mosscrop groaned at recognition of the voice in the dark.
“of all inopportune creatures in the animal kingdom!” he bewailed under his breath. “sh! for heaven’s sake, man, don’t talk so loud. come inside here, and walk softly.”
“what is it you’re stalking, davie—snakes?” queried the newcomer, with obvious sarcasm. but he lowered his voice, and came forward into david’s room. the latter closed the door noiselessly, and drew a long sigh of consolation. the two men looked at each other for a minute in silence.
“you don’t mean that there are burglars in the house?” asked the intruder. a gleam of hopeful light shone in his eyes as he spoke, then died down at david’s shake of the head.
the earl of drumpipes, in the peerage of scotland, was a year younger than his friend the culdee professor. the gaslight revealed him now to be a tall, burly, rubicund man, with a broad, strongly-marked face of a severe aspect. his yellowish hair was cut close over a head which seemed unduly large for even his powerful frame, and was thinning towards baldness on the top. the collar of a woollen shirt showed a good deal of his thick neck, burnt a bright red at the back by a fiercer sun than warms these british islands. his prominent blue eyes bulged forth more than ever, now, in mystified inspection of david’s countenance. while he still gazed, it occurred to him to hold out his hand, as mighty as a blacksmith’s, in perfunctory greeting, and david took it with an effusiveness which was novel to them both.
“i’m really delighted to see you, archie. i give you my word lam!” he protested, eagerly.
“you have your own way of showing it,” growled the other. “yet you seem sober enough. what ails you, man?”
“oh, the strangest story!” said david. “sit down here, and i’ll get out the whisky.” he busied himself between the sideboard and table, talking as he did so, while the other sprawled his large bulk in one of the easy chairs and lit a pipe.
“see here, drumpipes, damn it all,” he began, “i’m a gentleman, am i not?”
“you are a professional man, a person of education,” the earl assented, cautiously.
“well, this is the first day in long years that i have felt like a gentleman.”
“you were ever a bit susceptible to hallucinations, davie,” said the other. “there’s a streak of unreality in your nature. hold there! not so much soda. i’m sore in need of a bath, i know; but everything at its proper time. well, go on—how are you accounting for this extraordinary occurrence? you’ve felt all day like a gentleman! it arouses my curiosity.”
“chuck that, archie, or you’ll hear nothing at all.”
“very well, my boy. i’ll just drink this, then, and go to my bed. it will be welcome, i can tell you.”
he drained the tumbler, and made as if to rise. david hurled himself forward with a restraining arm. “don’t be an ass, old man! i’ve told you once, you mustn’t go near your place to-night,” he urged petulantly. “i’ll give you my bed, and i’ll sleep on the sofa here. it’s all right, i assure you. if you must know, there is somebody sleeping in your room.”
the earl frowned up at his friend. “that was not in the bargain, mosscrop,” he said, with sharpness. “i don’t like it.”
“all i can say is,” retorted david, “that if you’d been in my place you’d have done the same thing—or no, i’m not so sure about that; but under the circumstances it was the only thing i could do. it’s a young lady who is occupying your room, drumpipes.”
“aha!” cried the earl, “let’s have her out! i’m not so sleepy as i thought. you can do something in the way of a supper, can’t you?”
“no, i can’t, and if i could i wouldn’t. you misapprehend the situation entirely, my friend. this is a poor girl who——” and david went on and told, in brief fashion, the story of the day.
“nine pounds odd your whistle cost you, eh, davie?” was the listener’s comment, at the conclusion of the narrative. “well, each man has his own notion of what he wants for his money. it is not mine, i’ll say frankly. and what’s the programme for to-morrow? south kensington museum and hampton court? the next day you might do the tower and epping forest. then westminster abbey and richmond—but you’ll come soon to the end of your rope. and sooner, still, i’m thinking, to the end of your banking account.”
“that’s my affair,” returned mosscrop, testily.
“i might be said to have some small concern in the matter,” drumpipes observed, “seeing that i provide furnished lodgings for this beautiful experiment in combined philanthropy and instruction. but you’re drinking nothing.”
“no; i had my one glass before you came. i’m taking care of myself these days.”
“and high time, too!” admitted the candid friend. “i’ll not say you’ll not be the better for it.”
“well, and don’t you see?” urged mosscrop, with earnestness, “it’s just the fact of her being there yonder that makes it seem worth while to go to bed sober. it alters my whole conception of myself. it gives me entirely new ideas of what i ought to do. so long as i led this solitary life here there was nothing for me but to drink. but it’s different now.”
the earl grinned. “and how long will you be content to have this improving influence radiated to you from across the passage?” he asked, with cynicism. “supposing, of course, that i give up my rooms to the reform-dynamo, so to speak.”
“oh, of course, no one is asking that of you. obviously, your return makes other arrangements imperative.”
“what will the other arrangements be like?”
“that remains to be seen. but i’m quite clear about one thing. i will not turn back from what i have undertaken. she shall not know what want is, and she shall be respected. i swear that, drumpipes; and i want you to remember it.”
“oh, i respect her immensely already,” said the earl. “by george, a girl must possess extraordinary qualities who can come out early and catch a professor of culdees off her own bat, and work him for a tenner, and then leave him to forswear whisky on one side of a passage while she sleeps the sleep of the just in borrowed apartments on the other. it’s really splendid, old man. i take off my hat to her.”
“archie,” remarked david, slowly, “i’m smaller than you are, and no athlete, god knows; but if we have any more of that i will hit you in the eye, and chance it.”
drumpipes was amused at the notion, and chuckled. then his face and voice lapsed into solemnity. “davie,” he said, “i’ve no wish to vex you, but it’s a bad business. you’ll not win your way through without much expense and soreness of heart. you can take that from me, who should know if any man does.”
mosscrop accepted the portentous gravity of the tone in good faith. he nodded, as he looked hard at his friend. “ay, i know,” he said, softly. “but i have no despair, and few doubts about it all, archie. i am very happy in the thought of going forward with it; so happy that i see i never knew what happiness meant before. and if—we’ll put it at the worst possible—if disappointment should come out of it, why, i shall already have had the joy. and even if it broke me, what would it matter? i should only be back again where i was yesterday, and no one on earth would be the worse for that. but with you it was different.”
the earl nodded in turn, and smoked his pipe. at last, without lifting his voice or disclosing special interest in his hews, he said, “man, she’s dead.”
david’s eyes dilated. “what’s that—she—your wife, do you mean, is dead?”
“ay, four months since,” replied the other quietly.
mosscrop came over and shook hands with his friend. “i will take a drink with you, after that,” he said, and filled a glass. “tell me about it.”
“i know nothing about it—except that she is dead. that is enough, quite enough.” he lifted his tumbler. “here’s to the heating arrangements in the warmest corner down below.”
“a foul cat!” said david, with a harsh tremor in his voice, sipping the toast.
“a very pretty woman,” answered the earl, musingly. “hair like a new primrose, face like an earl christian martyr, dearest little feet you ever imagined. you never saw her. you would have wanted to die for her on the spot. she would have made a single bite of you, my friend. i was a good deal tougher mouthful, but i got mangled more or less in the operation. these are the things that make one grateful for the religious influences of childhood. i should be downhearted just now if i were not able to believe in a hell.”
“there is no doubt about the thing—she is really dead?”
“dead as a mackerel, thank god. my lawyers certify to the blessed event. they ought to know. they have stood in the breach for four years, warding off writs, injunctions, mandamuses, and appeals, with which she and the unscrupulous scoundrels, her solicitors, bombarded them. the costs those ancient parties must have charged up against me! man, i’m fair frightened to go into the city and face them. there are three attempts at judicial separation, one divorce suit, two petitions for restoration of conjugal rights, three examinations of witnesses by commission, four appeals—the thought of those bills sickens me, davie.”
“you’re well out of the noose at any cost.”
“well, then, if your neck is free, keep it so, man!”
david smiled with gentle self-assurance.
“ah, laddie, if you could have seen the innocence of her. she drank capri at breakfast, and then champagne at luncheon, and more of the same at dinner, with old tawny port on top of it—all as trustingly and confidingly as a babe. it softened one’s heart to see her lack of guile, her pretty inexperience.”
the earl sniffed audibly. “oh, ay, it’s a beautiful spectacle, no doubt, and very touching. the pity is that magistrates will not always view it in that light next morning. but then so many things look different in the morning.”
again mosscrop smiled. “save your moans, archie,” he advised, “till you see her yourself. you’ll meet the lady at breakfast.”
“i’m damned if i do,” said drumpipes.
“now then, you’re talking like an idiot. you, a hunter of lions and crocodiles and wild asses of the desert, to turn tail and run from one wee yellow-headed lassie! and desert an old friend, moreover, who needs your advice and judgment in the most important matter of his life! you know you’re flatly incapable of it.”
“i’ll not promise to be civil to her if i stop,” the other growled. “the mere thought of yellow-haired women is nauseating to me. why on earth, man, if you must make a stark-staring lunatic of yourself, could you not hit on a decent and reputable colour?”
“never a dye has touched it,” protested david. “it’s as natural as the sunshine—and as radiant.”
“then you’re a ruined man, davie,” the earl gravely declared, between puffs at his pipe. “there may be some saving quality in a woman who merely dyes her hair. an honest nature may persist beneath the painted wig, in spite of her endeavours. but if she’s a tortoise-shell tabby born, then you might better be dead than sitting there mooning about her. i give you up as a lost creature!”
“then all the more reason you should help me to cook a fine breakfast, to confront my doom upon,” replied mosscrop, lightly. “i didn’t quite promise that i’d call her in time to assist. it will be more of a surprise to have it all ready, spread in her honour, when she comes in. what do you think of soft roes grilled on toast, eh? you can get them in tins. and some little lamb cutlets—or perhaps venison—and then some eggs bercy—you do those fit for a queen, and we might have——”
“the truth is,” put in the other, reflectively, “that black is the only wholly satisfying hair for a woman. the intervening compromises—all the browns and chestnuts and reds and auburns—are a delusion. i see that very clearly now. give me the hair that throws a purplish shadow, glossy and thick and growing well down upon the forehead, and then a straight-nosed face, wide between the eyes and rounded under the chin, and a complexion of a soft, pale olive. there’s nothing else worth talking about.”
“i had thought of those small italian sausages, but i don’t know that in hot weather they——”
“oh rot!” said the nobleman. “who wants to talk about muffins and ham fat at this time of night? have you no poetry in you, man? there was a divine creature on the steamer coming over—great eyes like a sloe, and the face of a circassian princess, calm, regal, languid, yet with depths of passion underneath that seemed to call out to you to risk your immortal soul for the sake of drowning in them——”
“my word, here is cheek, if you like!” burst in mosscrop, stormily. “you won’t let me talk about my girl at all; you sneer and gibe and croak evil suspicions, and make a general nuisance of yourself at the least mention of her—and then you suppose i’m going to sit patiently and listen to such blithering twaddle as this. damn it all, a man’s got some rights in his own room!”
“i’m told not,” commented the earl, grimly.
“now, why hark back to that?” demanded david, with a show of petulance. “it’s all settled and done with, hours ago. but what i was saying was, it isn’t the decent thing for you to—to obtrude talk of that sort just to throw ridicule on a subject that i feel very keen about.”
drumpipes yawned frankly. “it’s time you turned in, davie,” he remarked. “the lack of sleep aye makes you silly. i’ve no wish to ridicule your subject, as you call her. it’s not at all necessary. you’ll see for yourself how ridiculous it is in the morning. it merely occurred to me that if we must talk of women, i’d something in my mind worth the while—no strolling yellow-headed vagrant picked up at random on a bridge, but a gentlewoman in education and means and manners. man, you should see her teeth when she smiles!”
“archie,” replied david, solemnly, “i should think your own better instincts might prompt you to recall that you’ve only been a widower four months.”
“four months?—four hundred years!” cried the earl, stoutly. he reached round and replenished his glass. “it is with the greatest difficulty that i recall any detail of the matrimonial state. already the memory of my first pair of breeks is infinitely fresher to me than any of it. in another week or so the last vestige of a recollection of it will be clean gone. and a good riddance, too!”
“it was an ill thought to remind you of it,” admitted mosscrop. “devil take all women—or all but one——”
“and she black-haired,” interposed the earl.
“deuce seize them all but two, then, for the rest of the night. where have you been the long year-and-a-half, archie?”
“just looking about me,” replied the other, with nonchalance. “bechuanaland for a time, but it’s sore overrated. then i had a shy at the gaboon country, but there’s a conspiracy among the niggers to protect the gorilla—i think he’s a sort of uncle of theirs—and a white man can do no good by himself. i thought there might be some decent sport over in brazil, where they advertised a revolution on, and i tried to travel around with the rebels for a while, but it wasn’t up to much. you brought down an occasional half-breed portugueser with epaulettes on, but you couldn’t eat ’em, and you didn’t want ’em stuffed at any price; and besides, when you came to find out, the whole war was merely a fight between two firms of coffee-traders in new york, and that wasn’t good enough. i tell you what, though,” he went on, with more animation, “arizona is damned good fun. i haven’t seen anything better anywhere than a good, square cattle-lifter hunt. they got up three or four, just on my account, i imagine, after they found i could ride, and shoot at a gallop. the charm of the thing is that there’s no close season for cattle-thieves, and they’re game to the death, i tell you. i got potted twice, and once they let daylight straight through me. i had to lie up for repairs for nearly three weeks. they went and hung the fellow while i was in bed. we had words about that. i insisted it wasn’t sportsmanlike—and that they ought to have given him a horse, and then sprung him out of a trap or something of that sort, and let him have a run for his money, the same as we do with rabbits that the ferrets bring up. but they couldn’t see it, and so i turned it up and came north. they’ll ruin the whole thing, though, if they don’t chuck that foolish hanging business. the first thing they know, everybody’ll stop running off cattle, just as a protest, and then their place won’t be worth living in. it’ll be a pity, because a cow-boy gone wrong is really the best thing there is. he’s as good as a bengal tiger and a russian wolf together, with a grizzly bear thrown in. you may quote me as saying so.”
“i shall not fail to do so,” said david. “come, drink up your liquor, and we’ll toddle. i’m fair glad to see you back whole and sound, laddie—and more still, a free man.”
he brought forth from the bedroom a pillow and some blankets, and began arranging them upon the sofa. “and are the americans so daft about lords and titles as they’re made out?” he asked as he worked. “did they humble themselves before the handle to your name?”
drumpipes sat up. “do you suppose i’m such an abandoned ass as to travel with a title?” he demanded. “man, if you knew what it cost me, even without it, it would turn your hair grey. ten dollars here, twenty dollars there, seven dollars and a-half somewhere else—one steady and endless drain on the purse, till the marvel is i was able to get out at all! and there’s no third-class on the railways whatever. it’s just terrible, davie! and as ill-luck would have it, i couldn’t even come home steerage on the steamer. there were passengers that i knew in the first cabin, and so i had to throw away more money there. and i’m not like you—i’ve no ten-pound notes to spare for my day’s amusement.”
“no, you’re not like me,” responded moss-crop, in no sympathetic tone. “i have my magnificent ￡432 per annum, which is over eight guineas a week. and you—you have only a paltry four thousand odd, not more than ten times as much. i wonder you’ve kept off the rates so long, archie.”
“ah, i know all that,” protested the earl. “but you have no damned position to keep up. you must remember that, davie, it’s a very important fact. it makes all the difference in the world.”
“but you only keep it up in your own mind, and that’s not an expensive place. there’s been no year since i first knew you, either as master of linkhaw or since you came into the whole of it, that you’ve spent the half of your income. to hear you talk, one would think you’d been scattering your capital as well with both hands.”
“ah, but those lawyers’ bills, davie! what think you now should they be like? six hundred, eh? or may be seven?”
“you’ll know soon enough. i’ll not encourage you to pass a sleepless night. come now. you’ve got things in your bag here, haven’t you? i can let you have whatever you lack.”
“no, you keep your bed. i’ll sleep out here,” said drumpipes. “i’m a deal more used to roughing it than you are. i give you my word, i shall sleep here like a top.”
mosscrop strove to resist, but his friend was resolute, and the sofa had to be surrendered to him. he rose, yawning, and began to throw off his outer garments. “i’ve paid as high as eleven shillings for a bedroom for one night in new york city!” he affirmed, drowsily, “although, to give the devil his due, they make no charge for candles and soap. man, if they’d known i was an earl, they’d have lifted all seven of my skins.”
“oh, but they have a reputation for acumen,” urged mosscrop, drily. “they’d have comprehended fine that you were but a scotch earl. good night!”
the broad daylight woke david up nearly an hour later than it should have done. he had produced upon himself during the night an impression of sleeping very little—and that a light and dainty slumber, ready and eager on the instant of need to dissolve into utter wakefulness. yet it was the fact, none the less, that he had ingloriously overslept himself. the watch on his table pointed to halfpast eight.
he hurriedly drew on some of his garments, and stepped into the sitting-room to rouse the earl. to his great surprise that nobleman had disappeared. the tumbled bed-clothes showed where he had slept. there was his hand-bag, duly packed and closed, at the foot of the sofa.
reasoning that drumpipes had not promised to breakfast, and was a perverse creature anyway, and probably had been worried by early brooding over those lawyers’ bills into a restless mood, mosscrop returned to his room, and completed the work of dressing. he shaved with exceptional care, and bestowed thought upon the selection of a neck-tie. it occurred to him that he had some better clothes than those he had worn yesterday, and, though he begrudged the time, the temptation to make the change was irresistible. he did not regret yielding, when he surveyed his full-length image in the mirror on his wardrobe door. he seemed to himself to look years younger than he had done before that momentous birthday. he smiled and nodded knowingly at the happy and confident face in the glass.
under the circumstances, he should need help with the breakfast. the midnight notion of getting everything ready before he called his guest, submitted to abandonment without a murmur. he reverted joyfully to the original idea of letting her share all the delightful fun of preparing the meal. his fancy played with sportive tenderness about the picture of her, here in his tiny scullery which served as a kitchen, her sleeves rolled up, a towel pinned round her waist for an apron, actually cooking things for them both to eat. very likely he knew more about that sort of thing than she did; he beheld himself giving her instructions, as they bent together over the big gas cooking-stove. could anything be more deliciously homelike than that?
that contrary, cross-grained drumpipes had predicted that the whole thing would seem ridiculous to him in the morning. he affirmed to himself with fervour that it seemed more charming than ever as he went out into the passage, and knocked on the opposite door.
there seemed to be no answering sound, and he struck the panel more sharply, with his ear lowered to the keyhole. still no response came.
“i am going to covent garden for a few minutes,” he called through the keyhole; “shall i find you ready to help me when i get back?”
since this, too, brought no reply, he took out his duplicate key and cautiously opened the door. the question, repeated in a much louder tone, died away in profound silence. the glass eyes of a moose on the wall opposite stared at him with an uncomfortable fixity.
the bedroom door was ajar, and david was emboldened to stride forward and beat smartly on it with his fist. again he did this, and then, while a strange excitement welled upward within him—or was it a sinking movement instead?—flung the door open and looked in.
there was no vestalia here at all!
the details that the bed was neatly made up, that the room showed no trace of recent occupancy, and that the dressing-bag was gone, soaked themselves vaguely through his mind. he looked about, both in this and the outer apartment, for a message of some kind, quite in vain.
his pained attention wandered again in haphazard fashion to the head of the moose, fastened between two windows. the fatuous emptiness of its point-blank gaze suddenly infuriated him, and he dealt its foolishly elongated snout a resounding whack with his open hand. the huge trophy toppled under the blow, swung half-loose on its fastening, then pitched with a crash to the floor.
mosscrop kicked it violently again and again where it lay.
