Part 3

"I'm afraid I'm not celebrated at all," he said modestly. "I'm only in Upper V.; I don't suppose you've ever heard of me."

Lallie laid down her work and looked at Cripps critically.

"I'll try again," she said. "Are you a College colour?"

"Yes."

"Cricket?"

"Oh, no, I'm no good at all."

"Football?"

"Yes."

"Fives?"

"Yes."

"Then you're two, and that's very grand; and I think," said Lallie slowly, her eyes wandering from her companion's face to the book lying on the grass and back again--"then I think you must be Mr. Cripps, the captain of the College fives. Now aren't I a witch of a guesser?"

Distinctly gratified, Cripps duly expressed surprise at her discernment. Lallie's sight was good, and she had seen his name on the paper copy of Sherlock Holmes lying on the grass. They continued to chat happily till morning school was over, and Tony Bevan rushed back to B. House to see after his guest. She saw him coming and flew to meet him, crying:

"Oh, Tony, I've been so happy in your garden, and Mr. Cripps has been so kind and nice, and has entertained me all the morning. It's been very pleasant having him to talk to."

Tony smiled down at the radiant upturned face.

"You don't look a bit tired this morning, Lallie," he said, "and I'm glad you've not been dull; but I'd forgotten all about Cripps, and I'm not sure that you ought to have been talking to him at all. He's contraband, you know, a suspect----"

"He told me all about it, Tony; and I've had the silly thing, and we were out of doors, so it couldn't matter, now could it?"

"Get your hat on now, Lallie, you are going to lunch with Mrs. Wentworth, the Principal's wife; I've seen her about you and she has kindly promised to mother you as much as possible till Miss Foster comes back."

Lallie's face fell.

"Oh, Tony," she exclaimed, "can't I have lunch with you and all the boys this first day? Can't I stop here just for to-day?"

"You'll have lunch here hundreds of times, and I've made the engagement for you to-day. Hurry, my child, for I haven't a minute."

Lallie didn't take long to get her hat--a big white one. She also wore a pair of long white gloves, and still carried the green silk bag, the only touch of colour about her. Tony looked at her with kind, approving eyes. How well the child carried herself; how girlish and fresh she was; and in her own quaint way, how full of the distinction she thought she lacked. But he felt some misgivings all the same--was she so unnoticeable? that was the question.

"How did you manage to find Cripps?" he asked, as they hurried up the wide tree-bordered road leading from B. House to the College, now full of boys hurrying to and fro from their various houses.

"I saw him from the window, and he was nearly asleep, so I called to him and he looked up; he's such a nice kind boy--we're great friends already."

"Oh, are you?" Tony said, rather drily. "Where was Matron?"

"I haven't seen the dear matron this morning; you see, I went straight out whenever I was dressed. Oh, I did enjoy my lazy lie this morning, Tony, but I'll be up with the lark to-morrow."

"Don't you think you'd be better to breakfast in bed until you have got thoroughly rested?" Tony said nervously. "There's no need for you to get up, and it makes such a long morning. Hadn't you better breakfast in bed till----"

"Miss Foster comes back, I suppose," snapped Lallie. "Why would you be hiding me out of sight all the time, Tony? Are you ashamed of me?"

She stood still in the middle of the road, flushed and angry.

"My dear child, ashamed!" the worried Tony repeated. "What an extraordinary idea! don't stand there, Lallie, the boys are staring at you. Doesn't it prove how anxious I am to show you off to my friends that I haven't lost a minute in introducing you to the chief lady of our community?"

"I'm sorry I was cross, Tony, but somehow, ever since I came, I've felt that you felt I oughtn't to be here; that--well, that I'm in a kind of way in quarantine, like poor Cripps, and that only Miss Foster's return will remove the infection."

"Lallie, you're too sharp altogether; you're not so far out though this time, and I begin to sympathise with your father's introduction of Aunt Emileen. But I promise you you'll be happy this afternoon; and this evening I'll bring my work into the drawing-room beside you. I must do it, but you won't feel lonely if I'm there, will you? No, Lallie, you must not try to embrace me in the street! the boys are looking at you!"

"Who's trying to embrace you, you conceited man? I was only taking your arm, and that you might have offered me. I promised Matron I wouldn't try to kiss you any more here."

"Promised Matron! What the dickens has Matron got to do with it?" It was Tony who stopped this time, and his voice was the reverse of pleased.

"Oh, dear, oh, dear! you're like the animals in 'Alice,' Tony, there's no pleasing you at all, at all. May I point out that at the present moment several boys are looking at you!"

"But, Lallie, you must explain what you mean; you say such extraordinary things----"

"Not at all, it's all the other way; but I'll try and remember to be stiff and prim; only one minute you're so nasty and the next you're so nice that action of some sort seems imperative--oh, dear, we're there! What a big house! Is she terrible, Tony? Will _she_ think I'm all mumpy too? You won't leave me; you'll see me safe in----"

*CHAPTER IV*

In Hamchester College the headmaster, Dr. Wentworth, like other headmasters, is a much criticised man. He has his partisans, he has also his detractors. Were an angel from heaven to descend and become headmaster of a large public school he would find plenty of adverse critics, and these were by no means lacking to Dr. Wentworth. But about his wife, there were no two opinions. Six hundred boys and all the masters agreed in thinking her perfectly delightful. So kind was she, so friendly, so simple and believing in the good intentions of others, that quite curmudgeony people melted into amiability in the sunshine of her presence. Perhaps one of the boys best summed up her mysterious charm when he said, "She doesn't try to be nice to a chap, she just _is_ nice; and there's such a difference."

Therefore when Tony, having sat in her drawing-room for five minutes, prepared to depart--not without misgivings as to how Lallie would take it--that damsel nodded at him coolly, without so much as a supplicating glance after his retreating form, and when he had gone she turned to her hostess with a little laugh that ended in a sigh.

"Poor man," she said, "I'm afraid I'm a regular white elephant to him just now; but I can't make myself invisible, can I?"

"I think we'd all be very sorry if you were invisible. Come now, and see my chicks," and kind Mrs. Wentworth led Lallie upstairs and down a long passage to a big sunny room where two little girls sat painting at the table.

"This is Pris and this is Prue, and that over there is Punch!" Mrs. Wentworth said, indicating her offsprings.

Pris and Prue lifted small flushed faces from their artistic efforts, and surveyed Lallie with large solemn eyes, and each held out a small hand liberally besmeared with Prussian blue.

"How do you do?" said Pris politely. "I'm seven; how old are you?"

"I'm six," added Prue.

Punch, a rolly-polly person who was apparently engaged in dismembering a woolly lamb, remarked loudly and distinctly, "I'm a boy."

"May I paint?" asked Lallie.

"Oh, do, you can have my seat for a bit. You might do some legs; they run over so, somehow, with me."

Lallie sat down in front of Prue's picture, which was an elaborate _Graphic_ illustration of the "Relief of Ladysmith."

"I'm sure Sir George White's tunic was not pink," Lallie objected. "They wore khaki, you know."

"I don't like khaki; it's the colour of mustard, an' I hate mustard; my new sash is pink, an' I like pink. _My_ soldiers wear pink; you may paint their legs khaki if you like."

"It looks very stormy overhead," Lallie remarked. "Was there a thunderstorm at the Relief of Ladysmith?"

"My uncle was there," said Pris, as though that accounted for it.

"I'll leave you for a few minutes while I write a note," said Mrs. Wentworth. "Take care of this young lady; be very kind to her. She has come to stay with Mr. Bevan, and she'll come and see you often if you are good."

The moment the door closed behind their mother, regardless of the protests of their nurse, who was sewing at the window, the children crowded round Lallie, and all three tried to sit upon her at once.

"Are you _quite_ a grown-up lady?" asked Pris doubtfully.

"No," said Lallie, "I'm a little girl----"

"You're a bit bigger than me," Prue granted somewhat grudgingly, "but I thought you weren't quite grown-up. Punch is only four."

"I'm a very old four," Punch maintained.

"Do you think," asked Prue, "that you could tell us a story?"

"Do I not?" Lallie answered, and in another minute she had the children absorbed in the legend of that "quiet, decent man, Andrew Coffy"; so that when her hostess came back to fetch her to lunch Lallie appeared, as it were, buried beneath the family of Wentworth.

Dr. Wentworth seemed sufficiently awe-inspiring to the outside world, but his family took a different view of him, and Pris at luncheon generally addressed her father as "Poor dear," or spoke of him as "That child."

Mrs. Wentworth was wont to declare to her intimates that no schoolmaster could possibly be endurable who was not well sat upon in the bosom of his family.

"Personally," she said, "I have the greatest admiration for my husband, and consider him quite an excellent sort of ordinary man; but being a headmaster, if I didn't make him positively skip off his pedestal his sense of proportion would die of inanition."

Certainly neither Miss Prudence nor Miss Patience Wentworth manifested the smallest awe of their parent; and Lallie was moved to take his side in several arguments that ensued during luncheon.

Prue was rosy and brown-eyed, with thick short hair that framed her round face deliciously. Pris was fair-haired, blue-eyed, with a face like a monthly rose. Punch's countenance resembled a full moon, and all three children were plump and healthy and absolutely good-tempered. In fact, the whole Wentworth family were rather roundabout, which perhaps accounted for their amiability. Lallie endeared herself immediately to Mrs. Wentworth by her extreme popularity with the children. Even the imperturbable Punch unbent so far as to say: "I like you. You may come and have dinner with us every day. You speak in such a funny voice."

*CHAPTER V*

Tony Bevan did not meet Lallie again that day until nearly dinner time. It is true that during the afternoon he beheld her afar off across the College field, sitting on a seat beside the Principal's wife and watching the pick-up. He noted moreover that behind her stood a little group of the younger masters, and that they appeared deeply interested in her remarks; while her attention to the game was close and enthusiastic. She was in good hands, and Tony was quite happy about her. He had a great many things to do and to see to, so he left the field with a contented mind.

Mrs. Wentworth had promised to keep her to tea, and after tea he had to give a private lesson to two of the University scholarship people, so that it was almost seven o'clock when he entered his own hall to be met by a sound of music, and stood still to listen.

It was unusual music: vibrating, pulsating, mysterious; rising and falling in waves of sound that billowed hither and thither like the mist on the heath, the strain now soft and seductive, now loud and menacing; again humming with the slumbrous, slow drone of honey-gathering bees on a sunny afternoon in high summer. It was music that above all suggested thyme-scented, wind-swept spaces, rock and river, and shady, solemn woods. It was the sound of Lallie's harp.

He remembered to have noticed the big case in the hall as he went out to College that morning. Who had taken it out and carried it into the drawing-room for her? he wondered. She certainly couldn't have done it herself, for it was very heavy.

He opened the drawing-room door and went in, closing it softly behind him. The window at the end of the room was wide open, but a small fire burned cheerfully upon the hearth, and save for its uncertain light the room was shadowy and almost dark. Tony's first thought was of how shocked Miss Foster would be at the extravagance of a fire on such a warm night; but this reflection was speedily superseded by astonishment at the sight of his "driver," Mr. Johns, and young Nick seated side by side upon a sofa near the fire, while Lallie sat at her big harp right in the middle of the room, and discoursed weird music to her evidently appreciative audience.

She had already changed for dinner, and her gown--high-waisted, long and clinging--fell in straight folds to her feet. Neck and arms were bare, and beautiful old lace was draped about her white shoulders. In colour her dress was of the soft yet brilliant green of July grass in a grass-country where there is much rain. A green ribbon threaded through her dusky hair was her only ornament save a wide gold band that clasped her bare arm just above the elbow and caught the flickering firelight in ruddy gleams as her slender, purposeful hands flashed to and fro over the enormous strings, with long, swooping movements, assured and definite in design and result as the swift stoop of a hawk.

Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes large and bright, and as the fire suddenly leapt into clearer flame every farthest corner of the room was revealed sharp and distinct, and her girlish figure seemed a sudden incarnation of the Celtic muse.

Tony stood where he was just inside the door. Lallie faced him, but she took no notice of his entrance till the last long arpeggio had shivered into silence; then, in the most matter-of-fact tone, she remarked:

"On Monday, Tony, we must hire a piano."

Tony felt the sudden shock of disillusionment that comes with the fall of the curtain after a play that has thrilled the senses with its large romance--the blank sensation that life is really rather a prosaic business after all. He did not answer immediately, and in the meantime Paunch and young Nick had arisen in some haste from their sofa, the latter exclaiming confusedly:

"I had no idea it was so late. I met Miss Clonmell at the Principal's, and walked home with her, to show her the way."

"And as he'd never heard a harp properly played," Lallie added, "I told him that if he liked to wait, I'd change and come down and play till you came in; and on the stairs I met Mr. Johns, and he'd never heard a harp either, so he came too."

"How did you get it out of the wooden case?" asked Tony.

"Oh, they unpacked it and carried it in for me while I dressed; and they've put the case in the box-room and all--ever so tidy we've been. Come here, Mr. Johns, and put it in the corner for me--no, not that one, that's an outer wall. This one, by the writing-table. Thank you; that will do nicely. Good-night, Mr. Nick. I beg your pardon, it's Paddy's fault; I always stumble into the wrong names that I've no business to know. Next time you come I'll sing for you, but I've never any voice after a voyage."

Dinner that night was an unusually cheerful meal, and by the time Tony carried in his work to the drawing-room that he might correct it beside Lallie, it was nearly nine o'clock.

Everything was arranged for his comfort when he did appear. A table at his elbow to hold his papers, his chair at the exact angle where he would get the best light, and Lallie standing on the hearth-rug with a box of matches in her hand ready to light his pipe.

"Oh, I say, Lallie!" said Tony, yielding weakly to temptation. "D'you think I may? No one has ever smoked in this room. I don't know what Miss Foster would say."

"A pipe, Tony! Surely a little pipe will do no harm? Why, the window's wide open and there's a fire; and there are very few hangings and precious little furniture. Never did I see such a bare, stiff room. I had to have a little bit of fire to help furnish it. There's one good thing, it will be a capital room for sound, and a grand piano will fill it up a bit. Now sit down, and I won't speak another word till you speak to me."

Lallie pushed him down in his chair and fetched a stool on which she seated herself, leaning her back against Tony's knees, on her own she laid an open book, and in her hands was a piece of knitting.

For a few minutes there was absolute silence. Tony Bevan tried to absorb himself in the Latin prose of Lower VIth classical, but he was acutely conscious of the soft weight that leant against him, and he found his eyes wandering from the sheets he held to the top of Lallie's head just underneath, and thence to her ever busy hands, which held a pale blue silk tie--a tie that was growing in length with the utmost rapidity, for Lallie knitted at express speed, only pausing every now and then to turn a page of her book.

Tony felt the strongest desire to talk, and was quite unreasonably irritated at his guest's complete absorption, which gave him neither lead nor excuse.

The wood fire crackled cheerfully--Lallie had begged some logs from Ford--and Lallie's harp in the corner caught the ruddy gleams on strings and gilded frame.

Tony looked round the large, handsome room with a new interest. Hitherto he had not considered it as any concern of his. It was Miss Foster's domain, to be entered by him only on such occasions as she gave tea to visiting parents. To be sure he had bought all the furniture for it, and each piece, in itself, was good and possessed of qualities that redeemed it from the commonplace. There was one really beautiful Hepplewhite cabinet, a genuine Sheraton desk and bookcase, and some fine old china; but Lallie was right, the room was stiff, bare, wholly lacking in charm. Not to-night; it seemed neither bare nor stiff to-night. It was full of an atmosphere subtler and sweeter even than that produced by the comfortable clouds of tobacco smoke that floated between Tony Bevan and the girl leaning against his knees. To-night the room radiated a delicious atmosphere of home, and all because a slip of a girl had disarranged the furniture and sat there at his feet looking the very spirit of the domestic hearth.

In grumpy moments, Tony was apt to declare that in all his big house no corner seemed really to belong to him except the writing-table in his study. Among the many admirable qualities of Miss Foster, she did not possess the power of making a man feel comfortable and at his ease in her society. As a rule he was ready enough to admit that this was, perhaps, an additional reason why she filled her post so efficiently. The greatest gossip in Hamchester could not conjecture any matrimonial complication with Miss Foster, and Tony rejoiced in the serene security engendered by this knowledge. Nevertheless, to-night he was conscious of very distinct enjoyment of, and interest in, his own drawing-room.

How still it was!

No sound save the little click of Lallie's needles as she changed them at the end of a row, and the soft sizzle of the wood fire. Why was she--gregarious, garrulous Lallie--so silent? If only she had insisted on talking he could have laid aside those tiresome proses with a sigh as to the impossibility of work with such a chatterbox in the room. But she was quiet as any mouse, and Tony wanted to talk himself.

"Can you see all right?" he asked at last.

"Perfectly, thank you," and she never turned her head.

Silence again, while Tony smoked and made no attempt to correct papers. Instead, he found himself admiring the straightness of Lallie's parting, and marvelling at the slenderness of her little neck that showed never a bone.

Presently he reflected that it was hardly hospitable to condemn a young and lively girl to complete silence during her first evening hi his house.

Hospitable! It was positively churlish.

Tony pushed the papers on the table a little farther away from him. It was his plain duty to talk to Lallie.

"What's that you're knitting?" he asked sociably.

"A tie for Mr. Cripps. Isn't it a pretty colour? Have you finished? How quick you've been! I thought you'd be hours and hours."

"A tie for Cripps!" Tony repeated in tones that betrayed disapproval. "Why in the world should you make a tie for Cripps? You never saw him till this morning."

"Ah, but we made great friends in a very little time," Lallie explained eagerly; "and the old string he was wearing was a terrible show. He can knit ties himself, you know, the clever boy, but he always gives away the ones he knits; and the poor chap's awfully badly off for ties just now. He told me so. And I said I'd make him one for Sundays and high days. I shall probably finish it to-morrow, and he can have it by Monday morning."

"Cripps is a humbug. I'm perfectly sure he has plenty of ties. Don't you be imposed upon, Lallie; don't you give him anything of the kind."

She turned right round and clasped her bare arms round Tony's knees to balance herself.

"Ah, Tony, now," she expostulated, "I must give the boy his little tie that I promised, and him so dull in quarantine and all. Sure a nice pale blue tie will cheer him up and make him think more of himself. A tie to a boy is like a new hat to a girl. There's nothing cheers me up like a new hat when I'm down in the dumps. Now what article of attire most cheers you, Tony?"

"I rather like ties," Tony answered, with cold detachment.

"Then I'll make dozens for you while I'm here," and Lallie set her chin on her clasped hands and looked up at Tony with eyes whose expression reminded him of Val's. "I'll make ties for you and every dear boy in this house, and for Paunch too. By the way, it's a shame to call that man Paunch. He's not fat or bow-windowy. However did he come by such a name?"

"He's not fat now," Tony said judicially, "but he'll be fat long before he's my age unless he takes enormous quantities of exercise; and no one notices a tendency more quickly than boys."

"Is that why you're called Bruiser?" Lallie asked innocently. "Have you a tendency to get mixed up in street rows and to join generally in disorderly conduct?"

"I fancy," answered Tony, "that I got my name rather from my appearance than from any specially rowdy conduct on my part. I was Bruiser Bevan as a boy here, the name followed me up to Oxford, and was waiting for me when I came back here as a master. I was only a fair boxer--too slow and not heavy enough for a heavy weight. Besides I really never cared much about it."

"I think I shall like Paunch," Lallie remarked; "he's earnest and serious, and thinks no end of himself, but he can unbend on occasion."

"Don't you go making him unbend till he refuses to coil up again into his proper shape," Tony said anxiously. "You must be serious, too, down here, and be always thinking what Aunt Emileen would say."

"Aunt Emileen would approve of Paunch; he is earnestly concerned for the morals of B. House, and I'll help him to raise the tone, till we're so superior no other house can touch us. As for you, Tony, I've discovered already you're a slack old thing, and don't take nearly a keen enough interest in these high matters."

"Of course every one knows that P--that Mr. Johns and Miss Foster really run this house," Tony said dryly; "I'm merely the figure head. Lallie," with a complete change of tone, "why do you wear a bracelet above the elbow? I never saw any other lady wear one there."