Part 13

Secured by this comfortable reflection, Miss Willow was in very good cue. The bargain struck, George had recaptured his former excellence and had made very seasonable love. She held great expectation of his finding the ring, and was more than thankful to be spared the grisly ordeal of revisiting her haunts of Saturday upon such a delicate quest. As for Hubert, her peace must be made with honour: but that, she decided, should not be difficult. Indeed, by the time she had parted with George and was once more at home she had become quite hopeful that Hubert would make the first move.

The sight of a note addressed in his well-known hand set the seal upon her content.

She opened it with a faint smile.

_MY DEAR JULIA,_

_I’m afraid I didn’t play the game yesterday evening._

_What does the rotten ring matter? It’s served its turn. If it doesn’t turn up, let it lie. If it does, keep it ‘with my love.’ Any old way I’ve written to_ The Times, _telling them to insert the usual notice. You know. ‘The marriage arranged, etc., will not take place.’_

_Yours,_ _HUBERT._

After one frightful moment, Julia fell upon the telephone.

Two minutes later she was curtly informed that Captain Challenger was out of town.

* * * * *

“It’s no good you seein’ over,” said the porter at Sloane Street. “The flat’s took.”

“I see,” said George thoughtfully. “I see. It—it wasn’t took—taken on Saturday.”

“Oo said it was?” said the porter, who was of the new school.

George felt for a note.

“Look here,” he said. “I want to see over this flat. I don’t care whether it’s taken or whether it isn’t. I think it’ll just suit me—provided the floors are good.”

“They aren’t,” said the porter. “They’re rotten.”

George swallowed.

“Well, you let me see for myself. If you’re busy, you needn’t come. You won’t lose by it, you know,” and with that he fingered a note.

The porter leaned against the wall.

“Now, wot are you gettin’ at?” he demanded.

“Nothing,” said George indignantly. “I just want to see that flat. From what—what I’ve heard, it’ll suit me down to the ground.”

“But I tell you it’s took.”

“That doesn’t matter,” said George. “If it suits me I’ll square the other fellow somehow.”

The porter looked George up and down.

As if without thinking, George reinforced the note.

“Yes, that’s all right,” said the porter. “I see the two ’alf-quids. But I’m goin’ to get into trouble over this show. Once a flat’s took, it’s took. I ain’t got no business to let you inside.”

“No one need know,” said George thoughtlessly.

“Yes, they need,” said the porter. “Wot if you wants to ’ave it? The firs’ thing the agent’ll say is, ‘’Ow did you get inside?’”

George began to hate the porter very much.

“That’s easy enough,” he said. “I shall say I saw it on Saturday afternoon.”

There was a silence.

“Let’s ’ave a look at that ‘order,’” said the porter suddenly.

For the ninth time that day an ‘order to view’ passed.

“Are you Keptin Chellenger?”

“That’s right,” said George boldly.

The porter folded the ‘order’ and put it away.

“Right-oh,” he said shortly.

They passed to the second floor. . . .

“This is the ’all,” said the porter supererogatively.

“I see,” said George, raking the floor with his eyes. “It’s—it’s not very light, is it?”

“Depen’s wot you want to see,” was the dark reply.

George began to wish that he had given Sloane Street a miss.

That the porter’s suspicions were aroused was manifest. He stuck to Fulke as a policeman sticks to his prey. Thus embarrassed, the latter’s endeavours to behave like a prospective tenant lost much of the life which they had begun to acquire, while any proper prosecution of his search was out of the question. The tour of the gaunt rooms became a hideous business—costly, futile, critical. What he should do in the actual event of discovery, Fulke tried not to consider. He supposed vaguely that there would be a free fight. All the time an inexplicable feeling that he was what children call ‘warm’ pricked the unhappy youth into the cannon’s mouth. . . .

Presently they came to the bathroom.

This was laid with cork carpet of dark green hue. Falling upon it, a ring would hardly be heard: lying upon it, an emerald might well escape detection.

Fulke’s eyes almost left his head.

The chamber was small enough, but one’s view of the floor was obstructed. The basin got in the way: the bath could have hidden about five hundred rings.

Frantically George sought an excuse for dalliance.

“I—I like this room,” he said, looking up and around as though he were in a cathedral.

“No accountin’ for tastes,” said the porter, folding his arms.

Fulke frowned.

Then he tapped the linoleum with his foot.

“Does this go with the flat?” he said.

“Wot?” said the porter, staring.

“This linoleum.”

The porter eyed Fulke with a supreme contempt.

“Oh, less of it,” he said. “Ten feet o’ secon’-’and lino in a six-’undred-quid flat. An’ you ask if it goes. Why, it ain’t worth——”

“I happen to know something about linoleum,” lied Fulke furiously. “Why, if I told the Stores to put a new piece down, they’d charge me about ten pounds.”

“Would they, though?” said the porter. “They must ’ave got your number.”

There was an unpleasant silence.

At length—

“I—I take it the bath works all right,” said George desperately.

“It don’t leak,” said the porter, “if that’s wot you mean.”

Once more George looked round, racking his brain and trying to remember that one day the porter would die.

Then he turned to the basin and pushed back his cuffs.

“I think I’ll wash my hands,” he announced. “Can you get me a towel?”

“An’ then you’re wrong,” said the porter. “There ain’t no water.”

George could have broken his neck.

Instead, he turned to the window, trying to keep his head and wondering vaguely what constituted ‘justifiable homicide.’

Suddenly the idea flashed, and he swung on his heel.

“Who’s that?” he said sharply, and listened.

The porter started.

“Ooze wot?” he said.

“Somebody closed the front door.”

The porter slipped out of the room and tiptoed towards the hall.

Instantly George fell upon his face. . . .

He had one arm beneath the bath when the porter reappeared.

“Thort as much,” said the latter, “you young cunnin’ brute. An’ now I ’ave got yer—cold. You’re for it, my son. I wouldn’ give much fer your chances. ’Tempt ter commit a felony—that’s wot it is. Stolen ‘order to view’—passin’ yerself orf as Keptin Chellenger—temptin’ ter bribe . . . _an’ all fer a little green stone as don’ belong to yer_.”

George extricated his arm and rose to his feet.

“Don’t be a fool,” he said shortly. “When was it found?”

The porter entered the bathroom and approached to Fulke’s a perfectly furious countenance.

“‘Fool’?” he breathed. “‘Fool’ did joo say?”

George recoiled, and the face proportionately advanced. Its eyes were blazing: its chin protruded out of all reason.

“You ’as the blarsted nerve to call me a fool. You ’as——”

There was not much room to duck, but Fulke did it.

As the fist sang over his shoulder, he landed a vicious punch.

The porter staggered backwards. Then the porcelain rim caught him under the hocks, and it was all over.

As he fell into the bath, George slid out of the room and, finding a key in the door, turned it gratefully.

A moment later he was streaking up Sloane Street. . . .

* * * * *

It was, perhaps, ten minutes later that Julia, frantic, ran Hubert Challenger to earth.

“Hubert, where have you been?”

“Hurlingham,” said Hubert calmly. “How lovely you look.”

“Not all day?”

“Very nearly. I came up to town this morning, did one or two jobs of work and——”

“At your rooms they said you were in Bucks: at Bucks they said you were in town: I wired to each of your clubs and half the restaurants in London: I——”

“You also warned the barber,” said Hubert. “Only a genius would have thought of that. I’ve come straight along.”

“Can you stop that notice going in?”

“With the acme of ease,” said Hubert. “I haven’t posted the letter.”

“But you said——”

“I said I’d written, dear. I didn’t say I’d posted it.”

Torn between relief and indignation, Julia felt rather faint.

“Hubert,” she said weakly, sinking on to the arm of a chair, “I may tell you you’ve shortened my life. Last night I dined with George Fulke.”

“Naturally,” said Hubert, sitting down. “They all do. As a second string, George’s position is unique. And I’m glad you did. I rather like George.”

“Well, I don’t,” said Julia. “He’s—he’s utterly spoiled.”

“In other words,” said Hubert, “he’s getting wise. Don’t say he’s done it on you.”

“He behaved abominably. I told him to find the ring. D’you know he actually tried to bargain with me?”

“Quite right too,” said Hubert. “Why shouldn’t he have a look in? What was his price?”

“Only me,” said Julia. “If he found the ring I was to marry him.”

Challenger nodded approval.

“It is clear,” he said, “that George is finding himself. What did you say?”

“I said that if he found the ring he could announce our engagement one month after yours and mine had been cancelled.”

Challenger opened his eyes.

“You must like George very much.”

“I wouldn’t be seen dead with him.”

“Then where,” said Hubert, “is the snag?”

Julia hesitated.

“I—I said ‘officially cancelled.’ You know. Put in _The Times_. But I never meant it to be done. I—I thought we could just tell people.”

“Oh, what a dirty one,” said Hubert.

“It wasn’t at all,” said Julia indignantly. “Besides, he asked for it. He tried to do me down. . . . And then—then I got your letter.”

“Ah,” said Hubert. “That shortened George’s price.”

“It was two to one on him,” cried Julia. “You’d disappeared: he’d only to find the ring—and that he did, my dear, quite early this morning.” She held up a delicate finger, at once adorning and adorned by a magnificent gem. “A messenger-boy——”

Challenger looked down his nose.

“As a matter of fact, he was scratched at half-past nine. I found the symbol, my lady, and sent it along.”

Julia started to her feet.

“_You_—found—it?”

“I,” said Hubert, “with my little eye. I found the ring. I happened upon it, as they say, in the course of a job of work.”

“Where?”

Challenger rose to his feet.

“Julia,” he said, “after the barber had cleansed me I was going to call upon you. I was going to beg your pardon and ask you very humbly to have another dart. I don’t want to stimy George, but I’ve taken Sloane Street on a seven years’ lease, and——”

“Hubert, you haven’t!”

“Why not, dear? I took it first thing this morning, and, being so close, I just felt round for the ring. There it was—in the midst of the bathroom. I gave the porter a fiver just for luck, and——”

“But, Hubert, I’ve taken South Street.”

“_Julia!_”

Miss Willow nodded. Then she put out her hands, and Challenger caught them in his.

“You were perfectly right,” she said. “You always are. South Street is incomparable. And I thought, perhaps, if you didn’t think me too capricious to live with . . . in South Street . . .”

“My blessed darling,” said Hubert, with his cheek against hers. “My beautiful——”

Here the telephone stammered an interruption.

Challenger kissed his lady. Then he lifted his head.

“George,” he said, “for a monkey.”

Miss Willow picked up the receiver.

“Is that you, Julia?” cried Fulke.

“Oh, George,” said Miss Willow, “I am so glad you rang up. I want you to do something for me.”

There was a choking noise.

At length—

“Not—not really?” said Fulke hysterically. “What about the ring?”

“Oh, I’ve got the ring all right. This is instead. Among those ‘orders’ I gave you was one for a flat in Sloane Street. We took it this morning, but now we’ve seen one we like better. Will you go and tell the porter to go on showing the flat? Just mention Hubert’s name, and—— Hullo, hullo! Are you there? Are you there?”

But George had rung off.

And now Julia Challenger has superseded Madrigal Chichele.

TITUS

TITUS

“I tell you,” said Titus, “you should have married money.”

“If you like to put it that way,” said Mrs. Cheviot, “there’s nothing to stop you.”

“My dear,” said her husband, “it happens to be the truth. Three thousand a year’s no earthly use to you.”

“It would be if I had my share.”

Titus took out a note-book and put a glass in his eye.

“This is May,” he announced. “The twelfth of May. I don’t know exactly how much you consider your share, but since the beginning of the year you’ve had seven hundred and ninety for clothes alone.”

“You would write it down,” said Blanche contemptuously.

“If you mean that it’s like me,” said Cheviot, “that isn’t true. But we’ve had these discussions before, and the absence of any figures has materially helped your case. In the first place, I’ve always put it too low—to be on the safe side. In the second, you’ve always sworn that I put it too high.”

“I suppose you want me to be dressed.”

Titus took down his eyeglass and put his note-book away.

“You were clothed,” he said, “as a spinster. I remember it perfectly. But two hundred a year was all you had to do it on.”

“Are you suggesting——”

“I’m suggesting nothing,” said Cheviot. “I’m pointing out hard facts.”

“I suppose you consider you’re very generous.”

“Well, I don’t think I’m stingy. Seven hundred and ninety quid in less than——”

“It would interest me to know what you consider my share.”

“I don’t know,” said Titus. “I don’t pretend to know. The flat and the car cost about eighteen hundred. I spend about a hundred——”

“We could live much more cheaply,” said Blanche.

“I don’t quite see why we should.”

“Exactly. You choose the style in which we live. If we spent less money on that, we should have more money to spend on other things.”

“Such as clothes,” said Titus. “What a truly solemn thought. Never mind. You chose the flat when I was out of town. And the car.”

“Because I knew you wouldn’t be content with anything else.”

“In fact, you sank your wishes to do me pleasure?”

“I did—like a fool,” said Blanche.

“You covered it up very well,” said Cheviot. “When the flat in St. James’s fell through, you cried all night. And that was more expensive.”

“It’s no good talking,” said Blanche. “You don’t understand. In America——”

“I know,” said Titus. “I know. In America you’d have four-fifths of my income, and I should pay for your furs. All I can say is I’m damned glad I’m English.”

“In America men work.”

“Is that your trouble? Well, I’ve worked pretty hard in my time and I’m forty-two. Moreover, I’ve got a game leg. Never mind. What about the car?”

“Well, what about it?” said Blanche defiantly.

“This,” said her husband. “You say that you chose it because you knew that I should not be content with anything else. Do you remember the car I used to have?”

“Did you expect me to go about in that?”

Cheviot sighed.

“I expected nothing,” he said. “That is the art of life. Then you don’t feel such a mug when you find a wiggle-woggle in your grease.”

Mrs. Cheviot shuddered.

“Need you be disgusting?” she said.

“I need,” said Titus violently. “Dudgeon will out. For the last nine months I’ve fought like a super-fiend to keep our home together, and here you are doin’ your level best to break it up. I love you. I want you to blaze. I want you to put it across all other Eves. But you _have_—you _do_—you can’t help it. The clothes you wear don’t count. If you wore a set of loose covers, you’d get there just the same. But will you see it? No. Somehow you’ve made up your mind you’ve got to splurge.” He jumped to his feet and started to pace the room. “Well, if you must, you shall—on eight hundred a year. I can’t spring another cent. You talk about living cheaper—cutting out the flat and the car. But what’s the use of sables if you live an’ move in Clapham an’ have to come up by tram? Don’t think I care—I don’t. But how will it help you on? To get your effect you must soak in a bit all round. If you want the fun of the fair, you must split up your pence. If you blue them all on the swings, you can’t go on the roundabouts.”

“Who said ‘live in Clapham’?” said Blanche.

“I did,” said Titus. “I also said ‘come up by tram,’ an’ I meant what I said. Your words were ‘live much more cheaply.’ Did you mean what you said?”

“I didn’t say ‘pig it,’” said Mrs. Cheviot.

“They don’t pig it in Clapham,” said Titus. “They live much better than us. But they live much more cheaply too—for obvious reasons. They don’t feed five servants for one thing—they’ve too much sense.”

“We must keep our end up,” said Blanche. “The Willoughbys have started a second chauffeur. At least, they’re trying to find one.”

“They’d better have ours,” said Titus. “If we cut out the car——”

“Don’t be a fool,” said Blanche. “We must have a car and we must have a decent address. We must be served, and I must be well turned out. If——”

“Exactly,” said Titus. “Now let’s translate that saying. What you really mean is, ‘We must have a Rolls, and I won’t live West of Park Lane. We must have at least five servants, and I’ve got to dress accordin’ an’ a big bit over.’ Well, that’s all glorious, but the brutal answer’s this. Someone once said in his thirst that to get a quart into a pint pot was beyond the power of miserable man. Well, the converse is equally melancholy and equally true. The man who can get a quart _out of_ a pint pot has never been foaled—or if he has, my dear, his name’s not Titus. And there we are. We’ve three thousand pounds a year—to spend. If you can divide it by ten an’ get six hundred for answer, I’ll climb up the nearest steeple an’ push myself off.” He flung himself into a chair and put his head in his hands. “I’m not certain that wouldn’t be the best move, any way. Then at least you wouldn’t——”

“Ti, Ti, how can you talk like that?” Blanche was down on her knees with her arms round her husband’s neck. “I’m a selfish sweep, Ti, and you’re an angel.”

“Rot!” said her husband, taking her in his arms.

“I am, I am. It’s the truth. You give, and I take—all the time. I take and take and take. What fun do you have? None. Every penny you can spare—more goes on my back. And then when we’re up against it I kick and scream. Ti, I’m ashamed of myself.”

“I can’t bear it,” said Titus brokenly. “Why shouldn’t you have a show?”

“I do—I have. You give me a wonderful show. Everything I’ve wanted I’ve always had. There isn’t a husband like you in all the world. You’ve given up thing after thing—you know you have. You never hunt now, you wear the same old suits, you’ve chucked the Bath and the Bachelors’——”

“Never went inside ’em,” muttered Titus. “What was the good of——”

“You gave them up to save money—for me to blow. And I—I let you do it. I traded upon your love. I let you go hungry whilst I was bolting your share. And then . . .” Blanche covered her face and burst into tears. “I’m a rotten thief,” she sobbed, “a rotten, selfish——”

“Blanche, my lady,” begged Titus, “don’t cry about me. It’s amused me to death to give you what little I could. It’s been my delight to see you enjoying life. And when you say I’ve let you drink my liquor it isn’t true. I’ve done myself proud all the time.”

“You’ve given up cigars,” wailed Blanche. “And you swapped your one pearl pin for an arrow to go in my hat.”

“Have a heart, my beauty, have a heart. You’re the only thing I’ve got, and if it gives me pleasure to——”

“I asked for ‘my share,’ Ti. I actually asked for ‘my share.’ Why didn’t you get up and shake me when I asked for ‘my share’?”

“I damned near did,” said Titus. “But it seemed a pity to disturb you—you looked so sweet. Half on an’ half off the table, with your precious chin exalted and a couple of hands in your lap. I don’t wonder I’m mad about you.”

Blanche continued to weep violently, refusing to be comforted. Titus sat down beside her and did what he could. The terrier, greatly distressed, alternately nosed his patrons and lay on his back before them with his paws in the air. . . .

Presently the telephone-bell began to throb.

Titus left the room to reply to the call.

Once outside the door, he covered his eyes.

“It’s coming,” he said brokenly. “‘There isn’t a husband like you in all the world.’ That’s what she said. Oh, my blessed darling, our summer’s coming again.”

Titus had wooed a lady that loved him heart and soul and had married one that had come to love only herself. This was his own fault. Blanche Dudoy Guest was a darling, and he had spoiled her to death.

Their engagement had been childishly happy—a glorious summer of content. Then they were married less than a year ago, and instantly winter had set in.

Titus did what he could and, though he was no fool, made a pack of mistakes. This was easy. Blanche out of humour was the devil and all. The winter, which had never been kindly, began to grow harsh.

With it all, the man never lost heart.

He could not believe that his darling was gone for good, that the selfish woman of the world usurping her throne would not one day be dislodged. He told himself fiercely that one day summer would return—that peerless season when she had returned his love and had cared for the light in his eyes.

And now, for the first time since their marriage, Blanche had shown him affection though he brought her no gift. More. The darling had turned and rent the woman of the world.

It was the first swallow.

Summer was coming back.

When Titus re-entered the room, his wife, who was stroking the terrier, looked up with shining eyes.

“I’ve got it, old fellow,” she said. “I know what my trouble is. I’ve nothing to do.”

Titus Cheviot stared.

“This is reaction,” he said. “You stay where you are, sweetheart, and I’ll get you a drink.”

“No, it isn’t,” said Blanche. “I’m sane as sane. I’ve not been happy, you know—splashing about. That’s really why I splurged. I felt if I went all out perhaps I’d get there. I haven’t, of course. You never do. That way there’s nowhere to get. Then again—without an anchor I’m frightfully weak. I’m not a waster by nature, but put me among the wasters and I’ll waste away. I must have an anchor, Ti—an object in life. When you first knew me I had one. It was—to marry you. Then I lost that anchor . . . last June . . . in Eaton Square. . . . Since then . . . Ti, my dear, I’m going to open a shop.”

“Moses’ boots,” said Titus, sitting down on a chair. “What are you going to purvey?”

“Brains,” said Blanche. “My brains. And yours, if you will. It’ll cost us next to nothing except the rent. And we ought to make that on our heads. If we make no more, it doesn’t matter. I shall have something to do. But we must have a decent pitch.”

“Of course,” said Titus, “of course you’ve got me beat. I thought you sold brains by the pound.”

“Ideas, my darling, ideas. _The Cheviots, Decorators._ We’ve each got an excellent eye. You can do the halls and libraries, and I’ll do the drawing-rooms. We shall be frightfully _chic_ and outrageously expensive. But we must have a decent pitch.”

Titus put a hand to his head.

“I don’t know about the _chic_,” he said dazedly, “but I shall be expensive all right. I’m sure of that. Almost costly. By the time they’ve paid me a tenner and then paid somebody else two tenners to rub it all out and do it again——”

“A tenner?” cried Blanche. “Why, you won’t look at a room under fifty guineas.”

“Oh, here’s wickedness! Here’s fraud and everything! Fifty guineas to _me_ to look at a room? Why, it’s almost burglary.”