PART VII

I

Fallaray was to meet Lola at the gate in the wall at four o'clock. He

wanted to show her how the vale looked in the light of the afternoon

sun. But it was a long time to wait because, instead of going to bed

after he had taken Lola to Lady Cheyne's cottage at the moment when a

line in the sky behind it had been rubbed by a great white thumb, he had

walked up and down the terrace and watched the dawn push the night away

and break upon him with a message of freedom.

He paced up and down while the soft blur of the valley came out into the

clear detail of corn fields, rolling acres of grass, sheep dotted, a

long white ribbon of road twisting among villages, each one marked by

the delicate spire of an old church, spinneys of young trees and clumps

of old ones, gnarled and twisted and sometimes lonely, standing like the

sentinels that receive "the secret whispers of each other's watch."

He stood up to the new day honestly and without shame. Like a man who

suddenly breaks away from a Brotherhood with whose creeds he has found

himself no longer in sympathy, he rejoiced in his release. Lola had come

to him at the moment when he was lying on his oars at the entrance to a

backwater. He had been in the main river too long, pulling his arms out

against the stream. He was tired. It was utterly beyond argument that he

had failed. He had nothing in him of the stuff that goes to the making

of a pushing politician. He detested and despised the whole unholy game

of politics. In addition, he had come to the dangerous age in the life

of a man, especially the ascetic man. He was forty. He had never allowed

himself to listen to the rustle of silk. He had kept his eyes doggedly

on what he had conceived to be his job, wifeless. And when Lola came,

the magnet of her sex drew him not only without a struggle but with an

insatiable hunger into the side of life against which Feo had slammed

the door, leaving him stultified and disgusted. He had welcomed in this

girl what he now regarded as the unmet spirit of his adolescence, and he

fell to her as only such a man can fall. The fact that she loved him and

had told him of her love with the astounding simplicity of a child gave

the whole thing a beauty, a depth and permanence that made him regard

the future with wonder and delight, though not yet with any definite

plan. At present this _volte face_ was too astonishing, too new in its

happening, to be dissected and balanced up. For a few days at least he

wanted irresponsibility, for a change. He wanted, like a man wrecked on

the shore of Eden, to explore into beauty and dally, unseen, with love.

The time was not yet for a decision as to which way he would go, when,

as was certain, some one would discover the wreckage and send out a

rescue party. He had promised himself a holiday and all the more now he

would insist upon its enjoyment. Whether at the end of it he would

refuse ever to go back into the main stream, or go back and take Lola

with him, were questions that he was not yet formulating in his mind.

But as to one thing he was certain, even then. Lola was his; she had

brought back his youth like a miracle, and he would never let her out of

his sight.

He breakfasted in his library, ignoring the papers. Their daily story of

chaos made more chaotic by the lamentable blundering of fools and

knaves, seemed to deal with a world out of which he had dropped, hanging

to a parachute. He went smiling through the morning, watching the clock

with an impatience that was itself a pleasure. He felt the strange

exhilaration of having lived his future with all his past to spend, of

returning as a student to a school in which he had performed the duties

of a Master. And there were times when he drew up short and sent out a

great boyish laugh that echoed through his house, at the paradox of it

all. And once, but only once, he stood outside himself and saw that he

was placing his usefulness upon the altar of passion. And before he

leaped back into his skin and while yet he retained his sanity and cold

logic, he saw that he loved Lola for her golden hair and wide-apart

eyes, her red lips and tingling hand, her young sweet body,--but not her

soul, not the intangible thing in a woman that keeps a man's love when

passion passes. But to this he said, "I am young again. I have the need

and the right. When I have had time to find her soul, she shall have my

quiet love."

And finally, at three o'clock, with an hour still to drive away, he went

down to the gate in the wall, eager and insatiable to wait for the

rustle of silk.

II

Lady Cheyne had encouraged her flock to lateness in order that she might

lock the door after Lola had come back. She was terrified of burglars,

and although she had sold most of her pearls and diamonds to help her

various proteges over rainy days, she shuddered at the thought of being

disclosed by a flash light to a probably unshaven man. Nothing could

shake her from her belief that a man who could go bearded after five

o'clock in the afternoon must be a criminal,--and this in spite of the

fact that she had lived among artists for years. But she was a woman who

cultivated irrational idiosyncrasies as other women collect old fans or

ancient snuffboxes. She would never live in a flat, for instance,

because if she passed away in one it would be so dreadfully humiliating

to be taken down to the street in a lift, head first.

Becoming irritable from want of sleep, she had kept everybody up until

two in the morning, by which hour even Salo had ceased from Impfing and

Willy could Pouff no more. Zalouhou, who was as natural as a dog, had

yawned hugely. And then, sending her party up to bed, she had proved the

sublimity of her kindness by doing something that she had never done

before. She had left a lamp burning in the hall and the front door wide

open.

It was four o'clock when, a very light sleeper, she woke at the sound of

creaking stairs and went out, giving Lola time to arrive at her room, to

peer over the banisters to see that the lamp was out and the front door

closed. Then, returning to bed, she lay in great rotundity and with a

wistful smile, to think back to the days when she had been as young and

slim as Lola and just as much in love.

It was not until after breakfast, at which Lola did not appear, that she

became aware of a curiosity that was like the bite of a mosquito. Where

had that girl been all those hours and who was the man? But it was not a

sinister curiosity, all alive to gather gossip and spread innuendoes, as

women give so much to do. It was the desire to share, however distantly,

in what she had at once imagined was a Great Romance. Age had turned

sentiment into sentimentality in this kind fat lady and she thought of

everything to do with the heart in capital letters. Lola's words in Mrs.

Rumbold's parlor came back to her. "It's love and adoration and

long-deferred hope," and she was stirred to a great sympathy. Shutting

the drawing-room door upon the after-breakfast rush to music, she went

upstairs to Lola's room in the newest wing, distressed at her inability

to creep. The dear thing was in her care and must be looked after.

It was nearly midday and the house had echoed with scales and badinage,

bursts of operatic laughter and paeans of soprano praise to the gift of

life for an hour and more. And so, of course, she expected to find her

young friend lying in a daydream, reluctantly awake. But when she opened

the door of Lola's room as quietly as she could, it was to see the

silver frock spilt upon the floor like a pool of moonlight and the girl

lying under the bedclothes in the attitude of a child in irresistible

sleep, breathing like a rose. Her golden hair was streaming on her

pillow, the long, dark lashes of her wide-apart eyes seemed to be stuck

to her cheeks. Her lips were slightly apart and one arm was stretched

out, palm up, with fingers almost closed upon something that she had

found at last and must never let go.

"Love and adoration and long-deferred hope,"--the words came back again

and told their story to the woman of one great love, so that she was

moved to renewed sympathy and re-thrilled. She stood over the slight

form in its utter relax and saw the lips tremble into a smile and the

fingers close a little more. She said to herself, little knowing how

exact was the simile upon which she stumbled, "She has found the gate in

the wall." But before leaving the room to keep her song birds as quiet

as possible, in order that her friend might sleep her fill, she caught

sight of a book that lay open on the dressing table, upon the inner

cover of which was pasted the photograph of a familiar face.

"Fallaray!"--She read the title: "Memoirs de Madame de Breze." And she

looked again at the strong, ascetic face, with the lonely eyes, the

unwarmed lips, the cold high brow. It might have been that of St.

Anthony.

And she stood for a moment before going down to her children--her only

children--and repeated to herself, with great excitement, her former

thought. "A Great Romance, Love in High Places. How wonderful to be in,

perhaps, on History."

III

If, during all their inarticulate talks, Fallaray had ever remembered to

ask Lola about herself, she would have told him, with perfect truth, the

little story of her life and love. She was now wholly without fear. She

had found the gate in the wall and had entered to happiness. But

Fallaray went through that week-end without thinking, accepting the

union that she had brought about without question and with a joy and

delight as youthful as her own. From the time that she had found him at

four o'clock waiting for her, not caring where she came from so that she

came, and saw that she had brushed the loneliness from his eyes and

brought a smile to his mouth, all sense of being merely temporary lifted

from her heart. In the eagerness of his welcome, in the hunger of his

embrace, she saw that she belonged, was already as much a possession and

a fact as the old house, hitherto his one treasure and refreshment.

They went hand in hand through those lovely days, like a boy and a girl.

He led her from one pet place to another and lay at her feet, watching

her with wonder, or going close to kiss her eyes and hair, to prove

again and yet again that she was not a dream. And every moment smoothed

a line from his face and pointed the way to his need of her in all the

days to come. But while he showed that he had lived his future and had

begun to spend his past, she, even then, forgot her past and turned her

eyes to the future. Those holiday days which bound them together must

come to an end, of course. And while she reveled in them as he did and

avoided any mention of the work to which he must return, she had found

herself in finding him, and becoming woman at last, saw her great

responsibility and developed the sense of protection that grows with

woman's love.

And this new sense was strengthened and made all the more necessary

because his desire to make holiday had come about through her. And while

she lay in his arms in all the ecstasy of love, she knew that she would

fall far short of her achievement if she should become of more

importance in his life than the work that he seemed to have utterly

forgotten. It was for her, she began to see, to send him back with

renewed energy and fire, and then, installed in a secret nest, to fulfil

the part marked out for her as she conceived it and give him the rustle

of silk.

If she had been the common schemer, using her sex magnetism to provide

luxuries and security--the golden cage, as she had called it in her

youth--the way was easy. But love and hero-worship had placed her on

another level. Her cage was Fallaray's heart, in which she was

imprisoned for life. Looking into the future with the suddenly awakened

practicality that she had inherited from her mother, she began to lay

out careful plans. She must find a girl to take her place with Lady Feo.

Gratitude demanded that. She would go home until such time as she could

take a furnished flat to which Fallaray could come without attracting

attention. What her parents were to be told required much thinking. All

her ideas of a Salon, of meeting political chiefs, of going into a

certain set of society were foolish, she could see. The second of the

most important of her new duties, she told herself, was to shield

Fallaray from gossip which would be of use to his political enemies and

so-called friends; the first to dedicate her life henceforward, by every

gift that she possessed and could acquire, to the inspiration and the

relaxation of the man who belonged more to his country than he did to

her.

She knew from the observation of specific cases and from her study of

the memoirs and the lives of famous courtesans that men were not held

long by sex attraction alone, although by that, rather than by beauty

and by wit, they were captured. She must, therefore, she owned, with her

peculiar frankness, apprentice herself anew, this time to the

cultivation of intelligence. She must be able, eventually, to talk

Fallaray's language, if possible, and add brain to what she called her

gift.

All these things worked in her mind, suddenly set into action like one

of her father's doctored watches, while she wandered through the sunny

hours with Fallaray. All that was French and thrifty and practical in

her nature awoke with all that was passionate and love-giving. And when

at night she had to leave him to return to the cottage of the

sympathetic woman whose discretion deserved a monument, she lay awake

for hours to think and plan. She was no longer the lady's maid, going

with love and adoration and long-deferred hope from one failure to

another, no longer the trembling girl egged forward to a forlorn hope.

She had found the gate in the wall, entered into a golden responsibility

and blossomed into a woman.

IV

Feo's new man, Clive Arrowsmith, had driven her down to the races at

Windsor. Two of his horses, carrying colors new to the betting public,

were entered. No one knew anything about them, so that if they won, and

they were out to win, the odds would be good. There was a chance of

making some money, always useful.

"I rather like this meeting," she said. "It's a sort of picnic peopled

with caricatures," and sailed into the enclosure, elastically, in more

than usually characteristic clothes. She had discarded the inevitable

tam-o'-shanter for once in favor of a panama hat, which looked very cool

and light and threw a soft shadow over her face. She was in what she

called a soft mood,--meaning that she was playing a feminine role and

leading up to a serious affair. Arrowsmith was obviously pucca and his

height and slightness, well-shaped, close-cropped head, small

straw-colored moustache, straight nose, strong chin with a deep cleft,

and gray eyes which had a way, most attractive to women, of disbelieving

everything they said had affected Feo and "really rather rattled" her,

as she had confessed to Georgie Malwood late one night. After her recent

bad picks, which had left a nasty taste of humiliation behind, she was

very much in the mood for an old-fashioned sweep into sentiment. She had

great hopes of Arrowsmith and had seen him every day since Sunday. He

was not easy. He erected mental bunkers. He was plus two at the game,

which was good for hers. Altogether he was very satisfactory, and his

horses added to the fun, on the side.

"It's rather a pet of mine," he said, looking round with a sort of

affectionate recognition, "because when I was at Eton I broke bounds

once or twice and had the time of my life here. Everything tastes better

when there's a law against drinking. But I never thought I should come

here with you."

"Have you ever thought about it then?"

"Yes," he said, leaning on the rail and looking under her hat with what

was only the third of his un-ironical examinations. She had memorized

the other two. Was she approaching the veteran class? "The day you were

married I happened to be passing St. Margaret's and the crowd of

fluttering women held me up. I saw you leave the church and I said to

myself, 'My God, if I ever know that girl, I'll have a try to put a

different smile on her face,'"

"You interest me, Cupid," she said, giving him a nickname on the spur of

the moment. "What sort of smile, if you please?"

"One that wouldn't make me want to hit you," he answered, still looking.

"You'll never achieve your object on the way out of church."

"No, that's dead certain."

And she wondered whether he had scored or she had. She would like to

feel that he was hard hit enough to go through this affair hell for

leather, into the Divorce Court and out into marriage. It came to her at

that moment, for the first time, that she liked him,--more than liked

him; that he appealed to her and did odd new things to her heart. She

felt that she could make her exit from the gang with this man.

As for Arrowsmith, he was sufficiently hard hit to hate Feo for the

record that she had made, sufficiently in love with her to resent her

kite-tail of indiscriminations. He loved but didn't like her, and this

meant that he would unmagnetize himself as soon as he could and bolt.

The bunkers that she had found in his nature were those of

fastidiousness, not often belonging to men. But for being the son of

Arrowsmith, the iron founder, whose wealth had been quadrupled by the

War, he would have been a poet, although he might never have written

poetry. As it was, he considered that women should be chaste, and was

the object of derision for so early-Victorian an opinion. The usual

hobby thus failing, he raced, liking thoroughbreds who played the game.

A queer fish, Arrowsmith.

Georgie Malwood came up. She was with her fourth mother-in-law, Mrs.

Claude Malwood, whose back view was seventeen, but whose face was older

than the Pyramids. And Arrowsmith drifted off to the paddock.

But they lunched and spent the day together and one of the horses,

"Mince Pie," won the fourth race at six to one, beating the favorite by

a short head. And so Feo had a good day. They got away ahead of the

crowd, except for the people of the theater, who had to dine early and

steady down before entering upon the arduous duties of the night,

especially those of the chorus who, in these days of Reviews, are called

upon to make so many changes of clothes. Art demands many

sacrifices.--It had been decided that the Ritz would do for dinner and

one of the dancing clubs afterwards. But on the way out Gilbert

Macquarie pranced up to Feo, utterly inextinguishable, with a hatband of

one club and a tie of another and clothes that would have frightened a

steam roller. "Oh, hello, old thing," he cried, giving one of his

choicest wriggles. "How goes it?"

To which Feo replied, with her most courteous insolence, "Out, Mr.

Macquarie," touched Arrowsmith's arm and went.

But the nasty familiarity of that most poisonous bounder did something

queer to Arrowsmith's physical sense, and he couldn't for the life of

him play conversational ball with Feo on the road home. "To follow

_that_," he thought, and was nauseated.

But Feo was in her softest, her most feminine mood. After dinner she was

going to dance with this man and be held in his arms. It was a

delightful surprise to discover that she possessed a heart. She had

begun to doubt it. She had been an experimentalist hitherto. And so she

didn't have much to say. And when they emerged from the squalor of

Hammersmith and were passing Queen's Road, Bayswater, the picture of

Lola came suddenly into her mind, the girl in love, and she wondered

sympathetically how she was getting on. "What shall I wear to-night? I

hate those new frocks.--I hope the band plays Boheme at the Ritz.--No

diamonds, just pearls. He's a pearl man, I think. And I'll brush Peau

d'Espagne through my hair. What a profile he has,--Cupid."

And she shuddered. She had married a profile, the fool. To be set free

was impossible. The British public did not allow its Cabinet Ministers

to be divorced.

At Dover Street Arrowsmith sprang from the car. He handed Feo out and

rang the doorbell.

"You look white," she said. "What's the matter?"

He was grateful for the chance. "That old wound," he said. "It goes back

on me from time to time."

"That doesn't mean that you'll have to chuck tonight?" She was aghast.

"I'm awfully afraid so, if you don't mind. It means bed, instantly, and

a doctor. Do forgive me. I can't help myself. I wish to God I could."

She swallowed an indescribable disappointment and said "Good night,

then. So sorry. Ring me up in the morning and let me know how you feel."

But she knew that he wouldn't. It was written round his mouth. And as

she went upstairs she whipped herself and cursed Macquarie and looked

back at her kite-tail of indiscriminations with overwhelming regret.

Arrowsmith was a pucca man.

V

Ernest Treadwell watched the car come and go.

Lola had given out at home that she was to be away with Lady Feo, but

that morning he had seen in the paper that her ladyship was in town. She

had "been seen" dining at Hurlingham after the polo match with Major

Clive Arrowsmith, D. S. O., late Grenadier Guards. Dying to see Lola, to

break the wonderful news that his latest sonnet on Death had been

printed by the _Westminster Gazette_, the first of his efforts to find

acceptance in any publication, Treadwell had hurried to Dover Street,

had ventured to present himself at the area door and had been told by

Ellen that Lola was away on a holiday.

For half an hour he had been walking up and down the street, looking

with puzzled and anxious eyes at the house which had always seemed to

him to wear a sinister look. If she had not been going away with Lady

Feo, why had she said that she was? A holiday,--alone, stolen from her

people and from him to whom hitherto she had always told everything?

What was the meaning of it?--She, Lola, had not told the truth. The

thought blew him into the air, like an explosion. Considering himself,

with the egotism of all half-baked socialists, an intellectual from the

fact that he read Massingham and quoted Sidney Webb, he boasted of being

without faith in God and constitution. He sneered at Patriotism now, and

while he stood for Trades-Unionism remained, like all the rest of his

kind, an individualist to the marrow. But he had believed in Lola

because he loved her and she inspired him, and without her encouragement

and praise he knew that he would let go and crash. Just as he had been

printed in the _Westminster Gazette_!

And she had not told the truth, even to her people. Where was she? What

was she doing? To whom could she go to spend a holiday? She had no other

relation than her aunt and she also was in town. Ellen had told him so

in answer to his question.--Back into a mind black with jealousy and

suspicion--he was without the habit of faith--came the picture of Lola,

dressed like a lady, getting out of a taxicab at the shady-looking house

in Castleton Terrace. Had she lied to him then?

Dover Street was at the bottom of it all, and her leaving home to become

a lady's maid to such a woman as Lady Feo. She must have caught some of

the poison of that association, God knew what! In time of trouble it is

always the atheist who is the first to call on God.

He was about to leave the street in which the Fallaray house had now

assumed the appearance of a morgue to him when Simpkins came up from the

area, with a dull face. After a moment of irresolution he followed and

caught the valet up. "Where's Miss Breezy?" he asked abruptly.

Simpkins was all the more astonished at the question for the trouble on

that young cub's face. He looked him over sharply,--the cheap cap, the

too long hair, the big nose, the faulty teeth, the pasty face, the

un-athletic body, the awkward feet. Lola was in love. He knew that well

enough. But not with this lout, that was certain, poet or no poet. "I

don't know as 'ow I've got to answer that question," he said, just to

put him in his place.

"Yes, you have. Where is she?"

"You ought ter know." He himself knew and as there was no accounting for

tastes and Lola had made a friend of this anaemic hooligan, why didn't

_he_? He lived round the corner from the shop, anyhow.

"But I don't know. Neither do her father and mother."

"What's that?" Simpkins drew up short. "You don't know what you're

talkin' about. She went 'ome last Thursday to get a little rest until

to-morrer,--Tuesday."

Treadwell would have cried out, "It isn't true," but he loved Lola and

was loyal. He had met Simpkins in Queen's Road, Bayswater, and had seen

him on familiar terms with Mr. Breezy, but he was a member of the

Fallaray household and as such was not to be let into this--_this_

trouble. Not even the Breezys must be told before Lola had been seen and

had given an explanation. They didn't love her as much as he did,--nor

any one else in the world. And so he said, loyalty overmastering his

jealousy and fear, "Oh, is that so? I haven't had time to look in

lately. I didn't know." And seeing a huge unbelief in Simpkins's pale

eyes, he hurried on to explain. "Being in the neighborhood and having

some personal news for Lola, I called at your house. Was surprised to

hear that she was away. That's all. Good night." And away he went, head

forward, left foot turning in, long arms swinging loose.

But he had touched the spring in Simpkins to a jealousy and a fear that

were precisely similar to his own. Lola was _not_ at home. Treadwell

knew it and had called at Dover Street, expecting to find her there.

They had all been told lies because she was doing something of which she

was ashamed. The night that she had come in, weeping, dressed like a

lady.--The words that had burned into his soul the evening of his

proposal,--"so awfully in love with somebody else and it's a difficult

world.--Perhaps I shall never be married and that's the truth, Simpky.

It's a difficult world."

"Hi," he called out. "Hi," and started after Treadwell, full stride.

But rather than face those searching eyes again, at the back of which

there was a curious blaze, Treadwell took to his heels, and followed

hard by Simpkins, whose fanatical spirit of protection was stirred to

its depths, dodged from one street into another. The curious chase would

have ended in Treadwell's escape but for the sudden intervention, in

Vigo Street, of a policeman who slipped out of the entrance to the

Albany and caught the boy in his arms.

"Now then, now then," he said. "What's all this 'ere?"

And up came Simpkins, blowing badly, with his tie under his left ear.

"It's--it's alri, Saunders. A friendly race, that's all. He's--he's a

paller mine. Well run, Ernie!" And he put his arm round Treadwell's

shoulders, laughing.

And the policeman, whose wind was good, laughed, too, at the sight of

those panting men. "Mind wot yer do, Mr. Simpkins," he said, to the nice

little fellow with whom he sometimes took a drink at the bottom of the

area steps. "Set up 'eart trouble if yer not careful."

Set up heart trouble? Simpkins looked with a sudden irony at the boy who

also would give his life to Lola. And the look was met and understood.

It put them on another footing, they could see.

After a few more words of badinage the policeman mooched off to finish

his talk with the tall-hatted keeper of the Albany doorway. And Simpkins

said gravely and quietly, "Treadwell, we've got to go into this, you and

me. We're in the same boat and Lola's got ter be--looked after, by both

of us."

Treadwell nodded. "I'm frightened," he said, without camouflage.

"So am I," said Simpkins.

And they went off together, slowly, brought into confidence by a mutual

heart trouble that had already set up.

VI

But there was no uneasiness in Queen's Road, Bayswater. John Breezy and

his good wife were happy in the belief that their little girl was

enjoying the air and scents of the country with her ladyship. They had

neither the time nor the desire to dig deeply into the daily papers. To

read of the weathercock policy of the overburdened Prime Minister,

traditionally, nationally, and mentally unable to deal with the great

problems that followed upon each other's heels, made Breezy blasphemous

and brought on an incapacity to sit still. And so he merely glanced at

the front page, hoping against hope for a new government headed by such

men as Lord Robert Cecil, Lord Derby, Lord Grey and Edmund Fallaray, and

for the ignominious downfall of all professional scavengers, titled

newspaper owners and mountebanks who were playing ducks and drakes with

the honor and the traditions of Parliament. He had no wish to be under

the despotism of a Labor Government, having seen that loyalty to leaders

was unknown among Trades Unionists and that principles were things which

they never had had and never would have the courage to avow.

As for Mrs. Breezy, she never had time for the papers. She didn't know

and didn't care which party was in power, or the difference between

them, and when she heard her husband discuss politics with his friends,

burst into a tirade and get red in the face, as every self-respecting

man has the right to do, she just folded her hands in her lap, smiled,

and said to herself, "Dear old John, what would he do in the millennium,

with no government to condemn!" Therefore, these people had not seen in

the daily "Chit Chat about Society" the fact that Lady Feo had not left

town. They never read those luscious morsels. Because Lady Feo had not

left town Aunt Breezy had been too busy to come round on her usual

evening, when she would have discovered immediately that Lola was up to

something and put the fat in the fire. And so they were happy in their

ignorance,--which is, pretty often, the only state in which it is

achieved.

Over dinner that night--a scrappy meal, because whenever any one entered

the shop Mrs. Breezy ran out to do her best to sell something--the

conversation turned to the question of Lola's marriage, as it frequently

did. That public house on the river, with its kitchen garden, still

rankled. "You know, John," said Mrs. Breezy suddenly, "I've been

thinking it all over. We were wrong to suppose that Lola would ever have

married a man like Simpkins."

"Why? He's a good fellow, respectable, clean-minded, thinks a good deal

of himself and has a nice bit of money stowed away. You don't want her

to become engaged to one of these young fly-by-nights round here, do

you,--little clerks who spend all their spare money on clothes, have no

ambition, no education and want to get as much as they can for nothing?"

"No," said Mrs. Breezy. "I certainly do not, though I don't think it

matters what you and I want, my dear. I've come to the conclusion that

Lola knows what she's going to do, and we couldn't make her alter her

mind if we went down on our knees to her."

Breezy was profoundly interested. Many times he had discovered that the

little woman who professed to be nothing but a housewife, and very

rarely gave forth any definite opinions of her own, said things from

time to time which almost blew the roof off the shop. She was possessed

of an uncanny intuition, what he regarded almost as second sight, and

when she was in that mood he squashed his own egotism and listened to

her with his mouth open.

So she went on undisturbed. "What I think is that Lola means to aim

high. I've worked it out in my mind that she got into the house in Dover

Street to learn enough to rise above such men as Simpkins and Ernest

Treadwell, so that she could fit herself to marry a gentleman. And I

think she's right. Look at her. Look at those little ankles and wrists

and the daintiness of her in every way. She's not Queen's Road,

Bayswater, and never was. She's Mayfair from head to foot, mind and

body. We're just accidents in her life, you and I, John, my dear. She

will be a great lady, you mark my words."

Breezy didn't altogether like being called an accident. He took a good

deal of credit for the fact that Lola was Mayfair, as Emily called it,

rather well. And he said so, and added, "How about the old de Breze

blood? You forget that, my being a little jeweler in a small shop. She's

thrown back, that's what she's done, and I'll tell you what it is,

missus. She won't be ashamed of us, whoever she marries. _She_ doesn't

look upon us as accidents, whatever you may do, and if some man who's A

1 at Lloyd's falls in love with her and makes her his wife, her old

father and mother will be drawn up the ladder after her, if I know

anything about Lola. But it's a dream, just a dream," hoping that it

wasn't, and only saying so as a sort of insurance against bad luck. It

was a new idea and an exciting one, which put that place on the Thames

into the discard. Personally he had hitherto regarded the Simpkins

proposal in a very favorable light. That little man had more money than

he himself could ever make, and, after all, a highly respectable public

house on the upper Thames, patronized by really nice people, had been,

in his estimation, something not to be sneezed at, by any means.

"Well," said Mrs. Breezy, "you may call it a dream. I don't. Lola thinks

things out. She's always thought things out. She became a lady's maid

for a purpose. When she's finished with that, she'll move on to

something else. I don't know what, because she keeps things to herself.

But she knows more than you and I will ever know. I've noticed that

often. And when she was here on Sunday, and we walked about the streets,

she was no more Lola Breezy than Lady Feo is, and there was something in

the way she laid the dinner and insisted on waiting on us which showed

me that she knew she wasn't. She was what country people call 'fey' that

night. Her body was with us, but her brain and heart and spirit were far

out of our reach. I'm certain of that, John, and I'm certain of

something else, too. She's in love, and she knows her man, and he's a

big man, and very soon she'll have a surprise for us, and it will _be_ a

surprise. You mark my words."

[Illustration: A SCENE FROM THE PHOTOPLAY.]

And when she got up to answer the tinkle of the bell on the shop door,

she left the fat John Breezy quivering with excitement and a sort of

awe. Emily was not much of a talker, but when she started she said more

in two minutes than other women say in a week. And after he had told

himself how good it would be for his little girl to win great happiness,

he put both his pale hands on the table, and heaved a tremendous sigh.

"Oh, my God," he said. "And if she could help us to get out of this

shop, never to see a watch again, to be no longer the slave of that

damned little bell, to go away and live in the country, and grow things,

and listen to the birds, and watch the sunsets."

VII

At that moment George Lytham drove his car through the gates of Chilton

Park and up to the old house. He asked for Mr. Fallaray, was shown into

the library and paced up and down the room with his hands deep in his

pockets, but with his chin high, his eyes gleaming and a curious smile

about his mouth.

The moment had come for which he had been waiting since the Armistice,

for which he had been working with all his energy since he had got back

into civilian clothes. He had left London and driven down to Whitecross

on a wave of exhilaration. There had been a meeting at his office at

which all the men of his party had been present,--young men, ex-soldiers

and sailors temporarily commissioned, who had come out of the great

catastrophe to look things straight in the face. "Fallaray is our man,"

they had all said unanimously. "Where is he?" And Lytham, who was his

friend, had been sent to fetch him and bring him back to London that

night. The time was ripe for action.

But when the door opened and Fallaray strolled in--he had never seen him

stroll before--George drew up short, amazed.--But this was not Fallaray.

This was not the man he had seen the previous Friday with rounded

shoulders, haggard face and eyes in the back of his head. Here was one

who looked like a younger brother of Fallaray, a care-free younger

brother, sun-tanned, irresponsible, playing with life.

"My dear Fallaray," he said, hardly knowing what to say, "what have you

done to yourself?"

And Fallaray sent out a ringing laugh and clapped young Lochinvar on the

shoulder. "You notice the change, eh? It's wonderful, wonderful. I say

to myself all day long how wonderful it is." And he flung his hands up

and laughed again and threw himself into a chair and stuck his long legs

out. "But what the devil do you want?" he asked lightly, enjoying the

opportunity of showing the serious man who came out of a future that he

himself had forgotten that he was beginning to revel in his past. "I

said that some one would jolly soon see the wreckage on the shore of my

Eden and send out a rescue party, and here you are."

Lytham didn't understand. The words were Greek to him and the attitude

so surprising that it awakened in him a sort of irritation. Good God,

hadn't this man, who meant so much to them, read the papers? Wasn't he

aware of the fact that the time had arrived in the history of politics

when a strong concerted effort might put a new face upon everything?

"Look here, Fallaray," he said, "let's talk sense."

"My dear chap," said Fallaray, "you've come to the wrong man for that. I

know nothing about sense, and what's more, I don't want to. Talk romance

to me, quote poetry, tell me your dreams, turn somersaults, but don't

come here and expect any sense from me. I've given it up."

But Lytham was not to be put off. He said to himself, "The air of this

place has gone to Fallaray's head. He needed a holiday. The reaction has

played a trick upon him. He's pulling my leg." He drew up a chair and

leaned forward eagerly and put his hand on Fallaray's knee. "All right,

old boy," he said. "Have your joke, but come down from the ether in

which you're floating and listen to facts. The wily little P. M. who's

been between the devil and the deep sea for a couple of years is getting

rattled. With the capitalists pushing him one way and the labor leaders

shouldering him the other, he's losing his feet. The by-elections show

the way the wind's blowing in the country and they've made a draught in

Downing Street. Trust a Celt as a political barometer."

"There's been no wind here, George," said Fallaray, putting his hands

behind his head. "Golden days, my dear fellow, golden days, with the

gentlest of breezes."

But Lytham ignored the interruption. In five minutes, if he knew his

man, he would have Fallaray sitting up straight. "Our anti-waste men are

winning every seat they stand for," he went on, "and this means the

nucleus of a new party, our party. The country is behind us, Fallaray,

and if we keep our heads and get down to work, the next general election

will not be a walk-over for the labor men but for us. Lloyd George is on

his last legs, in spite of his newspapers, and with him the

Coalitionists disappear to a man. As for Trades-Unionism, the coal

strike has proved that it oscillates between communism and socialism,

the nationalizing of everything--mines, railways, land, capital--and the

country doesn't like it and isn't ready for it. The way, therefore, is

easy if we organize at once under a leader who has won the reputation

for honesty, and that leader is yourself. But there is not a moment to

waste. My car is outside. Drive up with me now and meet us to-morrow

morning. Unanimously we look to you." He sprang to his feet and made a

gesture towards the door.

But Fallaray settled more comfortably into his chair and crossed one

long leg over the other. "Do you know your Hood?" he asked.

"Hood?--Why?"

"Listen to this:

"'Peace and rest at length have come,

All the day's long toil is past,

And each heart is whispering Home,

Home at last.'"

"But what has that got to do with it?"

"That's my answer to you, George." And Fallaray waved his hand, as

though the question was settled.

If Lytham had been older or younger, and if his admiration and esteem

for Fallaray had not become so deep-rooted, he must have broken out into

a torrent of incredulity and impatience. What he did, instead,

persuading himself, easily enough, that his friend had not recovered

from his recent disappointments, although he had obviously benefited in

health, was to go over the whole ground again, more quietly and in

greater detail, and to wind up with the assertion that Fallaray was

essential to the cause.

To all of which Fallaray listened with a sort of respectful interest but

without the slightest enthusiasm, and remained lolling in his chair. He

might have been a Buckinghamshire Squire who knew no language but his

own, hearing a Frenchman holding forth for no apparent reason on

Napoleon. He watched his friend's mouth, appraised his occasional

gestures, ran his eyes with liking over his well-knit body and found his

voice pleasant to the ear. Beyond that, nothing.

Lytham began to feel like a man who throws stones into a lake. All his

points seemed to disappear into an unruffled and indifferent surface of

water. It was incomprehensible. It was also indescribably baffling. What

on earth had come over this man who, until a few days before, had been

burning with a desire to reconstruct and working himself into a

condition of nervous exhaustion in an endeavor to pull his country out

of chaos?

"Well," he said, after an extraordinary pause, during which everything

seemed to have fallen flat. "What are you going to do?"

"But I've told you, my dear George," said Fallaray, with a long sigh of

happiness. "I have found a home, at last."

"You mean that you are going to let us down?"

"I mean that I am going to live my own life."

"That you're out of politics?"

"Yes. My resignation goes in to-morrow."

"My God! Why?"

Fallaray got up and went to the window. He stood for a moment looking

out at a corner of the terrace where several steps led down to a

fountain in which, out of an urn held in the hands of a weather-worn

boy, water was flowing, colored like a rainbow by the evening sun.

And Lytham followed him, wondering whether he had gone off his head,

become feeble-minded as the result of overstrain. And then he saw Lola

sitting on the edge of the fountain, with her face tilted up, her hands

clasped round one of her knees and her golden hair gleaming.

And there both men remained, gazing,--Fallaray with a smile of

possession, of infinite pride and pleasure; Lytham with an expression of

profound amazement and quick understanding.

"So it's a woman," he thought. And as he continued to look, another

picture of that girl came back into his mind. He had seen her before. He

had turned as she had passed him somewhere and caught his breath. He

remembered to have said to himself as she had walked away, "Eve, come to

life! Some poor devil of an Adam will go to hell for her."--The

Carlton--Chalfont--the foyer with its little cases of glittering jewels,

the long strip of carpet leading to the stairs of the dining room--the

palms--the orchestra. It all came back.--Well, this might be a form of

madness in a man of Fallaray's age and womanless life, but, thank God,

it was one with which he could deal. It was physical, not mental, as he

had feared. Fallaray might very well play Adam without going into hell.

"Can't you combine the two," he said. "Politics and that girl? It's been

done before. It's being done every day. The one is helped by the other."

But Fallaray shook his head. "I am not going to do it," he said. "I have

had a surfeit of one and nothing of the other. Take it from me finally,

George,--I am out of the political game. I think I should have been out

of it in any case, because I came here acknowledging failure, fed up,

nauseated. I am not the man to juggle with intrigues, to say one thing

to placate the capitalists to-day and another to fool labor to-morrow.

It isn't my way and I shall not be missed. On the contrary, my

resignation will be accepted with eagerness. I am going to begin all

over again, free, perfectly firm in my belief that there are better men

to do my job. I was a bull in a china shop, and it will remain a china

shop, whether it's run by one party or another. It's the system. Nothing

can alter it. I couldn't, you and your party won't be able to. It's gone

too far. It's a cancer. It will kill the country. And so I'm out. I

consider that I have earned the right to love and make a home. Row off

from my Eden, my dear fellow, and leave me in peace. I am not going to

be rescued."

"We'll see about that," thought Lytham. "This is not Fallaray who

speaks. It's the man of forty suddenly hit by passion. I'll fight that

girl to the last gasp. We must have this man, we _must_."

He turned away, deeply disappointed at the queer tangent at which his

chief had gone off, bitterly annoyed to find that here was a fight

within a fight at a time when unity was vital. He was himself a

perfectly normal creature who regarded the rustle of silk as one of the

necessities, like golf and tobacco, but to sacrifice a career or let

down a cause for the sake of a woman was to him an act of unimaginable

weakness and folly. If only Fallaray had been younger or older, or,

better still, had been contentedly married to Feo! Cursed bad luck that

he had been caught at forty.--But, struck with an idea in which he could

see immediate possibilities, he stopped on his way to the door and went

back to Fallaray. To work it out in his usual energetic way he must use

strategy and appear to accept his friend's decision as irreparable. "All

right," he said. "You know best. I'll argue no more. But as there's no

need now for me to dash back to town, mayn't I linger with you in

Arcadia for a couple of hours?"

Fallaray was delighted. Lola was to dine at Lady Cheyne's, and he would

be alone. It would be very jolly to have George to dinner, especially as

he saw the futility of argument and recognized an ultimatum. "Stay and

have some food," he said. "I've much to tell you. But will you let me

leave you for ten minutes?"

That was precisely what young Lochinvar intended to do before he drove

away,--speak to that woman.

He watched Fallaray join Lola at the fountain, give her his hand and

wander off among the rose trees, wearing what he called the fatuous

smile of the middle-aged man in love. And then, so that he might obtain

a point or two for future use, he rang the bell for Elmer. The butler

and he had known each other for years. He would answer a few nonchalant

questions without reserve. "Good afternoon, Elmer," he said, when the

old man came in.

"Good afternoon to you, Sir." He might have been an actor who in palmy

days had played Hamlet at Bristol.

"I'm staying to an early dinner with Mr. Fallaray. A whiskey and soda

would go down rather well in the meantime."

"Certainly, Sir."

"Oh, and Elmer."

"Sir?" His turn and the respectful familiar angle of his head were only

possible to actors of the good old school.

"The name of the charming lady who has so kindly helped to brighten up

Mr. Fallaray's week-end."

"Madame de Breze, Sir."

"Oh, yes, of course." He had never heard it before. Married then, or a

widow. French. 'Um. "And she is staying with----"

"Lady Cheyne, Sir."

"Oh, yes,--that house----"

"A stone's throw from the gate in the wall, Sir. You can see the roof

from this window."

"Thanks very much, Elmer. How's your son getting on now?"

"Very well indeed, Sir, thank you, owing to your kindness."

"A very good fellow,--a first-rate soldier. One of our best junior

officers. Not too much soda, then."

"No, Sir." He left the room like an elderly sun-beam.

"Good!" said George Lytham. "Get off early, hang about by the gate,

intercept this young woman on her way back to Fallaray and see what her

game is. That's the idea."

And he sat down, lit a cigarette and picked up a copy of Hood that lay

open on the table. His eyes fell on some marked lines.

"Peace and rest at length have come,

All the day's long toil is past,

And each heart is whispering Home,

Home at last."

And he thought of Feo whom he had seen several nights running with

Arrowsmith and before that, for a series of years, with Dick, Tom and

Harry. Never with Fallaray.

"Poor devil," he thought. "He's been too long without it. It won't be

easy to rescue him now."

VIII

And at the gate in the wall Fallaray held Lola close in his arms and

kissed her, again and again.

"My little Lola," he said softly, "how wonderful you are,--how wonderful

all this is. You had been in the air all round me for weeks. I used to

see your eyes among the stars looking down at me when I left the House.

I used to wake at night and feel them upon me all warm about my heart.

Lots of times, like the wings of a bird, they flashed between me and my

work. And the tingle of your hand that never left me ran through my

veins like fire. I could have stopped dead that night at the Savoy and

followed you away. And when I found you weeping in the corridor in Dover

Street I was confused and bewildered because then I was old and I was

fighting against you for the cause. De Breze, de Breze,--the name used

to come to me, suddenly, like the forerunner of rain to a dried-up

plant. And at last I got away and came down here, as I know now, to

throw off my useless years and go back, past all the milestones on a

long road, and wait for you. And then you heard my cry and opened the

gate and walked among those stone figures of my life and gave me back my

youth."

"With love and adoration and long-deferred hope," she said and crept

closer to his heart. "I love you. I love you. I've always loved you. And

if I'd never found you, I should have waited for you on the other side

of the Bridge,--loving you still."

"My dear--who am I to deserve this?"

"You are Fallaray. Who else?"

And he laughed at that and held up her face and kissed her lips and

said, "No. I'm no longer Fallaray, that husk of a man, emptying his

energy on the ribs of chaos. I'm Edmund the boy, transformed to

adolescence. I'm Any Man in love."

And again she went closer, feeling the far-off shudder of thunder, with

a new-born fear of opening the gate in the wall. "Who was that man who

came to see you?"

"Young Lochinvar,--Lytham. He's interested in politics."

"What did he want to see you about?"

"Nothing." And he brushed away the lingering recollection with his hand.

"No. Tell me. I want to know."

"I forget." And he laughed and kissed her once again.

"But in any case you have to go back to-morrow?"

He shook his head and ran his fingers over her hair.

"But you said you'd have to,--that night."

"Did I? I forget." And he put his hand over her heart and held it there.

And again there came that thunder shudder, and she eyed the gate with

fear. "Did he want you to go back to-night? Tell me; I've _got_ to

know." And she drew away a little--a very little--in order to force her

point.

But he drew her back and kissed her eyes. "Don't look like that," he

said. "What's it matter? Let him want. I'm not going back. I'm never

going back. If George Lytham were multiplied by a hundred thousand and

they all landed on my island with grappling irons, I'd laugh them back

to sea. They shan't have me. I've given them all I had. I've found my

youth and I'll enjoy it, here, anywhere, with you." He stretched out and

opened the gate. "And now, I must let you go, my sweet. But don't be

longer than you can help. Get dinner over quickly and come back to me

again. Wear that silver frock and I'll wait for you on the terrace, as I

did before. I want to be surprised again as you shimmer among those cold

stones." He let her go.

And she went through the gate and stood irresolute, as the shudder came

again. With a little cry she turned and flung her arms round his neck as

though she were saying, "Good-by."

And yet there was only a cloud as big as a man's hand in that clear sky.

IX

No one, it might be thought, could hear to think at the narrow table in

Lady Cheyne's house. Those natural, childlike creatures who, if they had

ever learned the artificialities forget them, talked, argued, sang and

screamed each other down all at the same time. They could not really be

musicians if they didn't.

Zalouhou, whose only preparations for dinner consisted in bushing out

his tie and hair, sat at his hostess' left; Willy Pouff, in an evening

suit borrowed from a waiter friend who had gone to a hospital with a

poisoned hand, on her right. Lola, at the end of the table, sat between

Valdemar Varvascho and Max Wachevsky, who had remembered, oddly enough,

to wash their faces, though Varvascho's beard had grown darkly during

the day. Both the women had changed and made up for artificial light.

The result of Anna Stezzel's hour was remarkable, as well, perhaps, as

somewhat disconcerting. A voluptuous person, with hair as black as a wet

starling, she had plastered her face with a thick coating of white stuff

on which her lips resembled blood stains in the snow. Her beaded evening

gown saved the company from panic merely by an accident and disclosed

also the whole wide expanse of a rather yellow back. Regina Spatz was

built on Zuluesque lines, too, but more by luck than judgment a white

blouse tempered her amazing ampleness. She had used henna on her hair so

that it might have been fungus in a tropic sea and sat in a perpetual

blush of indiscriminate rouge. Salo Impf was wedged against her side and

looked like a Hudson River tugboat under the lee of the _Aquitania_.

Like all fat women, Lady Cheyne was devoted to eating and had long since

decided to let herself go. "One can only live once," she said, in

self-defense; "and how does one know that there'll be peas and potatoes

in the next world." The dinner, to the loudly expressed satisfaction of

the musicians, was substantial and excellent. Each course was received

with a volley of welcome, expressed in several languages. The hard

exercise of singing, playing, gesticulating, praising and breathing

deeply gave these children of the exuberant Muse the best of appetites.

It was a shattering meal.

But Lola could hear herself think, for all that. She sat smiling and

nodding. Her body went through the proper mechanics, but her spirit was

outside the gate in the wall, trembling. There was a cloud in the sky,

already. Fallaray was going to make her more important than his work,

and she had not come to him for that. Her metier was to bring into his

loveless life the rustle of silk,--love, tenderness, flattery,

refreshment, softness, beauty, laughter, adoration, which would send him

out of her secret nest strengthened, humanized, eager, optimistic. She

must fail lamentably if the effect of her absorbed him to the

elimination of everything that made him necessary to the man who had

come from London and to all that he represented. George Lytham, of

_Reconstruction_, the organizer of the Anti-waste Party,--she had heard

him discussed by Lady Feo. Without Fallaray he might be left

leaderless,--because of her.

She went upstairs as soon as she could to put on the silver frock. There

had been no time to change before dinner. Fallaray had kissed her so

often that she had been late. She was joined immediately by Lady,

Cheyne, who was anxious. She had seen something in Lola's eyes.

"What is it, my dear?" she asked. "I'm worried about you."

And Lola went to her, as to a mother, and shut her eyes and gave a

little cry that seemed to come from her soul.

"There's something wrong!--Has he hurt you? Tell me."

And Lola said, "Oh, no. He would never hurt me, never. He loves me. But

I may be hurting him, and that's so very much worse."

"I don't understand. You mean--his reputation? But what if you are?

We're all too precious careful to guard the reputations of our

politicians, to help them along in their petty careers."

"But he isn't a politician, and he isn't working for a career." She drew

away sharply. No one must have a word against Fallaray.

"Well, what is it then? I want you to be happy. I want this to be a

Great Romance. And, good Heavens, my darling, it's only three days old."

Lola spoke through tears. Yes, it was only three days old. "He may love

me too much," she said. "I may become more important than his work."

Lady Cheyne's anxiety left her, like smoke. And she gave a laugh and

drew what she called that old-fashioned child into her arms again. "My

dear," she said, "don't let _that_ distress you. Make yourself more

important than his work. Encourage him to love you more than himself.

He'll be different from most men if he is capable of that! But perhaps

happiness is something new in his life, and I shouldn't wonder, with

Lady Feo for a wife."

It never occurred to Lola to ask her friend how she had discovered the

secret. She listened eagerly to her sophistries, trying to persuade

herself that they were true.

"Get him to take you away. There are beautiful places to go to, and he

never will be missed. There'll be a paragraph,--'ill-health causes the

resignation of Mr. Fallaray'; the clubs will talk, but the people will

believe the papers, and presently Lady Feo will sue for divorce,

desertion. A nice thing,--she being the deserter! And you and he,--what

do you care? Is happiness so cheap that you can throw it away, either of

you? If he loves you, _that's_ his career, and a very much better one

than leading parties and making empty promises and becoming Prime

Minister. If he loves you well enough to sacrifice all that, for the

sake of womanhood see that he does it, and you will build a bigger

statue for him than any that he could win."

And she kissed her little de Breze, who seemed to have undergone a

perfectly natural _crise de neuf_, being so much in love, and patted her

on the shoulder. "Take an old woman's advice, my pet. If you've won that

man, keep him. He'll live to thank you for it one of these days."

And finally, when Lola slipped into the twilight in her silver frock,

there didn't seem to be a single cloud in the sky. Only an evening star.

What Lady Cheyne had said she believed because she wanted to believe it,

because this Great Romance was only three days old and hope had been so

long deferred.--She stopped in the old garden and picked a rose and

pulled its thorns off so that she might give it to Fallaray, and she

lingered for a moment taking in the scents and the quiet sounds of that

most lovely evening,--more lovely and more unclouded even than that

other one, which was locked in her memory. And then she went along the

path through the corner of a wood. A rabbit disappeared into the

undergrowth, but the fairies were not out yet, and there was no one to

spy. Was happiness so cheap that she could throw it away,--his and her

own? "If you've won that man, keep him." She danced all the rest of the

way and over the side road to the gate in the wall,--early, after all,

by half an hour. She would wait outside until she heard Fallaray's quick

step and watch the star. "I'll get him to take me away," she thought.

"There are beautiful places to go to, and he never will be missed."

She turned quickly, hearing some one on the road. She saw a car drawn up

a little distance away, and a man come swinging towards her.

It was young Lochinvar.

X

"Madame de Breze," he said, standing bareheaded, "my name is Lytham. May

I ask you to be so kind as to give me ten minutes?"

"Twenty," she answered, with the smile that she had flashed at Chalfont

that night at the Savoy. "I have just that much to spare."

"Thank you." But now that he was there, after all his strategy, after

saying good-by to Fallaray, driving all the way down the hill from

Whitecross and up again into that side road, he didn't know how to

begin, or where. This girl! God,--how disordering a quality of sex! No

wonder she had shattered poor old Fallaray.

"Shall we walk along the lane? It turns a little way up and you can see

the cross cut in the hill."

"Yes," he said. "But there are so many crosses, aren't there, and

they're all cut on somebody's hill." He saw that she looked at him

sharply and was glad. Quick to take points, evidently. This interview

would not be quite so difficult, after all.

"You came down from town to see Edmund?" She called him by his Christian

name to show this man where he stood.

"On the most urgent business," he said, "I saw you sitting at the side

of the fountain. It's a dear old place."

She was not beautiful, and she was not sophisticated. That way of

dragging in Fallaray's Christian name was childish in its naivete. But

all about her there was something so fresh and young, so sublimely

unselfconscious, so disturbingly feminine, so appealing in its essence

of womanhood that he had to pay her tribute and measure his words. He

would hate to hurt this girl. De Breze--Madame de Breze--how was it that

he hadn't heard of her before? She knew Chalfont. She was staying with

Poppy Cheyne. Fallaray had met her somewhere. Odd that he had missed her

in the crowd.

"I'll come to the point, if I may," he said. "And I must bore you a

little with a disquisition on the state of affairs."

"I'm interested in politics," she said, with a forlorn attempt to keep a

high head.

"Then perhaps you know what's happened, to a certain extent, although

probably not as much as those of us who stand in the wings of the

political stage and see the actors without their make-up,--not a pretty

sight, sometimes."

"Well?" But the cloud had returned and blotted out the evening star, and

there was the shudder of distant thunder again.

"Well, the people are turning against the old gang, at last. The Prime

Minister has only his favorites and parasites and newspapers left with

him. The Unionists are scared stiff by the sudden uprising of the

Anti-waste Party and Labor has been drained of its fighting funds. The

Liberals have withered. There is one great cry for honest government,

relief from crushing taxation, a fair reward for hard work, and new

leadership that will make the future safe from new wars. We must have

Fallaray. He's the only man. I came here this evening to fetch him. He

refuses to come because of you. What are you going to do?"

As he drew up short and faced her, she looked like a deer surrounded by

dogs. He was sorry, but this was no time for fooling. What stuff was

this girl made of? Had she the gift of self-sacrifice as well as the

magnetism of sex? Or was she just a female, who would cling to what she

had won, self before everything?

"I love him," she said.

Well, it was good to know that, but was that an answer? "Yes," he said.

"Well?" He would like to have added "But does he love you and can you

keep him after passion is dead,--a man like Fallaray, who, after all, is

forty." But he hadn't the courage or the desire to hurt.

"And because I love him he must go," she said.

He leaned forward and seized her hand. He was surprised, delighted, and

a little awed. She had gone as white as a lily. "You will see to that?

You will use all your influence to give him back to us?" He could hardly

believe his ears and his eyes.

"All my influence," she said, standing very straight.

He bent down and touched her hand with his lips.

They were at the gate. They heard steps on the other side of the wall.

"Go," she said, "quickly."

But before he went he bowed, as to a queen.

And then Lola heard the voice again, harshly. "Go on, de Breze, go on.

Don't be weak. Stick to your guns. You have him in the palm of your

hand."

But she shook her head. "But I'm not de Breze. I've only tried to be.

I'm Lola Breezy of Queen's Road, Bayswater, and this is love."

She opened the gate and went in to Fallaray.