SIR HARGRAVE WENDEVER, BARONET, COUNTRY gentleman, and for a brief space of time a noted figure in financial circles, lounged against the mantelpiece in the waiting room of a famous Harley Street physician on a wet January morning, amusing himself with an old copy of Punch. He was a tall man, inclined to thinness, with a long, lean face, bronzed complexion, and grey-blue eyes. The hair around his ears was greying a little; otherwise he scarcely looked his thirty-nine years. He was alone in the room—a somewhat alien figure in the sombre surroundings, for he had all the appearance of perfect health, and it was obvious that he shared none of the nervous anticipations which so many of Sir James Horridge’s patients experienced in that atmosphere of waiting. Nevertheless, it was with an air of content, as though relieved of a brief period of boredom, that he responded to the butler’s summons and passed into the consulting room. The physician—a thick-set, hard-jawed man, with keen eyes and heavy, bushy eyebrows—looked up at his entrance, nodded, and pointed to a chair.
“Sit down, Sir Hargrave,” he invited. “What can I do for you? You don’t look as though there were much wrong with you.”
“As a matter of fact, I don’t think there is,” Wendever replied, making himself comfortable in the patient’s chair. “I took a toss a fortnight ago hunting, chose the wrong place in a thick hedge, and came down rather heavily on my left side. I’ve had a queer spell or two since, and Dudley—our local man—thought I’d better see you.”
The physician nodded and reached for his stethoscope.
“Take off your coat and waistcoat,” he enjoined.
It was about half an hour later when Hargrave Wendever passed through the portals of the house in Harley Street and hesitated upon the steps.
“Would you like me to call you a taxicab, sir?” the butler, with immutable face, enquired.
“Thanks, I’ll pick one up,” was the careless reply.
Hargrave strolled down the street—the same street, the same houses on either side, the same heavy, grey atmosphere and slight drizzle of rain. Yet he seemed suddenly to be far removed from it all, to have stepped into some foreign land, to be surrounded with objects familiar enough in themselves but belonging to some other part of some one else’s life. The sort of shock which he had just received might possibly have happened to any one else, might have been discovered in the pages of fiction, might have flashed across the mind for a moment, conceived by the workings of a freakish imagination, but that it should have happened to him, a strong, well-living man in the prime of life, was incomprehensible. He walked mechanically along the broad pavement, and mechanically raised his stick as he came across a wandering taxicab. Leaning back in the corner, he tried to think. His mind, however, for the moment refused to go forward, or to dwell upon that brief period of drama from which he had just emerged. It fixed itself obstinately upon those few breathless moments which had immediately preceded his accident. He recalled the throbbing excitement of the run, the inspiring sensation of a fine horse moving under him, the sudden realisation that he was a little detached from the rest of the field. The fence ahead was unfamiliar, thicker than he cared about, and that stunted oak tree just in his line. Which side should he take it? He made up his mind and afterwards never hesitated, jammed his hat a little farther down upon his head, and went for it without doubt or fear.—Then came the sudden vision of that unexpected widening of the ditch, almost a pithole, on the other side—the crash, and darkness.—Yes, it had been a bad fall, but he had suffered worse. He had recovered consciousness within a few minutes, had almost decided to dine with friends that night, but had been dissuaded. And now—what was it the doctor had said of him—of no other man—of him, Hargrave Wendever? The thing was incredible!
* * * * *
THAT night, Hargrave Wendever gave a dinner party to three men, all, as it chanced, old school fellows, at his flat in Berkeley Square. On his right sat Philip Gorse, a clergyman of the most modern type, a miracle worker, who a few years previously had taken over a great barnlike church in the heart of London with an occasional congregation of a few score, which he now filled to overflowing three times on Sundays and twice a week. He had two great gifts—earnestness and eloquence—and he was possessed of a nervous, almost passionate hatred of all sorts of humbug. He was a fair, rather delicate-looking man, clean-shaven, with a lined face, a sensitive mouth and clear grey eyes. He wore ordinary dinner clothes, cut in the most correct fashion, and his tempered enjoyment of his host’s hospitality left nothing to be desired. On the latter’s other side sat Lord Edward Pellingham, a young man who had played at diplomacy and dabbled in politics, but was best known in his world by reason of a delightful disposition, and a philosophy which entailed a placid acceptance of the good things which fall to the lot of even the fourth son of a Duke with an adequate allowance. The concluding member of the party was John Marston—pink and white and prosperous, with flaxen hair brushed close to his head, a partner in the firm of stockbrokers which Hargrave’s great-grandfather had founded, and in which, for a short time, Hargrave himself had been a partner.
They had been speaking of Philip Gorse’s amazing success, and during a pause in the conversation, Hargrave asked him a question.
“Tell me, Philip,” he enquired, “did you ever try to account for the very strong hold you seem to have acquired over those astonishing congregations of yours? Of course we all know that you have the gift of speech—we realised that at Oxford—but there must be something more than that in it. Sheer eloquence only appeals to people who have imagination themselves, but they tell me that your congregations are drawn chiefly from the most difficult of all classes—small shopkeepers and clerks, and girls who work for their living in the City.”
“One of the sights of London is to see the people trying to get into the church on Sunday evening,” Marston remarked.
“I know a chap who’s given up dining on Sunday night and never misses,” Lord Edward Pellingham intervened.
“I don’t think it’s a matter of eloquence at all,” Philip Gorse declared thoughtfully. “There are other men preaching to-day to whom I couldn’t hold a candle. I don’t think it’s even earnestness alone. Earnestness, perhaps, coupled with sympathy. You see,” he went on, peeling a peach, “I am all the time trying to live in thought with my people. The series of sermons I am just finishing is a series which I call ‘Life’s Day by Day Problems’.”
“Pretty difficult to tackle some of them,” Lord Edward, who had never been called upon to face a problem in his life, sighed.
“And the smaller they are the more perplexing sometimes,” Marston observed.
“A man’s financial difficulties, for instance,” Gorse continued, “the difficulty of making both ends meet and putting a bit on one side on the average salary. That’s a subject they can all understand. Trouble with the wife—a little fed up with too much housekeeping and too little pleasure, perhaps. That’s another. Discipline of children who are growing up and have ideas of their own. You’ve no notion how many perfectly everyday problems there are with which a man in moderate circumstances can find himself confronted during the week.”
There was a little murmur of appreciation. Hargrave’s lips parted for a moment in what seemed to be a smile—a smile, however, which still contained more than a trace of bitterness.
“I will present you with a problem which occurred to me to-day,” he said. “You three represent entirely different points of view. You shall each give me your ideas. Supposing that for some reason or other a man like any one of us four, prosperous, healthy, in good odour with the world, were suddenly faced with the termination of his career, in say six or eight months’ time, how would you, supposing you were that man, spend the interval?”
“Do you mean if one knew that one were going to die?” Marston enquired.
“Not necessarily,” Hargrave replied. “I want you, if you can, to conceive the position in this way. To-day is the seventh of January, isn’t it? Say on the seventh of July you had to step into some utterly different condition of life or state of existence, and that nothing you could do between now and then could make any difference; exactly how should you spend that six months?”
“No problem at all about that for me,” Pellingham declared promptly. “Not having any one dependent upon me, I should raise every penny I had in the world, I should hire a villa—as beautiful as yours out at Monte Carlo, if I could find it, Hargrave—select the most agreeable companions from amongst my friends to bear me company, charter a yacht for short cruises, and imbibe so far as possible the spirit of Boccaccio’s charming puppets.”
“A characteristic start,” Hargrave observed. “What about you, Marston?”
Marston removed his eyeglass and scratched his chin thoughtfully.
“Well,” he said, “it’s a bit of a problem, but I think, if I were to yield to my natural inclinations, I should do what I’ve never had the courage to attempt yet—because of my partners for one thing, and because of my position on the Stock Exchange for another—I’d go in for an almighty and wonderful speculation. I’d select one of several stocks I know of, with a free market, and I wouldn’t go for it piecemeal either—I’d go for it as the Americans do—smash it to pieces or boost it to the skies. You fellows aren’t speculators, I know, and you’ve no idea what self-restraint a stockbroker has to exercise. There’s no fascination in the world like the fascination of the legitimate gamble if you once give way to it.”
“And you, Philip?” Hargrave asked, surprising the other’s eyes fixed upon him with a curious intentness.
Philip Gorse shrugged his shoulders.
“Well,” he said, “I don’t know that there’s much I would change in my life. I’m as happy as any man ought to be. I love my work, but I couldn’t work any harder. I have enough to eat and drink and good friends. I think I should go on pretty well as I’m going now.”
“H’m! You’re all three more characteristic than illuminating,” Hargrave remarked, pouring himself out a glass of wine and passing the decanter.
“We’re logical, anyhow,” Marston rejoined. “As a matter of fact, if we were honest with ourselves I think we should find that half our conduct of life is influenced by the fear of results. If we were quite sure that there was no aftermath of life left for regrets we should at least for once in our lives be natural.”
Gorse dissented, and for a few minutes there was argument. Pellingham wound it up by a direct appeal to his host.
“What about yourself, Hargrave?” he enquired. “You are, after all, more completely master of your fate than any of us. You’re full of resources, and no dependents—a hunting man, a golfer, a dilettante in the arts, unmarried and sickeningly well off. If you had to concentrate you’d find it pretty difficult to know where to spread yourself.”
“I wonder,” Hargrave murmured.
THE PARTY BROKE UP EARLY. Pellingham was attending a farewell supper to a bevy of beautiful damsels from the other side, whom Broadway was once more claiming for its own, and Marston had to see a Colonial client at his hotel. Philip Gorse lingered.
“Going on anywhere, Hargrave?” he asked. “Or have you time for a pipe and a whisky and soda?”
“I’m your man,” the other agreed promptly. “I was just wondering whether it was worth while going round to the Club. Come along to my den.”
The two men left the very correct but somewhat severe atmosphere of the Georgian dining room, with its odour of choice exotics and Havana cigars, and made their way to a comfortable room at the back of the house where the walls were lined with books and sporting prints; gun cases, tennis racquets and golf clubs were stacked in the vacant corners and a general atmosphere of warm comfort prevailed. Philip Gorse lit his pipe with a grunt of satisfaction.
“Best hour of the day,” he observed, settling himself in an easy-chair. “Chuck me out when you’ve had enough though. I don’t want to keep you up.”
“Stay just as long as you like,” Hargrave invited, throwing himself into an easy-chair opposite his guest. “I’ve a few letters to write before I go to bed—nothing of any importance—and I hate going too early.”
“Any particular reason for your putting that problem to us to-night?” Philip Gorse enquired, looking across at his friend through the cloud of tobacco smoke.
Hargrave continued for a moment to smoke meditatively.
“In a way,” he admitted. “I took a nasty toss about a fortnight ago and I went to see a doctor this afternoon. He gave me—well, rather a shock.”
“Nothing really serious, I hope?” the other asked anxiously.
“May not be,” Hargrave replied. “He said he would know better in six months. These fellows won’t tell you outright, you know, Philip, but between you and me I pretty well got my marching orders.”
Philip Gorse laid down his pipe. His eyes were filled with sympathy but his expression at first was more incredulous than grave.
“But, my dear fellow!” he exclaimed. “You have the constitution of an ox. Did he examine you properly?”
“Pretty well stripped me,” Hargrave acknowledged. “But the trouble of it is that my local man who sent me to him evidently thought there was something wrong, and he’s no fool.—Don’t talk about this, there’s a good chap,” Hargrave went on, after a moment’s pause. “It’s been rather a shock, of course, but, dash it all, it might have happened at any moment during the War, and it’s got to happen some day to all of us. It’s only the unexpectedness of it that takes one’s breath away just at first.”
Andrews, the butler, entered the room, with the whisky and soda. His quiet, stereotyped movements and deferential speech seemed to restore to normality an atmosphere which a moment before had been charged with tragedy. Hargrave’s tone was almost matter-of-fact as the door closed behind him.
“You understand now, Philip,” he went on, “what was in my mind this evening.”
Philip Gorse knew his friend too well even to try to express the sympathy which was in his heart. Nevertheless his eyes were a little dim and his voice was not quite steady.
“I shouldn’t take this too seriously, Hargrave,” he begged. “These fellows often make mistakes.”
“I don’t think Horridge does,” was the somewhat grim reply. “However, let’s put that behind us for the time. Consider the problem which I propounded now applied to myself. Give me your advice.”
Philip Gorse relit his pipe with trembling fingers.
“Very well then, Hargrave,” he said. “I’ll try. First of all, I’d wipe out from your mind all that Pellingham said. You are not and never could be a man of Pellingham’s type. You have sought for pleasure and found it, I presume, as you have a perfect right to, when it is not at the expense of others, but you have done it with restraint—if one can use such a word, with taste. Don’t think that because I’m a clergyman, old chap, I don’t understand and appreciate these things. I have kept one foot in either world and I peer into many. For a man of your world, Hargrave—if you don’t mind my saying so—I’ve always had a sneaking admiration for you. You’ve never been blatant. There has always been a flavour of epicureanism about the way you have sought the best, the healthiest things in life. Don’t let go of that just because of this crisis. Even though what the doctor told you might come true, you won’t gain anything in a mad search for new sensations. You’ll only lose the most admirable thing in your life.”
Hargrave nodded approvingly.
“Good advice,” he admitted. “I may step out a little but I don’t think I shall lose my head. Get on with it. Remember that I am a very wealthy man, wealthier even than any one of my friends imagines.”
“Notwithstanding that,” Gorse said, “I certainly shouldn’t suggest for an instant that you tried to make a bargain with the Almighty by giving huge sums to charity, or anything of that sort.”
“But what about your own poor?”
“All well taken care of. No one with my experience could say that this was not a charitable age. Why, I have offers nearly every day from all sorts of people, and the offertories, considering the class of my congregation, are enormous.”
“You’ve done a great work, Philip,” Hargrave acknowledged sympathetically. “You’ve done what so few of us accomplish—you’ve done a great work for others. It makes one thoughtful, you know, to think of the difference between your life and mine. I haven’t any unwholesome craving to make, as you say, a bargain with the Almighty, but I should like to feel that I had done something that was worth while, given some poor devils a lift, or something of that sort, before I passed in my checks.”
Gorse sipped his whisky and soda.
“If I were in your position, Hargrave,” he advised gently, “I don’t believe I’d worry so much about the poor. The hospitals need help, of course, but the very poor have never been so well cared for as to-day, and I’m afraid, as a practical Christian, I must admit that those who remain down and out do so more from lack of character than absence of help. If I were you, I should try the other class. It is more difficult, of course, because they are more sensitive, but I’ve come to the conclusion that since the War there’s more real suffering amongst what are called the ‘lower middles’, the shopgirls and shopmen, clerks and people like that, who have a certain position to keep up, than the very poor. They can’t accept charity, and who is there to help them?”
“But how do you come across them?” Hargrave demanded.
“A matter of chance, I suppose,” Gorse admitted. “I have had one or two cases amongst those who came to ask my advice in the vestry. I have no one on my list just now, thank goodness. You’ll find some one, if you’ll keep your eyes open. And there’s another thing, Hargrave, keeping your eyes open in such a quest is in itself a good thing. It prevents a man from becoming selfish and self-centered. Go about for the next few days or weeks, looking for some one who seems unhappy. If you don’t happen to find any one with whom you can get into touch the very attitude of mind takes your thoughts off your own troubles and does you good.”
Hargrave smiled a little whimsically.
“It’s all very well for you,” he pointed out. “You’ve brought yourself into such sympathy with your fellow creatures that you can tell instinctively when they need help, and you’d approach them also in such a way that no one could possibly resent a question from you. I couldn’t go up to an anæmic-looking young woman, with a hole in her shoe and a shabby frock, and take off my hat and say, ‘Madame, I fear you are in distress. Can I be of any assistance?’ She’d probably hand me over to the nearest policeman, if she was honest, or try to march me down to Pimlico if she wasn’t.”
Philip Gorse laughed softly. He glanced at the clock and knocked out his pipe.
“Hargrave, old chap,” he said, “I am glad we’ve had this talk. I’m not going to believe the worst part of it, and I wouldn’t let my thoughts dwell upon it myself, if I were you. You can send me a moderate-sized cheque for my shelter scheme, if you like—not more than a hundred pounds—but keep your eyes open for the other things, and something will come along. Perhaps you’d better leave the young ladies alone, but sometimes one comes across really human trouble in the most unexpected places. And listen,” he went on earnestly, “it isn’t always pounds, shillings and pence that count. It’s the greyness of life that’s so horrible to some of these people who have a little imagination and slender means. There’s nothing of the Calvinist about me, you know. I believe in pleasure, and I believe people have a right to it. You can do just as much good in the world by bringing a little brightness into the lives of people who can’t find it for themselves as you can by supporting soup kitchens or any other form of charity. There’s real human charity, for instance, in cinema tickets for the young people who have to give up all their earnings to keep the home going—one can always pretend they are complimentary—or the loan of a car for the day to a man who would give anything to take his wife and family into the country and can’t. These little things will come your way, if you keep on looking out for them.”
Hargrave smiled ruefully as he walked down the hall and lingered by the lift with his guest.
“You’ve the gift of finding these people, Philip,” he remarked.
“Easily developed,” the other assured him cheerfully. “You often don’t need to give to complete strangers either. Just keep your eyes open amongst the people you meet casually in one day, and see for yourself who there is missing the sunlight.”
The lift came noiselessly up. Almost for the first time there was a note of real seriousness in Gorse’s tone as he clasped hands with his friend.
“Don’t brood about that other matter, old fellow,” he begged. “It may be right, or it may be wrong. You and I can’t alter it. Get off somewhere and enjoy yourself—Monte Carlo, I should say. We each have our time fixed, and when it comes we were both born men.”
HARGRAVE WENDEVER BEGAN THE NEXT day without any of that sense of boredom which had at times depressed him. Subconsciously he knew that something fresh and tragic had taken its place in his life, but with that knowledge was born also the stern intention to keep the memory of it back in the secret places, to live through his days without brooding or profitless regrets. Nearer the surface, he was aware of a new interest, a new search to conduct. He noticed with satisfaction that Andrews, who when in town combined the duties of butler and valet, was looking a little tired.
“You’re not quite yourself to-day, Andrews,” he remarked, as, after his bath and leisurely toilet were completed, he sat down to breakfast. “I’ve been keeping you up too late, I’m afraid.”
Andrews negatived the suggestion emphatically but respectfully.
“Not at all, Sir Hargrave,” he insisted. “The fact is–-”
He coughed and hesitated. Hargrave did his best to adopt a sympathetic attitude.
“Some little trouble?” he suggested hopefully. “Get it off your chest, Andrews.”
“Not at all, Sir Hargrave,” the man replied. “The fact is, the wife has come into a bit of money lately—an uncle of hers who kept a public house—and we had a sort of celebration—after you’d gone to bed, of course, sir—a little party round in the mews here. We were not perhaps altogether discreet.”
“I see,” Hargrave murmured, his expectations somewhat dashed. “Congratulate your wife for me, Andrews. I hope that won’t mean that you’re not coming down South with me?”
“Not at all, Sir Hargrave,” the man assured him. “We are, I am thankful to say, in easy circumstances, but we know a good place when we have it.”
Hargrave finished his breakfast and presently strolled out towards his coiffeur. On the way he called at his gunmaker’s. A superior but despondent-looking young man came forward and received his complaint about some too lightly loaded cartridges.
“Very sorry, sir,” he apologised. “I’ll see that it doesn’t happen again.”
“Business seems a little quiet with you,” Hargrave remarked, glancing around.
“It’s just a trifle early, sir,” the young man explained. “As a matter of fact, we’ve never had a better season.”
“Mr. Martin keeping well?” Hargrave enquired, referring to the principal of the firm.
Mr. Martin came hurriedly forward to answer the enquiry for himself.
“Very well indeed, thank you, Sir Hargrave,” he announced; “very well but a bit worried.”
Hargrave tapped a cigarette upon his case thoughtfully. He remembered stories he had heard about respectable tradesmen who had been obliged to go through the ignominy of failure through lack of sufficient capital.
“Worried, eh?” he repeated. “Why, how’s that, Mr. Martin? Business is good, isn’t it?”
“Never knew it better,” the gunmaker confessed. “The fact is, sir,” he confided, lowering his voice, “I’ve had a very wonderful offer for amalgamation with another firm—one of the tiptop houses—and I can’t quite make up my mind whether to accept it or not.”
“I see,” Hargrave murmured, by this time thoroughly discouraged. “Well, good luck to you, whichever way you decide.”
Notwithstanding a slight rain he continued his journey on foot and came to the conclusion by the time he had reached his hair-dresser’s that he had never seen a more contented and cheerful-looking lot of pedestrians. At the coiffeur’s he was received with all the consideration due to an occasional but respected client. He submitted himself to the ministrations of his regular attendant, who shaved him and trimmed his hair.
“You’re looking very well, Sir Hargrave, if I may be permitted to say so,” the young man remarked.
“Yes, I’m very well,” Hargrave acknowledged. “Sorry I can’t say the same of you,” he added, with a sudden gleam of hope as he noticed the lines under the young man’s eyes. “You look as though you needed a holiday. A month down at the seaside, eh?”
The assistant leaned confidentially down.
“To tell you the truth, sir,” he admitted, “me and my young woman had a bit of a tiff last night. She’s earning too much money, and that makes her uppish. I worried about it and couldn’t sleep. She’ll be all right to-day, though.”
“I hope so,” Hargrave remarked drily, as he rose to his feet, slipped his usual tip into the young man’s hand and passed into the manicure room.
The manageress bustled forward to meet him.
“Miss Martin is disengaged, sir,” she announced, “the only young lady we have free at the moment.”
“Miss Martin will do very nicely for me,” Hargrave replied, as he seated himself in the vacant cubicle.
Entirely from this recently acquired habit, he looked more closely than ever before into the face of the attendant who had drawn her stool to his side. She was perhaps a little pale, but it was a face entirely free from any signs of discontent. For the first time, he realised that she was, notwithstanding the extreme simplicity of her clothes, a remarkably good-looking young woman. She had a clear skin, utterly untouched by cosmetics, soft hazel-brown eyes, a quantity of neatly arranged light brown hair, and a delightful mouth. Her figure—peculiarly graceful she seemed as she leaned forward—was still the figure of a young girl, and the casual interest with which he had looked at her was merged, somewhat to his surprise, in a genuine admiration. Nevertheless she bent over her task, as he was bound to perceive, with rather less animation than was her custom.
“Is it my fancy,” he asked presently, “or are you not quite as cheerful as usual this morning?”
She looked up at him quickly, almost nervously.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s hard to be cheerful this weather, though, isn’t it?”
“I should think so,” he admitted, looking gloomily out of the window.
“Besides,” she went on, “as a rule you have the air of not wanting to talk much.”
“I’m afraid you must find me a little unsociable.”
She shook her head.
“Not at all. Why should you expect to be talked to or to talk whilst you are having your nails done? Purposeless conversation is so irritating, isn’t it?”
“One might talk more seriously,” he suggested.
She examined one of his nails thoughtfully and changed the file she was using.
“One might,” she admitted, “but it would be rather difficult to find different subjects with one’s casual clients, wouldn’t it? They tell me, for instance, that you’re a hunting man. Well, I don’t know anything about hunting.”
“I hear enough of it down at home,” he remarked. “I’d rather talk about what interests you—the best film to see, or the best show at the theatres.”
“There again, I’m no use,” she confided. “I haven’t been to either for a month.”
Hargrave sat up a little in his chair.
“Why not?” he ventured.
“Lack of invitations, I suppose,” she answered lightly. “One or two people who used to ask me out sometimes don’t bother about me any more. I have come to the conclusion that I am a very unpopular person.”
He looked at her again curiously. Although he was not in any sense of the word a woman’s man, he had very correct tastes, and with them considerable insight. He realised for the first time, in those few moments, that apart from her physical qualities she was really a young woman of marked attractions. Her expression pleased him. There was a pleasant frankness about her speech, a lack of embarrassment without familiarity which was distinctive. Her personality, too, impressed him more favourably every time he looked at her.
“If I may say so without impertinence,” he remarked, “I should have thought that you would have been a very popular person indeed amongst the younger members of my sex.”
“I really am not,” she assured him, smiling. “Even if I were, I don’t know that it would give me much satisfaction. Most of the young men I meet, at any rate, are painfully alike in every respect.”
“I’m afraid we older ones are pretty well made in the same mould,” he ventured.
She looked up at him quickly.
“I would rather think that you weren’t,” she said.
She completed her task, handed him a ticket and rose a little abruptly to her feet. She shook her head dubiously at the tip he laid upon the table.
“You should not give me so much,” she protested.
He affected not to hear, and hurried off. At the door, he glanced around. She was standing with her hands behind her, looking out through the streaming windowpanes, and there was something in her expression which haunted him for the rest of the day.
* * * * *
HARGRAVE lunched by appointment with Marston at his Club. The conversation was casual enough until the cigars and coffee had arrived. Then Hargrave, after a careful glance around the room to make sure that they were not overheard, leaned forward in his chair.
“John,” he confided, “I want to buy O. P. Trusts.”
The broker nodded.
“For investment?”
“For a speculation.”
Marston looked at his host keenly.
“You know the man who holds nearly all the stock?”
“I know,” Hargrave assented. “Andrea Trentino—the man who broke poor Ned Penlow.”
“A great pal of yours, Ned Penlow, wasn’t he?”
“He was so much of a pal,” Hargrave admitted, “that for the last two years I have been wondering whether I wouldn’t try to get even with that blackguard Trentino. I came to the conclusion that it might cost even more than I could afford. Within the last few hours I’ve changed my mind.”
“The Company isn’t doing any too well,” Marston pointed out, a little dubiously. “I wouldn’t get in too deep.”
“That’s just the reason,” Hargrave remarked, “why I think Trentino will be eager to sell. What I want him to be is just a little too eager. So long as he doesn’t know who’s buying, I should think that might happen.”
“You want to control the stock?”
“I want to do more than that—I want to corner it.”
Marston considered the matter for a moment or two.
“Well,” he said, “it’s just the sort of semi-proprietory affair which might make the thing possible, but it’s only just to point out that it might involve you in very heavy loss. Trentino’s a shrewd fellow.”
“I’m willing to lose half a million, if necessary,” Hargrave announced.
The stockbroker was not altogether comfortable. Hargrave was considerably more than a client. The two men were really in their way friends, and the memory of last night’s conversation loomed up before Marston in sinister fashion.
“You’re a bit reckless, aren’t you, what?” he ventured.
“There are times in a man’s life when he gets that way,” was the indifferent reply.
“Apropos of our conversation last night,” Marston began—
His companion checked him.
“Get ahead with the buying and let me hear from you continually, John,” he directed. “I shall be off to Monte Carlo in a day or two. There’s always a bed for you at the villa, or a room at the hotel, if you feel like running down as my guest.”
“Shouldn’t I love it!” the other sighed, with a glance through the window at the murky obscurity outside. “I might take you at your word.”
Hargrave rose to his feet.
“You’ll be very welcome at any time,” he said, as the two men strolled towards the door together.
At the corner of Bond Street, Hargrave came face to face with Miss Violet Martin. Save for his recently awakened interest, he would certainly have failed to recognise her. She wore a shabby mackintosh, a hat, once becoming enough, but whose antiquity was only justified by the abominable weather, and the umbrella, which she was clutching in her hand, displayed at least one partially naked rib. She looked at him with surprise, as he accosted her.
“A tragedy has happened,” he announced solemnly. “Forgive my stopping you, but I have broken a finger nail.”
She suddenly laughed, for the humour of his grave tone was irresistible.
“If you’ll come in, I’ll see what I can do for you,” she suggested.
He turned as though to accompany her. She shook her head.
“In ten minutes, please,” she begged. “I—I have a call to make.”
“In ten minutes,” he assented tactfully.
HARGRAVE, TO PASS THE TIME, strolled into a famous hatter’s and made an unnecessary purchase. A quarter of an hour later, he presented himself at the manicuring room, where the manageress greeted him with extreme affability but some surprise.
“I have an appointment with Miss Martin,” he explained, “a slight misfortune to one of my nails.”
She ushered him into the room, where the manicurist was already waiting for him. He withdrew his gloves slowly.
“Which is it?” she enquired, leaning forward from her stool.
“As a matter of fact,” he confessed, “I made a slight mistake. What I meant to say was that I found your polish not sufficient. I prefer them—er—highly glazed—and I should like you to spend another ten minutes upon them. And in the meanwhile, I have something to say to you.”
She looked at him anxiously. The bright light in her pleasant brown eyes had gone; instead there was an expression of cold anxiety.
“It will be nothing,” he added hastily, “to which you could possibly take exception.”
“I am quite sure of that,” she replied, selecting a pad.
“I am proposing,” he went on, “to write a book, and incidentally I am studying various types of life. One meets a great many interesting people during the day, but one very seldom gets to know anything about them—their tastes or desires—because one naturally does not wish to seem unduly curious. Will you do me the favour of answering a question—not, I can assure you, an impertinent one.”
“Of course,” she assented, a little bewildered. “But why come to me, of all people in the world?”
“Because one only comes in touch with a limited number of people of a certain type,” he explained patiently, “and you happen to be one of the few who have interested me. You have pleaded guilty to a distinct distaste for life. I take that as the basis of my questions. In the first place, can you tell me why you are dissatisfied, and in the second place, will you tell me what in the whole world would give you the greatest pleasure at the present time, apart from a direct gift of money, which we will rule out of the question.”
For a single moment, even her mouth lost its beauty. Her lips were drawn rigidly together; a heavy frown gave her almost a morose expression.
“I am depressed, I suppose,” she acknowledged, “because I am full of envy and malice.”
She picked up an illustrated paper, which she had been reading when he came in, and tapped with her finger one of the pages. It was a glittering vision of Monte Carlo, bathed in the sunshine, with girls in shady hats and men in flannels. She tapped it almost angrily and pointed out of the window.
“That is the cause of my depression,” she told him. “To look at them and think of the amazing happiness of it all, then to look out of the window at that cold, grey rain, and to know that by night-time it will probably have become sleet, the pavements will be wet and the wind will come whirling round the corners.”
“Would you like to go to Monte Carlo?” he asked.
She flashed an indignant glance upon him.
“What an insane question!” she exclaimed.—"I beg your pardon,” she added hastily, making an effort to restrain herself, “but of course I should. Don’t we all love the sunshine—and the cruel part of it is that it really does seem as though I were the only person in the world who is not going.”
He looked at her questioningly. She bent a little closer over her imaginary task.
“You know Miss Pownell—Rose Pownell—the short, dark girl who does your nails sometimes. Well, she’s going on Monday for a fortnight—with an uncle. Clara Smith is there already—staying with friends. She sent us a picture postcard only a day or two ago, telling us how wonderful it was. And Maisie Green, the tall girl, with the wonderful coloured hair—she’s going on Friday—to join a married sister. Even Mrs. Ross herself, the manageress, is off to Cannes next week.”
“Have all these young ladies,” he asked, a little diffidently, “the good fortune to possess wealthy relatives?”
“Of course not,” she snapped. “They each have their own story and they tell it so often that they almost believe it themselves, but they’re all going with men they met here.”
“And has no one asked you?”
“Oh, they leave me alone now,” she answered bitterly. “I used to have invitations of sorts once upon a time. Now, I don’t even get asked to the cinema. Perhaps it’s as well. It saves me a great deal of trouble.”
He hesitated.
“You mean, in plain words, that you are paying the price for keeping straight,” he ventured.
“That’s just it,” she admitted, “and on a day like this one begins to wonder whether it’s worth while. All the same, it’s a cruel and beastly world.”
He sat for several moments in silence. Presently she continued. Her tone was half apologetic, half sadder than ever, with its attempt at cheerfulness.
“I’m afraid I’ve been boring you,” she said. “This terrible weather has got on my nerves, I suppose. I don’t know what I’m grumbling at. Their way of living wouldn’t suit me, after all, so that’s the end of it.—There isn’t a thing more I can do to your nails. I’m afraid you’ll have to pay, although it seems ridiculous.”
He watched her write out the ticket.
“Would you like to come to Monte Carlo on, say, Thursday week?” he asked abruptly. “And stay there for two months?”
Her fingers trembled as she handed him the slip. The look in her eyes, too, hurt him.
“I’m sorry you asked me that,” she said. “I suppose it was my fault, though.”
He spoke almost sharply—perhaps the best thing he could have done.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he begged. “You haven’t even heard my offer, and I can’t imagine why you should think that I am the sort of man to make an ugly bargain with you for the sake of two or three months’ pleasure. Look at me and be honest. Do you think I am?”
“I didn’t think so,” she admitted. “No.”
“Don’t be absurd then,” he went on. “I am rich. If I told you how much money I am worth, you would think that I was romancing. I told you a falsehood when I said that I was writing a book, but all the same I want to make an experiment. I will explain it later on, but all that you need know now is simple enough. I will take you to Monte Carlo, and a sister or a brother—whichever you have who can be spared. I will pay the whole of your expenses and the expenses of your outfit—yours and your companion’s, of course. I will also arrange for your absence from your occupations. When I have done all this, it will cost me as little in proportion to my income as the shilling or eighteen-pence you have spent upon your luncheon. Now, do you begin to understand?”
“But why should you do this for me?” she asked breathlessly.
“Because,” he answered patiently, “you are the first person whom I have come across who exactly fulfills the conditions, since I determined to make my experiment. I offer you two months in the sunshine, without a thought or responsibility in the world, if you care for it, and I guarantee that so far as I am concerned it shall not cost you a single shred of your self-respect.”
She coloured a little.
“I was silly just now,” she confessed. “Please forgive me. All the same, it isn’t possible. Of course it isn’t possible.”
“Think it over,” he suggested. “I shall take some one else who wants a change, if not you. You’ll be a very foolish girl if you don’t come.”
The vision tantalized her. The light swept across her face. She yielded for a moment to the joy of the idea.
“But—where should I stay?” she asked.
“At my villa, if you are able to bring a brother,” he replied. “If not, I should find rooms for you.”
She opened her lips. More than once afterwards he wondered what it was that she had been about to say. Some thought seemed to flash into her mind. She was a little frightened; she kept silent.
“I am not in a position to offer you a long time to think it over,” he continued. “On the other hand, I can’t believe that you’ll be quite so foolish as to need long to make up your mind. Here is my card,” he went on, selecting one and laying it upon the stool, “and I am going to dine at home to-night alone. You will find me in at any time up till midnight. I shall expect you, and bring with you, if you like, your brother or your sister, whichever is available. Remember that it will not cost you a single penny. There will be no trouble about clothes, and I shall arrange for your absence from your work.”
She was too bewildered even to thank him for the customary tip which he laid upon her stool. He took the ticket from her unresisting fingers, and with a brief “good afternoon” passed out—a tall, distinguished-looking figure, with his long, serious face and air of complete detachment. She sat there with the card crushed up in her hand, looking after him.
IT WAS THE ONE HOUR of the day when a gleam of cheerfulness seemed to relieve the gloom of the murky thoroughfares notwithstanding the muddy crossings and the rain-splashed pavements. For the majority of the tired world work was over for the day. The crowd of shoppers had departed; the streams of pedestrians left were either homeward or on pleasure bent. Lights flashed from the restaurants outside which commissionaires, umbrellas in hand, were taking their stands. Cinema palaces and eating houses seemed more than ever havens of refuge full of the promise of warmth and comfort, a shelter from the dreariness they flouted. A meretricious garishness had transformed Piccadilly Circus into a nightmare of blazing sky signs and turned the dripping mist above into a golden haze. Violet, notwithstanding her shabby mackintosh and doubtful hat, excited more than one glance of interest as she passed with flying footsteps up Regent Street, across the Circus and turned into Shaftesbury Avenue. For the first time for many weeks, there was something outside the dreary day-by-day routine to think about; a dream, perhaps utterly impossible, but something the mere thought of which had reacted upon her warm, fresh youth and brought the colour into her cheeks and the light back into her tired eyes. The young man whom she met at the corner of one of the streets near the Palace stared at her.