'Eh? What? How?'
'A man slipped on the pavement as I was passing through Grosvenor Square on my way here. It was raining, you know, and I—'
'You walked here?'
'Yes. And just as I reached the corner of Duke Street—'
'Walked here in the rain? There you are! Lucy would never let you do a foolish thing like that.'
'It began to rain after I had started.'
'Lucy would never have let you start.'
'Are you interested in my story, uncle,' said Roland, stiffly, 'or shall we go upstairs?'
'Eh? My dear boy, of course, of course. Most interested. Want to hear the whole thing from beginning to end. You say it was raining and this fellow slipped off the pavement. And then I suppose a car or a taxi or something came along suddenly and you pulled him out of danger. Yes, go on, my boy.'
'How do you mean, go on?' said Roland morosely. He felt like a public speaker whose chairman has appropriated the cream of his speech and inserted it in his own introductory remarks. 'That's all there is.'
'Well, who was the man? Did he ask you for your name and address?'
'He did.'
'Good! A young fellow once did something very similar to what you did, and the man turned out to be a millionaire and left him his entire fortune. I remember reading about it.'
'In the Family Herald, no doubt?'
'Did your man look like a millionaire?'
'He did not. He looked like what he actually was – the proprietor of a small bird-and-snake shop in the Seven Dials.'
'Oh!' said Sir Joseph, a trifle dashed. 'Well, I must tell Lucy about this,' he said, brightening. 'She will be tremendously excited. Just the sort of thing to appeal to a warm-hearted girl like her. Look here, Roland, why don't you marry Lucy?'
Roland came to a swift decision. It had not been his intention to lay bare his secret dreams to this pertinacious old blighter, but there seemed no other way of stopping him. He drained a glass of port and spoke crisply.
'Uncle Joseph, I love somebody else.'
'Eh? What's that? Who?'
'This is, of course, strictly between ourselves.'
'Of course.'
'Her name is Wickham. I expect you know the family? The Hertfordshire Wickhams.'
'Hertfordshire Wickhams!' Sir Joseph snorted with extraordinary violence. 'Bosher Street Wickhams, you mean. If it's Roberta Wickham, a red-headed hussy who ought to be smacked and sent to bed without her supper, that's the girl I fined this morning.'
'You fined her!' gasped Roland.
'Five pounds,' said his uncle, complacently. 'Wish I could have given her five years. Menace to the public safety. How on earth did you get to know a girl like that?'
'I met her at a dance. I happened to mention that I was a critic of some small standing, and she told me that her mother wrote novels. I chanced to receive one of Lady Wickham's books for review shortly afterwards, and the – er – favourable tone of my notice apparently gave her some pleasure.' Roland's voice trembled slightly, and he blushed. Only he knew what it had cost him to write eulogistically of that terrible book. 'She has invited me down to Skeldings, their place in Hertfordshire, for the week-end to-morrow.'
'Send her a telegram.'
'Saying what?'
'That you can't go.'
'But I am going.' It is a pretty tough thing if a man of letters who has sold his critical soul is not to receive the reward of his crime. 'I wouldn't miss it for anything.'
'Don't you be a fool, my boy,' said Sir Joseph. 'I've known you all your life – know you better than you know yourself – and I tell you it's sheer insanity for a man like you to dream of marrying a girl like that. Forty miles an hour she was going, right down the middle of Piccadilly. The constable proved it up to the hilt. You're a quiet, sensible fellow, and you ought to marry a quiet, sensible girl. You're what I call a rabbit.'
'A rabbit!'
'There is no stigma attached to being a rabbit,' said Sir Joseph, pacifically. 'Every man with a grain of sense is one. It simply means that you prefer a normal, wholesome life to gadding about like a – like a non-rabbit. You're going out of your class, my boy. You're trying to change your zoological species, and it can't be done. Half the divorces to-day are due to the fact that rabbits won't believe they're rabbits till it's too late. It is the peculiar nature of the rabbit—'
'I think we had better join the ladies, uncle Joseph,' said Roland, frostily. 'Aunt Emily will be wondering what has become of us.'
In spite of the innate modesty of all heroes, it was with something closely resembling chagrin that Roland discovered, on going to his club in the morning, that the Press of London was unanimously silent on the subject of his last night's exploit. Not that one expected anything in the nature of publicity, of course, or even desired it. Still, if there had happened to be some small paragraph under some such title as 'Gallant Behaviour of an Author' or 'Critical Moment for a Critic,' it would have done no harm to the sale of that little book of thoughtful essays which Blenkinsop's had just put on the market.
And the fellow had seemed so touchingly grateful at the time.
Pawing at Roland's chest with muddy hands he had told him that he would never forget this moment as long as he lived. And he had not bothered even to go and call at a newspaper office.
Well, well! He swallowed his disappointment and a light lunch and returned to his flat, where he found Bryce, his manservant, completing the packing of his suit-case.
'Packing?' said Roland. 'That's right. Did those socks arrive?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Good!' said Roland. They were some rather special gents' half-hose from the Burlington Arcade, subtly passionate, and he was hoping much from them. He wandered to the table, and became aware that on it lay a large cardboard box. 'Hullo, what's this?'
'A man left it a short while ago, sir. A somewhat shabbily-dressed person. The note accompanying it is on the mantelpiece, sir.'
Roland went to the mantelpiece; and, having inspected the dirty envelope for a moment with fastidious distaste, opened it in a gingerly manner.
'The box appears to me, sir,' continued Bryce, 'to contain something alive. It seemed to me that I received the impression of something squirming.'
'Good Lord!' exclaimed Roland, staring at the letter.
'Sir?'
'It's a snake. That fool has sent me a snake. Of all the—'
A hearty ringing at the front door-bell interrupted him. Bryce, rising from the suit-case, vanished silently. Roland continued to regard the unwelcome gift with a peevish frown.
'Miss Wickham, sir,' said Bryce at the door.
The visitor, who walked springily into the room, was a girl of remarkable beauty. She resembled a particularly good-looking schoolboy who had dressed up in his sister's clothes.
'Ah!' she said, cocking a bright eye at the suit-case. 'I'm glad you're bustling about. We ought to be starting soon. I'm going to drive you down in the two-seater.' She began a restless tour of the room. 'Hullo!' she said, arriving at the box. 'What might this be?' She shook it experimentally. 'I say! There's something squishy inside!'
'Yes, it's—'
'Roland,' said Miss Wickham, having conducted further experiments, 'immediate investigation is called for. Inside this box there is most certainly some living organism. When you shake it it definitely squishes.'
'It's all right. It's only a snake.'
'Snake!'
'Perfectly harmless,' he hastened to assure her. 'The fool expressly states that. Not that it matters, because I'm going to send it straight back, unopened.'
Miss Wickham squeaked with pleased excitement.
'Who's been sending you snakes?'
Roland coughed diffidently.
'I happened to – er – save a man's life last night. I was coming along at the corner of Duke Street—'
'Now, isn't that an extraordinary thing?' said Miss Wickham, meditatively. 'Here have I lived all these years and never thought of getting a sn
ake!'
'—when a man—'
'The one thing every young girl should have.'
'—slipped off the pavement—'
'There are the most tremendous possibilities in a snake. The diner-out's best friend. Pop it on the table after the soup and be Society's pet.'
Roland, though nothing, of course, could shake his great love, was conscious of a passing feeling of annoyance.
'I'll tell Bryce to take the thing back to the man,' he said, abandoning his story as a total loss.
'Take it back?' said Miss Wickham, amazed. 'But, Roland, what frightful waste! Why, there are moments in life when knowing where to lay your hand on a snake means more than words can tell.' She started. 'Golly! Didn't you once say that old Sir Joseph What's-his-name – the beak, you know – was your uncle? He fined me five of the best yesterday for absolutely crawling along Piccadilly. He needs a sharp lesson. He must be taught that he can't go about the place persecuting the innocent like that. I'll tell you what. Ask him to lunch here and hide the thing in his napkin! That'll make him think a bit!'
'No, no!' cried Roland, shuddering strongly.
'Roland! For my sake!'
'No, no, really!'
'And you said dozens of times that you would do anything in the world for me!' She mused. 'Well, at least let me tie a string to it and dangle it out of the window in front of the next old lady that comes along.'
'No, no, please! I must send it back to the man.'
Miss Wickham's discontent was plain, but she seemed to accept defeat.
'Oh, all right, if you're going to refuse me every little thing! But let me tell you, my lad, that you're throwing away the laugh of a lifetime. Wantonly and callously chucking it away. Where is Bryce? Gone to earth in the kitchen, I suppose. I'll go and give him the thing while you strap the suit-case. We ought to be starting, or we shan't get there by tea-time.'
'Let me do it.'
'No, I'll do it.'
'You mustn't trouble.'
'No trouble,' said Miss Wickham, amiably.
In this world, as has been pointed out in various ways by a great many sages and philosophers, it is wiser for the man who shrinks from being disappointed not to look forward too keenly to moments that promise pleasure. Roland Attwater, who had anticipated considerable enjoyment from his drive down to Skeldings Hall, soon discovered, when the car had threaded its way through the London traffic and was out in the open country, that the conditions were not right for enjoyment. Miss Wickham did not appear to share the modern girl's distaste for her home. She plainly wanted to get there as quickly as possible. It seemed to Roland that from the time they left High Barnet to the moment when, with a grinding of brakes, they drew up at the door of Skeldings Hall the two-seater had only touched Hertfordshire at odd spots.
Yet, as they alighted, Roberta Wickham voiced a certain dissatisfaction with her work.
'Forty-three minutes,' she said, frowning at her watch. 'I can do better than that.'
'Can you?' gulped Roland. 'Can you, indeed?'
'Well, we're in time for tea, anyhow. Come in and meet the mater. Forgotten Sports of the Past – Number Three, Meeting the Mater.'
Roland met the mater. The phrase, however, is too mild and inexpressive and does not give a true picture of the facts. He not merely met the mater; he was engulfed and swallowed up by the mater. Lady Wickham, that popular novelist ('Strikes a singularly fresh note.' – R. Moresby Attwater in the New Examiner), was delighted to see her guest. Welcoming Roland to her side, she proceeded to strike so many singularly fresh notes that he was unable to tear himself away till it was time to dress for dinner. She was still talking with unimpaired volubility on the subject of her books, of which Roland had been kind enough to write so appreciatively, when the gong went.
'Is it as late as that?' she said, surprised, releasing Roland, who had thought it later. 'We shall have to go on with our little talk after dinner. You know your room? No? Oh, well, Claude will show you. Claude, will you take Mr Attwater up with you? His room is at the end of your corridor. By the way, you don't know each other, do you? Sir Claude Lynn – Mr Attwater.'
The two men bowed; but in Roland's bow there was not that heartiness which we like to see in our friends when we introduce them to fellow-guests. A considerable part of the agony which he had been enduring for the last two hours had been caused not so much by Lady Wickham's eloquence, though that had afflicted him sorely, as by the spectacle of this man Lynn, whoever he might be, monopolizing the society of Bobbie Wickham in a distant corner. There had been to him something intolerably possessive about the back of Sir Claude's neck as he bent toward Miss Wickham. It was the neck of a man who is being much more intimate and devotional than a jealous rival cares about.
The close-up which he now received of this person did nothing to allay Roland's apprehension. The man was handsome, sickeningly handsome, with just that dark, dignified, clean-cut handsomeness which attracts impressionable girls. It was, indeed, his dignity that so oppressed Roland now. There was something about Sir Claude Lynn's calm and supercilious eye that made a fellow feel that he belonged to entirely the wrong set in London and that his trousers were bagging at the knees.
'A most delightful man,' whispered Lady Wickham, as Sir Claude moved away to open the door for Bobbie. 'Between ourselves, the original of Captain Mauleverer, D.S.O., in my Blood Will Tell. Very old family, ever so much money. Plays polo splendidly. And tennis. And golf. A superb shot. Member for East Bittlesham, and I hear on all sides that he may be in the Cabinet any day.'
'Indeed?' said Roland, coldly.
It seemed to Lady Wickham, as she sat with him in her study after dinner – she had stated authoritatively that he would much prefer a quiet chat in that shrine of literature to any shallow revelry that might be going on elsewhere – that Roland was a trifle distrait. Nobody could have worked harder to entertain him than she. She read him the first seven chapters of the new novel on which she was engaged, and told him in gratifying detail the plot of the rest of it, but somehow all did not seem well. The young man, she noticed, had developed a habit of plucking at his hair and once he gave a sharp, gulping cry which startled her. Lady Wickham began to feel disappointed in Roland, and was not sorry when he excused himself.
'I wonder,' he said, in a rather overwrought sort of way, 'if you would mind if I just went and had a word with Miss Wickham? I – I – there's something I wanted to ask her.'
'Certainly,' said Lady Wickham, without warmth. 'You will probably find her in the billiard-room. She said something about having a game with Claude. Sir Claude is wonderful at billiards. Almost like a professional.'
Bobbie was not in the billiard-room, but Sir Claude was, practising dignified cannons which never failed to come off. At Roland's entrance he looked up like an inquiring statue.
'Miss Wickham?' he said. 'She left half an hour ago. I think she went to bed.'
He surveyed Roland's flushed dishevelment for a moment with a touch of disapproval, then resumed his cannons. Roland, though he had that on his mind concerning which he desired Miss Wickham's counsel and sympathy, felt that it would have to stand over till the morning. Meanwhile, lest his hostess should pop out of the study and recapture him, he decided to go to bed himself.
He had just reached the passage where his haven lay, when a door which had apparently been standing ajar opened and Bobbie appeared, draped in a sea-green négligée of such a calibre that Roland's heart leaped convulsively and he clutched at the wall for support.