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        <alex:fullText><![CDATA[Project Gutenberg Etext of The Unbearable Bassington, by &quot;Saki&quot; 
#2 in our series by &quot;Saki&quot; [H. H. Munro]

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The Unbearable Bassington

by &quot;Saki&quot; [H. H. Munro]

June, 1996  [Etext #555]

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The Unbearable Bassington by H. H. Munro (Saki)
Scanned and proofed by David Price
ccx074@coventry.ac.uk

The Unbearable Bassington

CHAPTER I

FRANCESCA BASSINGTON sat in the drawing-room of her house in Blue 
Street, W., regaling herself and her estimable brother Henry with 
China tea and small cress sandwiches.  The meal was of that elegant 
proportion which, while ministering sympathetically to the desires 
of the moment, is happily reminiscent of a satisfactory luncheon 
and blessedly expectant of an elaborate dinner to come.

In her younger days Francesca had been known as the beautiful Miss 
Greech; at forty, although much of the original beauty remained, 
she was just dear Francesca Bassington.  No one would have dreamed 
of calling her sweet, but a good many people who scarcely knew her 
were punctilious about putting in the &quot;dear.&quot;

Her enemies, in their honester moments, would have admitted that 
she was svelte and knew how to dress, but they would have agreed 
with her friends in asserting that she had no soul.  When one&#39;s 
friends and enemies agree on any particular point they are usually 
wrong.  Francesca herself, if pressed in an unguarded moment to 
describe her soul, would probably have described her drawing-room.  
Not that she would have considered that the one had stamped the 
impress of its character on the other, so that close scrutiny might 
reveal its outstanding features, and even suggest its hidden 
places, but because she might have dimly recognised that her 
drawing-room was her soul.

Francesca was one of those women towards whom Fate appears to have 
the best intentions and never to carry them into practice.  With 
the advantages put at her disposal she might have been expected to 
command a more than average share of feminine happiness.  So many 
of the things that make for fretfulness, disappointment and 
discouragement in a woman&#39;s life were removed from her path that 
she might well have been considered the fortunate Miss Greech, or 
later, lucky Francesca Bassington.  And she was not of the perverse 
band of those who make a rock-garden of their souls by dragging 
into them all the stoney griefs and unclaimed troubles they can 
find lying around them.  Francesca loved the smooth ways and 
pleasant places of life; she liked not merely to look on the bright 
side of things but to live there and stay there.  And the fact that 
things had, at one time and another, gone badly with her and 
cheated her of some of her early illusions made her cling the 
closer to such good fortune as remained to her now that she seemed 
to have reached a calmer period of her life.  To undiscriminating 
friends she appeared in the guise of a rather selfish woman, but it 
was merely the selfishness of one who had seen the happy and 
unhappy sides of life and wished to enjoy to the utmost what was 
left to her of the former.  The vicissitudes of fortune had not 
soured her, but they had perhaps narrowed her in the sense of 
making her concentrate much of her sympathies on things that 
immediately pleased and amused her, or that recalled and 
perpetuated the pleasing and successful incidents of other days.  
And it was her drawing-room in particular that enshrined the 
memorials or tokens of past and present happiness.

Into that comfortable quaint-shaped room of angles and bays and 
alcoves had sailed, as into a harbour, those precious personal 
possessions and trophies that had survived the buffetings and 
storms of a not very tranquil married life.  Wherever her eyes 
might turn she saw the embodied results of her successes, 
economies, good luck, good management or good taste.  The battle 
had more than once gone against her, but she had somehow always 
contrived to save her baggage train, and her complacent gaze could 
roam over object after object that represented the spoils of 
victory or the salvage of honourable defeat.  The delicious bronze 
Fremiet on the mantelpiece had been the outcome of a Grand Prix 
sweepstake of many years ago; a group of Dresden figures of some 
considerable value had been bequeathed to her by a discreet 
admirer, who had added death to his other kindnesses; another group 
had been a self-bestowed present, purchased in blessed and unfading 
memory of a wonderful nine-days&#39; bridge winnings at a country-house 
party.  There were old Persian and Bokharan rugs and Worcester tea-
services of glowing colour, and little treasures of antique silver 
that each enshrined a history or a memory in addition to its own 
intrinsic value.  It amused her at times to think of the bygone 
craftsmen and artificers who had hammered and wrought and woven in 
far distant countries and ages, to produce the wonderful and 
beautiful things that had come, one way and another, into her 
possession.  Workers in the studios of medieval Italian towns and 
of later Paris, in the bazaars of Baghdad and of Central Asia, in 
old-time English workshops and German factories, in all manner of 
queer hidden corners where craft secrets were jealously guarded, 
nameless unremembered men and men whose names were world-renowned 
and deathless.

And above all her other treasures, dominating in her estimation 
every other object that the room contained, was the great Van der 
Meulen that had come from her father&#39;s home as part of her wedding 
dowry.  It fitted exactly into the central wall panel above the 
narrow buhl cabinet, and filled exactly its right space in the 
composition and balance of the room.  From wherever you sat it 
seemed to confront you as the dominating feature of its 
surroundings.  There was a pleasing serenity about the great 
pompous battle scene with its solemn courtly warriors bestriding 
their heavily prancing steeds, grey or skewbald or dun, all gravely 
in earnest, and yet somehow conveying the impression that their 
campaigns were but vast serious picnics arranged in the grand 
manner.  Francesca could not imagine the drawing-room without the 
crowning complement of the stately well-hung picture, just as she 
could not imagine herself in any other setting than this house in 
Blue Street with its crowded Pantheon of cherished household gods.

And herein sprouted one of the thorns that obtruded through the 
rose-leaf damask of what might otherwise have been Francesca&#39;s 
peace of mind.  One&#39;s happiness always lies in the future rather 
than in the past.  With due deference to an esteemed lyrical 
authority one may safely say that a sorrow&#39;s crown of sorrow is 
anticipating unhappier things.  The house in Blue Street had been 
left to her by her old friend Sophie Chetrof, but only until such 
time as her niece Emmeline Chetrof should marry, when it was to 
pass to her as a wedding present.  Emmeline was now seventeen and 
passably good-looking, and four or five years were all that could 
be safely allotted to the span of her continued spinsterhood.  
Beyond that period lay chaos, the wrenching asunder of Francesca 
from the sheltering habitation that had grown to be her soul.  It 
is true that in imagination she had built herself a bridge across 
the chasm, a bridge of a single span.  The bridge in question was 
her schoolboy son Comus, now being educated somewhere in the 
southern counties, or rather one should say the bridge consisted of 
the possibility of his eventual marriage with Emmeline, in which 
case Francesca saw herself still reigning, a trifle squeezed and 
incommoded perhaps, but still reigning in the house in Blue Street.  
The Van der Meulen would still catch its requisite afternoon light 
in its place of honour, the Fremiet and the Dresden and Old 
Worcester would continue undisturbed in their accustomed niches.  
Emmeline could have the Japanese snuggery, where Francesca 
sometimes drank her after-dinner coffee, as a separate drawing-
room, where she could put her own things.  The details of the 
bridge structure had all been carefully thought out.  Only - it was 
an unfortunate circumstance that Comus should have been the span on 
which everything balanced.

Francesca&#39;s husband had insisted on giving the boy that strange 
Pagan name, and had not lived long enough to judge as to the 
appropriateness, or otherwise, of its significance.  In seventeen 
years and some odd months Francesca had had ample opportunity for 
forming an opinion concerning her son&#39;s characteristics.  The 
spirit of mirthfulness which one associates with the name certainly 
ran riot in the boy, but it was a twisted wayward sort of mirth of 
which Francesca herself could seldom see the humorous side.  In her 
brother Henry, who sat eating small cress sandwiches as solemnly as 
though they had been ordained in some immemorial Book of 
Observances, fate had been undisguisedly kind to her.  He might so 
easily have married some pretty helpless little woman, and lived at 
Notting Hill Gate, and been the father of a long string of pale, 
clever useless children, who would have had birthdays and the sort 
of illnesses that one is expected to send grapes to, and who would 
have painted fatuous objects in a South Kensington manner as 
Christmas offerings to an aunt whose cubic space for lumber was 
limited.  Instead of committing these unbrotherly actions, which 
are so frequent in family life that they might almost be called 
brotherly, Henry had married a woman who had both money and a sense 
of repose, and their one child had the brilliant virtue of never 
saying anything which even its parents could consider worth 
repeating.  Then he had gone into Parliament, possibly with the 
idea of making his home life seem less dull; at any rate it 
redeemed his career from insignificance, for no man whose death can 
produce the item &quot;another by-election&quot; on the news posters can be 
wholly a nonentity.  Henry, in short, who might have been an 
embarrassment and a handicap, had chosen rather to be a friend and 
counsellor, at times even an emergency bank balance; Francesca on 
her part, with the partiality which a clever and lazily-inclined 
woman often feels for a reliable fool, not only sought his counsel 
but frequently followed it.  When convenient, moreover, she repaid 
his loans.

Against this good service on the part of Fate in providing her with 
Henry for a brother, Francesca could well set the plaguy malice of 
the destiny that had given her Comus for a son.  The boy was one of 
those untameable young lords of misrule that frolic and chafe 
themselves through nursery and preparatory and public-school days 
with the utmost allowance of storm and dust and dislocation and the 
least possible amount of collar-work, and come somehow with a laugh 
through a series of catastrophes that has reduced everyone else 
concerned to tears or Cassandra-like forebodings.  Sometimes they 
sober down in after-life and become uninteresting, forgetting that 
they were ever lords of anything; sometimes Fate plays royally into 
their hands, and they do great things in a spacious manner, and are 
thanked by Parliaments and the Press and acclaimed by gala-day 
crowds.  But in most cases their tragedy begins when they leave 
school and turn themselves loose in a world that has grown too 
civilised and too crowded and too empty to have any place for them.  
And they are very many.

Henry Greech had made an end of biting small sandwiches, and 
settled down like a dust-storm refreshed, to discuss one of the 
fashionably prevalent topics of the moment, the prevention of 
destitution.

&quot;It is a question that is only being nibbled at, smelt at, one 
might say, at the present moment,&quot; he observed, &quot;but it is one that 
will have to engage our serious attention and consideration before 
long.  The first thing that we shall have to do is to get out of 
the dilettante and academic way of approaching it.  We must collect 
and assimilate hard facts.  It is a subject that ought to appeal to 
all thinking minds, and yet, you know, I find it surprisingly 
difficult to interest people in it.&quot;

Francesca made some monosyllabic response, a sort of sympathetic 
grunt which was meant to indicate that she was, to a certain 
extent, listening and appreciating.  In reality she was reflecting 
that Henry possibly found it difficult to interest people in any 
topic that he enlarged on.  His talents lay so thoroughly in the 
direction of being uninteresting, that even as an eye-witness of 
the massacre of St. Bartholomew he would probably have infused a 
flavour of boredom into his descriptions of the event.

&quot;I was speaking down in Leicestershire the other day on this 
subject,&quot; continued Henry, &quot;and I pointed out at some length a 
thing that few people ever stop to consider - &quot;

Francesca went over immediately but decorously to the majority that 
will not stop to consider.

&quot;Did you come across any of the Barnets when you were down there?&quot; 
she interrupted; &quot;Eliza Barnet is rather taken up with all those 
subjects.&quot;

In the propagandist movements of Sociology, as in other arenas of 
life and struggle, the fiercest competition and rivalry is 
frequently to be found between closely allied types and species.  
Eliza Barnet shared many of Henry Greech&#39;s political and social 
views, but she also shared his fondness for pointing things out at 
some length; there had been occasions when she had extensively 
occupied the strictly limited span allotted to the platform oratory 
of a group of speakers of whom Henry Greech had been an impatient 
unit.  He might see eye to eye with her on the leading questions of 
the day, but he persistently wore mental blinkers as far as her 
estimable qualities were concerned, and the mention of her name was 
a skilful lure drawn across the trail of his discourse; if 
Francesca had to listen to his eloquence on any subject she much 
preferred that it should be a disparagement of Eliza Barnet rather 
than the prevention of destitution.

&quot;I&#39;ve no doubt she means well,&quot; said Henry, &quot;but it would be a good 
thing if she could be induced to keep her own personality a little 
more in the background, and not to imagine that she is the 
necessary mouthpiece of all the progressive thought in the 
countryside.  I fancy Canon Besomley must have had her in his mind 
when he said that some people came into the world to shake empires 
and others to move amendments.&quot;

Francesca laughed with genuine amusement.

&quot;I suppose she is really wonderfully well up in all the subjects 
she talks about,&quot; was her provocative comment.

Henry grew possibly conscious of the fact that he was being drawn 
out on the subject of Eliza Barnet, and he presently turned on to a 
more personal topic.

&quot;From the general air of tranquillity about the house I presume 
Comus has gone back to Thaleby,&quot; he observed.

&quot;Yes,&quot; said Francesca, &quot;he went back yesterday.  Of course, I&#39;m 
very fond of him, but I bear the separation well.  When he&#39;s here 
it&#39;s rather like having a live volcano in the house, a volcano that 
in its quietest moments asks incessant questions and uses strong 
scent.&quot;

&quot;It is only a temporary respite,&quot; said Henry; &quot;in a year or two he 
will be leaving school, and then what?&quot;

Francesca closed her eyes with the air of one who seeks to shut out 
a distressing vision.  She was not fond of looking intimately at 
the future in the presence of another person, especially when the 
future was draped in doubtfully auspicious colours.

&quot;And then what?&quot; persisted Henry.

&quot;Then I suppose he will be upon my hands.&quot;

&quot;Exactly.&quot;

&quot;Don&#39;t sit there looking judicial.  I&#39;m quite ready to listen to 
suggestions if you&#39;ve any to make.&quot;

&quot;In the case of any ordinary boy,&quot; said Henry, &quot;I might make lots 
of suggestions as to the finding of suitable employment.  From what 
we know of Comus it would be rather a waste of time for either of 
us to look for jobs which he wouldn&#39;t look at when we&#39;d got them 
for him.&quot;

&quot;He must do something,&quot; said Francesca.

&quot;I know he must; but he never will.  At least, he&#39;ll never stick to 
anything.  The most hopeful thing to do with him will be to marry 
him to an heiress.  That would solve the financial side of his 
problem.  If he had unlimited money at his disposal, he might go 
into the wilds somewhere and shoot big game.  I never know what the 
big game have done to deserve it, but they do help to deflect the 
destructive energies of some of our social misfits.&quot;

Henry, who never killed anything larger or fiercer than a trout, 
was scornfully superior on the subject of big game shooting.

Francesca brightened at the matrimonial suggestion.  &quot;I don&#39;t know 
about an heiress,&quot; she said reflectively.  &quot;There&#39;s Emmeline 
Chetrof of course.  One could hardly call her an heiress, but she&#39;s 
got a comfortable little income of her own and I suppose something 
more will come to her from her grandmother.  Then, of course, you 
know this house goes to her when she marries.&quot;

&quot;That would be very convenient,&quot; said Henry, probably following a 
line of thought that his sister had trodden many hundreds of times 
before him.  &quot;Do she and Comus hit it off at all well together?&quot;

&quot;Oh, well enough in boy and girl fashion,&quot; said Francesca.  &quot;I must 
arrange for them to see more of each other in future.  By the way, 
that little brother of hers that she dotes on, Lancelot, goes to 
Thaleby this term.  I&#39;ll write and tell Comus to be specially kind 
to him; that will be a sure way to Emmeline&#39;s heart.  Comus has 
been made a prefect, you know.  Heaven knows why.&quot;

&quot;It can only be for prominence in games,&quot; sniffed Henry; &quot;I think 
we may safely leave work and conduct out of the question.&quot;

Comus was not a favourite with his uncle.

Francesca had turned to her writing cabinet and was hastily 
scribbling a letter to her son in which the delicate health, timid 
disposition and other inevitable attributes of the new boy were 
brought to his notice, and commanded to his care.  When she had 
sealed and stamped the envelope Henry uttered a belated caution.

&quot;Perhaps on the whole it would be wiser to say nothing about the 
boy to Comus.  He doesn&#39;t always respond to directions you know.&quot;

Francesca did know, and already was more than half of her brother&#39;s 
opinion; but the woman who can sacrifice a clean unspoiled penny 
stamp is probably yet unborn.

CHAPTER II

LANCELOT CHETROF stood at the end of a long bare passage, 
restlessly consulting his watch and fervently wishing himself half 
an hour older with a certain painful experience already registered 
in the past; unfortunately it still belonged to the future, and 
what was still more horrible, to the immediate future.  Like many 
boys new to a school he had cultivated an unhealthy passion for 
obeying rules and requirements, and his zeal in this direction had 
proved his undoing.  In his hurry to be doing two or three 
estimable things at once he had omitted to study the notice-board 
in more than a perfunctory fashion and had thereby missed a 
football practice specially ordained for newly-joined boys.  His 
fellow juniors of a term&#39;s longer standing had graphically 
enlightened him as to the inevitable consequences of his lapse; the 
dread which attaches to the unknown was, at any rate, deleted from 
his approaching doom, though at the moment he felt scarcely 
grateful for the knowledge placed at his disposal with such lavish 
solicitude.

&quot;You&#39;ll get six of the very best, over the back of a chair,&quot; said 
one.

&quot;They&#39;ll draw a chalk line across you, of course you know,&quot; said 
another.

&quot;A chalk line?&quot;

&quot;Rather.  So that every cut can be aimed exactly at the same spot.  
It hurts much more that way.&quot;

Lancelot tried to nourish a wan hope that there might be an element 
of exaggeration in this uncomfortably realistic description.

Meanwhile in the prefects&#39; room at the other end of the passage, 
Comus Bassington and a fellow prefect sat also waiting on time, but 
in a mood of far more pleasurable expectancy.  Comus was one of the 
most junior of the prefect caste, but by no means the least well-
known, and outside the masters&#39; common-room he enjoyed a certain 
fitful popularity, or at any rate admiration.  At football he was 
too erratic to be a really brilliant player, but he tackled as if 
the act of bringing his man headlong to the ground was in itself a 
sensuous pleasure, and his weird swear-words whenever he got hurt 
were eagerly treasured by those who were fortunate enough to hear 
them.  At athletics in general he was a showy performer, and 
although new to the functions of a prefect he had already 
established a reputation as an effective and artistic caner.  In 
appearance he exactly fitted his fanciful Pagan name.  His large 
green-grey eyes seemed for ever asparkle with goblin mischief and 
the joy of revelry, and the curved lips might have been those of 
some wickedly-laughing faun; one almost expected to see embryo 
horns fretting the smoothness of his sleek dark hair.  The chin was 
firm, but one looked in vain for a redeeming touch of ill-temper in 
the handsome, half-mocking, half-petulant face.  With a strain of 
sourness in him Comus might have been leavened into something 
creative and masterful; fate had fashioned him with a certain 
whimsical charm, and left him all unequipped for the greater 
purposes of life.  Perhaps no one would have called him a lovable 
character, but in many respects he was adorable; in all respects he 
was certainly damned.

Rutley, his companion of the moment, sat watching him and 
wondering, from the depths of a very ordinary brain, whether he 
liked or hated him; it was easy to do either.

&quot;It&#39;s not really your turn to cane,&quot; he said.

&quot;I know it&#39;s not,&quot; said Comus, fingering a very serviceable-looking 
cane as lovingly as a pious violinist might handle his Strad.  &quot;I 
gave Greyson some mint-chocolate to let me toss whether I caned or 
him, and I won.  He was rather decent over it and let me have half 
the chocolate back.&quot;

The droll lightheartedness which won Comus Bassington such measure 
of popularity as he enjoyed among his fellows did not materially 
help to endear him to the succession of masters with whom he came 
in contact during the course of his schooldays.  He amused and 
interested such of them as had the saving grace of humour at their 
disposal, but if they sighed when he passed from their immediate 
responsibility it was a sigh of relief rather than of regret.  The 
more enlightened and experienced of them realised that he was 
something outside the scope of the things that they were called 
upon to deal with.  A man who has been trained to cope with storms, 
to foresee their coming, and to minimise their consequences, may be 
pardoned if he feels a certain reluctance to measure himself 
against a tornado.

Men of more limited outlook and with a correspondingly larger 
belief in their own powers were ready to tackle the tornado had 
time permitted.

&quot;I think I could tame young Bassington if I had your 
opportunities,&quot; a form-master once remarked to a colleague whose 
House had the embarrassing distinction of numbering Comus among its 
inmates.

&quot;Heaven forbid that I should try,&quot; replied the housemaster.

&quot;But why?&quot; asked the reformer.

&quot;Because Nature hates any interference with her own arrangements, 
and if you start in to tame the obviously untameable you are taking 
a fearful responsibility on yourself.&quot;

&quot;Nonsense; boys are Nature&#39;s raw material.&quot;

&quot;Millions of boys are.  There are just a few, and Bassington is one 
of them, who are Nature&#39;s highly finished product when they are in 
the schoolboy stage, and we, who are supposed to be moulding raw 
material, are quite helpless when we come in contact with them.&quot;

&quot;But what happens to them when they grow up?&quot;

&quot;They never do grow up,&quot; said the housemaster; &quot;that is their 
tragedy.  Bassington will certainly never grow out of his present 
stage.&quot;

&quot;Now you are talking in the language of Peter Pan,&quot; said the form-
master.

&quot;I am not thinking in the manner of Peter Pan,&quot; said the other.  
&quot;With all reverence for the author of that masterpiece I should say 
he had a wonderful and tender insight into the child mind and knew 
nothing whatever about boys.  To make only one criticism on that 
particular work, can you imagine a lot of British boys, or boys of 
any country that one knows of, who would stay contentedly playing 
children&#39;s games in an underground cave when there were wolves and 
pirates and Red Indians to be had for the asking on the other side 
of the trap door?&quot;

The form-master laughed.  &quot;You evidently think that the &#39;Boy who 
would not grow up&#39; must have been written by a &#39;grown-up who could 
never have been a boy.&#39;  Perhaps that is the meaning of the &#39;Never-
never Land.&#39;  I daresay you&#39;re right in your criticism, but I don&#39;t 
agree with you about Bassington.  He&#39;s a handful to deal with, as 
anyone knows who has come in contact with him, but if one&#39;s hands 
weren&#39;t full with a thousand and one other things I hold to my 
opinion that he could be tamed.&quot;

And he went his way, having maintained a form-master&#39;s inalienable 
privilege of being in the right.

* * * * *

In the prefects&#39; room, Comus busied himself with the exact position 
of a chair planted out in the middle of the floor.

&quot;I think everything&#39;s ready,&quot; he said.

Rutley glanced at the clock with the air of a Roman elegant in the 
Circus, languidly awaiting the introduction of an expected 
Christian to an expectant tiger.

&quot;The kid is due in two minutes,&quot; he said.

&quot;He&#39;d jolly well better not be late,&quot; said Comus.

Comus had gone through the mill of many scorching castigations in 
his earlier school days, and was able to appreciate to the last 
ounce the panic that must be now possessing his foredoomed victim, 
probably at this moment hovering miserably outside the door.  After 
all, that was part of the fun of the thing, and most things have 
their amusing side if one knows where to look for it.

There was a knock at the door, and Lancelot entered in response to 
a hearty friendly summons to &quot;come in.&quot;

&quot;I&#39;ve come to be caned,&quot; he said breathlessly; adding by way of 
identification, &quot;my name&#39;s Chetrof.&quot;

&quot;That&#39;s quite bad enough in itself,&quot; said Comus, &quot;but there is 
probably worse to follow.  You are evidently keeping something back 
from us.&quot;

&quot;I missed a footer practice,&quot; said Lancelot

&quot;Six,&quot; said Comus briefly, picking up his cane.

&quot;I didn&#39;t see the notice on the board,&quot; hazarded Lancelot as a 
forlorn hope.

&quot;We are always pleased to listen to excuses, and our charge is two 
extra cuts.  That will be eight.  Get over.&quot;

And Comus indicated the chair that stood in sinister isolation in 
the middle of the room.  Never had an article of furniture seemed 
more hateful in Lancelot&#39;s eyes.  Comus could well remember the 
time when a chair stuck in the middle of a room had seemed to him 
the most horrible of manufactured things.

&quot;Lend me a piece of chalk,&quot; he said to his brother prefect.

Lancelot ruefully recognised the truth of the chalk-line story.

Comus drew the desired line with an anxious exactitude which he 
would have scorned to apply to a diagram of Euclid or a map of the 
Russo-Persian frontier.

&quot;Bend a little more forward,&quot; he said to the victim, &quot;and much 
tighter.  Don&#39;t trouble to look pleasant, because I can&#39;t see your 
face anyway.  It may sound unorthodox to say so, but this is going 
to hurt you much more than it will hurt me.&quot;

There was a carefully measured pause, and then Lancelot was made 
vividly aware of what a good cane can be made to do in really 
efficient hands.  At the second cut he projected himself hurriedly 
off the chair.

&quot;Now I&#39;ve lost count,&quot; said Comus; &quot;we shall have to begin all over 
again.  Kindly get back into the same position.  If you get down 
again before I&#39;ve finished Rutley will hold you over and you&#39;ll get 
a dozen.&quot;

Lancelot got back on to the chair, and was re-arranged to the taste 
of his executioner.  He stayed there somehow or other while Comus 
made eight accurate and agonisingly effective shots at the chalk 
line.

&quot;By the way,&quot; he said to his gasping and gulping victim when the 
infliction was over, &quot;you said Chetrof, didn&#39;t you?  I believe I&#39;ve 
been asked to be kind to you.  As a beginning you can clean out my 
study this afternoon.  Be awfully careful how you dust the old 
china.  If you break any don&#39;t come and tell me but just go and 
drown yourself somewhere; it will save you from a worse fate.&quot;

&quot;I don&#39;t know where your study is,&quot; said Lancelot between his 
chokes.

&quot;You&#39;d better find it or I shall have to beat you, really hard this 
time.  Here, you&#39;d better keep this chalk in your pocket, it&#39;s sure 
to come in handy later on.  Don&#39;t stop to thank me for all I&#39;ve 
done, it only embarrasses me.&quot;

As Comus hadn&#39;t got a study Lancelot spent a feverish half-hour in 
looking for it, incidentally missing another footer practice.

&quot;Everything is very jolly here,&quot; wrote Lancelot to his sister 
Emmeline.  &quot;The prefects can give you an awful hot time if they 
like, but most of them are rather decent.  Some are Beasts.  
Bassington is a prefect though only a junior one.  He is the Limit 
as Beasts go.  At least I think so.&quot;

Schoolboy reticence went no further, but Emmeline filled in the 
gaps for herself with the lavish splendour of feminine imagination.  
Francesca&#39;s bridge went crashing into the abyss.

CHAPTER III

ON the evening of a certain November day, two years after the 
events heretofore chronicled, Francesca Bassington steered her way 
through the crowd that filled the rooms of her friend Serena 
Golackly, bestowing nods of vague recognition as she went, but with 
eyes that were obviously intent on focussing one particular figure.  
Parliament had pulled its energies together for an Autumn Session, 
and both political Parties were fairly well represented in the 
throng.  Serena had a harmless way of inviting a number of more or 
less public men and women to her house, and hoping that if you left 
them together long enough they would constitute a SALON.  In 
pursuance of the same instinct she planted the flower borders at 
her week-end cottage retreat in Surrey with a large mixture of 
bulbs, and called the result a Dutch garden.  Unfortunately, though 
you may bring brilliant talkers into your home, you cannot always 
make them talk brilliantly, or even talk at all; what is worse you 
cannot restrict the output of those starling-voiced dullards who 
seem to have, on all subjects, so much to say that was well worth 
leaving unsaid.  One group that Francesca passed was discussing a 
Spanish painter, who was forty-three, and had painted thousands of 
square yards of canvas in his time, but of whom no one in London 
had heard till a few months ago; now the starling-voices seemed 
determined that one should hear of very little else.  Three women 
knew how his name was pronounced, another always felt that she must 
go into a forest and pray whenever she saw his pictures, another 
had noticed that there were always pomegranates in his later 
compositions, and a man with an indefensible collar knew what the 
pomegranates &quot;meant.&quot;  &quot;What I think so splendid about him,&quot; said a 
stout lady in a loud challenging voice, &quot;is the way he defies all 
the conventions of art while retaining all that the conventions 
stand for.&quot;  &quot;Ah, but have you noticed - &quot; put in the man with the 
atrocious collar, and Francesca pushed desperately on, wondering 
dimly as she went, what people found so unsupportable in the 
affliction of deafness.  Her progress was impeded for a moment by a 
couple engaged in earnest and voluble discussion of some 
smouldering question of the day; a thin spectacled young man with 
the receding forehead that so often denotes advanced opinions, was 
talking to a spectacled young woman with a similar type of 
forehead, and exceedingly untidy hair.  It was her ambition in life 
to be taken for a Russian girl-student, and she had spent weeks of 
patient research in trying to find out exactly where you put the 
tea-leaves in a samovar.  She had once been introduced to a young 
Jewess from Odessa, who had died of pneumonia the following week; 
the experience, slight as it was, constituted the spectacled young 
lady an authority on all things Russian in the eyes of her 
immediate set.

&quot;Talk is helpful, talk is needful,&quot; the young man was saying, &quot;but 
what we have got to do is to lift the subject out of the furrow of 
indisciplined talk and place it on the threshing-floor of practical 
discussion.&quot;

The young woman took advantage of the rhetorical full-stop to dash 
in with the remark which was already marshalled on the tip of her 
tongue.

&quot;In emancipating the serfs of poverty we must be careful to avoid 
the mistakes which Russian bureaucracy stumbled into when 
liberating the serfs of the soil.&quot;

She paused in her turn for the sake of declamatory effect, but 
recovered her breath quickly enough to start afresh on level terms 
with the young man, who had jumped into the stride of his next 
sentence.

&quot;They got off to a good start that time,&quot; said Francesca to 
herself; &quot;I suppose it&#39;s the Prevention of Destitution they&#39;re 
hammering at.  What on earth would become of these dear good people 
if anyone started a crusade for the prevention of mediocrity?&quot;

Midway through one of the smaller rooms, still questing for an 
elusive presence, she caught sight of someone that she knew, and 
the shadow of a frown passed across her face.  The object of her 
faintly signalled displeasure was Courtenay Youghal, a political 
spur-winner who seemed absurdly youthful to a generation that had 
never heard of Pitt.  It was Youghal&#39;s ambition - or perhaps his 
hobby - to infuse into the greyness of modern political life some 
of the colour of Disraelian dandyism, tempered with the correctness 
of Anglo-Saxon taste, and supplemented by the flashes of wit that 
were inherent from the Celtic strain in him.  His success was only 
a half-measure.  The public missed in him that touch of blatancy 
which it looks for in its rising public men; the decorative 
smoothness of his chestnut-golden hair, and the lively sparkle of 
his epigrams were counted to him for good, but the restrained 
sumptuousness of his waistcoats and cravats were as wasted efforts.  
If he had habitually smoked cigarettes in a pink coral mouthpiece, 
or worn spats of Mackenzie tartan, the great heart of the voting-
man, and the gush of the paragraph-makers might have been 
unreservedly his.  The art of public life consists to a great 
extent of knowing exactly where to stop and going a bit further.

It was not Youghal&#39;s lack of political sagacity that had brought 
the momentary look of disapproval into Francesca&#39;s face.  The fact 
was that Comus, who had left off being a schoolboy and was now a 
social problem, had lately enrolled himself among the young 
politician&#39;s associates and admirers, and as the boy knew and cared 
nothing about politics, and merely copied Youghal&#39;s waistcoats, 
and, less successfully, his conversation, Francesca felt herself 
justified in deploring the intimacy.  To a woman who dressed well 
on comparatively nothing a year it was an anxious experience to 
have a son who dressed sumptuously on absolutely nothing.

The cloud that had passed over her face when she caught sight of 
the offending Youghal was presently succeeded by a smile of 
gratified achievement, as she encountered a bow of recognition and 
welcome from a portly middle-aged gentleman, who seemed genuinely 
anxious to include her in the rather meagre group that he had 
gathered about him.

&quot;We were just talking about my new charge,&quot; he observed genially, 
including in the &quot;we&quot; his somewhat depressed-looking listeners, who 
in all human probability had done none of the talking.  &quot;I was just 
telling them, and you may be interested to hear this - &quot;

Francesca, with Spartan stoicism, continued to wear an ingratiating 
smile, though the character of the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear 
and will not hearken, seemed to her at that moment a beautiful one.

Sir Julian Jull had been a member of a House of Commons 
distinguished for its high standard of well-informed mediocrity, 
and had harmonised so thoroughly with his surroundings that the 
most attentive observer of Parliamentary proceedings could scarcely 
have told even on which side of the House he sat.  A baronetcy 
bestowed on him by the Party in power had at least removed that 
doubt; some weeks later he had been made Governor of some West 
Indian dependency, whether as a reward for having accepted the 
baronetcy, or as an application of a theory that West Indian 
islands get the Governors they deserve, it would have been hard to 
say.  To Sir Julian the appointment was, doubtless, one of some 
importance; during the span of his Governorship the island might 
possibly be visited by a member of the Royal Family, or at the 
least by an earthquake, and in either case his name would get into 
the papers.  To the public the matter was one of absolute 
indifference; &quot;who is he and where is it?&quot; would have correctly 
epitomised the sum total of general information on the personal and 
geographical aspects of the case.

Francesca, however, from the moment she had heard of the likelihood 
of the appointment, had taken a deep and lively interest in Sir 
Julian.  As a Member of Parliament he had not filled any very 
pressing social want in her life, and on the rare occasions when 
she took tea on the Terrace of the House she was wont to lapse into 
rapt contemplation of St. Thomas&#39;s Hospital whenever she saw him 
within bowing distance.  But as Governor of an island he would, of 
course, want a private secretary, and as a friend and colleague of 
Henry Greech, to whom he was indebted for many little acts of 
political support (they had once jointly drafted an amendment which 
had been ruled out of order), what was more natural and proper than 
that he should let his choice fall on Henry&#39;s nephew Comus?  While 
privately doubting whether the boy would make the sort of secretary 
that any public man would esteem as a treasure, Henry was 
thoroughly in agreement with Francesca as to the excellence and 
desirability of an arrangement which would transplant that 
troublesome&#39; young animal from the too restricted and conspicuous 
area that centres in the parish of St. James&#39;s to some misty corner 
of the British dominion overseas.  Brother and sister had conspired 
to give an elaborate and at the same time cosy little luncheon to 
Sir Julian on the very day that his appointment was officially 
announced, and the question of the secretaryship had been mooted 
and sedulously fostered as occasion permitted, until all that was 
now needed to clinch the matter was a formal interview between His 
Excellency and Comus.  The boy had from the first shewn very little 
gratification at the prospect of his deportation.  To live on a 
remote shark-girt island, as he expressed it, with the Jull family 
as his chief social mainstay, and Sir Julian&#39;s conversation as a 
daily item of his existence, did not inspire him with the same 
degree of enthusiasm as was displayed by his mother and uncle, who, 
after all, were not making the experiment.  Even the necessity for 
an entirely new outfit did not appeal to his imagination with the 
force that might have been expected.  But, however lukewarm his 
adhesion to the project might be, Francesca and her brother were 
clearly determined that no lack of deft persistence on their part 
should endanger its success.  It was for the purpose of reminding 
Sir Julian of his promise to meet Comus at lunch on the following 
day, and definitely settle the matter of the secretaryship that 
Francesca was now enduring the ordeal of a long harangue on the 
value of the West Indian group as an Imperial asset.  Other 
listeners dexterously detached themselves one by one, but 
Francesca&#39;s patience outlasted even Sir Julian&#39;s flow of 
commonplaces, and her devotion was duly rewarded by a renewed 
acknowledgment of the lunch engagement and its purpose.  She pushed 
her way back through the throng of starling-voiced chatterers 
fortified by a sense of well-earned victory.  Dear Serena&#39;s absurd 
SALONS served some good purpose after all.

Francesca was not an early riser and her breakfast was only just 
beginning to mobilise on the breakfast-table next morning when a 
copy of THE TIMES, sent by special messenger from her brother&#39;s 
house, was brought up to her room.  A heavy margin of blue 
pencilling drew her attention to a prominently-printed letter which 
bore the ironical heading: &quot;Julian Jull, Proconsul.&quot;  The matter of 
the letter was a cruel dis-interment of some fatuous and forgotten 
speeches made by Sir Julian to his constituents not many years ago, 
in which the value of some of our Colonial possessions, 
particularly certain West Indian islands, was decried in a medley 
of pomposity, ignorance and amazingly cheap humour.  The extracts 
given sounded weak and foolish enough, taken by themselves, but the 
writer of the letter had interlarded them with comments of his own, 
which sparkled with an ironical brilliance that was Cervantes-like 
in its polished cruelty.  Remembering her ordeal of the previous 
evening Francesca permitted herself a certain feeling of amusement 
as she read the merciless stabs inflicted on the newly-appointed 
Governor; then she came to the signature at the foot of the letter, 
and the laughter died out of her eyes.  &quot;Comus Bassington&quot; stared 
at her from above a thick layer of blue pencil lines marked by 
Henry Greech&#39;s shaking hand.

Comus could no more have devised such a letter than he could have 
written an Episcopal charge to the clergy of any given diocese.  It 
was obviously the work of Courtenay Youghal, and Comus, for a 
palpable purpose of his own, had wheedled him into foregoing for 
once the pride of authorship in a clever piece of political 
raillery, and letting his young friend stand sponsor instead.  It 
was a daring stroke, and there could be no question as to its 
success; the secretaryship and the distant shark-girt island faded 
away into the horizon of impossible things.  Francesca, forgetting 
the golden rule of strategy which enjoins a careful choosing of 
ground and opportunity before entering on hostilities, made 
straight for the bathroom door, behind which a lively din of 
splashing betokened that Comus had at least begun his toilet.

&quot;You wicked boy, what have you done?&quot; she cried, reproachfully.

&quot;Me washee,&quot; came a cheerful shout; &quot;me washee from the neck all 
the way down to the merrythought, and now washee down from the 
merrythought to - &quot;

&quot;You have ruined your future.  THE TIMES has printed that miserable 
letter with your signature.&quot;

A loud squeal of joy came from the bath.  &quot;Oh, Mummy!  Let me see!&quot;

There were sounds as of a sprawling dripping body clambering 
hastily out of the bath.  Francesca fled.  One cannot effectively 
scold a moist nineteen-year old boy clad only in a bath-towel and a 
cloud of steam.

Another messenger arrived before Francesca&#39;s breakfast was over.  
This one brought a letter from Sir Julian Jull, excusing himself 
from fulfilment of the luncheon engagement.

CHAPTER IV

FRANCESCA prided herself on being able to see things from other 
people&#39;s points of view, which meant, as it usually does, that she 
could see her own point of view from various aspects.  As regards 
Comus, whose doings and non-doings bulked largely in her thoughts 
at the present moment, she had mapped out in her mind so clearly 
what his outlook in life ought to be, that she was peculiarly 
unfitted to understand the drift of his feelings or the impulses 
that governed them.  Fate had endowed her with a son; in limiting 
the endowment to a solitary offspring Fate had certainly shown a 
moderation which Francesca was perfectly willing to acknowledge and 
be thankful for; but then, as she pointed out to a certain 
complacent friend of hers who cheerfully sustained an endowment of 
half-a-dozen male offsprings and a girl or two, her one child was 
Comus.  Moderation in numbers was more than counterbalanced in his 
case by extravagance in characteristics.

Francesca mentally compared her son with hundreds of other young 
men whom she saw around her, steadily, and no doubt happily, 
engaged in the process of transforming themselves from nice boys 
into useful citizens.  Most of them had occupations, or were 
industriously engaged in qualifying for such; in their leisure 
moments they smoked reasonably-priced cigarettes, went to the 
cheaper seats at music-halls, watched an occasional cricket match 
at Lord&#39;s with apparent interest, saw most of the world&#39;s 
spectacular events through the medium of the cinematograph, and 
were wont to exchange at parting seemingly superfluous injunctions 
to &quot;be good.&quot;  The whole of Bond Street and many of the tributary 
thoroughfares of Piccadilly might have been swept off the face of 
modern London without in any way interfering with the supply of 
their daily wants.  They were doubtless dull as acquaintances, but 
as sons they would have been eminently restful.  With a growing 
sense of irritation Francesca compared these deserving young men 
with her own intractable offspring, and wondered why Fate should 
have singled her out to be the parent of such a vexatious variant 
from a comfortable and desirable type.  As far as remunerative 
achievement was concerned, Comus copied the insouciance of the 
field lily with a dangerous fidelity.  Like his mother he looked 
round with wistful irritation at the example afforded by 
contemporary youth, but he concentrated his attention exclusively 
on the richer circles of his acquaintance, young men who bought 
cars and polo ponies as unconcernedly as he might purchase a 
carnation for his buttonhole, and went for trips to Cairo or the 
Tigris valley with less difficulty and finance-stretching than he 
encountered in contriving a week-end at Brighton.

Gaiety and good-looks had carried Comus successfully and, on the 
whole, pleasantly, through schooldays and a recurring succession of 
holidays; the same desirable assets were still at his service to 
advance him along his road, but it was a disconcerting experience 
to find that they could not be relied on to go all distances at all 
times.  In an animal world, and a fiercely competitive animal world 
at that, something more was needed than the decorative ABANDON of 
the field lily, and it was just that something more which Comus 
seemed unable or unwilling to provide on his own account; it was 
just the lack of that something more which left him sulking with 
Fate over the numerous breakdowns and stumbling-blocks that held 
him up on what he expected to be a triumphal or, at any rate, 
unimpeded progress.

Francesca was, in her own way, fonder of Comus than of anyone else 
in the world, and if he had been browning his skin somewhere east 
of Suez she would probably have kissed his photograph with genuine 
fervour every night before going to bed; the appearance of a 
cholera scare or rumour of native rising in the columns of her 
daily news-sheet would have caused her a flutter of anxiety, and 
she would have mentally likened herself to a Spartan mother 
sacrificing her best-beloved on the altar of State necessities.  
But with the best-beloved installed under her roof, occupying an 
unreasonable amount of cubic space, and demanding daily sacrifices 
instead of providing the raw material for one, her feelings were 
tinged with irritation rather than affection.  She might have 
forgiven Comus generously for misdeeds of some gravity committed in 
another continent, but she could never overlook the fact that out 
of a dish of five plovers&#39; eggs he was certain to take three.  The 
absent may be always wrong, but they are seldom in a position to be 
inconsiderate.

Thus a wall of ice had grown up gradually between mother and son, a 
barrier across which they could hold converse, but which gave a 
wintry chill even to the sparkle of their lightest words.  The boy 
had the gift of being irresistibly amusing when he chose to exert 
himself in that direction, and after a long series of moody or 
jangling meal-sittings he would break forth into a torrential flow 
of small talk, scandal and malicious anecdote, true or more 
generally invented, to which Francesca listened with a relish and 
appreciation, that was all the more flattering from being so 
unwillingly bestowed.

&quot;If you chose your friends from a rather more reputable set you 
would be doubtless less amusing, but there would be compensating 
advantages.&quot;

Francesca snapped the remark out at lunch one day when she had been 
betrayed into a broader smile than she considered the circumstances 
of her attitude towards Comus warranted.

&quot;I&#39;m going to move in quite decent society to-night,&quot; replied Comus 
with a pleased chuckle; &quot;I&#39;m going to meet you and Uncle Henry and 
heaps of nice dull God-fearing people at dinner.&quot;

Francesca gave a little gasp of surprise and annoyance.

&quot;You don&#39;t mean to say Caroline has asked you to dinner to-night?&quot; 
she said; &quot;and of course without telling me.  How exceedingly like 
her!&quot;

Lady Caroline Benaresq had reached that age when you can say and do 
what you like in defiance of people&#39;s most sensitive feelings and 
most cherished antipathies.  Not that she had waited to attain her 
present age before pursuing that line of conduct; she came of a 
family whose individual members went through life, from the nursery 
to the grave, with as much tact and consideration as a cactus-hedge 
might show in going through a crowded bathing tent.  It was a 
compensating mercy that they disagreed rather more among themselves 
than they did with the outside world; every known variety and shade 
of religion and politics had been pressed into the family service 
to avoid the possibility of any agreement on the larger essentials 
of life, and such unlooked-for happenings as the Home Rule schism, 
the Tariff-Reform upheaval and the Suffragette crusade were 
thankfully seized on as furnishing occasion for further differences 
and sub-divisions.  Lady Caroline&#39;s favourite scheme of 
entertaining was to bring jarring and antagonistic elements into 
close contact and play them remorselessly one against the other.  
&quot;One gets much better results under those circumstances&quot; she used 
to observe, &quot;than by asking people who wish to meet each other.  
Few people talk as brilliantly to impress a friend as they do to 
depress an enemy.&quot;

She admitted that her theory broke down rather badly if you applied 
it to Parliamentary debates.  At her own dinner table its success 
was usually triumphantly vindicated.

&quot;Who else is to be there?&quot; Francesca asked, with some pardonable 
misgiving.

&quot;Courtenay Youghal.  He&#39;ll probably sit next to you, so you&#39;d 
better think out a lot of annihilating remarks in readiness.  And 
Elaine de Frey.&quot;

&quot;I don&#39;t think I&#39;ve heard of her.  Who is she?&quot;

&quot;Nobody in particular, but rather nice-looking in a solemn sort of 
way, and almost indecently rich.&quot;

&quot;Marry her&quot; was the advice which sprang to Francesca&#39;s lips, but 
she choked it back with a salted almond, having a rare perception 
of the fact that words are sometimes given to us to defeat our 
purposes.

&quot;Caroline has probably marked her down for Toby or one of the 
grand-nephews,&quot; she said, carelessly; &quot;a little money would be 
rather useful in that quarter, I imagine.&quot;

Comus tucked in his underlip with just the shade of pugnacity that 
she wanted to see.

An advantageous marriage was so obviously the most sensible course 
for him to embark on that she scarcely dared to hope that he would 
seriously entertain it; yet there was just a chance that if he got 
as far as the flirtation stage with an attractive (and attracted) 
girl who was also an heiress, the sheer perversity of his nature 
might carry him on to more definite courtship, if only from the 
desire to thrust other more genuinely enamoured suitors into the 
background.  It was a forlorn hope; so forlorn that the idea even 
crossed her mind of throwing herself on the mercy of her BETE 
NOIRE, Courtenay Youghal, and trying to enlist the influence which 
he seemed to possess over Comus for the purpose of furthering her 
hurriedly conceived project.  Anyhow, the dinner promised to be 
more interesting than she had originally anticipated.

Lady Caroline was a professed Socialist in politics, chiefly, it 
was believed, because she was thus enabled to disagree with most of 
the Liberals and Conservatives, and all the Socialists of the day.  
She did not permit her Socialism, however, to penetrate below 
stairs; her cook and butler had every encouragement to be 
Individualists.  Francesca, who was a keen and intelligent food 
critic, harboured no misgivings as to her hostess&#39;s kitchen and 
cellar departments; some of the human side-dishes at the feast gave 
her more ground for uneasiness.  Courtenay Youghal, for instance, 
would probably be brilliantly silent; her brother Henry would 
almost certainly be the reverse.

The dinner party was a large one and Francesca arrived late with 
little time to take preliminary stock of the guests; a card with 
the name, &quot;Miss de Frey,&quot; immediately opposite her own place at the 
other side of the table, indicated, however, the whereabouts of the 
heiress.  It was characteristic of Francesca that she first 
carefully read the menu from end to end, and then indulged in an 
equally careful though less open scrutiny of the girl who sat 
opposite her, the girl who was nobody in particular, but whose 
income was everything that could be desired.  She was pretty in a 
restrained nut-brown fashion, and had a look of grave reflective 
calm that probably masked a speculative unsettled temperament.  Her 
pose, if one wished to be critical, was just a little too 
elaborately careless.  She wore some excellently set rubies with 
that indefinable air of having more at home that is so difficult to 
improvise.  Francesca was distinctly pleased with her survey.

&quot;You seem interested in your VIS-A-VIS,&quot; said Courtenay Youghal.

&quot;I almost think I&#39;ve seen her before,&quot; said Francesca; &quot;her face 
seems familiar to me.&quot;

&quot;The narrow gallery at the Louvre; attributed to Leonardo da 
Vinci,&quot; said Youghal.

&quot;Of course,&quot; said Francesca, her feelings divided between 
satisfaction at capturing an elusive impression and annoyance that 
Youghal should have been her helper.  A stronger tinge of annoyance 
possessed her when she heard the voice of Henry Greech raised in 
painful prominence at Lady Caroline&#39;s end of the table.

&quot;I called on the Trudhams yesterday,&quot; he announced; &quot;it was their 
Silver Wedding, you know, at least the day before was.  Such lots 
of silver presents, quite a show.  Of course there were a great 
many duplicates, but still, very nice to have.  I think they were 
very pleased to get so many.&quot;

&quot;We must not grudge them their show of presents after their twenty-
five years of married life,&quot; said Lady Caroline, gently; &quot;it is the 
silver lining to their cloud.&quot;

A third of the guests present were related to the Trudhams.

&quot;Lady Caroline is beginning well,&quot; murmured Courtenay Youghal.

&quot;I should hardly call twenty-five years of married life a cloud,&quot; 
said Henry Greech, lamely.

&quot;Don&#39;t let&#39;s talk about married life,&quot; said a tall handsome woman, 
who looked like some modern painter&#39;s conception of the goddess 
Bellona; &quot;it&#39;s my misfortune to write eternally about husbands and 
wives and their variants.  My public expects it of me.  I do so 
envy journalists who can write about plagues and strikes and 
Anarchist plots, and other pleasing things, instead of being tied 
down to one stale old topic.&quot;

&quot;Who is that woman and what has she written?&quot; Francesca asked 
Youghal; she dimly remembered having seen her at one of Serena 
Golackly&#39;s gatherings, surrounded by a little Court of admirers.

&quot;I forget her name; she has a villa at San Remo or Mentone, or 
somewhere where one does have villas, and plays an extraordinary 
good game of bridge.  Also she has the reputation, rather rare in 
your sex, of being a wonderfully sound judge of wine.&quot;

&quot;But what has she written?&quot;

&quot;Oh, several novels of the thinnish ice order.  Her last one, &#39;The 
Woman who wished it was Wednesday,&#39; has been banned at all the 
libraries.  I expect you&#39;ve read it.&quot;

&quot;I don&#39;t see why you should think so,&quot; said Francesca, coldly.

&quot;Only because Comus lent me your copy yesterday,&quot; said Youghal.  He 
threw back his handsome head and gave her a sidelong glance of 
quizzical amusement.  He knew that she hated his intimacy with 
Comus, and he was secretly rather proud of his influence over the 
boy, shallow and negative though he knew it to be.  It had been, on 
his part, an unsought intimacy, and it would probably fall to 
pieces the moment he tried seriously to take up the ROLE of mentor.  
The fact that Comus&#39;s mother openly disapproved of the friendship 
gave it perhaps its chief interest in the young politician&#39;s eyes.

Francesca turned her attention to her brother&#39;s end of the table.  
Henry Greech had willingly availed himself of the invitation to 
leave the subject of married life, and had launched forthwith into 
the equally well-worn theme of current politics.  He was not a 
person who was in much demand for public meetings, and the House 
showed no great impatience to hear his views on the topics of the 
moment; its impatience, indeed, was manifested rather in the 
opposite direction.  Hence he was prone to unburden himself of 
accumulated political wisdom as occasion presented itself - 
sometimes, indeed, to assume an occasion that was hardly visible to 
the naked intelligence.

&quot;Our opponents are engaged in a hopelessly uphill struggle, and 
they know it,&quot; he chirruped, defiantly; &quot;they&#39;ve become possessed, 
like the Gadarene swine, with a whole legion of - &quot;

&quot;Surely the Gadarene swine went downhill,&quot; put in Lady Caroline in 
a gently enquiring voice.

Henry Greech hastily abandoned simile and fell back on platitude 
and the safer kinds of fact.

Francesca did not regard her brother&#39;s views on statecraft either 
in the light of gospel or revelation; as Comus once remarked, they 
more usually suggested exodus.  In the present instance she found 
distraction in a renewed scrutiny of the girl opposite her, who 
seemed to be only moderately interested in the conversational 
efforts of the diners on either side of her.  Comus who was looking 
and talking his best, was sitting at the further end of the table, 
and Francesca was quick to notice in which direction the girl&#39;s 
glances were continually straying.  Once or twice the eyes of the 
young people met and a swift flush of pleasure and a half-smile 
that spoke of good understanding came to the heiress&#39;s face.  It 
did not need the gift of the traditional intuition of her sex to 
enable Francesca to guess that the girl with the desirable banking 
account was already considerably attracted by the lively young 
Pagan who had, when he cared to practise it, such an art of winning 
admiration.  For the first time for many, many months Francesca saw 
her son&#39;s prospects in a rose-coloured setting, and she began, 
unconsciously, to wonder exactly how much wealth was summed up in 
the expressive label &quot;almost indecently rich.&quot;  A wife with a 
really large fortune and a correspondingly big dower of character 
and ambition, might, perhaps, succeed in turning Comus&#39;s latent 
energies into a groove which would provide him, if not with a 
career, at least with an occupation, and the young serious face 
opposite looked as if its owner lacked neither character or 
ambition.  Francesca&#39;s speculations took a more personal turn.  Out 
of the well-filled coffers with which her imagination was toying, 
an inconsiderable sum might eventually be devoted to the leasing, 
or even perhaps the purchase of, the house in Blue Street when the 
present convenient arrangement should have come to an end, and 
Francesca and the Van der Meulen would not be obliged to seek fresh 
quarters.

A woman&#39;s voice, talking in a discreet undertone on the other side 
of Courtenay Youghal, broke in on her bridge-building.

&quot;Tons of money and really very presentable.  Just the wife for a 
rising young politician.  Go in and win her before she&#39;s snapped up 
by some fortune hunter.&quot;

Youghal and his instructress in worldly wisdom were looking 
straight across the table at the Leonardo da Vinci girl with the 
grave reflective eyes and the over-emphasised air of repose.  
Francesca felt a quick throb of anger against her match-making 
neighbour; why, she asked herself, must some women, with no end or 
purpose of their own to serve, except the sheer love of meddling in 
the affairs of others, plunge their hands into plots and schemings 
of this sort, in which the happiness of more than one person was 
concerned?  And more clearly than ever she realised how thoroughly 
she detested Courtenay Youghal.  She had disliked him as an evil 
influence, setting before her son an example of showy ambition that 
he was not in the least likely to follow, and providing him with a 
model of extravagant dandyism that he was only too certain to copy.  
In her heart she knew that Comus would have embarked just as surely 
on his present course of idle self-indulgence if he had never known 
of the existence of Youghal, but she chose to regard that young man 
as her son&#39;s evil genius, and now he seemed likely to justify more 
than ever the character she had fastened on to him.  For once in 
his life Comus appeared to have an idea of behaving sensibly and 
making some use of his opportunities, and almost at the same moment 
Courtenay Youghal arrived on the scene as a possible and very 
dangerous rival.  Against the good looks and fitful powers of 
fascination that Comus could bring into the field, the young 
politician could match half-a-dozen dazzling qualities which would 
go far to recommend him in the eyes of a woman of the world, still 
more in those of a young girl in search of an ideal.  Good-looking 
in his own way, if not on such showy lines as Comus, always well 
turned-out, witty, self-confident without being bumptious, with a 
conspicuous Parliamentary career alongside him, and heaven knew 
what else in front of him, Courtenay Youghal certainly was not a 
rival whose chances could be held very lightly.  Francesca laughed 
bitterly to herself as she remembered that a few hours ago she had 
entertained the idea of begging for his good offices in helping on 
Comus&#39;s wooing.  One consolation, at least, she found for herself: 
if Youghal really meant to step in and try and cut out his young 
friend, the latter at any rate had snatched a useful start.  Comus 
had mentioned Miss de Frey at luncheon that day, casually and 
dispassionately; if the subject of the dinner guests had not come 
up he would probably not have mentioned her at all.  But they were 
obviously already very good friends.  It was part and parcel of the 
state of domestic tension at Blue Street that Francesca should only 
have come to know of this highly interesting heiress by an 
accidental sorting of guests at a dinner party.

Lady Caroline&#39;s voice broke in on her reflections; it was a gentle 
purring voice, that possessed an uncanny quality of being able to 
make itself heard down the longest dinner table.

&quot;The dear Archdeacon is getting so absent-minded.  He read a list 
of box-holders for the opera as the First Lesson the other Sunday, 
instead of the families and lots of the tribes of Israel that 
entered Canaan.  Fortunately no one noticed the mistake.&quot;

CHAPTER V

ON a conveniently secluded bench facing the Northern Pheasantry in 
the Zoological Society&#39;s Gardens, Regent&#39;s Park, Courtenay Youghal 
sat immersed in mature flirtation with a lady, who, though 
certainly young in fact and appearance, was some four or five years 
his senior.   When he was a schoolboy of sixteen, Molly McQuade had 
personally conducted him to the Zoo and stood him dinner afterwards 
at Kettner&#39;s, and whenever the two of them happened to be in town 
on the anniversary of that bygone festivity they religiously 
repeated the programme in its entirety.  Even the menu of the 
dinner was adhered to as nearly as possible; the original selection 
of food and wine that schoolboy exuberance, tempered by schoolboy 
shyness, had pitched on those many years ago, confronted Youghal on 
those occasions, as a drowning man&#39;s past life is said to rise up 
and parade itself in his last moments of consciousness.

The flirtation which was thus perennially restored to its old-time 
footing owed its longevity more to the enterprising solicitude of 
Miss McQuade than to any conscious sentimental effort on the part 
of Youghal himself.  Molly McQuade was known to her neighbours in a 
minor hunting shire as a hard-riding conventionally unconventional 
type of young woman, who came naturally into the classification, &quot;a 
good sort.&quot;  She was just sufficiently good-looking, sufficiently 
reticent about her own illnesses, when she had any, and 
sufficiently appreciative of her neighbours&#39; gardens, children and 
hunters to be generally popular.  Most men liked her, and the 
percentage of women who disliked her was not inconveniently high.  
One of these days, it was assumed, she would marry a brewer or a 
Master of Otter Hounds, and, after a brief interval, be known to 
the world as the mother of a boy or two at Malvern or some similar 
seat of learning.  The romantic side of her nature was altogether 
unguessed by the country-side.

Her romances were mostly in serial form and suffered perhaps in 
fervour from their disconnected course what they gained in length 
of days.  Her affectionate interest in the several young men who 
figured in her affairs of the heart was perfectly honest, and she 
certainly made no attempt either to conceal their separate 
existences, or to play them off one against the other.  Neither 
could it be said that she was a husband hunter; she had made up her 
mind what sort of man she was likely to marry, and her forecast did 
not differ very widely from that formed by her local acquaintances.  
If her married life were eventually to turn out a failure, at least 
she looked forward to it with very moderate expectations.  Her love 
affairs she put on a very different footing and apparently they 
were the all-absorbing element in her life.  She possessed the 
happily constituted temperament which enables a man or woman to be 
a &quot;pluralist,&quot; and to observe the sage precaution of not putting 
all one&#39;s eggs into one basket.  Her demands were not exacting; she 
required of her affinity that he should be young, good-looking, and 
at least, moderately amusing; she would have preferred him to be 
invariably faithful, but, with her own example before her, she was 
prepared for the probability, bordering on certainty, that he would 
be nothing of the sort.  The philosophy of the &quot;Garden of Kama&quot; was 
the compass by which she steered her barque and thus far, if she 
had encountered some storms and buffeting, she had at least escaped 
being either shipwrecked or becalmed.

Courtenay Youghal had not been designed by Nature to fulfil the 
ROLE of an ardent or devoted lover, and he scrupulously respected 
the limits which Nature had laid down.  For Molly, however, he had 
a certain responsive affection.  She had always obviously admired 
him, and at the same time she never beset him with crude flattery; 
the principal reason why the flirtation had stood the test of so 
many years was the fact that it only flared into active existence 
at convenient intervals.  In an age when the telephone has 
undermined almost every fastness of human privacy, and the sanctity 
of one&#39;s seclusion depends often on the ability for tactful 
falsehood shown by a club pageboy, Youghal was duly appreciative of 
the circumstance that his lady fair spent a large part of the year 
pursuing foxes, in lieu of pursuing him.  Also the honestly 
admitted fact that, in her human hunting, she rode after more than 
one quarry, made the inevitable break-up of the affair a matter to 
which both could look forward without a sense of coming 
embarrassment and recrimination.  When the time for gathering ye 
rosebuds should be over, neither of them could accuse the other of 
having wrecked his or her entire life.  At the most they would only 
have disorganised a week-end.

On this particular afternoon, when old reminiscences had been gone 
through, and the intervening gossip of past months duly recounted, 
a lull in the conversation made itself rather obstinately felt.  
Molly had already guessed that matters were about to slip into a 
new phase; the affair had reached maturity long ago, and a new 
phase must be in the nature of a wane.

&quot;You&#39;re a clever brute,&quot; she said, suddenly, with an air of 
affectionate regret; &quot;I always knew you&#39;d get on in the House, but 
I hardly expected you to come to the front so soon.&quot;

&quot;I&#39;m coming to the front,&quot; admitted Youghal, judicially; &quot;the 
problem is, shall I be able to stay there.  Unless something 
happens in the financial line before long, I don&#39;t see how I&#39;m to 
stay in Parliament at all.  Economy is out of the question.  It 
would open people&#39;s eyes, I fancy, if they knew how little I exist 
on as it is.  And I&#39;m living so far beyond my income that we may 
almost be said to be living apart.&quot;

&quot;It will have to be a rich wife, I suppose,&quot; said Molly, slowly; 
&quot;that&#39;s the worst of success, it imposes so many conditions.  I 
rather knew, from something in your manner, that you were drifting 
that way.&quot;

Youghal said nothing in the way of contradiction; he gazed 
steadfastly at the aviary in front of him as though exotic 
pheasants were for the moment the most absorbing study in the 
world.  As a matter of fact, his mind was centred on the image of 
Elaine de Frey, with her clear untroubled eyes and her Leonardo da 
Vinci air.  He was wondering whether he was likely to fall into a 
frame of mind concerning her which would be in the least like 
falling in love.

&quot;I shall mind horribly,&quot; continued Molly, after a pause, &quot;but, of 
course, I have always known that something of the sort would have 
to happen one of these days.  When a man goes into politics he 
can&#39;t call his soul his own, and I suppose his heart becomes an 
impersonal possession in the same way.&quot;

&quot;Most people who know me would tell you that I haven&#39;t got a 
heart,&quot; said Youghal.

&quot;I&#39;ve often felt inclined to agree with them,&quot; said Molly; &quot;and 
then, now and again, I think you have a heart tucked away 
somewhere.&quot;

&quot;I hope I have,&quot; said Youghal, &quot;because I&#39;m trying to break to you 
the fact that I think I&#39;m falling in love with somebody.&quot;

Molly McQuade turned sharply to look at her companion, who still 
fixed his gaze on the pheasant run in front of him.

&quot;Don&#39;t tell me you&#39;re losing your head over somebody useless, 
someone without money,&quot; she said; &quot;I don&#39;t think I could stand 
that.&quot;

For the moment she feared that Courtenay&#39;s selfishness might have 
taken an unexpected turn, in which ambition had given way to the 
fancy of the hour; he might be going to sacrifice his Parliamentary 
career for a life of stupid lounging in momentarily attractive 
company.  He quickly undeceived her.

&quot;She&#39;s got heaps of money.&quot;

Molly gave a grunt of relief.  Her affection for Courtenay had 
produced the anxiety which underlay her first question; a natural 
jealousy prompted the next one.

&quot;Is she young and pretty and all that sort of thing, or is she just 
a good sort with a sympathetic manner and nice eyes?  As a rule 
that&#39;s the kind that goes with a lot of money.&quot;

&quot;Young and quite good-looking in her way, and a distinct style of 
her own.  Some people would call her beautiful.  As a political 
hostess I should think she&#39;d be splendid.  I imagine I&#39;m rather in 
love with her.&quot;

&quot;And is she in love with you?&quot;

Youghal threw back his head with the slight assertive movement that 
Molly knew and liked.

&quot;She&#39;s a girl who I fancy would let judgment influence her a lot.  
And without being stupidly conceited, I think I may say she might 
do worse than throw herself away on me.  I&#39;m young and quite good-
looking, and I&#39;m making a name for myself in the House; she&#39;ll be 
able to read all sorts of nice and horrid things about me in the 
papers at breakfast-time.  I can be brilliantly amusing at times, 
and I understand the value of silence; there is no fear that I 
shall ever degenerate into that fearsome thing - a cheerful 
talkative husband.  For a girl with money and social ambitions I 
should think I was rather a good thing.&quot;

&quot;You are certainly in love, Courtenay,&quot; said Molly, &quot;but it&#39;s the 
old love and not a new one.  I&#39;m rather glad.  I should have hated 
to have you head-over-heels in love with a pretty woman, even for a 
short time.  You&#39;ll be much happier as it is.  And I&#39;m going to put 
all my feelings in the background, and tell you to go in and win.  
You&#39;ve got to marry a rich woman, and if she&#39;s nice and will make a 
good hostess, so much the better for everybody.  You&#39;ll be happier 
in your married life than I shall be in mine, when it comes; you&#39;ll 
have other interests to absorb you.  I shall just have the garden 
and dairy and nursery and lending library, as like as two peas to 
all the gardens and dairies and nurseries for hundreds of miles 
round.  You won&#39;t care for your wife enough to be worried every 
time she has a finger-ache, and you&#39;ll like her well enough to be 
pleased to meet her sometimes at your own house.  I shouldn&#39;t 
wonder if you were quite happy.  She will probably be miserable, 
but any woman who married you would be.&quot;

There was a short pause; they were both staring at the pheasant 
cages.  Then Molly spoke again, with the swift nervous tone of a 
general who is hurriedly altering the disposition of his forces for 
a strategic retreat.

&quot;When you are safely married and honey-mooned and all that sort of 
thing, and have put your wife through her paces as a political 
hostess, some time, when the House isn&#39;t sitting, you must come 
down by yourself, and do a little hunting with us.  Will you?  It 
won&#39;t be quite the same as old times, but it will be something to 
look forward to when I&#39;m reading the endless paragraphs about your 
fashionable political wedding.&quot;

&quot;You&#39;re looking forward pretty far,&quot; laughed Youghal; &quot;the lady may 
take your view as to the probable unhappiness of a future shared 
with me, and I may have to content myself with penurious political 
bachelorhood.  Anyhow, the present is still with us.  We dine at 
Kettner&#39;s to-night, don&#39;t we?&quot;

&quot;Rather,&quot; said Molly, &quot;though it will be more or less a throat-
lumpy feast as far as I am concerned.  We shall have to drink to 
the health of the future Mrs. Youghal.  By the way, it&#39;s rather 
characteristic of you that you haven&#39;t told me who she is, and of 
me that I haven&#39;t asked.  And now, like a dear boy, trot away and 
leave me.  I haven&#39;t got to say good-bye to you yet, but I&#39;m going 
to take a quiet farewell of the Pheasantry.  We&#39;ve had some jolly 
good talks, you and I, sitting on this seat, haven&#39;t we?  And I 
know, as well as I know anything, that this is the last of them.  
Eight o&#39;clock to-night, as punctually as possible.&quot;

She watched his retreating figure with eyes that grew slowly misty; 
he had been such a jolly comely boy-friend, and they had had such 
good times together.  The mist deepened on her lashes as she looked 
round at the familiar rendezvous where they had so often kept tryst 
since the day when they had first come there together, he a 
schoolboy and she but lately out of her teens.  For the moment she 
felt herself in the thrall of a very real sorrow.

Then, with the admirable energy of one who is only in town for a 
fleeting fortnight, she raced away to have tea with a world-faring 
naval admirer at his club.  Pluralism is a merciful narcotic.

CHAPTER VI

ELAINE DE FREY sat at ease - at bodily ease - at any rate - in a 
low wicker chair placed under the shade of a group of cedars in the 
heart of a stately spacious garden that had almost made up its mind 
to be a park.  The shallow stone basin of an old fountain, on whose 
wide ledge a leaden-moulded otter for ever preyed on a leaden 
salmon, filled a conspicuous place in the immediate foreground.  
Around its rim ran an inscription in Latin, warning mortal man that 
time flows as swiftly as water and exhorting him to make the most 
of his hours; after which piece of Jacobean moralising it set 
itself shamelessly to beguile all who might pass that way into an 
abandonment of contemplative repose.  On all sides of it a stretch 
of smooth turf spread away, broken up here and there by groups of 
dwarfish chestnut and mulberry trees, whose leaves and branches 
cast a laced pattern of shade beneath them.  On one side the lawn 
sloped gently down to a small lake, whereon floated a quartette of 
swans, their movements suggestive of a certain mournful 
listlessness, as though a weary dignity of caste held them back 
from the joyous bustling life of the lesser waterfowl.  Elaine 
liked to imagine that they re-embodied the souls of unhappy boys 
who had been forced by family interests to become high 
ecclesiastical dignitaries and had grown prematurely Right 
Reverend.  A low stone balustrade fenced part of the shore of the 
lake, making a miniature terrace above its level, and here roses 
grew in a rich multitude.  Other rose bushes, carefully pruned and 
tended, formed little oases of colour and perfume amid the restful 
green of the sward, and in the distance the eye caught the 
variegated blaze of a many-hued hedge of rhododendron.  With these 
favoured exceptions flowers were hard to find in this well-ordered 
garden; the misguided tyranny of staring geranium beds and be-
flowered archways leading to nowhere, so dear to the suburban 
gardener, found no expression here.  Magnificent Amherst pheasants, 
whose plumage challenged and almost shamed the peacock on his own 
ground, stepped to and fro over the emerald turf with the assured 
self-conscious pride of reigning sultans.  It was a garden where 
summer seemed a part-proprietor rather than a hurried visitor.

By the side of Elaine&#39;s chair under the shadow of the cedars a 
wicker table was set out with the paraphernalia of afternoon tea.  
On some cushions at her feet reclined Courtenay Youghal, smoothly 
preened and youthfully elegant, the personification of decorative 
repose; equally decorative, but with the showy restlessness of a 
dragonfly, Comus disported his flannelled person over a 
considerable span of the available foreground.

The intimacy existing between the two young men had suffered no 
immediate dislocation from the circumstance that they were tacitly 
paying court to the same lady.  It was an intimacy founded not in 
the least on friendship or community of tastes and ideas, but owed 
its existence to the fact that each was amused and interested by 
the other.  Youghal found Comus, for the time being at any rate, 
just as amusing and interesting as a rival for Elaine&#39;s favour as 
he had been in the ROLE of scapegrace boy-about-Town; Comus for his 
part did not wish to lose touch with Youghal, who among other 
attractions possessed the recommendation of being under the ban of 
Comus&#39;s mother.  She disapproved, it is true, of a great many of 
her son&#39;s friends and associates, but this particular one was a 
special and persistent source of irritation to her from the fact 
that he figured prominently and more or less successfully in the 
public life of the day.  There was something peculiarly 
exasperating in reading a brilliant and incisive attack on the 
Government&#39;s rash handling of public expenditure delivered by a 
young man who encouraged her son in every imaginable extravagance.  
The actual extent of Youghal&#39;s influence over the boy was of the 
slightest; Comus was quite capable of deriving encouragement to 
rash outlay and frivolous conversation from an anchorite or an 
East-end parson if he had been thrown into close companionship with 
such an individual.  Francesca, however, exercised a mother&#39;s 
privilege in assuming her son&#39;s bachelor associates to be 
industrious in labouring to achieve his undoing.  Therefore the 
young politician was a source of unconcealed annoyance to her, and 
in the same degree as she expressed her disapproval of him Comus 
was careful to maintain and parade the intimacy.  Its existence, or 
rather its continued existence, was one of the things that faintly 
puzzled the young lady whose sought-for favour might have been 
expected to furnish an occasion for its rapid dissolution.

With two suitors, one of whom at least she found markedly 
attractive, courting her at the same moment, Elaine should have had 
reasonable cause for being on good terms with the world, and with 
herself in particular.  Happiness was not, however, at this 
auspicious moment, her dominant mood.  The grave calm of her face 
masked as usual a certain degree of grave perturbation.  A 
succession of well-meaning governesses and a plentiful supply of 
moralising aunts on both sides of her family, had impressed on her 
young mind the theoretical fact that wealth is a great 
responsibility.  The consciousness of her responsibility set her 
continually wondering, not as to her own fitness to discharge her 
&quot;stewardship,&quot; but as to the motives and merits of people with whom 
she came in contact.  The knowledge that there was so much in the 
world that she could buy, invited speculation as to how much there 
was that was worth buying.  Gradually she had come to regard her 
mind as a sort of appeal court before whose secret sittings were 
examined and judged the motives and actions, the motives 
especially, of the world in general.  In her schoolroom days she 
had sat in conscientious judgment on the motives that guided or 
misguided Charles and Cromwell and Monck, Wallenstein and 
Savonarola.  In her present stage she was equally occupied in 
examining the political sincerity of the Secretary for Foreign 
Affairs, the good-faith of a honey-tongued but possibly loyal-
hearted waiting-maid, and the disinterestedness of a whole circle 
of indulgent and flattering acquaintances.  Even more absorbing, 
and in her eyes, more urgently necessary, was the task of 
dissecting and appraising the characters of the two young men who 
were favouring her with their attentions.  And herein lay cause for 
much thinking and some perturbation.  Youghal, for example, might 
have baffled a more experienced observer of human nature.  Elaine 
was too clever to confound his dandyism with foppishness or self-
advertisement.  He admired his own toilet effect in a mirror from a 
genuine sense of pleasure in a thing good to look upon, just as he 
would feel a sensuous appreciation of the sight of a well-bred, 
well-matched, well-turned-out pair of horses.  Behind his careful 
political flippancy and cynicism one might also detect a certain 
careless sincerity, which would probably in the long run save him 
from moderate success, and turn him into one of the brilliant 
failures of his day.  Beyond this it was difficult to form an exact 
appreciation of Courtenay Youghal, and Elaine, who liked to have 
her impressions distinctly labelled and pigeon-holed, was 
perpetually scrutinising the outer surface of his characteristics 
and utterances, like a baffled art critic vainly searching beneath 
the varnish and scratches of a doubtfully assigned picture for an 
enlightening signature.  The young man added to her perplexities by 
his deliberate policy of never trying to show himself in a 
favourable light even when most anxious to impart a favourable 
impression.  He preferred that people should hunt for his good 
qualities, and merely took very good care that as far as possible 
they should never draw blank; even in the matter of selfishness, 
which was the anchor-sheet of his existence, he contrived to be 
noted, and justly noted, for doing remarkably unselfish things.  As 
a ruler he would have been reasonably popular; as a husband he 
would probably be unendurable.

Comus was to a certain extent as great a mystification as Youghal, 
but here Elaine was herself responsible for some of the perplexity 
which enshrouded his character in her eyes.  She had taken more 
than a passing fancy for the boy - for the boy as he might be, that 
was to say - and she was desperately unwilling to see him and 
appraise him as he really was.  Thus the mental court of appeal was 
constantly engaged in examining witnesses as to character, most of 
whom signally failed to give any testimony which would support the 
favourable judgment which the tribunal was so anxious to arrive at.  
A woman with wider experience of the world&#39;s ways and shortcomings 
would probably have contented herself with an endeavour to find out 
whether her liking for the boy out-weighed her dislike of his 
characteristics; Elaine took her judgments too seriously to 
approach the matter from such a simple and convenient standpoint.  
The fact that she was much more than half in love with Comus made 
it dreadfully important that she should discover him to have a 
lovable soul, and Comus, it must be confessed, did little to help 
forward the discovery.

&quot;At any rate he is honest,&quot; she would observe to herself, after 
some outspoken admission of unprincipled conduct on his part, and 
then she would ruefully recall certain episodes in which he had 
figured, from which honesty had been conspicuously absent.  What 
she tried to label honesty in his candour was probably only a 
cynical defiance of the laws of right and wrong.

&quot;You look more than usually thoughtful this afternoon,&quot; said Comus 
to her, &quot;as if you had invented this summer day and were trying to 
think out improvements.&quot;

&quot;If I had the power to create improvements anywhere I think I 
should begin with you,&quot; retorted Elaine.

&quot;I&#39;m sure it&#39;s much better to leave me as I am,&quot; protested Comus; 
&quot;you&#39;re like a relative of mine up in Argyllshire, who spends his 
time producing improved breeds of sheep and pigs and chickens.  So 
patronising and irritating to the Almighty I should think, to go 
about putting superior finishing touches to Creation.&quot;

Elaine frowned, and then laughed, and finally gave a little sigh.

&quot;It&#39;s not easy to talk sense to you,&quot; she said.

&quot;Whatever else you take in hand,&quot; said Youghal, &quot;you must never 
improve this garden.  It&#39;s what our idea of Heaven might be like if 
the Jews hadn&#39;t invented one for us on totally different lines.  
It&#39;s dreadful that we should accept them as the impresarios of our 
religious dreamland instead of the Greeks.&quot;

&quot;You are not very fond of the Jews,&quot; said Elaine.

&quot;I&#39;ve travelled and lived a good deal in Eastern Europe,&quot; said 
Youghal.

&quot;It seems largely a question of geography,&quot; said Elaine; &quot;in 
England no one really is anti-Semitic.&quot;

Youghal shook his head.  &quot;I know a great many Jews who are.&quot;

Servants had quietly, almost reverently, placed tea and its 
accessories on the wicker table, and quietly receded from the 
landscape.  Elaine sat like a grave young goddess about to dispense 
some mysterious potion to her devotees.  Her mind was still sitting 
in judgment on the Jewish question.

Comus scrambled to his feet.

&quot;It&#39;s too hot for tea,&quot; he said; &quot;I shall go and feed the swans.&quot;

And he walked off with a little silver basket-dish containing brown 
bread-and-butter.

Elaine laughed quietly.

&quot;It&#39;s so like Comus,&quot; she said, &quot;to go off with our one dish of 
bread-and-butter.&quot;

Youghal chuckled responsively.  It was an undoubted opportunity for 
him to put in some disparaging criticism of Comus, and Elaine sat 
alert in readiness to judge the critic and reserve judgment on the 
criticised.

&quot;His selfishness is splendid but absolutely futile,&quot; said Youghal; 
&quot;now my selfishness is commonplace, but always thoroughly practical 
and calculated.  He will have great difficulty in getting the swans 
to accept his offering, and he incurs the odium of reducing us to a 
bread-and-butterless condition.  Incidentally he will get very 
hot.&quot;

Elaine again had the sense of being thoroughly baffled.  If Youghal 
had said anything unkind it was about himself.

&quot;If my cousin Suzette had been here,&quot; she observed, with the shadow 
of a malicious smile on her lips, &quot;I believe she would have gone 
into a flood of tears at the loss of her bread-and-butter, and 
Comus would have figured ever after in her mind as something black 
and destroying and hateful.  In fact I don&#39;t really know why we 
took our loss so unprotestingly.&quot;

&quot;For two reasons,&quot; said Youghal; &quot;you are rather fond of Comus.  
And I - am not very fond of bread-and-butter.&quot;

The jesting remark brought a throb of pleasure to Elaine&#39;s heart.  
She had known full well that she cared for Comus, but now that 
Courtenay Youghal had openly proclaimed the fact as something 
unchallenged and understood matters seemed placed at once on a more 
advanced footing.  The warm sunlit garden grew suddenly into a 
Heaven that held the secret of eternal happiness.  Youth and 
comeliness would always walk here, under the low-boughed mulberry 
trees, as unchanging as the leaden otter that for ever preyed on 
the leaden salmon on the edge of the old fountain, and somehow the 
lovers would always wear the aspect of herself and the boy who was 
talking to the four white swans by the water steps.  Youghal was 
right; this was the real Heaven of one&#39;s dreams and longings, 
immeasurably removed from that Rue de la Paix Paradise about which 
one professed utterly insincere hankerings in places of public 
worship.  Elaine drank her tea in a happy silence; besides being a 
brilliant talker Youghal understood the rarer art of being a non-
talker on occasion.

Comus came back across the grass swinging the empty basket-dish in 
his hand.

&quot;Swans were very pleased,&quot; he cried, gaily, &quot;and said they hoped I 
would keep the bread-and-butter dish as a souvenir of a happy tea-
party.  I may really have it, mayn&#39;t I?&quot; he continued in an anxious 
voice; &quot;it will do to keep studs and things in.  You don&#39;t want 
it.&quot;

&quot;It&#39;s got the family crest on it,&quot; said Elaine.  Some of the 
happiness had died out of her eyes.

&quot;I&#39;ll have that scratched off and my own put on,&quot; said Comus.

&quot;It&#39;s been in the family for generations,&quot; protested Elaine, who 
did not share Comus&#39;s view that because you were rich your lesser 
possessions could have no value in your eyes.

&quot;I want it dreadfully,&quot; said Comus, sulkily, &quot;and you&#39;ve heaps of 
other things to put bread-and-butter in.&quot;

For the moment he was possessed by an overmastering desire to keep 
the dish at all costs; a look of greedy determination dominated his 
face, and he had not for an instant relaxed his grip of the coveted 
object.

Elaine was genuinely angry by this time, and was busily telling 
herself that it was absurd to be put out over such a trifle; at the 
same moment a sense of justice was telling her that Comus was 
displaying a good deal of rather shabby selfishness.  And somehow 
her chief anxiety at the moment was to keep Courtenay Youghal from 
seeing that she was angry.

&quot;I know you don&#39;t really want it, so I&#39;m going to keep it,&quot; 
persisted Comus. 

&quot;It&#39;s too hot to argue,&quot; said Elaine.

&quot;Happy mistress of your destinies,&quot; laughed Youghal; &quot;you can suit 
your disputations to the desired time and temperature.  I have to 
go and argue, or what is worse, listen to other people&#39;s arguments, 
in a hot and doctored atmosphere suitable to an invalid lizard.&quot;

&quot;You haven&#39;t got to argue about a bread-and-butter dish,&quot; said 
Elaine.

&quot;Chiefly about bread-and-butter,&quot; said Youghal; &quot;our great 
preoccupation is other people&#39;s bread-and-butter.  They earn or 
produce the material, but we busy ourselves with making rules how 
it shall be cut up, and the size of the slices, and how much butter 
shall go on how much bread.  That is what is called legislation.  
If we could only make rules as to how the bread-and-butter should 
be digested we should be quite happy.&quot;

Elaine had been brought up to regard Parliaments as something to be 
treated with cheerful solemnity, like illness or family re-unions.  
Youghal&#39;s flippant disparagement of the career in which he was 
involved did not, however, jar on her susceptibilities.  She knew 
him to be not only a lively and effective debater but an 
industrious worker on committees.  If he made light of his labours, 
at least he afforded no one else a loophole for doing so.  And 
certainly, the Parliamentary atmosphere was not inviting on this 
hot afternoon.

&quot;When must you go?&quot; she asked, sympathetically.

Youghal looked ruefully at his watch.  Before he could answer, a 
cheerful hoot came through the air, as of an owl joyously 
challenging the sunlight with a foreboding of the coming night.  He 
sprang laughing to his feet.

&quot;Listen!  My summons back to my galley,&quot; he cried.  &quot;The Gods have 
given me an hour in this enchanted garden, so I must not complain.&quot;

Then in a lower voice he almost whispered, &quot;It&#39;s the Persian debate 
to-night,&quot;

It was the one hint he had given in the midst of his talking and 
laughing that he was really keenly enthralled in the work that lay 
before him.  It was the one little intimate touch that gave Elaine 
the knowledge that he cared for her opinion of his work.

Comus, who had emptied his cigarette-case, became suddenly 
clamorous at the prospect of being temporarily stranded without a 
smoke.  Youghal took the last remaining cigarette from his own case 
and gravely bisected it.

&quot;Friendship could go no further,&quot; he observed, as he gave one-half 
to the doubtfully appeased Comus, and lit the other himself.

&quot;There are heaps more in the hall,&quot; said Elaine.

&quot;It was only done for the Saint Martin of Tours effect,&quot; said 
Youghal; &quot;I hate smoking when I&#39;m rushing through the air.  Good-
bye.&quot;

The departing galley-slave stepped forth into the sunlight, radiant 
and confident.  A few minutes later Elaine could see glimpses of 
his white car as it rushed past the rhododendron bushes.  He woos 
best who leaves first, particularly if he goes forth to battle or 
the semblance of battle.

Somehow Elaine&#39;s garden of Eternal Youth had already become clouded 
in its imagery.  The girl-figure who walked in it was still 
distinctly and unchangingly herself, but her companion was more 
blurred and undefined, as a picture that has been superimposed on 
another.

Youghal sped townward well satisfied with himself.  To-morrow, he 
reflected, Elaine would read his speech in her morning paper, and 
he knew in advance that it was not going to be one of his worst 
efforts.  He knew almost exactly where the punctuations of laughter 
and applause would burst in, he knew that nimble fingers in the 
Press Gallery would be taking down each gibe and argument as he 
flung it at the impassive Minister confronting him, and that the 
fair lady of his desire would be able to judge what manner of young 
man this was who spent his afternoon in her garden, lazily chaffing 
himself and his world.

And he further reflected, with an amused chuckle, that she would be 
vividly reminded of Comus for days to come, when she took her 
afternoon tea, and saw the bread-and-butter reposing in an 
unaccustomed dish.

CHAPTER VII

TOWARDS four o&#39;clock on a hot afternoon Francesca stepped out from 
a shop entrance near the Piccadilly end of Bond Street and ran 
almost into the arms of Merla Blathlington.  The afternoon seemed 
to get instantly hotter.  Merla was one of those human flies that 
buzz; in crowded streets, at bazaars and in warm weather, she 
attained to the proportions of a human bluebottle.  Lady Caroline 
Benaresq had openly predicted that a special fly-paper was being 
reserved for her accommodation in another world; others, however, 
held the opinion that she would be miraculously multiplied in a 
future state, and that four or more Merla Blathlingtons, according 
to deserts, would be in perpetual and unremitting attendance on 
each lost soul.

&quot;Here we are,&quot; she cried, with a glad eager buzz, &quot;popping in and 
out of shops like rabbits; not that rabbits do pop in and out of 
shops very extensively.&quot;

It was evidently one of her bluebottle days.

&quot;Don&#39;t you love Bond Street?&quot; she gabbled on.  &quot;There&#39;s something 
so unusual and distinctive about it; no other street anywhere else 
is quite like it.  Don&#39;t you know those ikons and images and things 
scattered up and down Europe, that are supposed to have been 
painted or carved, as the case may be, by St. Luke or Zaccheus, or 
somebody of that sort; I always like to think that some notable 
person of those times designed Bond Street.  St. Paul, perhaps.  He 
travelled about a lot.&quot;

&quot;Not in Middlesex, though,&quot; said Francesca.

&quot;One can&#39;t be sure,&quot; persisted Merla; &quot;when one wanders about as 
much as he did one gets mixed up and forgets where one HAS been.  I 
can never remember whether I&#39;ve been to the Tyrol twice and St. 
Moritz once, or the other way about; I always have to ask my maid.  
And there&#39;s something about the name Bond that suggests St. Paul; 
didn&#39;t he write a lot about the bond and the free?&quot;

&quot;I fancy he wrote in Hebrew or Greek,&quot; objected Francesca; &quot;the 
word wouldn&#39;t have the least resemblance.&quot;

&quot;So dreadfully non-committal to go about pamphleteering in those 
bizarre languages,&quot; complained Merla; &quot;that&#39;s what makes all those 
people so elusive.  As soon as you try to pin them down to a 
definite statement about anything you&#39;re told that some vitally 
important word has fifteen other meanings in the original.  I 
wonder our Cabinet Ministers and politicians don&#39;t adopt a sort of 
dog-Latin or Esperanto jargon to deliver their speeches in; what a 
lot of subsequent explaining away would be saved.  But to go back 
to Bond Street - not that we&#39;ve left it - &quot;

&quot;I&#39;m afraid I must leave it now,&quot; said Francesca, preparing to turn 
up Grafton Street; &quot;Good-bye.&quot;

&quot;Must you be going?  Come and have tea somewhere.  I know of a cosy 
little place where one can talk undisturbed.&quot;

Francesca repressed a shudder and pleaded an urgent engagement.

&quot;I know where you&#39;re going,&quot; said Merla, with the resentful buzz of 
a bluebottle that finds itself thwarted by the cold unreasoning 
resistance of a windowpane.  &quot;You&#39;re going to play bridge at Serena 
Golackly&#39;s.  She never asks me to her bridge parties.&quot;

Francesca shuddered openly this time; the prospect of having to 
play bridge anywhere in the near neighbourhood of Merla&#39;s voice was 
not one that could be contemplated with ordinary calmness.

&quot;Good-bye,&quot; she said again firmly, and passed out of earshot; it 
was rather like leaving the machinery section of an exhibition.  
Merla&#39;s diagnosis of her destination had been a correct one; 
Francesca made her way slowly through the hot streets in the 
direction of Serena Golackly&#39;s house on the far side of Berkeley 
Square.  To the blessed certainty of finding a game of bridge, she 
hopefully added the possibility of hearing some fragments of news 
which might prove interesting and enlightening.  And of 
enlightenment on a particular subject, in which she was acutely and 
personally interested, she stood in some need.  Comus of late had 
been provokingly reticent as to his movements and doings; partly, 
perhaps, because it was his nature to be provoking, partly because 
the daily bickerings over money matters were gradually choking 
other forms of conversation.  Francesca had seen him once or twice 
in the Park in the desirable company of Elaine de Frey, and from 
time to time she heard of the young people as having danced 
together at various houses; on the other hand, she had seen and 
heard quite as much evidence to connect the heiress&#39;s name with 
that of Courtenay Youghal.  Beyond this meagre and conflicting and 
altogether tantalising information, her knowledge of the present 
position of affairs did not go.  If either of the young men was 
seriously &quot;making the running,&quot; it was probable that she would hear 
some sly hint or open comment about it from one of Serena&#39;s gossip-
laden friends, without having to go out of her way to introduce the 
subject and unduly disclose her own state of ignorance.  And a game 
of bridge, played for moderately high points, gave ample excuse for 
convenient lapses into reticence; if questions took an 
embarrassingly inquisitive turn, one could always find refuge in a 
defensive spade.

The afternoon was too warm to make bridge a generally popular 
diversion, and Serena&#39;s party was a comparatively small one.  Only 
one table was incomplete when Francesca made her appearance on the 
scene; at it was seated Serena herself, confronted by Ada 
Spelvexit, whom everyone was wont to explain as &quot;one of the 
Cheshire Spelvexits,&quot; as though any other variety would have been 
intolerable.  Ada Spelvexit was one of those naturally stagnant 
souls who take infinite pleasure in what are called &quot;movements.&quot;  
&quot;Most of the really great lessons I have learned have been taught 
me by the Poor,&quot; was one of her favourite statements.  The one 
great lesson that the Poor in general would have liked to have 
taught her, that their kitchens and sickrooms were not unreservedly 
at her disposal as private lecture halls, she had never been able 
to assimilate.  She was ready to give them unlimited advice as to 
how they should keep the wolf from their doors, but in return she 
claimed and enforced for herself the penetrating powers of an east 
wind or a dust storm.  Her visits among her wealthier acquaintances 
were equally extensive and enterprising, and hardly more welcome; 
in country-house parties, while partaking to the fullest extent of 
the hospitality offered her, she made a practice of unburdening 
herself of homilies on the evils of leisure and luxury, which did 
not particularly endear her to her fellow guests.  Hostesses 
regarded her philosophically as a form of social measles which 
everyone had to have once.

The third prospective player, Francesca noted without any special 
enthusiasm, was Lady Caroline Benaresq.  Lady Caroline was far from 
being a remarkably good bridge player, but she always managed to 
domineer mercilessly over any table that was favoured with her 
presence, and generally managed to win.  A domineering player 
usually inflicts the chief damage and demoralisation on his 
partner; Lady Caroline&#39;s special achievement was to harass and 
demoralise partner and opponents alike.

&quot;Weak and weak,&quot; she announced in her gentle voice, as she cut her 
hostess for a partner; &quot;I suppose we had better play only five 
shillings a hundred.&quot;

Francesca wondered at the old woman&#39;s moderate assessment of the 
stake, knowing her fondness for highish play and her usual good 
luck in card holding.

&quot;I don&#39;t mind what we play,&quot; said Ada Spelvexit, with an incautious 
parade of elegant indifference; as a matter of fact she was 
inwardly relieved and rejoicing at the reasonable figure proposed 
by Lady Caroline, and she would certainly have demurred if a higher 
stake had been suggested.  She was not as a rule a successful 
player, and money lost at cards was always a poignant bereavement 
to her.

&quot;Then as you don&#39;t mind we&#39;ll make it ten shillings a hundred,&quot; 
said Lady Caroline, with the pleased chuckle of one who has spread 
a net in the sight of a bird and disproved the vanity of the 
proceeding.

It proved a tiresome ding-dong rubber, with the strength of the 
cards slightly on Francesca&#39;s side, and the luck of the table going 
mostly the other way.  She was too keen a player not to feel a 
certain absorption in the game once it had started, but she was 
conscious to-day of a distracting interest that competed with the 
momentary importance of leads and discards and declarations.  The 
little accumulations of talk that were unpent during the dealing of 
the hands became as noteworthy to her alert attention as the play 
of the hands themselves.

&quot;Yes, quite a small party this afternoon,&quot; said Serena, in reply to 
a seemingly casual remark on Francesca&#39;s part; &quot;and two or three 
non-players, which is unusual on a Wednesday.  Canon Besomley was 
here just before you came; you know, the big preaching man.&quot;

&quot;I&#39;ve been to hear him scold the human race once or twice,&quot; said 
Francesca.

&quot;A strong man with a wonderfully strong message,&quot; said Ada 
Spelvexit, in an impressive and assertive tone.

&quot;The sort of popular pulpiteer who spanks the vices of his age and 
lunches with them afterwards,&quot; said Lady Caroline.

&quot;Hardly a fair summary of the man and his work,&quot; protested Ada.  
&quot;I&#39;ve been to hear him many times when I&#39;ve been depressed or 
discouraged, and I simply can&#39;t tell you the impression his words 
leave - &quot;

&quot;At least you can tell us what you intend to make trumps,&quot; broke in 
Lady Caroline, gently.

&quot;Diamonds,&quot; pronounced Ada, after a rather flurried survey of her 
hand.

&quot;Doubled,&quot; said Lady Caroline, with increased gentleness, and a few 
minutes later she was pencilling an addition of twenty-four to her 
score.

&quot;I stayed with his people down in Herefordshire last May,&quot; said 
Ada, returning to the unfinished theme of the Canon; &quot;such an 
exquisite rural retreat, and so restful and healing to the nerves.  
Real country scenery; apple blossom everywhere.&quot;

&quot;Surely only on the apple trees,&quot; said Lady Caroline.

Ada Spelvexit gave up the attempt to reproduce the decorative 
setting of the Canon&#39;s homelife, and fell back on the small but 
practical consolation of scoring the odd trick in her opponent&#39;s 
declaration of hearts.

&quot;If you had led your highest club to start with, instead of the 
nine, we should have saved the trick,&quot; remarked Lady Caroline to 
her partner in a tone of coldly, gentle reproof; &quot;it&#39;s no use, my 
dear,&quot; she continued, as Serena flustered out a halting apology, 
&quot;no earthly use to attempt to play bridge at one table and try to 
see and hear what&#39;s going on at two or three other tables.&quot;

&quot;I can generally manage to attend to more than one thing at a 
time,&quot; said Serena, rashly; &quot;I think I must have a sort of double 
brain.&quot;

&quot;Much better to economise and have one really good one,&quot; observed 
Lady Caroline.

&quot;LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI scoring a verbal trick or two as usual,&quot; 
said a player at another table in a discreet undertone.

&quot;Did I tell you Sir Edward Roan is coming to my next big evening,&quot; 
said Serena, hurriedly, by way, perhaps, of restoring herself a 
little in her own esteem.

&quot;Poor dear, good Sir Edward.  What have you made trumps?&quot; asked 
Lady Caroline, in one breath.

&quot;Clubs,&quot; said Francesca; &quot;and pray, why these adjectives of 
commiseration?&quot;

Francesca was a Ministerialist by family interest and allegiance, 
and was inclined to take up the cudgels at the suggested 
disparagement aimed at the Foreign Secretary.

&quot;He amuses me so much,&quot; purred Lady Caroline.  Her amusement was 
usually of the sort that a sporting cat derives from watching the 
Swedish exercises of a well-spent and carefully thought-out mouse.

&quot;Really?  He has been rather a brilliant success at the Foreign 
Office, you know,&quot; said Francesca.

&quot;He reminds one so of a circus elephant - infinitely more 
intelligent than the people who direct him, but quite content to go 
on putting his foot down or taking it up as may be required, quite 
unconcerned whether he steps on a meringue or a hornet&#39;s nest in 
the process of going where he&#39;s expected to go.&quot;

&quot;How can you say such things?&quot; protested Francesca.

&quot;I can&#39;t,&quot; said Lady Caroline; &quot;Courtenay Youghal said it in the 
House last night.  Didn&#39;t you read the debate?  He was really 
rather in form.  I disagree entirely with his point of view, of 
course, but some of the things he says have just enough truth 
behind them to redeem them from being merely smart; for instance, 
his summing up of the Government&#39;s attitude towards our 
embarrassing Colonial Empire in the wistful phrase &#39;happy is the 
country that has no geography.&#39;&quot;

&quot;What an absurdly unjust thing to say,&quot; put in Francesca; &quot;I 
daresay some of our Party at some time have taken up that attitude, 
but every one knows that Sir Edward is a sound Imperialist at 
heart.&quot;

&quot;Most politicians are something or other at heart, but no one would 
be rash enough to insure a politician against heart failure.  
Particularly when he happens to be in office.&quot;

&quot;Anyhow, I don&#39;t see that the Opposition leaders would have acted 
any differently in the present case,&quot; said Francesca.

&quot;One should always speak guardedly of the Opposition leaders,&quot; said 
Lady Caroline, in her gentlest voice; &quot;one never knows what a turn 
in the situation may do for them.&quot;

&quot;You mean they may one day be at the head of affairs?&quot; asked 
Serena, briskly.

&quot;I mean they may one day lead the Opposition.  One never knows.&quot;

Lady Caroline had just remembered that her hostess was on the 
Opposition side in politics.

Francesca and her partner scored four tricks in clubs; the game 
stood irresolutely at twenty-four all.

&quot;If you had followed the excellent lyrical advice given to the Maid 
of Athens and returned my heart we should have made two more tricks 
and gone game,&quot; said Lady Caroline to her partner.

&quot;Mr. Youghal seems pushing himself to the fore of late,&quot; remarked 
Francesca, as Serena took up the cards to deal.  Since the young 
politician&#39;s name had been introduced into their conversation the 
opportunity for turning the talk more directly on him and his 
affairs was too good to be missed.

&quot;I think he&#39;s got a career before him,&quot; said Serena; &quot;the House 
always fills when he&#39;s speaking, and that&#39;s a good sign.  And then 
he&#39;s young and got rather an attractive personality, which is 
always something in the political world.&quot;

&quot;His lack of money will handicap him, unless he can find himself a 
rich wife or persuade someone to die and leave him a fat legacy,&quot; 
said Francesca; &quot;since M.P.&#39;s have become the recipients of a 
salary rather more is expected and demanded of them in the 
expenditure line than before.&quot;

&quot;Yes, the House of Commons still remains rather at the opposite 
pole to the Kingdom of Heaven as regards entrance qualifications,&quot; 
observed Lady Caroline.

&quot;There ought to be no difficulty about Youghal picking up a girl 
with money,&quot; said Serena; &quot;with his prospects he would make an 
excellent husband for any woman with social ambitions.&quot;

And she half sighed, as though she almost regretted that a previous 
matrimonial arrangement precluded her from entering into the 
competition on her own account.

Francesca, under an assumption of languid interest, was watching 
Lady Caroline narrowly for some hint of suppressed knowledge of 
Youghal&#39;s courtship of Miss de Frey.

&quot;Whom are you marrying and giving in marriage?&quot;

The question came from George St. Michael, who had strayed over 
from a neighbouring table, attracted by the fragments of small-talk 
that had reached his ears.

St. Michael was one of those dapper bird-like illusorily-active 
men, who seem to have been in a certain stage of middle-age for as 
long as human memory can recall them.  A close-cut peaked beard 
lent a certain dignity to his appearance - a loan which the rest of 
his features and mannerisms were continually and successfully 
repudiating.  His profession, if he had one, was submerged in his 
hobby, which consisted of being an advance-agent for small 
happenings or possible happenings that were or seemed imminent in 
the social world around him; he found a perpetual and unflagging 
satisfaction in acquiring and retailing any stray items of gossip 
or information, particularly of a matrimonial nature, that chanced 
to come his way.  Given the bare outline of an officially announced 
engagement he would immediately fill it in with all manner of 
details, true or, at any rate, probable, drawn from his own 
imagination or from some equally exclusive source.  The MORNING 
POST might content itself with the mere statement of the 
arrangement which would shortly take place, but it was St. 
Michael&#39;s breathless little voice that proclaimed how the 
contracting parties had originally met over a salmon-fishing 
incident, why the Guards&#39; Chapel would not be used, why her Aunt 
Mary had at first opposed the match, how the question of the 
children&#39;s religious upbringing had been compromised, etc., etc., 
to all whom it might interest and to many whom it might not.  
Beyond his industriously-earned pre-eminence in this special branch 
of intelligence, he was chiefly noteworthy for having a wife 
reputed to be the tallest and thinnest woman in the Home Counties.  
The two were sometimes seen together in Society, where they passed 
under the collective name of St. Michael and All Angles.

&quot;We are trying to find a rich wife for Courtenay Youghal,&quot; said 
Serena, in answer to St. Michael&#39;s question.

&quot;Ah, there I&#39;m afraid you&#39;re a little late,&quot; he observed, glowing 
with the importance of pending revelation; &quot;I&#39;m afraid you&#39;re a 
little late,&quot; he repeated, watching the effect of his words as a 
gardener might watch the development of a bed of carefully tended 
asparagus.  &quot;I think the young gentleman has been before you and 
already found himself a rich mate in prospect.&quot;

He lowered his voice as he spoke, not with a view to imparting 
impressive mystery to his statement, but because there were other 
table groups within hearing to whom he hoped presently to have the 
privilege of re-disclosing his revelation.

&quot;Do you mean - ?&quot; began Serena.

&quot;Miss de Frey,&quot; broke in St. Michael, hurriedly, fearful lest his 
revelation should be forestalled, even in guesswork; &quot;quite an 
ideal choice, the very wife for a man who means to make his mark in 
politics.  Twenty-four thousand a year, with prospects of more to 
come, and a charming place of her own not too far from town.  Quite 
the type of girl, too, who will make a good political hostess, 
brains without being brainy, you know.  Just the right thing.  Of 
course, it would be premature to make any definite announcement at 
present - &quot;

&quot;It would hardly be premature for my partner to announce what she 
means to make