\
 
 UCS3 LIBRARY 
 
 ADAM'S CLAY
 
 DUKE'S SON. 
 
 " COSMO HAMILTON knows how to tell a plain, un- 
 varnished tale with dramatic force and epigrammatic 
 dialogue. ... It is a remarkable work, and, having once 
 taken it up, its reader's attention will be held until the very 
 end." Punch. 
 
 "Cosmo Hamilton has long been known as a delightful 
 novelist. ' Duke's Son' has ail the old dash and sparkle." 
 Ileartk and Home. 
 
 " Will shock the moralist and yet compel him to read on 
 with ever-increasing interes^. Unusually interesting, gay, 
 cynical, kindly, amusing and distinctly clever." Academy. 
 
 NATURE'S VAGABOND & OTHER STORIES. 
 
 "Strikingly original. . . . Comprises a genuine revela- 
 tion of human nature which haunts the imagination. Hilly 
 Rudd is powerfully drawn . . . his personality never falters, 
 . . . The distinction of Mr. Hamilton's treatment arises 
 from the fact that he Iras drawn his readers under the spell." 
 'J'ricuiie. 
 
 " Few living noveiibU write stories quite so well as Mr. 
 Cosmo Hamilton In 'Nature's Vagabond' his graceful 
 and delicate art is seen at its best. . . Unlon.v .. 1 humour 
 and occasional U/u;:!.es of restrained and tenden.-.t pati.i.,3 
 th.it enliven with an i; resistible attractiveness " ^Lit^k. 
 
 "Mr. Cosmo Hamilton, belles being a humorou; 
 keenly observant iiia.ii, can touch the tragic if he wills." 
 Diiliy Chronicle. 
 
 " The root of Mi. Hamilton's success lies in hi; charm 
 The styK- of i . v, riling ,ni'! th>' ; :yle of his in;.. ;inati 
 full of deiieiijy anJ an ma." (Jucc.i.
 
 ADAM'S CLAY 
 
 a IRovei 
 
 nv 
 COSMO HAMILTON 
 
 AUTHOR OF "DUKE'S SON," "NATURE'S VAGABOND," ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 BRENTANO'S 
 
 UNION SQUARE 
 1907
 
 part i 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 " Man is fire and woman tow ; the devil comes and 
 sets them in a blaze." PROVERB. 
 
 i n 
 
 i I
 
 ADAM'S CLAY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 OUTSIDE, the wind shrieked like a human being in 
 a state of hysterical rage. Trees bowed low before 
 its unmeaning, unnecessary, irresistible swirl. Their 
 leafless branches swished the air like whips, and 
 the limbs of those that had grown old creaked 
 painfully. The younger trees, with the foolish 
 pride of youth, made an irritable attempt to resist 
 the common enemy, and for their temerity and 
 impertinence were bent like fishing-rods, or uprooted 
 and flung far. 
 
 Upon the slanting slate roof of the old farm-house 
 the cold rain beat incessantly. It ran along the 
 gutters, down the pipes, and into the drain with a 
 noise like the gurgling of thirsty horses drinking. 
 
 An unfastened door of an outhouse banged dis- 
 consolately at almost regular intervals, as though 
 performing a part in the uproarious cantata, and
 
 8 H&am's Clap 
 
 when the angry music sank for a moment into 
 piano, a chained-up dog raised his voice in a dismal 
 solo. 
 
 Inside the farm-house warm fires blazed, oak 
 shutters were fastened over the windows to keep 
 out the wind, and an aroma of coffee and tobacco 
 smoke came pleasantly to the nostrils. 
 
 For all that, peace and contentment did not face 
 one another in front of the wide-mouthed fire. 
 
 On one side of the open grate in the parlour sat 
 a long-limbed, square-shouldered young man, with 
 vague discontent and envy in his eyes, turning over 
 the leaves of an album of photographs. On the 
 other side, with his legs stretched out In front of 
 him, chin low, the corners of his mouth turned down, 
 and with a look of sneering pain in his screwed-up 
 eyes, sat his father watching him closely. 
 
 A large oil lamp, carefully shaded, stood on an 
 old oak table, and flung a strong, white light in a 
 circle, into which came the young man and the older 
 one, much of the highly-polished table itself, a tin of 
 tobacco, an open copy of Thackeray's " Vanity Fair," 
 and several much-smoked pipes lying upon a pe/vter 
 ash-tray. 
 
 The faces of both men were thin and weather- 
 worn. Both were strong, well-cut, well-bred faces,
 
 Hfcam's 
 
 moulded on the same lines, and bearing a close 
 resemblance. The expression upon that of the son 
 was habitually calm, dignified, and a little melan- 
 choly. The father's expression was invariably bitter 
 and sarcastic, and a little cruel. 
 
 Outside the circle of light the room was in shadow 
 But when a tongue of flame licked an unburnt log, 
 its low, oak-beamed ceiling and wainscotted walls, 
 closely covered with oak-framed prints above long 
 book-shelves against which, by the side of a great 
 bow-window, stood a rack of guns and fishing-rods 
 came fitfully into the picture. 
 
 A Welsh, bob-tailed sheep-dog, with hair matted 
 up to its thighs, lay full stretch under the dresser in 
 a dreamless sleep, exquisitely relaxed and comfort- 
 able. Against its back a well-grown black cat 
 nestled with its nose between its paws. A copper 
 kettle standing on the hob did its best to temper 
 the wind's fierce melancholy by humming a cheerful 
 song. 
 
 Hard knuckles rapped on the door. 
 
 " Come," said John Ashley, without taking his 
 eyes from his son's face. 
 
 As an old man entered and came slowly across 
 the room, the dog half opened one eye, closed it 
 immediately, and fell again into a well-earned sleep.
 
 io HDam's 
 
 John Ashley, the younger, bent his head lower over 
 the album. 
 
 The photograph that engrossed his attention was 
 of a beautiful woman dressed for a ball. 
 
 " What is it, Sloke ? " 
 
 Old Jesse Sloke put a gnarled hand upon the table. 
 
 "Beg yur pardon, master, but Oi jest coom to 
 tell 'ee as 'ow Oi've locked oop fur night." 
 
 "Very well. Good-night, Sloke." 
 
 John Ashley's nostril curled as he watched the 
 expression of surprised admiration, curiosity and 
 wonder that spread over the face of his son. 
 
 " Beg yur pardon, master, but t' wold mare her bin 
 a-coughin' a bit s' evenin'." 
 
 " Oh, all right. I'll have a look at her in the 
 morning. Good-night, Sloke." 
 
 The boy suddenly held the album nearer the light. 
 His interest was almost breathless. There was a ring 
 of anger in his father's voice. 
 
 The old man removed his hand from the table 
 quickly, and shuffled a few paces towards the door. 
 The cat rose, arched its back, stretched until it stood 
 on tiptoe, yawned, turned round and round and lay 
 down a^ r ain. 
 
 "It be t' worstest night as we've 'ad this winter, 
 master."
 
 " Yes. Good -night, Sloke." 
 
 "Good-night, master. Good-night, Master John." 
 
 No answer came from the boy. 
 
 The old man made his way across the room with 
 creaking boots, and shut the door quietly. 
 
 Ashley suddenly put up his foot and kicked the 
 album. It fell upon the floor with a thud. The dog 
 sprang to its feet. 
 
 " What were you looking at, Jack ? " 
 
 The boy caught his breath. 
 
 " The . . . the most wonderful thing I I've ever 
 seen, father," he replied. 
 
 The wind shrieked derisively down the chimney as 
 it swept over the house. 
 
 The father shot out a kind of laugh. 
 
 "That's what /thought before I married her," he 
 said, " damn her soul ! "
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 BOTH men rose to their feet. Ashley, the father, in 
 a sudden state of blasphemous rage that he found 
 himself unable to control ; young Ashley from 
 a feeling of indignant horror. 
 
 " You're speaking of my mother ! " he cried. 
 
 Ashley turned, and looked at his son for a moment, 
 noted, not without admiration, the fine indignation 
 in every line of his figure, and burst into a loud, 
 mirthless guffaw. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " one man is exactly like another. 
 He can always afford to be chivalrous and Eliza- 
 bethan about women who have done some other man 
 a wrong. For one who has never seen the inside of 
 a theatre or the outside, for the matter of that 
 your attitude is splendid. You look just like the 
 hero-prig of a drawing-room drama. Oh, keep it 
 up. Don't become self-conscious. It was devilish 
 good, and I've heard that very line spoken a 
 thousand times by a dozen fat actors, made up to 
 
 look youthful. ' You're speaking of my mother.' 
 
 12
 
 HDam's Clas 13 
 
 Now shake your forefinger at me, and say, ' Take 
 care, sir.' No, don't just say it hiss it. ... Ha ! 
 Ha ! . . . Oh, what gorgeous humbug ! What the 
 devil's it got to do with you in any case ? She was 
 my wife before she was your mother, and for that 
 reason I beseech the particular power who performs 
 those functions to damn her soul." 
 
 There was something very horrible in the man's 
 rage and fury. He flung his arms up and shook 
 them above his head. And the veins stood out upon 
 his forehead and swelled in his neck until they looked 
 like whip-cord. Half-formed sentences tumbled out 
 of his mouth sentences made up of filthy abuse, 
 agonised reproaches, and ingenious blasphemy. He 
 forgot the presence of his son, and stormed about 
 the room, now in the shadow, now in the circle of 
 light, like a man who had just been told of some 
 detestable act of treachery, a man of violent 
 passions, and an exaggerated sense of his own 
 importance. Only a man incapable of forgiving, 
 who had nursed some wrong silently for years, who 
 had chewed the cud of bitterness, and allowed a 
 self-made martyr's crown of thorns to tear his 
 flesh constantly, in whose heart hatred had been 
 slowly fermenting until it had become a kind of 
 poison, and whose jealous silence was suddenly
 
 14 
 
 broken, could have let himself go and get out of 
 control in such a way. 
 
 " Mother a word that canting people call beauti- 
 ful. Mother meaning, in this smug country, a 
 woman who has gone through the sacred rites of 
 religion, and brought into the world a child by the 
 man who loves her. ' You're speaking of my mother.' 
 I'm not. I'm speaking of my wife, the woman I 
 would have gone to hell for have gone to hell for 
 the woman who tricked me, and lied to me, who had 
 all that was best of me and flung me over. That's 
 the woman I'm speaking about, damn her soul ! " 
 
 Ashley came and stood in front of his son. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " I'm speaking of your mother. 
 You've never heard me say these things before. 
 You've never quite been sure that you ever had a 
 mother. For twenty-five years the word ' mother ' 
 has never been spoken in this house, in your hearing. 
 But the things you've heard me say to-night I have 
 cried aloud every night of the twenty-five cursed 
 years that I have spent in this self-made Siberia. 
 Solely because you might never be tricked and lied 
 to and flung over as I have been, I have kept you 
 away from refined women and honourable men, and 
 have brought you up in the company of trees, the 
 only Christians God has ever made, except dogs.
 
 Beam's Clap 15 
 
 It's your own fault that you have heard me recite 
 aloud the words I have repeated to myself until I 
 know them by heart. When I saw you looking at 
 the woman who was my wife, as I looked at her 
 when I saw her first, you unlocked the blue room of 
 my life and came inside. . . . Where did you find 
 that album?" 
 
 Young Ashley pointed to a mildewed leather box. 
 " I found it in that. It was in one of the barns." 
 
 "Give it to me. Now that you have found my 
 photographic series of ghosts, I may as well 
 personally conduct you round the gallery." 
 
 Ashley put the album on the table under the 
 lamp. For a moment he kept his hand upon it as 
 though afraid to open it. His mouth twitched, and 
 he gave a shudder. 
 
 Young Ashley was quick to see the pain his father 
 was undergoing. The great love that he felt for 
 this hitherto silent man who had been his mother, 
 brother, sister, and friend so long as he could re- 
 member, swept away his feeling of intense curiosity. 
 
 " Don't open it, father ! " he said awkwardly. 
 " Let's put the album back into the barn." 
 
 Ashley understood all that the boy meant to 
 convey, and was grateful. He stretched out his 
 hand and grasped his son's arm.
 
 1 6 Hfcam's Clap 
 
 " Jack," he said, " have you ever wondered 
 why I have never spoken to you about your 
 mother?" 
 
 "Yes," replied young Ashley. 
 
 " Often ? " 
 
 " Not often." 
 
 "When?" 
 
 " At night, after reading some book in which 
 there has been a mother." 
 
 A look of bitter disappointment came into 
 Ashley's eyes. 
 
 " I've been persuading myself," he said, "that you 
 found me sufficient." 
 
 " I have," replied the boy quickly. 
 
 " No, you haven't," said Ashley jealously. 
 "You've never seen or heard of your mother, and 
 yet, when I cursed her just now, as she deserves 
 to be cursed, you forgot all the years I've devoted 
 to you and stood up for her." 
 
 The boy was silent. 
 
 " I want to know something else," said his father. 
 " Have you ever wondered why a man of my type 
 should have buried himself in this farm for twenty- 
 five years ? " 
 
 " No," said young Ashley. 
 
 " I haven't ever struck you -is being a kind of
 
 Hfcam's Clap 17 
 
 whipped dog, who has been flung whimpering out 
 of the world and spent the rest of his life hiding ? " 
 
 " No," said young Ashley. 
 
 " Have you ever felt suddenly sick of this place, 
 and been filled with a longing to get away and see 
 what's the other side of it ? If you can say no to 
 that, I will put this album back into the barn. If 
 you can't say no, I will open it and show you why 
 I am here, why you and I have remained here all 
 these years, and why the mention of your mother's 
 name makes me blaspheme like a drunken cabman." 
 
 " I can't say no," said young Ashley. 
 
 " You can't ? " cried the elder man, in a shrill voice. 
 " You can't ? My God ! Then I've failed. Every 
 moment that I've been awake since I brought you 
 here, a baby of eight months old, I've tried to make 
 you feel that I was your mother as well as your 
 father. My God ! is that woman coming between 
 me and all she left me ? " 
 
 Again his temper made him hysterical, and he 
 struck the book furiously and flung his son away. 
 Then he caught him by the arm and drew him back. 
 
 " Jack," he pleaded, " don't you love me ? Am I 
 nothing to you after all these years ? I've been a 
 better mother than many a woman would have been, 
 
 and I've tried very hard to make up to you for the 
 
 B
 
 1 8 Hfcam's 
 
 loss of a mother. Have I failed so utterly that you 
 are hankering to leave me ? Jack, Jack ! " 
 
 Like a woman, this curious man high-strung, 
 jealous, brought by the constant nursing of a 
 grievance very near to madness clung to the boy's 
 arms and peered anxiously into his face. His hands 
 shook, and his mouth trembled, and all self-control 
 was forgotten. 
 
 Young Ashley had never seen his father in such 
 a mood before. He had looked upon him, hitherto, 
 as a strong, energetic man, with the pluck of a lion ; 
 superbly fearless, somewhat hot-tempered, utterly im- 
 patient and scornful of sentimentality or morbidity. 
 
 He wrestled with an insular horror of showing his 
 feelings, and said : 
 
 " Father, I always have loved you, and I always 
 shall love you." 
 
 With a hoarse exclamation of joy, Ashley bent 
 down and kissed his full-grown son on the cheek as 
 though he were still a child. Then he became 
 self-conscious and coloured up, and walked away 
 touching things uneasily, while he cleared his throat 
 and pulled himself together. 
 
 Young Ashley remained standing by the table. 
 It seemed to him almost uncanny that the IT:: re 
 sight of an album of photographs should have made
 
 Bfcam's Gla$ 19 
 
 his father show a side of his nature so totally in 
 variance to the one he habitually showed, and that 
 in ten minutes the monotonous peace of the lives 
 of two men could be so rudely shaken. 
 
 Chasing these thoughts through young Ashley's 
 slow-thinking head, came one which rounded him 
 up with a jerk. Until ten minutes ago he had 
 never for the shade of an instant questioned the 
 fact that his father was infinitely the stronger 
 man of the two. But the outbursts he had witnessed 
 of impotent, uncontrollable rage, of jealousy, and 
 finally of womanish appeal, made young Ashley 
 suddenly aware of the fact that in reality he was 
 the stronger man. Being almost ludicrously 
 unworldly and unsophisticated, he could not under- 
 stand what his mother had done to make a mark so 
 indelible upon the life of his father. What he did 
 vaguely realise was that the relative positions of his 
 father and himself had undergone a complete and 
 unalterable change. He no longer stood in need of 
 being looked after by his father. It was his duty 
 to nurse and take care of the man who had been his 
 parents, brother, sister, and friend for so many years. 
 
 It had become suddenly and horribly evident to 
 him that his father was as near madness as the wind 
 that howled round the roof of the farm-house.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 JOHN ASHLEY did not return to his chair at the 
 table for some minutes. He paced the room in the 
 shadow, breathing hard, watching his son's face with 
 wistful eagerness. 
 
 " He loves me, thank God for that," he said to 
 himself. " But if he becomes restless and dissatisfied, 
 and wants to go out into the world, what will become 
 of me ? Til never go back never, never. I had 
 enough of men and women. I won't have him 
 made to suffer as I have suffered. He must be 
 kept here, among the trees. God ! if he should 
 have inherited her restlessness, her desire for know- 
 ledge, her insatiable curiosity. . . . I'll not believe 
 that I am to be fastened on a second time and bent 
 double. I'll not believe it. Isn't it enough to have 
 been driven into hell every night of my life for 
 twenty -five years by a woman ? I" 1 not believe 
 that the child she bore me is to be made to cut at 
 my heart as she did. . . . He must be kept here. 
 He is mine. I need him. And if I can help it no
 
 's Clag 21 
 
 woman shall do for him what was done for me. 
 Yes, he must be kept here. I'll show him whether 
 it's better to live among trees or among men and 
 women of the world." 
 
 He sat down. The sheep-dog looked up at him 
 through a fringe of grey hair, gave a great sigh, and 
 stretched himself out again. The wind flung itself 
 against the window with a shriek. 
 
 " Jack." 
 
 " Yes, father." 
 
 " Come here and look over my shoulder. I'm 
 going to show you why I brought you here and 
 came here myself." 
 
 Young Ashley sat down by his father's side. 
 After some hesitation he put his strong hand upon 
 his father's shoulder. A smile trembled upon John 
 Ashley's lips. 
 
 He opened the album at the first page. Upon it 
 there were two photographs. 
 
 " Here," said John Ashley, " we have me at the 
 age of thirteen. Nice-looking boy, eh ? " 
 
 " Yes," said young Ashley. 
 
 " Chubby and optimistic and happy, you'd think, 
 wouldn't you ? '' 
 
 " Yes," said young Ashley, 
 
 " So I was. The world went very well then. I
 
 22 Horn's Clay 
 
 had shown promise on the cricket field, and no tuck 
 shop in Eton could turn out messes too sweet for 
 my tooth. Now look at the photograph by its side. 
 Handsome lad that, eh ? " 
 
 " Yes," said young Ashley. 
 
 " The face of a fine, frank, honourable boy, you'd 
 think, wouldn't you ? " 
 
 " Yes," said young Ashley. 
 
 " My best friend ; the boy who was at the same 
 dame's school with me, who went on to Eton with 
 me, who shared all my secrets, all my petty triumphs 
 and disappointments, whom I loved and looked up 
 to. Damn his soul too ! " He turned over the page 
 and thumped it with his fist. " Here we have the 
 same two faces five years later. They are still 
 chubby and optimistic and happy, aren't they?" 
 
 " Yes," said young Ashley. 
 
 " A trifle smarter as to hair, a trifle more careful 
 as to the set of collar and tie, you will notice. My 
 best friend and I, at that age, had shared many more 
 petty triumphs and disappointments. At that age 
 eighteen we were both in the eleven, we had both 
 played against Harrow at Lords epoch-making 
 times ! had spent the holidays together at our 
 respective homes, had shot over the same covers, 
 hunted with the same pack, been to the same
 
 Beam's Cla^ 23 
 
 theatres, the same dances, the same race-meetings, 
 and the same funerals. At that age, I still believed 
 my best friend to be the most honourable, the most 
 fearless, the most frank boy man I beg his 
 pardon ! the world had ever contained." 
 
 That page also was turned over. Again the fist 
 went down upon it with a bang. Other pages 
 followed, in which there were unessential school 
 groups, pictures of Henley, views of Eton and 
 Windsor Castle, of a prim white house standing in 
 a broad park, of stables and ponies, dogs, and 
 elderly women in queer clothes and cork-screw 
 ringlets ; old men in stocks with much hair upon 
 their faces, wearing flat - brimmed top - hats, or 
 bowlers with infinitesimal brims ; views of places 
 of public interest the Thames, the Tower of 
 London, Trafalgar Square, the Houses of Parlia- 
 ment, Westminster Abbey ; prize-fighters, actresses, 
 cricket elevens. 
 
 Then Ashley kept his hand upon an open page. 
 
 " Real men, now," he said. " Undergraduates of 
 Cambridge University. Very fine collars and tics 
 now, eh ? " 
 
 "Yes,' 5 said young Ashley. 
 
 "And waistcoats mark the waistcoats, and don't 
 fail to notice a suspicion of whisker ! Ah, ha ! Men
 
 24 Hfcatn's Clap 
 
 indeed ! . . No two men could have been more 
 together, more in sympathy than we two. Look ; 
 here we are in hunting kit, and here in evening 
 clothes as members of a swagger club ; here in 
 running shorts, here in gym. kit, here in the clothes 
 we wore in a dramatic entertainment my best 
 friend as the hero. He always played the hero. . . . 
 Then we come to him in his first wig and gown as 
 a member of the Inner Temple. I was no book 
 man, and the Temple was closed to me, but here 
 I am, opposite as usual, as a man about town. As 
 it was impossible for me to share rooms with him 
 in his inn, he shared my rooms in Maddox Street. 
 And here " John Ashley's voice took a deeper 
 note " we come to the photograph of a girl." 
 
 Young Ashley bent over the page. " How 
 lovely ! " he said, 
 
 " Plow lovely ! " echoed his father. " Do you 
 wonder that my best friend and I began to see n 
 little less of one another about this time?" 
 
 " No," said young Ashley. 
 
 " L ok ; here she is again on her horse, and here 
 in the dress in which she was presented, and here 
 in the dress she wore the nig % .t I pn posed to and 
 was accepted by her. ' C o.l luck, old man,' my 
 Ixst friend s. id that night. ' She is the lucky one. 1
 
 Bfcam's Clas 25 
 
 . . . Let's get on. There are not many more now. 
 This was taken on our honeymoon in Paris, and 
 this at a little chalet on the Alps ; this in Vienna, 
 and this in Bond Street. We had settled in London, 
 a little house in Park Street, to which my best friend 
 had a latch-key. . . . Look at this. The proud 
 father, the beaming mother, the bald-headed son 
 and heir." 
 
 " Me ! " cried young Ashley. 
 
 "Yes, you. And that is the last photograph but 
 one. Can you guess what the last one is ? No, 
 you can't You have seen the faces of my best 
 friend, and of the beautiful woman who was my 
 wife. You would refuse to believe that in the next 
 photograph my best friend stands by her side, 
 wouldn't you ? You would absolutely refuse to 
 believe it, eh r " 
 
 " Yes," said young Ashley. 
 
 John Ashley turned to the last photograph, and his 
 face became suddenly intiamed, and his voice thick. 
 
 " By God, then, you would be wrong ! Not a 
 year after that woman with the face of an angel 
 stood at the altar swearing to love, honour, and 
 obey one man, sac h:is her photograph taken with 
 his best friend, the most honourable man the world had 
 ever contained, on a second honeymoon in Paris ! "
 
 26 Bfcam's 
 
 " No," cried young Ashley, "no ! " 
 
 " Yes, yes, yes ! Ah, ha ! that's a facer for you, 
 eh ? That throws you back on your haunches, eh ? 
 My friend and my wife, the man of honour the 
 woman of integrity, gentleman and gentlewoman. 
 Read this note, pasted below the photograph. I 
 found it on my writing-table when I returned after 
 three hours' absence spent at polo. How well she 
 formed her letters. ' It was all a mistake. Frank 
 and I fought against the inevitable as long as we 
 could. It has been too much for us. We have 
 gone away. I have no grudge against you. You 
 were very good, but love conquers all. Be good 
 to baby.' . . . Now do you understand why I came 
 here ? Now can you understand why I say that 
 God's only Christians are the trees ? Now can you 
 sympathise with me when I shout out at the top of 
 my voice and ask someone or other to damn their 
 souls?" lie sprang to Iris feet and clutched young 
 Ashley by the shoulders. " Jack, Jack, don't you 
 leave me ; Jack, don't yen le.ive me too ! " 
 
 The wind rattled the v inclow and whistled down 
 the chimney. Young A,h!ey put his arm round bis 
 father's shaking shoulder. 
 
 <; Outlier, I'll never leave you," he said.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 WHEN young Ashley and his father stood in front 
 of the farm in the morning, no other marks of the 
 storm were visible except a few broken branches, 
 several uprooted saplings, a tile or two lying 
 smashed in the yard, several more lines round 
 the eyes of the elder Ashley, and a keen, more 
 sympathetic expression upon the face of Ashley 
 the younger. 
 
 Together, in silence, they made their way to a 
 heap of dead leaves and cabbage stalks, and young 
 Ashley carried the album. Without a word he 
 tore out page after page of it, ma : e a pile of 
 them, set them alight, and watched them burn. 
 When nothing remained except charred pnpcr. and 
 the smoke had been gathered up by the sweet 
 spring air, the two men the other was a man 
 now solemnly shook hands, and went about their 
 business, one on horseback to the sheep-pens in 
 the val'cy, the other to the stables to attend to the 
 
 coughing mare. 
 
 27
 
 28 Hfcam's 
 
 Nevertheless, peace did not sit upon the hearth 
 of Ashley's farm. Only a figure made up to re- 
 present peace that was stuffed with sawdust sat there. 
 
 One week followed another in busy and useful 
 monotony. Fruit trees broke into bud, a thousand 
 red eyes blinked upon the branches and grew larger 
 and larger in the warmth of the friendly sun. 
 Eager green heads poked out of the good red 
 earth in long, regular lines, and listened enraptured 
 to the throbbing notes of the lark. Birds flirted 
 in the stirring hedges, and began to look about 
 for suitable sites wherein to build their homes, and 
 the whole world was filled with the gentle movement 
 of young life. And the two Ashleys went about 
 their business industriously. Each kept watch upon 
 the other. The father to see that the son showed 
 no more signs of discontent, envy, and restlessness ; 
 the son that the father developed no more signs 
 of the madness he had seen stamped upon his 
 forehead. 
 
 Ashley the elder had no need of fear. The story 
 that young Ashley had heard had bitten into Iris 
 soul. The germ of de.sire to go oul into the world, 
 and do as oilier men did, died. The faithlessness 
 of bis mother and his lather's bc:;t friend had 
 appalled him. But young Ashley had every need
 
 Hfcam's Clap 29 
 
 to watch his father with anxiety. The relationship 
 between his father and himself had ripened and had 
 become more openly affectionate, but the nights 
 were few when young Ashley did not listen outside 
 the elder man's door without hearing the storm 
 renewed within. 
 
 But there was one night of all these about which 
 young Ashley could never think without a shudder. 
 During the whole of the day that preceded it, young 
 Ashley was infinitely delighted and encouraged by a 
 great change for the better in his father's condition. 
 The elder man began the day with a quiet cheeriness 
 that his son never remembered to have seen in him 
 before. Shortly after daybreak young Ashley woke 
 with a start to find his fk'ther, fully dressed, standing 
 at the foot of his bed, smiling at him. 
 
 " Up you get, Jack, my lad. No laziness. There's 
 lots to be done," Ashley sang out. 
 
 And young Ashley was on his feet in a moment. 
 " All right, father," he replied, " I'll be down in ten 
 minutes." 
 
 It was a cold, bleak morning. A keen north-east 
 wind made the still leafless branches bend and twist 
 uncomfortably. But the unaccustomed ring in his 
 father's voice was more welcome to young Ashley 
 than the sparkle of the sun.
 
 30 Hfcam's 
 
 Under his window, as he tubbed and hurried Into 
 his clothes, he heard his father talking to the dogs, 
 and every now and then whistling a bar or two of 
 some catchy tune. Young Ashley had never heard 
 his father whistle before. 
 
 If he had been a conventionally reared man he 
 would, being unobserved, have given thanks to God 
 in some stiff formula laid down for the purpose, duly 
 indexed, for performing the miracle. As it was, 
 being a man, luckily, without any acquaintance with 
 dogma, any knowledge of stereotyped forms and set 
 speeches, he glanced at the sky and the trees and 
 heaved a sigh of relief, and thanked God for the 
 change in his father in a few colloquial words of his 
 own, hot from his heart. 
 
 As the day grew older, the improvement ripened, 
 and when father and son sat down together to their 
 evening meal, it would not have been easy to have 
 found two more unclouded faces in the country. 
 
 Old Sloke and his wife had talked over the 
 master's new manner early in the morning, the old 
 woman with a few glad tears. Sloke himself had 
 caught the infection, and had shown his delight by 
 making up a roaring fire and lighting not only an 
 extra lamp but several candles. 
 
 And so the old dining-room of the melancholy
 
 Efcam's 
 
 farm was a blaze of light that evening. Laughter, so 
 long a stranger there, rang out continually. In high 
 spirits, Ashley chaffed his son and old Sloke, and 
 teased the bob-tailed sheep-dog. The latter, quick 
 to realise the sudden change, made no attempt to lie 
 under the dresser with its head on its paws watching 
 the proceedings from behind a fringe of long grey 
 hair, but took up a position by the side of the 
 master's chair, and even went so far as to jog his 
 arm now and then when the excellent aroma of the 
 food got the better of him. The black cat too, 
 usually as taciturn as its betters, was not behindhand 
 in noticing the improved atmosphere. With a giddi- 
 ness as unusual as it was undignified, he rolled on his 
 back in front of the fire, boxed the ears of imaginary 
 mice on the red-tiled hearth, and then sprang on to 
 an unoccupied comer of the table and sat blinking 
 at the two men, with all his purring machinery in 
 full working order. 
 
 Both animals, for the first time in their lives, 
 received titbits from the hand of their master, 
 and when the meal was over fearlessly took up 
 comfortable positions in front of the fire, instead 
 of making themselves scarce in cold and shadowy 
 corners of the room as was their custom. 
 
 When old Sloke had cleared the table, and
 
 32 EDam's 
 
 after much lingering had gone into the kitchen, 
 young Ashley lit his father's pipe and sat down 
 opposite to him on the other side of the hearth. 
 
 " It is good to see you like this, father," he said 
 involuntarily. 
 
 "Is it, Jack? It's not better for you than for 
 me, old man. I don't know why, but I feel 
 happier to-day than I have done since . . . since I 
 brought you here. I dreamt of your mother last 
 night, and I woke feeling that we were, both of 
 us, pretty nearly at the end of our troubles." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " ajked young Ashley 
 quickly. 
 
 " I don't know, my dear fellow. I can only give 
 you my impression. Something is going to happen 
 greatly to the benefit of us both. I can only tell 
 you that I have an idea that she and I are 
 going to meet soon and remain together." 
 
 "You're not going to leave me?" cried young 
 Ashley. 
 
 Old Ashley laughed and got up, and slapped his 
 son on the shoulder, heartily, without a word. 
 The silence was more eloquent than any remarks, 
 however affectionate. 
 
 " And so it's good to see me in high spirits, is 
 it, eh? I suppose I have been a fine specimen of
 
 H&am's Clas 33 
 
 a bear with a sore ear." He gave a kind of 
 chuckle as though he were looking back at some- 
 thing that had happened a long time ago, at which 
 he could afford to be amused. " But those moods 
 are over. In future you'll find me a very easy 
 person to get on with." 
 
 Young Ashley examined his father with eager 
 care. He was a fine, big man. His hair was very 
 white and his thin face was heavily lined ; but the 
 haggard, introspective expression had gone out of 
 it. Young Ashley noticed that the sarcastic mouth 
 had become extraordinarily tender, and there was 
 a peacefulness on the forehead and in the eyes 
 that made the face almost unrecognisable. 
 
 " Has anything happened, father ? " he asked. 
 
 " You know as much as I do, my dear fellow, 
 and are not more surprised at me than I am at 
 myself. I know that something is happening and 
 that's all. I am not able to say why or how 1 
 know. I just know and arn very thankful, because, 
 of course, it has to do with my wife." 
 
 He sat down, puffed out a cloud of tobacco 
 smoke, and fondled the ears of the sheep - dog, 
 whose head had been pushed against his knee. 
 
 Both men sat quiet for several minutes. The 
 son eyed his father wonderingly, hardly knowing
 
 34 Beam's 
 
 whether to be satisfied with the new state of 
 things or nervous. He was naturally mystified and 
 not unnaturally a little frightened. The father, 
 lying back in his chair with his long legs stuck 
 out in front of him, wore a peaceful and rather 
 whimsical smile. The old grandfather clock ticked 
 cheerfully and the cat purred upon the hearth. 
 
 "If I had my time over again," said Ashley 
 presently, " I should do exactly as I did, in 
 exactly the same blind and headlong way, and 
 be just as wretched. All the same, my dear Jack, 
 looking dispassionately at the matter, a man is 
 only genuinely happy if he permits women to 
 play a very small and very fleeting part in his 
 life I mean a man who is built on the same 
 egotistical, narrow-minded lines as I am. It doesn't 
 do to hand one's whole heart into the keeping of one 
 woman. It is heroic and knightly and romantic, and 
 all that ; but it is damned foolish. The thing to do 
 is to give an infinitesimal portion of one's heart to a 
 number of women so little, in the bulk, as to make 
 precious little difference to that queer organ. I 
 advocate selfishness, egregious selfishness, as the one 
 safe receipt for a permanently contented mind. It 
 sounds horrid, but it is the receipt, whether they own 
 to it or not, up to which every man and woman born
 
 Hfcam's Glas 35 
 
 struggles to live. Remain unmarried, and all is well. 
 Marry, and one of the parties, if not both, must 
 necessarily be miserable, The clash of ego in every 
 married man's house makes more clin than the con- 
 tinual banging of a dinner-gong. In a bachelor's 
 house the dinner-gong breaks the silence refreshingly. 
 If ever you feel the need of femininity fight it for all 
 that you are worth. If the desire beats you, make a 
 friend, even go so far as to become engaged if you 
 are inflicted with the heroic temperament, but go no 
 further. Alone, a man is master of his soul. 
 Coupled with a woman, he is neither master of his 
 own nor hers. Yours is the ideal existence, Jack, 
 old man. You know no woman, and have no desire 
 to do so. If you wish to mould life into the 
 particular shape that pleases you, you will remain 
 as you are. If not, go out into the world and be 
 strangled by a woman's eyelash." 
 
 " I won't risk it," said young Ashley, with a laugh. 
 
 " I'm glad to hear it," replied the father heartily. 
 " For you are made on my lines to a turn. I see in 
 you the same genius for dramatising small incidents, 
 the uncomfortable habit of elevating a shaving 
 pimple into a carbuncle. You are the pivot on \\hich 
 the earth revolves. Every ttcrie thrown at you 
 becomes a boulder, every pin-prick in your vanity :,'.
 
 36 Beam's Clap 
 
 sword-thrush, You wouldn't fall in love, you would 
 dive into it head first. You would lay not merely 
 your whole heart at the feet of the woman, but your 
 whole soul, body, and brain. There are three ends 
 to a love of this kind madness, murder, or 
 martyrdom. By a fluke I escaped from two of 
 them, and have daily lit the pile at the foot of my 
 cross for years. This is what you would do too, for 
 you also would live to rue the day upon which you 
 fell in love. This is the reason of my having kept 
 you away from civilisation. When you are alone 
 here. ..." 
 
 "Why should I be alone here?" broke in young 
 Ashley. 
 
 A blaze of affection leaped into old Ashley's eyes. 
 He made a long arm, and rested his hand for a 
 moment on his son's knee. 
 
 " Ah," he said, " I like to hear that tone in your 
 voice. It does me good. Thanks, Jack. . . ." 
 
 Young Ashley twisted his shoulders im- 
 patiently. 
 
 " I can't understand you to-night, father," he said, 
 with a note of irritation in his voice. " Since we 
 finished dinner you have done nothing but talk like 
 a man who has been told that he's going to 
 to . . ."
 
 HDam's Clag 37 
 
 " Die ? " asked Ashley. 
 
 " Yes," said young Ashley. 
 
 The father smiled. 
 
 " Isn't it odd ? Of course I haven't been told so. 
 but I do feel like a man who has been walking, 
 walking, walking, and finds that he has almost 
 arrived at the top of the hill. It's most queer. It 
 doesn't make me feel sad. It only makes me feel 
 . . . quiet. It makes me want to turn round and 
 look back at the miles that I've so painfully covered 
 and criticise the way I covered them, as though I 
 were someone else. I rather like it." 
 
 " I don't," blurted out young Ashley. 
 
 Ashley gave a little laugh a laugh of pleasure, 
 of delight, of appreciation, of gratitude. He got up 
 and sat on the arm of his son's chair, with his arm 
 round his shoulder. There was something very 
 boyish in the action. 
 
 " I should hate to leave you, old Jack," he said, 
 " But in any case, whether it's to be soon or late, it 
 is to be, and when you are alone here to plod through 
 the remaining years of your allotted time, remain 
 alone. Shun women as you would shun deadly 
 nightshade. For all their beauty and fascination 
 they are never worth the candle. All the same" 
 he rose and threw up his head and clenched his
 
 ss Hfcam's 
 
 fists " oh, my God ! what wouldn't I give for one 
 touch of ray wife's hand ! " 
 
 The bob-tailed sheep-dog shot out an impatient 
 sigh, shambled to the door, sniffed and snorted under 
 it, pawed it twice petulantly, and then turned and 
 looked reproachfully at its master. 
 
 Ashley glanced at the clock, and gave a loud la'.igh 
 
 "Jack," he cried, "look at the time! We are an 
 hour and a half later than we've ever been before. 
 Xo wonder that old woman of a dog is angry 
 We've spoilt his beauty-sleep. Come to bed, old 
 man." 
 
 And so the lamps were put out, and the candles 
 snuffed and doors bolted, and the two men ma:le 
 their way up the broad oak stairs to their respective 
 rooms. For a quarter of an hour, while young 
 Ashley undressed, Ashley sat on his bed and talked 
 animatedly about the work on the farm, of what had 
 to be done the next day, and of the prospects of the 
 year. There was nothing in his manner to make 
 young Ashley feel either mystified or uneasy, and 
 when, finally, he swung out of the room, with a cheery 
 good-night, he left his son filled .vith hope, happier 
 than he had been since the discovery of the album. 
 Before he had time to gloat over this, sleep touched 
 his brain with its finger and switched out the light.
 
 Bfcam's Glas 39 
 
 If young Ashley had been sleeping less heavily 
 an hour before daybreak, he would have heard his 
 father creep in stockinged feet down the stairs, unbar 
 the door with the greatest care, and make his way 
 with a kind of run into the sleeping night, smiling 
 curiously. 
 
 But young Ashley slept on without moving until 
 daybreak, when he woke mechanically. In excellent 
 spirits, he tubbed in the cold rain-water provided 
 by the panting but cheerful Sloke, got into his 
 breeches and gaiters and thick Harris tweeds, and 
 stumped into his father's room. 
 
 " Here, Sloke," he shouted, " how long's my father 
 been up ? " 
 
 The old man shuffled along the passage and stood 
 on the threshold of the room. 
 
 " Earlyish this marnin', Master John," he said. 
 " 'E be oop an' aboot afore Oi brought the water." 
 
 " By Jove ! " said young Ashley. 
 
 " 'E be feelin' grand an' well this marnin' too, so 
 Oi think, Master John." 
 
 Young Ashley nodded, called the dog, and went 
 out into the chill morning about his business. 
 
 Ashley was not back for breakfast. This gave 
 young Ashley and the Slokes no uneasiness. He 
 frequently remained out in distant parts of the farm
 
 40 Hfcam's 
 
 and took breakfast with the men. He was not 
 back for lunch. This, also, was not an infrequent 
 occurrence. So young Ashley and the Slokes made 
 a hearty meal with easy minds. But when young 
 Ashley returned to the house for a cup of tea with- 
 out finding his father he left it untouched, saddled 
 and mounted his horse and started off at a gallop 
 for that part of the farm to which old Ashley 
 devoted himself. On the way he asked a man here, 
 and a man there, if they had seen his father. 
 
 " Not this marnin', Master John," was the 
 invariable answer. 
 
 With his heart in his throat, young Ashley made 
 the round of the farm from end to end. Not a soul 
 had seen his father. He sat upon his heaving horse 
 and listened. 
 
 " Father, father !" he shouted, in a voice that had 
 no sound. 
 
 Twice he returned to the farm to find Sloke 
 standing by the gate. Each time the old man 
 shook his head silently, and watched young Ashley 
 turn and ride off at top speed. 
 
 Filled, by this time, with terror that made him 
 tremble from head to foot, young Ashley rode blindly 
 here and there. Scraps of his father's remarks, made 
 the previous evening, floated through his brain, and
 
 when at last he found himself at the edge of a deep 
 pool, black and silent in the fading light, he slipped 
 out of the saddle and stood looking into it with 
 arrested breath, open-mouthed, his ears filled with 
 noises. 
 
 Too terrified to move, young Ashley remained 
 where he had dismounted, peering fearfully at the 
 water for a quarter of an hour. A dozen times the 
 reflection of a cloud tricked him into the belief that 
 his father's stiff body was floating among the weeds. 
 A dozen times he leaned forward with a cry, with 
 veins tingling with pain. 
 
 Suddenly he heard approaching steps and a voice 
 raised in song. With a revulsion of feeling that 
 brought the sweat to his forehead, he looked up and 
 saw his father swinging along the footpath on the 
 other side of the pool. The eyes of the two men 
 met simultaneously. 
 
 Ashley waved his hand. "Hullo, Jack!" he shouted. 
 
 Young Ashley did not wait for his father to come 
 round the pool. He left his horse and ran to his 
 father, caught him by the shoulders and shook him 
 angrily. 
 
 " Where have you been, damn you ? " he cried 
 shrilly. " Where have you been? Where have you 
 been ?
 
 42 Beam's 
 
 Old Ashley took his shaking without a word, 
 realising instantly, from the trembling of his son's 
 iips, the depth of feeling which carried him away. 
 
 " Forgive me, Jack," he said. " I ought to have 
 warned you. I'm sorry." 
 
 " Where have you been," young Ashley repeated, 
 forcing back a rush of tears. 
 
 " I had business in the town, old man. I started 
 early and didn't want to disturb you. Forgive me. 
 I didn't think that you'd be so . . ." 
 
 " It's all right," said young Ashley. " Let's go 
 home." But he took his father's arm and held him 
 tight with one hand and led the steaming horse with 
 the other. 
 
 At dinner, and for the remainder of the evening, 
 Ashley knew that his son was watching him closely. 
 The boy showed his gratitude and relief in a dozen 
 curious ways. He didn't allow Sloke to wait upon 
 him at the meal, but himself handed everything to 
 his father. He placed his chair in front of the fire, 
 and loaded his pipe. He led the conversation round 
 to impersonal subjects, and drew his father out. He 
 laughed loudly at all his father's witticisms, and 
 finally carried up his candle to his bedroom. 
 
 That night it was the son who lingered in the 
 father's room. Ashley could see that he was under
 
 B&mn's Clap 43 
 
 close and minute inspection, and that his son's eyes 
 were examining every corner to find any evidence of 
 his visit to the town. It was only when his father was 
 in bed, with the clothes over his ears, that young 
 Ashley left the room. Even then the elder man 
 could hear his son listening outside the door. When 
 at last young Ashley went along the passage and 
 entered his own room, old Ashley crept stealthily out 
 of bed, unlocked a drawer in his dressing-table, and 
 laid his hand for a moment on the cold barrel of a 
 newly-purchased revolver. 
 
 On his face was the curious smile that he wore in 
 the early morning. 
 
 " I don't think it will be long before I shall need 
 you.'' he whispered. " Not so very long please 
 God."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE days lengthened. The hedges, now well 
 awake, burst into tender leaf. Celandines suddenly 
 peopled the ditches, and pompous dandelions stood 
 about the fields like dragoon guards at the easy. 
 Birds had got beyond the lover stage and were now 
 busy with the business of life. All the earth was up 
 and doing. 
 
 The sawdust figure of Cheerfulness, so long a 
 member of the Ashley household, had gone. Its 
 place had been taken by Cheerfulness himself, 
 rotund and beaming. 
 
 Young Ashley no longer found it necessary to 
 keep a watch upon his father. The latter had 
 entered what appeared to the Slokes and the farm 
 hands to be a new lease of life. It became a 
 commonplace thing to hear his laugh ring out 
 frequently, and to see him striding about elastically 
 with squared shoulders and head thrown back, giving 
 kind words to all who worked upon the farm. 
 
 Young Ashley looked like a dry plant newly 
 
 44
 
 Hfcam's Clap 45 
 
 watered, and Sloke and his wife became almost 
 objectionably cheerful. The once quiet farm-yard 
 had completely shaken off its depression, and now 
 echoed with bright voices and crisp sounds. The 
 place, from end to end, seemed to have been touched 
 suddenly with the wand of a fairy. 
 
 With very human adaptability young Ashley and 
 the rest quickly settled down to the new manner 
 and soon forgot that there had ever been an old one. 
 No one noticed the almost pathetic air of expect- 
 ancy that sat always upon the elder Ashley. His 
 attitude was that of a man listening. His ears were 
 tuned to catch some calling voice. He spent his 
 days in killing time, metaphorically packed and 
 ready for a journey, spoiling for the word that 
 should send him upon his way. He covered up his 
 eagerness as well as he could with a restless energy. 
 But many times each day he fingered the key of 
 the drawer in which lay his loaded revolver. The 
 postman seldom called at the farm, and when he 
 did call the letters were seized upon by old Ashley 
 with an anxiety that made his fingers tremble and 
 the blood rush to his face. 
 
 One bright, fresh evening, young Ashley got back 
 to the farm with a keen appetite for dinner in 
 advance of his father and found a letter lying
 
 46 Hfcam's 
 
 upon the table in the sitting-room. The envelope 
 was bordered with black and bore an Australian 
 postmark. 
 
 Young Ashley glanced at It carelessly and took 
 off his riding-boots. A second time the letter 
 caught his eye lying primly upon the table. He 
 picked it up and examined it. It was addressed in 
 a practised handwriting to " John Everard Campbell 
 Ashley, Esq., c/o Messrs Coutts & Co., Strand, 
 London, England. Please forward immediately." 
 
 Replacing the letter upon the table, young Ashley 
 carried his boots out Into the kitchen and stood them 
 by the side of the great open fireplace. A kitten 
 made a wobbly dash at his stockinged feet. Young 
 Ashley stooped and picked it up, and held it, a ball 
 of fluff, against his cheek for a moment. With an 
 anxious but proud cry the mother leaped out of a 
 box that was under the dresser and rubbed against 
 his shins with erect tail. 
 
 " All right, old lady," said young Ashley. " I 
 won't ill-treat your baby. Getting horribly adven- 
 turous now, eh? Soon he'll be able to get along 
 without its mother, eh ? Here you are, then." 
 
 He dropped the kitten softly back into the straw 
 and watched the cat spring back again Into the box 
 and stretch itself out with a purring cry.
 
 Hfcam's Clag 47 
 
 On his way up to his bedroom young Ashley 
 found himself in the dining-room, again fingering 
 the letter. He found nothing new upon the 
 envelope, no hint of the identity of the writer in 
 the address. And yet the letter seemed to be big 
 with evil. He threw it from him with a sense of 
 fright and stood staring at it as though he expected 
 it to explode like a bomb. Then he shook himself 
 with a laugh and ran up to his room. 
 
 But while he got out of his farm clothes, tubbed 
 vigorously and dressed again, he could see nothing 
 but the letter whichever way he looked. Pie tried 
 to whistle away the odd feeling of impending 
 trouble, but the sound died on his lips. He 
 struggled to send his thoughts along pleasant lines, 
 but the black-bordered letter rose up and formed 
 a dam. 
 
 Returning to the sitting-room quickly he caught 
 up the letter and took it to the fire and held it 
 towards the flame. But no, it was addressed to his 
 father, and he drew back his hand. Finally, he 
 placed it face downwards on the high mantel-board, 
 saying to himself that he would tell his father of 
 the thing in the morning. All the same, he spent 
 a miserable, restless evening. 
 
 He was standing at the window when Ashley
 
 48 H&am's 
 
 returned. He noticed that a queer, eager look came 
 into his father's face the moment he entered the 
 room. He halted on the threshold and stood 
 with distended nostrils and with eyes that searched 
 the room like a dog's, pointing. 
 
 During the meal it seemed to young Ashley that 
 his father's joviality and high spirits were forced, 
 and that while he talked his thoughts were else- 
 where. Several times young Ashley shuddered to 
 see his father's eyes wander to the mantel-board, 
 uneasily, as though drawn there by some irresistible 
 magnet. 
 
 After the meal, the two men took up their accus- 
 tomed places by the fire. The nights were still 
 chilly, and the glow of warmth from the crackling 
 logs was good. The conversation, too animated at 
 first, became intermittent, became one-sided, ran dry. 
 The elder Ashley laid back in his chair, with his lips 
 pressed together, and his eyes crinkled up. His 
 nervousness was painful to watch. He crossed and 
 re-crossed his legs, drummed his fingers on the arm 
 of his chair, and ran them frequently through his 
 hair and over his dry lips. 
 
 Young Ashley, filled now with an intense desire 
 to destroy the letter, eyed his father from beneath 
 his eyebrows, and longed for him to go up to bed.
 
 49 
 
 When at last he did rise, young Ashley could 
 barely restrain a cry of warning, when his father 
 deliberately turned and faced the spot upon the 
 mantel -board upon which lay the letter. But the 
 board was above the level of his eye, and the letter 
 remained undiscovered. 
 
 As it was, young Ashley sprang to his feet. 
 
 " Well, father," he said breezily, " what about 
 bed ? " 
 
 The elder Ashley made no reply to the question. 
 He turned to his son and looked at him searchingly 
 for a moment. 
 
 " Jack," he asked, in a low voice, " did anything 
 come for me to-night ? " 
 
 Before young Ashley could answer, Sloke entered, 
 anxious for a chat before retiring for the night. 
 
 " There be a foinc show o' stars goin' on, gen'le- 
 men," he said ; " as foine a show as ever Oi remember 
 seein'." 
 
 " That's good," said young Ashley. 
 
 " All the same, Oi do think as 'ow we're for gettin' 
 a tidy bit o' rain before marnin'. They fellers be 
 in'-an'-outin' rayther, an' that's a fact." 
 
 " Well, we can do with it," said young Ashley, 
 " Good-night, Sloke." 
 
 The old man shot a look of whimsical reproach at
 
 5 Hfcam'9 
 
 young Ashley, and directed his remarks squarely at 
 his master. 
 
 " T wold ooman be tellin' Oi to arst you, master, 
 'ow you liked the mutton to - night ? Her was 
 afeard the feller 'adn't been a-hangin' long enough ; 
 it got mixed oop somehow wi' t' others." 
 
 Young Ashley answered for his father. 
 
 " It was all right, Sloke ; very nice. Good-night, 
 We're just going to bed." 
 
 " Thank you> Master John," said the old man, 
 with a shade of annoyance. " Good-night, master." 
 He shuffled to the door. As he was going out. he 
 turned with an air of renewed hope. " Oh ! " he 
 said, " Oi knoo as 'ow there were summat. The 
 postman did tell Oi as 'ow there were a change o' 
 Gov'rnent oop i' London, master.'' 
 
 " Postman ? " The elder Ashley was round upon 
 the old man with a flash. "When did you see the 
 postman ? " 
 
 The blood surged into young Ashley's face, and 
 his heart beat so loudly that he was afraid it would 
 be heard. 
 
 Old Sloke wore a puzzled expression. " When 
 did Oi see postman ? " 
 
 " Yes, when ? " 
 
 " Well, for certain, Oi did see postman this very
 
 Beam's Glas 51 
 
 night as ever were. He brought a letter for you. 
 master." 
 
 " Letter ? " snapped Ashley. " What letter ? " 
 
 With all his soul, young Ashley wished that old 
 Sloke had lost his memory before he entered the 
 room. 
 
 Sloke's rheumatic hand, twisted like the root of a 
 tree, went up to the back of his head. 
 
 "Why, the letter," he said slowly, "that Oi did 
 put upon the table afore dinner. 'Aven't you 'ad it, 
 master ? " 
 
 " No," shouted Ashley. " Where is it ? Who the 
 h - has tampered with my letter ? Damn it ! 
 can't you speak, one of you ? " 
 
 Young Ashley pointed to the mantel-board. " It's 
 . . . there," he said. 
 
 With unerring precision, Ashley's hand seized 
 upon the letter. Trembling and eager, he carried 
 it to the lamp and held it in the circle of light. 
 
 " At last, at last ! " he cried ; " at last !" Then he 
 held it aloft, with his arms stretched out. " Almighty 
 God," he said, " I give you thanks . . ." 
 
 He fell suddenly on his knees, and with his 
 hands over his face, burst into a torrent of tears. 
 
 "Oh, my darling, my baby, my sweetheait . . . 
 to be packed into a thing like that and given to
 
 52 HDam's Clap 
 
 the worms. . . . Oh, it's damnable ; it's unthinkable. 
 I can't bear it. ... Come back, even if you don't 
 come back to me. ... So exquisite a thing in 
 such a place ! Oh ... oh ..." 
 
 The man's grief was too appalling to witness. 
 Old Sloke hurried away, awe - stricken. Young 
 Ashley gazed at his father's crouching figure for 
 a moment with the most poignant sympathy, and 
 followed Sloke. 
 
 Work had to be done in the morning there 
 were the living to be fed so Sloke and his wife 
 crept silently to bed. 
 
 Not so young Ashley. With chattering teeth he 
 sat down on the last stair but one, with his hands 
 pressed over his ears and his blood smarting in his 
 veins. His mother was dead his mother whom he 
 did not remember. The beautiful woman in the 
 album in evening dress, who had deserted his 
 father the beautiful woman who had run away 
 with his father's best friend. 
 
 It was the first time in his life that young 
 Ashley had come face to face with death. He 
 was not horrified or terrified ; he was silenced, 
 numbed. 
 
 A minute passed that was an hour. 
 
 Young Ashley started to find an arm round his
 
 Hfcam's Clap 53 
 
 shoulder a strong arm, pressed tightly. When it 
 relaxed, young Ashley rose to his feet, and his 
 father, smiling curiously, passed him and went 
 upstairs. Young Ashley went into the sitting-room 
 to turn out the lamp. While he made the 
 windows secure for the night, he listened 
 anxiously for any unaccustomed sound in the 
 room above. His hands trembled as he shut the 
 door, and his heart beat quickly, he knew not 
 why. Suddenly a loud report echoed through the 
 quiet house, and a dull thud shook the ceiling. 
 
 " Father ! Father ! " shouted young Ashley, as 
 he groped blindly up the stairs.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 HE heard a faint laugh as he flung open the door 
 of his father's room a laugh in which there was a 
 note of triumph and happiness. 
 
 Two candles were burning on the dressing-table. 
 Their light fell upon the figure of Ashley, the elder, 
 who lay upon the floor, in a pool of blood. The 
 black-bordered letter sat coldly upon the dressing- 
 table. 
 
 " Oh, father," cried young Ashley, " father !" lie 
 tottered to his knees. 
 
 Ashley, the elder, struggled into his son's arms. 
 There was a smile upon his drawn face. 
 
 " It is over," he whispered eagerly. " I am out 
 of hell." 
 
 " You shan't go. You shan't," burst out young 
 Ashley in an agony. " I won't let you go. 
 Father 1 " 
 
 A feeble arm fumbled its way round young 
 Ashley's neck. 
 
 " No one can stop me, Jack. I am released,
 
 Hfcam's Clap 55 
 
 thank God ! Read the letter. No. Hold me 
 tight. I know it. I will tell you what it says." 
 
 He slipped a little and seemed to shrink like a 
 pricked ball. Young Ashley clung to him 
 desperately, unable to speak. 
 
 "It says : ' Effie is dead. She asked me to write 
 to you, and send her love to you both.' Dear lad, 
 don't shake so. I am so glad to go." 
 
 " Don't leave me, don't leave me ! " 
 
 " Those were my words to you not so long ago. 
 Let me go, Jack. I have shot myself so that, if 
 there is another life, I may be with her before Frank. 
 I want to ask her not to go away from me again. 
 Do you understand, dear lad? I haven't seen her 
 for twenty - five . . . years. Don't be ... selfish. 
 But I shan't go in peace unless you promise me 
 never to leave the farm. Promise." 
 
 " I promise," sobbed young Ashley. 
 
 "You are safe . . . among the trees. And I shall 
 know that my story \von't be repeated. Kiss me, 
 Jack." 
 
 Young Ashley kissed the damp forehead. " Father, 
 father ! " he cried. 
 
 The feeble arm slipped away from his neck.
 
 pact ii 
 THE WOMAN
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 LITTLE Mrs. Blundcll the beautiful Betty Blundell 
 addressed her envelope to Captain Evelyn Blundell, 
 R.N., before she commenced her letter, which, in 
 itself, proves that little Mrs. Blundell is no different 
 from ninety-nine women out of a hundred. 
 In this way, also 
 
 " My very ownest Hubby-man," she wrote, in her 
 ridiculously pretty backward hand, with her fair 
 small head on one side, her lips pursed up, her blue 
 eyes slightly closed "my very ownest Hubby-man, 
 so you have got leave to come back to your lonely 
 little wife ^t last, after three of the longest, 
 dullest, most unhappy, most perfectly beastly years 
 she has ever spent. Hurrah once, hurrah twice, 
 hurrah three times, and one more hurrah for luck. I 
 can't tell you how delighted and how excited I am, 
 I feel that if I were just an ordinary woman I should 
 dash off and buy something I couldn't afford, or go 
 
 in for a course of face massage, or have my hair 
 
 59
 
 6o a^am's 
 
 waved by a Paris specialist. But then I'm not, you 
 know, darling, am I ? The next six weeks will seem 
 longer even than the longest of these three years, 
 each of which has been an age in itself. My dear 
 old boy, how brown and bearded and tobaccoy you 
 will be, won't you ? And how you will purr, and 
 rub your daily thinning head against your poor 
 little missus's shoulder! (How many esses in 
 missus's? I don't know!) 
 
 "Darling, I have done as you asked me to do. It 
 was rather a wrench to leave town, and the few 
 friends vvho helped to keep me bright and cheerful. 
 But I love my man, oh, so dearly, dearie (you know 
 that, don't you ?), and I have let the flat for the rest 
 of the summer to my old chum, Milly Cator, who 
 knows you, she says. She's nothing much to look 
 at, but she's a genuine good sort, and I like her. 
 She's the only woman in the world whom I would 
 trust a. yard. Also, like the best little wife in the 
 world , v anci I am, aren't I, darling?), I have got 
 exactly the rooms you described in which we are to 
 spent our honeymoon Number Two. (I'm sitting in 
 one of them now, having arrived this afternoon in 
 time for tea.) You wanted to be five miles from any 
 station well, this is ten. You pined to be in the 
 midst of wild, solitary country, where the abominable
 
 Btvim's Glas 6 1 
 
 swish of the sea is never heard. Very well, this is 
 idiotically and insanely wild almost dangerously so 
 as solitary as Bond Street in August, and nearly 
 as green as a certain Evelyn used to be if ever I 
 danced twice running with any other man. (Do you 
 remember those dear, dear days ?) Of course there 
 is the usual village two miles off, which has the 
 usual complement of Red Lions, Cats and Fiddles, 
 and Rising Suns. Of course there is the usual green, 
 whose daisies scraggy horses eat, never seeming to 
 grow any less scraggy. Of course there are the 
 usual generally bootless children, with siren voices 
 and neglected noses ; the usual old men, sans teeth, 
 sans eyes, sans everything ; the usual women with 
 curvature of the spine from so constantly bending 
 over the furrows. 
 
 " No one has ever even heard of the sea. At 
 least they look as though they hadn't, which is 
 pretty nearly the same thing. And I don't think 
 there is a Salvation Army. I didn't hear anything 
 of it as I drove through in a buggy which ought to 
 have been a dog-cart, drawn by a horse which ought 
 to have been a pony. In any case, you may make 
 your mind easy as to shops. For although there 
 is a bootmaker, a tallow-chandler, a postmaster, 
 a fly-paper merchant, a fishmonger, an oilman, r,
 
 S2 Yarn's 
 
 sweet-stuff manufacturer, a linen-draper, a tailor, a 
 greengrocer, a baker, a tobacconist, and a butcher 
 his name is Inskip and let me warn you against 
 knocking your head as you go in down three 
 wooden steps and please see that you don't tread 
 on the kittens. At present there are seven. 
 
 " There is no bathroom here (do you mind my 
 babbling on, darling, it's the next best thing to 
 talking to you, which is the best thing in the whole 
 wide world) ; but they tell me there is a hose, and 
 that our nearest neighbour is a farmer a mile away. 
 
 " The good people are as good as usual, though 
 not a whit better ; have acres of kitchen garden, 
 tw r o children boy and girl a grandmother, a 
 wire-haired terrier, who, or which, has its chin on 
 my foot at this moment, and a great collection of 
 pigs somewhere about. My window is open, and 
 the breeze tells me so. 
 
 " They are open-eyed at all my luggage, have 
 never had lodgers before, have never been to 
 London though the good woman's brother is a 
 plumber at Whitechapel, with twins and bronchitis 
 have no piano, no books, and nothing to read 
 except a well-selected collection of texts, which hang 
 in clusters over my bed. So far, I have only 
 committed murder once, and that was superfluous,
 
 HDam's Clas 63 
 
 as it \vas merely a lady-bird. I am not much of 
 a naturalist yet. 
 
 " By the way, did I tell you our nearest neighbour 
 is a farmer a mile away ? How I am going to kill 
 time till you come, I can't conceive. You know 
 how I hate the country. I think I shall sit under a 
 tree all day, and imagine that your head is on my 
 knee. At any rate, I shall attend every service at 
 the village church to pray that nothing may happen 
 to my dearest husband. 
 
 " And so, good-bye, darling. I will write to you 
 at the various places you say you will call at on 
 your homeward voyage, and with all my love, every 
 little bit of it, now and for ever. Your own 
 
 " BETTY. 
 
 " P.S. Hurry, hurry v hurry, 'cos I wants yer 
 mighty badly yes, I does, I does, I do."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 /\ ND again in this way : 
 
 " MY DARLING MILLY, Before I do anything 
 else, I feel I must write and thank you for being 
 such a brick. If you hadn't taken my flat just when 
 you did, old girl, I should have been regularly in the 
 proverbial cart. But of course, having been away, 
 you don't know the circumstances which led to my 
 being obliged to evacuate the untenable position, do 
 you ? Well, I'll tell you, if you will swear by all 
 you hold sacred if there is anything in the world 
 you do hold sacred to tear this letter up directly 
 you have read it. 
 
 " You remember that before you went away at 
 the beginning of the season Reggie Rawnsley 
 brought a man named Worthing, Valentine 
 Worthing, to the flat to tea ? Do you ? The man 
 with the face of a Greek god, and the body of a 
 Satyr, whom we had both noticed got up to repre- 
 sent Cupid at the Carnival at Prince's ? That te? 
 
 64
 
 BDam's 
 
 was the first of many teas, many dinners, many 
 suppers. You know I always liked books I couldn't 
 understand, and people by people I mean men 
 it was impossible to see through at a first glance. 
 I liked Valentine for that very reason. He puzzled 
 me. I couldn't make out whether he knew nothing 
 or everything. When I looked at his simply 
 beautiful face, so open, so frank, so regular, so 
 unlined, so but it isn't the word I want innocent, 
 and then glanced down at his almost humped back, 
 his claw-like hands, his withered little legs, I felt 
 bound to get at the bottom of him, to study him, 
 to find out to the last inch just what manner of 
 man he was. 
 
 " I dropped Reggie Rawnsley (it was more 
 difficult than I thought. The silly boy said his 
 heart would break, and that I had made him loathe 
 women! How absurd that every young man should 
 say the same thing under the same circumstances ! ) 
 and concentrated my attention on Valentine 
 Worthing. When I look back upon the duel we 
 fought, my heart palpitates as though I had been 
 fool enough to run a mile. I retired from the world, 
 gave up all engagements, and spent my days at the 
 flat, and my evenings at places where society doesn't 
 congregate. We were inseparable. He would be
 
 66 Bfcam's 
 
 with me about midday, half an hour after his 
 advance-guard, a florist's shop-load of flowers. Till 
 six o'clock he would sit at the piano, playing 
 the most exquisite airs to me, and singing little 
 strange, pathetic songs that crept into my veins and 
 filled me with electricity, and made me cry like a 
 baby. If ever he spoke and he rarely did speak 
 he would say little simple, boyish, enthusiastic things 
 about art and literature and religion, the kind of 
 things one can imagine a convent girl saying. Then, 
 about six o'clock every evening he would climb off 
 the music-stool, give a great sigh, touch my hand 
 almost reverently with the tips of his fingers, and go 
 home to dress. At ei^ht o'clock the bell would ring. 
 
 o n J 
 
 and I would go do\vn and find him waiting for me 
 in his brougham, scented and curled, no longer the 
 Greek god, but an old blase man, with leering eyes, 
 and keen, witty, blasphemous, epigrammatic tongue. 
 And we would dine together, and go to some out- 
 of-the-\vay music-hall ana then have supper. The 
 whole time he would never cease talking tearing 
 
 O O 
 
 every good old-fashioned thing to shreds, heaping 
 ridicule on chastity, faith, love, honesty ; pouring 
 scorn on the idea of a future life, and gradually 
 filing me with dre id, loathing, and contempt. 
 " Then he would drive me home, stand for a
 
 Beam's (Has 67 
 
 moment gripping my hand in both his own, 
 looking at me with eyes in which there was a kind 
 of lurking sneer, and then leave me trembling, 
 limp, disgusted, with all my flesh cockled, as though 
 a bat had touched my mouth with its wing. Every 
 night I determined I would never see him again. I 
 even went so far, ten or eleven times, as to tell Jane 
 on no account to let him come in again. But every 
 morning his flowers would come with some little, 
 simple, respectful greeting written upon a card, 
 and, filled with curiosity to see what his mood 
 would be, I would tell Jane to let him in the 
 moment he arrived. And so it went on. Every 
 day he would play and sing, and make me cry, 
 every night he would fill me with nausea. And 
 the extraordinary thing about him was that when 
 he disgusted and frightened me most, then was 
 his fascination most strong. But at last it had to 
 end. One night coming home in his carriage. . . . 
 Pouf ! I can't write it ; it makes me ill. When I 
 got home I packed up all my things, left the keys 
 with Jane, and caught the workmen's train they 
 must have taken me for a mad woman, although I 
 must own I looked awfully sweet with a most 
 becoming pallor on my cheeks, and my eyes wide 
 open, and very blue to Didcot. I waited at an
 
 68 B&am's 
 
 hotel till a respectable time of day, and then drove 
 over to my father-in-law's place, some miles out. 
 He is a Dean, you know, and most ridicu- 
 lously rural. I thought that, if I put myself, 
 metaphorically speaking, upon a diet of beer, 
 the constant taste of absinthe would leave 
 me. 
 
 " And then I got Evelyn's letter, in which he said 
 he was coming home, and of course that was a blow. 
 I did think he was pretty sure to give me another 
 free year. However, I mustn't grumble. The three 
 years he has been away have been the happiest years 
 of my life. Do you remember my saying to you two 
 minutes after he had left the house his eyes were 
 full of tears as soon as I was able to stop sobbing 
 that I would live every moment of my life till he 
 came back ? My goodness, Milly, I have lived them 
 too ! I have ! 
 
 " You really were a dear to take the flat directly 
 I wired to you. Evelyn wanted me to get rooms 
 in some very quiet country place, and wait for him, 
 for the honeymoon Number Two. (Goodness ! how 
 I laughed.) And here I am in about the most 
 benighted, God-forgotten place upon the map, I 
 verily believe. Of course, it's very lovely and all 
 that, but you know my idea of scenery the sky-
 
 Beam's Glas 69 
 
 line of the Knightsbridge houses as seen any 
 morning from the Row. 
 
 " Of course I shouldn't have left town at all, 
 but for Valentine Worthing. 
 
 " What I am going to do to kill time here I can't 
 conceive. There is not even a resident parson in 
 the place ! There is, I am glad to hear, a farmer 
 living a mile away. Perhaps, only perhaps, he may 
 be worth studying. Well, good-bye till to-morrow. 
 I'll let you know how I get on. In six weeks' 
 time all fun will be at an end, and I shall no longer 
 be a ... is free agent a good word ? Yours, 
 
 " BETTY."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 LITTLE Mrs. Blundell threw her pen down, rose 
 and stretched herself, yawning in a bored way, 
 yawning as a martyr yawns. 
 
 For a moment she stood in the middle of the 
 slanting-ceilinged room, upon the square patch of 
 hideously cheap carpet, and tried to imagine that 
 she could hear the never-ending hansom jingling 
 by, the sound of the shrill, impatient cab-whistle, 
 the jolting of 'bus-wheels, the nasal voices of brisk 
 tradesmen, the cockney twitterings of sparrows. 
 
 For a moment she stood with closed eyes trying 
 to see the misshapen figure of Valentine Worthing 
 perched upon a piano-stool, flooding the air with 
 minor chords, and piercing her heart with his 
 plaintive notes. For a moment, with her arms 
 flung out, her head thrown back, her eyes sparkling 
 with excitement and dare-devilry, she tried to 
 persuade herself that her husband had only a 
 
 moment ago left her for three years, that for three 
 
 70
 
 BDam's Glag 71 
 
 long, delightful, unhampered years the world, the 
 hitherto unexplored world, was hers to discover. 
 
 In the garden behind the cottage a baby started 
 crying, and reality forced its huge hob-nailed boot 
 into the door and drove make-believe ignominiously 
 out of the window. Before the baby had been 
 hushed and soothed into silence, Mrs. Blundell's 
 eyes were hard and discontented again. 
 
 It was all so quiet, so unexciting, so lethargic. In 
 the place of all the dear, familiar noises of London, 
 there were only to be heard the soothing swish of 
 the blades of corn rubbing shoulders under the 
 gentle hand of the breeze ; the quiet cooing of doves 
 on the roof; the distant music of sheep-bells playing 
 an unaccompanied quartet ; the occasional crowing 
 of some egotistical cock, and the murmur of 
 admiration from the hens who formed his harem ; 
 the bumpings and dumpings of a bustling housewife 
 about the kitchen below ; the happy growlings of 
 a bunch of puppies bicing each other's ears ; the 
 intermittent song of a boy digging in the kitchen 
 garden ; the all-pervading murmur of the midsummer 
 bee. 
 
 But above all these irritating sounds there was one 
 which got upon Betty Blundell's nerves until she felt 
 like screaming or breaking something. It was the
 
 72 Hfcam'8 Clap 
 
 regular hush-hush-hush which came into the window 
 at the other end of the room, the window which 
 looked out upon the placid garden of the cottage. 
 
 For a moment she stood listening to it, wondering 
 what idiot could be doing it. Then, as it continued 
 with almost the regularity of the swinging of a 
 pendulum, she gave a gasp of anger, and with the 
 blood eddying about her brain, hurried across the 
 room to the window to shout at the person who 
 could be doing it only on purpose to upset her 
 already tingling nerves. 
 
 With her beautiful face distorted with irritation 
 Betty put her head out of the open window, flinging 
 aside the screen of honeysuckle which hung down 
 over it. 
 
 Leaning anxiously over a cradle, her young eyes 
 filled with maternal concern, looking down at the 
 flushed and creased face of a great baby boy, stood 
 a little rough-shod girl of nine or ten. Her lips 
 were wide apart hushing loudly as with both hands 
 she dandled the cradle to and fro, beating time with 
 one of her feet. 
 
 The lines of irritation gradually died out of 
 Betty's face and an expression of great interest came 
 instead. With intense curiosity she watched every 
 movement made by the little girl, noted every look
 
 73 
 
 that came into her eyes. How, after vigorously 
 hushing for a quarter of an hour, she suddenly bent 
 over the baby's face, and while still rocking the 
 cradle as regularly as ever, listened eagerly to its 
 breathing. How, apparently not quite satisfied that 
 sleep had come, she touched, still rocking, but more 
 gently now the lids of the baby's eyes with the 
 tips of her finger. How, with fierce eyebrows and 
 threatening eyes, she raised a peremptory finger at 
 one of the pups which, tumbling head over heals out 
 of the house, made a wobbly dash at her calf. And 
 how, finally, hushing no longer, she stopped the 
 rocking of the cradle, gave a tender touch to the 
 blanket about the baby's ears, and crept quietly, 
 standing still every now and then to listen, into the 
 house. 
 
 " How extraordinary it is," said Betty to herself; 
 "she couldn't be more patient if the thing were her 
 own. I wonder why I wasn't born a mother like that 
 little country girl. . . . Fancy me, a mother ! . . ."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 SUDDENLY Betty Blundcli's expression of settled 
 boredom changed to one of wide-awake surprise 
 and curiosity. 
 
 The bow-window in the front room into which 
 she had returned, peered through thickly-climbing 
 roses into the road. Along this road, which begun 
 at the farm and ended at the village Whiteleys, 
 swung one of the hugest, broadest - shouldered, 
 biggest-footed, best-looking men little Mrs. Blundell 
 had ever seen. 
 
 As he came level with the window, his profile, 
 slightly shaded by a dark tweed cap, stood out in 
 clean-cut strength against the unclouded sky. As 
 he moved, always with the same long, well-oiled 
 stride, a pair of keen eyes scanned every other blade 
 of rapidly-yellowing corn with pride, affection, and 
 paternal anxiety. 
 
 Betty ran to the door quickly. "Mrs. Weeks, 
 Mrs. Weeks!" 
 
 From the distance came the sound of a flat iron 
 74
 
 Beam's Gla 75 
 
 dropped, with evident fluster, upon its metal stand, 
 followed by a shuffling of heavy feet 
 
 " Mrs. Weeks ! " 
 
 "Yes'm." 
 
 The voice, oily and deferential, and filled with 
 concern, came from the narrow, winding stairs. 
 
 " Come quickly. I want to speak to you." 
 
 Mrs. Blundell had thrown the window higher, 
 had moved the bamboo table away, and was leaning 
 out, framed in roses. 
 
 With panting breath, and with her apron twisted 
 round her plump bare arms, Mrs. Weeks hurried in. 
 
 "Mrs. Weeks," said little Mrs. Blundell, her voice 
 vibrating with excitement, "come to the window 
 quickly, look out to the right, and tell me who that 
 gentleman is in brown boots and gaiters." 
 
 Flushed, billowy, shiny Mrs. Weeks did as she 
 was bid. Almost at once she drew in her head, 
 turning a hearty laugh into a respectful cough. 
 
 "That be no gentelman, 'm. That be just fcrrmurr." 
 
 "Do you mean the usual kind of thing?" 
 
 " Sames always, 'm." 
 
 "Do you mean a man who grows potatoes and 
 cabbages, and all that?" 
 
 "An" corrn, an' burrley, an' oerrts," said Mrs. 
 Weeks, with her Sunday smile, " an' that loike, that's
 
 76 Hfcam's 
 
 it, 'm." Then, drawing her muscular, sunburnt arm 
 from beneath its hiding-place, she pointed out of the 
 window. " That's 'is corrn opposite, an' 'is furrm's 
 down the road." Whereupon, suddenly remembering 
 that her arm was bare, she murmured a confused 
 apology, blushed painfully, giggled, and thrust her 
 arm out of sight again. 
 
 Mrs. Blundell had said " Really ; dear me ! " in a 
 vacant, polite way, and had gone back to the window. 
 
 With her dainty elbows on the sill she leant her 
 chin on both her hands. The clustering roses, 
 tumbling into bloom over each other's shoulders, 
 scrambled to touch her hair. With her blue eyes 
 slightly screwed up, she followed the swinging figure 
 of the big, muscular man until, passing between the 
 two fields of corn which waved their heads towards 
 him with affectionate deference, he grew smaller 
 and smaller, became a smudge, a stain, a speck 
 upon the enormous golden sea, and disappeared. 
 
 Round Mrs. Blundell's delicate mouth there crept 
 a tinge of smile. In her eyes a growing expectation 
 and curiosity, mingled with relief and surprise. 
 
 She turned to Mrs. Weeks, who, it was plain to see, 
 was itching to talk, and gave her an encouraging smile. 
 
 " He certainly doesn't look a bit like one's idea 
 of a farmer," she said. "If you hadn't told me so,
 
 B&am's Clas 77 
 
 and of course, you know I should have said 
 that he was a soldier." 
 
 While she made these remarks in her deliciously 
 soft voice and clear, almost precise enunciation, 
 Mrs. Blundell unstrapped a leather case of mani- 
 cure implements, sat down by the side of the table, 
 carefully spread a white cloth over her knees, and 
 commenced to rub a pink paste upon her exquisitely- 
 shaped nails. 
 
 " I shall want a bowl of boiling water quite 
 boiling if you please, Mrs. Weeks." 
 
 With an air of disappointment at being dismissed 
 before she could enter upon a nice talk with the 
 wonderful lady from London, Mrs. Weeks turned 
 hastily towards the door. 
 
 "But there is no immediate hurry," added Mrs. 
 Blundell. " Sit down and tell me about the farmer. 
 I like to take an interest in everyone who happens 
 to live where I may be staying." 
 
 "Oh, thank you, 'm," murmured the gratified 
 woman, gladly subsiding into a chair. 
 
 She preened herself, and swallowed once or twice, 
 and folded her capable arms into her apron, and 
 rustled like a hen preparing for an earth-bath. Mrs. 
 Blundell noticed that she crossed her feet primly as 
 she had seen little school-girls do in village schools
 
 78 B&am's 
 
 when the Vicar had personally conducted her on 
 a tour of inspection. The elastic spring of her 
 boots had worn out, and the tips of once bright 
 patent leather had turned brown. And Mrs. Blundell 
 wondered how any man could bring himself to marry 
 any woman with things so large and ungainly. 
 
 " Let us begin with his name," she said, smiling 
 with immense condescension. 
 
 " Hashley, 'm," said Mrs. Weeks. 
 
 " Hashley? Quite an uncommon name, at any rate." 
 
 " No, 'm, beggin' your pardon. Not Hashley 
 but Hashley." 
 
 "Oh, Ashley. I see!" 
 
 Mrs. Weeks smiled at her lodger indulgently. 
 
 "Yes, that's it, 'm, Hashley. 'E were called 
 young Mr. Hashley until 'is father were took 
 leastways, 'e weren't took, as you may say. Properly 
 speakin', 'e went." 
 
 Betty Blundell looked politely puzzled. " I don't 
 think I quite . . ." 
 
 "By that I mean, 'm, as 'ow 'e didn't die a 
 nat'ral death same as I 'ope and trust, with God's 
 blessing, you and me will, 'm. . . ." 
 
 " Thank you, Mrs. Weeks." 
 
 Mrs. Weeks looked round the little room with an 
 air of mystery and lowered her voice.
 
 Beam's Cla 79 
 
 " No, 'm, hold Mr. Hashley, as 'e were allays called 
 
 why, I don't rightly know, seem' as 'ow 'e were not 
 hold as hold is reckoned in these parts a fine, 
 hupstandin' man, not a day mor'n fifty, if as much 
 
 Alf, that's my 'usband, stood out again Mr. Burrage, 
 'im as keeps the ' H'Angler,' wot you may 'ave 
 noticed on the right-'and side of the Green a-comin' 
 up, with geraniums in the winder-boxes, and a notice 
 as to accommodation for motors, as only one 'as ever 
 bin through, and a fine stir it did make in the place, 
 to be sure, as 'ow the departed were forty-height ; 
 but has there were no lins on the stone to say so, of 
 course the two shillin' never changed 'ands, an' glad 
 I were, 'm, seein' as 'ow two shillin' is two shillin' in 
 these crool times, an' . . ." 
 
 "What did he do, then?" asked Mrs. Blundell. 
 
 "'E shot 'isself, 'm, on the day as 'ow 'e got a 
 letter with a mournin' band from far-off parts." 
 
 Mrs. Blundell shuddered and put some of the pink 
 paste on her finger, which she then carefully removed. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Ah, no one knows, 'in, nor dared arst Mr. John, 
 who spoke not a word of any sort or kind to a living 
 creature for two months an' four days." 
 
 " And is John the only son ? " 
 
 "Ah, 'm, 'ow do we know as 'ow Mr. John is a son ? "
 
 8o Beam's Clap 
 
 " Oh, there is a mystery about that, is there ? " 
 
 "Not wat you may call a mystery, 'm, but a 
 nat'ral anxiety. The departed did arrive at the 
 furrm twenty-five years ago with Mr. John as a baby. 
 That's not denied, and lot's o' talk there were at 
 the time, that's true, seein' as *ow hold Mr. Hashley 
 bought out Mr. Jenkins, whose fam'ly 'ad bin there 
 gettin' on fer two 'undred year, an' all, an' 'e did 
 call the infant ' my son ' ; that I know for a first-'and 
 fact, because Mrs. Sloke, wot with 'er old man, by 
 which I mean 'usband, 'm, 'as done for 'em up at 
 the furrm from the first, is my haunt on my Alfs 
 side, 'as a-told me so many time, an' a fine place it 
 'as bin for 'em too, that's certain, only two to do for, 
 an' them mostly out an' about, an' not fussy heaters 
 neither, an' no company, not a soul ever crossin' 
 the threshold these five-an'-twenty year, an' only a 
 letter once in a way so as to make it the talk o' 
 the village." 
 
 " Strange people, Mrs. Weeks." 
 
 " Ah, you may say so, 'm, an' keep to theirselves 
 too, like the 'ermits of the past, but kind to the furrm 
 'ands, for all that, an' no lack of money neither, all 
 the himplements on the furrm comin' down from 
 London as new as possible, same as no one else 'ad 
 for miles round, and some 'ad never seen afore.
 
 81 
 
 Suspicious things, some of 'em, wot made small 
 work of a corn-field, laying of it out, when ripe, in a 
 manner not easy to fathom." 
 
 Mrs. Blundell, listening attentively, began to rub 
 her nails lightly with a pad. 
 
 " I suppose Mr. Ashley and his son went to 
 London for these things from time to time ? " 
 
 "Went to London, 'm?" echoed Mrs. Weeks. 
 " If you'll believe me and I speak the Gospel truth, 
 so 'elp me, an' why shouldn't I, 'avin' no purpose to 
 serve for or against these two were never known to 
 leave the furrm the 'ole time, no, nor pass through the 
 village neither, unless to ride or drive to the station 
 to give orders as to one of the himplements of wot 
 I've spoke, mostly these journeys being left to Mr. 
 Sloke, who did all the outside work, such as seein' to 
 the sales, and takin' the animals to market, and such 
 like ; and well 'e sold too, bein' a capable feller, born 
 and bred to the work and likin' it and them as 'e 
 served, and repeatin' nothin 1 , not so much as to give 
 a key to them as were interested, nor my haunt 
 neither, which is curious, seein' as 'ow she were a 
 big talker as a girl." 
 
 " But surely," asked Mrs. Blundell, busily 
 polishing, " some female relations of the father paid 
 
 a visit at one time or another?" 
 
 F
 
 8 H&am's Clap 
 
 "Never a suspicion of a ladywere known to enter that 
 there 'ouse, 'm, I can vouch," said Mrs. Weeks firmly. 
 " But was old Mr. Ashley a widower, then ? " 
 " Ah, 'm, who can tell ? " said Mrs. Weeks, shaking 
 her head. " From one little thing an' another wot I 
 pieced together like, an' from lookin' closely at hold 
 Mr. Hashley's face when 'e did pass the cottage, it's 
 my opinion as 'ow 'e nursed a wrong ah, an' others 
 bore me cut in that too even haunt, when I did get 
 'er to speak about it, which was onest, when she 
 come 'ere for a bite after 'elpin' to lay my little Alf 
 to rest, as was carried off with the croop poor little 
 mite ! aged two, and 'im as weighed two ounces 
 more when newly born than any other male infant 
 since '64, in these 'ere parts, and proud I were, 
 though modest being my first, wot come upon me 
 sooner than 'e ought, as tradition goes, my Alf bein' 
 a wheedlin' lover, wot never took no for an answer, 
 beggin' your pardon, 'm, for alludin' to such matters, 
 at which I look back now with hindulgence, there 
 bein 1 only a little chaff at the time, an' a very usual 
 thing with h'onest people who 'ad fixed the day, 
 an' that." 
 
 "And so," said Mrs. Blundell, "young Mr. Ashley 
 has never met a a person like myself in all his life, 
 I take it ? "
 
 Bfcam'8 Clas 83 
 
 " Like you, 'm," cried Mrs. Weeks, her voice filled 
 with genuine admiration, " never ! Poor feller, I 
 don't reely believe as 'ow he dreams as such 
 creatures are meanin' creatures in its best sense, 
 'm, that I do assure you having reely better have 
 said ladies in their own right. If you ask me, 'm, I 
 do think that the sight of you would fairly rumple 
 young Mr. Hashley yes, even 'im, as looks so 
 determined and closed in, as I call it, an' always 
 in bearin' reins, so to speak." 
 
 Mrs. Weeks gave an involuntarily chuckle, which 
 she quickly, with slightly heightened colour, turned 
 into a discreet cough. 
 
 Mrs. Blundell laughed a ripple of effortless 
 laughter, in which there was a note of excitement, 
 and half turning her back to her landlady, com- 
 menced touching things on the bamboo table, in 
 the way civilised women have of letting one know 
 that they have had enough of one. With that 
 peculiar instinct which is born and not bred in 
 women, Mrs. Weeks murmured that her iron would 
 be getting cold, and made her way to the door. 
 
 " Oh, and Mrs. Weeks, don't forget the boiling 
 water, and I should like tea about nine o'clock, please, 
 in a nice big pot. The dinner was excellent. I am 
 just going for a little walk."
 
 84 Want's Clag 
 
 The heavy, pleased, flat footsteps of Mrs. Weeks 
 sounded on the stairs. In the kitchen below began 
 the deep rumble of a man's voice, the noise of a 
 poker thrust into a fire, and the pattering of children's 
 feet upon a red-tiled floor. Without, sparrows 
 chattered in the ivy, a quiet breeze rubbed the roses 
 together, the distant tinkle of a sheep-bell floated 
 imperceptibly by. 
 
 Little Mrs. Blundell put her letters into the pocket 
 of an expensively-simple muslin frock, and crossed 
 the sloping floor of her oak-beamed sitting-room 
 into her bedroom. She emerged from it, after quite 
 a little while, with a smile on her lips, and a very 
 clever, poppy-covered hat set upon a head of hair 
 which rivalled the ripest corn. 
 
 " No," she said aloud, standing on a chair to get a 
 full-length glimpse of herself in the square of cheap 
 looking-glass over the narrow mantel-board " no, I 
 don't fancy it will be so difficult to kill time here 
 after all." 
 
 And then, with her sweet face glowing, her eyes 
 dancing, and carrying her head slightly on one side, 
 like an analytical chemist starting on a new 
 experiment, Betty Blundell tripped downstairs, 
 and took the turning to the right
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 SEVERAL times a year, during the twenty-five odd 
 years of his outlandish life, John Ashley had passed 
 along the road which ran, under the best parlour 
 window of Mrs. Weeks' cottage, from his farm to 
 the village. At first mostly on a wiry, electrical 
 pony, or with quick, eager, boyish steps; later, on 
 a stout, unpretentious mare of slate-roofed hue, or 
 with the steady, long, set-teeth swing, which had 
 brought something of the devil into Mrs. Blundell's 
 big blue eyes. 
 
 Since the death of his father, alone, sometimes 
 restlessly, impatiently, but always to the letter, 
 his life had been spent in the carrying out of his 
 promise. 
 
 So it came to pass that John Ashley, at twenty-five 
 odd years of age, had never left his village. 
 
 Nature, his books, his fields, his animals, and his 
 memory had been Ashley's only companions since his 
 father's death. Since then he had spoken merely to 
 
 his farm hands, to other farmers, to buyers, to his 
 
 85
 
 86 Hfcam'0 
 
 old pensioners in the village, and the few villagers 
 themselves. He had never seen a woman of his own 
 class a woman who wore silk linings to her skirts ; 
 and he had no wish, no desire to do so. John 
 Ashley, unique among men, was contented with his 
 lot. He had no other ambitions than to see his 
 crops ripen, to keep his animals healthy, to sell his 
 sheep well, to sleep soundly at night. Nature was 
 his one intimate friend and companion. Her fickle 
 moods exercised a peculiar fascination. He never 
 grew tired of her, never grew angry with her. She 
 was his mistress and his master. He found even in. 
 her tyranny and bad temper something to admire 
 and wonder at. In her beauty and peacefulness 
 and prodigality everything to worship. 
 
 Of so-called civilisation as practised in cities he 
 knew nothing. From the echoes of it that reached 
 him in his solitude it seemed to him to be a 
 strange and hopeless chaos. He knew nothing of 
 the lies, the humbug, the jealousies, the misrepre- 
 sentations, the vulgarity of party politics ; nothing 
 of modern literature or of the drama. He never 
 saw a newspaper or followed the impotent efforts 
 of scientists to alter the laws of Nature. Of wars, 
 of creeds, of theories, he knew nothing. That 
 much - abused word religion conveyed nothing to
 
 Hfcam'0 
 
 his mind. Of the Bible story he was, happily, 
 entirely ignorant His belief in a Creator, all 
 powerful, all wise, all loving, all merciful, was, 
 therefore, rock-like. The simplicity of his belief 
 was never interfered with and undermined by the 
 masses of man - made rules and foolish creeds 
 which are the curses of an egotistical and charlatan 
 age. His church was the open field, the sun and 
 moon his parsons. 
 
 With her characteristic nimbleness of mind, the 
 beautiful Betty Blundell had filled in the spaces 
 between the lines of information she had drawn 
 from Mrs. Weeks. John Ashley was new. The 
 study of a new thing, when it was male, was 
 always interesting to her. The study of John 
 Ashley would keep boredom, the worst of all evil 
 spirits, at arm's length. So little Mrs. Blundell, 
 who hated walking, took the turning to the right.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 SHE followed the corn-lined road until, within a 
 quarter of a mile from the village, it ran up a 
 hill. Here she branched off the road into a field, 
 tree-topped, where there was a gap. 
 
 Looking down upon a clump of irregular red 
 roofs grouped, chicken - wise, under the wing of 
 their mother church, she stopped, tired, expectant, 
 amused and resourceful. 
 
 The sun was setting. There was a sudden hush 
 in the world. A solitary crow, flying quickly, left 
 a harsh jar in the air. The silver tongue of the 
 ancient church, wailing the death of one hour, 
 singing the birth of another, instantly corrected it 
 
 That was all. The whole sky seemed to have 
 been slashed at with a sharp knife. From under 
 the surface of it there welled up streaks of blood 
 which trickled about the cuts, staining everything 
 a deep crimson. Insidiously, the trees became 
 tinted in it, the weeds and bracken and shaking 
 
 grass, the thin white line of road, the corn on 
 
 88
 
 Efcam's Clag 89 
 
 each side. The windows of the church and of the 
 cottages in the village suddenly flared as though 
 the rooms they lighted were on fire. 
 
 Little Mrs. Blundell saw none of this. Shading 
 her eyes with a delicate little hand, she watched 
 the road below steadily, eagerly, impatiently. 
 
 A speck on the white appeared, turned into two, 
 grew into a tired horse and weary man, and left 
 the road for a meadow on the left. Then nothing. 
 
 Another speck ! Little Mrs. Blundell bent 
 forward as though to give her eyes less distance 
 to peer through. The silver bell marked off another 
 quarter. A quick smile came suddenly to Betty's 
 face. She could now recognise the height, the 
 breadth, the slow, swinging stride of the man 
 placed upon earth to amuse her till the novelty 
 of him wore off, or until it became necessary to 
 drop him for reasons of a diplomatic nature. 
 
 She watched him slowly grow larger, and 
 suddenly stop. Leaning on a stile which led 
 to a footpath from the road up the hill on which 
 she stood, and back again, he seemed to be 
 watching something intently. Mrs. Blundell saw 
 nothing to look at no animal, no person. Surely 
 he couldn't be looking at the sunset, a man who 
 had seen nothing but sunsets since he was bom?
 
 go Hfcam's Clap 
 
 What a strange effect the country seemed to have 
 upon people. Bother sunsets ! Why didn't he 
 come ? The dew would fall presently, she supposed. 
 It generally did in those kind of places, and her 
 muslin would be ruined. 
 
 Why on earth was he taking off his cap? Was 
 there some woman in the field whom she couldn't 
 see ? Apparently not. He still had his chin tilted 
 upwards. Sentimental, forsooth, for all his inches. 
 Artistic, too, she supposed. So much the better. 
 He would appreciate the dip of her hat, the 
 exquisite outline of her face, the great soul-depth 
 of her deep blue eyes. She gathered that he had 
 never seen any other women than women with 
 aprons round their arms, with rolling r's. 
 
 How should she break herself upon him. Which 
 way would be most effective? 
 
 Everything depended, she argued, as to which 
 way he came up the hill, whether by the road or 
 the footpath. She hoped the walk had not dis- 
 organised the tiny curls upon her forehead. With 
 a wet finger she smoothed her eye-brows, lightly 
 and expertly sent home the hair-pins which had 
 worked out of their places. She bent down and 
 shook the dust from the edge of her frock. 
 
 When she looked down the hill again, Ashley
 
 Hfcam'0 Glas 91 
 
 had moved. He was on the footpath between the 
 waving grasses. His hands were behind his back, 
 and his lips were moving. Very likely, Mrs. 
 Blundell supposed, with a smile, repeating some- 
 thing out of those wretched books upon which 
 he wasted so much money. 
 
 The problem was how to be most effective. 
 Should she sit down and wait till he appeared on 
 the side of the hill, and then ask him the way to 
 the post-office ? Or should she stand on the tip- 
 top of the hill, blocking the path he was following, 
 outlined against the sky, flecked with the now paling 
 red? 
 
 On came the man of Nature, head up, arms behind, 
 long, slow, swinging stride. 
 
 Against the sky, directly in his way, with wide- 
 open, simple eyes, waited the little woman of the 
 world like a white, risen moon.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 ". . . No words of mine, my dear Milly, can 
 convey the very least idea of the intense enjoyment 
 that moment gave me. Even cow I have been 
 back three hours I can feel in my back that 
 pleasant thrill which an exquisite bar of music or 
 a big moment in a well-written play always causes. 
 Do you know ? A sort of tingling a fillip to that 
 part of one which is genuinely sympathetic and 
 responsive. 
 
 " I didn't look at him for some minutes seconds, 
 I suppose in cold, accurate English. Apparently 
 my eyes were fixed on the sky with that hungry, 
 dreamy, girlish look, which it took me so long to 
 acquire, and which has come in most usefully on 
 many former occasions. Nevertheless, I saw him 
 stop with a great gasp, and stand with his huge 
 arms hanging loosely at his sides, looking at me 
 as though I were a will-o'-the-wisp, a vapour, a 
 live poem. I wore that muslin I got for the 
 
 Veyseys' garden-party, transparent at the neck 
 
 92
 
 Beam's Glas 93 
 
 they call it neck and arms, and the poppy hat 
 everybody raved about so much and copied the 
 beasts. All Nature seemed to be helping me too. 
 The faint red glow, the green at my feet, the clear 
 gold behind me. I felt like one of those angels 
 painted on tinted tessellated stuff over the little 
 altar in one of those funny side-chapels in what's 
 the name of the church in Rome ? I believe that 
 if I could have kept it up, we should still be there. 
 But I wanted the extra satisfaction of seeing what 
 he would do when I looked into his eyes. So oh, 
 my dear, how thankful I am that Providence decided 
 I should be a girl I gave myself a little shake, as 
 though I had suddenly fallen to earth, and with 
 one of my best wide-eyed looks of intense, fearless 
 innocence, suddenly met his gaze." 
 
 Little Mrs. Blundell put down her pen, knocked 
 the ash off her cigarette, drew the soft folds of her 
 night-dress more closely round her, and threw back 
 her head with a quiet, silvery peal of laughter. 
 
 " I really thought he would have fallen down," 
 she wrote, after a moment, bending her dimpling 
 face over the table again. " In all my life, in the
 
 94 Bt>am's 
 
 whole course of my experience, I never felt so 
 thoroughly warmed and contented with myself. 
 It was like, I take it, a sudden, prolonged burst of 
 applause from a packed theatre, or a eulogistic 
 criticism in the pages of some really important 
 paper. I am one of those women, thank Heaven ! 
 or whatever it is one ought to thank in such a 
 case who has the power of tempting men. Well, 
 the use of that power has always been my pleasure 
 and delight. I love to watch the gradual trans- 
 formation which takes place, to see your calm, 
 assured, unruffled man become uncomfortable, to 
 watch the blood rush to his brain, to see his hands 
 twitch, and the veins beat and flutter on his temples, 
 the queer look come into his eyes especially when 
 there is some quite solid piece of furniture between 
 us. I suppose there is something of the mermaid 
 about me, because, having tempted to the top of 
 my bent, I then splash cold water over the man 
 with my tail, and slip away into the sea. I have 
 often before been surprised at the effect I have 
 created, but never till to-night have I felt quite so 
 what shall I say gratified. I think that's the 
 word I mean. Really, never. I wish you could 
 have seen my wild man of the woods. His mouth 
 fell open, his eyes seemed to start out of his head,
 
 Bfcam's Clag 95 
 
 and his heart jumped and beat, and panted I 
 could see it in his neck. 
 
 " For just a second I confess I was scared. He is 
 so big, so strong, so so untutored, so much a child 
 of Nature, that for a moment I thought he might 
 catch hold of me and well, I took my eyes away, 
 and went quickly past him down the hill. 
 
 " I was afraid to turn at first to see what he was 
 doing, because, of course, I thought he would be 
 looking after me. They usually do, you know. 
 But finally, as I didn't wish to lose any of the 
 enjoyment of the thing, I stooped down, pretending 
 to pick some grass, and looked back under my arm. 
 My dear, he hadn't moved ! There he was, just as 
 I had left him, with his back to me, his arms still 
 hanging at his sides, his shoulders heaving. 
 
 " If anyone had given me a rope of pearls, I don't 
 believe I could have been more pleased. You know, 
 after one has been at it for three whole, well-filled 
 years, and begun to think that perhaps some of one's 
 power has gone, it really is delightful to find, so quite 
 too convincingly, that the power is there in all its 
 abundance. Don't you think so ? 
 
 " As I looked, he moved, pulled himself together, 
 and staggering like a man who wakes from a sleeping- 
 draught, went away never once looking back. I
 
 96 Hfcam's 
 
 wonder if he still thinks I came from the sky ? I 
 say sky, because it sounds better than the other 
 word I was thinking of. I remember being awfully 
 pleased once because Reggie Rawnsley dear old 
 Reggie ! suddenly shook me quite violently and 
 told me I was a she -devil. Funny thing to be 
 pleased about, wasn't it ? "
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 PUTTING the letter into its envelope, little Mrs. 
 Blundell took up a hand-glass, and holding it in 
 both her hands, with her elbows resting on the table, 
 looked into it earnestly. There were four candles 
 behind it, and although the window was wide open, 
 their wicks burnt straight and unwaveringly. 
 
 The night was hot and breathless. No sound 
 broke its deep stillness. The moon in her first 
 quarter hung sharp against a sky clotted with 
 stars. Beyond the narrow white road and the 
 wide stretch of sleeping corn, a line of poplars 
 stood, with every branch cut clear against the pale 
 blue. The scent of honeysuckle and syringa crept 
 into the room. 
 
 Among the cheap and hideous china figures which 
 stood everywhere upon the frail sideboard, upon the 
 slip of mantel -board, upon the bamboo brackets 
 placed primly in the angles of the wall, among the 
 hard-seated chairs over whose b::cks hung stiff, white 
 
 lace antimacassars tied with vivid pink ribbon, the 
 
 97 r '
 
 98 
 
 oleographs of podgy angels, out-of-proportion race- 
 horses, children with dogs, and the while-you-wait 
 photographs of engaged couples, fathers and mothers, 
 widows and their sons the exquisitely dainty woman 
 in her belaced night-dress and Indian slippers, looked 
 like a diamond set in brass. 
 
 She broke into a sudden laugh and commenced, 
 with the air of one who conscientiously goes through 
 a form of daily exercise, to practise a series of facial 
 expressions. She pursed up her mouth, opened her 
 eyes wide, and raised her eyebrows. 
 
 " How can you ? " she said aloud. Then she let 
 her mouth become tremulous and her eyes tender. 
 " Must you really go ? " she said. 
 
 And then, with the quickness of lightning, she 
 closed her lips into a short, straight line, let her 
 eyebrows meet in the middle, and half closed her 
 eyes. 
 
 " Pray don't run away with the notion that I want 
 you to stay," she said coldly. 
 
 She tried this expression several times, with slight 
 alterations, additions, and emendations, and then 
 changed it to one of intense sympathy and interest 
 and rapt attention. 
 
 " Tell me about yourself," she said. 
 
 Apparently satisfied with that, she threw a gleam
 
 Hfcam's Clap 99 
 
 of challenge into her eyes, held back her head, with 
 her lips slightly apart, and said : 
 
 " No, I never allow any man to kiss me except 
 my husband." 
 
 Slow, heavy steps passed along the hard road. 
 
 With the quickness of a minnow, and with all its 
 clastic grace, she darted to the window and leant out. 
 
 It was Ashley, passing along with his arms behind 
 him, eyes to the ground. 
 
 Betty watched him until he became merged into 
 the shadows, and the echo of his steps had died 
 away. 
 
 Then she drew in her head, with laughing, eager 
 eyes gathered up her writing - case, and crossed to 
 her bedroom. On the way she stopped involuntarily 
 before a calendar. 
 
 " Only ten days," she cried. " Only ten days, and 
 he is so ... so unexplored ! But he no longer 
 looks at the sky, I notice." 
 
 She chuckled softly as she passed into her 
 bedroom.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 IT was the following evening upon which Betty 
 wrote again : 
 
 "I slept badly. I don't think I ever remember to 
 have slept badly before. It was a new experience, 
 and so I suppose I ought not to grumble. On the 
 contrary, as my whole life is devoted to the search 
 of things new, I ought to be glad. As a matter of 
 fact, I grumbled horribly until I got out of bed and 
 looked in the glass. I dreamt the most uncomfortable 
 thing. I dreamt that the farmer had choked me, and 
 that he had laid me down on the crest of a hill our 
 hill and covered me with withered leaves. My 
 husband ran up the hill, and stood looking at him, 
 with the moMt peculiar expression in his eyes. 
 Although I was dead I saw and heard everything. 
 
 _> / o 
 
 From what I remember of it now a good deal has 
 happened since this morning I think John Ashley 
 was out of his mind. lie sat by me, smiling 
 f .oHshly. Al! the strong lines round his mouth
 
 Beam's Glas 101 
 
 seemed to have been loosened. He looked like a 
 bronze statue over which somebody had put a thin 
 layer of putty, as a practical joke. I remember 
 being a little shocked at his sudden alteration. But 
 I could have laughed at the careful way in which he 
 put the leaves all over me. He didn't shovel them 
 over me. He placed them gently, one by one, as 
 though he were dressing a dinner-table. They really 
 looked rather becoming on my white dress. If Evelyn 
 is in funds when he comes back only nine days 
 now ! I shall get Friola to build me a white evening 
 frock covered with copper-coloured loaves. I am 
 sure it would be rather effective, with bronze shoes, 
 and a wreath of the same leaves in my hair. But 
 let me tell you how it seemed to me that Evelyn 
 looked, before I forget. He looked like a man in 
 blind-man's buff, when the handkerchief is taken off 
 his eyes, and he finds himself facing people he 
 thought were all behind him. He looked from 
 Ashley to me, and from me to Ashley, as though he 
 didn't really believe that we were there. You know 
 Evelyn, don't you ? You know that he is one of those 
 short-necked men, who gets very red under great 
 emotion, whose face swells, and who swears foully. 
 All the veneer of civilisation cracks like cheap 
 stucco on an old building, and underneath you see
 
 102 Hfcam's 
 
 bricks ! I expected to see him fling himself like 
 an ape upon Ashley, and tear him limb from limb. 
 He did swell and get red, and clench his fists, and 
 cry out inarticulate blasphemy. But suddenly 
 catching Ashley's eye, and finding in it no fear, no 
 annoyance at being caught, he pulled himself up, 
 and stooped over me. 
 
 " ' So you're one of that sort, are you ? ' I heard 
 him say, with disgust in his voice. ' And he's choked 
 you, has he, on finding it out ? It saves me the 
 trouble and serves you right ! ' 
 
 " I think I was more surprised than hurt. Evelyn 
 is such an extremely well-bred person. But as he 
 turned away to go down the hill, lurching like a 
 man who wakes after a sleeping-draught, I did all 
 I could to cry out to him to come back and kill 
 Ashley horribly and couldn't. My tongue felt like 
 a huge garden roller. I strained and tugged and 
 pushed, and couldn't move it. I suppose the effort 
 woke me. 
 
 "I knew the whole thing was a dream, of course; 
 but it seemed so real, so actual, that really for a 
 moment or two, I was afraid to open my eyes in 
 case I should see Ashley's inane face, and hear 
 Evelyn dear, fond, old bull - necked Evelyn 
 thudding down the hill. Was it the radishes? Or
 
 's ciag 103 
 
 was it the after-effect of one of those foolish novels 
 I had been reading before going to sleep ? 
 
 " But it doesn't matter. The point is, I had a new 
 sensation. I dreamt for the first time in my life. 
 Poor mother ! The fact that I always slept well 
 was one of her standing grievances. She used to 
 get out of her glasses generally tearing away 
 pieces of hair-net lay them down on her Bible 
 I am talking of the times when she was ill and 
 say, ' I can't get over it. You were the only one 
 actually to see your poor father in the agonies of 
 death, and yet you could come home from the 
 hospital, have a good supper, go to bed and sleep 
 like a baby.' She dreamt for weeks, poor old thing ! 
 No wonder she envied me ! 
 
 "But the gift of being able to sleep after any 
 worry or trouble is peculiarly mine. Why, even 
 after that drive with Valentine Worthing the very 
 thought of which makes cold water run up and 
 down my spine I slept like a healthy school-girl 
 after a tennis tournament. Excellent, isn't it ? 
 
 " I ate three new-laid eggs this morning ! They 
 were like cream. I believe they were born on 
 purpose for me. I must say that the whole place 
 is most kind and obliging. It was very nice and 
 fresh in the little sitting-room. The window was
 
 104 H&am's Clay 
 
 wide open, and those common crowding white roses, 
 which always remind me of servant girls in the 
 fields on Sunday evenings, poked their heads in 
 at me. They had put a great bunch of very red 
 poppies into a pink glass vase, chipped at the 
 bottom, on the table by the butter. They were 
 mixed up with long, tall pieces of barley, a ; id they 
 were not unlike shiny-cheeked girls, blushing up into 
 the faces of loutish soldiers. I suppose I felt 
 poetical ! And the sweet - peas were really quite 
 sweet. I wished all the time that John Ashley 
 could come in and see me. I must have looked 
 so simple and harmless and wide-eyed. I wore that 
 perfectly heavenly breakfast-gown that I took from 
 Edith Dinting to settle her Bridge debts. Do you 
 remember it? Hand-painted chiffon, and miles of 
 lace real lace, cut low at the throat, and falling 
 away at the elbows. I know it rather tends to 
 convey the impression that one is what is that 
 silly word that people use under the circumstances 
 interesting, isn't it ? which, to me, takes a little of 
 the gilt off the gingerbread. But after all, from what 
 I hear and judge of Ashley, he's not so highly 
 civilised as to possess a smart mind. He would 
 only have taken in the picture as a whole. And 
 as you know, my arms are very beautiful. I'm so 
 glad I had the pluck to be vaccinated on the thigh
 
 Hfcam's Gla\? 105 
 
 " I couldn't help thinking as I put on my morning 
 frock, what small things are capable of changing 
 one's entire mental attitude. Yesterday afternoon I 
 loathed this place, with its quiet, its scents, its 
 rural noises. I hated to feel off the map, and 
 looked forward to the ten days here with that 
 feeling of dread which, I imagine, a criminal feels 
 at the beginning of a term of ten years. 
 
 "Think of me this morning. Think of me last 
 night. Already I eye the calendar suspiciously to 
 see that it doesn't cheat me out of a day. Oh, 
 Milly, you don't know what it is to me to 
 deliberately lay my little plans to fascinate a man 
 such a man ! or what exquisite pleasure it gives 
 me to note the gradual effect they have upon him ! 
 I suppose a spider is the only animal which gets 
 the same kind of satisfaction. Not that I wish to 
 compare myself with an animal, or rather an insect, 
 although, my dear, I am not much different from 
 most beautiful women, and it's a futile argument 
 to say that this kind of game it is a kind of game 
 isn't animalish. Why, Eve did it ! However, I 
 don't care one way or the other. It's a free 
 country, and one can take one's pleasures how 
 one likes. 
 
 " I must know men pretty well, I think. I walked 
 straight to the top of the hill where I met John
 
 io6 BDam's 
 
 Ashley the other evening. I knew that either he 
 would be already there, or that he would be there 
 shortly. I found him already there ! He was lying 
 on his back with his head on his hands, asleep. He 
 looked like Gulliver, at full stretch. I never saw 
 such a really superb person. It made me feel about 
 four inches long ! I wondered, impishly, what he 
 would say if I started running over him like a 
 Liliputian, and I longed to tack him down to the 
 earth so that he couldn't move, and then tickle him 
 with a long piece of grass ! 
 
 " He's wonderfully good-looking. His eyebrows 
 are red, and his moustache a large, soft-looking 
 thing is almost flaxen. It looks lighter than it 
 really is because his skin is deeply tanned. His 
 nose is too large, perhaps, but it is a good one, and 
 shows breeding by its bridge. And I don't think 
 I ever saw such a square, determined jaw. He was 
 breathing as men breathe when they are in their 
 second sleep soundlessly. Indeed, I had to bend 
 over him and listen, and look closely at his chest 
 to make sure that it was only sleep. It might have 
 been death, you know, and then my tiny ten days 
 would have become ten weary months. 
 
 " I watched him for a long time, wondering how 
 the effects of me would work upon him. He is such
 
 HDanrs cms I0 7 
 
 virgin soil. I have never met his kind before. 
 Evelyn, poor, dear old Evelyn, was so easy to 
 manage. One's few quite elementary tricks were 
 sufficient. When I made up my mind that I 
 couldn't stand home its dull, horrid routine, con- 
 stant economy, everlasting living with the gas turned 
 down and that I would become Mrs. Blundell as a 
 stepping-stone to London, I just let my knee rest 
 against his as I drove to a dance at the Hall, sitting 
 opposite to him in his uncle's hideously old-fashioned 
 carriage, and afterwards, when we were sitting out in 
 the summer-house, an imaginary spider had to be 
 shaken out of my skirt, and my stockings were very 
 pretty. He caught his breath when I decided the 
 spider must have gone, and I managed, before I sat 
 down, to undo the button of my shoe. When he 
 rose from doing it up, there was a glitter in his blue 
 eyes, and his hands trembled. I took care also that 
 three other people should get into the old carriage 
 with us going home, so that it became necessary for 
 us to be very close together for some time ; and 
 several times, when we passed over a more than 
 usually rutty part of the road, I held his hand very 
 tight, without my glove, in a nervous, helpless way. 
 He proposed to me while we waited on the steps for 
 old Jane to open the door. His first kiss told me
 
 how effective these just preliminary tricks had been. 
 You must remember that Evelyn is one of those 
 kind of men they form the vast majority who is 
 very easily moved. For instance, a very few glasses 
 of wine go to his head. He quite bellows at all the 
 obviously bellowy parts of a play. You see, he 
 rather runs to fat. 
 
 " With Reggie it was quite different. He is slight 
 and tall and dark, and such things would have merely 
 tended to disgust. With him it was dangerous to 
 take the initiative. He liked the will-o'-thc-wisp 
 method the elusive, the invitation in the eye, the 
 quickly - erected fence. With him the impossible 
 was the only thing to be desired. One had to play 
 one's subtle tricks in his case, one's second-grade 
 tricks. And with Valentine Worthing who is the 
 third type of man there are only three who is an 
 artist at one moment, a Goth at the next, a mixture 
 of the most refined and the coarsest sensualism, 
 epicure and animal one had to combine tricks 
 belonging to the first and the second grades, 
 according to his mood. But one had to exaggerate 
 both. It was a good deal more trouble, and I can't 
 tell you how much more dangerous to oneself, and 
 consequently, how infinitely more enjoyable and 
 worth one's while. Danger is the very backbone
 
 Beam's Glag 109 
 
 of the game a game which Is, of course, utterly 
 spoiled when a goal is scored. 
 
 " But what am I to do with this huge, untutored 
 instrument ? What chords, what runs, what discords 
 am I to strike on his untouched keys? He is sensual, 
 of course all men are, especially the misogynist. 
 He must have caught something of the sensualism 
 of Nature, who is the lightest female of us all. Any 
 man can be celibate who has never had the oppor- 
 tunity of being anything else. Opportunity proves 
 the metal. I firmly believe that there would eventu- 
 ally be no such thing as animalism in men and 
 women if we were taught to concentrate our whole 
 power of creation upon things we had a taste for. 
 The whole thing is merely an innate desire to create, 
 and if we all did things wrote, painted, sculped, 
 carved wood, bound books, made clothes ; it doesn't 
 matter our animalism would be put into the work 
 we performed, and we should all become celibate. 
 Nature knows that well enough, though, and she has 
 no desire to be left alone in the world as she found 
 herself in the days before Adam and Eve trod upon 
 her bosom. That's why, I suppose, animalism is 
 called Nature by people who dislike to be called or 
 to think themselves animals. Why shouldn't it ? 
 The deception has been allowed by the Church.
 
 no Hfcam's Clap 
 
 Marry, and animalism is blessed. Don't marry, 
 and it is horribly immoral. The Church is the 
 police force. It regulates the traffic. 
 
 " I think I must have stood by my boredom- 
 dispeller for half an hour before I made up my 
 mind that I should have to treat him as I treated 
 Valentine Worthing. I came to the conclusion 
 that there would be very little difference between 
 these two men. They are both artists, both Goths, 
 both epicures, both animals. It only happens that 
 one has grown almost tired of creating, and the 
 other hasn't yet begun to create. Therefore it 
 means that I must combine the tricks of the first 
 and second grades just as lightly with Ashley as I ex- 
 aggerated them with Worthing. And even, practised 
 lightly, I shall, thank goodness, be playing with fire. 
 But I don't intend to get burnt ! A burnt child 
 dreads the fire. I am Evelyn Blundell's wife ! 
 
 " Finally he began to show signs of waking I 
 think he must have been sitting all night where he 
 first saw me and I walked away keeping my back 
 to him. I would have bet any money on his speaking 
 to me, and I should have lost. When I looked round 
 he had gone, I could see him running hard down the 
 hill to his farm. He was not running away from me, 
 though. He was running away from himself."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 BETTY watched the farmer till he was out of sight, 
 with a smile in which there was intense pleasure 
 coupled with intense annoyance. She had meant 
 to speak to him that morning, or get him to speak 
 to her. So, while she thoroughly appreciated his 
 retreat it was, in such a man, an immense compli- 
 ment, in that it proved that he couldn't trust himself 
 in her neighbourhood it meant that perhaps another 
 day, or at any rate, several hours, would have to be 
 killed alone, with no man to practise on. 
 
 She remembered that the letters arrived in the 
 village at midday, and so she slowly retraced her 
 steps. She made up her mind that she would sleep the 
 afternoon away, and return to her spot in the evening. 
 She was one of those women who always slept her 
 afternoon away however busy she might be. She con- 
 sidered that it kept away wrinkles, and with her, as 
 with most women, wrinkles are terrible things. She, 
 like most women, had a great dread of looking her 
 age, and would do without new dresses even, in order
 
 to have face massage, or any other kind of treatment 
 that would help to keep the youth in her face, and 
 her figure for naturally, her figure too came into the 
 question of looking young. There is, perhaps, next 
 to wrinkles and loose flesh, nothing a woman dreads 
 more than spreading hips. And Betty, like most 
 women, would undergo any discomfort, wear any dis- 
 tressing appliance through the night, if only she 
 thought it would control fat, and put the clock back. 
 She, like most women, spent many anxious moments 
 in front of her full-length glass putting herself through 
 a daily inspection, wondering, with a catch in her 
 breath, whether this or that portion of her wasn't 
 slightly larger, or slightly more lined to-day than 
 yesterday. To this end she regulated her diet more 
 carefully than any priest. 
 
 She found on the table of her little sitting-room 
 a large packet from her friend, in which were 
 enclosed all the letters which had been delivered 
 at her flat since her absence. She noticed, with a 
 smile, that the packet was addressed to Miss 
 Blundell, and she thanked Heaven that Milly was 
 a woman of imagination. She herself had meant 
 to tell her landlady that she was unmarried. She 
 knew intuitively that Ashley was one of those 
 aueer. old - fashioned persons who wouldn't allow
 
 Hfcam's 
 
 himself, from a sense of mistaken honour, to flirt 
 with another man's wife, and this substitution on 
 the part of Milly would save the trouble of telling 
 a lie. Not that Betty objected, any more than any 
 other woman, to tell a lie. But she preferred other 
 people to do it for her, in the same way that she 
 preferred other people to do her shopping and 
 mend her clothes. The lie once told, she, like 
 other women, found it quite easy to live up to. 
 Indeed, deception was the breath of her nostrils. 
 And yet she was in no sense a liar. She told the 
 truth when it didn't matter, quite readily at all 
 times. But she found life a little dull unless there 
 was always something to hide from somebody. 
 Something quite trivial, perhaps a letter, the 
 photograph of a man she knew her husband, her 
 father, her brother objected to, little meetings with 
 the same man, and others but still something. It 
 gave a fillip to her day which she found it quite 
 impossible to do without. It supplied the place of 
 constant nipping. There might be nothing in the 
 letter her husband could possibly find to cavil at, 
 except the usual terms of endearment which men put 
 in their letters to most women to whom they write, 
 just to pan it out, or because it has become a habit 
 with them, such as "all love," "with all my love,"
 
 H4 Hfcam's 
 
 "girl dear," and other utterly insincere and stereo- 
 typed and meaningless things. But she chose to 
 hide it in the same way as a dog hides a bone. 
 It gave her a tinge of pleasure to go and dig it up 
 when she thought that no one was looking. 
 
 No wise man objects to these little things in his 
 womcnkind. He knows very well how great a 
 part the utterly small things play in their lives. 
 He knows very well, however much he may love 
 and respect them, that they cannot help themselves, 
 and so are not to be blamed, any more than they 
 can help having ears and toes and fingers. If, on 
 the contrary, he does object to it, and makes himself 
 unpleasant, he is worse than a fool he is a mad- 
 man, because he is taking away one form of food 
 for their vanity ; and if a man does not pander, in 
 every way, to the insatiable appetite for vanity 
 which is the great, all-pervading characteristic in 
 the nature of many women, his happiness is at an 
 end, and in all probability he drives her to ruin her 
 own reputation by going elsewhere to have it fed. 
 
 Betty pushed aside all the letters which were in 
 sufficiently good handwritings as to proclaim them- 
 selves bills, and pounced upon one written in the 
 niggly style of men who wish to be thought brainy,
 
 Beam's Glag us 
 
 It was from Valentine Worthing, and bore the 
 Regent Street post-mark. 
 
 The si^ht of it sent a rush of blood to her cheeks. 
 
 o 
 
 <: Regent Street," she cried aloud, and kissed the 
 post-mark ecstatically. 
 
 It only contained a few lines with a ragged 
 margin. Betty had expected to find many pages 
 full of baffled desire, beseechings, and anger. 
 
 She read : 
 
 "You dear thing: how hopelessly you misread 
 me. But I know you for what you are. Don't I 
 know myself? Aren't we precisely alike? We 
 were playing exactly the same game. I only 
 wished to work you up to a pitch of emotion 
 when you could refuse me nothing and then say 
 to you, ' No, thanks ! ' And all you wanted was to 
 do the same to me and refuse in the same way. 
 There is a most euphonious name for us which is 
 not included in the dictionary. Perhaps you know 
 it Tibi. 
 
 " VALENTINE." 
 
 Betty Blundell's mouth took a hard, angry line, 
 and she crushed the letter into a ball. Then her 
 vanity pushed through her momentary humiliation,
 
 n6 Beam's 
 
 and she smoothed out the paper and read it 
 through again. 
 
 " How clever of him," she said, " to try and turn 
 the tables like that. Any idiot could see plainly 
 enough how successful I must have been." 
 
 And in this way also, Betty proved herself to 
 be no different from ninety-nine women out of a 
 hundred.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 CAME old Jesse Sloke into Ashley's sitting-room 
 once more. His crinkled face, like nothing so much 
 as a dried pippin, was pursed up with amazement. 
 His master's breakfast had been placed, as it had 
 been placed every morning upon the table. And 
 it was untouched. Old Jesse had tottered up to 
 Ashley's bedroom at a quarter to seven, thinking 
 perhaps that he had not heard the call, and had 
 found the bed unslept upon. 
 
 He looked at the clock for the twentieth time. It 
 was some minutes after twelve. Such irregularity in 
 the routine of the farm had never happened before. 
 He had called his master at 4.30 in the 
 summer, and 6.30 in the winter, every morning 
 every morning since the old master had been put 
 under the Scotch fir in the little churchyard. Every 
 morning the breakfast had been put upon the table 
 at half-past seven in the summer and half-past eight 
 in the winter. Every morning lunch had b'jcn ready 
 
 at one, tea at five, and dinner at eight o'clock, and 
 
 117
 
 ii 8 Efcam's 
 
 every evening the house had been locked up and 
 every light out by 9.30. 
 
 What was the meaning of this ? 
 
 His annoyance gave way to anger. What right 
 had the master to upset everything in this way ? 
 People got used to things. People especially when 
 they had crossed the meridian of their lives with one 
 set of habits couldn't do with sudden changes. 
 The old man walked from the sitting-room into the 
 hall and back again a hundred times, arguing in this 
 way. Every time he re-entered the room his anger 
 rose. It was too bad, he said to himself. He was up 
 in time to call the master why wasn't the master 
 ready to be called ? The breakfast had been got 
 ready by his wife to the minute ! Why wasn't the 
 master ready for his breakfast? It was not fair! It 
 was not just ! If the master wished to begin being 
 irregular, he should have been irregular years before. 
 It wasn't giving him a chance. It would take him 
 some time to shake himself out of his habits of 
 regularity. 
 
 The sitting-room clock's thin voice struck one. 
 The deeper, commoner, rougher voice of the kitchen 
 clock hurried to announce the same hour. 
 
 Fright drove the old man's anger away. Some- 
 thing had happened to the master the master he
 
 a&am's Clap ng 
 
 had loved and served, but never understood. He 
 couldn't have been struck by lightning there had 
 been no storm. He couldn't have been attacked by 
 gipsies. He barely remembered to have seen gipsies 
 in the neighbourhood. 
 
 Whistling, with a brave attempt at gaiety and 
 unconcern, in order that his fright might not spread 
 itself to his wife, the old man passed through the 
 open front door of the farm-house, and went along 
 the path to the white gate, eyeing the circular beds, 
 filled with masses of flowers that were barely tamed, 
 with eyes that took in nothing of their elementary 
 colours. There, with eyes sharpened by fear, he 
 gazed up and down the road. The dust lay thickly, 
 whitely, movelessly. In the air myriads of golden 
 specks danced lazily. The trees perspired under the 
 midday sun, and the sheep lay under them panting, 
 too hot to chew. Not a fleck of cloud broke the 
 faint, endless blue of the sky. The birds were silent. 
 Only the insects, drawn out of their lairs by the 
 warmth, chattered and buzzed. 
 
 But nothing could be seen. Nothing disturbed 
 the great, soft anthem of the day. Nothing moved 
 on the road. 
 
 The old man shivered. Something had happened 
 to the master. Only once before had he felt as he
 
 120 Hfcam's 
 
 now felt, and that was twenty-four years before, 
 when, spending a night in the nearest market town 
 selling sheep for the farm, he had awakened in the 
 middle of the night at the inn, and remained awake, 
 cold and trembling. And then he knew something 
 had happened to his wife. And he had been right, 
 for upon returning in the morning at full gallop, he 
 found the new-born child dead, and his wife half- 
 way through the cruel door that opens at a touch s 
 and closes for ever against the strongest hand. 
 
 Involuntarily he raised his twisted fingers, and 
 clasped them together in front of his eyes and 
 called out : 
 
 " Master, master ! " 
 
 A distant thudding of heavy steps on turf took 
 his hands trembling to his sides. With a spasm of 
 joy and relief he saw the master coming towards 
 the farm at top speed, runnirg as a man runs who 
 is chased, as a man runs \vho is afra'd. He came 
 nearer and nearer, at the end of his second breath, 
 but fighting his way along, and at Ia:;t swung 
 through the gate, tore up the path and through 
 the door, and flung himself, panting and dust- 
 covered, into his chair. 
 
 The old man followed nuicldy. Putting his head 
 into the sitting-room after a decent interval, he
 
 B5am's Clay 121 
 
 found the master bent double, panting still, with his 
 head between his hands. Ashley had run at top 
 speed, with all his strength, but he had not been 
 able to out-distance himself. 
 
 And again the old man was right. Something 
 had happened to the master. A woman was in his 
 blood for the first time in his life.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 YOUNG Ashley felt the old man's sympathetic, 
 uneasy eyes upon him, and with an exclamation 
 of rage which Jesse Sloke had never heard the 
 master use before, he rose, waved him away, shut 
 the door with violence, and locked it 
 
 With a feeling of shame upon him, Ashley got 
 himself by the throat, and tried to shake out of 
 his eyes the face of the woman. He cursed himself 
 for a fool, and repeated over and over again the 
 words that his father had used. 
 
 He leaned on the mantel-board, and looked at 
 the photograph of his father, mutely, in an agony 
 of self-reproach. He gazed, with the deepest 
 sympathy and love, into the stern eyes, the lined 
 face, the sunken cheeks. He recalled ail the tender- 
 ness, all the care, all the solicitude his father had 
 daily shown him. The very tones of his voice rang 
 in his ears. What a skunk he would be to think 
 that he knew better than such a man ! As he 
 lifted the photograph to his lips, with a renewed 
 
 122
 
 123 
 
 feeling of strength, the face of the woman, the 
 delicately-cut sweet face, with its large blue eyes 
 and exquisite colouring, came between. 
 
 For several hours, with feverish eagerness, Ashley 
 did everything he could think of to regain mastery 
 over himself. He took down his favourite books 
 one after another, and read with a concentration 
 that was almost painful. All went well for a few 
 minutes. " She has gone," he said to himself. And 
 that instant the face looked out at him from the 
 pages. He put the books back into their places, 
 and endeavoured to distract his attention by making 
 a tour of the long, beamed, low-ceilinged room, 
 looking at each familiar engraving and print as 
 though he had never seen it before. There was not 
 one in the room, big or little, out of which the face 
 did not grow. 
 
 It \vas everywhere, no matter where he looked. It 
 looked down upon him from the beams ; it looked 
 up at him from the worn carpet. He turned to the 
 window and looked out at the trim lawn, the beds 
 of flaming colours, the quaintly-cut hedges. Every 
 diamond pane contained the face. At last, worn 
 out, be flung him-elf, face downwards, upon the sofa, 
 buried his eyes in the cushions and broke into the 
 wild sobbings of a boy.
 
 124 Hfcatn's Clap 
 
 He had realised that he had been obliged to break 
 his promise. He had realised that it was too difficult, 
 too impossible. He had been living in a fool's 
 paradise. Sooner or later it was bound to come 
 this debacle, this great toppling on to his head of the 
 edifice he had built so carefully round himself. His 
 father had imposed too great a sacrifice upon him. 
 He was a man like other men. He had read of love, 
 of lust, impatiently. But love sent the blood spinning 
 through his veins, and lust beat like a sledge-hammer 
 at his temples.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 UTTERLY unable to settle down to the work on 
 the farm, young Ashley wandered about the house 
 restlessly. His thoughts were chaotic. His whole 
 mental outlook had undergone a tremendous 
 change. 
 
 It seemed to him incredible, almost ludicrous, that 
 so many years of his life should have been entirely 
 devoted to the common round, the daily task, when 
 the world contained such a creature as the woman he 
 had seen upon the hill ; a creature so exquisite, so 
 sweet, so wonderful ! Compared with her, how com- 
 monplace, how trivial seemed inanimate nature. The 
 breaking of day, the setting of the sun, the bursting 
 of the bud, the crash of thunder what were they 
 when compared with the lifting of a beautiful woman's 
 eyelid, the touch of her hand, the soft murmur of 
 her voice ? 
 
 All the man in him cried aloud for that woman. 
 One sight of her had killed every desire to look at 
 anything else. Nothing else mattered. In an 
 
 "5
 
 i26 Hfcam's 
 
 instant he had seen the emptiness, the incomplete- 
 ness of his life. lie wanted that woman. He 
 wanted to lie at her feet and watch her mouth as 
 she smiled. He wanted to feel her cool hand on his 
 face, to taste her breath, to hold her tight in his 
 arms, to kiss her hair and eyes and lips. The birds 
 had their mates, the very flowers knew the joy of 
 marriage. Was he to be the one man in the 
 world to remain unsatisfied ? 
 
 He asked himself these things as he paced the 
 house. When he went into the sitting-room, how- 
 ever, he kept his eyes away from the direction of the 
 fireplace. There was a look in the eyes of the 
 photograph that he could not meet. 
 
 His dinner remained untouched. The son of his 
 father's dead sheep-dog licked his hand, and received 
 no affectionate word. Old Sloke got no response to 
 his nervous " Good-night." The canaries in the cage 
 in the window sat blinking at the lamp. No one 
 had put the cover over the cage. The clock struck 
 nine and ten and eleven, and still young Ashley 
 paced the long room. Then suddenly he cried out, 
 " Father, father ! " and ran hatlcss into the night. 
 
 A thick bank of cloud obscured the moon. The 
 air was humid and damp. Young Ashley left the 
 footpath and plunged into a wood. The thin
 
 Beam's Clap 127 
 
 branches, leaf -laden, lashed his face like whips, 
 and the roots of trees caught his feet as though 
 trying to stop him. As he flung the branches aside, 
 he felt that he was freeing himself of some of the 
 things that kept him tied to his promise, and he 
 pushed on with an energy and a feverishness that 
 sent streams of perspiration down his face. 
 
 At last he gained the open road, and started 
 running. His steps rang and echoed through the 
 sleeping village. Not a single light gleamed in the 
 cottage windows. A cat darted aside, and stood 
 with arched back in the shadow of the inn wall. A 
 retriever gave an astonished bark as he went past 
 the forge, and as he jumped over the low brick wall 
 of the churchyard the clock struck twelve gravely, 
 reprovingly. 
 
 John Ashley stopped at the grave of his father. 
 It had been dug at the farthest corner of the church- 
 yard, away from the graves of the people who had 
 not left the world by a shorter cut than death takes 
 them, but in consecrated ground, for the parson was 
 a humble man, who cultivated some of the spirit of 
 his Master, and paid little heed to the ignorant and 
 pompous hypocrisy of his kind. 
 
 A plain, square stone marked the place where the 
 man lay who died forgiving. The letters of his
 
 128 Hfcam's 
 
 name, " John Everard Campbell Ashley," were not 
 yet blurred by the passing of time, and the sentence 
 beneath them stood out clearly : " For I loved." 
 
 "Father," whispered young Ashley, " father ! " 
 
 He paused for an instant and listened. The leaves 
 of a weeping willow rustled softly. 
 
 Young Ashley bent lower over the stone. 
 
 " Father, all women are not like that not all 
 women. Even you forgave, and left me here to 
 go to the one you loved. Father ! " 
 
 He bent still lower, and flung his arm over the 
 stone caressingly. 
 
 " You asked too much of me. I can't keep my 
 promise. Let me off. I was happy until I under- 
 stood what it meant to go without. Until yesterday 
 I never had a wish to break my promise. But now 
 you must let me off. You must. I love too madly 
 as you did at once, and for ever. There's no fight- 
 ing it. Wherever she goes I must go. Father ! " 
 
 He listened again. His voice, when he spoke 
 next, was no longer pleading ; it was eager, 
 hopeful, excited. 
 
 " Father, you should see her ! She isn't the kind 
 of woman to treat me as you were treated. She is 
 different. She is like a flower a sweet, slim flower. 
 I thought when I came upon her that she was
 
 129 
 
 growing where she stood. When I knew that she 
 was a woman I ran away. Ah, ha ! think of that 
 I can't live alone any longer. I know now that it 
 isn't life alone. It is a a mere pretence ; not the 
 real thing. Why shouldn't I be allowed to live ? 
 I say that she isn't a woman who isn't worthy of 
 a man's whole love. She is too beautiful, too 
 wonderful for that. I must be let off and take 
 my chance. Father, don't stand in my way. 
 Father, father!" 
 
 Young Ashley drew back and rested for a long, 
 listening moment on his knees. Then with a little 
 cry, half gladness, half excitement, quecrly boyish, 
 he leant over the stone and kissed the letters of 
 the name. 
 
 Then he rose and flung back his head and squared 
 his shoulders. The cloud passed away from the 
 moon, and its light showed a face aglow, with shining 
 eyes and a smile on the lips. 
 
 \7alking quickly, young Ashley left the church- 
 yard, rnac ; e his way through the village and back 
 through the copse. The branches and roots did 
 their bc-st more eagerly than ever to hold him back. 
 But on went Ashley, young Ashley and the way he 
 c . r'dcreJ the right way was the way he wanted 
 to go.
 
 130 Hfcam's 
 
 (Ah, ah ! young Ashley. So your father's ex- 
 perience, that was bought and paid for, is no use to 
 you, eh? Oh, ho ! young Ashley.) 
 
 On the hill where the little woman of the world 
 has risen, young Ashley stopped and flung out his 
 arms. A feeling of enormous relief passed over him. 
 He was free ! Free, and still friends with his father. 
 
 And he was in love for the first time in his life. 
 He joyed in it. It was delicious. He would marry 
 her, of course, and take her home to his farm, or go 
 into the world with her. Where, it didn't matter, so 
 long as she was at his side. God ! what a day ! 
 Books were all very well once. Pictures were all 
 very well in the old days. Nature, whose every 
 mood he understood, was all veiy well so very long 
 ago. But what were they as compared to flesh and 
 blood, the beauty, the grace, the mystery of a 
 woman ? 
 
 "Dead thing.-," he cried, "dead things, I want 
 life 1 "
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 " I WENT out to my hill again this afternoon," wrote 
 little Mrs. Blundell "but my man wasn't there. 
 The grass was still flat and sorry for itself where 
 his great body had been ; and having nothing better 
 to do, I sat there to wait for him. 
 
 " I had plenty to think about. I had that morn- 
 ing received, among the batch you sent me from 
 the flat, a most insolent, and yet a most ingenious 
 letter from Valentine Worthing. I wonder why 
 men who wish people to think they are clever 
 always cultivate the same tiny writing, and sign 
 their names so that they cannot possibly be made 
 out? Valentine Worthing's handwriting is smaller 
 and more slovenly than most. He said, in effect, 
 that he had ail along perfectly well understood the 
 game I had been playing with him, and that he had 
 been playing precisely the same game v/kh me. 
 Of cour.se I don't believe this. K is so easy to 
 guess the solution of a riddle after on;: has been 
 told the answer. My suddenly going away gave him
 
 is 2 Hfcam's Clap 
 
 the cue to my pastime. But I couldn't feel any 
 annoyance with him. All I felt was that, after all, 
 he was merely an ordinary, commonplace person, 
 with the addition of a hideous deformity. What, 
 I confess, did anger me were the letters from my 
 tradespeople asking me for immediate settlement- 
 What a peculiar race tradespeople are. Immediate 
 settlement is the most ridiculous expression. Of 
 course, naturally like anyone else who is expected 
 to do with the pittance of a naval officer's wife 
 I am hideously in debt. My dressmaker's bill makes 
 my blood run cold. What Evelyn will say I can 
 conceive only too well. That one of Friola's alone 
 would, if settled as it stands, swamp a year's pay ! 
 And I have repeatedly assured him that I have 
 done extremely well on the allowance he made me. 
 I know what it means. It means that I shall have 
 to devote all my time and all my best smiles to 
 him to get him to write to his uncle for the money. 
 He'll kick, anyhow. He calls it eating the pie of 
 humiliation to borrow money. In the end the 
 payment I shall make him for doing so will heal 
 his wo.inued pride but at what inconvenience 
 to me ! 
 
 "It was really a perfect afternoon. A faint breeze 
 had got up and the air was cooler. It was so clear
 
 HDam's Clap 133 
 
 that sitting on my hill I felt I could see for miles. 
 1 think I am getting almost to like this placid 
 place. The feeling was an extraordinary one. I 
 was so awfully alone. It was like waking to find 
 oneself thrust back three or four hundred years, 
 with nothing left of the life one knew but a memory. 
 It seemed inconceivable, sitting there surrounded 
 by trees and fields, fields and trees, and sky sky 
 sky, that such things as streets and cabs and 
 buildings and people existed anywhere. I sat for 
 half an hour perfectly happy can you believe it, 
 knowing me? It's odd, but do you know, Milly, 
 except for this peculiar, ever-present desire to pose 
 and tease and tempt people of the opposite sex, 
 I believe I should be quite a dear an artist or a 
 painter or a poet. Sometimes not often I am 
 sorry that I am not, and I am almost inclined to 
 think of my father and mother with dislike for 
 having grafted in me this thing Valentine said 
 
 o o o 
 
 that he understood. I suppose it is rather well, 
 unkind ! I am certain it will land me in hot water 
 sooner or later. I'll give it up some day, perhaps, 
 and develop some other kind of taste the ordinary 
 one, perhaps, and go in for having children, and 
 being normal and healthy. But not yet . . . not 
 while my man of tbe woods remains unexplored.
 
 f34 EDam's 
 
 Unconsiously he has flaitcred my vanity to such 
 an extent that even if it meant losing everything 
 I mean Evelyn and respectability and all that I 
 am bound to go on. I am bound to try effects 
 with this quaint, primeval giant. Fancy his 
 running away like that! 
 
 " I shall never forget the look he gave me. It 
 acted on rny vanity like oil. I don't know how 
 quite to describe it to you. I am sure there was fear 
 in his eyes. And of course there was the wildest 
 admiration. I am not sure there wasn't just a touch 
 of reverence. And better still, there was desire. 
 That's what I like to see. For then my fun begins, 
 and I feed the fire like a stoker, add log upon log 
 to the flame, till, just as it is about to flare up and 
 burn me, I slip away. You don't understand the 
 fascination of this, but then you are not beautiful, 
 dear Milly. . . . Most beautiful women have tasted 
 the delight, at one time or another, even if they 
 don't use their power often. It is a power. No 
 King, no Prime Minister, no General, no despot, no 
 slave-owner can ever feel so utterly all-powerful 
 as a beautiful woman who has a man cringing at 
 her feet. I suppose I'm an awful fool to give myself 
 away in black-and-white like this, even to such a 
 dear old oyster as I know you to be. If ever you
 
 np 135 
 
 were to quarrel with me, goodness, wouldn't you 
 have the whip in your hand ! But you won't. I 
 know that. And, you see, I feel that I have to 
 share my triumphs with someone. And writing 
 letters to you is a far more satisfactory way of 
 feeding my vanity than putting it down in a cliary. 
 I have the greatest contempt for women who keep 
 diaries. They are such liars. 
 
 " Well, I waited on our hill in this ecstatic moot} 
 for two hours, and I believe I should have been 
 there two hours longer but for a sudden clap of 
 thunder, following a vivid flash of lightning. 
 Without my noticing them, a great bank of clouds 
 had been gathering behind me. I jumped up as 
 the first spot of rain hit me positively hit me on 
 the cheek. With it what aa odd thing the brain 
 is ! came a sudden inspiration. Time was short, 
 and as Mahomet wouldn't come to the mountain, 
 the mountain would have to go to Mahomet. Do 
 you see? I made up my mind to take advantage 
 of the storm, make my way quickly to his farm- 
 house, run to the door with my best expression of 
 timid fright, and beg for shelter. 
 
 " This I did, half regretting it when I found that I 
 was bound to cover at least a mile and a half. My 
 dear, it came down, literally, in buckets. Luckily I
 
 i,3(5 Edam's Clap 
 
 lir.d on one of my oldest frocks, for it was wringing 
 wet in no time. Every time a flash came and the 
 .lame darted about among the t:ecs, I wished I 
 hadn't come. Every time I saw how my frock 
 clung to me, I was glad I had. I was dead-beat 
 when at last, a drowned rat, I reached the farm. I 
 wasn't sure that it was Jus farm, but it was the only 
 one about, so I ran up to the door and rang the 
 bsll. It was opened by an old man, with a prim, 
 crinkled face, who looked as though he saw a ghost. 
 I begged him to let me sit somewhere out of the 
 storm, giving him a faint, sweet smile. Gasping 
 with surprise and with a wistful attempt at 
 politeness, he asked me to enter the master's 
 room. 
 
 "My heart jumped. The blinds were down, the 
 fire-irons and the glass were covered up with a cloth. 
 I stood for a moment, looking round such a lovely 
 old room, beautifully furnished and the old person 
 murmured something about fetching his wife and 
 ran off. 
 
 " The old woman came almost at once. A nice 
 old body, quite flustered with excitement. ' Oh, 
 poor lady,' she cried; 'such a beautiful dress too!' 
 And then, talking all the time, she ran upstairs. 
 and presently came down with a towel and a man's
 
 137 
 
 dressing-gown and slippers. Shutting the door, 
 talking nineteen to the dozen, she undid my frock, 
 rubbed my hands and face, took off my hat and 
 slices and stockings, put on the dressing-gown 
 ' Mr. Ashley's/ she said Ms, Milly dear ! and 
 then ran to the kitchen with my wet things. 
 
 "Isn't my luck astounding? Here was I, not 
 only in his own room, but in his own room in such 
 a helpful costume ! Think of it from the purely 
 artistic point of view. The dressing-gown evi- 
 dently one John Ashley wore in his early youth 
 showed my neck, and my ankles and feet, my 
 feet thrust into a pair of red list slippers of the 
 most elephantine description. The rain had made 
 my always curly hair all the more curly. I felt like 
 Trilby in the studio, and I'm sure I looked infinitely 
 sweeter than the one I saw. 
 
 "Suddenly I heard a deep voice; then two 
 others excitedly joining in. The door opened and 
 the old woman came in, followed by oh, what 
 luck is mine ! my untamed man of the woods, my 
 primeval giant."
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 MRS. BLUNDELL put her pen do\vn, threw back her 
 head, and burst into a peal of laughter. The silver 
 notes of it danced about the little room long after 
 she started writin^ a?ain. 
 
 ^3 O 
 
 " For some time he stood in the doorway, his 
 handsome, unusual head almost touching the frame- 
 work, blushing like a school-boy. I stood up, timid, 
 shy, constrained, clutching the dressing-gown 
 nervously about me, wordless, like an ingenue in 
 a play. The old woman, with a'l the latent 
 romance in her nature stirred, babbled the story 
 of my arrival, while the old man got a word in 
 here and there, whenever she was positively obliged 
 to stop for breath, The situation was immensely 
 amusing, What more picturesque introduction to 
 him could I have possibly desired ? 
 
 " ' I will go and make some tea for the young 
 
 lady, sir,' said the old woman at last. ' Come, 
 
 '33
 
 Hfcant's Cla\? 139 
 
 Jesse, quick. 1 The door closed upon them, and 
 we were alone. 
 
 " Have you ever experienced that horrible 
 desire to laugh in church, or at a funeral, or in the 
 midst of some quite serious scene at the theatre? 
 The desire to laugh inordinately seized me, then. 
 Luckily a sneeze came, and gave me relief, or I 
 feel certain I should have fallen into the nearest 
 chair and yelled ! 
 
 ''My dear Milly, his face was a picture. It was 
 positively alight ! His eyes danced and gleamed 
 with pleasure and excitement. He looked at me 
 as though he could have eaten me. But he made 
 no attempt to speak. He simply stood behind a 
 tall-backed chair (quite a good chair, excellently 
 carved, and so old), leaning on the back of it, 
 gazing at me. 
 
 " ' I I am so very sorry to put everybody to 
 so much trouble,' I said, in that high-pitched, 
 girlish voice which has always been one of my 
 most valuable stock-in-trades. ' I clon't think I 
 ever remember such a violent storm. I am 
 dreadfully nervous of lightning.' 
 
 " I paused and looked up at him. A smile passed 
 over his face. It had the most extraordinary effect 
 upon it. It looked as a field looks when a sudden
 
 shaft of sun sweeps across it. But he said nothing. 
 I don't think he was nervous or shy as we mean 
 it ordinarily. He merely seemed infinitely de- 
 lighted in a boyish kind of way. He made me 
 feel as though I were a new horse, or the latest 
 gun presented to him on his birthday. At first 
 his continuous, wide-eyed stare made me quite 
 uncomfortable, and I don't think he listened to 
 a single word of my small-talk. He simply stood 
 there, in an easy, unself-conscious attitude, his 
 deeply-tanned hands clasped round the back of 
 the chair, devouring me. 
 
 " I babbled on. I said how very kind he was to 
 take me in, how very sorry I was to put his servants 
 to any inconvenience, and what a lovety old house 
 it seemed to be. Quite twenty minutes of this 
 one-sided conversation went on if a conversation 
 can be called one-sided when one person replies 
 silently through the medium of a pair of extremely 
 expressive eyes, and says things which no one 
 except a poet would have the pluck to say, unless 
 he were engaged to be married. 
 
 " I confess I was a little relieved when the old 
 couple brought in a tea-tray. I had begun to 
 feel that I had exhausted every subject of a 
 commonplace nature I had ever thought about.
 
 Beam's 
 
 "'Shall I pour out the tea ?' I asked, with a 
 tiny, timid smile, when we were alone again. 
 
 "'Thank you,' he said. 
 
 " And all the time he stood in front of me watching 
 me intently with an interest almost whimsical. It 
 made the old occupation almost a new one, when 
 I suddenly remembered that I was the first woman 
 gentlewoman who had ever done so for him. 
 He bowed as he took his cup, and instantly for- 
 getting that he had got it in his hand, watched 
 me as I stirred mine and sipped it. 
 
 " Having nothing more to say, and not feeling the 
 need of making conversation, I contented myself 
 with returning his smile when I caught his rapt eyes, 
 and ate. The run, and the cooler air, had made 
 me ravenous, and the cakes were home - made and 
 perfectly delicious. And while I ate and drank I 
 looked about me. Such a clear old room, Milly 
 just the sort of room one reads about in books, and 
 so rarely comes across in real life. It was long and 
 narrow at least its length gave it the appearance 
 of narro\vncss and was lined, five feet from the old 
 oak floor with bulging book-shelves, except where the 
 great Dutch fireplace stood. And above the books, 
 right up to the ceiling, hung pictures pictures of 
 all kinds and sizes paintings, etchings, prints
 
 142 Hfcam's 
 
 engravings, all good and old, and in the best taste. 
 I could see Carlyle in the shelves, and Shakespeare, 
 Dickens, George Eliot, Thackeray, Swift, Addison, 
 Gibbon, Milton, Byron, Keats, Goldsmith, and 
 Heaven knows who besides. At any rate, all the 
 people one calls dry. There were, so far as I could 
 see, no modern books, no novels. And they all 
 looked in that worn condition, that comfortable, 
 bulgy state into which books get that are frequently 
 in hand. They didn't stare out at one in the stiff, 
 proud, pained way as they do out of the shelves of 
 those people who put them there, calf-bound, for 
 show. They beamed at me, in a jovial, friendly 
 manner, like so many elderly uncles with rosy cheeks 
 and white hair, and portly stomachs. Dear old 
 things, I loved them. And as for the pictures, they 
 clung to the walls as though they had grown upon 
 them, and never wished to leave go. Here a big 
 one, there a little one anyhow, all higgledy-piggledy, 
 and yet exactly as they ought to be. 
 
 " At the far end of the room, a lon^r, low window, 
 diamond-paned, with shutters of black oak, threw 
 the light over a deep window-scat covered with a 
 rose-bud chintz, very worn and dimmed, upon the 
 polished oak floor. And through this I could catch 
 a glimpse of antediluvian Scotch firs standing in
 
 Hfcam's Clap 143 
 
 their peculiar, silent, dignified manner here and there 
 upon a lawn. Behind them, and in front of a stained 
 but steady red wall, were beds choking 1 with masses 
 of cloves and pinks, and Sweet Williams and London 
 Pride, and all those country-cousin flowers that have 
 become the fashion again with us. And over the 
 wall the tops of many dusky red barns and out- 
 houses peeped, in quite a curious way. 
 
 " The whole place fitted my giant like a glove. 
 It was all, like him, so good to look at, so simple, 
 so upright, so clean, picturesque, and unconscious. 
 It all, like him, seemed to be utterly behind the 
 times, utterly unknowing, utterly unspoilt. And as 
 he stood there, tanned a brick-dust colour, with 
 his eyes clear and steady and child-like, his eyebrows 
 and hair burnt copper, his back broad and straight, 
 his long, well-set legs firm and strong, upon my 
 honour, he seemed to be related to the Scotch firs, 
 the very child of the old wonderful books, the dark, 
 beautiful prints. 
 
 " It wouldn't have surprised me in the least if, at 
 night, vrhcn he sat at the little flap - table at his 
 dinner, shining with health and fresh air, with the 
 light of the cranky lamp throwing hid strong features 
 upon the wall, these old books popped out of the 
 shelves and stood round him, with their glasses on
 
 144 Beam's GIn\> 
 
 their noses, and talked, while he said ' Yes, sir,' and 
 'No, sir,' and 'Indeed, sir!' in his deep, vibrating 
 voice. 
 
 '' When I looked at him, after all these things had 
 flashed through my head, there he was still standing 
 in front of me, untouched cup in hand, watching. 
 
 " Any other man would have been boorish, 
 impossible. But oddly enough, I looked for nothing 
 else in my giant. 
 
 " Nothing that he could have said, of course, 
 could have fed my vanity half so satisfactorily as 
 this long, silent, meaning stare. Every second the 
 expression in his eyes changed. Wonder came, 
 love came that new-born wonderful love the 
 first love passion came. But not, 1 must own, till 
 in an experimentary way I slipped my foot out of 
 its red felt barge, and pushed it out from under the 
 dressing-gown. Then he clutched the chair tight, 
 and turned his eyes away, with quick breath coming 
 and going, and when he looked again my foot \vas 
 out of sight. 
 
 "Oh, ?\Iilly, what a power it is! Bear.t or not, I 
 know nothing in this world that gives me so keen. 
 so delirious a pleasure as the exercise of it. I feel 
 almost magical. It gives me the faculty of turning 
 a man into a hungry animal even such a man as
 
 Beam's 
 
 this one, who is ashamed and fearful, and who, for 
 choice, would forget everything except just fhat I 
 am beautiful and dainty and ethereal. 
 
 " But I had broken the spell. He put down his 
 cup and awoke. His smile became self-conscious 
 and nervous. He fidgeted shyly, began sentences 
 and left them unfinished. Luckily, the old woman 
 came in and said my dress was dry, and the storm 
 had passed some time. There would be no more 
 lightning. And so, with a smile as nervous as his 
 own, and every bit as shy, I hurried after the old 
 body out of the room and upstairs to hers. 
 
 " It cost me half a sovereign. I would gladly have 
 paid fifty times that amount for the afternoon. 
 
 " I dressed quietly, listening to the garrulous 
 chatter of the well-meaning dame my frock was 
 utterly ruined and then followed her down to 
 the hall. 
 
 " ' Good-bye, Mr. Ashley,' I said, giving him my 
 hand timidly. ' Thank you so much ! '"
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 "HE took my hand for an instant, and then letting 
 ft go said, stammering, : "A;" ay I . . may I ..." 
 
 ''Oh, that's very kind of you. Indeed I shall 
 be delighted. I think thr. htorm ha-, made me 
 nervous.' 
 
 "On the fr:ce of the c,lr woman as she watched 
 us go out together there was a peculiar smile in 
 which I could read a reawakened romance, an 
 almost pai-he'dc hope. But the old man scowled 
 at me. I was a new invention, and therefore 
 he was thoroughly English a danger. I had the 
 satisfaction of knowing that I was the fiivt unvillagy 
 wom',r. 1 hate the were! lady, it recks of tram-cars 
 and clearance sales and suburban tea-fights who 
 had ever been : : ,cen with 'the i:r. stcr.' 
 
 "The white dust of 'die morning had become rn; d. 
 Pools had formed al .. eci^es of ihj road. A 
 
 kind of stcair; rr;r:e irom t'r.c canh. and the heads 
 of the com, wl.i h be, en s':raining to 
 
 catch wiu-tc:'' or n^ ; Lui th,c air contained, were
 
 Yarn's Glas 147 
 
 bending down looking gratefully at the soft earth at 
 their feet. It was a couple of hours before sunset, 
 and the sun, even then quite warm, fell softly upon 
 everything. The delicious air was alive. Thousands 
 tens of thousands of gnats moved in thick 
 battalions above our hends, and to the right and 
 left the air was filled with the cheerful, refreshed 
 voices of birds. 
 
 " The freshness of everything was contagious. We 
 both walked on springs. For no reason at all we 
 both laughed. A bird which, after struggling wildly 
 and tugging with all its might at a worm in a 
 corn-field, let go and darted annoycdly away at our 
 approach, brought it to our lips. Our own shadows, 
 his so long, mine so short, cast on the road in front 
 of us, set us off. We were like two school-children 
 let loose after school. I believe if I had started 
 running helter - skelter along the road he would 
 have chased me. 
 
 " All his shyness faded. With the pride of the 
 proprietor he pointed out to rne the excellence of 
 the crops, laughingly explaining the difference 
 between corn and barley, barley and oats. He 
 never referred to his first meeting me on the hill, 
 but he referred to the hill, and told me no doubt 
 thinking what a diplomatic touch it was that he
 
 MS Bfcam's 
 
 always spent a certain amount of time there every 
 day in the summer, reading. 
 
 " ' To-morrow,' he added, ' I shall be there in the 
 afternoon.' 
 
 " The sun had begun to set when I got back to 
 the cottage. My dear, we had taken two hours to 
 walk two miles. This time he had done all the 
 talking, and if I needed any convincing on the 
 subject, he had convinced me as to his being the 
 most interesting person on whom to exercise my 
 peculiar gifts of any I had ever met. He had 
 proved what a boy he was, and what a man he was, 
 how immense was his knowledge of Nature, and 
 how infinitesimal of human nature what an artist 
 he was, and what a Goth. Oh, rny dear, 1 feel that 
 I am going to have some of the mo.v.t enjoyable 
 days I shall ever have in my life."
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 A SMILE was still playing round his mouth as 
 Ashley swung into the road. He had removed his 
 cap to Mrs. Blundell with the air of a Quixote. 
 He had not forgotten to put it back. He kept his 
 head bare to the soft breeze as a tribute to her as 
 he made his way unconsciously to the hill where 
 he had seen her first. 
 
 He stood there erect and firm as the sun slipped 
 away. 
 
 A thousand voices sang to him. It was a new 
 song, a song he had never heard before. It stirred 
 and soothed and excited him. It made him smile 
 and tremble. It filled him with fear and joy. Love 
 had thrust her golden key into his long-closed heart, 
 turned it in the rusty lock, and flung the door 
 wide open. 
 
 lie understood everything. He had not been 
 living hitherto. He had thought that it was right 
 that life should get everything out of him that was 
 
 in iiiiii to devote to it. AOVV he Kiiew that he 
 
 149
 
 iso Bfcam's Clap 
 
 should get everything out of life that there was in 
 it to devote to him. The whole aspect of things 
 was suddenly changed. It was as though someone 
 had suddenly planted him on his feet after he had 
 been standing all his life on his head. 
 
 He was amazed to think that he could have spent 
 all his years in such a position. Everything, for the 
 first time, looked right. The sun became his servant 
 instead of his master, the earth his very good friend, 
 instead of a tyrant at whose very change of mood 
 he shuddered. Everything that had seemed great 
 became tiny, minute, a matter of slight consequence. 
 What did it matter now if frost spoilt his early roots, 
 rain his crops ? Nothing. Nothing mattered ! 
 Nothing of importance existed in the world except 
 love. Not the kind of love he had given to his 
 father. Not the love he hid since poured out upon 
 his books. N,r the love he felt for Nature. Those 
 were mild, gentle kinds of love more suited to 
 women. He had suddenly become awake. The 
 only love th;>t mattered to him was the love that 
 was alive. The only thing worth living for was just 
 to hold Jicr the woman tight against his heart, to 
 feel her breath upon Ir's lip.-:, the rise and fall of her 
 bo.'-orn a';ai.::;t his chest, the scent of her hair in his 
 brain, to watch hei as she moved, to toucn her, to
 
 a&am's 
 
 kl^ her, to fall asleep in her arms, languid, phicid, 
 content. 
 
 For hours he stood there, looking out, but seeing 
 nothing, a rush of new thoughts tumbling over one 
 another in his brain. 
 
 The sun touched his face with hi:.; rosy hand and 
 went down. The rno x ,n sliop :d in'o her place, and 
 smiled faintly upon him. The star:;, like a bevy of 
 children when the school doors swing .ack, rushed 
 into the open, in great clusters ; a big one, 
 admonishing, amid:;,; groups of youngsters almost 
 too young to walk alone. G'iC by one the lights 
 went out in the villi. :e beneath. The occasional 
 icu t blr.iul: ceased. Only the clock -In the tower 
 of t:~e church remained awake. With relentless 
 punctuality, though ahv^.ys with a suggestion of 
 ;w voice Sling the d .alh and 
 on m 01 ti.;e iK;virs,
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 " ANOTHER day gone of the few that are left to me, 
 Milly. The rapidity with which they slip through 
 my ringers is positively illegal. What wouldn't I 
 give to be able to inform some authority or other 
 of their excessive speed, and get them to post 
 policemen on the road to see that they go at a 
 quarter the pace. 
 
 " It's always the way when one is really putting 
 in a good time. I remember how the Christmas 
 holidays used to melt and dwindle in the palm of 
 my hand. Looking back at them from this distance 
 and the milestones increase every day, the beastly 
 things ! they seem to have been pretty poor fun. 
 The force of contrast, 1 suppose. Then I thought 
 the dresses cut just below the knee, run up hastily 
 by a cheap woman, from material mother used to get 
 at sales, were perfect. How I used to prance in 
 those days, when I went to a dance in some feeble 
 piece of mother's jewellery in which there was even 
 
 a suggestion of a diamond. Insidious things ! They 
 
 152
 
 at>am's Clap 153 
 
 are accountable for more sheer immorality in this 
 world than either curiosity, vanity, or innocence. I 
 suppose there are very few women decently bred, 
 I mean who will not consent to anything, how- 
 ever dangerous, when an exquisite diamond is held 
 in front of her nose. Mother once consented to let 
 me wear the ring poor old father gave her when 
 they were engaged. He had just got his company 
 in those days, and thought he was passing rich on 
 his 24.0 a year. Mother kept the ring in its box 
 at the back of her wardrobe, among his love- 
 letters, and only wore it on state occasions. She 
 thought it contained the three finest diamonds in 
 the world. Funny, isn't it? I suppose I am one 
 of those women who are born with the sense but 
 directly I had it on I knew that they were paste. 
 It quite took the vim out of that dance. I felt 
 limp and spiritless. The only thing that saved it 
 from utter failure was a wild flirtation with the 
 host, a bald - headed, beady - eyed man of thirty- 
 eight. I was fifteen. He tried to kiss me. I 
 boxed his ears so hard that my hand ached, I 
 shall never forget the expression on his face. 
 He stood looking at me for about three minutes 
 quite siK.nr. Then he said suddenly: 'Have you 
 read '-vipling ? ' ' Yes,' I answered, wondering what
 
 154 HOams 
 
 on earth ne meant; 'everything of his I could get 
 hold of.' 'Ah,' he replied, 'one of these days, 
 inevitably, when your beauty gets stale, you will 
 be following what he aptly terms "the oldest 
 profession in the world." ' 
 
 "What a beast that mm WP.S ! I hsdn't the 
 faintest idea what lie m,Tnt t'-.en. I believe I took 
 it as a subtle compliment ; but when, after the 
 ho" -'days, I asked one of the gf v;:rne-ses the 
 meaning of it, I simply laughed. B< ing a soldier. 
 he was no psychologist, naturahy, and ii~ ever a 
 man m.'idc a mistake in his life that man is he. 
 It's quite the last thing in the world I should take- 
 to. In my opinion, there are only two reason:. ,vhy 
 women rrl'pt that profession disconte t or starva 
 tion. I'm not a bit son-}' for the former it shows 
 such a la-.,k < f \\ la ination but for i.he latter I 
 have nothing but deep s}-mpathy, gs ! 
 
 I think, I really think, that if that ci tion 
 
 stared me i;; :h ;- ~c, I . '. n. 
 
 and Spai; , : :iave no enter; rise. \ ,' are too i ',;. 
 I suppose that's the word. We feel bound, con 
 scie, ' r think, i ii -to make c/ 
 
 returii f r Vc-.lue received. Never , 'uch 
 
 a ;;tai . - r,
 
 Hfcam's Gla 155 
 
 nothing, is my motto. Goodness! if that were 
 taught in schools, instead of the sentimentally 
 false doctrine which is imbued in tVe minds of 
 young girls, there would be no need for asylums 
 for nameless children, no baby-farming scandals, no 
 piteous cases in the police courts of child desertion, 
 no 'gentlemen' who are not required to give their 
 names when they arc summoned for alimony. It is 
 sentimentality that is the ruin of so many women 
 sentimentality and the utter lack of knowledge of 
 man. We think, most of us silly people, that the 
 only way to keep our lovers and our husbands under 
 cur roof is to give th:.m all they want. My dear, a:; 
 you of course know, it is the very best and most 
 effective plan for driving them away. Men are such 
 easy creatures to fathom. Give them a thin-';, they 
 take it, and turn away. Don't give it to them, and 
 t'.ey regain ]-ncelin:; at your feet till the end of 
 time. In the intervals of kneeling they will go 
 elsewhere, naturally ; bu': your roof will be thci; 
 roof, yrai tre one person the world contains for them. 
 I believe t'-at if ever ghl were taught jus'; tact, 
 diplomacy, self - rcspeji:, and a knowledge of man, 
 women would govern and leach the ':: rl ! a - . ;' 
 world Vv-oul . be : -:t f :cr for it As it ; .'. t ; ^>t old, 
 foolish, casaatrous, ui>Lrue rcjgiuu.- ;;o:; , . taugut,
 
 156 
 
 'You mustn't tamper with the ways of Nature,' with 
 the result we all know too late. Tamper with the 
 ways of Nature ! Bosh ! Don't we punish people 
 for stealing and forging, and murdering and 
 smashing and assaulting ? And aren't they merely 
 obeying the dictates of Nature? It is Nature to be 
 uncivilised. Civilisation has come along and made 
 al! these things criminal. Why has that one thing 
 been left outside the reach of legislation ? Shall I 
 tell you ? It's amusing and instructive, and has 
 made people laugh many times. Just because, my 
 clear Milly, the people who made our laws were male. 
 But we are on the right road. Soon not too soon 
 when Parliament gets into it a few men who are not 
 crushed down by the spirit of ' good form ' which 
 weighs so heavily on everything English, this matter 
 will be dealt v/ith as drunkards have been dealt with, 
 and n:en will be punished by being taxed for every 
 superfluous child they bring lawfully into the world, 
 and sentenced to a term of imprisonment for every 
 child they bring unlawfully into the world. 
 
 " What a marked improvement there will then be 
 in our literature, art, music, and every kind of work 
 that depends on the individual brain of men. They 
 will create then, instead of imitating as they do now. 
 
 ;: Ah, well, of course you've heard all this before.
 
 Hfcam's (Has 157 
 
 We women have said these things since ' afternoons ' 
 became an institution, and to tell you the truth, even 
 were these protecting laws to be made, we should, I 
 think, most of us, break them straight away. They 
 may make laws for ever, but they will never get 
 curiosity and sentimentality out of our veins,"
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 " I WENT to the hill nowadays everything in- 
 teresting happens on a hill like a very girl. The 
 sun was deliciously warm after yesterday's storm, 
 and all the leaves, grasses, trees, and hedges smelt 
 sweet. One felt th;it the wife of the cLrk of the 
 weather had made an inspection, found an accumu- 
 lation of dust and cobwebs about, and had ordered 
 her servants to turn the place out. The operation 
 was inconvenient; the result refreshing. 
 
 " I danced out of the cottage in the best of tempers 
 with the world and myself. I had every reason to 
 be. I found that a frock I had intended to throw 
 away came out looking pretty nearly new. It's a 
 white muslin, with insertions of lace run through with 
 Cambridge blue baby -ribbon. The sort of thing 
 they always put the young girl of the play into. 
 Whoever she may be, whether a rnonicd amateur, or 
 a young person from the provinces, she always looks 
 well in it, however badly she may act. And how 
 badly these people play as a rule. Is it because they
 
 Hfcam'8 Clap 159 
 
 are never allowed to do what a young girl off the 
 stage would GO under similar circumstances, but are 
 made to go through all the impossible tricks the 
 stage manager has stored up in his head from the 
 dark ages? Personally, I know no girl, and never 
 have known one, who titters on to the stage with 
 very tiny steps, giggles \vh^n she gels there, kneels 
 at someone's feet, crying : ' Oh, do let me do this,' 
 that, or the other, cries a little for no apparant reason, 
 smiles through her tear.?, and then titiieis off again 
 with ve,y tiny steps. And yet on the stage she is 
 the recognised young person, and must always behave 
 in the same way. I'm a tremendous playgoer, as you 
 know, and it .scerus to i;:e that the reason five out 
 of every six plays are failures is simply owing to the 
 fact that ti;e parts aie given to people because they 
 have played similar parts before. For this reason, 
 however original the play really is, it always sterns 
 to be one we have seen, it never seems to be 
 new. This gre,.:t cry for personality which one hears 
 everywhere is the ruin of plays. After all, wl.at 
 is personality, so far as actors and actresses are 
 concerned ? It merely consists in their having a 
 good set of teeth, or bandy legs, or indistinct 
 enunciation, cr a moustache a: d an ey.glass, or r 
 bnli neck or a lisp, or calves in front of the ]oo%
 
 160 H&am's Clap 
 
 That's all. And so, if a girl is playing a sad part, 
 it doesn't matter. She has been engaged for her 
 teeth, and so she smiles. If a man is playing Hamlet, 
 he must make no attempt to put on false calves or 
 to hide a horrid lisp. Indeed, I really believe, that 
 if a man is told by the critics when he begins they 
 never tell a man the truth when he has arrived of 
 some glaring and atrocious fault, he seizes upon it, 
 exaggerates it, nurses it, works it into every part 
 until, in quite a short time, it is no longer called a 
 fault but a personality. I know a man slightly who 
 writes plays who positively dreads them getting into 
 the hands of actors and actresses. Pie says they can't 
 pronounce his words, and never by any chance 
 understand the meaning of their lines. He is, I 
 believe, the most successful playwright of the day, and 
 so his word is law, and all he insists upon their 
 doing is merely committing his lines to memory, and 
 imitating his every gesture and intonation. 
 
 " Why is it, I wonder, that actors and actresses 
 at least some of them are such hopelessly unim- 
 aginative, uncreative, unintellectual people ? I know 
 at least I have met quite a number of them here 
 and there. They are so funny. If one gives them the 
 least encouragement they call one pet names, or 'dear.' 
 And if one asks them to lunch they bring little bags
 
 Hfcam's 
 
 with changes of clothes, and call each other ' darling' 
 and 'dearest' across the table. Their conversation 
 never wanders from the stage, and after they have 
 called all the prominent and successful people ' fine,' 
 ' grand,' and ' superb,' they set about pulling them 
 to infinitesimal shreds, and wind up by saying that 
 of course they have mistaken their vocation. So- 
 and-So, who is generally supposed to be the only 
 Hamlet of the day, ought to have stuck to painting, 
 they say. So - and - So undoubtedly a beautiful 
 comedienne would have done better to have 
 remained a general servant ; and So-and-So who 
 is recognised as the best emotional actor of all time 
 would have been wise to have been content 
 with 'bus - conducting. They talk about ' art ' 
 as though it were somebody's chocolate, or a 
 hair -restorer, and by 'art' they mean acting. Of 
 course acting isn't an art. It is merely the habit of 
 being able to repeat lines with correct emphasis 
 without appearing to act. It is, in short, mere 
 mimicry, and most actors completely ruin the 
 characters they are given to represent by acting. 
 
 " However, all this has nothing to do with my hill 
 or my monster. When I arrived, the latter was on 
 the former, as they say in newspapers. He was 
 standing up with his hands in his pockets, smiling. 
 
 L
 
 1 62 H&am's 
 
 For a moment I hardly recognised him. He looked 
 like the younger brother of the John Ashley I had 
 met the day before. All the lines had gone out 
 of his face, all the sternness, the aloofness, the 
 underlying discontent He was a great boy. 
 
 '"So glad you've come,' he said, turning to me 
 eagerly. ' I began to think you had been carried 
 into the air on the breeze, and borne away like a 
 petal ! Will you sit here, or here with your back to 
 the tree ? . . . No, don't sit with your back to the 
 tree, the moss will stain your dress. 1 
 
 " I sat down on the smooth, spongy turf, and gave 
 one of my best girlish laughs. 
 
 " ' You can't have been waiting long,' I said. 
 
 " ' Long ? ' he cried, flinging himself at my feet. 
 1 Don't you call a thousand million years long ? ' 
 
 " He laughed as he said it, but I had a feeling that 
 a thousand million years couldn't have worked a 
 greater change in his face and his manner than 
 twelve hours had done. 
 
 " With his elbows in the grass and his chin in the 
 palms of his brown hands, he lay, looking up at me 
 with his eyes full of a dancing light. This afternoon, 
 unlike yesterday afternoon, it was he who did all 
 the talking. I hardly said a word for an hour. 
 
 " He babbled about every conceivable thing under
 
 Hfcam's Gla 163 
 
 heaven, except the things of the moment. It was 
 all perfectly charming. Sometimes humorous, some- 
 times fanciful, always whimsical, because so utterly, 
 almost impossibly unworldly. From the few 
 questions I put to him, I could see that he was 
 quite outside the movement of things. lie didn't 
 even know whether the Liberals or the Tories were 
 in power, and cared less. It was like the song of 
 a thrush, whose little life had been spent within a 
 whistle of its nest. And all the time his eyes were 
 fixed on me with a look of such boyish adoration 
 that instinctively, unconsciously, I slipped off my 
 wedding-ring and put it in my pocket. 
 
 " I could see that my methods with him would 
 have to be most guarded and careful ; that anything 
 that wasn't extremely subtle and cunning would 
 tend to jar upon him. Like all men who make 
 the acquaintance of the little god late in life, he 
 idealised. I wasn't a woman : I was an angel. I 
 didn't stand on the rude earth by his side. I sat 
 upon a cloud all carved and picked out with gems. 
 
 "' It was all very new, very fascinating. I had had 
 no experience quite like it. Ail the boys I had 
 met in rny earliest youth were boys who were 
 cramming for the Arm)'. And you knov; the kind 
 of !:ovs they are editions d:s lax-:s of worldlincss
 
 1 64 Hfcam's 
 
 first states of knowledge. I really wished as I sat 
 listening to him, watching the enthusiasms pass over 
 his face like waves, that I could have begun all over 
 again from the beginning, and been something like 
 the kind of thing he had elevated me into. 
 
 " For three wonderful hours I was actually alone 
 with this boy - monster, this baby - giant, behaving 
 as any simple little girl would have done. For 
 three solid hours I was alone with an untried man, 
 without experimenting upon him in the way that 
 gives me such sheer delight. I made up my mind 
 to try and refrain from my usual practices ; to 
 abstain, to be just a sweet, laughing, happy little 
 maiden. I made up my mind to leave him with 
 the remembrance of merely clean love in his eyes, 
 the delicious, wholesome love with which they were 
 filled. But that imp inside me willed otherwise. 
 Heavens ! how deep-rooted one's habits become. 
 ... I saw him glance quickly at me. I saw the 
 blood flood his face. I saw a gleam come into 
 his eyes. 
 
 " I gained my momentary triumph. But I was 
 sorry immediately. In his case, it seemed suck a 
 pity."
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE same evening, before dinner, a serious con- 
 sultation took place in the kitchen of Ashley's 
 farm, a consultation that almost ended in a 
 quarrel. 
 
 Since the sudden visit of the strange lady during 
 the storm, old Sloke had passed his time shaking 
 his head gravely, and sitting about in the kitchen 
 with his hands spread out on his knees, saying 
 frequently to his wife : 
 
 " Sarey, Sarey, what's afoot ; Sarey, what's afoot ? " 
 His wife, whose romantic nature, so long 
 unsatisfied, had been powerfully stirred by the 
 sight of Betty Blundeli, and who had dreamed 
 every night for several nights of orange blossoms 
 and wedding bells, and the crowing of a baby, made 
 small of the old man's ill-omened grumbling, and 
 laughed softly to herself, and hummed snatches of 
 a cheerful hymn as she went about her housework. 
 Nevertheless the behaviour of the young master 
 
 weighed heavily upon the old man's mind. His 
 
 165
 
 1 66 Beam's 
 
 sight was failing him, and he needed powerful 
 glasses to enable him to read. But even his eyes 
 were strong enough to see the new light in his 
 
 O O c!> 
 
 master's, even his eyes told him that young 
 Ashley's whole nature had been thrown into a 
 condition of ecstatic chaos. 
 
 Old Sloke did not wonder at it. 
 
 ' Her be a rare pretty bit, and so her be," he 
 said, "as would putt ony man into a muck o' 
 sweat, that there be sartin'. But what Oi would 
 kindly like fur ter know are who be her, an' wheer 
 be her coom from, an' what be her a-wantin' heer ? " 
 
 "My good feller, an' how should I know?" 
 replied Sarah Sloke, in a tone and with a nod of 
 the head which conveyed the fact that she knew 
 very well. 
 
 The old man read her meaning well enough, and 
 his head shook sagely from side to side, and he 
 grumbled as he puffed his pipe, He found it 
 difficult to grumble and smoke at the same time 
 owing to the fact that he was obliged to hold the 
 stem of his pipe between his gums, his only 
 remaining teeth being at the back on both sides 
 of his jaw. This, and his wife's mysteriously 
 jocular manner, drove him to think out some plan 
 of immediate action. An inspiration came to him
 
 just as he was about to settle down to forty winks 
 after luncheon, in his chair under the apple tree. 
 
 " Ah ! " he said to himself, as he rose and 
 shuffled to the gate, setting his curious old cap at 
 the correct village angle ; " Oi remember. Oop, 
 guards, an' at 'em ! " 
 
 With an uneasy glance towards the house to 
 make sure that his wife was not watching, Sloke 
 started out for the village. The afternoon sun 
 blazed down upon the dusty road with a persist- 
 ence and strength which made it a matter of 
 surprise to the burnt, brown turf that it did not 
 burst into flame. 
 
 Gathering impetus as he became less stiff, the 
 old man hurried up the white road that he had 
 covered so often and knew so well, taking no 
 notice of the farm fields to the right and left. 
 As he went he kept up a mumbling monologue, 
 often shaking his twisted forefinger, often half 
 stumbling over a loose stone. He sat down for 
 a moment or two on the top of the hill to get his 
 breath and mop his forehead with the back of his 
 hand. Then, with a clogged pluck that almost 
 made him break into a jog-trot, old Sloke started 
 off again. Once in the village, he headed straight 
 to the cottage of Mrs. Weeks, acknowledging
 
 1 68 H&am's 
 
 hastily the cheery salutations of Bob Berridge, who 
 stood on the well-whitened step of the parlour of 
 the "Angler." 
 
 He did pull up for a moment at the gate of a 
 lonely cottage covered with a creeper that hung 
 thickly over its narrow windows and formed a 
 screen over the door. It was here that the 
 daughter of one of the farm hands; long since 
 dead and buried, lived a once pretty, fair-haired 
 young woman who had left the village eleven years 
 before to go into service at the Doctor's house in the 
 town, and who had returned to find herself alone 
 except for a child soon to be born into a world that 
 turned its head away. It was in this cottage that 
 the old master had placed her, paying her, as the 
 young master still continued to do, the few shillings 
 a week sufficient to keep her body and bitter soul 
 together, and bring up the little girl with the 
 golden hair and blue eyes, with whom no other 
 children were permitted to play. 
 
 Old Sloke caught sight of the lonely little girl 
 sitting in the porch, in a blue pinafore, with a 
 white bow tied round a strand of her hair, nursing 
 a kitten. 
 
 " 'Ow be mother to-day, dearie ? " asked old Sloke. 
 
 The little girl ran eagerly to the gate and put
 
 Hfcam's Clas 169 
 
 one of her hands upon one of the old man's 
 affectionately. 
 
 " Not so well to-day, Mr. Sloke," she said, with 
 a tremble in her voice. 
 
 " Ah," said he ; " Oi be fair sorry fur ter 'ear that, 
 dearie. Mabbe her'll be better ter-morrer Oi'll get 
 t' wold 'ooman ter send along some beef-tea and 
 eggs." 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Sloke. May I come to the 
 farm and fetch them, please ? " 
 
 " No, dearie ; better not coom. Master John 
 doan't like strangers coomin' ter farm." 
 
 ' But I'm not a stranger, Mr. Sloke. Last time 
 I saw Mr. John he tilted my straw hat over my 
 nose and said ' Hullo, Baby ! ' It was three years 
 ago." 
 
 " Better not, dearie. I'll be fur sendin' 'em down 
 along of the cart." 
 
 He touched the disappointed child's brown cheek 
 with his ringer, twisted his face into a kind smile, 
 and passed up the road. It always gave him a 
 certain sense of importance to feel that the farm, 
 and consequently he himself, looked after these 
 people who were shunned by the rest of the 
 village. It also gave him a feeling of pain when 
 he saw the rapidly-growing, little superfluous girl,
 
 i7 Hbam's 
 
 with her exquisitely oval face, wide, frank eyes, and 
 hair like ripened corn, and thought of how much 
 his wife would have given to call her daughter. 
 As it was, her father, the Doctor's son, who had 
 been everything by turn and nothing long, and was 
 now a jovial member of the Bechuanaland Police 
 Force, who played the banjo and sang love-ballads 
 like an angel, did not even know of her existence. 
 He could not have put more expression into his 
 songs if he had known, and so, as that is the only 
 effect such knowledge would have had upon him, 
 perhaps it was as well. This is the way with 
 sentimentalists with no sense of responsibility and 
 a huge dislike for suffering. They are splendid 
 fathers, though extremely unfaithful husbands, and 
 always have someone to put flowers upon their graves. 
 
 Arrived at the cottage of Annie Weeks, old Sloke 
 pulled himself together and walked with great 
 dignity and solemnity up the narrow path, bordered 
 with sweet-peas now rapidly running to pod, to the 
 open front door. 
 
 Mrs. Weeks, with her brawny, energetic arms bare, 
 as usual, was ironing some washing on the kitchen- 
 table. 
 
 " H'Uncle," she cried, with genuine pleasure. 
 " This his a surprise."
 
 H&am's Gia 171 
 
 Old Sloke took up a position in front of the 
 busy, cheerful woman, and put the tips of all his 
 fingers on the kitchen-table. 
 
 " Niece," he said, " Oi be just coom down fur to 
 ask you who are that theer young 'ooman ? " 
 
 " Young woman ! What young woman ? " 
 
 The old man tapped the table with his fingers. 
 
 " That theer young 'ooman," he replied, " that be 
 lodgin' along o' you nobody knaws fur why." 
 
 Mrs. Weeks put her hot iron on its stand with a 
 bang and folded her arms. 
 
 " Young woman ! " she said shrilly. " I'd 'ave 
 you to knov/, uncle, as 'ow that young woman ain't 
 a young woman. For the matter of that she ain't 
 a woman at all ; no, nor hever 'as been. She's a 
 lidy, an' you may take it from me, an' sorry I am 
 as 'ow one of mine, as you are, in a manner o' 
 speakin', although reely you are not, strictly and as 
 one would say in a court of law, if one 'ad the mis- 
 fortunacy to be there, bein' only Alf's uncle by 
 blood, and proud 'e is of it, and so am I, but not 
 when you misname folks as walks in another and 
 'ighcr sp:ar, as does you and yours no manner o' 
 'arm, and is never likely to do the same." 
 
 Old Sloke remained unmoved by the woman's 
 eloquent outburst. He looked straight at her
 
 172 H&am's Cla 
 
 with an added solemnity, and continued to drum 
 on the table with his fingers. 
 
 'Annie Weeks." he said, "Oi arst you onest, 
 and Oi arst you twiyst, who be that theer young 
 'ooman as lodges in this heer cottage ? " 
 
 " An' I've .said onest, and I'll repeat it eighty times 
 eighty, as 'ow the young woman as lodges 'ere ain't 
 a woman, and I won't 'ave her called so ; no, not 
 even by an elderly man who I 'ave a duty to, an' 
 am like to 'ave, knowin' 'ow to conduct myself in the 
 way I should go, an' tryin' to do those things wot I 
 ought to do, the same as hevery sinful body 
 would, bein' human an' frail, an' if I fall, to pick 
 myself up again and turn the other cheek, an' so I 
 repeats to you, uncle, meanin' no offence, but riskin' 
 it, as 'ow the individual in question is a lidy, born, 
 bred, and unmistakable." 
 
 She stopped because her breath ran short, and 
 stood facing the old man with heaving bosom. 
 
 <j> o 
 
 " Oi doan't say as 'ow her bean't a lidy," said Sloke. 
 "Wot Oi do say are, lidy or no lidy, her be a female, 
 an' as such, wot be her a-doin' 'angin' round after 
 Master John?" 
 
 Mrs. Weeks laughed scornfully. 
 
 "'Angin' round after Master John? Well, if that 
 ain't the best titbit as I've 'card this long time, with
 
 Beam's Clap 173 
 
 'im fair blown about 'er, an' ready an' willin' for to 
 devour the ground she puts her feet on, stones an' 
 all, so that it's the talk of the place from the ' Settin' 
 Sun ' to the ' Cow and Calves,' and back by the ' Old 
 Cock' yes, and makes no bones about it 'e don't, 
 passin' 'ere all times of day, an' 'e never was kriowed 
 to afore, bein' seen sittin' lover-like at her knees a-top 
 of the 'ill for stretches at a time, yearnin' unmistak- 
 able, so that it were easy for Bessy Pounds' boy, as 
 keeps a heye on Mr. Petty's sheep, to see 'arf a mile 
 off, and 'im too young to know nothin' o' the sweets 
 and dangers of such like intercourse, an' then takin' 
 up a position in front o' the winders at all times o' 
 night, and me as nervous as a thrush with eggs that 
 the blind were undrawn or a lamp atween my lidy 
 and the blind, same as I've seen certain things at the 
 fair on a screen in the big tent, which it is tuppence 
 to see, an' worth threepence any day as a heye- 
 hopener, but not for the young, an' the way they're 
 allowed in those places these times fairly shows up 
 the school guardians " 
 
 Old Sloke took the opportunity of the woman's 
 inability to continue to put in a word. His 
 expression had changed from solemnity to one of 
 consternation. 
 
 "Woa!" he cried, "woa! Oi'll be just fur goin'
 
 174 Bfcam's 
 
 over that there bit agin. Sittin' at 'cr knees a-top 
 o' the 'ill ? " 
 
 " Yes ; ever since the storm." 
 
 " Takin' oop a position in front o' these heer 
 winders all times o' night ? " 
 
 " Yes ; a-sighin' like a man with the indigestyitis." 
 
 There was a long pause. 
 
 Mrs. Weeks, feeling that she had displayed all her 
 surprises with a great eye for dramatic effect, stood 
 back and watched the old man with an air of natural 
 triumph. 
 
 The old man, who had become possessed of the 
 knowledge of a state of things that even he had 
 never conceived possible, withdrew his fingers from 
 the table, rubbed his forehead, and breathed noisily. 
 
 "Well," he gasped at last "well, Oi be dagger! !" 
 
 And then came Mrs. Weeks's chance. She leaned 
 forward with the flush of common-sense on her 
 hot face, and improved the occasion as only an 
 honest woman can. 
 
 " An' glad I am," she said heartily, " as it 'as come 
 to this at last with Master John, being as 'e is a fine 
 big feller at the flower of his man'ood, without a 
 known dcfec', sound in wind, and limb, f. r I don't 
 'old \vith the new-lar.gled notions of hold Mr. 
 Hashley. not, as I says often, as he were hold as
 
 Hfcam's Clas 175 
 
 hage Is calkilated in the Book, not by a good ten to 
 
 fifteen year, time to repent and more, and make a 
 decent will, of astin' a man to go through life with- 
 out the 'and of a wife to soothe and keep quiet and 
 do 'er duty by him at proper intervals of time with- 
 out a grumble, but proud to fill 'is 'ouse with young 
 feet and rosy cheeks to be a prop in old age and a 
 comfort in declinin' years, as I 'ave said frequent 
 when talkin' over poor young Master John in bed 
 along of Alf when 'e would as lief 'ave turned an' slep, 
 wore out with honest labour ah, an' wished there 
 were someone as would say these things to Master 
 John afore it were too late, and put 'im in the way 
 of meetin' a nice, 'ealthy young person in a good 
 position to do it for 'im, there bein' a church 'andy 
 with a parson ever ready for wedding and burial 
 fees, and no wonder, with a livin' that ain't nothin' 
 o" the kind, but a bread and scrape, and I do 'ope as 
 'ow Master John'll have all the luck as I could wish 
 'im with the licly as is a young widder, accordin' to 
 what I've guessed, and that you and haunt will ye'; 
 live to nursi three or four fine hinfants hup at 
 Hashlcy's farm, and that I say, meanin' hcvery 
 word, kiVAvin' the truth of the sa'^e." 
 
 The old man listened attentive to his deadly- 
 earnest niece, and slowly put on his cap.
 
 1 76 Hbam's dag 
 
 " You be a fair good 'ooman, Annie Weeks," he 
 said, in a voice that \vas not quite steady, " as talks 
 sense and acts up to it. Oi should 'ave nothin' ter 
 say agin' it no, never a word, but that Oi knaws 
 summat as no one knaws in all this land beside 
 Master John, being told by t' wold master three days 
 afore 'e left us, and this is enough ter make him turn 
 in 'is grave under that theer stone. Beyond that 
 there, Oi 'ave nothin' more ter say." 
 
 With a quiet and pathetic dignity that silenced 
 the garrulous and curious Mrs. Weeks, the old man 
 turned on his heel and walked out of the cottacre. 
 
 o 
 
 There was no haste in his walk as he made his 
 way back to the farm. He went slowly, with his 
 head bent forward. He passed the cottage with its 
 heavy creeper without noticing that the little girl 
 stood at the gate longing wistfully for a word, 
 and he passed the " Angler " without hearing Mr. 
 Berridge's cordial invitation to taste the bitter ale. 
 On he went in the blazing sun through the white 
 dust, thinking sadly of the old master's eager hope 
 that his son might never fall in love with a woman 
 with white hands and silk dresses as he himself had 
 done to his cost. 
 
 When he reached the milestone on the top of the 
 hill, he stopped feebly for a moment and looked down
 
 Hfcam's Glas 177 
 
 at the farm-house nestling in the hollow between the 
 trees and then across the rolling fields, in the pink 
 of health and cultivation, in the direction of the 
 little churchyard, and then, with a sudden straight- 
 ening of his back, towards the hill of which Mrs. 
 Weeks had spoken, which was a continuation of the 
 one upon which he stood. 
 
 " Mabbe," he said aloud, " 'twas all wumman's 
 gossip. Oi'll go over and see, dagged if I 
 won't ! " 
 
 With an amazing return of energy, born of hope, 
 he turned abruptly and left the road and got nimbly 
 over the stile. He was about to cross the field in 
 which Ashley's fly-tortured cows were trying to find 
 something succulent in the brown, parched grass, 
 when he caught the glint of a blue sun-bonnet through 
 a gap in the hedge. Underneath it was the wistful, 
 oval face of the little superfluous girl. 
 
 " Be that you, dearie ? '' he sang out, struck with 
 a new and curious thought 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Sloke. Do you want me ? " 
 
 " Aye, dearie. Joomp over t' stile and coom along 
 o' me for a little wark." 
 
 In a twinkling the child ran to the stile, mounted 
 it, bounded through the grass and caught up the 
 hand of her old friend. 
 
 M
 
 1 78 Yarn's 
 
 " I followed you," she said, " because I didn't 
 think you was well.' 
 
 " Oh, Oi'm all right, dearie ; but Oi'm fair glad 
 you coom." 
 
 " Where shall we go, Mr. Sloke ? To the farm ? " 
 
 " Mabbe we will. Arter all, thinks Oi, you might 
 as well take whome them there dainties for your 
 poor mother." 
 
 " Oh, thank you, Mr. Sloke," cried the little girl, 
 dancing along at the old man's side. " Which way 
 shall we go ? " 
 
 "Over Hog's back, dearie. It'll be cooler under 
 the trees." 
 
 While the child babbled and skipped, the old man 
 hurried forward determined to find out for himself 
 how much of truth there was in the story he had 
 heard from Mrs. Weeks. He knew of young 
 Ashley's practice of spending an hour on the hill 
 with his books at that time of the day, and as his 
 eyes were no longer sharp he would get the child to 
 tell him whether the master was there alone or with 
 the mysterious woman who had dropped from the 
 skies. That the child who had been provided for by 
 the father of young Ashley should do this thing 
 seemed to the old man to be highly appropriate. 
 And so, hand-in-hand, the young girl, so sweet
 
 Beam's <TIa 179 
 
 and fresh, in the early spring of her life, and the old 
 man, so dried-up and withered, in the late autumn of 
 his life, hurried along the rising ground until they 
 came almost to the top of the ridge where stood the 
 group of tall elms under whose protecting arms 
 young Ashley was wont to lie ; the farm beneath 
 him on the left, the village and the churchyard on 
 the right, and beyond these on both sides fields and 
 trees, hills and valleys as far as the eye could sec. 
 
 The deep ha ha ha of a man came suddenly 
 to old Sloke's ears. He pulled the little girl up 
 short and stood quite still, listening intently. 
 
 Wondcringly, the little girl listened too, her 
 chatter arrested by the expression on her 
 companion's face. 
 
 They heard another light-hearted laugh, followed 
 by the rumble of a man's voice. 
 
 "Can you see who it are, dearie?" whispered Sloke. 
 
 " No, Mr. Sloke ; the tree's in the way." 
 
 " Do as O5 do, dearie, and say never a word." 
 
 The old man lowered himself with an effort on to 
 his knees and started creeping on all fours through 
 the undergrowth. The little girl, suppressing a 
 laugh, followed his example. 
 
 "Now, can ye see, dearie?" asked the old man, 
 putting his lips close to the child's ear.
 
 i8o Yarn's Clap 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Sloke," she said, in the same tone. 
 
 " Ah ! who be ut ? " 
 
 c< Master John, Mr. Sloke." 
 
 " Alone ? Be he alone, a-talkin 1 an' laughin' to 
 hisself over his book ? " The clear ripple of a 
 woman's laugh answered him. Old Sloke bent 
 lower. " Who be that there with Master John ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Weeks's lady, Mr. Sloke." 
 
 Old Sloke clutched the grass angrily. " Wot be 
 she a-doin', dearie?" he asked. 
 
 " Sittin' up, pullin' grass, and lookin' down at 
 Master John." 
 
 " An' wheer be Master John, dearie ? " 
 
 " Lyin' down, lookin' up into the lady's face." 
 
 Old Sloke suppressed a groan. "An 7 what be his 
 face like, dearie ? " 
 
 " Like a man's who is very happy, Mr. Sloke. He 
 is smilin', and his eyes look like mother's do when 
 she looks at me." 
 
 The old man got up slowly and painfully, and 
 took the child's hand. 
 
 On the way to the farm, he replied mechanically 
 to the many questions put to him by his little friend, 
 and when the farm was reached, sent her into the 
 kitchen for the basket and then sat down, tired and 
 spiritless, in his chair under the apple tree.
 
 Bfcam'0 Clag 181 
 
 Old Ashley had asked him to see that no woman 
 in rustling frocks ever came to the farm, and had 
 spoken of his ardent hope that young Ashley should 
 remain master of his soul. Old Sloke felt that he 
 was responsible for the scene that had been 
 described to him by the little girl. Had he not 
 been the one to let the woman into the farm ? 
 What would the old master say to him when they 
 met again ? Did he deserve to be called a faithful 
 servant ? 
 
 The little superfluous girl trotted up and kissed 
 him, and in her old-fashioned and pedantic way 
 thanked him for his kindness. 
 
 He watched the little slip of a figure with the 
 long, thin, black legs and blue sun-bonnet until it 
 went beyond his range of sight not a long range 
 these days and then he went to the kitchen and 
 gave his wife a faithful account of all that he had 
 heard and seen. 
 
 Sarah Sloke's face during the recital flushed with 
 excitement and beamed with delight. 
 
 " My dreams are a-comin 1 true ! " she cried 
 tremulously. 
 
 " Not if Oi can help it," said old Sloke. 
 
 " Not if you can help it ? For the dear Loi &** 
 sake, what do ye mean, man ? "
 
 '82 Bfcam's 
 
 " What Oi say, Sarey," replied the old man. 
 standing up to his wife squarely. 
 
 " But what's it got to do with you ? " asked Mrs. 
 Sloke irritably. 
 
 " Oi be responsible to t' wold master for the boy, 
 Sarey, and it's got a fair lot to do wi' Oi," said the 
 old man, with a glint in his eye that Mrs. Sloke had 
 not seen there often. 
 
 But like a true woman, she held a brief for Love 
 and all that it entails. 
 
 "If young Master John be a-goin' for to mate," 
 she said, " all as we've got to do is to see that the 
 nest is a-ready for 'im." 
 
 The old man's lips trembled with anger, and he 
 brought his hand down with a bang on the table. 
 
 " Wife/' he said, " don't never let Oi heer ye say 
 such things again never ! If ye 'ave any respect 
 for the memory and the wishes of t' wold master, 
 ye'll do the best that's in ye to prevent Master John 
 makin' a fule o' hissclf wi' this 'ere 'ooman as no one 
 knaws nothink about, Oi knaw my dooty, at any 
 rate, and Oi shall speak to 'im sharp this night." 
 
 He turned on his h;;el and left the kitchen, leaving 
 his old and faithful -AiTi; in tears. These were the 
 first angry words the old man had ever spoke u to 
 her.
 
 H>am's Clap i3 
 
 Sloke stumped down to the white gate and waited 
 for young Ashley to return. He did not have to 
 wait long. 
 
 The sun was setting. The swallows, in high 
 spirits, flew shrieking round the house. A bat 
 made an early appearance and performed a series of 
 erratic movements among the pollards. Shadows 
 lengthened as the West paid homage to the 
 Sovereign, and it seemed to old Sloke as he watched 
 Nature's great coup de theatre, that the clouds 
 formed themselves into a guard of honour. The 
 sky, which had been splashed with the most gorgeous 
 tints, took on a deeper tone, and as the old man heard 
 young Ashley's quick steps on the road, became 
 blood-coloured. 
 
 Young Ashley was singing as he came up the 
 road. His head was flung back and his arms were 
 swinging, and he walked on the tips of his toes. He 
 did not wait to open the gate. Putting one hand on 
 the top bar he vaulted it and ran up the path to the 
 house. 
 
 " Dinner as ^oon as you like, old man,''' he sang 
 out, and took the stairs to his bedroom three at a 
 time. 
 
 JJeforc dinner was cleared, young Ashley caujht 
 up his cap and went quickly to the door,
 
 " Be ye goin' out again, master ? " asked Sloke 
 anxiously. 
 
 "Yes," said Ashley. 
 
 " Doan't 'ee go, master. Doan't 'ee." 
 
 The strangeness and the earnestness of the appeal 
 twisted young Ashley round. 
 
 " Why not ? " he asked. 
 
 So agitated that he could barely frame his 
 sentences, the old man stepped forward. 
 
 " Oh, Master John, this 'ooman . . . wi' the white 
 fingers ... as coom so sudden . . . doan't 'ee, 
 doan't 'ee . . . for your father's sake, as is gone to 
 rest. . . ." 
 
 " Father knows," cried young Ashley. " Sloke, 
 old man, I have told father. You won't understand 
 me, but I have. He has let me off my promise, 
 because every woman isn't alike. And this one . . . 
 this one. ..." 
 
 A gesture finished his sentence, a gesture that 
 conveyed love and admiration and reverence too 
 immense for mere words. 
 
 And then young Ashley caught up the hand of 
 the old man, and laughed with a catch in his 
 voice as he shook it. 
 
 " Wish me luck," he said. " I am going to be the 
 happiest man on earth."
 
 part in 
 
 THE BLAZE
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 EVELYN BLUNDELL was the kind of man men call 
 " a good chap," and women " a dear." 
 
 Justly so as men go. He lied as often but not 
 more often than any of us. He played an excellent 
 game of 13 ridge, and parted with money he couldn't 
 afford to lose with invariable cheerfulness. He took 
 chaff quite as well as he gave it, grumbled continually 
 at his profession, and when he mugged up his work, 
 he did so secretly, and was entirely devoid of buck. 
 Like a healthy-minded Englishman, he roundly 
 cursed whichever party was in power, and was 
 willing, at any time, to teach any Cabinet Minister 
 his job, whether it had to do with a subject of which 
 he, Blundell, knew nothing or not. Like most of 
 us, hj was an expert only in those things of which 
 he knew nothing. His temper was like a large 
 check in Harris tweed violent, but quite ordinary 
 when you get used to it. He had an infinite capacity 
 for martyrdom, and could draw generously upon a 
 
 reserve fund of sentimentality at any mou:ent. To 
 
 187
 
 i88 Bfcam's 
 
 look at, he was no different from ninety-nine men 
 out of a hundred men, I mean, of some breeding, 
 decently educated. He had a fairly steady, fairly 
 clean eye, plenty of hair of a reddish tinge, crisp, 
 and inclined to kink ; a straight, thin nose, with 
 well-cut nostrils ; a short upper lip, a surly mouth, 
 and a square-cut chin, which showed some pig- 
 headedness, but very little strength. 
 
 Being thoroughly, soundly English the Blundells 
 dwelt in Kent ages before the Canterbury Pilgrims 
 lowered the tone of the county he possessed a 
 keen sense of the ridiculous, but no sense of humour, 
 and he was lucky enough to be able to cod himself 
 to use an excellent colloquialism that whatever he 
 did, however low, foolish, or mean, was done from 
 motives in which neither of these three things found 
 a place. He was no more sensual than any other 
 healthy-minded man, and no less. He was, at the 
 same time, just as selfish, and there was no man on 
 earth with whom he got on better, or appreciated more, 
 than Evelyn Blundell. His moral sense was sound. 
 Not for a moment, however keen the temptation, 
 would he have rendered any straight girl the worse 
 for knowing him. Not for a moment, however strong 
 the invitation, would he have tampered with the wife 
 of a friend. With the wife of a man with whom he
 
 Hfcam's Clas 189 
 
 was not on terms of friendship, it was, of course, a 
 totally different matter. In that he was a sailor, and 
 consequently away from his wife for long periods of 
 time, he regarded himself as exempted from a too 
 nice faithfulness. 
 
 On his training ship, Evelyn Blundell had been 
 vastly popular. His naturally loud voice and self- 
 assertive manner were mistaken for authority and 
 strength. He had very genuine pluck, and threw 
 himself heart and soul into work as well as into play. 
 
 Being the son of a poor parson, it goes without 
 saying that entertaining was a pastime in which 
 he never indulged. He had, however, the invaluable 
 power of being able to accept hospitality and even 
 gifts as though he were bestowing a favour. His 
 selfishness was frank and unmistakable. There was 
 nothing underhand about it. His companions either 
 accepted him at his own valuation, or they were 
 regarded by him as not being alive, except as 
 butts for his rather clumsy sarcasm. What he 
 didn't know was not worth knowing. He was 
 never vicious, nor did he at any time, and on any 
 excuse, tolerate low conversation. He swore soundly 
 when occasion demanded it, but refused to 
 punctuate ordinary small - talk with oaths. He 
 was, however, a man very early in life. He had
 
 i9 Hfcam's 
 
 his affairs of the heart, in which the heart was 
 altogether on the other side. His taste lay in the 
 direction of barmaids and shop-girls, by whom he 
 was regarded as " quite the gentleman," and it was 
 no extraordinary thing for him, after he had been 
 some time in the Navy, to spend some portion of 
 his leave at a second-rate London hotel en f ami lie. 
 He did it as well as he could afford in the most 
 gentleman-like, unostentatious manner, keeping well 
 out of the radius of his own set. He prided him- 
 self on always playing the game according to the 
 rules in fashion at the time, and he paid his way 
 honestly to the best of his ability. Being soundly, 
 thoroughly English, he hunted when anyone offered 
 him a mount, and, at all times, never lost an 
 opportunity. As became the son of a clergyman, 
 he had certain religious views, and acted up to 
 them, so long as they didn't interfere too much 
 with personal comfort. He was distinctly ambitious, 
 and, being well aware that there was no royal 
 ro-id to success for men in his position and with 
 his sound but modest connections, worked hard. 
 He was often heard to say that it would not be 
 his fault if he did not climb to the top of the tree. 
 He never worked late at night. He regarded sleep 
 as a necessity. He mapped out his day with
 
 Hfcam's Clap 191 
 
 method instead. He had a natural liking for red- 
 tape, and was a great stickler as to etiquette and 
 form, and, having come to the conclusion that it 
 was extremely wise to be popular with his superior 
 officers, took good care never to be heard to 
 grumble. He frequently did grumble, but only 
 into the ear of a contemporary, in whom he placed 
 implicit trust. 
 
 He did not look upon his having fallen in love 
 with and become engaged to Betty as a false step 
 likely to retard his advancement. After all, she 
 was an extremely beautiful girl, who belonged to 
 a highly respectable family. But he did consider, 
 in his most secret moments, that he had allowed 
 himself to be rushed into marriage rather too early 
 in his career. He was, as a matter of fact, not 
 quite sure that the kudos of being engaged to a 
 girl so remarkably pretty as Betty was not 
 sufficient. Nevertheless, having married her during 
 the one impetuous and uncalculating moment of 
 his life, he had played the game. He had put her 
 into a flat that was well within his means, and 
 made her a proper and adequate allowance upon 
 which to keep up appearances. He had thoroughly 
 enjoyed his honeymoon, took great pleasure in 
 introducing his wife to his particular friends, and
 
 192 Hfcam's 
 
 when he joined the China squadron, left behind 
 with his bankers full and complete instructions as 
 to his wife's allowance, and much wisdom and 
 common-sense with his wife. During his absence 
 he wrote to Mrs. Blundell once a week every 
 Sunday afternoon. His letters were models of 
 domestic epistles. He gave a full and detailed 
 account of just so much as he considered necessary 
 of the doings of the previous week, and never failed 
 to request his wife to live well within the allowance 
 he made her, and to make nice friends only. 
 
 Naturally, being a thoroughly sound Englishman, 
 he never missed a safe opportunity of enjoying 
 himself during his long absence from his wife, 
 and when, finally, the time came for him to return 
 home on leave, he did so with the esteem of his 
 chiefs, the sincere regard of his brother officers, and 
 the certain knowledge of promotion to a better 
 station. It need hardly be added that he had 
 saved money, and had the pleasure of seeing 
 quite a respectable balance in his pass-book. 
 In short, it is easy to claim for him the right to 
 be called "a good chap" by men, and a "dear" 
 by women. 
 
 As he neared the end of his homeward voyage, 
 and read the bright, loving, trusting, eager letters
 
 HDam's Clas 193 
 
 of the little woman who was his wife, written from 
 the little village in which she was counting the 
 minutes that brought him nearer, all the sentiment- 
 ality, all the desire to make a martyr of himself, 
 bubbled up and stirred what was best in his nature. 
 He read the artless, affectionate letters with tingling 
 cheeks and dim eyes, and, casting them back over 
 the three years' separation, called himself, without 
 really believing the things he said, blackguard and 
 beast, and other exaggerated terms of abuse, because 
 he thought it was the right thing to do. Implicitly 
 believing that every word she wrote was true was 
 she not the woman he had married ? he worked 
 himself into the not altogether unenjoyable belief 
 that he was unworthy to black the little shoes 
 in which she stood. 
 
 The beauty of the nights, the sentimental songs 
 of the sailors, the " England, home, and mother " 
 feeling that infected every man on board, had 
 naturally something to do with it. However that 
 may be, he continually found himself and revelled 
 in the discovery standing apart from his brothers, 
 chewing the cud, between the whiffs of his cigar, 
 of bitterness and shame. He found himself lying 
 awake at night and going without his usual amount 
 of liquor.
 
 's Clap 
 
 " Poor little girl," he repeated to himself over and 
 over again, looking at his wife's photograph in the 
 moonlight ; " poor little girl, how she loves me ! 
 What kind of man am I that she should adore 
 me as she does ? The three years I have been 
 away must have appeared six to her. Yet to 
 me ... it seems only yesterday. . . . I've put in 
 an excellent time too, done myself top-hole. What 
 am I to say to her a little woman so white, so 
 pure, so faithful ? It's all rot to suppose that 
 because I've not been particular she ought not 
 to have been. I am only a man, whereas she's 
 my wife. But I rather wish . . . Oh, Lord ! That's 
 the worst of this beastly service. What's a man 
 to do ? Poor little girl, poor little girl ! . . . What 
 a rum thing it all is. If she'd done an eighth part 
 of what I have, I should never live with her again. 
 It's rough luck . . . but there it is."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Two telegrams were handed to Blundell when 
 H.M.S. Gargantua put in. They ran as follows : 
 
 " Welcome a thousand times. " BETTY." 
 
 And: 
 
 " Welcome ; come at once. " MlLLY." 
 
 The first, which he had expected, gave him very 
 little pleasure for that reason. 
 
 The second, totally unexpected, sent his heart 
 beating half-a-dozen strokes faster to the minute. 
 
 Before he got into the train for London, he wired 
 answers to them both. To the first : 
 
 (l Safe and sound. Dying to see. Business keeps 
 me to-morrow London. With you day after. 
 
 " EVELYN." 
 
 And to the second : 
 
 " Thousand thanks. With you to-morrow lunch. 
 
 " EVELYN." 
 195
 
 1 9& loam's 
 
 " Come at once Milly/' he said to himself, as the 
 train started. " What on earth . . ." 
 
 Much against his xvill a smile crept over his 
 face, and he fingered the telegram with a sense of 
 pleasurable excitement. 
 
 " Surely a little indiscreet ? Milly's taken the flat, 
 by a deuced curious coincidence, and, I expect, 
 knows that Betty is in the country pining to see 
 me. It must be something very urgent to make 
 her ask me to go at once when one's wife . . . 
 Illness, I should think. Or else something has 
 leaked out. . . Good God ! I hope not. It would 
 never do just at this moment." 
 
 He said these things tragically enough ; but the 
 smile remained. 
 
 " Of course, past or no past, I couldn't possibly 
 refuse to lunch with her. In a sense in fact, of 
 course it's business. I hate lying ! No doubt 
 something's gone wrong with the flat, and I am 
 wanted to see about it. My own sweet little Betty. 
 . . . (Come at once Milly.) . . . Poor little girl ! 
 How glad she'll be to get me back again after all 
 these years. (Come at once Milly.) I wonder if 
 she's changed at all. She's quite a little woman 
 now. What a heap we shall have to talk about. 
 (Come at once Milly.) Miles from the station, eh ?
 
 Efcam's Glas 197 
 
 That's it. And no sea in sight. Beastly sea, how I 
 loathe it ! (Come at once Milly.) It makes me 
 sick to think that I shan't be able to look her fair 
 and square in the eyes. I wonder if any of the 
 others would suffer as I do under these circum- 
 stances. They've put in a jolly sight better time 
 I mean, been very much worse than I have during 
 these three years. (Come at once Milly.) I sup- 
 pose I am a bit too sensitive. I suppose there are 
 not a dozen men in the service who would under- 
 stand the horrible shame I feel. (Come at once 
 Milly.) Gad ! I wish I'd run on the straight. She 
 has all my love, though. No one has ever or can 
 ever share that with her. (Come at once Milly.) 
 The darling ! What wonderful hair she's got. And 
 how exquisitely beautiful and refined and dainty she 
 is. (Come at once Milly.) It's a great nuisance 
 not being able to dash off to her to-night. I do 
 think that Milly . . . However, poor old Mill, 
 perhaps I can help her She's in trouble. One 
 couldn't possibly be hard-hearted enough to pay no 
 attention to such a telegram as that. (Come at 
 once Milly.) And I have been looking forward 
 all these years to seeing Betty directly I landed. 
 I wonder what's goin' on in town? By Gad! I'll 
 give myself a ripping little dinner change of diet
 
 1 98 Beam's Clap 
 
 will do me good and do a theatre or a music hall. 
 Something bright with some good swinging songs 
 will help to drive away the fearful hump staying 
 away from Betty will give me. (Come at once 
 Milly.) I don't think I've ever been so down on 
 my luck in my life. A music hall, I think, and I'll 
 see if I can't find a pal. Might possibly drop into 
 supper at the Continental afterwards. Must do 
 something to buck myself up. After all, what have 
 I ever done that everyone else doesn't do ? (Come 
 at once Milly.) Dearest little wife. Wife! What a 
 lovely word it is. The most perfect, the most pregnant 
 with meaning in the whole English language. (Come 
 at once Milly.) Country's looking nice, by Gad! 
 Glorious place England, although it's so frightfully 
 effete. Heavens ! to get to town once more, and hear 
 the old familiar roar. I'm looking forward like a 
 kid to getting inside a hansom again ! (Come at 
 once Milly.) Although, of course, I'm frightfully 
 sick at being prevented like this from steaming down 
 to Betty. My sweetheart ! My own little wife ! 
 (Come at once Milly). What a funny thing it was 
 Cator dying two weeks after Betty and I were 
 married. I wonder if I should have married Miliy 
 if I hadn't met Betty ? She got all poor old Cator's 
 money. Not enough to roll in, but a jolly useful
 
 Beam's Glas 199 
 
 bit. I don't suppose I should, though. Men never 
 marry the women they . . . and yet, she's a good 
 sort. It was all because Cator was such a brute. 
 She couldn't do without sympathy. The world would 
 think pretty badly of us, I suppose. But it could 
 never understand the feeling that inspired me. It 
 was wrong, of course, but at least it gave her an 
 interest in life and nobody ever found out. How 
 hard the world is on a woman who goes a bit off 
 the straight. Brutes ! But I'm glad I was safely 
 married." (Come at once Milly.) 
 
 Blundell took his wife's photograph out of his 
 breast pocket, and sat looking at it in a wistful way 
 for a long time. Many miles, many little farms 
 tucked away in the creases of the hills, many golden 
 fields of still corn, many hedges loaded with leaf, 
 many villages bustling lazily, fell behind the engine 
 beating out a refrain to which "Come at once 
 Milly" fitted in constantly before he found that 
 he was looking at the photograph upside down. He 
 whisked it round quickly, with a slight addition to 
 his colour, kissed it, and put it back in his pocket. 
 (Come at once Milly.) 
 
 Sighing heavily, he shook open a paper and ran 
 his eye down the entertainment advertisements. 
 (Come at once Milly.)
 
 200 Hfcam's <Xla 
 
 "A romantic drama in four acts," he read. 
 " Armour, cymbals, silly fights. No thanks. A new 
 and original farce in three. The new and original 
 references to mother-in-laws and twins that I heard 
 in my childhood. Not at any price. Not even on 
 paper. Shakespeare. Never can hear what they're 
 saying. No. Empire Ballet. Genee. . . . That's 
 good enough! And one needn't put in an appearance 
 before ten. Wish Betty were in town. How ripping 
 to go together. I hate enjoying myself alone. Not 
 that I sJiall enjoy it. I feel much too . . . sick with 
 myself. . . ." (Come at once Milly.)
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 As his hansom cleared the station-yard and made 
 its way into the street, Blundell forgot both women 
 his wife and the other. London leapt up in front 
 of him. London with its peculiar smell, its peculiar 
 noises, its peculiar buildings, its peculiar traffic, its 
 peculiar sameness the ugliest, worse-kept, worse- 
 swept, narrowest, most interesting city in the world. 
 
 It was half-past six in the evening. There was 
 no wind, no breeze. The air which had been churned 
 over and over during the day was dead and thick. 
 The pavements were black with tired, spiritless 
 people making their way home after work. 'Buses, 
 loaded on top, crawled in long lines up and down 
 the congested streets. Shrill - voiced papers boys 
 shouted the latest winner, the insistent bells of motor 
 cars rang sharply, and the never-ending crunching 
 of wheels, the shuffling of thousands of feet, filled 
 Blundell's ears like a familiar song. 
 
 As he approached Northumberland Avenue, and 
 the Metropole, the sharp note of a coach-horn made 
 
 201
 
 202 Hfcam's Clap 
 
 him lean forward eagerly, and a peal of the bells of 
 St. Martin's brought a lightness to his throat. 
 
 He felt, as most of us have felt under similar 
 conditions, that it was worth while to go away from 
 London for three years in order to plunge back into 
 it again. Its very ugliness impressed him. Its very 
 narrowness struck him as curiously homely. Beyond 
 a new building here and there, or an old one renovated 
 and cleaned, everything was the same. The sounds 
 were the same, the people were the same, the very 
 smell was the same. He noticed with surprise and 
 a touch of insular annoyance, a new smell, a smell 
 with which he was quite unfamiliar. It was a thick, 
 oily smell, that hit the back of his throat and made 
 him cough, a smell that filled him with a sense of 
 physical sickness. He looked angrily about him to 
 see from where it came, and noticed that it was 
 accompanied by a blue smoke. Suddenly there was 
 a roar and a sound as though a thousand rusty 
 chains had been raised by a tremendously powerful 
 magnet and led, helter - skelter, across an acre of 
 flints. With amazement, Blundell gazed at a long, 
 hideous, blatant machine, guided by a damned soul 
 wearing oil-skins and an impertinent expression. It 
 was covered with bills announcing that Edna May 
 was presented by Charles Frohman in The Belle of
 
 Hfcam's Clag 203 
 
 May fair every evening at 8.15. And Blundell 
 knew. 
 
 As he passed rapidly along to his hotel, London 
 got into his blood, and he felt an overwhelming 
 desire the desire that fills every man who has 
 known it well, and been away from it for some time 
 to become one of the great crowd again. 
 
 With a sense of home upon him, a curious, warm 
 exhilaration, he paid off the cab, booked a room, 
 left his luggage with the hotel porters, washed 
 hastily, and made his way into the street. 
 
 The day had been very hot. The sun, still warm, 
 touched the tops of the buildings with a thin finger 
 of gold, and made all the higher windows look as 
 though they were on fire. He saluted in a shamefaced, 
 sudden, self-conscious manner as he passed under 
 the ineffably inadequate statue of Nelson, and made 
 his way to the Haymarket. 
 
 He threw a shilling to a crossing-sweeper whose 
 face he recognised, and stopped for a moment to 
 read the bill outside the Haymarket Theatre. He 
 went into the old-fashioned shop at the top of the 
 street to get some cigarettes, and smoking one with 
 rare enjoyment they were no better than the ones 
 with which his case was filled, but they were the 
 ones he used to smoke swung on quickly to his 
 club in Piccadilly.
 
 204 HOam's Glag 
 
 The porter looked up from a halfpenny racing 
 paper and said, " Good evening, sir." A member 
 who had lunched with him the day before he went 
 away, three years ago, gave him a " How do ? " as 
 though he had seen him a few hours before. The 
 waiter in the smoking-room answered his "Good 
 evening" politely, uninterestedly, and brought him 
 a whisky-and-soda. 
 
 There were the same faces, the same pictures, 
 the same papers, containing pretty much the same 
 matter. Nothing had altered. Everything was 
 the same. 
 
 In ten minutes it seemed ridiculous, impossible 
 that he had been away three years. Three days 
 seemed nearer the mark, or three minutes. With 
 a curious, uncomfortable feeling he went into the 
 billiard-room. The two men who had been 
 playing when he left were playing still. He 
 would have sworn that both were dressed in exactly 
 the same clothes. 
 
 He sat down and tried to imagine that he had 
 really been on China seas. He tried to recall the 
 sounds, the scents. He couldn't. He tried to 
 remember the sing-songs on board under the deep 
 sky in the moonlight. He couldn't. 
 
 "It's a dream," he said to himself. " I ve been
 
 Hfcam's Clas 205 
 
 lunching at the Berkeley, and have been to sleep 
 for a couple of hours." 
 
 His cigarette went out, and he dived into his 
 pocket for his match-box. He felt two pieces of 
 thin paper. With some surprise he pulled them 
 out. They were telegrams. One was signed 
 " Betty " ; the other " Milly." He read them with 
 interest. " Queer," he thought. " Why do they 
 say 'welcome' and want me to go at once, as 
 though I had been away? I saw them both a 
 few hours ago." 
 
 Then he shook himself and laughed. 
 
 " Ye gods," he said, under his breath, " what a 
 quaint city it is. I believe they wash the streets 
 down every morning with the waters of Lethe ! "
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 FORGETTING that he was in an English club a 
 London club, one of whose Honorary Presidents 
 was a kind of Royal Duke Blundell had been 
 guilty of laughing aloud in the billiard-room. 
 
 His absence from home, the free-and-easy fellow- 
 ship of the Navy, had naturally done something to 
 round the fine edge of civilised behaviour. He 
 caught the horrified glances of the billiard-players 
 with surprise and a touch of truculence ; only, 
 however, until he realised, as he quickly did with 
 tinglings of shame between the shoulder-blades, 
 that he had committed a club crime of "Teat 
 
 o 
 
 enormity. Whereupon he hurried into the hall, 
 and with a crestfallen expression took up the tape 
 which was being ejected, with noisy irregularity, 
 from a machine in an angle of the wall. 
 
 Upon the tape were the names of horses. He 
 recognised none of them. With a growing sense 
 of loneliness he turned to a second machine and 
 
 watched a little hammer spell out, in jerks, the 
 
 206
 
 BDam'3 Clap 207 
 
 proceedings in Parliament, the Law Courts, and 
 other places of some importance. He read, with no 
 interest, that Mr. Keir Hardie (continuing) said : 
 " The Lords is a potty and a putrid institution which 
 ought to be let on lease to Madam Tussaud . . . 
 5.35, Mr. Justice Darling, amid loud laughter, said 
 that twins were regrettable accidents and parents 
 unfortunate necessities. . . ." 
 
 He was just going to read the closing prices on 
 the Stock Exchange when he heard a high-pitched 
 voice in the outer hall which seemed familiar. He 
 turned towards it with an eagerness that was not 
 without a touch of pathos. 
 
 With a feeling of immense delight and relief he 
 recognised Praze, a man he had consistently cut 
 three years ago, because he regarded him, for no 
 earthly reason other than that he wore a gold bangle 
 and sunset socks, as a rather dangerous character. 
 
 " Hullo, Praze, old man!" cried Blundell heartily. 
 " How are you ? " 
 
 Odo Praze was one of those men no city and 
 no club can afford to be without. He was the 
 father of a great many of the most amusing 
 expressions and stories in circulation, and most of 
 those whose parents preferred to remain anonymous. 
 " Have you heard Odo Praze's latest ? " was a
 
 208 Bfcam's (Has 
 
 question which had been asked for two years in 
 all parts of London, including Bayswater, many 
 times a day. In appearance he was strenuously 
 bizarre. His features bore a strong resemblance 
 to those of Nero. His hair, where it was not stained 
 with a tincture of violets, was auburn, brushed straight 
 back without a deliberate parting. So also was 
 his moustache, which was a most amusing affair, 
 consisting of fifteen bristles on one side of his nose 
 and seventeen on the other side, twisted up the 
 wrong way. He was tall and slight and unathletic, 
 and he always wore curiously tight clothes designed 
 by himself. His ties, of which he had an endless 
 array, although he only wore one at a time, 
 were Odoesque ; that is to say, they consisted 
 of some glowing material upon which was 
 stencilled a list of his epigrams in Chinese char- 
 acters, or a life-like representation of Limburger 
 microbes at play. But it was in the matter of 
 waistcoats and socks that he exercised the whole 
 strength of his brilliant if somewhat impish imagi- 
 nation. For the former he was held in awe and 
 admiration by undergraduates of all English- 
 speaking universities, to say nothing of those in 
 the United States, and for the latter there was not a 
 single man or woman moving in the be^t society at
 
 209 
 
 home and on the Continent who did not envy his 
 temerity and endeavour to imitate his designs with 
 cowardly emendations. With reluctance and regret 
 he was a barrister who, while waiting for briefs 
 which he thanked Heaven, and the solicitors of his 
 acquaintance, for never sending him, improved the 
 shining hour by drawing excruciatingly funny 
 caricatures of his personal enemies, and by writing 
 bewilderingly funny skits, sketches, articles, short 
 stories, dialogues, and novels about whiskers and his 
 personal friends. In regard to whiskers he looked 
 upon himself as a man with a mission, and, 
 quixotically brushing aside the appeals of his well- 
 wishers, had done for " face-fittings " (as he called 
 them) what Dickens did for preparatory schools he 
 had shown them up. The only thing he did besides 
 drawing, writing, dressing, talking, and putting in 
 good work with a knife and fork, was to ride every 
 morning for an hour in the Row. He did not 
 commit this commonplace for the sake of his liver. 
 He disliked riding extremely. He rode, much 
 against his better inclinations, because early in life 
 he had designed a racing - stable waistcoat and a 
 white bowler hat, and he rode in order to live up to 
 these really amazing creations. This is the reason 
 of his having recently been made the subject of a
 
 210 Hfcam's 
 
 new chapter in Fox's " Book of Martyrs." The 
 chapter is headed " For the Sake of His Art." 
 Apart from all his delightful and boyish eccen- 
 tricities which he practised from an earnest human- 
 itarian point of view being anxious, above all 
 things, to awaken laughter in a dull world he 
 was genuinely warm - hearted and sensitive. He 
 numbered among his staunch friends statesmen, 
 judges, dramatists, soldiers, actors, critics, Bridge- 
 players, peers, non - smokers, barristers, other 
 conversationalists, would - be jokers, and Mr. 
 Brittle. 
 
 He crinkled up his eyes and looked at Blundell 
 for a moment without recognising him. 
 
 " Oh er let me see ... why, it's E. Blundell, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 " Yes," said Blundell. " How goes it, my dear 
 fellow ? " 
 
 " Oh, so - so," replied Praze, looking slightly 
 surprised at the other's unaccustomed exuberance, 
 " Don't seem to have seen you about recently: 
 Thought you'd chucked the club. Eh ? " 
 
 " No, I've been away, you know." 
 
 11 Oh, have you ? Where, eh ? ''' 
 
 "China." 
 
 ![ Good Lord ! Why, eh ? "
 
 Bfcam's Clas 211 
 
 Blundell laughed. " Have you forgotten what my 
 job is ? " 
 
 Fraze tapped a cigarette on a gold case and 
 showed a set of brilliantly successful teeth. 
 
 " Well, 'pon my word, I ... not Army ; 
 what?" 
 
 " Not much/' said Blundell loyally ; " Navy." 
 
 " Oh, ah, yes, of course. You're a jolly Jack-tar, 
 a handy-man, as they say in the music halls. You 
 look beautifully tanned, eh ? Wish I could tan like 
 that. I'd give five years no, I wouldn't, not now 
 I'd give a week of my life, anyway holy week, for 
 choice to be able to put on such a colour. How 
 long did it take yer, eh ? " 
 
 " Rather more than three years." 
 
 Praze arrested his hand in the action of striking a 
 match on a box that was attached to a gold chain 
 fastened to a trouser button. 
 
 " What ! " he cried, with rather overdone surprise, 
 " Do you mean to tell me that you haven't 
 been in the club for three years? I could have 
 sworn that it was only six weeks ago that I 
 saw you hidin' your brolly under your overcoat here ! 
 B' Jove, how that old devil Time sprints on the tan. 
 As I have frequently said, the old person with the 
 sickle is the leading runner of our epoch. But don't
 
 212 Hfcam's Clag 
 
 let's stand in this dashed draught. Come inside 
 and take one." 
 
 Blundcll gladly followed Praze along the tiled 
 passage that looked as though it led to a public 
 wash-house, and sat down at a round table with a 
 marble top. 
 
 " You drink with me," he said. 
 
 ' : Not me," said Praze. " It's my funeral. Don't 
 entertain a man who's been out of things for half a 
 century every day of the week. Whisky, eh ? " 
 
 "Thanks, and soda." 
 
 " No, no, not soda. Soda's fizzled out. Nowadays 
 one drinks the water they clean the windows of the 
 Daily Mail with. It's good for the gout." He 
 beckoned to a waiter and made it so, quite delighted 
 with Blundell, who had given an incredulous smile 
 at his last remark. 
 
 " Three years away from London, eh? " hecontinued. 
 " You must feel like Alice in Wonderland." 
 
 " No," said Blundell ; " everything's exactly the 
 same as when I went away." 
 
 " The same ! " cried Praze ; " the same ! " 
 
 " Well, isn't it ? " 
 
 "My dear feller I . . .'' Tinere was a world of pity 
 in the voice. " Oh, but b' Jove, this is splendid ! " 
 
 Praze arranged himself in his chair, touched his
 
 Hfcam's Clas 213 
 
 tie, hitched up his trousers in order that Blunclell 
 might share in the ineffable delights of socks of a 
 sugar-stick design in silk, turned his signet ring 
 crest upwards, and lit a cigarette. 
 
 " Here's a rippin' chance for a bit of good work. 
 A bright conversationalist don't get an opportunity 
 like this once in a thousand years. Let me have 
 the felicity of leadin' you by the . . . the tough if 
 you will permit me to say so in its complimentary 
 sense sun-tanned hand through three eventful 
 years." 
 
 " Right O ! " said Blundell, examining his 
 companion's waistcoat with awe and fright. 
 
 "The devil of it is to know where to begin. If 
 I were to say to you, with a graceful wave of my 
 lily hand, ' My dear old feller, the quite extraordinary 
 changes that have taken place in this our city are 
 summed up in the three cad words : " London 
 County Council " ; ' you, in your fine ozone manner, 
 would reply, ' What in Hades are you drivm' at?" 
 
 " I shouldn't have said Hades." 
 
 Prn/.e shot a double cuff. 
 
 " \Yhimsical Walkley has had a marked effect upon 
 me. I frequently find myself putting simple words 
 into Latin. I promise to do my best not to err 
 again. . . . Yes, my dear E. Blundell, we are under
 
 214 Beam's 
 
 the side-spring boot of Nonconformity. London, 
 yea, and even Britain, once so bold and free, has 
 fallen into the hands of hypocrites in little black 
 ties and dickies, sinners in india-rubber collars, old 
 persons with an incurable itch for newspaper 
 notoriety and love of tub-thumpin' who naively 
 sprinkle one another with honorary degrees, and 
 are tearfully indignant when they are called dis- 
 honest by rasping ex-engineers and plumbers and 
 mayors, who were more anxious to hobnob with 
 canny baronites and seaside peers in the House 
 of Commons on a salary than to plumb in that 
 station of life into which no one would willingly 
 have put them Radicals always w r ere the most 
 beautiful snobs on earth and last but not least, 
 George Bernard Shaw. The latter is the silver 
 lining to the cloud. Oh, England, my England ! 
 Do you follow me?" 
 
 " Er . . ." said Blundell. 
 
 Praze patted the sailor's arm. 
 
 " Don't apologise, Cap," he said. " I will translate. 
 In penny-plain English I am drivin' at this awful 
 statement of fact. All the members of {.he London 
 County Council and the National Liberal Club have 
 been returned to Parliament. Hence these tears. 
 I give you this in English and don't encroach on
 
 Bfcam's (Has 215 
 
 the Walkley patent, because, as a man of his word, 
 I am the leading case of our time. . . . The effects 
 of this social upheaval are appallin' ! England, its 
 fine sense of dignity, its dull and portly pre-emin- 
 ence, its military and naval proud incompetence, 
 its glorious and unique unpicturesqueness are being 
 tram-carred out of existence. ' Dr.' Stiggins, ' The 
 Reverend ' Mr. Huggins, the Rt. Hon. John 
 Buggins, Mr. Alpheas Niggins, L.C.C., and Mr. 
 H. W. Miggins, the eminent penny-a-liner, have 
 run amok through the great traditions and institu- 
 tions of this our country. They have clothed 
 Britannia in reach - me - downs, and washed the 
 Union Jack in a strong solution of mottled soap. 
 The lion and the unicorn they have replaced by 
 a hyena and a coster's donkey, and they have 
 made Gog and Magog sign the pledge. They 
 have given a month's wages to St. George in lieu 
 of notice, and have presented the dragon to the 
 Carnegie Free Library at Lavender Hill." 
 
 " Yes," replied Blundell ; " I remember hearing 
 that the Radicals had lied themselves into 
 power." 
 
 " Oh, the rumour reached you, eh ? " 
 
 " Yes. That's to say, I could have read it in the 
 English papers if I hadn't been more interested in
 
 216 Beam's 
 
 cricket and police news. A jolly nice place the 
 House of Commons now, I should think ! " 
 
 " Well/' said Praze, looking with affectionate 
 interest at his finger-nails. " from having been a 
 great success as a comedy and the best club in 
 the country, it has developed into a knock-about 
 show, and a Young Men's Christian Association 
 without the Christianity." 
 
 " Beastly shame," cried Blundell. 
 
 "But these are not the only things that have 
 happened in your absence," continued Praze, with 
 intense enjoyment. " It is not too much to say to 
 employ a cliche^ of the dramatic critic with a disease 
 that is known as ' the literary tendency ' that every 
 blessed thing has undergone a change. Society, for 
 instance, is no longer immoral. It eats little and 
 drinks less, and has taken to marrying the chorus- 
 girl whom, in your time, it blatantly placed in 
 Curzon Street. As a natural consequence, there are 
 few domestic servants left. They are all mistresses 
 I mean wives, of course." 
 
 "Rot," said Bluncell. 
 
 "Oh well, I dimno," replied Praze thoughtfully. 
 " Early training will enable them to keep their 
 houses in order, ch ? As to the stage, the old smug 
 talk of its being an educative force and so forth has
 
 a&am's Clap 217 
 
 died the death. Theatres are now frankly run as 
 places of amusement, and are for the most part 
 catered for by young men who have no respect for 
 the memory or the methods of old man Ibsen. So 
 all our pieces are musical, with one or two brilliant 
 exceptions. It need hardly be said, Cap, that the 
 leading lady and gentleman who scorn to learn high 
 kicking are now only to be seen among first-night 
 audiences in bitter conversation with those of our 
 critics who still talk about 'presentment of life,' and 
 all that kind of rot. Thank Heaven, there are 
 doosed few of those wordy jokers left. All our 
 really good critics write plays themselves, and know 
 full well you don't mind my sayin' full well, eh? 
 It's Beerbohmian. I am his Columbus I say, know 
 full well that directly the stage makes any serious 
 attempt to reflect life as we know it, all the theatres 
 will be taken over by Wcslcyan Missions. Eh ? " 
 
 " Ha, ha ! " replied Blunclell, beginning to fed 
 slightly fogged. 
 
 Praze looked at him as an equilibrist looks at a dull 
 matinee audience when, after he has nearly .broken 
 his neck, he receives feeble and scattered applause. 
 Being, however, a conscientious conversationalist 
 that is to say, a man who talks for his own 
 enjoyment first he started again.
 
 218 Hfcam's 
 
 " Art as we still call English painting 1 is much 
 as you left it. The Academy continues to give 
 space only to the work of amateurs and R.A.s, in 
 order that the so-called art critics may continue to 
 grow hysterical on the subject of values and middle 
 distances, and architecture has fallen into the hands 
 of Tom Jerry, the speculative builder. His work 
 chiefly consists in pulling down the exquisitely ugly 
 and putting up the hideously pretty. The constitu- 
 tion of London has been completely undermined by 
 tubes. As these fuggy things don't pay, company 
 promoters are busy making more of 'em. You've 
 noticed the motor 'bus, eh ? " 
 
 " My Lord, yes," said Blundell, making a face. 
 
 " Exactly," said Praze. " And now I must go to 
 the Library and put all this down before I forget it. 
 It'll do nicely for the next issue of the P.. If. G. By-by." 
 He got up and screwed his mouth into a smile. 
 " Quite mad," he said, with an air of pride. Then 
 he twisted round and walked away on his heels. 
 
 As he made his way upstairs, he remembered, 
 with a slight sense of consternation, that he had 
 omitted, for the first time for three years, to bring 
 in the word " whiskers." 
 
 He made up for it, however, in his delightful 
 article.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 BLUNDELL had dined well, and his second cigar 
 was more excellent than the first He watched 
 two turns from his stall at the Music Hall with 
 some amusement one devoted to a fat lady in 
 blue tights who sang sentimental songs with a 
 strong Cockney accent, and the other to a troupe 
 of Swiss acrobats with greasy hair and oily smiles 
 and then went up to the promenade, rather hoping 
 he might meet someone he knew. He felt more 
 lonely and insignificant than ever. 
 
 The dining-room of the Metropole had been well 
 filled. He knew no one. The people seemed to 
 be mostly Americans from the queerness of their 
 clothes and hair, and people from Bootle and 
 Kettering, from the commonplace cut of their faces. 
 
 After searching, almost eagerly, among the 
 heterogeneous crowd which moved backwards and 
 forwards for a face that he knew without success, 
 he leant over the velvet back of the partition and 
 
 listened, with a queer sense of being a mere atom, 
 
 219
 
 220 HDam's 
 
 a unit, to the orchestra, which was an excellent one. 
 A selection of " II Pagliacci" rose above the babbie 
 of tongues, and its passion, its jealousy, its despair, 
 touched the note of sentimentality within him, and 
 made him long eagerly to see his wife again. Yet, 
 as he listened, and as he conjured up to his mind 
 the face and figure of his beautiful little wife, the 
 only words the ringing music sang to him were : 
 "Come at once Milly, Milly." 
 
 He shook himself, realising for the shade of an 
 instant that the intervention of Milly at such a 
 moment was not cricket. It was too exciting, too 
 pleasant to be permitted. Metaphorically giving 
 himself the command to "eyes right," he brushed 
 the other woman's name out of his mind and 
 resolutely replaced that of his wife. Whereupon 
 the music bored him and he turned his back upon 
 the orchestra and watched the ever-moving crowd. 
 
 It w r as made up mainly of old and elderly men 
 who ought to have known better, boys who knew 
 nothing or too much, and the refuse of France, 
 Germany, Switzerland, and Russia in second-hand 
 Ascot frocks. They were there, by permission of 
 the London County Council, for the purpose of 
 damaging the constitution of England's manhood, 
 and they sat and walked about, obviously unhealthy,
 
 Bfcam'0 Glas 221 
 
 with a blatant frankness that was amazing, to the 
 great benefit of the shareholders of the concern. 
 
 Even Blundcll, who rarely bothered himself to 
 think about matters which were not of immediate 
 personal moment, gave a grunt of disgust at the 
 cowardly and smug hypocrisy of the half-educated 
 people who make the bye-laws for the government 
 of London. 
 
 Rather pleased with himself at the application of 
 the phrase, he called their method of dealing with 
 a problem long ago successfully overcome by 
 France, the policy of the ostrich, and scoffed at 
 the idiotic vigilance of the police, who bustled and 
 harried the person who could not afford to pursue 
 her business on premises licensed to sell wines, 
 spirits, and tobacco, and looked with a tolerant and 
 even admiring eye on her more successful sister 
 who arrived at and departed from the gilded and 
 be-marbled building in a hansom cab. 
 
 Realising at once, in a manner that was wholly 
 and superbly insular, that, after all, the matter had 
 nothing to do with him, Blundell studied the clothes 
 and manners of these desirable aliens with amuse- 
 ment They were all scrupulously in the fashion, 
 and nearly all had gold chain purses hanging from 
 a white-gloved finger. Some walked with parasols,
 
 222 Sfcam's 
 
 much laced, and others cultivated the kangaroo-like 
 walk which is rendered necessary by the tyranny 
 of those portions of a woman's costume which are 
 beautifully reproduced weekly in all self-respecting 
 illustrated papers devoted to the theatre and sport. 
 
 Others sat on the long, narrow seat under the 
 wall in haughty attitudes, but with watchful eyes, 
 nodding to and examining, either with scorn or 
 envy, the clothes of business rivals. A few watched 
 the various turns with interest and hummed the airs 
 played by the band with the quiet patronage of the 
 season ticket-holder. 
 
 All, of course, held short, interrogatory conver- 
 sations with passers-by, and Blundell was frequently 
 asked if he was " alrite, dear," by the more energetic 
 person who considered it good policy to rove. 
 
 After the band had finished its selection, to which 
 no one paid the slightest attention, the " turns " were 
 continued. 
 
 A man in an artistic selection of rags, with a vivid 
 red nose, whitened eyes, and a mass of unkempt 
 hair, made his appearance. He was evidently a 
 great popular favourite. He was received with 
 rapturous applause that must have continued for at 
 least a minute, 
 
 Blundell looked eagerly at his programme. No,
 
 Beam's Clap 223 
 
 15, he saw t vvas "Muggins, the King of Kidders." 
 The name was unknown to him, but he made up 
 his mind that the man was a great artiste of some 
 kind or another. 
 
 lie was right. No man who played Hamlet or 
 Othello, or who sang the glorious but quite 
 unsingable music of Wagner in this or any other 
 epoch, could hold a candle to Muggins as an " artiste." 
 
 Like all men of genius, he was simple and direct. 
 He merely fell over imaginary pins with great 
 violence and proceeded to brush his rags tenderly 
 with a series of brushes, which he collected from 
 a cavern in his trousers, and which, growing large* 
 after every fall, were stuck in a line into the stage. 
 Every time he fell, the drummer in the orchestra 
 celebrated the event with enthusiasm. 
 
 Not a word was spoken by the artiste from New 
 York, though he sometimes took it into his head to 
 remove dozens of collars. Finally, when he thought 
 that his audience must be saved from hysterics, lie 
 fell backwards over the footlights and hit the drum 
 himself, and then, climbing back upon the stage, left 
 it to thunders of applause. 
 
 With the tears streaming down his face, Elundell 
 thanked Heaven that he belonged to a country that 
 recognised and appreciated greatness.
 
 224 Hfcam's 
 
 As the numbers of the next turn were shot into 
 their slots by two powdered attendants in the Royal 
 livery, Blundell felt a hand upon his arm. 
 
 " I say, be a brick, and let me lean on the barrier, 
 will you ? There are no seats left, and I'm doggo." 
 
 He turned quickly, and looked down at a young 
 woman with a pretty, tired face, dressed smartly and 
 well. 
 
 " Oh, do," said Blundell, making way for her. 
 
 " Thanks, very much. You can look over my 
 head, can't you ? " 
 
 " Oh, that's all right." 
 
 The girl put her elbows on the barrier to support 
 her, and leaned back with a sigh. She faced 
 Blundell, and screwing up her eyes, examined him 
 expertly. 
 
 " You've just come back from abroad," she said 
 quietly. 
 
 "Yes," replied Blundell, glad to find someone to 
 speak to. 
 
 " You don't find sun in this country to make your 
 face that colour." 
 
 " It's your country, isn't it ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes," she said, with a laugh. " I wasn't 
 made in Germany." 
 
 " I thought you spoke English like a native."
 
 Beam's Glas 225 
 
 " Well, rather. I read the Bible to my father 
 night and morning for fifteen years, and that's 
 supposed to be the best English going." 
 
 " Yes," said Blundell, feeling a trifle shocked ; (: I 
 suppose so." 
 
 The girl was quick to notice the inflection of his 
 voice. 
 
 " Oh ! you needn't talk to me if you'd rather not," 
 she said. 
 
 Blundell bent forward politely. " Oh, please/' he 
 said. " Ah honoured and delighted ! " 
 
 " Piffle ! " said the girl, looking pleased. " I know 
 all about you in once. You're an Irish sailor." 
 
 " Wrong as to the nationality," laughed Blundell. 
 
 " A sailor, anyway. You all say ' Ah ' like that, 
 and bob your head when you're coddin' politeness. 
 I've met lots of you. You're all so jolly well shaved, 
 too, when you do shave, and you never put stuff on 
 your hair. On leave ? " 
 
 "Yes, thank the Lord!" 
 
 ' ( Goin' to put in a good time? " 
 
 ' Hope so." 
 
 " Can I be " 
 
 Blundell stopped the remark with a laugh. " You 
 don't let the grass grow, do you ? " 
 
 " Well, things are jolly bad," said the girl, making
 
 226 Hfcam's 
 
 a wry face. " One has to hustle these times, I can 
 tell you. I don't know what's comin' over this 
 country, 'pon my word ! Radical Government, / 
 say." Blundell shot back his head and gave a 
 loud guffaw. " What yer laughin' at ? " 
 
 " I'm sorry. But that's what ... a man put all 
 sorts of horrors down to this afternoon." 
 
 " Well," said the girl, with a touch of annoyance, 
 " he knows something. I've given up readin' about 
 em in the paper now. They make me depressed." 
 
 "Why?" asked Blundell, noticing that she was 
 the possessor of an extremely pretty neck. 
 
 "Oh, they're such a common lot. There's one 
 man there with a queer Scotch name who makes 
 me sick. He's always askin' someone to cut down 
 someone else's salary. He's no earthly good him- 
 self, and hates to see others making a bit. A tyke, 
 I call a man like that ; don't you, dear ? " 
 
 " Er . . . yes," said Blundell, who had not been 
 listening. 
 
 Her ears, he found, were very pretty also, and 
 her hair curled very charmingly on her forehead. 
 
 " Where did you dine to-night ? " 
 
 " Metropole." 
 
 "M6tr6pole? Oh, I know. I've never been 
 there. Do you well ? "
 
 Hfcam's Glas 227 
 
 " Oh yes." Her eyebrows were not made up, he 
 discovered. 
 
 " I once stayed with a hop merchant at a hotel 
 rather like that at Margate, for a fortnight. Nice 
 old thing he was. Big eater, and travelled with seven 
 bottles of hair wash. Nearly bald, too. You are 
 funny, some of you. . . . You seem to find me a 
 quiet kind of joke by the way you're grinning." 
 
 Blundell touched her hand with his finger. 
 " You're a jolly little thing," he said. 
 
 " I say," she said suddenly, looking at him with 
 a reminiscent eye. 
 
 " Well ? ' 
 
 " Haven't we met somewhere before ? " 
 
 " No," said Blundell, rather hurriedly. " At least, 
 I clon't think so. Why ? " 
 
 " I dunno. ... I could swear I'd seen you before 
 when you smile. And the way you threw back 
 your head when you laughed just now seemed . . . 
 Oh, what's the word ? " 
 
 "Familiar?" 
 
 " Yes. Are you sure you've been abroad ? " 
 
 " Quite sure." 
 
 " You're such liars, most of you. Oh well, it 
 don't matter. Anyway, I rather like you." 
 
 " Oh, honoured, really."
 
 228 Bfcam's 
 
 " All right. There's no need to be sarcastic. 
 I'm not talkin' business. 1 do like you, and there 
 it is. You've talked away to me as though I was 
 oh, you know a respectable shopee or some- 
 thing of the kind. It makes a bit of a change. 
 Well, it's no good my hangin' about any longer. 
 The show'll be over in seven minutes. I'll say 
 good-night, and get off home." 
 
 She waited for a moment and looked at him 
 quizzically. There was something a little sad in 
 her tired smile. 
 
 Blundell noticed it. 
 
 " Poor little wretch," he thought. " What a life ! 
 The Metropole will be beastly lonely, and Betty 
 wouldn't mind my just seeing her home. . . . It'll 
 be doing the girl a kindness to be treated as if 
 
 o o 
 
 she were ... a respectable shopee, as she calls it." 
 
 " How are you going ? " 
 
 She looked at him eagerly. " Oh, walking. Can't 
 afford to drive these times." 
 
 " Come along, I'll drive you." 
 
 " Thanks awf ly," she said. 
 
 She led the way through the crowd with a 
 suspicion of triumph in her manner. A tall woman 
 in an extraordinary hat winked at her as she passed. 
 
 An elephantine attendant, in a vivid uniform
 
 Bfcam's 
 
 wearing the ribbons of several medals, called a cab, 
 and the girl jumped in. 
 
 " Where ? " asked Blundell. 
 
 " Oh, just say home. He knows." 
 
 Blundell said " Home." The cabman lifted the 
 reins with the butt-end of hi.s whip and grinned. 
 
 With some difficulty the cab turned into a long 
 stream of cabs, carriages, motor cars and motor 
 'buses, and was borne slowly along up Coventry 
 Street. 
 
 The theatres were just over, and the pavements 
 were filled with masses of hurrying people. A slight 
 rain was falling, and the seining street throw back 
 the reflection of the innumerable electric lights. 
 
 "Comfortable?" asked Blundell. 
 
 " Rather," said the girl, leaning back in the cab 
 and putting her hand through his arm in a friendly 
 manner. 
 
 " I think I'd better tell the man to put the window 
 down. You'll get wet." 
 
 " Oh, no. Let's get some air. That place was 
 so fug; T y." 
 
 Blundell took her hand. 
 
 The cab turned into the Haymarket The glare 
 of the lights on the roof of His Majesty's Theatre 
 had something pleasantly barbaric about it.
 
 230 Beam's Clap 
 
 Blundell felt in better spirits. The horrid feeling 
 of loneliness had lifted. 
 
 " Wonderful place, London," he said. 
 
 " Urn ! I suppose so." 
 
 " I saw in the paper to-day that London was 
 empty." He nodded towards the crowd. 
 
 "Yes, they have a lot of space to fill somehow," 
 said the girl dryly. 
 
 As they passed the Carlton, Blundell bent forward 
 and watched a very young man help a pretty and 
 petulant-looking girl with her hair in a queue out 
 of an electric brougham. 
 
 " What a charming child," he said. 
 
 " An amateur," replied his companion scornfully. 
 " Do you know the man ? " 
 
 " Not from Adam." 
 
 "Lord William Ascot." 
 
 " Oh, the son of a man in the Cabinet." 
 
 " Don't know anything about his father. We 
 know him as c Billy Softy.' He's in the Guards. 
 He's just bought a gold bed for that baby." 
 
 "A gold what?" 
 
 " Bed ! Never heard of a bed ? She's a ' foot- 
 light favourite,' you know. Haven't you seen her 
 photograph in all the illustrated papers taken in 
 bold attitudes in a bath-wrap or a dusting-sheet?
 
 Beam's Gla 231 
 
 You noticed the man who called our cab ? He's 
 her father. They do say that she'll be Lady 
 William one of these days." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " 
 
 " It's the only way for those young men to get 
 interviewed in the papers. Eton, Sandhurst, St. 
 George's Barracks, Gaiety Theatre that's the 
 programme. Oh, the peerage is going very 
 strong these times, I can tell you. Hops, tobacco, 
 Comic Cuts there's nothing to live up to, y'see." 
 
 The cab turned into Buckingham Palace Road. 
 The rain fell more heavily. The road was quiet 
 and clear of traffic. 
 
 "Much farther?" asked Blundell. 
 
 " Pimlico," said the girl. 
 
 "I was born in Pimlico," said Blundell irrelevantly. 
 
 " Which part ? " 
 
 " St. George's Square." 
 
 " Funny," said the girl. " I look at the backs of 
 those houses from my window." 
 
 Blundell dropped the girl's hand. With the 
 primness that is peculiar to Englishmen he wished 
 that he had not mentioned the matter. A queer, 
 uncomfortable, almost superstitious feeling crept 
 over him. What would his mother have said, he 
 thought . . . and stopped thinking at once. What
 
 232 H&am's 
 
 was the good of thinking ? The fact remained that 
 he was hideously lonely, and was merely performing 
 an act of kindness in seeing a poor little girl home 
 late at night. He was only saving her from a long 
 walk in the rain when she was tired and unable 
 to afford to get wet. It was perfectly true that he 
 need not have been alone, that if he had played the 
 game he would, by this time, have been in the country, 
 talking to the wife who loved him so dearly. . . . 
 
 That also was a matter about which it was totally 
 unnecessary to think. Milly wanted him. (" Milly, 
 Milly, b' Jove ! ") 
 
 " I didn't ask you to hold my hand," said the 
 girl petulantly. 
 
 " What ? . . . Oh, I'm sorry. I was ... er ..." 
 
 "Yes, I know. Thinkin'. I often . . . don't. 
 Only fools think. Wise people just live and let it 
 go at that." 
 
 The cab drew up at a dingy, flippant house. Its 
 doorway had shabby columns. A light was burning 
 in a window of a room in the area. The blind was 
 pulled aside as Blundcll threw back the cab doors 
 and someone peeped out. A black cat arched a thin 
 back and rubbed its ribs against the railings, mewing. 
 
 Blundell jumped out and held his hand over the 
 wheel.
 
 Beam's Clap 333 
 
 " Thanks," said the girl. " Good - night." She 
 hurried up the steps and fumbled for a key. 
 
 Blundell paid the cab, sprang up the steps, and 
 stood by the girl. 
 
 "Look here," he said; "it's early yet, and I funk 
 that lonely hotel. Have you any objection to my 
 coming up and smoking a cigarette?" 
 
 The girl darted a glance at him. 
 
 "You are a rum 'un," she said, with a laugh. 
 She put the key in the lock, turned it, and opened 
 the door. " Let the cat in, will you ? " 
 
 Blundell followed her into a narroiv hall in which 
 there was an unglobed gas-jet burning low. lie 
 could see a hat-stand, several of whose pegs were 
 broken, and he noticed that the pattern of the 
 oil-cloth on the floor was almost rubbed away. 
 
 " Come on," said the girl. " Top floor. Fine 
 exercise." 
 
 He shut the door stealthily and padded up the 
 creaking stairs carefully. He felt excited and 
 amused and a little nervous. There was a 
 frightfully stuffy smell about the house. 
 
 " Better stay where you are till I light up," paid 
 the girl, opening her door. " You won't bless me if 
 you bark your shins against my what do you call 
 it? Elizabethz'an furniture."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 BLUNDELL obeyed. 
 
 He heard the girl go into the room, fumble for 
 a moment, with mutterings of annoyance, and strike 
 a match. From below came the sounds of a bolt 
 shot back and of someone coughing. 
 
 When the gas was lighted Blundell found himself 
 on the threshold of a fairly large room. It was 
 furnished cheaply, but was clean, tidy, and prettily 
 arranged. A screen, upon which were pasted 
 hundreds of picture postcards of actresses, 
 cricketers, famous soldiers, statesmen, clergymen, 
 and jockeys, cut off a large corner of the room. 
 Upon the table was a bowl of fresh flowers and 
 several paper - covered shilling editions of novels. 
 Two large cane arm-chairs stood before a fireplace, 
 in the grate of which there was a large fern in a 
 pot tied up with a bright red piece of some kind 
 of material. Between the two windows there was 
 a dressing - table and looking - glass. One of the 
 windows was open at the top, and the atmosphere 
 
 of the room was fresh. 
 
 234
 
 2R>am's Clap 235 
 
 " Jolly room," said Blundell. He entered and 
 took off his coat and hat. 
 
 " Oh, it does," said the girl. 
 
 Standing before the glass she removed her hat, 
 touched her hair here and there, and then drew off 
 her gloves, blew into them and carefully laid them 
 out upon the table. 
 
 " Do you mind if I put on a pair of bedroom 
 slippers ? My feet get so drawn in these tight 
 shoes." 
 
 " Oh, please 1 " said Blundell, sitting down with 
 his back to her. 
 
 The girl looked grateful and smiled at the back of 
 his head. She changed her shoes and took the 
 opportunity of running a powder puff lightly and 
 expertly over her face. 
 
 " You've got cigarettes, I suppose ? " she asked. 
 
 " May I ? Thanks very much." 
 
 She sat in the other chair and leaned back with a 
 sigh, letting her arms hang down limply. Her eyes 
 closed and she breathed a little heavily. 
 
 " Poor little girl ! " said Blundell gently. " Worn 
 out, aren't you ? " 
 
 " Oh, no," she replied, forcing a smile. " Only a 
 bit fagged." 
 
 " Been in this room long ? " asked Blundell.
 
 236 Brain's 
 
 " Ever since I ... nearly all the time," she 
 replied. 
 
 There was a note in her voice that touched him 
 deeply. 
 
 " I say, my dear child, why ever did you . . . ? " 
 
 She kicked the fender. 
 
 "Oh, look here," she said, rather loudly, "steer 
 clear of that, please. . . . I've got some whisky if 
 you'd like some." 
 
 "No thanks," said Blundell. "But er can't I 
 mix you one ? " 
 
 " Oh, Lord, I do wish you would. I'm sorry, but 
 I don't feel like ever moving again. It's over there 
 in that cupboard. You'll find the key in that 
 hat-box, under the tissue-paper at the bottom." 
 
 Blundell found it and the whisky. The girl drank 
 it eagerly and gave him back the glass. 
 
 " I always liked sailors," she said, " worse 
 luck ! " 
 
 Blundell bent down and kissed her. 
 
 With a self-conscious laugh, he put the glass on 
 the table, lit a fresh cigarette, and put his elbov on 
 the mantel-board. There were several un framed 
 photographs upon it. He eyed them indifferently, 
 until he caught sight of one representing a round- 
 faced, rather confident youth in the uniform of a
 
 Beam's Gla 237 
 
 naval cadet. Fie plucked it up quickly and looked 
 at it with his mouth open. 
 
 " Great Caesar's ghost ! " he said, with a gasp. 
 
 " What's the row ? ; ' asked the girl, who had leaned 
 back again and shut her eyes. 
 
 With an expression of growing horror, amazement, 
 and recognition, Blundell looked at the slight figure 
 lying in the chair in front of him. "To Alice" was 
 written in a large round hand upon the photograph, 
 which was of himself. 
 
 " Good God ! " he cried. " You ! " 
 
 The girl sat up quickly with startled eyes. She 
 saw that he held a photograph. She saw the horror 
 in his expression. She sprang to her feet and 
 snatched the photograph away from him. Her eye:; 
 moved from the photograph to Blundell's face and 
 back again to the photograph. 
 
 She gave a cry between a sob and a laugh, threw 
 the photograph on to the table, and caught up 
 Blundell's hands and commenced wringing them 
 gladly, warmly. 
 
 "Oh oh oh . . ." she cried. "It is you, it is 
 you. I thought I knew your face, I thought I did. 
 Didn't I ask you didn't I ? Oh oh ... I am so 
 glad, I am so glad. Mr. Blundell, dear Mr. Blundell. 
 . . . Fancy, after all these years, meeting you like
 
 238 Hfcam's 
 
 this. Just fancy. Oh oh ... I am so glad. Mr. 
 Blundell . . . Oh oh . . . You remember ? . . . 
 The little tobacco shop, with the polished case 
 with the glass top down the middle, and all the 
 pipes glistening on red velvet ? And the weekly 
 papers all neatly arranged on a long table on 
 the other side, and the shiny counter smelling 
 of snuff? And me, in a neat black dress 
 down to my ankles, with an edging of white 
 round the neck, sitting by the window doing 
 crewel work ? . . . And father in a black tie doing 
 the books in the little parlour, with the door open 
 so as to keep an eye on you boys when you came 
 in to buy cigarettes and say bashful things to me ? 
 . . . Oh oh . . . Mr. Blundell, Mr. Blundell ! " 
 
 She stopped for breath. 
 
 The eager rush of words, the pathetic girlishness 
 and simplicity of her joyful recognition, stirred 
 Blundell and brought a lump to his throat. This 
 was the little girl with the great eyes with whom 
 he had fancied himself to be in love all those years 
 ago in love for ever and ever, honestly, deeply in 
 love ; the little girl dressed like a Quaker, with 
 the earnest face and sweet, frank smile. . . , 
 This I 
 
 The girl stood still for a moment with heaving
 
 Hfcam's Glas 239 
 
 bosom, waiting for him to say something something 
 kind. 
 
 Realising instantly why she waited, Blundell 
 forced the expression of horror out of his face, 
 and smiled at her and took her hand with a 
 gesture of chivalry, respect, and frank pleasure. 
 
 " Alice ! . . . By Jove, isn't this ripping ? " 
 
 She gripped his hand tightly and held it against 
 her heart. Gratitude left her wordless. Tears 
 sprang to her eyes and her lips trembled. 
 
 With an effort Blundell pursued his line of action, 
 overdoing it, perhaps, in his sympathetic endeavour 
 to gloss over the frightful change that had taken 
 place in the girl's life and environment. 
 
 "You've you've hardly altered a bit," he said. 
 " I should have known you at once, if if it hadn't 
 been for the lights and all that." 
 
 She shook her head and smiled through her tears. 
 But she put her other hand upon his arm. 
 
 "Honest Injun, b' Jove!" he said. "Dear little 
 Alice, I am glad to see you again." 
 
 "You're the first v/ho knew me in the old days 
 I I've spoken to since " 
 
 He cut in hastily. " It isn't late. Sit down again 
 and let's have a good long yarn." 
 
 He placed her in her chair and returned to his
 
 240 HOam's 
 
 own. He saw that her hands were trembling. His 
 own were not steady. 
 
 There was a painful pause. Blundcll tried to 
 think of some commonplace thing to say, some- 
 thing which would not strike a wrong note. 
 
 " I er . . . I er " he began lamely. 
 
 She bent forward and put her hand on the arm of 
 his chair. 
 
 " Mr. Blundell," she said, " you did it splendidly, 
 but don't try any more. I understand, and I ... 
 I'm very, very grateful." 
 
 " Oh, Alice," cried Blundell, with all the best of his 
 nature stirred, " why why . . ." 
 
 "I fell in love with a gentleman," she said quietly, 
 " who was in love with me. He asked me to run 
 away with him, and not knowing what . . . having 
 been brought up so carefully . . . never having been 
 told . . ." 
 
 Blundcll flung out a blasphemous exclamation. 
 
 " The brute ! " he cried. " He promised to marry 
 you and didn't." 
 
 " No ; he never promised to marry me. He only 
 just asked me to go away with him." 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " He took me t > Cornwall in the summer-time 
 such a lovely place ! I thought we were going to
 
 Hfcam's Clap 241 
 
 stay there always. But when his leave was 
 up . . ." 
 
 "His leave? He wasn't one of us, was he? One 
 of the old lot ? " 
 
 " Yes ; and when his leave was up he took me 
 back agai.i and I went home to wait for him. At 
 least I tried to go home. I forgot ... I didn't 
 think what it meant in those days that father was 
 religious. . . . When I walked into the dear little 
 shop there was a stout, middle-aged woman in a 
 lace collar sitting in my place. She saw me and 
 gave a cry. Father was in the parlour doing the 
 books. He looked up and came out, with the veins 
 swelling in his forehead. He drew back when I put 
 out my arms, and made a queer face and told me to 
 get out and never come back. He quoted some of 
 the words in the Bible that I had often read to him, 
 but never understood. I understood then and went 
 away." 
 
 lv Good God ! " cried Blundell. 
 
 " Religious people arc like that," said Alice. " I 
 took lodgings in the town for a week, and wrote to 
 the gentleman a:id told him what had happened. 
 He sent me money, asked me to write once a week, 
 and said lie was awfully sorry, and wished he had 
 never taken me away. I stayed in those rooms for 
 
 Q
 
 242 Beam's Clap 
 
 two months, and then no more letters came and no 
 more money. With what I had left I went to London 
 to find work. I answered an advertisement for a 
 general servant, no other kept. The lady was a 
 Nonconformist, like father, and her house was in the 
 suburbs. I told her I had quarrelled with my father 
 and had no references. She took me for a week on 
 trial on condition that she was to examine my box 
 every night. I was kept on until she noticed . . ." 
 
 She stopped, and a little smile crept into her face, 
 a smile that is worn by the little statues in the 
 Normandy churches. 
 
 Blundell cleared his throat. 
 
 " And then," said Alice, " she said much the same 
 things father had said, and told me to go. I had 
 saved my wages, thinking, perhaps, that as she was 
 religious too, I should not be allowed to stay, and I 
 took a room near Westminster Bridge. Lying there 
 and thinking of Cornwall was easy, because the bells 
 on the tram horses were like the bells on the sheep. 
 ... It was a boy. A boy ! with eyes like his, the 
 same blue, merry eyes. . . . We were very happy 
 until the money was gone, and then ... I woke up. 
 The landlady gave me a fortnight to find work, and 
 lent me money to buy food with. Somehow everyone 
 seemed to know about baby. I wrote again to the
 
 Hfcam's Clas 243 
 
 gentleman to his ship, but there was no answer. At 
 the end of the fortnight, the landlady came up and 
 told me that she would put me into a far better way 
 of making money than getting work. And she took 
 me out into the streets. . . ." 
 
 Blundell sprang to his feet. " The wretch," he 
 shouted, " the filthy wretch." 
 
 " Baby is fifteen now," she said quietly. " He's a 
 sailor too a common sailor or will be when he 
 leaves the training ship. I see him at Christmas 
 and in the summer. He thinks I'm a widow 
 working in a shop. When he is with me, we go 
 down near the sea and take rooms. I save up for 
 those times, and they make up for everything." 
 
 Blundell walked up and down the room. His 
 face was flushed, his hands clenched, and his eyes 
 bloodshot. 
 
 " A gentleman," he kept repeating, " a gentleman. 
 . . . One of us one of the old lot. . . . By God ! if 
 only I knew which. . . . Alice, who was it ? " 
 
 " No," said Alice. 
 
 " Is he alive ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Alice. 
 
 "' How do you know ? " 
 
 " I ^aw him one night last year. He was with 
 a friend where you met me to-night. He looked
 
 244 Hfcam's 
 
 brown like you, and was just the same merry . . . 
 He didn't know me, but when he saw me he smiled 
 and came up ... and I ran away." 
 
 The sweat broke out on Blundell's forehead. He 
 couldn't stand still. An agony of self-reproach, self- 
 disgust, and impotent rage swept over him His 
 memory rose up like a judge. He felt like a criminal 
 just sentenced. 
 
 " What unthinking brutes we are," he said ; "what 
 d d unthinking brutes ! " 
 
 Alice rose and opened a little box with a key 
 fastened to a thin gold chain that hung round her 
 neck. With tender, proud fingers she brought out a 
 photograph of a boy in sailor clothes, with a fresh, 
 frank face and sturdy limbs. 
 
 " Look ! " she said. 
 
 Blundell looked. " Fawcett Fawcett, by God ! " 
 he shouted. 
 
 The girl caught the photograph out of his hand. 
 " No, no, no ! " she cried. " No ! : ' 
 
 " Yes, yes," said Blundell, anger making his voice 
 thick. 
 
 The girl drew herself up. Her face was pale 
 beneath her paint. 
 
 " No," she said, " as God's my judge ! " 
 
 Biundell stared into her face. Her eyes were
 
 Hfcam's Clap 245 
 
 steady and her lips firm. Her love was greater 
 than her sense of truth. 
 
 With a feeling of intense relief, Blundell accepted 
 her word. Fawcett had been his best man. 
 
 While Alice put the photograph back into its 
 place with trembling fingers, Blundell pulled 
 himself together. 
 
 " When are you to see the boy next, Alice ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " I'm afraid I ... things have been . . ." 
 
 Blundell's hand closed quickly over the case in his 
 pocket. He shifted his feet nervously and gave a 
 cough. 
 
 " Alice," he said, " as an old friend ... if I might 
 be allowed . . ." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Blundell . . ." 
 
 " Please" he said. 
 
 Pie turned his back upon her and laid a 20 note 
 upon the little box. Then he took up his hat, and 
 stood in front of the little girl with whom he had 
 fancied himself years ago to be in love for ever. 
 
 He raised the tired hand to his lips, kissed it, and 
 fumbled his way down the creaking stairs through a 
 mist of tears.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 WITH his anti-breakfast cup of tea Blundell found 
 a letter from his wife. 
 
 "DARLING OLD BOY" (it read), "Welcome, a 
 thousand welcomes. I have no words to tell you 
 how disappointed I was to get your telegram. I'm 
 afraid I shall be obliged to cry myself to sleep 
 to-night. But of course business must be attended 
 to, mustn't it ? Bother business ! I want you to 
 find this little note when you wake, so if I wish to 
 catch the early post I must fly with it to the post 
 office. But I have just time to say what you 
 already know that I love you more than ever, 
 and just long to see you with all my might. Your 
 own " BETTY. 
 
 " Wire your train in any case, sweetheart." 
 
 Blundell kissed the little note several times, and 
 repeated to himself, a pleasant warmth pervaoing 
 
 him : " Dear little Betty, how she loves me, how 
 
 246
 
 Hfcam's Cla$ 247 
 
 she loves me ! I'll get a red tie, I think. Milly 
 likes me in a red tie." 
 
 With the unaccustomed hum of London in his 
 ears, Blundell tumbled impatiently out of bed, 
 eager not to waste time. He got into his dressing- 
 gown and slippers, but before going along the 
 
 corridor to the bathroom he did his hair carefully, 
 
 i 
 
 with wet brushes, taking immense pains to get a 
 parting in the centre of his head. No decently- 
 trained man ever allows himself to be seen with 
 rumpled hair. 
 
 He found the bath ready for him, and as he lay 
 in the hot water with the cold tap turned on, he 
 remembered, with some annoyance, that he had 
 parted, in a moment of natural emotion, with 
 twenty of his hard-earned sovereigns in the early 
 hours of the morning. With some of it a 
 sovereign, perhaps two he had intended to buy 
 some pretty little silver thing for Betty at 
 Aspray's, a silver-bound note-book to hang on 
 her chatelaine, or a silver pencil at any rate, 
 something to mark the importance of his return, 
 and to let her see how dearly he loved her. With 
 some of the rest eight or nine sovereigns, perhaps 
 he had made up his mind to get for himself a 
 few quite necessary things- pipes, a couple of boxes
 
 248 Hfcam's 
 
 of cigars, a few hundred cigarettes, some ties and 
 socks not Odoesque, but nearly and so on. 
 
 Sentimentality, or, as he put it, chivalry, rendered 
 such purchases impossible, or rather it rendered 
 the gift impossible. The other things were 
 essential. 
 
 He was not in the best of tempers whea he 
 returned to his bedroom. Having started the day 
 badly, the tactics of his stud next to a woman 
 the most unnecessarily elusive institution on earth 
 didn't improve his temper. As he groped about 
 under the dressing - table for it his curses were 
 picturesque and ingenious, and when, after a 
 quarter of an hour's hunt on his hands and knees, 
 it rolled out of the bottom of his trousers with a 
 grin, they became positively phosphorescent. 
 
 At breakfast his eggs were hard-boiled and his 
 coffee distinctly muddy. At the next table an 
 American, with a more than usually horrid accent, 
 read his mail aloud to his wife, and with blatant 
 exultation announced to the whole world that, by 
 the sale of certain shares, he was the richer by 
 several hundred thousand dollars. 
 
 Finally, the waiter upset the milk over the table, 
 and Blundell, knowing that he would have paid a 
 proportion of the ground-rent of the hotel for a yea*
 
 Hfcam's Glas 249 
 
 when he settled for the breakfast he had not eaten, 
 rose, threw a string of poop-oaths at the German's 
 head, and stumped angrily down - stairs to the 
 smoking-room. 
 
 It was half-past nine. It was necessary to kill 
 three hours and a half. Blundell felt no desire to 
 leave the hotel. London was no longer in his blood. 
 It was all too hopelessly lonely. No man who has 
 been a somebody can stomach being a nonentity, an 
 atom. He loathed the place, its crowd, its din, its 
 smells, its ugliness. 
 
 With an air of aggression he lit a pipe and collected 
 all the morning papers upon which he could lay his 
 hands. The first one, a halfpenny paper, made him 
 scoff loudly. It was composed of blood tabloids, 
 and snippets of snobbery, badly-worded letters from 
 readers about such trivial matters as the Post Office, 
 the linnet that sang at midnight, and the methods 
 
 o o * 
 
 of an effete Government, and a leader, obviously 
 written by a precocious provincial journalist, on a 
 subject that it was impertinent of him to discuss. 
 The only thing in it that arrested his attention was 
 a notice of a play by a loading playwright which had 
 been produced the previous nighi at a l/ading \Ye't 
 End theatre. The writer devoted the whole of his 
 space to proving how much better he could have
 
 250 H&atn's Clap 
 
 written the play himself, and mentioned in his last 
 line that it was only saved from being hissed off the 
 stage by the actors. 
 
 For the fun of the thing, Blundell read the notices 
 in all the other papers, and was amused to see that 
 none of them agreed with the halfpenny writer, or 
 with anybody else. A big daily, in devoting two 
 columns to exuberant eulogies of the play, mentioned 
 that, alas ! it was almost wrecked by the acting. A 
 third paper stated, sweepingly, that both the play 
 and the acting were beneath contempt. 
 
 As time went on Blundell's anger and wounded 
 pride slipped away, and a kind of excitement took 
 their place. He began to finger his tie and ask 
 himself again and again what on earth Milly could 
 possibly want to see him about. 
 
 " Women are such extraordinary people," he said 
 to himself, " they never forget. Their mines are 
 like the boxes that children keep under lock and 
 key, filled with the utterly unessential things. They 
 will lose their engagement-ring in which there are 
 three fairly respectable stones with very little regret. 
 But they wouldn't part with a rose given to them by 
 some disreputable lover for a thousand diamonds. 
 . . . Those were jolly days, by Gad ! What an 
 unholy cad Cator was ! I suppose if I hadn't
 
 Hfcam's (Has 251 
 
 sympathised somebody else would have done so. 
 What a near thing it was that night at the Grosvenor. 
 She was always dashed punctual, and as usual I 
 hadn't arrived. And when she asked for me the 
 Gov'nor came down ! By Jove, how we scuttled ! 
 Good old Milly ! She's got that incident stuffed 
 away in her box, I'll bet a pony. . . . Why the 
 dickens does she want to see me ? . . . I suppose I 
 ought to catch the train down to Betty to-night? 
 Otherwise I'd suggest taking Milly to a theatre. I'd 
 like to do a theatre with her again just for auld 
 lang syne. Oh, well, I must do my hair again, I 
 suppose."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 BLUNDELL walked as far as Hyde Park Corner. 
 London was wearing its usual midsummer appear- 
 ance. The sun poured down upon Piccadilly. 
 Motor 'buses, with their offensive smell and horrid 
 rattle, made their way up the hill. Cabs, empty, and 
 likely to remain so, crawled, like tired flies, close 
 to the kerb, wearing holland covers, \vith fringes 
 hanging over the front. Most of the clubs were 
 closed for new decorations. 
 
 Americans with padded shoulders, carrying 
 kodaks, hurried along, taking quick, eager glances 
 at the places of any interest. And the man whose 
 business or profession demanded his presence, went 
 about his work in a straw hat, minus waistcoat. 
 
 At Hyde Park Corner, Blundell got into a cab 
 and drove to his flat in Addison Road. A few 
 actors ambled about the Row on safe hacks, 
 uneasily, and the dried grass in Kensington Gardens 
 was spotted with the white frocks of nurse-maids 
 
 and children. 
 
 252
 
 Hfcam's Clas 253 
 
 Parliament had just risen, and London, more 
 crowded than ever, was in that deplorable state that 
 is known as " empty." 
 
 Almost every shop in that strange, giddy and 
 dangerous thoroughfare, Kensington High Street, 
 was undergoing its Annual Summer Sale, and hosts 
 of women of all ages crowded round them, peering 
 knowingly at the windows. 
 
 Hammersmith sent its contingent ; and West 
 Kensington, poor but proud ; Chelsea, and the lost 
 regions on the wrong side of the water. Even to 
 Blundell there was a subtle pathos in the sight. He 
 knew also the difficulty of keeping up appearances 
 with very little to do it on. 
 
 His heart beat more quickly as he nearcd 
 Uxbridge Mansions, Addison Gardens. He could 
 remember the glow of pride which spread over him 
 when he drove up to them with Hetty, after their 
 honeymoon. Their windows were small, but the 
 bricks were red and the bells were electric, and the 
 board in the hall contained one Honourable and one 
 Surgeon-General. 
 
 Betty had thought everything very charming, and 
 he remembered, with a laugh, that she put merely 
 Uxbridge I.Iansions, \V., on her note-pacer, and left 
 Addison Gardens, Hammersmith, out. It didn't do
 
 254 Hfcam's 
 
 away with the fact that it was a bare three-shilling 
 cab fare from the theatres. 
 
 They had been very happy there together for 
 three months. His mother, who didn't get on 
 particularly well with Betty, and her mother, who 
 didn't get on particularly well with him, had both 
 stayed there at different times. Ah, those were 
 golden days ! 
 
 The flat was on the third floor. There was a new 
 porter in the old porter's clothes. He knew this by 
 the sack under his arms, and by the trousers, which, 
 although they were turned up, were still too long by 
 a couple of inches. 
 
 He instinctively felt for his latchkey. It seemed 
 absurd to ring the bell of his own place like any 
 stranger. 
 
 He asked for Mrs. Cator, and was shown into the 
 little drawing-room in which he had taken such a 
 pride. He stood on the rug in front of the fire- 
 place it was a bargain from one of Hampton's sales 
 and surveyed the room. His thoughts flew back to 
 the morning, several days before his marriage, when, 
 with dear old Fawcett, he had hung the pictures, 
 pipe in mouth, cost off, sleeves rolled up, and had 
 arranged the furniture which Betty had afterwards 
 rearranged in the usual woman's way.
 
 Bfcatn's Clas 255 
 
 One of the pictures was crooked. With a lump 
 of sentimentality in liis throat, he crossed the room 
 and put it straight with the tip of his finger. The 
 thin-legged writing-desk that he had given to Betty 
 on her birthday the first birthday, so far as he was 
 concerned was open. Many of Mrs. Gator's letters 
 were lying upon it. In a pigeon-hole he saw a 
 number of letters in his wife's handwriting. He 
 took them up them and kissed them. Hearing a 
 step in the passage, he slipped them, with a smile, 
 into his pocket, and turned expectantly towards the 
 door. 
 
 Milly Cator came forward with outstretched hand. 
 
 " Evelyn," she said, with a ring of pleasure in her 
 honest voice, " how nice to see you again." 
 
 Slightly chilled at the almost sisterly greeting, 
 Blundell took her hand. "Thanks," he said. " It is 
 good to be home." 
 
 He had rehearsed a very different scene. He 
 quite expected that she would have flung her arms 
 round his neck with tears, and he had intended to 
 kiss her on her cheek, and pat her shoulder, and talk 
 in a fatherly way of what might have been. 
 
 As it was, Milly stood before him beaming with 
 health and cheerfulness. Almost aggressively sane. 
 He felt aggrieved. He felt as most of us feel when,
 
 256 H&am's 
 
 upon opening a smartly-got-up parcel, tied carefully, 
 sealed here and there, and marked " Fragile," " With 
 care," a sample of patent medicines is discovered. 
 
 " How well and brown you are looking, dear old 
 boy," said Milly, sitting down. " You've evidently 
 had a very good time." 
 
 Blundell assumed a woebegone expression. 
 
 "Does a man usually have a good time when he 
 is away from the woman he loves better than his 
 life for three years only three months married? I've 
 had a beastly time, thanks." 
 
 Mrs. Gator's face flushed slightly, and her thoughts 
 flew uneasily to the pigeon-hole of the writing-desk. 
 
 " Oh," she said, " yes, yes, of course. I forgot 
 Betty for a moment." 
 
 "I have never forgotten Betty for an instant," 
 said Blundell. " When a man marries for love, you 
 know, penal servitude is not worse than separation." 
 
 There was a slight pause. Mrs. Cator, unable to 
 clear her mind of some gladness that the man whom 
 she had expected to wait for her freedom should 
 have married a woman so unworthy as Betty, 
 wondered what he would say if he could see the 
 bundle of letters. 
 
 Biundell, not altogether with intention, began to 
 frame sentences likely to give pain to the woman
 
 Hfcam's (Has 257 
 
 who seemed to have forgotten that he had behaved 
 badly to her. 
 
 The temptation to put the letters in Blundell's 
 hands, and so, while killing his love for his wife, very 
 possibly regain some of it herself, was very strong. 
 Being the man for whom she had sacrificed some- 
 thing more than her self-respect, Mrs. Cator still 
 loved Blundell. It is the way of women. 
 
 " You'll stay to lunch, of course," she said brightly. 
 
 "I can't, thanks very much," said Blundell, who 
 had made arrangements to do so, " I want to catch 
 the afternoon train into the country. You see if I 
 hadn't ... if you hadn't ... I should have gone 
 down last night, only that I wanted to be of use 
 to you." 
 
 Mrs. Cator fidgeted with her fingers. 
 
 " It was kind of you to wait," she said. " The fact 
 is, Betty wanted me to see you to get you to take 
 down a parcel quite a small one of things I have 
 been getting for her in town. As you are in such a 
 hurry, perhaps I had better get it for you at once." 
 
 "Thanks," said Blundell, rising and opening the 
 door. 
 
 Again Mrs. Gator's thoughts travelled in the 
 direction of the pigeon-hole. After a brief, sharp 
 struggle, the best that was in her won there was
 
 258 Beam's Clap 
 
 very little that was not best and she rose with a 
 smile and went to the door. 
 
 " How glad she will be to get you back again," she 
 said, as sb*5 went out. 
 
 Blundell returned to the rug in front of the fire- 
 place, in an extremely irritable frame of mind. For 
 Milly's sake he had stayed one night away from his 
 wife, had been put to the expense of an hotel bill, 
 extra cab fares, and had thrown away 20 of his 
 hard-earned money from purely mistaken ideas of 
 philanthropy. 
 
 " And we might have had such a jolly afternoon 
 and evening," he said to himself. 
 
 In the little dining-room of the flat, Mrs. Cator, 
 with the tears streaming down her cheeks, spread 
 out a telegram that she had received the previous 
 morning. It was from 15etty. 
 
 "Wire to Evelyn and ask him to see you to- 
 morrow urgently. I do not want him down to-night 
 or to-morrow. Keep him. Very important. Be sure 
 you wire me the train he decides to come by." 
 
 With a bitter exclamation Mrs. Cator opened the 
 Railway Guide, and then drew a telegraph-form from 
 its case.
 
 Bfcam's Clas 259 
 
 " He is leaving by the 2.55 Milly," she wrote. 
 This she gave to her maid with the request that it 
 micfht be sent at once. She then went to her bed- 
 
 r> 
 
 room, made a parcel of the hair-nets for which 
 Betty had written, carefully bathed her eyes with 
 a sponge, and returned, studiously cheerful, to the 
 drawing-room. 
 
 " Here it is," she said, holding out the parcel. 
 " Are you sure you haven't time to stay to 
 lunch?" 
 
 " Quite sure, thanks," said Blundell. " I must 
 get back to the Metropole and put my things 
 together. Glad to see you looking so well and 
 happy." 
 
 " Oh," said Mrs. Cator, " I never was happier in 
 my life, or so well. Perhaps I shall see something 
 of you both before your leave is up." 
 
 " Thanks. I hope so. ... Well . . . good-bye." 
 
 " Well, good-bye." 
 
 As the outer door closed upon him Mrs. Cator 
 slipped into a chair, with her hands over her eyes. 
 " He's forgotten," she cried. 
 
 Blundell put up his stick to a cab, flung the 
 little parcel upon the seat, got in ailcr it, and 
 slammed the doors together angrily. 
 
 " She's forgotten," he thought.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 IT was half-past one when Blundell got back to 
 the Me"tropole. He made out that he had three 
 quarters of an hour in which to get packed and 
 pay his bill, and make some kind of a lunch. 
 Lunch was the most important. He could pack 
 and settle up in a quarter of an hour. So, not caring 
 to face Birmingham, Manchester, and Chicago, he 
 eschewed the dining-room, and went down to the 
 bar, which was in an angle of the smoking-room. 
 
 By this time, by the careful application of 
 make-believe upon the sore part, the sting of dis- 
 appointment caused by Mrs. Cator's normal 
 reception had been replaced by a glow of virtue. 
 He had argued himself, without much trouble, into 
 the belief that he had let Milly see, pretty plainly, 
 that he, at any rate, had completely wiped the past 
 out of his mind, for Betty's sake. 
 
 " I did it rather well," he said to himself, as he 
 washed his hands. " If I had let myself go the 
 
 slightest bit, or sentimentalised even for a minute, 
 
 260
 
 Bfcmn's 
 
 there might have been complications. It was only 
 by preserving a strenuously commonplace and 
 ordinary manner and expression that I saved the 
 situation. Poor, dear old Milly, how obviously she 
 was suffering. It was dashed cruel, but being 
 married, and frightfully in love with my wife, what 
 else, as a man of honour, could I do possibly ? I 
 might perhaps have been a trifle kinder. It was 
 rubbing it in rather. But after all, it was best for 
 her, poor dear. There she is, jogging along fairly 
 well, trying to live it down and all that. I should 
 hate to have opened up the old wound." 
 
 Dipping the brushes in the water, he redid his 
 hair with the utmost care, and examined his face 
 in the glass minutely. He was pleased with what 
 he saw, on the whole. He was a little troubled 
 to find that his jaw-line was not so clean as it 
 had been before he had left London three years 
 ago. 
 
 " This rotten glass," he thought. " However, I 
 must put in some ecca down in the country 
 Perhaps that farmer man of whom Betty wrote 
 can lend me a mount, and I daresay the local 
 padre will give me some tennis. Of course, if the 
 worst comes to the worst, I must get Betty to 
 come for some stiff tramps. She dislikes walking,
 
 262 
 
 dear little girl, but she'll do anything for me. I 
 should loathe to get fat." 
 
 With a head as shiny and flat as the back of a 
 seal, Blnndell left the wash -and -brush -up place, 
 and passed into the bar. 
 
 A very smart young person, wearing a blouse 
 transparent at the neck, with sleeves cut short above 
 the elbow, was sitting behind the counter, reading a 
 novel. She glanced haughtily and with a touch of 
 insolence at Blundell, without, as a matter of fact, 
 wishing to convey either the one or the other. She 
 had been told, by one of her regular customers, 
 that she was exactly like Zoe Dane, who always 
 played duchesses in musical pieces, and she 
 religiously copied that young woman's expression. 
 
 Blundell felt mildly amused. He hatted the 
 barmaid in his best manner. 
 
 " May I venture to ask you to be so kind as to 
 provide me with some of your excellent shrimp 
 sandwiches and a brandy-and-soda? " he asked. 
 
 The young woman's mouth became unsteady. 
 She did not permit it to break into a smile. Her 
 prototype never smiled. In that, at least, she was 
 different from every other person of her sex upon 
 the musical comedy stage smiling and sitting to 
 photographers in indelicate costumes being the
 
 only two talents required of " artistes " in that class 
 of entertainment. 
 
 She rose languidly from her chair. 
 
 "Certainly," she replied. "But do you think 
 you're old enough for a brandy-and-soda ? " 
 
 Elundell laughed. " Ah, ha ! a wit, a wit," he 
 said. 
 
 With a natural playfulness that occasionally got 
 the better of her pose, she fired the soda-water 
 cork at him. 
 
 "An outer," said Blundell, rubbing his ear. "You 
 didn't allow for the wind kicked up by that electric 
 fan. Have another shot." 
 
 She put his glass on the marble-topped counter 
 and expertly caught up three sandwiches with a 
 silver instrument. These she placed upon a plate 
 stamped with the crest of the hotel it did not 
 belong to the Gordon family and dropped a piece 
 of parsley by the side of them. She then returned 
 to her chair and her novel. 
 
 Blundell, who felt more at home with women 
 of her class than with women of his own, studied 
 her carefully as he ate his lunch. She wore her 
 clothes well, but like every Englishwoman, was 
 unable to wear short sleeves in daylight without 
 looking vulgar. It is a fashion that was created
 
 264 Bfcam's 
 
 in Paris. As everybody knows, every Frenchwoman 
 is born wearing a pair of gloves. 
 
 " A jolly little bar this," said Blundell brightly. 
 
 " Yes ? " The little girl did not take her eyes 
 away from her book. 
 
 "What sort of people generally come here ? " 
 
 "All sorts," she replied, with a drawl. "But 
 mostly men who are known to the p'leece as ' on 
 the market.'" 
 
 "On the market?" asked Blundell. "What's 
 that?" 
 
 " Oh," she said, assuming boredom extremely 
 well, "the term is applied to men of good family 
 who haven't any money and who never pay, but 
 who live like fighting cocks at other people's 
 expense." 
 
 "Are there many of 'em in London?" 
 
 The girl looked at Blundell curiously. 
 
 " Hundreds," she replied. " They are mostly 
 young, with double-barrelled names, and the only 
 work they ever do is to polish up their hyphens. 
 The men they go about with are younger than 
 themselves. When they are no longer useful 
 they are no longer young, although only a fort- 
 night older, perhaps. Two of the best-known 
 O.T.M.'s in town lived here for six months. On
 
 Hfcam's Clap 265 
 
 condition that they left and never came back, the 
 Manager let them off the whole of the money 
 they owed him." 
 
 "Where did they go then?" 
 
 " Well, they were eighteen months in this street 
 altogether without paying a shilling. There are 
 two other hotels, you see." 
 
 " But, good heavens ! why aren't they proceeded 
 against?" 
 
 'Because," replied the girl, whose knowledge of 
 humanity was even greater than her knowledge of 
 liquors, " no one cares to be made to look foolish 
 in the police reports." 
 
 Blundell was interested. "You get to know men 
 pretty well in this profession, I suppose ? " he asked. 
 
 " Business," said the girl sharply, " not profession." 
 
 " I beg your pardon." 
 
 " Well, rather, what do you think ? From the 
 way they treat me I can very nearly always tell 
 where they were brought up." 
 
 " Really ? By Jove ! " 
 
 The girl made a book-marker of a theatre-card 
 and turned towards Blundell with an air of almost 
 royal condescension. 
 
 "Yes," she said, "and you'd be surprised rnv/ 
 many men who would be described as of no
 
 266 Efcam's Clap 
 
 occupation, or as heirs to peerages, in the 
 police courts are the worst bounders of all. They 
 think that because a lady 'as ... has to earn a 
 living by standing behind a bar she may be a 
 target for their coarse jokes and familiar leers. 
 The feller I hate more than most is the one who 
 belongs to the pussy class, you know what I mean 
 the unwashed, gaudily - dressed, long - haired, 
 effeminate creature who makes eyes and throws 
 darts. . . ." 
 
 "Throws darts?" echoed Blundell. 
 
 " I mean, puts the tip of his forefinger on the 
 tip of his thumb and wriggles. Grrh ! He's a 
 horror. London's full of him. Heaps of 'em 
 ' walk on ' at the theatre and talk Art with a 
 capital H. They call one another pet names and 
 wear bangles, and are horribly pleased if anyone 
 calls them decadent." 
 
 "The lethal chamber is their place," said Blundell. 
 
 "You're right," replied the girl. "Then there's 
 the cricketer in the pavilion the man who talks 
 nothing but cricket and never plays. He comes in 
 wearing the M.C.C. colours round his straw and 
 bowls imaginary balls at me and asks me, so that 
 the whole place may hear, whether ' Bosanquct's 
 been in lately ? ' and when did I c see Charlie Fry
 
 H&am's Clap 267 
 
 \ast?' He's never spoken to either of 'em in his 
 life." 
 
 " I suppose not," said Blundcll, with a laugh. 
 
 "And then there's the old person with creaking 
 joints and skinny neck and skin-tight clothes and 
 the miraculous old top-hat balanced on one ear, a 
 continual advertisement for salad-oil, who tells me 
 ' that the service is goin' to the dorgs, be Gad ! ' 
 Poor old thing, I'm always beastly sorry for him. 
 He calls himself Major, and is no more entitled to 
 it than that old screecher with the long beard is to 
 call himself ' Doctor.' I forget his name, but he's 
 the star turn of the Radical papers." 
 
 " I knew the creature you mean," said Blundell. 
 
 He didn't, but he was anxious to draw the girl 
 out. Her Cockney shrewdness amused him very 
 much. 
 
 " The 'Varsity man is healthier than these others, 
 but he's always ragging wetting the matches, 
 putting the whisky label on the brandy decanter. 
 Oh, and you know generally playing the goat. 
 It all gives me work to do. The only good thing 
 about him is that he never makes suggestive remarks, 
 and that's something to be thankful for, I can tell 
 you. ... I can't quite make you out," she said, 
 looking at Blundell quizzingly.
 
 268 Beam's 
 
 "No?" said Blundell, with a self-conscious laugh. 
 " Have a shot." 
 
 " Well, you're a bit difficult to place. You've got 
 the face of a Londoner with the mind of a country- 
 man, and you haven't said anything about yourself 
 although you've been here fifteen minutes ; I should 
 think that you're a man who began by being a 
 gentleman and drifted into a commercial traveller, 
 or else the son of a farmer who's been round the 
 world and has gradually become a gentleman." 
 
 Blundell was not quite sure whether to be pleased 
 or not. He blushed under the girl's direct gaze and 
 laughed a little too loudly. 
 
 " I'm a sailor," he said. 
 
 "Ah!" said the girl. "That accounts for it. 
 Fresh air and a fine example have coated over 
 your bounderism." 
 
 " Draw it mild," cried Blundell. 
 
 " I don't keep draught beer,'"' said the girl quietly. 
 She still looked straight at Blundell. " The time to 
 find out exactly the kind of man you are," she 
 continued, undaunted, " would be to see you when 
 you've had a drop too much, or when you are in 
 a frightful rage. I'll make a bet you're a bit raw 
 on those occasions. Am I right ? " 
 
 Blundell retained a fixed smile and an undisturbed
 
 Hfcam's Clap 269 
 
 appearance. Inwardly he devoutly hoped that the 
 girl might come to a most horrid ending. 
 
 " By Jove ! I must fly," he said. " I'm catching 
 the 2.50, and I haven't packed." 
 
 " Not shirty ? " asked the girl, giving him change 
 for a sovereign. 
 
 ' Oh, good Lord, no." 
 
 " Liar,'"' she said politely. 
 
 As a matter of fact, Blundell still had more than 
 comfortable time on hand. He had beat a graceful 
 retreat, feeling that discretion was the better part 
 of valour. He lit a cigarette in his bedroom and 
 opened his kit-bag. 
 
 Deep down in his boots, Blundell had a lurking 
 suspicion that his whole morning had been far 
 from successful. First Milly Cator and then that 
 barmaid woman had trampled on his self-conceit. 
 He caught up a shirt and flung it irritably into 
 the bag. He caught sight of himself in the glass 
 and thought that his collar looked "rotten." He 
 removed it savagely, and threw it with an oath into 
 the empty fireplace. His coat felt tight under the 
 arms. He slipped out of it and pitched it on to 
 the bed. The packet of letters fell to the floor. 
 
 " Ah ! " he thought, " Betty's letters. By Jove ! 
 I didn't mean to bring them away. I'm jolly glad
 
 270 Hfcam's 
 
 I have, though. It'll do me good to read the sweet, 
 fresh outpourings of a woman who isn't a wrong 'un, 
 like Milly and that little cat downstairs. . . . Yes, 
 I'll dip into one. At least I shall know that one 
 woman doesn't think I'm a hopeless outsider." 
 
 He sat down on the edge of the bed, and untied 
 the riband that bound up the bundle. The letters 
 were arranged in order. With an indulgent smile 
 Blundell took the first one out of its envelope.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 BLUNDELL rose from the chair by the window of 
 his bedroom in the Metropole. Big Ben struck 
 nine. His bags lay open, and his clothes and shirts 
 lay scattered about the room. He had stopped in 
 the middle of his packing to read Betty's letters to 
 her friend. 
 
 As he read tea unthought of, dinner unthought 
 of the veins of anger, disgust, contempt, and self- 
 pity stood out in knots upon his forehead. The 
 references to himself wounded him far more terribly 
 than the indiscreet analysis of her horrid habits. 
 This only made him feel righteously indignant, 
 although it elevated him in his own eyes into 
 the position of a man of high morality and 
 unimpeachable rectitude. 
 
 Cramped and tired, he rose from his chair by the 
 window, being unable to sec. The li/.ht had f;i 'ed. 
 
 For some time he stood in tue little, stifily- 
 
 furnished room in the dark. He knew that he had 
 
 271
 
 272 Hfcam's 
 
 arrived at the end of a road which branched off in 
 the shape of a Y into two others. Along one of 
 these he could see himself and Betty together, yet 
 alone. Along the other there was no Betty to be 
 seen. 
 
 It was a big moment. Determined to make the 
 most of it, even although the shock of disillusion- 
 ment gave him exquisite pain, he indulged in the 
 pleasure of standing outside himself, and looking at 
 himself with the eyes of a friend a friend who 
 understood. 
 
 Instead of the selfish, sensual, commonplace, 
 sentimental, easy-going person he was, he saw a 
 good - looking, even handsome man, white all 
 through, bleeding from a deep wound in his 
 heart a wound inflicted by the wife to whom he 
 was so devoted, and had loved so faithfully ; a 
 wound no human hand could ever mend. 
 
 From the street beneath a quick, metallic echo 
 of hoofs came nearer and died away, followed 
 immediately by others. The sound of trains, an 
 ugly sound, came also. In the passage outside his 
 door, bells rang, and sometimes a Ley was pushed 
 into the lock of other doors. Steps passed and 
 repassed, muffled by the thick carpet.
 
 Hfcam's Clap 273 
 
 " My God ! " he cried aloud, " what have I done 
 to deserve this what, what? I have never quite 
 lied to her, even if I haven't told her all the truth. 
 She has lied to me from the beginning of all things. 
 I have never been actually unfaithful to her ; I've 
 only been badly tempted, and have fallen. She has 
 been worse than unfaithful to me for three years. 
 She is leading a life a thousand times more immoral 
 than that poor devil of a girl from the tobacconist's 
 shop." 
 
 With a sudden movement he switched on the 
 electric light, drew his chair beneath it, and with 
 blasphemy on his lips and a desire to punish in 
 his heart, continued to read.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 " I SLEPT the greater part of the afternoon away," 
 the next letter ran. " If nothing exciting is going 
 forward, I always lay myself out for an afternoon's 
 sleep. It is a sure way to prevent lines. When I 
 say sleep, I don't mean a nap outside the bed. 
 That is really of little use. I mean a long, steady 
 sleep from lunch till tea-time, in bed, undressed as 
 though it were night-time, with the blinds down, 
 the window open, and the air playing on my face. 
 
 " If women only knew it, this kind of sleep taken 
 regularly every day, all through the year, is a great 
 aid to keeping young perhaps the best. There 
 would be no need to indulge in rest - cures if 
 women followed my example, nor face massage, nor 
 electric treatment, nor for any of the nevv-fangled 
 processes one hears so much about and which 
 are so expensive. 
 
 " That's one of the great disadvantages of being 
 
 a mother. Unless the exchequer allows of an 
 
 274
 
 275 
 
 excellent nursery, far away at the other end of the 
 house, a woman cannot get her proper sleep. I 
 thank Heaven that I am not a mother. I think a 
 child would completely ruin my life. I have nothing 
 of the maternal instinct. I never could stand a doll. 
 One Christmas morning I remember being so angry 
 because father, who thought, I suppose, that all 
 children were the same, or didn't think, put a doll on 
 my pillow, dressed to the nines. I had hoped for a 
 book a book of adventures by flood and field 
 ' Ivanhoe ' was the dream of my young life and 
 with a yell of disgust and repugnance, I caught up 
 the pink-and-white thing, and flung it head first 
 against the wall. Its smiling face cracked in half, 
 and an arm fell off. 
 
 "I wonder if I shoul-l have done the same thing to 
 a child if I had found it on my pillow. I really 
 believe I should. 
 
 " But take the little girl in this cottage. There 
 you have a born mother. Nature marked her out 
 for a mother from her earliest infancy. She will be 
 one of those women who thinks no more of having a 
 child once a year than I think of having the World 
 every Tuesday morning. It comes to this. I am 
 utterly devoid of the primeval form of passion. I
 
 276 
 
 dislike it. It simply doesn't interest me. I don't 
 understand it. Indeed, I go further than that. If it 
 hadn't been the only possible means of my getting 
 out of the half-pay atmosphere of home, nothing on 
 earth would have induced me to marry especially 
 the kind of man Evelyn is. You know Evelyn 
 slightly, and therefore, no doubt, you think that he 
 is a most excellent specimen of English manhood. 
 I daresay you are right. In fact, I am sure you are. 
 He is an excellent specimen of English manhood, 
 or any other manhood for that matter. I can well 
 imagine that he would make a very useful kind of 
 neighbour. If one flattered him sufficiently he 
 would run one's little messages, roll one's lawn, 
 take one's dog for walks, and make a cheerful and 
 fairly efficient fourth at a game of Bridge. 
 
 "But he is not the ideal man to be married to, 
 believe me. He takes everything as a matter of 
 course, and having got it either sleeps or goes his 
 way, whistling ' Annie Laurie,' or an air from the 
 latest musical play musical comedy what do they 
 call those things ? He wants his own way in every- 
 thing, and nags when he doesn't get it. He demands 
 a constant supply of good food, and grows horribly 
 sulky and bud-tempered unless his vanity is fed at
 
 HOam's Clap 277 
 
 stated times also. He plays a good deal more 
 enthusiastically than he works, and being utterly 
 devoid of a sense of humour, puts the wrong inter- 
 pretation on badinage. And the worst of it is, I still 
 live in an atmosphere of small means. Making both 
 ends meet is not a pastime I care about. My metier 
 is spinsterhood with unlimited money. I ought to 
 travel, and see the world. You see, unlike most 
 women, I am intelligent, and therefore quite out 
 of the common. Everyone has a kink. You know 
 mine. I revel in it. But for all that, I am very 
 capable of enjoying anything that is lofty. I feel 
 that I could write books if I took the trouble. 1 
 should write about myself, of course. Most women 
 do, one way or another. And because I can't be 
 bothered to write books, I write these long, indiscreet 
 letters to you. It's very unwise. But you see I 
 can't very well write them to my mother or to 
 Evelyn. My mother would be interested and horror- 
 stricken ; and I think Evelyn would hurt me. I 
 think he would rise up with superb righteousness 
 and hit me. You see, he is so essentially English. 
 He considers that being a man he may be as un- 
 faithful as he chooses, but that no wife has a right to 
 be anything but a devoted idiot. Its a fine theory.
 
 278 Hfcam's Clap 
 
 " Not, my dear Milly that I ever want to be 
 unfaithful, but if I did, I should, if only to feel that 
 justice was being done. 
 
 " I put in an excellent time this evening. My hero 
 and I met again. You will never guess where. I 
 didn't mind a bit what the good woman downstairs 
 might think, and so I asked him in after dinner. He 
 came about nine o'clock. It was a gorgeous evening. 
 Very hot and still and breathless. Just the kind of 
 evening that helps me immensely. 
 
 " I put the lamp out a thing that smokes if you 
 turn it too high, and smells if you turn it too low 
 and brought in three candles from the bedroom. I 
 have no stupid superstitions on the subject of three 
 lights. I really think this caused the good woman 
 more uneasiness than the fact that I was going to 
 entertain a mere farmer. The impropriety part of 
 it didn't appeal to her in the least. For rne a 
 'London lady' to have any truck with a country 
 person was the point. I told her I wanted to ask 
 him about his crops. 
 
 "I wore a soft white, clinging thing a crosr 
 between a tea-gown and a night-dress, cist low at the 
 neck, with short sleeves. I was discovered lying on 
 the sofa, under the window.
 
 Bfcam's Clap 279 
 
 "He came in timidiy. His mood had changed 
 again. Fie was no longer just the delighted boy, 
 or the man roused. He was the man in love. A 
 man in love is always seen to the worst advantage. 
 He sits in awkward positions, and is quiet, dull, and 
 sentimental. My monster was exactly like them all. 
 I thought till this evening that it was impossible for 
 him to look awkward. I was wrong. He not only 
 looked more awkward than most men in love he 
 looked more foolish. 
 
 "And yet he was not uninteresting, because it was 
 so palpably his first attack. I read to him for an 
 hour. I chose Rossetti not Dante Gabriel. His 
 work is so mad, so tricky, so utterly unmeaning. 
 But Christina. I read well for a woman. I under- 
 stand the value of a semicolon. And as I read, he 
 sat and watched the movement of my lips. He 
 hung on the sound of my voice without listening to 
 the words, and I might just as well have been 
 reading the sorriest prose. I read because I had 
 pretty well exhausted all topics of conversation. 
 
 " When I looked at him I looked at him frequently 
 I could see a blaze in his eyes. I believed that if 
 I had rut iny hand on ui.' : , he would have seized ITU, 
 and ki^ecl my breath away. I longed to do it. 1
 
 280 Beam's Clag 
 
 longed, just as a child does when it is alone with a fire, 
 to throw on a log and see the flare. It required only 
 the faintest movements to affect him. I had only to 
 move from my back to my side, facing him slowly 
 like a cat, to see him tremble suddenly. I want you 
 to understand that he is deeply ashamed of any 
 feeling of passion. I can always see him struggling 
 against it. You see, he has elevated me to the 
 pedestal of a saint. I am no woman. I am a 
 goddess ! All men who love for the first time all 
 men of imagination, all unconscious poets do this. 
 Being just a woman, I like it, naturally. So would 
 you. So you did, and very likely do. Every Jill 
 nas her Jack, they say. But I believe the 
 worshipper has the best time until he has got all 
 he wants, and so ceases to worship. And even then 
 it is the one who was worshipped who has the worst 
 time. It is always the woman who pays. 
 
 "You can understand knowing that he is one of 
 those imaginative, poetic people who like to think of 
 women as filmy things, who shudder to see them eat 
 and drink, and grow almost apoplectic at the sight 
 of a red-faced, untidy - headed hockey girl how 
 gently, how subtly I had to set to work. But I 
 succeeded admirably, against his will, utterly against
 
 Hfcam's Gla$ 281 
 
 his will, and I saw him dig his nails into his hands 
 several times. Poor lad ! how he will loathe himself 
 for it when he goes home. He would shoot anybody 
 who told him I was the hard-thinking cause of it. 
 
 " He bent over my hand when he was going, and 
 kissed it lightly, with the simple grace and adoration 
 of a s< hool-boy, and then rushed helter-skelter away. 
 
 " I took the candles into my bedroom, and un- 
 dressed slowly. Honestly and truly, this man is the 
 only one I have ever met who has come near to 
 stirring what little power for loving there is in my 
 heart. If I were endowed, or cursed, whichever you 
 like, with the maternal instinct, I should be as much 
 in love with John Ashley as John Ashley is in love 
 with me. As it is, he makes me rather ashamed of 
 myself. He is such a genuine soul. Indeed, he is 
 L man at his best. I feel at this moment that I 
 should like to go to the bank of some river, swim 
 across it and back, and coine out cleansed, just as 
 much woman as he is man. 
 
 " Together equally genuine, equally simple, 
 equally human, equally in love, what a heaven 
 would earth be for us. I can't help thinking 
 sometimes that a woman misses something 
 that is ulterly swcut who docs not bring a
 
 282 Beam's dag 
 
 child into the world. Is she merely a bud until 
 then ? Is it that which causes her to break into 
 blossom ? There is a minor note reverberating 
 horribly sadly through my body to-night. I feel 
 like a beautiful bell without a tongue. I cannot 
 sound a true, quivering note. I am minus the one 
 essential that goes to make a woman utterly 
 womanly. 
 
 " I think this is the only time in my life that I have 
 wished painfully, with a sharp, hot pricking, that I 
 could go back and begin all over again. I would be 
 different. I would try so hard to be clean. God ! 
 how I would try ! 
 
 " I wonder whether, if I could go back, it would be 
 any good. I am afraid not. As 1 am, so was I 
 brought into the world. I think, with the feeling of 
 that man's honest eyes burning my checks ddiciously, 
 that I would rather be ugly and womanly, than 
 beautiful and . . . 
 
 "What's that? I believe I can hear him under the 
 window of my sitting-room. I must gu and see."
 
 CHAPTER Xil 
 
 " I CREPT across the creaking room gingerly, 
 because my feet were bare ; gathered my night- 
 gown close, shook my hair away from my face, and 
 peeped behind the curtain. 
 
 " The window was open. The moon was sitting 
 in a sky as clear as water, flooding the earth 
 with her light, surrounded by a thousand thousand 
 stars I could count the loose stones on the 
 road. I could see every sleepy ear of corn to the 
 right and left, and far in front of me. I could see 
 every leaf in every tree lying stiil in sleep against 
 the deep blue of the sky. They threw their 
 shadows in front of them as though the sun and 
 not the moon were shining. It was all quite still. 
 I had a feeling that, it would be unkind not to 
 hold my breath in case it should wake up every- 
 thing. The beauty, the simplicity, the trustfulness 
 of it all made me forget for a moment what 
 
 bro'.g.it me to the window. 
 
 283
 
 284 H&am's 
 
 " I heard a long sigh and a crunching sound. I 
 leant slightly forward. There stood the man I 
 wished I could love as no woman had ever loved 
 a man before leaning against a tree, looking up 
 at my window. In a whisper the village clock 
 struck one. Everything stirred slightly at the 
 sound, murmured sleepily, and fell to sleep 
 again. 
 
 " The moon shone directly into my window 
 staringly. I slipped from behind the curtain, and 
 stood there in her light, with my hair all about 
 my shoulders. I must have looked very, very 
 charming. 
 
 " I saw him spring a step forward and stop. Across 
 the stillness his breathing came to me hot, quick, 
 eager. My heart raced. I felt as I had never felt 
 in my life a child, a girl, an ordinary sweet girl. 
 
 " Neither of us moved. I heard the quarter strike. 
 And then I said his name, faintly, once, twice, and 
 again. With his arms held out in front of him, with 
 his eyes fixed on my face, he came slowly, slowly, 
 until he stood under my window. I leant over and 
 looked down at him, with my heart fluttering in my 
 mouth. I said his name again. And not like a man 
 who knew what lie was doing, he put his hands
 
 Hfcam's Clap 285 
 
 among the branches of the thick creeper on the 
 wall, and came up to me nearer, nearer. And our 
 faces were close together. Our breath mingled 
 pantingly. He climbed a little higher, and put his 
 leg over the window, sitting on the sill. We said 
 nothing, but presently his hands were on my 
 shoulders and I felt myself drawn forward. 
 He held me tight, and kissed my lipa, my eyes, my 
 forehead, my hair, again and again and again. It 
 was the sweetest thing that I had ever known. 
 For just that little hour I Lit nearer to being a 
 woman than ever in my life. My arms were 
 slipping round his neck when a bat flapped against 
 my face. I gave a little cry of disgust, and drew 
 back into the room, and my hands over my eyes. 
 When I took them away I was alone. And then I 
 flung myself upon my bed and cried myself to 
 sleep."
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 " To-DAY is the last of the days I had to kill. I 
 woke to it refreshed and rested. The episode of 
 the first hour of the morning came back to me at 
 once. But the feeling which the air, the moonlight, 
 the sentiment had given me had departed. It only 
 struck me as intensely funny. I was Betty Blundell, 
 nee Trevor, again. I looked at myself standing 
 in my night-gown and bare feet in the moon- 
 light, allowing myself to be kissed by that 
 dear, stupid boy, with astonishment. I laughed for 
 minutes. But at the same time I had a lurking 
 desire to thank my stars for the opportune arrival 
 of that bat! 
 
 " He is a dear boy. F defy anybody to meet him 
 and not feel a little tender about him. Goodness, 
 how unwise it was. 
 
 " I found a letter from Evelyn waiting for 
 me. He tells me that they will put in this morning 
 about midday for certain. Ah, well, thank Heaven 
 
 he will be going away quite soon again. 
 
 286
 
 Want's Cla$ 287 
 
 " I sent two wire-- by one of the children. I didn't 
 want to see that inevitable smile flicker over that 
 foolish woman's face at the post office. One was 
 wifely and welcomed Evelyn. The other you know, 
 and I trust you have long ago acted upon it. In 
 fact, of course you have, for I received a telegram 
 from Evelyn saying that he was putting up at the 
 M6tropole, and had business in London to-morrow. 
 I wonder how well you knew him, my clear. I shall 
 get you to tell me one of these days. He has often 
 assured me, in his silly, sentimental way, that I am 
 the only woman with whom he has ever been in love. 
 I never believed him. I never believe anything of 
 that kind that any man tells me, certainly not a man 
 with reddish hair and fair skin. 
 
 " And so I shall have to-day and most of to- 
 morrow to enjoy. I know to a comma what kind 
 of a mood Evelyn is in. He has worked himself 
 into a state of terrific remorse over the little un- 
 faithfulnesses of the last three years. And he is 
 saying to himself, with an air of great enjoyment 
 and well-simulated sincerity : ' I am not worthy, I 
 am not worthy.' And all the while he is pining to 
 know what you want to see him about. What a 
 shallow, sentimental, posing, self-indulgent pig he i.s
 
 288 Hfcam's 
 
 I can see him as I write this. (It is six o'clock, and 
 I am getting this ready to post at seven, so that you 
 may have it in the morning. It will be my last 
 letter in regard to this episode.) He is getting a 
 shirt out of his case, and is carefully examining it 
 to see whether it is stiff enough, shiny enough to 
 wear. He will dress himself carefully, wet his hair 
 in his usual way, dine with a self-conscious smirk in 
 a high collar, and go to a music hall with a big 
 cigar. He will take more whisky and soda than is 
 quite good for him during the evening, and either go 
 back to his hotel in a sickly, silly way, or not, as 
 the case may be. 
 
 " His letter prepares me for a very uncomfortable 
 time. These last three years have, I can see, only 
 enhanced his selfishness, his coarseness what he 
 calls his affection and his bad temper. Well, I 
 suppose I mustn't grumble ; I married with my 
 eyes open. It was the only way out. 
 
 " Just before lunch, I received another letter a 
 very different one. It was brought by a boy, and 
 was unaddressed. It was to be given ' to the lady.' 
 I'll copy it out. It is very funny : 
 
 "'I love you. I have loved you since the world
 
 Beam's (Has 289 
 
 began. I can't live unless you are my wife. I want 
 you, beloved. I have nothing to offer you but love. 
 That's all, but it is the greatest love that man ever 
 offered to a woman. You kissed me last night ; my 
 lips are still trembling. Let me find you again on 
 your hill, with, the sun waiting behind you. I love 
 you, and I have found you, after all.' 
 
 " I wish I could give you some idea of the writing 
 the great, honest, school-boy writing that shakes 
 with his eagerness. I wonder what he will say when 
 I tell him that I am married, and that Evelyn arrives 
 to-morrow. 
 
 " What do you think he will do ? Will he hurt me 
 do you think? I remember I had a horrid drean 
 in which leaves played a great part. My recollection 
 of it is very hazy, but didn't he go mad or some- 
 thing ? But even wild boys don't do that these 
 time;:. Ke will soon get over it, living as he does 
 in the open air, and the incident will remain with 
 him as pleasantly as it will with me. 
 
 " It's quite marvellous how quietly these days have 
 gone. It seems a century ago that I used to sit 
 and listen to Valentine Worthing. I am already 
 fidgeting to get back to blessed London, and he
 
 290 Beam's Clap 
 
 its murmur, and feel the pulse of ft throbbing under 
 my fet. What's a hansom look like? And how 
 are they getting on with the Ritz Hotel ? It gave 
 promise of magnificent hideousness. And do the 
 geraniums still hang outside the Berkeley ? And 
 is there any difference in the length of the skirt? 
 
 "Ten days? Oh, Milly, no, no. Ten solid years ! 
 My calendar lies to me. I am ten years older. I 
 feel that everything in my dear London will be 
 changed. Don't, don't tell me that it has changed. 
 There were so many pieces at the theatres that I 
 wanted to see. They will have been withdrawn 
 ages ago, and forgotten. And new ones, with actors 
 I never heard of, will have taken their places. I am 
 sure my hair is streaked with grey. I shall be 
 obliged, for the first time, to have it touched. 
 
 " I wish Evelyn would corne. I wish I hadn't 
 asked you to keep him in town another day. I 
 no longer want anything to do with the farmer 
 man. I want Evelyn. I want to wheedle him to 
 leave this place and take me back to town. I 
 want to be able to wake in the morning, and hear 
 the rumble of 'buses, the jingle of cabs, the cries 
 of paper boys. Bond Street is in my blood again. 
 I ache for a sight of Bond Street.
 
 's Clap 291 
 
 " Hurry Evelyn away. Don't keep him. Make 
 him come to me. I don't suppose you care two 
 raps about him, whatever happened in the old 
 days. Be a friend, and send him to fetch me 
 away. This place is eerie. I can't hear a sound, 
 and there's nowhere to go. 
 
 " But I suppose I must just tell you what 
 happened. It wouldn't be fair, after all I have 
 told you, would it? I waited till five o'clock. 
 And then I went to the hill that beastly hill I 
 hope for the last, last time. The boy, or man, or 
 farmer was waiting there. The instant lie caught 
 sight of me a silly smile broke out round his 
 mouth, and a damp look came into his eyes. He 
 didn't come and meet me, and so save me the 
 troubling of climbing to the top. He waited for 
 me, looking more utterly foolish than any man I 
 have ever seen. 
 
 " I was in no mood for girlishness. All desire to 
 go on playing had faded. I wanted to get rid of 
 him, and to think of London. To sit quietly, and 
 try with my eyes shut to conjure up the sounds 
 of London. 
 
 "He opened his arms as I came to the top, and 
 stood there beaming. Half shy, half bold, wholly 
 idiotic. ' Beloved ! ' he cried.
 
 292 Efcam's 
 
 " I slipped aside quickly. ' My dear boy, don't 
 please ! ' I said I'm afraid rather unkindly. ' I've 
 only just come to thank you very much for 
 helping me to pass the time till my husband came 
 home. It has all been very jolly, and I hope that 
 if ever you come to London you will look us up. 
 I am sure that my husband will be only too glad 
 to . . .' 
 
 " I stopped because something in his eyes 
 frightened me. He bent forward and looked at 
 me for a moment, and his face lost all its colour. 
 Then he tottered, swayed like a big tree struck by 
 lightning, and to my immense surprise, fell flat on 
 his face in the grass. 
 
 " I fled ! It was most uncomfortable and 
 unusual. Of course, it was unexpected for him ; 
 but what did he mean by being so quite too 
 ridiculous? 
 
 " I must hurry up if I want to catch the post, 
 and I do want to do so awfully. You will get 
 this before you see Evelyn. Just make some 
 excuse give him those hair -nets you said you 
 would send me and didn't, and pack him off by 
 the afternoon train. Lut please send me a wire. 
 Do this for me, Milly, like a dear, and count on me 
 for a similar act of friendship at any future time."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE following day was as hot In the country as it 
 was in London. In London the heat was annoying. 
 In the country it was a joy. 
 
 Mrs. Blundell sang as she dressed. It was a 
 pretty, bird-like voice, very true, very light, very 
 well tutored utterly without feeling. She dressed 
 carefully. It took her half an hour to decide which 
 of her many frocks she should wear. She tried on 
 one, and moved about the little cramped room in 
 it. She took it off and tried on another. This she 
 eventually discarded for the time, and went back 
 for the first. 
 
 It was the white dress with baby ribbons. In 
 slipping it over her head, one of the hooks caught 
 in her hair-net. She fumbled patiently, deftly, with 
 it for some moments, singing softly, and when the 
 hook still refused to let go, she stamped, and cried 
 sharply, " Damn everything that catches ! " 
 
 She sang again when she had freed the hook by 
 
 tearing her net. 
 
 293
 
 294 BDam's Clap 
 
 Many times during breakfast she slipped to the 
 window and looked out villagewards for the boy 
 who brought telegrams and butter, bacon and soap, 
 from the conglomerate post office. Each time she 
 returned without having seen him she sighed 
 impatiently, and broke into a smile. 
 
 Her appetite was excellent. She ate two new- 
 laid eggs with the same swift daintiness which 
 
 o o 
 
 characterised everything she did. Once or twice 
 she flung her arms up, threw her head back, and 
 cried under her breath, " London, London ! " 
 
 She was arranging flowers in three coloured 
 vases, with glass legs, when there was a knock 
 upon the door. 
 
 Mrs. Blundell turned eagerly. " Come," she said, 
 dropping the flowers on the table. 
 
 Mrs. Weeks entered with a kind of deferential 
 familiarity. 
 
 " Give me the telegram, Mrs. Weeks, quickly." 
 
 " Ther bcan't no tallygum, ! m," said Mrs. Weeks, 
 with a smile. 
 
 Mrs. BlundelPs hand fell to her side. She flushed 
 angrily. " Oh, well, what is it, Mrs. Weeks what 
 is it ? " 
 
 " I jest thought as how, mabbe, ye'd finished
 
 Bfcam's Glag 295 
 
 with your breakfus', 'ra." The good and somewhat 
 flustered woman's tone became apologetic. 
 
 Mrs. Blundell was too excited to be irritable for 
 long together. She took up the flowers again and 
 smiled pleasantly. 
 
 " Oh, yes, Mrs. Weeks, do. I expect my husband 
 to-day." 
 
 "'Usband, 'm? Beggin' your pardon for the same, 
 but I allays looked up to you as a widder, for 
 which I'm sure I'm very sony, being young as 
 you are and in the prime of life and strength, 
 and with lots of future and all." 
 
 Betty Blundell took a rosebud out of a vase and 
 deftly opened its petals. " I've only been married 
 three years and a half, Mrs. Weeks," she said. 
 
 " Indeed, 'm ! " 
 
 In Mrs. Weeks's voice there was something of the 
 interested sympathy which may always be noticed in 
 the voices of women, \vhether they themselves are 
 happily married or not, at the mention of the word 
 husband. And she smiled warmly, and smirked a 
 little, and sunk her voice a tone, romance oozing out 
 of her every pore. 
 
 Mrs. Blundell smiled back prettily, describing the 
 woman in her brain as a hopeless fool.
 
 296 Hfcam's Clap 
 
 "You must give us a very nice dinner, dear Mrs. 
 Weeks. You must surpass yourself." 
 
 Mrs. Weeks blushed with pleasure. 
 
 "Yes'm," she said. "'As 'e bin away fer long, 
 J m?" 
 
 " For three years.' 
 
 " Moy, that's a fair slice." 
 
 " Yes ; it is a long time." 
 
 " Tore away while the 'oneymoon was still young, 
 as one may say." Mrs. Weeks picked up the end of 
 her apron, and ran her fingers slowly along the 
 edges. " Mabbe ye'll be Icavin' me now, 'm ? " 
 
 "Oh ; dear, no, Mrs. Weeks," said Mrs. Blundell, 
 with the emphatic insincerity of the woman whose 
 one desire is to be liked by everybody. " I adore 
 this little place and its surroundings. We shall only 
 leave you if my husband's business takes him to 
 London." 
 
 (London ! London ! The word echoed in her 
 heart !) 
 
 " Thank you, 'm," said Mrs. Weeks. 
 
 A step crunched below. Like a swallow, Mrs. 
 Blundell again darted to the window and looked 
 out eagerly. 
 
 A throb of sympathy seized Mrs, Weeks, when she
 
 Beam's G T ,as 297 
 
 saw the look of disappointment on Betty Blundell's 
 face. 
 
 "Ah," she thought, packing the plates, "it must be 
 foine to be loved loike that. 
 
 "Why the dickens doesn't he wire?" cried Airs. 
 Blundcll inwardly. "The fool!" 
 
 " Might I make so bold as to arst if your gentle- 
 man is a horfcer, 'm, not for the sake o' pry in', I do 
 assure you, 'm, to spread it around to them in this 
 village who is allays on tiptoes for a bit o' noos, not 
 bein' one o' them as is out of the way curious by 
 nature, although I won't say as 'ow my 'eart is flinty, 
 and takes no hinterest in feller-sinners not, if you'll 
 believe me, 'm, as 'ow I classes you and such as a 
 sinner except in the Bible sense, which, as everyone 
 knows, properly used and directed, only applies 
 when it's unpleasant to the poor and needy, rightly 
 regardin' gentlefolks with indulgence." 
 
 " No, Mrs. Weeks," said Betty, seizing her 
 opportunity. " My husband is in the Navy." 
 
 " Ah'm," said Mrs. Weeks, who had regained her 
 breath, " 'e must be a darin' gentleman for to spend 
 his life cooped up as one may say in four walls all 
 gettin narrow at the b.ntom and flat on top, which 
 'as, I am told, an up and down movement that
 
 298 Hfcam's 
 
 affects the strongest when they least expect it, 
 with nothing but a waste of water around, not 
 that I've ever 'ad the good fortune to see it myself, 
 but knows them as 'as, filled with strange animals 
 and fishes such as I've seen on Mr. Creek's Christ- 
 mas Calendar, 'im as is the baker 'ere, 'm, and a 
 nice, simple feller when sober and in 'is right mind 
 but inclined to be adventurous when filled, 'avin' 
 smashed up 'is 'ome three times, breakin', if you'll 
 believe me, every blessed stick 'e could lay 'ands 
 on, laughin' 'ighly amused the 'old of the time, 
 same as a man might at a play; and why I speak 
 of 'im before you, which I'm sorry for, and apologises, 
 is because 'e were a sailor in a manner o' speakin', 
 that is, 'e wore sailor's things at the Hearl's Court 
 H'Exibition up in Lunnon before 'e returned to 
 'is father an' said, ' Father, I 'ave sinned against 
 Heaven and you, but I would as lief 'ave a nice 
 roast chicken, not 'avin' a mind for fatted calf,' and 
 gettin' it too. . . ." 
 
 "Yes," said Betty Blundell, marvelling at the 
 woman's astonishing glibness. " A sailor has a lot 
 to put up with. But he has his compensations when 
 he gets to port." 
 
 " Ah," said Mrs. Weeks, " a nice beverage it is
 
 Beam's Glnp 299 
 
 too, Vn, and goes grandly to the 'ead. I 'ad some 
 of it when I was young at a Baptist houtin', and 
 I can assure you, 'm, that if it 'adn't been for the 
 presence of the minister as 'ow there were nothink 
 I wouldn't 'ave done, and thankful I were for the 
 same, though 'is voice were momentous and 'e did 
 'ave to leave the village under a shadder, 'avin' 
 tampered with a young girl and the club money, 
 bein' seen and heard of again on a race - course, 
 standin' on a tub in a white 'at. And so your 'usband 
 is a-comin' back, and I do rejoice and I 'ope as 'ow 
 you will stay as long as it suits you, bcin' very useful 
 to me, the extra shillin's, I can assure you, 'm, with 
 a large family and all." 
 
 Mrs. Blundell rose and stood looking thoughtfully 
 at her writing-case. 
 
 As Mrs. Weeks left the room Mrs. Blundell seized 
 the time-table, and for the tenth time looked up 
 the trains from London. (London! London!) One 
 arrived at 3.45. It was the first, unless he 
 changed and waited three-quarters of an hour at 
 a junction half-way, in which case he would be ... 
 
 She looked at her travelling clock. " No, he's 
 missed it." 
 
 The second one came in at half-past seven. "Good
 
 3 Hfcam's 
 
 heavens!" she cried, "what a frightful time to kill. 
 I do think Milly might have played the game. She 
 got my letter this morning. What cats women are." 
 
 A hundred times during the remainder of the 
 day, Mrs. Blunclell sprang up from the hard, anti- 
 macassared sofa, and went to the window. A 
 hundred times she cried out : " Why doesn't he wire, 
 why doesn't he come ? Curse this place, curse it." 
 A hundred times she took up a book, and allowing 
 her thoughts to wander, conjured up the noises, the 
 bustle, the undercurrent of London. (London ! 
 London !) 
 
 Mrs. Gator's telegram was handed to her in the 
 afternoon. Betty Blundell rejoiced. But a restless- 
 less still pervaded her. At seven o'clock, unable to 
 sit still, to stand still, to read, to think, she started 
 off to walk along the road which led to the station. 
 
 No telegram had come from Evelyn. The post- 
 man delivering the evening post had gone. There 
 was no letter from Evelyn. 
 
 Telling herself that Evelyn was planning , 
 surprise, Mrs. Blundell remained on the road till 
 half-past eight, till nine, till half-past nine. 
 
 The sun went down in fiery silence. The harvest 
 moon rose placidly. Birds chattered of their day's
 
 3* 
 
 doings, and one by one fell asleep. The faint breeze, 
 which had been teasing the grasses, grew tired too. 
 Even the gnats went home. Mrs. Blundell was 
 alone. 
 
 The stillness got upon her nerves. With quick, 
 angry steps, she returned to the cottage. Evelyn 
 had missed the last train. The dinner had been 
 laid some time. The heat of the lamp had made 
 the flowers hang limp. 
 
 Mrs. Weeks had spent much time and thought in 
 their arrangement. She had placed others on the 
 mantel-board, in vases collected from her own 
 Sunday sitting-room. Her daughter had placed a 
 bi fr bowl filled with sun-flowers on the dressing- 
 
 c~> o 
 
 table in the bedroom. With clean hands, the mother 
 and her daughter had tidied up the room, packed 
 the collection of books that Mrs. Blundell had 
 brought with her in a little pile at the foot of the 
 sofa, and tied the backs of the chairs up with 
 clean antimacassars, trimmed with a staring blue 
 ribbon. 
 
 The little table upon which Mrs. Blundell did her 
 letter-writing had been the subject of their earnest 
 thought also. The pens were arranged in parallel 
 lines, the note-paper placed tidily on the blotting-
 
 302 Beam's Cla 
 
 pad, the excellent writing-case Blundell's birthday 
 present closed and fastened. 
 
 Mrs. Blundell came into the room and flung her 
 hat on to the sofa. The books toppled over with a 
 clatter. She crossed to the writing-table, dashed the 
 pens here and there, disarranged the note-paper, and 
 flung open the writing-case. Then snatching the 
 flowers out of their vases, she pitched them out of 
 the window. They lay trembling upon the road. 
 
 Mrs. Weeks tapped at the door. 
 
 " What is it ? " cried Mrs. Blundell. 
 
 " If you please, 'm, dinner has bin cooked this 
 hour. I'm afraid the chickenses is all frizzled up." 
 
 " I don't want any dinner/' said Mrs. Blundell. 
 "Go away." 
 
 Leaving the perspiring woman standing in the 
 middle of the room with her mouth open, Mrs. 
 Blundell went into the bedroom and slammed the 
 door.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 EARLY in the morning, furiously angry, Mrs. 
 Blundell sent a telegram to her husband and pre- 
 paid the reply. What right had he to stay at the 
 Me'tropole while she had to put up with two tiny, 
 impossible rooms in an out-of-the-way hole in the 
 country ? It was unjust. It was ridiculous. She 
 was only there, she argued, with dabs of angry 
 colour on her cheeks, at his especial request. All 
 this time she might have been in London, or near 
 London, at any rate in civilisation, having a good 
 time. 
 
 At midday a telegram and a note were brought 
 up to her. The telegram was from Evelyn Blundell, 
 the note from John Ashley. 
 
 " Coming some time to-day," ran the first. 
 
 The second contained these eleven words : 
 
 " Meet me on the hill this evening for the last 
 time." 
 
 Anger left Mrs. Blundell. Determination took its
 
 304 Beam's 
 
 place a determination to get Blundell to take her 
 away to London, to Brighton, to Dieppe, anywhere 
 away from the country, where there were people, 
 things to dress for, things to see ; a determination 
 to make him pay for not having hurried to her side. 
 
 And she could make him pay, she said to herself, 
 with a triumphant smile, in which there was not a 
 little cruelty. She knew her husband well. She 
 knew exactly the temper of him, the nature of him. 
 Ah, yes, he should be made to pay. 
 
 She laughed as she thought about it, and as she 
 laughed a song came back to her lips, and her eyes 
 sparkled, and she moved about the room like a fairy, 
 as slight, as exquisitely finished, as fresh and girlish 
 as a Romney " Lady Hamilton." 
 
 She laughed a rippling laugh of amusement as she 
 re-read John Ashley's little note, Yes, distinctly 
 it would be good fun to see him again. After all, he 
 was an unkissed man. He still existed as a subject 
 for experiments, and it would be interesting to see 
 what manner of mood he was in. 
 
 But she had plently to do before the evening 
 Whether she ultimately decided on Brighton, 
 Dieppe, Dinard, or London, dress was a difficulty. 
 She would, she decided, run through her wardrobe,
 
 Beam's Cla ss 
 
 and see how she stood decide which dresses would 
 pass muster as they were, which could be made to 
 pass muster with a little manipulation, and which 
 would have to be replaced. 
 
 She gave little thought to her outstanding bills at 
 the dressmaker's. After all, Blundell couldn't expect 
 to get everything for nothing. And so, in the best 
 of spirits, she spent a large portion of the morning 
 and afternoon trying on frocks, peering critically at 
 them, patting them here and there, and making 
 notes on a sheet of writing-paper. 
 
 And she sang the while, as a bird sings, and flung 
 her arms up gaily at the thought of leaving the 
 country she so heartily disliked. Like a child, she 
 even stood and looked out at the magnificent 
 panorama, spread in front of the window, and made 
 a in one at it. 
 
 YCN, after all, she had put in a fairly good time, 
 she thought. John Ashley was very new. He had 
 given her some excellent fun. He had proved to her, 
 almost too convincingly, the fact that she had lost 
 none of her power. 
 
 The evening came, as evenings have a knack of 
 doing. She had been longer over her dress parade 
 than she had intended to be. Evelyn would be
 
 306 Hfcam's 
 
 in the cottage before she could return from the hill. 
 It pleased her to think that he would be upset at 
 not finding her waiting to give him welcome. She 
 dawdled a little in giving directions to Mrs. Weeks 
 as to dinner, and, for the same purpose, made her 
 way quite slowly through the fields. 
 
 She had no eyes for the delicate beauty of the 
 evening, for the rich colouring of the corn, for the 
 splashes in the hedges, for the whispers of the 
 shaking grass, for the loud cantata of the birds. 
 
 " Dinard, Dieppe, or London?" she asked herself 
 over and over again. " Or London ? It's a bad 
 time of year for London, but there are the theatres, 
 and there's the Exhibition that huge patch of 
 gravel and painted canvas, popular chocolates and 
 popular bands. But there, there are people people!" 
 
 She looked at her watch, resting one pretty foot 
 on the lower step of a stile. By taking the cart in 
 which she had driven, Evelyn would be already in 
 the cottage. She laughed as she imagined his 
 disappointed face, and wondered how long it would 
 be before he commenced to blaspheme. 
 
 Against the sky, erect and very still, stood Ashley, 
 arms folded, chin low, watching her gravely as she 
 went up. The expression in his eyes was curiously 
 cynical, curiously bitter.
 
 H&am's Glas 3? 
 
 With a kind of shock Mrs. Blundcll noticed that 
 the young look she had so admired in him had 
 gone. There were lines about his eyes and mouth ; 
 a peculiar slope about his shoulders. 
 
 He made no movement as she came nearer. 
 Bare-headed, there he stood, with a never-changing 
 expression, like a man turned into a statue. 
 
 For the first time in her life Mrs. Blundell felt 
 insignificant, commonplace. She felt small and 
 ignoble by the side of this cold, impassive man, and 
 all kinds of ridiculously feeble remarks fluttered 
 through her mind. 
 
 " Good evening," she said finally, with a meaning- 
 less laugh, for which she hated herself. " What a 
 beautiful evening." 
 
 John Ashley merely continued to look at her 
 silently. 
 
 " We have certainly been very lucky in the 
 weather." she added, after a most unea-y pause. 
 " Your corn is very good, isn't it?" 
 
 Again she paused. Still Ashley remained silent, 
 with his eyes going over her slowly. 
 
 She felt that he could see into her heart, and 
 was aware of the emptiness of it that he could 
 see how poorly her nature compared with her
 
 3s Ht>am's 
 
 appearance. She could feel the blood flooding her 
 face. She bent down and plucked some grass. 
 
 "You said you wanted to see me," she said. "1 
 thought that you had always known that I was 
 married. I've always worn my ring." She caught 
 his eyes. She knew that he was aware that she 
 was lying. "My husband will be waiting for me. 
 I think I'd better be . . ." 
 
 "Stop!" he said quietly. "I have nothing to 
 say, no reproaches to make. You have merely 
 proved to me that my father knew what he was 
 talking about. Before you go out of my life, will 
 you kiss me once more?" 
 
 Immediately Mrs. Blundell became herself, and 
 Ashley dwindled before her eyes. 
 
 " Oh, yes," she said ; " but you must really be 
 quick about it." 
 
 He opened his arms and put them round her. 
 He drew her slowly towards him, looking down 
 into her eyes. Slowly he bent his head. There 
 was a gleam in his eyes ; and as she looked at 
 them her dream came back to her, and she felt 
 his hands close round her throat. She tried to call 
 out. She struggled wildly. He was killing her. 
 
 A coarse laugh rang through the quiet, scented 
 air, and she found herself falling to the ground.
 
 CHAPTER XV! 
 
 WHEN Betty Blundell came to herself, as she did 
 quickly, the first thing she noticed was that her 
 stockings looked quite charming against the green 
 of the grass ; the second that her husband and 
 young John were standing straight up looking at 
 one another quietly. 
 
 She sat up, and rubbed her elbow and straightened 
 her frock and waited, with a sense of delight, for 
 an outburst of blasphemy from her husband. 
 
 Her delight turned into anxiety. The silence, 
 so totally unexpected, so absolutely out of place, 
 became oppressive. She examined her husband's 
 face curiously, and then shot a quick glance at 
 Ashley's face. 
 
 There was none of the mutual hatred that she 
 expected and hoped to sec upon either face only 
 an expression of sympathy. 
 
 In the distance a sheep-bell tinkled, and the 
 
 shrill voice of a boy frightening the crows away 
 
 39
 
 3io HDam'9 
 
 drifted up. Among the branches of a neighbouring 
 tree a linnet sang, and a bee, self-absorbed, one- 
 purposed, hunted musically for a useful blossom. 
 
 At last Blundell spoke. 
 
 " Well," he said, " are you goin' to kill that dirty 
 little woman, or isn't it worth your while ? " 
 
 Ashley shook his head without a word. Then he 
 stooped and picked up his hat, and Blundell watched 
 the man who thought that he knew more than his 
 father had known swing down the hill. 
 
 A sudden feeling of fright seized Betty Blundell. 
 She scrambled to her knees, clasped her hands 
 together, and cried out : 
 
 " Evelyn, Evelyn ! " Again the coarse laugh rang 
 out. " Evelyn, before God I have been faithful to 
 you before God, Evelyn ! " 
 
 Blundell was not looking at her. He was watching 
 Ashley. 
 
 The beautiful Betty Blundell crept through the 
 grass and caught up her husband's hand. 
 
 With a shudder and a gesture of disgust Blundell 
 shook her off. "Faithful!" he said. "Faithful?" 
 
 "Yes, yes." 
 
 lie took out the bundle of letters and flung them 
 in her face.
 
 H&am's Clap 3 11 
 
 The veins stood out suddenly upon his forehead, 
 and his face grew red. 
 
 " Get up," he said ; " your stockings won't affect 
 me. And when you've got nothing better to do, 
 run through those letters. They'll amuse you. . . . 
 I shall allow you a third of my pay through my 
 solicitors. You know how precious much that is. 
 But you won't starve, worse luck ! It would be a 
 d n fine thing if you could ! Your sort don't 
 starve ; but in order to live as you want to do, 
 you'll be obliged to follow the oldest profession in 
 the world like an honest woman, and no longer 
 spend your life indulging in your amusin' hobby, 
 You'll find at least one good v oman among your 
 new companions very much too good for you. . . . 
 Here's your first week's pay." 
 
 With a sneer on his face, Blundell dropped two 
 sovereigns upon the grass at Betty's feet. 
 
 " Evelyn . . . Evelyn ..." she cried, " as God's 
 my judge . . ." 
 
 With a hoarse, inarticulate cry Blunrlell sprang at 
 his wife and seized her by the shoulders. All his 
 rage and grief and wounded vanity and self-pity 
 wore stirred, and they surged through hid veins 
 into his brain. Murckr was in his blood a red-
 
 3*2 Bfcam'9 
 
 hot, fiendish, irresistible desire to hurt, to smash, 
 to wound, to stamp upon the beautiful thing who 
 had tricked and fooled him, whose life was a lie, 
 whose touch was contamination, whose mind was 
 warped and horrid and low. The good little bad 
 woman had used the same expression in defending 
 a lie. On her lips it had not sounded blasphemous. 
 On the lips of this woman, this kind of woman . . . 
 
 Blundell shook her as a dog shakes a rat. His lip 
 was curled up from his teeth, and his breath came in 
 gasps. 
 
 He suddenly flung her away with an exclamation 
 of horror, and stood shaking for a moment, as he 
 realised what he had intended to do. Then he, too, 
 turned on his heel and swung down the hill. 
 
 Having sucked a clover-head dry, the bee moved 
 off, and its humming hung for a moment on the air, 
 The boy raised his voice again in a long whoop, but 
 at a greater distance than before. The linnet's song 
 ceased, and the bird clipped away. Below, the old 
 clock sang the death and the birth of an hour. . . , 
 
 "Evelyn . . . Evelyn , . ."
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 YOUNG Ashley opened the gate of the little church- 
 yard gently and closed it behind him. His hands 
 were still shaking and his heart still beating quickly. 
 
 He halted on the narrow gravel path, bordered 
 with irregular lines of box, and took off his hat. 
 He would not stand by his father's grave until he 
 had mastered himself. There was not much to 
 tell him, but he would say what he had to say 
 coolly. 
 
 In the fading light he stood erect, with limp arms 
 and set face, among the graves of the villagers, 
 young and old. Young and old, many of them 
 had worked on the farm. Young and old, many 
 of them had been known to him by sight. Angry 
 blood no longer rushed through their veins. Pain 
 and happiness afflicted them no longer. They 
 had escaped. 
 
 In the fading light beneath the philosophic but 
 sympathetic arms of the ancient } e\v trees, the stones,
 
 314 Hfcam's Clap 
 
 some flat, some erect, some at queer angles, some 
 very old, some glaringly new, gleamed coldly. 
 The silence was broken by the thoughtless and 
 merry screams of the swallows, who made a play- 
 ground of the churchyard. The motionlessness 
 of the place was disturbed by a robin with dim 
 breast, which jumped stiffly from grave to grave, 
 now perching, with bobbing tail, on the trumpet of 
 a stone angel, now on a wreath of withered blooms 
 that lay upon a neglected mound of grass. The 
 scent of flowers hung upon the air. 
 
 Then, at last, young Ashley made his way to 
 the grave of his father. 
 
 He took a revolver out of his pocket and placed 
 it by his side. It was the one which had enabled 
 the elder Ashley to take a short cut to death. 
 
 He looked down upon the letters carved primly 
 upon the stone and read them over mechanically 
 "John Everard Campbell Ashley. John Everard 
 Campbell Ashley, born, died. For he loved, for 
 he loved." 
 
 Swamping his great loneliness, forcing n~Ide his 
 grief, came a rush of intense bitterness. His face 
 took on a sneer as he reviewed in his mind the 
 small procession of days in which so much had
 
 Hfcam's Clas 315 
 
 occurred. He saw himself waking up and going 
 to bed with the sun, a sorrowful but not discontented 
 man. He saw himself going through his day's 
 work with quiet erergy and determination, painfully 
 conscious of his father's absence, but fully aware 
 and appreciative of the ripening beauty of the 
 earth. He saw himself flung into a state of chaos 
 at the sudden apparition of the woman who had 
 seemingly fallen from the sky. He lived over again 
 the thrill, the bewilderment, the wonder, the desire. 
 He heard himself appealing to his father to be 
 let off his promise never to have anything to do 
 with a woman of the world. With contempt he 
 went through his blind infatuation, his implicit 
 belief, his absolute and willing capitulation. He 
 watched himself as he danced through the hours 
 with his blood on fire. He lived over again the 
 exquisite moments when he lay in utter and 
 blissful subjection at the feet of the beautiful little 
 creature whose voice was music, and whose eyes 
 were magnets and whose breath was intoxicating. 
 Stone by stone he rebuilt the shattered castle in 
 which he and she were to have solved the mystery 
 and discovered the secret of life, and with a shaking 
 heart he passed through again that wonderful hour
 
 3*6 Beam's Glag 
 
 in which he had climbed up to the window and 
 held the warm, sweet body close against his heart 
 He revived the feeling of ecstasy which possessed 
 him as he stumbled blindly home, certain that all 
 was right with the world, and that it was only a 
 matter of clays before he should possess her, body 
 and soul ; the sense of calm assurance and thank- 
 fulness which were his as he waited for her on 
 the hill ; the frightful shock caused by her callous 
 announcement of the arrival of her husband. His 
 breathing became short, and the perspiration broke 
 out on his forehead as he again felt his fingers 
 tightening round the slim throat and the mad 
 desire to prevent her, by death, from ever being 
 held in another man's arms. 
 
 It has been shown that young Ashley was no 
 different from ninety-nine men out of a hundred, 
 and that he was his father's son. Like his father 
 and the rest of us, he was stifled with the belief 
 that he was the only man since the beginning of 
 all things to suffer. Like his father and the rest 
 of us, he regarded himself as the only man living 
 except his father to be tricked as he had been 
 tricked, and no persuasion, however eloquent and 
 logical, could have got him out of the belief that
 
 Beam's Clas 317 
 
 every woman was as bad and as cunning and as 
 devilish and as utterly worthless as the woman 
 who had chosen him with whom to pass the time. 
 
 " Father," he said, bending over the grave, " you 
 were right, after all. I am sorry I asked you to let 
 me off my promise. Her beauty took my breath 
 away. I never had seen anything so wonderful 
 before. ... I needn't tell you what she did. You 
 can guess ... all the same, it has done for me. I 
 shall end it with your pistol. Will you keep a 
 look-out for me ? " 
 
 He leaned low over the grave and kissed the 
 stone. His hand closed over the revolver. As he 
 cocked it a thrush in a tree almost within arm's 
 length of him suddenly broke into a throbbing song. 
 
 Young Ashley started guiltily and listened. In 
 the song he caught a note of optimism and a love 
 of life that put him to shame. He looked round. 
 The night had opened her eyes while he had knelt 
 there. Over his head an evening star gared down 
 upon him steadily. 
 
 " Coward," croaked a frog at his side. 
 
 " Coward," whispered the wind. 
 
 "Live, live, and thank God for His great gift," sang 
 the bird. " Put back that revolver. You are not
 
 sis SDam's 
 
 the only living thing to know suffering. You arc not 
 the only one to meet with falseness and trickery. 
 Go home and live it down. Go home, young 
 Ashley, and carry out your work. There are other 
 women in the world, good, sweet women, whose 
 lives are like the aroma of flowers, whose influence 
 in the world is blown upon the wind. Don't whine 
 and grizzle like a schoolgirl because the only 
 woman you happen to have met is not one of these. 
 Get up and play the man. Even if you don't have 
 the good fortune to find one of these, the earth is 
 very beautiful, and you are needed by the earth. 
 Your father's case was a different one. He didn't 
 take his life until he knew that the woman he had 
 loved and had lost was free. He had lived without 
 her for twenty-five bitter years, and he hurried, 
 rightly or wrongly, to join her. You have no such 
 excuse. The creature who twisted you round her 
 finger and dropped you when you had served her 
 purpose belongs to no sex. You are badly hit, but 
 the wound will heal. You gave her your heart. 
 Don't feed the maw of her vanity by throwing her 
 your life. Go home, young Ashley. Who knows 
 how much you may not be needed there ? Who 
 knows, who knows . . . who . . . knows ? "
 
 Beam's 
 
 The song stopped as suddenly as it had begun. 
 Another star came out and blinked cheerfully at 
 him. 
 
 Young Ashley slipped the revolver into his pocket 
 and rose to his feet. He was cramped and wet with 
 dew, but his pulse was normal and his blood cool. 
 
 " Father," he said, " I am going back to the farm 
 Whether the bird said those things to me or not. 
 they are true. There is work for me to do, and life 
 is very short. I still refuse to believe that all women 
 are alike. I will sec. . . . Good-night, father." 
 
 Young Ashley shut the gate of the little church- 
 yard after him softly and turned his face in the 
 direction of home. Hope led him by the hand 
 through the copse, not despair.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THERE were two ways from the churchyard to 
 Ashley's farm the long way over the Hog's back 
 and the short way through the village. 
 
 With a superstitious feeling for which he was 
 unable to account, young Ashley chose the shorter 
 way. " Who knows how much you may not be 
 needed at home," he repeated to himself again and 
 again. And the faster he walked, the louder rang 
 this sentence in his ears. 
 
 Since the death of his father, young Ashley had 
 not felt that he was needed in the world. He gave 
 work to a handful of men, and so enabled them to 
 bring up their families, it is true. Old Sloke and 
 his faithful wife depended upon him for a livelihood, 
 it is true. The poor woman and her little super- 
 fluous child would have to enter the workhouse but 
 for his charity, it is true. But others would carry 
 on the farm if he were to give it up, and pay the 
 same wages to his men and to the Slokes. and he 
 
 could leave in the parson's care enough money to 
 
 320
 
 Hfcam's dag 321 
 
 provide for the woman and the child for whom his 
 father had been so sorry. And so the bare idea of 
 his being needed at home again gave swiftness to 
 his stride. So great a hold did the words of the 
 bird's song take upon him that he broke into a run 
 as he cleared the copse and turned into the road. 
 
 If, in passing, he had looked into the post office, 
 he would have seen Mrs. Blundell, smiling cynically, 
 leaning over the desk, writing out a telegram. He 
 would not have seen the wording of the message. 
 Had he done so it would have conveyed very little 
 to his mind. It was addressed to Valentine 
 Worthing, 333 Piccadilly, London : " Meet me 
 Paddington to-morrow 2.45. BETTY BLUNDELL." 
 
 But young Ashley's eyes were looking straight 
 ahead. Betty Blundell and all to do with her must 
 belong to the past. She had played the chief part 
 in a bad dream. He would root her out of his 
 memory, he determined. 
 
 All the same, his pace quickened as he ran under 
 the windows of Mrs. Weeks's cottage, and his teeth 
 came together with a snap. 
 
 He opened the white gate of the farm and pulled 
 up. There were lights in the kitchen and the 
 sitting-room. But the place was as quiet as usual.
 
 322 Hfcam's 
 
 The superstitious feeling was stronger upon him 
 than ever. He examined the house anxiously. 
 For some moments he stood irresolute, frightened 
 to go in. Was he to be disappointed ? Had he 
 been cheated out of Death by a will-o'-the-wisp ? 
 It was all very well to tell him that the earth 
 needed him. There were plenty to look after the 
 earth. He had been necessary to his father. In 
 those days, there was something to live for. If 
 only he could find some human being who needed 
 him now, apart from wages, how good a thing were 
 life ! 
 
 He found old Sloke waiting on the threshold. He 
 searched the man's face eagerly. He saw anxiety 
 suddenly replaced by relief. But nothing else. 
 
 He passed quickly into the sitting-room and 
 looked round wistfully. The lamp stood alight upon 
 the table. The windows were open, and the scented 
 air filled the room. The cat rose up from the hearth 
 and rubbed against his ankles. The sheep - dog 
 charged at him, barking loudly. The lamp-light fell 
 softly upon the photograph of old Ashley. But the 
 room was empty. 
 
 With a feeling of poignant disappointment young 
 Ashley sat down in his chair.
 
 Beam's Gla 323 
 
 " Who knows how much you may not be needed 
 at home ? " What did that mean, if it meant 
 anything ? Young Ashley did not know whom he 
 expected to find, but he had expected to find 
 someone. There was no one. He was still alone. 
 He was to remain alone, always. 
 
 As he said these things to himself, young Ashley 
 rose quickly and stood listening. He strode to the 
 door and opened it. He could hear the rumble of 
 old Sloke's voice in the kitchen and the chink of 
 crockery. Nothing that was not usual. Then he 
 shut the door and turned into the room. With a 
 sudden feeling of excitement he went over to his 
 father's chair, which stood in the shadow. 
 
 With difficulty young Ashley restrained a cry. 
 
 With her golden head resting against the back of 
 the chair, her long lashes lying on her pale cheeks, 
 glistening with tears, her thin, black legs hanging 
 limp, her hands crossed upon her lap, lay the little 
 superfluous girl, fast asleep. 
 
 From under her hands half an envelope peeped, 
 with a black border. Young Ashley bent over the 
 little girl, and held his breath. His heart beat 
 quickly. He saw his name upon the envelope. 
 With the gentleness of a woman he drew the
 
 324 Bfcam's Clag 
 
 envelope away and crept to the lamp. With a hand 
 that trembled he opened the envelope and read the 
 note. 
 
 " HONOURED SIR, But for your father and you, 
 my baby and me would have starved or gone to the 
 workhouse. I have prayed to God to bless you 
 both for your goodness every night of my life. I 
 now write this knowing that I am going. It will be 
 brought to you by my child when I am dead. She 
 will need a friend. Dare I ask . . ." 
 
 Young Ashley dropped the letter upon the table 
 and flung his arms above his head. " Oh, my God," 
 he cried in his heart, "this is good of You. In a 
 bird's song Your message came, and I give You 
 thanks. I am needed in the world. Here is a little 
 girl who shall be one of the good, sweet women of 
 the earth. I will guard her. Nothing of harm shall 
 come to her, ever." 
 
 With a smile upon his face, young Ashley tiptoed 
 into the kitchen. 
 
 " Mrs. Sloke," he said, in a whisper, " the little girl. 
 When did she come ? " 
 
 " Well, theer now ! " cried Sloke. " Dagged if Oi 
 didn't forget to tell 'ee about . . ."
 
 H&am's Clap 325 
 
 " Never mind. . . . Her mother's dead." 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Mrs. Sloke. " Yesterday, poor 
 thing ! " 
 
 " She has asked me in a letter to take care of the 
 child. I shall do so," said young Ashley, holding 
 his head high. " Get my father's room ready for 
 her." 
 
 " The old master's, sir ? " There was surprise as 
 well as pleasure in the woman's voice. 
 
 " Yes ; and lay her place by my side at the table." 
 A gush of tears came suddenly into young Ashley's 
 eyes. " Oh, Mrs. Sloke," he said, with the abandon- 
 ment of a boy, " it is very good to be needed 
 again." 
 
 He returned to the sitting-room and stood looking 
 down at the little girl. 
 
 She gave a long sigh and opened her eyes. For 
 a moment she forgot where she was. Bewildered 
 and nervous, her hands wandered about for the 
 letter. Then she slipped out of the chair and gave 
 a curtsey. 
 
 "Oh, Master John," she said. "If you please, I 
 came with a letter from from . . ." 
 
 Her mouth trembled. She shut her eyes. Her 
 little shoulders shook with sobs.
 
 326 Bfcam'8 Glag 
 
 Young Ashley sat down, put his arm round the 
 child, and drew her head down upon his chest, 
 gently. 
 
 " Poor little girl," he whispered, " poor little girl, 
 poor little girl ! ... It is like that with me too. 
 Vou have lost your mother and I my father. We 
 were both alone. But you will have me now, and 
 I shall have you, and I will try and make up a 
 little, if I can, for your loss. It will be a poor 
 try, because no one can ever make up for it. But 
 I will help you to keep your mother's grave green, 
 and you shall help me with my father's. Will you, 
 little girl ? " 
 
 She put her hands against his shoulders and 
 leaned back and looked into his face. 
 
 "Yes, Master John," she said. Then she flung 
 her arms round his neck and pressed her fresh, sweet 
 lips on his cheek. 
 
 Young Ashley stood up and went over to the 
 window with the little girl's hand in his. A new 
 moon hung shyly in the sky. 
 
 " Who knows," he thought, " who knows ? " 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed by Ctnuan & Co., Limited, Pertk.
 
 UCSB LIBRARY
 
 A 001 434618