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The preparations for the party by providing a diversion for Ruby Cheldon’s oppressive and apprehensive thoughts quickly restored her to her usual serenity of outlook and manner. She loved entertaining, and was, therefore, always at her best no matter how poor her surroundings or how inferior the ingredients of the feast might be. A gracious friendliness towards all, attentiveness to everybody, combined with a tactful avoidance of iterated invitations to eat and drink, an unobtrusive supervision, and yet a total absence of dominance gave her the control and leadership of every party of which she was the hostess without anyone suspecting that she was something more than one of those present.

But then she left nothing to chance, not even the apparently smallest details. The commandeered rooms were with their contents subjected to a disembowelling cleansing which rendered parts of them almost as shiny as the “payway” products of the new era. Even the sofa, thrust into the least conspicuous of corners, was nearly redeemed from passive hideousness by gaily-coloured cushions distributed at strategic points. A couple of rugs from the bedrooms broke the drab monotony of the drawing-room floor, and the shaded electric light mercifully reduced the three engravings to symmetrical frames and nothing else. Flowers in glass vases were assigned positions where Ruby thought they would show most effectively, and whenever possible inartistic evidences of their poverty were banished to the kitchen.

Her chief glory and pride, however, were her photographs, those relics of gentility which the poor wear like medals. The photograph of General Sir Hildebrand Cheldon complete with Crimean whiskers and cast-iron regimentals. (“Oh, yes, he was my husband’s uncle.”) Hubert Cheldon in his uniform as a deputy-lieutenant. (“I’ve got a book about him somewhere.”) Jonathan Cheldon in the dress of the late eighteenth century which the twentieth regards as a uniform. (“That’s a photograph of his portrait. Painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence. Yes, he does look like Lord Clive. Lots of people have remarked it.”) Broadbridge Manor with its extended frontage and vast lawns. (“Belonged to the Dukes of Weybridge before Bobbie’s ancestor bought it. Lady Emily Cheldon. Daughter of the Earl of Ditton. Married Bobbie’s grandfather. His aunt, who jilted a marquis, used to tell me that Disraeli was crazy about Lady Emily.”) Thomas Delaforce Cheldon in his legal robes. (“Yes, but all the Cheldons are handsome. That book in his right hand? I don’t know, but probably it’s one he wrote himself. He was always writing.”) And in the place of honour a large photograph of Colonel Henry Bertram Cheldon. Ruby had no need to voice her pride in her husband, neither was it necessary for her to parade his virtues or add to them by invention. His silver frame was always the centre of the array of Cheldon memorials and reminders that it was a distinct come-down in the world for a member of that illustrious family to dwell in Galahad Mansions, Fulham. They formed a goodly company for the edification and sneers of guests according to their degree of humility or jealousy.

“I don’t think we’ve forgotten anything,” Ruby said pensively to her aide-de-camp, Florence, at half-past eight on the night that was to witness the appraisement of the girl who was a candidate for entry into the exclusive ranks of the Cheldons. “I don’t suppose anyone will arrive for another hour.” She had been ready herself since a quarter to eight when Bobbie had gone off to offer himself as escort to Nancy Curzon.

“Don’t forget, ma’am,” said Florence, who could enjoy a party no matter how complicated her amatory troubles might be, “that Mr. Davidson mustn’t use the sofa. It won’t bear his eighteen stone.”

“I’ll head him off,” Ruby promised with a smile. “What’s that?” The front door bell rang twice with an impatience to which only a genuine Cheldon was entitled.

Ruby moved to the front of the fire where for a few moments she watched the reflection of the infrequent flames in her soft dark blue silk dress. She was feeling excessively nervous, certain in her mind that it was Bobbie who had rung the bell and that soon she would be facing the ordeal of an interview with a common, aggressive young woman with Bobbie looking on and, perhaps, discovering the real reason for the party and hating his mother for it ever afterwards.

The door opened and Florence, who had been carefully coached in the respectful formality due to the Galahad Mansions branch of the Cheldon family, announced the caller with the stateliness of a veteran butler.

“Miss Hyacinth Curzon.”

Ruby advanced with a dignity of which she was unnecessarily conscious, and the instant she saw her son’s fascinator her heart sank. For there was nothing common or flamboyant in her visitor’s appearance. Here was a convincing imitation of the real thing, and, above all, here was an unusual and magnetic beauty.

Forty-eight involuntarily stared at nineteen and in one full scrutiny took in her five feet six inches of perfect and healthy womanhood, her head of brown hair, pale cheeks slightly touched with colour, broad, clever-looking forehead, bright, challenging dark eyes, firm and yet dainty chin, expressive lips vibrant with an earnest appreciation of life. She was certainly very pretty, this dancer of the night, and Ruby, vaguely summoning the ghosts of Lady Emily Cheldon and other aristocratic wives of dead and gone Cheldons, felt hopeless as she contemplated the possibility of convincing Bobbie that mere beauty did not guarantee the standard of bluish blood which she had a right to expect in the girl he intended to elevate to the position of her daughter-in-law.

“Miss Curzon?” she began nervously, when she found her visitor’s eyes wandering round the room.

“Yes, that’s me,” came the response set to the discordant music of a superfluous giggle. “Isn’t Bobbie here?”

“I thought that he’d gone to meet you. Won’t you sit down?”

Nancy smiled her thanks and lapsed into a momentary reserve which made her feel ill at ease.

“I expect he’ll be back at any moment now, Miss Curzon,” said Ruby, as she became aware of several wave-lengths of a scent of penetrating virility. There was another pause.

“Nice room you’ve got here,” said Nancy in a toneless voice.

“It might be better.” The words were used merely to pass the time. The battle had already begun but only in skirmishes, neither being yet prepared to launch heavy artillery.

“I like the quiet colour scheme.” She giggled again, forgetting in her nervousness that she had resolved to show Bobbie’s mother what a perfect lady could be or ought to be. “You’ll excuse my curiosity, won’t you?” The lower part of her face grinned.

“Curiosity is often a form of politeness.” Ruby Cheldon was feeling on top now and completely unafraid. The girl was common and her beauty and obvious cleverness merely underlined that fact.

Suspecting that she was losing ground Nancy regained her self-possession by initiating a discussion about herself.

“Of course, Bobbie’s told you all about me, Mrs. Cheldon? He’s such a dear boy. Quite unspoilt and a perfect lamb.”

“Bobbie did mention that you were a dancer.” Ruby’s voice and manner would have earned the approval of Lady Emily Cheldon and her sister, who had married a colonial bishop. It was concentrated dislike touched with a veneer of contemptuous interest.

“I’m professionally known as Hyacinth—Nancy to my pals—Curzon of Curzon and Bright, speciality dancers. We do all the tip-top night clubs and our act is a regular riot.”

“That means it is a big success?” It was the grand lady of the manor evincing an interest in the under-gardener’s daughter.

“I should think so.” She leaned forward in order to assume a more confidential attitude. “The managers will be fighting to get us soon, and don’t you make no—I mean, don’t you forget it.”

“I’m afraid I hadn’t intended to remember it,” said Ruby, impulsively, and instantly regretted her rudeness. Fortunately, Nancy, accustomed to the curious humour of her underworld, chose to treat the remark as exquisitely funny.

“That’s a good come-back, Mrs. Cheldon,” she said wiping her eyes.

“She can act,” thought Ruby, and for some unknown reason shivered.

“I’m very fond of Bobbie.” Bobbie’s mother thought the tone oddly impersonal, even detached. “He’s a gentleman—you can tell that at first sight. A perfect gentleman, I don’t hesitate to say. None of your common crowd like the Belbills and Marjorie Grimes’ pal who runs a cigar shop in the Edgware Road. No, Bobbie’s a perfect gentleman, just as you’re a perfect lady.”

“Only a lady—I don’t claim perfection,” said Ruby ironically.

Nancy ignored the emendation.

“When Bobbie and I met in Bohemia——”

“Bohemia—is that a night club?”

The dancer wriggled in her mirth.

“Excuse me, but you are a one.” She laughed for several seconds. “Bohemia is where bohemians meet.”

“Oh, I see. And what are bohemians exactly?”

“Now you’ve got me, Mrs. Cheldon.” She laughed. “I suppose bohemians are people who live the sort of lives other people don’t live—do unconventional things and—er—have their own views about everything. Oh, dear, I never thought before or tried to think what it does mean exactly. Perhaps Bobbie could tell you better than me.”

“If bohemians are persons who do unconventional things then I’m afraid you’re mistaken about my son. He’s the most conventional young man in London.”

Nancy laughed the laugh of superior knowledge.

“Do you really know Bobbie, Mrs. Cheldon? Oh, yes, of course, you’ve known him all his life and I met him for the first time three months ago, but I’ll bet I know something more about him than you do. Why, he’s said things to me he wouldn’t say to you.”

“I expect he has.”

The dryness of her tone was a challenge, and Nancy Curzon decided that it was time she brought into action the superiority with which her conquest of Bobbie Cheldon endowed her.

“I can do anything I like with Bobbie—he’s crazy about me.” She rose and opened her handbag. Ruby leaned forward and took a silver cigarette box from the table near her.

“Try one of Bobbie’s,” she said quietly.

“Thank you.” The girl gracefully posed for her own satisfaction as she went through the preliminaries necessary to smoking.

“Look here, Miss Curzon,” Ruby resumed, “I’m expecting a few friends soon and so time is precious. I want to talk to you about Bobbie and his future. As his mother I’m naturally anxious. Please don’t think I’m your enemy or your friend. There, I’m very candid. But Bobbie is all I have, and we’ve got so little.” There was a chance for a compliment here, but Nancy, too busy thinking of herself, missed it. “Bobbie has proposed to you, I suppose?”

That faintly cockney giggle pervaded the room again.

“You won’t believe me, Mrs. Cheldon, but he actually went down on his knees. Delightfully old-fashioned, but so perfectly sweet. That was two days after we met in the ‘Squealing Pig,’ and I’ve taught him a lot since. He wanted teaching.”

“What he wants most of all is an opportunity to earn his living so that if he marries he’ll be able to keep his wife in decent comfort.”

“Do you mean a job? Bobbie working! Oh, my hat!” She uttered a piercing scream.

“You know the world, Miss Curzon, and it must be obvious to you that we are poor. At present Bobbie can’t afford to marry.”

“That’s what they all say.” She wheeled round to face her. “Isn’t Bobbie heir to a title and estate bringing in ten thousand a year?”

“There’s no title—only a property.”

“Oh, I thought all estates had titles stuck on to them. Still it doesn’t matter. Ten thousand a year will do to be going on with. After all, it’s nearly as much as Happy Blibbs makes, but he’s a top-liner.”

“No doubt Bobbie has told you exactly how he stands.” Her tone was one of suppressed irritation. “The Cheldon property is at present in the possession of his uncle, who is only fifty-three——”

“Fifty-three! Ye gods! Isn’t the old man saving up to buy a wreath for his own funeral?” She stopped in her laughter, conscious that the atmosphere had become icy. “Sorry. Just a joke. But fifty-three! It’s terribly old, isn’t it?”

“Mr. Massy Cheldon may live for another twenty or thirty years. The Cheldons live long. But there is another possibility to be considered. He may marry and have a son, and in that event Bobbie would never get a penny or an acre.”

“I’ll lay the odds against the old man marrying and having a kid, but the twenty years frightens me. I’d be thirty-nine then, and living in a bath-chair. That’s not the game for me, Mrs. Cheldon, and you can tell Bobbie so. He only talked of coming into ten thousand a year, and I believed him. It wasn’t fair—” She walked over to the fireplace and stood staring into the grate, and in spite of her feelings Ruby Cheldon envied the lovely young life which had so much that was unlovely and common about it.

“A young man in love is always optimistic, Miss Curzon,” she said, almost apologetically.

“Bobbie’s talked as if he was a millionaire.” The voice was sulky. “I was very nearly chucking Billy Bright my partner, and retiring from the profession altogether. I thought Bobbie had pots of the ready. Why, it was on account of Bobbie that I refused last night an offer for a continental tour with Billy Bright.”

“From your point of view there must be better fish in the sea than my son,” Ruby began.

The girl turned on her angrily.

“You don’t mean that—no mother could mean it.” The termagant peeped through the glistening eyes. “It ain’t—it’s not fair, Mrs. Cheldon. After all, I didn’t propose to Bobbie, did I?”

The older woman went to her side and laid a hand on her arm.

“Why should we quarrel, Miss Curzon? We’re both fond of Bobbie and want to do the best for him. We’re two women of the world—you’re nineteen and I’m forty-eight.”

“Forty-eight!” she exclaimed. “Aren’t you afraid of death?” Nancy was back in the Whitechapel of her childhood with its coffins, fish and chips, beer and policemen.

“It’s only life we’re afraid of as we grow older. When I married, nearly thirty years ago now ...” She paused to sigh reflectively, and the girl seized the opportunity to take the stage.

“Thirty years ago! I’ve seen pictures of what people looked like then. Wearing long skirts and going about in hansom cabs.”

“We weren’t always wearing long skirts or going about in hansom cabs, Miss Curzon.” Ruby’s smile was genuine for the first time. “Life was pretty much the same then as it is now. We had much the same affairs and adventures as the young people of to-day have. Foolish and rich young men got entangled with common women. There were elopements, quarrels about money, divorces, even night clubs.”

“Night clubs thirty years ago?”

“Yes, night clubs. I’m told they were even worse than they are to-day. I wonder is that possible? My cousin says they were. So you see, Miss Curzon, we’re going round in a circle. In my young days there were fast women and fast hansoms. To-day there are fast women and fast motorcars.”

“I suppose that means me?” The glare was so intense that Ruby could detect physical danger to herself in it.

“I’m trying not to be personal, Miss Curzon. I’m not saying anything against you—only against the notion of my son marrying. He’s penniless, and you don’t want a penniless husband.”

“Not on your life.” The snarl was unmistakable.

“I want Bobbie to work and work hard before he even thinks of marriage. I want him to regard the Cheldon estate as out of his reach. The Cheldons have always been workers. Bobbie’s father did his bit and a bit over, and I want Bobbie to follow in his footsteps. He’s in love with you, and I’m not surprised. You live in a world of which he knows nothing. You’re all light and brightness and adventure—he’s compelled to live in a dull flat with a dull mother.”

“Bobbie’s no snob,” she muttered.

“We’re all snobs, Miss Curzon. By the way, would it be an impertinence to ask which branch of the Curzon family you belong to?”

The unexpectedness of the question discomfited Nancy and made her forget her grievances and her anger.

“Well, you see, in a manner of speaking, I belong to them all—if you go back far enough. Curzon’s a sort of family name.”

“But perhaps it isn’t your family name?”

“I’m as good as anybody else.” The sulky hostility betokened retreat.

“For your own sake, Miss Curzon, I hope you’re better than a great many people I know. But I think this is Bobbie.”

Two doors made a rushing noise and Bobbie, flushed and excited, stood over Nancy with an arm around her shoulders.

“Sorry to have missed you, darling, but I’m glad you and mother have had the room to yourselves. You’ve told her everything? Mother, isn’t she wonderful?”

“She is very clever.”

Nancy, interpreting the last word as only another woman could, stiffened.

“Why didn’t you tell me, Bobbie, that you hadn’t a bean?” she said, releasing herself from his embrace.

“But I never said I had money, darling!” he protested. “I told you all about the Cheldon estate and that I was hoping my uncle would help me to get a job and——”

“A job? I don’t want to marry a man with a job. I want to marry one who can afford to do without one. I work like a damned nigger and where am I? When the agent’s paid and the landlady and the bill at the clubs where I’ve got to spend or they won’t have me, there’s nothing left.”

“Marriage founded on love—” he attempted, but he had two women against him now and speech was almost illegal.

“Miss Curzon is talking sense, Bobbie, and marriage founded on commonsense is the sort that succeeds.”

“Love is the first and only essential, mother,” he retorted, “and——”

“Let’s leave love out of it,” Nancy exclaimed petulantly. “I’ve been listening to insults and putting up with them because I thought you’d got the cash, Bobbie. If I’d known the truth I’d have let your mother know exactly where she got off.”

“But, darling——”

“Need we prolong the discussion, Bobbie?” his mother asked.

“But, mother. As Bernard Shaw once said——”

“Only once?”

“Oh, never mind about Bernard Shaw. He gives me a pain in the neck. You two talk like a couple of gramophones. I won’t—” Nancy spluttered.

The voice of Florence announcing Miss Sylvia Brand relegated to well below the surface all contentious subjects.

“Hello, Mrs. Cheldon, and there’s Bobbie.” The introduction was affected in the usual slipshod and hurried manner.

“Good evening, Miss Curzon.”

Sylvia gave her a smiling glance while the dancer looked her up and down with something between a sniff and suspicion. But she need not have done more than ask herself if here was a possible rival. That Sylvia Brand liked Bobbie was obvious, but nothing more. She was pretty enough, but her efforts to aid nature with a touch of paint here and there had the effect of detracting from her good looks. Nancy, who used none outside her working hours, seemed fresh and natural now, while her possible rival was a shade too artificial in appearance to have a chance in the silent beauty contest now in progress. Actually there was no comparison between them, for Sylvia imitated badly and inexpertly a type not worth imitating and in her efforts to appear smart and be smart deprived herself of all the advantages derived from superior education and social position. But then Sylvia Brand, having been over-educated, really knew very little. She had gone through the conventional educational mill and had emerged a slangy, filmised, genteel paraphrase of an unconventional modern girl. Could she have afforded to be natural she would have confessed that she wanted to marry Bobbie and have a family somewhere in a western suburb. As it was, South Kensington veneered by Wardour Street had her in its grip and she was compelled to move with a small crowd which considered life a failure unless “doing something” every day and every night.

Physically she was half an inch taller than Nancy and had a figure nearly as good. She dressed with credit at the expense of a doting father and studied the art of self-possession under every conceivable circumstance. At this moment she was thrilled and alarmed by the presence of Bobbie’s “latest” in the fastness of Galahad Mansions, but she affected a nonchalance which she never abandoned.

Ruby Cheldon murmured something about seeing Florence and left the room; Bobbie rushed out when the telephone bell rang with a “That may be uncle or someone.”

Sylvia smiled when she found herself alone with Nancy.

“Volatile youth,” she said, with a languid air. “Suppose you and he have fixed it up?”

“Haven’t got past his mother yet—that is, if I want to.” The reply was a trifle enigmatic, but Sylvia believed she understood it.

“Didn’t know it was necessary to ask permission of mamma nowadays?” she drawled, but her heart was beating faster.

“One must be unconventional sometimes.” Nancy was astonished at the ease with which she could imitate her and her set. “It strikes me she’d prefer him to marry you or someone like you.”

The unexpected addition staved off Sylvia’s embarrassment.

“Oh, that’s only your joke. Bobbie and I are great pals, but nothing more. I expect he thinks I’m immature. He’s a bit of a poet, you know, and looks down on us poor girls.”

“Well, he looks up to me—crazy about me.”

“Not surprised. You’re a bit out of the ordinary and we’re all ordinary here. I had a birthday party the other day—nineteen of us because I was nineteen.”

“I was nineteen in March.”

“Then there’s a month between us. How interesting.”

“Where were you born?” They had never taught Nancy Curzon, née Soggs, reticence in Paradise Alley, Whitechapel.

“Mount Street.”

“That’s near Grosvenor Square?”

“Mother used to say it was about a thousand miles away.” She laughed. “When I was ten we emigrated to Knightsbridge.”

“I was born in Paradise Row, Whitechapel,” Nancy retorted with aggressive and false pride, “and Mrs. Cheldon knows it or guesses it and tells me politely I’m common and ignorant.”

“I should say you were most uncommon, Miss Curzon,” said Sylvia, in her youthfulness overrating her power to suppress an offensive patronage.

“All that matters to me is that Bobbie loves me.” She said this to remind Sylvia that if she entertained any hopes in that direction or if she imagined she could ride roughshod over her she was mistaken. “He’s told me a thousand times that I’m the only girl he has ever looked at, but I’ll bet many have looked at him.” Again the giggle betrayed her.

“Bobbie’s very popular,” said Sylvia calmly. “We all think he’s a dear. It’s a pity he can’t get a job.”

“Get a job?” The reference coupling Bobbie with work always had an exasperating effect on Nancy, and she exploded. “I wish to God you wouldn’t talk that rot about Bobbie as if he were a twopence ha’penny clerk living in a back street. Bobbie’s a perfect gentleman. Why, the other night at the ‘Frozen Fang’ when a drunken ass threw a plate at him Bobbie instead of throwing the pieces back picked them up and handed them to a waiter. Bobbie’s a gentleman who oughtn’t to have to work.” In her anger and speed she over-employed words. A rattle of glasses on the other side of the door warned her and she subsided into a windless growl.

It was Sylvia who opened the door and disclosed Bobbie bearing a tray containing the familiar furniture of a cocktail diversion. Behind him as if acting as acolyte was a tallish, fair-haired youth reverently walking, both eyes and hands ready for emergencies.

“Be careful, Bobbie,” he was saying when the procession arrived. “There isn’t too much sherry in any of the glasses, you know. Hello!” He stared at Nancy and grinned appreciatively.

“Hello!” Nancy returned carelessly. Whoever he was individually she knew his kind in bulk, hundreds of them.

“Freddie Neville—Nancy,” was Bobbie’s mode of introducing them.

Freddie grinned again. Grinning was a hobby if not a speciality of his, although it mattered nothing to him that it served to distract detection of the narrowness of the space between the extreme boundary of his chin and his too prominent teeth.

“Tootle-oo!” he chirruped and handed her a glass of sherry. “Spotted you at once, though I couldn’t quite fix the name. Don’t remember to have seen the Nancy.”

“It’s Hyacinth on the bills,” she explained.

“Of course. Well, here we are, Nancy, and the best of pals. Gather round before the Old Brigade arrives.”

They moved in a body towards the corner of the room furthest from the door, and once she found herself in the company of youth Nancy’s self-possession and confidence returned to her. She was supreme in that little coterie, and she knew it. Freddie Neville, whose mission in life was to combine pleasantness and good humour with an utter lack of anything approaching brainwork, installed her as their leader, and Sylvia, barely conscious that in the presence of the real thing of which she was only an imitation, it would be discreet to merge into the audience. When Kitty Manson, Sylvia’s usual partner in their nightly pursuit of what they called “life”, arrived and proved to be an animated beauty photograph with a fondness for “chipping” Freddie, the party’s temperature rose a trifle higher. Laughing and shouting, pausing to appreciate Nancy’s own particular scream with which she heralded or emphasised her funny stories, and sometimes talking in chorus they paid no heed to the more elderly of the guests whom Ruby was receiving while her thoughts were as far away as her brother-in-law.

Florence interrupted with a collection of plates containing sandwiches and cakes. Freddie captured two and held them before Nancy. To prove that he had a sense of humour Bobbie immediately wrested them from him and presented those cakes and sandwiches which had not reached the floor to his divinity. The chorus laughed; Kitty said something which was considered witty, and Sylvia hit Freddie on the head with her empty glass. Somewhere in the background there was a murmur of voices, and Bobbie glancing over his shoulders saw his mother’s crony and toady, Mrs. Elmers, the widow of a clergyman, and Galahad Mansions’ acknowledged authority on Debrett. Beyond her was Mr. Davidson complete with his eighteen stone of a lifetime’s over-indulgence in food, and listening to Mr. Davidson’s recital of his unflattering opinion of Mr. Stanley Baldwin was the tall and gaunt Miss Shamley, a female of almost unblemished reputation.

“We’re filling up,” said Bobbie sarcastically.

“I’m not,” said Nancy instantly. “Can’t afford to. I have to dance in an hour or two.”

The humour appealed to them, and in the midst of the storm of laughter Mrs. Cheldon came across to speak to Nancy. At once a chill fell upon the revellers, a chill caught from the resentful discomposure of the dancer.

“Mr. Davidson and Mrs. Elmers would like to make your acquaintance,” said Ruby with a smile.

Nancy, suspecting that Mr. Davidson and Mrs. Elmers were only two members of the jury trying her that night, suppressed an instant desire to snub Bobbie’s mother, but something in the calm, set pallor of her face and the serene determination of her expression checked her.

“Right-ho—I mean, of course.” She nearly stamped her foot in her vexation at this lapse, but it was difficult to maintain perfect ladyism in the presence of so much sugared hostility and covert criticism.

Mr. Davidson shook hands enthusiastically, and Mrs. Elmers fishily.

“Fine weather we’re having?” said Mr. Davidson.

“What a charming dress!” said Mrs. Elmers, who in spite of a vocabulary of exaggerated adjectives produced to please, seemed to take winter with her wherever she went. Nancy looked at the pointed nose, white and wrinkled skin and carnivorous mouth, and retreated a step or two.

“Yes—er—I mean—” she murmured, and to her relief the struggle towards politeness was mercifully ended by the sensational entry of Massy Cheldon.

“Why, Ruby!” he exclaimed as he took her hand between his own, “I’d no idea you were giving a party. I hope I’m not in the way?”

“Of course not, Massy. We’re delighted to have you. Bobbie, a whisky and soda for your uncle. Not a cocktail. You know he hates them. Mrs. Elmers, I needn’t introduce my brother-in-law to you. Mr. Davidson. Oh, Massy, I want to present you to Bobbie’s friend, Miss Nancy Curzon.”

It was only accidental, but to Ruby at any rate it was disturbing that the others should form a ring while Nancy extended her hand.

“Pleased to meet you,” she said fatally.

“It’s an honour,” Massy responded gallantly, and looked over her head. “There’s Sylvia and Kitty, and, of course, Freddie. Hello, Freddie!”

Really the great man was in a most friendly mood. “Charming!” whispered Mrs. Elmers. “Wish I had his money,” was Kitty’s comment, “I’d start the screamingest night club in London and bar everybody over twenty-five.”

“Must come and see you dance, Miss Curzon,” Massy resumed when the party had recovered a little from his importance.

“But haven’t you?” she asked seriously. “I seem to remember your face. Must have seen you before.”

“Now you’re trying to make me vain,” he retorted, and Nancy was so puzzled that when Freddie came up to claim her she suffered him to lead her back to the exclusive coterie in the corner.

As Massy Cheldon moved away with Ruby, conversation became general, and Mr. Davidson, invading the Freddie Neville group, broke it up. Sylvia wandered towards Mrs. Elmers, and Freddie, taking a hint consisting of a muttered threat in his right ear, left Nancy to Bobbie.

“I know your uncle well by sight,” she said, and said it so seriously that Bobbie stared at her in astonishment.

“Why the tragedy, Nancy, and the gloom?” he asked, seeking refuge in facetiousness. “Of course, you’ve seen my uncle. He’s one of London’s most famous bores and is often on view in Piccadilly and Pall Mall, to say nothing of St. James’s Street.”

“Now you’re talking like Freddie,” she protested. “It’s something more than having seen him, Bobbie. When I started dancing I used to be one of a troupe called the ‘Seven Fairies.’ I was the youngest—only fourteen—and the eldest was a girl named Hortense Delisle. Her real name was Annie Smithers, but that wouldn’t have looked well on a bill. Of course.” She uttered an exclamation of relief and her face cleared. “It was your uncle who got keen on Annie, dead nuts, in fact. We girls used to tease her about him.”

“Well?” His lack of surprise astonished her.

“Why do you say ‘well’ like that?” she whispered, wishing she could shout. “Is your uncle that sort of fellow?”

“Always has been, according to his own account.” Bobbie laughed. “He’s been a lady-killer from the day he left Eton, perhaps before. But he’s always seen to it that the killing has cost him nothing.”

“I think he spent money on Annie.”

“Oh, so that’s why you’re melodramatic. My dear Nancy, you must learn to be surprised at nothing. Uncle Massy is a bore and a miser who fancies himself as an Adonis. But he’s always been too mean to marry, which I suppose I ought to be thankful for.”

“I wonder,” she murmured pensively.

“Wonder what?”

“What your uncle would say if I asked him what had become of Annie. She was going about with him a lot when she suddenly disappeared.”

“To be continued?” said Bobbie, ironically.

“Let me think, you idiot,” she said with a smile. “Annie was a beauty.” She sighed. “Oh, here’s Freddie.” She made a face at him.

“Nancy,” said the irrepressible intruder, “Sylvia and Kitty and I want you and Bobbie to join us in a midnight visit to Whitechapel. Rather a lark! Whitechapel’s an awfully interesting place, you know.”

“It’s awful, but not interesting, Freddie. But do take your face away. Oh, who’s that?”

“Mrs. Carmichael,” heralded Florence from the doorway.

The newcomer entered on the run, uttered a laughing apology to Ruby and instantly rescued Massy from Mr. Davidson and Mrs. Elmers.

“That’s the queerest widow in Fulham,” Bobbie whispered. “Wants to marry my uncle, and yet she’s well off.”

Mrs. Carmichael, who at forty-three had to some extent got the better of her age, was now chatting to both Ruby and Massy. She was of good figure and height, with handsome features and a warmth of expression which gave a semblance of youth to her appearance. Her feeble egotism induced her to arrive late at every party, believing that a solitary entry with all the other guests forming a chorus would give her an outstanding position in any company. She had at her finger-tips the gossip of fifty drawing-rooms and about as many families, which she retailed with an artistic hesitancy and pretence of ignorance which convinced her—but no one else—that she was a listener to instead of a retailer of scandal.

“I’m so sorry I’m late, dear,” she purred to Ruby.

“Oh, we all know, Mrs. Carmichael,” said Massy chaffingly, “that you take good care to avoid whatever dangers may lurk in punctuality.”

“Nasty, clever man,” she cried, affectionately.

“What about a livener-up, Mrs. Car?” asked Freddie, intruding where even a devil would have feared to tread.

“Thank you,” she said with the sourest of her ready-to-wear smiles. “A weak, very weak whisky and soda.”

To her annoyance Mr. Davidson, observing that Freddie Neville was apparently basking in the smiles of the eclectic Mrs. Carmichael, joined the group and was speedily followed by Sylvia, Kitty and Mrs. Elmers. The widow of multiple butcher shops smiled her hardest to keep her thoughts at bay.

“A wonderfully pretty girl, Massy,” said Mr. Davidson, anxious to please.

They started at his loudness of voice until they discovered that Nancy and Bobbie had disappeared from the room.

“Of course, she’s pretty, Davidson,” said Massy curtly. “What else is there to infatuate Bobbie?”

“When a man thinks only of a girl’s beauty he’s apt to forget himself,” said Mrs. Carmichael, but the remark missing fire because Massy Cheldon continued to look severe, she added hastily, “Not that I approve of this constant running down of our sex. An incurable bachelor like yourself, Mr. Cheldon,——”

“Incurable? There’s no such thing or state, Mrs. Car!” retorted Mr. Davidson who was sufficiently well-to-do to be able to afford to discount Massy Cheldon’s standing in his own family. “Cheldon is merely taking the longest way round to St. George’s, Hanover Square. I used to think I was one of the incurables. Didn’t marry until I was forty-three, and I did it again at fifty-six.”

“And yet you’re always sneering at our poor sex, Mr. Davidson. You deserve to be punished for it,” said Mrs. Carmichael severely.

“I was,” he answered curtly.

The widow sought a chair and Massy Cheldon dropped into the one next to hers. Mr. Davidson sprawled himself on the decayed sofa, to Ruby Cheldon’s horror, and Mrs. Elmers occupied part of a chair. Freddie, ready to serve, stood between them and the door.

Ruby longing for the time to pass so that she might take counsel with her brother-in-law, inspected the array of bottles and decanters on the sideboard.

“Perhaps Mrs. Elmers would like some tea,” she whispered to Florence who had appeared in response to the pressing of the bell. “Oh, there’s the front door. Who can it be?”

She had forgotten the vanishing of Bobbie and Nancy, and their return was very welcome, for somehow even the inventive and resourceful Mrs. Carmichael was finding it none too easy to keep the conversation alive.

“Sorry, mother,” said Bobbie, “but the cigarettes gave out. Have one, uncle?” He presented a large box. “Oh, of course, Mrs. Carmichael. You too, Nancy.”

“I must rush,” said the dancer. “Just come back to say good night. Goodbye, Mr. Cheldon. Have my work to do before I try and forget Freddie and his grin.”

“Oh, come now, Nancy!” that youth protested good humouredly.

But the murmuring “good nights” and “good byes” and the temporary disappearance of Bobbie blotted him out of the picture until Bobbie had come back and in a feverish attempt to compensate himself for the loss of his fascinator led Freddie to a determined assault on the solids and liquids.

“Thank you, Bobbie,” said Massy Cheldon, accepting the scientifically adjusted whisky and soda. “I wanted it.”

“A toast, ladies and gents,” said Freddie, believing his assumed cockney accent was exquisitely correct and therefore exquisitely funny. “To the health and happiness of Nancy Curzon, and I am sure you will all agree with me that Bobbie has found a distinct number one.”

Massy Cheldon nodded, and Mrs. Carmichael therefore nodded to. But they did not fail to notice that Bobbie’s face reflected a sort of angry pride that threatened a scene.

“So she’s dancing in a night club,” Massy Cheldon remarked in an undertone with a sentimental flavour about it. “Dear me, why I could have been only a boy when I was last in one.”

“But I thought night clubs were only invented during the war,” exclaimed Sylvia.

“My paternal grandmother eloped with a man she met in a night club in the Haymarket in the early years of Queen Victoria’s reign. It’s curious to think that if that hadn’t happened I mightn’t have been here.”

“Oh, night clubs are not the curse some people make them out to be,” said Freddie Neville, helpfully.

“Thank you, Freddie,” said Massy Cheldon ponderously, and Mrs. Carmichael duly provided the necessary laughter. “By the way, how is your mother getting on at Hollywood?”

“First rate, thanks. She’s just got a fresh contract at two hundred a week—pounds not dollars—and is going great guns. You should see her press notices. But I can tell you that I was a trifle worried until I got the cablegram, for if she hadn’t secured the contract I’d have had to take that job in the city my cousin offered me.”

“That was a narrow escape, indeed,” said Mr. Davidson sarcastically.

“It was. Quite knocked me off my grub with anxiety and nervous strain.” Freddie Neville was incapable of identifying sarcasm even when it was being aired at the expense of others. “But won’t it be jolly when Bobbie’s married to Nancy? We’ll all be able to see her dance for nothing. A jolly crowd these night club birds, and quaint. One’s an ex-pug, you know.”

They did not know, and Mrs. Carmichael, in particular, did not wish to know. Freddie’s oratory only bored her, but then so would have the most polished of speakers if Massy Cheldon happened to be in her company.

“You’ll marry one day, Freddie,” she said sweetly. “All you men want looking after, particularly Mr. Cheldon.”

“I have twenty servants to look after me,” he said, and growled as he reminded himself of their cost to him.

“They only look after themselves,” said Ruby, with a laugh.

“It’s not good for a man to be alone,” Mrs. Carmichael ventured. “That’s in the Bible, but it’s not one of the Ten Commandments although it ought to be.”

“Why will you women always bring up the subject of marriage?” said Massy Cheldon testily. “One would think it was the best substitute for paradise. You should see some of the married couples at Broadbridge. They live like pigs.”

“Is that their fault?” asked Bobbie, moodily.

“Of course it is,” snapped his uncle. The tone angered Bobbie who had to find revenge in a pose of philanthropist and idealist.

“If I owned Broadbridge I’d be ashamed to admit that some of my tenants lived like pigs,” he growled. “I’d give them decent houses.”

“And have them turned into pigstyes within a year! But then, Bobbie, it’s so easy to be generous with another man’s money. Of course, I’m not popular at Broadbridge, and don’t I know it! They would prefer for their landlord some romantically-minded young ass who would pauperise them and at whom they’d be the first to laugh. They don’t want a shrewd, level-headed, clear-thinking man who keeps them up to the scratch.”

“People who live in pigstyes must have to do an awful amount of scratching,” said Mrs. Carmichael in an effort to ease the situation.

“And, of course, they grunt,” said Ruby.

“They grunt right enough—at me,” said Massy Cheldon gloomily. “But unfortunately or fortunately all the pigs are not at Broadbridge.” He glared at his nephew.

“I say, populace,” protested Freddie Neville in a plaintive voice, “aren’t we getting a bit personal talking about pigs?”

“Speak for yourself, Freddie,” interjected Sylvia Brand.

“Perhaps, you’re right, Freddie,” said Massy Cheldon rising.

It was the signal for the breaking up of the party, and Mr. Davidson began the farewell proceedings.

“Just see Sylvia and Kitty home,” whispered Ruby to Bobbie. Her brother-in-law still lingered, the last of the guests after Mrs. Carmichael had been conducted to the custody of her chauffeur.

“Well what do you think of her?” Ruby asked with a wan smile.

“My dear Ruby,” he answered, seizing the whisky decanter, “there’s not the slightest need for me to tell you that. You’ve been too long one of the Cheldons not to know the Cheldon standard. Can you fancy her at Broadbridge Manor? Does she fit in with our rules and traditions?”

“She’s dreadfully common.” Ruby sighed. “Oh, dear, I do wish she was even passable. Massy, you remember her ‘perfect lady’ and ‘perfect gentleman’ and her manners!”

“She’s clever though, Ruby, devilishly clever, and we’ve got to bear that in mind. Bobbie is infatuated with her. We both know what a young snob he is, and yet he gloated in her gaucheries. Was actually proud of them.”

“She certainly helped to make things hum so far as the young people were concerned,” she remarked. “And she’s very pretty.”

“If she were merely pretty she wouldn’t be dangerous, Ruby, but with her cleverness she’ll play the deuce with Bobbie and—you.”

He laughed and drank a libation to his sense of the ironic.

“But what am I to do? Thank Heaven, she won’t marry Bobbie unless he can afford to keep her.”

“She’s dangerous,” he repeated, leaning against the sideboard and staring at her. “Ruby, you’ll think I’m an old fool, but I’m afraid of Nancy Curzon.”

“You are certainly foolish,” she retorted with a laugh. “What is there to be afraid of?”

“I hope you’re right, but you can’t look at things from my standpoint. You’re the fond, doting mother who can think no evil of her son, and I am the not too affectionate uncle who can think anything good or bad of his nephew. Ruby, this girl has done more than make Bobbie fall in love with her—she’s transformed him, and I believe she’s got sufficient influence over him to drive him to any extreme.”

A haunting dread passed over her like a spasm of impulsive terror, and she tried to banish recollections of it by endeavouring to be facetious.

“You’re an incorrigible leg-puller,” she said, speaking rapidly because her state of nerves would not allow her to think first. “Why, you’ll be hinting next that to get the Cheldon property Bobby would—” She stopped dead, frightened by what she had already blurted out, and her fright was not lessened when her brother-in-law caught her by the left arm and drew her towards himself.

“So it’s occurred to you, too, has it?” he asked, in a voice consistent with the sudden return of greyness to his cheeks. “Ruby, the position is too serious for us to play hide and seek with mere words. Let me put it this way. Bobbie has not only to be saved from this adventuress but from himself. He’s weak and easily influenced, and his weakness is all the more apparent because he poses as strong. There’s no knowing what he may try to do to gratify this harpy. He may even——”

“I won’t listen,” she cried, putting her hands to her ears.

He smiled to reassure her.

“I’m not angry with you, Ruby and certainly not with Bobbie. I don’t believe I’ve anything to fear from him, but if you allow him to get into bad company there’s no knowing what he may do. The weak can often become strong in the hands of the unscrupulous. Bobbie will never injure me—he won’t have the pluck. Now you’re making a face.” He laughed again. “Do you wish me to say that he will attempt to abbreviate my existence on this earth? Oh, you women, there’s no pleasing you.” He turned and removed from the decanter the inch of whisky it contained.

Ruby Cheldon went over to the window, not because she wished to inspect the curtains or by parting them feast her eyes on Juniper Street by moonlight. The act was due entirely to a wish to get as far away as possible from her brother-in-law and to escape from her disturbing thoughts. The latter, however, only doubled in strength and numbers.

Until the last few days she had never quite realised the exact importance of Massy Cheldon to her son. For one thing she had never thought of the possibility of her brother-in-law dying. He was only a few, a very few years older than herself, and to have contemplated his decease would have meant coupling with it musings on her own. To her the Cheldon inheritance had been something which in the ordinary and usual course of events might devolve on her son when he was middle-aged. The last three holders of the property had been round about sixty when they had succeeded. Bobbie was twenty-three. It would be time to indulge in golden daydreams when he was in the late forties. But now!

She shrank from repeating the word “Murder” to herself, but it had forced itself on her that afternoon Bobbie had casually related an epitome of Florence’s latest amatory problem, for as he had spoken of the sudden accession to wealth of Florence’s faithless follower she had seen in his eyes the envy and longing created by the irresistible comparison with his own problem. The hated word had then swum into her brain and there it had lurked ever since. And now it repeated itself so distinctly as to be almost vociferous.

Murder. Murder. Murder.

The murder of Uncle Massy. Florence had lost her lover because he had come into money by means of an accident which she continued to characterise as a deliberately planned crime.

Murder. Murder. Murder.

“Oh. I wish you wouldn’t talk about it!” she exclaimed, forgetting that she was not alone.

“About what?” She quivered. “Bobbie’s affair with this soiled fairy from the underworld?” She looked her relief.

“Please, don’t be so hard on her,” she pleaded, momentarily generous because she was under the sway of a feeling of relief bordering on ecstasy.

“I apologise, my dear. After all, I mustn’t forget that one day she may be your daughter-in-law and a Cheldon. Shades of Lady Emily!”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Ruby protested. “Really, Massy, you might be more helpful. You’re the only male member of the family I can appeal to, and I thought with all your cleverness and knowledge of the world—” She paused to wipe her eyes.

“I’ll do what I can,” he said, without emotion and quite unaffected by her tears. “But I’m certain you’ll not approve of anything I’ll do for you. First of all, you wish me to break the engagement between your son and the night club dancer; then I’m to find Bobbie a job that’ll enable him to be independent and rush into the girl’s arms. For heaven’s sake, don’t worry about anything I’ve said about Bobbie and the Cheldon property. It was only a mere surmise of mine without any foundation. Bobbie hasn’t the pluck to earn a living and he hasn’t the pluck to imitate the gentlemen who specialise in the higher walks of crime. I’m not afraid of him and you needn’t be either. But, as I have said, he needs to be protected against himself.”

With a sudden stiffening of her body and a look of determination he had not seen in her face for years she confronted him.

“Massy, I won’t have this creature kidnapping Bobbie. Something’s got to be done to part them, and I look to you to do it.”

“But what can I do?”

“Your brother appointed you his guardian,” she reminded him.

“Until Bobbie was twenty-one. He’s now twenty-three.”

She threw up her arms in despair, but she had not the opportunity to speak, for a familiar banging of a door heralded Bobbie.

“Sylvia and I’ve been chatting at the corner,” he explained as he explored the whisky decanter without success. “But at last I got her a taxi. Mrs. Carmichael took Kitty. I say, uncle, you and mother have walked into the whisky.”

He flopped on to a chair.

“Bit of a frost, mother, eh? What a collection! If Nancy hadn’t turned up what a ghastly binge it would have been! But that reminds me. Uncle, what do you think of her?”

“Assuming that by ‘her’ you mean the young lady whose acquaintance I made to-night,” Massy Cheldon began with an effort at one a.m. pomposity. But Ruby interrupted to save him from blundering.

“Your uncle has been admiring her, Bobbie,” she said hurriedly. “He thinks she’s very pretty and very clever.”

The boyish features glistened with the pleasure and pride that animated him from crown to sole.

“Everybody says the same,” he murmured, too happy to be more than articulate. “Nancy’s one in a million.” He bent his head over his knees, his hands clasped before him. “Can you wonder I’m crazy to marry her? Don’t you see now that I must marry her—that without Nancy hell would be preferable to life?”

His uncle patted him on the shoulder.

“Bobbie, the first move is to get you a job.” He would have continued in the same avuncular strain and pose had not Bobbie jumped to his feet and seized the limp hand in a double grasp.

“That’s awfully good of you, uncle!” he cried, in a paroxysm of affectionate gratitude. “Of course, I must have a job. Without one I couldn’t marry Nancy.”

Massy Cheldon recaptured his physical freedom.

“It’s too late to talk now, and my chauffeur must be swearing at me. Look here, Bobbie, come down to Broadbridge for next Friday to Monday and we’ll talk things over then.”

“Thanks awfully, uncle. I’ll be delighted. Yes, we’ll have a good pow-wow. I can see it’s all Nancy’s doing, but I knew she’d win you over at first sight. She does that with everybody.”

“Bobbie,” said his mother with a cold detachment of manner, “will you see if your uncle’s car is waiting outside?”

He raced out of the room and Ruby’s thoughts went back to her son’s schooldays and her eyes became moist.

“Massy,” she whispered, almost angry with him now for some reason she did not wish to discover, “is this invitation a trap or a—?” She stopped, unable to complete or further interpret her suspicions.

“Or a test? Is that what you mean, Ruby?” He smiled slightly, and the best of his smiles was never pleasant to look upon. “That is for Bobbie to decide. But perhaps you don’t wish him to come?”

“Of course I do.” She stiffened again. “I must face realities, as you’ve been fond of telling me. Here’s Bobbie.” She held out her hand. “Good-bye, Massy, and thanks for dropping in.”

She was alone in the room for nearly five minutes, but was quite unable to do anything with her solitude. Her thinking faculties failed her and she could only listen for the sound announcing that her brother-in-law’s car was moving away from the front of Galahad Mansions. The moment, however, Bobbie re-entered she became alive with doubts, anxieties, disturbing thoughts and perplexing questions.

“Now, mother, will you ever say again that there’s no such a thing as a miracle?” He positively danced around her. “Just think of it! Uncle Massy falling for Nancy! Isn’t it wonderful? But then, Nancy’s one hundred per cent. wonderful and I’m going to tell her so!”

“What, now?” she exclaimed, as he made for the door.

“Absolutely.” He came back and kissed her. “Nancy’s got to be told the amazing news that Uncle Massy is going to help me to a position which will enable me to marry her.”

Words of warning clamoured for enunciation, but she had not the courage to disillusion him.

“Oh, all right, Bobbie,” she murmured, weakly and wearily. “Don’t be too late.” She yawned in spite of her efforts.

From the doorway he smiled back on her, and when the outer door closed she was still reproaching herself with cowardice.