CHAPTER III
The Earl of Emsworth stood in the doorway of the SeniorConservative Club's vast diningroom, and beamed with a vaguesweetness on the two hundred or so Senior Conservatives who, withmuch clattering of knives and forks, were keeping body and soultogether by means of the coffee-room luncheon. He might have beenposing for a statue of Amiability. His pale blue eyes shone witha friendly light through their protecting glasses; the smile of aman at peace with all men curved his weak mouth; his bald head,reflecting the sunlight, seemed almost to wear a halo.
Nobody appeared to notice him. He so seldom came to London thesedays that he was practically a stranger in the club; and in anycase your Senior Conservative, when at lunch, has little leisurefor observing anything not immediately on the table in front ofhim. To attract attention in the dining-room of the SeniorConservative Club between the hours of one and two-thirty, youhave to be a mutton chop--not an earl.
It is possible that, lacking the initiative to make his way downthe long aisle and find a table for himself, he might have stoodthere indefinitely, but for the restless activity of Adams, thehead steward. It was Adams' mission in life to flit to and fro,hauling would-be lunchers to their destinations, as a St. Bernarddog hauls travelers out of Alpine snowdrifts. He sighted LordEmsworth and secured him with a genteel pounce.
"A table, your lordship? This way, your lordship." Adamsremembered him, of course. Adams remembered everybody.
Lord Emsworth followed him beamingly and presently came to anchorat a table in the farther end of the room. Adams handed him thebill of fare and stood brooding over him like a providence.
"Don't often see your lordship in the club," he opened chattily.
It was business to know the tastes and dispositions of all thefive thousand or so members of the Senior Conservative Club andto suit his demeanor to them. To some he would hand the bill offare swiftly, silently, almost brusquely, as one who realizesthat there are moments in life too serious for talk. Others, heknew, liked conversation; and to those he introduced the subjectof food almost as a sub-motive.
Lord Emsworth, having examined the bill of fare with a mildcuriosity, laid it down and became conversational.
"No, Adams; I seldom visit London nowadays. London does notattract me. The country--the fields--the woods--the birds----"
Something across the room seemed to attract his attention and hisvoice trailed off. He inspected this for some time with blandinterest, then turned to Adams once more.
"What was I saying, Adams?"
"The birds, your lordship."
"Birds! What birds? What about birds?"
"You were speaking of the attractions of life in the country,your lordship. You included the birds in your remarks."
"Oh, yes, yes, yes! Oh, yes, yes! Oh, yes--to be sure. Do youever go to the country, Adams?"
"Generally to the seashore, your lordship--when I take my annualvacation."
Whatever was the attraction across the room once more exercisedits spell. His lordship concentrated himself on it to theexclusion of all other mundane matters. Presently he came out ofhis trance again.
"What were you saying, Adams?"
"I said that I generally went to the seashore, your lordship."
"Eh? When?"
"For my annual vacation, your lordship."
"Your what?"
"My annual vacation, your lordship."
"What about it?"
Adams never smiled during business hours--unless professionally,as it were, when a member made a joke; but he was storing up inthe recesses of his highly respectable body a large laugh, to beshared with his wife when he reached home that night. Mrs. Adamsnever wearied of hearing of the eccentricities of the members ofthe club. It occurred to Adams that he was in luck to-day. He wasexpecting a little party of friends to supper that night, and hewas a man who loved an audience.
You would never have thought it, to look at him when engaged inhis professional duties, but Adams had built up a substantialreputation as a humorist in his circle by his imitations ofcertain members of the club; and it was a matter of regret to himthat he got so few opportunities nowadays of studying theabsent-minded Lord Emsworth. It was rare luck--his lordshipcoming in to-day, evidently in his best form.
"Adams, who is the gentleman over by the window--the gentleman inthe brown suit?"
"That is Mr. Simmonds, your lordship. He joined us last year."
"I never saw a man take such large mouthfuls. Did you ever see aman take such large mouthfuls, Adams?"
Adams refrained from expressing an opinion, but inwardly he wasthrilling with artistic fervor. Mr. Simmonds eating, was one ofhis best imitations, though Mrs. Adams was inclined to object toit on the score that it was a bad example for the children. To beprivileged to witness Lord Emsworth watching and criticizing Mr.Simmonds was to collect material for a double-barreled characterstudy that would assuredly make the hit of the evening.
"That man," went on Lord Emsworth, "is digging his grave with histeeth. Digging his grave with his teeth, Adams! Do you take largemouthfuls, Adams?"
"No, your lordship."
"Quite right. Very sensible of you, Adams--very sensible of you.Very sen---- What was I saying, Adams?"
"About my not taking large mouthfuls, your lordship."
"Quite right--quite right! Never take large mouthfuls, Adams.Never gobble. Have you any children, Adams?"
"Two, your lordship."
"I hope you teach them not to gobble. They pay for it in laterlife. Americans gobble when young and ruin their digestions. MyAmerican friend, Mr. Peters, suffers terribly from indigestion."
Adams lowered his voice to a confidential murmur: "If you willpardon the liberty, your lordship--I saw it in the paper--"
"About Mr. Peters' indigestion?"
"About Miss Peters, your lordship, and the Honorable Frederick.May I be permitted to offer my congratulations?"
"Eh, Oh, yes--the engagement. Yes, yes, yes! Yes--to be sure.Yes; very satisfactory in every respect. High time he settleddown and got a little sense. I put it to him straight. I cut offhis allowance and made him stay at home. That made himthink--lazy young devil!"
Lord Emsworth had his lucid moments; and in the one that occurrednow it came home to him that he was not talking to himself, as hehad imagined, but confiding intimate family secrets to the headsteward of his club's dining-room. He checked himself abruptly,and with a slight decrease of amiability fixed his gaze on thebill of fare and ordered cold beef. For an instant he feltresentful against Adams for luring him on to soliloquize; but thenext moment his whole mind was gripped by the fascinatingspectacle of Mr. Simmonds dealing with a wedge of Stilton cheese,and Adams was forgotten.
The cold beef had the effect of restoring his lordship tocomplete amiability, and when Adams in the course of hiswanderings again found himself at the table he was once moredisposed for light conversation.
"So you saw the news of the engagement in the paper, did you,Adams?"
"Yes, your lordship, in the Mail. It had quite a long piece aboutit. And the Honorable Frederick's photograph and the young lady'swere in the Mirror. Mrs. Adams clipped them out and put them inan album, knowing that your lordship was a member of ours. If Imay say so, your lordship--a beautiful young lady."
"Devilish attractive, Adams--and devilish rich. Mr. Peters is amillionaire, Adams."
"So I read in the paper, your lordship."
"Damme! They all seem to be millionaires in America. Wish I knewhow they managed it. Honestly, I hope. Mr. Peters is an honestman, but his digestion is bad. He used to bolt his food. Youdon't bolt your food, I hope, Adams?"
"No, your lordship; I am most careful."
"The late Mr. Gladstone used to chew each mouthful thirty-threetimes. Deuced good notion if you aren't in a hurry. What cheesewould you recommend, Adams?"
"The gentlemen are speaking well of the Gorgonzola."
"All right, bring me some. You know, Adams, what I admire aboutAmericans is their resource.
Mr. Peters tells me that as a boy ofeleven he earned twenty dollars a week selling mint to saloonkeepers, as they call publicans over there. Why they wanted mintI cannot recollect. Mr. Peters explained the reason to me and itseemed highly plausible at the time; but I have forgotten it.Possibly for mint sauce. It impressed me, Adams. Twenty dollarsis four pounds. I never earned four pounds a week when I was aboy of eleven; in fact, I don't think I ever earned four pounds aweek. His story impressed me, Adams. Every man ought to have anearning capacity. I was so struck with what he told me that Ibegan to paint."
"Landscapes, your lordship?"
"Furniture. It is unlikely that I shall ever be compelled topaint furniture for a living, but it is a consolation to me tofeel that I could do so if called on. There is a fascinationabout painting furniture, Adams. I have painted the whole of mybedroom at Blandings and am now engaged on the museum. You wouldbe surprised at the fascination of it. It suddenly came back tome the other day that I had been inwardly longing to mess aboutwith paints and things since I was a boy. They stopped me when Iwas a boy. I recollect my old father beating me with a walkingstick--Tell me, Adams, have I eaten my cheese?"
"Not yet, your lordship. I was about to send the waiter for it."
"Never mind. Tell him to bring the bill instead. I remember thatI have an appointment. I must not be late."
"Shall I take the fork, your lordship?"
"The fork?"
"Your lordship has inadvertently put a fork in your coat pocket."
Lord Emsworth felt in the pocket indicated, and with the air ofan inexpert conjurer whose trick has succeeded contrary to hisexpectations produced a silver-plated fork. He regarded it withsurprise; then he looked wonderingly at Adams.
"Adams, I'm getting absent-minded. Have you ever noticed anytraces of absent-mindedness in me before?"
"Oh, no, your lordship."
"Well, it's deuced peculiar! I have no recollection whatsoever ofplacing that fork in my pocket . . . Adams, I want a taxicab." Heglanced round the room, as though expecting to locate one by thefireplace.
"The hall porter will whistle one for you, your lordship."
"So he will, by George!--so he will! Good day, Adams."
"Good day, your lordship."
The Earl of Emsworth ambled benevolently to the door, leavingAdams with the feeling that his day had been well-spent. He gazedalmost with reverence after the slow-moving figure.
"What a nut!" said Adams to his immortal soul.
Wafted through the sunlit streets in his taxicab, the Earl ofEmsworth smiled benevolently on London's teeming millions. He wasas completely happy as only a fluffy-minded old man withexcellent health and a large income can be. Other people worriedabout all sorts of things--strikes, wars, suffragettes, thediminishing birth rate, the growing materialism of the age, ascore of similar subjects.
Worrying, indeed, seemed to be the twentieth-century specialty.Lord Emsworth never worried. Nature had equipped him with a mindso admirably constructed for withstanding the disagreeableness oflife that if an unpleasant thought entered it, it passed outagain a moment later. Except for a few of life's fundamentalfacts, such as that his check book was in the right-hand topdrawer of his desk; that the Honorable Freddie Threepwood was ayoung idiot who required perpetual restraint; and that when indoubt about anything he had merely to apply to his secretary,Rupert Baxter--except for these basic things, he never rememberedanything for more than a few minutes.
At Eton, in the sixties, they had called him Fathead.
His was a life that lacked, perhaps, the sublimer emotions whichraise man to the level of the gods; but undeniably it was anextremely happy one. He never experienced the thrill of ambitionfulfilled; but, on the other hand, he never knew the agony ofambition frustrated. His name, when he died, would not liveforever in England's annals; he was spared the pain of worryingabout this by the fact that he had no desire to live forever inEngland's annals. He was possibly as nearly contented as a humanbeing could be in this century of alarms and excursions.
Indeed, as he bowled along in his cab and reflected that a reallycharming girl, not in the chorus of any West End theater, a girlwith plenty of money and excellent breeding, had--in a moment,doubtless, of mental aberration--become engaged to be married tothe Honorable Freddie, he told himself that life at last wasabsolutely without a crumpled rose leaf.
The cab drew up before a house gay with flowered window boxes.Lord Emsworth paid the driver and stood on the sidewalk lookingup at this cheerful house, trying to remember why on earth he hadtold the man to drive there.
A few moments' steady thought gave him the answer to the riddle.This was Mr. Peters' town house, and he had come to it byinvitation to look at Mr. Peters' collection of scarabs. To besure! He remembered now--his collection of scarabs. Or was itArabs?
Lord Emsworth smiled. Scarabs, of course. You couldn't collectArabs. He wondered idly, as he rang the bell, what scarabs mightbe; but he was interested in a fluffy kind of way in all forms ofcollecting, and he was very pleased to have the opportunity ofexamining these objects; whatever they were. He rather thoughtthey were a kind of fish.
There are men in this world who cannot rest; who are soconstituted that they can only take their leisure in the shape ofa change of work. To this fairly numerous class belonged Mr. J.Preston Peters, father of Freddie's Aline. And to this merit--ordefect--is to be attributed his almost maniacal devotion to thatrather unattractive species of curio, the Egyptian scarab.
Five years before, a nervous breakdown had sent Mr. Peters to aNew York specialist. The specialist had grown rich on similarcases and his advice was always the same. He insisted on Mr.Peters taking up a hobby.
"What sort of a hobby?" inquired Mr. Peters irritably. Hisdigestion had just begun to trouble him at the time, and histemper now was not of the best.
"Now my hobby," said the specialist, "is the collecting ofscarabs. Why should you not collect scarabs?"
"Because," said Mr. Peters, "I shouldn't know one if you broughtit to me on a plate. What are scarabs?"
"Scarabs," said the specialist, warming to his subject, "theEgyptian hieroglyphs."
"And what," inquired Mr. Peters, "are Egyptian hieroglyphs?"
The specialist began to wonder whether it would not have beenbetter to advise Mr. Peters to collect postage stamps.
"A scarab," he said--"derived from the Latin scarabeus--isliterally a beetle."
"I will not collect beetles!" said Mr. Peters definitely. "Theygive me the Willies."
"Scarabs are Egyptian symbols in the form of beetles," thespecialist hurried on. "The most common form of scarab is in theshape of a ring. Scarabs were used for seals. They were alsoemployed as beads or ornaments. Some scarabaei bear inscriptionshaving reference to places; as, for instance: 'Memphis is mightyforever.'"
Mr. Peters' scorn changed to active interest.
"Have you got one like that?"
"Like what?"
"A scarab boosting Memphis. It's my home town."
"I think it possible that some other Memphis was alluded to."
"There isn't any other except the one in Tennessee," said Mr.Peters patriotically.
The specialist owed the fact that he was a nerve doctor insteadof a nerve patient to his habit of never arguing with hisvisitors.
"Perhaps," he said, "you would care to glance at my collection.It is in the next room."
That was the beginning of Mr. Peters' devotion to scarabs. Atfirst he did his collecting without any love of it, partlybecause he had to collect something or suffer, but principallybecause of a remark the specialist made as he was leaving theroom.
"How long would it take me to get together that number of thethings?" Mr. Peters inquired, when, having looked his fill on thedullest assortment of objects he remembered ever to have seen, hewas preparing to take his leave.
The specialist was proud of his collection. "How long? To make acollection as large as mine? Years, Mr. Peters. Oh, many, manyyears."
"I'll b
et you a hundred dollars I'll do it in six months!"
From that moment Mr. Peters brought to the collecting of scarabsthe same furious energy which had given him so many dollars andso much indigestion. He went after scarabs like a dog after rats.He scooped in scarabs from the four corners of the earth, untilat the end of a year he found himself possessed of what, purelyas regarded quantity, was a record collection.
This marked the end of the first phase of--so to speak--thescarabaean side of his life. Collecting had become a habit withhim, but he was not yet a real enthusiast. It occurred to himthat the time had arrived for a certain amount of pruning andelimination. He called in an expert and bade him go through thecollection and weed out what he felicitously termed the "deadones." The expert did his job thoroughly. When he had finished,the collection was reduced to a mere dozen specimens.
"The rest," he explained, "are practically valueless. If you arethinking of making a collection that will have any value in theeyes of archeologists I should advise you to throw them away. Theremaining twelve are good."
"How do you mean--good? Why is one of these things valuable andanother so much punk? They all look alike to me."
And then the expert talked to Mr. Peters for nearly two hoursabout the New Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom, Osiris, Ammon, Mut,Bubastis, dynasties, Cheops, the Hyksos kings, cylinders, bezels,Amenophis III, Queen Taia, the Princess Gilukhipa of Mitanni, thelake of Zarukhe, Naucratis, and the Book of the Dead. He did itwith a relish. He liked to do it.
When he had finished, Mr. Peters thanked him and went to thebathroom, where he bathed his temples with eau de Cologne.
That talk changed J. Preston Peters from a superciliousscooper-up of random scarabs to what might be called a genuinescarab fan. It does not matter what a man collects; if Nature hasgiven him the collector's mind he will become a fanatic on thesubject of whatever collection he sets out to make. Mr. Petershad collected dollars; he began to collect scarabs with preciselythe same enthusiasm. He would have become just as enthusiasticabout butterflies or old china if he had turned his thoughts tothem; but it chanced that what he had taken up was the collectingof the scarab, and it gripped him more and more as the years wenton.
Gradually he came to love his scarabs with that love, surpassingthe love of women, which only collectors know. He became anexpert on those curious relics of a dead civilization. For a timethey ran neck and neck in his thoughts with business. When heretired from business he was free to make them the master passionof his life. He treasured each individual scarab in hiscollection as a miser treasures gold.
Collecting, as Mr. Peters did it, resembles the drink habit. Itbegins as an amusement and ends as an obsession. He was gloatingover his treasures when the maid announced Lord Emsworth.
A curious species of mutual toleration--it could hardly bedignified by the title of friendship--had sprung up between thesetwo men, so opposite in practically every respect. Each regardedthe other with that feeling of perpetual amazement with which weencounter those whose whole viewpoint and mode of life is foreignto our own.
The American's force and nervous energy fascinated Lord Emsworth.As for Mr. Peters, nothing like the earl had ever happened to himbefore in a long and varied life. Each, in fact, was to the othera perpetual freak show, with no charge for admission. And ifanything had been needed to cement the alliance it would havebeen supplied by the fact that they were both collectors.
They differed in collecting as they did in everything else. Mr.Peters' collecting, as has been shown, was keen, furious,concentrated; Lord Emsworth's had the amiable dodderingness thatmarked every branch of his life. In the museum at BlandingsCastle you could find every manner of valuable and valuelesscurio. There was no central motive; the place was simply anamateur junk shop. Side by side with a Gutenberg Bible for whichrival collectors would have bidden without a limit, you wouldcome on a bullet from the field of Waterloo, one of a consignmentof ten thousand shipped there for the use of tourists by aBirmingham firm. Each was equally attractive to its owner.
"My dear Mr. Peters," said Lord Emsworth sunnily, advancing intothe room, "I trust I am not unpunctual. I have been lunching atmy club."
"I'd have asked you to lunch here," said Mr. Peters, "but youknow how it is with me . . . I've promised the doctor I'll givethose nuts and grasses of his a fair trial, and I can do itpretty well when I'm alone with Aline; but to have to sit by andsee somebody else eating real food would be trying me too high."
Lord Emsworth murmured sympathetically. The other's digestivetribulations touched a ready chord. An excellent trenchermanhimself, he understood what Mr. Peters must suffer.
"Too bad!" he said.
Mr. Peters turned the conversation into other channels.
"These are my scarabs," he said.
Lord Emsworth adjusted his glasses, and the mild smiledisappeared from his face, to be succeeded by a set look. A stagedirector of a moving-picture firm would have recognized the look.Lord Emsworth was registering interest--interest which heperceived from the first instant would have to be completelysimulated; for instinct told him, as Mr. Peters began to talk,that he was about to be bored as he had seldom been bored in hislife.
Mr. Peters, in his character of showman, threw himself into hiswork with even more than his customary energy. His flow of speechnever faltered. He spoke of the New Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom,Osiris and Ammon; waxed eloquent concerning Mut, Bubastis,Cheops, the Hyksos kings, cylinders, bezels and Amenophis III;and became at times almost lyrical when touching on Queen Taia,the Princess Gilukhipa of Mitanni, the lake of Zarukhe, Naucratisand the Book of the Dead. Time slid by.
"Take a look at this, Lord Emsworth."
As one who, brooding on love or running over business projects inhis mind, walks briskly into a lamppost and comes back to therealities of life with a sense of jarring shock, Lord Emsworthstarted, blinked and returned to consciousness. Far away his mindhad been--seventy miles away--in the pleasant hothouses and shadygarden walks of Blandings Castle. He came back to London to findthat his host, with a mingled air of pride and reverence, wasextending toward him a small, dingy-looking something.
He took it and looked at it. That, apparently, was what he wasmeant to do. So far, all was well.
"Ah!" he said--that blessed word; covering everything! Herepeated it, pleased at his ready resource.
"A Cheops of the Fourth Dynasty," said Mr. Peters fervently.
"I beg your pardon?"
"A Cheops--of the Fourth Dynasty."
Lord Emsworth began to feel like a hunted stag. He could not goon saying "Ah!" indefinitely; yet what else was there to say tothis curious little beastly sort of a beetle kind of thing?
"Dear me! A Cheops!"
"Of the Fourth Dynasty!"
"Bless my soul! The Fourth Dynasty!"
"What do you think of that--eh?"
Strictly speaking, Lord Emsworth thought nothing of it; and hewas wondering how to veil this opinion in diplomatic words, whenthe providence that looks after all good men saved him by causinga knock at the door to occur. In response to Mr. Peters'irritated cry a maid entered.
"If you please, sir, Mr. Threepwood wishes to speak with you onthe telephone."
Mr. Peters turned to his guest. "Excuse me for one moment."
"Certainly," said Lord Emsworth gratefully. "Certainly,certainly, certainly! By all means."
The door closed behind Mr. Peters. Lord Emsworth was alone. Forsome moments he stood where he had been left, a figure with smallsigns of alertness about it. But Mr. Peters did not returnimmediately. The booming of his voice came faintly from somedistant region. Lord Emsworth strolled to the window and lookedout.
The sun still shone brightly on the quiet street. Across the roadwere trees. Lord Emsworth was fond of trees; he looked at theseapprovingly. Then round the corner came a vagrom man, wheelingflowers in a barrow.
Flowers! Lord Emsworth's mind shot back to Blandings like ahoming pigeon. Flowers! Had he or had he not given Head GardenerThorne ad
equate instructions as to what to do with thosehydrangeas? Assuming that he had not, was Thorne to be dependedon to do the right thing by them by the light of his ownintelligence? Lord Emsworth began to brood on Head GardenerThorne.
He was aware of some curious little object in his hand. Heaccorded it a momentary inspection. It had no message for him.It was probably something; but he could not remember what. He putit in his pocket and returned to his meditations.
* * *
At about the hour when the Earl of Emsworth was driving to keephis appointment with Mr. Peters, a party of two sat at a cornertable at Simpson's Restaurant, in the Strand. One of the two wasa small, pretty, good-natured-looking girl of about twenty; theother, a thick-set young man, with a wiry crop of red-brown hairand an expression of mingled devotion and determination. The girlwas Aline Peters; the young man's name was George Emerson. He,also, was an American, a rising member in a New York law firm. Hehad a strong, square face, with a dogged and persevering chin.
There are all sorts of restaurants in London, from the restaurantwhich makes you fancy you are in Paris to the restaurant whichmakes you wish you were. There are palaces in Piccadilly, quaintlethal chambers in Soho, and strange food factories in OxfordStreet and Tottenham Court Road. There are restaurants whichspecialize in ptomaine and restaurants which specialize insinister vegetable messes. But there is only one Simpson's.
Simpson's, in the Strand, is unique. Here, if he wishes, theBriton may for the small sum of half a dollar stupefy himselfwith food. The god of fatted plenty has the place under hisprotection. Its keynote is solid comfort.
It is a pleasant, soothing, hearty place--a restful temple offood. No strident orchestra forces the diner to bolt beef inragtime. No long central aisle distracts his attention with itsstream of new arrivals. There he sits, alone with his food, whilewhite-robed priests, wheeling their smoking trucks, move to andfro, ever ready with fresh supplies.
All round the room--some at small tables, some at large tables--the worshipers sit, in their eyes that resolute, concentratedlook which is the peculiar property of the British luncher,ex-President Roosevelt's man-eating fish, and the American armyworm.
Conversation does not flourish at Simpson's. Only two of allthose present on this occasion showed any disposition towardchattiness. They were Aline Peters and her escort.
"The girl you ought to marry," Aline was saying, "is JoanValentine."
"The girl I am going to marry," said George Emerson, "is AlinePeters."
For answer, Aline picked up from the floor beside her anillustrated paper and, having opened it at a page toward the end,handed it across the table.
George Emerson glanced at it disdainfully. There were twophotographs on the page. One was of Aline; the other of a heavy,loutish-looking youth, who wore that expression of painedglassiness which Young England always adopts in the face of acamera.
Under one photograph were printed the words: "Miss Aline Peters,who is to marry the Honorable Frederick Threepwood in June";under the other: "The Honorable Frederick Threepwood, who is tomarry Miss Aline Peters in June." Above the photographs was thelegend: "Forthcoming International Wedding. Son of the Earl ofEmsworth to marry American heiress." In one corner of the picturea Cupid, draped in the Stars and Stripes, aimed his bow at thegentleman; in the other another Cupid, clad in a natty UnionJack, was drawing a bead on the lady.
The subeditor had done his work well. He had not been ambiguous.What he intended to convey to the reader was that Miss AlinePeters, of America, was going to marry the Honorable FrederickThreepwood, son of the Earl of Emsworth; and that was exactly theimpression the average reader got.
George Emerson, however, was not an average reader. Thesubeditor's work did not impress him.
"You mustn't believe everything you see in the papers," he said."What are the stout children in the one-piece bathing suitssupposed to be doing?"
"Those are Cupids, George, aiming at us with their little bow--a pretty and original idea."
"Why Cupids?"
"Cupid is the god of love."
"What has the god of love got to do with it?"
Aline placidly devoured a fried potato. "You're simply trying tomake me angry," she said; "and I call it very mean of you. Youknow perfectly well how fatal it is to get angry at meals. It waseating while he was in a bad temper that ruined father'sdigestion. George, that nice, fat carver is wheeling his truckthis way. Flag him and make him give me some more of thatmutton."
George looked round him morosely.
"This," he said, "is England--this restaurant, I mean. You don'tneed to go any farther. Just take a good look at this place andyou have seen the whole country and can go home again. You mayjudge a country by its meals. A people with imagination will eatwith imagination. Look at the French; look at ourselves, TheEnglishman loathes imagination. He goes to a place like this andsays: 'Don't bother me to think. Here's half a dollar. Give mefood--any sort of food--until I tell you to stop.' And that's theprinciple on which he lives his life. 'Give me anything, anddon't bother me!' That's his motto."
"If that was meant to apply to Freddie and me, I think you'revery rude. Do you mean that any girl would have done for him, solong as it was a girl?"
George Emerson showed a trace of confusion. Being honest withhimself, he had to admit that he did not exactly know what he didmean--if he meant anything. That, he felt rather bitterly, wasthe worst of Aline. She would never let a fellow's good things gopurely as good things; she probed and questioned and spoiled thewhole effect. He was quite sure that when he began to speak hehad meant something, but what it was escaped him for the moment.He had been urged to the homily by the fact that at a neighboringtable he had caught sight of a stout young Briton, with a redface, who reminded him of the Honorable Frederick Threepwood. Hementioned this to Aline.
"Do you see that fellow in the gray suit--I think he has beensleeping in it--at the table on your right? Look at the stodgyface. See the glassy eye. If that man sandbagged your Freddie andtied him up somewhere, and turned up at the church instead ofhim, can you honestly tell me you would know the difference?Come, now, wouldn't you simply say, 'Why, Freddie, how naturalyou look!' and go through the ceremony without a suspicion?"
"He isn't a bit like Freddie."
"My dear girl, there isn't a man in this restaurant under the ageof thirty who isn't just like Freddie. All Englishmen lookexactly alike, talk exactly alike, and think exactly alike."
"And you oughtn't to speak of him as Freddie. You don't knowhim."
"Yes, I do. And, what is more, he expressly asked me to call himFreddie. 'Oh, dash it, old top, don't keep on calling meThreepwood! Freddie to pals!' Those were his very words."
"George, you're making this up."
"Not at all. We met last night at the National Sporting Club.Porky Jones was going twenty rounds with Eddie Flynn. I offeredto give three to one on Eddie. Freddie, who was sitting next tome, took me in fivers. And if you want any further proof of youryoung man's pin-headedness; mark that! A child could have seenthat Eddie had him going. Eddie comes from Pittsburgh--God blessit! My own home town!"
"Did your Eddie win?"
"You don't listen--I told you he was from Pittsburgh. Andafterward Threepwood chummed up with me and told me that to realpals like me he was Freddie. I was a real pal, as I understoodit, because I would have to wait for my money. The fact was, heexplained, his old governor had cut off his bally allowance."
"You're simply trying to poison my mind against him; and I don'tthink it's very nice of you, George."
"What do you mean--poison your mind? I'm not poisoning your mind;I'm simply telling you a few things about him. You know perfectlywell that you don't love him, and that you aren't going to marryhim--and that you are going to marry me."
"How do you know I don't love my Freddie?"
"If you can look me straight in the eyes and tell me you do, Iwill drop the whole thing and put on a little page's dress andcarry your train up the a
isle. Now, then!"
"And all the while you're talking you're letting my carver getaway," said Aline.
George called to the willing priest, who steered his truck towardthem. Aline directed his dissection of the shoulder of mutton byword and gesture.
"Enjoy yourself!" said Emerson coldly.
"So I do, George; so I do. What excellent meat they have inEngland!"
"It all comes from America," said George patriotically. "And,anyway, can't you be a bit more spiritual? I don't want to sithere discussing food products."
"If you were in my position, George, you wouldn't want to talkabout anything else. It's doing him a world of good, poor dear;but there are times when I'm sorry Father ever started thisfood-reform thing. You don't know what it means for a healthyyoung girl to try and support life on nuts and grasses."
"And why should you?" broke out Emerson. "I'll tell you what itis, Aline--you are perfectly absurd about your father. I don'twant to say anything against him to you, naturally; but--"
"Go ahead, George. Why this diffidence? Say what you like."
"Very well, then, I will. I'll give it to you straight. You knowquite well that you have let your father bully you since you werein short frocks. I don't say it is your fault or his fault, oranybody's fault; I just state it as a fact. It's temperament, Isuppose. You are yielding and he is aggressive; and he has takenadvantage of it.
"We now come to this idiotic Freddie-marriage business. Yourfather has forced you into that. It's all very well to say thatyou are a free agent and that fathers don't coerce theirdaughters nowadays. The trouble is that your father does. You lethim do what he likes with you. He has got you hypnotized; and youwon't break away from this Freddie foolishness because you can'tfind the nerve. I'm going to help you find the nerve. I'm comingdown to Blandings Castle when you go there on Friday."
"Coming to Blandings!"
"Freddie invited me last night. I think it was done by way ofinterest on the money he owed me; but he did it and I accepted."
"But, George, my dear boy, do you never read the etiquette booksand the hints in the Sunday papers on how to be the perfectgentleman? Don't you know you can't be a man's guest and takeadvantage of his hospitality to try to steal his fiancee awayfrom him?"
"Watch me."
A dreamy look came into Aline's eyes. "I wonder what it feelslike, being a countess," she said.
"You will never know." George looked at her pityingly. "My poorgirl," he said, "have you been lured into this engagement in thebelief that pop-eyed Frederick, the Idiot Child, is going to bean earl some day? You have been stung! Freddie is not the heir.His older brother, Lord Bosham, is as fit as a prize-fighter andhas three healthy sons. Freddie has about as much chance ofgetting the title as I have."
"George, your education has been sadly neglected. Don't you knowthat the heir to the title always goes on a yachting cruise, withhis whole family, and gets drowned--and the children too? Ithappens in every English novel you read."
"Listen, Aline! Let us get this thing straight: I have been inlove with you since I wore knickerbockers. I proposed to you atyour first dance--"
"Very clumsily."
"But sincerely. Last year, when I found that you had gone toEngland, I came on after you as soon as the firm could spare me.And I found you engaged to this Freddie excrescence."
"I like the way you stand up for Freddie. So many men in yourposition might say horrid things about him."
"Oh, I've nothing against Freddie. He is practically an imbecileand I don't like his face; outside of that he's all right. Butyou will be glad later that you did not marry him. You are muchtoo real a person. What a wife you will make for a hard-workingman!"
"What does Freddie work hard at?"
"I am alluding at the moment not to Freddie but to myself. Ishall come home tired out. Maybe things will have gone wrongdowntown. I shall be fagged, disheartened. And then you will comewith your cool, white hands and, placing them gently on myforehead--"
Aline shook her head. "It's no good, George. Really, you hadbetter realize it. I'm very fond of you, but we are not suited!"
"Why not?"
"You are too overwhelming--too much like a bomb. I think you mustbe one of the supermen one reads about. You would want your ownway and nothing but your own way. Now, Freddie will roll throughhoops and sham dead, and we shall be the happiest pair in theworld. I am much too placid and mild to make you happy. You wantsomebody who would stand up to you--somebody like JoanValentine."
"That's the second time you have mentioned this Joan Valentine.Who is she?"
"She is a girl who was at school with me. We were the greatestchums--at least, I worshiped her and would have done anything forher; and I think she liked me. Then we lost touch with oneanother and didn't meet for years. I met her on the streetyesterday, and she is just the same. She has been through themost awful times. Her father was quite rich; he died suddenlywhile he and Joan were in Paris, and she found that he hadn'tleft a cent. He had been living right up to his income all thetime. His life wasn't even insured. She came to London; and, sofar as I could make out from the short talk we had, she has donepretty nearly everything since we last met. She worked in a shopand went on the stage, and all sorts of things. Isn't it awful,George!"
"Pretty tough," said Emerson. He was but faintly interested inMiss Valentine.
"She is so plucky and full of life. She would stand up to you."
"Thanks! My idea of marriage is not a perpetual scrap. My notionof a wife is something cozy and sympathetic and soothing. Thatis why I love you. We shall be the happiest--"
Aline laughed.
"Dear old George! Now pay the check and get me a taxi. I'veendless things to do at home. If Freddie is in town I suppose hewill be calling to see me. Who is Freddie, do you ask? Freddie ismy fiance, George. My betrothed. My steady. The young man I'mgoing to marry."
Emerson shook his head resignedly. "Curious how you cling to thatFreddie idea. Never mind! I'll come down to Blandings on Fridayand we shall see what happens. Bear in mind the broad fact thatyou and I are going to be married, and that nothing on earth isgoing to stop us."
* * *
It was Aline Peters who had to bear the brunt of her father'smental agony when he discovered, shortly after Lord Emsworth hadleft him, that the gem of his collection of scarabs had done thesame. It is always the innocent bystander who suffers.
"The darned old sneak thief!" said Mr. Peters.
"Father!"
"Don't sit there saying 'Father!' What's the use of saying'Father!'? Do you think it is going to help--your saying'Father!'? I'd rather the old pirate had taken the house and lotthan that scarab. He knows what's what! Trust him to walk offwith the pick of the whole bunch! I did think I could leave thefather of the man who's going to marry my daughter for a secondalone with the things. There's no morality amongcollectors--none! I'd trust a syndicate of Jesse James, CaptainKidd and Dick Turpin sooner than I would a collector. My Cheopsof the Fourth Dynasty! I wouldn't have lost it for five thousanddollars!"
"But, father, couldn't you write him a letter, asking for itback? He's such a nice old man! I'm sure he didn't mean to stealthe scarab."
Mr. Peters' overwrought soul blew off steam in the shape of apassionate snort.
"Didn't mean to steal it! What do you think he meant to do--takeit away and keep it safe for me for fear I should lose it? Didn'tmean to steal it! Bet you he's well-known in society as akleptomaniac. Bet you that when his name is announced his friendspick up their spoons and send in a hurry call to policeheadquarters for a squad to come and see that he doesn't sneakthe front door. Of course he meant to steal it! He has a museumof his own down in the country. My Cheops is going to lend toneto that. I'd give five thousand dollars to get it back. Ifthere's a man in this country with the spirit to break into thatcastle and steal that scarab and hand it back to me, there's fivethousand waiting for him right here; and if he wants to he canknock that old safe blower on the he
ad with a jimmy into thebargain."
"But, father, why can't you simply go to him and say it's yoursand that you must have it back?"
"And have him come back at me by calling off this engagement ofyours? Not if I know it! You can't go about the place charging aman with theft and ask him to go on being willing to have his sonmarry your daughter, can you? The slightest suggestion that Ithought he had stolen this scarab and he would do the Proud OldEnglish Aristocrat and end everything. He's in the strongestposition a thief has ever been in. You can't get at him."
"I didn't think of that."
"You don't think at all. That's the trouble with you," said Mr.Peters.
Years of indigestion had made Mr. Peters' temper, even when in anormal mood, perfectly impossible; in a crisis like this it ranamuck. He vented it on Aline because he had always vented hisirritabilities on Aline; because the fact of her sweet, gentledisposition, combined with the fact of their relationship, madeher the ideal person to receive the overflow of his black moods.While his wife had lived he had bullied her. On her death Alinehad stepped into the vacant position.
Aline did not cry, because she was not a girl who was given totears; but, for all her placid good temper, she was wounded. Shewas a girl who liked everything in the world to run smoothly andeasily, and these scenes with her father always depressed her.She took advantage of a lull in Mr. Peters' flow of words andslipped from the room.
Her cheerfulness had received a shock. She wanted sympathy. Shewanted comforting. For a moment she considered George Emerson inthe role of comforter; but there were objections to George inthis character. Aline was accustomed to tease and chat withGeorge, but at heart she was a little afraid of him; and instincttold her that, as comforter, he would be too volcanic andsupermanly for a girl who was engaged to marry another man inJune. George, as comforter, would be far too prone to trust toaction rather than to the soothing power of the spoken word.George's idea of healing the wound, she felt, would be to pushher into a cab and drive to the nearest registrar's.
No; she would not go to George. To whom, then? The vision of JoanValentine came to her--of Joan as she had seen her yesterday,strong, cheerful, self-reliant, bearing herself, in spite ofadversity, with a valiant jauntiness. Yes; she would go and seeJoan. She put on her hat and stole from the house.
Curiously enough, only a quarter of an hour before, R. Jones hadset out with exactly the same object in view.
* * *
At almost exactly the hour when Aline Peters set off to visit herfriend, Miss Valentine, three men sat in the cozy smoking-room ofBlandings Castle.
They were variously occupied. In the big chair nearest the doorthe Honorable Frederick Threepwood--Freddie to pals--was reading.Next to him sat a young man whose eyes, glittering throughrimless spectacles, were concentrated on the upturned faces ofseveral neat rows of playing cards--Rupert Baxter, LordEmsworth's invaluable secretary, had no vices, but he sometimesrelaxed his busy brain with a game of solitaire. Beyond Baxter, acigar in his mouth and a weak highball at his side, the Earl ofEmsworth took his ease.
The book the Honorable Freddie was reading was a smallpaper-covered book. Its cover was decorated with a color schemein red, black and yellow, depicting a tense moment in the livesof a man with a black beard, a man with a yellow beard, a manwithout any beard at all, and a young woman who, at first sight,appeared to be all eyes and hair. The man with the black beard,to gain some private end, had tied this young woman with ropes toa complicated system of machinery, mostly wheels and pulleys. Theman with the yellow beard was in the act of pushing or pulling alever. The beardless man, protruding through a trapdoor in thefloor, was pointing a large revolver at the parties of the secondpart.
Beneath this picture were the words: "Hands up, you scoundrels!"
Above it, in a meandering scroll across the page, was: "GridleyQuayle, Investigator. The Adventure of the Secret Six. By FelixClovelly."
The Honorable Freddie did not so much read as gulp the adventureof the Secret Six. His face was crimson with excitement; his hairwas rumpled; his eyes bulged. He was absorbed.
This is peculiarly an age in which each of us may, if we do butsearch diligently, find the literature suited to his mentalpowers. Grave and earnest men, at Eton and elsewhere, had triedFreddie Threepwood with Greek, with Latin and with English; andthe sheeplike stolidity with which he declined to be interestedin the masterpieces of all three tongues had left them with theconviction that he would never read anything.
And then, years afterward, he had suddenly blossomed out as astudent--only, it is true, a student of the Adventures of GridleyQuayle; but still a student. His was a dull life and GridleyQuayle was the only person who brought romance into it. Existencefor the Honorable Freddie was simply a sort of desert, punctuatedwith monthly oases in the shape of new Quayle adventures. It washis ambition to meet the man who wrote them.
Lord Emsworth sat and smoked, and sipped and smoked again, atpeace with all the world. His mind was as nearly a blank as it ispossible for the human mind to be. The hand that had not the taskof holding the cigar was at rest in his trousers pocket. Thefingers of it fumbled idly with a small, hard object.
Gradually it filtered into his lordship's mind that this small,hard object was not familiar. It was something new--somethingthat was neither his keys nor his pencil; nor was it his smallchange. He yielded to a growing curiosity and drew it out. Heexamined it. It was a little something, rather like a fossilizedbeetle. It touched no chord in him. He looked at it with amiabledistaste.
"Now how in the world did that get there?" he said.
The Honorable Freddie paid no attention to the remark. He was nowat the very crest of his story, when every line intensified thethrill. Incident was succeeding incident. The Secret Six werehere, there and everywhere, like so many malignant June bugs.
Annabel, the heroine, was having a perfectly rottentime--kidnapped, and imprisoned every few minutes. GridleyQuayle, hot on the scent, was covering somebody or other with hisrevolver almost continuously. Freddie Threepwood had no time forchatting with his father. Not so Rupert Baxter. Chatting withLord Emsworth was one of the things for which he received hissalary. He looked up from his cards.
"Lord Emsworth?"
"I have found a curious object in my pocket, Baxter. I waswondering how it got there."
He handed the thing to his secretary. Rupert Baxter's eyes lit upwith sudden enthusiasm. He gasped.
"Magnificent!" he cried. "Superb!"
Lord Emsworth looked at him inquiringly.
"It is a scarab, Lord Emsworth; and unless I am mistaken--and Ithink I may claim to be something of an expert--a Cheops of theFourth Dynasty. A wonderful addition to your museum!"
"Is it? By Gad! You don't say so, Baxter!"
"It is, indeed. If it is not a rude question, how much did yougive for it, Lord Emsworth? It must have been the gem ofsomebody's collection. Was there a sale at Christie's thisafternoon?"
Lord Emsworth shook his head. "I did not get it at Christie's,for I recollect that I had an important engagement whichprevented my going to Christie's. To be sure; yes--I had promisedto call on Mr. Peters and examine his collection of--Now I wonderwhat it was that Mr. Peters said he collected!"
"Mr. Peters is one of the best-known living collectors ofscarabs."
"Scarabs! You are quite right, Baxter. Now that I recall theepisode, this is a scarab; and Mr. Peters gave it to me."
"Gave it to you, Lord Emsworth?"
"Yes. The whole scene comes back to me. Mr. Peters, after tellingme a great many exceedingly interesting things about scarabs,which I regret to say I cannot remember, gave me this. And yousay it is really valuable, Baxter?"
"It is, from a collector's point of view, of extraordinaryvalue."
"Bless my soul!" Lord Emsworth beamed. "This is extremelyinteresting, Baxter. One has heard so much of the princelyhospitality of Americans. How exceedingly kind of Mr. Peters! Ishall certainly treasure it, though I must co
nfess that from apurely spectacular standpoint it leaves me a little cold.However, I must not look a gift horse in the mouth--eh, Baxter?"
From afar came the silver booming of a gong. Lord Emsworth rose.
"Time to dress for dinner? I had no idea it was so late. Baxter,you will be going past the museum door. Will you be a good fellowand place this among the exhibits? You will know what to do withit better than I. I always think of you as the curator of mylittle collection, Baxter--ha-ha! Mind how you step when you arein the museum. I was painting a chair there yesterday and I thinkI left the paint pot on the floor."
He cast a less amiable glance at his studious son.
"Get up, Frederick, and go and dress for dinner. What is thattrash you are reading?"
The Honorable Freddie came out of his book much as a sleepwalkerwakes--with a sense of having been violently assaulted. He lookedup with a kind of stunned plaintiveness.
"Eh, gov'nor?"
"Make haste! Beach rang the gong five minutes ago. What is thatyou are reading?"
"Oh, nothing, gov'nor--just a book."
"I wonder you can waste your time on such trash. Make haste!"
He turned to the door, and the benevolent expression once morewandered athwart his face.
"Extremely kind of Mr. Peters!" he said. "Really, there issomething almost Oriental in the lavish generosity of ourAmerican cousins."
* * *
It had taken R. Jones just six hours to discover Joan Valentine'saddress. That it had not taken him longer is a proof of hisenergy and of the excellence of his system of obtaininginformation; but R. Jones, when he considered it worth his while,could be extremely energetic, and he was a past master at the artof finding out things.
He poured himself out of his cab and rang the bell of NumberSeven. A disheveled maid answered the ring.
"Miss Valentine in?"
"Yes, sir."
R. Jones produced his card.
"On important business, tell her. Half a minute--I'll write it."
He wrote the words on the card and devoted the brief period ofwaiting to a careful scrutiny of his surroundings. He looked outinto the court and he looked as far as he could down the dingypassage; and the conclusions he drew from what he saw werecomplimentary to Miss Valentine.
"If this girl is the sort of girl who would hold up Freddie'sletters," he mused, "she wouldn't be living in a place like this.If she were on the make she would have more money than sheevidently possesses. Therefore, she is not on the make; and I amprepared to bet that she destroyed the letters as fast as she gotthem."
Those were, roughly, the thoughts of R. Jones as he stood in thedoorway of Number Seven; and they were important thoughtsinasmuch as they determined his attitude toward Joan in theapproaching interview. He perceived that this matter must behandled delicately--that he must be very much the gentleman. Itwould be a strain, but he must do it.
The maid returned and directed him to Joan's room with a briefword and a sweeping gesture.
"Eh?" said R. Jones. "First floor?"
"Front," said the maid.
R. Jones trudged laboriously up the short flight of stairs. Itwas very dark on the stairs and he stumbled. Eventually, however,light came to him through an open door. Looking in, he saw a girlstanding at the table. She had an air of expectation; so hededuced that he had reached his journey's end.
"Miss Valentine?"
"Please come in."
R. Jones waddled in.
"Not much light on your stairs."
"No. Will you take a seat?"
"Thanks."
One glance at the girl convinced R. Jones that he had been right.Circumstances had made him a rapid judge of character, for in theprofession of living by one's wits in a large city the firstprinciple of offense and defense is to sum people up at firstsight. This girl was not on the make.
Joan Valentine was a tall girl with wheat-gold hair and eyes asbrightly blue as a November sky when the sun is shining on afrosty world. There was in them a little of November's coldglitter, too, for Joan had been through much in the last fewyears; and experience, even though it does not harden, erects adefensive barrier between its children and the world.
Her eyes were eyes that looked straight and challenged. Theycould thaw to the satin blue of the Mediterranean Sea, where itpurrs about the little villages of Southern France; but they didnot thaw for everybody. She looked what she was--a girl ofaction; a girl whom life had made both reckless and wary--wary offriendly advances, reckless when there was a venture afoot.
Her eyes, as they met R. Jones' now, were cold and challenging.She, too, had learned the trick of swift diagnosis of character,and what she saw of R. Jones in that first glance did not impressher favorably.
"You wished to see me on business?"
"Yes," said R. Jones. "Yes. . . . Miss Valentine, may I begin bybegging you to realize that I have no intention of insultingyou?"
Joan's eyebrows rose. For an instant she did her visitor theinjustice of suspecting that he had been dining too well.
"I don't understand."
"Let me explain: I have come here," R. Jones went on, gettingmore gentlemanly every moment, "on a very distasteful errand, tooblige a friend. Will you bear in mind that whatever I say issaid entirely on his behalf?"
By this time Joan had abandoned the idea that this stout personwas a life-insurance tout, and was inclining to the view that hewas collecting funds for a charity.
"I came here at the request of the Honorable FrederickThreepwood."
"I don't quite understand."
"You never met him, Miss Valentine; but when you were in thechorus at the Piccadilly Theatre, I believe, he wrote you somevery foolish letters. Possibly you have forgotten them?"
"I certainly have."
"You have probably destroyed them---eh?"
"Certainly! I never keep letters. Why do you ask?"
"Well, you see, Miss Valentine, the Honorable FrederickThreepwood is about to be married; and he thought that possibly,on the whole, it would be better that the letters--andpoetry--which he wrote you were nonexistent."
Not all R. Jones' gentlemanliness--and during this speech hediffused it like a powerful scent in waves about him--could hidethe unpleasant meaning of the words.
"He was afraid I might try to blackmail him?" said Joan, withformidable calm.
R. Jones raised and waved a fat hand deprecatingly.
"My dear Miss Valentine!"
Joan rose and R. Jones followed her example. The interview wasplainly at an end.
"Please tell Mr. Threepwood to make his mind quite easy. He is inno danger."
"Exactly--exactly; precisely! I assured Threepwood that my visithere would be a mere formality. I was quite sure you had nointention whatever of worrying him. I may tell him definitely,then, that you have destroyed the letters?"
"Yes. Good-evening."
"Good-evening, Miss Valentine."
The closing of the door behind him left him in total darkness,but he hardly liked to return and ask Joan to reopen it in orderto light him on his way. He was glad to be out of her presence.He was used to being looked at in an unfriendly way by hisfellows, but there had been something in Joan's eyes that hadcuriously discomfited him.
R. Jones groped his way down, relieved that all was over and hadended well. He believed what she had told him, and he couldconscientiously assure Freddie that the prospect of his sharingthe fate of poor old Percy was nonexistent. It is true that heproposed to add in his report that the destruction of the lettershad been purchased with difficulty, at a cost of just fivehundred pounds; but that was a mere business formality.
He had almost reached the last step when there was a ring at thefront door. With what he was afterward wont to call aninspiration, he retreated with unusual nimbleness until he hadalmost reached Joan's door again. Then he leaned over thebanister and listened.
The disheveled maid opened the door. A girl's voice spoke:
"Is Miss V
alentine in?"
"She's in; but she's engaged."
"I wish you would go up and tell her that I want to see her. Sayit's Miss Peters--Miss Aline Peters."
The banister shook beneath R. Jones' sudden clutch. For a momenthe felt almost faint. Then he began to think swiftly. A greatlight had dawned on him, and the thought outstanding in his mindwas that never again would he trust a man or woman on theevidence of his senses. He could have sworn that this Valentinegirl was on the level. He had been perfectly satisfied with herstatement that she had destroyed the letters. And all the whileshe had been playing as deep a game as he had come across in thewhole course of his professional career! He almost admired her.How she had taken him in!
It was obvious now what her game was. Previous to his visit shehad arranged a meeting with Freddie's fiancee, with the view ofopening negotiations for the sale of the letters. She had heldhim, Jones, at arm's length because she was going to sell theletters to whoever would pay the best price. But for the accidentof his happening to be here when Miss Peters arrived, Freddie andhis fiancee would have been bidding against each other andraising each other's price. He had worked the same game himself adozen times, and he resented the entry of female competition intowhat he regarded as essentially a male field of enterprise.
As the maid stumped up the stairs he continued his retreat. Heheard Joan's door open, and the stream of light showed him thedisheveled maid standing in the doorway.
"Ow, I thought there was a gentleman with you, miss."
"He left a moment ago. Why?"
"There's a lady wants to see you. Miss Peters, her name is."
"Will you ask her to come up?"
The disheveled maid was no polished mistress of ceremonies. Sheleaned down into the void and hailed Aline.
"She says will you come up?"
Aline's feet became audible on the staircase. There weregreetings.
"Whatever brings you here, Aline?"
"Am I interrupting you, Joan, dear?"
"No. Do come in! I was only surprised to see you so late. Ididn't know you paid calls at this hour. Is anything wrong? Comein."
The door closed, the maid retired to the depths, and R. Jonesstole cautiously down again. He was feeling absolutelybewildered. Apparently his deductions, his second thoughts, hadbeen all wrong, and Joan was, after all, the honest person he hadimagined at first sight. Those two girls had talked to each otheras though they were old friends; as though they had known eachother all their lives. That was the thing which perplexed R.Jones.
With the tread of a red Indian, he approached the door and puthis ear to it. He found he could hear quite comfortably.
Aline, meantime, inside the room, had begun to draw comfort fromJoan's very appearance, she looked so capable.
Joan's eyes had changed the expression they had contained duringthe recent interview. They were soft now, with a softness thatwas half compassionate, half contemptuous. It is the compensationwhich life gives to those whom it has handled roughly in orderthat they shall be able to regard with a certain contempt thesmall troubles of the sheltered. Joan remembered Aline of old,and knew her for a perennial victim of small troubles. Even intheir schooldays she had always needed to be looked after andcomforted. Her sweet temper had seemed to invite the minor slingsand arrows of fortune. Aline was a girl who inspiredprotectiveness in a certain type of her fellow human beings. Itwas this quality in her that kept George Emerson awake at nights;and it appealed to Joan now.
Joan, for whom life was a constant struggle to keep the wolfwithin a reasonable distance from the door, and who counted thatday happy on which she saw her way clear to paying her weeklyrent and possibly having a trifle over for some coveted hat orpair of shoes, could not help feeling, as she looked at Aline,that her own troubles were as nothing, and that the immediateneed of the moment was to pet and comfort her friend. Herknowledge of Aline told her the probable tragedy was that she hadlost a brooch or had been spoken to crossly by somebody; but italso told her that such tragedies bulked very large on Aline'shorizon.
Trouble, after all, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder;and Aline was far less able to endure with fortitude the loss ofa brooch than she herself to bear the loss of a position theemoluments of which meant the difference between having justenough to eat and starving.
"You're worried about something," she said. "Sit down and tell meall about it."
Aline sat down and looked about her at the shabby room. By thatcurious process of the human mind which makes the spectacle ofanother's misfortune a palliative for one's own, she was feelingoddly comforted already. Her thoughts were not definite and shecould not analyze them; but what they amounted to was that,though it was an unpleasant thing to be bullied by a dyspepticfather, the world manifestly held worse tribulations, which herfather's other outstanding quality, besides dyspepsia--wealth, towit--enabled her to avoid.
It was at this point that the dim beginnings of philosophy beganto invade her mind. The thing resolved itself almost into anequation. If father had not had indigestion he would not havebullied her. But, if father had not made a fortune he would nothave had indigestion. Therefore, if father had not made a fortunehe would not have bullied her. Practically, in fact, if fatherdid not bully her he would not be rich. And if he were not rich--
She took in the faded carpet, the stained wall paper and thesoiled curtains with a comprehensive glance. It certainly cutboth ways. She began to be a little ashamed of her misery.
"It's nothing at all; really," she said. "I think I've beenmaking rather a fuss about very little."
Joan was relieved. The struggling life breeds moods ofdepression, and such a mood had come to her just before Aline'sarrival. Life, at that moment, had seemed to stretch before herlike a dusty, weary road, without hope. She was sick of fighting.She wanted money and ease, and a surcease from this perpetualrace with the weekly bills. The mood had been the outcome partlyof R. Jones' gentlemanly-veiled insinuations, but still more,though she did not realize it, of her yesterday's meeting withAline.
Mr. Peters might be unguarded in his speech when conversing withhis daughter--he might play the tyrant toward her in many ways;but he did not stint her in the matter of dress allowance, and,on the occasion when she met Joan, Aline had been wearing soParisian a hat and a tailor-made suit of such obviously expensivesimplicity that green-eyed envy had almost spoiled Joan'spleasure at meeting this friend of her opulent days.
She had suppressed the envy, and it had revenged itself byassaulting her afresh in the form of the worst fit of the bluesshe had had in two years.
She had been loyally ready to sink her depression in order toalleviate Aline's, but it was a distinct relief to find that thefeat would not be necessary.
"Never mind," she said. "Tell me what the very little thing was."
"It was only father," said Aline simply.
Joan cast her mind back to the days of school and placed fatheras a rather irritable person, vaguely reputed to be something ofan ogre in his home circle.
"Was he angry with you about something?" she asked.
"Not exactly angry with me; but--well, I was there."
Joan's depression lifted slightly. She had forgotten, in thestunning anguish of the sudden spectacle of that hat and thattailor-made suit, that Paris hats and hundred-and-twenty-dollarsuits not infrequently had what the vulgar term a string attachedto them. After all, she was independent. She might have to murderher beauty with hats and frocks that had never been nearer Paristhan the Tottenham Court Road; but at least no one bullied herbecause she happened to be at hand when tempers were short.
"What a shame!" she said. "Tell me all about it."
With a prefatory remark that it was all so ridiculous, really,Aline embarked on the narrative of the afternoon's events.
Joan heard her out, checking a strong disposition to giggle. Herviewpoint was that of the average person, and the average personcannot see the importance of the scarab in the scheme of things.The opinion she formed of Mr
. Peters was of his being aneccentric old gentleman, making a great to-do about nothing atall. Losses had to have a concrete value before they couldimpress Joan. It was beyond her to grasp that Mr. Peters wouldsooner have lost a diamond necklace, if he had happened topossess one, than his Cheops of the Fourth Dynasty.
It was not until Aline, having concluded her tale, added one morestrand to it that she found herself treating the matterseriously.
"Father says he would give five thousand dollars to anyone whowould get it back for him."
"What!"
The whole story took on a different complexion for Joan. Moneytalks. Mr. Peters' words might have been merely the rhetoricaloutburst of a heated moment; but, even discounting them, thereseemed to remain a certain exciting substratum. A man who shoutsthat he will give five thousand dollars for a thing may very wellmean he will give five hundred, and Joan's finances wereperpetually in a condition which makes five hundred dollars a sumto be gasped at.
"He wasn't serious, surely!"
"I think he was," said Aline.
"But five thousand dollars!"
"It isn't really very much to father, you know. He gave away ahundred thousand a year ago to a university."
"But for a grubby little scarab!"
"You don't understand how father loves his scarabs. Since heretired from business, he has been simply wrapped up in them. Youknow collectors are like that. You read in the papers about mengiving all sorts of money for funny things."
Outside the door R. Jones, his ear close to the panel, drank inall these things greedily. He would have been willing to remainin that attitude indefinitely in return for this kind of specialinformation; but just as Aline said these words a door opened onthe floor above, and somebody came out, whistling, and began todescend the stairs.
R. Jones stood not on the order of his going. He was down in thehall and fumbling with the handle of the front door with anagility of which few casual observers of his dimensions wouldhave deemed him capable. The next moment he was out in thestreet, walking calmly toward Leicester Square, pondering overwhat he had heard.
Much of R. Jones' substantial annual income was derived frompondering over what he had heard.
In the room Joan was looking at Aline with the distended eyes ofone who sees visions or has inspirations. She got up. There areoccasions when one must speak standing.
"Then you mean to say that your father would really give fivethousand dollars to anyone who got this thing back for him?"
"I am sure he would. But who could do it?"
"I could," said Joan. "And what is more, I'm going to!"
Aline stared at her helplessly. In their schooldays, Joan hadalways swept her off her feet. Then, she had always had thefeeling that with Joan nothing was impossible. Heroine worship,like hero worship, dies hard. She looked at Joan now with thestricken sensation of one who has inadvertently set powerfulmachinery in motion.
"But, Joan!" It was all she could say.
"My dear child, it's perfectly simple. This earl of yours hastaken the thing off to his castle, like a brigand. You say youare going down there on Friday for a visit. All you have to do isto take me along with you, and sit back and watch me get busy."
"But, Joan!"
"Where's the difficulty?"
"I don't see how I could take you down very well."
"Why not?"
"Oh, I don't know."
"But what is your objection?"
"Well--don't you see?--if you went down there as a friend of mineand were caught stealing the scarab, there would be just thetrouble father wants to avoid--about my engagement, you see, andso on."
It was an aspect of the matter that had escaped Joan. She frownedthoughtfully.
"I see. Yes, there is that; but there must be a way."
"You mustn't, Joan--really! don't think any more about it."
"Not think any more about it! My child, do you even faintlyrealize what five thousand dollars--or a quarter of five thousanddollars--means to me? I would do anything for it--anything! Andthere's the fun of it. I don't suppose you can realize that,either. I want a change. I've been grubbing away here on nothinga week for years, and it's time I had a vacation. There must be away by which you could get me down--Why, of course! Why didn't Ithink of it before! You shall take me on Friday as your lady'smaid!"
"But, Joan, I couldn't!"
"Why not?"
"I--I couldn't."
"Why not?"
"Oh, well!"
Joan advanced on her where she sat and grasped her firmly by theshoulders. Her face was inflexible.
"Aline, my pet, it's no good arguing. You might just as wellargue with a wolf on the trail of a fat Russian peasant. I needthat money. I need it in my business. I need it worse thananybody has ever needed anything. And I'm going to have it! Fromnow on, until further notice, I am your lady's maid. You can giveyour present one a holiday."
Aline met her eyes waveringly. The spirit of the old schooldays,when nothing was impossible where Joan was concerned, had her inits grip. Moreover, the excitement of the scheme began to attracther.
"But, Joan," she said, "you know it's simply ridiculous. Youcould never pass as a lady's maid. The other servants would findyou out. I expect there are all sorts of things a lady's maid hasgot to do and not do."
"My dear Aline, I know them all. You can't stump me onbelow-stairs etiquette. I've been a lady's maid!"
"Joan!"
"It's quite true--three years ago, when I was more than usuallyimpecunious. The wolf was glued to the door like a postage stamp;so I answered an advertisement and became a lady's maid."
"You seem to have done everything."
"I have--pretty nearly. It's all right for you idle rich,Aline--you can sit still and contemplate life; but we poorworking girls have got to hustle."
Aline laughed.
"You know, you always could make me do anything you wanted in theold days, Joan. I suppose I have got to look on this as quitesettled now?"
"Absolutely settled! Oh, Aline, there's one thing you mustremember: Don't call me Joan when I'm down at the castle. Youmust call me Valentine."
She paused. The recollection of the Honorable Freddie had come toher. No; Valentine would not do!
"No; not Valentine," she went on--"it's too jaunty. I used itonce years ago, but it never sounded just right. I want somethingmore respectable, more suited to my position. Can't you suggestsomething?"
Aline pondered.
"Simpson?"
"Simpson! It's exactly right. You must practice it. Simpson! Sayit kindly and yet distantly, as though I were a worm, but a wormfor whom you felt a mild liking. Roll it round your tongue."
"Simpson."
"Splendid! Now once again--a little more haughtily."
"Simpson--Simpson--Simpson."
Joan regarded her with affectionate approval.
"It's wonderful!" she said. "You might have been doing it allyour life."
"What are you laughing at?" asked Aline.
"Nothing," said Joan. "I was just thinking of something. There'sa young man who lives on the floor above this, and I waslecturing him yesterday on enterprise. I told him to go and findsomething exciting to do. I wonder what he would say if he knewhow thoroughly I am going to practice what I preach!"
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