did. He said that in Nether-Applewhite he paid a premium for such there

matches—a lil’ cottage, look, and a lil’ garden, and a fi’-pun’ note, so be as God A’mighty sent twins.”

Prudence blushingly rebuked him.

“_Alferd!_”

“His brave words, Prue, not mine.”

Sir Geoffrey coughed. That a servant of his should memorise his prose might be deemed flattering and eminently proper. He said graciously:

“I meant ’em. There is a cottage for you——”

“May the Lard bless ’ee, Sir Geoffrey!”

Sir Geoffrey raised a minatory finger.

“Provided, mark you, that each marries—somebody else.”

This was too much for the feelings of an inflamed maid. Prudence confronted the autocrat with heaving bosom and sparkling eyes.

“If so be, as I can’t have Alfred, I’ll die a sour old maid, I will.”

Her outburst provoked the Squire to unmagisterial wrath. He raised his voice and a dominating hand.

“Hold your tongue! We have had quite enough of this. I can’t prevent Alfred marrying you, you little baggage, but if he does he must find another place, and a cottage in a parish which doesn’t belong to me.”

Prudence’s courage and defiance oozed from her. With a wailing cry, she flung herself into Fishpingle’s arms.

“Uncle Ben——!”

Fishpingle comforted her.

“There, there, my maid! You obey me. I tell you to go to your room and have a nice comfortable cry. Off with you!”

The Squire added a word:

“And keep out of my shrubberies, confound you!”

Prudence left Fishpingle’s arms, and turned to the Squire, with tears rolling down her cheeks. She said defiantly:

“I know where I be going—quick!”

She bolted, slamming the door.

“The minx! Where is she going?”

Fishpingle couldn’t inform him. Possibly to her mother, who was head laundry-maid. The Squire addressed Alfred.

“You can go, Alfred, but I warn you not to follow that pert, ungrateful girl. And—in case you should be tempted to disobey me, bring me at once a large whisky and soda.”

“Bring two, Alfred,” added Lionel.

Alfred obeyed, crestfallen and sullen. As soon as he left the room, Lionel began to protest:

“Look here, father, this is too hot, I——”

The Squire smiled blandly.

“Tch! Tch! All this has been intensely disagreeable to me boy, But, dammy! I must practise what I preach. Sound eugenics. No in-and-in breeding. Ben here agrees with me, don’t you, old friend?”

“No, Sir Geoffrey.”

The astonished Squire gripped hard the arms of his chair.

“Wha-a-at?” he roared.

Fishpingle replied deliberately:

“I do not agree with you, Sir Geoffrey. I repeat what I said before. The strain in this case is clean and strong on both sides. In my judgment Alfred and Prudence are specially designed by Providence to practise what you preach, and to provide His Majesty in due time with legitimate and lawful subjects.”

Sir Geoffrey rose majestically. He approached his butler. He surveyed him from head to heel. Upon his red face amazement wrestled with incredulity. With an immense effort, he controlled himself, saying calmly:

“You mean, Ben, that you—_you_ oppose my wishes?”

“In this instance, yes.”

Alfred entered with the cooling drinks. Sir Geoffrey gasped out:

“I have never been so—so——”

“Thirsty, Sir Geoffrey?” suggested Fishpingle, as Alfred presented the salver.

The Squire seized a glass with a trembling hand, completed the sentence, “in all my life.”

“Nor I,” said Lionel, taking the other glass.

Alfred withdrew. Sir Geoffrey tossed off his drink, nearly choking. As he slammed the empty glass upon the table, he exploded.

“You—traitor!”

Lionel slammed down his empty glass.

“_Traitors_, father; I’m with Fishpingle, if an honest opinion is called treachery.”

“Good God! My own son against me.” But, quickly, he moderated his tone, saying testily: “There, there! ‘Traitor’ was too strong an expression. I withdraw it. But I stand firm on the other matter. I repeat: Prudence and Alfred are too near of kin.”

Lionel answered respectfully:

“You, sir, have proved Fishpingle’s case up to the hilt.”

“Eh? What d’ye mean, boy?”

“Fishpingle will read you an extract from an article written by you on this subject, won’t you, old chap?”

“With pleasure, Master Lionel.”

He crossed to his bookcase, opened a drawer below it, turned over some papers, and fished out a scrap-book.

“Something I wrote. All right! I stand by my own words—always have done. No chopping and changing for me!”

Fishpingle found the page and the clipping. He put on his spectacles.

“Hurry up,” enjoined the Squire. “What an old dodderer!”

Fishpingle began:

“Under date April the first——”

“Is this a stupid joke, Ben?”

“That happens to be the date, Sir Geoffrey. The article was written by you some fifteen years ago.”

“Um! Ancient history. I refuse to accept unqualified responsibility for what I wrote fifteen years ago.”

Lionel laughed. He felt that the tension was relieved.

“I say—play cricket, father!”

“Cricket? How the doose, boy, can you remember what I wrote when you were a lad of ten?”

“Simply because Fishpingle read that clipping to me about a week ago.”

The Squire growled.

“This looks like a damned conspiracy.”

At this moment Lady Pomfret sailed into the room, followed by Margot. Prudence had fled, weeping to her kind mistress. Regardless of a visitor, the maid had told her piteous tale, entreating help, first aid which couldn’t wait. Lady Pomfret had hesitated, knowing her man. Then Margot had interposed. “L’union fait la force.” Let them seek the autocrat together. Let women’s wit and tact prevail! She ached for the encounter. Together they would triumph gloriously. Lady Pomfret yielded reluctantly to importunity. Prudence raced back to Alfred.

Lady Pomfret smiled at her lord.

“Dear Geoffrey, we have just seen poor little Prudence Rockley.”

Margot, in her sprightliest tone, added incisively:

“Yes; and we’ve nipped in to fight under Cupid’s banner.” She advanced to the charge gaily. “Now, you must listen to—me.”

But Sir Geoffrey was proof against alluring wiles.

“Must I?” he said stiffly.

“Why, of course, you must. Dear Lady Pomfret was dragged here by me. Frown at me, not at her. I plead for youth and beauty.”

Just then, Youth and Beauty peered in through the open window. It was daring, audacious, a violation of inviolate tradition. But what will you? The hapless pair were beside themselves with misery and despair. Each gripped the other’s hand.

Sir Geoffrey was hard put to it. Courtesy to a guest strained him to breaking-point. He bowed silently. Margot continued:

“You are a true lover, Sir Geoffrey. You must know that love is free.”

The Squire shied at the adjective. And this interruption had befogged him.

“Free love,” he repeated. “God bless my soul! What next?”

Lady Pomfret explained, deprecatingly.

“Margot means, Geoffrey, that love is free to choose, to select——”

Margot continued with animation:

“Jill has the right to pick her Jack. If Jack is willing”—she paused and looked at Fishpingle—“and I understand that he is—”

Alas! Poor Alfred! The question undid him. Had he remained silent, Margot might have triumphed. The Squire was melting beneath her fiery glances. He wanted to please her. He loved to confer a favour royally. But a voice from outside froze the very cockles of his heart.

“Aye. That I be, my lady.”

Such an interruption, at such a time, from such a source, filled the Squire with fury. He roared out:

“Ben.”

“Sir Geoffrey?”

“Discharge that impertinent rascal at once.”

Lady Pomfret spoke and looked her dismay.

“Oh, Geoffrey! Who will wait at dinner? Poor Charles is so inefficient.”

Sir Geoffrey lowered his voice.

“Discharge him after dinner. Pay him his wages, and send him packing.”

Another voice floated in through the window.

“I go with Alfie, Sir Geoffrey.”

The Squire, fulminating, strode to the window, Youth and Beauty had vanished. He came back, as Lady Pomfret observed disconsolately:

“Oh, dear! Oh, dear! We shall soon be left without servants.”

Everybody was upset. For once Margot forgot her tact. She said with acerbity:

“But really this is—feudal. It reeks of the Middle Ages.” Then, regaining her sprightliness, she smiled: “Sir Geoffrey, do come back to the twentieth century.”

Lady Pomfret smiled faintly.

“Please do, dear Geoffrey.”

“Never! What unspeakable insolence!”

“Poor things!” sighed Lady Pomfret. “They forgot us because we had driven them to think only of themselves.”

Her charming voice, her kind, pleading eyes, her gracious gestures, were not wasted upon the Squire. Lionel, in a cheerful tone, said to the company generally:

“Fishpingle was about to read us something of father’s, something eugenic and relevant.”

Sir Geoffrey protested:

“Um! Ha! In the presence of ladies——” He cleared his throat.

Margot said happily:

“I shall listen with pleasure to anything Sir Geoffrey has written.”

Lionel turned to Fishpingle, who held the clipping in his hand.

“Go ahead, Fishpingle! Please remember, Margot, that my father is astride his favourite hunter. Now for it!”

Fishpingle, thus adjured, and after a glance at Sir Geoffrey, began to read aloud: “The question of in-and-in breeding——”

“Gracious!” ejaculated Lady Pomfret.

“I beg your ladyship’s pardon.”

“How well you read!” said Margot. “Pray go on, you delightful person!”

Fishpingle went on: “The question of in-and-in breeding, where the parent stock on both sides is vigorous and healthy, can only be answered by experiment. As a successful breeder of cattle, horses, and hounds, I am strongly in favour of it. If History is to be believed, the Pharaohs of the earlier dynasties, all of them pre-eminent for strength of mind and body, married their own sisters.”

Lady Pomfret interrupted quietly:

“I think that will do, Ben.”

“Very good, my lady.”

Lionel, watching his sire’s expression, confident that the clouds were rolling away, said, with a laugh:

“Father, you’re down and out.”

“I never wrote it,” said the Squire, emphatically.

“Then who did? You signed it.”

“Ben wrote it,” declared the Squire.

“Ben?” echoed Lady Pomfret. “Did you write it, Ben?”

Fishpingle replied modestly:

“The sentence about the Pharaohs is mine, my lady. I happened to be reading about them at the time. And when I typed Sir Geoffrey’s manuscript——”

Margot murmured:

“What a paragon! A butler who does typewriting.”

Sir Geoffrey said hastily:

“It amuses Fishpingle. He’s what we call in the Forest a ‘caslety man.’ Yes, yes, I remember. He slipped in that paragraph about the Pharaohs.”

“It hammered your point well home,” said Lionel.

“It did,” said Margot. “Now, Sir Geoffrey, haul down your flag! Make this nice young couple happy, to please me.”

“And me, Geoffrey.”

The Squire, at bay, pressed too hard, and seeing, possibly, derisive gleams in more than one pair of eyes, said curtly:

“I propose to be master in my own house.”

Margot compressed her lips. She admitted candidly that any woman may be snubbed once. It is her own fault if she courts a second rebuff. She laughed acidulously, said very chillingly, “Oh, certainly,” and left the room. Lady Pomfret approached her husband, and laid her hand upon his sleeve.

“Prudence is Ben’s kinswoman, very dear to him. If Ben approves this match, what business is it of ours?”

Sir Geoffrey answered obstinately:

“They were born and bred in my parish, this impudent couple. They can do what they like—out of it.”

Lady Pomfret kept her temper admirably. If she travelled along lines of least resistance, she reached her goal eventually. She turned to Fishpingle with a little rippling laugh:

“Ah, well, I leave the Squire with you, Ben. We know—don’t we?—how kind he can be.”

She went out. Lionel opened the door for his mother, closed it behind her, and came back. Obviously, he was losing control of his temper. His fingers were clenched; an angry light sparkled in his eyes; he carried a high head. Sir Geoffrey saw none of this. He was glaring at Fishpingle. The autocrat addressed his butler:

“I am furious with you, sir. Thanks to you and your precious kinswoman I have been forced, sorely against the grain, to refuse a guest a favour, and, worse, to rebuke my dear wife.”

Lionel cast discretion to the void. The Pomfret temper might be deemed an heirloom. It slumbered in Lionel. Now—it woke.

“This is damnable.”

The Squire could hardly believe his ears. When he turned upon his son, his eyes, also, seemed hardly to be trusted. Lionel was positively glaring at him. Rank mutiny! Riot!

“How dare you take this tone, boy?”

Lionel attempted no apology.

“I would remind you, sir, that I am a man, and not only your son, but your heir. If I survive you, which at one time didn’t seem likely, this property and its responsibilities must come to me. I have a right—indeed, sir, it is my duty—to protest against an act of injustice and cruelty.”

“Leave the room, sir. This is intolerable.”

Lionel boiled over. Behold the creeper at awkward fences! Behold the craner! Fishpingle, standing behind the Squire, hoisted warning signals. In vain. A hot-headed youth was riding hard for a fall. He met his father’s eyes defiantly.

“I am not blind, sir, to your plans for my future. You intended me, your own son, to be a pawn in your hands.”

Fishpingle groaned.

“Master Lionel——!”

“Fishpingle, I have been a coward. I asked for your help. I wanted you to plead my cause, to use your influence——”

The Squire started.

“Influence? You asked another man to influence—me. Are you stark mad? And what cause, pray, is he to plead? Answer me.”

Fishpingle stretched out his hands.

“Master Lionel——”

“Hold your damned tongue, Ben!”

“Please,” said Lionel.

Fishpingle crossed slowly to the window, and looked out over the park. Two men whom he had loved and served were standing upon the edge of an abyss and he was powerless to avert disaster. His spirit travailed within him, bringing forth nothing. He heard Sir Geoffrey say, in a frozen voice:

“I am waiting, Lionel, for an explanation, and an apology.”

The son answered in the same hard, cold tone:

“I am too proud, father, to explain a fact, which needs no explanation and no apology. Last Sunday afternoon I asked Joyce Hamlin to become my wife, and she did me the honour of accepting me.”

Without pausing to watch the effect of this stunning blow, he turned and left the room. Fishpingle remained at the window.

* * * * *