Читать книгу Half a Sovereign - Major General John Hay Beith - Страница 4

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I took a dislike to Jimmy Rumborough as soon as I saw his car. I suppose I take dislikes rather readily, but this time I think I had some excuse.

The car was standing beside the arrival platform in St. Pancras Station, and my smoking-compartment drew up exactly opposite. It was an outrageous-looking vehicle, in size and shape rather resembling a horizontal thermos flask on wheels, painted vermilion, except for a resplendent nickel bonnet, and wearing some of its internal organs outside, after the indelicate fashion of Prometheus. (For instance, there were four enormous asbestos-covered exhaust pipes, parallel to one another, running down the side of the bonnet and merging into one single exhaust pipe about the thickness of a fire-hose, which led away aft, discharging mephitic vapours.) Body, in the ordinary sense, the car had none; but there was a sort of cock-pit sunk into the upper circumference of the flask, in which Jimmy Rumborough was sitting, grasping a steering-wheel about the size of a circus hoop, and smoking a cigarette. Protruding from a species of horizontal port-hole further astern, I observed the head of what I took to be a small boy, wearing motor goggles, and smoking another cigarette.

At Brooklands the car, for those who like that sort of thing, would have been well enough; but as a domestic conveyance it struck me as vulgar without being funny. This impression was confirmed when Master Rumborough—either from sheer joie de vivre or, more probably, to mark the contempt of petrol for mere steam—greeted the arrival of the train by emitting a machine-gun-like series of explosions from his exhaust.

Since noises—especially unnecessary noises—and personal advertisement of one's own presence are the two things which I happen to loathe most in all the world, I promptly conceived a murderous hatred for this forward youth and his detestable conveyance. (Besides, the old place in my head was aching furiously that day.) Unfortunately, though I am surpassed by few as a deviser of horrible punishments, I am singularly useless at carrying these out; so I merely put my fingers in my ears, condemned Jimmy Rumborough to perpetual boiling motor-oil, and scanned the carriage-way for the sober limousine which I was expecting—such a vehicle as would beseem the establishment of a family lawyer of high and solemn standing. Little did I dream that the roaring horror before me was the vehicle in question.

It was Jimmy Rumborough himself who broke the news. That is to say, he eased up his engine, and yelled across the platform, without removing his cigarette from his mouth:

'I say, aren't you Leslie Miles?'

Stifling an insane impulse to deny my own identity, I assumed as unselfconscious an appearance as I could, and approached the thermos flask.

'Yes,' I said. 'Are you from Lady Rumborough? She said in her letter that she would send——'

'I am her ladyship's blue-eyed boy,' replied the youth. 'You got a man?'

I indicated my Scottish soldier-servant and indispensable factotum, one Rorison, who had deftly collected my belongings, and was now standing by, with his usual air of detached indifference to the English race, awaiting further orders.

'Tell him to snaffle a taxi,' commanded the blue-eyed one. 'You creep into the buzz-waggon.'

Construing this as an invitation to take my seat in the thermos flask, I painfully scaled its slippery heights and inserted myself into the cock-pit beside Master Jimmy.

'Hold tight, old scream!' he shouted over his shoulder, apparently addressing my fellow-passenger, and drew a resounding screech from that invention of the devil, the Klaxon horn. Next moment, with a jerk which nearly severed my spinal column, and another deafening arpeggio from the exhaust, we were under way—cleaving a passage into the Euston Road amidst the justifiable curses of all men, and heading at demoniac speed in the direction of Regent's Park.

All the reader knows about me so far is that my name is Leslie Miles, and that I do not like noises or publicity. The latter characteristic has been mine from birth, thirty-four years ago: I have been shy of my fellow-creatures ever since the days when I was of an age to be forced into a clean white frock and passed round at a tea-party of young matrons. The former is of more recent acquisition, and dates from a sudden and unexpected participation on my part in a mine explosion somewhere in the neighbourhood of Messines Ridge in early 1917. When I came down again I was removed to a base hospital, where I lay for weeks, and thence to a convalescent hospital in Surrey, where I stayed perforce until the end of the war. When peace and demobilisation came, I betook myself to distant lands, in search of a commodity still far to seek in those days—tranquillity—slowly coaxing a shaken body and a troubled spirit back to normality.

I stayed abroad for nearly five years. There was no occasion to hurry home. I have no parents or near relatives. My little manor in Leicestershire is a pleasant enough spot, or would be if I had any one with whom to share it. If things had worked out differently during my Christmas leave in '16—— But that is neither here nor there. My present task is to explain how I came to be travelling in Jimmy Rumborough's nightmare tumbril to Mulberry Lodge, Regent's Park, upon an early autumn evening in the present year of grace.

My lawyers, and my father's before me, are the firm of Rumborough, Rumborough, and Rumborough, of Lincoln's Inn Fields. The head of the firm is Sir James Rumborough, Jimmy's father, and I was visiting London that evening in answer to a pressing—one might almost have called it a fussy—letter from him regarding the business of the estate, which apparently I had been neglecting most grossly since coming into my inheritance. The letter was accompanied by a peremptory—one might almost have called it a hectoring—invitation from Lady Rumborough to make Mulberry Lodge my home while in town. This I had accepted. As an alternative to the smoking-room of my club, where the members are all, to the outward eye and ear, either dead or delirious, I had come to the conclusion that even a stodgy British household in Regent's Park would be preferable. At least one would have quiet.

I confess I had overlooked Jimmy—or rather the fact that Jimmys grow up. More than ten years ago I had dined at Mulberry Lodge with my father, and still carried, in the part of one's brain where one stores distasteful recollections, the memory of a bumptious and unkempt youth of thirteen or so, who came into dessert, cracked nuts with his teeth, and interrupted the conversation. Well, here he was again, burning up the Marylebone Road for my benefit, and exchanging simple and primitive repartees with 'bus-conductors and newsvendors. Who the young gentleman protruding from the manhole behind me might be I had no idea; but I found myself fearing that Sir James had had an addition to his family.

We roared on. The Euston Road, with its singularly appropriate fringe of monumental-masonry establishments, was far astern. By some undeserved miracle we had escaped arrest for practically driving over a policeman at the Hampstead Road crossing: we had ploughed our way ruthlessly through a seething and protesting stream of homeward-bound citizens outside Great Portland Street Underground Station, and were now in Regent's Park itself, tearing round the outer circle, to a Klaxon horn obbligato calculated to discourage the very hyenas in the adjacent Zoo.

Suddenly a shrill voice shrieked into Jimmy's left ear, and my right:

'Steady on, Jimmy! Those are blind men! St. Dunstan's Hospital!'

Evidently and unexpectedly, our young friend behind cherished certain elementary instincts of humanity. Moreover, he appeared to exert some sort of occult influence over our lunatic charioteer, for James not only gave the road to the three sturdy, blinded war-veterans crossing in the lamp-light, but for the rest of the journey travelled at a pace slightly less offensive to common decency.

Half an hour later I sat taking tea in Lady Rumborough's drawing-room, with my heart in my boots. My dream of tranquillity was shattered to the four winds: the house was full of people, and more were coming.

Beside me upon the sofa sat my hostess—tall and deaf, with that not uncommon accompaniment of deafness, a voice to wake the dead. Opposite to us, upon the other side of the fireplace, sat a large, flabby, and extremely verbose person, with three chins and grey side-whiskers, under whose discourse flinched a sandy-haired, middle-aged man who could have done very well with one of the orator's chins.

'Very interesting!' the fat man was saying: 'most illuminating! And you actually participate in these exercises yourself?'

'Yes,' replied the chinless one. 'Of course, there is a graduated series, aiming at the combination of hygiene and—er—physical grace. In our little society——'

'Ah!' remarked the fat man, who apparently was not so good a listener as talker; 'I wonder if my constituents would be interested——' He fell into an obvious electioneering muse.

One of my troubles in life is that whenever I ought to be talking to some one I always find myself listening to some one else. I was just becoming faintly interested in the conversation opposite, when—-

'We are expecting quite a number of old friends here this evening,' boomed Lady Rumborough in my ear. 'Some are going to sleep here; the rest will only dine, thank goodness! Do you play bridge?'

'A very little,' I replied evasively. As a matter of fact, I am a keen player; but mixed bridge of the dinner-party variety, with its mangled opportunities and subsequent recriminations, causes me acute agony.

'That's all right,' said Lady Rumborough. 'I play a great deal. I'll take you as a partner, and teach you all the new conventions—from America, and those places, you know. But they're really coming to-night to talk about the yachting trip.'

'The yachting trip?'

'Yes. James has always had a fancy for the sea, and this year he has got his wish. We're off in less than a fortnight. It's a big boat—thirty thousand tons—or else three thousand. Anyway, it weighs thousands of something: James will tell you.'

'Where are you thinking of going to?'

'The Mediterranean.'

'Is it your own yacht?' I asked, dimly wondering at the turn of fortune's wheel which had enabled Sir James to afford such luxuries.

'No; it was lent us by friends. We're all going.'

'All of you here, you mean.' My eyes slid round the room. I was uncertain whether to pity the others or congratulate myself.

'More than that.'

'That will be delightful,' I observed untruthfully.

'Yes, of course it will. You're coming too. We've got Gwen Gowlland for you.'

My heart stood suddenly still.

'Miss Gowlland?' I asked faintly.

'Yes—Gwen. You needn't be mysterious with us, you know,' pursued Lady Rumborough in a steady roar: 'we know all about it. She'll be at dinner to-night. You've been very slow over her, haven't you? Now come and meet Mrs. Dunham-Massey. You needn't worry about the Dunham, though.'

Mrs. Dunham-Massey proved to be the very antithesis of Lady Rumborough. Her voice was low, gentle, and sweet, and she made room for me beside her with a helpful smile.

'I know how awful it is for a man's man like you,' she said, 'to be led about on a chain at a strange tea-party. Come and sit here, and I'll keep the crowd away. First of all, though, I must warn you that I have a peculiarity: I simply have to speak the truth about things—and people! If I don't like them, or trust them—well, I can't pretend that I do. It's the way I'm built. Of course, it requires courage at times; but to speak the truth is the only thing in life, isn't it?'

With this unexceptionable exordium, Mrs. Dunham-Massey proceeded forthwith to exercise her hobby.

'That is Mr. Jubberley,' she said, pointing to the man with the three chins. 'He is a Member of Parliament—a great worker in the cause of a better understanding between the nations. He is always asking Czecho-Slovakians to lunch—but he stands too close to you when he talks. The sandy man beside him is Mr. Podmore. He is rather a dear; so utterly insignificant, yet so enthusiastic over the mild little things that thrill him for the moment—morris-dancing, and folk-songs, and all those odd amusements that they have in Garden Suburbs.' Her gentle gaze continued to travel round the room. 'There is our host, just coming in: he's a distant cousin of mine. He's a terribly kind little person, but finicky beyond all words. When you go up to your bedroom you'll find the place simply littered with time-tables and notices—about the hours of meals, and the time to post letters, and remembering to turn off the electric light, and not to tip the servants or leave things behind you when you go away, and all that kind of tiresomeness. He writes them all himself.' Her eye roved on, and fell upon Lady Rumborough. 'I love his wife: she's one of my oldest and dearest. She has no manners, and cheats at bridge; but after all, it's in spite of their failings that one loves one's friends, doesn't one? Now, never mind the others: tell me about yourself.' I found a wistful but business-like gaze turned upon me. 'It's so interesting, forming new friendships, don't you think? I may say that all I know about you so far is that you were blown up in the war, and got the O.B.E. That is correct, isn't it?'

'It's near enough,' I said. My decoration is not the O.B.E., but it seemed presumptuous to argue with this fountain of knowledge.

'I want to ask you about Gwen Gowlland,' continued Mrs. Massey purringly. 'I always think it's so unsatisfactory not to know the exact facts about people's really deep attachments, don't you? It leads to so much awkwardness and misunderstanding. Now, I should like you and me—I mean I: my grammar's awful—to be perfectly frank about everything. Are we to congratulate you?'

'No,' I said.

'You say that in a curiously constrained sort of way. Surely there's no—trouble—between you and Gwen?' She spoke hopefully.

'Not that I know of,' I replied, writhing.

'I had an idea,' she rippled on, 'that it was actually announced in Simla, last cold weather; but of course I may be wrong.'

'There was nothing to announce,' I snapped. Mrs. Massey held up a gentle, reproachful finger, and smiled deprecatingly.

'I see you are shocked at my frankness,' she said: 'some people are. But I hope you're not going to spoil our friendship by turning out like them. I believe I can read you: I'm rather psychic, you know. You are not quite certain of your feelings towards Gwen. Why not tell me about it? Who knows, perhaps I can advise you? The lion and the mouse, you know. When did you first meet?'

There was a certain awful fascination about the woman. Instead of telling her bluntly to go to the devil, I merely quailed beneath her mild inquiring eye, and said sulkily:

'During the war—near the beginning—before we went out. I was billeted at her father's place——'

'At Bagworthy—yes? And you and Gwen were thrown together a great deal?'

'Not much. Company Training——'

'But you used to meet at dinner in the evening?'

'Yes—sometimes. Of course, there were night operations——'

'By the way, is it true that Lord Bagworthy used to hang tickets on the decanters when the officers were at dinner, with "Port, sixpence a glass" on them?'

It was true enough—except that the ticket had said ninepence; but my spirit revolted against adding to this female scavenger's hoard.

'I don't drink port,' I said doggedly.

'I suppose that means that it is true,' she replied. 'You might have told me: it would have gone no further. However, you will soon get to know me better,' she added charitably. 'Poor Lord Bagworthy always was a miser. I stayed there once, and a powdered footman actually tapped on my bedroom door in the morning to ask whether I would require an egg at breakfast or not! Now, tell me when you met Gwen again.'

'At Bagworthy, more than two years later. The place was a convalescent hospital by that time; and oddly enough——'

'What a romantic coincidence! Fate seemed to be throwing you together, didn't it? And after the war you went out to India in the same ship with her?'

'I didn't know Miss Gowlland was on board,' I protested. Mrs. Massey merely shook her head.

'I like a lover,' she remarked, 'who looks the whole world in the face and boasts of his love! Anyhow, I suppose you will be making some sort of announcement soon, now that you are home again. Talk to Gwen at dinner to-night. It would be so thrilling if——'

Why did everybody conspire to take Gwen and me for granted? Desperately I changed the subject.

'What about this yachting expedition? 'I asked. 'I didn't know Sir James had become a millionaire.'

Mrs. Massey gazed at me with a mixture of surprise and gratification. Here was a really savoury bakemeat of truth to impart.

'Don't tell me you don't know where the yacht came from!' she said eagerly. 'I haven't the foggiest idea.'

'It's the Virginia—Lord Bagworthy's own yacht—Gwen's yacht—your yacht!'

I disregarded this last innuendo, and asked:

'But how on earth did Rumborough get hold of it?'

Mrs. Dunham-Massey was all agog at once.

'Lord Bagworthy got into some mess,' she said. 'Blackmail, I was told. I'm afraid the poor man had been dreadfully indiscreet, and the people—or person—had to be bought off. James Rumborough arranged matters for him—most cleverly and tactfully, I believe: raised the money by a mortgage, or something, kept the story out of the papers, and was perfectly wonderful about everything. Of course, Lord Bagworthy was most grateful; but he can't possibly afford to keep up a yacht for several years now, so he has handed it over to James for the season. I'm told that it's his way of paying James's bill, which is enormous. That is why Gwen has been included in the party. She was stuck on the yacht, like the stamp on a receipt.'

'Are you going?' I inquired.

'Oh yes. We're all going: we sail in about a fortnight. Lisbon—Algiers—all those interesting places in the Mediterranean. It ought to be perfectly divine. Of course, dear Charlotte Rumborough is treating the whole thing as a sort of deep-sea bridge-party. So like her, isn't it? So sweet! She made up her own four before she thought of anything else; that was why I was invited. The other two are Mr. Jubberley and George Bumpstead.'

'Who is George Bumpstead?' I asked.

'The explorer and big-game hunter. A delightfully breezy person: he'll make you roar with laughter. Full of jokes and epigrams, and such a mimic! You ought to see him imitate Biff Burbidge.'

'Who is Biff Burbidge?'

'Oh, what a stranger you are to London! Biff Burbidge is a music-hall comedian, or a revue actor, or something of that kind. He stands on the stage in a funny attitude, and reels off long stories about his wife's pet parrot: they make people simply shriek with laughter. George can do it almost as well: at least, he thinks he can, and that makes him so happy, poor dear. He's horribly vulgar, of course. By the way, there's something I ought to tell you. I hate doing it, but—one must live up to one's creed, mustn't one? George is getting far too fond of Gwen. Watch them to-night.'

'Oh, he's coming to-night, is he?'

'Yes: all the yacht party are to be here, except Arabella Hockley. She doesn't get away from school until the end of next week. Rather a terrible child—a female hobbledehoy—not too clean, and given to impish practical jokes. One has to be firm with her.'

Dimly in my mind a composite spectacle began to materialise—the spectacle of the yacht party enjoying itself in the Mediterranean. I could see them all—Sir James attired as a commodore, putting up notices, and keeping a log, and piping all hands on deck upon the slightest pretext; his wife producing four aces out of her sleeve and shouting down adverse comment thereon; Jimmy Rumborough taking the helm and blowing the ship's siren at passing craft; Gwen, my clinging, helpless, soulful affinity, dumbly reproaching me for my deficiencies as a cavalier, and at the same time angling successfully for the admiration of every eligible male on the ship; Arabella Hockley, the female hobbledehoy given to practical jokes, making apple-pie beds and hitting people over the head with a deck-mop; Mr. Jubberley delivering a political speech upon international amity upon the bridge, with Mr. Podmore teaching the crew morris-dances upon the fo'c'sle, what time George Bumpstead gave an imitation of Biff Burbidge upon the quarter-deck. And, of course, Mrs. Dunham-Massey, with her low, rippling voice and apologetic smile, steeling herself to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about everybody on board whom she happened to dislike. What a nightmare vessel! What a phantom ship! Never in this world would I consent to set foot upon its deck. I am a broken reed at repelling unwelcome invitations, but this time I would show myself a pillar of brass.

My ruminations were interrupted by an outbreak of barbaric music, emanating from a particularly raucous specimen of that accursed instrument the gramophone. Like many London drawing-rooms, Lady Rumborough's possessed a sort of second half, or annexe, visible through an arched opening. It was here that the gramophone had sprung to life, grinding forth one of those Ethiopian funeral dirges to which civilised society prefers to dance to-day.

Into our field of vision from round the corner came a dancing couple. The taller was my friend Jimmy Rumborough: the other was a girl—almost a child—slim, dainty, and piquant, with her shapely head closely shingled and two attractive black whiskers brought modishly forward almost into her eyes. They stood together in the middle of the floor, almost stationary except for an occasional epileptic shudder, while Master Rumborough uplifted his voice and howled like a dog, to the effect that he was suffering from Prohibition Blues.

Suddenly I recognised his partner—her pert little nose, the set of her head, and her wide smile. She was not a small boy after all—merely a more than usually attractive specimen of that curious compound of physical allure and sex-aloofness, the young girl of to-day. Well, she would have made a very good boy; an ordinary Eton suit would have fitted her to perfection.

I turned, automatically, to hear the truth about this young person from Mrs. Dunham-Massey, and was aware of Lady Rumborough bearing down upon me again.

'Come and make yachting plans!' she boomed.

Hardening my heart for the coming struggle, I followed her back to the fire. Here I encountered my host, a twittering little man of about fifty-five. His manner was alert and precise: from my earliest youth I could never recall having known him untidy, or unpunctual, or anything but maddeningly meticulous about everything. My old father once said to me: 'James Rumborough knows his job all right, but how he finds time to do it beats me: he's so busy organising his own futile existence. You know that absurd page which one finds in pocket diaries and engagement-books, for entering the number of your watch and your size in collars? Well, Rumborough fills that page right up: I've seen him do it! The fellow's existence is one long, superfluous, footling card-index!'

I thought of the old man as I crossed the room, for Sir James was sitting with a little pocket diary in his hand, issuing embarkation orders therefrom.

'Come and sit down, Miles,' he said, shaking hands. 'Take a cigarette. These are Turkish, those are Virginian. The matches are on the small shelf to the right of the mantelpiece: you should find an ash-tray on the left-hand corner of the lacquer cabinet. I want you to join our Mediterranean party. The yacht sails from Southampton on Saturday the twenty-seventh, at noon precisely. We go down by the nine-eighteen from Waterloo. A seat will be reserved for you. Your heavy luggage will be limited to one cabin trunk, not more than fourteen inches high, to fit underneath your berth.' He turned over a page in his diary. 'As for the itinerary—we leave Gibraltar on the fourth, at seven p.m. We touch at Barcelona, for a ramble ashore of two hours' duration——'

Life on this yacht was obviously going to be several degrees worse than six weeks in the Second Division. The invitation must be refused before I found myself condoning it by any appearance of interest or sympathy. How was I to set about it? The honest course was to say frankly that I loathed yachting, abhorred the Mediterranean, and valued my personal liberty above rubies. The pillar of brass, in fact.

Alas! All I could bring myself to say was:

'By the worst luck in the world, I can't possibly leave England on the twenty-seventh. I have a most important engagement on the third of the following month. It's terribly bad luck, but there it is.' The broken reed again!

Sir James looked up, quite ruffled.

'But, my dear fellow' he said, 'all the arrangements are made. You can't possibly let us down like this. We're depending on you, with your knowledge of travel and foreign languages—especially upon our shore excursions. I may say I am organising some trips into the interior——'

So that was why I had been invited. Well, they could get a courier, and pay him.

'I'm most awfully sorry,' I said lamely. (Confound it, why couldn't I tell the little brute to go and boil his yacht, and himself inside it?)

'What is your engagement on the third?' inquired Lady Rumborough in a voice of thunder.

This was a facer: too late I cursed myself for not having thought out a reasoned defence scheme.

'It's a'—I checked myself just in time: funerals are not usually arranged a fortnight ahead—'wedding!'

It was a tactical error of the first magnitude, because it committed me to a position from which there was no escape.

'Whose wedding?' inquired the same inexorable voice.

'Nobody that you know,' I said. 'Quite a humble affair. If it was an ordinary social function one could dodge it in the ordinary way; but in this case I should cause very deep—you know!'

'Who is it?'

'Rorison,' I replied desperately. 'My man, you know. One can't offend people like that.'

'Rorison shall come with you on the yacht,' announced Sir James, 'instead! That will compensate him more than amply for the postponement of his happiness. Only six weeks, in any case. He can make himself useful on board too: we require an extra steward.'

With the energy of despair I doubled on my tracks.

'I'm afraid that's not my only engagement,' I said: 'there's another.' There was an expectant silence, while I dredged my imagination for Rumborough-proof excuses. It was useless to plead estate business or legal engagements of any kind: Sir James held me in the hollow of his hand there. What else was there? Sport? A shooting party? That would be howled down in a moment. A family reunion? I had no relatives, and the Rumboroughs knew it. Where could I take sanctuary? What spot on all the globe was safe from this omniscient little rabbit, who carried the size of his neck about with him in a memorandum-book? Ah!—I had it!

'What is the engagement?' asked Sir James.

'Well,' I began awkwardly, 'it's not a matter I am at liberty to go into very deeply; but there's a meeting I must attend at the War Office. One of those rather confidential committees, you know.'

'What is he saying?' inquired Lady Rumborough, with whom, I was destined to discover, it was a favourite device, when momentarily baffled, to feign extreme deafness.

'I understood our friend to say that he was compelled to attend a confidential meeting at the War Office,' announced a heavy voice, and I realised that Mr. Oswald Jubberley, M.P., had joined in our deliberations.

'Yes,' I said boldly. 'It is held'—here I had another and, as it proved, a fatal inspiration—'upon the first of every month.'

Sir James suddenly rose from his seat and disappeared from the room.

'I have some small influence,' announced Mr. Jubberley, sitting heavily upon the sofa beside me and laying a pobby hand upon my knee, 'with the Secretary of State for War. I venture to believe that a word from me, tactfully delivered, would be sufficient to secure for our young friend leave of absence for one month, or even two.'

'Please don't do anything of the kind,' I said anxiously. 'The existence of the committee is not officially recognised: it would embarrass the Secretary of State very seriously if any open mention were made.'

'In that case, Colonel Miles,' replied Jubberley, 'may I, in all friendliness, suggest that your revelation of its existence was—shall we say—a trifle indiscreet? But of course, in the circumstances, my offer of mediation is withdrawn.'

He blew over me, like a disappointed grampus, and removed his hand from my knee. I breathed again. I had offended Jubberley, but I had spiked his guns.

The door opened and Sir James reappeared. In his hand he carried a copy of the current edition of that usually romantic but in this case diabolical publication, the Continental Bradshaw.

'I have surmounted the difficulty,' he announced briskly. 'Colonel Miles, you will leave London on the morning of the second, and travel overland to Marseilles. There the yacht will meet you, upon the evening of the third. We touch there in any case, for coal, supplies, and mail. The boat-train leaves Victoria at nine a.m. It is advisable to reserve your seat in advance.' He removed his pince-nez and closed the railway guide with a satisfied snap. 'That is settled, then. Now, good people, it is time we all went up to dress for dinner. Eight o'clock precisely, please!'

I sat on in the deserted drawing-room, oblivious to the flight of time, and to the fact that I was violating the most sacred laws of Mulberry Lodge. I had just decided that my only course was to go out to-morrow morning and throw a brick into a plate-glass window and really get six weeks in the Second Division, when the door opened and a slim, shimmering vision, in an abbreviated evening frock, appeared before me. It was my boyish little fellow-passenger of the afternoon.

'Hallo!' she said. 'Aren't you going to dress?'

I rose.

'I'm just going up,' I said.

'You'll get a fearful ticking-off if you're late,' she warned me, 'from Mutt and Jeff, or both.'

'Whom did you say?'

'Mutt and Jeff—our noble host and hostess. You know the pictures of Mutt and Jeff, don't you—the tall scraggy man and the little fat one?'

'Yes, rather.'

'Well, of course Lady Rumborough isn't a man, but she looks very like Mutt when she's walking out with Sir James. And he simply is Jeff. It was Jimmy who christened them.'

'Most unfilial!' I observed severely. 'By the way, forgive my asking, but what is your name? I—I wasn't introduced this afternoon.'

'No, of course you weren't. Jimmy has filthy manners,' replied the young lady, helping herself to a cigarette. 'Who did you think I was?' She favoured me with a smile. It was the smile of an expert flirt; but there was no intention behind it—nothing but the natural camaraderie of a friendly spirit. I chuckled.

'I took you for a boy,' I said. 'All I saw was your head sticking out of that sort of manhole, and your short hair, and——'

'It's all right: don't apologise. To be perfectly frank, I'm a girl. My name's Lila Chatterton.'

'Chatterton?' I said.

'Yes. Why?'

'I used to know a girl of your name, some time ago—Barbara Chatterton.'

Lila's face lit up.

'Babs? You know my darling Babs? She's my big sister!'

'No!'

'Yes!'

In our excitement, I found, we were holding one another's hands.

'Now I come to look at you,' I said—all my shyness seemed to have been thawed out of me by this agreeable discovery—'you're like her. She is taller, and fair——'

'Besides being the loveliest thing that ever lived,' said Lila simply.

'She married, didn't she?' I asked awkwardly.

Lila made a face.

'She did; but Heaven has been kind. Oh, my dear, what a horror that man was! But he's been an angel for two years now—at least, we hope he is an angel—so all is well. Babs is at Algiers: she's going to join us there. Won't it be lovely? You're coming, of course?'

'Rather!' I said, almost enthusiastically.