young lady stopped. Roland made an interrogatory gesture of the hand toward it.

“If you please, sir,” she said.

Roland did not knock at the door. He turned the handle and entered the room with the gracious condescension of a general who is forced to visit a company office. It was a large room, with a warm fire and easy chairs and an old oak desk. But Herr Haupsehr was not sitting at his desk; he had advanced into the center of the room, where he stood rubbing his hands one against the other. Some men reach a high position through truculence, others through subservience, and Herr Haupsehr belonged to the second class. He was a little man with a bald head and with heavy pouches underneath his eyes. He fidgeted nervously, and it was hard to recognize in this obsequious figure the dictator of that letter of stern refusal.

“Yes,” he said, “you are a friend of Herr Brumenhein?” In the eyes of Herr Haupsehr had appeared annoyance and a slight distrust at the sight of so young a visitor, but the sound of the magic name recalled him to servility.

“Yes,” he repeated, “yes; and what is it that I may have the honor to do for a friend of Herr Brumenhein?”

Roland made no immediate reply. He drew off his gloves slowly, finger by finger, and placed them in the pockets of his great-coat, which garment he then proceeded to remove and lay across the back of one of the comfortable, deep arm-chairs. He then took out his pocket-book, abstracted from it a card and handed it to Herr Haupsehr. So far he had not spoken a word. Herr Haupsehr examined the card carefully, raising it towards the light, for he was shortsighted, and found the unusual English lettering trying to his eyes. He read out the words slowly: “Mr. Roland Whately, Marston & Marston, Ltd.” He stretched his head backwards, so that his gaze was directed towards the ceiling. “Mr. Roland Whately, Marston & Marston, Ltd....” The name was familiar, but how and in what connection? There were so many names. He shook his head. He could not remember, but it did not matter. Roland had watched him anxiously; he had mistrusted that gaze towards the ceiling, and it was a big relief when Herr Haupsehr stretched out his hand and indicated one of the large arm-chairs—“And what is it that I can do for you?”

Roland then began to outline the scheme that had suggested itself to him. The scheme was to the advantage of the German as well as to himself. Haupsehr & Frohmann were the biggest dealers in polish in South Germany. That was granted. But there were rivals, very dangerous rivals, the more dangerous because they were specialists, each of them, in one particular line of polish, and a specialist was always better, if more expensive, than a general dealer. Now what Roland suggested was that Haupsehr should devote his attention solely to metal polish, should become specialists in a large sense, and that he should rely for the varnish solely on Marston & Marston.

“Don’t worry about varnish,” Roland said: “we’ll let you have it a lot cheaper than these rivals of yours can produce it at. There won’t be much actual profit in it for you, not directly, but it will allow you to put all your capital into the metal polish and, by smashing your rivals, it’ll leave you with a clear market.”

The German considered the plan. It was a good one, he could see its advantages. He would be trading, of course, with a nation for which he had no great affection, but, even so, Herr Brumenhein apparently thought well of it.

“Oh, yes, he thought it a capital idea,” said Roland. “He’s most anxious to see trade alliance between Great Britain and Germany. He’s so afraid there may be ill-feeling. I told him that that was, of course, absurd, but still——”

“Yes, yes,” said Herr Haupsehr, “I see, of course; but there are difficulties, grave difficulties.”

Roland could see that he was beginning to waver, that he was anxious to postpone his decision, and that would, of course, be fatal. Roland had learned early that when a man says to you: “Look here, I can’t decide now, but I’ll write and let you know in a day or two,” he has already decided against you. And so Roland played Herr Brumenhein for all he was worth. Having discovered that Herr Haupsehr had never met the great man, Roland felt himself at liberty to tell his story as amply as possible.

“But you should meet him,” he said; “a most charming companion. He comes over and stays with us nearly every summer.”

“Really! Every summer?”

“Oh, yes, nearly always. And he’s the coming man, of course. Not a doubt of it. Griegenbach’s day is done.”

Herr Haupsehr affected surprise. He respected every minister till he was out of office.

“Oh, yes, not a doubt of it. He thinks he’s more important than his job—a big mistake. A minister’s post is more important than the man who fills it.”

With that Herr Haupsehr agreed. Himself had revered authority all his life. This young man showed considerable sagacity. The job was bigger, always bigger, than the man.

“Yes, he’s the coming man,” Roland went on; “we can see it more clearly over in England perhaps than you can over here. If I were a German I would back Herr Brumenhein with every bit of influence I possessed.”

And, indeed, so admirably did he present the future greatness of Herr Brumenhein that Herr Haupsehr got the impression that he had only to agree to these varnish proposals to be offered an important post in the ministry. It was not stated in so many words, but that was the suggestion. And, in the end, preliminary arrangements were drawn up and a contract signed. Herr Haupsehr showed Roland to the door with intense civility.

“And I was wondering,” he said, “do you think it would be altogether wise if I were to write personally to Herr Brumenhein and tell him that I have met you and agreed to your plan? Would it be wise?” And he stood nervously fidgeting from one foot to the other—the eternal sycophant.

Roland scratched his chin thoughtfully. Then, after a moment’s deliberation:

“No,” he said. “On the whole, no. I don’t think it would be wise. Herr Brumenhein is very busy. I think it would be better to wait till he visits us again in England and I shall tell him——”

“You will tell him all about me and my willingness, yes?”

“Of course, of course.”

“You are too kind, sir; too kind.”

“Aufwiedersehn.”

“Aufwiedersehn.”

Hands were shaken, the door closed, and Roland was in the passage, the contract safe in his breast pocket.

With two such feats accomplished Roland should certainly have been returning home with a light heart. He would be praised and made much of. For at least a fortnight conversation would center round his exploits. His return was that of a general entering his city after a successful battle—a Roman triumph. But for all that he was dispirited. On his journey out he had experienced the exhilaration of freedom, and on his return he was obsessed by the gloom of impending captivity. To what, after all, was he coming back?—worries, responsibilities, the continual clash of temperaments. How fine had been the independent life of vagabondage that he had just left, where he could do what he liked, go where he liked, be bound to no one. There had been a time when the sights and noises of London had been inexpressibly dear to him. His heart had beaten fast with rapture on his return from Fernhurst, when he had watched the green fields vanish beneath that sable shroud of roofs and chimney-stacks. But now there was no magic for him in the great city through which he was being so swiftly driven. Autumn had passed to winter; the plane-trees were bare; dusk was falling; the lamp-lighter had begun his rounds. For many it was a moment of hushed wonderment, of peace and benediction, but Roland stirred irritably in the corner of his cab, and there was no pleasure for him in the effusive welcome his mother accorded him. He did his best to respond to it, but it was a failure, and she noticed it.

“What’s the matter, darling? Wasn’t it a success? Didn’t you do well over there?”

And behind her evident anxiety Roland detected, or fancied that he could detect, the suggestion of a hope that he had not done so well as he had expected to do.

“She would like to have comforted me,” he thought. “Her husband has been a failure; he has had to depend upon her and so she has kept his love. She would like me to be the same.” And this attitude, although he could understand it, exasperated him. He was aware that through his new friends he had become alienated from her, that she must be lonely now. But what would you? Life went that way.

They had tea together, and though Roland spoke amusingly and with animation about his experiences abroad, their talk was not intimate as it had been. There was nothing said behind and apart from their actual words, and Mrs. Whately imagined that he was impatient to see April.

As soon as they had finished tea she suggested that he should go round to her.

“I’m sure you must be longing to see her.”

And when he had gone, she sat for a little while in front of the unwashed tea things, thinking how hard it was that a mother should have to yield her son to another woman.

She need not have. Roland, at the moment when she was thinking of him with melancholy regret, was far from being “dissolved in pleasure and soft repose.” He was sitting, as he had so often sat before, on the chair beside the window-seat, in which April was forlornly curled, while Mrs. Curtis expressed, to complete his depression, her opinion on the economic situation in Europe. Soon she abandoned these matters of high finance and reverted to simple matters of to-day—namely, her son and her daughter. It was “dear April” and “dear Arthur”; and Roland was reminded vividly of a bawdy house in Brussels and the old woman who had sat beside the fire, exhibiting her wares. That was what Mrs. Curtis was at heart. He could see her two thousand years earlier administering in some previous existence to the lusts of Roman soldiery: “Yes, a dear girl, Flavia; and Julia, she’s nice; and if you like them plump Portia’s a dear, sweet girl—so loving. Dacius Cassius said to me only yesterday....” Yes, that was what she was, and beneath her sentimentality how cold, how hard, how merciless, like that woman in Brussels who had taken eighty per cent of the girls’ money. He was continuing to draw comparisons with a vindictive pleasure when he observed that she was collecting her knitting preparatory to a move.

“But I know you two’ll want to be together. I won’t be a troublesome chaperon,” she was saying; “I’ll get out of your way. I expect you’ve lots to say to each other.”

And before Roland quite knew what was happening he was alone with April. He turned towards her, and as her eyes met his she blushed a little and smiled, a shy, wavering smile that said: “I am here; take me if you want me, I am yours”—a smile that would have been to anyone else indescribably beautiful, but that to Roland, at that moment, appeared childish and absurd. He did not know what to say. He was in no mood for protestations and endearments. He could not act a lie. There was an embarrassing pause. April turned her face away from him. He said nothing, he did nothing. And then very distinctly, very slowly, like a child repeating a lesson:

“Did you have a good crossing?” The tension was broken; he began to talk quickly, eagerly, inconsequently—anything to prevent another such moment. And then Mrs. Curtis came back and the conversation was monopolized, till Roland reminded her that it was seven o’clock and that he would have to be getting back.

“I haven’t seen my father yet.”

“Of course, of course. We mustn’t keep him, must we, April?”

Roland took his leave, but April did not, as was usual, follow him to the door. She remained huddled in the window-seat, and did not even turn her head in his direction. She was angry with him, and no doubt with good cause, he reflected; but Mrs. Curtis had gone so suddenly; he had been taken off his guard. Heavens! but what a home-coming!

He felt happier though next morning when he walked into the office of Marston & Marston. Everyone was pleased to see him back; the girls in the counting-house smiled at him. He was informed by the lift-boy that his cricket had been sadly missed during the latter half of the season, and Mr. Stevens literally leaped from his desk to shake him by the hand. It was ripping to see Gerald again, to come into his room and hear that quietly drawled: “Well, old son,” and resume, as he had left it, their old friendship.

“The governor’s awfully pleased with you,” said Gerald, “never seen the old boy so excited over anything before. He’s been talking about nothing else. He keeps on saying: ‘The fellow who can make fifty runs in half an hour can run a business.’ But I’m damned if I know how you did it. I’ve gone over there with carefully prepared introductions and had a chat with a few johnnies, but you seem to have gone pirating about, holding up Government officials and boosting into financiers’ offices. How’s it done?”

Roland laughed.

“That’s my secret.”

“You are welcome to it,” said Gerald; “and tell me, did you have any real adventures?”

“One or two.”

“Where? Good ones?”

“Not bad. Brussels, the usual place.”

Gerald shook his head. “You should give it up, old son, it isn’t worth it.”

Roland laughed. “I like your talking! Why, I never knew such a fellow as you for women.”

“For women, yes, but not professionals.”

“That’s much worse.”

But Gerald shook his head. “No, it isn’t, my son. No man ever got any good yet out of going with professionals.”

But before Roland had had time to elucidate this riddle Mr. Marston had entered the room. He took Roland’s hand in his and shook it heartily.

“This is splendid, my dear fellow, splendid! They told me you’d come back and I knew where I should find you. It’s good to have you back, and you’ve done splendidly—far better, I don’t mind telling you, than any of us expected. We all looked on this as a sort of trial. But, my word, you’ve brought it off.”

“I’ve been telling him, father, that you’ve been going round London saying that the man who can make fifty runs in half an hour is sure to be able to run a business.”

“And it’s true,” said Mr. Marston, “it’s true. If a man’s got the pluck to face a ticklish situation at cricket, he can do anything. Business is only bluff, like cricket, making the bowler think you’re set when you’re really expecting every ball will be your last. If I’ve said it to Gerald once I’ve said it fifty times. ‘My boy,’ I’ve said, ‘if you don’t do another stroke of work in your life you’ll be worth a salary of five hundred pounds a year for having brought young Whately to us.’ Now come along and let’s go over those accounts.”

They spent over an hour together, and at the end of it Mr. Marston rose from his desk perfectly satisfied.

“As far as I can see you haven’t made a slip. It’s first class absolutely. Now, you run along to Perkins and settle up your personal accounts with him, and then we’ll go out and have lunch somewhere together, the three of us, and you can spend the afternoon at home. I daresay your girl’s been missing you.”

“I haven’t got a girl, sir.”

“What! a young fellow like you not got a girl! We shall have to see about that. Why, at your age I seem to remember....” And the old man winked his eye and chuckled gayly.

Perkins received Roland with considerable politeness, mingled for the first time with respect, also, Roland suspected, with a more deep dislike.

“Well, so you’re back, are you? And they all tell me you’ve been doing great things—interviewing Government officials.”

“I’ve had a bit of luck.”

“Useful luck?”

“I suppose so.”

“And now you want me to have a look at the accounts?”

“That’s it.”

“Right; bring them along.”

Roland laid out his personal accounts, his hotel bills, his railway fares, his entertaining expenses.

“And, as far as I can see,” he said, “there’s a balance of about thirteen pounds in your favor.”

“We’ll have a look and see,” said Mr. Perkins, and he began to scrutinize the accounts carefully, adding up every bill, and checking the amount of the German balance-sheet. Roland had taken a great deal of trouble over these accounts. He would not have minded making a few slips in the figures he had placed before Mr. Marston, but he was desperately anxious to present no weak spots to Perkins.

“Yes, yes,” said Perkins, “these seem to be all right, and there’s a balance, as you say, of thirteen pounds, five and threepence.”

“Right,” said Roland, and began to count out the money.

“Yes, but as far as I can see, there aren’t any—well, how shall I put it?—any special expense accounts here. I usually let one or two of them through all right.”

“No, I’ve stated what all my charges are for.”

“Well, then, aren’t there one or two little things? Usually you young gentlemen like to have a few extras put down.” And his face, that was turned to Roland’s, assumed a cunning, knowing smile, an unpleasant smile, the smile of a man in a subservient position who enjoys the privilege of being able to confer a favor on his superior, and at the same time despises his superior for asking it. Roland had known that it was in exactly this way that Perkins would offer to slip through a special expense account. He knew that by accepting this offer he would place himself eternally in Perkins’s debt. That, as in Gerald’s case, there would be between them an acknowledged confederacy. This he would never have. He had, as a matter of fact, incurred very few of the special expenses to which Perkins referred. He had worked hard; he had been alone. Solitary indulgence is never very exciting; one wants companionship, as in everything, and so he had confined his excesses to a couple of visits to a discreet establishment in Brussels, of which he had decided to defray the cost himself.

He was able, therefore, to meet Perkins’s leer with a look of puzzled interrogation.

“I don’t quite understand, Mr. Perkins. I think you’ve all my accounts there, and I owe you thirteen pounds, five shillings and threepence; perhaps you’ll give me a receipt.”

In the look that they exchanged as Mr. Perkins respectfully handed Roland the receipt, each recognized the beginning of a long antagonism.

“Thanks very much, Mr. Perkins.”

Roland walked out of the room jauntily. He had had the best of the first skirmish.

This victory put him on excellent terms with himself, and, later, a bottle of excellent Burgundy at lunch wooed him to so kindly a sympathy for his fellow-beings that any leader of advanced political opinions would have found him an easy victim to any theory of world-brotherhood. As, however, no harbinger of the new world accosted him on his way from the City to Charing Cross Station, Roland was free to focus his entire sympathy upon the forlorn figure of April. He thought of her suddenly just outside Terry’s Theater, and the remembrance of his behavior to her on the night before caused him to collide violently with an elderly gentleman who was walking in the opposite direction. But he did not stop to apologize; his sentimentality held a minor to his guilt. What a selfish beast he had been. How miserable he must have made her. She must have so looked forward to his return. He had hardly written to her while he had been away. Poor little April, so sweet, so gentle. A wave of tenderness for her consumed him. They had shared so much together; he had confided in her his hopes and his ambitions. He worked himself into a temper of self-abasement. He must go to her at once and beg forgiveness.

He found her sitting in the arm-chair before the fire. She raised her eyes in mild amazement, surprised that he should visit her at such a time. She did not know how she should comport herself. Her dignity told her that she should rise and receive him coldly, but her instinct counseled her to remain seated and hear what he had to say. She obeyed her instinct. Roland flung his hat and stick on the cushioned window-seat and precipitated himself at her feet. She tried to push him away, but his voice murmuring the word “darling” overmastered her, and she let him put his arms round her and draw her head upon his shoulder.

“I feel such a beast, April, such a beast. All the day I have been cursing myself and wondering what on earth possessed me. I don’t know what it was. But all the time I’ve been away I’ve been so looking forward to seeing you again. When I was all alone and unhappy I said to myself: ‘Never mind, April’s waiting,’ and I thought how wonderful to see you again, and then—— Oh, I don’t know, but when I came here last night and found your mother here—I don’t know! All the time I was dying to speak to you, and she would go on talking, and I got more and more annoyed. And then, I don’t know how it happened, but I found myself getting angry with you because of your mother.”

“But you mustn’t, Roland, really you mustn’t. You shouldn’t speak of mother like that; you know how good she’s been to us.”

“Oh, yes, I know it, of course I do. But can’t you see what it was like last night for me coming back to you, and wanting you, and then to hear only your mother; and by the time she left us alone I had got so bad tempered that——”

“Yes, you weren’t very nice, were you?”

And he had begun to pour out a further torrent of explanation when he saw that a sly, mischievous smile was playing round the corners of her mouth and that she was no longer angry.

“Then you’ll forgive me?” he said.

“But I don’t know about that.”

“Oh, but you have, haven’t you? I know you have.”

She began to remonstrate, to say that she had not forgiven him, that he had been most unkind to her, but she made no resistance when his hand slipped slowly round her neck and turned her face to his. And as he raised it, she pouted ever so slightly her lips toward those that sank to meet them. As their mouths met she passed one hand behind his head and pressed it down to her. It was a long embrace, and when she drew back from it, the luster of her eyes had grown dimmed and misty.

“You’ve never kissed me like that before,” she said.

“Perhaps I’ve never really loved you before.”

“Oh, but I should hate to think that.”

“But why?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m silly, but if you only love me now, then before—oh, it doesn’t matter, you love me now, don’t you?”

And he answered her in the only possible way.

One hour they had together, an hour of rich enchantment. The blinds were drawn, the lamp unlighted; she sat on the floor with the firelight playing over her, leaned back against him while he told her of Bruges and its waterways, the proud boulevards of Brussels, the great cathedral at KÖln, the noble sweep of the Rhine and the hills on either side of it. She followed little of what he said to her; it was enough for her, after three long months, to be soothed by his presence, to hear his voice, to hold his hand in hers, and to feel from time to time his breath grow warm upon her neck and cheek as he bent to kiss her. It was the tenderest hour their love had brought to them.

But for Roland it was followed by a reaction. He felt, in a confused manner, that he had been playing a part, that he had said what was but half true. He had certainly been exasperated by Mrs. Curtis’s conversation, but it was her talk, the supreme futility of her talk, that had exasperated him. It had annoyed him in itself and not as being a barrier between himself and April. He had told a lie.

And it was not for the first time, he reminded himself. Half lies had been an essential part of their love-making. At every crisis of their relationship he had tampered with the truth. He had told her he had only made love to Dolly because she had rejected him that evening at the ball. He had told her that it was her belief in him that had inspired his success at Hogstead. He had mistaken the fraction for the whole. Were they never to meet on terms of common honesty? What was their love worth if it had to live on lies?

He returned home to find the drawing-room fire almost out.

“Will these servants never do their work?” he grumbled.

That evening the soup plates happened to be cold and the joint overdone.

“It gets worse every day,” he said. “I don’t know what that girl thinks she’s paid for. She never does anything right.”

And when he went upstairs to turn on a bath he discovered that all the hot water had been used in washing up the plates. He returned to the drawing-room in a fury of impatience.

“I do wish, mother,” he said, “that you’d explain to Lizzie that there’s no need for her to wash herself as well as the plates in that sink of hers.”

“And I wish you wouldn’t grumble the whole time, Roland,” his mother retorted. “Lizzie’s got a great deal to do. She has to do the cooking as well as the housework. I think that, on the whole, she manages very well.”

“I am glad you think so,” said Roland, and walked out of the room.

Next morning he found on his plate a letter from Mrs. Marston, inviting him down for the week-end.

“It seems such a long time since that cricket week,” she wrote, “and we all want to congratulate you on your splendid work. So do come.”

He handed the letter across to his mother.

She raised her eyebrows interrogatively.

“Well, dear?”

“Of course I shall go.”

She did not answer him, and he read in her silence a disapproval.

“You don’t want me to,” he said.

“I don’t mind, dear. It’s for you to decide.”

“But you’d rather I didn’t?”

“Well, dear, I was only thinking that as you’ve been away from us for three months, and....”

“Yes, mother, and what?”

“Well, dear, to go away, the very first week-end.”

“But you’ll be seeing lots of me all the week.”

“I wasn’t thinking of us, though of course we like to have you here. It was April; don’t you think it might rather hurt her feelings?”

“Oh, bother April!”

“But, dear....”

“I know, mother, but it’s April this and April that; it’s nothing but April.”

His mother raised to him a surprised, grieved face, but she made no answer, and Roland, standing beside the table, experienced the sensation of an anxious actor who has finished his speech in the middle of the stage and does not know how to reach the wings.

“You see, mother,” he began, but she raised a hand to stop him.

“No, dear, don’t explain: I understand.”

He cursed himself, as he walked to the bus, for his ill-temper. What a beast he was—first to April, then to his mother; the two people for whom he cared most in the world. What was wrong? Why was he behaving like this? It had not been always so. At school he had had a reputation for good-naturedness—“a social lubricant,” someone had called him—and at Hogstead he was still the same, cheerful, good-humored, willing to do anything for anyone else. He became his old self in the company of Gerald and his father and the light-hearted, irresponsible Muriel. It was only at Hammerton that he was irritable and quick to take offense. His ill-humor fell away from him, however, the moment that he reached the office.

“Well, old son,” said Gerald, “and did you get a letter from the mater this morning?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re coming?”

“Well, I don’t know yet.”

“Oh, but of course you are. They’ll all be fearfully annoyed if you don’t, especially Muriel——”

“Muriel! Why, what did she say?”

“Nothing particular as far as I remember, but she seemed frightfully keen. She says you’re the only one of my friends she’s any use for. She finds them too stuck up—middle-aged at twenty she calls them. So you’ll have to come.”

“I suppose I shall.”

“Of course you will. Sit down and write a note this minute, so that there’s no chance of your thinking better.”

When Roland returned home that night his mother made no reference to the scene at the breakfast table. They spoke at dinner of indifferent things, politics and personalities; but there was a brooding atmosphere of disquiet. Not until nearly bedtime did Roland announce his intention of going down to Hogstead. His mother’s reply expressed neither reproach nor disappointment.

“Yes, dear,” she said; “well, I hope you’ll enjoy yourself.”

And just because her voice was even and unchallenging, Roland felt that he had to give some explanation.

“You see, mother, Mr. Marston is, after all, my boss, and these visits—well, they’re rather a royal command. They’d be a bit annoyed if I didn’t go.”

“Of course, dear, of course. We only want you to do what you think best.”

But he knew that she was disappointed. She was right, too. He supposed he ought really to have stayed at home and gone for a walk with April. He felt guilty in his attitude towards April, guilty and, in a way, resentful, resentful against these repeated demands on his time and energy, against this assumption of an unflagging passion, an eternal intoxication. And yet he did feel guilty. Was he treating her as a boy ought to treat his girl? How rarely, for example, had he ever taken her anywhere. Ah, well, that at least he could remedy.

Next day, during his lunch hour, he went round to the box office of the Adelphi and bought three stalls for Thursday night. He returned home with the happy air of one that carries a delightful surprise in his pocket.

“Mother,” he said, “what are you doing on Thursday night?”

“Nothing, dear, as far as I know.”

“Well, would you like to come out somewhere with me?”

“You know I always like to go out anywhere with you.”

“And April?”

“Of course, dear.”

“Well, then, what do you say to a dinner in Soho and the Adelphi afterwards?”

“But, dear—oh, you don’t mean it?”

“Yes, I do, mother. I wanted to celebrate my return, so I got the three seats. I’ve booked the table, and there we are.”

Her face flushed with pleasure.

“Oh, but you shouldn’t have, really you shouldn’t, and you don’t want me.”

“Of course we do, mother, and anyhow we could hardly go alone.”

“And have you told April?”

“No, I’m just off to tell her.”

He bent down, kissed her, then straightened himself and ran out of the room. She heard his footsteps clatter on the stairs, then move about in the bedroom above her, and then once more clatter on the stairs. She sighed, her eyes dimming a little, but glad, inexpressibly glad, that he should still need her in his happiness.

Roland found April alone.

“I’ve got a surprise for you,” he said.

“What is it?”

“What do you think?”

“A box of chocolates.”

“Do you want a box of chocolates?”

“I should like one.”

“Right! Then I’ll go and get you one.” And he turned towards the door, but she ran after him and caught him by the sleeve of his coat.

“Don’t be silly,” she said; “come back!”

“But you said you wanted a box of chocolates.”

“But I want to know what your surprise is first?”

“Well, then, have a look in my pockets and see if you can find it.”

She put both her hands in his coat pockets, and quickly, before she knew what he was doing, his arms were round her, and he had drawn her close to him. Her hands were prisoners in his pockets and she was powerless. Slowly he put his face to hers and kissed her.

“That’s not fair,” she said.

“It’s very nice.”

“I daresay, but I want to know what your surprise is?”

For answer he placed the envelope in her hand; she looked puzzled, but when she had opened it she gave a little cry of delight.

“Oh, Roland, how dear of you!”

“Then you’ll come?”

“Of course. Oh, Roland, dear! It’s years since I went to a theater. I shall love it.”

He was delighted with the success of his plan. He felt happy and confident. How pretty, how charming April was; how much he was in love with her. He took her on his knee and insisted on rearranging her hair.

“But you’re only making it worse, Roland,” she complained.

“Oh, no, I’m not; I’m getting on splendidly. You just wait and see,” and he continued to stroke her hair, dividing it so that he could kiss her neck.

“It’s in an awful state,” she said, “and someone is sure to come before I can tidy it.”

“Don’t you worry,” he said, drawing his fingers along the curved roll of hair. And then suddenly it all came down; the long tresses fell in a cascade about them, covering them in a fine brown net.

“Oh, you beast, you beast!” she said, struggling to get up.

But he held her close.

“Oh, no; it’s ripping like that. You look lovely.”

“Do I?”

“And, look, I can kiss you through your hair,” and he drew a thin curl across her mouth and laid his upon it, moving his lips slightly up and down till he had drawn the hair into their mouths and their lips could meet.

“But you did it on purpose, I’m sure you did. It couldn’t have happened like that of its own, all of a sudden.”

“Well, what if it didn’t! You look simply ripping.”

She laughed happily, hiding her face upon his shoulder.

“It’s very wrong of you, though.”

“What! wrong to make you look pretty!”

And she could not refrain from kissing him.

“What would mother say?”

“She’s out.”

“But if she came in?”

“She won’t.”

“Well, at any rate, I shall have to go and put it up.”

“No, please don’t.”

“But suppose someone comes in?”

“They won’t. And besides, if they did, they ought to think themselves jolly lucky; you look simply lovely!”

“Do I?” The words came in a soft whisper from lips almost touching his.

“As always.” The hand that lay in his pressed tightly. “You’ll stay like that, won’t you?”

“If you’re good.”

“Darling!”

He did not tell her about the dinner. He suggested that he should call for her at six, and she was too excited at the time to take into account so material a consideration as food. But her eyes sparkled with pleasure when he took her into the little Soho restaurant where he had booked a table. She had never been in such a place before and her delight in the unfamiliar room and food was joy to Roland. For her it was a place of mystery and enchantment. She asked him hurried, excited questions: What sort of people came here? Did he think the lady in the corner was an actress? Who had painted the brightly colored fresco? He persuaded her to take half a glass of wine; she sipped at it in a fascinating, nervous manner, with little pecks, as though she thought it were going to burn her, and between each sip she would smile at Roland over the rim of the wine glass. As she sat she flung to left and right quick, eager glances at the waiter, the hangings, the occupants of the other tables. Her excitement charmed Roland. It was like seeing a child play with a new toy. In a way, too, it was an excitant to his vanity, a tribute to his manhood, to his superior knowledge of the world. And in the theater, when the light was turned out, he sat close to her and held her hand tightly at the moments of dramatic tension; and when she marveled at the beauty of the heroine he whispered in her ear: “Nothing like as pretty as you are!” And Mrs. Whately, sitting on the other side of Roland, glanced at them from time to time with a kind indulgence, remembering her youth, and her early love-making. It was a memorably happy evening. When Roland walked back with April and kissed her good-night in the doorway she said nothing, but her hand clenched tightly on the lapel of his coat. And when he returned home he saw in his mother’s eye an expression of love and gratitude that had not been there for a long while.

He walked upstairs in a mood of deep contentment. After he had undressed he stood for a moment at the open window, looking out over the roofs and chimney stacks of London. Behind a few window panes glowed the faint light of a candle or a lamp, but the majority of the houses were obscured in darkness. Hammerton was asleep. But the confused murmur of traffic and the faint red glow in the sky reminded him that the true London, the London that he loved, was only now waking to a night of pleasure. Ah, well, to-morrow he would be at Hogstead. He flung back his arms with the proud relief of one who has fulfilled his obligations and is at liberty to take his own enjoyment.

CHAPTER XVI
LILITH AND MURIEL

ROLAND was in the true holiday mood as he stepped into the afternoon train to Hogstead. He had before him the prospect of sixty hours of real happiness. He would be made much of, he would be congratulated, he would be able, on occasions, to lead the conversation. It was no small feat that he had accomplished. He had won the appreciation of a family that was satisfied with itself and was inclined to regard its own achievements as the summit of human ability and ambition. It had been simple in comparison to make an impression on April—a dinner in a Soho restaurant. Muriel and Beatrice would have accepted such an evening as a matter of course, an affair of everyday occurrence. His heart beat quickly as he thought of Beatrice. Would she be there, he wondered. Would she have heard of his success? What effect would it have made on her? She might regard it as much or little. One never knew. Muriel, though, had been impressed; that he knew for certain. It would be great fun receiving her congratulations. He thought of her as he had left her four months ago, a tousle-headed Muriel, a little girl who had charmed him with her chatter and had been so unexpectedly petulant when he had questioned her about her aunt. He had not realized that at seventeen four months make a big difference with a girl. No one had told him that she had put her hair up and that her skirts would only reveal the instep of her ankle. He had left her a girl and she had become a woman.

She was the first person he saw on his arrival. A footman had just taken his bag and was helping him off with his coat when the drawing-room door opened, there was a rustle of skirts, and Muriel came impulsively to greet him.

He drew back in surprise at the sight of her tall, graceful figure, with the long, tightly fitting skirt and hair no longer tossing mischievously about her shoulders, but gathered behind her neck in a long, wide curve.

“What’s the matter, Roland?” she asked.

“But, Muriel,” he said.

“Well?”

“You are so changed.”

She broke into a peal, a silvery peal, of laughter.

“So you have noticed it? We wondered whether you would. Mother thought you would, but I said you wouldn’t. And Gerald had a bet with father about it and he’s won, so he’ll have to take us all to a theater. Come and tell them about it.”

Roland followed her in amazement. The change in her was so unexpected. He had always looked on her as a little girl whom he had teased and played with, and now, suddenly, in a night, she had grown up into a daughter of that other world of which he had caught fleeting, enticing glimpses at restaurants and theaters. He watched her as she laughed and talked, unable to realize that this was the little girl with whom he had played last summer. And yet to him she was unaltered. She offered him the same frank comradeship. She took him for a walk after tea and spoke with real enthusiasm of his success.

“I can’t say how glad I am, Roland. I was so awfully anxious for you to come off. I was so afraid something might go wrong. I think it’s wonderful of you.”

Her words thrilled him. It was something to win the admiration of a girl like Muriel. April was naturally impressed by his achievements. Of course it would be wonderful to her that he should visit great cities and dabble in high finance. It was like a fairy story that had come true. But Muriel had spent all her life in that world. She had traveled; her parents were rich. She was accustomed to the jargon of finance. It would have been a feat for him, a new-comer to that world, to have proved himself able to move comfortably there, but to have impressed her with his achievements ... and when she began to ask him how he had maneuvered those big interviews his flattered vanity could not allow him to hold his secret.

“But I’ve told no one,” he said, “not even my people.”

“That’s all the more reason why you should tell me.”

“Will you promise to keep it a secret?”

“On my honor.”

And so he told her of his fortune and adroitness, how he had met Monsieur Rocheville in the restaurant and how he had tricked Herr Haupsehr with the magic name of Brumenhein. She laughed heartily and asked him questions. What would happen if the two ever met?

“The Lord knows,” said Roland. “But in the meantime we shall have sold many gallons of varnish, and perhaps we shall have become indispensable to the old fellow.”

They made no mention during their walk of Beatrice. For some unexplained reason Roland had felt shy of asking Muriel whether she was to be one of the party. He had been content to wait and, on their return, he experienced, as he pushed open the drawing-room door, a sudden surprising anxiety. Would Beatrice be there? He assumed composure, but he could not prevent his eyes traveling quickly round the room in search of her. When he saw that she was not there he felt a sudden emptiness, a genuine disappointment. She would not be coming, then. And now that she was not there half his excitement, his enthusiasm, was gone. He sat beside Mrs. Marston and discussed, without interest, the costliness of Brussels lace, and wondered how soon he could conveniently go and change for dinner. The minutes dragged by.

And then at last, in that half hour when the room was slowly emptying, the door opened and he saw Beatrice, her slim figure silhouetted against the dull red wall paper of the hall. His heart almost stopped beating. Would she notice him, he wondered. Had she forgotten their lunch together? Had the growing intimacy between them been dispelled by a four months’ absence? He watched her walk slowly into the room, her hair, as ever, disordered about her neck and temples, and on her features that look of difference, of being apart, of belonging to another world, that appearance of complete detachment. Then suddenly she saw Roland, and smiled and walked quickly forward, her hand stretched out to him.

“I’ve been hearing so much about you,” she said. “They tell me you’ve been doing wonderful things. Come and sit with me over here and tell me all about it.”

And once again the love of vanity prompted him to confess his secret.

“But you won’t tell anyone, will you?” he implored.

She smiled. “If I can keep my own secrets, surely I can keep yours,” she said. Then, after a pause, “And they tell me Gerald won his bet.”

He blushed hotly. “Yes.”

“I knew he would,” she said, and she leaned forward, as she had at the restaurant, her hands pillowing her chin, her eyes fixed on his.

Roland laughed nervously. “But I don’t see why,” he began.

She shook her head. “That’s the mistake all you men make. You think a woman sees nothing unless she’s not watching you the whole time. But she does.”

It flattered him to be included under the general heading of “you men.” And at that moment Muriel came into the room. She was wearing a low evening dress, wonderfully charming in her new-found womanhood. Roland’s eyes followed her in admiration.

“Isn’t she pretty?” he said. “That pale blue dress; it’s just right. It goes well with her complexion. Pale colors always do.”

Beatrice did not answer for a moment; then she gave a little sigh. “Yes, Muriel is very pretty. I envy her.”

Roland turned quickly to her a look of surprised interrogation.

“But you! Why you look younger than any of us.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Perhaps; but what’s the use of it to me? Ah, don’t say anything, please. You mustn’t waste your time on me. Go on and talk to Muriel.”

Dinner that evening was a jovial meal. Muriel having announced with due solemnity that Gerald had won his bet, she proceeded to decide at what theater Mr. Marston should fulfill his obligation.

“And don’t you think,” said Muriel, “that Roland ought to come with us? If it weren’t for him we shouldn’t be going at all.”

“I suppose he ought, the young rascal, though I can’t think why he should have spotted it. Muriel was an untidy little scamp when he went away, and she’s an untidy little scamp now he’s come back.”

“Oh, father!”

“Yes, you are. You can’t tell what’s on purpose with you and what isn’t; you’re all over the place.”

It was perfectly untrue, of course, but they laughed all the same.

“That’s a poor excuse, father,” said Gerald. “I knew he’d spot it. It’s through spotting things like that that he manages to wrangle interviews with all these pots.”

“Perhaps it is, perhaps it is; I’m bothered if I know how he does it.” And Roland and Muriel exchanged a swift glance of confederacy; a feeling that was increased when the last post arrived and Mr. Marston interrupted the general conversation with a piece of news his letter had brought him.

“My dear, here’s a funny thing. I never saw it in the papers, though I suppose it must have been in them. But that fellow Brumenhein is dead.”

“Brumenhein!”

“Yes, you know—the fellow whom the Kaiser thought such a lot of. People said he might very likely supplant Griegenbach.”

“I didn’t dare look at you,” Roland said to Muriel afterwards. “I couldn’t have kept a straight face if I had.”

“And what a bit of luck.”

“It may save me a lot of unpleasantness later on.”

“You’re a wonderful boy.”

They were saying good night to each other on the landing, and Muriel, who slept on the second floor, was standing on the stairs, leaning over the banisters. Her words made Roland feel very brave and confident.

“And to think that you didn’t expect me to notice that you had put your hair up!”

He meant it as a joking repartee to her compliment, but the moment after he had said it he felt frightened. They looked at each other and said nothing. There was a moment of chill, intense embarrassment, then Muriel gave a nervous laugh and, turning quickly, ran up to her bedroom.