Part 11

"Does it?" said Sir Julian expressively. "Did all this conversation take place at tea this afternoon, may I ask, in the presence of the smirking Iris herself?"

Lady Rossiter looked pained at the extreme unkindness of the adjective selected by her husband.

"Iris didn't come in till later, though, as a matter of fact, her arrival interrupted us when there were several points still unsettled. One thing, though, rather vexed me."

"What was that?" asked Sir Julian, rather wearily, aware that he would be told whether he enquired or whether he did not, and for once choosing the less unamiable course.

"There was some idea," Lady Rossiter understated the case, "of getting the actual presentation itself made by the most unsuitable person they could very well have selected--that unfortunate courtesan _manquée_, the superintendent woman."

If Lady Rossiter wished to see the effect of her pleasant epithet upon her husband, she was doomed to disappointment. The complete silence in which he received it impelled her to continue.

"It is a very disagreeable word to apply to any woman, but I fail to see what else one can call her. We know that she entangled one, very young, man, with money and position, and then threw him over in a peculiarly heartless manner, and that she is now taking every advantage of poor Mark's miserable situation to try and involve him in an affair that can only mean scandal and misery, however it ends."

"I fail to see how the reckless career which you impute to Miss Marchrose, Edna, can possibly affect the quality of the silver salt-cellars, or whatever it is, that she is to present to Iris."

"Ah, Julian--a young girl, pure, innocent, unsullied! How could one see it, without a sense of profanation? Call it fanciful if you like, but there is something in me that could never bear to allow _that_."

"No, I don't think I should call it fanciful, Edna," said her husband slowly.

"You think me prejudiced!" exclaimed Edna. "But _indeed_, Mark is very dear to me, and for his sake--and for womanhood's sake--I can't bear that the--the delicate bloom should be brushed from any token connected with his sister's wedding."

"Then you had better arrange to have a bonfire of the remaining copies of 'Why, Ben! A Story of the Sexes,'" imperturbably replied her husband.

Julian had for so long been in the habit of protecting himself against those peculiar shafts that are only launched by really and professedly good women, with indifferent satire, that the small, cheap fleer came almost automatically to his lips. It certainly interfered not at all with his intimate realisation that Lady Rossiter could hardly have chosen a worse moment for an endeavour to enlist his sympathies on her side in the indirect contest that she had elected to wage against Miss Marchrose.

"I would sooner make the presentation myself, absurd though it would be, than feel that _she_ was making it."

"It would, however, as you say, be absurd," replied Sir Julian coldly. "Of course, it must be made by a representative of the College staff. Fairfax Fuller is the proper person."

"The misogynist!"

Sir Julian wondered, not for the first time, why his wife clung so persistently to the libel attached by her to Mr. Fuller, and came to his habitual conclusion, that she had found it necessary to her self-respect to deduce a wholesale hatred of the female sex from the Supervisor's taciturn reception of her own advances.

"I will talk to Mr. Fuller, Julian, and see what can be arranged. I thought of going in one afternoon next week. There is not too much time for arranging details now. The wedding is to-day fortnight."

"I hadn't realised it was so near. However, all the better. It'll be over the sooner, and Iris can remove her Douglas from hence before he has time to begin talking about 'we married men.'"

Lady Rossiter laughed discreetly, but after a little pause she interjected quietly:

"Mr. Garrett is a good sort, really, in spite of his mannerisms."

She had no particular grounds for this charitable assertion, but she made it a matter of principle to utter some kind little phrase on behalf of anybody whom her interlocutor of the moment had verbally slighted or condemned. This peace-making habit was not unapt to have the singular effect of promoting a lively desire on the part of the first speaker to abuse the absent one a good deal more vigorously than before.

Sir Julian, however, was either too old a hand, or else too little interested in Mr. Garrett, to find himself similarly moved.

"I cannot imagine why Iris insists upon being married down here at all," he said, without hostility.

"She couldn't have been married from that tiny flat of hers, and I think it's natural she should want it to be from her brother's house. It will have to be very quiet, as they won't have room for any sort of reception. Besides, it would be very unsuitable, and I'm glad to say that Mark has made her see it."

"How many of 'we Garretts' are going to grace the scene?"

"Mr. Garrett only has a father," said Edna repressively. "He is to stay at the cottage."

"Tell Mark that we can put up anyone he likes, for a night or two."

"Indeed, yes. In a household where every item must count, a guest is rather a serious consideration, I'm afraid. Mark will probably be thankful when it's all over."

Sir Julian felt no doubt of it.

His sympathies with Mark, already lively, became acute the following morning when bride and bridegroom-elect suddenly appeared in his study with the purpose of expressing their gratitude for the extremely liberal cheque that had been Sir Julian and Lady Rossiter's wedding-gift to Iris.

"Douglas and I have been nearly quarrelling the whole way here as to how we'll spend it," said Miss Easter candidly.

"Hardly _quarrelling_, have we?" reproachfully asked Mr. Garrett, as usual addressing himself exclusively to his betrothed.

"Oh, we've never really quarrelled yet, have we? At least," said Iris archly, "unless you count the copper tea-kettle time."

"Ah! The copper tea-kettle!" responded Mr. Garrett meaningly.

At which reference they both, according to their wont, indulged in the hearty laughter, naturally unshared by Sir Julian, of those to whom some perfectly obvious allusion is amusingly intelligible.

"We've actually settled the great question of bridesmaids, Sir Julian," observed Iris, an easy victim to the not uncommon bridal delusion that such details must be of major interest to all alike.

"Your friend in London?"

"Oh, no! She doesn't approve of marriage, you know. She thinks it a mere servile bond for the woman," explained Iris glibly. "In fact, she's a tremendous advocate for Free Love. She's furious with me for marrying at all."

Sir Julian glanced at Mr. Garrett, wondering how he regarded the rather stupefying gospel preached by the chosen friend and companion of his bride.

The young man appeared more thoughtful than dismayed.

"In a general way," he remarked detachedly, "we moderns are all in favour of abolishing the present rather archaic marriage laws, and re-establishing the whole thing upon the basis of a purely civil contract; dissoluble after a term of years at the wish of either or both of the contracting parties."

Sir Julian had a momentary vision of earnest suburban debating societies, at which he felt sure that Mr. Garrett had formerly launched his eloquence, in words almost, if not quite, identical with his present text. Having no wish to fathom the young man's further views, he merely renewed enquiry of Iris as to the question of bridesmaids.

"Only dear little Ruthie," said Iris. "It's quite odd, but I haven't got an enormous number of girl friends. Somehow I've got heaps and heaps more men friends. I can't imagine why, I'm sure."

Neither could Julian, but he refrained from saying so.

"At one time, I rather wanted Miss Marchrose. Of course, I know she's not quite, absolutely, altogether one of ourselves--but still, as it's all to be so quiet--and then I could have got hold of a cousin to match her--but she wouldn't hear of it. Of course, she is older than I am."

"A good deal older, surely," said Sir Julian rather drily, contemplating the youthful blend of prettiness and vulgarity in front of him.

"Douglas," said Iris, with great suddenness, "do go away. I've just remembered that I want to ask Sir Julian something most frightfully particular."

"Secrets?" ejaculated Douglas, with playful reproach.

"Just a tiny, tiny little one. Now do go right away, there's a dear boy."

Thus adjured, it was scarcely possible for Mr. Garrett to do otherwise than to obey, but it would have shown but little knowledge of his capabilities as an engaged young man to expect him to do so without a last mirthful flight of fancy.

"Then I'm weel awa'," he exclaimed, in a Scotch manner that almost compensated for the lack of relevance in his choice of idiom, and swung his long legs over the sill of the low window, scraping the paint with his boots as he did so and annoying Sir Julian.

"It's about Miss Marchrose," said Iris, her head even more on one side than usual.

Sir Julian wondered whether he could possibly stop her before she said anything more.

"At first I liked her awfully. In fact, I think she's sweet. But the story about the poor man she threw over is perfectly dreadful. Of course, she couldn't have cared for him _really_, because any woman----"

"I know all about that," hastily interrupted Sir Julian. "Surely we needn't go into a thing that happened several years ago before she ever came here, and which is no one's business but hers."

"If it had been Douglas," pursued Miss Easter, fixing an enormous pair of melancholy eyes upon her discomfited listener, "if it had been Douglas, _however_ much of an invalid he had to be, I should simply want to marry him all the more. I should want to give up my whole life to him, so as to make up a little."

"Well, I hope you may never be tried in such a terrible manner," said Julian, unable to repress a shudder of horrified sympathy for the invalid who should find his shattered life relegated to the devotion of Miss Easter.

"But of course, she couldn't have loved him really," asserted Iris, apparently unaware of a certain lack of originality in her choice of comment.

"No."

"Or she would have felt that she _couldn't_ do enough to make up for it all."

"Yes."

"That's what I should feel if it had been Douglas."

Sir Julian could not think of a reply that should provide any variation upon his previous monosyllabic ones.

"And if it had been _me_, Douglas would have felt just like that, too."

Sir Julian began to wonder how much longer they were to continue this consideration of hypothetical contingencies.

"The fact is, I'm afraid I've been too fearfully silly for anything."

It being impossible to express his own conviction that nothing could be more probable, Sir Julian still sat speechless, looking with growing dismay at his visitor, who was exhibiting every sign of an intention to burst into tears.

"I am afraid," said Iris, beginning to cry, "that Mark has fallen in love with her."

After a pause of extremely uncomfortable consideration, Sir Julian observed, with a sententiousness of which he was perfectly aware:

"If such is unfortunately the case, why should you blame yourself?"

"Because I did everything I could to make it happen. I saw they liked each other, ages ago--oh, long before Christmas! and I had her to dinner and things, and made her sing 'Annie Laurie' because Mark admired her voice, and I told him how she said she liked working at the College with him."

"But why, in Heaven's name?"

"Because," sobbed Iris, "I thought it would be such a beautiful thing for them to defy conventionality and be happy in spite of everything--a _grande passion_--you know...."

The extreme perversion of the point of view thus disclosed left Sir Julian, at no time eloquent, more completely deprived of utterance than ever before.

"In those days," Iris continued, with an effect of great remoteness in her manner, "I thoroughly and completely believed in Free Love myself. Of course, I was younger, then."

"Only by two months," Sir Julian gloomily reminded her.

"Oh, yes, but those two months have taught me everything. Love is such a wonderful teacher. Ever since I've been engaged to Douglas, it's been like a new heaven and a new earth, and I can see things that I never saw before."

She began to dab at her eyes with her handkerchief, while Sir Julian thought of a great many observations which it was extremely improbable that he would make aloud.

"It was only a day or two ago that I heard about her having been engaged and then jilting the man because of his accident, and it was the most frightful shock you can imagine. What should I feel if she did that sort of thing to Mark one day? Of course, it shows that she's not at all the sort of person to sacrifice herself for anybody."

"I am quite sure," said Sir Julian gently, "that you have no idea what a terrible thing it would be for any man to fall seriously in love with a woman to whom he could never offer marriage. Mark is a married man."

"He hasn't seen that awful creature for years and years," said Iris resentfully.

"That has nothing to do with it. She is his wife."

"It seems so dreadfully hard."

"Yes, but it would seem a great deal harder if he cared for someone else."

"And she for him," Iris added tenaciously.

"I hope that your imagination has misled you," said Sir Julian gravely.

"But what shall I do?"

"Nothing. If you have already ceased your extraordinarily misguided efforts towards bringing them together, you can only leave the whole question alone. After all, Mark knows very well that as long as his wife is alive he's as much bound to her as though she were living at home in the normal way. They are neither of them children, and we have no right whatever to suppose that they cannot tell right from wrong."

"I never told her Mark was married."

"I think she knows."

"I wonder if that would stop her," said Iris, reflectively. "I can't help feeling that if by some dreadful Kismet Douglas had been already married when we met, I should have given myself to him just the same. I should simply have had to. I'm sure that in some former incarnation----"

"You know nothing about it," said Julian unceremoniously. "You have been a foolish little girl, and the only thing left for you to do is to forget the extremely poor taste in which you have been behaving. I should like to know what made you come and tell _me_ about it, though."

"I thought you could talk to Mark." Miss Easter wept piteously, looking so very youthful that Julian felt inclined to relent.

"That shows how very little you know about it. I have no intention of insulting Mark by doing anything of the kind, and if I did, he would very properly kick me out of the house. Stop crying, please."

"Wouldn't it be better if Miss Marchrose were to leave the College?"

"What for? Now stop being so childish and let me fetch you a glass of water. Mr. Garrett will want to know why you have been crying."

"I always, always tell Douglas everything. We've promised never to have any secrets from one another. Perfect confidence is the only way to married happiness."

"You can tell me about that after you've been married a year or two. But now I want you to listen to me."

Iris looked at him with drowned, forget-me-not eyes.

"I am going to forget what you have told me, as far as it is humanly possible to do so, and you must do the same. Promise me that you won't mention what we have been discussing to anybody else, ever."

"Oh, but Douglas! Oughtn't I to tell Douglas?"

"No, certainly not."

"It seems so awful to begin one's married life with a secret."

Sir Julian had perhaps never before felt so much tempted to resort to physical violence.

"I assure you that it would be exceedingly dishonourable, and that you couldn't do Mark a worse service, than to hint at such a thing to anybody on earth."

"Then," said Iris heroically, "I promise."

Sir Julian relaxed his clenched hand, and opened the door for her.

"I never, never thought," said Miss Easter, "that you and I would ever share a secret, Sir Julian! I used to be so dreadfully afraid of you--but I never shall be again!"

Watching his departing confederate, restored once more to smiling animation, flutter from the room, Julian returned to his seat before the writing-table.

"For a man who professes to dislike officious interference," he reflected ruefully, "I am the recipient of an unfortunate number of disastrous confidences."

XIV

Lady Rossiter, a few days later, put on a comparatively new set of black fox furs, which helped to enhance in her the agreeable conviction of being in a position to be kind to those less fortunate than herself, and drove to Culmouth College.

It was her intention to put the matter of the presentation upon a sound footing without delay, and she had purposely chosen a Saturday afternoon for her visit, knowing that the College would be almost empty and that Fairfax Fuller was generally to be found there alone until half-past two or three o'clock.

The Supervisor, however--the window of whose private office gazed on to that side of the street by which the College was approached--proved strangely difficult of access.

The place seemed almost deserted, but Lady Rossiter encountered downstairs the small and precocious-looking student of shorthand whom she and Iris had remarked at the speed test.

"Do you know if Mr. Fuller is here, little boy?" she enquired of him, with that extra distinct enunciation by which so many people indicate their consciousness of addressing a social inferior, but also with a very agreeable smile.

Edna believed much in the power of a smile, and sometimes quoted a few lines of those popular verses, "Just by smiling."

"Ay," said the little boy.

"Will you go and tell him that a lady would like to see him?" said Edna, who did not think the youth capable of reporting her name correctly.

"Ay."

The messenger departed, whistling shrilly, and presently returned grinning broadly.

"Mr. Fuller, he's so busy as ever he can be. Could you give a message, like?"

"I'm afraid not," said Edna, suave but firm. "Tell him it's Lady Rossiter."

"I told him that," said the youth, looking still more amused.

Edna began to feel that the value of smiles might be overrated.

"Thank you. I'd better go myself. I'm so much obliged to you."

She nodded at the little boy rather distantly and went herself to knock at the closed door of Mr. Fuller's office.

A voice within uttered a short, sharp ejaculation which Lady Rossiter, with an optimism that did more credit to her imagination than to her common-sense, interpreted to mean, "Come in!"

The room she entered was thick with the smoke and odour of the peculiarly rank tobacco affected by Mr. Fairfax Fuller, and in spite of an open window, a haze of blue fumes hung over the table at which he sat, his head thrust aggressively forward and his elbows squared.

Few things could have been less expressive of welcome than his unsmiling "Good afternoon," as he rose to his feet and laid his cherry-wood pipe upon the table.

"Don't stop smoking, I'm quite used to it," said Lady Rossiter, gasping a little. "Are you very busy?"

"Yes, very," said Mr. Fuller uncompromisingly.

"Then I mustn't keep you," his visitor smilingly observed. "May I sit down?"

Fuller moved a chair about two inches in her direction and pushed into prominence the broad leather strap and silver watch on his hairy and powerful wrist.

Lady Rossiter affected not to observe this gesture, which she preferred to attribute to the awkwardness of embarrassment rather than to any want of cordiality.

"And is all well with our College?" she enquired brightly, and casting a friendly glance at the papers on the table, all of which Mr. Fuller immediately thrust into the nearest pigeon-hole.

"The College is all right."

"That's good. You know it's very near my heart. I shall never forget how we've seen it grow from the very start, and the interest one's had in every member of the staff. I'm sure you're like me, Mr. Fuller, and care a great deal about the _human_ element."

Edna paused, but the sympathetic response which might reasonably have been expected was not forthcoming.

"We've been so like a little family party here, I always think--especially those of us who saw the very beginning of all things. Let me see, I think you and I and Sir Julian, and of course Mr. Easter, are the only ones left of the original committee, aren't we? Oh, and the old Alderman."

Fuller emitted a sound that might conceivably pass for a rejoinder.

"They're all so pleased about Miss Easter's engagement--a wedding is always an excitement, isn't it? Have they," said Edna, momentarily thoughtless, "have they told you of their little scheme for making her a presentation?"

"As I happen to be Supervisor of the staff, they naturally came to me in the first place, Lady Rossiter."

"Of course they did. How stupid of me! One forgets all the grades and distinctions, there are so many of them now. But it was really about the presentation plans that I wanted to talk to you."

She waited in vain for some assurance that the wish had been in any way mutual.

"I felt sure that you and I would understand one another," said Edna, almost pleadingly, "if we had a little talk together."

Silence.

Lady Rossiter could no longer disguise from herself that the little talk, if it was to take place at all, must do so in the form of an unsupported monologue. She began courageously:

"I like the idea, you know, and I think it will touch and gratify Miss Easter and her brother very much indeed. Only these schemes are always the better for tactful handling, don't you agree with me? We don't want any little awkwardnesses. And I'm not quite sure that I think the suggestion of having the presentation made by poor Miss Marchrose was a very wise one. Now, Mr. Fuller, I know I can speak to you in confidence, and I'm going to say something that I should never dream of saying to any other member of the staff. I am sorry to tell you that there are reasons--I needn't go into them, they are very painful ones--why Miss Marchrose should not be selected to offer this little present to a young and innocent girl on behalf of the staff. I know I need not go into details."

Fuller stared at Lady Rossiter with dark, smouldering eyes.

"I'm perfectly satisfied with Miss Marchrose's behaviour since she's been here," he growled at last.

Up went Edna's eyebrows, all too expressively. "That's as it may be, Mr. Fuller. A woman is sometimes a good deal more clear-sighted than a man, in certain matters. But I happen to have heard a good deal about Miss Marchrose before she came here at all, and as a member of the General Committee, and also of Mr. Cooper's little committee for the presentation, I may tell you that I very decidedly veto any suggestion of letting her represent the staff of this College."

The Supervisor looked her full in the eyes.

"Are you telling me, Lady Rossiter, that that girl isn't straight?"

Edna's opaque white skin, that seldom registered alteration, coloured faintly.

"Mr. Fuller, God forbid that I should condemn any woman unheard. I won't pretend not to know what you mean."

"I can put it plainer if you like," Fuller retorted. "But I want yes or no, Lady Rossiter."

"Then," said Edna with dignity, "as far as I can tell, _no_."

"I should damned well think not," exploded Fairfax Fuller, without a trace of apology. "I take my orders from Sir Julian Rossiter, and until he's lost confidence in me, I run this staff the way I think best. You'll excuse me, Lady Rossiter, if I say that I think we've discussed the matter long enough."

Edna stood up, more angry than she had ever allowed herself to be since the days of her girlhood.