Under the Mosquito Net

Dedicated
To My Friend
Marjory Barwick
Who Gave Me the Title

Part I

Chapter I

“What do you bet the old boy falls for Dandelion?” Guy Davison, balancing an extraordinarily generous allowance of marmalade on a piece of bread and butter, held his head a little sideways and swallowed the mixture with a pleasant grin.

“My darling, don’t be so vulgar.” Mrs. Davison stopped pouring out the coffee to glance a little reproachfully down the table. But in spite of herself her lips twitched. She never could resist her sons; they always seemed to her to be so excruciatingly funny.

“I bet he will, and you’ll be as pleased as Punch.” Guy was finishing his breakfast in a hurry. He and his younger brother attended the local Grammar School and it was already nearly ten to nine. “Come on, Pip; stop guzzling, and go and blow up my back tyre. Dandelion, run round to Boots’s and buy a lip-stick before the old boy turns up. Good-bye, mother; kiss father from me when he comes down, and tell him that when I was his age I wasn’t allowed to be late for breakfast,” and with that Guy was out of the room and rummaging in the back hall for his cap, followed in a moment or two by his younger brother.

“Those boys!” Mrs. Davison had stopped pouring out the coffee and was leaning back in her chair laughing helplessly. “They are so funny, Dandelion; I think they get funnier every day.”

“Yes, they are funny, but who is it coming?”

Dandelion Davison was eating her porridge with a quiet deliberation. She was an extremely pretty girl—even her brothers were able to see that. She had solemn grey eyes set very wide apart and a rather large, serious mouth. She had tremendous ideas about her future. She was going to do something, be somebody. Mrs. Davison, looking at her, felt pretty certain that she would never be anything more than a very attractive wife to some one. And yet, where was she ever going to meet a man to be an attractive wife to? There were no men in the country town in which they lived, only a few rather conceited boys and a couple of unmarried masters at the school; all the nice men of their own class went abroad.

“It’s a friend of daddy’s who is coming.” Mrs. Davison, beginning to eat again, reached out first for the toast-rack and then for the butter. “Some one he used to know in India, I believe. Personally, I can’t remember him, but he says we have met.”

“Oh!” Dandelion had finished her porridge and was carrying the plate slowly to the sideboard. “Where is daddy?” she remarked.

“Getting up.” Mrs. Davison’s eyes crinkled in laughter. She never got used to her husband any more than she did to her sons. The Davisons adored one another. People made fun of them because they did. It was old-fashioned to adore your own husband; nowadays you must adore somebody else’s, her great woman friend had told her. “I would if I could find anyone to touch him, but I can’t,” said Mrs. Davison, amused and accommodating. She looked at her friend with a little pity in her eyes.

Angela had never married, and began to look as if she hadn’t: a touch of peevishness about the corners of a disappointed mouth; an over-eagerness about her food. It was beginning to be a bother to have her to stay, thought Mrs. Davison, the last time Angela had come, because they only had one servant and never any money to spare. And Angela wanted grand things for supper. You couldn’t have grand things for supper if you only had one servant, and that an awfully slow one, Mrs. Davison had said, looking up at her husband with rather a miserable expression in her eyes as the taxi bearing Angela to the station shot out of the gate on the conclusion of her last visit.

“Tell her to go to hell!” said Mr. Davison, and he took his wife’s face between his hands and kissed it tenderly. He did not like Angela Pauling. She had made one or two very decided attempts to get him to make love to her during her visit, and he had seen through them and been annoyed. Mr. Davison was a very attractive man, both to men and women. An extraordinary charm about him left very few people untouched. Both his wife and daughter felt it anew as he came into the room on this very delightful sunny morning.

“Good-morning, Dandelion. I seem a little late.”

Hugh Davison stood in the doorway and smiled round him. “Every time I call you by your extremely stupid name I wonder why we labelled you with it. Why did we, Nancy?”

“We couldn’t think of anything else.” Mrs. Davison was folding up her table-napkin and getting up from the table. “Dandelion will look after you, Hugh; I must go up to Mary or she will never get done. And in about half an hour’s time may I have a word with you, darling?”

“You may.” Hugh Davison was spreading his napkin across his knees. “Now then, Dandelion, get a move on. After all I have spent on your education I should think you might have your father’s bacon in front of him by this time. Porridge! you’d better attempt it!”

“Don’t you like it, darling?” Dandelion was standing by her father’s side, with her hand on his shoulder. “Your bacon’s hot—boiling. That’s the best of the hot-water dish. Can’t you see Mary if we asked her to keep anything hot for anyone who was late?”

“No.” Hugh Davison was eating with zeal. “No; no to both questions. Mary would do anything for me, because she is fond of me, and I abhor porridge and you know that I do. Now take my plate away, there’s a good girl, and go away yourself. Give me the paper first, but for goodness’ sake see that the sheets are in order. If your mother has had it we may be sure that they aren’t. No they aren’t; what an extraordinary thing it is that a woman cannot handle a daily paper with even ordinary intelligence!”

“They like it in bits best.” Dandelion was struggling hurriedly with the Morning Post.

“So it appears.” Hugh Davison was drawing his napkin swiftly across his mouth. “When you’re married, Dandelion, don’t forget to keep the paper in order. If I wasn’t such an extraordinarily good-tempered man it would have broken up the happiness of this home long ago. But, you see, I am.” Hugh was smiling complacently round him.

“Yes, you are!” Dandelion was looking at her father with a sudden gravity in her eyes. It had often struck her before, that unusual quality about him. Although he was a father, he was still a man. Dandelion had a good many girl friends, and they most of them had fathers—generally cross fathers; fathers to be kept out of the way of. “Oh, hooray, father is out!” Dandelion had heard it said more than once; or “Don’t do that, darling; your father will be so annoyed”—this from generally rather a harassed-looking mother. Why need fathers be cross and a bother? They generally were, thought Dandelion, surveying her own with a new interest in her eyes. But hers wasn’t; that was probably why her mother was so fond of him.

“Daddy, who is coming to stay to-night?” she asked, rather inconsequently.

“A very old friend of mine, a Sir Frere Manwaring,” replied Hugh, dispatching toast and marmalade with extraordinary rapidity. “And now, my child, you can clear all this away. Thank the Lord I insisted on that hatch! What a lot of trouble it saves us. Good child.” Hugh got up and pushed his chair back from the table with a jerk.

But as Dandelion cleared away her eyes were still serious, and her mouth more solemn than usual. Her brother’s careless words had in some way disturbed her. Her mother had only said to him, “Don’t be vulgar.” She had not said, “What a ridiculous idea; of course, Dandelion won’t marry for years and years.” Or,”Oh, Guy,how awful! Whatever should I do without Dandelion?” No, she had taken it more or less calmly, more or less as a matter of course. As if marriage for her elder daughter was something to be reckoned with. And as a matter of fact, of course it was, thought Dandelion, walking quickly round the table. Kitty would soon be coming home from school for good. Aunt Alice had only undertaken to keep her there until she was seventeen, and she was nearly sixteen now. And then there would be four of them at home, and none of them earning anything. Dandelion’s mouth drooped a little at the corners as she went methodically between the table and the hatch. Something would have to be done, she concluded, folding the coloured tablecloth and putting it carefully away in the drawer of the dresser.

Chapter II

Yes, something would have to be done, and Mrs. Davison knew it a good deal better than her daughter did, as on that beautiful sunny morning in early April she helped the maid make the beds. Mary was a treasure, and did all the work of the small house uncommonly well. She adored her mistress, and was possessed of an unfailingly good temper. She did not turn up her nose at Mrs. Davison’s efforts to economize, as many maids would have done; on the contrary, she aided and abetted her in them. But in spite of economies the expenses at Wayside were appalling. Mrs. Davison often wondered what it was that seemed literally to gobble the money up, because they lived with the utmost simplicity. There was always something to be paid for that hadn’t been reckoned with in their yearly budget. An unusually heavy dentist’s bill: one of Philip’s sturdy eyeteeth had shown signs of sticking out and had had to be restrained by a plate. Dandelion had had influenza rather badly in January, and the doctor had come every day for a fortnight. An unusually heavy rainfall in February had broken several tiles on the roof, and they had had to be replaced. And now, worst of all, the Borough Council had suddenly decided to take over the countrified road on which Wayside stood, and that meant a solid pound for every foot of frontage. And as their frontage was fifty feet, that was fifty pounds gone at once. Mrs. Davison had an unusually troubled look on her face as she made the beds that morning.

Mary saw it and became instantly sympathetic. She knew to a penny what the Davisons’ income was. Mr. Davison had been on a railway in India, and therefore had not subscribed to a pension, but only to a Provident Fund. To realize the full value of a Provident Fund you must be a widow. If you are both joyfully alive, a pension is much the best thing to have. For you have to collect a great deal of capital to bring in even five hundred pounds a year. Mr. Davison had collected enough to bring in six hundred, and he had built and paid for Wayside with what he had saved during the war. He had served with distinction in both France and Palestine, but beyond enabling him to save a couple of thousand pounds it had not done anything else for him financially. And Mary knew all this; Mrs. Davison had thought it best to confide in her trustworthy maid. No one will economize with somebody else’s money unless they know that it is really necessary to do so.

“You have a headache, m’m?” Mary was carefully folding down the top sheet on Dandelion’s narrow wooden bed.

“No, I haven’t, Mary.” Mrs. Davison smiled, but for her a little wearily. “But you know, Mary, this friend of Mr. Davison’s is coming to-day for a couple of nights. What are we to have for supper? What is there to have for supper? Why need we have any supper at all? Nobody wants three—no, four—meals a day. It’s bad for them.” Mrs. Davison suddenly burst out laughing, and sat down on the end of the bed.

“We must eat, m’m,” Mary’s pleasant face was humorous. She had heard all this before. Mrs. Davison was not a good housekeeper, she could never think of anything to have. She came and sat down in the little kitchen and stared hopelessly at her maid. Very often she did not come at all, and Mary carried on by herself, keeping a vigilant eye on the books. Mary was priceless, and Mrs. Davison knew it. She proceeded to be priceless now, being suddenly full of ideas.

“We can have the little drop of tomato soup warmed up again, m’m,” she said. “And there’s quite enough of the joint to make a little potato-pie. And if you don’t think it too much of an expense, we might get some meringues from the dairy. Fourpence each, they are, but perhaps Master Philip won’t be having supper as you are having company.”

“No; I’ll ask him if he minds not having it.” Mrs. Davison’s eyes were on her maid and they were full of genuine affection. Mary never thought of herself, and hers was a fourteen-hour day. How could she say to her that to offer a man of Sir Frere Manwaring’s position potato-pie for supper was almost impossible. She would not say it. Let him eat it; if he was really a friend of her husband’s and a nice man, he would not care what he ate.

But later, as she stood by her husband in his tiny study, her eyes were clouded again. Somehow tears were not very far off. He ought to have everything of the best to offer his friend. He was not the sort of man to live on six hundred a year and economize all the time. He had had to give up his London club, even the country subscription had been more than he had thought justifiable with the boys’ education still to be met. He had given it up without telling his wife, and when she had found out she had cried bitterly, hiding her face in his neck.

“But what are you crying about?” Hugh Davison’s eyes had been amused over his wife’s bent head.

“I loathe your having to do without things. You aren’t the sort of person to have to. You ought to be dressed by the smartest tailor in London, and be going to the theatre all the time and always in the stalls. You ought not to have a wife and family hanging round your neck at all.” Mrs. Davison’s face was all smudged and blurred with tears.

“And you a woman of nearly fifty! My darling, pull yourself together!” But although Hugh Davison’s voice was bantering, his eyes were not. This woman that he held closely in his arms still saw him as the man who had wooed and won her twenty years before. Distinguished in figure, and uncommonly good-looking, entirely unspoilt as he had been even then, he had not been able to help knowing it. And Hugh thanked God quite simply that she did still think of him like that. He had been able to keep her, loving him, adoring him. Not many men could say that, thought Hugh, casting a brief mental glance round the circle of his acquaintance.

And now again in the tiny study he looked at her kindly. Something was worrying her. “Out with it!” He took hold of her hand and pulled her close to him.

“Hugh, this man coming to-night.” Mrs. Davison spoke impulsively. “How can we give him the queer nondescript meal we always have? Mary suggests things like potato-pie. Well, you know—” Mrs. Davison’s lower lip was quivering.

“My darling child, we must cut our coat according to our cloth.” Hugh carried his wife’s hand up to his lips. Deep down in his heart he did not relish the idea of setting queer warmed-up food before his friend. Frere had always done himself most awfully well. He was still head of one of the biggest mercantile firms in Calcutta, reckoning his income in thousands. Hugh had known him before his marriage, and they had spent one never-to-be-forgotten week together in Paris, an unexpected legacy of a couple of hundred pounds from a maiden aunt enabling Hugh to forget, for the period of seven days exactly, that such a thing as economy or a conscience existed. But that all belonged to the days of long ago. Now for the first time for nearly twenty years he was about to meet his old friend again. And with heavy bills hanging over his head he was not going to entertain him beyond his means, however much it might cost him mentally. “Carry on with the potato-pie,” he said cheerfully, and as he said it he kissed his wife’s slender fingers again. “I dare say if Dandelion puts on her best frock and really makes her effort, he won’t notice what he’s eating.”

“Oh, Hugh, I had thought of that!” Mrs. Davison suddenly lifted her head and turned a little pink. “Fancy, if he liked her and she liked him and they could marry. He would take Guy into his firm and Philip too, when he is old enough. Sometimes I wonder——”

“Yes, it would be a very pleasant solution of our financial difficulties, Nancy.” Hugh Davison spoke with a touch of amusement in his voice. “But not one that we can entertain, I think. Dandelion probably has no idea of marriage at all. She means to enjoy herself before she settles down. And I don’t blame her.”

“No, I know.” Mrs. Davison sat down on the little low chair in front of the gas fire. “May I stay a minute?” she said.

“Of course, any amount of minutes.” Hugh also sat down and twisted himself round to look at his wife. “Spit it out,” he said.

Mrs. Davison coloured. “Well, it’s this,” she said. “I never like to say anything about money to you, because you’re so absolutely glorious about it. But I can’t help thinking sometimes, Hugh, how are we going to carry on? Look at this fifty pounds for the road, for instance. Where is it coming from? This last quarter’s gas-bill was very heavy, too—not so heavy as the winter quarter, of course, but still it was heavy. Mary is awfully good, and I never find the gas-ring on when it needn’t be. I mean, there isn’t any waste. But still, the bill is there, and there will be another in a month or two. Then Dandelion must have clothes, and I suppose I ought to have some too, really, only it doesn’t matter about me. Only, somehow, lately I seem to be beginning to get the money on my mind—a sort of weight; a sort of cloggy feeling. Always something to be paid for that we didn’t expect. It seems to haunt me somehow.”

“Don’t let it.” Hugh was still looking at his wife.

“I know; I do try not, but things seem tighter than they were. Why is it, Hugh?”

“Because my two years preparatory to retirement are up,” said Hugh dryly; “I was drawing half pay as well as my ordinary income, you see.”

“Oh, is that it?” Mrs. Davison turned and stared at her husband. “Then it’s going on like this for always?” she said.

“Yes, unless I can get something to do. I shall have to; I have been thinking about it for some time. But the point is what. Don’t turn out that fire—you’ll be cold.”

“No, I shan’t.” Mrs. Davison twisted the little tap with fingers that were suddenly quite chill without any apparent reason. Then it really was serious. Six hundred pounds, less income tax, was the extent of their resources for the rest of their lives. And four children to provide for, and themselves as well. And they had more than heaps of other people had—people just as gently bred as themselves. What did the other people do? The question answered itself with a sort of swift complacence. They did without a servant. They got up and groped their way down through the stuffy chill of an early winter morning and pretended that they liked it. They did horrors like scraping out the ashes of the fires of the day before, knowing that unless they did it they would remain cold for the rest of the day. They struggled desperately to get breakfast punctually at eight o’clock, so that the boys should have time to eat it properly before they went to school. And as they ate it they thought with a sick chill of the saucepans waiting to be cleaned—a row of them, sitting above a dirty tea-leafy sink. Your fingers all greasy. Perhaps a frying-pan to be wiped. And unless you did it all over again, there would not be anything to eat in the middle of the day. Mrs. Davison sat very still, staring at the slowly whitening bars of the gas fire. After all, there was this one gas fire in the house; they could sit here when they were too tired to lay a new fire or bring the coals for it. Coals—yes, the last bill had not been paid yet; it had come in “Account rendered” that very day.

“What are you thinking about?” Hugh was watching his wife’s face. To him, it was utterly repugnant that she should be discomfited about money. People who loved each other as he and she did should not have to bother about it. There ought to be always just enough—for since his marriage Hugh had not lived extravagantly. “I shall try to get a job,” he said quickly.

“Yes.” Mrs. Davison got up. She was not going to talk about that just then; there was too much to do—the visitor’s room to get ready, a hot-water bottle to put in the bed; a new piece of soap. By the way, was there any soap? Anyhow, Dandelion could go and get some if there wasn’t. But perhaps there was; Mrs. Davison was already mentally feeling in the wooden box in the airing cupboard.

“So that’s all right, is it?” Hugh Davison had his wife’s face between his hands. “Potato-pie, and we don’t care a tinker’s cuss what Frere thinks of us.”

“Yes.” And Mrs. Davison had gone quietly out of the room, leaving her husband to his thoughts.

And they were not particularly pleasant ones. Hugh got up when his wife had gone, and stood for some time staring out of the window. It wasn’t a nice prospect to meet an old friend and an exceedingly prosperous one when you yourself were uncommonly badly off. But thank the Lord he had some decent cheroots left, a welcome present from an old friend in India. And some really good liqueur brandy. But whisky there was none, and that would have to be bought before the evening. He would go and get it himself, otherwise Nancy would worry about the expense. Hugh pulled out his leather purse and opened it with his nice, well-kept fingers. Just about enough, so he need not cash another cheque: that was something to be thankful for.

Chapter III

Sir Frere Manwaring was rather an ugly man of forty-four. He was a couple of years younger than Hugh and a different type altogether. Hugh belonged to the period of ruffles and perukes, and would have gone with aplomb and unconcern to the guillotine, listening with a contemptuous smile to the yells and execrations of a filthy crowd. But Sir Frere Manwaring was essentially a man of business. He was rather short and stocky and had a magnificent skull. Dandelion, seeing him for the first time, seemed to see him without his hair. It gave her a queer sensation: underneath that sweep of bone and muscle was the most extraordinary driving force. Not exactly a brain—a personality.

Dandelion, peering out of the window of her bedroom, was watching him get out of his taxi at the wicket-gate of Wayside. Apparently he must have seen her mother somewhere, because he had taken off his hat. Yes, there she was, walking down to the gate with daddy. What a funny man, and how utterly different he looked to daddy. Daddy was slim and had a youthful, well-bred look. This man looked older and not so aristocratic. Dandelion turned to continue her dressing, with a swift twinge of pity. How awful to be forty and have everything finished! Nothing to look forward to; all dull and drab. But all the same, the memory of that well-formed skull lingered with her as she dressed. She had never seemed to see a person without his hair before—-never even thought of anyone in that way.

And the impression returned to her with renewed force when she abruptly came on him that night in the sitting-room. She was the first down; from a hurried colloquy she had gathered that Philip and Guy were not having supper with them that night—Guy because he was going out to some show at the School, and Philip because there was not enough to go round. Mrs. Davison was always perfectly frank with her children, and she had made no secret of the fact that the potato-pie would have to be dealt with gently, if their guest was not to go hungry.

“I’ll go without any.” Dandelion had smiled her slow, delightful smile, and had put a loving finger under her mother’s chin.

“No, darling; I should not like that at all,” said Mrs. Davison, replying with a sort of guilty rapidity. Sir Frere must not think Dandelion faddy or whimsical, and certainly not delicate.

But as Sir Frere swiftly took in Dandelion from the crown of her shingled head to the arch of her well-bred and rather shabbily shod foot, he did not think of anything at all except that here was the girl for whom he had been looking for about fourteen years. Sir Frere always made up his mind instantly, and hardly ever went back on it. He had never married, because he had an unerring and rather ghastly capacity for always seeing through people. He saw through women and dismissed them with a little mental shrug. As playthings, certainly; and very delightful playthings they made, too. But as wives, no, not until he met the woman that he had mentally imagined, enshrined, and tucked away in a little corner of his soul that no one ever saw but himself and his Creator.

And now he saw her, coming towards him over a rather shabby Persian carpet, dressed in an equally shabby velveteen dress of a lovely powder-blue. The quiet colour of it set off her white neck and delicate complexion. She had on a string of goldy Oriental beads, and they seemed to light her up with a sort of gentle radiance. Her blue eyes were shy. Sir Frere had not seen shy eyes for a very long time. At least, not set in a woman’s face.

“How do you do?” Sir Frere had stepped forward and had taken Dandelion’s hand in his. It was odd that he never doubted that here in the same room with him was Hugh Davison’s child. There was a look of Hugh in the shy eyes. A look of complete confidence. Sir Frere tried unconsciously to describe it to himself. You saw it in the eyes of this girl’s father. You couldn’t do a mean or beastly thing with Hugh Davison; he simply wouldn’t grasp it. He brought out the best in you, simply because he took it for granted that only the best was there. Sir Frere had not seen his friend for nearly twenty years, but the minute he had looked at him again he had recognized the characteristic that had so attracted him that long time ago.

“How do you do?” Later that evening Dandelion wondered how long it had taken her to reply. There was something in the extraordinarily penetrating look that this man had given her that had taken away her breath. As if he had seen all through her at one fell swoop, as if she had suddenly been pushed into a room where there was an unusually clever specialist waiting to diagnose her complaint, and as if she had been hustled out of it again as abruptly as she came in, because the first glance that he had cast at her had told him all he wanted to know and more.

“You must be Hugh’s daughter; you are very much like him.” Sir Frere had removed his quick, searching glance from the flushing face in front of him. He and Dandelion were just about the same height; Dandelion was rather tall for a girl.

“Yes, I am; I am glad you think I am like him.” Dandelion’s hand had fallen to her side again. The fire wanted poking; she walked forward and knelt down on the thick sheepskin hearth-rug to do it.

Sir Frere watched her as she knelt there with her back to him. She was slim and had rather broad shoulders. Her hands were not particularly small, but white and well shaped. The fingers of them were rather long and sensitive. The back of her neck was delicious; where the hair was cut short it seemed to cling and try to curl. He could just see the sweep of one dark eyebrow under the short dark fringe; still gazing, Sir Frere thrust his hands nervously into the pockets of his dinner-jacket and then took them out again.

“You still have fires, then?” He stood with his hands behind him, closely locked. Sir Frere’s hands were quite the best part of him, being small and beautifully cared for.

“Yes, after India mummy is always cold.” Dandelion got slowly back on to her feet and remained standing with her face turned to the jumping flames.

“You haven’t ever been out to India, then?”

“No; you see, daddy retired while I was at school. He had to retire because he got the threatenings of sprue. Otherwise he would have asked for an extension, and then I should have gone out. But he thought it was silly to risk being an invalid. Heaps of people do that, and then die the minute they come home for good.”

“I see.” Sir Frere was desperately wishing that Dandelion would turn round again. Wretchedly, and almost like a boy, he began to think that probably she had found him unpleasant to look at—old and generally ghastly. He would make her turn round; he levelled his quiet gaze on her small ear.

Dandelion very slowly revolved on her little arched foot. She met his gaze with a queer flutter in her blue eyes. She began to wish desperately that the rest of the family would arrive. Surely it must be nearly supper-time; where were they all? She never did have to talk to a man, and this was such an odd one—not like any man she ever met before. She began to feel that she must keep on swallowing, and that if she began to speak her voice would fail in her throat in that dreadful way that it had when you were fearfully nervous and trying not to show it.

And that very moment Hugh came in—Hugh, with a laugh in his throat because it had been with the utmost difficulty that he had been able to detach himself from his wife’s detaining hands. “Hugh, give them a chance of getting to know each other without us there. You know what Dandelion is when she is self-conscious, and Guy said that stupid thing at breakfast, and she may be remembering it, or thinking that we are. Let them get to know each other without us. Darling, do; you know I very often know the best thing to do about things like this.” Mrs. Davison’s face had been as eager as a child’s.

“Things like what?” Hugh, tall and well-groomed in his extremely old dinner-jacket, had laughed silently with his head thrown back. His wife was just like a girl of sixteen, he thought. As keen and tingling over the advent of this eligible bachelor as any matchmaking mother with a lot of ugly daughters to get rid of. “Nancy, you ought to be ashamed of yourself,” he said. “Poor Dandelion, only just out of the nursery; you surely don’t want to push her off on Frere. He is old enough to be her father, to begin with.”

“Yes, but—” And then Mrs. Davison had fallen silent and let go of the corners of the black dinner-jacket. There was so much to say, but it all sounded so disgusting. Even Hugh wouldn’t quite understand. The prospect of a loveless life for Dandelion, for eligible men in Colbridge were few and far between. The prospect of seeing her get older and older and more and more disappointed and eventually going out to do something that she didn’t really want to do, simply because it was so ghastly to stay at home any more. The prospect of—and then Mrs. Davison, as her husband went quickly out of the room, turned and faced her own thoughts. The prospect of their own rapidly mounting and increasing expenses. Something would simply have to be done about that. What?—unless one, at least, of the girls could marry, and marry well into the bargain. Mrs. Davison turned to have one further glance into the looking-glass before she followed her husband down the stairs. What a mercy she was not fat or common; that sort of thing did such endless harm to a girl’s prospects, thought Mrs. Davison, going slowly down the bare oak staircase.

Chapter IV

The dining-room at Wayside was an extremely attractive room. Hugh had excellent taste and had furnished the whole house as it ought to have been furnished. The refectory table was long and beautifully polished. Mrs. Davison had spent quite half an hour over it before she had laid the blue damask table-cloth. There were dark oak beams running across the parchment-coloured ceiling, and the old Welsh dresser had blue willow-pattern plates on its shelves. There were flowers in the pewter pot in the middle of the table—fresh flowers, and well and tastefully arranged. Sir Frere took it all in with his keen, comprehensive glance.

And Hugh was a born host. With the true instinct for the greater comfort of his guest he made no apologies. The food that was on the table was good enough for himself and his wife, therefore it was good enough for his friend. And in a sort of secret childish corner of his mind he was remembering the meringues. Potters made meringues uncommonly well and Frere would enjoy one. They would make a good top-up to this extremely simple meal. Hugh ate his potato-pie with rather amused eyes on his plate. He wondered what Frere was really thinking of it all.

And Sir Frere, with his well-kept fingers caressing his tumbler and his intelligent gaze on his hostess’s still interesting face, was thinking with extraordinary rapidity. Hugh must be frightfully badly off, he concluded, to have to feed like this. It was all perfectly all right, of course, and with charming people like this one didn’t care a button what one ate. But still, that extraordinary mixture with potato on the top. And Hugh serving it out as if it had been the last word in something hopelessly out of season—plovers’ eggs at three and sixpence each, for instance. No wonder his wife still adored him, and made no attempt to hide it. Sir Frere, with his eyes attentively riveted, and his intelligent “yes” and “no” coming in in exactly the right place, was thinking with great rapidity. And through it all he saw Dandelion, sitting dreamy and apart, although only on the other side of the table. What was that delicious girl thinking about? he wondered.

Dandelion was not thinking about anything in particular. If she thought about anything at all, it was that it was much nicer when they were by themselves. Daddy was always the same when anyone came, she meditated; mummy got just a shade hurried and fussed. Dandelion put her fork into her mouth and stared over it at Sir Frere. When would he go? she wondered; to-morrow or the next day? And would he sit up late? Not that that mattered, because she and mummy would go to bed first. Dandelion cast a quick glance round the table and got up to collect the plates.

“Do let me.” Sir Frere had already made one attempt to get up when the tomato soup had run its course. But Hugh had stopped him. “Dandelion always does it when the boys are not here,” he said; “she likes it and it is good for her—isn’t it, Dandelion?”

“You say it is.” In passing, Dandelion let her hand rest for a moment on her father’s smooth head. And Sir Frere, watching it lie there, felt a sudden snatch at his heart. Before many weeks had passed he would have this girl in his arms, he thought, with a queer ferocity. Whether she wanted it or not, he would have her there.

And now he tried to get up again to help her. But again Hugh stopped him with a little pleasant smile. So he contented himself with watching her slow, leisurely movements. She was much more like her father than her mother, he concluded. There was a touch of restlessness in Mrs. Davison’s eyes and hands. A mercy she had married happily, or she would have gone off the deep end in some way or other.

“Yes, in some ways the country certainly has gone more or less to the dogs.”

Sir Frere’s keen eyes were on his host and he kept them there, although he was conscious of a certain amount of sudden confusion by the hatch. Dandelion was conferring with some person unseen, and conferring with a certain amount of agitation. When she turned to the table with a glass dish in her hands, her delicate face was faintly pink. “The meringues haven’t come,” she said briefly. “Mary has sent this in instead, mummy.”

And on the other side of the hatch Mary was congratulating herself on her prescience. The blancmange made for the next day and the tin of pineapple chunks that she herself had bought for Master Philip’s birthday. Together they made an appetizing dish, and it was just as well that that careless boy from Potters’ had forgotten to give the order in for the meringues.

“Some of this, Frere?” But Hugh, with his aristocratic, clean-shaven face bent hospitably over the cut-glass dish, had his work cut out not to show what he felt. This was going a little too far. Why hadn’t the damned idiot on the other side of the hatch had the sense to send in only the cheese? Chill blancmange, and that ghastly tinned stuff round it, like a horrible cloggy yellow moat!

Mrs. Davison had gone a little pale. She was conscious of a sudden rush of babyish tears to her eyes. The mortification of this! The sort of thing that they hardly ever had, even if they were alone. And with this man here, and only for a couple of days. Mrs. Davison had sudden visions of giving Mary notice. Why hadn’t she told her that the meringues had not come? Such a little matter to rectify; Philip would have gone on his bicycle. Mrs. Davison went through all the agonizing tortures of the mortified hostess. She caught her husband’s eye and longed to rush round the table and bury her face in his neck. He would mind—he knew almost better than she did what was what.

But Hugh had pulled himself together and was helping his friend with his usual imperturbability. His sense of humour had come to his rescue. If Frere was going to eat this, he had undoubtedly fallen in love with Dandelion, he thought. Ah! but he had—Hugh had glanced round for the sugar, and Dandelion had got up to get it. And Hugh suddenly intercepted the flash that went across the table: Frere had been saying something; he had forgotten it. His chin was a little thrust out, and his eyes were on Dandelion’s stooping figure. Hugh suddenly laid down his spoon, under the pretext of wiping his mouth, and sat for a trembling moment quite still. He did not want Dandelion to marry, and certainly not this man. That week in Paris; Hugh suddenly remembered certain outstanding details of it.

Chapter V

But Sir Frere was not the man to let the grass grow under his feet, and the following morning he followed Hugh into his study after the late breakfast. Mrs Davison had not allowed their guest to get up for the eight o’clock breakfast. “Please don’t,” she had said, when the night before she had held his hand in hers on saying good night. “My husband loathes getting up early, and it will be an excuse for him not to have to do it. The boys have to be at school at nine or we should not do it either. We hate it too; don’t we, Dandelion?”

Dandelion, a little sleepy, standing beside her mother, had said fervently that they did. She was glad the evening was over; while she had sat and knitted, she had been conscious more than once that this man was looking at her. She had felt almost compelled to lift her head and to meet his eyes, and had done it once and had not wanted to do it again. His eyes saw something beyond her face; they saw her mind—what she was thinking about. Did he know that she was thinking about him, she wondered—thinking that she could see the bones of his skull through his skin and hair? If he did, no wonder he kept on looking at her; he must think her a queer sort of girl.

So she said good-night to him with relief. And the following morning she came down to breakfast also with relief, knowing that he was not going to be there. There was something singularly reassuring in the sight of Guy and Philip scrimmaging over the bread as usual, standing at the hatch fighting as to which of them should take in the bacon. Although there was not bacon this morning, only boiled eggs. And only three of them.

“Aren’t you going to have one, mummy?” Dandelion had walked round to drop her soft morning kiss on her mother’s hair.

“No, darling. Sit down, Guy and Philip, or you’ll be late.” Mrs. Davison was standing up pouring out the tea. “Philip, if you splash this cloth I shall give you the hardest smack that you’ve ever had in your life.”

“You’ll get a harder one back.” Philip, with an engaging smile, was coming round the table to fetch his cup from his mother. “Mother, has the old stiff proposed to Dandelion yet?”

“Don’t be so horribly vulgar, Philip,” and there was suddenly real annoyance in Mrs. Davison’s voice. And it produced an instant effect. Both boys sat down and began to eat in silence. Mrs. Davison also sat down and there was a heightened colour in her cheeks. Dandelion, cutting bread at the sideboard, knew without turning round that her mother had turned red. How did she know it? By a sudden chill in the air—a sudden extraordinary discomfort, very foreign to them. Dandelion, turning round to walk to the table, thought with great vigour that it was very much nicer when they were alone. Breakfast was generally such a jolly meal; this was going to be stiff and ghastly.

“Well, we’d better be off.”

Philip was getting up, and he looked as if tears were not far off. He and his mother were devoted to one another, more like brother and sister than mother and son, Mrs. Davison sometimes thought. She saw his sensitive face distressed, and the tears rushed to her own eyes in a flood, as he went rather awkwardly out of the room. She never allowed herself to be cross at meals. What did this sudden fit of nervy irritation mean?

Breakfast wore itself rather uncomfortably to a close. And by the time the boys had banged the front-door behind them, Mrs. Davison was already upstairs beginning to make the beds, Dandelion was tidying the breakfast-table ready for her father and Sir Frere, and Mary was getting the second breakfast ready—priceless Mary, always good-tempered and anxious to make everything a success.

But the second breakfast was not altogether a success. Hugh was cordial and charming, although he did not feel like being either. But Sir Frere was very silent. He ate and drank what he was given, but he ate and drank as if he did not know what he was doing. And Hugh’s mind was filled with a queer dread. The man had undoubtedly fallen in love with Dandelion. And yet how could he have done, in such a ridiculously short time? Although Frere always did do things like that, with a sort of graphic decision. Straight to the point always, without an instant’s hesitation.

As Hugh knelt down in front of the gas fire he wished passionately that he had not asked his old friend to stay. He made a stupid laughing remark about the automatic pistol that he held in his hand. “Woolworth’s, Frere,” he said, as he clicked the little trigger of it.

“Rather dodgy for lighting gas fires, don’t you think? Does it straight away,” as the fire exploded itself into a row of neatly flaming little jets.

“Yes,” but Sir Frere was not listening to Hugh’s remarks. Nor was he wondering what his friend would say. He was only thinking that he must put his flaming desire into words. He had been awake for practically the whole night, longing for the morning so that he could do it. And now the moment had arrived. “Hugh, I want to marry your daughter,” he said, and he said it with his quiet hands locked behind his back.

“What?” Hugh was giving himself time. He sat back on his heels and got up. He put the little pistol back into the pewter pot on the mantelpiece and moved it a little before turning round. “You want to marry Dandelion?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Frere, you only saw the child yesterday.” Hugh took his hand away from the pewter pot and turned round. His friend was staring at him. Hugh was conscious only of his eyes. How was he ever going to deny anything to anyone who looked at him like that; how was he going to be able to do it, to begin with!

“Yes, I know—I expect it sounds fantastic. But I’ve always been like that, as you know. I see a thing and I want it. I know it’s the thing I’ve been wanting for years. And there it is, and I must have it.” Sir Frere’s voice suddenly sounded a little hoarse.

“Well, but—” Hugh suddenly felt more uncomfortable than he had ever felt in his life. “Have something to smoke?” he reached out towards his writing-table. “Have a cheroot; you liked them last night.”

“No, thanks. Let me hand them to you.” Sir Frere also reached out quickly.

“No, thanks; I’ll have a pipe.” Hugh had begun to walk round the room. “Where have I put the damned thing?” he hunted vaguely, knowing all the time exactly where it was. “Ah, here it is.” He took it from behind a photograph-frame.

Sir Frere was watching him. “You’re thinking about that time in Paris,” he said abruptly.

“No, I don’t know that I am.” Hugh with great discomfort was unrolling his oilskin tobacco-pouch. He pressed the tobacco down into the bowl of his pipe with an uneasy, hesitating thumb.

“You yourself did not hesitate to ask a very charming girl to be your wife very shortly after that time we spent together in Paris, Hugh. Why must I be damned for it?” Sir Frere had pulled a low chair towards him and was leaning against the back of it.

“She’s too young.” With his pipe between his teeth, Hugh felt more secure. He held the lighted match close down over the bowl of it. It dipped bluely, and Hugh, taking in a couple of gulps of smoke, blew them out again. “Frere, you’re literally old enough to be her father,” he said, and he stared squarely at his friend.

“I know; but I don’t see what that has to do with it.” Sir Frere returned the glance equally squarely. “Probably I should understand her and take better care of her because of it, Hugh. I don’t know that if I had a daughter I should be too keen to entrust her to a raw young man who had never sown his wild oats. Provided always, of course—” Sir Frere fell significantly silent.

“Well, but—” Hugh began to walk about the room again; To hell with this man, he thought desperately. And through it all the thought of his wife dwelt insistently with him. She would be glad—delighted. She would be furious with him if he tried to put a stop to it. She would be. “I say, Frere, I do wish you wouldn’t—-” Hugh stopped abruptly.

“Wouldn’t what?”

“Well, I mean, to begin with, it’s such a ghastly time to discuss a thing of the kind. It’s only just ten now.” Hugh laughed a little uncertainly, as the carriage-clock on the mantelpiece chimed melodiously.

“Yes, I know; but, you see, I want to know where I am. I must go back to town to-day, and I can’t go without knowing how I stand with you.” Sir Frere had let go of the back of the rush-seated chair and had clenched his hands behind his back.

“To-day! But we wanted you to stay until to-morrow at least.” Hugh, in spite of the flood of relief that almost overwhelmed him, was still the courteous host. His friend was going away almost immediately! Thank the Lord for that! he thought fervently.

“Yes; it’s awfully good of you. But I can’t possibly do that. I’ve a dinner to-night that I must go to and a couple of meetings to-morrow morning that I ought to attend. Only I want to know before I leave that I may speak to Dandelion. Not to-day, if you would rather not, but in a couple of days’ time. I would come down again, if you would have me. I don’t say that I shall not approach her, even although you do forbid it, Hugh.” Sir Frere smiled a little dryly. “But I would far rather that it was with your sanction.”

“Good Lord, I don’t know what to say!” Hugh suddenly laughed shortly. He looked frankly at his friend. “So far as material things are concerned, it would be a very wonderful match for Dandelion, Frere; don’t think that I don’t appreciate that,” he said. “It’s only that——” Hugh fell silent again.

“Meaning that spiritually you would rather see her further,” Frere’s eyes were intent.

“No; I don’t say that, either,” Hugh laughed uncomfortably. “The fact of the matter is, Frere, you’ve taken me awfully by surprise,” he said. “Give me a day or two to think it over, will you? I’ll talk it over with my wife and let you know what we decide between us.”

“Very well. And now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to go, Hugh. There’s a train at twelve that will get me up to town by one o’clock.” Sir Frere had cast a swift glance down at the watch on his wrist.

“What, now? I say, don’t!” Hugh’s nice eyes were full of concern.

“Yes, I’d rather, if you don’t mind. You see—” Sir Frere’s lips were a little grim—”I’ve fallen in love with Dandelion, Hugh, and if I met her I might not be able to keep it to myself. That being the case, I’ll get myself well out of the way before there’s any danger of it. Have you a ’phone? If not, I can easily carry my suit-case.”

“Yes, we have; I’ll get you a taxi.” Hugh was already walking to the door. The ’phone was in the dining-room; he shut himself in so that no one should hear what he was doing. His wife would be so astonished; she would torture herself by thinking that in some way their guest had not been comfortable. There was no time to get hold of her now to tell her what had just transpired. Hugh felt thoroughly bewildered as he rang up the nearest taxi rank.

And as an hour later he walked slowly back from the station, he felt more bewildered still. He had anticipated a round of golf that afternoon with Frere, and another evening of pleasant talk over old times. And now he was gone, and he had still to explain to his wife that he had gone, because she and Dandelion had been at the shops by the time that Sir Frere had emerged from his room with an expensive and well-packed suit-case. Only Mary, clutching, almost hysterically, a ten-shilling note, knew that the wonderful visitor had gone. Calmly he had walked into the kitchen and out again: “Looking just like the picture of Napoleon in the master’s dressing-room,” as she had explained to the nice jobbing gardener who had carried out the suit-case to the taxi and been suitably rewarded for it.

“Yes, that’s what I call a gentleman,” the gardener had responded enthusiastically, and the two had agreed, putting their nice faithful heads together, that what Miss Dandelion wanted was a nice rich husband like that. “No more of this struggling to make both ends meet,” thought Mary, only she did not say it aloud. No one but she knew how hard-up the Davisons really were. It was getting acute, thought Mary, staring round the larder to see what she could do up for lunch, now that the visitor had gone. The loin of mutton would keep for another two days at least, and would make a lovely dinner for Sunday, thought Mary, seizing a bowl of white stock with a few pieces of meat in it and glancing hurriedly at the clock to see if she had time to make a few dumplings to go along with it. She had; Mary snatched at the tin of flour and started joyfully to work.

Chapter VI

Mrs. Davison was absolutely stupefied when she came back from her morning’s shopping and found that Sir Frere had already gone. “Hugh! but I thought he was staying until to-morrow!” she gasped. Her mind was a tumult of mingled relief and anxiety. He had not been comfortable. The water had not been hot enough for his bath that morning. The memory of that awful supper had remained in his mind and had made him feel that he could not risk a repetition of it.

“So did I.” Hugh was smiling at his wife. She stood there gaping at him like an alarmed child. Nancy had never grown up, he thought; probably that was why he had always remained in love with her. He came forward to kiss her quietly.

“Well, but—” Mrs. Davison glanced down at the highly decorative raffia basket she was carrying. “And I’ve got some meringues,” she said.

“All the better; we’ll eat them ourselves. Where’s Dandelion, by the way?” He glanced over his wife’s head out into the hall.

“Out to lunch. She met Marion Gates and she asked her to go home with her and to the cinema this afternoon. Ben Hur is on; you and I must go, Hugh. Dandelion seemed rather glad to go,” said Mrs. Davison forlornly. “I don’t think she cared for Sir Frere; she said she could see his skull, and that it was too forceful for her. What did she mean, Hugh?”

“I can’t imagine.” Hugh gave a little suppressed spurt of laughter. What an auspicious beginning! “I’m glad we’re alone,” he said, because I’ve got something to tell you—something fearfully interesting, that you’ll be in convulsions about. Go upstairs and take off your hat and we’ll have lunch. No, I’m not going to tell you now,” as Mrs. Davison suddenly clutched at his sleeve.

“Hugh, he is—I knew it! Oh, how absolutely heavenly!” Mrs. Davison’s face was suffused with excitement. “Tell me just that before I go up, Hugh, angel. Quickly!”

“Not one single word until you’re ready for lunch and we’re sitting there with the hatch down. I’ll move your place round next to mine, so that we can talk without the chance of Mary overhearing.” Hugh’s face was alight. He suddenly realized how pleased he was at the idea of having his wife to himself for a meal. Dandelion was a darling, but you didn’t always want a daughter about, however much of a darling she might be. Three was a stupid number. As Hugh moved the knives and forks with his nice, well-kept hands his mind fled back to the last years with his wife in Bombay. They had been so awfully nice, partly because he had always had her to himself. They had lived in a delightful flat quite close to the sea, and Hugh had had a yacht and sailed about the harbour on Saturdays and Sundays. And always home to find Nancy waiting for him. Of course, in the earlier days of their married life there had been the usual exoduses to the Hills with the children, and the horrible months of separation when she had brought a child or two Home. But still, one expected those when one was young. But now one expected peace—peace and enough to live on without a continual anxiety about it. Having arranged his wife’s place at table close to his own, Hugh walked to the window. There was George hard at work in the garden; he was a topping gardener. By the way, that meant nine shillings at the end of the afternoon. Hugh thrust his hand rather uncertainly into his pocket. Oh, well, if he hadn’t got it, George would not mind waiting until Thursday; he came again then. Eighteen shillings a week—it was a lot, but still, George was well worth it. All the same, it was nearly fifty pounds a year; Hugh, standing at the window with his hands in his pockets, made a swift calculation. Fifty pounds out of about five hundred pounds; it was a lot really for a gardener. But how perfectly disgusting all this continual thought about money was. Hugh felt a swift sensation of nausea as he went on staring at George. Up to the present he had not really had to worry much about it; that had been because of his pay still continuing, of course. But now—-oh, well, Hugh wheeled quickly round as his wife crossed the hall and came into the room.

“Oh, Hugh, do tell me!” Mrs. Davison’s eyes were bright and shining. She looked younger, thought Hugh, with a queer pang. Nancy didn’t like worry about money any more than he did. He had always managed the income, and she had invariably backed him up over it—never being extravagant, never clamouring for a nurse or ayah for the voyage when she had brought the children Home. Just doing everything she could to help him. Always—all their married life. Hugh swallowed abruptly as he held his wife’s chair a little away from the table for her.

“Thank you, darling; I only pray the boys will have your manners when they are grown up. Oh, I forgot.” Mrs. Davison started to struggle out of her chair as the slide of the hatch went up.

“I’ll take it in; don’t you bother. Thank you, Mary.” Hugh had put the dish on its mat and had pulled down the hatch again. “Potatoes? Oh, they’re in it.” Hugh lifted the dish-cover and put it upside down on the floor. “Now then; hungry?”

“Hugh, I shall burst if you don’t tell me soon.” Mrs. Davison’s eyes were wide and excited.

“Don’t do that, it’s so untidy.” Hugh was laughing down into the plates. “Well, it’s as you said it would be, Nancy, Frere has fallen in love with Dandelion. Desperately. All right for you?” Hugh handed the willow-pattern plate to his wife.

“Yes, exactly what I like.” Mrs. Davison took the plate; set it down carefully on its mat and then let her hands fall into her lap. “Hugh, what did you say?” she gasped.

“I said that I would think it over and consult you,” said Hugh; “don’t let your food get cold, darling.”

“Hugh, but what a marvellous chance for Dandelion!” Mrs. Davison, looking a little stupefied, had taken up her knife and fork. “He’s rich—you said he was—and clever, or they wouldn’t have knighted him. And the boys! Hugh, he might take them into his Company. Just think what a chance; there is a London branch, you told me so. Hugh! it’s the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to us, and just when we wanted it so frightfully.” Mrs. Davison suddenly began to cry. “Hugh, I don’t know why I am crying,” she choked. “It’s because—perhaps it’s because I have been worrying and didn’t know I had. Your saying that about getting something to do, Hugh!” Mrs. Davison turned and looked at her husband with wide-open, streaming eyes.

“My sweet—-you mustn’t.” Hugh left his half-empty plate neglected and got up from the table. He stood behind his wife and laid his hands on her shoulders. “Stop crying, this instant!” he said.

“All right, I will.” Mrs. Davison caught the two hands to her lips. “I love you,” she breathed.

“That’s all right then.” Hugh stood very still for a moment or two, and then, stooping, laid his lips on his wife’s shingled head. “You darling little goose,” he said. “You’re nothing but a baby yourself. You’ve made me let my food get cold. Well, anyhow, there it is,” he went on, sitting down again. “Frere wants to marry Dandelion. But apparently, if she takes exception to his skull, she doesn’t want to marry him.” Hugh went on eating cheerfully.

“She must.” Mrs. Davison had finished, and she laid down her knife and fork with a sudden decision. “He’s nice, Hugh; I liked his eyes. And he’s generous too. I took the meringues in to Mary, and she was in convulsions over a ten-shilling note he had given her. Well, ten shillings for one night!” Mrs. Davison paused expressively.

“Granted all that.” Hugh had got up in his leisurely way to collect the plates; “but all the same, Nancy, I won’t have Dandelion marry a man that she doesn’t love because it might be a good thing for us. He’s years older than she is, to begin with. He’s younger than I am—about four years, I believe. But still, that makes him quite forty-five. Well, Dandelion is what?—eighteen? Twenty-seven years’ difference. It’s too much.” Hugh suddenly spoke in a quiet undertone.

“Hugh, you’re not to do anything to try and dissuade her.” Mrs. Davison was clasping her hands and staring at her husband. She suddenly felt as if there were quite a different person inside her own body. Someone who felt that go on with this life of scarcity of cash and anxiety of every detail she could not. Anxiety about the boys’ future; anxiety about a comparatively trifling doctor’s bill; anxiety about whether they would ever be able to afford to go for a decent holiday again. Almost anguish over her husband’s shirts, that were beginning to wear out round the collar band, where you couldn’t repair them. A sort of almost physical feeling of drag round one’s heart about money, or the incessant lack of it. It would end in getting her down, and she had not the youth in her that would enable her to rise above it. She would get mean, niggling, inclined to rush into the kitchen to see what Mary was doing with the odds and ends. It would creep into their home-life and poison their love for one another. It should not: Dandelion must do this thing for her parents. They had done so much for her. After all, it was the rarest thing in the world to meet a man that one could really adore for the rest of one’s life. Dandelion never would; there were no men in Colbridge. Well, then, she had far better take this wonderful chance that had just come her way.

“Hugh!” Mrs. Davison was still staring at her husband.

“My darling girl, I won’t have Dandelion marrying a man that she doesn’t love, for you or the boys or anyone else.” Hugh spoke with a quiet decision. “And it isn’t like you, Nancy, even to consider it. Now trot along into the sitting-room, darling, and I’ll bring in the coffee. Oh, we haven’t had pudding yet! Oh, well, let’s give it a miss; the children will enjoy the meringues for supper. Poor old Frere, that pineapple must have given him a nasty jar.” Hugh was laughing reminiscently. “Coffee, please, Mary; we’ll leave the meringues for the children.” He was speaking pleasantly through the hatch.

But as Mrs. Davison crossed the little square hall her eyes were unseeing. Dandelion must do this thing for them, she should—somehow.

Chapter VII

Marion Gates was Dandelion’s great friend. While her parents were still in India, Dandelion had been at boarding-school, spending her holidays with the same aunt who was now paying for her sister Kitty’s education. And Marion had been at the same school. Her parents were very well off, so Marion had rounded off her education by going to Lausanne for a year while Dandelion had just had to go straight home. But Lausanne had not changed Marion in the least, so far as her affection for Dandelion was concerned, that is to say. And it had been a source of extreme joy to both the girls that Hugh Davison had actually decided to build a house in the very town in which Marion and her parents lived. He had not done it for his daughter’s sake at all, but because of the very excellent education that the great public school provided for his two sons at a minimum cost. But the effect was the same, and as Hugh Davison always wanted everyone connected with him to be happy, he was very glad that things had turned out as they had.

And now the two girls were walking soberly down the straggly High Street after seeing Ben Hur. It had thoroughly depressed them both: Dandelion more than Marion, because she was more imaginative. The memory of the horrible man thumping on a drum while the manacled slaves hung struggling over their oars in the galley lingered with her. She had shut her eyes for a good part of the performance and invariably opened them at the wrong moment. But she had tried to conceal her feelings because Marion’s mother had paid for her ticket, and it had been expensive—two and eightpence. They were now going to have tea at a shop—fearful fun; and it would cheer them both up. Marion’s house, Crossways, was some distance away from the cinema, and Mrs. Gates had suggested tea in the town as more convenient, and incidentally more fun for the girls.

“Half a minute, I want to look at these.” Dandelion had stopped outside the one really nice shop in Colbridge—a shop where only one, or perhaps two things were ever shown in the window. To-day there was a lovely shimmering peach-colour crèpe de Chine jumper and a navy blue hat, made of something that looked like Panama straw, but was really something far more expensive. It turned up slightly in front and was stabbed through with a long paste arrow.

“Oh, I say, I like that, don’t you?” Dandelion was wistfully staring. “Isobel” had dark blue silk curtains to her window, and Dandelion could see herself against the black background of them. She put her hand up to her own hat; it was of felt and not too new. It was also crooked; she had crammed it on anyhow after the performance in the cinema.

“Yes; awfully pretty.” Marion was accommodatingly staring too. She did not say, what she easily could have said, that her mother had bought her one almost exactly like it. Marion knew that the Davisons were badly off even better than Dandelion did. Her father often talked about it, as he sat over a leisurely and well-cooked dinner. Hugh had until only just recently been a member of his own Club. Mr. Gates openly lamented his resignation from it. “The man’s an asset to any club,” he declared, pouring himself out a second glass of Madeira. “And I’d gladly have paid his subscription myself, if I’d dared to suggest it. But there’s something about the man that makes such a thing impossible. Although he makes no secret of being badly off; I heard him discussing it with General Fortescue the other day at the Golf Club.”

So Marion’s thoughts, as she stared at the hat and blouse with Dandelion beside her, turned to this girl’s father. “You know, I should be awfully in love with your father if I was a woman,” she said, as the girls resumed their way again.

“Would you?” Dandelion answered a little vaguely. For the first time in her life she was conscious of a stirring of discontent. Up to that moment everything had seemed so perfect—her home, her father, her mother—everything. It was still all perfect, but somehow—”Mummy is,” she said abruptly.

“I don’t wonder”—Marion was drifting along with her short skirts showing her rounded knees. “When I marry I shall marry a man years and years older than me,” she declared vehemently.

“Will you? Why?” inquired Dandelion, her mind suddenly coming back from a very long way off. This remark of her friend’s had set another train of thought in motion. She suddenly laughed with a sort of bubbly enjoyment. “Then I’ve got somebody for you,” she said, “staying with us at this very moment. Somebody exactly like you want. Just about daddy’s age, only not so nice-looking. But awfully nice, really, and with lovely hands. Small, and with nails just right, don’t you know? And with a title, too.”

“My dear! But don’t you want him?” Marion stopped in the middle of the path to stare at her friend.

They were nearly at the tea-shop; Dandelion dragged her on.

“Of course I don’t,” she said; “otherwise I shouldn’t give you the chance of him. Come on and let’s get the table in the corner, and then I’ll tell you all about him.”

So over a delightful tea Dandelion poured it all out. But when about half an hour later she took leave of Marion at the end of her road, she was conscious of the feeling of discontent again. She walked up the little hill that led to Wayside and wished almost for the first time in her life that she hadn’t to go home. To begin with, that man was there, making it all uncomfortable; he seemed in some way to emphasize the shortness of money. Then her mother seemed somehow to be becoming different, her quiet serenity seeming somehow to be shaken. Then—and this was a feeling that Dandelion could hardly make clear, even to herself—there seemed suddenly a sort of bleakness over her own outlook. What was going to happen to her next? You left school and you came home with a sort of triumphant feeling that all sorts of wonderful things were going to happen to you. But what? What to her, especially? To Marion they did happen; she went up to London in their car and stayed with an aunt, and went to theatres, and came back with new clothes, although she was much too nice to talk much about them. But to her, what would happen? Dandelion let herself in at the little wicket-gate of Wayside, wondering with a solemnity very foreign to her.

Chapter VIII

But to find Sir Frere gone sent Dandelion’s spirits up with a wild rush. No awful stiff supper, wondering what was coming through the hatch and whether it would be what he would like. She changed her dress with a renewed feeling of joy in her home. Her bedroom was sweet, with polished boards. All the rooms in Wayside had polished boards. Her bed was low and wooden, and had a silky coverlet on it that daddy had sent from India. The windows were lattice with diamond panes, and looked out on to the golf links. There was Guy now, driving off from the tee just opposite their front-gate. Daddy was shouting to him from the gate, telling him that it was time he came in and changed for supper. No one was allowed to sit down to supper in the clothes he got up in in the morning, however much bother it was to change; that was one of the simple rules that governed the household at Wayside.

So Dandelion went down to supper feeling thoroughly herself again. “Enjoyed yourself, darling?” Daddy was standing by the open front-door as she crossed the hall.

“Yes, awfully, thank you.” Dandelion looked up affectionately at her father. His clean-shaven face was quiet and distinguished. You couldn’t imagine ever being rude to him, for instance. Guy and Philip teased their mother, but never their father. There was something about him that made it quite impossible. What, Dandelion didn’t quite know, but it was undoubtedly there.

At supper she was in the highest spirits. She described the film in detail and everyone listened and was interested. Mrs. Davison shivered and said she didn’t want to go. Hugh listened attentively and said that he did, and that he would take the boys. Philip took the things in at the hatch, and also told about a footer-match that was coming off on Saturday. Everything was jolly and lovely. And then Dandelion, with her mind reverting to their abruptly departed guest, burst out into a little bubble of laughter again. “Marion says she would like to marry Sir Frere,” she said.

“Would she?” Hugh was the first to speak. Mrs. Davison had turned scarlet like an embarrassed girl. Hugh greatly dared. “I think he would be a little old for her,” he remarked quietly.

“Oh no; she says she would like that.” Dandelion was busily buttering a biscuit. “She wants to marry a man years and years older than herself; that’s what made me think of it, daddy. She says that if she was a woman she would be desperately in love with you. Think of that!” Dandelion laughed again.

“Very kind of her, I’m sure.” Hugh was laughing down into his plate. Somehow he could never take any of his family for granted; perhaps that was why they were all so fond of him. He knew himself that that was why he was still so much in love with his wife; it was the queer unexpectedness of her that intrigued his male nature.

“You hang on to him yourself—” it was Guy speaking this time; Guy, who already showed promise of his father’s charm and good looks, and who incidentally cherished a secret admiration for Marion. “Then you can push us all into his old business, can’t she, daddy? Kill two birds with one stone: get yourself off and do your family a good turn at the same time.”

“I shan’t!” Dandelion was laughing delightedly, with all her square white teeth showing. “I’m going to marry a man my own age, and much taller than me. Sir Frere is just the same size. It’s all the wrong way round; he would have to do what I told him, not me what he told me.”

“My dear, your grammar!” Mrs. Davison spoke with a flush still on her face.

“Yes; isn’t it ghastly? that’s why the old boy cleared.” Philip had finished his supper and was walking to the sideboard with his tumbler. “More water, anybody?” He held out the cut-glass jug. “By the way, daddy, why did the old thing evaporate so suddenly?” Philip spoke looking down into his tumbler.

“He had business in London.” Hugh’s clean-shaven lips were suddenly serious. “And not quite so free with his name, Philip. Sir Frere is an extremely clever man, and an extremely rich one into the bargain.”

“Sorry!” Philip was walking back to the table and drinking as he came to hide the quivering of his lower lip. This was a reproof from his father, and very rare. There was suddenly the same constraint in the room that there had been that morning. All felt it, and all wondered what it was. It was as if the departing guest had left some little bit of himself behind. Some little bit of him that still lingered invisibly in the air.

Hugh spoke first, breaking the awkward silence with a little pleasant laugh. “Talking of Sir Frere, Dandelion, my child, you’d be a good deal cleverer than I think you are if you got him to do what you wanted, if he happened to want something else. I never knew a more determined man.” Hugh was rolling up his table-napkin and pushing his chair back from the table.

“That’s his skull.” Dandelion also started to get up, and began to reach out for the plates closest to hers. “You go into the sitting-room, mummy; I’ll clear this, and then the boys can start their homework straight away. He’s got a skull that shows, and it means fearful determination. That’s why he’s got on so well; he drives everyone along in front of him and they have to do what he wants even if they don’t want to themselves. That’s why he would do so well for Marion; she’s craving for that slave-driver type of person; she said so to-day at tea.”

“And you don’t want that type?” Hugh was standing at the door holding it open for his wife and looking at his daughter. How had she found that out about Frere, he wondered. How did you ever know what a girl was thinking about, even if she was your own daughter?

“I don’t know what sort I want.” Dandelion for some extraordinary reason was suddenly unable to meet her father’s eyes. Deep, deep down in her somewhere she had suddenly thrilled. At the thought of a man such as she had just described was it? But then she did not want that sort of a man. Or did she perhaps, and was afraid to acknowledge it even to herself? She went on clearing the table with a sort of angry vehemence. Somehow everything was changed since yesterday. Like a curtain coming skimming down in front of a stage and then going sliding up again, showing everything quite different.

Dandelion swept the crumbs off the table into the wastepaper-basket, put the duster away, and then walked quickly out of the room. Somehow she suddenly felt as if she didn’t want any of her family, not even her mother. A strange spiritual isolation seemed to descend on her, rendering her terribly and irrevocably alone. She walked quickly up the stairs to her own room.

Chapter IX

Mrs. Davison was standing by the mantelpiece when Hugh went into the sitting-room. There was no fire in the grate, and she suddenly shivered a little.

Hugh frowned. “Why haven’t you got a fire?” he said.

“Oh, I don’t know—it hardly seems worth while. We go to bed so early.” Mrs. Davison was gripping her cold hands together, and Hugh, seeing her do it, frowned still more heavily. Had it come to this then, that they had to count every lump of coal that they put on the fire? He put her gently to one side, and taking the matches from the mantelpiece, he knelt down on the hearth-rug.

“Oh, darling, why did you?” Mrs. Davison was looking at the creeping flames with a little of the tension round her mouth relaxing. “No one wants a fire but me. I’m so frightfully stupid about the cold.”

“That doesn’t matter; you are cold, and there the matter ends. Anyone who doesn’t like it can easily get away from it. Look here, Nancy, you really must pull yourself together over this affair of Dandelion and Frere. You’re making yourself positively ill over it.”

“Where is she?” Mrs. Davison was holding her fingers to the blaze and rubbing them together.

“Gone upstairs to her room; if you ask me, I think she suspects something.” Hugh walked to the window and stood there staring out of it. It was just beginning to get dark, and the Downs in front of the house stood out blackly against the pale evening sky. There were still a few people playing golf; their voices sounded clearly through the evening air.

“When are you going to tell her?”

“Now, as soon as she comes down. I’ll take her into my study, then there won’t be any chance of our being disturbed. Don’t wait up for me if I’m a long time; you look dog-tired and I’ll tell you all about it when I come up.”

“Hugh, don’t urge her not to accept him.” Mrs. Davison suddenly spoke passionately. She was horrified herself at the fierceness of her desire that Dandelion should marry Sir Frere. It seemed to her to be the only solution of their financial difficulties. Dandelion married to this rich and successful man, everything would be all right. He would probably take the boys into the firm; such a possibility had even occurred to Guy. Dandelion would be off their hands, an enormous saving of expense; Kitty could go out to stay with her sister when she was married, and she herself would probably meet some nice man out there, and marry him. There were heaps of nice men in India, and Sir Frere would be going back to either Calcutta or Bombay. Mrs. Davison was almost terrified at the vehemence of her feelings. Suddenly she felt that enter in on a long period of anxiety about money, at her age, she could not. She was too old for it, and so was her husband. They must have peace—peace and a time of quiet happiness together. They had had so much wrestling about managing, and being careful so that they could pay for their passages without borrowing, etc.; now it was the children’s turn to do something for them. Dandelion must make a good marriage and help her parents in that way. Sir Frere was a nice man, well-bred, and with charming manners. He was a good deal older than Dandelion certainly, but what did that matter? Very often marriages of that kind turned out very well. The man was sympathetic and understanding, and made allowances where a younger man would only be impatient and intolerant.

Hugh, with his back to the lattice windows, through which the light came palely and faintly pink, stood silent and looked at his wife. She was not behaving a bit as she usually did, he thought; something had badly upset her equilibrium. If he had not loved her so devotedly, and understood her almost better than she understood herself, he might have been horrified at her apparent disregard of everyone except herself in this matter. Dandelion apparently did not matter; all that did matter was that they themselves should benefit financially by the marrying of her off to a rich man. Hugh walked forward and laid his hands very gently on his wife’s shoulders. “Go to bed, darling,” he said, “and leave this affair to me. I promise to tell you exactly what I say to Dandelion, and if I can I will tell you exactly what she says to me.”

“Hugh, promise me.”

“I shall make no more promises. Now do what I tell you, darling. I’ll see to the boys putting their things away and going up to bed at the proper time.” Hugh’s voice was firm.

“Yes, but——”

“Go on, my sweet.” Hugh was pushing his wife very gently towards the door. “Get into bed as quickly as you can and go to sleep, if you can, too. You’re frightfully tired, I can see it. Will your hot-water bottle be ready, by the way? If not, I’ll get it for you.”

“Mary will.” Mrs. Davison suddenly felt too tired to argue any more. “I’ll tell her as I go up,” she said, and she went slowly out of the room, leaving Hugh staring after her. There was no doubt that something was telling on Nancy; it must be the scarcity of cash, thought Hugh. He stood for a moment or two staring straight in front of him. He, too, suddenly felt older, as if he too had come to the end of his tether and couldn’t be bothered any more about anything. Then he straightened his shoulders and walked to the door and opened it. “Dandelion!” Hugh’s nice, well-bred voice went echoing up the bare oak staircase.

“Yes, daddy.” Dandelion’s voice came muffled at first. She was calling her answer as she crossed the floor of her bedroom. “Yes, daddy!” It was louder now; she had come out of her room and was leaning over the banisters.

“Come down here a minute, darling, will you?” Hugh had gone back into the sitting-room, and was standing just inside the open door of it.

“Yes, daddy, coming.” Dandelion had run back to shut her bedroom door, and was now walking rather soberly down the polished stairs.

Chapter X

The Davisons did not share a bedroom. Hugh being a man of powerful imagination, knew that a very little will serve to shatter the delicate fabric of love. You can risk coming down to breakfast cross about once or twice without it mattering, but after that you have to be extremely careful. Life is made up of trifles; it is easier to rise to heights on occasion than to remain always on an equable and serene level. And people who have to spend their lives together must remain fairly serene if they want to be happy, and therefore people of sensitive and imaginative fibre must have every incentive to do so.

And you can’t be serene if on the threshold of marriage you resign for ever your claim to solitude. Every human being must have a time when he can possess his soul in silence. In effect, we must be able to be alone if we want to. And Hugh, being a man of the world and of experience, knew this, and in building and designing Wayside he had allowed for it; so the Davisons had two rooms, communicating certainly, but with a very efficient fastening on both sides of the communicating door.

And Mrs. Davison stood now in the middle of her room and looked at the communicating door. The little chain latch of it hung loose and swung a little: that was because Hugh’s window was wide open.

Mrs. Davison opened the door and went into the next room. Yes, it was, and the wind was blowing down on Hugh’s narrow bed, tucked away in the corner. Mrs. Davison drew the lattice a little closer, shut and fastened it. And then she went back into her own room.

Once there, she wandered about a little, taking off and folding up the wide silk bedspread. Somehow she felt restless and disinclined for sleep. She stood there thinking of the last visitor they had had, her old friend Angela Pauling. Angela had stood in the doorway dressed in her expensive clothes and stared. “My dear, you don’t mean to say that you’re as old-fashioned as that!” she had said, and she had looked almost disgusted.

And Mrs. Davison remembered, with a little smile coming and going at the corners of her tired mouth—and it had been quite a long time ago too—how Hugh when he came up had strolled into her room, taking off his collar as he came, and how, when she had told him of what Angela had said earlier in the day, he had laughed in that attractive humorous way he had. “She would give a good deal to be old-fashioned in the same way, if I am not very much mistaken,” he had remarked, and had then walked off back to his dressing-room, chuckling wickedly.

And Mrs. Davison, remembering, suddenly longed for him there beside her. Childishly she craved for him. Even though he was only downstairs it was too far away. He must come up now, that instant.

But Hugh did not come up for a very long time indeed. Mary and the boys had been in their rooms for quite a long time when Dandelion and her father at last came up the bare oak staircase. Dandelion came first, leaving Hugh to turn out the hall light and secure the front-door. She clung to him as she said good night.

“Daddy, daddy!” Dandelion had been crying dreadfully.

“Now, no more tears, my darling.” Hugh took his daughter’s face between his hands as he kissed it. “And there’s nothing whatever to worry about. Sleep well, and wake up happy again in the morning. See?”

“Yes, all right,” and Dandelion came up the stairs and shut herself into her bedroom with already a little of the load lifted from her young heart. Daddy was like that, she thought, groping in the candlestick for the matches. He seemed to shoulder things for you, not weigh you down with them, making you feel that everything was your fault.

But Hugh, as he made a comprehensive tour of the ground-floor just to see that all the windows and doors were properly fastened, did not feel at the moment inclined to shoulder any more burdens for anyone. He now had to tell his wife what had happened, unless by some extraordinary stroke of luck she was fast asleep, and to-morrow he would have to write and tell Frere the same thing. Both jobs he could with the greatest pleasure depute to somebody else, he thought, twisting the handle of the scullery-door to see that it was properly fastened on the inside.

But Mrs. Davison was not in the least asleep by the time that Hugh had finished downstairs. She even heard the click of the electric-light switch outside Dandelion’s bedroom door. She had heard Dandelion come upstairs and go into her own room, and she knew by the sound of her footsteps that she did not want to marry Sir Frere Manwaring. If she had wanted to, there would have been a lift in them. There was no lift in them; if anything, they dragged a little.

So it was no surprise to her when about ten minutes later Hugh stood by the side of the bed peering down into the darkness to see if she was still awake. If the news had been good, he would have come straight in to tell her, knowing that she would want to be waked up to hear anything so exciting and joyous. She put out her hand and caught hold of his.

“Hugh, she won’t!” she said.

“No, she most decidedly won’t,” said Hugh, and he sat down on the bed with a little sigh. He suddenly felt old. Now he had his wife to cheer up: Hugh suddenly felt that he wanted cheering up himself. He would have to get some ghastly sort of a job, to eke out their miserable income. What? Who wants a man of nearly fifty with only an engineer’s training? thought Hugh, running his hand over his smooth hair and suddenly feeling inclined to pull out a great handful of it.

But Mrs. Davison heard the sigh, and every single atom of thought about herself and her disappointment evaporated. Fancy minding anything when you had a man like this of your very, very own, she thought, scrambling up from her pillows like a girl. “Hugh, you sweet, you angel!” she breathed. “Don’t worry; I don’t mind an atom. We shall get on all right—we always have; why should we suddenly not? Go back to bed, darling, darling!” Mrs. Davison was kneeling up outside the covers, tumbling them all back in her hurry to comfort.

After about two or three moments Hugh loosed the clinging arms from about his neck. He trod carefully back to the communicating door and shut it. But when he had shut it, he hesitated, and turning, he stared through the darkness. “Are you perfectly certain you want me?” he said. “You know that I——”

“Supposing I said that I didn’t?” responded Mrs. Davison, settling herself beneath the covers again with all the flurry and breathlessness of quite a young woman.

“I should divorce you,” said Hugh, and he said it with a chuckle. “And incidentally you would be the first——”

But the rest of the sentence was lost. “Hugh, don’t be so desperately wicked,” said Mrs. Davison, her soft hand pressed over his laughing mouth.

Chapter XI

Sir Frere was sitting at his writing-table in his London office when he got Hugh’s letter. His shorthand clerk sat opposite to him, waiting, with a notebook in his hand. Sir Frere always opened his letters himself and answered them as he went along. He saw Hugh’s well-formed writing on the envelope that had to be opened next, and glancing, across the table, he dismissed his clerk with a quiet nod. “I’ll ring when I want you, Mayfield,” he said. “Just get on with the letters I’ve already dictated.”

“Very good, sir,” and Mr. Mayfield went discreetly out of the room, leaving Sir Frere still staring down at the envelope in front of him. Somehow, he felt that he could not open it. If Hugh said “No,” it meant the beginning of such endless difficulty, because he was not going to take “no.” Not if it came from Hugh and his daughter and his wife, and all the rest of the family including the most distant relations. Sir Frere slit open the envelope with his pointed tortoiseshell paperknife.

And three minutes later he rang for Mr. Mayfield again.

“Get me 478 Colbridge, will you?” he said, glancing up at his clerk over his tortoiseshell spectacles.

“Very good, sir,” and Mr. Mayfield was gone again. And in about five minutes’ time the little buzzer went at Sir Frere’s elbow. “Yes?” he had the receiver in his hand in an instant.

“You’re through—478 Colbridge?”

“Yes, all right. Oh, is that you speaking, Hugh?” Sir Frere was conscious of a tightening of the veins of his neck. He was nervous; he frowned over his spectacles. “Yes, Frere speaking. I say, I’ve just had your letter; I can’t take it as final. I’m coming down, if I may.”

“Yes, I know, but——”

Sir Frere, still speaking, was leaning on his elbow. Mechanically he took off his spectacles and laid them down on the blotting-pad. The voice at the other end of the wire was diffident. Hugh was trying to put him off.

“Dandelion—” Hugh was saying something about Dandelion.

Sir Frere’s heart beat so hard at the sound of her name that he couldn’t hear. “What?” He was frowning in his effort not to miss a Word.

“She says she doesn’t——” But here an ultra-refined voice broke in. “Do you want another call?”

“Of course I do; don’t interrupt.” Sir Frere spoke with an impatience very unusual to him. “I don’t care what you say, Hugh.” Sir Frere was frowning desperately. “I must have a chance of speaking to her myself. It’s only fair to me. Yes, I want to come down. Not to any meal. I’ll just come down for an hour or so. To-morrow afternoon. Yes, yes, she’s got to see me,” this with a little quiet laugh as Sir Frere heard Hugh’s faintly amused voice at the other end of the wire.

“Be quiet, my sweet,” Hugh in the dining-room at Wayside was whispering to his wife. She had tiptoed in at the sound of the telephone bell. “He’ll hear you if you don’t mind.” “Yes, all right, Frere; we’ll expect you at about tea-time to-morrow, then. Bye-bye.” Hugh spoke cheerfully and aloud. And then he put the receiver back into its stand and smiled at his wife. “He’s coming,” he said; “he won’t take no. Where is Dandelion, by the way? I hope to goodness she hasn’t heard?” “Out to lunch with Marion,” said Mrs. Davies, and she said it with quivering features. “She came to fetch her this morning. Oh, Hugh, do you suppose Dandelion will?” Mrs. Davison caught hold of her husband’s hand.

“No; I think it most unlikely.” Hugh’s face had gone grave again. Since breakfast-time he had been shut up in his study writing letters—letters to old friends whom he had known in India. Was there any chance? He was tired of pottering about at home doing nothing. Sometimes he thought if he could get taken on Hugh wrote all sorts of things that he did not mean, and began to feel sicker and sicker as he did so.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the telephone Sir Frere had called in Mr. Mayfield again. Hugh’s letter was in his coat-pocket: the other letters lay neatly on the writing-table waiting to be opened. “Dear Sir,” Sir Frere’s pleasant, cultured voice came from between his quiet lips, almost, if not quite, as smoothly as before. But Mr. Mayfield could hear the difference: Mr. Mayfield, who had a young lady of his own, and who came up to town with her every morning in a tram. Mr. Mayfield knew exactly what he himself felt like when, the tram lurching round the corner by the Houses of Parliament, and he, getting up to go out, had sometimes to steady himself by a thin and rather ineffectual hand on his young lady’s shoulder. And now, if Mr. Mayfield was not very much mistaken, his employer was feeling very much in the same way. Sympathetically, and with his short-sighted eyes glued to the pad in front of him, Mr. Mayfield scribbled like mad.

Chapter XII

But by two o’clock the following afternoon all the rather amused excitement that Hugh and his wife had experienced on receiving Sir Frere’s telephone message had evaporated. Dandelion had begun to cry on hearing that he was coming down again, and was still more or less tearful, looking because of it not nearly so attractive as usual. Lunch was a terrible meal; Guy and Philip bolting theirs uncomfortably and every now and then shooting a glance at their parents, but keeping their eyes well away from Dandelion, who ate with difficulty, having to blow her nose constantly. Once her misery almost overcame her, and she gave a little pathetic snort, and if Hugh had not known that Sir Frere would by that time have been on his way, he would have rung up “Telegrams,” and hurriedly dictated a forceful message that would effectively have prevented Sir Frere from coming anywhere near any of them ever any more. And yet, would it? meditated Hugh, eating rice-pudding with a concentration very unusual to him. Frere was not the sort of man to fall in love lightly; he was not at the age to do so, to begin with.

But Mrs. Davison only felt impatient. Suddenly she only saw Dandelion as another woman who was being very foolish. Mrs. Davison really far preferred her sons to her daughters. She felt exasperated, all the more so because she knew that her husband was inwardly sympathizing with Dandelion.

“Really, Dandelion!” After the boys had hurriedly scrambled out of the room to get their caps, and her husband had strolled across the hall to put a match to the sitting-room fire, she spoke almost shortly to her daughter.

“Well, mummy, it’s all very well for you!” burst from Dandelion in an anguish of nervous misery. “No one is trying to make you marry a person you don’t want to. You’ve got daddy and you like him. I’m forced to see this horrible person whether I want to or not. How do I know that he won’t make me marry him? He looks like that; his head is like that. There I shall be, shut up in the sitting-room not knowing what to say for an excuse. You can’t actually tell a person of that age that you loathe the sight of him, and would rather be dead than marry him, can you?” Dandelion was glaring out of her swollen eyes.

“No one is trying to make you marry a man that you don’t like,” said Mrs. Davison, thinking that she was speaking the truth. “But it is only fair to a man like Sir Frere to let him say himself what he wants, isn’t it?”

“No,” said Dandelion, walking between the half-cleared dining-table and the hatch, with her delicate face all blotchy from crying. “Because, to start with, he frightens me. If he says ‘You are to,’ I shall probably say I will, and then wish I hadn’t, and kill myself because there is no other way out of it.” Dandelion suddenly felt a fierce wish to make her mother wretched too—to frighten her dreadfully so that she rushed to her father to say that at any cost Sir Frere must be prevented from coming down.

But Mrs. Davison did not feel either wretched or frightened. Knowing Dandelion as she did, she knew that there was no fear of her being frightened into doing anything that she did not want to do. Dandelion in many things was very much like her father. An immovable serenity of purpose, that simply remained steadfast whatever the pressure or argument brought to bear on it. Mrs. Davison had experienced it many times with her husband.

“Change your dress quickly, darling,” she said quietly, “Sir Frere will be here very soon after three, so daddy says. And wash your face too, Dandelion. You don’t want him to know that you have been crying all the morning, do you? Besides, it isn’t pretty.”

“I don’t care what he knows.” Dandelion was standing by the dresser folding the coloured cloth away in the drawer of it. Suddenly she felt again that awful feeling of intense loneliness of spirit. No one really cared what happened to you, she thought, walking slowly up the stairs to her bedroom. Even your mother, who was supposed to mind fearfully, didn’t; daddy did much more, but then he was a man. Men were much nicer than women, concluded Dandelion, walking about her bedroom getting things out of cupboards and drawers. Suddenly she too saw her mother as another woman, only really caring about her own man, namely daddy, thought Dandelion bitterly, slipping her woolly jumper over her head and dragging her short skirt with its elastic round the waist, down over her slender knees.

Chapter XIII

It was all that Sir Frere could do not to laugh when he first saw Dandelion. Mercifully, he had a very powerful sense of humour, and it came to his rescue. Hugh’s few words of greeting had not led him to expect very much, and when he had been left in the sitting-room to await Dandelion’s arrival, he stood with his back to the cheerfully burning fire and gripped his hands together behind him and took one or two long and rather halting breaths. But the sight of Dandelion being obviously pushed into the room, with the door shut behind her by someone equally obviously on her heels, restored him to self-possession. “How do you do?” he said, coming forward with his hand held out in greeting.

“I’m very well, thank you,” replied Dandelion, speaking with the hanging head of a frightened child. “At least, I was very well until I heard you were coming. But now I don’t know that I am.”

“Ah, but I’m very sorry to hear that.” Sir Frere spoke after a little pause. He was looking at the parting running whitely through Dandelion’s dark hair, and wondering whether he would ever have the luck to be able to kiss it—with her not shrinking from him, but clinging to him.

“Why did you come down when daddy told you that I didn’t want to——” Dandelion spoke with locked hands. Say the word “marry” she would not. Rather perish where she stood.

“Because I should never take an answer on a matter so intensely important to myself—from anyone but the person directly concerned,” replied Sir Frere quietly.

“Oh!”

“You see,” went on Sir Frere, still with his eyes on Dandelion’s head, now a little turned away from him, “the moment I saw you I knew that I wanted to marry you. Therefore to me this is very important. You can understand that?”

“Yes; but I don’t want to marry anyone,” said Dandelion, and this time she raised her head and looked at him.

“Not yet,” said Sir Frere. “But you will want to some time.”

“How do you know that I shall?” That was the obvious retort to the last remark. But it hung on Dandelion’s lips. Not to this man, somehow. His eyes were too penetrating.

“Well, perhaps I shan’t,” said Dandelion childishly, and she stood there looking more forlorn than ever.

Sir Frere drew a little low chair nearer.

“Sit down,” he said, “and close to the fire. You’re shivering. Perhaps I may sit down too; may I?”

“Oh yes, do.” Dandelion sat down, nervously dragging her short skirt over her knees. She had not put on her velveteen dress, partly from obstinacy because she knew that her mother wanted her to and partly so that he should see her frightful in an old blue stockinette dress that had only cost seventeen and six. Dandelion did not know that the low square neck of it and the rather economically cut bodice showed off her white skin and sweetly swelling curves to perfection. Sir Frere, however, did, so he kept his eyes on her miserable little face.

“We are not getting on,” he remarked, “and I have to catch a train in a little less than an hour. Dandelion, I love you—very much—much more than you have any idea of. Say that you will marry me—you won’t ever regret it, my child.”

“Yes, but I don’t want to marry anybody at all!” cried Dandelion, suddenly frightened. Hadn’t he grasped it then?—this strange man with eyes set like swords in his face. He started off wrong to begin with. Daddy had told him that she didn’t want to marry him, and he had only come down to hear it from herself. He had heard it, and yet he was still going on about it.

“Yes, but I don’t take a foolish answer like that,” said Sir Frere, and he linked his beautiful hands between his knees and kept them there. “That is the answer of a child. You have got past that stage, Dandelion. Answer me sensibly.”

“That is the only answer I have,” said Dandelion, and she suddenly slipped off the chair on which she was sitting and knelt on the hearth-rug, holding her hands out to the flames. A piece of coal fell out and rolled towards her red hot. Mechanically she picked it up in the tongs and put it back in the fire. “Leave me alone,” she cried suddenly, and she buried her face in her hands.

“I am doing so.” Sir Frere had his hands gripped between his knees now. Somehow he suddenly felt that if he liked he could get this girl by force. Something within her was responding to the flame in him. Suddenly—he had suddenly sensed it leap between them, like a spark. But he was not going to get her like that.

“You aren’t—I can feel you sort of making me. It’s not fair.” Dandelion was trembling and struggling up on to her feet. “Go away, I tell you. You’re unsettling all the quiet and happiness of me. I was all right till you came. Now I’m wretched—utterly, utterly wretched, I tell you.”

“I don’t want to make you wretched.” Sir Frere, under his calm exterior, was deeply moved. He was also encouraged. He had expected a blank and undisguised refusal. A refusal he had had, and an undisguised one. But there had been a certain amount of emotion in the rendering of it that he had not expected. Something had roused Dandelion from her accustomed serenity. What was it? Sir Frere frowned a little in his intense anxiety to know.

“I don’t want to make you wretched,” he repeated, “and so far I don’t see that I have done anything to do so. I tell you that I love you and that I want to marry you. Why should that make you wretched?”

“Because I don’t want to marry anyone,” said Dandelion passionately. “Up to the time you came I was perfectly happy here. Now you’ve unsettled everything. Mummy isn’t a bit the same as she was; daddy is, but then nothing ever unsettles daddy. But I feel that mummy thinks I ought to marry you, and it makes me jumpy.”

“Oh!” And after that little monosyllable Sir Frere was silent. He suddenly got up from his chair and began to walk about the room. In spite of himself, his whole being was flooding out in gratitude to Mrs. Davison. Hugh, of course, was too straight, to put it bluntly, to want any marriage for his daughter that she herself did not want. But Mrs. Davison, womanlike, saw the material advantages of his offer. He suddenly felt touched, and humble. Then he couldn’t be too ghastly to look at, after all. However rich or successful a man was, no mother would want her daughter to marry him if he was repulsive.

“It is kind of your mother,” he said, and he turned round and faced Dandelion, still standing on the hearth-rug. “I wish you felt as she does,” he said sadly.

“So do I,” replied Dandelion fervently. “Because, think of what it would mean. Me your wife, all provided for. Kitty probably able to come and stay with us when we were married and marrying someone herself, because you probably know heaps of men, and we don’t—at least, only married ones. Guy and Philip able to come into your firm, and all the worry about them settled, because of course it is a fearful worry for daddy, wondering what is going to become of them. And me stopping it all, because I can’t—I simply can’t—” Dandelion suddenly buried her face in her hands.

There was a long silence. Sir Frere fought with and overcame his acute desire to laugh. His suit, and the material advantages to be derived from it, had evidently been discussed in the family circle. He stood looking across the room to the hearth-rug on which Dandelion stood with her face still hidden in her hands. Sir Frere’s frantic desire to laugh was succeeded by an equally frantic desire to tear this girl into his arms and keep her there for ever. Somehow, he felt that if he did that he would get her—get her for good and always. And yet—Sir Frere, watching, suddenly put the idea out of his head. No; anything so precious must be won—tenderly and with infinite patience. He came forward. “Don’t be wretched any more,” he said. “Because I’m going away. Never to bother you any more. If you want me, you can send for me. You will promise me that, anyhow, won’t you?”

“What! Going now?” Dandelion raised her head with a jerk. This was unexpected. Somehow, she suddenly felt that she did not want Sir Frere to go. There was something in the quiet but extraordinarily powerful presence in the room with her that attracted her. To be the object of all this wonderful devotion was very nice. Although Dandelion had hardly admitted it to herself, it made everything interesting. Dreadful too, of course. There had been floods of tears, and clingings to daddy, and lying awake at night staring at the ceiling thinking what she would do if Sir Frere kissed her. But still, exciting. And Marion had been madly excited when she had told her—thrilled, wanting to hear every detail. And now all this new interest was going to be removed. Sir Frere would walk out of the house in a minute or two and never come back to it. Because, of course, she would never send for him. Dandelion stared at him a little blankly.

“You see that I must go, you feeling as you do about me, don’t you?” Sir Frere had taken Dandelion’s soft hand in his and was holding it.

“No, I don’t see that you need,” replied Dandelion. “There are heaps of things besides being in love with a person. We could be friends,” she ended up hopefully.

“No, we couldn’t,” replied Sir Frere bluntly. “I’ve no use for friendship between a man and a woman; it’s a fool’s game. I either want you as my wife or I don’t want you at all.”

Dandelion’s eyes fell before his gaze. He was staring at her with a sort of blazing look on his face. “Will you marry me?” he said, and he said it almost roughly.

“No,” said Dandelion. But as she said the little word she felt that she had almost made it “yes.” Not because she wanted to exactly, but because she wanted to see what he would do. She stared at him as he turned on his heel and walked towards the door.

“Then I’m off,” he said. “I’ll just have a word with your father, and then make a bolt for my train. Goodbye, and remember if you ever want me your father knows my address.” He came back across the room and held out his hand.

“I think I’d rather have it myself,” said Dandelion hurriedly. “You see, it’s awkward having to ask one’s family things; they might wonder why I was writing to you.” Dandelion was not far from tears. Somehow she felt that there was strength and protection in the person of this rather ordinary man.

Sir Frere averted his eyes from the quivering face and his heart gave one fierce and uncontrollable leap. Then he had got her. His hand shook just a very little as he felt in his pocket for his pencil. “There it is,” he said, scribbling hurriedly, “and my telephone number too. You’ll nearly always get me at my flat before nine o’clock in the morning. I don’t leave for my office until ten.”

“Oh, thank you!” Dandelion held the little slip of paper in her cold fingers. “I don’t suppose I ever shall send for you or telephone to you,” she said awkwardly.

“No, quite. But there’s no harm in having the address and ’phone number, just in case you should want to, is there?” said Sir Frere, and he turned again to the door. “I won’t bother about seeing your father after all,” he said; “good-bye, and thank you so much for being so kind to me.”

“Have I been?” But there was no reply. Sir Frere had already shut the door quietly behind him and was out in the hall. Dandelion could hear him fumbling with the latch of the front-door. There, he had shut the front-door, and was walking down the little path to the gate. Dandelion rushed to the window. He would probably look back and wave and she would be ready for him. She would give him a splendid wave, just to cheer him up. Because, now she thought it over, she hadn’t been any too cordial. Dandelion’s face was excitedly pressed to the window, and she had her hand on the iron latch of it. A huge wave from the open window; directly he turned round to look, she would open it.

But Sir Frere never turned round at all. Not even when he had to half turn round anyhow to shut the gate. He was staring alertly and interestedly down the road. And there, he had stopped to stand and watch a woman drive from the first tee. Dandelion watched his alert, upright figure standing there and then going on again, quite unconcernedly, until he passed the tradesmen’s entrance and was out of sight. Forgotten about her already. Dandelion suddenly felt defrauded and a little indignant.

Chapter XIV

During Sir Frere’s interview with Dandelion, Hugh had occupied himself in the garden. It was George’s day, and Hugh, who did not very much care for gardening when he had to do it alone, enjoyed pottering about with George pottering about behind him. George thought no end of Hugh, and did not mind showing it, and with it always remained the respectful dependant. So Hugh’s three-quarters of an hour in the garden was a very pleasant one, and he came in from it pleasantly tired and quite inclined to be very agreeable to his guest.

But when he found that that guest had already gone he very nearly lost his temper very badly indeed. This was carrying things a little too far. “What on earth have you let him do that for, without telling me, Dandelion,” he said, and he said it very angrily.

“He would go, daddy.” Dandelion was terrified. All Hugh’s family were terrified when on very rare occasions he lost his temper. He seldom did it, and that was the secret of Hugh’s success as the head of a household. When he did do it, his family quailed and fled away to their own rooms until he had got over it. Dandelion quailed now; Hugh was dragging off his gardening gloves and throwing them into the little corner-cupboard where they always lived.

“It’s abominable! This is the second time that my oldest friend has come down here and been driven away by the ridiculous whims of an irresponsible child. Nancy, why didn’t you see that Frere was asked to stay to tea?” Hugh had opened the dining-room door and was almost shouting at his wife, who was sitting by the gas fire darning stockings.

“Hugh, I hadn’t the remotest idea that he had even gone.” Mrs. Davison let all the stockings slide on to the floor as she got up. The scissors fell with a tinkle, and lay gapingly wide open on the brick hearth.

“Here are your scissors.” Hugh picked them up with a deep frown still on his face. “You ought to have known,” he said. “It’s perfectly disgraceful that Frere should be practically turned out of this house, and that for the second time. Dandelion, go upstairs to your room; I am most frightfully angry with you.” Hugh turned a face quite white with anger on his daughter.

“Daddy!”

“Do what I tell you.” Hugh had driven both his hands into his pockets. He stood looking at his daughter.

“Hugh, don’t you think—” Mrs. Davison suddenly did what she very rarely did, namely, intervened between one of her children and their father. His intense anger was surely just a little unjust this time. “Dandelion didn’t——”

“Dandelion did a disgracefully discourteous thing when she allowed a guest of mine to leave this house without being offered even a cup of tea.” Hugh’s lips were set in a dreadful line of anger. “Go to bed, Dandelion, and don’t let me see you again to-day.”

“Daddy!” Dandelion was by now as white as her father. Her father speaking to her like this, when after all she had only done what he had in a way advised her to. He had told her not to think of marrying a man she didn’t love. Dandelion flamed under a fierce sense of injustice. How she hated all her family, she thought, as she stood there with her white face gradually becoming scarlet. How she wished she had accepted Sir Frere and gone away with him then, for ever—never to see any of her relations again. She stood with her back against the door.

“Go to bed,” said Hugh, and as he said it, Mrs. Davison sat down again and began to collect the scattered stockings. She was almost as frightened as Dandelion was, but not in the least angry. She knew the bitter mortification that Hugh was experiencing. His virtue as a host was in question—unendurable to a man of his temperament.

So she sat silent as he stormed up and down the room. “A man like that to come down here and be sent packing like any schoolboy by a girl of Dandelion’s age. It’s abominable!” Hugh’s quiet voice was shaking. For the moment he would have liked to thrash his daughter, as he would have thrashed one of his sons had he found him playing fast and loose with any girl.

“Well, but, Hugh—what was she?——” Mrs. Davison having collected most of the stockings, gathered them close to her breast with a cold hand. “After all, you see, she apparently cannot care for him. Then what could she do but let him go? Probably he was so upset that he did not want to stay to tea,” said Mrs. Davison, feeling more miserably depressed than she had ever done in her life.

“I don’t suppose for a moment that Dandelion ever thought of asking him,” said Hugh, “and she has got to sit down to-night and write him an apology for it, too.” He swung round on his heel. “Go and tell her,” he said.

“Hugh! But——”

“There isn’t any ‘but’ about it. Do what I tell you. Go up and tell Dandelion that I shall expect a letter ready by six o’clock and that I will take it to the post myself,” said Hugh.

“Very well, darling.” Mrs. Davison heaved a sigh of dreadful distress and perplexity as she crossed the hall. She felt that this was unjust. After all, Dandelion had always made it very clear to both her parents that she did not want to marry Sir Frere. And to a child of that age the mere matter of tea would seem very unimportant indeed. However, if Hugh insisted; Mrs. Davison sighed again as she walked up the stairs.

Hugh called her back before she had got to the top of them. “Frere’s address,” he said. “I don’t suppose Dandelion knows it. Here’s the card he gave me.” Hugh did not look at his wife as he put the little bit of pasteboard through the banisters. He was already beginning to be ashamed of his loss of temper, and of sending his daughter to bed. He had only sent her to bed to get her out of his way, he thought rather miserably, as he went into his study and shut the door behind him.

Mrs. Davison’s heart flooded out in pity as, in response to a tearful sobbing “Come in,” she entered her daughter’s room. Dandelion was already in bed, with all the covers dragged up over her head. She shook her mother’s tender hand off her shoulder.

“I hate daddy!” she sobbed and choked. “He has no right to send me to bed; it’s a disgraceful thing to do to anyone of my age. I wish I had said I would marry Sir Frere just to get away from him. Daddy said I needn’t marry him, and then, when I don’t, he treats me like this.” Dandelion flung herself over on to her side and got up on her elbow, glaring at her mother.

“My darling child,” and then Mrs. Davison stopped short. It was not fair. She spoke quietly. It was of no use to argue with Dandelion; besides, she never questioned her husband’s authority with the children. “Daddy wishes you to write just a note of apology to Sir Frere,” she said; “just a little short note saying that you are sorry that you did not think of asking him to stay to tea. It was rather rude, Dandelion, when you come to think of it.”

“No, it wasn’t”; but Dandelion sat up with her brain suddenly working fiercely. A chance to get away from it all—from all these wretched and unjust people who did all they could to make her miserable. She spoke more quietly, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief dragged hurriedly from under her pillow. “Very well,” she said, and she looked at her mother with her smudged and piteous face working. “I will, if you think I was rude. Please give me the blotting-book on the chest of drawers, and the pen standing up in that vase on the mantelpiece.”

“You need not write very much, darling.” Mrs. Davison spoke with her back to the little bed in which Dandelion sat up writing hurriedly. She was staring out at the golf links, thinking how miserable she was. Everything seemed to have altered since that dreadful disastrous evening when Sir Frere had come to stay. Mrs. Davison hated to be even able to feel to herself that her husband was in fault. And over this he did seem to her to be not acting quite rightly. He had never wanted Dandelion to accept this man: then why be so furious when she didn’t, and just let him go away without having tea, which he probably would have refused in any case?

Dandelion was hurriedly scribbling. “I’ve just done,” she said, lifting her head and then lowering it again. She was reading over what she had written, and reading it with a beating heart.

Dear Sir Frere,

I am sorry that I said I wouldn’t marry you, because I will, after all, if you still want me to. I am sorry I didn’t ask you to stay to tea, but I never thought about it.

In haste,

Yours sincerely.

Dandelion Davison.

As Hugh took the note from his wife’s hand his heart was aching. The thought of his daughter’s pale and quivering face lingered with him. His daughter—the child that he had brought into the world. Utterly dependent on him—and driven up to bed like a baby because she had done what he himself had practically advised her to. Hugh’s heart was a very tender one. He took the note without speaking and went into the hall to get his soft felt hat, and leaving the front-door open, for the pillar-box was only at the end of the road, he went out to post it.

But well out of the range of the house he stopped and looked guiltily about him. No one in sight—only a few people playing golf, and they well on the other side of the bunker closest to the house. Hugh stooped and let the letter fall between the iron bars of a drain close up to the path, and then, after waiting a moment, turned and strolled back to the house.

Chapter XV

So Sir Frere did not get Dandelion’s letter after all. But as he had not expected to have one from her, it did not affect him very much. He only worked harder than ever. But he never left his flat before nine o’clock in the morning. He would sit in his little sitting-room above the Park, generally flooded with sunshine, and read his private letters while his Goanese servant Francis cleared away his breakfast. Sir Frere always brought his native servant Home with him, because he looked after him superbly and knew exactly what he liked. Francis could speak English well—at least, he thought he could, and he adored his master. He adored him so much that he knew almost exactly what he was thinking about. He felt that he knew what he was thinking about now, as he padded barefoot about the thick carpet, carrying plates and piling them up on a tray. Francis always went barefoot in the house; he was old-fashioned and did not approve of the impertinent way that the modern native servant thinks he is entitled to cover both his head and his feet. As a matter of fact, Francis, being a Christian and a Goanese, did not wear the turban of the Mohammedan or the little black cap of the Hindu. But he knew that in his master’s bungalow in the East he would not wear shoes and socks indoors, so he was not going to do it here either.

At Wayside, Dandelion, clearing away the breakfast, was glancing from time to time at the telephone and wondering what would happen if she did ring up Sir Frere. It had absolutely stupefied her, the dead silence that had followed the sending of her letter to him. She had expected all sorts of things in reply to it—perhaps a telegram, and certainly a letter by return of post. But for nothing at all to come simply took all the breath out of her. She spent the first two days in rushing for the post, and if she did not happen to get there first, she stood behind the person who had got there first and waited while he looked through the letters. Mrs. Davison, who was always extremely keen on the post herself, noticed it, and remarked upon it to her husband.

“Dandelion rushes for the post now,” she said; “I wonder why she has suddenly begun to do that?”

“So do I,” said Hugh, and he said it with a very distinct feeling of uneasiness. He had had no business to put that letter of his daughter’s down a drain. He had simply done it from an intense desire to make amends. He had been harsh, unwarrantably so, and had practically forced her to write a letter of apology to the man she had refused to marry, largely on his own advice. What business had he had to make her write a letter of any kind to him? But supposing there had been something else in that letter besides an apology. Letters were sacred things; it was a criminal offence to tamper with them. Hugh felt terribly, almost torturingly, uneasy. He felt like a boy; as if he wanted to rush to someone and tell what he had done, so as to get the worry and responsibility off his own chest. He did think of telling Dandelion, but then he decided not to. After all, she had in obedience to his demand written a letter of apology to his friend. And Hugh, repenting him of his demand, had done away with the letter. Well, then, they were as they were. But were they? That was the bother. Hugh went about the house with his nice mouth set in unusually grave lines.

But after a few days’ this rather trivial matter slid into the background. There were more insistent worries than a drowned letter to think about. Bills. Five large ones. Coal, gas, the fifty pounds for the road, an income-tax demand, and his Golf Club subscription. Hugh, sitting at his writing-table, added them up. Ninety-two pounds ten shillings. Where was it coming from? Hugh lit a pipe, tipped his chair back on its hind legs, stared out of the window and wondered. He thought with almost a passion of longing of the days when he had known practically to a penny what his expenditure would be, and of the neat notice that used to arrive from the bank in Bombay to tell him that money had arrived there, enough to meet all his demands and a certain amount over.

But those days were done with. And now something had got to be done. But what? Hugh ate his lunch that day in profound silence. Mrs. Davison, glancing anxiously at him once or twice, remained silent herself. Dandelion was silent anyhow. The second post had been and now there was no chance of getting a letter that day at all. Dandelion felt almost a physical feeling of dullness. Her minute dress allowance was exhausted. Otherwise she would have gone to the cinema. If she had had any money at all she would have gone round to see Marion and asked her to go out to tea with her somewhere. If only the telephone-bell would ring. Anything to relieve the awful monotony of this unending day.

But the telephone-bell did not ring. The receiver hung there lifeless as a dead fish as Dandelion cleared away. She resolved to go and see Marion, anyhow. Perhaps Mrs. Gates would ask her to stay to tea. Dandelion suddenly felt that she could not remain in her own home any longer. Everything had altered, since the dreadful afternoon that her father had ordered her to go to bed. Her mother was different; all the jolly happy freedom of the home seemed to have gone.

Dandelion put on her old felt hat and the long tweed coat that matched it and twisted a cashmere scarf round her neck with a feeling of acutest depression. Now she knew why girls went out to earn their own living; it was to escape from parents who really didn’t want anyone but each other. That was why birds shoved their young ones out of the nest directly they could fly. They had done their share in bringing them up from babies; now they must go and fend for themselves.

Dandelion walked down the country road that led to Marion’s home feeling extremely wretched. And somehow Marion herself did not help to lift the load of wretchedness from her mind. Marion, by her manner, inferred that Dandelion had made a fool of herself. Marion had been kept posted in all that was going on: Sir Frere’s first proposal, his second proposal, and the interview that had accompanied it. And now Dandelion told her about the letter that she had written to him, and the reason why she had written it. Marion stared at her with shining eyes.

“What bliss to be sent to bed by anyone as adorable as your father!” she exclaimed.

“Bliss!” Dandelion looked disgusted. “How bliss?” she demanded.

“Why, bliss because you could have a glorious scene of reconciliation,” said Marion excitedly. “You could cry, and he would come in and kiss you very tenderly, and you could sob out your penitence and he would say that he would forgive you.”

“Not your own father,” said Dandelion, staring at Marion’s shining eyes, and feeling suddenly that there was a lot in Marion that she had not fathomed up to date.

“No—well, perhaps not,” said Marion slowly. But in her own mind she was storing away this imagined scene with this elderly man. His distinguished face set in a frown, like John in the Wide, Wide World. Her tears—her anguish of repentance; many years afterwards, as Marion sat at her typewriter and rapped out her best-sellers, she laughed as she remembered this scene with Dandelion. But now she only felt impatient with Dandelion. Marion knew a good deal more about the Davisons’ financial affairs than Dandelion did. Her father had only been talking about them the night before. Oddly enough, one of the men in the City to whom Hugh had written was a personal friend of Mr. Gates. And at a Board meeting this man had asked Mr. Gates if he knew anything about Hugh. “He comes from Colbridge,” he said, “and wants a job. He knew Thomson in Bombay. But apparently the man’s an engineer. There are no jobs for men like him in England. If he couldn’t live on his pension, what on earth possessed the man to retire?”

“He was seedy, I believe,” said Mr. Gates, and proceeded at once to describe Hugh’s intense personal charm with enthusiasm. But the rich City man listened apathetically. You didn’t want charm in the City: you wanted capital. He answered Hugh’s letter briefly, and straightway forgot all about him.

So Marion knew that things with the Davisons were acute. She levelled her quiet eyes on her friend and spoke firmly.

“You ought to marry Sir Frere for the sake of your family,” she said gravely. “He would take the boys into his firm, and they would be off your father’s hands. When you were married you could have your sister to stay with you in India and she would at once marry. I should adore to go to India myself,” said Marion. “Then, you see, your parents would only have themselves to provide for, and they would have plenty of money for that.”

“But I have said I would marry him and he hasn’t answered,” said Dandelion desperately, and she got up and began to pace about the little workroom in which she had found Marion sitting surrounded with clippings of stuff. Marion was making a crèpe de Chine jumper, lovely shiny crèpe de Chine, pearly white, with the chill off. Marion was an excellent dressmaker, and spent many happy hours in her little sunny workroom.

“Of course he hasn’t, because he could see that you only wrote and said you would marry him because you were in a rage and wanted to get away from your family,” said Marion soberly. Unselfish only up to a point, Marion began to see many material advantages for herself in this marriage of Dandelion. The first, that if Guy went into Sir Frere’s firm, and if she eventually married him, which she sometimes thought she might do, she would be able to live in India, which she had always wanted to do. And the second, that if she didn’t marry Guy, and probably she wouldn’t want to when he was old enough really to ask her properly, she could go out and stay with Dandelion and marry somebody else, still, in this way, having her pied à terre in India, a country which had always attracted her. “You’ve put his back up,” she said, still speaking soberly.

“What! Do you mean that now he won’t have anything more to do with me?” said Dandelion, pausing in her pacing and staring at her friend.

“Probably,” said Marion, surveying her jumper, and holding it at arm’s length. “I loathe making things with crèpe de Chine,” she said; “it always pulls so fearfully.”

“Yes”; but Dandelion only answered mechanically. Then it was ended, her brief romance. That short man with blazing eyes and a head like Napoleon’s had gone from her horizon for ever. She would now proceed to get older and older and never have any love-affairs at all. Kitty would come home—Kitty, who already showed promise of an exotic aquiline beauty, and she would be pushed into the background for ever. Dandelion suddenly felt a sick terror—terror at her own selfishness at having thoughts like this at all, and at the thoughts themselves. “I must get him back!” Dandelion suddenly felt a rush of blood to her head—a sort of frantic feeling, as if she must undo the foolish thing she had done. She must have someone of her very, very own, who loved her best, even if she did not love him best. Someone must want her fearfully, even if she did not want him.

“What shall I do?” she said, and she looked at Marion with panic in her eyes. Marion was practical and sensible, far more sensible than she was herself. “How shall I let him know that I do really want him?” she said. “He won’t take any notice of letters, you see. I’ve offended him. Oh, Marion, do help me!”

“Yes, but do you really want him back?” Marion laid down her jumper and her needle and only kept on her thimble. She pulled it off and on as she looked at her friend. She was thinking hard. They could both have some fun over this, she decided. Fearful, exciting fun. There wasn’t an enormous amount of fun in Colbridge, either; in spite of her fondness for dressmaking, Marion too had just begun to find the time hang a little heavy on her hands. “I’ve got an idea,” she announced dramatically, and as she said the words she laid her thimble down on her little work-table. “That is to say, if you really and truly do want to marry Sir Frere now. If you don’t, say so straight out, and I won’t bother about the idea any more.”

“I do,” said Dandelion fervently, suddenly standing very still and taking off her hat. Her intent eyes were fixed on Marion’s excited ones. “Do tell me,” she said.

“We’ll go and see him,” said Marion, and as she said it she laughed excitedly up into her friend’s stupefied face.

Chapter XVI

Once having decided on this plan, Marion proceeded to put it into effect. She and Dandelion would go up to town with her father on Friday morning: Mr. Gates always went to town in the car on Fridays and Tuesdays. He attended Board meetings on those days, and did not have to get to London until later than he generally did.

“But what are you going to do all the time, darling?” asked Mrs. Davison, who had an old-fashioned dislike of letting Dandelion go to London alone. Besides, she was thinking with a sort of ridiculous anxiety of the few shillings that Dandelion would want for her lunch. To get to such a pitch of nerviness about money was idiotic, thought Mrs. Davison impatiently. But she could not help it; Hugh was beginning to be nervy, too, although he tried to conceal it. He sat up late writing letters, and Mrs. Davison, torn with a tender yearning sympathy, could not discover that he ever got any satisfactory answers to them.

“Oh, we shall shop.” Dandelion, with a sudden loving perception, guessed that her mother was thinking of the money for her lunch. She thrilled at the thought that very soon, through her own instrumentality, such anxiety would be entirely at an end. “I shall take ten shillings out of my post office account,” she said. “I hardly ever do take any money out of it, and why shouldn’t I when we are going to have a jaunt like this?”

“No, well, darling, there is no reason.” And Mrs. Davison smiled tenderly at her daughter. Inwardly she was thinking that she was glad that Dandelion should have a little fun. And after all, as she told herself, girls nowadays did go about alone. By train too, and this was only in a car. Why on Wednesday, the cheap day, the platform of Colbridge was crowded with girls all going up to shop in London. And some of them did not arrive back until ten o’clock at night, having been to the cinema or to the theatre, and having enjoyed a leisurely and nondescript meal afterwards at the Corner House.

So she smiled at her daughter. But when Friday dawned and Dandelion, excitedly emerging from her room, came rushing downstairs at the sound of the car hooting at the gate of Wayside, she did exclaim a little. “But, Dandelion, where have you got those clothes from?” she gasped.

“Marion.” Dandelion was pulling on her new gloves. An excellent fabric, looking exactly like doeskin. “Don’t stop me, mummy; you see, my clothes were so fearfully shabby. This blue coat and hat of Marion’s fitted me exactly, and I had the shoes and gloves already. Good-bye, darling; we shall be back at about six o’clock,” and with a hasty kiss Dandelion bolted out of the front-door, with her blue eyes suddenly full of tears. This deception was horrible, she thought, as she ran down the pathway to the gate. And suddenly to confront her mother all dressed up in a lot of clothes belonging to somebody else! But Marion had been very decided about that. “You can’t possibly go to a man’s flat all dressed up in old things,” she had said bluntly. “He’ll have a grand servant or something, and you’ll start all wrong.”

“Are they as shabby as all that?” Dandelion had asked. And somehow her heart had sunk. Marion must have felt it then, when she had gone about with her at Colbridge. Probably her father had said something. “I say, I can’t take that friend of yours up to London dressed anyhow,” he must have said. And Marion had replied that she would fit her out in some of her own clothes. And she had done so, and in spite of her inward mortification Dandelion knew that she looked nice in them. The blue hat was of Canton straw, the replica, in fact, of the one that she had seen and admired in “Isohel’s” window. And the long coat was of a soft and expensive woollen material. Dandelion looked very nice as she climbed excitedly into the large saloon car that was waiting for her at the gate.

And Marion suddenly felt a twinge of jealousy. She spoke a little sharply. “I shan’t be able to come to the flat with you, after all,” she said; “I’m going to a matinée with Polly.” Polly was Marion’s other schoolfriend. “She ’phoned last night and she’s got tickets for Young Woodley. It’s her twenty-first birthday and she wants me there. She couldn’t let me know before, because there was a muddle and she didn’t know that she could get enough seats all together. But she can, and so of course I must go. You can’t let a great friend down on her twenty-first birthday. I almost wish I’d had that hat on myself now,” ended Marion grudgingly.

“Have it,” said Dandelion desperately.

She suddenly felt inclined to sob and howl with nervous misery. Marion had been so sure about it all.

“I shall sit in the hall while you have your interview with him in his study,” she had said. “You won’t take long, and then he will probably invite us both to tea.” And now what was it going to be like? Dandelion saw the golf links through a sudden mist of tears. There was daddy—yes, it was daddy—-with his long legs and white head. He was playing golf with General Fortescue. Oh, refuge unspeakable! Dandelion longed passionately to hurl herself out of the car and rush to him and cling to him, never to be separated from him again.

But the car was already on the London road. Mr. Gates was driving, with the chauffeur sitting beside him. He drove well, and was always entirely absorbed in it. Marion, sitting back on the luxurious seat and seeing Dandelion’s delicate profile turned to the window, felt a stab of remorse. After all, Dandelion generally had a rottenly dull time of it. “I’ll meet you at six o’clock in the lounge at the Church and Commercial Stores,” she said. “You won’t have any too long between two o’clock and then. We’ll have lunch early, and then I must rush off and meet Polly. After all, if I came with you I should only have to sit in the hall for about three hours, Dandelion. Not much of a way to spend an afternoon in London, if you come to think of it.”

“No, I know. I wish you’d have this hat back.” Dandelion turned from the window and her eyes were dewy with unshed tears. How idiotic she had been, after all. What was a hat if a person loved you? And yet, as Marion had said, there were the servants to be reckoned with. And her felt hat had been all wobbly in the brim. It had got wet too often to rally from it. “Is it all right for me to go to his flat alone, then?” she suddenly asked abruptly.

“Perfectly,” said Marion, sublimely confident. “My dear, all that sort of thing is utterly altered since the war. You can do anything now—at least, practically anything,” she went on, turning a saucy profile towards the new Croydon Aerodrome, past which they were buzzing.

“Oh!” And then Dandelion relapsed into silence. Marion had apparently forgotten about wanting her hat back, she thought. After all, her own was very nice. Dandelion shot a glance at her friend’s expensive get-up. And then her sick nervousness overcame her again. What would she say when she saw him—how would she begin, and all alone as she would be?

And when, after a very nice lunch at the Church and Commercial Stores, she watched Marion swing carelessly and skilfully on to a passing bus, she almost made up her mind to give up the visit to Sir Frere altogether. After all, she could easily make up something to tell her friend. He had been out—she had decided to write—there were heaps of things she could say.

But after sitting for about half an hour in the crowded lounge she drew the card that Sir Frere had given her out of her pocket and stared at it again. If she was going to see him she had better go, she concluded. His flat was not near the Stores; it was near the Green Park—overlooking it. Dandelion, staring at the card, remembered what he had told her. Somewhere near the Ritz Hotel. Dandelion had not had the ghost of an idea where the Ritz Hotel was, but she could find out. And she very easily did; the nice policeman on point duty just outside the Stores told her at once, and with the utmost detail. He had a daughter of just about Dandelion’s age himself, and he smiled down into the eager face under the expensive hat.

“Oh, thank you very much!” Dandelion walked away feeling greatly reassured. It was easy to get to Sir Frere’s flat, she found. You only had to walk to Victoria Station and take one of the many buses waiting there in the yard. Then you got off opposite the Ritz Hotel and walked down to your right. And there you would find the block of flats in which Sir Frere lived. “Right overlooking the Green Park, missy,” said the nice policeman, hoping as he said it that Dandelion was not going to get into mischief.

So in about twenty minutes’ time Dandelion got out of her bus a little farther on than the Mayfair Hotel. She stared about her with the greatest enjoyment. She was glad now that Marion had gone off and left her on her own; it was far more fun to be able to wander about and stare at everything you wanted to. Marion was much more used to things than she was. Even a ride on a bus was fun to Dandelion. Just being quite by yourself. Dandelion sang under her breath as she stood on a little island in the middle of a crawling line of traffic and waited for the brief pause that would enable her to dart across the rest of the road.

But when she got to the block of flats she felt suddenly different. They were grand, and there was a swinging door with very thick, plate-glass in the panels of it. A man in uniform stood just inside it, staring out. He was staring over Dandelion’s head, seeing her all the time, but pretending not to. Dandelion knew that he was.

And he was. Women very rarely came to that particular block of flats. There was no rule about it, but it simply wasn’t done. And when Dandelion, at last summoning all her courage, pushed the swinging-door inwards and walked into the tiled hall, it was all that Johnson could do not to request her immediately to walk out of it again. And when she asked if Sir Frere Manwaring lived there, he only stared.

“He does,” he managed to say after a second’s stupefied hesitation. “But I think he’s out; in fact. I’m sure he is, miss.”

“Oh, dear!” Dandelion’s dismay was so apparent that Johnson was relieved. Some young niece come up to see her uncle, he concluded swiftly. Probably the nigger upstairs would know something about it. He would ask him. “If you will wait here a minute, miss, I’ll just run up in the lift and ask his servant if he knows when Sir Frere will be in,” he said. “He always knows what he’s doing.”

“Oh, thank you.” Dandelion suddenly sat down on the carved oak bench near the wide fire-place, and watched the iron gates of the lift clank backwards and forwards. She felt tired and breathless, all of a sudden. Why had she come? And supposing he was in, what would she say? How could she face him and tell him she wanted to marry him now? Perhaps he didn’t want to marry her now. If he was out she would go away and never come back any more. Dandelion prayed that he would be out as she heard the glutinous shutting to of the lift-door high above her and saw the huge oily weight begin to slide upwards again.

But although Sir Frere was out Johnson was very decided in his view that Dandelion had better go upstairs and wait for him. Francis had impressed him—Francis, who with his Oriental love of intrigue had instantly leapt to the conclusion that in this appearance of a young lady lay the secret of his master’s recent unsettlement. No young lady had ever been inside the flat to Francis’s certain knowledge. Therefore on no account must this one be allowed to escape.

“Master expecting,” he said, with his opaque eyes fixed on Johnson’s stolid face. “Showing up immediately.”

“Ho!” and Johnson, who always inwardly enormously distrusted Francis, re-entered the neat little lift and, touching the switch with an elaborately gloved hand, shot downwards again. “Sir Frere is expecting you, miss, and wishes you to wait,” he said, and standing aside, he shepherded Dandelion into the lift and whisked her upstairs.

And Dandelion went meekly. How could Sir Frere be expecting her? she asked herself wildly. But he evidently seemed to be: the strange black servant in spotless white clothes made like an Eton suit held the polished front-door open with a little bow, and without a glance at the lift-man closed it again behind her. He then led her across a wide carpeted hall, a carpet into which Dandelion’s feet sank without making any sound at all; opened another door, made a little welcoming gesture with a chocolate-coloured hand, and saying, “Master coming,” vanished.

“Master coming.” Dandelion, petrified, echoed the words. She had never seen an Indian servant before, and it all seemed to make the adventure on which she was embarked more unreal than ever. She stared round the room in which she found herself. A luxurious room, all brown-leather furniture with big velvet cushions to match; a bright fire crackling on an amber-tiled hearth; a big window through which the afternoon sun streamed. Dandelion walked to the window and looked out of it down on to the tops of trees. Away to the left a squat grey building hid behind more trees, flaunting a streaming flag: Buckingham Palace. Dandelion gazed at it in amazement and stupefaction.

Meanwhile Francis, losing all his Oriental impassivity, had bolted to the telephone. “Miss sahib waiting, sir,” trembling with excitement, Francis had got the office number almost at once.

“What miss sahib?” Sir Frere answered in Hindustani. His hand was suddenly shaky, as he held the receiver. He made a little sign with his head to Mr. Mayfield, who instantly got up and left the room. They had been in the middle of a most important correspondence with the Calcutta branch of the firm, and the mail left at four o’clock that day. It was now a quarter to three. Mr. Mayfield sat down at his typewriter with his head in a whirl.

Francis’s reply, given also in Hindustani, was briefly descriptive. “Like flower,” he said, “very pale face. Very ’fraid miss sahib.” Francis suddenly relapsed into English.

“Say I’ll be there in about ten minutes.” Sir Frere got up from his chair. He touched the bell on his desk. “Mayfield, I’m afraid I shall have to trouble you to come round to my flat to-night,” he said. “With a late fee we can manage to get that letter off to-night. I can’t wait now. I have an urgent appointment.”

“Very good, sir.” Mr. Mayfield, who had leapt from his chair at the sound of the bell, went back to his own room with his brain seething with excitement.

Something to tell his Dora as they went home that night. And as luck would have it, she was working late too. He would ’phone her and they could have a little snack at the Corner House together. Mr. Mayfield felt all the thrill of the spring in his blood as he sat down at his typewriter again.

Chapter XVII

Sir Frere sat in his taxi with his hands on his knees and his chin thrust a little forward. Dandelion had come to him—why? A row with her parents; a yielding to pressure—what was it? Under his hard hat Sir Frere’s brain was working furiously. She had come to his flat too, the little innocent sweet. Was she alone, though? Francis had not spoken of there being anyone with her certainly. Sir Frere prayed that she would be alone. Alone and frightened, he would know how to deal with her; with Hugh he would feel constrained. Sir Frere suddenly gripped his hands, neatly gloved in dogskin, close up under his chin. God, how the taxi crawled; supposing she had gone when he got there?

But Francis’s face of important pleasure showed him that she had not gone, when about ten minutes later he turned the key in the yale lock. “Miss sahib in sitting-room,” he announced proudly. “I getting tea.”

“Yes, do.” Sir Frere walked into the little lobby and stared in the glass. Francis had already relieved him of his coat and hat. He brushed his hair quickly. Oh, but how old he looked! He stood for a moment with the knob of the sitting-room door in his hand before turning it. Supposing it was not Dandelion, after all? He took a long halting breath as he opened the door and went in. But it was, and the first sight of her brought all his old self-possession back with a rush. The quarter of an hour’s waiting had been too much for her; she stood, panic-stricken, facing him, with her back to the window.

“I don’t know why I’ve come now,” she gasped. “I had an idea that perhaps you were angry at my letter, and I came to explain it.”

“That was very kind of you.” Sir Frere had a very nice voice. Instantly his quick mind leapt to the probable solution of Dandelion’s visit. She had written and he had not replied. Incidentally, he had not got the letter, but that did not matter now. She had come to repeat what was in the letter; that was the only thing that did matter.

“I never got any letter from you,” he said. “Come and sit down and tell me what was in it. Yes, come along, you must. And we will have tea. You look very tired.”

“If you never got the letter I can’t possibly tell you what was in it,” gasped Dandelion. Suddenly the enormity of what she was doing came over her in a flood. Perhaps you weren’t supposed to come to a man’s flat. Marion said that you were, but how did she know? She had said that things like that were altered since the war. How did she know? She had only been seven before the war. What did you know at seven?

Sir Frere was standing looking at her with his quiet hands clenched behind his back. “Come along over here,” he said.

“No, I can’t.” Dandelion backed a little and her eyes were riveted on his. “I came to say that I would marry you, after all,” she said, and she burst it out in a sudden flood. “I wrote that and you never answered. I wrote it because I was tired of being at home, and I thought that if I married you I could get away from it. Then you never answered and I wanted it more. So I came to tell you. But now I am here I am terrified. You don’t want me on those terms—no man would. It was wrong of me to come—fearfully, fearfully wrong.”

“I want you on any terms.” The blood was suddenly drumming in Sir Frere’s ears. He held out his hand. “Come over here,” he said again. “Don’t be afraid, I won’t touch you.”

“Yes, but—” Dandelion had come falteringly across the carpet. There was a little discreet tap at the door. Francis with tea. He arranged it all on a little low table, drew it nearer to the sofa, and vanished. Enormously intrigued with the sight of the two figures standing speechlessly watching each other, he withdrew to the kitchen and brewed tea for himself. His sahib was shaken in the throes of love, he concluded, and he would not go to clear away the tea until he was rung for.

Sir Frere poured out tea quietly. He could see that Dandelion hardly knew what she was doing or saying. He let her eat and drink in silence. And then he got up and took her cup and plate away from her. “Well, now then, let’s have it,” he said, and there was a little quizzical smile at the corner of his mouth as he spoke. “You say you will marry me, but you give me to understand that you do not love me. Is that how it is. Dandelion?”

“In a way it is.” Dandelion was suddenly conscious of an engulfing shame. What man would want a girl on those terms?

Sir Frere was silent. How much did Dandelion know about marriage? he wondered. Her presence in his flat looked to him as if she did not know much. He glanced at her as she sat beside him on the sofa, fragile and shaken. “Supposing I was to kiss you,” he said suddenly, “what would you do?”

“Yes; but you wouldn’t,” said Dandelion, turning scarlet, and thrusting one cold hand down between the cushion and the leather of the couch.

“I should if I was engaged to you,” said Sir Frere quietly, and in spite of his rising passion he longed to laugh.

“Yes, but—” and then Dandelion flung her hands out in front of her. “I’m only saying that I’ll marry you to get away from something,” she cried. “It’s wrong, and it’s frightfully selfish. You’d loathe me on those terms—any man would.”

“As a matter of fact, I want you on any terms, Dandelion,” said Sir Frere, and he said it with his chin a little thrust out. “Only I warn you that if I once get you I shall never let you go. I mean to say that it won’t be the slightest use for you to say to me afterwards that you didn’t mean this, that, and the other. If you come to me for good and all, you come to me for good and all; you quite understand that, don’t you?”

“Oh yes,” said Dandelion, and as she said it she just wondered very briefly what he did mean. Anyhow, there was no time to ask him now, because it must be getting late. The sun was coming very slantingly in at the window, she suddenly realized. Was it half-past five? She had to be at the Stores at six. “Is it half-past five?” she asked timidly.

“No not quite. What happens at half-past five?” asked Sir Frere. Self-controlled as he was, this interview with Dandelion had badly shaken him. It was all so very unexpected and extraordinary. He had thought her gone out of his sphere altogether, her prolonged silence having dashed his earlier hopes. And how here she was, apparently his, sitting beside him in his own flat, and he as far away from her as if she was in the next hemisphere. Was he an utter fool to take her at her word? Probably something had happened at home and she had rushed off to him on an impulse to get away from it at any cost. He sat very silent for a moment or two. If he took her at her word and became engaged to her, he was asking for trouble—he knew it. Should he risk it? Or should he put a thousand pounds into Hugh’s banking account and leave it at that? Hugh would never know where it came from, and he banked at Lloyd’s; Sir Frere knew that too.

And then Dandelion, twisting herself a little on the sofa, met his gaze. Her lower lip was trembling. “Why don’t you say anything?” she said. “And you may kiss me if you like. I know it’s usual when people are going to be engaged.”

“Well, in that case I think I will then,” said Sir Frere, and he said it with his eyes still on Dandelion’s. And then he caught her in his arms so that she could not get away and kissed her again and again.

“Don’t!” Dandelion had wrenched her face away from his and was crying out. “Oh, oh!” she sobbed; “how could you do that?” Her small hat had tumbled backwards on to the sofa and from there on to the floor. She faced him with streaming eyes. “How could I say that I would be engaged to you?” she said; “of course I shan’t, now.”

“No; that’s exactly what I thought,” said Sir Frere, and he suddenly got up from the sofa, breathing heavily. “And that’s partly why I did it. Partly only, because I don’t mind telling you that having you sitting there close beside me drives me mad. But I don’t want you on any ridiculous terms, and I gather that that is what is in your mind. The whole thing is now at an end. Put on your hat and I’ll get Francis to call you a taxi. Don’t cry; there’s nothing on earth to cry about.”

“What! do you mean that now you don’t want me to be your wife?”

“Certainly not. It’s too painfully obvious why you wish to be. Stop crying, Dandelion.”

“Yes; but it’s so awful to go back with nothing having happened, after all.” Dandelion was wiping her eyes and staring over her handkerchief at Sir Frere. Suddenly she felt that the one thing she wanted was to be engaged to this short man who stood staring at her. Why, the excitement of it would be overwhelming. Just like a book, only far, far better, because it would be really happening, and to you yourself too.

“Not worse, surely, than going back tied to a man that you dislike?” Sir Frere spoke a little bitterly. He was suddenly furious with himself. What had possessed him to lose control of himself like that? He walked away from the sofa and stood with his back to the window staring out of it. “No fool like an old fool”; the words rose up bitterly from the depths of his heart, mocking him.

“Yes; but I don’t think I do dislike you,” faltered Dandelion. “Can’t you mind being kissed for the first time without it meaning that?”

“It wasn’t that that made you cry out and push me away. It was that you really loathe me and are only marrying me for my money,” said Sir Frere bluntly. “And I’m such a damned fool that I actually contemplated taking you on those terms. But I’ve come to my senses, Dandelion, my child, and thank God! before it’s too late”; and saying this Sir Frere wheeled round and faced the sofa.

“Yes, but I want to marry you now.” Dandelion was wrenching her handkerchief between her fingers and staring at it. She had ruined all her chances. Back to her home with nothing to do but feel that she was a burden on her parents. Back to her home with nothing to do but to get older and older and wish that she had married this fierce man with blazing eyes. She did really want to; although she had cried out when he kissed her, it was like the cry that you would give when you peered over the edge of a crater and saw it all white hot and boiling inside. Something like snatching burning raisins out of a dish, like you did when you played brandy-snap on Christmas Eve.

“If you really want to marry me, come over here and kiss me of your own accord, Dandelion.” Sir Frere’s heart was beating so hard that he thought Dandelion must surely hear it. Then he had done the right thing, after all; this girl was not so unmoved as she had made out to be.

“Will you make a dash at me?” said Dandelion, her head hanging.

“No, not this time.” Sir Frere’s deep-set eyes suddenly laughed. But his rather hard mouth was set gravely.

“Well, I will then.” Dandelion’s step towards him was shy and faltering. “I can’t bear what you said about my only wanting to marry you for your money,” she said, and as she said it she came closer to him. “Say that you don’t think that!” she cried, and crying it, she made a little run into his arms and hid her face in his neck.

“I think there’s a certain amount of truth in it, Dandelion.” Sir Frere’s arms went abruptly round the slender figure pressed close to his. Desperately he resisted the impulse to crush her to his heart. “But being something of a fool, I’m willing to risk it. Let’s get rid of the hat and then I’ll kiss your hair. Only your hair this time: don’t be frightened.” Sir Frere took the close-fitting hat off Dandelion’s small head, tossed it on to the sofa, and then, stooping a little, he kissed her dark head again and again.

“Are we engaged now, then?” After a breathless pause Dandelion raised her head. The sun was streaming in very slantingly now; it must be getting late. “Oughtn’t I to go?” she asked.

“Yes, you ought.” Sir Frere suddenly put a finger inside his collar and wrenched it a little. “You certainly ought,” he said, shooting a quick glance at the watch on his wrist; “it’s a quarter to six. Well then, until to-morrow, Dandelion. I’ll come down some time in the afternoon and have a talk with your father.”

“Yes.” Dandelion was walking over to the sofa to get her hat. She stood with it in her hands looking at it. “What shall we tell him about this?” she said uncomfortably. “I mean about having been here.”

“Nothing,” said Sir Frere briefly; “nothing at all, unless I think it is necessary.” He suddenly saw Hugh’s face as it would be on hearing that his daughter had spent the afternoon with him in his flat. He walked to the wall and pressed the electric bell. “We’ll get Francis to call a taxi,” he said. “I won’t come with you to the Stores, as your friends might think it odd.”

“Do you want to kiss me again?” asked Dandelion shyly.

“No, not now,” said Sir Frere, and hated himself as he saw Dandelion flush and turn away. But suddenly he seemed to understand the girl he was dealing with. He had got her if he had the sense to go slowly. If he rushed at her he was done. He spoke quietly to his servant, who suddenly stood attentive at the door. “Get a taxi quickly, Francis, will you?” he said.

“Yes, sir,” and Francis had gone again. And in another couple of minutes Dandelion had gone too, and was skimming across the Park in front of Buckingham Palace, staring out of the window of the taxi with her brain in a whirl. Engaged, and to the man who had just given her five shillings to pay for the taxi. Five shillings; it surely would not be as much as that; they were nearly there already; Dandelion sat a little forward on the seat, and tried to unravel the mystery of the meter in front of her.

And with the three shillings that was left after paying the fare, she bought a most enchanting looking veal pie, all made ready in a dish, from the grocery department of the Church and Commercial Stores. Mummy would be pleased with that, thought Dandelion, suddenly spying Marion coming towards her and feeling a wonderful rapturous importance at the news that she was about to impart.

Chapter XVIII

Marion was as excited and interested as even Dandelion could wish. The two girls talked in an undertone all the way back to Colbridge. Dandelion walked up the little flagged path to her own house with an extraordinary feeling of exaltation in her mind. She was engaged, and to a man with money. Now she could help her parents and her brothers.

“Oh yes, let’s have a fire, mummy.” Supper over, Dandelion was hunting for the matches behind the clock. “It’s cold; you’ll be frozen before it’s time to go to bed if you don’t.

“Well, darling—” But Mrs. Davison was already holding out her cold fingers to the creeping flames. She suddenly felt more cheerful. Dandelion had come back from town with the old dancing fight in her eyes. The child was dull, that’s what it was. Colbridge was a dull place for a girl when she had nothing particular to do. “Well, my treasure, tell us all about your day.” Mrs. Davison was groping in her workbag for her simple knitting. Hugh had gone straight into the study to write some more letters. Mrs. Davison tried to forget about the letters; they were the thing that worried her most. The boys were doing their homework in the dining-room. She had her daughter to herself; just all cosily for a lovely talk. It was a long time since Mrs. Davison had been to London; she was all agog to hear about the shops.

But Dandelion had extraordinarily little to tell about the shops. From what Mrs. Davison could gather, she had spent the whole time at the Church and Commercial Stores. Certainly, the pie from there had been very delicious, but still—— However, the child seemed to have enjoyed herself, and that was the great thing; Mrs. Davison went up to bed feeling more cheerful than she had done for some time.

But by the time Dandelion was in bed she did not feel cheerful at all. To begin with, she had been obliged to be really horribly deceitful about the whole expedition to London. Then the sight of her father had in some way depressed her. His clean-shaven distinguished face seemed in some way to emphasize the almost plebeian cast of the face that she had so recently been gazing at. Not that it was exactly common, but compared to daddy’s it was ordinary. Clean-shaven too; but Sir Frere had nice teeth—that was something to be thankful for. And awfully nice hands; as Dandelion turned and twisted and listened for her father’s step on the bare oak staircase, she tried to concentrate on Sir Frere’s hands. Nice hands were a sign of good breeding, she told herself feverishly.

But by the next morning she was more depressed still. In a fever she waited for the sound of the telephone-bell. It would ring as daddy was having breakfast, she told herself, dusting her room with dreadful energy. And he would talk for a time through it, and then go and find her mother, and then the whole house would be in a tumult.

And it all happened exactly as Dandelion had expected. Listening with her blue eyes widely stretched open, she heard the sharp metallic ring of the telephone-bell; the scrape of daddy’s chair on the bare boards as he pushed it back to get up; the sound of a brief conversation; the sharp sound of the ringing-off bell, and then daddy’s leisurely strolling step to the door; the opening of the door, and his gentle call of “Nancy.”

“Yes, darling,” and there was mummy gone in to him. Dandelion left oft dusting, and wrenching open a drawer, she began feverishly to sort out some stockings. Anything so that she would not have to think what she had got to say when daddy finished talking to mummy and began talking to her.

But that moment did not come for some time. Hugh was staring at his wife. “Frere has been telephoning again,” he said; “he is coming down this afternoon.”

“Hugh, not again!” Mrs. Davison suddenly sank down into a chair.

“Yes, I know; it is the limit, isn’t it?” Hugh had begun mechanically to clear the table. Walking between the table and the hatch, he suddenly stopped and glanced at his wife. “What was Dandelion doing all day in town yesterday?” he asked.

“Shopping.”

“Well, but was she?” said Hugh dryly, going on clearing.

“Yes; but you don’t mean to say that you think——?”

“I don’t know what I think,” said Hugh, and he said it with an unusual impatience. He suddenly realized that he was utterly sick of Sir Frere Manwaring and of Dandelion too. “I’ve a good mind to tell the man to go to hell when he turns up this afternoon,” he said. “Twice he has come down here, and for nothing, apparently. After all, there is a limit to this sort of thing.”

“Don’t do that, Hugh.” Mrs. Davison’s mind had gone monotonously back to the question of food. This was Mary’s afternoon and evening out, and that meant that she and Dandelion had to do all the work. To save bother she had got Mary to make up the remains of the cold joint into a potato-pie, so that Dandelion or she had only to push it into the gas-oven and it would be ready. Potato-pie again, and for this same man, and for the same meal, namely supper. He would be certain to stay to supper if he had come down for anything important, and somehow Mrs. Davison felt sure that he had come down for something important this time. “Oh dear!” she suddenly sighed heavily.

“What’s the matter?”

“Why, I’ve ordered potato-pie for supper again,” lamented Mrs. Davison. “Hugh, we can’t give it to him; he will think we live on it.”

“Let him think anything he damned well likes!” burst out Hugh, who had finished clearing the table and was now staring out of the window. “I’m sick to death of the man, and of Dandelion too. I shall say nothing about his coming down to her this time. Let her find out when he has gone; I won’t have the whole house made miserable by her tears and lamentations. Really, when one is so bothered oneself—” and then Hugh stopped abruptly. He had not meant to say that; Nancy worried so frightfully if she thought he was worried.

So Dandelion did not get the dreaded summons downstairs; at any rate, not at that exact moment.

She got it a good deal later, when the evening sun was streaming goldenly and slantingly in at the sitting-room window. The little leaded squares of the glass, cut the sunshine into queer distorted shapes and they lay yellow and quivering on the polished boards. Dandelion stood at the door and saw her father and his friend through a haze of dancing sunshine motes. They sailed up and down, great shafts of sunlight; the rain sometimes drifted across the Downs in shafts like that, thought Dandelion vaguely, standing and only staring with petrified eyes.

“Dandelion, Sir Frere tells me that you have promised to marry him,” said Hugh. He was the first to speak. He did not come forward to meet his daughter, but only stood, leaning a little against the mantelpiece, looking at her.

“Yes, daddy.” If Dandelion had been given a thousand pounds she would not have been able to articulate more than that. She stood staring as if fascinated.

“That’s all right then, Frere.” Hugh straightened himself and made a sort of involuntary little gesture of assent. He then crossed the room, put his hand on Dandelion’s shoulders, kissed her, and went away, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Chapter XIX

Marion was the first to bring uneasiness and foreboding into Dandelion’s mind: Marion, who, being really rather selfish, could not quite do with this stroke of luck that had befallen her friend. For it really was luck: Dandelion had a gorgeous diamond ring—diamonds all the way round set in platinum, the sort of ring that Marion had always wanted herself. Dandelion constantly went up to town. Sir Frere would send his car down for her if he could not fetch her himself, and then he would take her to the theatre, and bring her back again. She looked extremely happy. It was fun being engaged, and everything was so heavenly at home now. Sir Frere had promised to take both the boys into his firm when they were old enough, and he had already taken a great fancy to Guy. Daddy had quite lost all his harassed look, and had stopped writing letters every evening. Mummy liked Sir Frere, and never fussed when he came to meals. So everything was as jolly as it could be, and Dandelion, fortified by the feeling that she really had been able to be of benefit to her family, sunned herself in that feeling, and also in the feeling that it was frightfully jolly to be all-important to one person. Sir Frere adored her, although he showed it very little. He gave her clothes in the most delicate and delightful way, explaining that for theatres and lunches you wanted different things from those that you wanted at Colbridge. And Dandelion accepted everything with a naive and delightful simplicity that enchanted Sir Frere. Here was a girl utterly unspoilt, he told himself, as, late at night, he would let himself into his flat after some expedition with her. He was content to wait for the love that she would give him when she understood what love meant. Until then he would be very patient and very gentle in his dealings with her.

But this attitude of passive acceptance and enjoyment annoyed Marion, and because she was really very jealous of Dandelion she felt that she must disturb it. “I must say I think you’re taking it all very calmly,” she said one day, as she and Dandelion sat in the untidy workroom looking at pattern-books.

“Taking what calmly?” Dandelion was staring at illustrations. Her mind went off at a tangent. “I think I shall have all my nightdresses of that entrancing artificial silk that you buy made up in a tube,” she said. “Then you don’t have to sew it up the sides, a fearful saving of bother.”

“H’m!” Marion spoke with a sort of awful meaning in her voice. She suddenly felt spiteful. She could see Dandelion sitting in the midst of yards of that beautiful nectarine-coloured silk that looked like an ice, letting in lovely browny lace insertion, as she, Marion, wanted, only her mother said that she must wait until she had her trousseau. Where was Marion going to get a trousseau?—she wasn’t even engaged yet. Dandelion had got engaged first; it wasn’t fair. “H’m, I think you’re taking getting married awfully calmly,” she said again.

“Why shouldn’t I?” Dandelion was looking dreamily at the pictures of slim ladies twisted into queer shapes. They all sat about together in groups undressed. Fancy if one did that, thought Dandelion vaguely. Marion’s voice of foreboding left her unmoved; Marion was often moody and rather short with her.

“Well, there are heaps of things to get fearfully fussed about,” said Marion, and although she said it with deliberate intent she was ashamed of saying it. There had always been something about Dandelion’s instinctive delicacy that had prevented her up to the present from imparting her sketchy and miscellaneously collected knowledge to her friend. But now it seemed to her that it was time Dandelion knew something. Her whole conversation showed that she knew nothing. All about the boys going into the firm, and theatres and lunches and new clothes. And nothing about wonderings and panics and terrors and suppositions, and all the things that really made engagement and marriage things of dramatic and petrifying adventure. Dandelion was a donkey; Marion looked a little contemptuously at her.

“Do tell me what you mean.” Dandelion had shut up the fashion-book. Her deep blue eyes, with their delicious look of having been smudged in to her face, surveyed her friend with wondering in their depths. Was Marion quite well? she wondered.

“Would you really like me to?” Marion’s eyes were a little furtive. Deeply ashamed of what she was about to do, yet she felt she must do it. She wanted to spoil Dandelion’s happiness. Not exactly spoil it altogether, but just make it not quite so complete as it was.

“Yes, rather. Go on.” Dandelion linked her slender fingers together and the beautiful ring sparkled and winked at Marion. The sight of it made her more cross. It was a lovely ring; just such a one as she would have adored to have herself.

“All right then, I will,” and then Marion proceeded to enlighten her friend. Being really a nice girl, although rather a selfish one, she did it with a certain amount of delicacy. Dandelion listened with wide-open and petrified gaze. And then she averted her eyes and turned a deep crimson. “I don’t believe it,” she said.

“It’s true.” Marion spoke triumphantly.

“How do you know?”

“Everyone knows,” said Marion. “At least, everyone knows except you. How otherwise do you suppose?” and then Marion stopped short. After all, there was no use in worrying Dandelion too much, she reflected.

“I shall break off my engagement,” said Dandelion, and she got up from her chair, letting the fashion-book slide off her knee on to the floor. Her mind was a tumult. She had actually gone to a man’s flat and suggested that she should marry him, when marriage meant this! Horror unspeakable! Marion said that everyone knew; then he would think that she knew. “I’m going home,” Dandelion said the words abruptly and began to look round for her hat.

“No, don’t; it’s awfully early yet.” Marion was frightened. Dandelion had a queer look about her mouth. She had been going to be a bridesmaid; what a fool she had been to disturb things. “There’s nothing to get worked up about,” she said hastily. “It’s only because you’ve just heard. I felt like that when I first heard. And then in about two days I’d forgotten.”

“Forgotten!” Dandelion was forcing her hat down on to her head. “Good-bye, Marion,” she said; “I’m going home.”

“Yes, but don’t—” and then Marion found that she was speaking to a shut door. She heard the front door open and shut, and looking out of the window, she saw Dandelion walking quickly down the road—walking with bent head and hurried feet; Marion went back to her sewing feeling uncommonly depressed.

But she was not nearly so depressed as Dandelion, although depression was scarcely the word to use. Dandelion was petrified, stupefied with dismay and horror. To be released from her engagement, that was her insistent thought. To stand in such a relation to any man—shame and anguish unspeakable. And to Sir Frere in particular, because Marion’s sketchily imparted knowledge had made her see with a deadly certainty that she did not love him at all. If she did love him at all, she might have been able to wrest a sort of fearful, gruesome rapture out of the whole thing. But now—Dandelion broke into a little run, without knowing that she did so.

Chapter XX

Sir Frere, being a man of very acute perception, soon sensed that there was something wrong with Dandelion. He met her that night in the heavily carpeted hall of the Carlton. And he saw, as she stepped out of the saloon car, that there was something different about her face. She came across the pavement rather heavily. She was beautifully dressed in the clothes that he had given her. It was odd to give a girl clothes before she was your wife, he thought tenderly. But Hugh and his wife had been so awfully nice and sensible about it. They could not afford to dress Dandelion as she ought to be dressed to go to places like the Carlton. They admitted it frankly. And Frere wanted to take her there. Therefore he must equip her to go there. Hugh had maintained it with the utmost simplicity.

“Although I don’t half like it, Frere”—Hugh, with his quiet dignity, had spoken briefly in one of their short interviews.

“Yes, but it gives me such intense pleasure, Hugh”—Sir Frere had spoken with the eagerness of a boy. “You can’t afford it, with your sons to educate. Why shouldn’t I have the joy of giving Dandelion clothes? What have I in the world but her, now?”

“No, well, if you put it like that,” so Hugh had agreed. And when he saw the rapture that it afforded Dandelion and her mother he was glad that he had swallowed his pride sufficiently to allow it. For the house was full of things on approval—large brown paper-board boxes exuding tissue paper. Excited tryings on; there was a very nice long glass on the top corridor. At the oddest moments Hugh came across little twittering groups of his family gathered round it, even Mary participating in the excited rapture.

But to-night Dandelion had dressed for her expedition to London in silence, and in her own room. And all the way up in the luxurious car she had sat staring out of the window with her cold hands gripped together under the fur rug. Her last drive in this lovely car as Sir Frere’s promised wife. Because on the way back to-night she was going to break it off.

But when it came to the point it was not so easy. They left the Coliseum early. Sir Frere had noted Dandelion’s wandering eyes, and saw that she was not really enjoying it. The dinner had already been more or less of a failure. Sir Frere had paid the bill for it with a little inward laugh. And now what was the matter with her? He sat back in the corner of the car and settled the rug more comfortably over her knees. Would she tell him of her own free will, or would he have to drag it out of her? he wondered.

“How long will it take us to get home?” Dandelion spoke after a trembling silence.

The car was stealing down Charing Cross Road. All around them was a sea of traffic, and the electric signs winked and blazed their lights from the tops of shops and high buildings. Dandelion clenched her hands under the rug and wondered. Generally she just sat with her head on his shoulder on the way home and half went to sleep. And he only kissed her when they got home, just a quiet kiss as he opened the gate for her. Dandelion did not know how all the way back to London Sir Frere sat with his hands driven deep down into his pockets and his teeth hard down on his lower lip. But it was his determined policy not to allow his passion for her to be apparent. Otherwise he would lose her—Sir Frere felt pretty certain of that.

But on this night Dandelion sat with her small body wedged into the corner of the seat farthest away from Sir Frere. If he touched her she would scream and throw herself out of the car. In the light of this new and ghastly relationship explained to her by Marion even the vaguest proximity of him was an outrage. She suddenly gave utterance to a little cry.

“What is the matter, darling?” Sir Frere spoke quietly and he did not move. But he was watching Dandelion closely. Something was badly wrong; he came to the conclusion swiftly.

“I want you to let me break off our engagement,” gasped Dandelion. Ah, it was out! She could have sobbed with relief.

“Why?” Sir Frere quietly folded his arms.

“Because I don’t love you in that way at all,” said Dandelion.

“What way?”

“The way you must if you’re going to marry a person,” trembled Dandelion.

“Ah!” Sir Frere’s mind leapt at once to the solution of Dandelion’s altered demeanour. Probably her mother—but no, Hugh’s wife wouldn’t be such a fool.

“Tell me what you mean,” he said quietly.

“No, I can’t.”

“Yes, but you must.” The car was crawling over Westminster Bridge behind a brightly lighted tram. Sir Frere could see Dandelion’s terrified face turned away from his. “Tell me what you mean,” he said again, and he put his hand under the rug and took hold of hers.

“Don’t. Let go of my hand!” Dandelion was tugging wildly.

“Certainly not; your hand belongs to me.” Sir Frere closed his quiet finger a little more resolutely. He suddenly realized that this was going to be a fight to the death. And he was going to win it. Sir Frere laughed a little in the back of his throat. Dandelion had not the least idea what he was really like, he concluded grimly.

“No, it doesn’t belong to you,” Dandelion was still struggling.

“Yes, it does—you have given it to me,” said Sir Frere, and he suddenly drew Dandelion’s hand out from under the rug, and carried it up to his lips.

“Yes, but I didn’t know then—” Dandelion was staring at her hand, held against Sir Frere’s quiet lips. He was so quiet; that was the terror of him. Dandelion suddenly sensed the force and determination under the calm exterior. It was like a stone wall against which she might beat herself until she was broken. “You must let me go,” she cried.

“Never.” Sir Frere was still holding Dandelion’s hand, and he put it back again under the rug.

“Yes, but you must, I tell you!” cried Dandelion, and she twisted herself round on the luxurious seat and faced him. The velvet cape that she was wearing half fell off her shoulder; the fur collar of it was all crooked up against her face. The car was sliding through Streatham, past an old church that suddenly chimed the hour of eleven. A deserted Streatham; Dandelion vaguely remembered it as she had seen it earlier in the evening, crammed with motors and huge, unwieldy tram-cars, exuding humanity at every stopping-place.

“There is no ‘must’ about it at all, Dandelion,” said Sir Frere, and he let go of her hand and folded his arms quietly over his white shirt-front. “I have given you every opportunity to get out of your engagement to me and you have not availed yourself of any of them. Now I am going to hold you to your bargain.”

“You can’t.”

“But I’m going to,” said Sir Frere quietly.

“You can’t,” Dandelion began to sob. The car was skimming through Norbury. Soon they would be at Colbridge and nothing would be settled. Mummy had been talking only yesterday of fixing the date for the wedding. Sir Frere wanted to be married before September, because he had to go back to India at the end of October.

Sir Frere glanced at the clock set into the pocket at his elbow. The luminous dial of it showed the time as twenty minutes past eleven. Hugh never minded as long as Dandelion was in by about a quarter past twelve. He leaned forward, and after a sharp whistle spoke through the speaking-tube. “Go round by Foxburrow Common, Giles,” he said.

“Very good, sir.” The chauffeur straightened himself again. He got overtime for these late excursions, so he rather welcomed them. The car turned sharply to the right at the end of Norbury High Road and made its noiseless way along a beautifully metalled, but a darker and narrower road. Sir Frere sat back again and twisted himself a little more towards Dandelion. He sat with his arms still folded. “Now you have got to tell me what is the matter with you,” he said calmly. “I will have it, and before we get home to-night too.”

“I can’t tell you.” Dandelion was sitting forward in the car and her hands were wrung together.

“You must.” Sir Frere felt a sudden impulse towards laughter. The terror of the child beside him was so pathetic. Someone had frightened her badly. He got a sudden longing to get the person, whoever she was, by the throat. He had long since gathered that Dandelion was entirely innocent. And the innocence of her had deeply attracted him. It was as different from the modern girl’s attitude towards life as light was different from darkness. He suddenly reached out and slid an arm round her trembling body. “Come nearer to me,” he said.

“No.”

“Yes,” and this time Sir Frere did give a little amused laugh. He pulled her along the seat until she was close up against his side. Settling the rug more comfortably over her, he crossed his feet on the thick rug. “Now I’m going to talk to you,” he said, “and it’s almost pitch dark, so you need not get into a panic. Nor need you answer if you don’t want to. See?”

“Yes,” said Dandelion faintly. But in spite of herself she felt comforted. Sir Frere had a very nice voice. There was something consoling in the way he did exactly what he meant to do without asking. Dandelion shut her eyes in the darkness. There was a little light in the car from the occasional lamps by the side of the road, and if he looked down and saw her looking at him she would die on the spot, thought Dandelion graphically.

Sir Frere took rather a long breath before beginning to speak. This was going to be a little difficult, he thought grimly. “Someone has been frightening you, Dandelion,” he suddenly said briefly.

“Yes.” The word came trembling from between Dandelion’s tightly shut lips. Sir Frere was staring fixedly at the chauffeur’s square back, showing vaguely through the plate-glass panels of the car. “A man or a woman?” he asked.

“A girl,” said Dandelion faintly.

“That friend of yours, Marion Gates?” said Sir Frere promptly. He suddenly felt an overwhelming relief that it had not been Dandelion’s mother. That would have made it more difficult to tackle, he thought.

“Yes.”

Sir Frere drew Dandelion a little closer to him. “It would have been more sensible to have gone to your mother and asked her if what Marion had told you was true,” he said, “than to have spent days in a torment of fright. Wouldn’t it?”

“How could I possibly ask mummy?” said Dandelion, scarlet through the darkness. “She would have died with shame, and so should I.”

Sir Frere’s still excellent teeth showed briefly. “I still maintain that it would have been better,” he said.

“Yes, but I only knew to-day,” said Dandelion, turning her face a little upwards.

In spite of himself, Sir Frere took his arm out of the strap and felt in the darkness for Dandelion’s soft chin. “Child of my heart,” he said, “can’t you trust me?”

“Yes, but that’s not the point.” Dandelion began agitatedly to wonder if he really knew what was at the bottom of her wish to break off her engagement. “That’s not the point,” she repeated.

“Yes, it is,” said Sir Frere, and this time he did laugh. “I know exactly what’s troubling you, and I am only so frightfully sorry that it could not have been my task to tell you anything that you ought to know. I loathe that friend of yours.” Sir Frere spoke abruptly.

“She did it because she thought I ought to know,” said Dandelion instantly.

“No, she didn’t. She did it because she wanted to make you wretched,” replied Sir Frere briefly. “But that’s not the point now, Dandelion. The point is this: do you trust me sufficiently to leave everything of the kind—every thought of everything of the kind—to me? Believe me, I love you so tremendously that the very idea of—” Sir Frere suddenly stopped speaking.

Dandelion stirred. Suddenly she felt that she did not want to break off her engagement. There was something in the quiet voice just above her head that set up a queer little thrill somewhere far, far away in her. Rather an entrancing feeling, thought Dandelion, suddenly intrigued. Vague recollections of something Marion had once said about the rapture of marrying someone who treated you like a slave came back to her. At the time Dandelion had been rather disgusted, but now: “Do you know, I suddenly feel as if I liked you much better than I have ever done,” she said, and she struggled a little forward to try to see his face.

“Do you?” Sir Frere gave a little hoarse laugh. A man of tremendous self-control, he was being pushed a little too far to be easy, he thought. The soft lips just below his own were dreadfully near. But the whole of the battle that he had won during the last hour would be lost, he reflected quickly, if he showed by the slightest movement that his passion almost overwhelmed him. “Do you?” he said again; “I am very glad to hear it.”

“Yes.” Dandelion was suddenly overcome with the wish to amend. “I have the feeling now that I should really like you to kiss me,” she declared, and she held her soft face a little more tipped up to his.

“Have you?” Sir Frere suddenly drove his free hand down between the cushion and the side of the car. “Ah, but I have been smoking,” he said; “let me just kiss the top of your head, as I generally do.”

“All right, if you would rather,” and Dandelion lowered her head quickly in the darkness. But over the bowed dark hair Sir Frere’s eyes were blazing. He was going to marry this girl sooner, he thought fiercely. He shut his eyes briefly as he laid his lips on her hair.

Chapter XXI

Hugh was a little dubious. “You know, Frere, she’s not very much more than a child.” He stood looking at his friend with disturbed eyes. Somehow he felt that he was not showing up well over this engagement. The relief of the financial part of it was so overwhelming that it had overweighed his better judgment. To his mind Dandelion did not look entirely happy. He asked his wife if she noticed the same thing, and she replied that she didn’t. Or that if she did it was due to a very natural excitement at the changed condition of things.

“Think what her life is now, Hugh, compared to what it was. Constantly out to dinner in restaurants and going to theatres. Why, no wonder she looks a little pale sometimes. But she’s perfectly happy; I am sure she would tell us if she wasn’t.”

“I’m not at all sure.” But after that brief response Hugh fell silent. After all, as he reflected, Dandelion had really fixed up the whole thing off her own bat. He had been appalled when Sir Frere had told him that Dandelion had been to his flat. But, as he thought afterwards, a girl who would do that without saying a word to her parents must be a girl who had thoughts far removed from those parents. They didn’t know in the least what was really going on in Dandelion’s mind. So what was the use of worrying about it? Hugh, with a shrug of his broad shoulders, decided that he wouldn’t.

But this suggestion of an almost immediate marriage was a different thing altogether. Sir Frere wanted to be married in about three weeks’ time, he said. What was there to wait for? he asked his friend, with his quiet, rather deep-set eyes very intent.

“Well, I don’t know—” Hugh groped vaguely round his mind for an excuse. “Dandelion must have clothes, Frere; the banns must be put up. After all, a wedding is rather a——”

“She can buy everything she wants in Paris. I think of taking her abroad, and it will amuse her. As for banns, if you have them put up next Sunday there’s heaps of time, Hugh.” Sir Frere was a man of action, and he meant to have his own way. And he got it; Mrs. Davison was all in favour of a speedy marriage, too. She liked things done in a hurry. It would be just at the beginning of the summer holidays, too. Kitty could be the second bridesmaid. And the principal person concerned, namely Dandelion, was quite agreeable. As a matter of fact. Dandelion, with a sort of quiet desperation, thought that the sooner it was all over the better. She felt exactly as if she was caught in a butterfly-net. It all looked so simple and so easy and so joyous. And yet it was all so terribly settled. This short man with quiet hands meant to have her. So he was going to, whether she wanted it or not. And, after all, how could she possibly back out of it now? So much hinged on it: the boys’ future; her own future really, because Kitty would soon be home for good, much prettier than she was; daddy’s future, because he would have had to get something to do if they had all been just going to stay there all wedged together at home. So Dandelion faced it with a certain amount of equanimity. It was her lot, and there it was. And probably she would get used to being married; half the people’ in the world were married anyhow, and seemed to take it quite calmly.

And there certainly was an enormous amount of fun about it. Hugh having made up his mind to go through with the whole thing, had made up his mind to do it properly, so he sold out a few shares that were mercifully standing pretty high, and had exactly a hundred pounds to spend on the wedding. He announced the fact one evening at supper.

“Daddy! A hundred pounds! How colossal!” Dandelion’s eyes were shining.

Kitty had arrived home from school that afternoon and was far prettier than she had been the holidays before. Also, she was already more sophisticated than Dandelion, and Dandelion had a sudden vision of what it would have been with Kitty home for good, quietly usurping her place by sheer force of character; the elder sister hustled into the background, there to remain for ever. Dandelion had a sudden passionate impulse of gratitude to the man who was saving her from this fate. If only he had been there she would have told him so too. But he had gone to Vienna for a few days on business, so she couldn’t do anything more than just breathe gratitude to him in her heart. In a way she was glad that he had gone, because if Kitty had criticized him at all she would have hated it. To hear that he was short, or old, or not half so good-looking as daddy would have been so awful. One knew those things oneself, but one didn’t want to hear them from anyone else.

But to hear that a hundred pounds was going to be spent on one’s own wedding was gorgeous. And the two weeks that followed really were very pleasant. Endless shopping; the constantly recurring and desperate excitement of the post; rushing into the town for things that one wanted for the sewing-woman who came in by the day; and at last the dawning, on a quiet Sunday, of the beginning of the week that was to see her torn away from her family for ever.

And it was on that quiet Sunday evening that panic entered in on Dandelion’s soul and remained there. She had been standing at her bedroom-window, looking out on to the golf links. Guy and Philip were standing on the first tee trying to teach Kitty to drive. She had just lifted her club, swiped out with fearful energy, and, completely missing her ball, was now in convulsions of laughter. Daddy was laughing too; he had strolled down to the gate and was standing there bareheaded watching them. All so jolly and friendly together, and she, who had been one of this large, happy party, was now going to leave it for ever.

Dandelion turned away from the window and stood with rapidly filling eyes surveying her disordered bedroom. It was to be Kitty’s room directly she had gone, and Kitty was delighted. Up to then she had only had what was more or less of a box-room; now she was going to have a real big bedroom of her own, and she was already making plans as to how she would rearrange the furniture. Dandelion glanced down at the diamond ring on her finger and tried to draw consolation from the sparkle of it. She was important; desperately so, and she was going to marry a rich man to help all her family.

But it was the rich man himself who was the bother. He arrived to supper that night, and Kitty, who was helping Dandelion to lay the table, said exactly what Dandelion had hoped she wouldn’t say: “He’s got awfully nice teeth and hands,” she said, “but isn’t he short compared to daddy? Whatever made you like him, Dandelion?”

“I don’t know,” said Dandelion, and she went on laying the table with a sort of sick desperation. And Kitty, glancing at her shrewdly, knew that Dandelion was marrying him because he was rich; she knew that she was. And Kitty thought that Dandelion was very sensible to do so. Nothing would have induced her to stay at home unmarried, she thought. But then she was going to learn Greek dancing and live in a flat in Chelsea with another girl when she left school. Daddy did not know it yet, and she would wait to tell him until Dandelion was married. Then there would be more money about for things of the kind.

And after supper Dandelion felt more desolate and out of it than ever. It was gorgeously fine, so everyone but she and her lover drifted out into the garden. “Let us go too.” Dandelion stood a little uncertainly on one foot as she suggested it.

“No; not just for a moment or two.” Sir Frere spoke decidedly. He had only arrived from Vienna that afternoon and had not had a minute alone with Dandelion yet. There was a limit to his endurance, he thought grimly. Coming down from London in the car, he had stared out of the window of it and watched the hills covered with strolling and embracing couples. So far there had not been much embracing about his own engagement, he thought, vaguely amused at his own forbearance.

“Do you want to be with me for a minute or two?” he said, and he said it rather wistfully.

“Oh yes, of course,” replied Dandelion swiftly. She had hurt Sir Frere’s feelings. She eyed him a little apologetically. “It’s the idea of leaving it all that’s rather got on my nerves,” she said, and she smiled a watery smile. ‘

“Yes, but you’re coming to me,” said Sir Frere, and he walked to the door and shut it. And then he walked back. “Dandelion, try to be glad,” he urged.

“Oh yes, I am.” Dandelion spoke hurriedly. She was suddenly conscious of an impulse to comfort. “I am quite sure that after a time I shall be awfully glad,” she said.

“Well, I hope you will,” said Sir Frere. And then he paused. “I have brought you a present,” he said, “and I should like to give it to you now. It’s pearls; I hope you’ll like them.” Sir Frere was drawing a small square leather case out of his waistcoat pocket.

“Like them! Oh, I should think I did!” Dandelion exclaimed in genuine delight at the row of beautifully graded pearls clasped round her neck. She lowered her chin excitedly to see them lying in the V-shaped hollow of her jumper. “Oh, I say, they’re simply gorgeous!” she said.

Inwardly she was delighted. This would in a way justify her engagement to her sister. Confronted with a row of pearls like this, Kitty could not fail to envy her. And that was what Dandelion wanted—to be envied. That seemed to quiet her own horrible misgivings over the whole affair.

And Kitty did all that was expected of her. She looked with genuine envy, first at the pearls and then at her sister. “I say, you are lucky!” she said, and she said it rather grudgingly.

“Yes, aren’t I?” Dandelion was beaming. In the relief of this frank expression of envy she really felt that she was.

Chapter XXII

But you can get used to pearls very quickly, and you can’t get used to the idea of handing yourself over body and soul to a man that you don’t really love. So Dandelion, on her wedding-day, was a shadow of her bright natural self. And Angela Pauling, who could never see anyone else have a stroke of luck without wanting to spoil it, proceeded to spoil all Mrs. Davison’s happiness as effectually as she could. Breakfast was just over—breakfast that ought to have been such a happy meal because the weather was heavenly, but which proved to be a most miserable meal, because Dandelion came down to it with her face stained with tears. And she got up and left the table before anyone else had finished.

“My dear, Dandelion does not look a very jubilant bride!” Angela was standing with her elbow on the mantelpiece in the sitting-room staring at her old school friend.

“No; well, perhaps she feels leaving her home.” Mrs. Davison suddenly felt that if Angela said any more she would begin to scream and never leave off. There was so much to be done—so much to arrange. And if Dandelion was going to look like she did at breakfast, what sort of a wedding would it be? Why had Angela come to stay? She had practically forced herself on them. She was rich; she could easily have gone to one of the hotels.

“Personally, I think that Sir Frere is far too old for her.” Angela, with her face turned to the summer sunshine, looked every one of her forty-six years. “He would have done very much better for me.”

“Oh, don’t say that now, Angela!” It burst from Mrs. Davison in a frenzy of misery. Hugh had already made her profoundly wretched by something he had said the night before. “I hope Dandelion knows——” He had paused and glanced quietly at his wife. And she had replied somewhat vaguely and gone away. She could never make him understand that in a sense she had sacrificed Dandelion to him. Nobody really mattered but he, and now he was not worried any more. And up to that moment it had satisfied Mrs. Davison. But now the most awful misgivings seized her. Supposing Dandelion was really unhappy, and she, her mother, had been the means of practically forcing her into a marriage that she did not want. Mrs. Davison went out of the room and into the kitchen almost blindly. She was terrified lest she should suddenly meet Dandelion coming flying down the stairs, saying that she could not marry Sir Frere, after all. What would she do? What could she do if she did? And she had not told Dandelion anything—well, about anything. Well, how could she? It was always supposed to be a mother’s duty to do that. But that idea was all wrong. It was frightfully difficult to speak to your own daughter about that sort of thing. It would come much better from an outsider. Somebody probably had told Dandelion everything. Mrs. Davison was still staring vaguely round the empty kitchen. Mary and the woman who had come in for the day were upstairs. Everything was ready for the caterers who were coming in to do the wedding-breakfast. So there really was not very much to be done, thought Mrs. Davison, coming out of the kitchen again and glancing up the stairs. Only to see to the dressing of the bride and of herself and the bridesmaid. And Hugh was so wonderful, he always made everything go off well. Once get Dandelion cheerfully to the church and the worst would be over. Where was Dandelion? thought Mrs. Davison, standing very still and listening.

Dandelion was upstairs, feeling suddenly a good deal more cheerful. Marion had suddenly arrived, bringing her bridesmaid’s dress in a cardboard box.

“Mummy, Marion is going to dress here.” Dandelion was out of her bedroom, standing and shouting down through the banisters.

“Oh, is she, darling?” Mrs. Davison clasped her hands over her breast in a very passion of relief. She had not heard Marion arrive. “What a splendid idea!” she said, going up the stairs.

“Yes, isn’t it?” Dandelion was laughing. The sun-flooded bedroom was all chatter and laughter. Mary was there, gazing awestruck at Marion’s bridesmaid’s dress. Everything suddenly seemed all right. Bells began to ring, and Kitty went darting up and down the stairs. “The bouquets, Dandelion, simply lovely. Mummy, Carpenters have sent; shall I tell them to start off laying the tables? Dandelion, here’s the parcels post; my dear, stacks of parcels for you”—all was excitement and joy, and gloom and apprehension a thing of the past.

And it didn’t come back in the smallest degree until a good many hours later, when Dandelion, looking very slender in her shrouding of tulle and satin, stood in the hall beside her father. Hugh, in his morning coat and white spats, was a distinguished figure indeed. Dandelion, looking at him, wondered faintly what Sir Frere would look like. Would his clothes be absolutely right like daddy’s were?

Mercifully they were. Sir Frere went to a very good tailor indeed. As he stood at the chancel steps staring down the aisle, he was, in his way, a dignified figure. His hands were nervously clasped behind him as he stood there waiting. Supposing Dandelion took fright at the last, he was thinking.

But soon the little flutter round the door showed that she had come. Sir Frere swung round as he saw the slender figure beginning to come up the aisle. Hugh, tall and dignified, brought his daughter quietly up to the foot of the chancel. Mrs. Davison, looking at him passing the end of her pew, felt again all the thrill of her youth. He had always been perfect and always would be. Angela Pauling, looking at him rather crossly, wondered why Nancy should have got that nice man and she no one. Marion, standing close to him with a beautiful sheaf of lilies in her hand, thought how entrancing it would be if she was being married to him. Exactly like John in the Wide, Wide World, only even nicer.

So the service wore its way to a close. Dandelion felt the ring being put on her finger in a dream. It was a platinum wedding-ring and very narrow. She saw her bridegroom’s fingers doing it; they were perfectly steady fingers, although her own were trembling. She saw the clergyman’s fingers, not nearly so nice, holding her own hand and Sir Frere’s close together and saying something, Dandelion didn’t quite know what. And then there was a brief interlude in the vestry, and several kisses from several people, and another walk down a long aisle with the organ crashing, and one stop of it catching in the groined roof and making a queer vibrating, buzzing noise. And then a vague vision of groups of people staring, and the muffled slam of a motor door, and herself and Sir Frere sitting alone in a car that was stealing slowly down a curved path and out of a gate. And then Sir Frere’s voice, very close to her, and very quiet.

“That’s over,” he said; “and oh, I’m glad! Aren’t you, Dandelion?”

“I don’t know if I am.” Dandelion was still feeling as if she must be in a dream.

Giles’s white buttonhole stuck up just over his shoulder. Everyone stopped in the road to see their car go past. The scent from her bouquet was very sweet and strong. “Lady Manwaring”—who was saying “Lady Manwaring”? The man beside her was. He said it twice and laughed. She stared at him amazed. Lady Manwaring; of course she was. Well, that really was nice; Dandelion laughed softly and abruptly.

Chapter XXIII

The moon hung very cold and clear over the Downs that night. Hugh and his wife stood and looked at it, and thought about Dandelion. Mercifully, Angela had taken an afternoon train to town. Mrs. Davison had felt that if her friend had announced her intention of staying even for another day, she would not have been able to endure it. For Angela made no secret of the fact that she thought Sir Frere was far too old for Dandelion. It was her way of consoling herself for not being married herself. But it was torture to Mrs. Davison. Had she been right in urging the marriage on as she had done? She dared not put her misgivings into words, even to her husband. Supposing he looked at her quietly and said, “Well, you know, I have always wondered—” What would she do? Her only salvation lay in pretending, even to herself, that it was all perfectly all right.

But as she stood by Hugh’s side she suddenly turned and clung to him. He was her all: no child even approached the love that she bore towards this man. “Oh, Hugh!” she suddenly almost cried it out.

“Come along, my sweet; you’re dog-tired.” Hugh pressed his wife closer to his side. “Don’t worry, darling,” he said; “Frere’s an awfully decent fellow, really.”

“Yes, I know; but—” and then Mrs. Davison began to cry. And later on, when she was asleep in his arms, Hugh—still staring out into the moonlight, the curtain was blowing out from the open lattice window and showing the Downs all silvery grey—knew why she had cried. There was something awfully pathetic really in the first going of a daughter from her home. She went away so fearfully alone. Who knew, after all, what a man was really like, except the woman who married him? It was like the slamming of a door in their faces. Neither of them would ever know any intimate detail of this new life that Dandelion was entering upon. The most vital and important incident in the whole of her existence a shut book to her parents, who loved her best. Very odd: Hugh, turning a little cautiously on his side, went to sleep thinking about it. And meanwhile, Dandelion, far away in the huge hotel standing very close to the sea, slept quietly alone, curled up under the big satin eiderdown. Her face was stained with tears, but they were tears nearly dry. And in the next room, with his electric light switched on over the head of his bed, Sir Frere lay reading. He read with a sort of concentrated determination. If he stopped he would begin to think. And he was not going to begin to think, whatever else he allowed himself to do.

For up to that point his honeymoon had not been much of a success. Francis realized it even more than his master did. His Oriental mind was appalled at what had taken place. With the delicate and fragile bride at hand, his master lay and read in his own room. What thing was this? Francis, barefoot and glancing contemptuously at the saucy chambermaid, who had ineffectually tried to engage him in conversation, went away into his own room and stared mysterious-eyed out at the moonlit sea. Things were not done like this in the country to which he belonged, thought Francis remembering many weddings of his own compatriots that he had attended.

At last Sir Frere left off reading. He got out of his luxurious bed and went over to the window. It was a gorgeous night; turning back to get his silk dressing-gown, he rolled himself up in it and strolled out on to the verandah. His wedding-night: Sir Frere stood for a little time staring at the sea. The moon made a wavering track in it, a track of trembling silver. And then, with a very bitter sigh, Sir Frere came back into his room again. Switching out the light over his bed, he kicked back the blankets and lay down with his head buried deep in his pillow. Somehow he felt again as he had felt on his first night at his public school many years before. An intense desolation; an intense loneliness; an intense longing to run to someone and be comforted.

For Dandelion had not really behaved well. Until she had finally got away alone with her husband the new condition of things was not borne in on her. It was all so exciting—the wedding; the reception; the crowds of guests; the clustering girl friends; the excited send-off from the little wicket-gate of Wayside. Even the sight of her father, standing tall and bare-headed at the gate, had not moved her acutely. But when the big saloon car had steered its way down the Colbridge High Street and started on its humming way to Dover, her heart began to fail her a little. This quiet man sitting beside her was her husband. Everything was different now; how was she going to go through with it all?

“Well, my child; what did you think of it all?” Sir Frere’s face was cheerful and his eyes alert. He looked younger. Inwardly he was rapturously happy. This slender girl was his very own—his, utterly to do what he liked with. He would make her happy, frightfully happy. He was very well off; she should have every mortal thing that she wanted. It would be joy to lavish things on a girl like this, because she never expected anything and was delighted with the simplest things. He glanced almost shyly at her as she sat beside him. She was dressed in the very palest grey, something silky that seemed to cling to her. Her hat turned up in front and showed a little of her wide forehead. The pearls that he had given her lay softly on her white neck. Her gloved hands were clasped in her lap. She was staring straight in front of her. “Look at me, darling”—Sir Frere suddenly spoke abruptly.

“Why?” Dandelion was suddenly busily occupied with her gloves. “I haven’t got them on properly.” She was dragging them down a little from the wrists.

“Too big, are they?” Sir Frere suddenly took possession of one of her hands. “Don’t bother about your gloves now,” he said. “You don’t want them in a car. Take this one off: I want to look at your wedding-ring.”

“No, please don’t.” Dandelion’s voice was a little breathless.

“Yes, please.” Sir Frere’s voice was emphatic. “I’ll tell you why,” he said. “I want to be the first to take it off. Sometimes women get in a fearful panic because it comes off by mistake. Now, if I take it off at once, there’ll be no bother about it afterwards. It’s been off, so there’s no talisman about it never having been off since it was put on in Church. See?”

“Yes, I see.” Dandelion sat still as Sir Frere rolled back her glove. He pulled it off and kissed the slender finger with the narrow platinum ring on it. Taking it off, he slipped it back again. “All over,” he said, and smiled.

Dandelion smiled too. Her thoughts were far away. Supposing she had really loved this man, she was thinking, how entrancing, how exquisitely blissful this would all be. Instead of which—Dandelion suddenly let her long lashes fall on her cheeks. This was the beginning of her honeymoon. How was she going to endure it? How was she going to get through the first few days of it?

And by the time they arrived at Dover her panic became apparent. The journey had been luxurious and easy. The car was a powerful one, and they did the sixty or so miles in a little over two hours. It drew up at the big swinging-doors of the Hotel Astoria with only a little imperceptible burr. The hall-porter came down the shallow steps with alacrity. Sir Frere Manwaring, of course; the porter was up them again like a shot. And the next thing was a very obsequious manager on the scene. Sir Frere Manwaring was a client of importance. The manager accompanied the party up to the first floor himself.

But by nine o’clock that night Sir Frere felt that it was time he said something. It was pathetic to him to see the hunted look on Dandelion’s face. This girl that he adored; this little fragile thing entrusted to his care. “My darling, don’t look at me like that!” Sir Frere spoke with a little rueful laugh.

“How? I don’t mean to look at you in any particular way.” Dandelion’s heart was beating all over her. Escape! That was her only coherent thought. She glanced round the beautifully furnished sitting-room. Dinner had just been cleared away, and the coffee-cups were still on the table. Standing on a little beaten brass tray was a cut-glass bottle of liqueur brandy. All so luxurious: Dandelion thought, with a very anguish of longing, of the brevity of the appointments at Wayside. Daddy going round to see that the windows were all properly shut. Her home—her shelter. Sanctuary from this terror that was almost on her. Dandelion suddenly dropped her head into her hands, and clenched them over her ears.

Sir Frere looked at the bent head. His wife; and she felt about him like that! He put down his cigarette, methodically, in the little silver saucer clasped on the arm of his chair. What should he say to her? What could he say to her? She was sweet and fragrant in her evening dress. She had taken ages to change. Sir Frere had felt a vague amusement at that. But he had not expected this complete despair. After all, he was not entirely repulsive. Or was he perhaps?

“Look here, don’t, Dandelion,” he suddenly spoke boyishly. “Come over here to me, darling, or let me come over to you. I can’t bear to see you so frightened of me. Believe me, sweet, there’s nothing to be frightened of.”

“There is.” It came flying from between Dandelion’s lips like a little spurt of flame. She flung up her pale face. “I tell you that I can never belong to you like that,” she cried. “Never, never. I oughtn’t to have married you really, because of that, only somehow I felt that it wouldn’t matter so much. But now I know that it would. I couldn’t, it would kill me. I should die, I tell you; don’t make me.” Dandelion’s voice was a prayer.

“Oh, my God!” But Sir Frere did not say the words aloud. But for one brief moment the savage that lies dormant in every man was uppermost. What right had this woman, who had taken his name of her own free will, to back out of her share of the bargain now that she was up against it? he asked himself. He regarded her quietly.

“That’s not fair, Dandelion,” he said.

“No, I know; but it’s how I feel,” cried Dandelion fiercely.

“I see.” There was a little silence. Sir Frere had got up from his chair and had begun to walk about the room. His mind was a tumult. Should he do the sensible thing and pay not the faintest attention to Dandelion’s pleadings? he wondered. Or should he do the chivalrous thing and leave her alone, at any rate for to-night? He stopped dead and looked out of the window. It was just beginning to get dark, and a passing liner showed a streaming line of twinkling fights. He swung round.

“Supposing I say that I don’t care a damn what you think of me or of anything else,” he said quietly, “and that I’m going to take you because you belong to me?”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I might.” Sir Frere was still standing with his back to the window.

“I should hate you.”

“No, you wouldn’t; you would probably begin to love me,” said Sir Frere brutally. The blood was drumming in his ears. Dandelion had always attracted him because of her youth and innocence. Was he going to let that youth and innocence do him down now? he asked himself. A very agony of disappointment seized on him. Under an unmoved exterior he was a very sensitive man. This girl found him repulsive because of his age. Sir Frere could have tackled ordinary timidity and found Dandelion all the more desirable because of it. But this—this was panic that looked out of her wide-open eyes. Panic and physical repulsion. Sir Frere suddenly felt a queer disposition to tears. And with that disposition to tears a fierce anger. She had gone back on her bargain. For one awful moment he almost wished that he had not married her.

“Go to bed,” he said, “and don’t be frightened. I wouldn’t come near you now if you went down on your knees to me.”

“What?”

“What I say,” said Sir Frere, and all in an instant his anger left him. Because he saw chagrin in Dandelion’s eyes—chagrin and relief combined. But the chagrin was there, and it was very obvious.

“Yes, but I oughtn’t to—” Dandelion’s voice was faltering. After all, it was a bargain, she told herself. You got food, and a title, and money to spend, and you had to give something in return. “Perhaps I——” Dandelion got up from her chair and stood there timidly staring.

“Perhaps you what?” Sir Frere’s sense of humour had come to his rescue. He laughed out loud. “Go to bed, my child,” he said, “and forget all the terrors. No man wants a woman in his arms against her will. At least, I don’t.”

“Don’t you mind, then?”

“No; not in the least.”

“Oh!” and then Dandelion had with the greatest difficulty got herself out of the room. All drama had suddenly gone out of the situation, and she only felt foolish and a little ashamed. It was to have been rather terrific, this scene that she had been desperately planning all the way down in the car. He was to have been pleading and then fiercely brutal. But he had only been angry for a little while and had then become quietly acquiescent. Sadly acquiescent, almost as if he could not bother about her any more. Dandelion went into her beautiful bedroom and moved about it feeling somehow flat. All her dainty underclothes and her crèpe de chine nightdress were laid out on the big bed. All for nothing now, and yet how tremendously glad she was. All by herself, when she had thought that she was never going to be alone any more. But was she as glad as she thought she would be? He had looked nice in his evening clothes, and everything had been so beautifully arranged for her comfort. Two lovely bedrooms and a sitting-room, and a bathroom between the bedrooms. Dandelion, peeping into the bathroom, suddenly thought that she would like to have a bath. But supposing he wanted to have one. Dandelion had visions of Wayside when daddy wanted to have a hot bath before supper—the whole energies of the household bent on preserving all the hot water for him. What would happen if she, Dandelion, used up all the hot water and then there was none left for Sir Frere? She would go back and ask him.

“Do I mind if you have a bath? No, of course I don’t!” Sir Frere was standing staring out of the window as Dandelion came timidly back into the room. At the sound of the door opening his heart had leapt into his throat. Was she sorry? his little sweet. He would be very gentle; very tender with her.

“Yes; only I thought perhaps there wouldn’t be enough hot water for you.” Dandelion was gripping her hands together and wondering why she felt suddenly inclined to cry. All her fear of this short, powerful man was gone. She felt that if he would only swing round and catch her close to his heart she would be glad. It would be alarming, of course, but it would be cosy. The hotel and everything about it was so grand. It was desolate, being all alone in that large room. He would make it more friendly if he was there. Besides, the evil day was only being put off. There would be a moment, of course, when he would get really angry and not pay any attention to her expostulations. Dandelion eyed the square back and the quietly linked hands showing up plainly on the black coat, and wondered if she should say anything. Just something like “My dear child, there will be boiling-hot water day and night in an hotel like this.” Sir Frere had turned round and was looking at her. There were dark shadows under his eyes. He looked what he was, desperately weary. “Trot along and have your bath,” he said. “And be sure you don’t forget to lock the door between the bathroom and my bedroom, Dandelion.”

“Oh yes, of course I will”; and Dandelion got herself out of the room again. Why had he said that in that awful bitter voice? Did people generally leave bathroom doors open? Dandelion went back into her bedroom and began stupidly to cry as she got undressed. Everything was suddenly wretched, and all through her own fault.

And left alone in the sitting-room. Sir Frere sat down at the table and laid his head down on his crossed arms. An ugly old man, utterly repulsive to the young girl whom he had taken as wife; married exclusively for his money—a really charming prospect. Sir Frere sat very still for quite a long time thinking about it.

Chapter XXIV

But Sir Frere Manwaring was not where he was in the business world for nothing. He was a man of terrific force of character, and he brought it to bear on this, his latest problem. Dandelion did not care for him, but he did for her. He must therefore hope that in time she would return his love. Meanwhile, he would do everything in his power to make her happy, and not obtrude his own personal need of her at all. So he greeted her on the following morning with a smile. She came timidly into the sitting-room and sought his eyes shyly.

“Oh yes, thank you; I slept beautifully. I say, what a heavenly place.” Dandelion had gone straight to the window. She walked out on to the balcony and turned round with a smile. “It’s heavenly smooth, too,” she said.

“Yes; isn’t it a mercy?” Sir Frere looked younger in his brown lounge suit. “Although, of course, it’s only an hour to Calais. Come along, my child, and have a good breakfast.”

Sir Frere stood by the table smiling. He felt a good deal happier this morning, and that in spite of an atrocious night. He loved travelling, and he had a fortnight of it ahead of him. Also, he was badly in need of a holiday and he was going to have one. He laughed and made breakfast a jolly meal. Dandelion lost a good deal of her constraint and laughed too. It was fearfully exciting to be “Lady” and to be travelling about in luxury like this, she thought.

Because it was luxury. The car had gone over on the night-boat and was ready for them when they got to Calais. Sir Frere did everything perfectly. Dandelion absorbed a new poise during her fortnight’s travel with him. They stopped in Paris and he bought her clothes. He knew exactly where to go and exactly what to buy.

“How do you know all the shops like this?” Dandelion twisted herself a little on the luxurious seat to look at her husband. He met her eyes with a twinkle.

“Never mind,” he said. And there the matter ended.

Dandelion was beginning to be afraid of this quiet man. He never made love to her at all; since that night at Dover he had never even suggested coming into her bedroom. Dandelion wondered if he ever would again. What went on in his mind? she thought, often staring at him when he was not looking at her. He seemed to be enjoying himself; did he then not want her in that way any more?

Dandelion began to feel vaguely piqued about it, and a shade dissatisfied with herself. She had behaved unworthily—stupidly. It had dragged the whole thing down, somehow. This quiet man had deserved something better than a hysterical wife thinking of nobody but herself. Dandelion watched him during their fortnight’s honeymoon with tremendous curiosity. He knew exactly what to do about everything, she found. He and Francis between them had reduced travelling to a fine art. She had nothing whatever to do but to enjoy herself. And this—in spite of her persistent feeling that in some way she had badly fallen short of what was expected of her—she managed to do.

And so did Sir Frere; Dandelion was a very pleasant person to take about. She was entirely unspoiled and enjoyed everything. And this was the aspect of her with which Sir Frere now meant to occupy himself. She had badly rebuffed and wounded one side of his nature; but he had another. And this was the one that he was going to show to her now. The other was hidden away—it might be for ever, or it might be only for a time. In any event, it had gone for the moment, determined Sir Frere, setting his jaw, as he always did when he made up his mind about anything,

They got back to London quite pleased with one another and their holiday. They went to the flat for the few days that were to elapse before Sir Frere had to go to Vienna again. Then Dandelion was going home for ten days or a fortnight, and then they were both going to start for Bombay. Sir Frere had heard that he would have to go to Bombay instead of Calcutta, because the man who was there at the moment had gone sick.

“But it’s a bother,” he said, glancing up from his pile of letters as he sat at the oval table in the window overhanging the Park. “I would far rather have gone to Calcutta; the two places can’t be compared.”

“Oh, I don’t mind which it is.” Dandelion was eating toast and marmalade with gusto. She was possessed of an overwhelming excitement at being back in England again. London, and all the shops—madly exciting. She beamed across the table.

“You look very pleased with yourself!” Sir Frere laid down his letters and regarded Dandelion with a certain amount of amusement.

“I am. I adore London and I adore this flat. Look at it, right in the middle of everything. What could be nicer? Absolutely perfect.”

“I’m so glad you think so.” Sir Frere began to collect his letters from beside his plate. “I only very much hope that you won’t be dull. But, after all, there is no reason why you should be. Get your sister up for the day. Ring her up now. I would send the car down for her only I have a great many meetings that I must attend. What is the Colbridge number? Get it at once, and then I can take tickets for something on my way to the office and send them back by the chauffeur.”

“Oh no, thank you.” Dandelion took an abrupt gulp of coffee and turned very red. The very idea of his proposing to spend more money on her was dreadful. And in some obscure way she shrank from seeing any member of her family. They would find out that everything was not as it should be. To her horror she felt the tears rising to her eyes. And why? Only a minute or two ago she had felt so cheerful, she thought desperately.

“Well, just exactly as you like.” Sir Frere looked briefly and keenly at Dandelion’s averted face. “Anyhow, you’ll want some money to spend, won’t you? Come over here and I’ll give you a cheque.”

“No, don’t, I should loathe it more than anything,” gasped Dandelion.

“But why?”

“Why, because I can’t take any money from you,” said Dandelion. “You’ve paid for all my holiday and for heaps and heaps of clothes. It’s dreadful to keep on. I can’t—I simply can’t do it.”

“My child, don’t be so foolish.” Sir Frere cast a brief glance at the clock on the mantelpiece. Yes; he had ten minutes to spare. He came round the table and put a kind hand on her shoulder. “Don’t cry,” he said. “Why should you, child? There’s nothing to cry for.”

“There is,” sobbed Dandelion hopelessly.

“No, there isn’t.” There was a fleeting look of tenderness on Sir Frere’s well-cut mouth. “Dandelion, we’ve had it out once,” he said; “don’t let us go back on it. I am perfectly content. You are a very sweet little companion for me. I want nothing from you that you are not prepared to give me with all your heart and soul. Anything else would be an outrage. I simply——” Sir Frere broke off abruptly.

“Yes, but—” And then Dandelion too stopped dead. How could she put into words that somehow now?

“Well?” Sir Frere was waiting.

“No, nothing. Only don’t give me any money. I don’t want it. You say that I can have my meals sent up from downstairs. I’d rather do that. Just stay quietly here and unpack. And I’ll write to mummy. You’ll take me down before you go to Vienna, won’t you?” Dandelion suddenly turned and caught hold of her husband’s hand. There was protection in his short figure, protection and an overwhelming sense of shelter. Why had she repulsed him, ever? She had been worse than foolish, because he was not a man who would lightly get over it. He had relegated her to somewhere else now. What was the use of clinging to him as she was clinging now? He didn’t feel the clinging as she wanted him to feel it.

Sir Frere stood very quietly with Dandelion’s trembling hand in his. His down-bent eyes dwelt rather sombrely on her dark ruffled hair. With his quick perception, he guessed fairly accurately what was going on in her mind. But it had been in this very room that he had once taken her fiercely in his arms and been repulsed. He had been repulsed twice. He was not going to be repulsed a third time.

“Yes, I will certainly take you down to your home if you would like me to,” he said. “I can easily manage a week-end before I go to Vienna. And now, my child, I must go. Expect me when you see me. And as you object to a cheque, what do you say to this?” Sir Frere took a note-case out of his pocket and drew out a bundle of pound notes.

“No; I simply couldn’t, I tell you.” Dandelion had her head still turned away and was wiping her eyes. “If you will give me half-a-crown in case I want to go in a bus. I have no money of my own or I wouldn’t ask you.” Dandelion’s voice broke.

“Here it is, then.” Sir Frere had his free hand gripped in his pocket. If he chose he could have this girl in his arms in half a second; he suddenly knew it. Exquisite and dazzling knowledge; he had been a wise man to bide his time, he thought tremblingly. But he wanted more than penitent acquiescence; he wanted passion. And Dandelion could give him passion if she liked; he knew it. “Here it is,” he said again, “ten shillings and a beautiful new note, too. Don’t spend it all at once, will you?”

“No, I won’t. Thank you very much.”

Dandelion echoed Sir Frere’s little laugh as she took the note in her hand. And three minutes later she watched him come alertly out of the swinging-door of the flat and step up into his car. And then they were off, steering up towards the crawling traffic in Piccadilly. Giles had a short cut through the Park that he always took. He drove beautifully and got everywhere much quicker than anyone else, so it always seemed to Dandelion.

Chapter XXV

The next few days passed quickly. Dandelion loved London, and she derived intense pleasure from just going out and wandering about looking at the shops. Sir Frere left for his office at about half-past nine and very often did not get back until nearly seven. As he explained, everything had to be crammed into the last few weeks. But he always came in good-tempered, and eager to hear what she had been doing all day. “I wish you’d have your sister up though, and go to a theatre or two.” Sir Frere was desperately afraid that Dandelion would find the lonely days too long.

“Oh no, I’d much rather not. You don’t know how I love just wandering about by myself.” Dandelion was eager to explain her feelings. “You see, I shall be at home with Kitty while you are away,” she said. “And then, perhaps—” Dandelion hesitated. How heavenly if she could have the car at Colbridge while he was away. Fancy being able to take Marion about in that gorgeous car, and herself being Lady Manwaring—the person, instead of always having rather been in the background with Marion! Perhaps having a little money to spend. Only a very little, though.

“Giles had better garage the car in Colbridge while I am away.” Sir Frere was sitting with his feet stretched out in front of him. He had sensed the eager wish that was surging about in Dandelion’s brain. The way that this child never grabbed at anything appealed to his business instincts very much. He determined to say what had been in his mind for some time.

“I’m going to give you an allowance,” he said. “You must have some money of your own. I shall give you fifty pounds a quarter. Will that be enough for you to dress on?”

“Enough for me to dress on?” Dandelion had gone a little pale. “Why, I used to have twenty pounds a year,” she gasped. “And that was a lot.”

“Well, but things have altered since then.” Sir Frere was smiling. “I’ll open you an account at my bank to-morrow,” he said. “And now, what do you say to dinner at the Berkeley, and then a theatre. Would you like it?”

“Yes, but aren’t you tired?” Dandelion was looking at the dark head flung back against the velvet cushion. Something maternal suddenly flooded out of her towards this kind man. He had been working hard all day and had only just got back. And yet his first thought was for her enjoyment. “Can’t we have dinner sent up, like I do lunch,” she said, “and then just sit quietly here and read? You are always taking me out. Let’s stay at home for a change.”

“Home?” Sir Frere turned his head swiftly and looked at the girl sitting close up to the window. Did she feel it home then? He turned his head back again. “Won’t you be bored?” he said.

“No, of course I shan’t. I shall love it. I’ll get my knitting. If only it would rain so that we could have a fire.” Dandelion left the window and stood in front of the amber-tiled grate. “That’s the worst of the summer,” she said regretfully; “you aren’t supposed to have fires in August, and it’s so miserable.”

“Never mind what we’re supposed to do.” Sir Frere had his finger on the electric bell. “Francis, the memsahib is cold,” he said, as the native stood quietly in the doorway. “Light a fire, will you? And we want dinner up here. We are not going out. Sure you won’t be bored?” He turned to Dandelion as the servant shut the door again.

“No; of course I shan’t.” Dandelion was standing fidgeting with her hands. “I wish you wouldn’t say that about my being bored,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Why, it sounds so horribly ungrateful,” said Dandelion, and her lower lip quivered. The feeling of desolation came over her again. He seemed to keep her somehow so at arm’s length. Was it always going to be like this now? Had she alienated him for ever then? Was there no medium between being everything to a man and nothing? She might have been the merest acquaintance. He did not even kiss her in the mornings, and never at night. How were they going to spend their lives like that?

“Would you like to have the car at Colbridge while I am away?” Francis had come back again and was kneeling down in front of the grate. The soles of his feet were much paler than the rest of him, thought Dandelion, interested at this phenomenon. So were the palms of his hands.

“Oh, I should, most awfully!” Dandelion was flushed with gratitude. “Thank you most awfully!” she said again.

“Don’t mention it.” Sir Frere was laughing all over his plain face. Dog-tired as he had been when he had come in, he was gradually shaking it off. He was beginning to derive an intense enjoyment from Dandelion’s frightened little efforts to win him back. He saw them all, and rejoiced over them. But it was not the moment yet. And now that he saw the end in view he was content to wait. Not that she really loved him—Sir Frere knew perfectly well that she didn’t. But she was beginning to want him. And that was a step in the right direction, he thought.

Meanwhile, at Wayside the excitement was tremendous because Dandelion and her husband were coming to stay the next day. Sir Frere only for one night, because he would have to start for Vienna on Sunday; but Dandelion would be there for more than a week. “Oh, Hugh, of course they must have our room for the one night that Sir Frere will be here,” said Mrs. Davison. “We can’t cram them away in two rooms—it would look so funny. You don’t mind, do you, darling?”

“No, I don’t mind in the least, just for one night,” replied Hugh, accommodatingly. “Although I don’t see how you’re going to fit us all in. We haven’t got enough beds, to begin with.”

“Yes, we have, if we turn your dressing-room into a bedroom, like we do if there is anyone staying here,” said Mrs. Davison. “You know, if you push the wardrobe up against the communicating door it makes it perfectly all right; you can’t even hear anyone speak. We tried it when that friend of Guy’s came, don’t you remember? Then Kitty and I can go into the boys’ room. You can have Kitty’s, and the two boys can go into your dressing-room, and we can put the camp-bed up there for Philip.”

“Some squash!” But Hugh spoke smilingly. He, too, was looking forward to having Dandelion and her husband there to stay. “What about a dressing-room for Frere, though?” he asked.

“The box-room. He won’t mind walking along to the end of the corridor, I’m sure. There isn’t room for more than a chair and a looking-glass in it, but still it will just be somewhere for his clothes. I’ll make it look all right. Oh, Hugh, I am looking forward to having them here, aren’t you?” Mrs. Davison was all joy and excitement.

“Yes, I am,” and Hugh’s clean-shaven face was cheerful. Things seemed somehow to be extraordinarily better since Dandelion’s engagement and marriage. The boys’ future being practically settled made such a vast difference. They could go straight from school into the firm. One of the most important mercantile houses in the East, it had a large and beautifully managed Club just outside London, where all the boys in it lived. All of them public school boys, they had the time of their lives there. Guy and Philip were already beginning to look forward to it. Hugh felt that a vast weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Nancy was very much more cheerful, too. She had evidently been worrying about things much more than she had ever admitted to him.

Saturday dawned gloriously fine. Sir Frere had taken a whole holiday and the car left London at about half-past eleven. Dandelion sat very still in it, her hands clasped on her knee. Her first visit to her old home as a married woman. Madly exciting, and yet in a way alarming, because this man who sat beside her was used to things so very grand. Dandelion remembered that first awful supper with blancmange and pineapple.

She had not realized then how odd it must have seemed to him.

She spoke hurriedly: “In a way I shall be nervous, having you at home,” she said.

“Nervous, why?” Sir Frere looked younger than usual, and wore a very nice blue serge suit. For some reason or other he felt oddly elated. He glanced questioningly at Dandelion.

“Oh, I don’t know! Only you are accustomed to things so awfully grand. If we have simple things to eat I shall feel awkward,” stammered Dandelion.

“My child, don’t! Do you suppose I care a button what I eat?” Sir Frere spoke seriously. “Why, your father is my oldest friend, Dandelion. I’m like the person in the Bible: I would rather have potato-pie at Wayside than all sorts of grand things anywhere else.”

“Do you mean ‘I would rather be a doorkeeper in the House of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness’?” asked Dandelion, vaguely horrified.

“Yes, something of the kind,” said Sir Frere easily. “And I don’t mean it a bit irreverently, either. Your father is my oldest friend. I am devoted to him, and he is the most perfect host I have ever met anywhere.”

“Yes, isn’t he?” and Dandelion fell abruptly silent. Quite irrationally she was wishing that her husband would take hold of her hand. If she moved it a very little nearer to him, perhaps he would.

Sir Frere felt the movement and his heart leapt. He hesitated for a fraction of a second, and then he put his hand quietly over hers. “There,” he said.

“Oh!” Dandelion had turned a deep scarlet. Unconsciously she clung to the strong fingers holding hers. This was the first time that he had really shown her any outward affection since that night at Dover. He had always seemed to avoid even touching her. She smiled broadly as she stared out of the window.

“How they’re building.” Sir Frere was also staring out of the window on his side. Dandelion’s little hand lay confidingly in his. He restrained his desperate desire to crush it down on his knee.

“Yes, aren’t they?” Dandelion replied with a sort of frisky intonation in her voice. Suddenly this drive partook of an enormous excitement and interest. She lay back on the cushions and shut her eyes, as she remembered the drives back to Wayside during her engagement. Then she had been used to sit with her head on Sir Frere’s shoulder. Why shouldn’t she do it now? She could just slip off her hat, and nestle up to him and perhaps he would be pleased. She shot a quick side-glance up at him.

But Sir Frere was apparently enormously diverted by the signs of increased building all around them. He dropped Dandelion’s hand to get out his handkerchief, and when the large square was replaced in his pocket he apparently forgot to take hold of it again.

“I say, they’re cutting up the whole of the Purley Hill.” Sir Frere was leaning forward so that he could see out better.

“Yes,” and with that little monosyllable Dandelion relapsed into a rather quenched silence. And she remained more or less silent all the rest of the way to Colbridge. But when the big car drew up at the little gate of Wayside all her feelings of excitement and rapture came back to her. “Mummy! Daddy!” Dandelion was in the midst of an excited and loving group, all kissing her at once and all running down the path.

Even Mary, hovering in the background, beaming from ear to ear, was not left out of the universal embracing. “Glad to see you, Frere.” Hugh, with his pleasant smile, was gripping his son-in-law by the hand. His son-in-law—Hugh was inwardly amused at the thought. The two men strolled along the little flagged path and into the house talking. Dandelion and Kitty and her mother came on together behind, also talking excitedly. Dandelion’s clothes had the hall-mark of Paris on them; Kitty looked enviously at them.

“My dear! you are smart!” Kitty with her shingled head already looked older than Dandelion. She walked with a sort of easy looseness of her joints. Dandelion had a swift vision of what it would have been like to have Kitty always at home. Far, far more attractive than she. She felt again the swift impulse of gratitude to the man who had saved her from this fate.

“Well, my darling, you will like to come up to your room. Yes, Guy, take up the two suit-cases.” Mrs. Davison was leading the way up the bare oak stairs. Dandelion’s eyes dwelt lovingly on the well-known surroundings. Darling home—darling little bedroom! Dandelion was looking forward to seeing it again. She hoped that Kitty had not altered it too much.

But Mrs. Davison had walked past it and on to the end of the corridor. “Here you are, my darling,” she said, and she opened the door of the big bedroom with the lattice window open to the Downs. “I hope you’ll find it all comfy. We’ve given Frere the box-room as his dressing-room, so that he’ll have a certain amount of room for his clothes. It isn’t very elaborate, but still—” Mrs. Davison was laughing. “Such grand people,” she said, and she took Dandelion’s face between her hands and kissed it again. “How does it feel to be Lady somebody, Dandelion?”

“Oh, it feels quite ordinary.” Dandelion spoke with her eyes fixed on her mother’s face. Nobody must know; nobody must see for one second. But what should she do when he found out? What should she do——?

“Well, my darling, come down when you’re ready. We’re having lunch at one to-day, and I expect it’s nearly time for it. I’ve got to take it through the hatch; you’ll be able to help me with that, Dandelion. How lovely to think that I’ve got you here for nearly a fortnight. Kitty hates anything to do with the house,” and with that Mrs. Davison went out of the room, leaving Dandelion standing in the middle of the floor just staring after her. “Mother, we can’t share one room,” Dandelion had almost said it, running hard on her mother’s heels, panic-stricken.

But the words remained on her tongue. After all, how could she say it? Think of what it would mean! Dandelion, mechanically unlocking her suit-case, thought of what it would mean. Endless explanations. Everyone knowing that things were queer and unusual between them. She washed her hands in a sort of stupor. There was a new hot-water can under a blue cosy in the willow-pattern basin. No promiscuous washing in the bathroom; where had the cosy come from? Dandelion wondered feverishly.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the corridor Hugh was explaining the brevity of Sir Frere’s accommodation to him. “Your real room’s at the other end of the corridor, Frere,” he said. “Dandelion will show you the geography of the house. Meanwhile, here’s somewhere for your clothes. Hope you’ll find it all comfortable,” and with that Hugh went away.

“Thanks very much, Hugh.” Sir Frere’s voice was level, and he spoke cheerfully after his friend’s disappearing back. But, left alone, he shut the door and sat down in the one old-fashioned ladder-back chair that the room contained. God in Heaven, what a situation! And why had not such a possibility occurred to him? Sir Frere for a moment or two could do nothing but laugh. Deep, intense laughter, his plain face all broken up in mirth.

And after a moment or two he stopped laughing. Poor little girl, she would be in a fearful state. What on earth should he do? What could he do? He hesitated. Should he go along to her room and see what she was doing? he stooped mechanically over his suit-case and wondered. No, after all, the situation had been of her making, he decided. He would leave her to get out of it as best she might. Probably she would say something to her mother and there would be a wild scrimmage to alter things—a scrimmage of which he would appear profoundly unconscious.

But at lunch he knew that Dandelion was badly frightened. She avoided his eyes and talked at random. But there was so much excited chatter going on that nobody noticed. Sir Frere had suggested having the car out again after lunch, and going down to the sea. It would take them about three hours to get there and back, and they could bathe. Would they enjoy it?

“Rather!” There was an excited chorus from everyone. Even Hugh was delighted. Like a boy, he went rummaging about for his bathing garment directly after lunch. Everyone was going, except Dandelion and her mother. They might spend the afternoon quietly, suggested Sir Frere, because, as the car was going to be garaged in Colbridge during his absence in Vienna, they would have heaps of opportunities of going about in it together. But in his own mind he settled that this little time alone with her mother would give Dandelion an opportunity to have things put right. And if she didn’t have them put right—Sir Frere’s heart was thundering in his ears as he stood with his elbow on the mantelpiece in the sitting-room replying to Mrs. Davison’s questions about their time in Paris—it would be because she did not want them put right.

And when they all got back from Seaford, he knew that she didn’t. They stood, an excited group, in the hall, talking about their expedition. Mrs. Davison was as keen as a girl to hear all about it.

“Oh, darling! I had a sort of feeling that you would be drowned.” She was secretly clutching at her husband’s sleeve.

“Silly little thing!” Hugh was smiling all over his face. Frere was undoubtedly a very nice fellow, he thought. So awfully jolly with the children, and he had stood them all a topping tea at the big hotel on the Seaford parade. It had been a gorgeous expedition.

Hugh dressed for supper feeling very much at peace with the world. Dandelion was a very lucky girl, he told himself. And meanwhile Dandelion, already dressed in one of the new frocks bought in Paris, was standing in the middle of her bedroom with her hands gripped over her chest. She had heard the car come up to the gate and discharge its excited collection of chattering people. Surely he would come along now and hear what she had to say. He must; he surely would.

After all, they might be able to invent some plan—some scheme——

But after a good deal of profound thought Sir Frere had come to the conclusion that the less said about a thing of the kind the better. So, having dressed, he went down to the sitting-room and joined his host. Hugh had suggested a gin-and-bitters, and was going cheerfully in and out of the dining-room fetching the things for it. Sir Frere was standing waiting for the completed drink, with his keen eyes fixed on the door. He would give her every possible help, poor little sweet! She was terrified, panic-stricken. He watched for her, his heart in his eyes.

“Where is Dandelion?” it came from Hugh after the gong had sounded in the hall. “You said she went up to dress some time ago, Nancy.”

“Yes, so she did.” There was suddenly a little furrow between Mrs. Davison’s eyes. She was not sure that she was so happy about her daughter, after all. She had watched her that afternoon as they sat by the open window chatting and working. And there had been an extraordinary lack of spontaneity about Dandelion. Once or twice it had almost seemed as if she was going to say something, and had then pulled herself up. Mrs. Davison suddenly felt bothered. “I’ll just run up and tell her that we’re waiting,” she said. “You all go in; don’t wait for me.” Mrs. Davison had started to walk to the door.

But somehow the quiet man standing by the mantelpiece had got there first. “I’ll go up,” he said briefly. “Please allow me,” and Sir Frere was out of the door and up the stairs before Mrs. Davison had had time to utter even a mild protest.

Once up on the top corridor, it took him only a second to get to the door at the end of it. “May I come in?” He was tapping, with his head a little bent.

“Yes, come in “

There was a queer breathlessness about Dandelion’s voice. She stood there staring at him as he shut the door with a shove of his broad back.

“Come along down, my sweet,” he said.

“Yes, but—what are we——?”

“My child, there’s not time to talk about it now. Leave it to me,” said Sir Frere briefly. “Darling,” he suddenly caught his breath with almost a sob as, panic-stricken, Dandelion cast herself into his arms.

“Yes; but how am I going to get through the evening without them noticing anything?” Dandelion was clinging to her husband, and searching his face with distracted blue eyes.

“You must. We can’t broadcast our domestic affairs, can we?” Sir Frere had taken Dandelion’s chin between his fingers, and was brushing her hair back with his free hand.

“Yes; but——”

“My child, the whole family is standing in the sitting-room wondering what has happened to you. Come along.”

Sir Frere drew Dandelion close to him. But he did not kiss her. That would have been the end, he thought! He had a sudden amused vision of the whole Davison family waiting for their belated supper until the next morning.

“Come along down,” he said again. “And the minute you begin to feel frightened, remember that I love you. Keep on saying to yourself, ‘He loves me.’ See?” Sir Frere gave a little jolly reassuring laugh as he shepherded Dandelion out of the room, down the stairs and into the sitting-room, where the family stood in various attitudes of expectation, waiting for the late-comer.

But all the same he was glad when the apparently interminable evening came to an end. He cursed the B.B.C. for altering their news bulletin to ten o’clock that night. Everyone sat on to the bitter end of it.

And then at last Mrs. Davison got up. “Come along, children,” she said; “we ought all to have been in bed hours ago. Dandelion, my child, you look very tired. Sir Frere, I hope you will have a very good night, and find everything comfortable. I need not ask my husband to see that you have a drink, because I know he will jump at the excuse of having one himself,” and with a pleasant laugh Mrs. Davison had gone, shepherding her four children along in front of her.

“No, I really won’t have one, thanks very much, Hugh.” Sir Frere had got up from his chair and was looking frankly at his host. Hugh was standing at a little side table with the glass stopper of the whisky decanter held hospitably in his hand.

“Sure? Well, then, another smoke.” Hugh had replaced the stopper in the decanter, and was strolling to the mantelpiece. “I’ll have another pipe. Keep me company, Frere.”

“No; I really won’t smoke any more, thanks very much, Hugh.” Sir Frere was wandering about the room, mechanically winding the covered wire round the various and scattered headphones.

How long would his host take over his pipe? he wondered. But Hugh was as sleepy as the rest of his family. The bathe had tired him out thoroughly and deliciously. He suddenly yawned widely, breaking off at the end of it into a little laugh.

“Gad, I’m tired,” he said. “Well, night-night, Frere if you really won’t have anything else. Don’t wait for me; I always do a tour round to see that all the windows are properly shut.”

“Oh, all right. Night-night, Hugh,” and Sir Frere had gone, strolling very quietly across the hall and up the stairs. Once in his little dressing-room he unstrapped his wrist-watch and set it up against his rather ramshackle looking-glass. He would give her twenty minutes, and that would ensure Hugh being safely in his room before he, Sir Frere, emerged from his own.

And twenty minutes ticked their way round the white dial of his watch. Sir Frere followed the slender, spidery minute-hand for the last five of them. Ten of the twenty minutes had been spent in shaving for the second time that day. And quite three in the most comprehensive brushing of his very excellent teeth. Fancy, if he smelt of smoke; unbearable thought!

Sir Frere was as nervous as a boy as he stood in pyjamas and silk dressing-gown, staring at himself in the glass. If only he had been as good-looking as Hugh. He was so lumpy—ghastly really, now he came to study himself closely. But he showed no nervousness when at last he stood inside the door of the big bedroom with the lattice windows open to the moon. There was too much terror already there for him to be able to indulge in any, thought Sir Frere, vaguely amused again. “Well,” he sat down on the edge of the big bed and felt out for Dandelion’s face.

“Oh!”

“May I turn up the light, darling?” Sir Frere spoke after a little pause.

“No.” Dandelion’s reply was breathless.

“Yes, do let me.”

Sir Frere got up from the bed and felt his way to the door. He groped round the wall for the switch. The soft shaded light flooded round the room. He turned and glanced at the big bed in the corner with Dandelion’s dark head like a little black blob on one of the pillows of it. Such a pathetic face—pale, with two very blue eyes gleaming out of it. Sir Frere’s heart melted in pity and amusement. He walked back to the bed and sat down on it.

“Look here, my darling,” he said solidly and reassuringly. “Don’t look like that. Believe me, I am neither a satyr nor a demon. I am perfectly prepared to spend the night in my dressing-room, uncomfortable though it will be, if you really feel about me as you look as if you did. But I do think that you are being little unfair to me, Dandelion. I love you: tremendously—more than you have any idea of, and it isn’t altogether easy to a man of my temperament to spend his life as I am spending it, in closest companionship with you and nothing more. But I am perfectly prepared to go on doing it, if you really fear and dislike me so much as to make the thought of anything else intolerable. Only, if you do——”

“I don’t dislike you,” stammered Dandelion.

“Well, it’s something perilously like it, my child,” said Sir Frere, sighing heavily.

“No, it isn’t.” Dandelion struggled round on the pillow to look up at her husband. “No, it isn’t,” she repeated, “it’s only that——”

“Well?”

“It’s such a dreadful plan,” burst out Dandelion.

There was a little silence. Sir Frere’s deep-set eyes suddenly flickered in laughter. “It is a plan that has succeeded fairly well up to the present,” he remarked quietly.

“Yes, I know; but—” Dandelion’s crimson face was buried in the pillow again. Her voice came muffled from it. “I feel that you are laughing at me,” she said.

“Not exactly laughing, dear,” said Sir Frere, and as he said it he looked tenderly down at the dark head below him. “But I do think that you are making a great fuss about nothing, Dandelion. After all, I love you, tremendously; more than you have any conception of. Well, then, should I be likely to?” Sir Frere broke off abruptly.

“Yes, I know; but—” Dandelion suddenly twisted herself round on the pillow again and stared upwards. “I thought you were rather getting over it,” she said.

“Getting over what?”

“Loving me.”

“Did you? Then you were mistaken. I am not a man who gets over things,” said Sir Frere quietly.

“Oh!” There was another short pause. Then: “You don’t make it very easy for me,” trembled Dandelion.

“How easy?”

“Well, if you said ‘I love you’ it would be better. It’s all so bleak. You never say it now,” wept Dandelion, suddenly overcome.

“Ah! but haven’t I said it again and again, and haven’t you always repulsed me?” Sir Frere slipped from the low bed and knelt on the soft rug beside it. He flung his arms out over Dandelion’s slender figure.

“It’s not easy for a man of my age to say that he loves and get no response to it, Dandelion. He feels a fool—unnatural.”

“Oh, I see!” Dandelion fell abruptly silent. She spoke on a trembling breath: “Put out the light, and then I’ll say it to you instead,” she whispered.

“Will you?”

Sir Frere got up from his knees and walked quickly across the bare boards to the switch beside the door. The room sank suddenly into a quiet darkness; only the moonlight lay across the polished floor in uneven silver patches. The little check curtains in the windows blew out on a soft breeze and then hung straight again: Sir Frere trod back across the floor.

“Well?” he said, and he stood very still by the bed.

“Kneel down and I’ll say it in your ear,” whispered Dandelion, and she suddenly groped out with her two hands, a little piteously.

And Sir Frere caught the hands to his thundering heart. “It should not be difficult to tell a man whose heart is beating like that that you love him, Dandelion,” he whispered.

“It isn’t,” said Dandelion, suddenly quietly confident, and she put out her hands again and drew his face down to hers.

Part II

Chapter I

Bombay was enormously intrigued when it heard that Sir Frere Manwaring had married during his last leave. “What, that funny little man with the big head?”’—even the Governor’s wife was surprised.

“He may be a funny little man to look at, but he’s a damned clever one.” The Governor was having one of his brief periods of respite from his multitudinous duties, and he spoke between luxurious puffs of smoke. “But he’ll be a desperately anxious one when he arrives. I wonder if he knows how Bartlett has been playing the fool while he has been away.”

“Has he?” But the Governor’s wife was not interested. She had three Sales of Work to open that afternoon, and she was tired. Indian ladies required so much attention paid to them, and were so terribly jealous of one another. The Governor’s wife wondered why Indian ladies sounded so picturesque and behaved so tiresomely. She stared out at the gorgeous expanse of sea spread out in front of her and suddenly wished that she was at Home.

But it was not only at Government House that Sir Frere was talked about. Manwarings was one of the largest mercantile Houses in the East, and up to that moment it had been very highly thought of in Bombay. But things had begun to leak out, through native clerks. Bartlett Sahib was always at the Bombay Races. During the rains he had even sometimes gone up to Poona twice a week. He had been seen on the luxurious race special looking uncommonly anxious. And this generally on the return journey. The babus wagged their heads and spat conveniently. It was time that the burra sahib came back, they said.

It was. And after his first day in the beautiful new offices in the Medow Street, Sir Frere drove back to his bungalow with a very heavy line between his eyes. Something was wrong, but what? It would take time to find out. He stared out of his car as he drove along Queen’s Road; how the traffic had increased even since he had been Home. What a ghastly eyesore those two great spreading arms of pier were, and what an insane idea that Back Bay Development Scheme had been! Obvious to any man with average intelligence that it could not answer, Sir Frere shrugged his shoulders as he dismissed it from his mind. There were more insistent problems before him at the moment. Dry-rot in his own show; to set his own house in order, that was his job at the moment.

But he did not show by the slightest sign that anything was wrong. Dandelion found him exactly the same when, overwhelmed with excitement, she came running out on to the verandah to meet the car.

“Frere, it’s all perfectly entrancing!” Dandelion was bursting with excitement. Since leaving England about three weeks before, everything had been too wonderful for words. The voyage; the people; the marvels of Port Said, the native stewards on the big liner. And now the arrival in Bombay; the beautiful bungalow on Malabar Hill overlooking the sea—a sea of the most gorgeous blue; the numbers of white-clothed servants; the native chauffeur in the place of Giles; the sun—the heavenly sun—always; you knew you couldn’t want an umbrella; the maidenhair ferns all round the marble verandah, and the great palms in green tubs. Dandelion had been in Bombay exactly four days, and she felt that it was a City of Enchantment. Her imagination flamed to the mystery of it all: her Madrassie ayah, with the queer sausagy bunch of hair on one side of her head. And even Francis became more wonderful. Commander-in-chief of the army of mysterious dark servants, he assumed supremacy of them all.

“I’m so glad you like it, darling.” Sir Frere had taken off his soft felt hat and had handed it to Francis, who had also appeared on the verandah. “Yes, I’ll have tea out here, Francis, please. Come along and tell me what you have been doing all day, Dandelion.”

“Masses of things.” Dandelion sat down on a gay wicker chair. Her delicate face was all alight. “A man came with huge bundles of beautiful things, and he spread them all out on the ground and I sat and looked at them.”

“You did not buy any, I hope.” Sir Frere had the little silver teapot in his hand, and was leisurely pouring out his tea. His eyes were amused. This unfeigned joy at the advent of a box-wallah; what it was to be young!

“Only a very small thing,” said Dandelion anxiously.

“Shall I show it to you?”

“Do.” Sir Frere had a slice of wafer bread and butter in his hand. His eyes followed Dandelion’s slim figure as she vanished through one of the open verandah doors. His wife, and a very sweet one; what did anything else matter?

“It was perfectly awful to hear ayah.” Dandelion was back again. “The man said five rupees and ayah heard him. She must have come out without my knowing. She began shouting that it was only worth eight annas. I felt most awfully uncomfortable.”

“And how much did you give the rascal in the end?” Sir Frere had the sketchily embroidered cushion-cover between his fingers, and was regarding it uncertainly.

“Two rupees,” said Dandelion, her anxious eyes on her husband’s. “Was it too much, do you think?”

“Quite enough.” Sir Frere began to laugh. “But what did you want it for?” he said.

“Oh, I don’t know; it was so fearfully exciting buying it.”

“Just so. Well, then, I think it was worth two rupees,” said Sir Frere cheerfully, and he handed it back again. “But don’t forget that you’ll have box-wallahs here all day long,” he said.

“Shall I really? How perfectly heavenly!” Dandelion was looking at her husband with wide-open eyes.

What a life! she thought to herself. Think of the life at Colbridge compared to this. You knew there what was going to happen; here you never knew from one moment to the other. The very mystery of each little ordinary happening; the waking to the queer notes of odd tropical birds; the heavy dew on the beautiful lawn under the flaming hibiscus trees; the wonderful quiet way that twilight stole in: it was dark before you knew where you were. And all these wonders combined with the most perfect modern comfort. Sir Frere’s bungalow, belonging to the firm was quite one of the most beautiful on the Hill. Everyone admired and coveted it. Dandelion felt herself to be lucky indeed. She suddenly got up and came across to her husband.

“I simply adore every instant of it,” she said; “thank you most frightfully for bringing me out.”

“Child of my heart, how could I possibly have left you behind?” said Sir Frere. He slid an arm round behind her slender knees. He suddenly felt that it didn’t matter in the least if the whole firm of Manwaring went phut. This girl was fond of him. “Come along, let’s go round the garden,” he said suddenly.

“Oh yes, let’s!” Dandelion was delighted. The garden was a wonder; there was a wonderful fern-house in it, all made of thick net like fisherman’s net, only much thicker. There was a tank in this house, full of water with long moss like mermaid’s hair floating in it. Anything might happen in a place like that—-the most marvellous things. Dandelion slid her arm through Sir Frere’s. He wore a thick tussore silk suit, and looked very nice in it. She felt proud of him as they went together down the shallow marble steps of the verandah.

“Salaam, sahib.” Bunnu, the head mali, was highly delighted at the advent of his lord sahib and his lady. He stood with his queer little woolly mali’s cap dragged down on his shaven head. All the hair he had was a little round patch like a neat pen-wiper, with a little twisted curl coming out of the middle of it. Dandelion had been highly intrigued earlier in the day by the sight of it when Bunnu, hot and weary with supervision of the other three malis, had dragged off his cap and hung it on the fanlike leaf of a spreading palm. More mystery when even your gardener looked like a gnome out of a fairy-story, thought Dandelion, all tingling with pleasure.

“Well, everything looks very nice, Bunnu.” Sir Frere was speaking in excellent Hindustani. He stood in the fern-house and looked at the roof of it. “You see, they have this sort of a place so that the rain can come through it,” he said to Dandelion. “It deluges here in July, August, and September, and the ferns flourish like anything. Now they have to be watered, and it’s jolly hard work. That’s why we have to have so many malis. They spend their lives slopping round with kerosene-oil-tins full of water. Haven’t you seen them?”

“Yes, rather. I saw them while we were having chota-hazri this morning,” replied Dandelion. Her eyes were flying round the fern-house. This was real romance, she thought, walking out into the open garden again. This was what people meant when they talked about the glamour of the East. Only four days had she been in Bombay, yet it was this life that seemed the real one, and the other only a rather faded shadow of it. She clung to her husband’s arm as they went up the shallow marble steps again.

Chapter II

And the glamour lasted. Sir Frere almost forgot his acute business anxieties in the joy of seeing Dandelion’s pleasure in the simplest things. And other people began also to forget their rather jaded attitude towards life. Dandelion scored a small triumph at her first dinner at Government House. She was a bride and the wife of an important business man in Bombay. Therefore she took precedence of all the other women dining at Government blouse that night, and was taken in by the Governor himself.

“What do I call him?” Dandelion in her very beautiful wedding-dress, skilfully adapted for the evening by the Bond Street shop at which she had bought it, was standing in the verandah waiting for the car. Sir Frere had come back from office very late, and looking dreadfully tired. But his eyes shone as they rested on his wife. Such a sweet; who could help loving her? he thought tenderly.

“‘Your Excellency.’ Thank you, Francis.” Sir Frere was taking his cigarette-case from the silver salver held out to him.

“Heavens! supposing I say it wrong!” Dandelion was twisting herself round under the shaded electric lamp. “Supposing I disgrace you somehow, and everyone says what a ghastly wife you have chosen.”

“They won’t. No, Francis; you need not wait up. Let the hamal sleep on the verandah. I don’t suppose we shall be so very late.” Sir Frere was speaking in Hindustani. “Here’s the car, my child; get along in. It’s better to be early than late, and you never know at Government House: you may get stuck in the avenue.”

“Aren’t you madly excited?” As the car stole slowly round the drive and out at the big gate Dandelion turned on the seat to face her husband. “Just think, a dinner together at Government House. I’m dying to see it all. It’s like a dream—it’s like nothing else I ever imagined.” Dandelion was suddenly stammering.

“I know this, that I love going there with you,” said Sir Frere, and he said it heartily. “Directly we get into the avenue I’m going to kiss you, too. I don’t care a button who sees.”

“Are you?” and Dandelion suddenly sat back on the luxurious seat. Somehow she felt that that was not exactly what she wanted at the moment. It would have been all right if her husband had been younger, she thought. She loved him, of course, tremendously; Dandelion had not the faintest doubt about that. But somehow, in this romantic setting you wanted somebody more romantic to look at. Dandelion’s blue eyes were open as he stooped to kiss her soft mouth. She could see over the top of his head—such a mercy, or she would have missed the first sight of the full moon hanging like a great yellow orange over the sea. The hanging trails of tropical creepers made it look almost more wonderful. Like long fingers they hung down over it, dividing it up into delicious shining slices.

“Kiss me, beloved,” Sir Frere’s lips were lingering.

“Oh yes, of course.” Dandelion withdrew her eyes from the intriguing things around her and shut them dutifully. She kissed him twice, and then with a little contented “There” she drew away from him, and sat back again in the car.

And Sir Frere did not attempt to kiss her again. As a matter of fact, there was not time, as the avenue was almost clear, and they were at the foot of the long flight of marble stairs leading up into the reception-rooms before Dandelion had very much more time than just to adjust her slightly tumbled hair. And from that moment until the moment when she found herself sitting next to the Governor in the middle of a long table surrounded by well-dressed women and bronzed men, things were more or less of a blur. But now they began to right themselves, the hot soup seeming in some way to bring her down to earth. She drank it slowly, staring round over her spoon. There was her husband, sitting on the opposite side of the table, rather lower down. She gave him a sudden friendly smile, which he slowly returned. He was intensely amused at her unconsciousness of her exalted position. Would she bother to talk to the Governor? he wondered.

The Governor was also amused. He was accustomed to a certain amount of sprightly and almost feverish interest in the demeanour of the women he took in to dinner, and it very often bored him terribly. But here was something new to tackle. He turned a little in his chair and smiled down at Dandelion.

“Well, how do you like Bombay?” he asked pleasantly.

“Like it?” Dandelion had finished her soup and was laying down her spoon. “Like it? that isn’t the word,” she said. “I adore it—worship every instant of it. I should like every day to go on for ever, they are all so entrancing.”

“Really! Well, it’s nice to come across such enthusiasm,” said the Governor, and he smiled broadly. Manwaring had married a girl young enough to be his daughter, he was thinking privately, but still, if she felt like that about it all, it was probably being a success.

“Yes; well, I do love it, so how can I help feeling like that about it?” went on Dandelion. “Oh, I say!” she was staring down at her plate. “How do I eat this, sir? Frere said that I was to call you ‘Your Excellency,’ but it’s difficult, somehow. I like ‘sir’ better. How do I eat this? With a fork?”

“Yes, with the little one.” The Governor was whispering. He had been in Bombay for several years, and he knew the spirit of the place. Things that at Home would not matter at all mattered terribly in Bombay. Not to know which fork to use for the fish would be quite enough to finish Dandelion socially, at least for the first year of her time there. She might be able to outlive it if she had sufficient personality to do so, but it would take time.

“I thought it would be that one.” Dandelion was wielding it skilfully. “Everything in India tastes so delicious,” she declared. “They cook awfully well; don’t you think so?”

“Yes, I think they do.” The Governor turned back from speaking to the lady on his other side. Dandelion was staring up at him with concern. “Did I interrupt?” she said.

“No; it’s all right.” The Governor was a very charming man, and he had taken a fancy to Dandelion “Lady Coles is a very kind lady,” he said, “and she knows you are a bride. She wants to come and call on you, she says.”

“Does she really? How awfully kind of her!” Dandelion had finished her fish and was wiping her cheerful little mouth. “Sit back a little in your chair, will you sir? and then I’ll lean across you and just thank her. That’s it. I say, thank you most awfully for saying that you will come and call on me.” Dandelion, twisted sideways in her chair, was beaming from ear to ear. “I shall love it, and both having titles we shall have something in common. I can never get used to mine. Can you?”

“Well, having had it for some time, it has become more or less familiar.” Lady Coles spoke instantly, and with a very sweet smile.

There was silence all around them. Bombay was watching Dandelion. She was making herself too conspicuous, they decided. After all, she had no official position; Manwaring was only a box-wallah. Dandelion’s beautiful pearls and untouched complexion left many women envious. And she was amusing the Governor; he was flattening himself back in his chair and laughing all over his nice, well-bred face. Well, the Governor wasn’t easily amused; in fact, he was apt to be rather taciturn at dinner-parties, especially since he had had that severe attack of malaria. Well, for a young married woman like Lady Manwaring—and with Manwarings’ Bombay branch more or less on the rocks—— So Lady Coles was especially pleasant to Dandelion. And Dandelion got up from dinner feeling more elated than ever. She had been prompted when to get up by the Governor himself. “Her Excellency is catching your eye,” he whispered confidentially, having seen his wife looking more or less despairingly across the table. Dandelion was laughing heartily and eating preserved ginger with appetite.

“Oh, is she? Where?” Dandelion stopped eating to stare about her. “Oh, I say, I understand.” She tumbled up her table-napkin and got up. “I shall see you again then, sir,” she said cheerfully, and went unconcernedly out of the great gold and white room, followed by a host of elaborately dressed women. And Lady Coles followed closely on her heels. Suddenly she felt that she wanted to take Dandelion under her wing. There were many pitfalls ahead of anyone as unsophisticated as this, thought Lady Coles, and she had always liked Sir Frere Manwaring.

Dandelion spent the twenty minutes or so before the Governor arrived in the brilliantly lighted salon in cheerful conversation with Lady Coles and Her Excellency. And the other women sat in groups and smoked and stared and made remarks. Complete spontaneity is a very unusual quality in Bombay, and needs backing up by a great deal of official stability. You mustn’t be original in India unless you can substantiate it by something tangible, and when you have got to do that your originality suffers.

But nothing could damp Dandelion that night. When the Governor appeared again at the door, surrounded by a host of men, Dandelion got up from her seat on the yellow-satin sofa and walked calmly across the room to greet him.

“Hooray! I thought you were never coming,” she exclaimed. “Hallo, Frere, isn’t it all perfectly entrancing?”

But this was a little too much even for the Governor. And Dandelion suddenly found herself under the wing of a very decorative A.D.C. The Governor had gone and with him her husband. They were both standing and talking to Her Excellency and Lady Coles. And Dandelion and the A.D.C. seemed suddenly to have sunk into the background. Dandelion felt a sudden sensation of dismay. She had done the wrong thing-she stared up above the gay waistcoat and yellow buttons.

“I say, I shouldn’t have got up and walked across the room to meet him like that!” she exclaimed.

“No—well, you shouldn’t, really,” said Captain Burrell. Captain Burrell was the third son of an Earl, and therefore appearances were not very important to him. “But, you see, it’s difficult to know just how to behave at a show like this, until you’re used to it. I’ll bring up a man or two to talk to you, if you’ll sit down here for a minute. Seen anyone you fancy?” Captain Burrell spoke with a twinkle in his grey eyes. It was such a blessed relief to come across anything new at these eternal dinner-parties, he was thinking gratefully.

“Yes; that one.” Dandelion spoke instantly. During her few silences at the long dinner she had let her eyes stray up and down the long tables. So many men, and nearly all of them good-looking. How Marion would have enjoyed it all, she thought. How quickly any girl would get engaged out here. And her eyes had rested on, and then returned again to, the man who sat by himself and talked very little. Apparently he had no lady to take in to dinner. And he had not exerted himself either to talk to the lady who was sitting on one side of him. His eyes had rested mostly on his plate, and when lifted from that they had generally been dwelling on Dandelion. She had met his gaze twice, and something within her had stirred, oddly intrigued.

“Which one? Oh, I see!” Captain Burrell, being an excellent A.D.C., had followed Dandelion’s gaze successfully. He hesitated just a moment. Major Lancaster’s reputation with women was none too good. Nor was he especially popular with the military people in Bombay. That was why he had been asked to a dinner at which they were in the minority. The majority of the people dining at Government House that night were Indian civilians and their wives. “I see,” he said. “Well, I’ll do what I can,” and depositing Dandelion carefully on a black-and-gold-striped sofa, Captain Burrell hurried off down the long crowded room.

But Major Lancaster did not want to talk to anyone. He had arrived at the dinner that night in a bad temper. He stared with irritation at Captain Burrell’s cheerful young face. “Oh, my God! I was just going out into the compound to have a cigarette,” he grumbled.

“Yes; but you’ve got to make yourself agreeable. Major.” Captain Burrell was not a successful A.D.C. for nothing. He smiled blithely at the dark face of the man standing leaning against the white and gold wall. Government House knew most of all there was to know about everybody, and there were many funny rumours afloat about Major Lancaster. His ancestry was cloudy. His father had been a wealthy merchant in Bombay many years before. He had married—well, whom had he married? Nobody seemed quite to know. Some people said that he had married a beautiful Afghan woman, and that when he died he had vanished, nobody quite knew where. That there had been two children of the marriage was anyhow certain; they both of them had been sent or taken to England when quite tiny. Major Lancaster had reappeared thirty years afterwards; it had come out gradually that he was the son of the old Lancaster who had amassed a huge fortune in cotton and had then died abruptly from heart failure. But nobody quite knew where the huge fortune had gone, or where the daughter had gone either. And nobody cared; people in Bombay live very much in the present, and thirty years is a very long time. Also, Major Lancaster was not a man who encouraged conversation. He was mad on sailing and had a beautiful little yacht of his own. Nobody knew very much about him, and only women wanted to know more. Men avoided him; he was rarely seen at the Yacht Club except either going down or coming up the steps that led to the dinghy that rowed him out to his moorings. But women always stared at him. His silence intrigued them, and also he was quite extraordinarily good-looking. One woman had gone quite mad about him, so gossip said, and had been abruptly sent Home by an infuriated and indignant husband. But beyond that nobody knew very much about him, and nobody got the chance to know any more.

But for some reason or other his dark, magnetic eyes smiled down into Dandelion’s. He had watched her at dinner and been pleasantly interested. Here was something unspoilt, he decided. The way she chatted to the Governor showed that she was unspoilt. Her blue eyes stared out frankly as they wandered down the table. Twice Major Lancaster had held them with his, and was pleased when they remained riveted. Something sweet and new and fresh here, he concluded. But not for him. Major Lancaster was not all bad, and he knew the rumours about Manwaring’s firm. Well, to hang round a woman whose husband was perforce kept glued to his office table was hardly playing the game. So he would resist his very strong inclination to try to attract this delightful child, and keep very definitely on the surface of things.

But it was not so easy. Dandelion was highly delighted at the success of her manoeuvre to get this interesting-looking man to her side. She smoothed her satin knees and twisted herself on the sofa to stare at her companion.

“The minute I saw you at dinner I knew that I wanted to talk to you,” she declared. “Did you notice me staring at you?”

“Yes; I rather believe I did,” replied Major Lancaster, and he smiled suddenly and brilliantly.

“I expect people generally do stare at you, don’t they?” went on Dandelion confidentially. “You have that look. Rather like Nick in that book of Ethel Dell’s, The Way of an Eagle; do you know it?”

“Yes; but how cruel of you,” said Major Lancaster. “To label me straight off as strong and silent is rather hard on me, isn’t it? Give me a chance, at least, before you condemn me to outer darkness.”

“Do you call being strong and silent to be in outer darkness?” said Dandelion naively. “Anyhow, you wouldn’t be alone in the darkness, if you were. You would have masses of women with you; they simply adore that kind of a man.”

“One would be enough,” said Major Lancaster slowly. He suddenly forgot all about Sir Frere Manwaring’s business worries. This girl was an absolute pet, he decided; as different from all these sophisticated Bombay women as the cold weather was different from the hot. He would call, the very next day; at the old-fashioned approved hour too, when Manwaring would be certain to be in his office. Two o’clock would see him on the verandah of the beautiful bungalow on Malabar Hill. “I say, you don’t put your box out, do you?” he asked suddenly.

“Yes, I do; I love it!” said Dandelion. “Fishing the cards out is such fun: you never know whom you’re going to catch. Yesterday I caught two High Court Judges’ wives. And when I’ve got enough I’m going to begin to return my calls. You can’t imagine what it’s like for me, this sort of life. A lovely car and stacks of servants and heaps of new clothes, it’s simply gorgeous,” ended up Dandelion a little breathlessly.

“And a nice husband thrown in,” said Major Lancaster, with his queer dark eyes fixed on Dandelion’s soft mouth. He was thinking very hard. Had that rather tough old box-wallah really got this girl he wondered, or was she still waiting for the rather brutal touch that would set her spirit on fire? Anyhow, the uncertainty lent a very pleasant zest to life for the moment.

“Oh yes, of course,” said Dandelion. Her face suddenly flamed. She realized that for the last ten minutes at least she had absolutely forgotten all about her husband. Her eyes wandered rather uneasily down the long room. “There he is,” she said, “talking to Her Excellency.”

“Yes; and as he is, he is occupied at any rate for the next five minutes,” said Major Lancaster. “What a farce this sort of thing is, and how they must loathe it, having to be pleasant whether they like it or not. Think what it must be, night after night. Never any respite from it, a living death.”

“They look as if they liked it.”

“Of course they do; that’s part of their job,” replied Major Lancaster. “But don’t let us waste our time talking about the Governor and his Lady. Tell me about yourself; how do you like India?”

Major Lancaster’s rather veiled brown eyes were intent. Dandelion stared up into them as she answered. Queer eyes, she decided; in a way rather like ayah’s. Opaque; you tried to get to the back of them and couldn’t.

“Oh, I love it!” she said; “I told you I did. Every minute of it is fun. People coming to sell you things on the verandah: huge bundles on the heads of their coolies, and directly they have dumped them down they go away and curl up and go to sleep. And Chinamen selling lace and gobbling out some funny language that you can’t understand. I’ve bought yards of lace since I arrived,” ended up Dandelion.

“Have you really? And what do you do in the evenings?” Major Lancaster had one long leg crossed over the other. He was watching Dandelion closely for the first sign of artificiality. “What do you do when your husband comes home from office, for instance?”

“Well, he comes home so frightfully late that there isn’t really time to do anything,” confessed Dandelion. “You see, he goes down in the car in the morning, and then it waits down there to bring him home. So that when he does arrive it is really too late to go out again. But I don’t mind; I potter round the garden and write letters, and I rather feel that I shall begin to do a little gardening presently, perhaps. Except that we have four gardeners, so that there really isn’t anything very much for me to do.”

“And what do you do after tiffin?”

“Oh, I go and lie down,” said Dandelion. “Frere told me that I must; he said that women get to look frightfully jaded if they don’t. So I do. But I find it rather a bother, because, you see, I have not done anything really to earn it. India is like that; you have so many servants that there is nothing that you really must do.”

“No; that’s quite true,” agreed Major Lancaster. But inwardly he was very much surprised at this frank description of Dandelion’s uneventful day. He would have thought that a shrewd business man like Manwaring would have more sense, than to leave his wife so much alone. Hadn’t he the nous to see that there was bound to be trouble if he did? Certainly it was early days yet, and at the moment Lady Manwaring was obviously occupied in thinking how wonderful Bombay was. But there would come a time when she knew that it wasn’t, and then—he suddenly spoke abruptly: “I’m coming to call on you to-morrow,” he said. “Will you be in at about two o’clock?”

“Oh yes; I shan’t have gone to lie down by then,” said Dandelion. Her eyes suddenly shone. She liked this man, who sat so easily by her side and talked without any effort. He had a sort of indolent way of making her feel that he knew exactly what she was thinking about, and entering into it all. Also, he seemed very much the same age as she was. His hair was still black, and it waved a little over his ears. His eyes had a sort of intent melancholy look. When he had walked across the room by Captain Burrell’s side he had been taller even than the tall A.D.C. He had walked like a loose-limbed animal; his eyes were like an animal’s, intent on what he was going to do next. Dandelion felt strangely excited at the idea of his coming to call. When he had called he would be quite like a friend. She could have him to dinner. Fearful excitement to have a dinner-party in your own house. “Mind you come!” she exclaimed.

“Come! yes, rather”; but as he spoke Major Lancaster’s eyes were wandering down the room. “Here comes Burrell,” he said. “I’ll bet he’s going to drag me off to talk to some other woman. Yes, he is, bother him. And here’s a High Court Judge coming to talk to you, too. Lord, what a life!” Major Lancaster got slowly and lazily up on to his feet.

“Mind you don’t forget to come to-morrow!” Dandelion lifted her face and spoke in an excited whisper.

“Trust me!” Something queer and almost savage suddenly flickered in the depths of Major Lancaster’s opaque eyes.

Chapter III

It must have been the large overgrown compound that had given Sir Frere Manwaring’s bungalow the rather desolate name that it had. The Wilderness: that was the name of the beautiful bungalow standing in the equally beautiful garden. Part of the compound was cultivated, and that was the part in which Dandelion wandered in the early mornings and the evenings. But the uncultivated part of it stretched from behind the bungalow to the sea wall, and was full of a miscellaneous collection of servants’ quarters. The Manwarings had a dhobie of their own, and he had a quarter, with a little tank beside it; Dandelion was hugely entertained one day to see some of her most delicate underclothing being beaten ruthlessly against a stone.

“Ayah, but they’ll spoil it.” Dandelion for some reason or other never seemed able to get away into the compound alone. It was all right when she went into the garden that lay in front of the house; then she was allowed to go by herself. But no sooner did she wander round the side of the garage than someone appeared to escort her. Generally it was ayah; sometimes it was Francis. She consulted her husband about it.

“They don’t think it the thing for the Lady Sahib to be about among the servants’ quarters by herself,” said Sir Frere. “And I think they’re right. Dandelion. Take ayah with you, if you go there; but if you take my advice you won’t go there. They only think you’re spying on them, they’re queer people. Francis knows what goes on in the compound, and I’m quite content to leave it to him.”

“Well, does he know who lives in that queer place like a stable right down by the wall close to the rocks?” said Dandelion. “I was down there last night, by myself, for the very first time. I never knew it was there; it’s almost all grown over by bougainvillea. Perfectly lovely it is; I thought it was a huge tree of it. And then, when I came near, I saw a weeny little spiral of smoke coming out of the middle of it. I went as close as I could to try to find the door, but I couldn’t.”

“Don’t go down there any more, there’s a darling,” said Sir Frere. “I ought to come home earlier really, and take you to the Yacht Club. I will, in a week or so, if you’ll be content to wait. But I’m so frightfully driven at the office at the moment. You see—” and then Sir Frere hesitated. How could he explain to a child of Dandelion’s age the ghastly crisis that he was passing through? With God’s help it would be over in the course of the next month or two, and then he would be free to devote himself to his wife. In the meantime——

“You know, I’m sure Lady Coles would call for you and take you down to the Yacht Club on Friday afternoon,” he said. “You’d see a little life then. This is ghastly dull for you, I’m quite aware of it.”

“Dull! Why, I’m never dull a minute,” exclaimed Dandelion. Her face flamed. Somehow, since Major Lancaster’s call on that afternoon, now a week ago, she had been conscious of a queer prickling feeling of dullness. There was so much that one might be doing in Bombay; in fact, if she had been a little different herself she could be doing it now. All the women on the Hill played tennis at the Ladies’ Gymkhana, and one or two of those who had called wanted Dandelion to play there too. But she had strolled along there one afternoon and had been frightened to death. No one had come up to speak to her, and she had stood in a stupefied silence watching the tennis for ten minutes or so, and had then come away. Tennis like that! Why, it was the sort of tennis men played. One of her feeble strokes would be enough to show everyone that, compared to that, she could not play tennis at all. No; but there were other things. “You know, when Major Lancaster came to call he did say that if you didn’t mind he would call for me in his car and take me out for a sail one night,” said Dandelion, and for some extraordinary reason she stammered as she said it.

“Oh, did he?” Sir Frere’s eyes dwelt swiftly on his wife’s rather flushed face. “Do you like sailing?”

“Yes, I think I do,” said Dandelion, and she was surprised to feel how desperately she suddenly wanted to go out for a sail with the tall man with opaque eyes.

Romance and a sort of queer fascination hung round him. He had drawn her out still further during his brief call. All the little things that she liked and thought about had come trembling on to her tongue. He had sat and listened so kindly, and had not seemed annoyed that Francis had come into the drawing-room once or twice, and had then gone out again without doing anything. Ayah, too, had seemed suddenly to spring to life, although as a rule at that time of day she was away in her quarter having her midday meal. But when Dandelion had gone upstairs to rest after Major Lancaster’s two-seater car had encircled the smooth lawn and gone hooting out of the gate, there was ayah already squatted on the bedroom verandah, diligently threading elastic into underclothes.

“Well, I don’t know that I mind your going out for a sail with Lancaster if you’re really keen on it,” said Sir Frere slowly. He had been thinking swiftly as he collected his letters from the disordered breakfast-table. “After all, it’s hardly fair to keep you shut up here all the evening just because I can’t get back to take you to the Club. Only don’t arrange to go out with him too much, Dandelion. His reputation is none too good. It’s all right, of course, for you because you’re a married woman—and a very sensible one at that,” Sir Frere smiled briefly. “Only don’t be seen too much with him, because it won’t do you any good.”

“Oh no, I won’t!” Dandelion’s eyes were shining. She suddenly felt how frightfully dull she must have been for the last week without this gorgeous excitement in store. “How shall I let him know that I can come?” she asked.

“I’ll ring him up from the office. Then he’ll know that I’ve given my official sanction to it, so to speak.” Sir Frere was smiling. Inwardly he felt relieved to think that Dandelion would be provided for for at least one evening during the coming week. Bombay was none too cordial, he thought, to leave this girl alone every night. It would have been so easy for one of the many women going down to either the Willingdon or the Yacht Club just to call for Dandelion and give her a pleasant evening there and introduce her to a few people. But nobody seemed disposed to do it. Probably it was that nobody felt perfectly sure how his own financial affairs were going to turn out, thought Sir Frere, sitting back in his comfortable saloon car and watching the natives scattering out of the way of it. And as he thought this he sighed. Bartlett had let him down badly, but, thank God, he would not have to prosecute him, because some wealthy relative had come to his rescue. But it was a beastly job to have to haul a compatriot of your own over the coals. And with every babu in the office knowing about it too. However, it had to be done, and thoroughly, and then, with Bartlett well out of the way, the firm could go on again in the same old way. Thank Heaven, the substantial sum put down by Bartlett’s old uncle had saved the whole thing from coming out into the murky atmosphere of the Courts, thought Sir Frere, getting out of the car and handing his topi to the grey-bearded old chuprassie who came hobbling down the marble steps to greet him.

But all the same, ten minutes later, when he heard Major Lancaster’s well-bred voice through the telephone at his elbow, he suddenly felt horribly depressed again. Was he being a fool? he wondered. And yet, what more contemptible than the elderly husband who dare not let his young wife consort with men of her own age for fear of a rival? He answered briefly and pleasantly. “Oh, thanks very much, Lancaster; yes, if you can fetch her in your car it will be very kind of you. I am so fearfully tied here. Thanks very much; I’ll let my wife know at once,” and Sir Frere rang off briefly.

But later his apprehension returned again. Dandelion was delighted, and made no attempt to disguise it. “Oh, I say, what fun! Did you say to-day?” she was chuckling through the telephone. “All right, I’ll wear my topi, and take another hat down to the Club, did you say? All right. You’ll come and fetch me at the Club, won’t you? Yes, do, Frere; what frantic fun!” Dandelion rang off evidently in the last stages of excitement.

And as she rang off, ayah, who at the sound of the telephone-bell had stolen to the door of the little office where the telephone always stood, slunk back and padded quietly through the dining-room on to the back verandah. From there it was easy to get through the compound without being seen. Francis was beginning to be a bother, thought ayah viciously, padding quickly along on her bare feet.

Chapter IV

Ayah was a great deal older than she looked. When Francis had engaged her for Lady Manwaring he had looked at her bundle of well-worn chits with a certain amount of scorn. This old woman would not have a great deal of first-rate naukri to her credit, he thought; she would not do for his Lady Sahib. He would just glance through her chits and send her packing. But ayah’s chits were very good indeed; the last was dated ten years before, and ended with a charming little tribute to ayah’s fidelity and general desirability. “I only part with Marion ayah because I am leaving India for good,” wrote this sorrowful memsahib. “She has cared devotedly for my children during the ten years that I have had her with me. I wish her all success in any work she may find,” and this was signed “Eleanor Cave,” and addressed from Calcutta.

“Not Bombay memsahib.” Francis had spoken briefly and had fixed ayah with a disapproving stare.

“No; Calcutta memsahib. Very big memsahib, very big bungalow, very many jewels.” Ayah had waved skinny brown fingers in the air.

“H’m,” Francis had hesitated. His instinct was against ayah; there was something about her that he did not like. But on the other hand there was something about her that he did like. Ayah was getting on in years, and that in a compound means much. A female servant will set the whole establishment by the ears; she has the ear of the memsahib, and that means a very great deal. Her love-affairs with the other servants can make or mar the peace of a compound. Ayah’s age won the day, also the generous percentage of her ample salary that she was willing to allocate to Francis. And having engaged her, Francis, like all natives, was prepared to stand by his bargain.

So ayah was triumphant. The situation suited her book very well indeed. She padded through the compound on triumphant feet. She had news for Lancaster memsahib; news that would rejoice her soul indeed. Ayah cast two or three hurried glances behind her as she doubled round. Back past the servants’ quarters and out at the front gate. Off to the bazaar for her midday meal, ayah sauntered out with a sari drawn well over her sleek head. She nodded patronizingly to the head mali, dozing fitfully under a large palm-tree close to the fernery.

But once outside the gate she turned to the left instead of to the right. Creeping along under the wall that divided the long compound from the overgrown lane that led down to the sea, she trod very carefully. Once at the end of it she turned sharply to the right and threaded her way through the huge uneven rocks that fringed the wall. It was difficult going, but ayah, although old, was still active. Ah, here was the hole in the wall. Ayah crept through it, and then stood upright again. Now only a pace or two to the large spreading bush of bougainvillea, a low whistle, and in response to it the stirring of the long flowering branches. An almost noiseless movement of an inside latch, and ayah, brushing a couple of long branches aside, walked into the little hut.

At first, even to her acute Oriental sight, the place seemed to be in utter darkness. And then things became plainer, and everything was as it always was. The low bricked room, with its blackened ceiling; the dilapidated door leading into an inner room. The old woman sitting huddled up on a low bed in the corner—a bed heaped with miscellaneous coverings: coverings of faded gorgeousness and diverse colourings. A barely distinguishable mass of humanity and coloured wrappings combined. A terrible old haggard face, with tousled hair and gleaming eyes. A horrible face, vindictive and cruel with its blackened teeth and sensual mouth.

“Salaam, bhai.” Ayah saluted with accustomed familiarity and sank down on an old Persian rug. “How goes it?” she spoke in the vernacular.

“Badly”; the reply came also in the vernacular. The skinny hand waved towards the dilapidated door. “You must bring more,” she said, “more and yet more. It becomes daily more difficult.”

“Also for me it becomes more difficult,” said ayah, becoming graphic and gesticulatory. “The Sirkar (Government) has imposed still more severe penalties. To get but one quarter of a chittack—it is almost impossible. One-eighth part of a chittack, it is equally impossible.” Ayah fell abruptly silent.

“When one is willing to find the wherewithal nothing is impossible.” The horrible old figure on the bed stirred. “See here,” the skinny fingers groped under the filthy pillow-case. They drew out a handful of gold coins.

“Gold mohurs, and many of them. Go to the merchant in Abdul Rehmann Street and procure. It must be done. Otherwise——”

Ayah half got up at the sight of the handful of money and then sank back again. As she knew, she owed much to the woman on the bed. Thirty years before, when Lancaster Sahib, back from one of his trading expeditions on the frontier, had brought the beautiful Afghan woman with him, ayah had been engaged in her service. Lancaster Sahib had made the woman his wife; there had been much gup in Bombay about the affair, but it had been nobody’s business, and as neither Lancaster Sahib nor his wife had ever gone into Society, it really did not concern anyone else but themselves. She was never seen; although rumour had it that there had been two children of the marriage—a boy and a girl. The boy, some people said, was the Major Lancaster who was at the moment in Bombay; but as nobody knew for certain, people were charitable enough to leave it alone. The girl—well, the girl had gone Home to be educated and was probably there with either her mother or with relatives. Or perhaps the mother was dead. Anyhow, old Lancaster was, and probably his Afghan wife had gone back to her own people, taking her husband’s money with her; he had had plenty. In any event, what did it matter to the people then in Bombay what had happened to the Lancaster ménage! It didn’t, and therefore the matter was allowed to drop.

Ayah was the only person who really knew how matters stood. For nearly thirty years Mrs. Lancaster had lived in this old stable close to the rocks. The bungalow in which the Freres lived, now beautifully modernized and decorated, was the bungalow in which the old trading merchant had lived with his native wife. And after he had died and been removed to his last resting-place, that native wife had slipped down the compound and taken up her residence in the old stable. Reverting to type, she had squatted on the charpoy in the corner and, sucking her hookah, sat brooding over the queer life she had left. And nobody knew or wondered about her. Mrs. Lancaster had gone, and a good thing too. The children were in England, and there it was to be hoped they would be allowed to remain. No one inspected the old ramshackle buildings in the compound; unless for an outbreak of plague or cholera, they very rarely are inspected. And soon the bougainvillea began to grow luxuriantly over the old brick walls, shrouding them from view. The tenants who occupied Wilderness House after the Lancasters never even knew that such a place existed.

And ayah at first continued to live with her memsahib. But ayah was garrulous and liked more society. “Write me a chit, and I will obtain a place,” she confronted Mrs. Lancaster one day with snapping eyes.

“And who then will care for me?” Mrs. Lancaster was by this time a travesty of her former self. Hugely fat, she rarely left the charpoy in the corner.

The life that she led in the tumble-down stable close to the sea, was the life that she had led in the mud hut close to the Khyber Pass. Supplies were easy; ayah, with the help of a coolie from the Crawford Market, brought them daily. Mrs. Lancaster, in a gaily coloured sari, did the cooking on a little charcoal fire in the corner of the outer room of the hut. She never went outside the hut until it was dusk. And then she would prowl, a strange figure in her Eastern wrappings, among the overgrown bushes. No one saw her; no one knew she was there, only ayah and one other. And the one other being a native ex-superintendent of police, Mrs. Lancaster’s security in her strange hiding-place was complete. For money will do most things in the East provided there is enough of it.

But after a couple of years the life began to pall on ayah. Besides, every now and then she began to be alarmed. It had been she who had met the little pale, frightened girl on the big liner twenty years before. Supposing questions began to be asked. The original native superintendent of police had been replaced by a European. So ayah prayed for a chit, so that she might get work. The Writer at the corner by the crossroads that led down to the Hanging Gardens would concoct one for a sufficient sum of money. The money must be produced, or ayah would feel obliged—ayah cast a significant glance at the tumble-down door that separated the two rooms of the old stable.

So ayah took a situation and, being a clever woman, she remained in it for a number of years. But she always remained on Malabar Hill. And when the news filtered through that Manwaring Sahib was bringing back a bride from the Vilayat, she immediately sought out the head mali at Wilderness House. The butler was in England with the sahib; quite so. But when he returned, Bunnu Sahib would see that—and ayah drew something old and greasy and folded from her sari. And as a ten-rupee note was something of a fortune to the old mali, he did his very best for ayah and ended in doing it successfully.

And that was how matters stood for the moment. Every day ayah went openly out of the gate of Wilderness House, and five minutes later crawled in through the branches of the bougainvillea. Mrs. Lancaster was feverishly anxious for news of her son. Out of her reach for ever, she knew that he was; her husband’s will had made that very clear. A relative was to bring him up, and a sufficient sum of money was left clearly earmarked for that purpose. But she could hear about him. The news had already reached her that his regiment was in Bombay. A fierce maternity gleamed out of her dark eyes. Her son—-a very different affair to a daughter. Mrs. Lancaster, a shapeless mass crouched on the charpoy, listened avidly to all the news that ayah had to bring. Dining at Government House; ayah knew all the gup. And now coming to call at the house close to the old stables, ayah dilated on the charm and glory of him.

“She already loves him, the child wife?” The Afghan woman removed the mouthpiece of her hookah to spit complacently.

“Not yet,” and ayah stirred uneasily. Her snapping eyes were fixed on the communicating door. The Afghan woman rolled herself off the charpoy. Shoving it open, she went through it and snarled something in a fierce undertone. There was a sudden deathly silence, and the old woman returned.

“We must have more; she now wakes more frequently. You must get more from the bazaar,” she said impatiently. “Useless to say that it cannot be done—it must be done. A blow in the mouth will silence, but not for long. Her mind wanders, but becomes more active. We shall have trouble if you do not take care. I have given you plenty of money for it. See that it is obtained.” Mrs Lancaster’s eyes were gleaming.

“But of what avail?” Ayah’s mouth set in a sudden obstinate line. This affair was beginning to worry her. There was talk of a big block of flats down by the edge of the sea. If the plan took shape, a bit of Sir Frere’s compound might be cut off: Francis had been talking about it. It would not spoil the view from Wilderness House, because it would be the corner far away to the left. But it would mean a survey of the whole compound, and the tangled undergrowth in which the old stable was situated would come in for a thorough investigation. Ayah suddenly got up from her squatting position. Her Oriental mind was active and she would put her plan into execution at once.

“So soon you depart, and what is the reason for it?” The figure on the charpoy removed the hookah from her pan-stained lips to speak angrily. But ayah was already half-way to the door. “To-morrow without fail I will bring it,” she said ingratiatingly and was gone, with a soft flutter of her white sari.

Chapter V

Malabar Hill is a very extraordinary place. The utmost luxury finds itself cheek by jowl with the most horrible squalor. There are parts of it, heavily wooded by tall palm-trees, that probably no European has ever explored. Right down by the sea they lie, in among a collection of Hindu temples. In the evening, on their way to bathe from Government House sands, cheerful English people, in luxurious cars, hear the bells of the temples coming quivering up on the hot evening air. But they never bother much about what is going on down there. There they are, looking very picturesque from above; that is enough for the average European.

And ayah was not interested in her surroundings either. She passed the cluster of temples with an unseeing eye. To reach her destination she had to go down a flight of steep moss-grown steps. She went sideways, clawing her native slippers to her feet with agile toes. And once down she turned quickly to the left. The funny little bungalow that she was bound for had no compound to speak of. The blue painted verandah of it ran out almost on to the rocks.

But the occupant of the long chair set close to the wooden railing of the rather dilapidated verandah was not at all pleased to see ayah. She had padded agilely up the three or four wooden steps before he had had time to stop her. Visits from this importunate woman were always a trial to the ex-superintendent of police. Generally they ended with a disagreeable and enforced parting with money. He struggled himself upright with a disagreeable snarl on his heavy mouth.

“Salaam, bhai!” Ayah was prompt with her greeting, as she came towards the long chair.

“What do you want?” Roshan Khan spoke in Gujarati. He knew most dialects; it had been necessary in his profession. He scowled heavily, blinking from under his heavy eyelids.

Ayah became at once ingratiating. She squatted comfortably on the hot boards with her sari drawn discreetly over her shiny bunch of black hair. Her needs were very, very insignificant, she inferred: but they were urgent. She no longer wished to be involved with the affairs of Lancaster memsahib, they were becoming too dangerous. Therefore she came to tell the ex-superintendent of police that she had decided to go to the Commissioner Sahib who lived in the large white bungalow next to her own bungalow. There she would make a clean breast of the whole affair.

“It is impossible to continue it,” she went on. “Frequently and yet more frequently she wakes. Less and less of the necessary drug can I obtain. Was I not heavily shadowed by a preventive officer the last time I went down to the bazaar? I cannot do it: being old, my spirit is more fearful.” Ayah drew her sari still farther down over her face and sighed ostentatiously.

But being a policeman, Roshan Khan was not dismayed. He heaved himself ponderously from out of the creaking cane of the long chair. Money this woman required, and money she would therefore have to have. And mercifully, thanks to Allah and to Lancaster memsahib, there was a good deal of money about. Graft is to the Asiatic as much a matter of everyday occurrence as the midday meal. It was important to the old Afghan woman to be left where she was. Therefore she did not mind paying for the privilege of being allowed to do so. Ayah went away well content.

But Roshan Khan, left to sprawl ponderously in the long chair, was not so content. He too had heard of the idea of building a new block of flats at the foot of Sir Frere’s bungalow. Also from an underling he had heard of the extraordinary zeal and activity of the new Commissioner of Police. Old files that had lain for years and years unlooked at had been rooted out. The dust of a couple of decades had been disturbed. Roberts Sahib had made up his mind to get to the bottom of a good deal of the bribery and corruption that was ruining the name of the police in Bombay. And he was thoroughly hated for it, too.

And Roshan Khan would have been still more uncomfortable if he could have seen the Commissioner of Police at that very moment. Keen and alert, he was staring over his writing-table to the Deputy-Commissioner, a man only a little younger and just as capable as himself.

“You don’t mean to say so,” he was exclaiming.

“I do; and what’s more, I believe it to be absolutely pucka,” replied the Deputy-Commissioner. “I won’t tell you where I heard it, because it’s hardly fair. And of course, unless we can get more substantial proof, we can’t take any action. As a matter of fact, I’d rather wait a bit myself, because I think if we do wait we may be able to implicate a good many more people.”

“But you don’t mean to say that she’s got the girl in there with her?” said the Commissioner. “If she has, of course we simply must do something, and at once.”

“No; I believe the girl died a long while ago,” said the Deputy-Commissioner. “It would be easy enough, you see, to drag out the body and bury it near at hand. You’ve no conception what these people can do. And the woman must be fabulously wealthy. Old Lancaster left her all his money, except what he settled on the son.” The Deputy-Commissioner of Police hesitated. “You know, of course, who the son is supposed to be,” he said.

“Yes, I believe I do,” said the Commissioner. “And I think that if possible it ought to be left where it is. It would be damned hard on the wretched fellow to have all his antecedents dragged up.”

“I quite agree.” The Deputy-Commissioner hesitated. “All the same, I don’t like the fellow,” he remarked.

“No; nor do I.” The Commissioner glanced at the door and, getting up, strolled towards it. “It’s a pity Sir Frere allows that sweet little wife of his to go about with him,” he said, walking slowly back to his chair after closing it with a shove of his shoulder.

“Yes, it is; a lot of people are saying the same thing.” The Deputy-Commissioner was twisting one of the gleaming buttons of his white uniform round in his fingers. “But on the other hand, what is he to do? He’s tied to his office—by the way, I’m awfully glad to hear that that affair has been settled out of Court—Bombay is sticky to a degree; no one quite likes to take up Lady Manwaring until they know how things are going with him. Lady Coles would have done it, because she is the soul of good nature, but she has been laid low by a bad go of malaria and has now gone to Mahableshwar to convalesce. Well, what is Manwaring to do? He has either to leave his wife alone from morning to night, or allow her to go about with another man. Personally, I think he is right to do what he is doing. After all, if you can’t trust your wife out of your sight you’re better without her. Let her go off the deep end and have done with it once for all.” The Deputy-Commissioner grinned cheerfully.

But the Commissioner, being a married man, thought differently. However, he did not pursue the subject. There were many other insistent matters to be dealt with, and time was going by. “Look here, about this—” The Commissioner was stooping to a basket close up to his chair. “What do you think?” The two men drew their chairs a little closer together.

Chapter VI

Meanwhile, Dandelion was living a very queer life. She had now been in India about a month, and it seemed to her, on looking back over the four weeks, that any other sort of life had been a dream. Mail day was the only time when she seemed to be dragged back to the life that had gone before. A letter from mummy; a rarer letter from daddy. All the little items of home news, once so desperately interesting, now almost filmy in their remoteness from the life that she was living at the moment. The days seemed to fly by; it was always Friday—time to write to the people at home. And somehow, at any rate for the moment, it was difficult to write to the people at home.

Dandelion was sitting on the verandah of Wilderness House trying to write a mail letter now. She sat with one silk-stockinged leg curled round the leg of her chair, with the electric fan whirling above her head. The end of November is very often very hot in Bombay. The overhanging roof of the verandah threw a very dark shadow on the wet lawn. Bunnu was watering the lawn with vigour; the wet mossy smell of the grass came floating on to the verandah, mingling deliciously with the heavy tropical scent of the creeper that flung itself over the low bungalow.

Dandelion stared out at the lawn and at Bunnu; somehow she could not settle to writing a letter. What was there to say? Neither Kitty nor Marion had ever been out to India; they could not grasp what it was like a bit. It was too much bother to explain. You had to see it to understand. If only—— Dandelion suddenly lifted up her head and waited. Yes, it was. She hurriedly uncurled her leg from the chair. Bother ayah! Dandelion frowned a little as she walked quickly into the little study next to the drawing-room and shut the door of it.

But ayah was not going to be done. Noiselessly she padded to the shut door. Dandelion’s voice was young and cheerfully raised. “Oh, I say, I should simply adore to. Yes, I’ll ring up Frere and ask him, shall I. What? You’ll bring me home? All right then; I’ll tell him that, then he needn’t bother to come to the Club and fetch me. All right. Bye-bye,” and then there was a little silence.

But Dandelion’s voice, when the next conversation began, was not quite so blithe. To begin with, for the very first time she heard a note of hesitation in her husband’s voice. Another sail—and starting before lunch this time. Well Sir Frere’s voice dropped into sudden silence.

“You see, he says we must, if we are to get the proper wind or something.” Dandelion, with the receiver in her hand, was staring over it at a picture on the distempered wall. Awfully crooked . . . she must get Francis to tell the hamal. “Yes, but don’t you see, we shan’t ever get there unless we start then. The wind drops at two o’clock, or something.” Dandelion’s forehead was drawn into little fine vertical lines.

“Don’t you think you had better give it a miss this time?” The words were on Sir Frere’s lips as he sat with his elbow on the table. He looked a little tired, but well-groomed and well-set-up in his heavy tussore suit. His keen eyes were also fixed on something in front of him. But unseeingly. No; he would not say it, he decided. The elderly, uxorious husband. A detestable figure. “Very well, darling,” he said; “but don’t be too late. No, I’ll fetch you from the Club; I’d rather. Yes, tell Lancaster that I’d rather. I have to go there anyhow. I’ve got somebody up for election. Good-bye,” and Sir Frere rang off.

But after ringing off he sat for quite a long time staring straight in front of him doing nothing. This must stop; and in another month it would be able to quite naturally. Things would be straight at the office by then, and he would be able to devote himself more entirely to Dandelion. It was awfully dull for the poor child at present. He would make up for it presently.

And meanwhile Dandelion had rushed into her bedroom. “Ayah!” She was shouting out of the door that gave on to the back verandah. “Quick, the Major Sahib is coming to fetch me. One of those white silk frocks without sleeves. You know, the one with the red buttons.”

“Coming, memsahib.” Ayah was padding across the compound with her sari pulled over her head. She had had heaps of time to get to the little brick kitchen and back again. “Wearing red shoes, memsahib?” Ayah was speaking with her shiny head half out of a cupboard.

“Oh yes, rather!” Dandelion’s heart was giving little excited thumps.

She had begun to look forward enormously to these sails with Major Lancaster. She had had five, and this was the sixth. And this was going to be a most glorious long one. Right across to something that looked exactly like a desert island, he had told her in his lazy amused voice through the telephone. Dandelion amused him tremendously. Most women were so damned dull especially in Bombay. And he still looked amused as the luxurious two-seater car steered itself away from the overhanging porch of Wilderness House. Dandelion was positively boiling over with excitement. Her two red shoes stuck straight out in front of her.

“I think I shall call you Karen,” said Major Lancaster, changing gear as he turned sharply to the left out of the white gate of Wilderness House.

“Why? Because of my shoes?” Dandelion twisted her ankles so that her feet turned in slightly. “They’re rather nice, aren’t they?” she said cheerfully.

“Very nice.”

The car was stealing along the crest of Malabar Hill. Down below, on the right, Bombay lay quivering under the fierce midday sun.

“It always reminds me of that view you get of Eastbourne from the top of the Downs,” said Major Lancaster, glancing rather sleepily out from under the hard white brim of his topi. “Gad, it’s glary up here. I hope the sun and the yacht combined won’t make you feel ick!”

“Ick, I? I’ve never felt ick in my life.” Dandelion was dimpling with excitement and pleasure. “Why is it better to say ick than sick, though?”

“Less descriptive.” Major Lancaster laughed lazily. “You excited little baby,” he said caressingly, staring down at her thoughtfully. “How old are you? Twelve?”

“No; much more!” Dandelion gave a little awkward laugh. Something suddenly told her that Major Lancaster had no business to talk to her like that. And yet, if she said anything to show that she didn’t like it, how frightfully uncomfortable it would be. Sort of making something out of nothing. Seeming to him as if she thought he had a different feeling for her than he had. She moved a fraction farther away from him along the seat.

Major Lancaster’s long eyelashes flickered a little as he steered his way round the hairpin bend that leads from the Hanging Gardens into Hughes Road. That had been stupid of him. He remained quite silent for a minute or two. Let her make the next move, he decided, and then he could guess how her thoughts were going. He would hold his tongue for a minute or two.

“Frere is coming to fetch me from the Club, after all,” said Dandelion, after a long pause.

“Oh, is he? Splendid!” The car was now skimming along Queen’s Road. A train came snorting along the railway-line that divides the road from the sea. “Why do they always have the doors of the carriages open?” asked Dandelion, staring at the train with interest.

“So that they can fall out and then blame the Government for it,” said Major Lancaster cynically. “But what they like best is to sit on the running-boards and be swept off en masse by a passing train.”

“What? for pleasure?” exclaimed Dandelion, her blue eyes wide and incredulous.

Major Lancaster burst out laughing. “There is nothing like dying in a good cause,” he said, and his eyes twinkled with amusement.,

“But is it in a good cause?” Dandelion was suddenly interested. “I suppose they feel that they’re martyrs if they do that,” she said.

“Heaven knows what they feel!” said Major Lancaster. “I’m sure I don’t care. But I know what I do feel,” he went on, “and I expect you do too: desperately hungry. I pray we get a spanking breeze and then we’ll be at South Karanjia in a little under an hour. We’ll wait for lunch till we get there: I got the Club steward to put it up for us, and all we’ve got to do is to get on board, and hustle over there as soon as we can.”

“Heavenly!” Dandelion’s eyes were shining excitedly as the car turned sharply to the left and steered its noiseless way round to the low shadowed entrance to the Yacht Club.

Chapter VII

South Karanjia is extremely romantic. It lies across the harbour just opposite Bombay. You leave Bombay with its civilization and its Clubs and its electric fans and its Church and Commercial Stores, and an hour or so later you anchor off a shore white and completely untrodden—a shore that slopes up to a dark belt of palm-trees. A veritable enchanted desert island of a place, mysterious beyond belief. Anything might happen there—buried treasure, pirates. Dandelion, from under the brim of her topi, stared out at it in an excited rapture. Fancy never having been here before; why, it was absolutely perfect.

“We’ll take our lunch on shore.” Major Lancaster, who was an excellent yachtsman, was doing deft and complicated things with ropes. “You sit still while Bhaiya and I get the anchor down. Yes; it’s heavenly, isn’t it? I knew you’d like it”—this in response to Dandelion’s little excited gusts of joy. “Now, then, we’re ready”; he got up lazily as the little Seabird. rocked cheerfully on the absolutely blue and transparent water. “I’m going to carry you; it’s only a yard or two.” Major Lancaster was rolling up his white flannel trousers with his rather thin brown fingers.

“Carry me? Yes, but can’t I——?” Dandelion was suddenly breathless. To be carried through the sea by this tall man: what would her husband say? What would he think? “I——” Dandelion suddenly began to stammer.

“Come along.” Major Lancaster was holding out one hand. “Bhaiya, you get on shore with the tiffin basket——” he said, speaking swiftly in the vernacular.

“Attcha, sahib!” Bhaiya, more like a monkey than anything else, was climbing agilely over the seats. His long brown legs slid over the varnished sides of the yacht, the tiffin basket on his head. Dandelion watched the blue water swirling round his sinewy knees. It was getting shallower; there, Bhaiya was already on the white pebbly sand, and was making his way slowly up towards the black belt of pine forest.

“Come along; I’m not going to drown you.” Major Lancaster was laughing up at Dandelion. What a pet; she was hesitating to come into his arms. That showed that she was not indifferent to him, thought Major Lancaster, versed in the moods of women. “Let yourself slide over the edge. I’ll catch you all right.”

“Yes, but——” And then Dandelion did as she was told.

Major Lancaster was strong, and he held Dandelion like a baby, close to his chest, his long arms underneath her. “Supposing I drop you,” he said suddenly.

“No, no; don’t!” Dandelion suddenly cried out and clung, like a child.

“Should I be likely to?” Major Lancaster’s voice was suddenly tender. Dandelion, although solid, was soft and yielding in his arms. Hers was the solidity of a child. Her face looked out at the world with a strange innocence. Major Lancaster suddenly felt that he wanted to smash it up—to wake her up; the tough old box-wallah hadn’t really got this girl at all. She was passionate, deeply so, under that little freckled face. He waded slowly with her to the shore. This was going to be an enchanting day, and he was going to make the most of it too.

And he did. They had lunch at the foot of the palm-trees—an extremely nice lunch; the steward of the Yacht Club knew his job. Dandelion, propped up against the trunk of a tree, stared round her and wondered if it was really true. All alone, on what looked exactly like a desert island, with this very nice man. Because he was a nice man; Dandelion was more and more sure of it. Not a bit like her husband, though. Mysterious, with a strange fascination in his mystery. For, lunch well over, his dark eyes were meeting hers broodingly through a cloud of cigarette smoke. He was like nobody she had ever seen before, thought Dandelion excitedly.

“Tell me what you think about.” He spoke after a long silence.

“What I think about?” Dandelion hesitated. “Lots of things,” she said after a little pause.

“That’s too vague; I hate generalities,” said Major Lancaster. “Tell me what you think about me, for instance.”

“Oh no, I couldn’t,” said Dandelion hurriedly.

“Yes, you could. I should love it. Do; please—I don’t mind how horrid it is.”

Major Lancaster had rolled over on to his side and was propped up on one elbow staring at Dandelion. Her topi was a little crooked; her sensitive, trusting mouth a little perturbed.

“It isn’t horrid at all,” said Dandelion abruptly.

Suddenly, somewhere far away in her, a pulse began to beat. How exciting this was all being, she thought desperately. Exciting in a most extraordinary way a sort of glowing way, making the thought of even quite nice things seem flat. Something seemed to be quivering between her and the man a little away from her. Something like that trembling veil of heat that had hung over Bombay as they steered their way down from the Hanging Gardens to the Fort.

“It isn’t horrid. Then all the more reason why you should tell me,” said Major Lancaster insistently. He heaved his long length just a shade closer to her. Karen,” he said, and very gently he pinched the toe of one red shoe.

“No, don’t.” Dandelion drew her foot away swiftly. There was something about being touched that made her feel hot all over, she thought. It was wrong; desperately wrong.

“Sorry!” Major Lancaster’s brooding eyes were penitent. But they were amused as well. What a duck! She only needed the insistent imperative call of passion to make her quite perfect. “Tell me,” he urged.

“I think you’re nice,” burst out Dandelion. “Frightfully nice, and you know I do or you wouldn’t make me tell you. You’re exactly like Nick in that book of Ethel Dell’s. Only——”

“Only what?”

“Only I don’t think you ought to touch my foot. I don’t think you ought to touch me at all. I’m married. Married women are not touched by other men.”

“Do you mean literally or figuratively?” said Major Lancaster, his dark eyes dancing with fun.

“I don’t know what figuratively means exactly. I mean anyway,” burst out Dandelion.

“I see.” Major Lancaster suddenly rolled over and sat up. He dragged his topi down over his eyes. “You condemn me, then, to outer darkness?” he said.

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. You say that I ought not to touch you. Well, I hate you to say that. It means that there is something in my touch that you dislike—something repugnant to you.”

“No, there isn’t.” Dandelion was labouring to make herself clear. She stared out over the blue, translucid sea. She could just see Bhaiya sitting up in the stem of the yacht, puffing smoke out from between his cupped hands. He squatted like a monkey on the seat. “It is that in a way I like you touching me,” she said desperately. “That’s why I think it’s wrong and that you oughtn’t to do it.”

“I see.” There was suddenly a long silence. Major Lancaster was visualizing Sir Frere Manwaring and wondering what had possessed this girl to marry him. In any event, he had not got her, he decided, and therefore the coast was clear for him. And he was glad—strangely, unusually glad. Dandelion attracted him very much indeed. There was something extraordinarily refreshing about her; something so unexploited. She was not too good-looking, but then she had other qualities that made up for her lack in that respect. She was apparently genuine; oh, the relief of that to this spoilt man of the world. He stared up at her from under his topi.

“You are a perfect darling,” he said abruptly.

“No, I’m not; anyhow, not to you. I do wish you wouldn’t say that sort of thing.” Dandelion was suddenly terribly uneasy. This was all utterly wrong; something within herself told her so without a doubt And yet, how overwhelmingly pleasant it was—how utterly unlike anything that she had ever experienced before; how extraordinarily like something that she had sometimes dreamed of! A poignant pleasure about every instant of it. An excitement, an——

“Look here, don’t spoil yourself by being Early Victorian.” Major Lancaster had twisted himself a little on the moss. He picked a couple of pine-needles off his silk coat and flicked them away from him.

Dandelion watched his long brown fingers with a strange curiosity. They were like ayah’s fingers, she concluded. Better kept, of course; his nails were perfect. But they had that sort of restless look about them—a sort of twining look.

“I’m not Early Victorian; at least, I don’t mean to be.” Dandelion was anxiously apologetic. “But you must realize—you must know—that married women don’t have other men say things like that to them. Even if they like it, they don’t.”

“Then you do like it?” said Major Lancaster.

“Well, I do, rather,” said poor Dandelion, and she hung her head like a child. “You see, I love the excitement of it. Besides, I’ve always rather felt like that with you. You understand things so. I don’t have to explain anything. And yet I have that sort of awful feeling all the time that it isn’t right—a feeling that my husband lets me go out alone with you, and that because of that I ought to be extra careful what I do or say. You do understand, don’t you? Do understand, please,” said Dandelion, and she stooped her head to try to see under the brim of the hard hat that was now turned a little away from her.

“Yes, I understand perfectly.” Major Lancaster raised his head after a little pause. He dropped it again and went on digging in the moss with one of the pine-needles, longer and more stalwart than the rest. “You see, it’s because I am more your own age,” he said, and he said it very slowly and deliberately.

“Yes, I see.” Dandelion was still staring at Bhaiya. How could he go on squatting like that? she wondered vaguely. The seat was frightfully hard; she herself had been very glad of the luxurious cushion that Major Lancaster had settled dextrously underneath her when they started.

“Your point of view must of necessity be very different to his,” went on Major Lancaster. “That’s where the bother comes in when husband and wife are not of the same age.”

“I love him, though,” burst out Dandelion suddenly.

“Of course you do. I never doubted it. Why do you say that as if you thought I did? Don’t take your hat off; it isn’t safe at this time of day, even although we are sitting under the trees.”

“You sound as if you thought I didn’t love him,” cried Dandelion, dragging on her hat again and suddenly feeling profoundly wretched. “I do; I love him awfully. He’s given me everything; he’s been most frightfully kind to me. Let’s go back; I’m tired of this. It makes me feel——” Dandelion suddenly felt the tears stinging the back of her eyelids.

“It makes you feel what?” said Major Lancaster, and his eyes were very intent.

“Frightfully disloyal,”said Dandelion, and she dragged her minute handkerchief from under her short sleeve.

“Then we’ll certainly go back at once.” Major Lancaster sat up and looked at the watch on his wrist “The wind isn’t absolutely in the right quarter yet,” he said, “but it will be in three-quarters of an hour or so. Till then I’ll just stroll about and leave you to snooze comfortably here under the trees.”

“No, don’t.” Dandelion’s breast was heaving under her soft silk frock. “It seems so ungrateful when you’ve done everything to make it nice for me. Only, don’t you see——?”

“I see nothing except that I think you’re the sweetest little creature that I’ve ever come across,” said Major Lancaster, and he said it with genuine emotion. He was astounded himself at the effect that Dandelion was having on him. Cynical to a degree, because of his easy conquests, he regarded women as more or less all in the same category. But here was something different. He heaved himself up to his full height. “In three-quarters of an hour I’ll come back for you,” he said. “Until then, Lady Manwaring, forget that such a person exists.”

“No, don’t; I don’t want you to go away.” Dandelion spoke in alarm. She suddenly realized what it would mean to her if this man did take her at her word. Why, he had absolutely made the last three weeks of her time in Bombay. These sails with him had been the one thing that she had had to look forward to. Sir Frere was never there, except at breakfast and dinner, and then he had been very often absorbed in his own thoughts. Kind, of course, always kind; even in her distress Dandelion felt a little choking sensation at the back of her throat at the thought of his unfailing kindness. But you couldn’t exist only on kindness; you had to have something else as well. Something imperative—something violent——

“Yes, I must go; if I stay, I——” Major Lancaster, still standing, was staring out over the harbour. You could see the white dome of the Taj Mahal Hotel through the heavy pall of heat that hung over the city, the gleaming golden dome of the Museum. “If I stay I shall say something that I ought not to,” he said.

“What?” Dandelion’s soft lips hung a little apart. Her eyes were fixed on the toes of her red shoes. They were sandy; she took her handkerchief out of her sleeve to dust them mechanically.

“That I love you,” said Major Lancaster, and he said it very distinctly, and still standing staring out over the harbour.

Chapter VIII

Sir Frere soon found out what was wrong, and he found it out with an awful clutching at his heart. But he made no sign of what he was feeling. It happened on the very evening of the day spent at South Karanjia. The drive back to the bungalow had been made almost in silence. He had met Dandelion and Major Lancaster in the hall of the Yacht Club and had thanked the younger man pleasantly for his thought for his wife.

“I’m afraid she has been having a rather dull time up to the present,” he said, “but I’ve been so desperately busy since I came back from leave this time that I haven’t known how to turn. But I’m thankful to say that I think I see an end to it, and then I shall be able to fulfil my duties a little more efficiently,” and with a pleasant little laugh he had drawn Dandelion to the car, which was standing quietly throbbing under the porch, and nodding a cheerful good-night to the man left standing under the whirling electric fan, had sat down behind the steering wheel.

But the drive back to the bungalow had been made in silence. Dandelion sat sunk very low in the seat beside him. Sir Frere could see her little bare hands linked on her knees. What was she thinking about? he wondered. And he wondered even more as the evening wore on. Dinner was over, and they were sitting, as they generally did, on the wide marble verandah. Dandelion generally knitted or played patience while he read or talked to her. But this evening she did nothing. She sat and stared in front of her, her head turned away from him. And then at last she spoke.

“Who is Major Lancaster?” she asked.

Sir Frere, who had been staring unseeingly at the pages of his book, laid it down on his knee, slipping in a finger to keep the place.

“There are many rumours about him,” he said quietly, “most of them, I expect, untrue. So it is hardly fair to repeat them.”

“Yes; do tell me.” Dandelion stirred a little in her chair.

“Well, they say that he is the son of an Englishman by his marriage to an Afghan woman,” said Sir Frere quietly. Suddenly he felt that it was as well that Dandelion should know this.

“Oh, how perfectly awful! Does he know?” Dandelion, startled and horrified, swung round in her chair to stare at her husband.

“Nobody quite knows. Personally, I think that he does, and that that accounts for a certain amount of moroseness about him,” said Sir Frere. “He feels himself at a social disadvantage, you see, and it has embittered him.”

“Yes; but he oughtn’t to. Why should he?”

“I don’t know, but he probably does,” said Sir Frere laconically.

“Well, I think it’s horribly unfair,” said Dandelion hotly and abruptly. “After all, he didn’t want to be born. He can’t help it if his mother was a native.”

“No, quite. But in spite of all that it matters very badly, especially in this country. Dandelion,” said Sir Frere evenly. And then he took his finger from between the leaves of his book and spoke without looking at his wife: “You see, the mixture of East and West very often results in a very serious condition of untrustworthiness, Dandelion. No one seems to know quite why it does, but it does. All the vices of both races and very few of their virtues.” Sir Frere began to turn the pages of his book over again.

“I see,” and then Dandelion fell silent. The compound was very still; only the chirping of a tree-frog broke the quiet aromatic silence of it.

Dandelion got up slowly, and, to the quick scrutiny of the man sitting in the chair opposite to her, a little wearily. “I’m going to bed,” she said.

“Do, darling; I shan’t be long after you.” Sir Frere turned his head as she passed behind him. He watched her walking along the verandah to the curtained door at the end of it. Through the curtain, with a faint jangling of the big brass rings of it. His wife; the most precious thing to him in the world. Had he looked after her properly—had he? Sir Frere suddenly got up and began to pace up and down the verandah with his hands locked behind him.

But it was only a quarter of an hour afterwards that Kala, the hamal, got the order to “bund karo.” (Shut up) Joyfully he rose from his squatting position on the back verandah to obey the call. Insistently his little string charpoy and his bidi (Cigarette) were calling him. With such a butler as Francis even a bidi in the shelter of the back verandah was prohibited; he padded out and began shaking up the cushions on the chairs with alacrity.

And in another quarter of an hour Sir Frere was standing behind the curtain of his dressing-room door. He stood there with his head a little bent. Dandelion had been quicker than usual; the large cool matted room next to his was in darkness. He pulled the curtain aside and still stood motionless. The two brass bedsteads in the middle of the room, shrouded with one large mosquito curtain, showed faintly white in the darkness. Only the chirping of the same insistent tree-frog, and the whirring of the overhead fan broke the silence.

“Are you asleep, darling?” Sir Frere still stood where he was as he spoke. He was suddenly seized with an irresolution very unusual with him. The almost silent evening had shaken his self-possession. Dandelion was generally so expansive and spontaneous. He sensed something different in her. Something mature; something detached from him, her husband, who should have the power to know everything that was going on in her mind.

“Too tired to sleep?” Sir Frere still stood outside the white curtain.

Dandelion’s small body made a little hump in her bed; she had the sheet drawn up to her chin.

“No, not exactly tired.” Dandelion, with her eyes staring through the curtain, tried to speak as usual. But a wave of irritation was flooding through her. This was all wrong, she thought tumultuously; no one ought to have a right to walk into your bedroom whether you wanted them or not. Everybody ought to be able to be alone when they felt like it.

“Just a little perverse—is that it, my sweet?” Sir Frere had walked round to the other side of the big white curtain. He got in underneath it quickly, and tucked it under the mattress with a deft hand. “Now then, come over here and tell me all about it,” he said, and he stretched out his right hand and laid it on Dandelion’s shoulder.

But only for an instant. Dandelion had shrunk away from him; Sir Frere sensed it rather than felt it. And in the darkness his keen eyes opened a little more widely. Had he then been so intent on the dry-rot in his business affairs that he had not been able to sense the dry-rot in his own domestic and more intimate affairs? Surely not for him the eternal triangle; the sickening, devastating, hopeless condition of things that reduced marriage to a mockery, and happiness to a skeleton. His left hand was tightly clenched at his side.

“Look here, don’t do that, darling,” he said evenly.

“What?”

“Why, shrink away from me like that.”

“I didn’t mean to.” Dandelion’s voice came muffled. She had pulled the sheet up over her head.

“No; never mind then; come along.” Sir Frere put out his hand again. And this time he slipped it under her neck to draw her a little. And he was not deterred either by the quick rigidity of the soft body under his hand.

“No, you shall.” Sir Frere was suddenly determined.

“I won’t; leave me alone. I tell you I’m tired.” Dandelion’s was the shrill complaint of overmastering terror. She sensed something new in the quiet figure by her side. Always so tender and thoughtful for her, and now new and somehow different.

“Dandelion, how can you speak to me like that? Have I ever——?” Sir Frere was deeply hurt. And stupefied into the bargain. So far had it gone, then, that she actually shrank away from him? “Look here, we’re going to have this out,” he said, “and now, at once. What has that man been saying to you to-day?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t lie to me, Dandelion.” Sir Frere suddenly sat up and linked his hands round his knees. “I’ve been a damned fool to let you go about with him so much,” he said, “and I only did it because I thought you were so dull, and because I trusted both you and him. But now I see I’ve been mistaken. Tell me what he said to you to-day, Dandelion, or you will regret it. I will have you tell me!”

“I can’t. You’ll let him know that I told you.” Dandelion, terrified out of her senses, had also struggled up into a sitting position. This was somebody new who sat staring at her through the darkness—somebody uncontrolled and awful.

“No, I shan’t. But if you don’t tell me yourself, I shall make a point of getting it out of him somehow,” said Sir Frere grimly. “Be quick, Dandelion, and don’t irritate me.”

“He said that he loved me,” sobbed Dandelion, flinging herself back on her pillow and staring terrified upwards through her tears.

“Did he though?” Sir Frere was breathing a little heavily. But inwardly he was relieved. If Dandelion would tell him as frankly as that what had taken place, he thought, there was not much to worry about. But, “Major Lancaster has told a good many women that,” he said dryly.

“Has he?” And then suddenly Dandelion was nettled. It had seemed so grand, to be loved by that queer attractive man. But if she was only one among—— “How do you know?” she asked, wiping her eyes with a small handkerchief dragged from under her pillow

“Because Major Lancaster has a very unsavoury reputation indeed,” said Sir Frere steadily, “and that’s why I hesitated at first to let you go about with him But I thought—— Anyhow, I see that I have been mistaken,” he concluded quietly.

“Yes; but do you mean that now I shan’t be able to go about with him at all?” trembled Dandelion.

“Of course I do. The man’s a cad. He’s simply taken advantage of your youth and inexperience to flatter you by making you think that you’re indispensable to him. I won’t say anything to him about it, because it would only lead to a row, and what’s the good of it? But I must ask you, Dandelion, to respect my wishes in this matter and keep very decidedly out of his way. Were he not the man that I know him to be, I should feel very much more anxious than I do. But he is one of those unfortunate people who cannot help making love to other men’s wives. And he happens to have picked you out for his attentions this time. But all the same, I don’t like it, and I won’t have it. Do you understand?”

“Yes; but I’m sorry for him,” said Dandelion obstinately.

“You may be, because you’re a very silly little girl,” said Sir Frere, smiling a little in the darkness. “But that doesn’t alter my opinion, and the opinion of a good many other people, does it? Come over here and go to sleep in my arms, my darling.”

“Somehow I feel as if I didn’t want to,” said Dandelion miserably.

“Very well, my child; do exactly as you like.” Sir Frere settled himself on his pillows. But inwardly he was deeply hurt. This was the first time, since her sweet and frank surrender, that Dandelion had ever shrunk from his caresses, he remembered sadly. And it was nearly dawn before he finally closed his eyes and slept. But when at last he did sleep, he slept with her close up against his heart.

She had awakened with a cry just as the hour of two had come trembling up from the Clock Tower below the Hill. “Frere, I thought that you——” Dandelion was stretching out through the darkness and choking.

“What is it, my darling?” Sir Frere, who had been lying sleeplessly watching the little figure humped up under the sheet beside him, was up on his elbow in an instant.

“Why, I don’t know. Frere, don’t ever let me go—don’t ever let me go,” Dandelion was sobbing helplessly.

“I’m never going to, my child.” Sir Frere’s voice was grim. “Don’t worry about that. But you’re only dreaming, darling. Come along; like you generally do. There. Comfy?” Sir Frere’s arms were strong and tender.

“Yes, awfully,” and instantly Dandelion was asleep again. Asleep with her dark head close up under her husband’s chin. But the crows in the tall trees overhanging the low bungalow were very wide awake before Sir Frere finally closed his eyes again. For another hour at least he lay and watched the ceaseless whirling of the electric fan above the big mosquito curtain.

Chapter IX

Ayah was finding life very difficult. Her visits to the little hut shrouded in bougainvillea were becoming a nightmare. The old Afghan woman cursed at her because she had nothing of interest to report. “Major Lancaster Sahib had ceased to frequent the bungalow.” That was all ayah could find to say, and she said it sulkily. She was beginning to be terrified at the more frequent and heavy sounds from the little room adjoining the one in which she and the Afghan woman held their consultations. Grunts and thuds, and every now and then a hoarse and half-formed articulation. The wretched half-imbecile prisoner was beginning to be more lively. Opium was more and more difficult to get. Ayah felt desperate. If this affair were to come out into the light of day, she was the one who would suffer, she thought.

The sodden old woman on the charpoy was too sunk in apathy to care what happened to her. Only the mention of her son brought a fierce maternity into her sunken eyes. Her son, the light of her eyes; although she had not seen him since he was a little boy, her heart dwelt on him in rapture. Her daughter—the old Afghan woman spat as she stared at the communicating door. To come from that far-off country young and fair and dressed as the women in Bombay had been wont to dress—the women who had despised her and looked down on her because of her dark skin. The old Afghan woman had soon been able to settle that. A goodly portion of opium in the soup every day, and the rest had been easy. Out of sight, out of mind; nothing holds more good in Bombay than that trite saying. Nobody remembered the young daughter of the old merchant when she had not been visible for a couple of weeks. And in a couple of months nobody would have recognized her. . . . And now, after twenty years of solitary confinement in a filthy hut, it was more or less of an animal that shrank and sprawled and mumbled in a dark corner. Only ayah, and sometimes the old Afghan woman, went in and out of the confined space.

But to the fact that the prisoner was beginning to be more lively ayah could not shut her eyes, and the knowledge of it worried her terribly. The old Afghan woman was slow and ponderous in her movements, and she slept heavily. Supposing one night the wretched woman got out and was found. Ayah’s heart trembled at the thought. She had a sudden wild idea of murdering both the women and taking train for her own native city of Madras. Who would know? For weeks, nay, for months, the corpses might go undiscovered.

“The child wife, does she then cease to care for my son?” the old Afghan woman was speaking fiercely, and glaring from the heaped-up corner of the low charpoy.

“I cannot tell. He comes no more, that is all I can say.”. Ayah sat with her sari drawn down over her face, scowling at the dark mud floor.

“But he must have her if he wishes. Since he lay upon my breast, all the women that he has desired he has had. Shall she refuse him, this young wife of the rich box-wallah?”

“The rich box-wallah himself has decided. Before I carried in the chota-hazri this morning, so I heard them talking. Tears and kisses and tender words. What can I do?—-the thing is decided for me.” Ayah spoke sullenly. Sometimes Lancaster memsahib terrified her by her knowledge of what went on. How did she find it all out, this old woman who rarely moved from the corner of her charpoy? She herself told her a good deal but not all. How, then, did she know the rest?

But the old Afghan woman had many ways of finding out. Money will do practically everything in the East. She suddenly spoke, and with eager lips, “Fazal, the old bearer of my son. You know him?”

“I know him.” Ayah was scowling. Of course she knew him. She hated him because she believed that he got more from Roshan Khan, the ex-superintendent of police, than she did. He had been with the Major Sahib ever since he had been in India. “I know him,” she repeated sullenly.

“Then all will be well. Already the child wife will be yearning for the sight of my son. He is lithe and beautiful to look upon, and the box-wallah is of a solid and unprepossessing stature. A letter between them; it will be easy to procure. See that it is done. And when it is obtained—” the old Afghan woman started to grope underneath her filthy pillow-case. “And where these have come from there are more,” she said, and she let a little stream of golden coins trickle through her skinny fingers.

Chapter X

Bombay, on the whole, was a little disappointed to find that the affair between Major Lancaster and Lady Manwaring had fizzled out so quickly. It had promised a mild excitement for the cold weather. Dandelion now appeared more frequently with her husband in public. Rumour had it that Manwarings was now on its feet again. Sir Frere walked across the lawn at the Yacht Club with his young wife beside him, a typical example of the successful business man. That Dandelion looked a little pale and jaded nobody noticed, or if they did, they put it down to the Bombay climate. Sir Frere was evidently a most devoted husband; what more could she want? Probably she had been quite badly off. Hugh Davison, although remembered by many people in Bombay as a most delightful man, had had no private means, and a Provident Fund does not go far nowadays in England.

And Dandelion often asked herself the same question: what more did she want? Why this feeling of ghastly dullness that possessed her? Everything had been such frantic fun at first; why was it now all so flat? And then suddenly one day she knew. It was at the Races she saw him again for the first time after that long day at South Karanjia. And a little cold prickling tremor ran suddenly all down her spine, from the nape of her neck to her heels. He had only just taken off his topi as he passed, but his eyes had been intent. And he went on well-pleased. Karen had missed him; she was looking peaky.

Major Lancaster had had a good deal of experience with women, and he knew that the surest way to get them back was to leave them alone. If the affair with Lady Manwaring was to have the faintest value for him, she must want him badly enough to take a certain amount of trouble about it. And somehow the sight of Dandelion, pale and subdued at the Races, glued to the side of the tough box-wallah, afforded him great pleasure. She would be all the more attractive now that she had had a spell of dull virtue, he thought triumphantly. He hated Sir Frere for his recent score over him. Once, if not twice, Dandelion had actually rung off when she had heard his voice at the other end of the telephone. Well, a man who could persuade his wife to do that, must certainly be scored off somehow.

And luck was with him. One day, casually, as Fazal Khan, his old Mohammedan bearer, was holding his dress-shirt carefully over his head, so that his sahib could slip into it more easily, the old man spoke in a respectful undertone. “Frere Sahib, the burra sahib of the firm of Manwarings, had gone to the mofussil (Up country) for a week or ten days”; so said Fazal Khan, padding to the dressing-table for the pearl stud.

“Has Lady Manwaring gone with him?” Major Lancaster was standing staring into the looking-glass, brushing his short dark moustache up from his mouth with one of his ivory-backed hair-brushes. He picked up the second one and gave his eyebrows a quick sweep with both brushes at once.

“No, sahib. Frere Sahib saying journey too hot for Lady Sahib.” Fazal was busily occupied in hanging a striped shirt and cotton vest over the back of a chair.

“Is she in her own bungalow?” Major Lancaster was standing very still, staring out of the wire door that gave on to the verandah.

“Hain, sahib.” Fazal Khan had a beautifully curled black beard. His lips were mobile through it. “Lady Sahib having littly littly fever. Doctor Sahib saying staying quietly. Francis butler gone with sahib; ayah and second boy staying with memsahib,” concluded Fazal Khan glibly.

“Oh!” Major Lancaster turned round and looked at his servant. “That’s all,” he said; “you can go now. I shan’t be back from the Mess until late. You need not wait up.”

“Salaam, sahib,” and Fazal Khan had gone. But he could hear the quick ring-off of the telephone-bell from his little brick quarter. That had not taken long, thought Major Lancaster contentedly, putting the receiver back on its stand. Such a little breathless voice too: “Who is it speaking?” Dandelion had got to the telephone from wherever she was in a very short time. She must have run, the pet. That just told him what he wanted to know, namely, that she was not seedy enough to be in bed. Major Lancaster lounged over to the Mess with a very contented look in his mysterious eyes.

Chapter XI

Sir Frere Manwaring had not left his wife alone in the big bungalow without a certain amount of misgiving. But Dandelion had been so sure that she did not mind. “No; I should hate to go and stay with anyone,” she said, vetoing any idea of spending the time with Lady Coles, who was now back from Mahableshwar and would gladly have had her for the week or ten days. “When you stay with people you have to talk all the time, and I never have enough to say. Let me stay here. I shall be perfectly all right with ayah, and the durzie is coming. I love a durzie; it is so exciting to see them make things and holding the stuff with their toes.”

So Sir Frere had gone off, and Dandelion had clung to him very closely at parting. There was so much protection about him, she thought, as she saw the car circle round the little lawn and go sliding out at the gate. No mad excitement or thrills, of course, but just solid comfort and content. And of course solid comfort and content were all that you ought to want, thought Dandelion, soberly going along to her big cool bedroom and getting a little heavily on to her bed. She had had a touch of fever, and it made her feel languid.

“Turn on the fan, ayah.” Dandelion lay on her back staring at the ceiling through the mosquito curtain, and then closing her eyes as the big white blades above her head started their monotonous sweep. But that night she did not get to sleep quite so quickly as usual. Whose had been the ring on the telephone at about half-past seven that evening, just before she sat down to dinner. Kallan, the second “boy,” had just carried in the soup. He was pleased to have been allowed to look after the Lady Sahib while she was by herself, and had announced the ring of the telephone in important and inferior English. He had been pleased to get to the telephone before ayah, who had come padding from her corner of the verandah at the sound of the sharp metallic ring.

And then nobody had answered. Surely it was not because she had not been quick enough; Dandelion, with a sharp quiver of disappointment all through her, came back slowly to the dining-table. She had run—perhaps they would ring up again. Dandelion ate the rest of the daintily prepared food, with her thoughts in the little room where the telephone stood silently on a carved Kashmir table.

But nobody rang up again. It was not until the next evening—just as Dandelion had stretched herself wearily in the low wicker chair under the verandah fan, and wondered why evenings in India were so ghastly dull: if only you could go in and sit by a lovely fire, how gorgeous it would be—that there was a stealthy sticky sound of tyres on well rolled gravel, and Major Lancaster’s beautiful two-seater Essex stopped silently at the foot of the flight of marble steps. And from the shelter of the hood he had had just the requisite number of seconds to see how Dandelion took his arrival. She was pleased; her little gasp showed that. Major Lancaster drew in his own breath with a little noiseless gasp. He would have looked such a damned fool if she hadn’t been.

“Well, I hear you’ve been seedy.” Major Lancaster was in his Mess uniform. He knew he looked nice in it. He came slowly up the steps to where Dandelion stood tremulously by her chair, holding on to the back of it with one hand.

“Only a little. How did you know?”

“Everyone knows everything about everybody else in Bombay,” said Major Lancaster easily. “Where’s Sir Frere? I’ve come to ask him if I may take you out for a drive. It’s beautiful out; the air will do you good. I didn’t see him at the Club to-night or I would have asked him then.”

“He’s away,” faltered Dandelion.

“Away!” Major Lancaster’s dropped jaw had all the reality of acute dismay: “I say, I am sorry,” he stammered.

“Why?”

“Why, it looks as if I——” Major Lancaster hesitated. “You see, you dropped me like a hot brick,” he said. “I didn’t quite know why. So I thought that if I came up when you were en famille, so to speak, it would be easier. But now, of course——” Major Lancaster hesitated again and turned a little away towards the steps.

“No, don’t go.” Dandelion’s face was flushing and paling. “You see, I’ve had a tiny go of fever,” she said eagerly. “Frere had to go up country to see about some coalfield or something. I don’t exactly know what it was, but I know it was important and had to be done before Christmas. And as I hadn’t been very well, and there wasn’t anywhere really near the place where I could stay comfortably, he thought I had better stay here. He’s gone to Karachi, and then on somewhere else; somewhere right out in the wilds.”

“I see.” Major Lancaster stood staring at Dandelion from out of his dark, melancholy eyes. “Why did you turn your back on me like you did?” he asked.

“I didn’t know I had,” Dandelion was stammering, confused. Her blue eyes were held by the dark ones looking down into hers.

“You didn’t know that you had!” Major Lancaster repeated the words contemptuously. “After constantly going about with me you suddenly decline even to answer the telephone when I try to speak to you on it. What do you call that, then?”

“My husband——” and then the words died on Dandelion’s lips. How incredibly, how intolerably “missish” it would sound to tell this man of the world that she had confessed to her husband that words of love had been spoken during that picnic at South Karanjia, and that he hadn’t liked it and had put his foot down, saying that she must not see him again. People simply didn’t behave like that. If these things happened, they managed them themselves, and didn’t give the person away to either husband or wife. When you were married, especially nowadays, you led your own life, up to a certain point at least. Even in the old days you did. Dandelion could quite well remember hearing her mother say: “Oh, that was one of daddy’s stray love-affairs, I’m not supposed to know anything about that!” Well, this was one of her, Dandelion’s, stray love-affairs, and she had blurted it all out to her husband. Foolish, imbecile, and in fact dishonest, because she had betrayed somebody else’s confidence. Dandelion stood staring, speechless, at the man standing in front of her.

“Well?”

“I haven’t anything to say.” Dandelion’s voice was tremulous.

“Well, then, come along out for a drive and don’t be a silly little girl!” Major Lancaster’s voice was caressing. This girl was a duck, he thought again. He had exactly nine days, at the very most, to make up all the headway that he had lost; and with the box-wallah away he ought to be able to do it, if he knew women at all. “Come just as you are,” he said, and he put out his hand to draw her.

“Oh, but I must——” and then Dandelion turned.

“Oh, ayah, there you are,” she exclaimed, “I thought you’d gone for your food. I’m going out for a drive with Lancaster Sahib. I shan’t be late. Put your mat in the corner of my dressing-room, as you always do, and I’ll wake you when I come in.”

“Very good, memsahib. Salaam, sahib.” Ayah’s skinny hand was profound in its deference as she raised it to her forehead.

“Salaam, ayah.” Major Lancaster’s response was pleasant. But his eyes were suddenly keen. So this was where Fazal got his information, was it? He had noticed this woman hanging about the compound. However, it really didn’t matter where he got it so long as it was got and accurately. “No, you don’t want a hat,” he said: “come just as you are. Get a coat, though, if you’ll feel happier, although it’s hot enough, Heaven knows.”

“I’d rather have a coat; no, I’ll get it, ayah—I know the one I want.” Dandelion, suddenly feeling ridiculously cheerful, was running along the verandah to her room. She was back in less than a minute; anything as terrifically exciting as this made you want to hurry.

But thirty seconds was enough for ayah’s dark restless fingers to close over a ten-rupee note. “Salaam, sahib.” Ayah’s salute this time was a real obeisance. Right down to her feet went her dark hand before it touched her forehead again.

“Aren’t they funny?” Dandelion’s teeth were showing in a delighted smile as the car crept round the little lawn. “So awfully polite; fancy, she salaamed to you twice.”

“Yes; they’re queer creatures,” replied Major Lancaster, skilfully changing gear as the low car stole out between the white gateposts.

Chapter XII

Nobody ever gets any thanks for interfering in a love-affair. And Lady Coles knew it very well, as one morning, rather early, she set off from her own bungalow to go and see Dandelion. She walked gracefully, and looked nice in her camouflaged solar topi. But she felt extremely uncomfortable. Only the fact of her being an old friend of Sir Frere’s and the consciousness that Dandelion was very young, and probably very stupid, prompted her in her action. Also, the knowledge that Dandelion was Hugh Davison’s daughter. All the women in Bombay had liked Hugh, and most of them had envied his wife. The child of such a father had probably the same tendency in her, because everybody knew that before Hugh had finally settled down and married the woman he loved, he had been what is commonly called “fresh.” Hence Lady Coles’s mission on this beautiful sunny morning. But when, about a quarter of an hour later, she sat facing Dandelion in the large drawing-room, she felt seriously uneasy, as well as uncomfortable. For Dandelion’s former rather unsophisticated spontaneity had changed to a highly excited nervousness.

“And when do you expect your husband back?” Lady Coles’s pleasant gaze was fixed on Dandelion’s pale face.

“Well, he thought he might be coming back to-morrow.” Dandelion was clasping and unclasping her damp hands. “But I heard this morning that he can’t get away till Saturday. Four more days.”

“I see. Well, come and spend them with us.” Lady Coles spoke kindly. She suddenly felt profoundly sorry for Dandelion. What chance had this young girl with a man like Major Lancaster? A little flattery; a delicate allusion or two to her probable loneliness; a subtle inference that the disparity of age between herself and her husband was very great. Perhaps even a claim to sympathy on account of his own origin. Lady Coles was not quite certain about this; nobody knew really whether Major Lancaster was aware of his origin or not. But if he was, it would be a very powerful stimulus to this girl’s imagination. She knew nothing of the country, and probably held the same views that all newcomers did—the downtrodden Indian; the arrogance and self-sufficiency of the white races. “Yes; do come and spend the rest of the week with us,” she ended up cordially.

“Oh no, thank you very much; I’m afraid I can’t.” Dandelion was still twisting her hands together. If only Lady Coles would go, she was thinking desperately. He was going to ring up at half-past ten. Well, how could she let him know that there was someone here, without that person guessing that she was saying it?

Lady Coles hesitated. Then she spoke frankly, leaning forward a little. She too was nervous; she played awkwardly with the tassels on her sun umbrella. “Lady Manwaring, you are being very badly talked about in Bombay,” she said frankly, “and being an old friend of your husband’s and of your father’s too. I thought I was justified in coming to tell you about it. You see, you are young, and new to the country, and you don’t understand. You can’t, in your husband’s absence, be seen about so much with a man like Major Lancaster without there being a great deal of talk about it. Don’t do it; there’s a dear child.”

“What business is it of anyone else’s?” In her terror Dandelion spoke sharply.

“None. But in a place like Bombay people make it their business to talk about these things. And you are new to India and don’t understand. Do be guided by me. It’s a frightful mistake, believe me.” Lady Coles spoke earnestly.

“I suppose it’s because people know that he had a native mother. I think it’s perfectly ghastly; perfectly infamous. People in Bombay are utterly heartless and cruel,” stormed Dandelion.

“So you know that?”

“Of course I do. He told me himself. Frere had already told me, but I would never have let Major Lancaster know that I knew. But he did tell me. Told me in agony, because he thought that it might make a difference in how I behaved to him. But of course it didn’t. Why should it? It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t choose his mother! It only makes me like him more. Makes me want to stick to him more, because Bombay people are so narrow-minded,” said Dandelion, glaring and emphatic.

“Oh dear!” Lady Coles gave a little quick sigh. The child was infatuated; that was obvious. She made one more attempt: “Whatever his origin,” she said quietly, “and I quite agree that that is not his fault, the fact remains that he has not a good reputation with women, Lady Manwaring. Take it from me, an old Bombay resident; I know it to be a fact or I would not say it. Don’t, in your husband’s absence, be seen about with him so much. It’s not fair to your husband, to begin with. And it’s not fair to you, either. People will judge you by what they see you do. They won’t be at all merciful in their judgment either. People aren’t, in India. It is important for you, a young married woman, to be exceedingly circumspect in your behaviour. You owe it to your husband’s position, you know, as well as to yourself.”

“I don’t care what people think about me.” Dandelion was sitting very still, staring in front of her. Her senses were suddenly dulled a little. She could see the silver clock on the table just behind Lady Coles’s head, and it was past half-past ten and he had not telephoned. What had happened to him? “I don’t care what people think about me,” she repeated, “and ‘I am sure my husband would say the same. People whose ideas are so narrow and spiteful aren’t worth bothering about,” and Dandelion set her soft mouth hardly and mutinously.

And as this was very rude, Lady Coles got up to go. But in spite of her very natural annoyance she felt a twinge of compunction as she held Dandelion’s soft hand in hers. It was the hot, sticky hand of an angry child. That was what was attracting Major Lancaster, of course, the complete unsophistication of her. Lady Coles felt very depressed as she wended her way back to her own bungalow. She had renewed her invitation before finally taking her leave. But it had been quite useless. Dandelion had been very emphatic. She was too busy—she had a durzie, you couldn’t leave a durzie; they wasted their time if you did. It was awfully kind of Lady Coles, but still—Dandelion flushed, and talking rather excitedly had ushered Lady Coles down the steps, rattling out a number of perfectly reasonable but unconvincing excuses meanwhile.

Chapter XIII

Major Lancaster had not telephoned that morning, because he had had, for him, a most unusual attack of conscience. Dandelion was really falling in love with him, he believed, if she had not already done so. She would get over it, of course; women always did. But still—for the moment she was infatuated with him. And Major Lancaster, tall and sinuous, and pacing up and down his verandah with the lithe, stealthy movement of a large cat, felt in a way compunctious. He had not meant anything serious when he had embarked on his friendship with Dandelion, and if the tough box-wallah had not been such a damned fool as to put his oar in, he would have left her alone after that day at South Karanjia. But the tough box-wallah had put his oar in, and to his own undoing.

Major Lancaster went up and down the verandah behind the green chicks of it like a stealthy-pacing animal. He wanted Dandelion—wanted her desperately. She was young and innocent and fragrant. She had none of the stereotyped wiles of the ordinary married woman. It would be perfectly gorgeous to bring a passionate cry to that confiding mouth. Major Lancaster suddenly stood quite still and stared out through the chicks. And in the sudden cessation of movement he had the queer fleeting look of a beast of prey arrested in his pacing. The sound of the trolly with its load of raw meat, forked in through the janglingly removed lower bars of the cage. The instant spring and the snatch of the huge paw. The fondling caress of the luscious morsel before the longed-for hour of demolishment began.

But somehow, in some remote part of him, Major Lancaster felt sorry about it. To begin with, he had always rather liked Sir Frere, and it seemed hard luck on him to have brought out a young wife only to find her instantly appropriated by somebody else, and that a younger man. But still, he had only himself to blame for it. You had to look after a young wife, especially at first. When she had found her feet and had a couple of babies to keep her occupied, it was all right, of course.

And meanwhile, what? Major Lancaster looked at the telephone, standing on a rather rickety bamboo table at the end of the verandah. Should he or should he not? It was to have been a drive, beginning directly after an early tea. A drive ending up with a scratch dinner on the sands beyond Juhu. Fazal was to pack what he thought was necessary, and Fazal was a dab at packing for picnics. The moon was to be nearly full, but not quite. A full moon was a bore when you wanted to make love, thought Major Lancaster cynically. And Karen was shy—she would respond more exquisitely in the dark. Should he or should he not? Major Lancaster’s melancholy eyes were undecided. If he did, it was going to be the beginning of a more complicated affair; he knew that quite well. The night before had told him that. Because it had only been just before they had started to come back from Moran that he had taken her in his arms and kissed her. And that after three solid days of really hard persuasion. Karen had not been easy to get, and Major Lancaster thought all the more of her because of it. Really, nowadays women fell into your mouth like overripe plums, he thought rather disgustedly, coming to a standstill by the telephone,and standing and staring at it.

And at the other end of the softly humming wire Dandelion also sat and stared hungrily. Supposing he was ill; nobody would let her know. Supposing somebody had said something to him, as Lady Coles had said to her, and he suddenly felt that he had better not see her any more. Supposing—Dandelion suddenly felt absolutely desperate. She had got to see him again; got to feel his cool lips on hers; got to feel him sort of forcing her compliance. That was what life was: you simply had to have it. Marriage was another thing altogether. Anything like this didn’t alter that: you still loved your husband and knew that he was there to love you and take care of you. But you simply had to have this as well. This was the culmination of all the things you had ever dreamed of. As drink must be to some people, thought Dandelion, standing and staring at the telephone as if she would tear the very heart out of it. Linking her up to him, and yet hanging there dead as a piece of old seaweed. She would smash it if the bell didn’t give its little familiar, high, shrilling ring within the next five minutes.

And it did. Higher than usual, somehow, and more decidedly. Major Lancaster’s conscience had decided to take a prolonged rest. Anyhow, until Saturday. He heard Dandelion’s excitedly given news about Sir Frere’s postponed return, with a little quiver of his long eyelashes.

Chapter XIV

The first part of the picnic was not altogether a success. Perhaps something of Major Lancaster’s attack of conscience had transferred itself to Dandelion. Also she suddenly felt rather ill. She had felt rather ill several times lately, but had said nothing about it because it sounded so stupid. Besides, it was probably indigestion; Dandelion’s lips curved in a sudden tender smile as she remembered that everything to Mrs. Davison had been indigestion. Whatever any of them had had the matter with them had always been that. Only daddy had been exempt from this universal diagnosis; when he was ill, Mrs. Davison was pale-lipped and trembling. But then he hardly ever was ill; in fact, none of them had often been ill, thought Dandelion, remembering, with a very unusual pang of longing and homesickness, her far distant home. Somehow lately she had thought very little about her home. But now, as she walked slowly along the verandah to her bedroom—Major Lancaster was calling for her at half-past six—she suddenly felt a fierce longing for her home, and also for her husband. To see his short figure coming up the verandah steps—what protection there was in it! How awfully kind he had always been to her; how kind he would be to her now, if she told him that she didn’t feel very well. He had been simply angelic when she had had that attack of fever, moving so quietly about her room and bending over her bed so tenderly.

As Dandelion got out her big white serge coat and small straw hat, she felt a sudden wave of loathing for herself. The hateful treachery of it all—the beastly meanness of it; she suddenly longed for the strength of mind that would enable her to ring up Major Lancaster and tell him that she was not coming, after all. And then the thought of the long, lonely evening came over her. She couldn’t; it would be so dull; besides, he would be so disappointed. He was sensitive, because of what he had told her the other day. She must be nice to him because of that, and also it was awful for him to love her so much. Of course, he ought not to have kissed her the other evening at Moran, but still, something within Dandelion stirred at the thought of that kiss. It had been so different from her husband’s kisses—a sort of mad, desperate excitement about it. Dandelion suddenly felt quite well as she thought about it. All that sort of muddly sick feeling had gone; it had undoubtedly been indigestion. Dandelion smiled again as she thought of her mother.

But all the same, the first part of the drive was not a success. Dandelion sat very still, sunk rather low in the seat. Major Lancaster, with the black driving-wheel cool under his hands, shot a side-glance at her and decided to leave her alone. There was not much that Major Lancaster did not know about women. She had got an attack of conscience; very well, then he would leave her alone until she had worked it off. If he attempted any sort of endearment now she would probably turn on him. If he left her severely alone, by the time they had got half-way through the Mahim woods she would be piqued, and wondering why he didn’t say anything to her.

And it all turned out exactly as Major Lancaster had hoped. The exquisite freshness of the air, the beauty of the great big moon hung high in the sky, everything suddenly brought Dandelion’s spirits up with a rush. The Mahim woods were dense and the road through them unrolled itself whitely in front of them. Every now and then they passed little clusters of native huts, with bright little fires crackling on the thresholds of them. In front of the Scottish Orphanage, through a clearing in the trees, the sea came into sight—a beautiful sea, showing a wavering path of silver all across it.

Dandelion suddenly spoke: “Oh, I say, how heavenly!” she exclaimed.

“So Karen has waked up again.” Major Lancaster spoke caressingly.

“Yes, I wasn’t asleep; I—I——”

“What’s the matter with it, then?” Major Lancaster took his left hand off the driving-wheel and felt round in the darkness for Dandelion’s hand. He lifted it to his lips; Dandelion could see it faintly white against his dark moustache.

“Oh, I wish you wouldn’t!” Dandelion was suddenly trembling.

“Why not? You know you love it”—there was something vaguely brutal in Major Lancaster’s voice. This was all too slow for him, he thought impatiently. If it had not been that he wanted to do the tough box-wallah down, he would have turned the car round and gone back home again. This girl was a baby; it was time she was in bed. She didn’t know the elements of the game, and why on earth he had gone out of his way to try to teach her he didn’t know.

“Don’t be cross with me.” Dandelion suddenly spoke quickly and nervously.

“No, I’m not cross with you.” Major Lancaster laid Dandelion’s small hand down on his knee. “Don’t move it away,” he said, “or I shall be frightfully cross.”

“Why will you?” Dandelion sat very still, staring at her hand showing up palely on the dark cloth of Major Lancaster’s lounge suit. She, a married woman, and her hand lying on the knee of another man. It was wrong—hopelessly wrong; Dandelion began to say something, stammering dreadfully.

“What’s the matter with it now?” Major Lancaster spoke half petulantly, half caressingly.

“Oh, do let’s go back!” It burst from Dandelion in a tumult.

“Go back! What on earth for?” They were turning the corner to cross the bridge across Bandra creek. It was very dark now; the moon, caught in a wisp of floating cloud, was dimmed for a moment. “I say, you really are the limit!” he said angrily. “All right, directly I get across the causeway I will go back. I can’t turn here.”

“No, no; don’t let us—I don’t mean it really.” Dandelion suddenly felt a queer sensation of tears.

“Well, but what do you mean, then?” They had reached the other side of the causeway and the car had slid slowly to a standstill. A little lower down the creek the streaming lights of a train drew slowly across a swinging viaduct. The Punjab mail threading its way Northward—to Delhi, Agra, all sorts of wonderful romantic places. India was romantic, the home of romance. The strange aromatic fragrance of the air—the queer monotonous wail of a woman grinding corn.

Dandelion suddenly caught her breath. “I don’t want to go back,” she gasped.

“No, I know you don’t. I know what you do want though.” Major Lancaster spoke roughly. “Let me just get the car a little to one side, or some damned bullock-gharry will run into us. There—you darling, you little flower of my soul.” Major Lancaster had twisted himself on the seat and was holding Dandelion close to him. “You are a pet, with your little frights and attacks of conscience,” he said. “Let me kiss you, you sweet, and you’ll forget them all in a second.”

“No, I shan’t,” but Dandelion had closed her eyes like someone under an anaesthetic. This man cast a spell over her. She opened them with an effort after a minute or two. “Oh, leave me alone!” she gasped; “I shall die.”

“No, you won’t; this is what it is to live.” Major Lancaster was breathing heavily. He lifted his head and glanced round him. No, they might be seen—it wasn’t safe; they would get along to the place he had had in his mind when he had planned the picnic.

And they reached it in about ten minutes. A sharp turn to the left down through the pine-woods fringing the beach—a gorgeous beach with the calm moonlit sea just washing the pebbly edge of it. Every now and then a wave a little bigger than the rest would send in a long calm, flooding finger of water. Dandelion looked round her with dazed eyes. Like South Karanjia, only even more romantic in its moonlit setting and vaguely waving palm-trees.

“Like it?” Major Lancaster was dragging the tiffin basket out of the back of the car. “You wait till you see the place I’ve chosen for us to have our dinner in,” he said confidentially; “then you really will be pleased.”

Chapter XV

Major Lancaster had often been to Juhu, and generally by moonlight. There was something in the frank love-making of the couples that frequented it during the daytime that annoyed him. It was crude and very often vulgar. Major Lancaster was a connoisseur in love-making. That was why Dandelion had not been able to resist him.

“Come along; the place I have chosen is just along here.” Major Lancaster had the little tiffin basket tucked under one arm. “Don’t get too close to it,” he said to Dandelion; “the ice is dripping. Come along round to my other side and take hold of my hand, you darling little baby. I believe you’re terrified out of your senses at doing anything so improper as coming out for a moonlight picnic along with a man, aren’t you, now?”

“No, not really.” Once down by the sea, with the moonlight flooding over her, Dandelion felt more cheerful. To her vast relief she heard the sound of voices—just ahead of them, too.

Major Lancaster heard the sound and swore under his breath. “Damn them!” he muttered; “I believe it’s Courtenay and his crowd. We’ll cut in here.” Major Lancaster turned sharply to the right.

“Why? Would it matter, their seeing us?” Dandelion made a sudden little running step to catch up with the tall man a little ahead of her.

“It wouldn’t matter. But I don’t want a cackling crowd like the Courtenay lot tacked on to us.” Major Lancaster slackened his pace a little. “We’ll have to try the next bay,” he said; “it’s not much farther on and just as nice. Now, isn’t it?” he spoke after another five minutes’ quiet going.

“Oh, I should think it is!” Dandelion spoke in an ecstasy. Somehow the knowledge that there were other people about as well had completely set her at rest. There had been something in the complete solitude of it all that had made her apprehensive. Now everything was all right. She beamed up at the man standing staring down rather moodily at her.

“Pleased?” Major Lancaster put the tiffin basket down on the sand. “Kiss me, then,” he urged.

“No, not now.” Dandelion’s face clouded again.

“All right; presently.” Major Lancaster spoke cheerfully. He was hungry and he knew that Fazal Khan would have been certain to put up an excellent meal. With a little champagne inside her, Dandelion would lose the little uneasiness that still remained. He unfastened the tiffin basket, and began to take out the neatly tied-up parcels one by one. “There,” he said, and he spread the spotless little tablecloth on the sand, and put the little packets one by one on it.

“Oh, what a nice meal!” Dandelion’s teeth were all showing in a delighted smile. “I’m ravenous too. What’s that?” She pointed to a rather bulky bottle standing crookedly in a shining pail.

“Champagne, stuck in my ice bucket; that’s what was dripping. But as long as it’s cold it doesn’t matter. We’ll have some straight away.” Major Lancaster was still groping about in the tiffin basket. “Here they are,” he said, and he unwrapped a glass from its tissue-paper swathings. “Champagne in a tumbler—it’s all wrong; but still, old Fazal is afraid of my smashing his precious champagne glasses.” Major Lancaster was tipping the neck of the dark bottle over the rim of the squat tumbler.

“I’ve never had any.” Dandelion was eyeing it with apprehension.

“Never mind. It’s never too late to mend!”

Major Lancaster handed the tumbler across the little white patch of sand. They sat in a little natural bay formed by two little sheltering semicircles of palm-trees. Below them, softly murmuring, lay the sea. The sand underneath them was still hot from the fierce midday sun. Major Lancaster began to open one of the white packets.

“Chicken,” he said, “and some ham to go with it. Don’t let the sand get on them. Look here—here’s a napkin.” Major Lancaster was handing over a limp little square of folded damask.

“Oh, I say, what a funny one!” Dandelion was carefully setting the heavy base of her squat tumbler in the sand. The freezing liquid was circulating very pleasantly in her veins. “Oh, thank you.” Dandelion had daintily appropriated a wing of chicken, and a delicate slice of ham.

“Sure you don’t mind eating with your fingers?” Major Lancaster was spreading a second napkin on his own knee. He was amused at the quantity of champagne that Dandelion had drunk at one gulp. Probably she thought that Pommery had to be drunk like lemonade, he meditated, suddenly glad that he had brought a magnum, after all.

“No, I like it.” Dandelion’s eyes were sparkling. Suddenly the whole thing seemed quite different—all the sort of foreboding of it gone. And the kindness of him to have thought out a delicious treat like this for her! And the expense of it too—champagne was frightfully expensive; Dandelion recalled the fearful deliberations about it at her own wedding. She suddenly reached timidly across the little white sandy patch that lay between them. “You are kind to me,” she said suddenly.

“Not a bit.” Major Lancaster caught hold of the small hand. “I’ll kiss it first, and then put a bit of chicken into it,” he said. “Still hungry?”

“Awfully; and thirsty too.” Dandelion watched Major Lancaster’s dark head bent over her hand with an acute feeling of enjoyment. And she had had misgivings about this picnic! Why, it was perfect—absolutely perfect. “You are awfully, awfully kind to me,” she said, and she suddenly spoke a little unsteadily.

“No, I’m not; I love to make you happy.” Major Lancaster’s voice was businesslike. He shot a quick glance at Dandelion’s tumbler. It was nearly empty. “Give me your tumbler,” he said; “I’ll fill it up again. And here’s your chicken and ham. And you’ve got to end up with an éclair. Fazal couldn’t put in anything creamy because of the mess it would have made. But these éclairs ought to be awfully good; he got them at the Club.”

“Oh, they are, awfully.” Dandelion began to laugh a little. She ate and drank in silence for a minute or two, and then she suddenly sat very still. “I felt so frightfully happy,” she said, and she stared soberly across at the man who leaned upon his elbow watching her. “And now I suddenly feel so wretched.” She began abruptly to cry, with wide-open, streaming eyes.

“Don’t cry, my darling.” Major Lancaster stopped eating. He set his half-empty tumbler carefully down in the sand and heaved his long length up on to his feet. “Cry on my shoulder,” he said, and he sat down again—quite close to Dandelion this time.

“Why do I want to cry, though?” Dandelion was choking. “I feel that I’ve been so unkind to you somehow,” she sobbed, “so unsympathetic. You’ve had so much in your life to make you unhappy, and I’ve had so little. Frere is so good to me, so awfully, awfully good. And you’ve always been alone and out in the cold; forgive me if I’ve seemed unsympathetic,” sobbed Dandelion, completely losing control of herself.

“But it’s not too late to make up to me a little for it, is it?” said Major Lancaster quietly. His eyes were fixed on the stretch of white sand that lay between them and the sea. If that thrice-accursed Courtenay came streaming across it and started to play rounders, as he sometimes did on a moonlight picnic, he would stab the fellow where he stood. That had happened once before on an occasion very much like the present one. And it had spoiled the whole thing; there had been nothing left to do but to pack up and go home.

“No; but how could I make up to you for it?” sobbed Dandelion. Suddenly the pathos of everything seemed to her to be overwhelming. The pathos of life, the pathos of this poor man, almost an outcast because of his birth, which he couldn’t help. The pathos of her own marriage with her husband so far—so far away. Wanting her, perhaps Dandelion went on weeping.

“You could very easily make up to me for everything,” said Major Lancaster, with his eyes still on the sand in front of them. To his maddened ears it seemed to him that the party in the little cove next to theirs was beginning to move. Yes; it was: there was that damned fool Courtenay with his raucous laugh, heading the stream of noisy men and girls, standing just in front of him, braying like a jackass. Major Lancaster’s thoughts were murderous. If he moved they would be seen. There they came streaming across the sand. “Damn!” Major Lancaster was muttering under his short moustache.

“What is the matter?” Dandelion was beginning to feel deliciously sleepy. She yawned luxuriously. She wiped her tears a little stupidly. “Why was I crying?” she queried.

“I can’t imagine,” said Major Lancaster shortly, with his eyes still intent. Stealthily he slid a little farther away from Dandelion. Ah! they had been seen; one of the girls of the party was staring frankly up the beach. She moved away and spoke to Captain Courtenay, who stood by himself throwing up a tennis ball and catching it again.

“Come along, you slackers!” Captain Courtenay was shouting cheerfully to his guests.

“It’s Major Lancaster and Lady Manwaring.” The girl spoke in a whisper.

“I know; I saw them ages ago.” Captain Courtenay spoke without turning his head. “It isn’t the first time either that I’ve put a spoke in that brute’s wheel. Come along, you slackers; I’ve found a perfect pitch.” Captain Courtenay was shouting even more robustly than before.

Chapter XVI

So that long and rather expensive evening ended in nothing. Major Lancaster felt thoroughly put out as he steered his way in at the white gate of Wilderness House again. However, as he went at a good forty miles an hour back to Colaba along Queen’s Road—it was nearly eleven o’clock and there was hardly any traffic about—he felt more cheerful again. Dandelion had promised to go out with him again the next evening, and this time Major Lancaster was resolved that there should be no hitch. It should be to the old fort of Baralia this time. He had spent quite a large part of the journey back from Juhu in telling Dandelion about it. Nestling close up to his arm, she had listened sleepily and acquiescently to all that he had to say. No braying ass of a Courtenay to interfere with their enjoyment this time.

“But we were enjoying ourselves, and why we couldn’t have stayed there I can’t think.” Dandelion spoke with her eyes on the white moonlit road that was unrolling itself in front of them. Her senses were still pleasantly dulled, and she felt deliciously pleased with everything. Such a jolly care-free life, and this kind man to take her about—-how happy and lucky she was; drowsily she turned her face up to the man with the thin brown fingers on the driving-wheel.

“You darling!” Major Lancaster stooped and kissed her quickly. You had to be so desperately alert on these narrow roads; the bullock-carts were such a nuisance, especially at night. You could see them all right under a blazing moon like this, but you never knew what they were going to do, because the drivers of them were invariably asleep. “We’ll have a much better time to-morrow evening,” he said, as he straightened himself again; “Baralia is a really gorgeous place. It’s an old fort standing right on the edge of a lake. They’ve turned it into a dâk bungalow of sorts. We’ll send Fazal on ahead of us, and he’ll fix up a decent dinner with the old khansamah there. Then we can eat it in peace, and afterwards we’ll sit out on the verandah overlooking the lake. You’ll simply love it; it’s romance personified, as you’re so struck on romance.”

“How long does it take to get there?”

“About two hours, so we shall have to start quite by half-past five. Can you manage that all right?”

“Oh yes, rather,” and Dandelion had squeezed the thin sinewy arm close to hers in a sort of delighted anticipation. This really was going to be fun, she thought, and it would be their last excursion together, because her husband was coming back the next day. And in a way she felt that she was rather glad that he was coming back. It was all madly exciting and all that, going about with this attractive man, but, secretly, Dandelion had begun to wander if he was so attractive as she had thought he was. He wasn’t nearly so understanding as he had seemed at first, anyhow; not nearly so interested in what she thought and did. Always now in what she felt—and it was so difficult to be always explaining what you feel to somebody. By the time they asked, the feeling had generally gone.

However, the next evening’s expedition had been fixed up before they said good-bye at the foot of the white marble steps of Wilderness House, and ayah from her dark corner of the verandah, watched the parting kiss with a good deal of interest. So much a matter of course had it become then—then there was news for the old woman who sat greedily waiting on the heaped-up charpoy in the dusky corner of the tumbledown hut. And more news still by the following evening, after ayah had seen Dandelion off for her expedition. For they were going to Baralia, announced ayah, full of excitement and pleasure. The well-known resort of lovers who did not want to be disturbed.

“All will yet be well.” Ayah with a second ten-rupee note carefully secreted in the folds of her sari was crouched on the uneven mud floor smoking a bidi.

“Baralia, Baralia!” The old Afghan woman was repeating the word in a sort of ecstasy. “Baralia, Baralia! It was there that Foster Memsahib fled with the High Court Judge and was shot dead in her lover’s arms by her husband, who crept on them unawares. It was there that Roshanara, the young wife of the big race-horse owner, fled with her lover, the young Englishman, and flung herself into the lake so that her infidelity should not be discovered. Baralia——”

The old Afghan woman began to rock herself crazily on the creaking bed.

“Hist!” Ayah suddenly scrambled up on to her feet. She padded to the tumbledown door and put her ear to it. “She wakes and mumbles,” she said uneasily.

“So does she the whole time.” The old Afghan woman was still rocking herself and chuckling. “So returns the box-wallah to find the bird flown,” she announced. “And it is good news; the English are an accursed race.”

“Not so, for they return to-night from Baralia, and the Lord Sahib to-morrow,” said ayah rather crossly. She objected to hearing her employer described as “the box-wallah”; ayah was proud of her naukri. “He returns to-morrow, and then all will be well,” ended up ayah spitefully. She suddenly felt a fierce abhorrence for the great spreading figure on the bed.

“All will be well? And what is the meaning of those words?” the old Afghan woman spoke fiercely. She began to heave herself up on the bed and sat staring, thrusting out her thick jowl. “All will be well if my son does not get his desire? explain the meaning of these words. Baralia! Baralia!” the old woman began to chant monotonously.

“Chut!” Ayah, terribly uneasy, began to get up from the floor. Never before had the old Afghan woman looked so strange. Her bloodshot eyes were fixed on her old servant with a look of terrible fury in their depths. Ponderously, and with a quiet deliberation, she began to roll off the bed. Slowly, and with huge bare padding feet, she advanced towards ayah. “Traitor,” she said; “traitor and thrice accursed one! Would’st dare?” and the great heaving mass of flesh flung herself against the slighter woman with a clawing of henna-stained nails.

But ayah was nimble for her years. Gradually she detached herself from the vaguely snatching hands and rolling body, and bolted for the door. Swiftly she dragged it open and shut it behind her again. And then, crouched under the spreading branches of the creeper, she waited—waited until the heavy lurching fall of heavy flesh within told her it that would be safe to open it again. But it was quite five minutes before ayah came out for the last time. And when she came she carried a little old-fashioned black-leather bag under her arm. It was heavy: ayah had to walk fairly carefully as she stole up the dark compound to her quarter first; ayah’s personal effects were small, and she packed them up quickly. The little brightly coloured tin trunk was soon full up to the top. Now for a coolie from the corner by the little Hindu temple; ayah was out and back again like a shadow, in her dark sari; the white one was securely packed round the little leather bag to still its rattling in the tin trunk. “And now obtain me a gharry,” said ayah, who, the coolie close on her heels, was standing under the rickety lamp by the temple.

But the gharry-wallah did not like native passengers. “First give me the fare and then will I proceed,” he said, and he removed his smoking bidi and stuck it in the coloured swathings of his fez.

“To Victoria Terminus, and here is two rupees,” said ayah grandly; “and when we arrive I give you more.” Ayah became suddenly confidential. She stood on the shiny American cloth seat and spoke into the ear of the gharry-wallah. “Secretly I depart,” she said, “for all is not well with me. The memsahib that I serve is a shaitan (Devil) and so is the sahib. Hourly go I in fear of my virtue,” and ayah began to snivel.

“Is that so?” And the gharry-wallah lashed up his horse. He, too, hated the English, for they had strange ideas. He, the owner of the animal between the shafts, was not allowed to starve it. He, although the horse went dead lame from sheer devilment, was not allowed to drive it in that condition. He would take two rupees more from the woman sitting behind him, and then, although the Commissioner of Police himself should interrogate him, so would he observe the dead silence, and maintain that from twilight until the late rising of the moon, he had stood motionless on the cab-rank at the corner by the Hindu temple.

But ayah, hustled unceremoniously into a corner of a third-class carriage of the Madras Mail, felt thoroughly put out at the amount of money she had been called upon to produce. And this being so, she would remain seated upon the little tin trunk, she declared, glaring at a Eurasian ticket-collector who seemed inclined to object.

But he slammed the door of the compartment and went along up the train with the collar of his uniform unfastened, and the peaked cap stuck on the back of his head. “Let them fight it out among themselves,” he thought easily, whistling and slamming the doors one after the other.

Chapter XVII

Sir Frere Manwaring had left Bombay feeling thoroughly wretched. And he did not feel any less wretched when he found that his business would take longer than he had anticipated. Karachi was hot and stuffy, and the hotel was indifferent; he was thankful when he had got out into more open country. But when he was out in the open country he wished that he was back in Karachi.

Sir Frere was prospecting for a possible coalfield; there were rumours of a very rich untapped vein in one of the Central Provinces. But the people with whom he was of necessity thrown into contact bored him to extinction. Rough Yorkshiremen, most of them, with stout, genial wives. Sir Frere, with his usual courtesy, excused himself from their kindly hospitality and made his headquarters at the local dâk bungalow. But even with Francis’s assiduous care it was barren comfort. The khansamah in charge was generally old and decrepit. The soup smelt and tasted strongly of wood smoke. The chicken from which the principal part of the meal was derived had generally been seen rushing leggily round the bungalow a few hours before it was brought to table. It was all dreadfully uncomfortable, and to Sir Frere, accustomed to the amenities of Bombay, and no longer a young man, it very soon became intolerable.

Francis, too, lost his usual selfless optimism. “Very bad this.” Francis would stand with his master’s tray of chota-hazri in his hands, staring down at the rickety little bamboo teapoy on which he was supposed to place it.

“Quite true, Francis; but you’ve got to put up with it for another day or two.” Sir Frere, a little pale after an extremely bad night—there had been a mosquito inside his net, and he had not been able to locate it—was looking pleasantly but unsmilingly up at his servant. “Has the post come yet?”

“Yes, sahib.” Francis produced a large packet of letters. He turned away and began to tidy up the disordered dressing-table. Again no letter from the memsahib. Francis felt still more wretched. Fiercely loyal to his master, Francis felt that the wife he had taken to himself was behaving extremely badly. He hated Major Lancaster, and he loathed ayah. He felt with a blind unreasoning instinct that there was something going on in the compound that he had not been able to discover. And he was right. But Francis was up against a skill even greater than his own. Ayah had been accustomed to deception and cunning from the very first day that she had taken naukri. And she had the police on her side. What, then, could Francis do? He could do nothing, and he knew it. But it made him more wretched than ever, and he moved very heavily about the badly matted floor.

Behind him, Sir Frere sat rolled up in his silk dressing-gown and drank his tea, and ate his toast, and left his letters neglected. She had not written again; then there must be something wrong going on. Something wrong already, and he not yet six months married. That simple little girl whom he had taken from that charming home, already tainted with the atmosphere of the East. Flattered like any little silly miss with the attentions of a notorious flirt. And largely through his own fault—Sir Frere blamed himself entirely for it. You had no business to leave your wife alone, or to trust her entirely, especially in the East, until you had tethered her very securely to your side—until you had made her entirely dependent on you, so that she ran to you for everything: for sympathy; for tender understanding; for calm judgment. Then, and then only, could you afford to snap your fingers at every other man on God’s earth.

Sir Frere suddenly got up from his chair and began to walk about the room. “I’m going back to Bombay, Francis,” he said. “Now. I shall catch the Punjab Mail.” Sir Frere had come over to the dressing-table and was flipping over the pages of a railway guide. “It leaves here at nine o’clock and gets to Bombay at half-past six this evening.” Sir Frere had taken off his tortoiseshell spectacles and was putting them back in the case.

“Now, sahib?” Francis had turned round on his bare feet and was staring.

“Yes, now. I’ll begin to pack while you get the hisab (Account) from the khansamah. Order a couple of tongas to be round in an hour. I’ll write a couple of chits, and you can take them to the two Manager Sahibs that I saw yesterday. You know where they live—only five minutes or so away.”

Sir Frere was stooping to drag his two suit-cases from under the bed. He suddenly felt better. No business on earth was going to keep him away from Bombay if he ought to be there. And suddenly Sir Frere felt very certain that he ought to be there. He would send her a telegram from the station; it would get to her in plenty of time. Any idea of stealing in on her unawares was not to be entertained for a moment. It might serve its purpose, but it was not Sir Frere’s way of doing things. He moved quickly about the matted floor, taking things out of drawers and frowning a little impatiently when these stuck, as is the way with chests of drawers of dâk bungalow furniture.

And an hour or so later—with his luggage rattling along behind him in another tonga, Francis, in a cloud of dust, gloomily watching over it, because Francis did not like sudden decisions and abrupt leave-takings—Sir Frere from under the brim of his solar topi, stared at the rapidly receding landscape. He held on to the sides of his tonga with both hands because it was a particularly shaky one. The driver of it sat well forward on the shafts, to balance it a little; the sahib was a heavy one he thought, encouraging his horse with queer chirrups and whistlings. They got to the large white-stone station, blazing under the tropical sun, and noisy with the shouts and cries of departing Indian passengers, in plenty of time to send off a wire before the long train came stealing in round the shimmering curve. “Shall be back to-night instead of to-morrow—love.” Sir Frere scribbled that little tender word before he added his signature and pushed the necessary rupee under the grill to the impassive babu.

Chapter XVIII

But Dandelion never got the wire. It was the first thing that Sir Frere saw when, about ten hours later he walked up the steps of her verandah. He had suspected it when he found that there was no car to meet him, but being a man who did not very much care how he got about, provided he did get about, he told Francis to call a taxi, settled himself in it with his luggage, and with his servant sitting in front beside the driver, started off for Malabar Hill. He had changed his clothes in his luxurious first-class compartment on the train, and sat well groomed and alert in his usual blue serge suit and soft felt hat. The journey had been comfortable; he considered that the meals in the refreshment car had been excellent. The Agent of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway was a personal friend of his own. Sir Frere registered a vow that he would congratulate him at the first opportunity he had. The lives of those fellows were made a misery to them now by the insults and complaints of the Indian members of the Legislative Council—Indians who lived and sprawled about in a loin-cloth when they were well away from the public gaze. Sir Frere, shaking his head a little impatiently at the thought, stared out at the stream of traffic in Queen’s Road.

But directly he got on to the verandah of his house he forgot everything but Dandelion. “Lady Sahib kahin hai?” (“Where is the Lady Sahib?”) He was standing staring at Kallan, who at the sound of a taxi-horn at the gate had rushed out on to the verandah.

“Malum nahin, (“I don’t know”) sahib.” Kallan was shaking and trembling. He began to talk in high, unintelligible Hindustani. “The police—the police,” Kallan began to cry, the tears streaming down his brown face.

“Francis!” Suddenly pale to the lips, Sir Frere swung round and shouted down the steps. “What’s it all about?” he said; “leave the man to bring up the suit-cases. Come in here to the boy.” Sir Frere led the way to his study. “Now, then, find out what’s happened,” he said.

“The Commissioner of Police Sahib will be round here in half an hour’s time to see you, sir.” Francis, with his opaque eyes fixed on Kallan’s quivering face, was rapidly interpreting the boy’s high, excited utterances. “There has been a disturbance in the compound, sir.”

“What sort of a disturbance? I don’t care a damn about a disturbance. Where is the Lady Sahib?” Sir Frere’s top lip showed little flecks of perspiration on it.

“Gone out in car with Major Lancaster, sahib,” said Kallan quickly, speaking in the vernacular, and wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.

“I see. Fetch ayah.” Sir Frere had the handle of the telephone-bell between his fingers. “Yacht Club,” he was speaking quietly through the mouthpiece. “Francis, tell Hari Pershad to go and get the car ready at once.” Sir Frere was staring over the receiver as he spoke. “Yes, Sir Frere Manwaring speaking. Is Lady Manwaring in the Club, Robello?” Sir Frere unconsciously smiled a little. Everyone liked Robello, and he had an almost uncanny knowledge of who went in and came out of the Club.

“No, sir.” Robello’s reply came immediately, and in excellent English. “There is letter for her, sir, and so I have been particularly watching.”

“Oh, thanks!” Sir Frere rang off. “Give me the Willingdon Club.” Sir Frere’s voice was still very quiet.

“Oh! thank you.” This came after a brief conversation. She was not at the Willingdon Club either. Then where was she? Sir Frere put the receiver back into its stand, and stood in profound thought for a moment or two. He would be reduced to asking the ayah where her mistress had gone.

“Where is ayah?” Sir Frere spoke abruptly, as Francis came back into the room.

“Not in compound, sir.” Francis’s face was working. “All this very hell!” he exclaimed, and there were sudden brilliant tears in his opaque eyes.

“Well, I hope it’s not quite as bad as that, Francis!” Sir Frere’s deep-set eyes were suddenly amused. And yet in the back of his mind he knew that his servant was right. There was something frightfully wrong about everything. The Commissioner of Police coming round: what did that mean? The ayah gone: what did that mean? His wife nowhere to be found: what did that mean? Sir Frere knew what that meant well enough; it meant that she was fooling about somewhere with that blackguard. In his absence, too; how could she disgrace herself so? But she would probably be in by dinner-time, and then he would let her know what he thought about it. She would be terrified—sick with fear—and so would the cad who had led her on. It would mean an end to it all; Sir Frere was staring down the steps. “Oh, of course, the car.” He had forgotten that he had ordered it.

He shot a quick glance down at the watch on his wrist. He would see the Commissioner of Police first, though; at quarter-past seven he was coming. “Back out a bit, Hari Pershad,” he called to the chauffeur sitting motionless at the wheel; “there will be another car here in a minute or two. Yes, here it is”—as a pair of fierce headlights came flaring in at the gate. “Don’t put the car away; I may want it later.”

“Attcha, sahib.” Hari Pershad was an intelligent man, and did what he was told without any delay. Like Francis, he was deeply attached to his master. He sat gloomily staring at the large blue car with the native policeman in a yellow puggaree standing by it. Hari Pershad hated the police, and it was an outrage that they should have taken possession of the compound. Mentally, he was clutching at his little possessions. They would take them all, the devils!

On the verandah the two Englishmen nodded briefly to one another. “May I speak to you for a moment, Sir Frere?” said the Commissioner courteously, “and for preference in private. I am most awfully sorry to have had to raid your compound like this, especially when you were away; but it was inevitable. Fortunately, Lady Manwaring was out when we arrived, so I don’t think she knows anything about the affair, nor need she.”

“Come in here.” Sir Frere was leading the way into his study. So she had been out since half-past five, had she, and it was now a quarter-past seven.

“It’s this.” The Commissioner took off his hat and wiped his forehead. “It’s really pretty ghastly,” he said, speaking apologetically, “although, as you may imagine, I’m accustomed to ghastly things. We have found, in a tumbledown hut right down by the seawall in your compound, Sir Frere, the body of a dead native woman. We have a very shrewd suspicion who she is—or was, I should say; but at this stage of the proceedings I would rather not say any more than this, and I am sure you will understand my reticence. The ghastly part of it is,” and here the Commissioner cleared his throat a little, “that in an inner compartment of the same hut we found another woman. Not dead, unfortunately. I say, may I have a whisky-and-soda?” The Commissioner spoke abruptly.

“Sorry! Of course. I’ll join you. Francis!” Sir Frere had opened the door of the little study. “Whisky soda lao,” he said as he shut the door again. “Francis wasn’t very far off,” he remarked.

“No, I dare say not. They’ve all got cold feet.” The Commissioner sat silent for a moment or two. He waited to speak until the native servant, had left the room again, and then he lifted his glass to his lips with a little wry smile. “Well, here’s luck, Sir Frere,” he said.

“Thanks. Same to you.” Sir Frere’s lips were unsmiling. “Well, go on,” he said.

“Well, there isn’t much more to say.” The Commissioner had taken his handkerchief from his pocket and was wiping his moustache with it. He stared down into his tumbler for a minute or two. “As a matter of fact, Sir Frere, I think I shall tell you who we suspect the dead woman to be—I know it won’t go any farther; and, after all, the whole thing has happened in your compound. It’s Mrs. Lancaster, I believe; you will remember all about that. There was a fearful hurroosh at the time, I gather. You know, the old Lancaster who married an Afghan woman. I believe they actually lived for some time in this very compound.”

“Good God!”

“Yes, I know. But that’s not the worst of it. It’s too horrible even to think about. Her daughter has been kept doped for over twenty years in that hovel. That’s how we found it out; your mali went down to the wall to tip some rubbish over and heard something howling. And very sensibly he went to the policeman on point-duty at the end of the lane. And he fetched me.” The Commissioner took another long drink of his whisky-and-soda.

“What! within a stone’s throw of this bungalow—an Englishwoman kept a prisoner for twenty years?” Sir Frere’s face was pale with horror.

“Yes; only you’d hardly call her an Englishwoman now. It’s too ghastly—I’ve sent for the ambulance from the All Saints’ Sisters’ Hospital; they’re the only people capable of tackling a case of the kind. And I’ve put a European sergeant on guard outside the hut. She does nothing but howl. It’s too fearful.” The Commissioner was visibly affected. “‘Baralia! Baralia!’ it’s like an awful refrain. And crawling about on the floor like an animal; upon my soul I don’t know when I’ve seen anything so perfectly horrible.” The Commissioner set down his tumbler and took out his handkerchief again.

“Baralia? Have another drink?” Sir Frere spoke abruptly.

“No, thanks. Yes, ‘Baralia,’ the Lovers’ Lament don’t they call it?” the Commissioner was looking round for his hat. “Personally, since I had to go out there about that Foster affair, I’ve never liked the place,” he said briefly. “However, I must get along now. We’ll manage the whole thing so that Lady Manwaring shan’t know anything about it, Sir Frere. We’ll work from the lower end of the compound. Good night.” The Commissioner held out his hand.

“Good night, Roberts.” Sir Frere’s handshake was pleasant. But his thoughts were not. A man of powerful imagination, the story that he had just been listening to affected him very deeply. Actually in his compound, that hideous business had been going on for years. And his wife, even now in the company of that woman’s son. Her son—with his native mother lying dead, and his sister crawling about the mud floor like an animal. Sir Frere began to pace up and down the study, deep in thought. Baralia—why did the poor demented creature cry that out? Why particularly Baralia?—”Francis,” Sir Frere was suddenly at the door of his study. “I’m going out; no, I don’t want any dinner, thanks. Hari Pershad,” Sir Frere was cramming his soft felt hat down on his head, “get along in to the back,” he said; “I’m going to drive.”

“Sahib having dinner first”—Francis was padding down the marble steps after his master. That long journey, and now off, nobody knew where. Francis stood desperately staring after the winking tail-lamp, a monument of gloom. His master, always so quiet and methodical in his movements, gone, like a flash of lightning gone. And ayah gone too; her quarter cleared of her bedding. And still owing him two rupees.

Francis cursed all women as he walked slowly back to the little brick kitchen where John, the Goanese cook, bent lovingly over an aluminium degchie without a handle, from which a very savoury smell was proceeding.

Chapter XIX

Hari Pershad had been in Sir Frere’s service for a great many years, and had learnt, after much exhortation, that the sign of an expert in any branch of knowledge is the avoidance of unnecessary risk. So that when, after narrowly missing a group of natives chattering at the foot of the road that led from Malabar Hill on to the main road to Bandra, his master did not slacken pace at all, but only went faster, he came to the conclusion that for some reason or other he had gone suddenly mad, and must therefore not be accounted as responsible for his actions. So Hari Pershad settled his little black cap rather more securely on his head, folded his arms, and sat back in the corner of the back seat of the car. Allah was great, and up to that moment had always had Hari Pershad under his particular care. So why doubt his omnipotence now? thought the native, closing his eyes and trying not to wince when the sudden swerve of the powerful car showed without doubt that they had nearly been into something else.

And in reality Sir Frere did feel almost mad. His quick brain had pieced together the little fragments of evidence provided unconsciously by the Commissioner of Police. The poor demented prisoner must have overheard the conversations that had probably taken place between Mrs. Lancaster and the ayah.

Ayah was in it all—he had never liked the woman. Sir Frere drove his top teeth down on his lower lip at the thought that perhaps Dandelion had employed her as go-between. No, no, nothing so degrading; not that child whom he had taken from that delightful home. Not Hugh Davison’s child. Sir Frere sounded the horn in a fury of impatience. To hell with these level-crossing gates; he stamped on the little rubber mat as he perforce halted. But once through them, the road became clearer. Like a pale ribbon it stretched itself out ahead of him, the powerful car licking it up.

Baralia, the old fort that stood high up over the Rali Lake, a lake about forty miles north of Bombay. Sir Frere had only been there once, and that many years before, when one of the High Court Judges had given a stately and elaborate picnic there. But he remembered it well. It had been a stronghold of one of the old Mahratta Chiefs, and under Curzon’s regime had been restored to some of its former beauty. The rooms were well furnished and cared for. There was a beautiful verandah hanging high over the lake. On moonlight nights, if you watched carefully enough, you could see the ripple and wallow of the sluggishly moving crocodiles. Rumour had it that many years before, some foolish subaltern, in bravado, had dived down into it from the verandah and had never been seen again. For days the lake had been dragged with no result; it was even whispered, by the native fishermen living close along the shores of it, that in places the depth of it had never been plumbed.

And this was the place where his wife now lay in the arms of her lover. Sir Frere was not a man who shut his eyes to things, and inwardly he felt perfectly certain that that was how the matter stood. Lancaster was not a man who would be satisfied with anything short of that, he thought brutally. And somehow through his torment of feeling, he was able to view the case dispassionately. It had happened to him, as it had happened to scores of other men, through carelessness. Dandelion was a child, and in a great many things a rather stupid child. She had been swept off her feet by the first fascinating man who had paid her a little diplomatic attention. Lancaster knew most of all there was to know about women, and he had approached Dandelion through her most vulnerable point, namely herself. A little sympathy; a few delicate allusions to her loneliness; a little tactful but guarded emphasis on the disparity of age between herself and her husband. How could he fully grasp, fully understand, etc.? It was all so easily done and with more sensible women than Dandelion too.

Sir Frere drew in his breath with a little hiss as the car swept round the corner of the long avenue that led up to the old fortress. The clock on the dashboard showed the hour of nine under the electric light. God! he must have come along at about forty-five miles an hour, thought Sir Frere, his lips twisting a little wryly.

And now he was nearly there; and what was he going to say when he found them together? he wondered. As he swept round the narrow bend he crushed down his rising passion—this was not the moment for heroics. Men made fools of themselves on occasions like this and regretted it ever afterwards. The man whom he was going to face in ten minutes or so had laid waste the whole of his life. Was he worth hanging for? that was the point. Sir Frere had deliberately left his revolver behind, because he had had the sense to realize that if he lost his temper uncontrollably he might use it. And what was the use of that? he thought drearily. If Dandelion preferred another man, what right had he to appease his anguish and slake his longing for revenge in murder? As Sir Frere gripped the nickel-plated steering-wheel in his damp hands, he thought with a queer ferocity. Life was like that—ghastly. You had to take your chance and bite on the lead if anything went wrong with you. Not to be “sick in the drawing-room,” a passage from The White Monkey, rose up in his memory and dwelt there. Galsworthy had understood that. Nothing excused that horrid lack of dignity; that unpardonable loss of self-control. With a quick change of gear the powerful car went grinding up the last steep fifty yards towards the old fort.

Chapter XX

So that when, about fifteen minutes later, he walked out on to the wide verandah overhanging the lake, the two standing close together leaning over the carved rail of it did not hear him. He stood and waited for them to turn round. Major Lancaster was arguing, Sir Frere could tell that by the quiet persistence of his voice. Dandelion was undecided, he could tell that also. He cast a swift glance up and down the dark space. Dandelion’s coat and hat were lying on a wide couch, so much he saw. In the room through which he had just passed there had been a table and the remains of a meal on it. How much time had they already had there? That was the thought that tortured him as he stood and watched them.

“Yes, but—” and then the silent persistence of the gaze fixed on her back affected Dandelion. She turned and saw her husband. “Frere!” The word froze on her lips.

“Yes, an unexpected pleasure. What are you doing here?” Sir Frere walked forward. The bright moonlight shone on his face, showing it absolutely white. To Dandelion’s terrified imagination he seemed to be showing his teeth. He stood very still, watching her. The instinct of a girl of her type would be to protect. If she moved between him and her lover he was done.

But she only stood where she was in a frozen terror.

Major Lancaster, who had swung round abruptly at the sound of Dandelion’s exclamation, was equally terrified, thought Sir Frere, grimly amused. A typical pair of guilty lovers caught red-handed. “Put on your hat,” he said, “and go down and get into the car; it’s in the courtyard. I’ll join you, but I’ve got something to say to Major Lancaster first.”

Dandelion obeyed mechanically. To her terrified imagination it seemed as if her husband had suddenly got taller. He stood quietly looking at her as she stooped for her coat and hat.

“Get into the car and wait for me there,” he said, and he stood looking after her as she walked out of the brilliant moonlight of the verandah into the darkness of the room beyond it. And then he turned back to the man who stood waiting, with his long back lounging carelessly against the wooden rail. And in spite of himself Sir Frere felt a quick twinge of admiration. He was all that was base, but he was not a coward, for, for all he knew, Sir Frere might be armed. And somehow Sir Frere was glad that he was not a coward. That would have made the whole thing more degrading than it already was, he thought.

“What have you got to say for yourself?” Sir Frere had his small hands clenched behind his back.

“Nothing, except that it has been my fault from the very beginning,” said Major Lancaster hardly. “There has never been anything in your wife that was not sweet and innocent.”

“Thanks. I don’t want to hear her described by you.” Sir Frere was conscious of rising passion. God! he would like to get his fingers on this man’s throat. His resolutions went by the board. Thank Heaven he had left his revolver behind, he thought; it was moments like these that sent men shivering and chattering to the gallows “Hanged by the neck until you are dead.” Horrid words! A horrid moment when you got back into your cell and realized that all the power of the law was now set in motion to prevent you from eluding that ugly fate. “Get out of my sight,” he said, “or I shall do something violent. You’re a much younger man than I am, and probably in much better training. But, by God! if I had my revolver I’d blow your brains out as you stand there, and only be grateful to Him for giving me the chance of doing so.”

Major Lancaster straightened his back as he heaved himself away from the rail. A profound admiration for the tough box-wallah awoke in him. That was what Dandelion was fond of then; he had wondered what had made her so difficult to get hold of. He lounged to the door. “I’ll go then,” he said, “if that’s your last word.”

“It isn’t quite.” Sir Frere was breathing heavily. “If you don’t get out of Bombay at once,” he said, “I’ll go to Army Headquarters and have you kicked out of your regiment.”

“Very well.” Major Lancaster stood very still. “I gather that you are in possession of information that would make that possible,” he said.

Sir Frere was silent. Why was he sworn to secrecy? This man’s mother, even at this very moment lying dead in the native mortuary; this man’s sister, floundering, a half human and demented creature, about the floor of a filthy hut. And then his better nature got the upper hand of him again. Although the triumph would have been very complete. “Get out,” he said again, and he said it with loathing.

And Major Lancaster went. Only a yard or two from Dandelion he stood as he stooped to crank up his car. Lifting the lid of the bonnet first, he peered into it just as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

And this was the man for whom she had smashed up the whole of her married life! Dandelion watched him through the darkness. So little did her husband fear him that he actually gave them an opportunity to speak to one another again. But he was not going to avail himself of it, that was obvious. No; he was only too thankful to be well out of the whole thing, and that with an undamaged skin, thought Dandelion, her eyes suddenly dark with scorn. What had she seen in him? To let him kiss her—-let him say things? Dandelion sat huddled in the corner of the front seat of the car. Hari Pershad was watching him too; standing well back in the shadow of the fort in case he might be called upon to help. Perhaps he knew what had been going on; perhaps all the servants knew. And they would all despise her because they loved their master; Dandelion heard the quiet buzzing of the engine of the Essex with a profound feeling of relief. Sir Frere had been very quiet upstairs. But supposing he did lose control of himself, what chance would Major Lancaster have then? Dandelion had once seen her husband angry; he had got out of the car and gone for a gharry-wallah who was viciously beating his horse. It had been too terrible Dandelion shut her eyes as she remembered it.

Chapter XXI

Bombay was again doomed to disappointment. The Manwaring-Lancaster affair, which had revived so promisingly, died a natural death, after all. Major Lancaster vanished—not to be wondered at when one knew what had happened in the compound of Wilderness House; also that horrible old creature, his mother, had apparently left several lakhs of rupees, so that he would now be extremely well off, especially as his sister, poor thing, had died immediately after her admission into hospital. Odd that it should have all happened in that particular compound, thought the Bombay people, staring frankly at Sir Frere Manwaring and his wife as they came across the Yacht Club lawn. Sir Frere looked particularly well-set-up and prosperous, and his wife, although certainly a little pale, was always beautifully dressed. They entertained largely and went everywhere. Manwarings was on its feet again, and Sir Frere now had plenty of time to devote himself to his young wife.

“I insist on your appearing in public with me.” Sir Frere had said the words curtly. “You have disgraced me, and the least you can do is to make up for it in the only way you can.”

“But I feel so terrible, and everybody stares at me.” Dandelion was crumpled up in the corner of the cretonne-covered sofa sobbing.

It was now a little over a week since the disastrous happenings at Baralia, and her husband had barely spoken to her since. He slept in his dressing-room, a large airy room on the other side of the bungalow; Francis, still a monument of gloom, had superintended the rearrangement of the furniture, aided by Mary, Dandelion’s new Goanese ayah. Under the circumstances Mary could not quite understand why things were arranged thus, but she made no comment. Perhaps the Lady Sahib wished it so, she thought comfortably.

“If people stare at you, you have nobody but yourself to blame, and the only possible thing for you to do now is to go about in public with me as much as possible, then they may forget about it.” Sir Frere was standing ready dressed to go to his office. He looked down at Dandelion’s crumpled figure without an atom of pity in his eyes. This child had done her level best to drag his name in the mud. And the least she could do now was to make amends for it.

“Yes; but it’s so ghastly!” Dandelion’s voice was broken with sobs. “It would be different if I had you to be loving and sort of stand by me. These dinners terrify me; I am always afraid of doing the wrong thing.”

“There is nothing in the least to terrify you. We have an excellent cook. Francis can run a dinner without a hitch from beginning to end. I am here to tell you how the people should sit at table. Saturday’s dinner went off perfectly well. What is there to be terrified about?”

“It’s the awful thought of it beforehand. And the feeling that you hate me. Are you never going to take me back into your heart again, Frere? What shall I do if it’s going on like this for ever? Send me home, if you don’t want me: I would rather—I would rather!” Dandelion was wailing.

“Don’t make a scene; I detest them.” Sir Frere’s voice was curt. “Dandelion,” he said, “you have deceived me horribly, and I doubt if I shall ever get over it. I cannot at the moment; that is quite certain. Whether I may be able to later on remains to be seen. For Heaven’s sake stop crying.”

“Then what is going to become of me?” Dandelion’s voice came strangled.

“I don’t know,” said Sir Frere frankly; “as I have just said, that remains to be seen. And now I must go to the office. Don’t forget that the invitations for Friday ought to go to-day; at this time of year people expect quite a week’s notice.”

“Frere, say something a little kind before you go.” Dandelion’s voice was anguished. She slipped from the chair and fell on her knees. “Say that one day perhaps you will take me back.” She caught hold of his hand, clutching at it.

“I can say nothing at this particular moment.” Sir Frere’s down-bent eyes were sombre. “You’ve utterly shattered the whole of my faith in you, Dandelion—I don’t mind saying so. If I were a younger man it might be different, but as it is——” Sir Frere detached his hand from the small and clutching one. “I must go,” he said; “I have a meeting at eleven that I cannot miss.”

“Then I shall simply die!” Dandelion stumbled up from the floor and stood there with wide-open, streaming eyes. Never had she loved her husband more, she thought frantically. There he stood, just quiet and resolute and unbending, just as she had always imagined a man ought to be. And she had thrown away all this for the sake of a wretched sordid flirtation with a man not worthy to black this man’s boots. Why had she done it?—why had she done it? she asked herself, still sobbing and yet trying to still the force of her tears. It made her feel so ill, this ceaseless crying. She cried most of the time when she was alone, and a good deal of the night as well. Perhaps she really would die, and then that would be the end of it, she thought, going slowly along to her bedroom when the sound of the hooting of the car showed that it was turning out of the gate. Always she hoped that he would be sorry and come back. And always he went on. Dandelion dragged back the curtain of her doorway, and walking to the little bed standing solitary in the middle of the room, she climbed up on to it and lay down with her face buried in the pillow.

Chapter XXII

Francis loved a dinner-party. Sir Frere had a great many very beautiful things, and the round polished table always looked perfect when it was ready. The heavy cut-glass tumblers; the beautiful filet lace doylies and table centre, the massive glass finger-bowls, extremely valuable—--Francis took a tremendous pride in it all. He spread the trails of pink antirrhinum over the gleaming polish of the table with the discriminating fingers of an artist. The wines—he had them all ready arranged on the sideboard. Kallan had been trained like an automaton. The servants of the guests who were coming would all be allotted their separate duties. Francis, supremely competent, was in his element. His heart rejoiced over this display of his master’s prosperity—-his master, who stood now neat and immaculate in his well-cut evening clothes, reading the Advocate of India, which had just been flung on to the verandah by the paper-boy on his bicycle. Francis went off to the kitchen to have a word with the cook before the guests began to arrive.

Dandelion, soft and pale in her wedding-dress, stood staring out into the compound and twisting her fingers together. She would not go along to the drawing-room until the very last minute. She could not be with him there alone in that terrible forced silence. Sixteen people were coming to dinner, and she had to entertain them and appear as if nothing was the matter. How was she going to do it? Dandelion gritted her teeth together and wondered. He was cruel, terribly cruel, she thought. Other women had flirtations and were forgiven. There had been a married woman on the boat who had flirted like anything and nobody had seemed to think anything of it. Why was she doomed to this hideous, this unceasing disgrace, this terrible isolation of body and spirit? Wild ideas seized her of writing to her father and imploring him to send her the passage-money so that she could get home.

“Come along, Dandelion; I can hear a car.” Sir Frere had come noiselessly along the verandah. He had been watching his wife for a second or two. She was much thinner; he could see the hollow in her cheek as she stood sideways to him. “Come along,” he said, and he laid a hand on her shoulder.

“How am I going to——?” Dandelion was biting her lip.

“Come along!” Sir Frere took his hand away quickly. It was not the moment for a scene, he told himself as he led the way back to the drawing-room. Dandelion had brought the present condition of affairs to pass by her own wilful stupidity—her criminal stupidity. Sir Frere suddenly felt as hard as nails again, as he stepped forward, the delightful host, to greet the first of his guests.

But, all the same, during the long dinner he kept his eyes on his wife. She was pale, terribly pale. He caught Francis’s eye and beckoned to him with his own: “Give the Lady Sahib some champagne,” he whispered.

“Yes, sahib.” Francis hurried round the table with the swathed bottle in his dark hand. He disregarded Dandelion’s little nervous gesture. “Sahib ordering,” he whispered, and filled Dandelion’s glass to the brim.

“Sahib ordering”—Dandelion went on talking to her neighbour with her eyes attentively riveted. She dared not look at her husband. He was annoyed because she had seemed apathetic. And she had been trying so hard. Supposing she suddenly began to cry. Dandelion remembered the first disastrous occasion on which she had drunk champagne to excess. She sipped hurriedly at her glass, and in spite of herself she met her husband’s eye. He was smiling—a very little—only a very little, as if to encourage her. He was looking at her; Dandelion turned hurriedly away. He had not smiled at her for a fortnight; she swallowed once or twice to steady herself. She must get through this interminable evening somehow, and then she could let herself go. Her solitary bed, with the small mosquito curtain enveloping it, standing like a little desert island in the middle of the floor. Desolation complete and unparalleled. It had all been so heavenly and so friendly; and she had let it all go for the sake of a little morbid excitement. How easy it was to do that, and how ghastly difficult to pick up things where you had let them drop. Impossible when you had another person to reckon with as well. Because he would never understand, this upright, honourable man of the world, that it hadn’t been really because she had loved him less. It had only been that she was dull and had wanted a little excitement. Dandelion sipped a little more of her champagne and felt better.

And after it was all over and the laughing, chattering guests had gone—the evening had been well arranged: clever card games, with an exceedingly nice prize provided by Sir Frere, who always did everything well—she stood on the verandah and wondered whether she should say anything to him before she went to her own room. Something in the nature of an apology—a passionate cry for pity. Dandelion suddenly felt that she could not go on living like this. Her warm, loving heart was stunned by it. Surely what had not taken place could not have alienated her husband for ever? Did husbands hate their wives for that, then? She wrenched her hands together and shot a look at him. He was glancing at the Advocate. Francis was padding about the verandah shaking up cushions and collecting empty tumblers. The hamal was straightening the furniture in the drawing-room. Kallan had carried a tray of empty tumblers away and had just come back for another. The heavy tropical scent of the syringa came blowing in from the dark compound; somehow it seemed to give Dandelion courage.

“May I speak to you?” She stood in her shining wedding-dress, looking at him out of eyes that were terribly afraid.

“Certainly.” Sir Frere laid the paper down on a wicker table. He had not been reading it. His heart had begun to melt towards his wife. She had made such gallant efforts to make the evening a success. She was so young; what chance had she had with that experienced blackguard? He ought not to have left her so much alone; it had been more than half his fault. “Certainly,” he said; “come along into my dressing-room. Yes; you can shut up, Francis. Salaam! Salaam, Kallan.” Sir Frere was returning his servants’ salutes with cordiality. They had done their utmost to make the evening a success, and Sir Frere was grateful to them for it. Ice-cold drinks—waiting to perfection: Sir Frere was an experienced host and he could not endure anything in the way of inferior entertainment. “Come along in here,” he said, and he led the way quietly.

But once in the big matted room Dandelion could only stand and hold her hands awkwardly to her throat. “I don’t feel very well,” she faltered; “I think I will say it to-morrow.”

“Don’t you, my child?” Sir Frere took a little step forward.

“No; please don’t be kind, or I shall begin to cry again,” said Dandelion drawing her brows into a little frown. “I can’t cry any more—it makes me feel so awfully, awfully ill. In fact, I think I must sit down or I shall be ill now.” She faltered forward and made a stupid little groping movement towards a chair. “Oh dear, I can’t get to it!” she said.

“Mind, my darling”; but Sir Frere was not quite quick enough. Dandelion came crumpling down on to her knees on the soft Persian rug.

Chapter XXIII

Major Colter, who had been one of the guests at the Manwarings’ dinner-party, had only just put his hand up to unfasten his collar when his telephone-bell rang. “Yes, all right; I’ll come back at once—not a bit,” he said, and replaced the receiver on its stand and retied his black tie. “Lady Manwaring’s had a fainting-fit,” he said briefly as he put his head through the curtain of his wife’s bedroom on his way out on to the verandah.

“Oh, Jack, I’m sure she’s going to have a baby!” Mrs. Colter, bursting with excitement, came running to the door. “How heavenly, and how fearfully pleased he’ll be!”

“Don’t be so previous!” Major Colter laughed cheerily. He did not at all want to go all the way back to the Hill at that time of night, and probably his chauffeur would have already gone to his quarter, so that he would have to get out the car himself. But Major Colter was possessed of the selfless optimism that is the characteristic of most doctors, and he was back at the big bungalow on the Hill in a little over ten minutes.

Queen’s Road was clear, as it always is at about midnight, and he buzzed along it, whistling as he went. A kid was just what they wanted in that household, he thought. It would bridge across that disparity of age, so dangerous a thing in a marriage of the kind.

But he was inwardly astounded at the way in which Sir Frere received the news. “What?” he stood very still in the middle of the floor.

“Yes; it’s splendid news, isn’t it?” Major Colter in his evening-dress was smiling. “There’s nothing whatever to worry about, either; she’s got everything in her favour—youth, physique, everything. These fainting fits are quite usual, and fortunately she fell carefully. The ayah seems a capable sort of woman too. Goodnight, Sir Frere; I won’t come again unless you send for me.”

“Good-night Colter. I say, have a drink, won’t you?” Sir Frere had taken a few blind steps after the man, who was already half-way across the verandah. He felt stupid; his brain was surely refusing to function. What had the man said?

“Sure you won’t? Yes, it’s splendid news, isn’t it? Splendid!” Sir Frere was smiling mechanically. And he was still smiling as the tail-lamp of the car went winking out of the gate. Again his face wore the queer expression on it that Dandelion had surprised on the verandah of the old fort at Baralia. He turned and went back into his room, walking like a man in his sleep.

A child! A living, breathing reminder of that blackguard whom in his folly he had refrained from murdering when he had had the chance. A child, to be brought up in his home and at his expense. To be educated at his expense: to save his face he would have to pretend that he thought it was his. Later on, perhaps he would even have to go and see it scrimmaging about the football field, a little dark sloe-eyed monkey. An offshoot of that tainted branch, rotten to the very core. God! why hadn’t he torn the fellow’s eyes out of his treacherous face while he had had the chance. His wife—his Dandelion, little more than a child herself—soon to be the mother of that——Sir Frere brought his clenched hands up to his throat. How was he going to go through with it; to hide it from her that he knew? He had managed so far; his pride had helped him. But now, to have it set before him in concrete form! And he must hide it; if he once let himself go he might kill her. Besides, she was ill; only a brute would——.

Sir Frere started to rage about the room. He sent out little inarticulate prayers for help. He prayed that she would not come anywhere near him. If he had the night to himself he might manage. But—and then he heard a little faint sound of footsteps. He clenched his teeth in a superhuman effort of self-control. Only just a word—he could manage that, and then perhaps she would go away again.

But Dandelion, in a tremor of rapture and excitement, had been longing for this moment ever since nice Major Colter had gone away smiling. Mary, too, now had been finally disposed of—Mary, who had gone away to her quarter bristling with joy and excitement. She was full of delight, but had known it for quite a long time, she had informed Dandelion.

But now at last she was alone with her husband. Utter, complete joy, because this would make everything right between them. He would be pleased—madly, overwhelmingly pleased, as she was. It would make it all as it had been at the beginning, only even nicer.

But at the sight of the strangely drawn face turned towards her, all her gladness turned to apprehension.

Then he was not pleased. Things were to go on as they had been going on for the last fortnight, in gloom and silence. Everything that she had come to say died on her lips.

“Oh!” nothing but the little gasping monosyllable would make itself heard.

“It is time you were in bed,” said Sir Frere, and he had to moisten his lips to say it.

“Yes; I only came to say good-night,” trembled Dandelion. Then this was what men were like when their love turned to hate? Even their wife going to have a baby did not move them. She almost ran as she turned to go back to her bedroom. But even through her despair the thought of what was in store for her nestled close to her heart and remained there. A baby, of her very, very own: something that would belong to her in a way that nothing else could. In time it would have to draw them together, too; how could they help it? They would be the mother and father of this wonderful thing.

Dandelion lay and stared at the electric fan whirring above the mosquito curtain and thought little tender thoughts about it. What should they call it? what would mummy and daddy say when they heard? Perhaps he would allow her to go home to have it; Dandelion’s throat tightened a little as she thought of that. It would be so awful to have a baby in the middle of anything that wasn’t love. A baby was love; it couldn’t be born properly in the middle of any feeling that wasn’t.

She slept a little, fitfully. It was hot and the news had excited her. The evening had been an exciting one altogether; the dinner-party and everything. And then, suddenly waking, as the chiming from the Clock Tower came wandering up through the still, tropical night air, Dandelion sat up and stared round her. Three o’clock. There was a light streaming over the verandah floor outside—from her husband’s room it must be.

Dandelion, carefully lifting her mosquito curtain, got out of bed and tiptoed to the door. He was still awake then, and it was three o’clock. Dandelion stood still and waited. And as she waited a little breathless thought crept into her mind. His face—as she had seen it, when on that sudden impulse she had gone along to say a second good-night to him—the face of someone in acute mental torment. Did he then——? Dandelion turned, quick as thought, and dragged her silk dressing-gown from the end of the bed. Her bedroom slippers—where were they? She groped around with a hurriedly seeking toe. She almost ran along the verandah, dragging the curtain of Sir Frere’s dressing-room door aside without ceremony. He looked up as she came in. He was sitting in a low wicker chair, reading. The smoke from a recently laid down cigarette curled up from a little ash-tray at his elbow.

‘T’ve been thinking——I couldn’t go to sleep, and then when I did I woke up almost at once. You think that this baby isn’t yours? I know you do.” Dandelion’s eyes were wide-open and staring.

“Of course; how can I possibly think anything else?” Sir Frere laid down his book. There was a sunken look about his mouth. “Go back to bed,” he said; “it is bad for you to be wandering about at this time of night.”

“But it is—it is!” Dandelion flung herself down on her knees. “I swear it is. Give me a Prayer Book; I don’t believe we’ve got a Bible. How could you think——how could you think I could? Why, it would have been too ghastly—too horrible! Why, he never even suggested it—at least, if he did, I didn’t understand. He knew I hated everything except just kissing.” Dandelion was holding out her hands and choking. “Why, and you thought that from the very beginning, and yet you kept me in your house! Frere, Frere!” Dandelion was speechless with tears.

“I couldn’t very well turn you out of it, could I?” Sir Frere gave a little broken laugh. And then he dropped his face into his hands. “Oh my God!” he said slowly.

“You do believe me?”

“How can I, on the face of it, knowing Lancaster as I do?—the complete cad.” Sir Frere got up from his chair and began to walk about the room. Somehow the sight of Dandelion horrified him. She was in a corner, terrified, and rushed to him for protection. Lying to him—he stood suddenly stock-still in the middle of the floor. “Go back to your room,” he said.

“No; not until you say that you do believe me. I don’t care—at least I do, but that doesn’t matter now—if you never love me again. But you shall believe that what I tell you is true. How could I, about anything so sacred as a baby, come and tell you a deliberate lie? I might want to, because I should be so frightened; but how could I, knowing that God would know that it was a lie? Besides, I am not so stupid: it would be like him: if I was as wicked as you think I am I should have thought of that. But I shouldn’t care about that—it would be the awful horror of going through it all with a lie on my soul. People die when they have babies; how should I feel if I died?” cried Dandelion, her eyes wide with panic.

“Don’t talk about dying.” Sir Frere swung round.

“I must. And I should think that if you think what you do about me you would be glad,” sobbed Dandelion.

“It isn’t that. It is—you see, I trusted you so entirely, Dandelion. I’m not a young man; I’ve seen this sort of thing happen to a good many of my friends. And I made up my mind not to marry because of it. And then, when I saw you—” Sir Frere stopped abruptly.

“You thought I was different.”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m going to kill myself,” said Dandelion abruptly, and she turned. She began to run, tearing aside the curtain over the door. But Sir Frere was quicker. He had her held to him in a second; her hands close down to her sides.

“Don’t,” he said; “don’t be silly!”

“What is the use of living?”

“What is the use of dying? You only break my heart, and probably your father’s into the bargain. Besides—” Sir Frere paused. “Come and sit down here,” he said—he led the way quietly to a chair. “I want to say something to you. I want to ask you something. I want you to be frank with me. You must, if we are ever to have any happiness again.”

“We never shall,” Dandelion was sobbing brokenly.

“Yes, we shall.” Sir Frere’s eyes lightened a little. He stood with his hands in the pockets of his silk dressing-gown looking down at her. “Supposing I say that I do believe you now,” he said.

“You don’t.”

“Yes, I think I do.” Sir Frere broke off abruptly. “God knows I want to,” he muttered. “The only thing is—— Look here, Dandelion; tell me frankly. What did you do it for?” Sir Frere sat down and dragged a low chair nearer to his wife. He linked his quiet hands between his knees, staring at her. “Tell me,” he urged.

“You won’t understand.”

“Yes, I shall.” The corners of Sir Frere’s mouth quivered. Such a child; what was the use of judging her by ordinary standards?

Dandelion flung up her head. “You won’t understand,” she cried; “no man would. Men are different to women. It’s the excitement—the mad excitement of it all. Wicked persons are like that; they know how to make things that can be just ordinary madly exciting. Women never get used to being made love to—it’s always new, always desperately thrilling. They’ve different ways of doing things. They can be just ordinary, or they can be—well, not ordinary.” Dandelion lifted a face pale with emotion.

“I see; go on.” Sir Frere’s eyes were inscrutable.

“So you see, that was it. When he kissed me, because he did, it’s no use pretending he didn’t,” sobbed Dandelion, “he seemed to make it wicked. I don’t know quite how he did it, but he did.”

“Long experience,” said Sir Frere dryly.

“Oh, was that it?” said Dandelion, lifting her head.

“Undoubtedly. Well, go on.”

“There isn’t any more. It was just that. Awful excitement, wondering what was going to happen next. Always expecting something that never did happen. Always feeling that he was madly wanting you and had never quite got you. Never anything settled,” said Dandelion, her eyes strained with the effort to make herself understood.

“I see.” Sir Frere got up and began to walk about the room. So that was it, was it? This child that he had sheltered, dealt tenderly with, considered, had all the time been thinking him dull. That she was telling him the truth he never doubted for an instant. The child that she was going to bear to him was his, and briefly, in his heart, Sir Frere thanked God for it. “Come here,” he said suddenly, stopping dead in the middle of the room and turning round.

“No,” sobbed Dandelion.

“Yes,” said Sir Frere quietly. He held her strained to his heart as she clung to him. “I’m sorry,” he said; “Dandelion, forgive me. But I can’t help laughing,” he said, as he laid his face down on her hair, “me being so careful, so desperately afraid lest I should be too——”

Sir Frere broke off abruptly.

“Too what?”

“Too opposite to dull,” said Sir Frere, and this time he did laugh out loud. He caught her closely into his arms again. “You women are the most extraordinary creatures in the world,” he said; “we shall never understand you. Come along to bed; it’s nearly four o’clock.”

“Oh no,” breathed Dandelion. She stared upwards into his face. Not again all that awful desolation: all that awful loneliness. “Let me stay here with you,” she breathed.

“And why——?”

“Because I cannot—I cannot have you leave me alone like you have been doing lately,” sobbed Dandelion.

“I’m not going to.” Sir Frere’s response was swift and tender. “You needn’t be afraid of that any more, Dandelion.”

And of course ayah was scandalized—ayah who had always taken naukri with people who led well-conducted lives. I.C.S. people, high up in the Service: Delhi in the cold weather and Simla in the hot. And this—ayah was scowling at Francis, who stood on the verandah pressing down a bit of the dragged-up matting with a bare toe—Francis with a little smile on his face.

“My sahib like that,” he said; “what he want he have.”

“Wah, wah!” Ayah had completely lost her temper. To come early that morning, as she had come, eager to minister to her ailing mistress, and to find—ayah had simply put the tray of chota-hazri down on the table and gone away. And outside she had met Francis, also with a tray of chota-hazri in his hands, but with his opaque eyes full of tears. Had it then come to pass, the reconciliation for which he had prayed day and night?

“Take this also,” he said.

And ayah had of course to obey. But to find where there had been one small white shrouded bed, two; and with the discarded curtain of the small one tossed carelessly into a corner; and the occupants of the large white shrouded island in the middle of the floor still asleep—it was more than ayah could stand. This came of taking naukri with a box-wallah, she thought, sitting firmly down in the corner of the sun-flooded verandah, and drawing her spotless sari indignantly down over her face.

Conclusion

And now let us go back to Wayside, by far the nicest part of this story. Hugh and his wife were having breakfast: Monday, mail day in the country, now that there is no longer a Sunday post. Mrs. Davison was absorbed in her letters. And then she suddenly let the one she was reading drop on to her lap.

“Hugh, Dandelion is going to have a baby!” she gasped.

“Really? Cheers!” Hugh stopped eating and glanced, deeply interested, across the table. “Well done, old Frere!” he remarked.

“Oh!” Mrs. Davison sat very still for a minute or two. She picked up her knife and reached out for the butter. “Hugh—oh, Hugh!” she breathed.

“Yes, it’s splendid news!” Hugh was genuinely delighted. Inwardly he had always been a little doubtful about the ultimate success of Dandelion’s marriage. But this would put it all right. “Splendid!” he said again.

“It makes me feel as if I was going to have one too,” said Mrs. Davison, after a long pause, and she stopped eating and stared brilliantly across the table at her husband.

“Good God! don’t!” Hugh laid down his knife and fork, and swallowed once or twice. “Nancy, don’t be so stupid!” he said.

“Oh, what bliss it would be!” Mrs. Davison suddenly shut her eyes in a rapture.

“Don’t, Nancy.” Hugh suddenly spoke, for him, almost irritably. And then he began to laugh. “You little wretch!” he said.

For Mrs. Davison was suddenly dissolved in inextinguishable laughter. “Hugh, if you could only have seen your face!” she gasped. “How could I? Don’t be so ridiculous!”

“Well, I don’t know. You’re such a queer, unexpected creature that one never knows what you are going to do,” said Hugh; but his eyes were laughing down at his plate as he began to eat again.

And Mrs. Davison wiped her eyes with a little blue handkerchief drawn from her sleeve. “I’m not going to do that, anyhow,” she said; “it’s Dandelion’s turn this time. Oh, Hugh! isn’t it all perfectly entrancing?”

The End