Part 4

"Oh, Jim, I'm so proud of you," Diana said, gravely. "You have really done something with your life that is worth while."

"Which means, I suppose, that the rest of us have not," a voice said.

Jim and Diana turned as Henry spoke. He was standing in the doorway. Jim noticed with satisfaction that his eyes rested on Diana in unquestionable gratification. Perhaps, after all, Henry's love for Diana was real. He remembered that his aunt, in her letter, had written of her great faith in this marriage for Henry's happiness--indeed, he well remembered that the letter seemed to insist upon the benefits Henry would derive from the marriage. He wondered what it had meant for Diana.

"Welcome to the hero," Henry chaffingly said, as he crossed to Jim's side.

An underlying nervous excitement, at once apparent to Jim, clung to Henry's manner. Otherwise his greeting was more than reassuring.

"Did you finish your business interview?" Diana questioned. A shade of displeasure showed on Henry's face as he answered:

"Yes, yes, I had more than enough of it."

"We postponed luncheon," Diana explained to Jim, "because Henry found his solicitor wished to see him about some repairs needed on the estate. The request was urgent, Henry said, and I knew you would not mind the delay."

For a moment Jim felt as if Henry must read the thoughts that blazed so fiercely in his mind. So this was Henry's way of deceiving Diana. He tried to control his face so that it might give no sign of the disgust he felt. Henry had turned away; Jim could see him nervously twisting his mustache; Diana was smiling tenderly on Henry as though in approval of his morning's benevolent work. Jim, reading between the lines, saw Henry wince at the dishonestly gained approbation; and decided that Henry was vulnerable where his desire to gain her respect was concerned. This was so much in his favor, at all events.

An hour later, as they sat over their coffee, Henry began explaining to Jim his work with the Yeomanry. If Jim stayed at home he wanted him to join in this splendid service to England.

"We shall need these men later, mark me. The situation in Africa is threatening." Then followed a discussion of their plans.

Henry's career as a soldier, Jim remembered, had promised well, but he also remembered certain periods of riotous living that had brought him for a time under the ban of the authorities.

As Henry elaborated his scheme to perfect the Yeomanry in their county, Jim acknowledged that there was no question of his undoubted ability to be in command. He succumbed to the strong personal charm of his cousin. Surely Henry would control himself and make a worthy showing of his life yet. In Jim's heart was the silent prayer that it might be so, and that perhaps he could help him to attain this result.

Diana, listening, was happy in the apparent new bond between the cousins. She had been so eager for this: that Jim should be with them as he had been when he was a boy. Since her marriage, her life had been full of pleasant days, with only here and there the pin-prick of the old, frightened instincts. It usually occurred when Henry was in one of his black moods. Up to the present he had tried to avoid her on these occasions. She strangely rebelled when she came to realize that it was her beauty which gave him his greatest pleasure. That it was primarily her youth and loveliness that delighted him, he made no effort to conceal. At times she admitted to herself that she wished it were not so flagrant--this frank, pagan joy of the senses which she invoked in him. But, she reasoned, if she allowed these thoughts to frighten her, she was catching at shadows. Of tangible facts there was none; indeed, she found it impossible to explain satisfactorily these doubts and regrets.

Jim was promising Henry that he would think seriously of the Yeomanry work, when Diana suddenly remembered that Henry and she were due at a studio to see a portrait of hers that was soon to be exhibited. At that moment a note was brought to Henry. Jim observed the quick contraction of Henry's brows and the sharp biting of his lips as he read it. Henry crumpled the letter. "Jim can take you," he brusquely said. "This note is of importance and requires my immediate attention. It's concerning my interview of this morning."

Diana's face showed her disappointment.

"But this is the third time that you've broken your appointment with me, and you promised Mr. Bond that you would surely give your decision on the picture to-day," Diana protested. "Besides, it is difficult for me to take all the responsibility in the matter, and the picture must be sent to-day to the exhibition. Do meet me there later, Henry."

Henry had been fighting the Furies for days; his financial worries were now vital to his honor. Into his eyes came the brutal flash that Jim knew so well, and he hurriedly intervened, "I'll go with you, Di, with pleasure, if I can be of the slightest service to you."

Instead of helping the situation, Jim found that his quick acquiescence, although suggested by Henry, had the effect of further irritating him. Henry turned from the door, to which he had crossed, with the crumpled note in his hand; all the old, domineering, rebellious temper struck flame.

"There! You have Jim. What more can you wish? Your hero's opinion will no doubt interest you far more than mine, so don't talk rot about your disappointment."

Diana stood silent, amazed at her husband's uncalled-for fury. Jim found it impossible to speak. The servant returned to see if the answer to the note was ready.

Henry contended for a few seconds with a tempestuous remorse as strong as the flare of his nervous outbreak; he bitterly regretted his lack of control. He had tried to conceal the strain he had been under all the day; to be thwarted as he apparently was by the news from Petrie, was to arouse the demons of destruction in him--destruction to himself as well as to those near him. He cursed himself as the victim of his own folly; but to see Jim master of the situation roused the old rebellion of his boyhood. A movement from the waiting servant recalled him, and with a few words of half-muttered apology he hurriedly left the room. A moment later they heard him drive away.

From so small a matter so great a consequence had arisen. This insight into Henry's nature again showed Jim the quicksands on which Diana's happiness was built.

To Diana the incident was embarrassing, but with infinite tact she made no allusion to it. Jim marvelled at the quiet control with which she deftly turned it aside.

The carriage was announced.

"Will you come, Jim?" Diana asked.

He hesitated.

"Do," she coaxingly said, "it would help me."

Under the calm, serious face he could see the tremulous expression that showed her quivering, hurt feelings. The tender eyes held him fast. Still he hesitated. As in a moment of prevision he was urged to say no; it seemed as though he were starting on a way that led him into darkness. The absurd compelling force fastened around him in a tight grip; he tried to stammer a few words; he was irritated by his apparent stupidity, then he heard Diana say: "Let me decide for you."

As she spoke, a shaft of golden light penetrated the room. Why should he not go? He quickly threw off the intangible feeling of fear. He told her he was only too happy to be of service. It was a warm, mellow, summer day, and the soft, alluring air quickly lulled Jim into a tranquil mood.

As they stood before the portrait, Jim knew that it was one of the painter's true inspirations. The simple brown gown in which Diana had been painted brought out the gold in the bands of her straight hair. It faded away into a dull background, leaving only her luminous face in high relief. The painted oval contour and the curved lips were there in all their beauty; but the shadowy eyes unconsciously showed the troubled soul. It was a portrait of Diana older in years and experience. The painter seemed to have passed by her obvious youth and divined her in her maturity. Curiously enough, the portrait stirred Jim more than his meeting with Diana had done.

When they descended to the carriage, Diana said, "Come and drive--not in the park, but let us go along the Embankment, across the bridge towards Richmond. I long for a breath of the country." This time he made no effort to resist her appeal.

As they drove, Jim learned from Diana the news about Sir Charles. His ill health had greatly increased, and a London specialist's opinion had been far from sanguine. He gathered that Diana felt it was the beginning of the end; as she spoke, Jim could read the anguish of her thoughts. Once she turned to him and said:

"I have so few to love."

Soon they found themselves talking merrily over gay reminiscences of their childhood days. The hours slipped by, and it was only the deepening of the shadows that reminded Diana that she was entertaining the Prime-Minister that night at a large dinner-party. The return home was quickly made.

"Won't you dine with us, Jim?" Diana asked, as they reached Pont Street. "We can easily lay an extra cover."

But Jim, feeling that it would be better not to see Henry that night, pleaded an engagement at his club. He left Diana with a promise to see her soon.

That night he forgot her unusual beauty; he remembered only the fragrance of her personality. During the following week he obtained a leave of absence, and with Singleton planned to go abroad. Why he did this he could not quite explain. He saw Diana and Henry only once before leaving for his holiday. That was in June.

*CHAPTER VII*

Upon the expiration of his sick leave, Jim returned to his regiment, stationed at Dorden, a few miles from Dinningfold. He found the situation but little changed at the Towers. Henry's uncertain moods made Jim's visits a doubtful pleasure, but since his first day at Pont Street there had been no decided outbreak on his cousin's part.

The autumn brought with it the calamitous war in South Africa, and all thoughts were concentrated on preparing the Yeomanry of the country to be ready to join the Regulars in the field. Jim's services were readily enlisted by Henry, and in the organization of the county's Yeomanry he became an active force. His work often required him to spend days at the Towers.

With the passing of the last days of the old year, Henry's moodiness increased; even Lady Elizabeth seemed hopeless and unable to avert them, and Jim could see the bitter disillusionment that Diana daily encountered. During the winter Henry's attitude towards Diana changed; her presence was an irritation to him. At times he made every effort to regain his lost footing, but again and again he forfeited the newly acquired grace which her clemency granted. Days of absence from the Towers were now not uncommon. The light gradually faded from Lady Elizabeth's face, leaving it a haunting gray mask. But no word was spoken by either of the women to Jim. Both were indefatigable in their efforts to relieve the condition of the soldiers freezing on the African veldt. A fund was started in the county to be used for the widows and orphans of the fighting men, and Henry was placed at the head of it.

In London the innumerable bazaars and fetes given to swell the various funds of relief were the principal functions of the fashionable world. Jim, who had just returned from a visit to Scotland over the holiday season, was standing near a stall in Albert Hall, presided over by Mrs. Hobart Chichester Chichester Jones. As she eagerly turned towards him there was no doubt of the American woman's desire to gain his approbation. A friendship had sprung up between them since Jim's return from India, and her frankness amused him. It was Sadie Jones's second year in London, and the half of the great houses that had been denied her the previous year were now open to her and she was a much sought personage at their festivities.

Whether this was due to her insouciant face with its tip-tilted nose, or the slight lisp that made her American accent seem so fetching, her friends could not decide. Her enemies--and Sadie Jones had them at Battle Creek--declared it was her charming characteristic of never remembering a social slight; of generously forgiving the offender and in true Christian spirit offering the other cheek. They forgot what Jim and her sponsors in London could plainly see--it was her frankness that razed to the ground her social barrier. When she spoke quite frankly of a boarding-house her mother had kept in a mining-town where Hobart Jones had been a paying guest, and told in picturesque exaggeration of her starved youth and pitiful hatred of her environment--of the longing to escape to the great life of Europe with its men and women of tradition--she disarmed the gossips. She frankly acknowledged what was her detractors' store of tittle-tattle. It was a unique game and it won.

Jim watched her with tolerant interest as she inveigled a young guardsman into giving a substantial donation to the cause. As he idly surveyed the scene he wondered at Diana's failure to attend the fete. The tired women who had been in attendance were disposing of the remains of their stock. The eager crowd that had thronged the hall and paid a half-crown to be served tea by a duchess, or to see a peeress act as barmaid in rivalry to a popular Rosalind of the stage, was gradually thinning out.

Jim started to leave the flag-bedecked hall with its litter of packages and debris-strewn floor as proofs of the day's profitable traffic. Sadie Jones, who had been skilfully effecting her sales and keeping him in sight, turned to him.

"Wait and drive home with me to dinner. The brougham's at the door. I have news for you of Lady Kerhill. I have just returned from a visit."

Mrs. Jones lived in a box of a house in Curzon Street. It was a setting especially designed to suit her small, birdlike personality. But Jim's stalwart frame seemed grotesquely out of proportion in the small French salon. The dinner was an amusing _tete-a-tete_ with Sadie at her most vivacious best, telling anecdotes of the plains she loved.

"Sometimes I long for the smell of the alkali. It chokes one, but I find the fogs far harder to swallow. I was bred to it."

Hitherto her descriptions of the prairie had often made Jim long to see the country she painted so vividly. Suddenly she turned to Jim and with quick decision said:

"I can't understand your Englishman's point of view. Why, in America, if Hoby Jones had treated me as Lord Kerhill is treating his wife, there would be ructions. Yes, ructions," she calmly went on, in answer to Jim's look of amazement. "Lord Kerhill is your cousin, I know, but Lady Kerhill is an angel. Why don't you do something?"

For a moment Jim could not quite grasp her irrelevant outburst. Then he learned that Diana's failure to appear at the bazaar was due to days of accumulated anxiety at the Towers. Henry had been away for a week without a word of explanation to those at home.

"Of course," Sadie Jones continued as she leaned back and puffed her cigarette, "I know the truth. We all do here in town. He's drinking inordinately and leading a most flagrant life. An earl may be a stable-boy, I find, and Kerhill is certainly behaving like one. Lady Elizabeth is trying to cover up the situation, and Lady Kerhill seems dazed by recent events."

Of the sincerity of her interest in Diana, Jim could have no doubt. Under her frivolities she had an appreciation of what was fine in men and women. As she talked she was carefully watching the effect of her words on Jim; her instinct had long ago told her that Jim's interest in Diana was no usual one--how unusual she did not care to probe. She knew that he was the one person who might have an influence over Henry; she also knew that by this conversation she might be stirring up a situation that would far from benefit her, but she played the game fair. She was rich--Jim was almost poor. Often she wondered and hoped--but so far her dreams, she knew, were built alone upon her desires.

They talked for another hour, and when Jim left the Curzon Street house he promised Sadie Jones he would see Henry. From her window Sadie watched him swinging down the street. She had tried to serve Diana, but, she asked, what had she accomplished for herself? She lighted another cigarette and settled her foot against the fender. She was thinking of Jim's face as he had listened to her talk about Diana.

The fire burned gray. A line of "dead soldiers," as the boys at Battle Creek had called the half-burned cigarettes, lay on the hearthstone--a tribute to the length of her reverie. Another expression of the boys at home came back forcibly to her as she left the room and crossed to her bedchamber. After all, she had been "dead game." Gain or loss, she did not regret her evening's work.

As Jim walked along Piccadilly, he knew that Henry's _liaisons_ were now town-talk. It was useless to close his eyes to the suspicions of the past month. Sadie Jones represented the world's opinion, and what she tried to warn him about would soon be brutally brought to Diana's knowledge. At the club he could find no news of Henry. All night he thought out the question of the wisdom of his approaching Henry, but the strength of his determination only grew as the gray of the dawn increased.

The following morning he called at Pont Street. He found Henry lingering over some breakfast. A brandy-glass and empty soda-bottle aroused Jim's suspicions, while the bloated circles under Henry's eyes, and his yellow, discolored skin, were unmistakable proofs of a recent debauch. As Jim entered, Henry looked up with surprise.

"Didn't expect you back so soon," he said, after their strained greetings. Henry seemed ill at ease. "Anything up?" he went on, as Jim didn't speak.

There was a moment's portentous silence.

"Henry," Jim began, very calmly, "I've got to speak to you about certain matters."

Henry, who had been shifting about in his chair, became motionless. His clinched hands strained purple as he grasped the chair rail.

"About the--Yeomanry--work?" he half stammered while his eyes furtively sought Jim's face.

But Jim, who was thinking only of Diana and the difficulty of alluding to Henry's recent conduct, failed to notice his faltering words and frightened expression.

"Oh no--no," he answered. "That's going on all right, I hear." He hesitated. Then with a quick breath he said, "It's no use. I've got to blurt out what's troubling me. All the town is talking about your life; its flagrance, its indecencies. Do you realize that it will soon reach Diana, and that Lady Elizabeth is quivering under the strain of a certain amount of knowledge which she is hiding, and is dreading further disclosures?"

As Jim spoke he seemed to gain courage. "Don't speak. Let me have my say," he quietly commanded as Henry rose and attempted a blustering manner. "I am the only man close to Lady Elizabeth and Diana. For Sir Charles to become aware of this scandalous condition of affairs would be disastrous. You know that perfectly. Now tell me, in God's name, why you married Di if you wished to lead this life?" He paused. "Can't you pull yourself together? It's not too late. So far nothing definite is known to either Di or Lady Elizabeth, and you may trust me." He rose and crossed to Henry. "It's all true, I suppose--what I'm accusing you of--isn't it?" There was no answer. He laid his hand on Henry's shoulder. "Tell me that it's over and that you mean to go straight."

Henry turned. All his rebellion seemed to have slipped from him. Suddenly he dropped into a chair and buried his head in his hands.

"I'm not fit--not fit, do you hear?--for Di. I married her because I loved her. Yes, I did. But you don't know what it is to fight daily the devil's desire. God! what do you know about it? I am in the meshes. I have sunk lower and lower. You want to know about this woman the world links with my disgrace. Well, I tried to break with her when I married Di--I swear I did--but I can't. She is like a dog that one has grown attached to--you can't fling it out of your life completely. There has always been a wall between Diana and me. I tried in the beginning to reach her, but she's afraid of me--I know it."

As the torrent of words choked him, he stopped with a quick passion of agony. He was sincere in this confession of his weakness; Jim could not doubt him, though he was astonished at the admission. He had expected Henry to assail him with hard words and insolent denials. The acknowledged truth was sickening. Henry mechanically took some brandy; he seemed a vibrating bundle of torments.

Jim watched him closely. "I don't want to preach, Henry," he said, "but when you stop that,"--he pointed to the half-empty flask--"you'll have half conquered yourself, and the rest will be far easier. This drinking will pull you into days of horror, days that would mean desolation to us all."

He hesitated. Henry crossed to the chimney and leaned against it with his back to Jim.

"There is every chance for you," continued Jim. "In three months you can have regained your place with Di, and think--think what it would mean to your mother."

Henry did not move; his head was resting on his outstretched arms, lying across the mantel edge. The broken figure of Henry touched Jim deeply. "It's all right, old man. We'll forget this. Forgive my frankness, but, after all, your interests are mine; your mother and your home were mine, and Di--was like a little sister, so I had to speak. I'll not say another word. I'm off." And almost before Henry could realize it, Jim had left him--left him with the dull burning in his heart and brain.

So Jim knew. It had been a relief to acknowledge his pent-up remorse, but he was more deeply involved than his cousin suspected. Jim knew but half; the other half, with its awful, dreaded discovery, walked ever beside him. He made a sudden rush to the door as though to recall Jim, to unburden himself and be saved, but the momentary impulse died. He stumbled heavily into a chair; it was useless. He alone could save the situation, and the half that Jim knew would be bitter enough to face in his daily companionship with him.

August came with its heather-clad hills, but England rejoiced less than usual in the beauty of the great flower-garden which the entire country-side resembled. Over it all hung the tragic symbol of war. The call of Africa for men had been appalling. In the park of the Towers a detachment of Yeomanry were encamped for a fortnight's training, and the restful beauty of the place for days had been broken by the firing manoeuvres of the men. To-night all was quiet, with only the sounds from the men in their tents faintly reaching the Towers. Henry was giving a dinner to the officers in command and coffee was being served in the garden. A flaming border of evening primroses were opening their yellow, cuplike blossoms, In the distance a boy's clear voice was singing:

"Oh, Tommy, Tommy Atkins, you're a good 'un, 'eart and 'and, You're a credit to your country and to all your native land."