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That day so well remembered—a day, indeed, impossible to forget—was the first of September, 1921; on the morning of which George Boswell—then only Councillor Boswell, then sandy-brown-haired with not a trace of gray—woke before dawn, looked at his watch, and promptly slept again till Annie brought in the morning paper, a cup of tea, and some letters that had just arrived. Amongst them was a note from Lord Winslow’s secretary, saying that His Lordship would arrive at Browdley station by the noon train, in good time for the foundation stone laying; and this made George very happy and proud, because Lord Winslow was not an ordinary kind of lord (a type which George, never having met any, imagined for himself and then proceeded to scorn on principle), but a special kind who had not only devoted a lifetime to public service but had also written several distinguished books.

At half-past seven George got up, put out his blue serge suit (the one reserved for big events), and shaved with especial care, scanning meanwhile the cheerful headlines of the paper propped against the mirror, and noting with approval, whenever he looked beyond it, the misty promise of a fine summer day. By eight he was at the breakfast table, eating ham and eggs and exchanging good-humored chatter with Annie, the elderly “help” who looked after the house and did her best to overfeed him during his wife’s absence; by nine he was at his desk, composing an article for the Browdley and District Guardian, which he owned and edited. He did not write easily as a rule, but this time the phrases came on a wave of exhilaration, for though he had a few private doubts that the Treaty of Versailles was not all it should be, he was prepared to give the future the benefit of them, the more so as it was natural for him to give the future the benefit of anything. Anyhow by ten George had composed a suitably optimistic editorial; noon saw him at the railway station to welcome Lord Winslow; by one o’clock he had made a short speech at the Town Hall luncheon; and by a quarter to two he was in his seat on the improvised dais at the corner of Mill Street, blinking in the sunshine and beaming his satisfaction to the four winds, one of which, then prevalent, wafted back the concentrated smell of Browdley’s industries. But George did not mind that—indeed, it was the remembered perfume of his childhood, of days spent on the banks of the canal that threaded its way between factory walls, taking waste water hot from each one, so that a fog of steam drifted over the surface and spread a low-hanging reek of oil, chemicals, and machinery. Waiting on the platform for the ceremony to begin, George sniffed and was happy.

A great day for Councillor Boswell and for Browdley, and also (one gathered) for England and for the world. History, George reflected, could not have done a better job of dramatization—August Thirty-first, the Official End of the Great War—September First, the Foundation-Stone-Laying of Unit One of the Mill Street Housing Scheme that was to replace some of Browdley’s worst slums. A great day, indeed. George, as his glance roved around, was proud to have the dedicator (a Bishop) on his left, the guest of the occasion (Lord Winslow) on his right, and various local bigwigs beyond and behind; but he was proudest of all to see the crowd, and only wished it as large as it would have been if Browdley folk weren’t such notorious slackers about civic affairs. He said so later, when he got up to speak, and was applauded for his downrightness. George, in fact, was invariably downright; it was natural for him, and a quality which, sometimes disconcerting but always good-humored, did as well in Browdley as the smooth tongue of the diplomat, and perhaps better. There was a legend that when he had wanted a rich local manufacturer to donate a mansion for use as a municipal museum, he had said: “See here, Bob, I’m not asking this—I’m demanding it. You and your folks have exploited this town for the best part of a century—if there was any justice you’d have been hanged long ago. But as there isn’t—let’s have that house.” And he had got it.

Furthermore, George thought, it was a shame that only a few hundreds, instead of thousands, had turned out to welcome a man like Lord Winslow—or was it possible they didn’t know how distinguished Lord Winslow really was? But George’s personal enjoyment of the proceedings was not to be lessened—not even when the town brass band began to play Sousa rather badly in the shadow of a large Union Jack hung upside down—a detail that remained unnoticed save by a solitary busybody who afterwards wrote a letter about it which the Guardian did not print. Altogether the scene was typical of many a quietly happy English occasion during those distant years when Englishmen could be quietly happy.

George’s face was also typically English (which means, perhaps, nothing more than that he might have passed, in their respective countries, for a Dane, a Norwegian, a Swede, a German, or a Norman-Frenchman, but not so easily for an Italian, a Greek, or a Spaniard); at any rate, he was blue-eyed and ruddy-cheeked, the mouth expanding into smiles of shy benevolence as greetings came from the crowd, the chin steady and square, with none of the false dynamism of the acute angle. George, at thirty-five, was a good-looking man, if one cared to call him that, but he seemed to merit some solider adjective than could be applied equally to youthful film actors and tennis champions; there was a touch of earthiness in him that matched well with his wide shoulders and strong hands and genial provincial burr. It was a quiet, almost a humorous touch, behind which, in a sort of ambush, there lurked ambitions and determinations that had already left their mark on Browdley.

This housing development was one of them—a modest triumph (George called it) of practical idealism over the 90 per cent of apathy and 10 per cent of pure selfishness that comprise idealism’s biggest enemy. George could justifiably smile as he stared about him that September afternoon, for this was the first fruit of his Councillorship and the first postwar improvement in Browdley to get beyond the talking stage. Only George knew the struggle it had been through almost incredible thickets of vested interests and government red tape; but here it was at last, something actually begun after all the argument, and his friends and fellow citizens might well give him a cheer. Even the Mayor, who was among his strongest political opponents, could not restrain a reluctantly cordial smile.

George was telling the Bishop that he had been born in one of the slum houses just demolished—Number 24, Mill Street, to be precise—and the Bishop was chaffing him about not having had it preserved as a place of historic interest with a mural tablet to commemorate the great event. George laughed and said he would have taken such an idea far more seriously twenty-odd years ago, and then he confessed that as a small boy he had once read how the desks at Harrow School were carved with the names of famous men; and that in order not to disappoint posterity he had carved his own name on the inside of the privy door at the end of the backyard of Number 24—not a very romantic substitute for a desk at Harrow, but the handiest available in his own limited world.

“Ah, dear me,” exclaimed the Bishop, who was a Harrovian and a little shocked at first, but then when he looked at George’s face, so clearly that of a man telling a simple story of something that had very simply happened, he was won over, as people nearly always were by George; so he added with a smile: “Ah well—a harmless occupation, I daresay.”

George went on without realizing the extent of his conquest: “Aye, it was the only place I was ever left alone in those days, because we were a large family, and a four-roomed house doesn’t allow for much privacy. Fortunately my father started work at five in the morning and didn’t come home till six at night—I hardly saw him except on Sundays when he marched us all off to chapel.”

“Ah, grand folks, those old Nonconformists,” murmured the Bishop, turning on the magnanimity.

“He was a local preacher too,” George continued, pointing suddenly up Mill Street. “There’s the chapel, and there—” swinging his arm in the opposite direction—“there’s Channing’s Mill, where he worked—”

“Channing’s? Not—er—Channing and Felsby?”

“Aye, that’s what it used to be. You knew of it?”

“I’m afraid so.” The Bishop smiled ruefully. “I—er—I once had a few shares in it.”

“You were better off than my father, then, because he had a lifetime in it. From the age of ten to the day he died—fifty years, and for half of every year, except on Sundays, he only saw daylight through the mill windows.”

“Ah, terrible—terrible—” murmured the Bishop.

George chuckled. “Maybe, but he didn’t feel that way. I don’t believe it ever occurred to him. He was quite content all week looking forward to Sunday.”

“When he enjoyed his preaching, no doubt.”

“You bet he did, and he was a dab hand at it too. I’ve heard him last a couple of hours, without a note, and fluent all the time.”

The Bishop sighed. “Ah, that’s a wonderful thing—to possess the gift of tongues, so that one never has to think for a word—”

“Maybe that’s it,” said George. “It’s the thinking that spoils it.” His eyes twinkled and his voice, as nearly as a voice can, nudged the Bishop in the ribs. “Once I remember my father started off a prayer with ‘Oh God, if there be a God—’ but he said it in such a grand booming voice that nobody noticed it any more than he had.”

“Except you,” interjected Lord Winslow, who had been overhearing the conversation from the other side. George turned, a little startled at first, and then, seeing a smile on His Lordship’s face, smiled back and replied thoughtfully: “Aye, that’s so. I suppose I was always a bit of a one for noticing things.”

By then the band had finished playing and it was time for George to open the proceedings. He did so in a speech that lasted a few minutes only; one of his virtues, innocently acquired because he regarded it as a drawback, was that ceremonial oratory did not come easily to him. But he had a pleasant voice and a knack of using simple words as a first-class workman uses tools; his newspaper editorials were not so good, because he “polished” them too much. There was also a hint of the child in him that appeared now in his unconcealed and quite unconcealable pleasure; he could not help letting Browdley know how pleased he was, not only with the town for having elected him one of its councillors, but doubtless also with himself for having so well merited the honor. A certain inward modesty made tolerable, and even attractive, an outward quality that might have been termed conceit. And when, having briefly introduced Lord Winslow, he sat down amidst another gust of applause, the life of the gathering seemed to center on his still beaming countenance rather than on the tall, thin, pallid stranger who rose to pay him conventional compliments.

Winslow, of course, was a much better speaker by any erudite standards. To the acceptable accent of English aristocracy and officialdom he added an air of slightly bored accomplishment that often goes with it, and the chiefly working-class audience gave him respectful attention throughout an address that was considerably above their heads. Had he been of their own class they might have shouted a few ribald interruptions, but they would not do this to a stranger so clearly of rank; indeed their patient silence implied a half-affectionate tolerance for “one of the nobs” who eccentrically chose to interest himself in Browdley affairs instead of in the far more glamorous ones they imagined must be his own—the sort of tolerance that had evoked an audible exclamation of “Poor little bugger!” from some unknown citizen when, a few years back, a royal prince had passed through the town on an official tour. To Browdley folk, as they looked and listened now, it seemed that Lord Winslow was all the time thinking of something else (as indeed he was), but they did not blame him for it; on the contrary, the cheers when he finished were a friendly concession that he had doubtless done his best and that it was pretty decent of him to have bothered to do anything at all.

Then the Bishop prayed, the foundation stone was well and truly laid, sundry votes of thanks were passed, the band played “God Save the King,” and the ceremony petered out. But Councillor Boswell seemed loth to leave the scene of so much concentrated personal victory. He gripped Winslow’s arm with proprietary zeal, talking about his plans for further slum-clearances while from time to time he introduced various local people who hung around; and finally, when most had disappeared to their homes and the Bishop had waved a benign good-bye, George escorted his principal guest to the car that was to take him back to Browdley station. It was not only that he knew Winslow was important and might at some future date do the town a service; nor merely that he already liked him, for he found it easy to like people; the fact was, Winslow was the type that stirred in George a note of genuine hero worship—and in spite, rather than because, of the title. After all, a man couldn’t help what he inherited, and if he were also a high government personage with a string of degrees and academic distinctions after his name, why hold mere blue blood against him? It was the truer aristocracy of intellect that George admired—hence the spell cast over him by Winslow’s scholarly speech, his domelike forehead, and the absent-minded professorial manner that George took to be preoccupation with some abstruse problem. He had already looked him up in Who’s Who, and during the drive in the car through Browdley streets humility transformed itself into naïve delight that an Oxford Doctor of Philosophy had actually accepted an invitation to have tea at his house.

George was also delighted at the success of his own ruse to sidetrack the Mayor and the other councillors and get Winslow on his own, and most delighted of all, as well as astonished, when Winslow said: “Good idea, Boswell—I had been on the point of suggesting such a thing myself. My train is not for an hour or so, I understand.”

“That’s right, no need to hurry,” George replied. “And there’s later trains for that matter.”

Winslow smiled. “Well, we have time for a cup of tea, anyhow.” And after a pause, as if the personality of George really interested him: “So you come of an old Browdley family?”

“As old as we have ’em here, sir, but that’s not so old. My great-great-grandfather was a farm laborer in Kent, and our branch of the family moved north when the cotton mills wanted cheap labor. I haven’t got any famous ancestors, except one who’s supposed to have been transported to Australia for poaching.” He added regretfully: “But I could never get any proof of it.”

Winslow smiled. “At any rate, your father lived it down. He seems to have been a much respected man in Browdley.”

George nodded, pleased by the tribute, but then went on, with that disconcerting frankness that was (if he had only known it, but then of course if he had known it, it wouldn’t have been) one of his principal charms: “Aye, he was much respected, and for twenty years after he died I went about thinking how much I’d respected him myself, but then one day when I was afraid of something, it suddenly occurred to me it was the same feeling I’d had for my father.”

“You mean you didn’t respect him?”

“Oh, I did that as well, but where there’s fear it doesn’t much matter what goes with it. There was a lot of fear in our house—there always is when folks are poor. Either they’re afraid of the landlord or the policeman or employers or unemployment or having another mouth to feed or a son getting wed and taking his wage with him—birth, marriage, and death—it’s all summat to worry about. Even after death, in my father’s case, because he was what he called God-fearing.”

Winslow smiled again. “So you didn’t have a very happy childhood?”

“I suppose it wasn’t, though at the time I took it as natural. There was nothing cruel, mind you—only hardships and stern faces.” George then confessed that during the first six years of his life he was rarely if ever told to do anything without being threatened with what would happen if he didn’t or couldn’t; and the fact that these threats were mostly empty did not prevent the main effect—which was to give him a first impression of the world as a piece of adult property in which children were trespassers. “Only they weren’t prosecuted,” he added, with a laugh. “They were mostly just yelled at.... D’you know, one of the biggest shocks of my life was after my parents died and I was sent to live with an uncle I’d never met before—to find out then that grownups could actually talk to me in a cheerful, casual sort of way, even though I was only a boy!”

“Yes, there must have been a big difference.”

“Aye, and I’ll tell you what I’ve often thought the difference was,” George went on, growing bolder and smiling his wide smile. “Just a matter of a few quid a week. You see, my father never earned more than two pound ten at the mill, but my uncle had a little business that brought in about twice that. Not a fortune—but enough to keep away some of the fears.”

“There’s one fear, anyhow, that nobody had in those days,” Winslow commented. “Wars before 1914 were so far off and so far removed from his personal life that the average Englishman had only to read about them in the papers and cheer for his side.”

“Not even that if he didn’t want to,” George replied. “Take my father and the Boers, for instance. Thoroughly approved of them, he did, especially old Kruger, whom he used to pray for as ‘that great President and the victor of Majuba Hill, which, as Thou knowest, Lord, is situated near the border of Natal and the Transvaal Republic....’ He always liked to make sure the Lord had all the facts.”

Despite Winslow’s laugh, George checked his flow of reminiscence, for he had begun to feel he had been led into talking too much about himself. Taking advantage, therefore, of a curve in the street that afforded the view of a large derelict weaving shed, he launched into more appropriate chatter about Browdley, its history, geography, trade conditions, and so on, and how, as Councillor, he was seeking to alleviate local unemployment. Winslow began to look preoccupied during all this, so George eventually stopped talking altogether as he neared his house—smiling a little to himself, though. He suspected that Winslow was already on guard against a possible solicitation of favors. “Or else he thinks I’m running after him because he’s a lord,” George thought, scornfully amused at such a plausible error.

The factor George counted on to reveal the error was the room in which they were both to have tea. It was not a very large room (in the small mid-Victorian house adjoining the printing office in Market Street), but its four walls, even over the door and under the windows, were totally covered with books. One of George’s numerous prides was in having the finest personal library in Browdley, and probably he had; it was a genuine collection, anyhow, not an accumulation of sets for the sake of their binding, as could be seen in the mansions of rich local manufacturers. Moreover, George really read his books—thoroughly and studiously, often with pencil in hand for note-taking. Like many men who have suffered deficiencies in early education, he had more than made up for them since; except that he had failed to acquire the really unique thing a good early education can bequeath—the ability to grow up and forget about it. George could never forget—neither on nor off the Education Committee of which he made the best and most energetic chairman Browdley had ever had.

What he chiefly hoped was that during the interval before Winslow must catch his train back to London, they might have a serious intellectual talk—or perhaps the latter would talk, Gamaliel-wise, while George sat metaphorically at his feet.

Unfortunately the great man failed to pick up the desired cue from a first sight of the books; indeed, he seemed hardly to notice them, even when George with an expansive wave of the hand bade him make himself at home; though there was consolation in reflecting that Winslow’s own library was probably so huge that this one must appear commonplace.

“Make yourself thoroughly at home, sir,” George repeated, with extra heartiness on account of his disappointment.

“Thank you,” answered the other, striding across the room. He stood for a few seconds, staring through the back window, then murmured meditatively: “H’m—very nice. Quite a show. Wonderful what one can do even in the middle of a town.”

George then realized that Winslow must be referring to the small oblong garden between the house and the wall of the neighboring bus garage. So he replied quickly: “Aye, but it’s gone a bit to pieces lately. Not much in my line, gardening.”

“Must compliment you on your roses, anyhow.”

“My wife, not me—she’s the one for all that if she was here.”

“She’s away?”

“Aye—on the Continent. Likes to travel too—all over the place. But books are more in my line.”

“It’s certainly been a good season for them.”

George wasn’t sure what this referred to until Winslow added, still staring out of the window: “My wife’s another enthusiast—she’s won prizes at our local show.”

George still did not think this a promising beginning to an intellectual conversation, but as Annie was just then bringing in the tea he said no more about books. Winslow, however, could not tear himself away from the spectacle of the roses—which were, indeed, especially beautiful that year. “Too bad,” he murmured, “for anyone who loves a garden to miss England just now.... So you’re not keen on foreign holidays, is that it, Boswell?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say no if I had the chance, but I don’t suppose I’d ever be as keen as Livia is. Anyhow, I’ve got too much to do in Browdley to leave the place for months on end.”

“Months? Quite a holiday.”

“Aye, but it’s not all holiday for her. She has a job with one of those travel tours—‘Ten Days in Lovely Lucerne’—that kind of thing. Pays her expenses and a bit over.”

“Convenient.”

“For anyone who likes seeing the same sights with different folks over and over again. I wouldn’t.”

“Sort of guide, is she?”

“I reckon so. She runs the show for ’em, I’ll bet. She’s got a real knack for managing folks when she feels like it.”

“I wouldn’t say you were entirely without it yourself.”

“Ah, but with her it’s an art.” George was too genuinely modest to realize that his own sterling naïveté was just as good a knack, art, or whatever else it was. “Maybe you won’t believe me, but when I was a young fellow I was so scared of meeting folks I could hardly get a word out. And even now I’m not as happy on a platform as I am sitting alone in this room with a good book.” He jerked his head towards the surrounding shelves in another attempt to steer the conversation, and when Winslow did not immediately reply, he added more pointedly: “I expect you’re a great reader yourself?”

“Oh fairly—when I can find the time.”

“Aye, that’s the worst of being in public life.” At least they had that bond in common. “You know, sir, there’s only one reason I’d ever wish to be young again—really young, I mean,” he added, as he saw Winslow smile—“and that’s to have summat I missed years ago—a right-down good education.... I’ll never forget when I visited Oxford and saw all those lucky lads in the colleges ...” A sincere emotion entered his voice. “And the professors in their libraries—I tell you frankly, I ...” He saw that Winslow was still smiling. “Well, I’ll put it this way—there’s only one thing I’d rather be than in politics, and that’s one of those university dons, as they call themselves.”

“Yet I doubt if many of them are doing any better work than you are here—judging by what I’ve seen today.”

George was pleased again, but also slightly shocked by the comparison; he could not believe that Winslow really meant it, and he was surprised that such a distinguished man should stoop to mere flattery. “Oh come now, sir, I’ll never swallow that. After all, think of the books they write—I’ve got shelves of ’em here—heavy stuff I admit, but grand training for the mind.”

“Yes, books are all right.” Winslow gave a little sigh. “Though it’s remarkable how little help they offer in some of the more curious problems of life.” George was thinking this a rather strange remark when an even stranger one followed it. “Look here, Boswell, I’m going to do something I wasn’t sure about before I met you—partly because I wasn’t sure you were the right man, and partly because even if you were, I couldn’t be positive how you’d take it.”

George looked up with a puzzled expression. There flashed through his mind the intoxicating possibility that Winslow might be going to ask his advice about some matter of departmental policy—low-rent housing, say, or an extension of the school-leaving age.

But Winslow continued: “Quite a coincidence meeting you like this. Several months ago when I promised to speak at your ceremony today I hadn’t even heard of you—when quite recently I did, I decided it might be a good chance to—to approach you—if—if you seemed the sort of man who might be approachable. You see, it’s a somewhat unusual and delicate matter, and there aren’t any rules of etiquette to proceed by.”

And then there flashed through George’s already puzzled mind another though less welcome possibility—that Winslow was an emissary of the Government deputed to find out in advance whether George would accept a title in recognition of his “public services” to the town of Browdley. It was highly unlikely, of course, since he was a mere town Councillor and did not belong to the Government party, but still, anything could happen when parties and politics were fluid and Lloyd George was reputed to cast a discerning eye upon foes as well as friends. Anyhow, George’s reply would be a straight “no,” because he very simply though a trifle truculently did not believe in titles.

He saw that Winslow was waiting for a remark, so he called his thoughts to order and said guardedly: “I’m afraid I don’t quite catch on so far, but whatever it is, if there’s any way I can help—”

“Thanks, that’s very kind of you. I hope there is. So if you’ll just let me go ahead and explain ...”

George nodded, now more puzzled than ever; he could not help thinking that Winslow was terribly slow in getting to the point, whatever it was. Meanwhile the great man had opened up into an account of a semiofficial tour he had lately undertaken to inspect housing projects, mostly on paper, in some of the Continental countries. At this George nodded with enthusiastic comprehension, and to show that, even without foreign travel, he kept himself well abreast of such matters, he reached for a book that happened to be to hand. “You’ll have seen it, I daresay,” he interrupted eagerly. “I got the architect of our local scheme to adopt several of this fellow’s ideas—I’ve always said we should all pool our postwar experience—allies and ex-enemies alike. Take Vienna, for instance, where the Socialists are very strong—”

“Yes, yes indeed,” Winslow agreed, though with a note in his voice to check all chatter. However, he seemed willing enough to take Vienna, for he continued: “That was one of the cities I visited recently. Apart from business, I had a special reason because my son Jeff happens to be there too. He has a job—er—connected with the Embassy.” He paused and pulled out a small pocketbook; in it he found a snapshot which he passed to George. It showed a smiling young man in ski costume in company with several pretty girls against a background panorama of snow-covered mountains. “Taken at Kitzbühel,” he added.

George had not heard of Kitzbühel, but he knew a fine-looking fellow when he saw one, and now quite sincerely expressed his admiration. To reciprocate the intimacy he pointed to one of a number of photographs on top of a revolving bookcase of encyclopedias, “Reminds me a bit of the lad just behind you.”

Winslow turned to look and confirmed after a scrutiny: “Yes, quite a resemblance. Your son? I wouldn’t have thought you were old enough—”

“I’m not.... That’s one of my brothers—killed on the Somme on July first, 1916. Fifty thousand killed with him the same day—according to the records. Something for folks to remember when they attack disarmament.”

“And this?” said Winslow, still seemingly preoccupied with the photographs.

“That’s my wife.”

“Ah, yes.”

George then felt it was time to relieve his guest of any further obligation to appear interested in his family, so he returned the snapshot with the comment: “Aye, he’s a bonny lad—and brainy too, by the look of him.”

“They seemed to think so at Oxford.”

“He did well there?”

“Pretty well.”

“What did he get?”

“Get? Oh, a Rowing Blue and he was also President of the Union—”

“And a good degree? A First, I suppose?”

“Er ... yes, I think so.”

“Double First?”

Winslow smiled. “I believe he took several Firsts in various subjects, but they don’t seem to use the term ‘Double First’ any more.”

“Gladstone got it.”

“Did he? You seem to know a good deal about these matters, Boswell....”

“Aye, as an outsider. Though it was my father who told me about Gladstone. I think he was the only man except Bible characters whom my father really admired.... But go on about your boy.”

“Well, as I said, Jeff did pretty well at Oxford till the war cut into his career. Then he served in Egypt and got a D.S.O., and soon after the Armistice he went to France and Germany for languages, because he was entering the Diplomatic Service and the usual thing is to get attached for a few years to one of the embassies or legations. He’s only twenty-five.”

“Sounds like a future in front of him.”

“That—er—is what I have hoped. We’ve always got on excellently together—good friends, I mean, as well as father and son. When I arrived in Vienna recently the first thing he did was to take me off to some restaurant where we could talk—because I hadn’t seen him for six months, and that’s a long time for family gossip to accumulate.” Winslow began to smile again. “I thought from the outset he didn’t seem exactly himself—he was preoccupied, somehow, in the way he behaved and talked—and later I asked if there’d been any trouble at the Embassy, but he said no, nothing like that. At last I got out of him what had caused the change.” The smile became suddenly forced and wan. “Perfectly natural, you may think.”

“Been worrying about conditions in Austria? I understand things are pretty bad, what with the famine and inflation—”

“No—not even all that.... He’d fallen in love.”

George chuckled. “Well, sir, that quite often happens to good-looking chaps of twenty-five. The only surprising thing is that it hadn’t happened before.”

“Oh, but it had. That’s one of the—er—complications. He was engaged to a very charming girl, a neighbor of ours in Berkshire, but he said he’d already written to her to break it off—on account of the—er—new attraction.”

“I see.” And at this George frowned slightly. A whiff of truculence was generated in him as, momentarily, he saw in Winslow no longer an unworldly scholar but a hidebound aristocrat conforming to type; for already the probable outlines of the story seemed clear—a father anxious for his son to make a socially correct marriage, the son’s romance with some pretty but penniless Austrian girl ... and George, of course, was all on the side of the son and the girl, though he would wait to say so till Winslow had finished. All he commented now was a blunt: “Everyone has a right to change his mind.”

“Of course. It wasn’t my place to interfere—provided the supplanter was all right.”

“Not even if you thought she wasn’t. A chap of twenty-five must choose for himself.”

“Yes, in theory, though when—”

“In theory and in practice, sir. I don’t say a father can’t give advice in these matters, but that’s about all he can give. And if a young fellow makes a mistake, well, it’s his mistake, and he can’t blame anyone else. Haven’t we all made mistakes? And besides, even if she is a foreigner and recently an enemy—”

“Oh, that wouldn’t worry me, and anyhow, she isn’t—she’s English.”

“Then what does worry you?”

“Perhaps I’d better go on with what happened. Jeff naturally described her to me in glowing colors and suggested an early meeting, so we all three dined together the next day, and I must admit my first impression was favorable—at any rate, she struck me as both charming and intelligent....”

George was about to pour his guest another cup of tea, but Winslow made a declining gesture. “Very kind of you, Boswell, but—but I really feel in need of something a little stronger—I wonder—if you—if it isn’t too much trouble—if I could have a whisky-and-soda?”

At which George could only in his own turn look embarrassed. “To tell you the truth I don’t have such a thing in the house—you see, I’m teetotal. But if you’re not feeling well I could send Annie out for a drop of brandy—”

“Oh, please no, I’m perfectly well—just tiredness, that’s all. I really shouldn’t have mentioned it. Of no consequence at all, I assure you.” What had really been demonstrated was a social distinction far more revealing than any question of blood or accent—the fact that Winslow, though he drank sparingly, nevertheless belonged to the class for whom whisky is as much a household commonplace as salt or soap; whereas George, though by no means a bigot, had inherited enough of his father’s puritanism to think of liquor in terms of drunkenness and social problems.

After the gulf had been bridged by renewed apologies on both sides, Winslow continued: “To come to the point—” (at last, thought George)—“I told Jeff afterwards that if they’d both made up their minds there was nothing much for me to say. I was just a bit worried, though, because I gathered it had been a very sudden affair, and I didn’t think he could really know enough about her.”

“You mean her family and so on?”

“Partly. You may think me a snob, but I had to ask myself whether, as a diplomat’s wife, she would have the right background.”

“Aye, I suppose that’s what counts.” George’s voice was severe.

“Yes—though not as much as it used to.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I don’t know much about the Diplomatic Service, but I’m all for democracy in these things. And since you have to admit the girl was all right herself—”

“Oh yes, she seemed so. I could imagine her a good hostess, and she certainly had intelligence enough to pull wires.”

“Do diplomats’ wives have to do that?”

“They don’t have to, but it can help. Don’t the wives of your local councillors sometimes do it?”

George grinned. “Not mine, anyhow. I could never get her to take an interest in local affairs at all.... But about your son and this girl ... So I suppose you consented to the match?”

“I should have done, but for finding out something about her that was—as I think even you will agree—rather insuperable. Simply that she was already married. The fact came out quite accidentally—someone I happened to meet in Switzerland on my way home was able to tell me about her. She had, it appeared—at least there was no other conclusion to be drawn—deliberately misled Jeff. And a rather pointless deception too—unless of course she was prepared to commit bigamy.”

George pondered a moment. “Well, you found out in time, that’s the main thing.”

“Perhaps not in time, though, to stop him from making an utter fool of himself.”

Winslow paused and seemed suddenly aware of the extent of George’s library, though his ranging glance was hardly one of interest in it. At the same moment Annie entered with some letters and was about to hand them to George, but the latter shook his head and gestured her to put them on his desk. Winslow intervened: “Don’t mind me if there’s anything important you ought to attend to.”

“They can wait, whatever they are.”

“It’s good of you to let me take up your time like this.”

George was amazed at the humility of such a remark from a man of Winslow’s age and importance. He could only reply: “Not at all, sir. Besides, you say I can help—though I wouldn’t pretend to be much good at advice about—er—family matters and so on.”

“Perhaps because your own family affairs have been happy?”

“Oh, I’ve had my troubles, same as most folks, I reckon.”

“But you’ve settled them all?”

“I’ve never had any to settle about a grown-up lad.” And George added, wryly: “Worse luck.”

“Perhaps that itself makes a sort of trouble? I mean if—if—of course I don’t know what your—”

“Aye ... aye ... but let’s get back to your lad. What’s the mistake he made? Surely when you told him—”

Winslow leaned forward with his hands pressed down on his knees; he seemed to be seeking mastery of some strong emotion. “Forgive me for not keeping to the point.... Yes, I told him. We had long conversations, but only by telephone, unfortunately, because I was compelled to return to England for an important government conference. That was a further complication—not being in personal touch with him. It was very hard to telephone. Of course if he’d been his normal self the mere facts would have been enough—he’s always been quick to do the right thing. But—you see—he’s not his normal self any more. This emotion—love or whatever you call it—perhaps madness or infatuation’s a better word—”

“Doesn’t seem to matter much what you call it if it’s there.”

“I agree—provided one doesn’t fall into the error of idealizing. I’d say, for instance, that I love my own wife, but I can easily think of things I wouldn’t do to please her—things which, even if she asked me to do them, would destroy the bond between us—like betraying my friends or my country.... But infatuation’s different—it seems to glory in doing things in spite of, rather than because of ... if you know what I mean.”

George made no comment.

“Well, anyhow, the point is, he hasn’t dropped her, even though he knows the truth and she’s been forced to admit it. He’s behaving, in fact, as if he can’t drop her. The last time I talked to him, which was from Paris, I gathered he’d not only forgiven her for the deception, but she’s made him believe a long story about an unhappy past and a husband she ran away from because she couldn’t stand him ... and the upshot of it all is, Jeff’s now urging her to get a divorce so that he can marry her himself.”

“What’s her attitude?”

“I only know through him—and of course he’s so completely prejudiced in her favor that it’s not much to go by. But remember he’s quite a catch, even if it does ruin his career.”

“And it would? Because of the scandal?”

“Possibly.... But worst of all, as I see it, is the thing itself—to put himself at the mercy of someone who has such evident power to distort and overthrow his judgment ... judgment ... the most valuable attribute a man of his profession can have ... because if he still had any of it left, he’d drop her. After all, how could he expect a marriage of that sort to turn out a success? ... It’s a sad thing, Boswell, to see a first-class intelligence functioning like a baby’s.”

“Why don’t you go out and talk to him personally as soon as you have the time?”

“Yes, I shall do that—I wired him today about it. But somehow I’m not sure that I can do much on my own—that last telephone talk was simply shattering—the most I could get was a promise that he’d think it over, but he can’t think, that’s the trouble—he’s in a world utterly beyond logic and argument—you can’t prove anything to him—he just believes this woman’s a sort of martyr heroine and her husband’s an impossible brute and—”

“How do you know he isn’t?”

Winslow got up suddenly, walked to the window, then came back and touched George on the shoulder with a queerly intimate gesture. “I didn’t know—definitely—until today. But I’m a bit positive at this moment....” And after a second pause, standing in front of George, he stammered unsurely: “I hope I haven’t been so damned tactful that you’re going to ask me what all this has got to do with you....”

***

Then George looked up and saw in a flash what it had got to do with him.

He felt himself growing cold and sick, as if a fist were grasping him by his insides. Try as one might, he reflected with queer and instant detachment, the actual blow of such a revelation must be sudden; there was no way of leading up that could disperse the shock over a period; one second one did not know, the next second one did know; that was all there was to it, so that all Winslow’s delicacy had been in a sense wasted. He might just as well have blurted out the truth right at the beginning.

George knew he must say something to acknowledge that Oxford had managed to convey with subtlety in an hour what Browdley could have tackled vulgarly in five minutes. After a long pause, he therefore spoke the slow Browdley affirmative that, by its tone, could imply resignation as well as affirmation.

“You mean you do understand, Boswell?”

“Aye,” George repeated.

“I’m terribly sorry—I could think of no other way than to put it to you—”

“Of course, man, of course.”

Winslow gripped George’s arm speechlessly, and for several minutes the two seemed not to know what to say to each other. Presently George mumbled: “Is that—all—you can tell me—about it? No more details of any kind? Not that they’d help much, but still—”

“Honestly, Boswell, I’ve told you just about everything I know myself.”

“I understand.... But how about the people on the tour whom she was supposed to be looking after?”

“Maybe she just left them stranded.... It would be crazy and irresponsible—but no more so than—than—”

“Than anything else. That’s so.”

“I admit the whole thing sounds—must sound to you, in fact—well, if you were to tell me you simply didn’t believe a word of it, I’d—”

“Aye, it’s a bit of a facer.”

“But you do believe it?”

“Reckon I have to, don’t I? After all, you took a good look at that photograph....”

“Yes, it’s the same. I knew that at once....” Winslow’s voice grew almost pathetically eager. “And you will help me, won’t you—now that you know how it is? What I had in mind was this—if you agreed—that we go out there together—quite soon—immediately, in fact—before there can be any open scandal involving him—you see what I mean?”

“Aye, I see what you mean.”

“And you agree?”

To which George retorted with sudden sharpness: “Why not, for God’s sake? He may be your son, but she’s my wife too. Don’t you think I’m interested?”

“Of course. I’m sorry. I’m afraid I—I—”

“Now, now, don’t apologize. Come to that, we’ve neither of us much to apologize for.”

“I thought we might leave tomorrow—”

“Aye, if we’re going, might as well—”

“Boswell, I can’t tell you how much I—”

“None o’ that, either, man. Let’s get down to some details. I’ll need a passport—”

And somehow from then on, in spite of what might have been held more humiliating for George than for Winslow in the situation, it was nevertheless George who took the leadership, a certain staunch four-squareness in his make-up easily dominating the other. They both belonged to a world in which the accomplishment of any suddenly urgent task requires the canceling or postponement of other less urgent ones; and now, as they eased themselves back into chairs, there was nothing left but such routine adjustments. Winslow pulled out a little black notebook and began crossing off this and that; George reached for a sheet of paper on his desk and jotted down a few memoranda. Into the momentary silence there came the distant chiming of the hour on Browdley church clock, and a newsboy shouting familiarly but incoherently along Market Street. Good news, perhaps, about the international situation ... but it did not seem to matter so much now, so quickly can world affairs be overshadowed by personal ones in the life of even the most public man.

Winslow looked up. “You’re optimistic, Boswell? From your own knowledge of her—do you feel that—that somehow or other you’ll be able to persuade her to—to—”

George’s face was haggard as he replied: “I wouldn’t call my own knowledge so very reliable—not after this.”

“Then perhaps you could talk to my son—try to influence him—”

“Aren’t you the one for that?”

“But a new angle, Boswell—your point of view in the matter—he may not have realized—”

“All right, all right—no good badgering me.” The first shock had been succeeded by anger—helpless anger, which Winslow’s concern for his own son merely exacerbated. “I’m damned if I know what I’ll do—yet.”

“I’m sorry again.” And the two faced each other, both driven out of character and somehow aware of it, for it was not like George to be angry, nor was Winslow accustomed to pleading and apologizing. Presently an odd smile came over his face. “Badger ... badger ...” he repeated. “It’s a long time since I heard that word, and you’ll never guess why it makes me smile.”

“Why?”

“My nickname at school—Badger.”

Then George smiled too, glad of the momentary side issue. “Because you looked like one or because you did badger people?”

“Both—possibly.”

“They once called me Apple-Pie George in Browdley, but it sort of died out.”

“Apple-Pie George?”

“Aye ... because somebody threw some apple pie in my face during an election. The pie stuck but the name didn’t.” He laughed and Winslow laughed, and it was as if one of several barriers between them were from then on let down. “Too bad I haven’t that drop of whisky for you,” George continued. “But how about changing your mind about another cup of tea?”

“Thanks, I will.”

George went to the door and shouted down the corridor to Annie, then came back and began to search a timetable on his desk. “If we’re both going to start in the morning, maybe you’d like to spend the night here?”

“That’s very kind, but I think I’d better go back to London as I planned and join you there tomorrow.”

“Just as you like. There’s a good train at five-eighteen—that still gives you an hour, so take it easy.”

Winslow seemed now better able to do this, and until the time of leaving they both relaxed, arranged further details of their meeting the next day, and talked quite casually on a variety of subjects—some even verging on the intellectual, though George was not in the best mood for appreciation.

Then he took Winslow to the train, and only in the final minutes before its departure did they refer to the personal matter again. Winslow muttered, leaning out of a first-class compartment: “I—I must say it, Boswell—I—I really don’t know how to thank you for—for taking all this in the way you have ...”

“What other way was there to take it?”

“I know, I know ... but it’s such an extraordinary situation for you to have been able to come to terms with.”

“Who says I’ve come to terms with it?”

“Yes, but I mean—when I try to imagine myself in your place—”

“Don’t.” And there was just the ghost of a smile on George’s face to soften the harsh finality of the word.

“All right ... but I can’t help feeling more hopeful already—thanks to you. Of course the affair’s still incomprehensible to me in many ways—for instance, to fathom the kind of person who could do such a thing ... of course you know her, but then I know Jeff, and he’s not a fool—that’s what makes his side of it so hard to understand.”

“Oh, maybe not so hard,” George replied. “It’s probably what you said that you couldn’t find a name for.”

“Infatuation?”

“If you like.” And then, abruptly and without caring for the awkwardness of time and place, George began to tell something about Livia that he had never mentioned to anyone before. Perhaps it was the atmosphere of a railway station that reminded him, for it had happened (he said) at the end of their honeymoon when they were to catch a night train from a seaside place back to London. They had spent the last day pottering about the promenade between showers, and during one of these, while sheltering, they had got into conversation with a well-dressed and rather distinguished-looking man of sixty or so. It was one of those chance acquaintanceships that flourish amazingly without either background or future prospects; almost immediately the stranger offered to conduct them through an adjacent art gallery which, though full of very bad canvases, gave him the chance to talk so fascinatingly about paintings that they thought he must belong to that world himself until later he talked with equal fascination about literature, music, and politics. Within an hour they were all chattering together like old friends, and as evening approached it seemed perfectly natural to accept the stranger’s invitation to dine. (He had given them his name and told them he was French, which had further amazed George because of his completely accentless English.) The two newlyweds were presently entertained in a manner to which they were wholly unaccustomed and which they could certainly not have afforded—George smilingly declined to break his temperance pledge, but ate two dozen oysters with gusto while Livia drank champagne and laughed a great deal. After dinner it seemed equally natural that the stranger should drive them back to their hotel in his car and later take them on to the railway station. The train was already drawn up at the platform, so the three of them sat together in an otherwise unoccupied compartment with half an hour to wait. Suddenly George discovered the hotel room key in his pocket and, excusing himself, walked down the platform to the station office to arrange for its return. He wasn’t away more than ten minutes, and when he got back the three resumed their conversation until the train’s departure.

About a year later (George went on), Livia exclaimed suddenly, during a rather trivial quarrel: “That Frenchman sized you up all right—he said I oughtn’t ever to have married you!” More startled than angry, George then asked for an explanation. She wouldn’t give any at first, but on being pressed said that during the few minutes he had left her alone in the train with the stranger, the latter had made her an ardent profession of love and had actually implored her to run off with him.

When George reached this point in the story he commented rather naïvely: “I suppose that could happen, with a Frenchman, even though he’d only set eyes on her a few hours before.”

“Perhaps in that particular way he was unbalanced.”

“No—or at least there wasn’t much other evidence of it. You see, having once got interested in the man, I’d found out a few things about him and followed his career. He’d been married and raised a family long before his meeting with us, and recently he’s become fairly well known as one of the financial experts to the Peace Conference. You’d recognize the name if I told you, but I don’t think that would be quite fair because a few months ago he and his wife came to London on some official mission, and there were photographs of them in the papers looking as if they’d both had a lifetime of happiness.”

“Maybe they had.”

A sudden commotion of door banging and engine whistling drowned George’s reply and caused him to repeat, more loudly: “I shouldn’t wonder.”

“There’s one other thing that occurs to me, Boswell, if you’ll forgive my mentioning it—”

“Of course—”

“How do you know the incident really happened?”

The train began to move and George walked with it for a few seconds, hastily pondering before he answered: “Aye ... I can see what you mean.... Funny—I hadn’t ever thought of that. And yet I should have, I know.” His walk accelerated to a scamper; there was now only time to wave and call out: “Good-bye ... see you tomorrow.... Good-bye....”

When the train had left he stood for a moment as if watching it out of sight, but actually watching nothing, seeing nothing. A porter wheeling a truck along the platform halted and half-turned. “ ’Night, George.”

“Good night,” responded George mechanically, then pulled himself together and walked down the ramp to the station yard.

***

He felt he must at all costs avoid the main streets where people would stop him with congratulations on the success of the day’s events. There was a footpath skirting the edge of the town that meant an extra half-mile but led unobtrusively towards the far end of Market Street. Nobody went this way at night except lovers seeking darkness, and darkness alone obscured the ugliness of the scene—a cindery wasteland between town and countryside and possessing the amenities of neither; it had long been a dream of his to beautify the whole area with shrubs and lawns, to provide the youth of Browdley with a more fitting background for its romance. But Browdley youth seemed not to care, while those in Browdley who were no longer youthful objected to the cost. Perhaps for the first time in his adult life George now traversed the wasteland without reflecting ruefully upon its continued existence; he had far more exacting thoughts to assemble, and in truth he hardly knew where he was. The day that had begun so well was ending in trouble whose magnitude he had only just begun to explore, and with every further step came the deepening of a pain that touched him physically as well as in every other way, so that he felt sick and ill as he stumbled along. He was appalled by the realization that Livia still had such power to hurt him.

Somberly he reached his house and, as he entered it, suddenly felt alone. Which made him think; for he had been just as alone ever since Livia had left six months before; and if he had not felt it so much, that proved how hopefully, in his heart, he had looked upon the separation. She would come back, he must all along have secretly believed; or at least the bare possibility had been enough to encourage his ever-ready optimism about the future. Night after night he had entered his empty house, made himself a cup of tea, spent a last hour with a book or the evening paper, and gone to bed with the comforting feeling that anything could be endured provided it might not last forever. There was even a half-ascetic sense in which he had found tolerable his enforced return to bachelorhood, and there was certainly a peace of mind that he knew her return would disturb—yet how welcome that disturbance would be! And how insidiously, behind the logic of his thoughts, he had counted on it! ... He was aware of that now, as he entered his house and felt the aloneness all-enveloping. Heavily he climbed the stairs to his bedroom and began to throw a few necessary articles into a suitcase. Even that he did with an extra pang, for it reminded him of times when Livia had packed for him to attend meetings or conferences in other parts of the country; she was an expert packer as well as very particular about his clothes. And the first thing she did when he returned was to unpack and repair the ravages of his own carelessness about such things. There was that odd streak of practicality in her, running parallel to other streaks; so that she not only loved classical music but could repair the phonograph when something went wrong with it. And the garden that Winslow had admired was further evidence; it had been a dumping ground for wastepaper and old tin cans before she started work on it. Recent months without her attention had given the weeds a chance, but still her hand was in everything, and the roses seemed to have come into special bloom that week as if expecting her return. In a sort of way she had done for that patch of wasteland what George himself had tried to do for Browdley as a whole (yet would never have bothered to do for his own back garden); but of course she had done it without any civic sense, and for the simple reason that the place belonged to her. George sighed as he thought of that, recognizing motives that were so strong in her and so absent in him; but with the sigh came a wave of tolerance, as for someone who does simple natural things that are the world’s curse, doubtless, but since they cannot be changed, how pointless it is to try. Yet the world must be changed ... and so George’s mind ran on, facing an old dilemma as he snapped the locks on his suitcase. All at once the house, without Livia in it, became unbearable to him; he knew he would not sleep that night, and as his train left early in the morning he might as well not even go to bed; he would take a walk, a long walk that would tire him physically as well as clarify some of the problems in his mind. He went downstairs and put on a hat, then passed through the partition doorway that separated the house from the printing office. It was the middle of the week, the slack time between issues; copy for the next one lay littered on his desk—mostly local affairs—council meetings, church activities, births, marriages, and funerals. Occasionally he wrote an editorial about some national or international event, and the one he had composed that morning faced him from the copy desk as unfathomably as if someone else had written it in another language. It read:—

These are times when the clouds of war roll back and THE SUN OF HUMAN BETTERMENT shines out to be a lamp of memory for the future. Let us hope, therefore, that AUGUST 31st, NINETEEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY-ONE, the date selected as that of the official end of the Great War, will have more than a merely legal significance, that it will symbolize the actual dying out of hatreds and bitterness both at home and abroad. In this connection it is good news that the Washington Conference is soon to convene, and that the problem of world-wide DISARMAMENT will then be tackled in real earnest. We of this town, who have just dedicated our first postwar plan for a BETTER BROWDLEY, can feel especially proud, for our own achievement makes us part of a mighty movement in which men of goodwill all over the world are straining to participate.

(A pretty fair example, incidentally, of George’s editorial writing—typical, at any rate, in its use of capitals, in its opening metaphor that almost gets out of hand, and in its tendency to glib phrases. Typical also of George’s fondness for linking local and world affairs into a pleasing dish of optimism.)

But now, reading it over, he had difficulty in gathering what it was all about. Disarmament? Disarmament? ... The word echoed meaninglessly in his mind as he sought, even for a moment, to concentrate on something non-personal. What did he know about disarmament? And at the form of that question he smiled, because of the oddest recollection that came to him there and then, as he crossed the printing office to the door leading into Market Street.

It was of something that had happened several years before, when he had just acquired the almost bankrupt Guardian and was full of visions of the kind of influence a small-town paper could wield, perhaps even nationally, if its editor were the right sort, and surely the right sort must be well-educated, which surely in its turn could mean nothing less than a university degree. So that had become one of his numerous ambitions, and since Oxford and Cambridge were out of the question for a man who had a job to do, he had concentrated on a near-by provincial foundation of decent repute that offered degrees by examination only. It had been a hard struggle, even so, for he had originally left school at the age of thirteen, and though the following decade and a half had contained a good deal of self-education there were many deplorable gaps. He could write and speak forcefully, for instance, but before beginning to study he had scarcely heard of the technicalities of grammar, he had small knowledge of history, and none at all of any foreign language. At the first of the two necessary examinations he was baffled by the academic atmosphere, by the courtesy bordering on indifference of the pedagogue in charge (so unlike the nagging, shouting schoolmasters of his boyhood days), and he was rather dashed by an English paper which, though offering the most generous choice of questions, could not avoid the discovery of so much that he did not know. To one question, couched in that very phrase—“What do you know of the Pathetic Fallacy?”—he had replied, pathetically enough: “Nothing”; and there were other matters nearly as hopeless. Leaving the examination hall after that three-hour battle he had been fairly certain of failure.

But a few weeks later he received a note asking him to appear at the same place for oral questioning—which, he was cautioned, did not necessarily imply that he had passed the written tests. The coolness of the warning reinforced his pessimism, so that he was in a thoroughly black mood by the time he faced the ordeal. A tall, thin, spectacled man with a domelike forehead and very precise clipped speech presided at the interview. (Ever afterwards he was the personification of an ideal in George’s mind—the pure scholar, unworldly, incomparable, serenely aloof; so that on meeting Lord Winslow, for instance, he felt he already knew the type.)

The prototype had talked pleasantly and informally with George’s examination papers before him, and also (though George had not known this) notes of reminder that the examinee was thirty-two years old, had had nothing but an elementary school education, but was already owner and editor of a local newspaper as well as a town Councillor with reputedly advanced views—altogether a rather remarkable specimen. Clearly George both puzzled and attracted him, though he gave no sign of it; he merely steered the conversation from one subject to another—which was not difficult, for George loved to talk. After half an hour or so the older man nodded, picked up the examination papers, cleared his throat, and began rather uncomfortably: “A pity, Mr. Boswell, that you have done so badly in one paper—English—that your total marks do not reach the required minimum.”

George’s conviction of failure, which had somehow become suspended during the conversation, now returned with a hard hit to the pit of the stomach. “Aye,” he said heavily. “I guessed as much.”

“Do you think you will try again, Mr. Boswell?”

“I dunno, sir. I dunno if I’ll have the time to.”

“Why not?”

“You see I’m on the local Council and I run a newspaper—there’s a heap of work in all that—work that I can’t cut down on. If it was just a question of giving up fun or a hobby I wouldn’t mind, but when it means important things ...”

“Such as?”

“Well, sir, I doubt if you’d be interested in all the details, but I’m trying to get a postwar slum-clearance scheme adopted by the Council, and that’s a job, I can tell you—if you knew the sort of place Browdley is.”

“H’m, yes ... I understand. And I do not dispute the importance of such work, or the priority you feel you must give to it. What does puzzle me—a little—is your motive in entering for this examination at all. Did you feel that a university degree would help you politically—or professionally?”

“No sir, it isn’t that. But I thought it might help me—sometimes—inside myself—to feel I was properly educated.”

“And what do you mean by ‘properly educated’?”

George pondered a moment, then replied: “I’ll put it this way, sir—sometimes I read a book that seems to me just plain stupid, but because I’m not properly educated I can’t be sure whether it’s stupid or whether I’m stupid.”

A smile creased over the older man’s face as he burrowed afresh among the papers, finally discovering one and holding it up before his spectacles. “H’m ... h’m.... Such a pity, Mr. Boswell—such a pity.... Mind you, I didn’t mark these English papers myself, so of course I don’t know whether ...” And then a long pause, punctuated by more throat clearings and spectacle fidgetings. “Take this question, for instance—‘What do you know of the Pathetic Fallacy?’ I see, Mr. Boswell, that your answer is ‘Nothing,’ for which you have been given no marks at all.”

George felt it was rather unfair to rub it in; if he had failed, he had failed; and when (since the examination) he had found out what the Pathetic Fallacy really was, it had turned out to be so different from anything he could possibly have guessed that he thought he had at least done well not to try. So with this vague self-justification in mind he now blurted out: “Well, sir, it was the truth, anyway. I did know nothing and I said so.”

“Precisely, Mr. Boswell. I have no reason to suppose that your answer was not a perfectly correct one to the question as asked, and if the questioner had wished to judge your answer on any other merits it seems to me he should have used the formula ‘State what you know’—not ‘What do you know?’ I shall therefore revise your rating and give you full marks for that particular question—which, I think, will just enable you to reach the minimum standard for the examination.... My congratulations.... I hope you will find time to work for the final examination next year....”

“Oh yes, sir—yes, indeed, sir!”

But George hadn’t found time, after all, because the year ahead was the one during which he had met and married Livia.

And what did he know of Livia, for that matter?

***

Browdley streets were deserted as he closed the door of the newspaper office behind him. From Market Street he turned into Shawgate, which is Browdley’s chief business thoroughfare; he walked on past all the shops, then through the suburban fringe of the town—“the best part of Browdley,” people sometimes called it. But the best part of Browdley isn’t, and never was, so good. The town consists mainly of four-roomed bathroomless houses built in long parallel rows, dormitories of miners and cotton operatives who (in George’s words to Lord Winslow) had piled up money like muck for a few local families. George had not added that his wife belonged to one of those families, even when the mention of Channing and Felsby’s Mill would have given him a cue. For Livia was a Channing—one of the Channings of Stoneclough ... and suddenly he decided that, since he was trying to kill time by walking, he would walk to Stoneclough. It was even appropriate that he should take there his problem, his distress, and that brooding subcurrent of anger.

Presently his walk quickened and his head lifted as if to meet a challenge; and in this new mood he reached the top of a small rise from which Browdley could be seen more magically at night than ever in the daytime; for at night, especially under a moon, the observer might be unaware that those glinting windows were factories and not palaces, and that the shimmer beneath them was no fabled stream, but a stagnant, stinking canal. Yet to George, who had known all this since childhood, there were still fables and palaces in Browdley, palaces he would build and fables he would never surrender; and as he walked to Stoneclough that night and looked back on the roofs of the town, he had a renewal of faith that certain things were on his side.

The trouble with Livia, he told himself for the fiftieth time, was that there was no reason in so many things she did; or was there a reason this time—the reason he had been reluctant to face?

He climbed steadily along the upland road; it was past one in the morning when he came within sight of Stoneclough. The foothills of the Pennines begin there; there is a river also, the same one that flows dirty and sluggish through Browdley, but clean and swift in its fall from the moorland, where it cuts a steep fissure called a “clough,” and in so doing gives the place a name and provides Browdley citizens with a near-by excursion and picnic ground. The first cotton mills, driven from a water wheel, were set up in such places towards the end of the eighteenth century, and one of them belonged to a certain John Channing of whom little is known save that he died rich in the year of Waterloo. The shell of the old graystone mill that made his fortune still stands astride the tumbling stream; but the rows of hovels in which the workpeople lived have long since disappeared, though there are traces of them on neighboring slopes, where sheep huddle in rain against weed-grown fireplaces.

Gone too is the first Channing house that adjoined the mill; it was demolished about the time of Queen Victoria’s accession, when the Channing family, by then not only rich but numerous, built a new and much more pretentious house on higher ground where the clough meets the moorland. About this time also it became clear that steam would oust water power in the cotton industry, and with this in their shrewd minds the Channings took another plunge; five miles away, on meadows near what was then the small village of Browdley, and in partnership with another millowner named Felsby, they built one of the first large steam-driven mills in Lancashire. Other speculators obligingly built Mill Street for the new workers to live in, and the same process, repeated during succeeding decades with other mills and other streets, made Browdley what it is and what it shouldn’t be—as George said (and then waited for the cheer) in his popular lecture “Browdley Past and Present,” delivered fairly frequently to local literary, antiquarian, and similar societies. Yes, there was one question at any rate to which he could return a convincing answer—“What do you know of Browdley?”—and that answer might well be: “More than anyone else in the world.”

Suddenly George saw the house—the house which, like the locality, was called Stoneclough. It showed wanly in the moonlight against the background of moorland and foreground of treetops. The moon was flattering to it, softening its heavy Victorian stolidity, concealing the grim undershadow that Browdley’s smoke had contributed in the course of half a century of west winds. This was the house the Channings had lived in, the Channings of Stoneclough. A succession of Channings had traveled the five miles between Stoneclough and the Browdley mill on foot, on horseback, by pony carriage and landau, by bicycle and motorcycle and car, according to taste and period; and the same succession had added to the house a hodgepodge of excrescences and outbuildings that had nothing in common save evidence of the prevalent Channing trait throughout several generations; one of them might construct a billiard room, another remodel the stables, yet another add terraces to the garden or a bow window to the drawing room—but whatever was done at all was done conscientiously, always with the best materials, and with a rooted assumption of permanence in the scheme of things.

George saw Stoneclough as a symbol of that assumption, and—because the house was now empty and derelict—as a hint that such permanence would have received its virtual deathblow in 1914, even apart from the special fate of the Channings. Only the gardens had any surviving life, the shrubs growing together till they made an almost unbroken thicket around the house, the fences down so that any straggler from the clough could enter the once-sacred precincts out of curiosity or to gather fuel for a picnic fire. All the windows were broken or boarded up; everything lootable from the interior had long ago been looted. Yet the fabric of the house still stood, too massive to have suffered, and in moonlight and from a distance almost beautiful. George wondered, not for the first time, what could be done with such a property. No one would buy it; no one who could afford repairs and taxes would want to live there or anywhere near Browdley, for that matter. Once or twice he had thought of suggesting that the Council take it over for conversion into a municipal rest home, sanatorium, or something of the kind—but then he had cautioned himself not to give his opponents the chance for another jibe—that he had made Browdley buy his wife’s birthplace.

He did not walk up to the house, but turned back where the road began its last steep ascent; here, for a space of a few acres, were the older relics—the original Channing Mill, the broken walls of cottages that had not been lived in for a hundred years. George never saw them without reflecting on the iniquity of that early industrial age—eight-year-old children slaving at machines for fourteen hours out of the twenty-four, sunlight falling on the treetops in the clough as later on rubber forests of the Congo and the Amazon. Thus had the first Channings flourished; and it might be nemesis, of a kind, that had given their grand house to the bats and the rats. But its quality showed even in ruin; it was a substantial ruin.

By four o’clock George was back in Browdley, tired and a little footsore. As he turned into Market Street and fished in his pocket for the door key there came a voice from the pavement near his house. “ ’Ow do, George. Nice night—but I’d rather be in bed all the same.”

“Aye,” answered George mechanically. Then, recognizing the policeman on his beat, a friendly fellow always ready with a joke and (at election times) with a vote, George pulled himself together and made the necessary response. “Howdo, Tom.”

“Fine, thanks—bar a touch of rheumatics.... I was at the stone layin’. It’s bin a grand day for ye, and I wouldn’t say ye don’t deserve it.”

“Thanks, Tom.”

“Ye’ve worked for it hard enough. I can remember when ye used to swear ye’d have those Mill Street houses pulled down, and folks’d laugh at ye then, but I’ll bet they can see it’s no joke now. Aye, ye’ve made a grand start. How long d’you reckon the whole job’ll take?”

“Years,” George answered (but he would have been shocked if he could have been told how many). His voice was rather grim, and he did not amplify as he usually did when anyone encouraged him to discuss his plans. Tom noticed this and muttered sympathetically: “Well, I’ll be gettin’ along—mustn’t keep you talkin’ this hour.... ’Night, George—or rather, good mornin’.”

George fumbled the key in the lock and re-entered his house. He felt, as he had hoped, exhausted, but not, as he had also hoped, insensitive to the aloneness. It flew at him now like a wild thing as he strode along the lobby and heard, in imagination, Livia’s call from upstairs that had so often greeted him when he came home late from meetings—“That you, George?” Who else did she expect it to be, he would ask her waggishly, and feel sorry that she was such a light sleeper, since his meetings were so often late and the late meetings so frequent....

He went to the kitchen and made himself a cup of tea, sitting there at the small scrubbed table till dawn showed gray through the windows; then he went to the room with the books in it which he called his “study.” The timetable lay open on the desk, reminding him of the impending journey for which his tiredness now gave him even physical distaste; and next to the timetable was the small pile of letters that Annie had brought in during the interview with Winslow. George glanced through them idly, and with equal distaste. Suddenly then his glance changed to a gaze and his gaze to a stare, for the writing on one of the envelopes was Livia’s and the postmark was Vienna.

He read it through, and through again, stumbling to his armchair with the aloneness all around him as he faced the issue. Time passed in a curious vacuum of sensation; he did not realize it was so long until he saw the sunlight brightly shining, glinting already on the gilt titles of his books. Then he crossed the room to his desk and reached for pen and paper.

He wrote out a wire first of all: REGRET MUST CANCEL VIENNA TRIP FOR REASONS WILL EXPLAIN FULLY IN LETTER.

Then he wrote the letter without pause as follows:

Dear Lord Winslow—By now you will have got my wire, and are probably surprised by my change of mind. The reason for it is simply that I have just read a letter from my wife. It came yesterday—actually while you and I were discussing things. I put it aside with other letters and only noticed it an hour ago. Though short, it is a very frank letter, and in view of what it says there seems little that I can do now—except what Livia asks. I do not pretend to understand how these things happen, and why, but I have to take into account her age, which was not much more than half mine when I married her, so that if it was a mistake, I’d blame myself more than her. Anyhow, it would be unjust and stupid to expect her to cling to it for the rest of her life. Maybe she is old enough now to know what she really does want, and if your son is also, I won’t stand in their way—no, I can’t—neither on moral grounds nor for social and professional reasons such as you might have. So there’s nothing I could do in Vienna except make the whole thing more troublesome for all concerned. Please excuse what may strike you as a hasty reconsideration and perhaps even the breaking of a promise, but I’ve already thought it all over as much as a thing like this can be thought over. As for what I feel, that matters to no one except myself, but I would like to say how deeply I appreciate the way you approached me yesterday. No one could have been kinder and I shall never forget it.

Yours sincerely,