- 
 
 a in lit on

 
 THE OUTPOST OF 
 ETERNITY
 
 ' She was a very will-o'-the-wisp." 
 
 [Page 105.]
 
 THE OUTPOST OF 
 ETERNITY 
 
 BY 
 
 COSMO HAMILTON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 1912
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 Published, , 191Z
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 " She was a very will-o'-the-wisp " . . . Frontispiece 
 
 " ' I'm telling you,' she said, ' it's got to be. I dreamed it ' " 46 
 
 "They all saw Dick sitting up in bed, cigarette in mouth " 132 
 
 " She was utterly cool and blase " 190 
 
 2136176
 
 PART I 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 HE looked like a man who had to do with 
 horses. His face was round, plump and red 
 the red of health and weather. He was 
 utterly clean-shaven, but his hair was so fair that he 
 had the appearance of a man who never shaved. Only 
 his eyes saved him from being taken for a groom. 
 He might have been a trainer of horses. He looked 
 capable and as though he had had control of men. 
 His manner was easy and he obviously took a cer- 
 tain amount of pains over his clothes. He wore a 
 colored shirt and a colored collar to match it, a hard 
 collar, and his tie was palpably Duke Street. There 
 was nothing aggressively horsy about his clothes, 
 but the seams of his coat were marked out, as they 
 were down the leg of his trousers. His boots, black- 
 ing boots, had leather uppers of a very shiny red. 
 He seemed to have pockets everywhere with flaps to 
 them, and beneath the one on his left breast a touch 
 of handkerchief showed, a heliotrope handkerchief 
 with round white spots. His bowler had a flat brim 
 
 I
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 and his gloves of bright leather were inlaid in the 
 palms and forefingers. The man looked as though 
 he had been born with a straw in his mouth. 
 
 The porters at Paddington instinctively touched 
 their hats to him, although they had never seen him 
 before, and the young man at the paper stall grinned 
 warmly when he gave him change, bent forward and 
 asked him: "Know anything for to-day, sir?" Lord 
 Thoresby returned the grin and shook his head. 
 "Couldn't tell you the names of a single horse run- 
 nin'," he said. "Bin out of the country for about a 
 thousand years." 
 
 The paper stall man watched him move away among 
 the heterogeneous rush of passengers. He was inter- 
 ested. His quiet movements, his steady, examining 
 eye, were different from those to whom the station 
 was obviously a too well-known place. He walked 
 about like a man quietly noting the changes that had 
 taken place in a once familiar scene. The engines 
 had something about them which caught his attention. 
 The appearance of the refreshment room, the little 
 kiosk which gleamed with tobacco tins and boxes of 
 cigarettes, the railway advertisements with drawings 
 of hefty little boys paddling and young amazons in 
 spotless ducks driving on a verdant green golf course 
 with gleaming cliffs behind them, were all noticed. 
 The passing Corporal of the Grenadier Guards made 
 him turn. There were differences in his uniform. In 
 fact, nothing escaped his notice. Men, women and 
 things, sounds and smells had their interest, and when 
 finally he got into a corner seat of a third-class smok- 
 
 2
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 ing carriage and quietly loaded a pipe it was with a 
 curious smile, half pathetic, half amused. 
 
 "Dashed odd!" he said to himself. "I don't seem 
 to have changed. / feel the same. But twenty-three 
 years has made the devil's own difference to every- 
 thing else." He heaved a sigh and gave a chuckle. 
 "Well, what's it matter? I'll bet my life on one thing. 
 Dear old Tony Okehampton's the same. And there's 
 something in that." 
 
 There was everything in that. This man Thoresby, 
 known twenty-three years ago as Billy Russon, had 
 one illusion left, only one. It was that Tony Oke- 
 hampton, handsome, sunny, fair-haired, generous, 
 clean-minded old Tony Okehampton would always be 
 the same, however old, bitter, cheap and pessimistic 
 the world became, and when he returned to England 
 after an absence of what he rather more picturesquely 
 than was his wont dubbed a thousand years, the first 
 thing he felt impelled to do was to find Tony Oke- 
 hampton. 
 
 Find was hardly the word. He had left him stand- 
 ing on the steps of a warm old house in Buckingham- 
 shire, the Chiltern hills behind, two counties lying 
 spread out at its feet. There he would be, the same 
 Tony Okehampton, standing on the same steps of 
 the same warm old house, with the same Chilterns 
 behind and the same two counties in front. 
 
 It was a curious thing that in this man's irreligious, 
 irregular, slipshod, not far short from dishonest, un- 
 tidy mind there had always been a note of sentiment 
 in regard to the man with whom he had been at Eton 
 
 3
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 and Oxford. During the many times when he had 
 been down and out, when he had been reduced to 
 driving an engine in Nebraska or conducting a tram- 
 car in New York or endeavoring to pick up an adven- 
 turous living as a commercial traveler in Argentina, 
 or when, with others of the same kidney, he had 
 worked early and late on a Canadian fruit farm, Billy 
 Thoresby let his thoughts go wandering until they 
 rested upon the charming personality of his old friend. 
 He, at any rate, ran dead straight. This was a con- 
 viction, a fixed idea, something that gave him a sense 
 of deep pleasure. Tony Okehampton was the only 
 man of his set who was not a wrong 'un, who could 
 never be a wrong 'un. It rilled Thoresby with a feel- 
 ing not unlike that of patriotism. It meant a good 
 deal to this man of heterogeneous occupations, who 
 knew the world as well as the middle-aged city clerk 
 knows his financial paper. It was a sort of habit of 
 his to say to himself: "Well, all the old gang has 
 gone under. We've all scrambled and dodged about 
 cheatin' God and man, goin' the crooked ways, but 
 old Tony Okehampton remains what he always was. 
 And that's something!" 
 
 There are men who say with a touch of snobbish 
 pride that they have been to school with So-and-So, 
 who is perhaps at the top of some particularly notice- 
 able ladder. There are others, untraveled men, who 
 boast that they know Paris backward. Thoresby 
 found continual satisfaction in the fact that Tony Oke- 
 hampton was still what he had always backed him 
 to be, a damn good chap, b'God ! a white man. 
 
 4
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 He was not the only one. Of the few remaining 
 members of the Okehampton set who sometimes whis- 
 tled "For Auld Lang Syne" in the odd corners of the 
 world there were two rowing blues, a boxing blue, a 
 First in Greats, and one or two more who applied the 
 word Okehampton to anything for which they had an 
 irrevocable respect and affection. They knew them- 
 selves just as Thoresby did, and they liked to think 
 that they knew Okehampton. 
 
 There were two reasons why Thoresby made a point 
 of seeing Okehampton before he did anything else on 
 his return to England. The first was to get just that 
 amount of egotistical satisfaction which finding one- 
 self right alone can give, and the "second to show 
 himself to Okehampton under his new name and in 
 his new whitewash. He was no longer Billy Russon. 
 He was, thank you very much, the Earl of Thoresby. 
 It was devilish amusin'. He was no longer the poor 
 devil without a shilling to his back or an ounce of 
 credit to his name, who got meat and drink by the 
 skin of his teeth. He was an English peer, and, there- 
 fore, a man of weight and respectability. Doors 
 which must have been shut in his face would now be 
 opened wide at his approach. The keenest memory 
 would now conveniently forget his long list of shadi- 
 nesses. Those who would not have been seen in the 
 same acre patch as Billy Russon would jostle each 
 other to stand within arm's length of my friend Lord 
 Thoresby, you know. Like a man who, proud of his 
 personal appearance, had long hidden himself away 
 because his face had been rendered disgusting by some 
 
 5
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 hideous skin complaint and came out again radiant 
 with a new complexion, Thoresby wanted with a sort 
 of boyish eagerness to present himself again to his 
 almost abnormal pal smiling beneath his metaphorical 
 robes. It was very natural and human and it would 
 have been all the jollier had he been able to rattle in 
 his new pockets several coins. But a man can't have 
 everything. Billy Russon was, at the moment, more 
 than contented to have stepped into the shoes and the 
 name made famous by his father. As a peer he had 
 no doubt whatever that the regrettable absence of coins 
 in his pocket would very soon be remedied.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE man who had put the flying country 
 through a searching examination had never 
 expected to see it again. Mounted policeman, 
 cowpuncher, bronco buster, barkeeper, waiter, engine- 
 driver, telegraphist, steward, farm hand, palmist and 
 crystal gazer, billiard sharper, bookmaker, and an ex- 
 pert in all the many professions for which the man 
 who lives on his wits serves no apprenticeship, he 
 discovered that he was the new Lord Thoresby while 
 in Sydney, Australia. It happened that, at the mo- 
 ment, he was traveling for a new toothwash and was 
 in more or less affluent circumstances. That is to say 
 that he had drawn a matter of twenty pounds on ac- 
 count of commission and possessed two suits of clothes 
 which he had been lucky enough to get on tick. He 
 had seen the news of his father's death in the morn- 
 ing paper. It had been cabled from England. He 
 read that the deceased peer, who had held most of 
 the important posts in a series of Unionist govern- 
 ments, was succeeded by his eldest son, the Hon. Wil- 
 liam Russon, most of whose life was devoted to big 
 game shooting. 
 
 "The King is dead," said Billy. "Long live the 
 King!" He grinned a little at the completely non- 
 
 7
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 committal description of his occupation and went off 
 at once to a hosier's shop, where he bought a black 
 band for his white dump hat and a black tie. He had 
 no grudge against his father. He considered him 
 to be an ornament and almost an institution. At the 
 same time, he had often speculated in his unpleasant, 
 wakeful hours how he came to be the father of such 
 a son. He was a firm believer in heredity. There 
 must have been something, some closely guarded ten- 
 dency in his father's character of which few men had 
 been aware. His mother was altogether blameless. 
 The next thing that he did was to send a cable to the 
 family solicitors asking them to telegraph enough 
 money to the Bank of Australasia in Sydney to pay 
 his fare to England. On leaving Australia for home 
 he omitted to return either the samples of toothwash 
 or the small sum on account of commission to his em- 
 ployers. He had a sort of wish to leave the long 
 trail characteristically. Many other tailors had been 
 done by him before. In any case they were not good 
 suits. The trousers were execrable. 
 
 He found England extraordinarily small and park- 
 like. It seemed to him that the towns through which 
 the train passed on the way to King's Redesborough 
 were mere toys. They made him laugh. He missed 
 the boasting advertisements of America and Australia, 
 the blatant skyscrapers and all the newness and raw- 
 ness and noise of these places. He asked himself 
 what could be the ultimate fate of a nation which re- 
 fused to enter in the race, which deliberately stood 
 still. He looked at the little red villas with their 
 
 8
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 small gables and patch-like gardens which surrounded 
 the stations of the places within twenty and twenty- 
 five miles of London and wondered how it was that 
 Englishmen could be contented to live year after year 
 in such narrowness, so ambitionless. He gradually 
 came to regard himself as a pioneer returning from 
 his triumphs rather than as a waster coming back to 
 a country of honest, easily satisfied, hard-working men. 
 
 He had been to King's Redesborough two or three 
 times in the old days. He spent his holidays there 
 once from Eton when Tony's father was alive. He 
 made one of a large party which stayed at Quennor 
 for the coming-of-age celebrations of the man who 
 had already come into his own. His final visit had 
 been to borrow money from Tony to take him out 
 of the country with somewhat inconvenient celerity. 
 He was going back to it now after twenty-three years 
 to ask for board and lodging and whatever sport there 
 might be going while his solicitors sold things for 
 him. All the money had been left to his younger 
 brother, an uncommonly deserving person. There 
 were, however, two or three houses that could be sold, 
 he hoped, and a fine collection of pictures. His 
 brother possessed a house and was far too deserving 
 to take much interest in art. 
 
 He found King's Redesborough very much as he 
 had expected to find it. A large and airy station with 
 open country on its left and a few straggling cottages 
 on its right, with one or two newish garden-city-like 
 villas dotted here and there, lay in a dip a mile or so 
 from the town. Billy decided to walk and ask his 
 
 9
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 way, leaving his luggage at the station to be called 
 for later. He had no doubt whatever that Tony Oke- 
 hampton would be at home. Tony Okehampton was 
 the sort of man who was always at home. He was 
 married and had children and was the Squire. He 
 was, of course, also a magistrate and the chairman 
 of the Unionist Association, the Horticultural Society, 
 the Farmers' Association, and all the rest of it. Billy 
 walked because he wanted to get into the right mood 
 and to be in a sort of way cleaned up by the exqui- 
 sitely fresh air before coming face to face with the 
 simple, excellent people who stood for all that was 
 best in English life. 
 
 As he went along the old road, lined on the one 
 hand with well-kept cottages and frequent inns and 
 open on the other hand to the rolling country, Billy 
 drew a tender picture of his friend's wife and chil- 
 dren. Mrs. Tony must be tallish, with abundant hair 
 and a soft laugh, fearless, proud eyes, and a mouth 
 which had never been the home of an untruth. She 
 must wear a mushroom hat and gardening gloves and 
 be followed always by an oldish spaniel and by robins 
 which fluttered from tree to tree, from bush to bush, 
 and passed the time of day with her. She must have 
 at least three sons, the eldest of them not far short 
 of twenty-one, and a young edition of herself, with 
 hair flying behind her, the apple of her father's eye. 
 He had no need to revise his picture of Tony himself. 
 It would be hypersubtle to touch his hair with gray 
 and his face with lines. No man with such a laugh 
 could ever grow old. No man with such a heart could 
 
 10
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 ever lose youth. Just to see this man again would 
 be good. It would not matter if, having a full house, 
 he could not put up the wanderer. He was a peer, 
 and to obtain credit was easy. There were plenty of 
 hotels in London. 
 
 Billy remembered the schoolhouse. It was the 
 same, no larger, no smaller. He remembered the 
 thickly thatched roofs in the houses at the end of the 
 road and the name of the baker in the wide main 
 street. He remembered the forge on the left and 
 the inn which called itself a hotel on the right, with 
 its old-fashioned hanging sign and its large courtyard 
 and stables. He remembered the old market place 
 on whose posts parish notices were stuck. But the 
 bank was new to him. He came to a full stop at the 
 top of the street, beaten as to whether he went to the 
 right or to the left. An old man was sweeping the 
 road, a merry old man with straggling wisps of hair 
 and a back bent double with rheumatism. 
 
 "Quennor?" said Billy. "Which way?" 
 
 "Eh?" 
 
 "Quennor!" shouted Billy. "Squire Okehampton's." 
 
 "Oh ! Okehampton's ! Straight up the 'ill and bear 
 'round to your right all the way. . . . Okehamp- 
 ton, ah!" 
 
 It seemed to Billy that there was a note of the sort 
 of admiration which one old rip has for another in 
 this septuagenarian's voice. He went as directed, find- 
 ing himself in a wide, well-made road not too fre- 
 quently rushed over by motors. There was open coun- 
 try again to the left, a very kaleidoscope of open 
 
 ii
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 country glorified by the sun, and on his right, high 
 up, cut sharply in the chalk side of a peaked hill, a 
 great cross. Here, if you like, was England, a corner 
 of the beautiful garden of the placid country which 
 did not seem to be aware of the fact that it was being 
 undermined by mole-like politicians and which did not 
 dream that socialistic rats were eating away her very 
 vitals. Bill was strangely devoid of the bump of 
 geography. Coming to another, though much smaller, 
 village, he could not make up his mind whether to 
 turn up to the right or go straight on. He saw a man 
 leaning on the saddle of a bicycle talking to another 
 who stood at the gate of a cottage. The latter wore 
 the unmistakable look of a tax collector. The former 
 might have been a hosier who won billiard tourna- 
 ments. His tie was flashy and his mouth loose. Billy 
 went up. "I wish you'd tell me whether I'm right 
 for the Squire's?" he said. 
 
 He saw a curious, angry glint in the eye of one 
 man and a gleam of insolent familiarity all over the 
 face of the other. 
 
 "Tony Okehampton, eh? Oh, yes. You're right 
 enough. If you've got anything for him, look out you 
 don't get a charge of rabbit shot in the calves." 
 
 This was Greek to Billy, and as he went on it was 
 with a puzzled line between his eyebrows. It was all 
 very curious. Was this the new spirit of disrespect? 
 Or what was it? He expected that the very men- 
 tion of the Squire's name to these village people would 
 bring a respectful smile to their faces. He dismissed 
 the impression, however, from his mind. People had 
 
 12
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 altered. Places had altered. Customs had altered. 
 But there was one man and one place that would never 
 alter Anthony Okehampton of Quennor. 
 
 The new peer came face to face suddenly with the 
 old house. It stood perched high up against a back- 
 ground of beech trees, a forest of beech trees which 
 wailed and murmured like lost and distracted souls 
 in the winter and in the summer whispered softly or 
 were silent. Yes, there was the old house still, long 
 and low and comfortable, everything about it definite, 
 its period stamped upon its face, its gardens on a series 
 of terraces kept with spinster-like primness, its door 
 always hospitably open. 
 
 The man of many pasts and a somewhat Gilbertian 
 future was as hard as steel. He tackled the hill in 
 front of him as though it were level ground. He kept 
 laughing softly to himself as he went. It was his 
 way of covering up his emotion. He didn't care 
 who caught him with a little break in his voice. He 
 knew that he was making a sort of pilgrimage in 
 order to stand before a man who was not merely 
 white but whom he had backed to remain white. 
 There was great satisfaction in his having won his 
 money. 
 
 It would have afforded the professional psychologist 
 considerable amusement and some astonishment 
 the sight of this horsy, compact little man with 
 moist eyes tramping relentlessly up a break-neck hill 
 to pay genuine deference to a person whose virtues 
 he admired, but whose precepts he had never fol- 
 lowed. 
 
 13
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 There was a stretch of park-like land at the top. 
 An avenue of trees divided it, and here and there it 
 was cut into by clumps of furs encircled with railings. 
 A beautifully designed iron gate topped with the arms 
 of the Okehamptons stood open. There was an old 
 lodge at the foot of the park. Its little garden was 
 alight with flowers. A fat tabby cat was stretched out 
 asleep on the twisted branch of an apple tree. Birds 
 sang everywhere. An elderly woman was hanging 
 washing on a line. It was twenty-three years since 
 Billy had passed through this gate and then he had 
 looked back at it with affectionate eyes, for in his 
 pocket there was a check made out to himself for five 
 hundred pounds signed by Anthony Okehampton. 
 
 A hen, shrieking like a suffragist, scuttled away at 
 his approach, and a squirrel, half way up the drive, 
 performed an acrobatic feat for his edification up the 
 thick trunk of a tree. Billy had no eye for the gar- 
 dens. His attention was riveted on the open front 
 door of the house. Somehow he was disappointed in 
 not finding Tony, handsome, breezy, excellent Tony, 
 standing on the old steps framed by the Jacobean 
 doorway. It seemed to him that the place was 
 strangely devoid of life. No gardeners moved about. 
 He could detect no clucking sound of lawn mowers 
 at work, which was associated in his mind with Eng- 
 lish gardens. No dog ran out with a friendly bark 
 and wagging tail. He noticed with a sense of shock 
 that several of the windows were broken and that 
 one of them had been mended with a piece of news- 
 paper. It irritated him. He would as soon have ex- 
 
 14
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 pected to see a smudge upon his mother's face. He 
 stood outside the door and gave the old familiar 
 whistle invented at Eton and practiced at Oxford. 
 There was no answer. He called out, "Tony, old 
 man! Tony!" and again there was no answer. He 
 put his hand on the bell and rang loudly. No one 
 came. He went into the hall quickly, the great hall 
 with its oak gallery and full length oil paintings of 
 Okehamptons. A curious smell came to his nostrils 
 a sort of last night's smell of stale cigar smoke and 
 beer. The rugs on the parquet floor lay about in de- 
 bauched attitudes, and the floor itself, unpolished and 
 dirty, was riddled with nail marks. Empty and half 
 empty bottles stood upon a long narrow oak table 
 and there were cigar ends everywhere. Several coffee 
 cups, some of them minus handles, looked oddly 
 ashamed of themselves. The saucers of two of them 
 were filled with pipe ash. There was a tortoise shell 
 hair comb on the floor at his feet and a pair of stays 
 dangled obscenely over the gallery facing him. Some- 
 thing made him stride quickly across the hall and stand 
 beneath the well-painted portrait of Tony's father that 
 hung in the place of honor over the great fireplace. 
 The canvas was riddled with bullets. One of them 
 had cut a hole in the center of the forehead and 
 against it were scratched the initials of Tony himself. 
 
 "Good God!" said Billy aloud. 
 
 Had death been here? If so it was a ribald, waste- 
 ful, drunken, desecrating figure. 
 
 An untidy, dejected-looking woman came into the 
 hall. 
 
 15
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Billy turned to her. "What's wrong with the 
 Squire?" he asked. 
 
 The woman scoffed. "Why don't you ask what's 
 wrong with all of us?" she said. 
 
 "Is he well?" 
 
 "Depends what you call well." 
 
 A sort of shiver ran over Billy. He felt as though 
 he were standing on a catacomb and that a bat had 
 touched his mouth with its wing. He asked the woman 
 several other questions and received no answer, only 
 a sulky grumble. He went over to her and took her 
 by the shoulders. "Where's my friend?" he asked 
 hoarsely. "Damn you ! Why don't you answer me ?" 
 
 "Damn you!" said the woman and shook herself 
 free. "Friend, indeed! Why come here to look for 
 him? Go to the pub in the village. That's his place. 
 There's nothing to drink in these cellars." 
 
 "I don't understand," said Billy feebly. "What hell- 
 ish brute has laid a jetta on this house, on Tony Oke- 
 hampton's house, on Tony Okehampton?" 
 
 "Oh, don't bother me." 
 
 Billy turned and fled. The reek of the place sick- 
 ened him. The echo of derisive laughter that seemed 
 to ring around the gallery made him break into per- 
 spiration. He went out into the sunlight and stood 
 quite still. He now saw that the grass of the gardens 
 was rank, that there was moss on all the paths and 
 that flowers grew wild. He moved forward out into 
 the road through the gate. Instinctively he turned 
 to the left, went along until he came to the village 
 of small thatched cottages. He seemed to be passing 
 
 16
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 through a Christmas card. The place seemed too 
 beautiful and old-fashioned to be true. In the middle 
 of the village up several narrow brick steps stood a 
 small laborers' inn. High above the coarse voices 
 of farm hands Billy heard the gay laugh of Tony 
 Okehampton. 
 
 Feeling as cold as though he had been suddenly 
 stricken with ague, the man of many pasts who had 
 been temperamentally unable to go straight went up 
 the steps and stood outside the open window of the 
 parlor. He saw a bulbous man, a sort of village Fal- 
 staff, his great calves bulging in gaiters, his fat face 
 thrown back, laughter gurgling from his mouth. He 
 saw a thin, sly-looking poacher-like man with the 
 marks of chalk on his clothes, giggling drunkenly. 
 He saw several aged, bird-like villagers with cutty 
 pipes stuck in their toothless gums. In the middle 
 of them, sprawling on a chair, tie awry, and fair hair 
 sprinkled with gray, a pint pot of beer held in the 
 well-shaped hand, the white man, Tony Okehampton, 
 flabbily and horribly drunk.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE man, who now had no illusions, remained 
 looking into the window. This unshaven, un- 
 kempt, bloodshot-eyed, soddened wreck of a 
 man, with enough of his former beauty because that 
 was the word still hanging to him, with the same 
 irresistible turn of the head, the same broad shoulders 
 and deep chest and peculiarly well-formed hands which 
 were used almost as a Latin uses them, was Anthony 
 Okehampton. To Billy he looked like a racing yacht 
 which had sunk and been hauled up after a month 
 or two. 
 
 He stood there with stupid, inane laughter ringing 
 in his ears and the filthy smell of shag offending his 
 nostrils, searching in his mind for excuses. "There 
 must be somethin'!" he thought. "There must be. 
 Oh, gee, there must be! His wife's dead. His chil- 
 dren have been carried off by some epidemic, small- 
 pox, something, anything. He's mad, he's gone off 
 his head. He's not Tony Okehampton. He's only 
 the shell of him." 
 
 Yes, that was it. That must be it. The house 
 showed the madness. Very well, then, he stood in 
 need of a friend. That was something. 
 
 18
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 And so poor old Billy Russon, deprived of his long- 
 looked-forward-to desire, found himself undergoing a 
 mental somersault. He, the much-patched kettle, was 
 to assume a sort of superiority over this broken urn. 
 My God, what satire ! He went into the public house 
 parlor and stood in front of Tony Okehampton. He 
 seemed to be very clean among those men. He wasn't 
 able to speak. He held out his hand. 
 
 Tony looked him up and down. "Why not?" he 
 said. "Everybody's friend, eh, b'God? Here's how, 
 then !" and he shook the hand of the man whose face 
 he failed to recognize. "Well, old boy, what's yours?" 
 
 Billy shook his head. 
 
 "Rot and nonsense! We all drink here, everyone 
 of us, man, woman, child and beast. It's the most 
 drunken little spot in England. We only live once, 
 y'know, eh, boys?" 
 
 "Aye, aye, Squire! That's so." 
 
 "Mac, you puddin'-faced Scotch pig, give this gen- 
 tleman a quart." 
 
 "Tony, old man," said Billy quietly, "don't you 
 remember me?" 
 
 Tony threw back his head and gave a great laugh. 
 "Remember you? 'Course I remember you. You're 
 that sanguinary little Beddington bookmaker who's 
 touched me down for thousands. You're almost a 
 blood relation. You've had most of mine. Come on, 
 Mac! Good God, how slow these blasted Scotchmen 
 are!" 
 
 Billy persisted. The poor man was mad. "No, no, 
 dear old man," he said. "I'm Russon, Billy Russon. 
 
 19
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Don't you remember? Tarver's, you know, and New 
 College." 
 
 "Oh, hell !" said Tony. "Come on, stuff this down !" 
 and he handed him the tankard. "You're too sober, 
 old boy. It's funny. Wait a second! We drink 
 toasts here. I give you my beautiful wife and my 
 two charming gels, roarin', rantin', clever little devils 
 all. Now then, let it go." 
 
 Billy hesitated. Instantly a hand shot out, tipped 
 up the tankard and the quart of good ale made a 
 puddle upon the floor. At least a pint of it trickled 
 down Billy's clothes. 
 
 Instantly Tony was on his feet. "Oh, my dear 
 fellow," he said. "By Jove, I'm sorry. How care- 
 less. Dash it, how absolutely, hopelessly, rottenly 
 rustic! Do forgive me!" In the most Elizabethan 
 manner he started to dab the wet places with a dirty 
 handkerchief. 
 
 "It doesn't matter," said Billy. 
 
 "Awfully nice of you to say so, but it does matter. 
 One gets so frightfully slack, buried away in these 
 little holes. Mac, refill this tankard. Go on! Mr. 
 Whatshisname's had an accident. I beg your pardon. 
 What name did you say?" 
 
 "Russon," said Billy. 
 
 "Russon Russon." Tony shook his head. "Are 
 you the coach maker at Little Bledlow ? No, of course 
 not. You're a gentleman. Do forgive me. God, it 
 must be about ten years since I met a gentleman. Ah, 
 here we are." For the second time he handed the 
 tankard. 
 
 20
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Billy drank deeply. There was a very nasty taste 
 in his mouth. Then he said: "I've just been to 
 .Quennor." 
 
 "Oh, have you?" said Tony dryly. "The devil you 
 have ! What do I owe you ? Now look here, seriously, 
 who the devil are you?" The man began to get angry. 
 He put himself into a fighting attitude. His dull blue 
 eyes did their best to look fierce. They looked like 
 lamps whose glasses were covered with mud. "I don't 
 want any damned man hanging about Quennor. If I 
 owe you anything, send in your bill. Play the game. 
 I play the game. I've paid you off thousands in my 
 time. You're all damned thieves, the lot of you." 
 
 "You owe me nothing," said Billy. 
 
 Instantly Tony's whole manner changed. To find 
 a man to whom he owed nothing was almost an ad- 
 venture. He clapped two cordial hands on Russon's 
 shoulders. "Then, b'Jove, you're a friend," he said. 
 "And I'll tell you what. There are about twenty-two 
 spare bedrooms at Quennor. They're yours. Take 
 the damned lot! Let me put you up and I'll drink 
 you under the table every night of the week. It's a 
 beautiful old place, Quennor. Do you know it ? Been 
 in my family for generations. Okehampton my name 
 is, b'God! Tony Okehampton, everybody's friend. 
 I'm the blot on the escutcheon!" He roared with 
 laughter and then grew eager in a staggering kind 
 of way. "Yes, that's the notion. You stay with me. 
 You'll be my honored guest and meet my wife and 
 daughters, talented people, although they're devils, the 
 lot of 'em. Is that a bet, sir?" 
 
 21
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "Thanks very much," said Billy. 
 
 "Oh, that's toppin'," said Tony warmly. "You're 
 a sportsman. Come on, let's go 'round there. I'll 
 show you the place. Good morning, boys! Chalk 
 these drinks up to me, Mac. I come into a hundred 
 thousand next Friday, or a hundred and fifty thou- 
 sand, I forget which. Money to burn!" He lurched 
 and took Billy's arm and together they made their way 
 out of the public house with laughter trickling after 
 them. 
 
 When they got on the road and were passing be- 
 tween the almost unbelievably pretty cottages, Tony 
 drew up and stood in front of his new friend. "Old 
 boy," he said, "I'm not the man I used to be. I think 
 you'd better know it." His face broke and several 
 beery tears ran down his cheeks. "I was a better man 
 than you once, old boy. A pretty good sort of a fel- 
 ler. It's not my fault. I've been driven into this. 
 Talking about bein' a man's fault, did I ever tell you 
 that toppin' good story?" . . . 
 
 He was laughing again. Billy wished him dead. 
 This was not madness. It was beer. "Let's get 
 home," he said. 
 
 "Home!" echoed Tony. "Wait a second. Now I 
 come to look at you Why, good God! Did you say 
 Russon, Billy Russon?" 
 
 "Yes, Russon. Billy Russon." 
 
 "Old Billy Russon ! Why, dammit, you're a friend 
 of mine. You were at Eton with me and Oxford. 
 You're old Thoresby's son. The bad pup of the pack. 
 Why, Billy, my dear old friend, this is it! This is 
 
 22
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 just it. This is the moment of my life. Why the 
 devil didn't you say so? I'm mighty glad to see you." 
 He shook him by the hand and patted him on the 
 shoulder and tilted his hat back and dug him in the 
 ribs and almost danced around him. For the moment 
 some of the old irresistible blue came back into his 
 eyes, something of what seemed to be the spirit of 
 unquenchable boyishness back into his manner. 
 
 The warmth of his welcome touched Billy. He had 
 looked forward to this. He laughed a little to hide 
 his emotion and said : "Tony ! My dear old Tony !" 
 
 "Now I come to think of it I remember hearin' our 
 old whistle just now. It was like a note struck on a 
 dead piano. I'm all the gladder to see you, dear old 
 friend, because, b'God, you're the burger who owes me 
 five hundred quid and I can do with a bit!" 
 
 Billy felt like a pricked bladder.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE clock with a slow, dignified, reverberating 
 bell struck four. Some moments later one 
 that was more alert and even perhaps a little 
 irritable struck eleven. Thoresby looked at his watch. 
 It was a quarter to two. He had been sitting for an 
 hour and a half in the room which Tony Okehampton 
 had called his own a room with a great bay window 
 which framed a glorious picture of rolling downs, 
 here and there showing patches of white chalk, curious 
 cup-like patches, here and there grass covered, and 
 in one place dotted with what appeared to be an army 
 of black-coated, stunted men running amuck. These 
 were in reality gorse bushes out of flower. The win- 
 dow was wide enough to take in a big slice of beech 
 forest in full leaf, but with all the winter's dead 
 things at the feet of the trees, a very carpet of rich 
 brown. The sun moved in waves with ebb and flow, 
 up and over and back again, touching everything as 
 it passed with a golden hand. 
 
 For an hour and a half the man whose days had 
 been punctured by cunning resourcefulness listened 
 in stony silence to Tony Okehampton's endless stream 
 of drunken confidences. He heard him laugh, a poor 
 substitute for the old gay laugh of Eton and Oxford. 
 He saw his sagged face pucker up like a hurt child's. 
 
 24
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 He watched his shaky, unclean, expressive hand as it 
 illustrated all that he said. He took quiet stock of 
 the well-cut clothes stained everywhere with drink and 
 oil, tobacco juice and grease. He looked deeply into 
 the once blue eyes and tried to recognize in them the 
 old spotless soul of dear old Tony Okehampton. Dur- 
 ing this painful hour and a half he just said yes and 
 no and ha! ha! and tried not to listen to the kaleido- 
 scopic, indeterminate, unsteady sentences. In endeav- 
 oring to put his old friend up to date this God-stricken 
 creature began and never finished a hundred reasons 
 for his moral and financial debacle. He gathered first 
 that it was due to Okehampton's wife, then to his 
 children, then to a most persisent ill luck, a sort of 
 jetta, which, like the Old Man of the Sea, had fastened 
 itself upon his back. He could not make head or tail 
 of any of these laughing, blubbering, bitter and wholly 
 unconvincing reasons. The one thing that stood out 
 of them all was that Okehampton himself was un- 
 offending. Nothing was his fault. There was not 
 one thing honest about this once spotlessly honest 
 man. He had soaked the truth in beer and stained 
 it with tobacco. There was nothing at the bottom of 
 the well except dregs. 
 
 All this gave Thoresby a very peculiar sensation. 
 He felt like a man who had once been a devout Roman 
 Catholic and who, on entering his church again after 
 a series of faithless years, found it desecrated by the 
 hand of some satirical devil who had brought blas- 
 phemy to a fine art and had painted a leer upon the 
 face of the Virgin Mary. Disappointment was a word 
 
 25
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 which had no meaning to him. He was brought al- 
 most to the verge of physical illness. He felt older 
 and shriveled. He knew wasters backward. He knew 
 himself inside out. He had instinctively herded with 
 every class and species of the genus. He found Tony 
 Okehampton, dear old Tony Okehampton, the biggest 
 waster of them all. 
 
 If this man had left his wife alone, if he had not 
 spent himself upon the most inventive ribaldry and 
 picturesque indelicacy whenever his wife's name came 
 into his racing mill-stream of incoherence, it might 
 have been better. If he had been able to speak of his 
 two girls with a clean mouth, it would not have been 
 so bad. As it was, the more eagerly and tearfully 
 he endeavored to justify himself, the more he stood 
 condemned out of his own mouth. 
 
 The new Lord Thoresby was infinitely glad when 
 at last Tony Okehampton faltered, broke off and fell 
 into a stertorous sleep with his head buried in his 
 chest. He got up and stretched himself and said some- 
 thing beneath his breath in which the name of Al- 
 mighty God came reverently for the first time for who 
 knows how many years. He saw with renewed feel- 
 ings of pain that his old friend's very room had passed 
 through the same debasement as its owner. All the 
 pictures, and they were good, were cock-eyed. Many 
 of them had been used as targets for darts. The very 
 books looked like bedraggled street-walkers. Their 
 covers were torn, their pages dog-eared. Dust sat 
 thickly upon everything. Sporting guns, fishing rods, 
 a banjo with one string broken, boxing gloves, dumb- 
 
 26
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 bells, empty tobacco tins rubbed shoulders with broken 
 bottles, dirty tumblers, inkpots, broken braces, golf 
 shoes all over dried mud, and an endless collection of 
 rubbish. No orderly hand had been laid upon any- 
 thing for years. It seemed to Thoresby that the very 
 windows had not been opened for an age. The room 
 was not merely fuggy. It was piled high with layers 
 of fugginess. 
 
 He left the place on tiptoe quickly. He wanted to 
 breathe. He stood in the middle of the hall and heard 
 something moving in the gallery. He wheeled around 
 with a sort of fear upon him and saw something 
 slither out of sight not, however, before he was 
 aware that the figure was that of an untidy woman, 
 barely dressed. A little giggle hung upon the air 
 a snigger, rather. 
 
 "My God!" said Thoresby. 
 
 For the second time that morning he hurried out 
 into the sunlight to get warm, to feel the touch of 
 health. He stood on the moss-covered path at a loose 
 end. He was a hostless guest. 
 
 Years before he had slept in a room in the left wing 
 of the building, what was called the bachelor wing. 
 It contained a charming breakfast room hung around 
 with antlers and sporting trophies. It had its own 
 main door leading onto the terrace, its own staircase 
 running up to a set of smallish, cheery bedrooms. It 
 was in this building that he had passed the last night 
 of his last visit, with Tony Okehampton's generous 
 check under his pillow. He had placed it there with 
 a laugh as superstitious girls hide love letters. 
 
 27
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 A porter, treading warily, one eye on the lookout 
 for an unchained dog and the other for the master, 
 came up carrying his shirt case and kit bag. Thoresby 
 shrugged his shoulders. "Better bring 'em here," he 
 said and led the way to the wing he remembered with 
 more than a touch of sentiment. 
 
 The door was open. The antlers still hung on the 
 walls, but the room had been used as a sort of tool- 
 shed and there were hundreds of empty and broken 
 pots, some of them filled with powdered earth and 
 the remains of withered plants. The old oak table, 
 worth a good deal to a collector, had been made into 
 a carpenter's bench. A winch had been screwed onto 
 it and it was covered with rusty nails, odd bits of 
 iron, a chopper or two, a plane and several screws. 
 Thoresby could have wept. Had nothing been spared, 
 not even furniture? Had this diabolical jetta played 
 havoc with everything? He turned sharply upon the 
 gaping man, gave him half a crown and packed him 
 off. It seemed almost indecent to let him into these 
 secrets. He then picked up his luggage and carried 
 it upstairs. The stair carpets were in holes. Some- 
 one had drawn obscene things upon the walls. The 
 floor of the passage was indescribably dirty. Thoresby 
 hurried along to his old room. He found it much 
 the same, except that even there the spirit of ugliness 
 had entered. The bed was unmade. A blanket and 
 a pillow lay upon the floor. The sheets were all 
 towsled, the pictures awry, the looking-glass starred 
 as though it had been deliberately smashed by a stone. 
 But the window was open and that was something. 
 
 28
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 The Earl of Thoresby made his bed, not for the 
 first time. He would have to be content to lie upon 
 it. And while he worked he became aware of curious 
 sounds. They grew in volume. At first he thought 
 that someone must be ill-treating a horse. Then it 
 seemed to him that a drunken groom was assaulting 
 a woman. He heard unbelievable words, ingeniously 
 blasphemous. He felt impelled to go to the window, 
 to cry out and put a stop to it. And there he stood 
 rooted, looking at a scene which had never met his 
 world-traveled eyes. 
 
 He saw two young girls, both beautiful, with faces 
 distorted, their supple figures in short skirts and tight- 
 fitting jerseys, eyeing each other like wild beasts. Both 
 were crouching as though ready to spring and both 
 were breathing hard after a bout of fighting. A little 
 trickle of blood ran down the pale cheek of the girl 
 whose hair was all golden and curly. 
 
 Before he could cry out, the one whose face was 
 swarthy like an Italian's, and whose hair was black, 
 sprang forward. Her dirty hands clutched the golden 
 locks and tore them wildly. There was a shriek 
 of pain, a running fracas, bursts of rage and invec- 
 tive. 
 
 And then Thoresby left the window and the room 
 and the wing. He ran around the building like a man 
 who wishes to put a stop to murder. He found the 
 fair-haired girl full stretch upon the paving stones, 
 with the dark one kneeling on her chest with a frothy 
 mouth. 
 
 All he could say was "Oh! Oh!" 
 
 29
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 The conqueror looked up insolently. "Who are 
 you?" she said. 
 
 Thoresby bent over her, put his hands under her 
 arms and wrenched her away. The girl stood for a 
 moment in utter astonishment, burst into a shrill shriek 
 of laughter and fled. 
 
 And then Thoresby gave his hand to the prostrate 
 girl. She took it and stood on her feet and faced 
 him. Her beauty startled him. She might have sat 
 to a sculptor as the embodiment of exquisite youth. 
 
 "I'm sorry!" said Thoresby. 
 
 "Yes, and you're trespassing." 
 
 And then Thoresby was alone again in this God- 
 forgotten place.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE sulky, slatternly woman entered Billy's room 
 with hot water in a copper can. At the same 
 time she handed him a telegram. 
 
 " 'E sez this is fer you." She laughed a little. "A 
 nice change for us to 'ave a lord 'ere. Shall 'ave to 
 polish up the 'andle of the big front door. Whoo!" 
 She broke into one or two sloppy dance steps and a 
 wisp of hair dangled about her shoulders. 
 
 The telegram was not of much importance. The 
 solicitors asked to be informed of his lordship's future 
 movements. "No answer," said Thoresby. 
 
 "Reely! 'Ere, did you win or lose? We ain't 
 spotted a winner in this 'ouse well, I dunno. It's 
 a long time. Anything I can do fer you ?" She went 
 as she spoke to the looking-glass and smudged it over 
 with her apron. 
 
 "Nothing else, thank you." 
 
 "Easily pleased," she said and threw up her chin. 
 But she did not go straight to the door. She flapped 
 and flicked here and there, stooping to pick up pro- 
 nounced pieces of fluff and finally stopping in front 
 of the bed, at which she gazed in amazement. 
 
 "Well, strike me," she said, "that's funny." 
 
 31
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "Urn!" 
 
 "Oo made that bed? Must ha' bin the fairies." 
 
 "No, it was me," said Thoresby. 
 
 The look of astonishment broadened. "My word," 
 she said. "I didn't know as 'ow lords was useful with 
 their 'ands. You'll find lots to do 'ere if you're like 
 that." 
 
 She went out and slammed the door, went several 
 paces along the passage with floppy heels, returned, 
 opened the door and shut it very quietly. It was her 
 first concession to law and order for a considerable 
 time. 
 
 Thoresby laughed. The effort hurt him. He no- 
 ticed that he felt almost painfully hungry. No lunch- 
 eon had made its appearance and no tea. He had 
 wandered about for hours alone. There had been 
 no sign of life in the house or out of it. The stables 
 were empty and so were the kennels. Stinging 
 nettles grew everywhere, on the top of old walls, 
 through the chinks in the paving stones, everywhere, 
 and for companions they had dandelions, exuberant- 
 ly green. 
 
 Once, as he stood miserably alone and looked out 
 at the panorama of sky across which black clouds 
 were unrolling, he felt a sudden irresistible desire to 
 go, to get back to London, to make one of all its 
 thousands, to see things moving quickly and moving 
 with noise. The appalling stillness, the hideous decay 
 of the place got on his nerves. Then he remembered 
 that he was more or less without friends, that it was 
 necessary for him to get free board and lodging until 
 
 32
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 his solicitors produced something tangible. And then 
 the curious fun of the thing struck him a waster in 
 a wasted place. There was something right about it 
 all. 
 
 He was putting the stud into his dress shirt when 
 his door was flung open boisterously. Tony Okehamp- 
 ton appeared, wrapped in an amazingly filthy dressing- 
 gown without a rope. He had obviously just emerged 
 from a cold bath. His curly fair hair was wet and 
 his cheeks were stung into a sort of healthiness. There 
 was a good deal of the old Tony Okehampton about 
 him. "My dear old boy," he cried, "you must think 
 me infernally remiss! I ought to have told you at 
 once how sincerely I deplore your great loss. To lose 
 one's father by Jove!" He laid his hand on Billy's 
 shoulders. He was very much in earnest. 
 
 "Thanks, Tony." 
 
 "At the same time, old boy, hearty congratulations. 
 It's a dashed useful thing to be a peer even in these 
 days. I suppose you're a very warm man now, eh? 
 What is it, six houses, isn't it, and a matter of five 
 to seven thousand a year? How about a hundred on 
 account, old chap?" He roared with laughter to gild 
 the pill. "Oh, look here, I tell you what. I'll toss 
 you double or quits, sudden death." 
 
 As Billy got into his shirt he put his friend in pos- 
 session of a few salient facts in the fewest and best 
 chosen words of his inimitable dictionary in which 
 such phrases as "broke to the bally wide" came in 
 more than once. 
 
 Whereupon Tony Okehampton let out a mighty guf- 
 
 33
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 faw. "By God," he said, "this gives me a healthier 
 feeling. There's nothing to get out of you, old boy, 
 so we can treat each other fairly and squarely. No 
 finesse, you know, or any of that damn rot. Man 
 to man and so forth dash my buttons, what do I see 
 you doing? Getting into evening clothes, here. All 
 right. Yes. Excellent notion! Let's be little swells 
 again. Let's put on our best bibs and tuckers and 
 be English landed gentry. Anything for a change. 
 I'll dash out and tip the wink to the others. I've got 
 about thirty suits of dress clothes somewhere or other. 
 With a bit of faking I daresay they'll look presentable. 
 It'll be like sticking on fancy dress." 
 
 He left the room excitedly, boisterously, and as he 
 went down the passage he broke into a song, an old 
 song of the Albert period, "Champagne Charlie is my 
 name " 
 
 Lord Thoresby looked at himself in the starred 
 glass. A peculiarly sour grin was on his face. "Well, 
 Gee!" he said. "There it is. It's life. Only the 
 angels die young. I daresay I shall be able to put in 
 a fairly amusin' time." 
 
 He went down looking more horsy than ever in 
 a dinner jacket and very tube-like trousers, scrupu- 
 lously pressed. His black hair was brushed straight 
 back without a parting. No seal's back was smoother 
 or glossier. There wasn't a gray hair to be seen. 
 Men who live by their wits become gray much later 
 in life than earnest, unimaginative persons. 
 
 Like most Micawbers, his most valuable stock in 
 trade was an incurable power of quick recovery. He 
 
 34
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 was now quite prepared to accept the new Tony Oke- 
 hampton. Crying over spilt milk was a hobby in 
 which he never indulged. Life was short and could 
 only be lived once. Death was an endless business. 
 
 He made his way into the hall in excellent spirits 
 with a lively appetite. He saw at once that some at- 
 tempt had been made to clean the place up. The cor- 
 sets had disappeared. Much of the dust had been 
 flapped away and the rugs were straight. 
 
 Thoresby started a cigarette. He was evidently 
 himself again and that was something. He now rather 
 liked the arrant bohemianism of this place. 
 
 The sound of high heels on the stairs caught his 
 ears. He saw a woman who might have been the 
 leader of a post-impressionist set coming down. Her 
 pale, clever face was thickly powdered and her red, 
 thick mat of hair, streaked with gray, was arranged 
 in studious disarrangement. Her black bodice was 
 daringly cut, and a long, black, soft train pattered be- 
 hind her. She looked rather like a French actress or 
 a hostess of the official Radical party. She was very 
 tall and her head was noticeably big. There was a 
 distinct air about her, and the angle of her head was 
 precocious and self-conscious. She came forward with 
 outstretched hand. "Beautiful weather for the ducks 
 I don't think !" she said. "Welcome, my dear lord. 
 Welcome to an effete country in which King Anarchy 
 reigns supreme." 
 
 "Thanks so much," said Thoresby. His healthiness, 
 his shortness of hair seemed amazingly out of place 
 and banal. 
 
 35
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "And so you're Billy Russon, Captain of Les Ras- 
 taqueueres. L'homme s'amuse." 
 
 Thoresby showed his white teeth. He looked rather 
 like a well-bred terrier under the pressure of a sym- 
 pathetic hand. 
 
 "You must meet my gels." 
 
 "I have," said Billy, and laughed. It astonished 
 him a little to think how seriously he had taken their 
 gymnastic exercises. 
 
 "I think that you will find them somewhat out of 
 the common, although I say it as shouldn't. Our chil- 
 dren owe more than people think to heredity and en- 
 vironment." 
 
 "Quite," said Billy. "It's most kind of you to put 
 me up, Mrs. Tony." 
 
 "To whom should the old door of the Okehamptons 
 open if not to you ? Bon chien chasse de race. Would 
 you please ring the bell?" 
 
 Thoresby did so. 
 
 Presently their conversation was disturbed by the 
 nervous approach of a cross-eyed girl who flipped her 
 fingers nervously and shot her joints. Black stockings 
 with great holes at the heels hung loosely over her 
 shoes. She was built on big lines and wore no stays. 
 There was something Shakespearean about her. She 
 might have been handmaiden to Falstaff. It seemed 
 useless for her to endeavor to focus anything and so 
 she looked both ways. 
 
 "Now, Emily, attend to me carefully. Whatever 
 your mother may say or whatever may be the duties 
 on which you are at present occupied, I wish you to 
 
 36
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 go over the fields to King's Redesborough at once, 
 obtain and pay for a bottle of my usual medicine. 
 Have you got any money?" 
 
 A slow smile stole over the great face. "No'm." 
 
 Mrs. Tony turned to Billy. "Lend me seven and 
 sixpence, will you?" she said. 
 
 "I I'll just see if- 
 
 Thoresby did not bring out all the money that was 
 in his pocket. He thought it would create a bad prece- 
 dent. He sorted out three half crowns from the 
 change for a five pound note and put them in Mrs. 
 Okehampton's much-lined and not too steady palm. 
 
 "Many thanks," she said. "Make no mistake about 
 this, Emily." 
 
 "No'm." 
 
 As soon as the girl had shuffled away Mrs. Tony 
 turned with a smile to her new and convenient friend. 
 "I'm what is erroneously called a morphia maniac," 
 she said. "Okehampton has his beer, you your whisky, 
 I my morphia, the cows their grass, the rabbits their 
 succulent weeds, and the angels their incense. Life 
 needs its compensations." 
 
 Someone stood at Thoresby's elbow. 
 
 "Darling," said Mrs. Tony, "this is our old friend 
 Lord Thoresby. Billy, my eldest daughter, christened 
 Lavender by a sentimental male parent, but commonly 
 known as Dick." 
 
 "Because I ought to have been a boy," said Dick. 
 
 Ought to have been a boy! This delicious and 
 charming creature whose golden hair brought light 
 into the old hall and whose large gray eyes would 
 
 37
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 draw to them a small army of eager and hungry men. 
 
 Billy drew in his breath. He did not recognize in 
 this sedate and almost prim angel the wild-cat who 
 had shrieked beneath his window. 
 
 "Where's Harry?" asked Mrs. Tony. 
 
 "Here," said a voice. 
 
 Down the stairs came the other little animal, no 
 longer with blood upon her dark face, no longer with 
 loose strands of black hair, no longer compressed into 
 a tight-fitting jersey which showed her budding fig- 
 ure. She was now, like her sister, an Okehampton, 
 a dark-eyed little lady with a curious half smile play- 
 ing around her full lips. 
 
 "Harry, darling! Come and be presented to the 
 aristocracy." 
 
 And then Tony charged down upon them in all 
 the glory of evening clothes. His collar was of an 
 ancient period and his shirt far from pristine. His 
 jacket had obviously been worn while grooming a 
 horse. Short stiff hairs stuck to it. His trousers be- 
 longed to another suit and had been used for car- 
 pentry. But the man inside these clothes was the old 
 Tony Okehampton, sunny and gay and debonair. 
 
 "Dinner is served," said the bedraggled woman, 
 wiping her hands on her dirty apron. 
 
 A strong smell of boiled rabbit came into the hall. 
 
 Tony laughed, a huge laugh. "We shoot our own 
 dinners nowadays, Billy," he said. "The butchers 
 have struck."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 WHEN Thoresby went up to bed that night 
 got away, as he inwardly put it he took 
 with him a mass of confused impressions. 
 His mind retained pictures of a young, half formed, 
 dark and sensual girl sitting in a high backed Jacobean 
 chair very quietly, very silently making eyes at him 
 like any Budapesth dancing girl ; of another as young, 
 but for a year, of so different a type as almost to be 
 unrelated, crunched up in the corner of a big settee 
 buried in the pages of Kim, one foot tucked under 
 her, a look on her face of ecstatic concentration. The 
 pictures he had in his mind of his host were moving 
 pictures, because the man was hardly still for a mo- 
 ment. His delight at having under his roof someone 
 who was neither a yokel, sycophantic for beer, nor a 
 bounder from the town who became familiar, made 
 Tony almost boyish. A bottle of whisky bought with 
 money borrowed from his guest Thoresby's small 
 funds were becoming rapidly depleted unlocked the 
 rusty hinges of his memory. With immense gusto, 
 with the vividness of a Frenchman, he went back over 
 the old days, revived old names and old deeds, walked 
 again over old spots, repeated old jokes and acted old 
 
 39
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 scenes. The hall rang with laughter and echoed with 
 the excited footsteps of the man who found it tem- 
 peramentally impossible to remain in one chair for 
 longer than a moment. These were very pleasant pic- 
 tures until the central figure gradually became soaked 
 and sodden, foul-mouthed and unspeakably coarse. But 
 the pictures which would not easily be rubbed out of his 
 brain were those of the woman with the heavily pow- 
 dered face and eyes, which became almost supernat- 
 urally bright under the effects of a new dose of 
 morphia. He had watched her during dinner the so- 
 called dinner fall gradually into a dull and torpid 
 condition, broken by sudden fits of shivering and jerki- 
 ness and irritability. He had watched her revive after 
 the meal like an apparently dead log fire energetically 
 blown up with bellows. She, too, had a sort of flair 
 and talked brilliantly and epigrammatically, quoting 
 innumerable books of which ordinary women know 
 and ought to know nothing, bursting into French and 
 Italian and touches of Spanish, and finally, when at 
 the top of her unnatural form, taking the center of 
 the stage and all the limelight to Tony's ill-suppressed 
 annoyance and Harry's sneering amusement and re- 
 citing the pretended hunchback's speech about the 
 wind from "Les Buttons" in perfectly pronounced 
 French. It was a tour de force, a most artistic thing, 
 proving the woman to be possessed of great talent and 
 a fine memory. Flattered by Thoresby's genuine ad- 
 miration, she gave an inimitable imitation of Sarah 
 Bernhardt in "Frou-Frou" and of Yvette Guilbert 
 singing "Les Cloches de Nantes." It was vastly en- 
 
 40
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 tertaining and a little pitiful. And then, as the effects 
 of the drug worked off, she fell away and eyed Tony 
 venomously, pricking and stabbing him with the most 
 outrageous sarcasm, finally becoming dull-eyed and 
 hard-mouthed and noisily silent. 
 
 Thoresby sat on his bed for some time thinking 
 these things out, wondering speculatively, now entirely 
 without emotion, how soon after Tony's marriage the 
 jetta settled upon him and his. It was half past twelve 
 before he got up. His window was open and the 
 draught had made his one candle gutter. The bed 
 was untempting, the room full of evil spirits. But 
 the man who had been glad enough to shake down in 
 doss-houses in the slums of New York and stretch 
 himself out on the burned grass of the prairie gave 
 no thought to these things. A great silence had fallen 
 upon the house. 
 
 He was just going to take off his coat when his 
 door opened cautiously and the two girls came in with 
 their eyes dancing with mischief. 
 
 "Gee!" he said with his little affected touch of 
 Americanism. "I thought you kids were in bed ages 
 ago." 
 
 "Bed be hanged!" said Dick. "We never go to 
 bed." 
 
 "Never go to bed?" 
 
 "Not much. The best part of the day's the night. 
 We join the fairies over the cross and see things that 
 no one else dreams about." 
 
 "Oh," said Harry, "we just camp out because it's 
 better than nothing, and going to bed like a silly fool 
 
 41
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 citizen bores us up to the neck. Tip us a decent 
 cigarette, cockie." 
 
 "Meaning me?" asked Thoresby. 
 
 "Why not?" laughed Harry, slipping her arm 
 through his. "Come on now. Buck up! You look 
 as though you smoked something decent in the way 
 of Egyptians, drugged for choice." 
 
 "Well, don't smoke 'em here," said Dick. "Come 
 on the hill with us and listen to the stars. Will you, 
 lord?" 
 
 Thoresby was under the impression for the mo- 
 ment that they were pulling his leg. "Is this a gen- 
 uine invitation?" he said. "Are you really going out 
 on this hill of yours at this time of night?" 
 
 "Well," said Dick, "we're not born harpists. We 
 only twang the instrument when it pays us and then 
 we're experts. Shove on a hat. Never mind about 
 a coat and come and be taught how to spend the night. 
 See the day break and hear the winds wake up and 
 feel the dew on your hair." 
 
 "All right," said Thoresby. 
 
 "Bully for you," said Harry, and made a rush at 
 his shirt case. "Where are these much-talked-of cigar- 
 ettes of yours?" She flung out his clothes recklessly 
 and pitched his collars about and tossed a comb into 
 the fireplace. 
 
 "Go easy!" said Thoresby. "Go easy!" 
 
 She pounced upon a box of cigarettes with a chuckle 
 of delight. "Come and watch me smoke fifty of 
 these," she said, "while you wait." She smacked her 
 lips. "Oh, this is great!" 
 
 42
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Thoresby began to feel that he was back again 
 among cowboys. He picked up his cap and made a 
 move toward the door. Harry seized him around the 
 neck and kissed him on the face. "You're a bally ac- 
 quisition," she said. 
 
 "Tiptoes!" whispered Dick. "We don't want old 
 Tony to hear us. He'd put his head out of the win- 
 dow and shout like a brickee." 
 
 And so, rather like a school-boy breaking out of 
 bounds, Billy obeyed orders, followed the experts 
 softly along the passage. He gathered that their 
 father slept in the bachelor wing, and made his way 
 with them out into the night. 
 
 The moon was high and almost full. Everything 
 was outlined with silver. The stars almost made him 
 giddy, they seemed to be so near and there were so 
 many of them. There was hardly a suggestion of 
 wind and nothing moved. The two girls danced like 
 spirits in front of him. The moonbeams on Dick's 
 golden hair seemed to light the way. They made their 
 way across the gardens, tramping carelessly over beds 
 and kicking everything from the sheer love of life. 
 Then they went through a gate in the wall and up 
 a steep and narrow path glistening with pieces of 
 chalk and soft with dead leaves. At first it was bor- 
 dered with the wall on the left and a great hedge on 
 the right and almost roofed in with the heavily leaved 
 branches of trees. And then it opened out to a hill 
 which ran up alongside the beech forest, among whose 
 countless branches there was not a single whisper. 
 Thoresby was puffing for breath before he joined the 
 
 43
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 two slight figures at the top, which were silhouetted 
 against the gleaming sky. 
 
 "How much further?" he asked. 
 
 "Ten yards," said Dick. 
 
 "Half a mile," said Harry, and on they went again 
 in front of him, dancing, with their arms waving 
 above their heads like demented Russians, self-made 
 Pavlovas. Every moment Thoresby expected them to 
 be joined by a filmy army of dryads and wood nymphs. 
 He was not so young as he used to be and consequently 
 a little stiff in the joints and he was not a little glad 
 to find himself at the top of the hill. 
 
 His peculiar companions were not to be seen. 
 Thoresby grinned. "By Jove !" he thought. "They've 
 tricked me. This is one of their little jokes. They've 
 dragged me up here to lose me." 
 
 And then a voice said: "Oh, come on, cockie! 
 Come on," and he saw a hand waving. He went for- 
 ward onto the very lip of the hill, stood giddily there 
 and became aware of the fact that the two girls were 
 squatting over an unlighted fire of sticks in a chalky 
 dip, a sort of little landslide. He climbed down cau- 
 tiously, trying to keep his clothes clean, and sat on a 
 boulder of grass. 
 
 Stretched out below and running up in the distance 
 to the sky was a huge stretch of country, a patchwork 
 of meadow land and cultivated fields divided into 
 squares and oblongs by black lines of hedges and trees. 
 Here and there the moon showed him the roofs of 
 villages, under some of which sparkled little lights. 
 Far away the starry sky seemed to fall upon a fringe 
 
 44
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 of trees. He felt as though he were sitting in the 
 middle of a great ball exquisitely painted and full of 
 air. He held onto the boulder to keep himself from 
 sliding down. He wanted to laugh and quote poetry. 
 It seemed to him for a moment that his checkered 
 years had never happened. He, too, was just a sort 
 of thing, half human, half bird, that had come out 
 of a hole or a nest to chirp and chatter. 
 
 The two girls wrangled shrilly as to whether they 
 should light a fire. Their voices struck a discordant 
 note. It was settled that a fire should not be lighted and 
 another silence came. Even these two astonishing 
 creatures who had never had a chance and to whom this 
 God-beloved spot was drearily familiar were made 
 dumb by the beauty of the night. It was very warm. 
 Hot air seemed to be rising from the valley. The 
 moon was directly over their heads, and when Dick 
 flung herself full stretch it showed up even the gray- 
 ness of her eyes. 
 
 Billy Thoresby felt ridiculously emotional, like a 
 man, who, years after she is dead, hears a hymn that 
 his mother used to sing. He felt that after all his 
 rolling years, England was at his feet; the old coun- 
 try, home. He let his eyes feast slowly over the wide 
 panorama. One by one the winking lights went out 
 as he looked. They had seemed to him to be the eyes 
 of friendly fairies, resting on him kindly. He looked 
 into the wood which ran down into a hollow at his 
 left. He could only see the tops of the trees. They 
 were divided by a road running up the other side of 
 the hill. It looked like a nigger's head parted in the 
 
 45
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 center. He must have sat watching and listening for 
 an hour, utterly forgetful of the presence of the two 
 girls. It was then that Harry crawled up to him and 
 nestled closely and put her head on his shoulder. Her 
 dark eyes glinted like stars. She was very warm. 
 
 "Dick's asleep," she said under her voice. "I want 
 to speak to you." 
 
 "Oh," said Billy, and cleared his throat, "all right." 
 How old was this child? 
 
 "I knew you'd come. I've dreamed about this. I 
 swear I have, night after night." 
 
 "How weird!" said Billy. He was just a little un- 
 comfortable. The girl might have been his wife. 
 
 "No, it isn't. My dreams always come true. I'm 
 I forget the word, but there is one. Dick calls it 
 cranky, mother imaginative, and Tony ruddy non- 
 sense. You know Tony! He's an absolute British 
 working-man, except that he's a poacher and a wrong 
 'un to his boots. But don't let's talk about unpleasant 
 things. Let's talk about you." 
 
 Billy laughed a little. This was ingenuousness run 
 mad. His hand was caught up and pressed to a round, 
 firm cheek and the girl wriggled a little closer. 
 
 "You're going to do something for me," she said, 
 "the one big thing that I've longed for. That's why 
 I cried so fearfully for having been caught fighting 
 Dy you." She kissed his hand several times fiercely. 
 "You're going to take me out of this to London and 
 wherever you go." 
 
 "My good kid," said Billy, "what in the world are 
 you talkin' about?" 
 
 46
 
 
 
 'I'm telling you,' she said, 'it's got to be. I dreamed it.'"
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 She scrambled up onto her knees and faced him, 
 putting her arms around his neck. "I'm telling you," 
 she said, "it's got to be. I dreamed it. I'm going 
 away with you out of all this. You're going to give 
 me clothes to wear and scent and very thin shoes with 
 high heels and money to have my hair curled properly. 
 You are ! You are !" She bent forward suddenly and 
 kissed him on the lips and all her young body lay 
 against him. 
 
 For a moment Billy was carried away. The ap- 
 parent fatality of the thing, which seemed to her to 
 be so cut and dried, made words impossible. For a 
 moment his breath came quickly and his heart beat 
 heavily. In her present mood this girl was very soft 
 and tender and exquisitely young and Billy was a past 
 master in the art of enjoying everything that 
 came his way. Then he thought of Tony, his old 
 friend, and he held the girl away from him by main 
 force. 
 
 "Now, now," he said, "now, now. I'm old enough 
 to be your father and all that sort of thing and I've 
 come to see the view." 
 
 And then the girl burst out into a torrent of words, 
 in which he was told that she meant to go with him, 
 that he had been sent to take her away, to lift her out 
 of the immoral bog in which she was living, to give 
 her a chance. She didn't care whether he liked her. 
 He had just got to take her. She wouldn't be any 
 trouble. All she needed he could let her have easily 
 enough ; clothes and stockings and shoes and cigarettes 
 and nice smelling stuff to put in her bath, a maid to 
 
 47
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 dress her, and excitement. She repeated the last word 
 over and over again. Excitement! Excitement! 
 She'd pay for it, all right. Oh, Lord, yes, and it was 
 perfectly idiotic of him to look shocked and silly. He 
 didn't suppose, did he, that she was a simpering little 
 school miss, after living under the same roof with 
 Tony and her mother, and meeting the only people 
 who came near them, who got drunk and talked be- 
 fore her as they talked before men? 
 
 She forced his hands away. She was as strong as 
 a little lioness, and laid her face against his. "Be 
 good!" she said. "Be good! Play the game. Be 
 a sport! Mother told me that you were a champion 
 waster, so it's not a bit of good putting on frills. 
 You're just the man for me. I shall only do some- 
 thing worse and bolt with the ticket collector at the 
 station or some such bounder. I tell you I'm going 
 away from here and someone's got to take me, and 
 you're the one! I tell you, I've dreamed it." 
 
 It was a very peculiar position to be in. Here was 
 a child with the mind of a woman a sort of a woman 
 absolutely primeval in her insistence toward the 
 gratification of an overwhelming desire, with no more 
 self-respect or sense of right or wrong than a 
 bacchante. 
 
 "But, my good child," he said, "I can't take you 
 away. It's impossible. I'm broke to the wide. I 
 can't even keep myself. I haven't a bob to jingle in 
 my pocket. Besides, hang it, I'm not a baby stealer! 
 And then there's your father. Great Scott! Look 
 here now, just simmer down and talk sense. It's the 
 
 48
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 moonlight." He laughed and got up and stretched 
 himself. 
 
 It was no use. The girl flung herself at him and 
 broke into another and even more incoherent appeal 
 and demand, ordering, imploring, cajoling, tempting. 
 The man had never experienced anything like it. It 
 disturbed him. He shouted out: "Stop it!" and the 
 girl went down in a heap and burst into an amazing 
 fit of weeping. 
 
 Thoresby looked about and expected the woods to 
 empty themselves of indignant people who would ask 
 him what he had done, what cruelty he had performed. 
 He expected to hear windows open in the houses far 
 away in the valley and hear startled birds flying from 
 branch to branch. As it was, Dick woke up and 
 jumped up and marched up to him with her fists 
 clenched and asked what he had been doing to her 
 sister. She stood there like an imperious young prin- 
 cess, like a loyal boy, like the sweetest girl he had 
 ever seen, with the silver light on her oval face and 
 her golden hair sparkling. He felt that if he were 
 to tell this child exactly what her sister had said 
 some unseen hand would cut out his tongue. 
 There were oaths upon her lips but purity in 
 her eyes. 
 
 He just said nothing and shrugged his shoulders 
 and Dick went down beside her sister and wrapped 
 her in her arms. "Harry! Hal! Poor old duck! 
 What's he done? What's he said to you? I'll kill 
 him if you like. I'll jump on his face." Other things 
 she said, showing her great love for the girl with 
 
 49
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 whom she fought, and then she was thrust aside 
 forcibly. 
 
 "Oh, stow it!" said Harry, shifting her shoulders 
 and sitting on her heels for a minute, with her face 
 all shiny. "He didn't say anything. It's not his fault. 
 I suppose I can cry if I like, can't I? You haven't 
 bought the bally earth!" 
 
 She got up, turned on her heel and ran like a hare. 
 At the top of the hill she stopped and turned around 
 and broke into a sort of dance, cut blackly against 
 the sky, and a trickle of laughter came into the air, 
 and then she disappeared. 
 
 Thoresby breathed more freely. The whole thing 
 was like an exhibition of madness on the part of a 
 wood nymph who had found neat whisky in the heart 
 of the wild flowers instead of dew. It was all very 
 eerie and rather unpleasant. 
 
 "Just like Harry!" said Dick. 
 
 "Rather a weird kid, isn't she?" 
 
 "No, at least not more than most. That is, yes. 
 She is a bit. She sees things and hears things and 
 makes up things. She's really awfully clever. If 
 she had a chance, I believe she'd be a great actress. 
 If she likes, she makes me laugh and cry. Where 
 are you going?" 
 
 "Anywhere. I thought of going home to bed. I 
 feel like being ordinary and commonplace." 
 
 "Oh, no. That's piffle. Don't go. Let's stay and 
 see the sun rise. Come back to the old spot. It'll 
 be a corker this morning." 
 
 They went back together. Dick sat down like an 
 
 50
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 elf upon a toadstool hugging her knees. She undid 
 her hair and let it all spill over her shoulders. A man 
 would have had to be a brute who could have laid a 
 hand upon her. And while they waited she talked, 
 she gabbled, all about herself, her thoughts, and her 
 interpretation of life and death and what she thought 
 of God, and what she meant to do and be. She told 
 him what the woods meant and how the hills came 
 there, and all her ideas were fragrant and very sweet. 
 She said that she was going to make heaps of money 
 and take her father and mother to London. They'd 
 have to go straight there, because there'd be so many 
 people to see them if they didn't. Father was one 
 of the best really, only he'd always had such bad luck, 
 and mother was a genius. And she would build a 
 little house, all windows, just where they were sitting, 
 and escape sometimes with Harry. And, all the while 
 she babbled on, Nature was preparing her coup de 
 theatre. The silver melted and seemed to sink wetly 
 into the earth. An unseen hand rubbed the long line 
 of horizon, leaving it all hazy like charcoal under a 
 big thumb. And then at last there was a touch of 
 gold which spread like liquid, and the birds sang, a 
 blackbird nearby piping throatily. And, gradually, a 
 new vague light crept up, altering the colors, bringing 
 out hitherto unseen things, even changing the whole 
 nature of the climate. A little coldish wind touched 
 their cheeks and stirred the girl's hair. With the ap- 
 proach of day shadows ran away and sanity entered 
 the woods. It was unforgettable. 
 
 It all happened in silence so far as the two people 
 
 51
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 were concerned. They sat on, watchful until the sky 
 was split and great slashes of color came through. 
 
 Thoresby said : "Thanks. That was great." 
 
 Dick laughed. "Yes. I worked that well, didn't 
 I? Topping bit of stage management. I hope you'll 
 tip my men. A very useful lot of stage hands and 
 scene shifters, what?" 
 
 With daylight the girl had become self-conscious 
 and would-be funny. It didn't suit her. She was an 
 echo of Tony. 
 
 They got up simultaneously and moved slowly back 
 up the hill and down it, all among the crinkling leaves 
 of last year. Under the hedge at the bottom they 
 saw a girl lying on her right side with her cheek 
 pressed to her right arm, which was outstretched, and 
 her knees bent double under her. She was in an orgy 
 of sleep, with her lips slightly parted and her long 
 black lashes etched on her pale face. 
 
 "Good Lord!" said Thoresby. "It's " 
 
 "Harry!" said Dick. "Don't wake her." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "She'd only hurl something at us. She's always 
 rather quaint when she wakes up. Let's go and pinch 
 some eggs from that poultry run down there. They're 
 really rather succulent, neat, out of the shell."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 ALTHOUGH there was very little else to eat at 
 Quennor than rabbits and eggs, nothing to 
 drink except beer and water, no soap in the 
 bathroom, a torn cloth on the billiard table, and 
 an atmosphere charged with complete degeneracy, 
 Thoresby made no effort to escape. On the contrary, 
 he found himself day after day more and more inter- 
 ested, although less and less entertained. It was not 
 because Tony pulled himself together. After the first 
 evening the pleasure and excitement of seeing a new 
 and civilized face went off and Tony went his own 
 way again, shambling through his days in continual 
 drunkenness, and in continual association with the 
 wasters of the village. He frequently came home 
 merely to sleep. Often he was brought home either 
 shouting and singing, or with legs, which were like 
 pieces of rope, dangling in the wind. 
 
 There was nothing to be had of Mrs. Tony's com- 
 pany. Sometimes she was to be met flitting uneasily 
 about the passages with an ingenious lack of clothing, 
 talking to herself, and laughing loudly or wailing like 
 a soul in torture. If Tony happened to be in the hall, 
 he pitched things at her the first things that came 
 to his hand and taunted her coarsely, but always the 
 
 53
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 dead white face would come forward and one or two 
 sentences of vitriolic sarcasm would be left behind 
 which would stir Tony into impotent frenzy. Often 
 murder would be stopped by the two girls, who would 
 hold their father back by main force, cursing- him. 
 
 Thoresby saw very little of the girls themselves. 
 They always seemed to be in the throes of some 
 secret expedition. They disappeared for days together, 
 going out with sporting rifle and coming back with 
 very mixed bags. It seemed to him that they were 
 expert poachers. In any case, it was entirely owing 
 to their efforts that there was anything to eat in the 
 house. 
 
 Thoresby's one good point, apart from an uncon- 
 querable optimism and a settled good temper, was 
 that he never lied to himself. He faced things 
 squarely and owned up. Wherefore he told himself 
 that he remained at Quennor, in the mad, degenerate, 
 uneasy atmosphere of Quennor, merely for one rea- 
 son. He was fascinated by Dick. He was as much 
 in love with her as he would have been if he had been 
 a beardless boy, and he knew, also, that Harry aroused 
 all his sensualism. Then, too, he was living rent free 
 and that was something. He was like a man who 
 marked time, who found himself in a sort of creek 
 that was undisturbed by the great currents of the 
 sea. He was quietly waiting while his solicitors 
 worked. Of course, he could have obtained credit 
 in London on the strength of his title, and there were 
 a hundred dodges at his disposal by which he could 
 have provided himself with ready cash. But he was 
 
 54
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 possessed with a sufficient Gilbertianism to become 
 respectable under his new name. He went for long 
 lonely walks, discovering quaint villages, lunching fru- 
 gally at wayside inns, becoming friends with village 
 children and dogs, always hoping to find Dick some- 
 where and always avoiding Harry. He knew very 
 well that he had only to consent to take her away to 
 be her master. 
 
 The weather was gorgeous. Hot day succeeded 
 hot day. The country lay under the spell of per- 
 sistent sun and tropical skies. 
 
 He had been in this place a little over a fortnight 
 when a thing happened for which he had been waiting. 
 Tony followed him one morning and sat down on 
 the burned grass above the cross on the hill. He 
 cadged some tobacco and loaded a dilapidated pipe 
 with shaky fingers. He had never seen a man with 
 eyes so bloodshot. There was a week's growth upon 
 his chin. There were patches of white among the 
 golden stubble. 
 
 "I'm getting to love this view," said Billy. 
 
 "Curse the place!" cried Tony. 
 
 "If these woods were mine, I'd starve rather than 
 cut down a tree." 
 
 "If they were mine, there shouldn't be a ruddy tree 
 left standing." 
 
 "Aren't they yours ?" 
 
 "Mine? God, no! They're all mine, but not a 
 damn branch belongs to me. There's not a stone, nor 
 a twig, not a bit of chalk, nor a blade of grass, not 
 a haystack, not an uncut hedge on all my property 
 
 55
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 that has belonged to me for years. It's all mortgaged 
 up to the chimneys." 
 
 "Oh, I see," said Billy quietly. 
 
 The other man sneered. "Oh, you see, do you? 
 Clever little man! What a brain! Look here, Billy, 
 it comes to this. Years ago I put you on your feet. 
 In my delightful, large-handed way I dashed you a 
 check for five hundred of the best, which got you out 
 of the country. I've been able, somehow or other, 
 with the help of a firm of fishy solicitors, to pay the 
 interest to the mortgages and so prevent their fore- 
 closing, which is, of course, precisely what they want 
 to do. This year that's absolutely impossible, and if 
 on Friday next I can't produce a matter of three thou- 
 sand quid, I'm outed, lock, stock, barrel and bung." 
 
 "Gee!" said Billy. 
 
 Tony began to talk more loudly and use his hands 
 characteristically. "God alive, man!" he said, "ain't 
 you going to do something? Here you are living on 
 the fat of the land, with the run of my place, in my 
 debt for a matter of five hundred and interest for 
 twenty-three years at five per cent. and no Jew's 
 interest either and all you can say and I tell you 
 I'm on the lip of Hell is Gee! God's truth, that's 
 friendship." 
 
 "But, my dear old man, what can I do? I haven't 
 got a bean, and; even if I could raise the five hundred, 
 it 'ud only be a drop." 
 
 Tony began to blubber. "Think of me and my wife 
 and little ones, with no roof, tramping the country 
 like gypsies, singing outside pubs, Okehamptons the 
 
 56
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 lot of us, and all because I've been a generous damned 
 fool, open as the day to melting charity. That's what 
 it comes to, I tell you. On Friday next there'll be a 
 procession of dirty little Jew stinkers on my doorsteps 
 and out I shall go with a delicate wife and two beau- 
 tiful, fine gels. Are you going to stand by and see 
 that done? You, a peer of England? It would be a 
 dirty shame. I've been your best pal. For God's 
 sake do something. Pawn yourself. Use your wits. 
 They're keen enough! Tide me over. That's all I 
 ask you to do, tide me over. I'll pull myself together, 
 I swear I will. I'll chuck the drink and get a job 
 as an agent or something. I'll start writing and make 
 a fortune. I can write. I'm a very gifted feller. 
 Don't you remember those parodies in The I sis? I 
 gave you a chance. Give me a chance ?" 
 
 What could Thoresby say? He pressed his hands 
 tightly together. A dozen futile ideas came into his 
 brain. "It's impossible," he said. "I'm helpless. The 
 Governor, knowing me, settled all the ready money 
 there was on my brother. Apart from a house or 
 two and a collection of pictures, I've got nothing. 
 Under the present condition of affairs houses are a 
 drug on the market and the only way to get rid of 
 pictures is to present 'em to galleries." He put his 
 hand in his pocket and brought out a sovereign, three 
 two-shilling pieces, a sixpence and four pennies. 
 "Look, that's me. That's the full strength of my 
 banking account." 
 
 Tony reached forward and took the lot. He hadn't 
 seen so much money for a considerable time. "Well, 
 
 57
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 then, come and have a drink," he said. "But we shall 
 have to walk eight miles to get it, because all the pubs 
 have got bills against me 'round here. Or, I'll tell you 
 what. Here's four and six. Go down to the White 
 Cat in the village and buy a bottle of whisky. We'll 
 do it in up here. Don't let anybody see you've got 
 it, especially Drusilla. The missus hasn't been able 
 to get her damned morphia for four days and she's 
 rabid. She's fallen back on drinking gun oil. Go on ! 
 Do a sprint. I've got a thirst on me I wouldn't sell 
 for a fiver." 
 
 Thoresby handed back the money and shook his 
 head. 
 
 Tony took it and with a burst of rage threw it 
 away, breaking into an insane and hideous tirade, in 
 the course of which he consigned his friend to every 
 sort of hell. 
 
 At the end of it, when the man was hoarse and 
 doddering, Thoresby got up and left the place, fol- 
 lowed by oaths and curses. He looked back on the 
 turn of the hill and saw Tony Okehampton on his 
 hands and knees, hunting like a hog for the pieces 
 of silver.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE night before the fateful Friday found this 
 strange household in a riotous frame of mind. 
 Tony had fallen in with one of those under- 
 graduates who had not yet acquired the faculty of 
 saying no. This youth was bicycling from a neigh- 
 boring village to the golf course on the other side of 
 the Chilterns. He had taken a wrong turning and 
 had just jumped off to consult a home-made map 
 roughly drawn by his host when Tony, quick to 
 appreciate the position, gave him a view hallo! 
 and bore down upon him much in the same way as 
 a pirate used to fasten upon an unarmed trad- 
 ing vessel. 
 
 Tony had shaved. It was a stroke of luck. He 
 had also by some strange chance changed his suit for 
 the first time for several months. He made a fine 
 figure of a man as he came down the road with a 
 smile of immense good nature upon his face. "What's 
 the trouble, sir?" he sang out. "Can I be of any 
 assistance ?" 
 
 "It's all right, thanks only that I've got off the 
 line somehow. I'm trying to find the golf course." 
 
 "Ah!" said Tony. "A lot of men turn up here. 
 As the Squire of this place it's my privilege to put 
 
 59
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 them right." He congratulated himself on having 
 worked that in rather well. He was going to move 
 Heaven and earth to earn a drink. 
 
 The youth was impressed. What wouldn't he have 
 given the Squire of such a country? he himself be- 
 ing the son of a cotton spinner at Bury, Lanes, a rich, 
 blatant, boasting sort of man who had risen from 
 the ranks and never been able to shake off the pipe 
 clay. 
 
 "Thanks most awfully," he said. "Do you golf?" 
 
 "Rather!" said Tony. "Pretty well every day. As 
 a matter of fact, I'm driving my car over to the course 
 during the next hour. I'm going to lunch at the club, 
 cash a check and play 'round. I shall see you. Have 
 tea with me?" 
 
 "I should like to." 
 
 "Excellent! After which I'll fix up your bike at 
 the back of the car and bring you home. Peddling 
 about on these hills isn't much fun. Is that a bet?" 
 
 "Quite!" 
 
 "Then your road is that way. Look, you see that 
 bunch of roofs? Well, do you see a thin white line 
 beyond them? That's you. Take care of the hill. 
 They've just chucked some flints about. So-long, 
 then." 
 
 "So-long!" said the youth, who thought that he 
 had never struck quite so charming a man before. 
 
 "Oh, wait a second," said Tony laughing. "Rather 
 good luck meeting you. Got any money? I'm three 
 miles from the house. I'm on my way to give a poor 
 devil a fiver to get to the hospital and, like the flippety- 
 
 60
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 gibbet that I am, I've left the money in another coat. 
 It would be awfully nice of you to save my walking 
 back. I'll hand the money back to you at the club as 
 soon as I get there." 
 
 The undergraduate was really very delighted. He 
 was a Bullingdon man and so made a habit of keep- 
 ing his gold among his silver and pence. It gave him 
 a touch of pleasant carelessness. He could just make 
 up the money. 
 
 "Oh, Jove, that's very sound," said Tony. "I hope 
 I may say that this was a good accident for us both." 
 
 "Rather!" 
 
 The undergraduate won a smile that would have 
 put a tethered goat into a good temper. 
 
 And so Tony had the enormous satisfaction of get- 
 ting properly drunk before midday on whisky, port 
 wine, sherry, poisonous brandy, old ale and vermouth. 
 It was epoch-making. He was personally conducted 
 to a haystack by the boots of the inn and dropped like 
 a sack of coals. There he lay in the sun, with his 
 mouth open, until the evening, sleeping the sleep of 
 the just. A tramp found him there and quietly ran 
 over his pockets. The imaginary poor devil never got 
 to the hospital, but the tramp was the cause of there 
 being added to the English language several altogether 
 new, ripe and staggering words which would have 
 been most helpful to pilots and other craftsmen, espe- 
 cially those who coach from the towpath. Tony re- 
 covered some of his good temper, however, when he 
 found that half a sovereign had slipped through a hole 
 in his waistcoat pocket and was lying cosily in the 
 
 61
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 lining. He returned to Quennor with a couple of 
 bottles of whisky, one of which he handed with an 
 unwonted burst of generosity to his wife. It was 
 taken to her by Harry, who helped herself to a very 
 stiff peg. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to say that Bury, Lanes, did 
 not let the occasion pass without doing credit to all 
 Bullingdon men, past and present. He would have 
 had no lunch and been unable to pay his green fee 
 but for the services of the member with whom he 
 played. 
 
 And so, great merriment reigned at Quennor that 
 night that last night. Thoresby had the pleasure 
 for the second time of hearing Mrs. Tony recite. She 
 came down to the hall with an unfastened peignoir 
 over her nightdress. Her appearance was quite 
 Shakespearean. She and the two girls knew nothing 
 and cared less of the fact that the following morning 
 would find them all without a roof. 
 
 Careful to say nothing about it every man for 
 himself Thoresby had that morning received a wel- 
 come contribution from his solicitors which would 
 pay his fare to London and enable him to take a bach- 
 elor room in or about Jermyn Street. So he was all 
 right and that was something. 
 
 He went to bed at one in the morning, tied his 
 small collection of banknotes into a pocket handker- 
 chief and carefully hid it under the mattress. Dear 
 old Tony had a habit of wandering at night. 
 
 As a rule he undressed in the dark or by the light 
 of the moon, but he had that afternoon found about 
 
 62
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 an inch of candle in one of the other bachelor bed- 
 rooms. So he lit it and indulged in a half an hour's 
 quiet reading as he lay in bed, with the soft air play- 
 ing upon his face. His book was Barry Lyndon, his 
 favorite book. He had an immense admiration for 
 Thackeray's delightful creation. 
 
 He had just blown out the wick, which was gut- 
 tering in a little pool of wax, when he heard his door 
 open and saw Harry slip into the room and stand in 
 the moonlight, a white figure with an olive face. She 
 came over and sat on his bed, folded her arms and 
 looked at him with a quietly determined smile. 
 
 "I had another dream last night," she said. "I 
 dreamed that you leave here to-morrow and go to 
 London and that you take me with you. I'll meet you 
 at the station in the only decent clothes I've got. I 
 shall make you very happy." She bent down and 
 kissed him and wound her arms around his neck. 
 
 It was broad daylight before Tony picked himself 
 up from where he had been lying on one of the rugs 
 in the hall. He made his way out and around to the 
 bachelor wing and upstairs. He saw Harry dip out 
 of Thoresby's room like a swallow and disappear. He 
 stood quite still for a moment, chilled to the bone. 
 Then a desire to commit murder overwhelmed his 
 brain. Then he drew up and metaphorically shook 
 hands with himself as he crept away along the pas- 
 sage. "A very useful night's work," he said to him- 
 
 63
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 self. "Now I think I can make Master Billy pay up 
 that five hundred and a bit over. A pickled rod is a 
 damned useful thing." 
 
 He threw himself on his unmade bed and went off 
 to sleep with a smile on his face.
 
 PART II 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 MISS OKEHAMPTON, Miss Emily Sarah 
 Okehampton, had lived at the Red Lodge, 
 Sydenham, for more years than she cared 
 to remember. She herself was a little, precise, essen- 
 tially good woman with an abundance of white hair, 
 which she endeavored to make the least of, and a small 
 bird-like face. She had always dressed herself in 
 wide, rustling skirts and that was sufficient reason 
 why she should continue to do so. She wore boots 
 with low heels and patent tips, and black silk capes, 
 and bonnets which were scrupulously unbecoming. 
 She kept a small dog, which was now very old, in 
 order that she might have something to obey her com- 
 mands. She kept a companion for the same reason, 
 a spinster like herself, but not from choice. She kept, 
 also, an old housekeeper, an old coachman, an old foot- 
 man, who waited at table and cleaned the windows 
 every Friday, and two old horses which drove her out 
 every afternoon, if fine. 
 
 She had a place for everything and everything was 
 in its place. She was a strict churchwoman and re- 
 garded the Almighty as a very offensive creature who 
 
 65 "
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 kept a hell for those unfortunate people who never 
 got over their mistakes. She agreed with this and 
 believed in Gladstone. She had a day for everything. 
 The dining-room was turned out on Monday, the 
 morning-room on Tuesday, the drawing-room on 
 Wednesday, her bedroom on Thursday, Miss Smed- 
 ley's rooms on Friday window day and the hall on 
 Saturday. She rose, unless indisposed, at half-past 
 seven every morning, conducted prayers in the morn- 
 ing-room at half -past eight and breakfasted at nine 
 punctually. From ten o'clock until half-past ten she 
 read the Morning Post aloud to Miss Smedley. At 
 half-past ten she interviewed the housekeeper and cook. 
 At eleven she went forth with the dog and Miss Smed- 
 ley, if fine, returning at twelve to write letters and 
 send off newspapers and magazines to those of her 
 relatives who lived abroad. At one o'clock she went 
 to her room to prepare for luncheon, a function which 
 was held precisely at one thirty. At a quarter-past 
 two she retired to the morning-room, where she en- 
 joyed forty winks, until ten minutes to three. Miss 
 Smedley then brought her her bonnet, cape and gloves 
 and in damp weather a linsey woolsey shawl. With 
 her companion similarly garbed and carrying the dog, 
 she proceeded along the tessellated path to her car- 
 riage and drove slowly around the Crystal Palace 
 until four-fifteen. Tea was at four-thirty and was a 
 gay meal. The rector sometimes took it with her 
 and other old ladies living near. At five-thirty she 
 proceeded to the morning-room for an hour's medita- 
 tion, during which she sometimes read the "Cloud of 
 
 66
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Witnesses" or the sermons of eminent divines. This 
 was the hour in which Miss Smedley visited the post- 
 office in order that the dog might have a little airing 
 before dinner. Miss Smedley understood dogs and 
 was very patient when called upon. She was an or- 
 phan and, although her salary or remuneration was not 
 large, her home was very comfortable. She was not 
 a dog lover by nature. She preferred cats, because 
 they fended for themselves. At six-thirty Miss Emily 
 Sarah Okehampton went up to her room to dress for 
 dinner and returned at seven-thirty, precisely, wearing 
 two diamond stars fastened accurately upon her black 
 silk bodice, which was cut high and relieved with 
 Irish lace. Dinner was a pompous meal, conducted 
 with great gravity. The footman wore the family 
 livery and pumps. Even the dog was not permitted 
 to make his appearance until the dessert arrived, when 
 he invariably sat on Miss Emily Sarah Okehampton's 
 right side and received several tit-bits which had been 
 held back. At eight-thirty an adjournment was made 
 to the drawing-room, where Miss Okehampton en- 
 joyed the Church Times and other responsible organs, 
 while Miss Smedley played a symposium of national 
 airs upon the upright piano. At ten o'clock, to the 
 moment, the housekeeper entered to inform Miss Oke- 
 hampton that the hot water bottle had been placed into 
 her bed, whereupon Miss Okehampton led the way to 
 the morning-room for evening prayers. At half-past 
 ten the only lights in the house were in the bedrooms, 
 and at eleven o'clock everything was in darkness. 
 Of the Red Lodge itself it is hardly necessary to 
 
 67
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 speak. The Christian names of the worthy lady who 
 lived in it are in themselves almost a sufficient descrip- 
 tion of its furniture and appointments. Suffice it to 
 say that there were ornaments in glass cases, fire- 
 screens worked in worsted, ormolu clocks which told 
 the age of the moon, the day of the month and several 
 other things equally important, including the time. 
 The chairs had antimacassars, and the bedrooms, 
 texts. There were chandeliers with ringlets of glass 
 and much heavy furniture of highly polished mahog- 
 any. The drawing-room was scrupulously uncomfort- 
 able and, indeed, the hand of the Albert period was 
 stretched upon it all. The pictures were after Land- 
 seer and included portraits of the royal family. Only 
 one picture had anything really human about it, and 
 that was a very spirited engraving of a ship's rescue 
 by lifeboat, but this was only seen by those visitors 
 who stayed in the house. It filled them with a sense 
 of adventure and self-help. 
 
 The Red Lodge was surrounded by a garden of an 
 acre in extent. It mainly consisted of well-rolled gravel 
 paths, interrupted by squares of closely shaved lawn. 
 Here and there were patches of fir trees and rhododen- 
 dron bushes. There was a small summer house in 
 the shade of the wall. In the season red and white 
 geraniums gave a touch of color to the place and in 
 the spring the anaemic, pale, spinster-like blooms of 
 three laburnum trees added a note of sadness. Miss 
 Emily Sarah Okehampton, together with the Red 
 Lodge and its garden, were all under the shadow of 
 the Crystal Palace. That glassy monstrosity, unbe- 
 
 68
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 lievably hideous in its design, formed the keynote in 
 the character of the maiden lady and of the Red Lodge. 
 And it was to this house and to this good woman, 
 as regular in her habits as the Crystal Palace was 
 regular in its lines, that Dick was sent on the break-up 
 of Quennor Dick who had lived like a lark or a 
 squirrel Dick to whom regularity was an unknown 
 thing. 
 
 69
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 IMAGINE a sunbeam captured by a scientist and put 
 into a bottle. Imagine a forest pony between the 
 shafts of a governess cart. Think of a young 
 thrush thrust into a small wooden box with only half 
 a dozen narrow wires in front. Let imagination run 
 riot. Conceive a hundred peculiar, impossible and 
 even cruel juxtapositions and not one of them will 
 compare with the impossibility or the cruelty of giving 
 Dick into the hands of Miss Emily Sarah Okehamp- 
 ton of the Red Lodge, Sydenham Miss Okehampton, 
 Miss Smedley, the little old dog, the little thin old 
 housekeeper, the little plump old coachman, the little 
 fish-like old footman and the Red Lodge, Sydenham, 
 with its terribly correct clocks, its prayers, morning 
 and night, its irrevocable routine, its intense cleanli- 
 ness, its shining furniture and the persistent shadow 
 of that monstrous glass abortion, that triumphant 
 relic of the antimacassar period. 
 
 The break-up of Quennor left Dick stunned. The 
 whole world seemed to have fallen about her ears. 
 Not to belong to Quennor, to the hills and the woods, 
 seemed like death. To be separated from Harry was 
 like having only one arm. To be cut off from her 
 mother, who was a genius, which accounted for every- 
 
 70
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 thing! Not to be able to curse Tony and to be made 
 to laugh by his irresistible coarseness ! What had she 
 done to deserve it? It was a revolution. The enemy 
 had captured her kingdom. She was a prisoner of 
 war, and in her wild way, her perfectly natural, un- 
 controllable way, she called the Red Lodge Hell. 
 
 Miss Okehampton was Tony's first cousin, the only 
 daughter of his father's brother, Sir Almeric Oke- 
 hampton, who had sat on the Admiralty Bench until 
 he could neither see nor hear. Then he retired grace- 
 fully to make room for younger judges. A rumor 
 of Tony's misfortune reached her by a roundabout 
 course, but it was not until she saw his name in the 
 gazette as a bankrupt that she wrote a letter volun- 
 teering to undertake the care of his eldest daughter, 
 whom she had never seen. 
 
 How Tony and his wife and the two girls had lived 
 between the enforced departure from Quennor and 
 the day upon which he underwent his first examina- 
 tion in bankruptcy no one will ever know. 
 
 When Dick stepped silently out of the carriage and 
 came up the tessellated path of Red Lodge, with the 
 great, wide eyes of a wild bird, her face and neck 
 and hands were tanned like those of a gypsy and her 
 golden hair was bleached by the sun. She looked as 
 though she had slept under haystacks and washed in 
 running brooks and tramped the countryside. In all 
 probability she had. 
 
 Thoresby, neatly encamped in a bed sitting-room in 
 Jermyn Street, was told that Tony and Mrs. Tony 
 were taken pity on by a local butcher and put up for
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 some weeks, not so much from a sentiment of charity, 
 as because, being owed a few pounds, he thought it 
 good policy to keep his creditor under his eye. He 
 heard, too, that Dick and Harry had run away from 
 the little house in the High Street of King's Redes- 
 borough, and had lived like rabbits in their old woods 
 around Quennor, and that they had finally been cap- 
 tured, kicking and struggling, by Tony and a dozen 
 rustics who would never forget their exciting girl hunt. 
 
 The end of it was that Tony was offered temporary 
 hospitality by a bachelor nephew who lived in White- 
 chapel, where he was attached to the Oxford House 
 Mission; that Mrs. Tony was taken charge of by a 
 relation who was one of the leaders of the Woman's 
 Suffrage Movement and lived in a bewildered house 
 in Bloomsbury Square, in which every room was filled 
 with pamphlets, banners, hammers and other imple- 
 ments of hysteria. Harry was placed by Thoresby 
 in the house, the garlic-reeking house, of an Italian 
 woman who taught stage dancing. It was in the 
 neighborhood of Wardour Street. Dick thought it 
 was very kind of him. 
 
 Dick's first week at Red Lodge was a nightmare. 
 She took part in the routine as a convict takes part 
 in the enforced routine of prison life. Her very 
 clothes, purchased by Miss Smedley ready-made from 
 the Sydenham Bon Marche, seemed to her to be those 
 which are served out to convicts. To the morning 
 and evening prayers she shut her ears, and during 
 these times went back to the hill in spirit and put her 
 face to the sun. For a week she was monosyllabic, 
 
 72
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 like a person in a foreign country who restricted her- 
 self to yes and no, barely understanding the language 
 that went on around her. The monotony, the quietude, 
 the punctuality, the utter respectability of each day 
 dulled her senses. The drives in the afternoon, with 
 her back to the horses, and her eyes meeting those of 
 the two elderly ladies, which were filled with a con- 
 stant expression of triumphant pity, were almost un- 
 endurable. The only hours that were her own were 
 the silent hours of the night, and these were not wholly 
 hers. She had to gag herself when she wept. 
 
 She got no comfort from the suburban trees, and 
 the cheeky note of the sparrow gave her no refresh- 
 ment. To look at the glistening hard lines of the 
 Crystal Palace made her shudder. 
 
 During the second week her soul was filled with 
 the spirit of revolt. She spent each night making elab- 
 orate plans for escape. She would return to her old 
 haunts and be free again. But each day deadened her 
 again. Miss Smedley began to take her in hand. It 
 was discovered that she was lamentably ignorant of 
 even the very rudiments of knowledge. Her spelling 
 was deplorable. Of arithmetic she knew nothing. Her 
 fingers had never touched the keys of a piano, She 
 thought that Mendelssohn was an acrobat and Handel 
 a lion tamer. To Miss Smedley's tearful consterna- 
 tion, she had never read the Bible or "heard the Lord's 
 Prayer. 
 
 It was realized by the gentle, narrow souls in Red 
 Lodge that a bomb shell had fallen upon them. 
 
 It was on the first day of the third week, when Dick 
 
 73
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 had made up her mind to climb out of her window in 
 the middle of the night, that a car, a low lying tor- 
 pedo-shaped car, stopped at the house, and a young 
 man of a fresh, round, clean-shaven face and brown 
 hair full of obstreperous kinks came into the hall bring- 
 ing with him a note of humanity which sounded to 
 Dick like a breeze among her trees. 
 
 Sub-Lieutenant John Calverly Euston, second son 
 of the late Field Marshal Viscount Euston, cut the 
 rope down which she had intended to slide. 
 
 74
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 TO Dick this boy was something new something 
 altogether new and delightful. She had read 
 about such boys in the battered books which 
 had been used as missiles by her father. She had seen 
 drawings of just such a boy in the few illustrated 
 papers which were left at Quennor, but this was the 
 first time that she had met one face to face. He seemed 
 to her to be awfully clean and tidy and fit. His eyes 
 surprised her. They were so clear and the whites 
 were so white. She liked his shyness. It was funny. 
 She liked the half nervous, half cheery way he had of 
 looking at her. She thought his clothes were quite top- 
 ping. She had never been quite sure before that there 
 were really men like this. She had grown into the 
 belief that her father and his companions peopled the 
 earth. 
 
 Young Euston had come to make inquiries after 
 Miss Okehampton's health on behalf of his mother. 
 His mother and Emily Sarah had been at school to- 
 gether and had kept up a very close friendship. Jack 
 wasn't very keen on the job. He knew the house and 
 the neighborhood, and if there was one thing which 
 made him bristle like a terrier it was the sight of the 
 Crystal Palace. He had made up his mind just to 
 stay a quarter of an hour and bolt, but the oval face 
 
 75
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 at the window, with its wide, steady eyes and golden 
 hair, caused a sudden revulsion of his plans. He did 
 not leave his engine running as he intended to do. He 
 stopped it and he sat over tea in the drawing-room, 
 until Miss Okehampton rose to go to her meditation. 
 He said very little, actually, to Dick, but in describing 
 his life on-board H. M. S. Bellerophon he looked 
 nearly always at her. He made other eyes than those 
 of the caged bird dance. The two old ladies had not 
 known such pleasure for many months. The con- 
 tagion of youth and energy was irresistible. 
 
 Jack got up reluctantly and when he said good-bye 
 he did a thing which showed that his future was full 
 of promise that he might even become an Admiral. 
 He said : "By Jove, I'm most awfully sorry. Mother 
 was frightfully keen on my bringing you a new book 
 that she's gone on. I forgot it. Do you mind if I 
 bring it out to-morrow?" 
 
 "On the contrary," said Miss Emily Sarah, "it will 
 afford me very great pleasure both to receive the book 
 and yourself." She bent forward and kissed the boy 
 on his forehead. There was a time when she had 
 nursed him upon her knee. 
 
 Dick sang a little as she went to put on her hat in 
 order to join Miss Smedley in unwilling humanitarian- 
 ism. Her well-laid plans of escape were forgotten. 
 She had something to look forward to. Miss Smedley 
 was surprised and extremely flattered at the girl's out- 
 burst of chatter. She congratulated herself upon hav- 
 ing won her. She had always known that she ought 
 to have been a mother. 
 
 76
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 The next afternoon came all too slowly, but it found 
 Dick in front of her looking-glass. Instinctively she 
 took more trouble with her hair. She liked this boy. 
 He was a corker. 
 
 Oddly enough, the book was one which Miss Emily 
 Sarah had read and recommended to Lady Euston in 
 one of her letters those old-fashioned, pedantic, slant- 
 ing letters, the fourth page of which was written over 
 crossways. 
 
 Jack's laugh was heard by the old horses in the 
 stable. "Well, I'll tell you what," he said. "I've never 
 been inside the Crystal Palace and so my educa- 
 tion has been neglected. How about my taking you 
 all there?" 
 
 Such a proposition staggered Miss Okehampton. 
 She regarded the Crystal Palace as something solely 
 for the edification and enlightenment of the populace. 
 For her to go there would be an all too frivolous 
 escapade. 
 
 Underneath her somewhat unprepossessing exterior 
 Miss Smedley had a kind, if sour, heart. "Cannot 
 the two young people go together?" she ventured. "It 
 would help my pupil to see the specimens of foreign 
 trees and suchlike." The dear good woman was match- 
 making already. If she had been as young as Dick, 
 the name of that boy would have been treasured in 
 her heart. 
 
 Jack threw her a grateful glance and labeled her 
 a sportsman. Miss Emily Sarah conquered all her 
 early- Victorian objections to so harmless a proceeding 
 and, a little fluttered, consented. The afternoon was 
 
 77
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 very bright and she supposed that she really must move 
 somewhat with the times. 
 
 If only the thrushes and blackbirds and bumblebees 
 and beetles who missed Dick so badly could have seen 
 her dancing- along the prim road in step with the chort- 
 ling boy it would have done them good. It did Jack 
 good. There was a touch of color in the pale face 
 and a very different look in the gray eyes. 
 
 He didn't say a word until he got three hundred 
 yards away from Red Lodge. Then he stopped, threw 
 back his head and shot out a great laugh. 
 
 "Who'd ha' thought it?" he said. "By Gad, who'd 
 ha' thought it! I'd have bet anybody my balance at 
 Cox's against it. You don't know Miss Okehampton." 
 
 "Oh, don't I?" said Dick. 
 
 "Oh, I beg your pardon, Miss Okehampton." 
 
 "I'm Dick," she said. "What are you?" 
 
 "John, to uncles and aunts. Jack to my pals." 
 
 "Then buck up, Jack!" 
 
 This was good. These two young things felt that 
 they had known one another since the beginning of 
 time. He was a boy and she forgot it. She was a 
 girl who ought to have been a boy, and the afternoon 
 belonged to them both. He paid the shillings and 
 went into the place which he had avoided like the 
 plague. They found themselves in a long passage 
 with uncovered boards and sides plastered with adver- 
 tisements painted on tin. Just as they were beginning 
 to think that it would never end it ended and they 
 came out in the very center of this unnecessary mass of 
 glass just opposite a distant organ. Its notes came to 
 
 78
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 them hollowly and they made out a little black speck 
 writhing on a seat high up in front of it, a wilderness 
 of seats, here and there speckled with black, spread 
 out all around it. Their view was interrupted by the 
 leaves of tropical trees, which looked to them like great 
 despondent hands with many fingers and emaciated 
 arms. Tin pot pieces of statuary shivered among them 
 all dull and sad. A broken chain of people strolled 
 here and there, leaving awaking echoes as they went. 
 They passed a shabby refreshment place, outside which 
 there were an inconceivable number of lonely tables 
 iron tables with tops which once had been white. Dis- 
 consolate waitresses sat about and yawned. 
 
 They adventured further, passing stalls and kiosks, 
 each with an attendant, whose listlessness broke into 
 eagerness at the sight of a human being stalls fitted 
 up as bedrooms, or hung around with ready-made 
 clothes of atrocious cut, or for the display of a new 
 invention for sharpening knives. They saw and heard 
 mechanical piano-players as hard and as bright as the 
 glistening glass above them, gramophones, kitchen 
 utensils, sewing-machines, bassinettes, leather trunks, 
 soaps and scent bottles, sweet stuff, and heaven knows 
 what besides. And above the sadness and despondency 
 of it all there was the wailing organ, breaking now into 
 quivering sobs and now into deep rumbles of piteous 
 appeal. It was appalling; so tragic that Jack laughed 
 to keep himself company and presently took Dick's 
 arm and hurried her out into the air. 
 
 The sun did its best to glorify the utter common- 
 place of the scene before them. There were gritty 
 
 79
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 paths covered with pieces of paper and the wrappers 
 of chocolates, and match ends, long slices of turf in 
 terraces railed in squares of iron, and below these 
 terraces and beyond more gritty paths there was a very 
 town of ugly, bright, small buildings and kiosks and 
 stands and foolish little rural places behind grottoes, 
 inside which idiotic games were played, threepence en- 
 trance fee. National flags were flying in the breeze, 
 and somewhere an indifferent band was playing a tune 
 long since out of date. Away in the distance there 
 were noble trees and vistas that were almost countri- 
 fied. Half a score of elderly men and women, young 
 children and cockney boys and girls walked about in 
 an aimless sort of way and a few foreigners tried to 
 be merry. 
 
 "Ye gods!" said Jack. "Just exactly what I ex- 
 pected. I vote we sit down and try and forget it. 
 At any rate, this isn't Red Lodge." 
 
 "Not for me," said Dick. "I think this is absolutely 
 wonderful. Why, it's thirty times bigger than any 
 circus I've ever seen. I'm going to do everything." 
 
 "Right-o," said Jack. "It's up to you. I got you 
 out and that's the great thing." 
 
 Dick looked at him quickly. "How did you know ?" 
 she asked. 
 
 "Well, I'm not much older than you are and I know 
 Red Lodge. What have you done?" He asked this 
 curious question without any touch of the chaffiness 
 that had been in his voice up to now 
 
 Dick thought it out carefully. "I dunno," she said. 
 "It's just my luck, I suppose." 
 
 80
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "Are you the daughter of the man who " 
 
 Dick nodded. 
 
 "Oh, by Jove, I'm sorry. What a rotten thing to 
 say!" 
 
 "No, it wasn't," said Dick. "You see it wasn't 
 Tony's fault. It was just his luck, too. We Oke- 
 hamptons have been out of luck for a long time, ever 
 since I was born, I think. I never remember any." 
 
 "Who's Tony?" 
 
 "Father. He may have lost Quennor and gone bank- 
 rupt, but, by gum, you should see him shoot ! He can 
 drop a woodcock with a single barrel in a gale of wind 
 and he's one of the finest poachers I've ever struck 
 and I've struck a few. Pretty useful, myself. 'Round 
 Quennor it's father first, then Harry and then me." 
 
 "Who's Harry?" 
 
 "My sister. I wish you knew Harry. My goodness, 
 she's something like something. She'll spin the old 
 name up, I can tell you. She's a dancer." 
 
 "By Jove! Which theater?" 
 
 "No theater, yet. She's with a woman in Wardour 
 Street, or some such name. I always write to her at 
 Jermyn Street, although she lives at the other place. 
 She asked me to." 
 
 Jack looked at her quickly. "Why Jermyn Street?" 
 he asked involuntarily, before he could stop himself. 
 
 "I dunno oh, by Jove! Here's one of these joy 
 wheels. I've never seen a really good one. Are 
 you on?" 
 
 "Anything you like," said Jack. He had begun to 
 feel that this girl needed someone. 
 
 81
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Half a dozen Australian cadets, one or two servant 
 girls on holiday, and a fat Frenchman with three little 
 girls in socks and short Tartan skirts were putting in 
 an hilarious time, returning again and again to sit in 
 a tight clump in the center of a more and more rapidly 
 spinning circle to be shot off in an ignominious heap, 
 one by one. 
 
 Jack and Dick became part of this merry crowd 
 and wedged themselves in among great boots to wait 
 for the next spin. The fat Frenchman was the first 
 to go. He made a resounding thud against the bunker. 
 Two servant girls followed him, clasped together, giv- 
 ing superb imitations of pea hens when disturbed. 
 Jack followed with Australia on and about him. On 
 spun the board faster and faster until at last the whole 
 cargo had been discharged except Dick. With her 
 head down and her long legs stretched out in front of 
 her and hands planted firmly at her sides she sat as 
 though glued to the center of the thing, a very blur 
 of a girl. 
 
 "Vive I'Angleterre!" shouted the Frenchman. "Vive 
 le sport!" Cheers rose and Jack shouted himself 
 hoarse, laughing like a maniac. The board reached its 
 summit of speed, slowed down and came to a full 
 stop, and then Dick picked herself up and walked 
 quietly off. 
 
 "Had enough," she said. "Can't we eat something?" 
 
 They left the place and Jack's sides were sore. "I'll 
 tell you what it is," he said. "I'd like to plant all the 
 old women at the Admiralty on that thing. Make 'em 
 a bit human. What about some chocolate?" 
 
 82
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "That's the notion !" said Dick. "With almonds in 
 it. It's it's two years next October since Harry and 
 I got hold of a bit of chocolate with almonds in it. 
 There were no gold mines at Quennor." 
 
 Jack bought enough chocolate to keep a starving gar- 
 rison going for a week and they marched about for 
 the next half hour munching complacently, jawing 
 about everything under the sun. And then they heard 
 a clock strike and saw that the shadows had lengthened. 
 
 "Hullo!" said Jack. "We shall be knocked off this 
 sort of thing if we don't get back pretty quick." 
 
 "Get back!" cried Dick in dismay. "Already!" 
 
 " 'Fraid so. Law and order, you know. How about 
 my coming down again the day after to-morrow?" 
 
 "Make it to-morrow." 
 
 "Can't. Frightfully sorry. I'm playing golf at 
 Sunningdale. Competition. However, I've got three 
 weeks' more leave. I fancy I shall be a well known 
 figure in the Crystal Palace before that comes to an 
 end." 
 
 "Then," said Dick, "I sha'n't do a guy, after all." 
 
 "Do what?" 
 
 "Oh, nothing. Come on. Let's get." 
 
 She marched away and it was in silence that these 
 two went back among the tropical plants and the tin- 
 pot statues and out of hearing of the wailing organ 
 and back to Red Lodge. 
 
 When Jack turned his car homeward its pulse was 
 not quicker than his own. "Oh, my Lord!" he said. 
 "Oh, my Lord!"
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 ONE afternoon, without saying a word to Miss 
 Okehampton, Jack drove Dick into London. 
 Again and again she had asked him to take 
 her to tea somewhere where there was a band and 
 where she could see some of the people described by 
 Harry in her apparently picturesque letters. Jack 
 cursed himself for giving in, but was no longer in 
 a condition to deny Dick anything. Luckily, she had 
 never made use of her powers before, but this was 
 only because she had never realized them. Like her 
 father and Harry, Dick was a chameleon. She took 
 the color of her surroundings. In the course of one 
 day it would have been not only easy but irresistible 
 for her to have been a little nun among nuns, a hooli- 
 gan among musical comedians, a silent, wide-eyed emo- 
 tionalist among musicians and a slangy, cigarette- 
 smoking, card-playing, ankle-displaying young person 
 at any of the country houses which harbor the mem- 
 bers of semi-society. With Jack, Dick was full of 
 energy, cheeriness and clean-mindedness, perfectly 
 happy to listen to his descriptions of work and sports, 
 to sympathize with his ambitions and to dance along 
 at his side even among the smug roads of Sydenham. 
 There had been some cloying suggestion of scent in 
 
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 Harry's last letter. It got upon Dick's Tony-side. It 
 stirred in her a wild desire to sit in the very heart 
 of so-called civilization. Harry's letters were ill-spelled 
 and full of blots, but almost Balzacian in their 
 vividness. Egged on to go faster, Jack drove through 
 the boundless suburbs and over the river and so into 
 the endless stream of traffic. Dick's face was almost 
 impish as the car dodged in and out among motor 
 'buses like a torpedo boat at naval maneuvers. She 
 threw chaff at policemen, screamed with laughter when 
 they only just managed to evade a collision and sat 
 with flushed cheeks and two rows of small white teeth 
 gleaming. She became an altogether new Dick, an 
 astonishing, curious Dick to the boy. Her deviltry 
 amused him and frightened him. He was delighted 
 with her courage and a little shaken by her reckless- 
 ness. As to the rules of the road she knew nothing 
 and cared nothing. When a policeman held them up 
 she implored Jack to ride him down, to bowl the beg- 
 gar over. It seemed to her to be an utter waste of 
 time not to cut around the wrong side of safeties, and 
 when they went through the Park: "Now then!" she 
 cried. "Let her go. Man alive, what's the row? 
 You're creeping like a funeral hearse. We can fly 
 here." 
 
 Jack shook his head. "Nothing over ten allowed," 
 he said, and made it so. 
 
 Her annoyance was transient. A moment later she 
 cried aloud with joy at the sight of the charming old 
 warm buildings of St. James's Palace, and when they 
 took St. James's Street at a rush and turned at last 
 
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 into Piccadilly she heaved a sigh of deep satisfaction. 
 "This is London." she said. "This is it." 
 
 The street was alive with people and traffic. The 
 sun brought out all its color and flashed back from 
 the windows of the shops. Flags were flying on the 
 buildings and the incessant roar made Dick's blood 
 race in her veins. She had never been in Piccadilly 
 before. It was to her something of what the first 
 sight of the sea is to a street arab, and when the car 
 pulled up in front of the Circus Hotel she got out a 
 little unsteadily. The noise, the movement, the shock 
 of so many people had intoxicated her. 
 
 Just behind them a car, apparently designed as an 
 advertisement, so enormous were its dimensions, drew 
 up. The owner of it, a thin, undersized, pimply, 
 curiously clothed youth, with a constantly twitching 
 face, was sitting at the side of the chauffeur, a person 
 just as precocious, but a little cleaner. Wedged in 
 between them was a girl small enough to be thirteen, 
 with an odd little black hat jammed right over her 
 eyes. Her face was painted thickly. It looked as 
 though the colors had been laid on with a knife. She 
 was immensely amused about something and her loud 
 laugh made people on passing omnibuses turn their 
 heads. She got out, almost carried by the twitching 
 youth. They were both well-developed degenerates, 
 well known to the police, whose business it is to pre- 
 vent scandals at any cost. Like everybody else who 
 knew his London, Jack had seen these people many 
 times. Dick burst into a laugh. "Aren't they the 
 limit?" she said. "If Harry and I had come across 
 
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 those two at Quennor well, I don't quite know what 
 would have happened." 
 
 Jack touched her arm. "I say, I know a most sport- 
 ing little tea shop just along the street, I vote we " 
 
 "Thanks very much, Jacko, but this is me! I hope 
 everybody's like that. Dear Miss Smedley was telling 
 me about the Zoo. I shall be able to kill two birds 
 with one stone." 
 
 Jack gave it up. It wouldn't matter just once, he 
 thought. Dick was so altogether different. So he 
 told the man at the lift to take them to the roof gar- 
 den. Dick caught her breath and grasped his hand 
 and laid her cheek against his arm. This was another 
 of her new experiences. 
 
 "Oh, by Jove!" said Dick. "Isn't this top hole! 
 Let's capture that table by the parapet." She made 
 a rush for it and sat down. Through the stone work 
 she could see a slice of the street and the tops of peo- 
 ple's heads. It was like being in a balloon. The sun 
 touched her hair. She held up her face to it and shut 
 her eyes. "Ah!" she said. "This is something like. 
 At Sydenham the sun always seems to be dressed in 
 black silk." 
 
 Jack ordered tea and gazed at the girl in front of 
 him. He was mightily in love. To him she was an 
 exquisite wild flower, something to live for, to work 
 for, to be things for. 
 
 The band was playing precociously. The leader, a 
 little thin foreigner, played the violin with extraordi- 
 nary expertness, mostly making harmonics and twist- 
 ing the tune out of time to suit himself, and all the 
 
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 while he played to some particular person with a sort 
 of precocious sheepishness. There was an air of pre- 
 cocity about everything. Precocious boys were enter- 
 taining either very young girls in very short skirts 
 or elderly bulbous women dressed young. A little 
 breeze made the awning flap and the sound of the 
 traffic was a mere hum. 
 
 Dick was delighted and excited. This, then, was 
 life. It made Sydenham feel like something woolen 
 to the touch. "If I told Emily Sarah about this, she'd 
 have a fit," she said. "And I think dear Miss Smedley 
 would go and buy a packet of cigarettes out of pique." 
 
 Jack laughed. He knew the place backward and 
 had long since given it up, but it was infinitely jolly 
 to see Dick enjoying herself. He had something of 
 the satisfaction of a confirmed Londoner who person- 
 ally conducts a country cousin over the Academy. 
 
 "Who are they all ?" asked Dick. "Who are those 
 dolly boys and those queer little women?" 
 
 "The Lord only knows," said Jack. "The ones wear- 
 ing old Etonian colors are West End shoppees' sons. 
 The painted ones have migrated from the suburbs. 
 They generally come out like gnats at sundown." 
 
 "The word for them is poisonous," said Dick. 
 "They're frightfully amusing, aren't they? It's like 
 being at a theater. Not that I've ever been. That's 
 another thing you've got to do for me. My aunt, 
 aren't I a yokel?" 
 
 "I like you best as a yokel," said Jack. 
 
 Dick's face broke into a broad grin. "Then I don't 
 think you'll like me very long, Jacko. I'm going to do 
 
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 everything and see everything before I've done. I'm 
 going to taste every conceivable sort of wine, smoke 
 every imaginable kind of cigarette and know every 
 available type of person." There was more than a 
 suggestion of her mother's peculiar phrasing about this 
 little outburst. 
 
 Just as the tea appeared a large piece of cake hit 
 Dick's cheek. There was a scream of joy. Dick 
 turned in the direction of it and looked with unrecog- 
 nizing eyes at a girl sitting at a table to the right of 
 the band. She was wearing a very French hat which 
 hid her hair and came down just below her eyebrows. 
 Her face was dead white and her lips bright red. She 
 waved her hand wildly and showed a set of strong 
 teeth that looked like a dog's. An elderly man, almost 
 too well groomed, had his elbows on the table and 
 another man in the twenties who might have been a 
 post-impressionist artist, who dressed the part, was 
 seated opposite. 
 
 "Dashed infernal cheek!" said Jack. "I wish to 
 Heaven this was Maidenhead or somewhere. I'd duck 
 those two rotters." 
 
 "Who are they?" asked Dick. "I believe it was the 
 girl who threw the cake look out!" 
 
 It was the girl. Laughing like a maniac she snatched 
 up another piece and threw it unerringly. 
 
 Jack was on his feet. To the immense amusement 
 of everyone near he went across with clenched fists 
 and his lips pressed tightly together and a curious pale- 
 ness about his nostrils. He was just going to lay 
 hands on the younger man when the cake-throwing 
 
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 girl shouted out : "Don't be a damn fool ! That's my 
 sister." 
 
 Jack hesitated. He told himself that she was lying, 
 but he watched her get up and cross the place swiftly. 
 He followed her and heard her say : "My God, Dick ! 
 Are you blind or what?" 
 
 "Harry!" 
 
 Dick would have thrown her arms around the neck 
 of this little English Parisian but for a quick whisper. 
 "All right. Go steady. This is not the place for 
 touching domestic scenes. Who's your boy?" 
 
 "Jack," said Dick. Her eyes were wide with ad- 
 miration. Harry was going it. 
 
 "Oh, there are schools of Jacks," said Harry. She 
 turned. "Got a name?" she asked. 
 
 "Euston!" said Jack. 
 
 The girl laughed. "Why not make it Paddington 
 or King's Cross while you're about it." She took 
 Jack's chair and beckoned to her male friends. They 
 obeyed eagerly. 
 
 "As we're all little gentlemen, I suppose I'd better 
 introduce you." She proceeded to the business theat- 
 rically. "Dick, Sir Edward Morde, M. P., and Mon- 
 sieur Rene de Maingauche." 
 
 The two men bowed and eyed Dick nastily. She 
 had made a capture of them both. 
 
 "And, oh, I beg your pardon," said Harry. "This 
 is Mr. Baker Street." 
 
 90
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THAT afternoon metaphorically gave Sub-Lieu- 
 tenant John Calverly Euston a step. With 
 only a week of leave left and with every road 
 leading to Sydenham, he pinned himself down to his 
 mother's house in Eaton Square. Everything he looked 
 at the walls, pages of books, newspapers had in it 
 two wide, appealing, gray eyes, but the boy shook him- 
 self like a St. Bernard and turned his back. He knew 
 what would happen if he went to Sydenham again. 
 Dick would want London and Harry, and he was not 
 going to be a party to either. He hung about the 
 house, sent his car to be examined, knowing very well 
 that it was in perfect running order. He smoked until 
 the roof of his mouth was raw. He planted himself 
 down in front of books, having only read one in his 
 life before right through "Westward Ho!" In a 
 word, he underwent the tortures of the damned, being 
 torn two ways. He wasted one good week and filled 
 his poor mother's brain with a hundred fears. She 
 eyed him closely and surreptitiously and invented a 
 hundred answers to her one incessant question : "What 
 is the matter with Jack ?" Her loving consideration for 
 the boy caused her to say all the wrong things to him. 
 When she saw that his eyes were looking clean through 
 
 91
 
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 the morning paper she said : "Why not go out, dear, 
 for a little walk?" When he had chucked the paper 
 away and taken up his stand with his back to the 
 empty grate and was trying to drill two holes through 
 the wall which blocked out his view of Sydenham, she 
 said: "Why not go around with your car and take 
 Alice for a little turn. You used to be so fond of 
 Alice." And when the boy who adored his mother 
 snapped out some irritable thing and stood at the win- 
 dow cursing himself, she said : "Why not go along to 
 your hosier in Bond Street and set yourself up in win- 
 ter underclothing. There's no time like the present." 
 And when at last "why not" took possession of his 
 brain like the refrain of a comic song, Jack avoided 
 the mother who had been, and still was, and would 
 always remain, his best and dearest and shut himself 
 in his own room, slamming the door behind him. It 
 was then that he wished with a sort of red-hot pain 
 up and down his spine that he had never seen the oval 
 face with its golden hair and great wide eyes behind 
 the window. He told himself that it wasn't good 
 enough, any of it. It made him behave like a negro 
 to his mother. It rotted every hour of his day. It 
 made him treat himself as a suspicious character. Think 
 what he might have been doing with this last week 
 of a precious leave! Having said all these things in 
 words out of a well-selected naval dictionary, he 
 would take off his coat and waistcoat and roll up his 
 sleeves and give himself the soundest thrashing a 
 man could have, after which he would go down to 
 his mother and be frightfully cheerful and write little 
 
 92
 
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 letters for her and advise her as to what to have for 
 dinner something for a change. 
 
 Grimly, doggedly and like an honest chip of a fine 
 old block, he hung out until the morning of his last 
 day, when, giving himself no time to argue, he made 
 a bee line for the garage, took no notice of the man 
 with his, "Lord love me! But I can't find anything 
 the matter with this 'ere car!" got in and drove to 
 Sydenham. He didn't stop to think that his arrival 
 at such an hour would throw the whole Red Lodge 
 routine into unbelievable chaos. He rang the bell and 
 said : "I want to see Miss Dick, please." 
 
 It was an altogether unnecessary question. In the 
 middle of an attempt to wrestle with the intricacies of 
 the spelling of "mischievous" Dick had heard the ap- 
 proaching hum, was on her feet before the car had 
 drawn up and out of the astonished door before Miss 
 Smedley could say oh! or the butler find words for 
 Jack. 
 
 She collided with Jack. He bent like a tree before 
 the force of a gale. She pushed him out on the step 
 and shut the front door behind them. "Oh, Jack, 
 Jack!" she said. "You devil! You rotter! Where 
 have you been? Oh, my God, I've missed you! It's 
 not a week. It's a year, a lifetime. Oh, Jacko, I 
 thought you'd forgotten me. I was just going to die 
 and be buried." 
 
 The boy seized her in his arms and kissed her again 
 and again and held her close and gave thanks to God 
 and then stood as red as a beet root, looking awfully 
 uncomfortable and ashamed of himself. 
 
 93
 
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 Dick's eyebrows were raised and she burst into a 
 little laugh. "Great work, Jack !" she said. "Hot stuff, 
 old boy! Didn't think you had it in you." 
 
 Never in this world had there been a man so utterly 
 nonplussed as Jack. The yokel who saw the first rail- 
 way train was not left more wordless. He felt just 
 as though he had kissed a younger brother. Perhaps 
 it was a good thing that Dick didn't give him much 
 time for further thinking. 
 
 She caught hold of his coat. "Dash it," she said, 
 "interview Emily Sarah and get me off for the day. 
 Isn't this your last day?" 
 
 "The absolute last." 
 
 "Go on, then! Don't waste a second. Think of me 
 all the time you're away. Oh, my aunt, I shall become 
 a cabbage or an antimacassar. For my sake get me 
 off and let's go for a bust. I'm very nearly desperate. 
 Any lie will do !" 
 
 Jack rang the bell. The butler reappeared. There 
 was a little color in his cheeks and something sus- 
 piciously romantic in the corner of his eye. 
 
 "Will you please ask Miss Okehampton if she will 
 see me for a moment ?" 
 
 "Certainly, sir. Will you wait in the morning- 
 room ?" 
 
 "No, thanks. This'll do." 
 
 "Oh, quite so, sir." 
 
 The butler went upstairs to the guest's bedroom. As 
 no one ever stayed in it, and the morning-room was 
 now required for Dick's lessons, Miss Emily Sarah had 
 turned it into a little boudoir for herself, thus giving 
 
 94
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 a shiver of almost unhealthy excitement to Red Lodge. 
 
 The little old lady, as neat and precise as usual, 
 was reading the Morning Post. Her lips moved as 
 she read. The butler's timid entrance filled her with 
 a sense of alarm. Someone must be ill, or was the 
 house on fire? 
 
 "I beg pardon, madam, but Mr. Euston " 
 
 "Mr. Euston, at this hour?" 
 
 "I'm extremely sorry, madam, but Mr. Euston 
 wishes hopes desires in fact he would like to see 
 you, madam." 
 
 Lady Euston was ill, perhaps dying. Miss Oke- 
 hampton waved her hand and the butler departed. 
 Trembling slightly, the elderly lady then removed her 
 gold-rimmed glasses, tucked them carefully into their 
 box, folded the Morning Post, picked up a small piece 
 of fluff which had managed somehow to fall upon 
 the carpet and seated herself with her hands clasped 
 together. 
 
 When Jack entered the room he saw exactly what 
 had happened. He went forward, laid his hand lightly 
 on Miss Okeharapton's frail shoulder and touched her 
 forehead with his lips. 
 
 "Mother's as fit as a fiddle," he said, "but she didn't 
 send her love because she didn't know I was coming. 
 All the same, you have it, and mine, too, and every- 
 body else's. It's like this. I've come to see Dick. 
 I'm in love with Dick. I shall never get over it. This 
 is the last day of my leave. May we have it together? 
 Say yes, like a brick." 
 
 The little old lady didn't quite seem to know what 
 
 95
 
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 to say or do. The whole thing was so unconventional. 
 Of course, the boy was a sailor. She must bear that 
 in mind and the sea always had a sort of tumbling 
 effect upon people. "My dear boy," she said, "I 
 this is so I'm sure I hope but you're so young, and 
 Dick and the whole day! Alone! Oh, dear me! 
 Dear me ! What times these are ! I think I must have 
 lived too long." 
 
 Jack kissed her again. He was a born sailor. "Just 
 this once," he said. "I'm very nearly your son, you 
 know, and she's an angel. And, of course, being very 
 nearly your son, I must be a bit of an angel, too. So 
 it's quite all right. Thanks, most awfully." 
 
 He was gone. If H. M. S. Bellerophon had wit- 
 nessed this bombardment of early Victorianism, she 
 would have spanked out all her pennants of triumph 
 and glee. Nelson himself would have seen the thing 
 with his blind eye. 
 
 Dick was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, shak- 
 ing like a leaf. Dear Miss Smedley had heard Jack's 
 voice and had never moved from her seat in the moin- 
 ing-room. Cupid, in his secret place, felt a qualm of 
 conscience. Why had he overlooked this woman? 
 
 Jack slid down the banisters. It was the next best 
 thing to an aeroplane. 
 
 "Hat, quick!" he said. "Bundle up. You'll find me 
 in the car." 
 
 Dick couldn't slide up the banisters. From an en- 
 gineering point of view it was impossible. She took 
 the stairs four at a time, seized the first hat that came 
 handy, wounded her head with the pin and was down 
 
 96
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 again in a flash. And when the two elderly ladies, 
 into whose lives love had never come, heard the door 
 bang they sat very still and both their hearts seemed 
 to tumble. 
 
 "Which way?" asked Jack. 
 
 "To the trees," said Dick. 
 
 
 97
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 WHAT other trees were there for Dick than 
 those around Quennor, those under which 
 she had been born and bred, those with 
 every one of which she was on terms of the closest 
 friendship? 
 
 Jack knew his way to Beaconsfield. The rest was 
 easy up, up all the way. There were the Chilterns, 
 quiet and dignified against the sky. They went through 
 this place and that, all very sleepy and all happily 
 only just touched by the vile hand of the jerry builder, 
 barring one big place where the old and the new made 
 one great olla-podrida. 
 
 The sun was very warm. The year was not older 
 than the middle of September and was like a beau- 
 tiful middle-aged woman on one of her best days. 
 There were many of the remains of youth everywhere. 
 It was only here and there that the sere and yellow 
 peeped out, and if you didn't look too closely into 
 the neat cottage gardens, you didn't see the autumn 
 flowers. 
 
 Dick saw nothing and saw everything. She was 
 free. She was going back. It was like Heaven. She 
 said so again and again, and as she came in touch 
 again with never-to-be-forgotten corners and patches 
 
 98
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 and wild stretches she fell into a sort of ectasy. The 
 London Dick, the excitable Dick, the slangy, slap-dash 
 Dick and even the Sydenham Dick were all left be- 
 hind. She was Dick of the trees, the birds Dick; 
 Dick who had sat at Billy Thoresby's side and gravely 
 explained to him all the reasons. 
 
 She almost cried when they turned into the one 
 main street of King's Redesborough, leaving the two 
 large inns on the right and the little old market square 
 on the left. And when she saw the white cross cut 
 into the side of the hill she gave a sort of sob, and 
 after that all her babble ceased. All her graphic and 
 minute descriptions of squirrel hunts and a thousand 
 and one other adventures came to an end. She sat 
 with her hands clasped together and a smile on her 
 face, with the breeze fingering her golden hair, and 
 took the place into her soul. 
 
 Jack had called her an angel. Whenever he was 
 able a good, and therefore a cautious, driver was 
 Master Jack he glanced at her face. He had called 
 her an angel, but had not been quite certain that this 
 description fitted her. But now he was dead sure. 
 She looked like a child in church. It was wonderful. 
 He would never believe, no, never, that Dick would 
 ever be capable of anything that was not straight. 
 Her slang, her oaths, even her occasional blasphemies, 
 startling, ingenious blasphemies, were tricks caught 
 from association. They were not Dick, the real Dick. 
 To-day the very real Dick was sitting at his side. If 
 this boy had loved her before, he adored her now. 
 He couldn't do much, but he could give her one day. 
 
 99
 
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 She gripped his arm and pointed to the right. He 
 turned into a narrow road, a very twister the sort 
 of road which a bicyclist intends to take until he gets 
 to the middle, but which he then walks, panting. 
 Jack's car needed a change of gear, and even then 
 made no small beer of it. At a word from Dick he 
 stopped. He then saw Dick stand for a moment with 
 her arms stretched out before going forward with a 
 sort of cry. He called out to her, but she took no 
 notice, and went up the hill like a goat. Jack ran 
 the car on to the turf at the side of the road, shut off 
 his engine and piled all the provender which had been 
 bought en route into an imposing heap. There were 
 two tongues in glass jars, a loaf of new bread, a big 
 cake with almonds on the top, two bags of apples, any 
 number of half-penny buns, some salt in a paper bag 
 and half a dozen bottles of ginger beer. Also, there 
 were two peculiarly blunt cheap knives and two forks 
 which bore no relation to silver. Two youngsters 
 came down singing a song about "I know the way 
 I'm going," and hitting the hedge with sticks. "Hi !" 
 said Jack, "you two men! What about earning some- 
 thing?" 
 
 They were true children of Buckinghamshire. They 
 were ready to earn anything, however small. They 
 were also ready to work for it up to a point. Jack 
 loaded them up, arms and pockets, stuffed his own 
 and led the way. He could see Dick standing against 
 the sky, and plodded up. There were curious stunted 
 bushes of gorse here and there like warts upon the 
 face of a giant. The short grass was burnt almost 
 
 100
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 yellow and broke at the touch, showing chalk beneath. 
 Shadows chased each other, and bees went by, and a 
 dazzling haze was over everything. Jack unloaded 
 at the top and solemnly handed the two lads, who 
 knew their way, a shilling apiece. He saw that they 
 looked at Dick with very reminiscent eyes and took 
 great care to keep well out of the range of her arms. 
 They had a bit of news for mother. One o' they 
 devils from Quennor back agin ! How it would spread ! 
 Jack bundled them off. "Go on," he said, "mizzle!" 
 and away they went. A shilling spelled endless joys. 
 They disappeared down the hill again like rabbits, one 
 more like a rabbit than the other. The seat of his 
 trousers stood in need of attention. 
 
 "So long as we stay here," said Jack, "we shall be 
 more or less able to keep an eye on the car." 
 
 His voice broke the spell. Dick turned around and 
 grinned. "I say, Jacko," she said, "shan't we be fat! 
 And, my aunt, aren't I hungry! Car? Oh, that's 
 all right. Nobody'll run away with it. Watch me!" 
 
 She picked up a knife, cut the string on a bottle of 
 ginger beer, let the cork out expertly and put the 
 foaming stuff up to her mouth. She drank until she 
 spluttered and gasped for breath, called out : "Coming 
 over!" and pitched the bottle at Jack. Jack fin- 
 ished it. 
 
 "Topping !" said Jack. "Wish we'd brought a dozen. 
 Now the thing is how to get at this tongue. I've been 
 fiddling about with the beastly thing for minutes. 
 You got any idea?" 
 
 "What's the notion?" asked Dick. "Want it 
 101
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERMTY 
 
 opened?" She took it, set it lid downward upon the 
 grass, picked up a big stone and buzzed it at the glis- 
 tening bottom. The glass smashed to smithereens. 
 The tongue was badly dented. It was also stuck all 
 over with different sized pieces of glass. 
 
 Jack looked a little rueful. "Well, that's one way," 
 he said. 
 
 "Always believe in short cuts," said Dick. "Life's 
 brief! I say, the bread's hot." She cut herself a 
 hunk, sat down like a tailor and munched. "Supposing 
 you were a good shot," she said, "and you had a new- 
 fangled sort of gun that threw a bullet about a mile 
 and a half and you aimed the eighth of an inch to 
 the right of that tree which looks as though it had 
 a broken arm, you'd plug Quennor bang in the middle 
 of the front door, allowing for wind." 
 
 Jack was busy making the tongue eatable. "How 
 about our driving over to Quennor after lunch?" he 
 said, thinking to please her. 
 
 "No how," said Dick. "I wouldn't go there for a 
 thousand pounds." She gulped down something and 
 then laughed. "You're like an old maid with that 
 tongue. Chickens take glass as a medicine. Cut me 
 a hunk and don't worry about the fat." 
 
 They put away a most excellent lunch and then 
 found that they had a tongue, half a loaf and two 
 bottles of ginger beer in hand, as well as most of the 
 cake and several buns. The apples had disappeared. 
 
 "Quite useful," said Dick. "We shall need this 
 later. Now, then, up you get. Come and be intro- 
 duced." She started off toward the beeches. 
 
 1 02
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "Hi! Wait a second! We can't leave all these 
 things here." 
 
 "You're a regular spin," said Dick. "Now, then, 
 express surprise in your best English." She went 
 down on her knees, carefully moved several big 
 squares of turf and disclosed a very neat cache, at the 
 bottom of which was an old biscuit tin, a broken wine 
 glass and a knife with one rusty blade. "Relics," she 
 said. "Hike 'em in." The cache was loaded and cov- 
 ered up and away went these two, arm in arm. 
 
 "Trees," said Dick. "Best of all trees, bow like 
 little gentlemen to Sub-Lieutenant, the Honorable, 
 John Calverly Euston, R. N., H. M. S. Bally ruffian." 
 
 Jack held out his hand. "How de do?" he said. 
 "Any friend of Dick's is a friend of mine." 
 
 103
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THERE was an infinite amount of rough phi- 
 losophy about Dick, the sort of philosophy 
 that is served out by a beneficent Providence 
 to gypsies and artists, drunkards and dog thieves. 
 She had the power to forget for the time being every 
 thing that it was unpleasant to remember. She could 
 make herself a sort of island of an hour or a day 
 and surround it with an immeasurable stretch of sea. 
 She could cut herself off from what had happened 
 and what must happen and revel in what was hap- 
 pening, like a sandboy. This is something which can- 
 not be bought or acquired. It is born in people. It 
 is a gift. 
 
 It seemed to Jack, and he was not a man of much 
 imagination he regarded imagination with a good 
 deal of suspicion that Dick's progress up and over 
 the hills and through the woods was almost a royal 
 one. It struck him that the birds sang louder and 
 followed her from place to place all a-flutter with 
 excitement, that the long fingers of bramble in the 
 hedges caught her affectionately. Her laugh seemed 
 to stir even the silent beech trees which stood stoically 
 among dead leaves, in endless uneven lines, always un- 
 
 104
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 touched by the sun except when it swept across their 
 heads, bringing out a dozen different shades of green. 
 
 Jack had his work cut out. For hours he dodged 
 about after Dick. She was a very will-o'-the-wisp. 
 She felt it to be a solemn duty to visit all her old 
 haunts. To leave one would be to make it jealous. 
 The hours teemed with history. Every place had been 
 the scene of some exciting adventure. Every place re- 
 flected a different phase of Dick's ubiquitous career. 
 She had been the last of the Mohicans here, a famous 
 broncho-buster there. Elsewhere she had played the 
 part of a Canadian log roller, an Esquimaux, and 
 nearly everywhere she had been a very complete Eng- 
 lish poacher. 
 
 The energy, the vitality of this slight, golden-headed 
 girl was amazing. She scrambled through hedges, 
 made small work of hills, and led Jack through what 
 seemed to be a maze of trees and all the time she kept 
 up her stream of reminiscence. Her childlike glee, 
 the intense pleasure she found in the beauty of every- 
 thing put the boy more than ever under her spell. 
 She took not only the color of her surroundings, but 
 of Jack himself. He saw the best of her, all that was 
 clean and sweet and simple. It was all very good. 
 Every minute of these hours was filling the comb of 
 his memory. Ages ago she had thrown her hat away 
 and flung her hair loose. Jack rescued the hat and 
 stuck to it grimly. It was characteristic of him to 
 cast an eye forward. Presently they would have to 
 go back into civilization, where hats were essential. 
 Besides, it was a good hat. It was Dick's hat. 
 
 105
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 It gave him a certain sort of comfort to carry it 
 about. 
 
 He was the one who felt hungry first. "By gum!" 
 he said. "What wouldn't I give for a drink and a 
 hunk of cake!" 
 
 "Good Lord!" said Dick. "You are a pig. You 
 think of nothing but eating. Bags I the rest of the 
 ginger beer." 
 
 And off she went at top speed, with her hair flying 
 behind her. When Jack came up with her, hot and 
 breathless, the cache was open and Dick was coolly 
 drinking, with a most contagious laugh in both her 
 eyes. All the same, she understood the laws of part- 
 nership. If anything, she took rather less than her 
 share. They were both rather tired and were very 
 glad to lie full stretch on their backs. 
 
 "Well," said Jack thoughtfully, "to-morrow at this 
 time I shall have said : 'Come aboard, sir.' ' 
 
 Just for a second Dick shivered as though struck 
 by a cold air. Then she made a gesture as though 
 she had taken something in her hand and thrown it 
 away. "How would you like me to be a novelist," 
 she said, "a really top-notch novelist?" 
 
 "Great!" said Jack. "Could you?" 
 
 "Why not? It's only a question of making up my 
 mind to be anything I choose. Yesterday I decided 
 to be the leading portrait painter of the day, but I 
 resigned because it means being indoors such a lot. 
 A fuggy game. I'll tell you why I've decided to be 
 a novelist. I can write here." 
 
 Jack sat up and looked at her. "There's a lot of 
 
 106
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 money in it," he said. "All publishers leave enor- 
 mous fortunes. But can you write a novel straight- 
 away without being taught ?" 
 
 "It's just about the only thing you can do without 
 being taught," she said. "Any fool can write a book, 
 and it's just that that makes me give up writing at 
 once. It's too easy. I know!" she said with a burst 
 of inspiration. "I shall compose. I shall write music. 
 That's my line. This time next year look out for my 
 face walking about in hundreds in the streets, and look 
 in at the biggest building there is and spot me mounted 
 up in front of a music stand wagging a stick. That 
 'ud be a bit of all right, wouldn't it, Jack ? A hundred 
 a day or something, eh? You could touch me down 
 for a bit from time to time, old boy. Rather nice for 
 you to be able to say to your friends : 'Know Oke- 
 hamptonwesky, the waltz king? Rather! Close pal 
 of mine ! ' Wouldn't it be great to have a hundred or 
 so spot musicians sitting at your feet and bring out 
 of them waves of music and then hear a roar of ap- 
 plause? Yes, that's my job, composing. It's settled." 
 
 "Good luck!" said Jack. She said that it was set- 
 tled and so there it was. 
 
 "And as for you, Jack. You've got to be the young- 
 est Admiral in the British Navy. Otherwise nitter!" 
 
 "That's a bet !" said Jack. "We'll both rise to great 
 heights." 
 
 "Doesn't matter about your making money, you 
 see," she said, "all you've got to do is to make a name. 
 I must make money. There are father and mother, 
 you see. Now Tony's a man who simply must be a 
 
 107
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Squire, and he must be able to write checks as ordi- 
 nary people strike matches. It's in his blood. That's 
 where I come in. I shall buy back Quennor, spend 
 about a quarter of a million on the place, put it in 
 thorough working order and build on a wing for 
 myself with a music room about as big as the Albert 
 Hall, or a little bigger, perhaps. Must have elbow 
 room. I shall have to run a gang of tame musicians, 
 and that means building a little town of houses for 
 them, somewhere, where it won't spoil the scenery. 
 Pretty good notion, don't you think so?" 
 
 "Pure, Dick," said Jack. 
 
 And all the while the sun was sinking and shadows 
 were growing longer and birds were singing their 
 evening songs, and far away in Sydenham two elderly 
 ladies, one elderly butler and several elderly servants, 
 to say nothing of an old dog, were listening anxiously 
 for the sound of a motor car. 
 
 And still these two young people sat on the hill 
 above the world turning dreams into solid facts, ut- 
 terly indifferent to the passing of time. 
 
 It was a very commonplace thing that brought Jack 
 down from the clouds. He heard the toot of a motor 
 horn away in the distance and sprang to his feet. 
 "Great Caesar's ghost !" he said. "What are we play- 
 ing at?" 
 
 Dick stretched herself and heaved a contented sigh. 
 "Living," she replied. 
 
 The glory of the setting sun had left the sky. Red 
 and gold had melted away. The broken line of hori- 
 zon had become slightly smudged. A mist lay over 
 
 108
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 the valley like thin smoke. A light or two winked 
 in the village far below them. 
 
 Hard facts stared Jack in the face. His mother, 
 the two old ladies Great Scott! was this the way 
 he played the game? 
 
 Dick was singing softly. She looked exquisitely 
 comfortable with her hands under her golden hair. 
 
 "Your hat," said Jack. "Be quick! We must go. 
 Never mind about the grub." 
 
 "Go? Go where?" 
 
 "Back, of course." Jack held out his hand. "For 
 the Lord's sake, get up!" 
 
 Dick took the hand and got up and stared about 
 her and looked at Jack's serious face. 
 
 "Go? Where?" she repeated. 
 
 "Those old ladies it's not playing the game." 
 
 "Then it's all over." She rolled up her hair and 
 put on her hat and without a word followed Jack down 
 the hill to the road. She heard him give a shout. 
 
 "My God! Where's the car?" 
 
 109
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THERE was no sign of it. A little patch of oil 
 had almost dried up. It must have been gone 
 for hours. 
 
 "Pinched," said Dick. 
 
 Jack gazed at her blankly. "What am I to do with 
 you?" 
 
 A wave of sympathy for the two elderly ladies ran 
 over Dick. For the first time in her life a sense of 
 law and order made itself felt. It had been fright- 
 fully nice of them to let her go, without a word, with- 
 out a warning, without even a long list of don'ts. It 
 was nearly dark. Already Emily Sarah and dear Miss 
 Smedley would be holding their third or fourth con- 
 sultation. Their nerves would be wrung. The whole 
 of Red Lodge would be in a state of chaos. She saw 
 the whole thing in a flash. Almost she could hear the 
 very things they said '"Dear me! Dear me! Alone 
 with that boy, and cars so uncertain, so dangerous! 
 Anything may have happened! Oh, pray God they 
 are safe!" 
 
 "Well," said Dick, "one thing's pretty certain. 
 Some blighter's nicked the car. We can't get back 
 by gazing at where it stood." 
 
 Jack's brain was reeling. What a cursed fool he 
 no
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 had been not to watch the time, not to keep an eye 
 on the car ! He was responsible for this girl. "What's 
 to be done?" he asked. 
 
 "My good Jack, the choice is limited. Either we 
 go by train or walk." 
 
 With another exclamation Jack stuck his hands in 
 his pockets and started a more and more worried 
 search. He had a latchkey, a penknife, a box of 
 matches, a beautifully ripe pipe, a battered tobacco 
 pouch, a glove button, a 'bus ticket, but not one blessed 
 cent. 
 
 Dick stamped with impatience. She wanted to get 
 back as much as she had wanted to get away. The 
 two elderly ladies had been very kind. She was dog- 
 like in her gratitude for kindness. "Oh, Jack, what 
 is the matter? What in the world are you playing at?" 
 
 "Not a bean !" said Jack. "And not a blessed thing 
 that I can sell. I'm most frightfully sorry, but we 
 must walk. How far is it?" 
 
 And then all the devil in Dick took hold of her. 
 This was the most epoch-making adventure of her 
 life. One more night on the top of the hill! Let 
 elderly ladies fume and fret! Let Jack lose his motor 
 and his hair! Let every one of the inhabitants of 
 the earth go dotty! What did it matter? The thing 
 couldn't be helped. Let it be enjoyed. 
 
 "How far?" she cried. "A thousand miles, and if 
 you want to walk there, you may." 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "What I say, Jacko. Walk there! Go on, walk 
 there! And when you ring the bell of Red Lodge 
 
 in
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 somewhere about eleven o'clock to-morrow morning, 
 looking like a tramp, give 'em all my dear love." 
 
 "What do you mean?" repeated Jack. 
 
 "Don't I make myself quite clear? I am staying 
 here. Alone. I shall wait here with the remains of 
 the cake and a bun or two until you show up with 
 another car with a letter of commiseration from 
 Emily Sarah." She could hardly contain her excite- 
 ment. She took off her hat and sent it skimming into 
 the air as though it were a plate. She threw up her 
 arms in the manner of an Indian native and whirled 
 around and around. 
 
 "You're mad!" said Jack. 
 
 "Qui-ri, Jacko. Mad as a blooming March hare, 
 old boy. Oh, it's my delight on a shiny night in the 
 saison of the yar " 
 
 Jack seized her by the shoulders roughly and tried 
 to hold her. She was like an eel, but he held her 
 tight by main force. "Do you mean to tell me," he 
 said, "that you're really going to stay here alone, or 
 are you bluffing?" 
 
 An odd look of Tony came into her face Tony 
 when diplomatizing himself out of a tight corner, 
 Tony at his most specious. "My dear old boy," she 
 said, "what else is there to do ? Car gone. No money 
 for a train. Nothing on you worth twopence half- 
 penny and walking a mere farce. Don't you see that 
 if we were to tramp a consistent four miles an hour 
 we shouldn't even then get to Sydenham until break- 
 fast had been cleared away and washed up. It's 
 why, dash it, it's sixty miles." 
 
 112
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "No, it isn't. It's barely forty." 
 
 "Well, what's fours into forty you see? It's the 
 hill, old man. It's the hill. There's no way out of 
 it hurray!" 
 
 Jack was in a fever. Once again he went over 
 every one of his pockets. "I'll sell my clothes," he 
 said, "to get the fare." 
 
 Dick's gravity was portentous. "I don't think," 
 she said, "that they take passengers in that condition." 
 
 "Then I'll borrow money. I'll raise money. I 
 can write a check on paper and get 'em to cash it at 
 the pub. Damn it, my name's good enough. And, 
 after all, it's only a matter of ten bob." 
 
 Dick held her breath. Somehow or other she must 
 queer that idea. It was too good. She burst out 
 laughing. "Try it on!" she said. "Just you try it 
 on! Walk into any pub in King's Redesborough or 
 any tradesman with me anywhere near well, try 
 it!" 
 
 "I don't care," said Jack. "I will try it I'll leave 
 you half a mile away. I'm going back to London to- 
 night, whatever happens." 
 
 Dick held out her hand. "A thousand thanks for 
 a very pleasant day," she said. "So long, dear Mr. 
 Euston. I hope you'll have a nice journey." 
 
 A laugh hung on the air. Dick had gone. 
 
 Jack stood still, but only for a moment, half a mo- 
 ment. If he didn't follow immediately, she might give 
 him the slip. She was in the mood to do anything. 
 He went up the hill after her like a man possessed of 
 devils. He was angry and glad. He adored her and
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 would have her to himself for a few more hours. He 
 caught her up at the top of the hill. 
 
 She turned fiercely, breathing hard. Her fists were 
 clenched and her eyes flashing. "What are you going 
 to do?" 
 
 "Stay with you." 
 
 "You darling! You angel! You Admiral! Shall 
 we eat now or save it?" 
 
 "I dunno," said Jack, "anything you like." He sat 
 down and loaded a pipe, lit it and puffed. He looked 
 up at her with a smile. It couldn't be worse. It also 
 couldn't be better. His leave was up to-morrow. He 
 wouldn't see Dick again for the Lord knows how long. 
 She looked more beautiful in this light than in any 
 other. 
 
 "Hullo," said Dick. "How is it you haven't smoked 
 before to-day?" 
 
 "Forgot." 
 
 "Never occurred to me, either. If you haven't got 
 a cigarette, we're not on speaking terms." 
 
 "Then we're not," said Jack. "All I can give you 
 is a box of matches. You don't chew, do you, by 
 any chance?" 
 
 Dick twirled an imaginary moustache. "By 
 Heaven," she said. "Wit! Bravo, Major!" 
 
 Jack howled with laughter. It was extraordinary 
 how intensely happy he felt. He blessed the man who 
 had stolen his car, and no longer had a thought either 
 for his mother or the two elderly ladies. He was more 
 than ever under the spell of this girl 
 
 The night was exquisite. There was not a touch 
 114
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 of autumn in the air. They ate the cake and the re- 
 mainder of the buns and drained every one of the 
 ginger beer bottles for the last drops, and jawed hard 
 while the moon rose and the stars came out and all 
 the little eyes of the village blinked at them from 
 below. The mist had lifted and everything lay cut 
 clearly at their feet. With the night Dick's mood 
 changed again. She was the Dick of the moon, the 
 inarticulate Dick, with eyes full of poetry and a sort 
 of unconscious reverence on her lips, fumblingly. And 
 presently, tired like a child after a long day, she went 
 closer to the boy, curled herself up at his side and laid 
 her head on his shoulder. She slept like a kitten. 
 
 And Jack remained awake, sleep impossible, and 
 held her unconscious hand to his lips adoringly. Poor 
 devil, he could have died of happiness.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 IN this way the rising sun found these two. In 
 those long but all too short hours many thoughts 
 came to Jack and one returned to him the one 
 which passed through his brain on the way to the 
 Crystal Palace. "She needs someone." He revised 
 this. It was very natural. It now ran: "She needs 
 me." 
 
 Far from having a disturbing effect on this boy, 
 the night had the effect of making him doggedly de- 
 termined, come what might, to make Dick his wife. 
 He had seen, he thought, all her sides. Some of them 
 startled, some appalled, but one, the big one, filled him 
 with an immense admiration. She was worth win- 
 ning, worth working for and waiting for. There 
 was some magic about her that would keep her a child. 
 The day had come when he would be unable any 
 longer to break the monotony and the dull goodness 
 and the irksome regularity of her life. He gave no 
 thought to how long she would stand it. He just 
 knew that whatever she did, whatever wild, uncon- 
 trollable, savage, unheard-of things that she rushed 
 into on the spur of the moment, she would come out 
 of unsinged. He knew it. He was certain of it. 
 
 116
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 And there he sat, cramped and uncomfortable, in 
 something of the sort of way that a mother sits at 
 the bedside of a restless child who has at last fallen 
 asleep, holding a hand which will not be withdrawn. 
 
 There was something very knightly about this boy, 
 this very ordinary, crop-headed boy. He had fitted 
 himself to ride beside the gaunt horse of Don Quixote, 
 that most perfect knight. He had played the 
 game. 
 
 He heard the birds wake and the first bee go by 
 and sheep go bleating along a road. Like ants, men 
 and boys moved about beneath him, and then a work- 
 man's train, strangely without sound, left a ribbon of 
 smoke behind it, miles away. 
 
 He never moved. The sun was almost warm when 
 Dick stirred, said something he didn't catch, threw out 
 an arm, and opened her eyes. "In the middle of the 
 ring made by the fairies a weird-looking little toad 
 sat What?" 
 
 "I didn't say anything." 
 
 "Hullo, Jack! What on earth are you doing here? 
 What'll Emily Sarah say if she catches you here? 
 They haven't called me this morning." 
 
 She sat up suddenly and looked around and rubbed 
 her eyes and shivered a little. "Oh, my hat!" she 
 said. "Here's a go!" 
 
 Jack got up and stretched himself and brushed him- 
 self down. He was rightfully stiff. A spider which 
 had been ruminating on his sleeve flung himself into 
 mid-air and swung on a thin thread of silver. "Dick," 
 he said, "we now go down. It'll be a long time be- 
 
 117
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 fore I sit on top of the hill with you again. Somehow 
 or other I'm going to take you back to those old ladies. 
 I hope to goodness they'll believe me." 
 
 "No one could do anything but believe you," said 
 Dick. "You're like that." 
 
 The boy felt that she had tied a handkerchief 
 around his left arm. 
 
 And then Dick turned to him with an awe-stricken 
 face. "What are they doing in Red Lodge?" she 
 said. 
 
 "Wait a second," said Jack. "Turn 'round, will 
 you?" He bent down and brushed the grass and 
 chalk off her dress with his cap. "Now then, full 
 steam ahead." 
 
 They went down the hill. On the road they 
 walked quickly, elbow to elbow. 
 
 "Walking?" asked Dick laconically. 
 
 "Station first. I'm all out to move the heart of 
 the man in the ticket office. I forgot all about my 
 links last night. I'll give him those for two singles. 
 He can do what he likes with the change. Which 
 road to the station?" 
 
 "No road," said Dick, "when there's a short cut 
 across the fields." She took the stile like a boy. They 
 plodded on silently at four miles an hour. They only 
 passed one old man, who sang out good-morning. 
 The ground on each side of them was all dry and in 
 lumps. The hedges were full of blackberries, half 
 ripe. They turned into the main road, leaving a still 
 sleepy village behind them. Three hundred yards 
 short of the station there were four cottages, very 
 
 118
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 neat, with little patches of garden. On the wall of 
 one there was a notice : 
 
 COUNTY POLICE 
 
 "An off chance," said Jack. 
 
 He went up the path and knocked at the door. No 
 one came. He knocked again and a bullet head was 
 thrust out of a window. "What's your business?" 
 
 "Sorry to bother you," said Jack. "Just want to 
 report that my car was stolen yesterday afternoon." 
 
 "Eh? Oh! Well, wait a minute, will you?" 
 
 Jack grinned. "A little matter of red tape," he 
 said. Dick was looking back. Her trees made a line 
 of fretwork against the sky. They seemed to be very 
 far off. 
 
 Five minutes later the door was opened and a well 
 set-up policeman in his shirt sleeves came out. "Oh," 
 he said, "your car was stolen, was it? Wot do you 
 generally do with a car when you're tired of it?" 
 
 "I don't follow you," said Jack. 
 
 "Seems a bit of an error not to follow the car, 
 don't it?" 
 
 Jack became considerably more lively. "Hand it 
 over, old man," he said. "God bless you." 
 
 " 'Ope 'e will, I'm sure. But I dunno about 'andin' 
 it over. There was a car " 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 "Yus, but wait a bit. There was a car drew in 
 'ere yesterday. No owner visible." 
 
 "And the reward is? Oh, buck up, man, buck 
 up!" 
 
 119
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "Yus, we can all be in a bit of a 'urry, can't we, 
 when it soots us ? A gent well, I suppose 'e's a gent, 
 at any rate, 'e 'as a knack of gettin' as drunk as a 
 lord, dirty little toad went out yesterday afternoon to 
 look at the beauties of nature or something, found a 
 car 'angin' about, got inside it and went off to sleep. 
 Bit o' cheek, but that's 'im to a turn. Woke up some 
 time later, feeling better, made cooee noises to attract 
 attention, failed mind you, this is 'is story took a 
 fancy for driving the machine, lucky for 'im and the 
 car 'e can drive " 
 
 "Oh, goon!" 
 
 "Am goin' on. Don't quite know why I'm a-tellin' 
 of yer. And as I was say in', 'e tooled about the coun- 
 try, then I'm blessed if 'e didn't bring the car 'ere 
 and land us with the thing! And a nice white ele- 
 phant it's bin, I don't think." 
 
 "If he's barked her shin," said Jack, "I'll have an 
 action for damages against him. Silly ass." 
 
 "Oh!" said the policeman cautiously, "it's your car, 
 is it?" 
 
 "Great Scott, my dear chap, you don't think I'm 
 talking to you for nothing, do you?" 
 
 "That's as may be. We've got the car. It was 
 brought 'ere as a strayed, and, as far as I can see, 
 it'll 'ave to stay 'ere." 
 
 "But it's mine! I tell you, it's mine." 
 
 "But I might say it was mine. What then?" 
 
 "Well, damn it, you'd be a liar, that's all." 
 
 " 'Ere, 'old on. 'Old on. It's a bit early for words 
 like these 'ere." He scratched his head. Jack was 
 
 1 20
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 obviously a gentleman. "Dagged if I know what I'm 
 to do," he said. 
 
 Jack kept his temper. He, too, was a victim of the 
 endless line of red tape which twines around the legs 
 of all Service men. "May I suggest, constable," he 
 said blandly, "that you require me to identify the 
 car?" 
 
 "Just what I was thinkin'!" 
 
 "I saw that," said Jack, "in your eye. You've made 
 a note of the number of the car, I take it?" 
 
 "I 'ave." 
 
 "Well, suppose I give you the number, and, what's 
 more, suppose I produce my license with my name on 
 it? The number being right, the name remains." 
 
 "Ah, that's what I was thinking." 
 
 "You and I think wonderfully alike, old boy. Well, 
 there's a big pocket behind the driver's seat. In that 
 there are several letters." 
 
 "I've seen 'em." 
 
 "You're bound to be an inspector. It's a dead cer- 
 tainty. Number H. O. 4128. Name on license hereby 
 produced J. C. Euston. How's that?" 
 
 The policeman read aloud. "Sub-Lieutenant Hon- 
 orable John Calverly Euston. 'Har 'hem mighty 
 clever!" he said. "Shouldn't be a bit surprised if I 
 took you in charge." 
 
 Jack almost sat down in a heap. "If you do," he 
 said, "I'll put the Admiralty on to you and you'll wish 
 you were dead. Oh, my dear chap, man to man, 
 now! Man to man! Forget you're a policeman and 
 I'll forget I'm a sub-lieutenant. I give you my word 
 
 121
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 of honor that that car's mine, that I'm Euston, and 
 that I'm in the devil's own fix. Is there anything 
 more to be said?" 
 
 "No, but there's something more to be done. Just 
 step inside." 
 
 Jack stepped inside. A good deal of fumbling went 
 on and then a formal yellow piece of paper was pro- 
 duced crammed with printed matter. 
 
 "Sign 'ere," said the constable. "Full name and ad- 
 dress, please." 
 
 Jack obeyed. 
 
 "And now follow me." With a certain amount of 
 reluctance the man led the way to a large shed, sev- 
 eral houses up. It belonged to a coal merchant. The 
 padlock was undone and the doors thrown open. 
 There stood the car, apparently sound in wind and 
 limb. 
 
 " 'Ire of shed or garage well, dagged if I know. 
 Owner ain't up." 
 
 "Well, how much do you think it'll be?" asked 
 Jack. 
 
 "Well, may be 'alf a crown. May be five bob. 
 Can't say." 
 
 Jack removed his links. They were gold ones. He 
 handed them to the policeman. 
 
 "Bit irregular ain't it?" 
 
 "I paid a fiver for them," said Jack. "If the man 
 charges five shillings, there's four pounds fifteen to 
 divide, or not, as the case may be. Look out." 
 
 He cranked up, jumped in and backed her out in*o 
 the road, performed a beautiful piece of finesse, drew 
 
 122
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 up opposite to Dick and said: "Now then! Syden- 
 ham!" 
 
 Dick climbed up. Jack turned the car, and as he 
 passed the policeman, who stood outside the shed, 
 looking intently at the links, which lay in the palm 
 of his big leathery hand, he called out : "Good-morning, 
 Inspector!" and away he went, heading for the 
 Crystal Palace. 
 
 123
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THERE had never been so imperative a ring in 
 Red Lodge before. A finger was pressed on 
 the button until the elderly butler, who had 
 not been to bed, opened the door. The sound of it 
 reverberated, not only through the house, but through 
 the hearts of every one of its inmates. The two 
 elderly ladies, tired out after their vigil, expecting 
 every moment news of an accident, the little old house- 
 keeper, who had been sitting with her black silk apron 
 over her head, clutched the arm of the footman, who, 
 secretly something of a poet, was in the middle of 
 writing a poem modeled on Whitman in a penny copy- 
 book, describing the terrors of that unforgettable 
 night 
 
 The butler looked from one grave young face to 
 the other and then along the tessellated path through 
 the open gate at the car. "Oh, thank God!" he said, 
 and tears sprang into his eyes. 
 
 Jack wrung his hand warmly. Dick threw him a wan 
 smile and crept upstairs to her own room, where she 
 sat on the foot of her bed and stared hard at the wall. 
 Everything had to be left to Jack. He had said so. 
 
 "Now then!" said the boy. "Take me up to Miss 
 Okehampton." 
 
 "Will you take something first, sir?" 
 124
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "After, perhaps," said Jack, a little dryly. "It 
 rather depends." 
 
 The butler led the way upstairs and tapped at the 
 door of the boudoir. For a moment there was no 
 reply. Both ladies dreaded to see the door open. It 
 was Miss Okehampton who eventually said: "Come 
 in." 
 
 "The Captain," said the butler. 
 
 The sight of those two pale faces and of the frail, 
 trembling form of the dear little old-fashioned lady 
 who made a landmark in his life stopped Jack's flow 
 of cheerful commonplaces. Instead, he went forward 
 perfectly naturally and said: "She's safe. Your 
 prayers are heard." 
 
 Miss Okehampton only moved her lips. Miss Smed- 
 ley, however, burst into tears. 
 
 "I want to speak to you. May I have ten minutes ?" 
 
 Miss Okehampton had a great sense of loyalty. It 
 was, of course, true that Miss Smedley, although a 
 gentlewoman, was a dependant. It was equally true 
 that certain matters, family matters, were not dis- 
 cussed in her hearing. But the sympathy, the extraor- 
 dinary optimism, the tenderness, the unselfishness of 
 Miss Smedley throughout that night made her no 
 longer a dependant but a friend, and when Miss Smed- 
 ley turned toward the door she was asked to stay. 
 "Be seated, dear," said Miss Okehampton. "You 
 have as much right to this room as I have." 
 
 It is very good, very helpful, very necessary to be 
 rewarded. Dear Miss Smedley felt that even her life 
 had compensations. 
 
 12=;
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Jack stood in front of the two ladies. 
 
 "Dick is safe," he repeated. "In any case, you had 
 to be worried yesterday. I couldn't have brought her 
 back until long after dark. I told you in the morn- 
 ing that I love Dick. I lost my head when I found 
 I had her all to myself. So would you. We had 
 well, I don't quite know how to describe the day. I'm 
 not a literary gent. But when finally I woke up and 
 thought of you the car had gone. Stolen, well as it 
 happened borrowed. I had no money. I decided 
 not to walk, although Dick wanted to, because she 
 was pretty tired, and we shouldn't have arrived until 
 later than it is now. We went back to the top of the 
 hill, Dick's particular hill, finished the cake and talked, 
 and then Dick went to sleep with her head on my 
 shoulder and I settled things for the future, I mean 
 my future, which, of course, includes hers. That's 
 all. I won't worry you with the details of how I found 
 the car. I'll only say that I'm most frightfully sorry 
 for giving you this fright. And please don't say any- 
 thing to Dick." 
 
 When he finished Jack went down on his knees at 
 Miss Okehampton's side and put his face against her 
 arm, the thin arm clad in black silk, and his shoulders 
 shook rather horribly. 
 
 It was then that Miss Smedley got up softly and 
 tiptoed away. There was a little smile on her tear- 
 stained face. Cupid had never been so near her before. 
 
 Jack got up all too soon, looking mightily ashamed. 
 "Oh, damn !" he said. "I beg your pardon. But she's 
 she's oh, I dunno. I think I'd better cut off to 
 
 126
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 mother. I'm off to-day, you know. Be good to Dick." 
 And when Miss Okehampton was alone she sat per- 
 fectly still. She was looking back along a never-to- 
 be-retraveled road at the face of a man who had never 
 spoken. 
 
 127
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE routine of Red Lodge was sadly broken. 
 The two ladies went to bed some hours later 
 than they always got up. Dick's breakfast 
 was taken to her bedroom with Miss Okehampton's 
 love. The butler dozed over his Daily Mail. The 
 housekeeper fell asleep in the linen room, in which 
 there was a faint aroma of lavender. The maids went 
 yawning about their work and the footman retired to 
 the seclusion of his little bedroom and finished his 
 poem. It ran to two hundred and eighty-seven lines. 
 Even in the stables the effects of anxiety were still 
 felt. The coachman neglected to polish the silver on 
 the harness, placed a wooden chair outside the stable 
 door and fell into a profound slumber, with a quid 
 of tobacco making a strange bulge in his old cheek. 
 
 Dick, in her bedroom, no longer troubled as to the 
 attitude of Miss Okehampton, left her breakfast un- 
 touched. Jack had gone. Jack and all that he meant. 
 Jack, who alone possessed the key of the great gates 
 that shut her off from life. Jack, who hadn't even 
 troubled to say good-bye and who never looked up 
 before he drove away. 
 
 She couldn't help it. She had one great fit of silent 
 weeping. It was the reaction. It was due to a sense 
 
 128
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 of loneliness, almost of homesickness. Jack had gone. 
 She had grown to look upon him as a brother. Good 
 old Jack, what a corker he was ! She thought of him 
 in no other way than as good old Jack. 
 
 But young things easily recover, especially when 
 they're hungry. She ate every bit of the cold break- 
 fast and drank every drop of the cold coffee. And 
 then she began to wish that even Miss Smedley would 
 come up and take her to the postoffice in order to 
 permit the elderly dog to enjoy a little gentle exercise. 
 
 But no one came near her until a maid appeared 
 with a late but particularly nice luncheon, with Miss 
 Okehampton's "apologies and hopes that Miss Dick 
 had slept well." 
 
 Dick checked a rush of slangy irritability and re- 
 stricted herself to the following message: "Please 
 tell Miss Okehampton that I am now able to sit up 
 and take nourishment, and for God's sake bring me 
 a yellowback or I shall have a fit." 
 
 The maid was a sentimentalist. Jack was her bow 
 idil. She had watched what she took to be the course 
 of a love episode with a sympathetic flutter. Even 
 she, though nicely brought up, would have been very 
 near similar strong words under the circumstances. 
 
 And then sleep laid its consoling hand upon Dick's 
 restless and mutinous brain. She flung herself on her 
 bed and returned in spirit to the top of the hill, to 
 listen and watch and run wild. 
 
 The maid who brought tea left it and crept away. 
 She was not the same maid. She had heard one or 
 two epoch-making outbursts from Dick and they had 
 
 129
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 staggered her. But she told herself as she went down- 
 stairs that she had never seen anyone look so like an 
 angel outside an illustrated Christmas number. 
 
 And then dinner came with another charming little 
 message and Dick fell upon it. It broke the appalling 
 monotony. It relieved the tension of this ultra-super- 
 fine household. 
 
 When the sun had set and the windows of the 
 house behind the chestnut trees opposite no longer 
 looked as though the rooms were on fire, Dick sub- 
 mitted to the nightly torture of having her hair brushed 
 and of being undressed. She always wanted to scream 
 when she saw her clothes neatly folded, the clothes 
 she would dearly like to have pitched all over the 
 room. She got up when left alone and deliberately 
 swept her ship-shape dressing-table into chaos and 
 chucked her things here and there. Then she sat at 
 the open window and sent off a series of marconi- 
 grams to Jack. "Good-bye, Jacko! You're a sports- 
 man. Jack, old man, won't we just put in some top- 
 ping times when you come back so-long!" 
 
 Somewhere near two clumsy, lugubrious hands were 
 playing the piano. The tunes were of the solid and 
 meaty order, with potatoes and gravy and mint sauce 
 and cauliflower and everything else that appertains 
 to a thoroughly English dish, and were ghastly. And 
 then a throaty man sang drawing-room songs of the 
 cheerful, tombstone order, equally English, equally 
 ghastly. Some people enjoyed themselves, at any rate. 
 
 She heard a policeman approaching and with great 
 interest watched him pass and listened to his foot- 
 no
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 steps as they died away. The musicians persisted un- 
 til a clock in the distance struck eleven, when, with a 
 sigh of thankfulness, she heard the piano close. Syden- 
 ham had its points. Then a man went by on a bicycle. 
 He was evidently a beginner and was practicing in 
 the night. His wobbly course amused her. And then 
 she went back to bed and tried to sleep and thought 
 of Harry and knew that if she were free she might 
 just be having supper at the Circus Hotel, with the 
 laughter of people everywhere and the band playing 
 tunes that would make her want to dance. An over- 
 whelming desire took possession of her to dress and 
 climb out of the window and slide down the pipe on to 
 the roof of the morning-room and then down the wis- 
 taria to the path, and so away. She fought with it. 
 Emily Sarah had been very good, almost too good. 
 If only she were an old cat who nagged her! Then 
 she would have an excuse. 
 
 She remained in bed, struggling to sleep. All the 
 same, a little devil whispered in her ear and put into 
 her brain the idea that she had a grievance. Why 
 was she here and Harry in the middle of things! 
 Harry was younger than she was, and yet she had 
 a topping time and knew delightful men and went 
 everywhere. It was amazing that this thing had never 
 occurred to her before. Having occurred, it gathered 
 itself into an enormous ball, which seemed to roll down 
 and crush her. 
 
 She buried her head under the blanket and said : "I 
 will sleep. I will! To-morrow there are lessons and 
 the two old ladies and the old dog and the antimacas-
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 sars, prayers, the drive out, the little walk, that awful 
 dinner, more lessons, more prayers and bed." 
 
 And then suddenly the clothes were flung off. Dick 
 made a dart for her jacket. Yes, Jack's cigarette case 
 was there ! And it was full. Joy ! She lit her candle, 
 seized upon a copybook, a pencil and the cigarette 
 case, sat up in bed and wrote poetry, smoking like 
 a factory. 
 
 It was the duty of the butler to make an inspection 
 of the house after the ladies were in bed in stockinged 
 feet in order to see that there was no escape of gas 
 and that the servants' lights were out. Also, he was 
 required to see that the many ingenious and altogether 
 useless burglar traps were properly set. So great had 
 been the disturbance in that regular household that the 
 butler, for the first time in the memory of man, had 
 forgotten this important task. He hurried from his 
 bed somewhere about three o'clock in the morning, 
 dressed himself hastily and crept guiltily along the 
 various passages. As he passed Dick's door, quivering 
 at every creak, he detected a strange aroma. 
 
 "God bless my soul!" he said. "Something burn- 
 ing." 
 
 He sniffed and sniffed again. He was not mistaken. 
 The house was on fire. The ladies must be saved at all 
 costs. He ran to Miss Okehampton's door and 
 knocked loudly. Then he opened the door. "Don't 
 be frightened, madam," he said, "but I think you'd 
 better dress. Something's burning." 
 
 He went to Miss Smedley's door, congratulating 
 himself upon his coolness under emergencies "I will 
 
 132
 
 ' They all saw Dick sitting up in bed, cigarette in mouth.
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 be the last," he said, "to leave the wreck" and then 
 he warned the servants, returned to Miss Okehamp- 
 ton's passage and found her with a woolen petticoat 
 around her shoulders, trying to soothe Miss Smed- 
 ley's hysteria. 
 
 "I smell nothing," she said. "And you know how 
 keen my sense of smell is." 
 
 This was something of a shock to the butler, some- 
 thing of a damper. He might have overlooked his 
 duty, but he certainly had not partaken of illicit in- 
 toxicants. "Please to follow me, madam," he said. 
 He led the way to Dick's door. He was well re- 
 warded. 
 
 Miss Okehampton sniffed. Miss Smedley sniffed. 
 The housekeeper, who now came upon the scene, 
 sniffed. The maid sniffed and the old dog sneezed. 
 
 "Break open the door!" cried Miss Okehampton. 
 
 The butler opened it and stood back, expecting a 
 rush of flames. Instead a beautiful scent of Egyptian 
 cigarettes filled the air. It was a new smell in that 
 house. Even the coachman only smoked in his yard 
 when the wind was in the south. 
 
 Through a great mist they all saw Dick sitting up 
 in bed, cigarette in mouth, with a little mountain of 
 cigarette ends decorating the saucer-like stand of her 
 candlestick. 
 
 "Leave me," said Miss Okehampton. "All of you." 
 
 She entered the room and shut the door. 
 
 ********* 
 An hour later, trembling in every limb with excite- 
 133
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 ment, anger, and perhaps a little regret for having 
 said things which even Tony in his soberest moments 
 could hardly have worded so picturesquely or with 
 such a complete knowledge of biblical distortion, a 
 slight figure skimmed down the water pipe onto the 
 roof of the morning- room, put her feet into the 
 branches of the wistaria, scuttled across the well-kept 
 garden to the gate, went out into the road, and left 
 the glistening roof of the Crystal Palace behind. 
 
 134
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 IT was half-past five when Dick stood on the 
 Albert Bridge and watched the water lapping 
 along. The tide was going down. As well as 
 she could remember, she had followed the roads taken 
 by Jack in his car. The relief of finding herself at 
 last on an open space, able to breathe, after having 
 tramped through miles of smug slums, through the 
 hideous and sordid villadom of the suburbs, was tre- 
 mendous. She watched a Rochester barge go under 
 the bridge with wind and tide, its large brown sail 
 bellied out, its owner, tanned down to his throat, 
 sitting on the highly decorated cabin rail, holding on 
 to the thick pole of the rudder, a sort of country bar- 
 ber's pole, painted like a sugar stick. A nose-warmer 
 clay pipe, quite black, was stuck between his teeth. 
 It left a thin trickle of smoke. When Dick decided 
 to become a composer it had never occurred to her 
 how admirable a career barge sailing was. From 
 that moment she would reconsider her future. How 
 ripping to slip down the river, with the wind flapping 
 the sail, and a darling little cabin in which to cook 
 savory messes! As to its being dull, bosh! You 
 could have races with other barges and back your- 
 
 135
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 self for a shilling. How splendid Tony would look 
 lying full stretch on the black tarpaulin, with his fair 
 mustache burnt with the sun and a jolly old pint pot 
 of beer somewhere near! Think of his cheery pass- 
 ing remarks ! He'd open the eyes of the bargees, bless 
 his heart! 
 
 However, she had still some way to go. Her des- 
 tination was Jermyn Street 172 B, from which 
 Harry wrote occasional letters, very occasional. She 
 left the bridge and the river and with rather dragging 
 feet plunged into the slums, here and there rendered 
 even more sordid by a great block of red flats with 
 windows of bottled glass, until she came into what 
 is called Lower Sloane Street. Shops were still shut. 
 From time to time men hurried along to work. The 
 sun tried to find its way through a sort of mist. On 
 went Dick, recognizing buildings that had caught her 
 eye before. She fumbled her way at last to Hyde 
 Park Corner. Motor 'buses were running. On the 
 steps of clubs men in shirt sleeves were shaking mats. 
 The reluctant life of London had begun again. Dick 
 kept to the Park side of the street. Its gates had been 
 opened and a steady stream of flotsam and jetsam was 
 going into it to squat upon its burnt-up turf and 
 snatch a little uneasy sleep. In Piccadilly there were 
 further signs of renewed life. Shop steps were being 
 washed by slatternly women. The tube station was 
 open and people went in and came out like bees, and 
 then it was that Dick went up to a very stout police- 
 man. 
 
 "Can you tell me the way to Jermyn Street?" 
 136
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "Can a duck swim?" said he. And then he looked 
 at this simply dressed girl with the big eyes, who wore 
 no gloves and carried no umbrella. He knew at once 
 that this golden hair was golden. His tone altered. 
 "See a boot shop down there, missy?" 
 
 "Yes," said Dick. She was awfully tired. 
 
 "Well, just on this side of it by them railings there's 
 a passage or alleyway. Cut down there and Jermyn 
 Street runs right and left." 
 
 "Thank you," said Dick. "Some day I hope to 
 know London as well as you do." 
 
 " 'Ope not, missy. Good-morning." 
 
 "Good-morning," said Dick. 
 
 She came out into Jermyn Street opposite a fish 
 shop, whose tiled floor was being swished by a cheer- 
 ful man who whistled a London version of an Ameri- 
 can ragtime. She saw from its number that her des- 
 tination lay to the left. The narrow street, with its 
 old and somewhat insalubrious houses, here and there 
 refronted, here and there made modern by the smart 
 mahogany doors of a small family hotel, felt colder 
 than usual. She hurried along, examining each door 
 for its number. Almost at the bottom of the street 
 she came to 1726. Under the number there was a 
 card upon which was printed "Bachelor Chambers." 
 With a great sigh of relief she went through the 
 open door into a small and rather dingy hall. An 
 old man who might have been a retired valet was 
 rubbing a whitish liquid on a brass bell. 
 
 "Lord Thoresby lives here, doesn't he?" she said. 
 
 "Eh? Oh, law, no." 
 
 137
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "What!" cried Dick. "And I'm doggo, absolutely 
 doggo !" 
 
 "No. No dogs allowed 'ere. There ain't been a 
 dog for let me see now." 
 
 "But I was told that Lord Thoresby did live here." 
 
 "Eh?" It's an amazing thing that deaf people go 
 out of their way to pretend that they don't hear when 
 they hear perfectly well. "Well, them as told you 
 that Lord Thoresby lived 'ere was right. 'E did. But 
 it don't foller because a gent lives 'ere once 'e lives 
 'ere forever." 
 
 Dick sat down on the nearest chair. There were 
 two and both looked as though they had come from 
 a railway hotel in the midlands. 
 
 Hitherto the old man had not given his attention 
 to Dick. He heard a little sob and was interested. 
 He put down the tin and the rag, fumbled in a waist- 
 coat pocket for his glasses and hooked them over his 
 ears. He then became more than interested a little, 
 perhaps, surprised. "Why, God bless me, the girl's 
 a lady!" 
 
 "You wish to see Lord Thoresby, miss?" 
 
 "I must!" said Dick. "I must." 
 
 "If I can 'elp you, you shall. You must excuse my 
 being a little abrupt to you before. These are bach- 
 elor chambers, you know, and we 'ave a lot of what 
 I call mixers 'ere, this being Jermyn Street, ancf so 
 on. Now it so 'appens that his lordship removed 'is 
 self yesterday. The address 'is man left behind was 
 of a flat in Piccadilly, on the first floor. You can't 
 miss it. It's got a big bow window at the corner of 
 
 138
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 the street, 'Alf Moon Street. A nice place, fit for a 
 peer or a real gent with no visible means of sub- 
 sistence." 
 
 "Thank you," said Dick. She got up. She won- 
 dered whether she would be able to walk so far. 
 
 "Know yer way, miss?" 
 
 "No, but I daresay someone will tell me." 
 
 "Why, dear me now, I'll tell you, and me old enough 
 to be yer grandfather! Now, look 'ere. Go right to 
 the top of this 'ere street. As soon as you're at the 
 top turn to the right. Cross the road, minding 'ow 
 you go, and then turn sharp to your left again. Keep 
 right on till you come to 'Alf Moon Street. You can't 
 miss it, and the door of this 'ere place is the first 
 'round the corner. Ring and knock. I'd come with 
 yer meself, on'y my young man's 'ad to be sent away. 
 'E's a klepto, poor chap. Suffers from what they call 
 epiklepto fits. Are you all right?" 
 
 Dick smiled at him. "Quite all right," she said. 
 "Good-bye. Thank you very much." 
 
 The man, who knew bachelors, watched the tired 
 girl out of sight. As a sort of last effort of concen- 
 tration Dick followed the directions. At nearly every 
 doorway in St. James's Street pale-faced men in shirt 
 sleeves were busily at work. In Piccadilly there was 
 now a line of taxicabs in the middle of the road and 
 motor 'buses were flying even more often than before. 
 
 "Taxi, lady?" 
 
 "No money," said Dick. 
 
 The man laughed. "Well, give us a bit of yer 'air. 
 That's gold enough." 
 
 139
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Dick dodged an omnibus and turned to the left, and 
 when at last she rang and knocked she could hardly 
 see the very smart door for a blur in front of her 
 eyes. 
 
 A thin, youngish man opened the door. His hair 
 was very black and had obviously only just been 
 wetted. 
 
 "Is Lord Thoresby at home?" 
 
 The man could not have looked more surprised if 
 he had been told that the Germans had landed in Eng- 
 land. " 'E is, miss," he said, "but I 'aven't taken up 
 'is early cup of tea yet. I beg pardon, but it's barely 
 seven o'clock." 
 
 "Please tell him that Miss Okehampton must see 
 him, tmistf" 
 
 "Miss Okehampton?" The name came glibly. 
 "But you ain't " 
 
 "I said Okehampton. Will you please do what you 
 are told!" 
 
 The man turned and went quickly upstairs. His 
 eyebrows were raised. There was something very 
 funny here. 
 
 Dick sat down on the stairs and leaned her head 
 against the wall. "Oh, God!" she said, "I'm doggo." 
 
 It was not until the third knock that Thoresby 
 alighted from the electric tramcar that he had been 
 driving down Broadway. He had knocked off for 
 dinner. "What?" he said. 
 
 The man went in. "Beg pardon, my lord. There's 
 Miss Okehampton to see you." 
 
 "What?" There was immense irritation in 
 140
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Thoresby's voice. "But I'm not up. Dash it! It's 
 the middle of the night. My compliments, or rather 
 my kind regards no, you'd better say love and could 
 Miss Okehampton make it convenient to call about 
 nine o'clock to breakfast?" 
 
 "Very good, my lord." The man went out and 
 went in again. "I beg pardon, my lord, but it isn't 
 that Miss Okehampton." 
 
 "Oh, go away," said Thoresby. 
 
 "Very good, my lord. But this Miss Okehampton 
 said that she must see you, she must. Very sorry, my 
 lord." 
 
 It dawned on Thoresby that there was something 
 very funny here. "Oh, Gee!" he said. "What are 
 you talking about? I only know one Miss Okehamp- 
 ton." 
 
 "So I thought, my lord. But this is another. She 
 calls 'erself Miss Okehampton and I can't 'elp be- 
 lievin' 'er. She must see you, she says, she must." 
 
 Thoresby came to the conclusion that the man had 
 not been drinking. He got onto his. elbow. "Now, 
 then," he said, "let's go into this. What is this Miss 
 Okehampton like?" 
 
 "Well, my lord, if you don't mind my saying so, 
 she's as different from the other Miss Okehampton 
 as a spring morning from a fog golden 'air, big gray 
 eyes, what they call a hovular face, and " 
 
 "And be damned !" said Thoresby, springing out of 
 bed. "Show Miss Okehampton into the sitting-room, 
 and say I'll be down at once." 
 
 It was Dick! Dick, whom he had watched all one 
 141
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 summer night. By thunder, yes. She was different 
 from Harry as a spring morning from a fog. Why 
 had she come? 
 
 He got into a new and particularly excellent dress- 
 ing-gown. He thrust his feet into a pair of new 
 Russian leather heel-less slippers and then he did his 
 hair. He got to the door, opened it, went back into 
 the room, pulled open a drawer of his dressing-table, 
 took out an absolutely new white silk handkerchief 
 and made a stock of it. Then he went downstairs 
 two at a time. 
 
 He saw Dick sitting in the window seat. A faint 
 touch of sun had fastened upon her hair. Her hat 
 was off and she looked like a flower upon which the 
 rain had not fallen for a week. 
 
 "Dick!" he cried, "Dick!" 
 
 142
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 OBEYING urgent orders, Stokes brought in 
 breakfast, and an excellent breakfast, before 
 the very new little clock on the mantelpiece 
 had struck half-past seven. He found his lordship 
 sitting quite far away from the young lady, looking 
 at her as one who has been through the desert looks 
 at water. At least, that was his idea. Dick was laugh- 
 ing and smoking a cigarette. 
 
 "All right, Stokes," said Thoresby. "When I ring 
 it will be for more toast. Come on, Dick. You must 
 be starving." 
 
 "Standing's a silly ass word," said Dick. "Do you 
 know that I've had nothing really sound to eat since 
 dinner-time last night?" 
 
 "Well, good Lord, that's not long!" 
 
 "It's a hundred miles of endless streets, that's all." 
 She looked at the breakfast table with its new and 
 pristine silver and its plates, which seemed never to 
 have been used before. "Aren't we doing ourselves 
 rather proud here, old boy?" she asked. "Aren't we 
 cutting just a bit of a dash?" 
 
 Thoresby bent forward a little. If she was hungry, 
 so was he. "And as to a fortune, to quote you, that's 
 
 143
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 a silly ass word. His lordship has money to burn, 
 stacks of the stuff. It's almost silly." 
 
 Dick raised her cup of coffee. "Cheers!" she said. 
 "Hearty congrats! You won't find a stack of sports- 
 men to help you to spend it, I don't think. How did 
 you do it?" 
 
 "I didn't do it. It did itself. A relation of my 
 father's I never saw her, but she must have been 
 a most charming, sympathetic old lady left whoever 
 succeeded to the tide enough and more than enough 
 to keep his end up with dignity." He suddenly threw 
 back his head and went off into a peal of laughter. 
 
 Dick was very busy with her knife and fork. "Oh, 
 it takes you like that, does it?" 
 
 "Yes. Every three hours. I've laughed more since 
 I received five thousand pounds on account from my 
 solicitors the wills has got to be proved and all that 
 sort of truck than ever before in my life. The bean- 
 less Billy Russon pillowed upon the downy back of 
 the oof bird, able to write a check just whenever he 
 takes it into his head and know, what's more, that 
 it'll be met with alacrity. The ubiquitous Billy Rus- 
 son, whose whole life has been spent very completely 
 on the long trail, in a harbor made by Hamptons 
 my dear, I give you my word that I chose and fur- 
 nished this place with my brow mantling with blushes, 
 as though I were a bridegroom. Look at it! Did 
 you ever see anything like it? I should think I paid 
 at least twice as much for everything as it is worth 
 on purpose, just to feel the sensation. I slept here 
 for the first time last night, and I stand up this morn- 
 
 144
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 ing refurnished and redecorated from head to foot. 
 Billy Russon is dead. Long live the Earl of Thoresby ! 
 There's only one other thing left for me to do to sit 
 among my brother peers and help to govern my 
 country." 
 
 "Yes, I don't think!" said Dick. 
 
 "More scrambled eggs?" 
 
 "I hoped you'd ask me that. I've been willing you 
 for five minutes. Oh, tell me, seen anything of Tony 
 since the glad news?" 
 
 Thoresby laughed. There was a certain dryness in 
 his tone. "No," he said. "And, by Jove, I haven't 
 settled up with him. I must." 
 
 "Honestly, I don't think I should. I had a letter 
 from mother the other day. She said that Tony was 
 a changed man. He's been helping at the Oxford 
 House Mission." 
 
 "Oh, no!" said Thoresby incredulously. 
 
 "Oh, but, my dear old boy, Tony's very versatile. 
 Mother says that he sings country songs to little boys 
 in the evenings, and, as they don't understand a single 
 word, none of the parsons have thought it necessary 
 to stop him. They're very ripe, you know." 
 
 "Well, but of course I must pay him. With the 
 thousand pounds that I owe and a bit over for luck 
 he could emigrate to Canada and make a fresh start." 
 
 "Is the flat racing season over yet?" asked Dick. 
 
 "On its last legs." 
 
 "Well, then, if you must play the game, dole it out 
 in bits. Otherwise, Tony would plank the lot on the 
 best thing in racing and go down." 
 
 145
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 And so they went on, these two, talking like 
 brothers of the road. It was very peculiar. And after 
 breakfast they returned to the window seat, still talk- 
 ing, and smoked cigarettes the man in his dressing- 
 gown, the girl in her prim, ready-made clothes, the 
 unscrupulous man and the girl with the face of a wild 
 flower. 
 
 There they sat until the street below was alive with 
 people and traffic and the sun was high in the sky. 
 Dick told the story of her imprisonment at Syden- 
 ham. The description of her life there made Thoresby 
 alternately laugh and hold his breath. 
 
 "Shall you go back?" he asked. 
 
 Dick looked at him as though he were a harmless 
 lunatic. 
 
 "Question passed," she said, "for lack of words." 
 
 "But what are you going to do ? Tony's in White- 
 chapel, your mother's in Bloomsbury and Harry's 
 well, Harry's on her own." He didn't know quite 
 how to put it. "Where can you go?" 
 
 "Don't worry about me," said Dick. "I'm staying 
 here." 
 
 Thoresby was on his feet. "Staying here! What 
 do you mean?" 
 
 "You're the only friend I've got in the world, old 
 boy. So you put me up. How about it?" 
 
 Thoresby walked about the room, touching things 
 aimlessly with a hand that was shaking. Then he 
 went back and stood in front of her. "Do you know 
 what you're saying?" 
 
 Dick took another cigarette. It was her twelfth. 
 146
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "If, of course, you haven't got a spare room in this 
 place, say so. Then it's back to the army ag'in, ser- 
 geant. Back to the army ag'in." 
 
 "Ah!" said Thoresby. At the moment he was not 
 sure whether he was glad or sorry. This girl was 
 different. 
 
 Before he could talk about convention and utter 
 stammering platitudes about what is done and what 
 is not done they heard what appeared to be a fracas 
 on the stairs, a conglomeration of loud voices, and 
 then the door was flung open. 
 
 "Hullo, Tony," said Dick. 
 
 147
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 TONY was perfectly sober. His wife's descrip- 
 tion was not wholly inaccurate. He looked 
 rather like a rough, big towel that has been 
 passed through a mangle. He was dressed in a ready- 
 made suit of gray serge. The trousers were a little 
 tight. He wore a white collar and a black bow tie 
 and a bowler which sat rather low over his ears. He 
 had shaved that morning and combed his great mus- 
 tache. He was much thinner and looked curiously 
 older. He alone among men knew of the tortures 
 that he had undergone for the want of drink. Just 
 for one moment there was a flicker of the old gen- 
 erous, good-hearted, clean-minded Tony. He looked 
 from Thoresby to his daughter and stood very still 
 and straight. "You too," he said. "Oh, my God !" 
 
 Thoresby hitched his shoulders uncomfortably. 
 Once before he had felt the sting of a whip across 
 his face. 
 
 Dick did not find it necessary to get up and kiss 
 her father. She looked him all over. "My hat!" she 
 said, "this is a day of surprises. We're all little 
 gentlemen now, aren't we? Going into the church, 
 Tony?" 
 
 Tony was looking at Thoresby. There was a nasty 
 148
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 glitter in his eye. "You got a drawing-room here?" 
 he asked. "Seems to be rather an unnecessary ques- 
 tion. Swagger places like these not only have draw- 
 ing-rooms, but billiard-rooms, morning-rooms and li- 
 braries. Just ask my daughter to take herself off to 
 one of these, will you? I've got a word or two to 
 say to you." 
 
 Thoresby opened the door. "Would you mind, 
 Dick?" 
 
 "Anything you like," she said, "I'm in a mighty 
 good temper." 
 
 She got up, taking a handful of cigarettes with her. 
 She stopped in front of Tony and gave a soft laugh. 
 "It'll do me a bit of good to be seen in public with 
 you." 
 
 The veins in the man's neck thickened and stood 
 out. He waved his arm to the door and Dick dis- 
 appeared at a run. When her father looked like that 
 he usually threw things, and his aim was good. 
 
 An odd thing happened when Tony found himself 
 alone. He dodged about the room with a sudden 
 gleefulness, like a man who has mined with no luck 
 for years and suddenly discovers gold. He examined 
 the little clock and the blue plates, the admirable en- 
 gravings and etchings, the thick carpet and the assort- 
 ment of extremely comfortable chairs. Hearing steps 
 and the sound of a man clearing his throat, he threw 
 himself into an attitude of righteous indignation. He 
 was like an actor standing on the stage who sees the 
 stage manager put his finger on the bell to give the 
 signal for the curtain to be raised. 
 
 149
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Thoresby entered quietly and shut the door. He 
 did not know this Tony very well, but his first re- 
 mark had prepared him somewhat. "Welcome, old 
 friend," he said tactfully. "It's good to see you here." 
 
 The stage had lost a splendid actor in Tony Oke- 
 hampton. The tremolo in his voice was most moving. 
 "Not content with taking advantage of my second 
 daughter, Harry, and very nearly breaking my heart, 
 you now entice Dick Dick, the apple of my eye into 
 your foul clutches. Never again, no never shall I have 
 any faith in the word friendship." He sat down heav- 
 ily, put his hands over his face and burst into well- 
 simulated tears. 
 
 Thoresby was greatly upset. This was a very un- 
 comfortable beginning to his new career, a rather un- 
 pleasant housewarming. "Oh, my dear Tony," he 
 said, "please don't do that. I give you my word that 
 your suspicions are absolutely unfounded. I've done 
 my best for Harry out of friendship for you, and this 
 is the first time that Dick has ever been in this place." 
 
 "You damned liar!" cried Tony. "I know what I'm 
 talking about. Harry's your mistress. You seduced 
 her." 
 
 "I give you my > " 
 
 "You may swear till you're black in the face. Un- 
 fortunately, what I say is true." He had almost made 
 a bad slip and said fortunately. Up to the present 
 moment he had known himself to be in possession 
 of a good hand. The sight of Dick made it a royal 
 flush. Thoresby drew up a chair at the table and sat 
 down. 
 
 150
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "Let us go into this, Tony," he said, "as man to 
 man. How much do you know?" 
 
 This business-like attitude rather damped Tony's elo- 
 quence. "Do you think I'm going to be treated as a 
 sort of customer?" he cried, intending to enjoy to the 
 full what was to him a great moment. "I know you. 
 So does everybody else. Your reputation lies behind 
 you like a main road on the map. You think you're 
 going to bargain with me, the father of this poor, 
 wretched girl. You think you can buy my silence 
 with some of the money you seem to have come into. 
 If that's your idea, my Lord Thoresby, you're mis- 
 taken and so I tell you." 
 
 "Buy your silence! Get off your stilts, man, and 
 talk sense. We are in London now, not Quennor. 
 How did you know?" 
 
 This was a very awkward question. "Ah! Then 
 you own to it, do you, you dirty dog? You own to 
 having come under my roof, enjoyed my hospitality, 
 been received with open arms, only to take advantage 
 of a girl not much more than a baby. My God! It 
 would make a nice story in the police courts. You'd 
 look a little less smug if you had a notification from 
 the public prosecutor." 
 
 Thoresby was making a pattern in the salt. "I 
 didn't ask you to make a speech, old man," he said. 
 "All I want to know is how did you find out? And 
 there's one other rather interesting question I should 
 like to ask you. Why didn't you look me up to black- 
 mail me before?" 
 
 Tony made a gesture which would have done credit
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 to Guitry. It indicated unspeakable pain. "I shan't 
 be able to contain myself much longer," he said. "You 
 make me see red oh, Bill, what made you choose my 
 home and my family? What have I done to you but 
 good? What sort of future will this poor child have 
 now? Oh, I know that she's not had a very good 
 chance. I'm a weak and foolish man and things have 
 gone badly with me. But as far as my children are 
 concerned, I've played the game. I've guarded them 
 from danger. God knows, I shall creep down to old 
 age with bitter thoughts, but the remembrance of your 
 having turned on me like a serpent will blacken them 
 all." 
 
 "Yes," said Billy, "but how did you find out? I 
 agree that you have a case. It's waste of time to 
 dodge behind lies. I'll give you what I can either in 
 a lump sum or bit by bit at stated times. I'm a re- 
 spectable pereon now and I don't want any scandals. 
 But just for the sake of old time's sake take my most 
 comfortable chair and tell me without heroics how 
 you found out. It is a matter of immense interest to 
 me. For instance, I rather want to know we're 
 speaking as old friends, aren't we? whether your 
 master hand arranged this thing?" 
 
 "What do you mean?" Tony's voice was genuinely 
 hoarse. 
 
 "Would you like me to put it plainer than that? 
 I can. Is this, in other words, a put-up job?" 
 
 With a sort of roar, Tony caught hold of a silver 
 cigarette box and held it above his head. 
 
 The imperturbable man on the other side of the 
 
 152
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 table smiled blandly. "Dear old Tony," he said, "I 
 reminded you before that this is not Quennor. I am 
 not your wife." 
 
 The silver cigarette box found itself back again in 
 its old place. Tony sat down. "I see that you must 
 be dealt with," he said, "in the only way that you 
 can understand. You have no sympathy with a 
 father's feelings, nothing of the spirit of a man of 
 honor left in you. Very well, let's come to business." 
 
 "Ah ! now that's very sensible of you, old boy. I've 
 always found it's better in the long run to settle these 
 little matters amicably. Look here, I regret to say 
 I choose the word regret with a full appreciation of 
 what it means that I lost my head in your house. 
 Since that time I have done what I could for Harry. 
 Forgive me if I seem to be blowing a trumpet or any- 
 thing of that sort, but I put her to a good dancing 
 woman and made myself responsible for various bills 
 of hers, frocks and hats, and scent and so forth. She 
 won't have to grumble in the future, either. I can't 
 very well do more than that so far as she's concerned. 
 As for Dick well, I don't ask you to believe me, but, 
 fortunately, I can bring witnesses to prove that she 
 ran away from Sydenham in the early hours of the 
 morning and arrived here at seven o'clock. So we'll 
 just wipe Dick off. She is not one of your assets. 
 Dick is different." 
 
 "Make Harry your wife," said Tony. 
 
 Thoresby laid down the salt spoon. "Oh, please, 
 no," he said. "Besides, from your point of view, 
 wouldn't that be a little stupid? A man can't very 
 
 153
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 well blackmail his son-in-law. No, think it over and 
 fix your price. It's very horrid, my dear Tony, to be 
 obliged to talk to you in this way." 
 
 Tony had begun to take on some of the color of 
 his surroundings. The room was furnished in the 
 most charming taste. Every detail of it was delight- 
 ful. "It's appalling!" he said, "absolutely appalling! 
 Conceive it. You, a man of family, and me, an Oke- 
 hampton. By Jove however, I think a thousand a 
 year will meet the case, paid quarterly." 
 
 "Isn't that rather stiff? A thousand a year's a lot 
 of money. And may I just hint that Harry no, we 
 won't go into that. I'll tell you what I think. I'll 
 write you a check for the money I owe you in full 
 you don't hold my I. O. U., remember." 
 
 "Oh, dash it ! Go straight." 
 
 "Oh, yes, yes. I intend to. I can now. It's rather 
 nice. Mighty easy when you can, too. I don't take 
 any credit for it. Well, then, I'll pay you that money 
 and send you to Canada." 
 
 There was a derisive laugh. "Canada ? Me ! That's 
 the best thing I ever heard. Now, look here, Billy, 
 be straight, or as God's my judge I'll have the law 
 on you. You know Harry's age all right." 
 
 "Well, it's up to you to make another suggestion." 
 
 A gleam of enthusiasm came into Tony's eyes. He 
 pushed the breakfast things away and leaned on the 
 table. "Old man," he said, "I've got a scheme. Put 
 me into a flat. Trick it out nicely for me. Make it 
 a place to which my girls can bring their friends. 
 Harry's got 'em and Dick jolly soon will. Once there, 
 
 154
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 I can keep an eye on 'em and see that they make mar- 
 riages worthy of Okehamptons, and incidentally put in 
 a few rubbers of bridge." 
 
 "Oh, I see!" said Thoresby. "A gambling hell, 
 with the two girls as decoys." 
 
 "What a pity," said Tony, "that you've got such a 
 horrid mind. At any rate, that's my idea. It'll suit 
 me. I'm not as young as I was and the pursuits of 
 country life have got a bit stale. I feel like London 
 and a club and decent clothes to my back, a theater 
 now and then and civilized society. You can do it 
 for me and at the same time have the satisfaction of 
 knowing that I shall be able to rescue Harry." 
 
 "One second," said Thoresby, "now, as to the word 
 rescue. Does it mean taking Harry off my hands?" 
 
 Tony considered the point. He did not intend to 
 give anything away. "Yes," he said, "it does if you 
 pay rent, the furniture bill, and make me a yearly al- 
 lowance of well, we're old and dear friends I'll 
 let you down as lightly as I can a tenner a week. 
 There now ! There you have Tony at his worst, fool- 
 ish old Tony Okehampton, generous to a fault." 
 
 Thoresby turned away his head to smile. He had 
 a good deal of delicacy. "Done with you," he said, 
 "it's a bet." 
 
 A rush of blood suffused Tony's face. He shot his 
 flannel cuffs and held his head higher and gave a curl 
 to his mustache. By Jove, he was going to be a gen- 
 tleman again. Ah, well, it was good to think that all 
 his love and tender care of his children would reap 
 its reward. He took up a cigarette and put it back 
 
 155
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 again. "I should think," he said, "that you're a pretty 
 good judge of a cigar. What? So am I." 
 
 Thoresby pointed to a large silver box, upon which 
 his crest was engraved. "There you are," he said. 
 
 With a springy step and a sort of spontaneous flam- 
 boyance the proud father made for the silver box. 
 "Coronas! Quite all right." He spiked one, lit it 
 and sent two streams of smoke through his nostrils. 
 His enjoyment was almost childish. "We smoke Vir- 
 ginia cigarettes at our Oxford House Mission," he 
 said. "Civilization has its points. When may I ex- 
 pect a check to settle our small affair?" 
 
 "To-day." 
 
 Tony almost dropped his cigar. What a fool he 
 had been not to stick to a thousand a year! This 
 man had money. 
 
 "But I make one absolute condition." 
 
 "Condition?" sneered Tony. 
 
 "Yes, condition. When you leave this place you 
 must take Dick with you." 
 
 "That goes without saying. Of course, I shall take 
 Dick." 
 
 "Do you agree?" 
 
 "Yes. What do you mean?" 
 
 "I mean that I can't stand Dick in this place for 
 another hour. Is that clear?" 
 
 "Quite clear, Billy, old man" 
 
 "Then, get out." 
 
 Tony turned in surprise. Thoresby might have been 
 talking to a dog. 
 
 "Get out. Go on, get out!" 
 
 156
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Thoresby opened the door and stood there with his 
 lips pressed together. 
 
 For a moment Tony wavered. The place was very 
 comfortable. It was around about luncheon hour. 
 Then he helped himself to three more cigars and saun- 
 tered airily out of the room. "So-long, dear old 
 friend," he said. "God bless you." 
 
 157
 
 PART III 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 SIR EDWARD MORDE left his car at the top 
 of the alley. It was raining hard. A keen 
 November wind swept around the London 
 Theater. The Member of Parliament for one of the 
 suburbs dodged with surprising alacrity under the cov- 
 ered way which leads to the pit entrance and then 
 turned up the astrakan collar of his coat and, holding 
 the brim o his hat, made another dodge around to 
 the back of the building and so to the stage door. A 
 very stout man whose rubicund face was clean-shaven 
 nodded. "Bad night, sir," he said. 
 
 "Exceptionally unpleasant," said Morde. "How 
 long will Miss Okehampton be?" 
 
 The door-keeper glanced at the clock which com- 
 peted with a small gas stove for the post of impor- 
 tance in the cubby hole. "Due now, sir," he said. 
 "As you know, understudies 'as to wait in the theater 
 until 'arf an hour after rise of curtain." 
 
 "I wish you'd just go down and tell Miss Okehamp- 
 ton that I'm waiting, will you? Otherwise, she may 
 enter into jocular conversation with other members 
 of the company." Half a crown glistened on the 
 little window sill with the glass screen. 
 
 158
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "Oh, yes, p'r'aps it would be a good idea, sir. It's 
 a miserable night for waiting about." 
 
 As soon as the fat man had waddled away and 
 disappeared through swing doors, the elderly politician 
 went, in a gingerly fashion, into the cubby hole. He 
 took off his opera hat and examined his face earnestly 
 in a small square looking-glass. His hair and mus- 
 tache had been newly dyed that afternoon and his 
 face very carefully massaged. It was a face of great 
 refinement, with a thin, well-cut nose, a high forehead 
 and well-marked eyebrows in which there was a touch 
 of red. The chin was good, too. The mouth was 
 hidden by what used to be known as a cavalry mus- 
 tache. Like the motorist who habitually scorches and 
 dabs oil on his number to prevent identification, Sir 
 Edward Morde hid his mouth. 
 
 He was not altogether pleased with his appearance. 
 It seemed to him that he looked at least six weeks 
 older than he was. This he could not afford. He 
 was fifty-six and he resented it. 
 
 Life had one great charm Dick. He would give 
 his seat in Parliament, which, even in these days, still 
 possesses a certain social value, his club, which was 
 incontestably the first, and half his income, which 
 was not too large for his purpose, if only he could 
 persuade Dick that he was worth loving, or, at any 
 rate, pretending to love. 
 
 He left the box before its keeper returned. 
 
 "Miss Okehampton's on her way, sir. Terrible 
 affair that in Paris." 
 
 "Oh, I don't know. I don't know why it is, but it 
 
 159
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 seems to be the habit of journalists to apply the word 
 terrible to everything that happens in Paris. In Eng- 
 land such things are merely called sordid." 
 
 "Yes, but seven in family and all with their throats 
 slit like a lot of guinea pigs. Oh, my ! Very French 
 I call it" 
 
 "Ah, at last!" 
 
 "At last? I'm only five minutes late! Oh, damn, 
 it's raining. Oh, look here, let me out of this." 
 
 "No, no, please. It's really a liberal education to 
 see Mascagni conduct." 
 
 "I don't think you'd better talk about liberal educa- 
 tion after the scene in the House last night. You seem 
 to have woken up pretty considerably, Mordy! All 
 right, anything for a peaceful life." 
 
 Dick turned up the collar of a sealskin coat. Her 
 curious little sealskin cap hid her golden hair. Her 
 face was covered with a dead white liquid of some 
 sort and her lips were very red. Over her fair eye- 
 brows she had drawn a line with a black pencil, and 
 there was sticky black stuff on all her eyelashes. 
 
 "I'm sorry it's so wet. The car is at the top of 
 the court." 
 
 "Oh, that's thoughtful. If we're going, let's go. 
 So-long, Charlie," she said to the doorkeeper, "be 
 good, old dear." 
 
 The fat man opened the door. He watched her 
 nip, as he called it, around the corner, followed by 
 the elderly man who picked his way. 
 
 "Well, well," he said, "glad no daughter of mine 
 ever thought of going or. the staige." 
 
 160
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Dick made a long arm and put her hand into a 
 pocket in the car. "You really are a thoughtful old 
 thing," she said. She bent forward and powdered 
 her nose, using the little looking-glass under the elec- 
 tric light. 
 
 "Not so hideously old as all that," said Morde. He 
 took the powder puff from her and pressed it to his 
 lips. It was a gallant but somewhat ludicrous action. 
 The powder looked like snow upon a crow's back. 
 
 Dick threw up her heels and gave one big guffaw. 
 "Oh, Sir Galahad!" she said. "Would that thou 
 could see thyself as others see thee!" 
 
 "You're always so peculiarly satirical, my dear 
 Dick." 
 
 "Oh, he's hurt. His feelings are wounded, then. 
 Didums!" 
 
 The man twisted around and threw his arm around 
 Dick's shoulders. "Oh, Dick! Dick!" he said, "you 
 madden me. One kiss. Just one !" 
 
 With an eel-like action Dick slipped away and 
 squeezed herself into the very corner of the seat. 
 "Visitors are requested not to touch the exhibits!" she 
 said. 
 
 "Oh, my dear " 
 
 Dick smiled blandly, but the hand she held up was 
 implacable. "My dear old Mordy, I like you. You're 
 really amazingly kind and thoughtful and nice to look 
 at, but the answer to the acrostic is, hands off. Why 
 can't you leave me alone, damn it? I'm not that sort. 
 I suppose it's a pity, but there it is." 
 
 Sir Edward Morde looked like a naughty school-boy. 
 161
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 It was really almost pathetic. His voice became very 
 soothing and gentle. "There, there, dear," he said, 
 "I'll be very good. You shall have no further fault 
 to find with me. Tell me, how are you getting on at 
 the London?" 
 
 "Oh, I dunno," said Dick, "all right, I s'pose. As 
 you're a friend of the actor-manager, they're devilish 
 polite to me. I'm understudying Miss Woodgate, you 
 know. Two pound ten a week, of the best. Oh, and 
 by the way, I believe I've forgotten to thank you for 
 working it for me." 
 
 "Well, yes, you have." 
 
 "Oh, I'm a complete Okehampton," said Dick. 
 "However, I am particularly grateful. Believe me, 
 your kindness is wholly appreciated." Her imitation 
 of Morde's pedantic enunciation was exact. 
 
 The car drew up. 
 
 "They're a long time opening the door," said Dick. 
 
 "Permit me." Morde leaned forward and opened 
 it and got out and stood in the rain in a knightly 
 attitude. 
 
 Dick took his hand and gave a jump. "Hullo," she 
 said, "what's this? I thought we were bound for the 
 Coliscream? This is your house." 
 
 Sir Edward Morde smiled excitedly. "That fool 
 of a chauffeur," he said, "always making mistakes !" 
 
 "You're a harpist," said Dick. "This is you, par- 
 ticularly you. Something in the nature of blighters, 
 some of you gentlemen. However, I don't want my 
 sealskin spotted. Perhaps you'll open the door." 
 
 Morde had expected a scene. He was delighted. 
 162
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 He thrust his latch-key into the lock and threw back 
 the door. "Enter, your Majesty," he said. 
 
 "H'm!" said Dick. "Very tricky, I don't think." 
 
 The chauffeur received an order to wait up in the 
 garage until telephoned for, and Morde followed Dick 
 up the stairs of his Mount Street flat to a character- 
 istic sitting-room. It was large, airy, and its walls 
 were covered with Flemish tapestry. The floor was 
 polished and all the chairs upon it belonged to the 
 same period. No glaring electric light hit the eye. 
 The room was soothingly lighted by yellow globed 
 electric lights hidden behind a ledge which ran high 
 up around the walls. A cheerful fire was burning and 
 throwing a glow upon the glistening parquet. There 
 were cigarettes in plenty on a small table between 
 two chairs. There were also two bottles of cham- 
 pagne. 
 
 "A dull evening," said Dick, throwing off her coat, 
 "spiced with reminiscences of a bygone age." 
 
 The elderly gentleman caught the coat as it was 
 about to fall. He held it in his arms tightly. "Oh, 
 don't be cross," he said, "let me have one evening. 
 I've been living for it." 
 
 Dick stood in front of the fire and held her long, 
 thin fingers to the blaze. "Well, all I ask you is this," 
 she said, "don't dodder. For God's sake, don't dod- 
 der." 
 
 "Dodder! Oh, what a hideous word!" He placed 
 the coat tenderly over the back of a chair and then 
 went over to Dick respectfully and held out a box of 
 cigarettes. 
 
 163
 
 "What? Oh, well, I will. You've got my own 
 brand, I see." 
 
 "Is there any conceivable thing between heaven 
 and earth that I would not get for you?" 
 
 "Yes," said Dick with a short laugh, "away." She 
 sat down with a profound sigh. "It's rather bad luck. 
 However, I'm a bit of a philosopher, and we're out 
 of the rain and I know Tagliacci' backward, and, 
 so, there it is. You've got to do one thing for me, 
 though." 
 
 "Only one?" The man was fatuous. "Name it." 
 
 "Doddy's for supper, old boy." 
 
 "Not really?" 
 
 "Really and truly. Otherwise Miss Okehampton 
 summons the prancing chargers and cavorts away. 
 One would have to be Dickens mad to spend a whole 
 evening with old father Christmas amuse me." 
 
 She lay back in her chair and stretched out her feet 
 to the fire. Her stockings were silk. 
 
 Sir Edward Morde opened a bottle of champagne 
 and filled two glasses. "I remember years ago that 
 is, some years ago when I was president of the Foil 
 Club at Oxford, I " 
 
 164
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 TONY OKEHAMPTON had never been so 
 happy since he went down the Cornmarket 
 on his first night at Oxford, bought the largest 
 tobacco jar he could find, which bore upon it the 
 arms of his college, and placed it conspicuously in 
 his sitting-room. 
 
 He had received the check from Thoresby, had 
 cashed it and had secreted a thousand pounds' worth 
 of banknotes about his bedroom at the Oxford House 
 Mission. With that contradictory touch of extreme 
 meanness which is often to be found in the nature 
 of generous men, Tony intended to avail himself of 
 his nephew's hospitality until he had chosen, furnished 
 and moved into the new flat. Whitechapel certainly 
 \vas off the map, but, thank Heaven, he could now 
 afford as many taxicabs as he liked. 
 
 During the next few weeks his overworked nephew, 
 who, like many another enthusiast, was busily engaged 
 in trying to empty the sea with a fish slice, saw very 
 little of Master Tony. He didn't appear at the early 
 breakfast table. He let himself in long after the opti- 
 mistic brotherhood had retired for the night. All his 
 days were spent in collecting orders to view from auc- 
 tioneers and estate agents, and in viewing various 
 flats with almost finnicky eyes. Tony saw no reason 
 
 165
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 why he shouldn't face west or why he shouldn't be 
 within a stone's throw of the park. In all probability 
 he would join the livery brigade in the row before 
 breakfast. He would show some of these cockney 
 riders how to sit a gee, bless them. 
 
 He elevated flat-hunting into an orgy. Beautifully 
 dressed and looking like the lady novelist's idea of a 
 duke, he took West End estate agents into his con- 
 fidence, and after a strenuous morning's work he 
 turned into the Carlton or the Savoy and did himself 
 very well. It never occurred to him to invite either 
 of his daughters to join him on these occasions, and 
 he was particularly careful to avoid the neighborhood 
 of Bloomsbury. His one great hope was that Brasilia 
 might never discover the very pleasant change in his 
 affairs. He felt certain that her present environment 
 was all for Brasilia's good. It would be a thousand 
 pities to remove her from it. Eventually, after much 
 deliberation, he decided upon a flat at Knightsbridge. 
 Its windows overlooked the park. He considered it 
 to be essentially a gentleman's flat. An Okehampton 
 could live there in cheerfulness. And then he indulged 
 himself to the full in the enjoyment of choosing fur- 
 niture. He had a very nice taste and an unerring eye 
 for those things which were really expensive. The 
 result was altogether to his satisfaction, and when, 
 finally, he invited Thoresby to inspect the place he per- 
 sonally conducted him from room to room with the 
 modest smile of the connoisseur. 
 
 "Well, Bill? And the verdict is?" 
 
 Thoresby looked at him dryly. "I've met a few 
 1 66
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 supremely complete aristocrats in my time," he said, 
 "but none of 'em could come within a thousand miles 
 of you" 
 
 Tony was delighted. "Thanks, so much," he said. 
 He had begun to adopt a certain amount of Eliza- 
 bethanism in his choice of words. As an artist it 
 seemed to him to be necessary to live up to his hat. 
 
 "You have not forgotten, I suppose, to ask your 
 furniture dealers to send their bills to me?" 
 
 "No, dear boy," said Tony. "Everything's in 
 order." 
 
 "That's good. We little thought when we were at 
 Quennor that accident would run us into such pleasant 
 waters." 
 
 "Ah!" said Tony, "you're right. You know, my 
 dear Bill, the more I think about it, and, mind you, 
 I think about it a good deal, the more I'm perfectly 
 certain that Providence acts in no haphazard spirit." 
 
 "You forget one thing," said Thoresby. "We're 
 alone, old boy. Don't forget that. When two experts 
 are together they may take a holiday from codding. 
 When do you come in?" 
 
 "I shall spend Sunday with my nephew and do 
 what I can in the evening to brighten up his lands, 
 and I shall move in on Monday. It's a good day to 
 make a beginning. Don't you think so?" 
 
 "As good as any other. How about the girls? 
 Have they passed the place yet?" 
 
 Tony showed surprise. "Passed the place! The 
 girls! My dear feller, they're in the habit of doing 
 whatever I tell them to do." 
 
 167
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "They were when you accompanied your parental 
 commands with an old boot. Emancipation has set in, 
 my dear friend. Harry and Dick may find Knights- 
 bridge rather too far out. And, then, how about your 
 scheme? the decoy scheme, I mean. You see, you 
 can't run this place on the tenner a week. You'll have 
 to do something, won't you, to eke out your pittance?" 
 
 Tony smiled and waved his hand in an airy gesture. 
 "I am giving my girls a bohemian luncheon here at 
 one-thirty to-day. I shall then issue my orders and 
 see that they make their plans for joining me at the 
 appointed hour." 
 
 "Dick's living with Harry in Shaftesbury Avenue, 
 isn't she?" 
 
 "Yes, a detestable little flat, chronically untidy, and 
 smacking horribly of grease paint and stale tobacco. 
 Faugh!" 
 
 Thorseby chuckled. This neat-minded gentleman 
 had once lived at Quennor and had been seen with a 
 five days' growth upon his face, with conglomerate 
 stains all over his clothes. Wonderful thing human 
 nature. 
 
 "I can give you a decent glass of whisky," said 
 Tony. 
 
 "No, thanks. I never drink between meals. An 
 old habit of mine. It is necessary for men who live 
 on their wits to retain clear heads. Well, then, good- 
 bye, my dear friend, and good luck." 
 
 Having seen Thoresby to the door, Tony straight- 
 ened the well-framed engravings in the hall, went into 
 the dining-room and proceeded to arrange a cold col" 
 
 1 68
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 lation upon the table. There were German sausage 
 meats, sardines, tongues, a chicken in aspic and several 
 bottles of white wine. It was already nearly half- 
 past one, and so Tony mixed himself a cocktail. Glow- 
 ing with satisfaction, he then turned into the draw- 
 ing-room, opened a small grand piano, sat down and 
 sang "I'll sing thee songs of Araby" in a very pleas- 
 ant baritone, accompanying himself in a rather under- 
 graduate manner. He made a delightful picture of 
 domestic felicity. His clothes were unobtrusively ex- 
 cellent. His shoes were of admirable cut and his hair 
 had been dealt with by a master hand. He was the 
 very spit of the Tony Okehampton whom Billy Rus- 
 son had expected to find standing on the steps of 
 Quennor. 
 
 169
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 CURIOSITY being just as keen in Harry and 
 Dick as ever it was, they arrived at the 
 parental flat together. They were only half 
 an hour late. Both had engagements for tea, and so 
 they were painted. Why Tony issued an invitation 
 from a place called Park Court, Knightsbridge, beat 
 them. Tony and Park Court, Knightsbridge, didn't 
 mix at all. 
 
 They arrived in a borrowed motor. Harry arranged 
 for it the night before. She hadn't the remotest idea 
 in the morning to whom it belonged. It did very well 
 and saved a cab fare. To see these two babies, as cool, 
 bland and insolently collected as though they had lived 
 in London and Paris for twenty years, was a sight 
 for the gods. Those of them who had managed to 
 retain some sympathy for human beings must have 
 wept. 
 
 "You'll wait," said Harry to the chauffeur. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, miss, but " 
 
 "Can't help your troubles, you'll wait oh, flats. 
 Tony must have got pally with some harmless lunatic, 
 I suppose." 
 
 "S'pose so," said Dick. "What's the number?" 
 
 "Six." 
 
 170
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 An attendant in a chocolate uniform with brass 
 buttons and a German military hat came up and 
 saluted. "What number do you " 
 
 "Six," said Harry. She looked through him. Her 
 expression was sulky and lowering. 
 
 "This way for the lift, miss." 
 
 "Walking," said Harry. 
 
 Dick would rather have gone by the lift, but she 
 followed. The wide stairs were thickly carpeted and 
 there were stereotyped pictures here and there. They 
 stopped outside the white door of number six. Dick 
 gave a nervous laugh. "Are we going to ask for 
 Tony, or what's the notion? His new pal's got a bit, 
 that's certain." 
 
 "Yes," said Harry, "ask for Tony." 
 
 "You led the way up. You ask." 
 
 "I don't think." 
 
 "Oh, well, let's chance it." She gave the bell three 
 irritable prods. 
 
 The little difficulty was simplified by the appearance 
 of Tony himself. "Hullo," he said. 
 
 "Hullo, Tony!" said Dick. 
 
 "Hullo, Tony!" said Harry. 
 
 Tony felt a thrill of pride at the sight of his two 
 girls. They were distinctly guaranteed to attract at- 
 tention. "Well, come in," he said. 
 
 They went in, more than ever curious. He seemed 
 to have the run of the place. It was extraordinary. 
 
 Dick's quick brain found a solution. "Oh, I see!" 
 she said. "You've got a job as furniture inspector for 
 Staples." 
 
 171
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "Guess again," said Tony. "This is the dining- 
 room. At a pinch you can sit a round dozen. Take 
 special notice of the view and mark the mantelpiece 
 genuine Tudor." 
 
 The two girls exchanged looks and Harry tapped 
 her forehead. 
 
 "Here we have the drawing-room, which, mark 
 you, is a comfortable room generally it will be im- 
 provised into a card room. Isn't it nice? Ain't it 
 topping? God, I love it." 
 
 Harry made another sigh. It would be impossible 
 to describe it. 
 
 "And this," said Tony, warming to his work, "is 
 my den, lined, as you will see, with the immortal 
 works of the old masters Dickens, Thackeray, and 
 what's the cove's name oh, yes, George Eliot, with- 
 out whom I am lost." 
 
 "Absolutely at a loose end," said Dick. "Yes, it's 
 all very tweaky, Tony ; might easily pass for the room 
 of a Colonel of Grenadier Guards, retired. But what's 
 the game?" 
 
 "Yes," said Harry, "that's what I want to know." 
 
 Tony's face was flushed with pride. 
 
 "Further along the passage," he said, "we have five 
 bedrooms, bathroom and the usual offices. And, of 
 course, there's a kitchen and so forth. Isn't it nice? 
 Isn't it topping? God, I love it! Inspection over, 
 lunch. I'm afraid it's all cold. However, what there 
 is, is good. Off with your coats. Hats, too. You're 
 at home." 
 
 He had saved this bonne bouche for the last. He 
 172
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 threw it at their feet like a cracker and laughed 
 heartily. 
 
 He led the way into the dining-room, walking al- 
 most on the tips of his toes. 
 
 "Up the pole," said Harry. 
 
 Dick looked extremely puzzled and a little worried. 
 She was very proud of her father. He was a crack 
 shot and a superb poacher, and he had his moments 
 when he was really amusing. It went without say- 
 ing that he was clever. He was an Okehampton. 
 She gave Tony her sealskin coat. 
 
 He weighed it and gave a long whistle. "Genuine, 
 what? A present from the front?" 
 
 Dick shook her head. She was admiring the glass 
 on the table. "Oh, that thing!" she said indifferently. 
 "Ever heard of an old lady of the name of Morde?" 
 
 "Sir Edward Morde?" 
 
 "He's made a sort of hobby of me." 
 
 "You must ask him here," said Tony, "the nucleus 
 of a circle. Now then, chicken?" 
 
 Dick examined it for a moment. "No, I hardly 
 think so. What's that? Tongue, isn't it? No, hold 
 it. I see you've got some potted prawns. That's my 
 form this morning. I had supper somewhere about 
 five." Two months ago Dick would have eaten roast 
 mutton and plain potatoes with avidity under the 
 shadow of the Crystal Palace. 
 
 Harry, strangely quiet, had seen, too, a bottle of 
 sauterne. A curious look in her eye seemed to denote 
 that she was following up a trail of thought. It made 
 her very thirsty. 
 
 173
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Tony examined her out of the corners of his eyes. 
 Once before he had seen a similar expression. He 
 would carry a cut on his left cheekbone so long as 
 he lived. Harry had flung an axe at him. 
 
 "Now, look here," he said, "you, too. Make hay 
 with the lunch and ask me no further questions till 
 I get a cigar between my teeth. Then I'll give you 
 the news." 
 
 Harry pushed her chair back rather violently. She 
 got up and went over to a table on which there was 
 a cigarette box. She took one and lit it and inhaled 
 several mouthfuls. "Tell me," she said, "you." She 
 looked at Tony. "Were you somewhere about in the 
 passage the night before Thoresby left Quennor?" 
 
 Tony held himself in. It was a new experience. 
 Not so long ago his daughter's question would have 
 been received with a salvo of the sort of blasphemy 
 which would have made a paid Socialist tremble in 
 his shoes. He turned deliberately to Dick. "Have 
 some, old chap. It's pretty good. I chose it myself. 
 When I was at Oxford I was a pretty good judge of 
 all these things. It takes a lot to kill it, I find. What 
 are you drinking?" 
 
 "Oh, I dunno," said Dick. "Brandy and soda." 
 
 The father shot out a short laugh. "Got civilized 
 pretty soon, haven't you? Er forgive me for being 
 personal, but why plaster paint onto such a complex- 
 ion as yours?" 
 
 Dick shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, I dunno. It's 
 done, you see." She looked at her father humorously. 
 "Can you keep this sort of thing up long?" 
 
 174
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "What sort of thing?" 
 
 "This gentlemanlike act this Sir Peter Teazle 
 business. Mind you, I don't dislike it, especially as 
 I see you've washed and shaved and sported a clean 
 shirt." 
 
 Tony burst out laughing. At last he had managed 
 to catch the eye of the limelight man. He walked 
 around the table to show himself off. "Eh?" he said. 
 "Eh ? All right, what ? Savile Row, my dear. Takes 
 a good figure to show 'em off, eh?" 
 
 Dick smiled. "Passed," she said. "H'm, and I 
 see you're a spat man, too. Very hot. Oh, very O. T. 
 What do you think of our father, Harry?" 
 
 Tony met Harry's half closed eyes again and 
 twisted around. "Oh, curse the girl," he thought. 
 "Curse her! She's a damn sight too clever!" 
 
 Harry had, however, arrived almost at the end of 
 her train of thought. "Tony," she said, very quietly, 
 "did you see me go in or come out?" 
 
 "I haven't the remotest notion what you mean," 
 said Tony. 
 
 "Okehampton !" she said. 
 
 Dick was altogether in the dark. She screamed 
 with laughter. How clever Harry was! 
 
 Tony shrugged his shoulders, but he filled up his 
 glass and drank rather quickly. 
 
 "As a drunkard," said Harry, "you were very suc- 
 cessful, but as a blackmailer you break all records." 
 
 Tony still held himself under control. Even he was 
 astonished. He was, however, a very happy man 
 whose life's work had been adequately rewarded. He 
 
 '75
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 was now all in favor of law and order. He had, as 
 it were, a stake in the country, and he felt a sort of 
 superstitious desire that the reunion should pass off 
 without a hitch or anything of an undignified nature. 
 
 "What's the matter with our Harry?" he asked. 
 "She looks like one of the witches of Endor." 
 
 Dick became a little irritable. "Oh, turn up all this 
 mystery business, Harry," she said. "Come and sit 
 down. Let Tony play the little gentleman for once, 
 in peace." 
 
 Trickles of smoke were dribbling from Harry's 
 nostrils. "I'm glad I know," she said. "That's all. 
 There's nothing more in it than that. I've always 
 known you for a dog, Tony, and a performing dog at 
 that. But I thought that blackmail was one of the 
 tricks you didn't know." She got up and marched 
 over to her father and stood eye to eye. "I marked 
 you once for less than this. Thank your stars, we're 
 not at Quennor. Now then, what's the game?" 
 
 Tony looked as much relieved as he was. He began 
 to see, much to his comfort, that his girls would be 
 very easy to live with. "Well," he said, "the game 
 is this. And it's a good game, played slow. You 
 two scratch that common or garden flat in Shaftes- 
 bury Avenue and come and live with your father in 
 a place that will reflect no discredit on the Okehamp- 
 tons. A charming bedroom apiece, bath, hot and cold, 
 well-trained servants to see to your every want and 
 social evenings at home. Any little earnings of your 
 own, of course, strictly in the light of pocket money." 
 
 Dick sprang up and threw herself in the well-known 
 176
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 attitude of the stage ingenue. "Oh, papa! papa!" she 
 cried, "how kind you are!" 
 
 "D'yer like the notion, Dick?" 
 
 "I don't think?" said Dick. "What bo, she bumps! 
 Shaftesbury Avenue's the limit. I'm all for England, 
 home and beauty." 
 
 Tony's joy was touching. He held out his hand. 
 "Put it there, Dick, old man ! Put it there ! You're 
 a sportsman. That's what you are, a chip of the old 
 block, old man. That's why I called you Dick." He 
 wrung the long thin hand and then, in his exuberance, 
 bent forward and kissed the girl on the cheek. 
 
 "Oh, hot stuff, Tony, old boy !" said Dick. "Very 
 hot stuff." They were the words she had used to 
 Jack. 
 
 Harry put down an empty glass. "May I ask," she 
 said, "how soon it will be before the police raid us?" 
 
 "My dear Harry!" 
 
 "Quite well dorie, Tony," she said, "virtuous indig- 
 nation in every look and gesture. But I'm an older 
 bird than you are in this part of the town, and in the 
 long run houses are always raided where decoys are 
 used to entice lunatics and old men for gambling pur- 
 poses, etc., etc. However, it's all in the day's march. 
 When do we move in?" 
 
 "On Monday," said Tony. 
 
 "All right. So-long, then. Do your best to keep 
 your liquor off your clothes." She went out and they 
 heard her whistling down the passage. 
 
 "I must go, too," said Dick. "I'm going to tea at 
 the Carlton. Mother's coming here, of course?" 
 
 177
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Tony threw up his hands. "Ah, my dear," he said, 
 "would God that were so! Your poor mother! Oh, 
 dear, oh, dear, oh, dear! Well, au revoir, my dear 
 child. I hope we shall all be very happy together." 
 
 It was with a very straight face that Dick followed 
 her sister. When Tony heard the front door shut he 
 walked across the room to a looking-glass and put 
 his finger on his cheekbone. The old wound was full 
 of pain. 
 
 178
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 RfiNfi DE MAINGAUCHE was the subject of 
 some dissension in the Okehampton flat. He 
 had been discovered by Harry. He was re- 
 garded by Harry as her particular property. It be- 
 came apparent very quickly, however, that this artis- 
 tic person came to Park Court for Dick. Harry was 
 extremely annoyed. The two girls did not settle the 
 matter as Thoresby had seen them settle another mat- 
 ter from his bedroom window at Quennor. Those 
 good days were over. The walls of Harry's bedroom 
 were, however, metaphorically hung around with 
 broncho-buster invective. 
 
 Dick said that she liked Rene, and if he liked her 
 there was an end of it. For all she cared, Harry could 
 help herself to her pals. In fact, she'd be jolly glad 
 if she could see her way to remove finnicky old Mordy, 
 of whose doddering she was heartily tired. 
 
 This man, Rene de Maingauche, was a rather in- 
 teresting person. He was the son of a well-known 
 Indian prince and his mother was a French actress. 
 His name was the outcome of a witty piece of in- 
 vention on his mother's part. The son was oriental 
 in the manner of the Boule Miche. His mother had 
 always regarded him as an amusement. He was to 
 
 179
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 her much as a pet dog is to many women, something 
 to tease, to pet, to feed, to exhibit tricks. He was 
 extremely good-looking, a really wonderful mixture 
 of oriental and Parisian. His parental blood came out 
 in his black hair and full lips and the curious large 
 eyes, the whites of which were almost yellow. His 
 mother could be traced in his exceedingly slight figure 
 and an incurable disbelief in God and man. From 
 both parents he inherited an insatiable desire to pos- 
 sess at once the last thing to take his fancy and an 
 irritation bordering upon insanity when his desire was 
 not gratified. Fortunately, or unfortunately there 
 was no happiness and solid future for such a man 
 desires followed so closely upon each other's heels that 
 there was no time for him to do more than to show 
 that insanity would really never claim him. He had 
 always had his own way. At his own wish he had 
 given up a French school and been sent to Harrow. 
 At his own wish he had gone to Heidelberg rather 
 than to an English university, and he had spent an 
 elaborate year in India. He spoke English and Ger- 
 man as well as he spoke French, and divided his time 
 between Paris and London. Bored with London, hav- 
 ing seen its plays, its music halls, its operas, he would 
 go home to bed one night in his popular rooms in 
 Bury Street, order a taxi and catch the night boat 
 from Dover. At half-past seven o'clock the next even- 
 ing he would meet someone in the Rue de la Paix 
 who would get on his nerves. He would spend the 
 evening in his mother's dressing-room at her theater, 
 keeping her in screams of laughter, and return to 
 
 1 80
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 London the following morning. Or, falling in love 
 with a midinette, he would transplant himself from 
 the Champs Elysees to Montmartre and live among 
 garlic and art talk for weeks at a time. He was not 
 so much a degenerate as a spoiled child. Given that he 
 had had to earn his living, he could have done so ex- 
 cellently well. He had many gifts. He could write. 
 He could paint, and he could sing. He did them all, 
 but turned them to no account. There was no need. 
 His immensely wealthy male parent had settled upon 
 him a thousand a year and his mother frequently paid 
 his debts. It goes without saying that he never lived 
 within his income. He was an artist. He had no 
 money sense. He could only live in comfort in an 
 atmosphere. His rooms in Bury Street were crowded 
 with caricatures by Sem, original drawings by Beards- 
 ley and Beerbohm and Seine. He had a penchant 
 for Dulac. His favorite books were bound in covers 
 designed by himself. His carpets were Indian and 
 an elusive oriental smell pervaded everything. In 
 Paris his apartment was much the same and he had 
 duplicates of everything that he needed, so that he 
 might never be bothered with luggage. His income 
 was, of course, utterly inadequate. It was lucky for 
 him that mama was one of the most highly paid 
 actresses of France and that her own income was aug- 
 mented from coffers other than those theatrical. 
 
 Among his particular friends in both countries he 
 was nicknamed the Prince and His Highness. He 
 was a very child of a petulantly cultivated extrava- 
 gance. He had many good points. He was generous. 
 
 181
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 It was easy. He had been known to have rescued 
 many a starving art student from suicide. He might 
 in the future want to buy their pictures. To be amused 
 or startled he would pay anything, owe anything, bor- 
 row anything. And, oddly enough, underneath a skep- 
 ticism which was French the French of Paris and 
 an unmoral attitude toward life which was cosmopoli- 
 tan, he hid a paradoxical sensitiveness as to the reason 
 of his name. The name itself amused him. He did 
 not in the very, least object to his mother's careless- 
 ness. All the same, he would have preferred to have 
 had a family, a history. It would have appealed to 
 him as an artist one who had a feeling for age and 
 bric-a-brac and for period in furniture and silver. It 
 was, however, nothing more than just a regret which 
 he cultivated as a hobby. It amused him to be sorry, 
 and there the thing ended. He discussed it in his ex- 
 pansive moments and speculated epigrammatically as 
 to whom he might not have been if born in wedlock. 
 He often gave himself the most curious parents and 
 played the part for half an hour in the most brilliant 
 manner of one who was, perhaps, the son of George 
 Bernard Shaw and Mrs. Pankhurst, or Mr. Charles 
 Hawtrey and the Duchess of Rutland, or Mr. John 
 Burns and Baroness Von Hutten, or Mr. G. K. Ches- 
 terton and Mrs. Eddy. In fact, his imagination was 
 very fertile. In these moments he kept odd assort- 
 ments of human beings in fits of almost painful laugh- 
 ter. He made his table the center of attraction in 
 the only brasserie in London which reflects anything 
 of Continentalism. He had his moments, very few 
 
 182
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 and far between, of the most poignant depression, but 
 even then he was depressed in a completely artistic 
 manner. With the calmest deliberation he would choose 
 a foggy night and then drive to the Embankment by 
 Cleopatra's Needle and, warmly clad in a fur overcoat, 
 stand listening to the cold lap of an outgoing tide. 
 These occasional fits sent him back to his super-civili- 
 zation with a new zest for diablerie. 
 
 This was the man who had been faintly amused by 
 Harry's sawdust blasphemies, and this was the man 
 who at first sight of Dick found life more interesting 
 than it had ever been before. 
 
 183
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 IT happened by a series of accidents that Rene de 
 Maingauche was obliged to play fox-and-grapes 
 so far as Dick was concerned. Whenever he 
 went to the Okehampton flat obsessed with the desire 
 to take Dick to tea, or to dinner, or to supper, or for 
 a run in his car, or anywhere, she was always out. 
 At first he thought that this was cleverness on, Dick's 
 part, a well-reasoned manner of keeping him on a 
 string. It was, at any rate, the sort of thing that 
 Harry frequently did, and he imagined that it was 
 characteristic of the family. It had the effect of put- 
 ting him into a condition of irritability which was 
 extremely bad for his car, his man servant and for 
 Tony Okehampton, who was now playing the fond 
 parent to perfection. 
 
 One Saturday night, however, just as he was going 
 to bed, a taxicab drove up with a note from Dick. 
 He had never seen her great, big school-boy writing 
 before, but he knew the Okehampton crest on the en- 
 velope. Tony had seen to it that the flat was pinked 
 with his crest. It gave him an added springiness to 
 his walk. The note ran in this way : 
 
 DEAR BLACK PRINCE: 
 
 I am bored stiff. If it's decent weather to-morrow, for 
 the Lord's sake come and fetch me and drive me down to 
 
 184
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Brighton or somewhere. If I have much more of all the 
 old wolves who prowl about this place I shall go fairly up the 
 pole. Don't get here much before eleven and bring a store 
 of extra petrol. I may cut Brighton at the last minute and 
 take a fancy for Edinburgh. I don't care a hang if I'm not 
 back in London till Monday night at seven o'clock. 
 
 APPLE OF TONY'S EYE. 
 
 Rene had been unable to discover anything new for 
 at least twenty-four hours. Everything had failed 
 him. The earth had become a stale and boring place. 
 This letter acted upon him like electricity. This hith- 
 erto elusive, curiously cold, boyish girl with gray eyes 
 which seemed to set him on fire and immediately put 
 out the flame, actually handed herself to him. It was 
 a great night. The man who needed amusement be- 
 came wonderfully like his mother for at least an hour 
 his mother when one of her admirers had presented 
 her with a little snake or an Australian laughing jack- 
 ass bird. He got into his dressing-gown, a really 
 wonderful garment, and, instead of calling his man, 
 packed his case himself. He was going on a honey- 
 moon. If the shops had been open, he would have 
 gone forth and bought elaborate new brushes, although 
 his collection of them was already remarkable, and set 
 himself up with another collection of new ties. As it 
 was, he contented himself with old things which he 
 had never worn, and while he packed them he 
 sang : "Je suis le roi d'Espagne, jeune fille aux yeux 
 novis." 
 
 The infantry captain whose rooms were just beneath, 
 and who was sitting up with a wet towel around his 
 
 185
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 head, endeavoring to force into it some of the in- 
 genious twaddle which is set by the war office for 
 those British officers who desire to pass into the Staff 
 College, heard paeans of laughter, and he relegated the 
 lunatic Frenchman to several undiscovered spots. It 
 seemed to him that the man above was entertaining 
 a party of devils. The ceiling shook as though an 
 enormous Mordkin were dancing, and, just as he was 
 about to overcome his characteristically insular hatred 
 for making a scene, dash upstairs and hammer at the 
 offending door, the room above seemed to empty, 
 whereupon the infantry captain gave thanks to all his 
 gods and returned doggedly to his acrostics. He did 
 not know Rene de Maingauche. At half-past two 
 someone started playing the piano. It was not a devil 
 this time. It was an angel. Curiously enough, the 
 infantry captain had been born with an ear for music, 
 which proved beyond all question that he should not 
 have been born to be an infantry captain. His mind 
 was lifted out of geographical absurdities and com- 
 forted by delicious bits of Grieg and Chopin and Hel- 
 ler's "Sleepless Nights." It was with a sigh of re- 
 gret that he heard the piano close with a bang. 
 
 Rene drove up to Park Court just as the barracks 
 clock struck eleven. The door was opened by a neat 
 maid. 
 
 "Is Miss Dick up?" 
 
 "No, sir. Will you please come this way?" 
 
 Rene heard Tony's unmistakable laugh. His nos- 
 trils caught the aroma of a good cigar. When he 
 went into the little room lined with old masters he 
 
 186
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 found three men comfortably seated discussing Home 
 Rule and other modern Gilbertianisms. 
 
 "Ah !" said Tony, rising with his usual flamboyance. 
 "This is delightful. Come in, my dear fellow, come 
 in. Let me see, now, you know my two old friends 
 here, don't you?" 
 
 "I know Sir Galahad Morde," said Rene, who took 
 it that they were two of the wolves to whom Dick 
 had referred. 
 
 "Oh, well, dash it. It's about time you knew my 
 dear old friend, Lord Thoresby Mr. Rene de Main- 
 gauche." 
 
 Thoresby, sparkling with cleanliness, who now 
 looked horsy rather in the manner of the M. F. H. 
 than the trainer, nodded. He liked the look of the 
 Frenchman. Sir Edward Morde, neat, precise, and 
 old maidish, shot a jealous glance at the newcomer. 
 He had no imagination, but he felt convinced that this 
 ridiculously young, slight and well-turned-out person 
 was now after Dick and had deposed Harry from his 
 affections. 
 
 Here were three totally distinct men who had come 
 to the same place for the same reason and all by ap- 
 pointment. Unknown to each other, they belonged 
 to the brotherhood of Dick. Thoresby was to take 
 Dick to skate at Holland Park at her request. Sir 
 Edward Morde had been booked by Dick to initiate 
 her into the chilly joys of the Church Parade, to be 
 followed by luncheon at the Carlton, while Rene had 
 been booked by her for a trip to Heaven. 
 
 Tony was the only one who appreciated the delicious 
 
 187
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 comedy of the situation. He guessed at once what 
 had happened. He did not persuade himself that the 
 three men had come to Park Court to talk to him. 
 He saw in them Dick's changing moods. She had 
 obviously asked Thoresby in one of them, Morde in 
 another and the Frenchman in a third. He bet himself 
 a tenner that the Frenchman would lead her away. 
 His impishness led him to tease the three men. It 
 was a splendid way of putting in a Sunday morning. 
 "You didn't meet Dick going away, I suppose?" he 
 asked. 
 
 There was a simultaneous "What!" 
 
 And in this way Tony managed to let the three men 
 know that they were all there for the same purpose. 
 
 "I had a notion," he said, "that she was off to the 
 Oratory to hear the music with some nice boy or 
 other. Perhaps, I'm wrong." 
 
 "Dear me," said Morde, "I really wish you'd find 
 out." 
 
 Tony went to the door and made loud bovine sounds. 
 Dick's voice came down the passage. "Oh, shut up, 
 Tony!" 
 
 And so Morde smiled and Thoresby and Rene eyed 
 him with enmity. 
 
 "Oh, bless my soul !" said Tony. "What am I talkin' 
 about? I'm takin' Dick down to lunch with her aunt 
 or cousin or whatever she is." 
 
 "I don't think so," said Thoresby. 
 
 "I'm quite sure you're not," said Rene. 
 
 "And I am equally certain," said Morde, "that you 
 are slightly inaccurate, my dear Okehampton. I speak 
 
 1 88
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 thus definitely, because Miss Dick is under an old 
 standing engagement with me for to-day." 
 
 "Oh, charming!" said Tony. 
 
 "Some mistake, somewhere," said Thoresby. "I'm 
 takin' Dick skatin'." 
 
 "Oh, delightful," said Tony. 
 
 If he had been in his father's country, Re*ne" would 
 have had these three men neatly tortured. As it was, 
 he flicked his cigarette into the fire and spoke very 
 softly, almost with a purr. "My car is waiting be- 
 low," he said, "to run Dick down to Brighton." 
 
 "Oh, toppin'," said Tony. So long as Dick re- 
 mained at Park Court there was no need to be ner- 
 vous as to its popularity. And then, inwardly im- 
 mensely tickled at the undisguised antagonism of his 
 three uninvited guests, Tony talked, and talked ex- 
 tremely well. It was not so much remarkable as pe- 
 culiarly characteristic that this man had climbed out 
 of the slough in which he had wallowed, pig-like, for 
 so many years and now stood cleaned and spruced 
 far above it. Outwardly he was now the old Tony 
 Okehampton grown older. He talked until Dick 
 made her appearance in a tube-like black skirt, a black 
 coat with very tight sleeves and a new set of fox furs. 
 Two small heads with beady eyes made a pillow for 
 her chin, and her oval face, thickly coated with white 
 stuff, looked whiter than ever. Her little hat was very 
 French and chic and possessed one feather, which 
 would inevitably poke people in the eyes whenever she 
 turned. She was utterly cool and blase, a complete 
 woman of the world her world. 
 
 189
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "Hullo, Mordy," she drawled. "Hullo, Bill! 
 Hullo, B. P. Come to hear about the state of the 
 Constitution from our friend Tony?" 
 
 All three men rose at once and talked together. 
 Tony had the greatest difficulty in preventing himself 
 from letting out a series of roars. He was tremen- 
 dously hearty these days. Prosperity sat well upon 
 him. These were not the only men who kept him 
 entertained. There were Harry's friends. There was 
 the son of a short time deceased West End tradesman, 
 who, having made an enormous fortune by the sweat 
 of his brain, left it behind him to be dissipated by a 
 reckless, degenerate son. There was a man whose 
 services in the British Army had been dispensed with 
 and who went through more adventures in the heart 
 of London than the Deerslayer ever overcame in his 
 virgin forests. He was an aristocrat in every sense 
 of the word. In addition to these two there was a 
 small collection of young men who were supposed to 
 be reading for various professions and who devoted 
 all their time to an indefatigable study of what is called 
 life. So Tony got as much bridge, baccarat, poker 
 and other games of chance, including tossing, as he 
 could do with. It was very profitable. He argued, 
 and perhaps rightly, that he was a more deserving 
 object and a better collector of coins than bookmakers 
 at hoc genus omne. 
 
 Dick immediately put an end to all argument. 
 "Come on, B. P.," she said, "come on. This is as 
 bad as the monkey house at the zoo." She turned at 
 the door. "There are hundreds of other Sundays, 
 
 190
 
 ' She was utterly cool and blase.'
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Bill dear, and Mordy darling," and threw them each 
 a little smile. 
 
 Rene de Maingauche followed her into the lift with 
 gleaming teeth. At that moment he was the very spit 
 of his father. 
 
 191
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE victor kept his car running on the low 
 gear for several moments. He was waiting 
 to be told which way to go. Dick said noth- 
 ing. She sat hunched up with her hands thrust deep 
 into her pockets. She was in a very odd mood. 
 
 "Well?" asked Rene. 
 
 "Well, what?" 
 
 "Your letter said Brighton or Edinburgh. Which 
 is it to be?" 
 
 "Does it matter?" 
 
 "Somewhat. You've brought nothing with you." 
 
 Dick looked a little puzzled. "I don't want any- 
 thing," she said. "What do you mean?" 
 
 "It's all the same to me. Edinburgh sounds rather 
 harsh. Suppose we make it Brighton," 
 
 "All I ask you to do," said Dick, "is to make it 
 something, and make it something quick." 
 
 "Then, Brighton," said Rene, in the highest spirits, 
 "Brighton and a silver sea." 
 
 Away went the car. So long as the roads were 
 lined with houses Rene constrained himself just within 
 the windy side of the law, but when at last he shook 
 off the abortive mass of houses in and around Croy- 
 
 192
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 don and ran into the open country he gave the car 
 her head, utterly careless of police traps. The roads 
 were hard. It had been frosty for several days, and 
 there was a faint touch of sun in the crisp air, which 
 gave the trees, all bare against the sky, a less melan- 
 choly appearance. Through the suburbs and their 
 ever-spreading tentacles Dick remained monosyllabic. 
 She paid very little attention to Rene's well-turned 
 phrases. He might have been a chauffeur more gar- 
 rulous than his kind usually is. This attitude amused 
 the Frenchman very much. It was something new, 
 and therefore something to be welcomed. It was the 
 first time that Dick had ever condescended to go any- 
 where with him alone. He persuaded himself that, 
 having made the plunge, and having invited her- 
 self into his arms, she was in a delightful flutter of 
 nerves. 
 
 The man was hopelessly mistaken. Dick had been 
 to supper the night before with a large party. She 
 was in her most reckless mood a mood in which she 
 threw rolls at distant acquaintances and conducted the 
 band with a fork. For the most part the music had 
 confined itself to selections, to the jingling reminis- 
 cent stuff of musical comedies. But without rhyme 
 or reason the conductor suddenly took it into his head 
 to play a little old song of Sullivan's. It wound its 
 way around Dick's untouched heart. It gave her an 
 overwhelming feeling of homesickness. It made her 
 want to creep away, find her mother the mother 
 whom she remembered as a bright and charming 
 woman and lie in her arms. When the simple mel- 
 
 193
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 ody came to an end she got up without a word and 
 left the place and went home. On the table in the 
 hall there was a letter from Jack. It was just as 
 simple and just as sincere and just as full of an under- 
 current of feeling as the song had been and wound 
 up, "Believe me, dear Dick, always your old pal." 
 Dick waited until the flat cleared. Then she stalked 
 in to her father, who was singing to himself. She 
 said: "Look here, Tony, mother's got to come here. 
 If she doesn't, I sling my hook and there's an end 
 of it. Why should we live here in luxury, while 
 mother's buried away in that dismal hole at Blooms- 
 bury? Harry and I have done what you asked us, 
 and not let her know anything about this place. When 
 I write, which isn't often, I write from the theater. 
 I don't think Harry ever troubles herself. And I want 
 mother here, d'ye see? Is that clear?" 
 
 If there was one person on earth whom Tony did 
 not want under his new roof she was his wife. He 
 knew Dick. He knew that if he diplomatized, the 
 desire for her mother would pass. So he said several 
 nice things, agreed with Dick that her mother should 
 come to the flat, and went off to bed, where he dis- 
 missed the whole thing from his mind. 
 
 He was very nearly right. Dick cried badly for 
 several hours, called herself, Harry and her father 
 by all sorts of names and underwent a sort of agony 
 of pain and regret. In the morning she woke up with 
 a headache, wondered what in the world it had been 
 to cause her to be such a fool as to cry, and thanked 
 Heaven that she had sent a note to Rene. Neverthe- 
 
 194
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 less, something of her emotion remained. She had 
 read Jack's letter again. It made everything that she 
 was doing seem horribly stale and tasteless. He was 
 doing things and was so clean. 
 
 Once a chameleon, always a chameleon. By the 
 time the car came to the straight street of Crawley, 
 with the Rising Sun at one end and the Setting Sun 
 at the other, the cold air had brushed all her cobwebs 
 away. She began to feel hungry, became aware that 
 Rene was saying amusing things, that he drove well, 
 and was very good-looking. She remembered also 
 that she and Harry had quarreled about this man, 
 and that in a sort of way she had won his scalp. Also, 
 it came to her that this odd Frenchman who was not 
 French, this Indian who was not an Indian, this mere 
 boy who spoke three languages like a native and made 
 his way through life like a sort of meteor was much 
 talked about. He was His Highness and the Prince 
 to all her set. When he chose he could talk with 
 something of the poetry of the oriental. He appealed 
 to Dick from every point of view, more because he 
 was cosmopolitan than because he could do her well. 
 Unlike Harry, she was not greedy and was quite pre- 
 pared at any time to eat bread and cheese so long as 
 it was served up with laughter. 
 
 Out of Crawley a man in uniform who leaned on 
 the saddle of his bicycle made a signal to Rene. His 
 warning was understood and attended to. The car 
 slowed down to average speed. 
 
 "Hullo!" said Dick. "Funky?" 
 
 "No. But after all I own a car, and I may as well 
 
 195
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 be able to drive it when I want to. If my license is 
 indorsed again, it may be suspended altogether. See 
 my point?" 
 
 "Have it suspended!" said Dick. "What a spree! 
 I'd simply love to have a car that I couldn't drive. 
 I'd lend it out and be a passenger. It 'ud break the 
 monotony a bit." 
 
 Rene laughed. He had always thought that this 
 girl was worth cultivating. 
 
 During the remainder of the run he did his best, 
 like a tennis player, to serve Dick with something 
 which she couldn't answer. A very rally of wits was 
 kept up, and when finally the car stopped in front 
 of the hotel at which they were to lunch Rene handed 
 out a girl in whose eyes there was nothing but 
 laughter. 
 
 Dick knew the place well. Many of her Sundays 
 had been spent there either with Thoresby or Morde. 
 She passed into the lounge already crowded with 
 people who had left the dining-room, a heterogeneous 
 collection of Jew and Gentile, nearly all of whom 
 were notorious for some reason or another with the 
 quiet air of an habitue, nodding here and there. 
 
 With a feeling of excitement which Rene had not 
 known for a considerable time, he went into the clerk's 
 office and booked a small suite on the second floor, 
 writing in the book the names of Mr. and Mrs. Er- 
 nest William Brownsmith, the sight of which sent the 
 more precocious of the clerks into an irrepressible fit 
 of laughter. The Prince was an old customer. When 
 Rene joined Dick in the foyer, which was indeed al- 
 
 196
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 most a green-room, he was well pleased with himself 
 and the world. The old fable of the fox and the 
 grapes, of which he had hitherto felt himself to be 
 the hero, no longer applied. 
 
 The dining-room had many empty tables. It was 
 after two o'clock. The band was still playing and the 
 loud chatter and laughter, the warmth of the room and 
 the smell of cigarette smoke were not unpleasant. An 
 obsequious man conducted His Highness to a table 
 in one of the windows at which a jockey, a musical 
 comedy star, a negro fighting man and a much-adver- 
 tised aeronaut had just been lunching. The Brighton 
 front was more or less deserted. Occasional motors 
 skimmed by and every now and then a small party 
 of cockney scorchers crouching over the low handle- 
 bars of their bicycles made the luxury of the hotel 
 even more apparent to Dick. A muddy-looking sea 
 lapped quietly around the framework of the West 
 Pier. 
 
 Dick found the Black Prince a very lively compan- 
 ion. When he did not know the actual names and 
 histories of the people at the other tables he invented 
 them. His inventions were nearer the truth than the 
 truth. He ordered the most expensive things on the 
 menu and two bottles of Veuve Clicquot 0.6. He did 
 not treat Dick as though he had known her all her 
 life. This was the sort of thing that other people did. 
 He paid her a sort of insolent deference because he 
 knew that it would be new to her, and he had already 
 discovered that, as in his own case, Dick had no use 
 for anything that was not new. With a wave of his 
 
 197
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 hand he left it to Dick to make a suggestion as to how 
 to kill the afternoon. "You are so original," he said. 
 "I cannot compete." 
 
 Dick's gesture was entirely characteristic. "Let's 
 go down under the front and play skittles." 
 
 The Black Prince was charmed. He had never 
 played skittles and had never been under the front 
 and so, after having smoked among the birds and 
 beasts in the conservatory, they went forth. A good 
 deal to his annoyance Rene had an altogether oriental 
 dislike of plebeians the skittle alley was in possession 
 of a young peer and his satellites, most of whom were 
 painted, and who called each other dear and darling, 
 and who rolled the ball like unathletic girls. How- 
 ever, Dick intended to play and achieved her object 
 in a manner which would have given complete joy to 
 Napoleon. She watched the lame efforts of these well- 
 known Londoners for a quarter of an hour and then 
 addressed herself to the man in charge. "I will now 
 play," she said. "These people have had enough." 
 Whereupon she gave the astonished crew an exhibi- 
 tion of skittle playing which filled them with admira- 
 tion and entirely removed their annoyance. She re- 
 turned to the hotel in time for tea with a nicely re- 
 plenished purse. She had only played for a sovereign 
 a game. The band was playing in the conservatory 
 and many respectable Brightonians had come to see 
 the sight. Getting no answer to his question as to 
 whether they should run the car out before dinner, 
 Rene turned in his chair to look at Dick and found 
 that she had deliberately gone to sleep. 
 
 198
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 The Black Prince chuckled. Here was a character. 
 Here was a very queen who made use of him when 
 it pleased her and forgot his presence in a manner 
 that was wholly royal. He watched her as he smoked. 
 He decided that to be able to sleep through such a 
 noise was a gift, and he found her as she sat in a 
 large low cane chair, with one leg crossed over the 
 other, her long thin hands clasped together in her 
 lap and her head pillowed in her furs, a perfectly 
 adorable person. No midinette, no freak French ac- 
 tress, no ignorant, chattering chorus girl with a 
 Christmas card face had ever fired him as this girl 
 did. How paradoxical was life. Here was he, ready 
 to undergo humiliation, to deprive himself of personal 
 comfort, even to wait for months, to add Dick to his 
 long list of pleasant memories, and she had quietly 
 saved him time, trouble and expense. 
 
 Dick slept for an hour without moving, and almost 
 without moving Rene watched her. The band left 
 the place and by twos and threes the menagerie de- 
 parted. Curious little love birds ceased to feed and 
 made their unmusical conversation. They gathered to- 
 gether in their cages and sat wing to wing all along 
 the perches, making spots of bright colors. Some of 
 them with their parrot-like beaks bore a close resem- 
 blance to many of the people who had motored down 
 for a few hours. The place was full of the smell of 
 patchouli and Egyptian cigarettes. 
 
 And all this hour there was a smile on Dick's lips. 
 She and Jack were tramping through the woods 
 around Quennor, almost knee deep in the dead dry 
 
 199
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 leaves, which made a sound like pebbles being washed 
 up by the sea. "Hurrah for the ginger beer!" she 
 said, and awoke. 
 
 Rene bent forward. "Ginger beer on top of tea?" 
 he said. "Never!" 
 
 Dick eyed the man with the hungry eyes for a long 
 moment. "Oh, it's you," she said. "I expected to 
 see Jack." 
 
 "Jack? Qui diable ?" 
 
 "Never mind. Now, then, what's to do? Any 
 ideas ?" She got up and stretched herself and yawned 
 and put her hat straight and kicked a footstool out 
 of the way. 
 
 "Come upstairs," said Rene. "There's a piano in 
 the suite. I'll play to you." 
 
 "Very brainy," said Dick. "Do all Black Princes 
 take suites?" 
 
 They went up in the lift. The sitting-room, with 
 its peculiar hotel furniture, was very warm. There 
 was a blazing fire. The valet had unpacked Rene's 
 case. There was a cigar box on the table and a box 
 of chocolates tied with blue ribbon. The door of the 
 next room was open and a pair of blue silk pajamas 
 was lying primly on the bed. 
 
 Dick drew a chair up to the fire and captured the 
 chocolates. 
 
 "Give her ten," she said. 
 
 So Rene sat himself at the piano and played 
 Tschaikowsky and Dvorak and some of Liszt's least 
 Maiden's Prayer-ish pieces. He played until the win- 
 dows seemed to be hung with black velvet. The only 
 
 200
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 light in the room was the flicker of the fire. Then 
 suddenly breaking off in the middle of Mendelssohn's 
 "Bee's Wedding," he got up and said : "Cristo Santo 
 Dio! Je mangerai ta chair blanche!" 
 
 "That's all right!" said Dick, "sounds well, but this 
 is where we stand up, old boy, and turn on the full 
 blaze of light." 
 
 "No, no!" said Rene. "Let us remain as we are!" 
 He tried to kiss her. 
 
 Dick put her hand around his throat and hurled 
 him backward, made an eel-like dart across the room 
 and turned on the light. 
 
 The Black Prince looked somewhat undignified. He 
 got up slowly, lit a cigarette and stood with his back 
 to the fire. He said : "Er, may I ask why you have 
 done me the honor to come to Brighton?" 
 
 "Pure kindness of heart," said Dick, "and also be- 
 cause I thought your car wanted a little exercise. 
 Why, what's the trouble?" 
 
 "The trouble is, if I may be allowed to say so, that 
 I am not very keen on being violently assaulted. It 
 doesn't suit me." 
 
 "Hullo !" said Dick. "Lost your hair?" She threw 
 a chocolate at him. 
 
 Rene recovered himself. After all, this was only 
 another surprise. The day was still young according 
 to his calculations. "I think we'll dine early, don't 
 you?" 
 
 "I'm cutting dinner," said Dick. 
 
 "Oh? Why?" 
 
 "I feel like it. But don't let that worry yoa. You're 
 20 1
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 staying here, I see. Good-night. Thanks very much 
 for a pleasant day. There's just time for me to catch 
 the express to Victoria. So-long, B. P." 
 
 And before the phrase-maker could find a single 
 word, he heard his door bang. 
 
 202
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 TONY waited up for Dick that night. It was 
 a curious thing that, although this man cared 
 nothing for what became of Harry, he de- 
 voted many secret hours to genuinely anxious con- 
 sideration for Dick. This was all the more curious 
 because he was afraid of Dick. Under her straight 
 eyes he felt like a criminal who sees a detective. Her 
 frankness made him shudder, and yet, next to him- 
 self, Dick was the only person for whom he had any 
 love. She laughed and was cheery and he admired 
 the grit she showed in sticking to her work. In her 
 shoes he knew that he would not have put himself out 
 in the least or permitted himself to be put out for one 
 moment by the rules and regulations of the theater. 
 He went so far even as to tell himself certainly it 
 was after a particularly drunken night that he could 
 be very happy in three outlandish rooms in the wastes 
 of North Kensington or Hammersmith with Dick. 
 He would get his little excitement in seeing her to 
 the theater and kill her working hours by watching 
 the moving pictures in cinematograph shows with a 
 pipe between his lips. She could always earn enough 
 money to keep him in good tobacco and the daily 
 papers. 
 
 203
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 He knew the reputation of Rene de Maingauche. 
 He knew precisely why this man and the others came 
 to the flat. It happened that he was spending his 
 Sunday evening alone. It was with an immense sense 
 of relief that he heard the front door open, heard 
 Dick's unmistakable step in the passage and put the 
 Referee aside when she opened his door and gave him 
 her invariable greeting. 
 
 "Hullo, Tony!" 
 
 "Hullo, old girl ! Back early, aren't you ?" 
 
 "Yes, I suppose I am." 
 
 "How's Brighton?" 
 
 "Just Brighton." 
 
 "Motor back?" 
 
 "No. Train." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Oh, I dunno. Hadn't been in a train for some 
 time. Thought I'd try it. Not a bad old way of 
 getting back." 
 
 "Oh did His Highness smash up his car?" 
 
 "Not while I was in it. Very likely has by now." 
 
 "Hullo, you two have had a row!" 
 
 "Lord, no. He doesn't know Miss Okehampton, 
 that's all cheery cove. Great fun." She lit a cigar- 
 ette. "If he'd been properly birched in his youth 
 and had never had more pocket money than a shillin' 
 a week he'd be a Pierrot, or something, by this time. 
 One of Pallissier's lot, earning good money. Or he 
 might even have written a toppin' novel or two. How- 
 ever, there it is. It isn't my business. I like him, 
 and he's useful. Good-night, Tony." 
 
 204
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 She hesitated for a moment at the door and then 
 turned. "I say, did you intend to sit up for me?" 
 
 "Yes. Why not?" 
 
 "I dunno. You sit up for me a good bit, don't 
 you?" 
 
 "Yes. Why not?" 
 
 "Oh, I dunno." 
 
 She opened the door again and again hesitated. 
 These two were more like undergraduates in the same 
 rooms than father and daughter. They were friendly 
 in the same inarticulate manner. She turned again 
 and flicked something with her finger. "Look here, 
 don't bother to sit up for me if you'd rather not." 
 
 "Oh, that's all right, old girl." 
 
 "Yes, I know. It's all right so far. When it 
 isn't all right I'll tell you." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 She picked up a book and hunted through it for il- 
 lustrations. "You needn't sit up for me till I fall in 
 love. Then I'd like you to. I mean, then it'll be 
 useful. Good-night, Tony." 
 
 For the third time she hesitated. When she turned 
 again she crossed the room to the fireplace, ostensibly 
 to look at a picture which had always hung there. 
 It was rather a nice copy of Dicksee's "Last Furrow." 
 "H'm! I love it. Jolly well touched in. Well, good- 
 night, Tony." She bent down suddenly and kissed 
 him on the head. "I like sportsmen." 
 
 For a moment or two, when he was alone again, 
 Tony couldn't see to read. "Good old Dick," he said 
 to himself. "Good old Dick." 
 
 205
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 It was with the warmth of this unaccustomed feel- 
 ing upon him that Tony started out the following 
 morning upon a search. He felt that he wanted to 
 mark the occasion in some way or other. He wanted 
 to find some odd and unusual trinket that Dick might 
 wear and laugh at. He would call it a Christmas 
 present, so that she might not think he was chumming 
 up to her for any particular reason. The frost still 
 held and the mist of the morning gave way and al- 
 lowed the elusive December sun to be seen. In all 
 the glory of good clothes and a bowler hat, specially 
 designed for him, Tony swung through Knightsbridge 
 along to Hyde Park Corner, down the hill to Picca- 
 dilly Circus. He told himself that Wardour Street 
 might be a likely spot. He found that he was wrong. 
 So he poked about the Holborn end of Oxford Street, 
 eying the things in the windows of curiosity shops 
 and others. 
 
 A woman, dressed out of the fashion, whose face 
 was hidden by a thick veil, slipped out of a chemist's 
 shop, caught sight of Tony, drew up, eyed him with 
 the very essence of sardonic animosity, and when he 
 moved on sidled after him, taking good care not to 
 be seen. 
 
 It was Mrs. Tony, who had escaped from the vigi- 
 lance of her strong-minded relative. She had only 
 seen her husband once since the break-up at Quennor. 
 This was during his first week at the Oxford House 
 Mission. He called at Bloomsbury Square, not to see 
 her, but to borrow three and sixpence from the war- 
 like lady who struggled with policemen in Palace 
 
 206
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Yard. "If you please!" she said to herself, 
 miracle! Where the reach-me-down suit? Where 
 the cheap bow tie? Where the ready-made blacking 
 boots? And where, oh where, the gutter-searching 
 eye? Dear Drusilla, this day may bring an epoch- 
 making change in your life. Who can tell?" 
 
 The unsuspecting Tony, upon whom peace and pros- 
 perity were acting so well, and who for the first time 
 for uncountable years was thinking of someone other 
 than himself, wandered on, followed by poor dear 
 Drusilla, from whom he had kept his good news a 
 secret wholly for her own sake. When he stopped, 
 she stopped. When he peered into one window, she 
 peered into another. 
 
 Finally, when he found something, went in, made 
 his purchase and, coming out, jumped into a taxi- 
 cab, she jumped into another. 
 
 "Follow that cab," she said, "and when it stops 
 draw up behind it. You shall be well paid." 
 
 Tony had hardly got into his own room when the 
 servant came in. 
 
 "A lady to see you, sir." 
 
 "To see me?" 
 
 " 'Mr. Okehampton,' she said, sir." 
 
 "Give any name?" 
 
 " 'A friend of the family,' she said, sir. 'An old 
 and dear friend.' ' 
 
 "An old and dear friend of the family! Didn't 
 know there was one! B'Jove, it's Dick, spoofin'." 
 
 He watched the door with a broad smile upon his 
 almost rejuvenated face. Dick was up to one of her 
 
 207
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 games, of course. He would pretend not to know her. 
 She liked sportsmen, she said. 
 
 The servant showed in a woman who quietly raised 
 her veil, showed a pale face and two eyes full of 
 venom. "Nice weather for the ducks, I don't think!" 
 she said, with almost pedantic enunciation. "You have 
 certainly provided me with a beautiful home, Tony 
 dear." 
 
 208
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 DICK had just returned from an understudy 
 rehearsal. She was in her bedroom. Harry 
 was there in a scarlet dressing-gown. She 
 was putting Dick up to date with certain of her ad- 
 ventures. Both girls suddenly heard a sound which 
 not only took them to their feet but along the passage 
 and into Tony's room. 
 
 Harry, whose quick intimacy with the peculiarities 
 of life had given her some knowledge of apoplexy, 
 expected to see her father stretched out upon the floor. 
 Instead, she found him standing with his mouth open, 
 having just emitted a cry, wearing an expression of 
 fear, horror, rage and a sort of annoyance which can 
 be assisted by no known adjective. 
 
 The two girls expected to see him looking either 
 at the spirit of some old friend who had been master- 
 fully done by Tony in the past or a Sine-like animal 
 with three heads and thirteen hands and an eye in 
 the middle of its back a green, slithery beast twitch- 
 ing constantly. 
 
 They found a quiet, pale-faced woman, with venom 
 in her eyes and an odd smile playing around her lips. 
 
 "Mother!" said Harry. "Oh!" 
 
 Dick stood still. Something seemed to prevent her 
 from moving or speaking. 
 
 209
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Tony was obviously relieved. The presence of his 
 two girls set his tongue wagging with a sort of 
 courage. 
 
 "She's found us!" he cried hoarsely. "She's found 
 us ! My God ! What are we going to do ? Don't let 
 her stay. Tell her she's not to stay." He threw out 
 his hands toward his girls appealingly. 
 
 They were both silent. Harry was altogether in- 
 different, Dick filled with compassion for both her 
 parents. 
 
 Mrs. Tony smiled at them. "Well, my darlings?" 
 she said. "Well, my pretty babies ? Answer oo's dear 
 papa!" 
 
 But they had nothing to say. Dick was trembling 
 horribly. 
 
 Tony broke out again. He was like a man face 
 to face with a line of pointing rifles pleading wildly 
 for his life. "Side with me !" he said. "Think a little 
 of your old father, who's done so much for you, who's 
 given you this beautiful home and made things easy. 
 Without that woman I've become a gentleman again. 
 I've gone off the drink. I've pulled myself up. For 
 God's sake, don't let her stay and drag me under 
 again. She did it before and she'll do it again ! She 
 hates me. She's a devil. Dick! Harry! Side with 
 me, if I never ask you to do anything for me again. 
 Save me from this woman ! If you don't believe what 
 I tell you, look at her eyes, quick!" 
 
 The poor wretch was shaking from head to foot. 
 He was in an ague of fear. 
 
 "Isn't he funny?" said Mrs. Tony. "Isn't oo's papa 
 210
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 a queerly amusing person ? Aren't you surprised that 
 I'm not angry at his treating his sweetheart in such 
 a way? Que de choses nous autres femmes subissent 
 dcs hommesf 
 
 The girls said nothing. Harry had become inter- 
 ested in her father's condition. Dick realized for the 
 first time that what Tony said was true. 
 
 Tony sidled around the table and clutched Dick's 
 hand. "Dick !" he cried, "Dick ! You're my pal. You 
 understand me. You've seen me clean and spruce. 
 You've seen what I've made myself when left alone. 
 Ask her to go ! Ask her to have mercy on me ! Help 
 me to go on being a gentleman! I like it. She's an 
 octopus. She'll clutch at me again. She did it before. 
 She undermined Quennor. She dragged me into Hell 
 in the very first year of our married life. Everyone 
 had called me 'Dear old Tony white man.' She 
 was jealous. She couldn't stand it. With the cun- 
 ning of a thousand devils she spotted me with mud. 
 She encouraged all the rottenness in me. You don't 
 know. Nobody knows. But I tell you that if she 
 stays here, I shall go under again. Dick! Dick! be 
 my friend ! Stand by me ! I'll give her every farthing 
 I've got if she'll let me off. I'll go and work if only 
 she'll go away. Harry don't care, not a damn! But 
 you do, Dick. You do. You understand me. You've 
 seen me both ways. You know that I can be a gentle- 
 man, don't you? Dicky, say something!" 
 
 All through this stammering appeal Dick had stood 
 very stiff and white. At the end of it she gently re- 
 leased herself from her father's clutch, went over to 
 
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 her mother and put her arm around her shoulder. 
 "Hullo! mother," she said. 
 
 "Good-morning, darling Dick. What a very be- 
 coming frock!" 
 
 "Dick! Dick!" cried Tony, "don't go back on me!" 
 
 Dick held her mother tight. She had needed her. 
 She had thought of her often in the scrimmagy house 
 of the suffragist. "Let's go, mother," she said. "We 
 can take rooms somewhere." 
 
 "My sweet, unpractical pet," said Mrs. Tony. 
 
 "Dick! Dick! I'm your pal." 
 
 Dick drew the back of her hand across her fore- 
 head. "Well, what's to be done?" she asked. "Don't 
 let's go through all that Quennor business again. I'm 
 ready enough to do something. Let's leave Tony in 
 peace. He's been so beastly happy. Poor devil, he 
 needed it." 
 
 "That's right, Dick. That's right. Stick by me. 
 I'll never forget yer!" 
 
 The struggle seemed to amuse Harry. She wore 
 the expression of those who watch prize-fights. 
 
 "Other husbands and wives don't get on," said 
 Dick, "why should you? I shall earn more money 
 presently. There are other flats in London, y'know. 
 Come on, mother. Let's get." 
 
 Tony shot out his hands. "Oh, Dick!" he cried. 
 "You ain't goin' to leave me? Who am I to sit up 
 for if you go?" 
 
 Dick became angry. "Dash my buttons !" she said. 
 "You can't have it both ways. Mother's got a per- 
 fect right to live here if she likes. Either she stays 
 
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 here with all of us or she goes away with me." 
 
 Tony put his hands over his face. "I wish I was 
 dead," he said. And then Mrs. Tony's silky voice 
 came in again. "Of course all this is very dramatic, 
 typically Okehampton. The church and the law have 
 made it necessary for me to share my husband's roof. 
 Quaintly enough, my own inclination bears them out. 
 Of course, darling yes, that is a becoming frock. I 
 quite appreciate your bravery and self-sacrifice. How 
 selfish I should be to lift you out of this refined at- 
 mosphere !" 
 
 "What are you going to do, mother? That's the 
 point." 
 
 "Oh, God, I wish I was dead !" cried Tony. 
 
 Harry laughed. 
 
 "Stay here, darling, and be a comfort to your 
 father," said Mrs. Tony. "Help him in his exemplary 
 guardianship of our beautiful gels and, incidentally, 
 enjoy with him the fruits of his industry. One of 
 these fine evenings, Tony dear, when, like Darby and 
 Joan, you and I sit by the fireside, you will tell me 
 how you came by all this luxury, will you not?" 
 
 "Oh, God!" said Tony. "I wish I was dead." 
 
 213
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 WHEN Brasilia sailed out of the room to in- 
 spect the flat, with her arm through Dick's, 
 Tony waited until Harry was not looking 
 at him and slipped away. Quickly and furtively he 
 put on his overcoat and hat, induced an umbrella to 
 come silently out of a stick stand, opened the door 
 with his latchkey and hurried away. The marks of 
 his tears were still on his face and he was uncertain 
 on his feet, like a man who has just escaped an ap- 
 palling accident. He turned into the park, which was 
 almost deserted. It wore its out-of-season melan- 
 choly. The green chairs were piled together. Ugly 
 skylines could be seen through leafless branches and 
 the once blazing beds were dull and empty. The place 
 suited Tony's mood. He felt that he, too, had been 
 flung forward into the winter of his life. 
 
 He walked about for several hours aimlessly, ask- 
 ing himself what he was going to do. His fear of 
 Drusilla was not a pose. He did genuinely believe 
 that she was a devil and he had every reason to do so. 
 It was a curious story altogether. Tony was a 
 marrying man. He gave out that he was a marrying 
 man. He had been known to say with his back to the 
 fireplace of someone's rooms at Oxford that he should 
 
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 go in for marriage as he had been in for everything 
 else with all his heart and soul. It should be the 
 beginning of a new career, a new and wonderful ca- 
 reer, to be, God willing, highly blessed. Susceptible 
 enough, he had never been bowled completely. He 
 was looking out for a rather small girl, tailor-made, 
 who could wear a short skirt unobtrusively, and 
 nails in her shoes without advertising them, who could 
 stump across country at his side, making precious 
 small work of stiles; who, if she shed hairpins at all, 
 shed them secretly, and who could make a dog under- 
 stand her with not more than two words. He looked 
 for a girl with white teeth who was not always smil- 
 ing, who astonished you with her femininity when in 
 evening clothes, to whom children went instinctively, 
 and who, if she liked, could make a piano sing; a 
 girl who was dead honest and who would not hesi- 
 tate to speak like a man and a friend if ever it became 
 necessary. In a word, a girl to live up to and play 
 the game for. 
 
 And he married Drusilla. Not more to the amaze- 
 ment of his friends than of himself, he married Dru- 
 silla. It was said, of course, that she married him. 
 So she did. She had no love for him. He was just 
 the gayest, best-looking, most popular man in the place 
 and she married him so that someone else might not 
 That was Drusilla from end to end. She was the only 
 child of an old family which had intermarried for two 
 generations. She was just as near insanity as it was 
 possible to be without touching it. Her Rossetti face 
 with its sensual lips, her wide set bovine eyes, her 
 
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 red dry hair, which, when let down, stuck out fuz- 
 zily, and her long, rather loose limbs, all put her in 
 the somewhat doubtful category of picturesque women. 
 In every way she differed utterly from Tony's not very 
 difficult ideal. Her family were glad enough to get 
 rid of her and had the grace to pity her husband. 
 They knew her for the devil that she was. They had 
 suffered from all the Machiavellian twists of her brain. 
 They knew her cunning, her cruelty, her genius for 
 lying and misrepresentation. They more than sus- 
 pected the degeneracy of her habits. To find her chair 
 empty at their table was a relief too infinite for words 
 a relief which spread through the house, up and 
 down stairs, and out into the stables. The very ani- 
 mals on the place breathed freely and cats curled them- 
 selves up on hearth rugs in broad daylight. 
 
 And this was the woman who was permitted by the 
 cowardice of doctors and scientists to marry, and to 
 marry Tony. 
 
 The peculiar kink of her mind for which she was 
 not responsible was to destroy. She delighted in pull- 
 ing things to bits, in beheading beetles, amputating 
 frogs, unwinging butterflies and stripping the petals 
 off growing roses. With what relish she took Tony 
 in hand! Here, according to popular report, was a 
 very nearly perfect man, a man whom men called 
 white, who came under her aegis as "dear old Tony." 
 How much better he was than a mere butterfly or 
 one of a large family of frogs! She began to put 
 him under treatment from the very moment that they 
 drove away together through the cheering crowd of 
 
 216
 
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 friends. In the first ten minutes of the honeymoon 
 journey she injected her poison into him. It was all 
 very cunningly done painlessly, insidiously. She 
 knew herself to be the last bead on a long string of 
 beads, half of which were faulty. She knew that she 
 was mentally and physically degenerate. Here was a 
 sort of prize specimen of a man, strong, honest, mus- 
 cular, well trained, well satisfied. She was deadly 
 jealous of all this. She detested in him those qualities 
 which she had never possessed, through no fault of 
 her own. How nice, how supremely comforting to 
 revenge herself upon this man, gradually to undermine 
 him, gradually and gradually to see him totter, tumble 
 and collapse ! 
 
 Tony was like putty in her deft fingers. Like most 
 good-natured men, he was weak. Like nearly all 
 men, he was chameleonic. Lead him into a cathedral 
 and he would be put in touch with God. Put him 
 among swine and he would become Gadarean in his 
 swinishness. Not, of course, at once, but gradually 
 and gradually. No inhuman foul creature whose life 
 is devoted to carrying plague germs from place to 
 place ever did its work better or with more gleeful 
 enjoyment than did Drusilla. She had Tony pinned 
 like a great moth to a cardboard. She led him gradu- 
 ally into drinking habits, into slovenliness of mind 
 and person. She goaded him into blasphemies and 
 teased him into violence. Like a vampire, she sucked 
 all his good qualities away and finally deserted him 
 for other pursuits as no longer able to supply her 
 with any amusement. 
 
 217
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 No wonder that the regenerated Tony, or at any 
 rate, the as much as possible regenerated Tony, 
 trembled under her eye, in which he saw once more 
 the old look. No wonder he deserted his house, and 
 as he paced aimlessly about asked himself what he 
 was to do. Again and again he repeated to himself 
 the words he had used to Dick. "I am a gentleman, 
 a gentleman." He was proud of himself once more. 
 He was clean and smart. Decent thoughts were strug- 
 gling through the nettles in his brain like little flowers. 
 A desire to love and be loved returned. Even the 
 desire to put himself out for someone else. The un- 
 comfortable faculty of facing the truth was stirring 
 once more. He was beginning, just dimly beginning, 
 to be afraid to realize the hideousness of his deal with 
 Thoresby. He was glad of it, although at present 
 he was not yet convalescent enough to take any steps, 
 and it was at this moment that Providence had seen 
 fit to put this devil back into his life. "Oh, it's hard, 
 it's hard !" he whimpered. "Oh, damn it ! It's hard ! 
 I can escape, and I'm thankful enough for that. But 
 she takes Dick from me, and what'll she do to Dick? 
 Oh what'll she do to Dick?" 
 
 218
 
 PART IV 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THERE had been a series of failures at the Lon- 
 don Theater. It puzzled people. It was a 
 new and charming theater, even more com- 
 fortable, if possible, than the successful variety theaters, 
 and it was small and compact. It was properly 
 warmed in cold weather and had no cutting drafts 
 which punished people for buying stalls. It was not 
 buried away in back streets which reeked with garlic 
 and were strewn with pieces of orange peel, and into 
 which taxicabs came reluctantly, many of them in a 
 spirit of adventure. It was, therefore, unlike every 
 other theater in London except those devoted to musi- 
 cal plays and one or two old favorites. It seemed 
 almost unbelievable that under the management of a 
 young actor-manager it should have acquired the repu- 
 tation of an unlucky house. 
 
 Dick had been in the theater for nine months. She 
 had understudied and played small parts in five pro- 
 ductions. It was almost a record, even for London, 
 where the running of theaters is not a business. These 
 five plays had come from the pens of well-known 
 dramatists. They had been elaborately put on and 
 
 219
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 expensively cast. They had been immediate failures 
 and the reason was obvious to everyone except the 
 young actor-manager, who devoted all his spare time 
 to cursing the British public. 
 
 Dick's shrewd eye saw what was the matter. She 
 saw a man with a pleasant enough personality, a pleas- 
 ing voice and a nice taste in clothes who had been 
 fortunate enough to inherit a large sum of money. If 
 he had been seen in a small part in a third-rate com- 
 pany on a seaside pier people would have said, 
 "Charming! Who is he?" Like so many others who 
 believe that acting is the only profession which needs 
 no apprenticeship and no training, nothing could get 
 the idea out of his mind that he had only to plaster 
 London with his name to take his place among the 
 great actors of the day. Having surrounded himself 
 with a body of sycophants who never by any chance 
 offered him criticism, he set to work to choose only 
 those plays in which the leading man's part occupied 
 the center of the stage during the whole of their ac- 
 tion. He was the actor-manager. His was the name 
 that skimmed about London on 'buses and was to be 
 seen up and down the streets on boards. What more 
 was necessary? It never occurred to him, and, of 
 course, no one ever put it into his mind, except one 
 or two minor critics who wrote for papers which ob- 
 tained no theatrical advertisements, that the British 
 public is not entirely brainless. Like all men who live 
 in the theater, think theater and talk theater, he was 
 obsessed with the idea that the British public is not 
 only brainless but idiotic. He could not understand 
 
 220
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 how it was that men and women who managed to 
 earn a living outside the theater and, therefore, in 
 one or other of the professions which was of little 
 account hesitated to pay cash to see him nightly and 
 on two afternoons a week enjoying himself and feed- 
 ing his vanity. 
 
 It was all, really, rather pitiful and very character- 
 istic of the way in which theaters are run in London. 
 Given, of course, that the rich young man one day 
 met by accident a brutal person who told him the truth 
 and that he had the courage and the sense to act 
 upon it and either to go away to the country or to 
 Australia and begin at the bottom of the ladder under 
 good teaching, there was no earthly reason why he 
 shouldn't develop into an extremely popular London 
 actor-manager if his money held out. London is 
 easily pleased. All the same, even a brilliant play can 
 be entirely ruined by amateurishness, and this is what 
 happened at the London Theater. The only thing 
 that could be said in favor of the rich young person 
 who thought that he could buy a commission was that 
 he gave employment to many deserving, if curious, 
 people and Dick was among the number. 
 
 Sir Edward Morde, who was in some way related 
 to the actor-manager who could neither act nor man- 
 age, put Dick into the theater over the heads of a 
 large number of young women who had been working 
 hard for years. She remained in it, not because she 
 was a good actress how could she be? but because 
 the actor-manager had fallen in love with her. For 
 this reason she was promoted from understudying and 
 
 221
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 took her place in the evening bill. Her beauty was 
 good to look at, but her lack of training made it neces- 
 sary for dramatists to cut down her part. The drama- 
 tist, like the policeman, does not enjoy a very happy 
 life. He is altogether at the mercy of a rotten sys- 
 tem. He will never be a happy man until actor-man- 
 agers are all dead, buried and forgotten and theaters 
 are in the hands of business men who leave the stage 
 entirely under his direction. 
 
 Having spoken fifty lines in a drawing-room drama, 
 thirty in a farce adapted from the French, thirteen in 
 a romantic comedy of the Beau Brocade order, twenty 
 in a sentimental play, very nearly a hundred in the 
 dramatization of a much discussed novel by a lady, 
 all of whose characters had tiger's eyes, Dick was now 
 concerned in her characteristically slap-dash manner 
 as to the frock she was to wear in the new production. 
 She found no interest in her part and so took even 
 less trouble over it than she had taken with the others. 
 In desperation, having run the gamut, the actor-man- 
 ager was now endeavoring to win his long-delayed 
 popularity with a play by a new writer. This man 
 was a vegetarian, a non-smoker. He had his hair cut 
 by his wife and made his clothes himself. It goes 
 without saying, therefore, that he was a Socialist. He 
 did not belong to the variety which calls itself Chris- 
 tian Socialist. He regarded those old-fashioned non- 
 thinkers who worshiped God as poisonous people. He 
 said that they retarded the Great Onward Movement. 
 The actor-manager himself, all his sycophants and all 
 the members of his company, except one, who, while 
 
 222
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 at Oxford, had studied the men and the methods of 
 Rnskin Hall as a hobby, were unable to make head 
 or tail of the play, so they spoke of it with bated 
 breath. It was very, very clever. It must be. 
 
 Dick was to play the part of a young typist who 
 was trying to entice her employer, a suburban auc- 
 tioneer and estate agent, away from his religious wife. 
 She was the heroine of this play. The actor-man- 
 ager was the auctioneer. It was he who insisted upon 
 the author's writing in a scene in which he had to 
 kiss the typist upon the lips. Once, in private life, 
 he had endeavored to do this on Dick's lips and for 
 some moments he thought the ceiling had fallen upon 
 him. The worst of it was that he had not achieved 
 his object. As very little interest was shown by the 
 press in the forthcoming production it was hoped that 
 the Lord Chamberlain might raise an objection to it. 
 This doubtful advertisement was denied to the actor- 
 manager. The license was granted. The censor's in- 
 ward comment was that the whole thing was too ut- 
 terly silly to be pernicious and all its astounding new 
 truths had been said before ad nauseam. 
 
 It came to the final rehearsals. The scenery had 
 arrived. The rooms had been carefully modeled upon 
 those of an actual auctioneer and estate agent who 
 lived at Beckenham. The actor-manager, in his en- 
 thusiasm for realism, had bought a frock coat from 
 a cash tailor and had had his hair cut by an English- 
 man in Beckenham, High Street. He looked forward, 
 therefore, to splendid notices. 
 
 The second dress rehearsal was just over. It had 
 223
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 been called for six o'clock. The curtain had risen on 
 the first act at nine o'clock and had fallen on the last 
 at three o'clock the following morning. 
 
 Thus it will be seen that the actor-manager was 
 becoming quite an old theatrical hand, an artist. The 
 author was not present at the second dress rehearsal. 
 Perhaps that was because he had attended the first one. 
 He sent a post card to the stage doorkeeper asking 
 that his letters might be re-addressed to "The 
 Lawrels," Rosslyn Road, Lower Tooting. He was a 
 native of Tooting Graveney. An earnest critic who 
 always liked to take forty-eight hours over his notices 
 left the theater in a state bordering upon nervous 
 prostration. He had laughed until he had cried and, 
 as politeness demanded that he should suppress both, 
 his condition was, indeed, deplorable. 
 
 Dick found Tony sitting in the stage doorkeeper's 
 cubby hole explaining the mechanism of the old-fash- 
 ioned hammer gun to the fireman. He was in eve- 
 ning clothes with a large-brimmed opera hat at an 
 angle of forty-five. A satin-lined light black over- 
 coat was neatly folded across his knees and he had 
 just started his fourth cigar, a Corona. 
 
 "My dear old chap," he said, when he caught sight 
 of Dick, "you must be absolutely doggo!" 
 
 Dick laughed. "Dear old Tony," she said, "I'm 
 a bit fly these days. I've put in more sleep during 
 this rehearsal than I've had for three nights. Strict 
 orders to the call boy only to call me when my cue 
 has been spoken. That's the wrinkle." 
 
 Tony rubbed his hands together. "Ah-ha!" he 
 224
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 said. "Ah-ha! Trust an Okehampton! It's an old 
 saying and true. Well, good-night, my friend. 
 Don't forget to tell your wife to try inhaling exer- 
 cises at the window every morning and night. In- 
 fallible for reducing weight. How about it, Dick? 
 Taxi!" 
 
 "Oh, rather!" she said. "No. Let's walk. What 
 do you think?" 
 
 "My dear," said Tony, "whatever you say goes." 
 
 They turned into the silent alley down which a 
 sturdy policeman was coming, flicking his lantern on 
 window latches and trying doors. Tony gave him an 
 affable good-night, to which the policeman replied, 
 "Good-morning." Before they arrived in Piccadilly 
 Circus, Dick and Tony were walking arm in arm. 
 Except for a prowling taxi or two, an occasional slow- 
 moving market cart loaded high with cabbages, which 
 seemed to leave behind it a thin trail of the smell of 
 bricks and clay peculiar to Middlesex market gardens, 
 they had Piccadilly to themselves. The road had been 
 hosed and the gutters ran with water. The wood 
 pavement of the more important side streets shone al- 
 most like looking-glass. It was a beautiful night. 
 Every conceivable star was shining and a new moon 
 lay slimly upon its back. The spring had been a late 
 one and the leaves of some of the more cautious trees 
 in the Park had only just ventured out. 
 
 "I didn't think you'd wait to-night, Tony." 
 
 "The faithful cavalier, old man." 
 
 Dick gave an affectionate squeeze to her father's 
 arm. "I don't mind telling you," she said, "privately 
 
 225
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 and in strict confidence, that walking home with you 
 at night is the only thing that keeps me human." 
 
 Tony drew up short, stood in front of the astonished 
 girl and peered into her face. His own was working 
 oddly. "D'yer mean that?" he asked. "Oh, honestly, 
 Dickie! D'yer mean it? Or are you saying it be- 
 cause yer think it'll be worth a thousand a minute to 
 me?" 
 
 "I mean it," said Dick shortly. "But come on! A 
 bobby's watching us. He'll think we're dotty." 
 
 Tony said nothing for six lamp posts. Two or 
 three hot tears trickled into his mustache. He said 
 to himself: "Thank God I had the pluck to remain 
 the little gentleman. I'll keep Dick straight yet. That 
 woman's against me this time. It's pull devil, pull 
 baker." 
 
 "Well," said Dick, "I'll tell you what it is, Pa. You 
 may confidently send a paragraph to the society papers 
 as follows to-day fortnight: 'Mr. Antony Okehamp- 
 ton and Miss Dick Okehampton, the celebrated actress, 
 have left London to drink buckets of sea water at 
 Wimereux.' ' 
 
 "Oh, hot stuff!" cried Tony. "Yes, but how? 
 You're not going to chuck the piece, are you?" 
 
 "Oh, dear no. It's the piece that's going to chuck 
 me." 
 
 "You've not had a row with " 
 
 "Dear old Tony, I have diplomacy. Our new play 
 is one of those masterpieces which ends in a fort- 
 night." 
 
 "Oh, let's hope for the best." 
 226
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "I am. If we're not very careful, all of us, it won't 
 get further than the second act to-morrow. The 
 B. P.'s getting fed up. I'm betting that they'll throw 
 the walls at us and portions of the ceiling." 
 
 "You're not in luck, Dick, that's certain. I think 
 you'll have to chuck the theater and go into a musical 
 play." 
 
 "I'm seriously considering it, dear papa. I can't 
 sing and I can't dance, so I shall be perfectly all right. 
 In any case I don't care two cusses. I'm all for the 
 sea and for peace. I dunno what it is, but I can't bear 
 the flat. It's a cross between a cemetery and a circus." 
 
 Tony's voice took on an eager note. "Do what I 
 did, Dick. Turn it up, my dear. Escape ! Come into 
 rooms with me." 
 
 Dick threw out her hand. "I can't. There's 
 mother. Harry's never there. She'd be alone. She 
 might set herself on fire or something 1 . Hullo! Here 
 we are." 
 
 "Yes, worse luck." 
 
 Dick eyed the polished door of Park Court with a 
 look of fear. "Jolty good mind to see you home," she 
 said. 
 
 "Not in this world!" said Tony. "Why, dash it, 
 it's nearly daylight! And you've got a first night 
 to-morrow I mean to-night." 
 
 "Yes. Well, so-long, Tony." 
 
 "Good-night, my darling." 
 
 The father waited until the night porter opened the 
 door, until the girl had waved her hand and until the 
 door was shut behind her. Then, without glancing up 
 
 227
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 at the windows of the place, he hurried away. His 
 way was Brewer Street. 
 
 Now Brewer Street connects Regent Street with the 
 French market. It begins rather well. The first of 
 its houses still have about them an air of dignity. It 
 is a little faded, a little pathetic. It has one or two 
 houses which have fought against the addition of 
 shop fronts houses in which even doctors might live. 
 But then comes a turning, at one corner of which 
 there is a public house. Consistently enough this faced 
 a pawnbroker's. After which, there is little to be said 
 for Brewer Street, with its little paper shops filled with 
 picture post cards from Belgium and racing tips from 
 Amsterdam, its characteries under and above which 
 many families live like rabbits in their warrens. Into 
 the reek and stench, the orange peel and banana skins, 
 the noise of mechanical piano-players, the shouts of 
 fruit vendors, fat little Jew girls with big bows on 
 their shoes constantly make their way, carrying newly 
 stitched clothes beneath black cloths over their arms. 
 They rub shoulders with thrifty French and German 
 housewives, costermongers, lusty-lunged butchers, 
 undersized Swiss waiters and hosts of little children 
 with dirty faces, dogs who peer among the offal, and 
 electricians. 
 
 It was in one of the houses which ought to have 
 belonged to a doctor, and may have done in the old 
 glad past, that Mr. Antony Okehampton now lived, 
 alone. He had three rooms on the second floor, three 
 old-fashioned rooms with wainscoted walls and un- 
 even floors. They were furnished by the little old 
 
 228
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 woman who took lodgers, and their atmosphere was 
 mid-Victorian. There was something to Dick which 
 suggested Miss Emily Sarah about them because there 
 were antimacassars and an ornament made of hair 
 under a glass case. The front room was a sitting- 
 room, one of the back rooms a bedroom and the other 
 a dressing-room. In these Tony endeavored to live 
 like a gentleman on the two pounds a week reserved 
 by him from Thoresby's allowance. Allowance was 
 Tony's own word. The good little woman below could 
 not, however, undertake cooking, and Tony found it 
 at first so expensive to get his meals out that he began 
 to lose weight, and his charming clothes hung a little 
 less well upon him. He said nothing to Dick, but after 
 the first month of his escape a kind friend who desired 
 to remain anonymous sent him postal orders weekly in 
 a registered envelope to the tune of five sovereigns. 
 
 The handwriting was Dick's. 
 
 Tony appreciated the anonymity. After all, he was 
 a little gentleman. It was necessary for him to eat 
 at his club and to go to Savile Row for his clothes. 
 So he said nothing aloud, but every Saturday morn- 
 ing inwardly he made the same remark without any 
 variation : "She's a sportsman, by God, she is !" 
 
 229
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 DRUSILLA had not been idle. Unable to turn 
 her mackerel eye upon Tony and pull him 
 down once more from his reerected founda- 
 tions, she made a close study of Dick. She was in- 
 tensely delighted to discover, to her infinite surprise, 
 that Dick, although careless, was virtuous. Here, then, 
 was something for her to do. Here was a very pleas- 
 ant way of occupying her undrugged moments. Dick 
 set up for being "straight," did she ? Dick played with 
 fire and saw to it that she wasn't burned, did she? 
 Bon Dieu, il y a tonjours des chases a faire. 
 
 But, first of all, Drusilla had a keen desire to find 
 out who paid for the flat, and why. She put Dick 
 under a dozen unsuspected cross-examinations. She 
 used all her curious charm of manner to this end with- 
 out success, and this brought her to another discovery 
 almost as surprising as the first. Dick did not know. 
 And then a third surprise followed. Dick was not a 
 liar. Yes, quite obviously, she need not weep bitter 
 tears because Tony could no longer be practiced upon. 
 Dick was far more interesting. 
 
 But Drusilla was a woman of resource. She 
 watched Harry when that independent young lady, 
 who traveled considerably, found it convenient to make 
 use of Park Court. She put Harry under the pump. 
 
 230
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Harry's mouth had in it the tongue of Saphira. Harry, 
 she found, took after herself and deliberately misled 
 her. In fact, so strong was the resemblance between 
 mother and daughter that Harry invented a round 
 half dozen intricate and ingenious lies by way of keep- 
 ing herself in practice. She liked Harry. She was a 
 chip of the old block. At the same time her curiosity 
 was insatiable. She discovered Harry's weakness for 
 Grand Marnier. So she laid in a stock of this heating 
 liquid, and one night when she and Harry were alone 
 in the flat she gave her more than enough to open the 
 door of this Blue Room. 
 
 The next morning she wrote a cordial letter to 
 Thoresby, inviting him to tea. She had made up her 
 mind that Dick, the virtuous Dick, should become Lady 
 Thoresby at the proper time. The proper time would 
 not be until Drusilla had done for Dick what she had 
 done for Dick's father, but more thoroughly. 
 
 It so happened that Thoresby received the letter, 
 in which unfortunately a delicious quotation from 
 Georges Sand was wasted upon him, on the day upon 
 which it was posted. He had just returned from 
 Paris. He did himself very well these days, and went 
 about in a quiet but unostentatious blaze of middle- 
 age dignity. He traveled a courier as well as a man 
 servant and took a Gilbertian delight in the size and 
 frequency of his coronet. He might have been a prime 
 minister or an ambassador or a person who had made 
 so much money out of soap or pills or whisky that he 
 had been positively obliged to buy a peerage, except 
 of course that Billy Russon had inherited that horsy
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 look which only comes to those whose ancestors spent 
 all their days in the lists. 
 
 He had seen nothing of Tony Okehampton since 
 Christmas week. Tony had then called upon him, and 
 in his best flamboyant manner had asked him to accept 
 just a little thing as a Christmas present. It was a 
 gold matchbox upon which was cut the following 
 legend: "Indemnity for the past and security for the 
 future." Since then he had seen nothing of Tony or 
 his family. He had avoided seeing Dick. He was too 
 much in love with her to enjoy seeing her with the 
 men of her set, Rene de Maingauche, Morde, the actor- 
 manager and the rest. He was, therefore, quite un- 
 aware of the changes at Park Court. His bankers 
 paid his allowance to Tony quarterly. Harry had 
 long ago found him unnecessary. 
 
 He walked to Knightsbridge, and was a little sur- 
 prised to see Dick's name carried on the shoulders of 
 sandwich men. 
 
 Drusilla was alone. She came to him in the draw- 
 ing-room. She slid into the room and stood in front 
 of him with her large head on one side smiling, as 
 she thought, roguishly. Her dry red hair was streaked 
 with gray. There were deep lines under her eyes and 
 her face was so patterned with lines that they might 
 have been deliberately placed there as they are upon 
 women of native tribes. She wore a sort of nun-like 
 robe and one shoe with a high heel which belonged to 
 Harry and a bath slipper. Her stockings hung in sags 
 about her ankles. She had evidently just got out of 
 bed. 
 
 232
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Thoresby was not quite happy. He wished that he 
 had sent an excuse. "Well," he said, "I needn't ask 
 how you are. I mean " 
 
 "Unfortunate," said Druscilla, "distinctly unfor- 
 tunate. But do sit down. There is no charge for the 
 pews here. Besides, do not let us forget. Are they 
 not your chairs?" 
 
 Thoresby was startled and uncharacteristically at a 
 loss. "How's Tony?" he asked. 
 
 "Still whitewashing. He lives alone, but shows him- 
 self at certain hours of the day to an admiring crowd. 
 He is in his dotage, I think, and I believe has found 
 religion. It amuses him and doesn't do anybody any 
 harm." 
 
 "And the girls?" asked Thoresby, in complete 
 sympathy with his old friend. 
 
 "Oh, the darlings ! My sweet babies! Harry's mak- 
 ing a complete study of man and dear Dick is develop- 
 ing into a leading lady." 
 
 "I saw her name in the streets," said Thoresby. 
 
 "Where inevitably you may soon find Harry. And 
 so, that puts you completely up to date, does it not? 
 But before we have tea, dear Lord Thoresby, let me 
 say one thing. There are, as we know, I from hearsay, 
 you from actual knowledge, a multitude of kind 
 Scotchmen who lend money at sixty per cent. It has 
 been left to you to pay back your debt at the same rate 
 of interest. It is very beautiful. It heartens me." 
 
 "Oh, that's all right," said Thoresby. "Er what 
 a jolly view from this window !" 
 
 A servant brought in tea, and so Drusilla merely 
 
 233
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 laughed. The tray contained a Wedgewood teapot, 
 milk jug and sugar basin, but only one cup. A small 
 decanter of brandy was there, however, and a very 
 graceful glass. 
 
 Thoresby had tea. He was not entertained. He 
 listened for half an hour to a series of well-turned 
 sentences in every one of which there was a sting. 
 He listened to comments on current events which made 
 each one tumble like a pricked bladder. He felt him- 
 self gradually becoming coated with fungi. He pined 
 for fresh air and the noise of traffic and the sight of 
 a paper boy dodging death upon a bicycle, and it was 
 only when he got up to go that Drusilla showed him 
 why he had been asked to the flat. 
 
 "Now that you have become one of the pillars of 
 our nation," she said, "surely you must begin to think 
 about posterity. In other words, why don't you take 
 a wife? Let us be frank, dear friend. A little bird 
 has whispered to me that my sweet Dick " 
 
 "Oh, no," said Thoresby; "please!" 
 
 "But" she threw up her hands "other men have 
 ignored the deceased wife's sister's bill. Dick would 
 look well in a coronet if only you could persuade her 
 to wash her face. Now, I am a woman who believes 
 in gratitude. You are a man who practices it. Let us 
 make a bargain. I will help you to make Dick your 
 wife. She is a dutiful child. She is unattached. 
 What do you say?" 
 
 Thoresby was silent for a moment. His thoughts 
 went back to the night on the hill and his heart beat 
 quickly as he saw the girl with the golden hair sitting 
 
 234
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 at the head of his table. "You're very kind," he said, 
 "or at least you're very well I give it up. Knowing 
 me and knowing things, you seem to take a rather 
 quaint or at any rate a rather " 
 
 He shook his head and held out his hand. "Good- 
 bye," he added. "If you'll forgive me I must get along 
 now." 
 
 Drusilla held his hand tightly. "Think it over," she 
 said. "Think it over, dear friend, for Dick's sake." 
 
 As Thoresby walked quickly away he shook himself 
 like a dog which had just emerged from a pond cov- 
 ered with slime. But the idea was planted in his brain. 
 Dick as his wife. It was impossible. Dick as his 
 wife. After all, why not? 
 
 235
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 DICK went to supper with Rene de Maingauche 
 after the production of the new play. These 
 two were great friends now. The Frenchman 
 was at the flat morning, noon and night. Drusilla cut 
 herself out to be very brilliant to him and edged her- 
 self into his good graces not only by leaving Dick alone 
 with him as often as possible but by throwing her 
 into his company on Sundays. Her feeling toward 
 Rene was that almost of a sister. She recognized in 
 him many of her own characteristics. He was only 
 just a little bit saner than she was. She, therefore, 
 used him as a means toward bringing Dick off her 
 pedestal. Rene was obviously the man to help. It 
 would be all the easier because Dick liked him. He 
 was good-looking. Romance hung about him. Money 
 never seemed to fail him, and he never disguised the 
 fact that he was passionately in love. She felt that 
 she could sit down to meals with Dick much more com- 
 fortably after she had been brought down to her own 
 level, or nearly. She knew that Dick, like her father, 
 was weak, and also, like her father, obstinate. She 
 was clinging grimly to the fact that she was different 
 from Harry and from other girls in her set. Once 
 this little bit of an anchor was cast off, away would 
 
 236
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 go Dick in the middle of the stream. It was in- 
 evitable. She was an Okehampton. 
 
 Mrs. Tony's deductions were entirely accurate, and 
 as day after day went by and the mother's subtle poison 
 was injected into Dick drop by drop the time when 
 Dick would fulfill her mother's prophecy came nearer 
 and nearer. 
 
 The day after the production and the supper, Dru- 
 silla tapped at Dick's bedroom door. It was twelve 
 o'clock. Sun poured into the bedroom. Dick was 
 chuckling over the notices in the daily papers. To 
 her amazement they were not only favorable but en- 
 thusiastic. They welcomed the play as a masterpiece. 
 They gave the author a high place among the new 
 school and one or two of them even went so far as to 
 say with intense sincerity that the play owed nothing 
 to Bernard Shaw. Having waded through them all 
 Dick mentally relegated her holiday with her father 
 into the limbo of impossible things. The London 
 Theater had a success at last. She need not have 
 disturbed herself. The man in the 'box office had 
 nothing to do and the libraries refused to interest them- 
 selves. 
 
 Drusilla sat on the bed. She smiled through her 
 grief. She listened to Dick's excited talk with oc- 
 casional sighs. One paper said that Miss Dick Oke- 
 hampton's very gaucherie was the perfection of art, 
 and demonstrated the possession of genius in this 
 young actress. While endeavoring to prevent Dick 
 from seeing that there was something the matter she 
 made the fact clearer than if she had said so. 
 
 237
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Dick said within ten minutes of her mother's ap- 
 pearance : "Great Caesar's ghost, mother ! What in the 
 world's up?" 
 
 Drusilla opened her eyes very wide. "Darling!" 
 she said, "what do you mean?" 
 
 "Oh, don't cod ! Let's have it, whatever it is." 
 
 "Have what? I quite fail to understand you." 
 
 "No, you don't," said Dick. "Something's the mat- 
 ter and you want me to know. Very well, tell me." 
 
 "But nothing's the matter, I give you my " 
 
 Dick made a great uneven ball of all the papers 
 and tossed it on to the floor. "Now, then, mother," 
 she said, "please." 
 
 This was exactly what Drusi^a had worked for. 
 She said : "Darling, I wanted to hide this from you. 
 There is something looming ahead of us which will 
 certainly send me back to Bloomsbury and your father 
 either in the workhouse or to gaol." 
 
 "Not while I'm alive," said Dick. 
 
 Drusilla picked up one of Dick's hands and kissed 
 the fingers. "My pet," she said, "don't think that I 
 have forgotten how brave you are. But don't forget 
 that your position in the London Theater is built on 
 sand. You are only there, and you know it deep down 
 in your heart, for one reason." 
 
 "Let's pass that," said Dick, who knew it well 
 enough. "There are other theaters, you know." 
 
 "And a multitude of other pretty girls. I don't say 
 that this cloud is going to break upon us immediately, 
 but it is coming up against the wind, and you know 
 what that means." 
 
 218
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "No, I don't," said Dick. "Do speak in words of 
 one syllable." 
 
 Drusilla got up and walked about. Her uneasy 
 figure wobbled as she moved. She looked more than 
 ever like a Rossetti woman who had spent several 
 nights on a haystack. Her untidiness was epoch- 
 making. "I must put you," she said, "on your word 
 of honor. What can I do but drag you into these 
 family troubles? My husband deserts me. One of my 
 daughters leads her own life. It is always the good 
 who suffer." 
 
 "Go on, mother," said Dick. 
 
 Drusilla stopped. "Thoresby was here yesterday 
 afternoon," she said. 
 
 "Yes, but what's that got to do with it?" 
 
 "Everything. I suppose you know you must 
 know. It's obvious that the money with which we 
 run this flat does not fall upon us like the gentle rain 
 from heaven." 
 
 "Billy owed Tony money," said Dick, "and he paid 
 
 up." 
 
 Drusilla smiled sadly. "You sweet, unpractical 
 thing!" she said. "All Thoresby owed was five hun- 
 dred pounds. As a matter of fact, with generosity 
 which is quite unusual, he gave Tony twice that 
 amount." 
 
 "Well, what's the matter with a thousand?" asked 
 Dick. 
 
 "The matter with a thousand is that it cannot be 
 drawn upon for furniture, pictures and plate, to say 
 nothing of linen, pay the rent of this flat, which is 
 
 239
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 three hundred a year, keep us here in luxury and re- 
 main intact in the bank. The days of miracles are 
 over. Not only has the thousand pounds long since 
 come to an end, but I am steeped in debt." 
 
 Dick sat up very straight. "But Billy's got stacks 
 of money," she said, "stacks of it." 
 
 "Quite," said Drusilla. "But can you give me any 
 good reason why he should play the fairy godfather 
 to me, to you, to Harry or to the man who has already 
 sponged on him to such a tune? Can you? I ask 
 you?" 
 
 Dick swallowed. Her face was very white. "No, 
 she said, "but why did Thoresby come yesterday?" 
 
 Like all complete liars Drusilla told something of 
 the truth. "He came because I sent for him. He came 
 in answer to a letter in which I humbled myself. He 
 came, had tea with me and listened to my frantic ap- 
 peals for help." 
 
 "Frantic appeals for help!" echoed Dick. "Is it as 
 bad as all that, then ?" 
 
 "It is so bad, my darling, so dreadfully bad that if 
 something isn't done and done quickly the awful 
 story of Quennor will be repeated." 
 
 Dick shivered. 
 
 Drusilla felt that she was progressing favorably. 
 "I didn't spare myself yesterday afternoon," she said ; 
 "believe me, metaphorically, I threw myself on my 
 knees at the feet of this hitherto generous man. I 
 pointed out to him that if he didn't open his purse 
 you must inevitably lose my protection, Harry would 
 no longer have a nest to which to return God knows 
 
 240
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 she finds there a mother bird whose very soul aches 
 to bring her back to the straight path and Tony, poor 
 dear old Tony, who has pulled himself out of the mire, 
 who takes such a pride and pleasure in being a gentle- 
 man again, who even refused to live with me because, 
 alas! I am an invalid in mind as well as body, yes, 
 even poor dear old Tony must sink back into degrada- 
 tion." 
 
 Dick shut her eyes. Such a picture was too terrible 
 to look at. "Won't Billy do anything?" she asked. 
 
 "There is a limit to generosity, my dear, and 
 Thoresby needs all his money. He gave me a little 
 to go on with, as much as he could afford it's a drop 
 in the ocean and said many kind and helpful things." 
 
 "Is that all?" 
 
 Drusilla had not enjoyed herself so exquisitely for 
 a considerable time. She was playing on this child's 
 feelings with as much art as a great pianist upon his 
 instrument. "He made," she said, "two suggestions, 
 both of which I fear are impossible, the latter indeed 
 entirely out of the question. He said that you were 
 earning money, good money enough money perhaps 
 to take a little modest flat in some slum in which you 
 and I and your father might live in some semblance 
 of, well, hardly comfort, and with, I fear, no peace." 
 
 "He doesn't know much about my salary," said 
 Dick. And she added to herself, "or what I love to do 
 with it." "What was the other suggestion?" 
 
 Drusilla shrugged her shoulders. "I don't think," 
 she said, "that it is worth while to mention it to you 
 at all." 
 
 241
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "I may as well have it." 
 
 "Very well. But before I give it you, bear this 
 well in mind: I will say this for Thoresby. He's 
 what you would call a sportsman and what / should 
 call, in my possibly pedantic way, a good fellow. 
 What he said he said I think I may almost call it 
 humbly, gently, tentatively. He did not make a bar- 
 gain. I should have ordered him from the house. 
 What he did say was that of course there was one 
 way out of all this for us. If you were to become his 
 wife your allowance would be a large one, and he 
 should be glad to think that you devoted some part of 
 it to those you loved and who love you. Those were 
 his very words, though of course I cannot give them 
 to you with anything like a suggestion of his delight- 
 ful manner." 
 
 "What did you say?" asked Dick. 
 
 "My dear, what could I say? I think I wept a 
 little. In my mind I saw many dreadful pictures. 
 You, no longer able to treat your theatrical admirers 
 with a lofty contempt, but going through your day a 
 sycophant among sycophants, thinking only of the 
 utterly inadequate salary without which there could 
 be no roof, no food, no clothing, nothing, in a word, 
 between Tony and cadging, between me and death, be- 
 cause, frankly it would be my only friend." 
 
 "So," said Dick, "you said nothing." 
 
 "Nothing!" said her mother. 
 
 Thoresby was as old as Dick's father. He looked 
 older because his hair had gone very white. When 
 Dick had ever considered the subject of marriage it 
 
 242
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 seemed to her to be something curiously sacred, the 
 beginning of a new life. She had always thought 
 that the man who married her would be one for whom 
 she would give up everything, who would make her 
 utterly insignificant in the scheme of things. It was 
 the one thing about which she wove a romantic web. 
 She slipped out of bed, went across to an untidy 
 table, found a sheet of note paper and wrote a short 
 note. 
 
 If you haven't got anything particular on, to-day, I'll 
 come along to lunch. Yours ever, 
 
 DICK. 
 
 She put it in an envelope and addressed it to 
 Thoresby. "Mother," she said, "do you mind ringing 
 up a boy messenger and having this taken?" 
 
 "Very well," said Drusilla. "Of course, you tell 
 me nothing. Of course, I am not consulted." But 
 when she left the room the expression on her face 
 could not be found on that of any gargoyle on any 
 building in any country. 
 
 She found a man standing with his back to the 
 morning-room door. 
 
 "And who do these fine shoulders belong to?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "Frightfully sorry. I thought I might find Dick at 
 home." 
 
 It was Jack. 
 
 243
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 DRUSILLA had heard vaguely about Jack, but 
 her excitement was so intense at her triumph 
 that her uncanny love for experimentalizing 
 was forgotten for the moment. She left Jack alone. 
 Having telephoned for a boy messenger, she went into 
 her chaotic bedroom, sat on her bed and hugged her- 
 self gleefully. How easy, how perfectly simple it was 
 to deal with obstinate people, she thought. Given time 
 and patience, and not much of either, she would do for 
 Dick what she had done for Dick's father. She would 
 marry Thoresby. That was certain. But first she 
 must be Maingauched. That was the next thing to 
 arrange. Yes, oh yes, life had its joys, and even a 
 woman who went nowhere and did nothing could find 
 amusements if she chose. 
 
 As for Jack, who stood in great spirits looking into 
 the Park, he simply said to himself : "Quaint-looking 
 old bird! Immensely clever though, I expect. Some- 
 how you can always tell a clever woman by her hair!" 
 And then he forgot the lady. He had come to call 
 for Dick Dick whom he hadn't seen for nine months, 
 Dick whom lie was to see now by a pleasant acci- 
 dent. He had managed to obtain a fortnight's unex- 
 
 244
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 pected leave. He sent his name up, and he knew that 
 Dick's room was above the one in which he stood. He 
 heard a series of wumps on the floor, and gurgled with 
 laughter as he guessed what they were. It was Dick 
 getting up. 
 
 Dick came downstairs in the old way, and as she 
 came she gave a view hallo ! which brought Jack to the 
 door. 
 
 Dick sprang at him and punched him in the chest 
 "Hullo, old heart of oak ! Hullo, Union Jack ! Eng- 
 land expects that every man this day will do his duty." 
 
 Jack clapped his heels together and saluted and 
 uttered roars of apparently meaningless laughter. He 
 had so much to say and was not able to say any of 
 it! He was so frightfully glad to see her and his dic- 
 tionary did not contain the sort of words he required ! 
 So he made a tremendous noise. And Dick, always 
 excited by noise and always sent into the highest 
 spirits by the sight of Jack, danced a hornpipe, and 
 cried out : "Easterstoperturnerstern !" and any number 
 of equally idiotic and perfectly natural things. The 
 prim bachelor who lived below came to the conclusion 
 that a troupe of music hall artists were rehearsing a 
 new sketch. He sat down and wrote a letter of bitter 
 complaint to his landlord. He was not a very human 
 person. His complaint might easily have been called 
 heart nostalgia. 
 
 Dick was dressed, but her hair, her wonderful hair, 
 was all loose. She bundled it up sitting on the arm 
 of a chair. There had been no time to cover her face 
 with paint. She was the Dick of Sydenham, the 
 
 245
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Dick of the hills and the trees and the bumblebees, the 
 Dick whom Jack adored in a speechless, eternal way. 
 
 "My dear old Jacko," she said. "This is the great- 
 est thing on record. Look at his face, London ! Look 
 at the man's face, ye cockneys ! Why, you're brown to 
 the bone, old boy. You make me feel like a pallid 
 piece of toast. When did you get to town?" 
 
 "Last night," said Jack. "I very nearly came to 
 your first night. A footlight favorite now, eh? My 
 word, what larks! But mother's one of the best and 
 all that and so I played cribbage with her and gave her 
 a series of slightly bowdlerized word pictures of life 
 afloat. We had a topping evening. Then I sat up 
 nearly all night trying to write a letter to you. It 
 seemed to me rather hot stuff before I turned in, but 
 when I read it in bed this morning it put me off my 
 appetite, so I did away with it and came along instead. 
 You're a winner, I see by the papers." 
 
 "Enormous success!" said Dick. "Colossal!" She 
 was well up in theatrical terms, and, like most people 
 connected with the theater, firmly believed that the 
 verdict of the critics was the verdict of playgoers. 
 "No holiday for me this year," she said. "We shall 
 run through the season." 
 
 Jack made a grimace. "I suppose you couldn't put 
 on an understudy, could you? With two matinees a 
 week and a performance every night it doesn't look 
 like my seeing much of you." 
 
 " 'Miss Dick Okehampton's very gaucherie proves 
 her to be the possessor of genius.' ' She quoted the 
 gushing line with gusto. "If I left the bill master 
 
 246
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 actor-manager would have a fit. We shall have to ar- 
 range to lunch and dine together every day, that's all. 
 And I tell you what you can do for me, Jacko. You 
 can run me down to Quennor one Sunday. How's 
 that?" 
 
 "Great!" said Jack. "Just what I was going to 
 suggest. By the way, I saw your sister at the hotel 
 at Portsmouth. She introduced me to her husband." 
 
 Dick gave a jump. There didn't seem to be any- 
 thing to say. She merely nodded. 
 
 "Nice-looking chap, I thought. Awfully young to 
 be married. She's not a bit like you, is she? How 
 are your people?" 
 
 "They're all right," said Dick. 
 
 "Your father's out, eh?" 
 
 "Tony doesn't well, in a word, I'm sure it's very 
 nice of you to be so conventional. What lovely 
 weather for the time of year! Have you seen the 
 piece at His Majesty's? And are you going to the 
 Horse Show?" She laughed and said all these things 
 in a sort of mock society way. She wished that it 
 wasn't so awkward to answer questions about her 
 father and mother and Harry. 
 
 Jack was really not interested. There were untold 
 millions of fathers and mothers in the world. There 
 was only one Dick. She sat within three feet of him, 
 and he would have given his career and all the re- 
 maining years of his life to hold her in his arms and 
 kiss her and hear her say: "I love you." 
 
 And then the servant brought up a note for Dick. 
 "For me?" she asked. "Who the dickens?" 
 
 247
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 She opened it. Thoresby wrote : 
 Do come. I shall be delighted. 
 
 And he signed it Billy. 
 
 Jack looked puzzled. It seemed to him that a rnsh 
 of cold air had suddenly swept over Dick. 
 
 "No answer," she said, and sat looking at the thing 
 in her hand for some moments. 
 
 "Anything wrong?" asked Jack. 
 
 "Oh, Lord, no! Something absolutely right look 
 here. Did you come in the car?" 
 
 "Rather. Catch me walking. Frightful fag." 
 
 "Well, how about running me down to the corner 
 of Half Moon Street. I've got to lunch there. After 
 which you can fetch me, if you like." 
 
 "Like!" said Jack. 
 
 Dick got up. She was not the same girl who had 
 danced the hornpipe. She went up to Jack and put 
 her hand on his shoulder and looked at him. "You're 
 a sight for sore eyes, Jacko," she said, "a mighty good 
 sight. I wish you were my brother. Wait a second 
 while I shove on a hat, will you?" 
 
 "A brother!" said Jack to himself. "Well, that's 
 pretty good. Mustn't grumble." 
 
 He wished that the road to Half Moon Street was 
 a thousand miles long. As it was, he managed to 
 make it longer than it happened to be by a series of 
 brilliant maneuvers. At almost every turning he man- 
 aged somehow to be stopped by the traffic, and he 
 put himself into a most beautiful scrum of vehicles 
 at the corner of Hamilton Place. A man in the win- 
 248
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 dow of the Bachelors' Club caught his eye and waved 
 his hand and lowered his right eyelid. Jack had al- 
 ways known him for a poisonous beast. He would 
 make a point of looking him up and telling him so 
 in the ripe language of the sea. 
 
 Dick was very quiet. She looked very tired and, 
 it seemed to Jack, a good deal older since he had seen 
 her last. He put her down in front of the curious- 
 looking building and went up the steps with her. 
 "What time shall I come again?" he said. 
 
 "What time is it now?" 
 
 "One-thirty." 
 
 "Make it two-thirty," she said. She held out her 
 hand. "Good-bye, Jack." 
 
 "Good-bye! Why?" 
 
 "I dunno/' she said, "but one of these days you 
 will." 
 
 She went in. 
 
 249
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THORESBY didn't know what to make of it. 
 Of course, the mother was behind it. He 
 was certainly not good fun enough for Dick 
 to invite herself to lunch. He could not persuade 
 himself that Dick was coming in order to help on 
 her mother's plan. Why should she? He was old 
 Bill, old Thoresby. He was looked upon by Dick as 
 a sort of septuagenarian. He had heard her talk about 
 old man Morde, old Gobbo Morde, old Father Christ- 
 mas, and, after all, Morde was only a year or two 
 older than he was. 
 
 Thoresby had made something of a study of Dru- 
 silla in the Quennor days. He had been left standing 
 still by her cunning. He knew that she had the sort 
 of tongue that could undermine a religion. Obviously, 
 therefore, she must have said something to Dick. The 
 point was what? Or was this just a coincidence? 
 Was Dick coming because she wanted to ? That was 
 her reason for doing things. He was perfectly well 
 aware of the fact that she knew nothing of the ar- 
 rangement between himself and her father. 
 
 He gave it up. The fact remained that Dick was 
 coming and that was good. With a touch of unchar- 
 acteristic excitement, Thoresby took a personal in- 
 terest in the luncheon. He went around into Picca- 
 
 250
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 dilly and bought a great bundle of flowers, hothouse 
 roses, mostly. He arranged them himself. He made 
 the dining table a very blaze of color, and then, just 
 before she came, he put a bunch in a large blue bowl 
 on a table in the hall to give her welcome. In a rather 
 ridiculous way he changed his tie several times and 
 endeavored to make his thin gray hair a little less gray 
 by putting on brilliantine. He laughed at himself, 
 but the laugh was a little sour. "Gee !" he said. "I'm 
 not so horrid old. Hang it! I'm only fifty. With 
 care and courage I'm good for twenty-three years, 
 twenty-three highly respectable, jocular years, useful, 
 exemplary years. Why not?" 
 
 The bell rang several times and each time he jumped 
 up, and when Dick arrived, punctually, for a wonder, 
 he felt absurdly boyish and nervous. 
 
 Dick was charmingly dressed and it was the first 
 time since she had come to those rooms that he had 
 seen her face. "Oh, no!" he said to himself. "Oh, 
 no ! Impossible, my friend, quite !" 
 
 Dick was in one of her quiet moods. She made 
 no attempt to be good company, so she was very nat- 
 ural. She gave no imitations, nor did she force 
 hilarity. 
 
 "Awfully nice place you've got here, Bill," she said. 
 "I hope I haven't botched up any of your engage- 
 ments." 
 
 "My dear kid, this is an honor." 
 
 "Don't pull my leg," said Dick. "I vote we treat 
 each other like very old friends, say exactly what we 
 mean without any bluff or blither." 
 
 251
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "Right you are," said Thoresby. "I should like 
 to." It was a very serious Dick to-day, an unexpect- 
 edly different Dick. "I got back the night before last. 
 Went over to have a look at the trees in the Bois." 
 
 "I know," said Dick. "I wanted to be the first of 
 your pals to look you up." 
 
 "Is that true ?" asked Thoresby eagerly. "I'm sorry, 
 but you said that we were to treat each other like old 
 friends, didn't you?" 
 
 "Then it isn't true," said Dick. "It's a lie." 
 
 The door opened and the man appeared. "Lunch- 
 eon is served, my lord," he said. 
 
 So Dick added : "But we'll keep all this till after 
 lunch." 
 
 As Thoresby followed her into the dining-room he 
 asked himself: "All what?" and continued to ask him- 
 self the same question over and over again throughout 
 the meal. 
 
 Dick paid him compliments. "This beats the Ritz, 
 old boy," she said. "Quite tweaky! And, by Jove, 
 don't those roses sing." 
 
 Thoresby laughed. "Sing?" he asked. 
 
 "Why not?" said Dick. "All flowers sing. Roses 
 are operatic. There used to be a tree of Tetrazzinis 
 at Quennor that always woke me up in the morning. 
 I wish I knew Paris." 
 
 "I'd like to introduce her to you." 
 
 "You may have the chance, soon," said Dick. 
 
 Thoresby bent forward. "What do you mean?" 
 
 "Let me see," said Dick. "Where are we? Quite 
 early in the courses. Give me until the coffee comes." 
 
 252
 
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 After that Thoresby ate little. He listened to Dick. 
 He put one or two leading questions and drew her 
 out on the subject of theatricals. She said several 
 dry sarcastic things about them and in the way she 
 turned her phrases she reminded him curiously of 
 Drusilla. She was a wonderful mixture of her par- 
 ents, a sort of Bowdlerised edition of both. 
 
 "If it's all the same to you," said Dick, "I think 
 we'll have coffee in the drawing-room." 
 
 "Just as you like. Why?" 
 
 "I dunno. I think the drawing-room will give me a 
 touch of dignity which I shall need." 
 
 Thoresby made it so. He carried a box of cigar- 
 ettes in with him. It awoke unpleasant memories. It 
 was the one which Tony wanted to throw at his head. 
 It seemed a long time ago. He opened it and held 
 it out to Dick. 
 
 She shook her head. "I'm not smoking, thanks," 
 she said. "I'm in training for a lady." 
 
 Thoresby was unable to make it out. This was not 
 the first time during this odd hour that Dick had said 
 things enigmatically that made him jump. "Where 
 would you like to sit?" he asked. 
 
 She took a chair with an uncompromising back. 
 "Bolt upright, here," she said. The sun, dodging a 
 stack of chimneys which looked foolishly like the pipes 
 of an organ, fell upon her hair and shoulders. She 
 moved into its caress. The sun was a very faithful 
 friend, rather like Jack. 
 
 "You don't mind my smoking," said Thoresby. 
 
 "Oh, please," said Dick and laughed. "There's no 
 
 253
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 doubt about it, but we're in very high society, you 
 and I." 
 
 Thoresby remained standing with his back to the 
 empty grate. He wondered what on earth he was 
 smoking. 
 
 And then Dick, looking up at him, came to the point. 
 "Not because you've been very kind to us," she said, 
 "or for any other reason of that sort, I'm going to 
 ask you to do me a turn. What do you think about 
 it?" 
 
 "There's nothing that I wouldn't do for you, Dick." 
 
 "I had a sort of notion you felt like that. I re- 
 member your face that Sunday when the Black Prince 
 ran me down to Brighton." 
 
 "I could have murdered the brute," said Thoresby. 
 He said : "I love you, I love you," passionately to him- 
 self. He was afraid to say it aloud. 
 
 "Well," said Dick. "It's like this. I'm sick of the 
 stage. I'm sick of restaurants and suppers. I'm sick 
 of Black Princes and motor cars and I'm dead sick 
 of putting paint on my face. Would you like me to 
 be Lady Thoresby? If so, say so. If it doesn't meet 
 your views, say so." 
 
 "Dick !" The man stood very still. He was breath- 
 less. 
 
 "Well?" she said. She liked him for his economy 
 of words and actions. 
 
 He made a rather pitiful gesture. "But I'm old, 
 my dear," he said. 
 
 "Not so very," said Dick. "Not as old as I am." 
 
 "Then, too, I've been on the long trail." 
 
 254
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "So have I," said Dick. "Is it yes?" 
 
 "No," said Thoresby. "I'm by Jove, I'm funky! 
 You've been put up to this. Someone's coercing you. 
 You never would have asked me such a question on 
 your own. Dick, be honest with me. I'll tell you this 
 very straight. I love you. There's enough man in 
 me left for that. I'd play the game, by you, too. You 
 should have everything you wanted and as little of me 
 as you could put up with. But I'm not going to have 
 you forced upon me." 
 
 "Is it yes?" asked Dick. "Quaint how we Oke- 
 hamptons do everything the wrong way 'round." 
 
 Thoresby went over to Dick and turned her face 
 into the sun and looked straightly at her. "Be hon- 
 est with me, Dick," he said again. "You don't quite 
 know what this means to me. When a man turns 
 over a new leaf he's rather proud of the fact. Mine 
 was turned over for me, but I'm rather proud of it 
 all the same. I'm very keen to keep it without dog's 
 ears. Tell me this. Is your mother behind all this?" 
 
 "Is it yes?" asked Dick. 
 
 "I see that she is," said Thoresby. He was deeply 
 disappointed. 
 
 "Is it yes?" asked Dick. "I'm not going to lie to 
 you, but I'm not going to tell you the truth. That 
 is, I'm not going to tell it all. All I'll say is pretty 
 much what I've said before. I'm sick, just sick. I 
 want to be Lady Thoresby." 
 
 "You want to be?" That was better than nothing. 
 
 "Yes, I want to be. Is it yes?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 255
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "Thank you," said Dick. She held out her hand 
 and shook the trembling one that he gave her like a 
 boy. Then she laughed and took a cigarette and lit 
 it. "The last," she said, "absolutely! The Earl and 
 Countess of Thoresby are shortly leaving town for 
 Paris to look at the trees in the Bois. Lady Thoresby 
 is, of course, the Miss Dick Okehampton whose very 
 gaucherie proved her to be the possessor of genius." 
 Then she threw her cigarette away as though she were 
 throwing away the whole of her past. "Let's be mar- 
 ried quietly, Bill, and slip out of it all. Or do you 
 want a splash?" 
 
 "I want what you want," said Thoresby. His voice 
 broke a little. "Dick, my dear, I hope you'll never 
 regret this. I'm by Jove, I'm very funky." 
 
 "That's all right," said Dick. "I don't know much 
 about golf or tennis, but I think you'll find that I 
 know the rules of cricket. How goes the time?" 
 
 "Half-past two," said Thoresby. 
 
 "Is it? Then I must go. The only boy of all the 
 boys I know who will be in the set of Lord and Lady 
 Thoresby is waiting for me below. Bye-bye." She 
 nodded and went to the door, hesitated and came back. 
 
 And when Thoresby kissed the upturned cheek he 
 did so as Sir Galahad might have done. 
 
 Gee ! How the broncho-busters would have laughed ! 
 
 256
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 IT seemed as though fate were in league with Dru- 
 silla. The woman had played upon all that was 
 best in Dick's loyal, obstinate, wild, headstrong, 
 unformed nature. For the sake of her father 
 and mother she had sacrificed herself. As though that 
 were not enough, Providence put her in the way of 
 receiving two deep wounds that day and in this way 
 helped Drusilla to her next abominable move. 
 
 The faithful Jack grinned gleefully when Dick took 
 her seat at his side. He had been home to lunch, a 
 rather hurried lunch. His mother and Dick were the 
 only two women in the world. He had come back 
 with a nice little scheme in his head. His mother 
 knew most things. She knew also about Dick. He 
 wanted them to meet. He was full of heart. At lunch 
 he had repeated Dick's words in which brother had 
 come. The dear old lady had smiled. "All proper 
 women say that to the man they eventually marry," 
 she said, "because all proper women love their brothers 
 very nearly as much as they love their husbands." 
 And so Jack felt thirty years younger, although he was 
 only twenty-five. What a thing it was to have a 
 mother ! 
 
 He turned his car up Piccadilly. His destination 
 was Eaton Square. 
 
 257
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "Which way?" said Dick. 
 
 "My way," said Jack. 
 
 "Right-o. Go ahead. It's all the same to me." 
 
 "Had a pleasant lunch?" 
 
 "First class. Nothing but surprises. Nearly every- 
 thing was out of season." 
 
 "Amusing people?" 
 
 "Person," said Dick. "Not a bit amusing." 
 
 "Oh, Lord!" said Jack. 
 
 "No. I was glad about it. He was the biggest 
 surprise of them all." 
 
 "Oh, a man, eh?" 
 
 "Yes," said Dick, "a man." She underlined the 
 word with a very thick stroke. 
 
 Oddly enough, Jack had not ever felt jealous in re- 
 gard to Dick. He did not feel jealous now. Some- 
 thing told him, although he had never made a study 
 of girls and their feelings and their odd fumble after 
 the truth, that Dick was the same with every other 
 man as she was with him. He felt, and he was very 
 glad to feel, that she was utterly heart-whole. All 
 he did know was that he was in it ever so slightly. 
 He had all her letters, those curious, slangy letters, 
 alive with quick, vivid touches and full of a glorious 
 comradeship. If his mother was right, and his mother 
 was always right, then all he had to do was to wait. 
 His mother had called Dick a child and him a boy. 
 
 "Make your career safe," she said, "before you 
 speak and then do not take no. I fancy that your 
 Dick will make a very proper woman. Let me see 
 her." 
 
 258
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 And so the sun for Jack was twice as big as usual. 
 There were just two things that he meant to do. 
 One was to marry Dick and the other was to be an 
 admiral, and both looked very certain that bright 
 afternoon. 
 
 They turned off at Hyde Park Corner and ran 
 through the labyrinth of houses, which were nearly 
 all the same, ugly smug houses to the eye, but ex- 
 tremely comfortable. Most of them were blushing 
 beneath the paint of spring. They were white with 
 that optimism which recurs in spite of endless rebuffs. 
 Here and there was to be seen a more cautious color 
 the chocolate of Pimlico. 
 
 A wedding was to take place at St. Peter's, Eaton 
 Square. The awnings were out and the red carpet, 
 over which so many feet had passed, in and out again, 
 and then God knows where. The inevitable crowd of 
 women waited patiently a curious crowd, made up 
 for the most part bf married women. Perhaps their 
 curiosity was tinged with a little sarcasm, or does 
 romance never die? There were butcher boys there, 
 too. Dick looked at all these people and at the awn- 
 ing and at the church as those people look at hearses 
 who have followed some person whom they love to 
 the grave. Dick had buried romance. 
 
 The car turned to the right and then the left and 
 stopped in front of a house that had received no new 
 paint that spring, but which, for all that, looked very 
 cheerful with its flower boxes of geraniums, white 
 and red. 
 
 "Hullo," said Dick, "what's this?" 
 
 259
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNIT* 
 
 "This," said Jack, "is me." 
 
 Dick smiled and got out, went up the steps to the 
 front door, which opened at once, as though she had 
 been expected. 
 
 Jack followed her at a bound and nodded to an 
 elderly man with a profusion of white hair and a face 
 which might have belonged to a bishop. The hall was 
 full of trophies, curious old guns and sabers, long 
 pistols with big handles and crossed lances with pen- 
 nons hanging limp. There was an oil painting on the 
 wall of a man in military uniform, with a large mus- 
 tache and side whiskers and a very determined chin. 
 The eyes were Jack's. 
 
 "My father." 
 . "I know." 
 
 The boy led the way upstairs. The wall was cov- 
 ered with groups of officers and men in camp, under 
 barrack walls mementoes, inspirations. On the first 
 landing Jack stopped, tapped at the door and waited 
 until a soft voice said: "Come in." 
 
 The room was very large and light and airy. It 
 was filled with pieces of big furniture. There was a 
 big desk and a large pipe-rack at the side of the fire- 
 place crammed with old favorites used no longer. 
 There were bookcases and more swords on the walls, 
 more groups, and at least a dozen paintings of the 
 same woman, some young, some no longer young. It 
 was a man's room. 
 
 And away in the corner sitting in a man's chair was 
 a little old lady behind gold-rimmed spectacles, with 
 her feet on a hassock, with two big black cats tnount- 
 
 260
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 ing guard. One of them rose as Jack came in and 
 elevated a tail, mewing silently. 
 
 "Mother," said Jack, "this is Dick." 
 
 The little old lady held out her hand, held Dick's 
 warmly for a moment; then Dick was pulled forward 
 and kissed on each cheek. 
 
 "You're very welcome, my dear." 
 
 "Thank you," said Dick. "What jolly cats !" She 
 bent down and stroked first one and then the other 
 so that there should be no cause for jealousy. She 
 felt a strange feeling that she knew this place and this 
 little old lady and these cats. It seemed to her that 
 she had been there before. 
 
 The little old lady smiled. "You know animals," 
 she said. 
 
 "Yes," said Jack, "especially rabbits and bumble- 
 bees and squirrels and beetles." He took his place on 
 the hearth rug, putting his feet unconsciously where 
 his father's feet had often been. They fitted the places 
 well, and he looked at his mother and Dick and beamed. 
 It was a great day. 
 
 Dick found a chair already placed for her. It was 
 close to the man's chair. 
 
 "I have been wondering when Jack was going to 
 bring you/' said Lady Euston. 
 
 "Have you heard of me, then?" asked Dick. 
 
 "Once or twice, my dear." 
 
 The mother glanced at her son. There was humor 
 in her eye. Jack's letters, all of which she kept, had 
 been full of many things, but mostly of Dick. 
 
 The sun found Dick again. This time he did not 
 261
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 confine himself merely to her ear and shoulder. He 
 seemed to feel that he was needed. 
 
 Lady Euston was very tactful. She talked weather 
 and events. She never once made the tactical error 
 of talking son. She talked to make Dick laugh and 
 liked it. She talked to make Dick talk and liked 
 that. It was boy's talk, a little slangy and altogether 
 free from affectation. She talked to hear what Dick 
 thought about things and liked her views. All around 
 she was very satisfied. Jack's Dick became her Dick, 
 and that was good. 
 
 Tea was brought up and there were muffins and 
 hot buns, jam, much bread and butter, and a big cut- 
 and-come-again cake. With it also there was laughter 
 and Jack's continued beam. This was a very great 
 day. 
 
 The cats were fed and asked questions, which they 
 answered promptly. They were amazingly intelli- 
 gent cats, and Dick was delighted to see them drink- 
 ing out of the same saucer and playing fair. The 
 atmosphere of the room and the house had had its 
 effect even upon them. People who keep dogs turn 
 up their noses at cats. They don't know. 
 
 And then Jack said : "Have a look at my room, 
 Dick?" 
 
 "Oh," said Dick, "so you've got a room, have you?" 
 
 "Yes," said Lady Euston, "full of different por- 
 traits of the same woman. Go and see it. But don't 
 forget to come back." The little old lady put on her 
 glasses again and picked up her book. 
 
 "A new novel?" asked Dick. 
 262
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "No, my dear. At my age one no longer reads, 
 one re-reads." The book was older than herself and 
 was handled affectionately. 
 
 Jack led the way, and the way was upstairs. With 
 an air of paternal pride, he opened the door of a room 
 which overlooked the leads and a corner of the stables. 
 It was not a large room, but it was all the better for 
 that. Dick imagined that the walls were papered. It 
 was impossible to tell. There was not one square inch 
 that was not occupied by something in a frame. It was 
 a quaint gallery which told off the years of Jack's life 
 with the closest accuracy. There was Jack a very few 
 feet high on a brick among others of the same height. 
 These were the days of the dame school. There was 
 Jack in his Osborne days a sturdy little devil he was. 
 Everywhere there was Jack, always sturdy. And be- 
 tween Jack, the various Jacks, there were the various 
 Lady Hustons, not more charming, but certainly not 
 less, than the little old lady who sat below in her hus- 
 band's room, as though expecting him to walk in at 
 any moment. And side by side with these there were 
 photographs and caricatures and pen and pencil sketches 
 and pictures cut from newspapers of the man who 
 would never return, but who had left his name behind 
 him on the scroll. The Lord knows how many other 
 things there were pictures of ships, photographs of 
 cricketers, of natives, of coast lines, of the Rock, of 
 the ribs of ships, of A. B. at play, and all the rest of 
 them, duly collected and preserved milestones. The 
 carpet was warm and the furniture solid, good, honest 
 stuff, well polished and well preserved, as good and 
 
 263
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 honest as the house and its occupants and as their 
 record. 
 
 Dick examined everything and laughed and chaffed, 
 calling for explanations and making criticisms. 
 
 And then finally she caught sight of a clock. "Oh, 
 my hat!" she cried. "Look at the time. With your 
 permission, I appear before the British public to-night, 
 and before that great event I'm to have dinner with 
 mother. Lead the way, Horatio Nelson." She had 
 forced Thoresby out of her mind for the time being. 
 She was a great philosopher. 
 
 They went downstairs. 
 
 "Good-bye," said Dick. "May I come again?" 
 
 "Eaton Square is yours, my dear," said Lady Euston. 
 "Jack, see this dear child safely home. Drive very 
 carefully." 
 
 Jack obeyed orders. He drove far too carefully for 
 Dick. She still laughed and chaffed until Jack said : 
 "Oh, by the way, I was seen driving to those chambers 
 in Piccadilly to-day. A man in the service who was 
 at the club lives above them." 
 
 "How very interesting," said Dick sarcastically. 
 
 "Yes, but it is rather interesting. At least, it's in- 
 teresting to me. It turns out that there's another feller 
 living there who's going to get a sound thrashing from 
 my brother one of these days. They met in America 
 a couple of years ago and this man, one of the cham- 
 pion wasters of the earth, did my brother out of a 
 very nice sum of money. I suppose he called it busi- 
 ness. The real word is cheating. The Gilbertian 
 thing about it all is that he is now a peer." 
 
 264
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "Really?" said Dick. "What's his name? 1 ' 
 
 "Thoresby." 
 
 There was a little pause, and in this little pause the 
 car drew up at Park Court. But Dick didn't move. 
 
 "Lord Thoresby," she said, "cheat or not, is my 
 future husband." 
 
 Jack laughed. It was like Dick to say such a thing. 
 She adored pulling his leg. 
 
 "It's no laughing matter," she said. 
 
 And then the boy looked at her and saw that her 
 face was laughterless. 
 
 "Good God!" he cried. "I don't believe k. You 
 the wife of Thoresby. You!" 
 
 "It's got to be," said Dick. "Did you hear that? 
 Got to be." 
 
 "I'd rather you were dead," said the boy. "And I 
 wish to God I'd died before you told me." 
 
 This waa the first wound. 
 
 265
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE second wound was made by Tony. 
 It was a very perfect May night. Even in 
 that fusty back alley, prowled along by night 
 birds ever on the search, there was something of the 
 sweetness of the young summer. With his hat on one 
 side and his cigar between his teeth, Tony paced the 
 echoing asphalt outside the stage door of the London 
 Theater. He came in time to see the theater empty 
 itself. He had read all the notices of the new play 
 and expected that all London would be pouring out at 
 the fall of the curtain. Instead, he saw the most 
 curious of all audiences the second night audience. 
 The beardless boy, usually very fat and something over 
 forty, who wrote for the weekly papers over his sig- 
 nature, carried his stick into the crowd, having worn 
 an almost fresh pair of white kid gloves during the 
 whole performance. If he could find someone to walk 
 away with he talked about values, of which he seemed 
 to- know something, and of what was wanted. "If 
 only," was the burden of his song. If he found no 
 one to whom to speak, he sauntered to the nearest 
 tube station, endeavoring to convey the impression 
 that he was a man of independent means, and his head 
 rang with the beginnings of sentences, and all the way 
 
 266
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 home to West Kensington he chortled excitedly in an- 
 ticipation of the chaos into which his almost unread 
 article would throw theatrical beehives. Among the 
 crows were the company's relatives, full of small criti- 
 cisms as to clothes, and those people who devoted all 
 their lives either to making dresses, wigs, scenery, prop- 
 erties, or upholstery for the theater. The streets of 
 London hardly ever saw them except on second nights. 
 The men wore caps or bowler hats and the women 
 shawls, and they all had about them a slight air of 
 recklessness, and some of them screamed when they 
 crossed the streets, but only in fun. To Tony's im- 
 mense surprise and annoyance, there was none of that 
 loud and continued shouting as the theater runners 
 brought up huge private motor cars and old-fashioned 
 carriages and pairs. There were no tall, languid 
 women, scantily clad, and no Ouidaesque men who 
 yawned and moved with an effort. And yet all the 
 critics had agreed that the new play was a master- 
 piece. 
 
 Rene de Maingauche came up, nodded to Tony, and 
 asked the stage doorkeeper to send his name up to Miss 
 Okehampton. Sir Edward Morde appeared, evidently 
 having been in front, for he still wore a startled look. 
 He also nodded to Tony, and without paying the small- 
 est attention to the Frenchman sent in his name. And 
 then Thoresby appeared and fell into step with Tony, 
 and in a nervous and wholly uncharacteristic way 
 talked about the weather and the racing and the Ital- 
 ian-Turkish war. They were like bees around a flower, 
 all greedy for honey. 
 
 267
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 In the meantime, the young actor-manager, too 
 young to know the value of theatrical criticism, had 
 invited Dick to a supper party at the Savoy to cele- 
 brate his great success, and had promised in a royal 
 manner to drive her home afterward. He was very 
 royal, this provincial. 
 
 Dick was almost the first of the company to pass 
 the stage doorkeeper's cubby hole. "Hullo, B. P.," 
 she said. "Hullo, Mordy." She divided a smile be- 
 tween them and made her way into the alley. "Oh, 
 hullo, Bill." 
 
 The Black Prince followed her. "I thought you'd 
 like- 
 
 Morde touched Dick's elbow. "It would give me 
 the greatest pleasure to " 
 
 "Don't you think/' said Thoresby, "that a little sup- 
 per at the " 
 
 The actor-manager's man hurried out. "Beg par- 
 don, miss," he said, "the guvnor wishes to know " 
 
 Dick took Tony's arm. "So, so sorry," she said. 
 "I'm engaged to-night." 
 
 Tony waved his hand and walked up the alley on 
 the tips of his toes, with his hat at an even more rak- 
 ish angle and the shoes, which he had polished him- 
 self, very radiant in the lamplight. He felt like an 
 undergraduate in his first year who has the honor to 
 be seen talking to the president of the O. U. B. C. 
 B'Jove, Dick was a sportsman ! He was a very happy 
 man. 
 
 Not quite so happy when he sensed the fact almost 
 immediately that Dick was in a mood. He knew it 
 
 268
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 because she walked very quickly and as though she 
 wanted to get home. He was glad to think that she 
 wanted to get home, because it seemed to show that 
 she was not quite so much out of touch with the state 
 of things at the flat as usual. But he was sorry that 
 she walked quickly, because it shortened the hour to 
 which he looked forward all day. 
 
 Jack's involuntary words had cut very deep. She 
 had got to marry Thoresby, got to. She knew what 
 she was doing. She had heard her father, during the 
 last of the Ouennor days, gloating over Thoresby's 
 masterly wastefulness, but she hated Jack for having 
 even by accident thrown one of the Thoresby incidents 
 into her face. All the same, she knew that Jack was 
 right. She knew it before he put it in his appallingly 
 blunt way. It irritated her to be told what she already 
 knew, and, in any case, she was not a child. She was 
 free to do just exactly what she liked or precisely 
 what she didn't like, as the case may be. She was 
 going to do it. It had to be done. The least said 
 about it the better. 
 
 It is an extraordinary thing how often a bad day 
 is made worse by the apparently purposeful piling up 
 of big and little irritations. So far as romance was 
 concerned, Dick owned herself a failure. The word 
 romance did not occur to her. She never used it. It 
 is the sole property of professional wordmongers. But 
 the vague dream, the sort of comforting idea that some- 
 day, somewhere, she would meet the man, broke. She 
 was marrying Thoresby solely and entirely to provide 
 her mother and father with things to eat and drink 
 
 269
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 and stand up in. She said to herself : "There it is. It's 
 fixed. Nothing can alter it. So let's forget all about 
 it as long as we can." 
 
 It was hard luck, however, that the stage manager 
 of the London Theater, the only man in it for whom 
 she had any respect, should have chosen that night 
 of all others for a little friendly talk. He was theater 
 from head to foot. It was generally said that he had 
 been born in the theater. Without any doubt, he 
 would die in it. In a way, he had genius, but he was 
 undersized and ugly and had much difficulty with his 
 h's. He had never had a chance. He knew no one 
 with money. But for the exquisite topsy-turvydom 
 of life he should have been the actor-manager, and for 
 all his ugliness that charming theater would have at- 
 tracted all lovers of fine acting. As it was, this rapidly 
 aging little man who had played on the sands, on 
 piers, in the fit-ups, in the smalls of Scotland, in the 
 rank melodramas, in the cheap theaters over the water 
 was a sycophant. He was the stage manager of the 
 London Theater at a very small salary who, because 
 he had a wife and a large family in a little house near 
 Camberwell Green, dared not say what he thought and 
 dared not attempt to teach the actor-manager how to 
 act. But he told the truth to Dick, because he liked 
 her, and because he felt that there was a bond of sym- 
 pathy between them. Curious reasons these for telling 
 the truth. The truth is always so unpleasant. 
 
 Dick was standing in the wings. She had just come 
 off after her big scene that is, the scene in which the 
 actor-manager as the amorous auctioneer kissed her as 
 
 270
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 the typewriter in his office. Dealt with by a writer 
 of the new school, this quite commonplace incident was 
 elevated into one of very filthy significance. The stage 
 manager crept up and whispered in Dick's ear. "All 
 wrong, my dear. Absolutely, all wrong. You'll never 
 make an actress. You act. Fatal. You discounted all 
 your effects by being conscious of having them. Can't 
 you get some rich pal to put you in a shop, sweetstuff 
 or millinery ? You're wasting your time 'ere. When 
 our young friend wakes up one day and finds that 
 he's lost sixty thousand quid, 'e'll drop the theater 
 like a red-hot potato and you'll never get another job. 
 I'm yer friend, dear. That's why I tell yer these 
 things." 
 
 Dick had been enjoying a sort of exaltation. "Be- 
 neath her very gaucherie she proved herself to be the 
 possessor of genius." This line had been like cham- 
 pagne to her. "It's ghastly," she said, "how friendly 
 friends are," and turned away full of bitterness and 
 very sore. 
 
 And now here was Tony praising her performance 
 in one breath, and wondering whether it wouldn't be 
 better if she did this, that or the other in another. 
 
 "Of course, I'm no judge," he said, "so I can't help 
 you at all, but somehow your scene didn't seem to go. 
 I wanted to hear an outburst of applause when you 
 went off. As it was people laughed. Isn't there any- 
 one in the theater to put you right, Dick, old boy?" 
 
 "Oh, I've been put right enough," said Dick. "The 
 weasel fastened on me to-night. He's my friend, he 
 is, the weasel. I'm just as useful on the stage, it ap- 
 
 271
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 pears, as all the other girls who have been foisted 
 into parts without knowing how to act. Open a paper 
 shop, Tony, for racing tips and let me sell ginger beer 
 to office boys and little clerks." 
 
 Tony laughed and tightened his affectionate em- 
 brace of her arm. "You're tired, Dick," he said. "I 
 don't wonder. No one could have played the part 
 better than you did, my dear, except an actress. No 
 actor-manager's fool enough to engage actresses, so 
 you're all right. By the way, what's the matter with 
 Thoresby?" 
 
 "The matter f What should be the matter ?" 
 
 "I dunno," said Tony. "He seemed a little quaint, 
 I thought. He talked like a professor of metaphysics 
 and never caught my eye. Something on his mind, 
 I should think." 
 
 "There is something on his mind," said Dick. "He's 
 going to get married." 
 
 "What! Bill? No fool like an old fool. Did he 
 tell yer so?" 
 
 "No," said Dick, "I told him." 
 
 "Don't see it," said Tony. "What is it, a catch ?" 
 
 "Yes," said Dick, "a wonderful catch for me." 
 
 Tony laughed. He didn't know why. He simply 
 laughed in order to cheer up Dick. It really didn't 
 matter at all to him whether Thoresby married or not. 
 Let him marry. It wouldn't make any difference to 
 Tony. 
 
 "You'll have to give the bride away, Tony, so pol- 
 ish up your hat, old boy. My daughter, the Countess 
 of Thoresby, you know. Do you a bit of good, what ?" 
 
 272
 
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 Tony gave a sort of stagger and stopped. "Do you 
 mean that you you " 
 
 Dick cursed herself for not having been able to re- 
 sist this indulgence of wounded ego. "Oh, come on," 
 she said, "come on," trying to turn the matter off. 
 
 But Tony's mind went back to the last night at 
 Quennor. He refused to go on. "Dick," he said, 
 "what is this ? You've got to tell me. What have 
 you done?" 
 
 Dick could see that his face looked very old and 
 white. There was a look in his eyes which she couldn't 
 understand. She gave an airy gesture. "I've done 
 just what any other girl would have done in my place 
 and what tons of others would be jolly glad to have 
 the chance to do. Another actress marries a peer. It's 
 great ! I shall have my photograph in the Daily Mail." 
 
 "Oh, my God !" said Tony. "Why doesn't someone 
 strike me dead?" He said nothing more. He didn't 
 seem able to put any further words together. 
 
 He stood staring, with his mouth open. 
 
 So Dick hailed a taxicab and helped him into it and 
 drove him to Brewer Street, and gave him brandy 
 and then hurried away. Words were coming back to 
 him, and she had already heard enough for one day, 
 at any rate. 
 
 273
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE day was over, but the gods still pursued 
 Dick. They had pursued Tony in the same 
 way just as soon as he came under the in- 
 fluence of Drusilla. To call them gods, therefore, is 
 to use an altogether wrong word. Devils is the one. 
 
 All the lights were burning in the flat. A trunk and 
 a dressing-case were in the hall. A green dump hat 
 was lying on the floor and a yellow overcoat lined 
 with blue. Dick heard talking going on in Tony's old 
 room, and when she went into the passage which led 
 to it she saw her mother gliding away, with her dry 
 hair all loose. She wondered why, uneasily. She had 
 not discovered the fact that one of her mother's chief 
 joys in life was eavesdropping. 
 
 In the morning-room she found Harry. No one 
 would have believed that she was an English girl. 
 She might have been Spanish with a touch of tar 
 brush. She was lying on a settee in an attitude of 
 utter carelessness. She had green stockings. She had 
 evidently been enjoying herself. For once there was 
 a smile upon her reddened lips and she was talking 
 vividly. A very young, soft-looking, slightly vacuous 
 man was standing with his back to the fireplace. His 
 clothes were pretty and he had wonderful hair, of 
 
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 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 which he was inordinately proud. It was so fair as 
 almost to be white and was full of thick, irrepressible 
 kinks. He could not have been more than twenty- 
 two. He was a stranger to Dick. 
 
 "What cheer, Dick !" said Harry. "Looked for you 
 just now and thought you were on the tiles." 
 
 "I was rather late at the theater to-night," said 
 Dick. 
 
 "Wonder of wonders! You still messin' about 
 among all those people with sheep's heads ? Ever met 
 an actress, Kinky ? My sister Lord Kimblestone." 
 
 The boy's hand went up nervously to his very beau- 
 tiful tie. "Oh, how de do?" he said. 
 
 "How de do?" said Dick. 
 
 "We've just come back from a short stay at Monte 
 Carlo." 
 
 The boy blushed violently. "Er, yes," he said, "but 
 we won't go into that. How interesting that you're 
 on the stage," he added to Dick. 
 
 Harry simply screamed. "Look at Kinky!" she 
 cried. "Look at him! It's his first trip. You can 
 see that plain enough. Isn't he a fresher?" 
 
 "Oh, please, don't," said Kimblestone. "I don't like 
 it. Besides, your sister." 
 
 "Don't mind me," said Dick. 
 
 Harry was in contortions and became even more 
 careless. 
 
 The boy dropped his cigarette into the fireplace. 
 "Well, if you'll excuse me," he said. "I good-bye." 
 He bowed to Dick and then went over to the settee 
 and touched Harry on the arm. "Good-bye, Harry," 
 
 275
 
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 he said awkwardly. "Thank you, very much. I 
 mean " 
 
 He got violently red again, looked as though he 
 were in a panic, turned and fled. Dick went to see 
 him out and found him in his startling overcoat and 
 green velvet hat, trying to open the front door. She 
 opened it for him and he bowed again and disappeared. 
 
 Harry's laughter rang through the place. 
 
 Dick went to her room and shut the door. She was 
 in no mood for Harry. But long before she had 
 begun to undress Harry came in and threw herself on 
 the bed. 
 
 "No tender words of welcome for your loving sister 
 to-night, then," she said. 
 
 "I'm rather tired, Harry." 
 
 The other girl grinned a little unpleasantly. "Yes, 
 but that doesn't prevent your putting on frills with 
 me." 
 
 "I don't mean to," said Dick. 
 
 "Well, let me give you a tip. Just manage in the 
 future to give me and my pals a less straight upper 
 lip whenever we show up here. We don't trouble you 
 much." 
 
 There was no fight in Dick. She felt that she had 
 been knocked out ; so she was silent. 
 
 This silence seemed to rankle in Harry's queer mind. 
 She sat up and eyed Dick sneeringly. "The difference 
 between you and me," she said, "is that I'm honest 
 and you're hypocritical. You pose as a sort of vestal 
 virgin, and I don't care two curses what people say 
 or think. All the same, don't you imagine that you're 
 
 276
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 not talked about, because you are. Oh, there are some 
 jolly stories about you, Godiva. Very jolly! The 
 old man's darling, I've heard you called, and the Black 
 Princess. I suppose you'll say that you're married to 
 one of them secretly so as to be able to buck and put 
 me down one." 
 
 "Look here," said Dick. "You can go. I'm fed up. 
 Completely fed up. I advise you to get out, pretty 
 quick." 
 
 Harry picked up one of Dick's hats and jerked a 
 feather out. If there had been a cat handy, she would 
 have pulled its tail in the same way. "Your tone," 
 she said, "is offensive. Do you run this place? Is 
 your dirty little salary paying the whack? Bah! You 
 make me tired. This is my show. If I choose to come 
 into your room or anybody else's room, I jolly well 
 will. They've never polluted your ears, I suppose, with 
 the true story?" 
 
 "I don't know what you're talking about," said Dick. 
 "But if this is your show and you find me so offensive, 
 you won't have me here much longer." 
 
 "Oh? Really?" said Harry. "Are you stepping 
 off your pedestal at last?" 
 
 "No," said Dick. "I'm only going to get married, 
 that's all." 
 
 "Married? What a scream! Swanky to the last, 
 eh? Never thought you'd turn out like this. Can't 
 have an angel face for nothing, I suppose. Who's the 
 joker?" 
 
 Dick thought she heard someone outside the door. 
 What did it matter? "Thoresby," she said. 
 
 277
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Harry sprang to her feet. "My eye!" she said. 
 "That's ripe. The second Mrs. Thoresby. What ho! 
 Going one better than sister Harry, then, eh ? You've 
 fixed the gentleman, then, whereas I only had him on 
 a little bit of string. Ton my word ! This is the joke 
 of the century. To round the whole thing off, I think 
 I'd better be a bridesmaid." 
 
 Dick gazed at her open-eyed. "I don't know what 
 you're talking about," she said. 
 
 "Well, then, you're missing the joke, aren't you? 
 Who do you think ran me in the West End after 
 Quennor? Who d'you think paid for my hats and 
 frocks and all the rest of it when you were at Syden- 
 ham ? Why was Tony able to take this place and fur- 
 nish it and pay cash for his spats? Blackmail, my 
 child. Little Harry is the benefactor. Dear little 
 Harry." 
 
 The door opened and Drusilla came in. Her face 
 was distorted with rage. She was not pleasant to 
 look at. 
 
 "You liar!" she said to Harry. "You liar!" She 
 turned to Dick. "Don't believe a word of it. What 
 I told you was the truth. I always tell the truth. 
 You, as Lady Thoresby, will be the benefactor. It 
 will be you to whom your father and I will look 
 for some sort of comfort in our declining years. My 
 darling, what am I to say to you ?" She went forward 
 with outstretched arms. 
 
 Dick put up her hand. "Stay where you are. Don't 
 touch me!" she said. "It was a trick, a very dirty 
 trick." 
 
 278
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 With her nostrils distended and breathing quickly 
 as though she had been running, she got back into 
 her coat and hat, went out of the room and out of the 
 flat, ran downstairs into the dimly-lighted hall, opened 
 the front door, slammed it behind her, and ran down 
 the street until she came to a taxicab. 
 
 "Eaton Square," she said. "Quickly! Quickly!" 
 
 279
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DICK ran from her people. She fled precipi- 
 tately as people fly from an appalling stench. 
 She went to Eaton Square in the same spirit 
 as that of a fox which runs panting into a church. 
 She, too, felt that she was being hunted. For the 
 first time in her life, her loyalty for her father and 
 mother gave way before the sudden proofs of their 
 depravity. She believed Harry's version of the story. 
 She knew Harry. She remembered her father com- 
 ing to Half Moon Street. A hundred small things 
 unnoticed at the time were now understood. She 
 never bothered herself to go into details. She ac- 
 cepted things in the true slipshod manner of the Oke- 
 hamptons, and when Tony had told her after his escape 
 from the flat that he was going to pay his wife eight 
 pounds a week and keep two, it didn't occur to her 
 to ask him where the money was coming from. He 
 had it and that was enough. She now saw that it 
 was Thoresby's money, that it was Harry's flat, and 
 that even her father's rooms in Brewer Street were 
 due to Harry. 
 
 So she had been tricked. All the pathos and trag- 
 edy of her mother's confession were false. The whole 
 
 280
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 thing was a trick. Her mother wanted her to marry 
 Thoresby as a sort of insurance for herself, or else 
 in order that she might have the laugh of Harry. 
 Dick's mind was in too chaotic a state to come to 
 any decision. The only thing that came out very 
 clearly, with the most icy clearness, was that her 
 mother was no mother, that Harry was vile, and that 
 even Tony hadn't the decency to be honest with her. 
 It seemed to her that Thoresby was the only respec- 
 table person of them all. He, at least, had had the 
 grace to hesitate. Jack had wished her dead. Tony 
 had wished himself dead. It seemed that death was 
 the only thing that could put her into some sort of 
 comfort. 
 
 If she had found any lights in the windows of the 
 house in Eaton Square, she would have knocked, gone 
 up to the large airy room and crept into the arms 
 of the little old lady. But the house was in darkness. 
 Poor Dick paid off the cab and sat for what appeared 
 to be an hour on the doorstep, with her head against 
 the door. A policeman passed, but she was hidden in 
 the shadow of the early Victorian portico, and it was 
 during this long doubting hour, with the feeling upon 
 her that her friends were cut off, that her mind grew 
 less chaotic and she saw things baldly, unemotionally. 
 In the middle of them stood Tony, poor old Tony, the 
 man who had never grown into a man, and who had 
 been made more childish than ever by trouble. She 
 saw well enough that he, at any rate, depended utterly 
 on her for his spotless clothes, his white spats, his 
 shiny hat, his club, his tidy rooms and all the other 
 
 281
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 little toys which now meant so much to him. At any 
 moment Thoresby might go away and cut off the al- 
 lowance. Would Harry contribute? No. Could she 
 ever hope to earn enough money on the stage to give 
 her mother a roof and keep Tony among his play- 
 things? She had been told the truth about that, and 
 so the answer was no. It became clearer and clearer 
 to her that, although her mother had tricked her and 
 her father had not been honest and Harry owed Lon- 
 don to Thoresby, this man Thoresby was to her what 
 the actor-manager was to the poor little stage man- 
 ager the means of livelihood. She was one of the 
 numerous sycophants of the earth. She was obliged 
 to marry Thoresby. There seemed to be no way out 
 of it. 
 
 She got up, pressed her lips to the door of the 
 house of the little old lady and went down the steps 
 into the street. 
 
 "All right then," she said to herself. "Here goes. 
 I'm to be the second Mrs. Thoresby, am I ? Right you 
 are. But they shan't have it all their own way, any 
 of them. I'll see to that." 
 
 She did not walk in the direction of Knightsbridge. 
 She lilted along with a sort of devil-may-care until 
 she came to Hyde Park Corner. Once before she had 
 tramped this place in the middle of the night. Then 
 it was to escape from law and order and now from 
 anarchy. She hailed a prowling taxicab which was 
 still optimistic. "Bury Street," she said, "like the 
 devil." 
 
 She had had enough of cricket for the moment. 
 282
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 There were other games. She was sick of all the 
 sordid intrigue which surrounded her. She needed 
 amusement. Rene de Maingauche was an artist in 
 amusement and his day began in the middle of the 
 night. 
 
 She found him out. A yawning man-servant told 
 her that he was at a fancy dress ball at Covent Gar- 
 den arranged in aid of distressed Irish gentlewomen. 
 He gave Dick her first laugh. 
 
 "All right," she said, "I'll wait," and it was in an 
 atmosphere that would have been congenial to Dru- 
 silla, among the foul creatures of Beardsley's diseased 
 imagination, that Dick revised her plans and changed 
 her mood, smoking like a factory chimney. 
 
 Rene found her lying on a sofa. Her fingers were 
 all stained with nicotine and her eyes tired and reck- 
 less. He was dressed as a French Pierrot, his short 
 jacket, much waisted, and his knickerbockers and 
 stockings and limp cloak were silk, dead white, with 
 broad red stripes. A white skull cap fitted closely to 
 his head. No hair could be seen and his face was 
 plastered with white grease paint, with red lips, a dab 
 of red in the corners of his eyes, and eyebrows marked 
 out above his own, which were temporarily removed 
 by the paint. He looked the incarnation of Beardsley- 
 ism. He was dangerously sober on champagne and 
 was in the mood for Hell or Heaven. It all de- 
 pended on his companion. He found that Dick was 
 in favor of the former place, and gave thanks ac- 
 cordingly. 
 
 "Wash yourself," she said. "Telephone for the car 
 283
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 your chauffeur will only just have got in and 
 let's go." 
 
 "Where?" asked Rene, stripping off his skull cap 
 and pitching it away. 
 
 "To little old man devil," said Dick. 
 
 284
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE curtain of the London Theater rose at half- 
 past eight. There was, according to the sys- 
 tem, no one-act play. The curtain fell at a 
 few minutes to eleven, according to the system, and 
 there were two waits of from ten to fifteen minutes 
 each, also according to the system. Within a stone's 
 throw of the London Theater there were four very 
 comfortable, very brilliantly lighted variety theaters 
 which had large and efficient orchestras. Sarah Bern- 
 hardt was at one of them, Yvette Guilbert at another, 
 Mascagni at a third, and all of them began at eight 
 o'clock precisely and did not finish until twenty-five 
 minutes past eleven, and at all of them an admirable 
 seat could be obtained for two shillings. There were 
 many other theaters in the neighborhood of the Lon- 
 don, all blindly following the system, nearly all, neces- 
 sarily, full of deadheads according to the system. 
 
 At eight o'clock in the evening of the day upon 
 which Dick and Rene de Maingauche left London be- 
 hind them in a mad motor the stage manager of the 
 London Theater began to get nervous. There was 
 no Dick and, according to the system, her understudy 
 had never rehearsed the part. 
 
 Mr. Edwin Wilkes first consulted the stage door- 
 285
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 keeper. "Have you ever known Miss Okehampton 
 as late as this?" he asked. 
 
 "Wot? Miss Okehampton? Don't you get jumpy 
 yet, gov'ner. It's all right. In the last piece she was 
 on at twenty to nine and never thought of getting 'ere 
 before eight-thirty-two. Didn't you know that?" 
 
 "No," said Mr. Wilkes, who was the stage manager. 
 "But it's different now. Why, damn it ! she's playing 
 the lead the so-called lead. A nice mess up if she 
 let's us down." 
 
 "I'll ring her up," said the stage doorkeeper. 
 
 "Ah, of course," said Mr. Wilkes. He rubbed his 
 nervous hands together. This was a matter of bread 
 and butter to him. 
 
 The servant of Park Court answered the telephone. 
 
 "Is Miss Okehampton there? Yes, Miss Dick 
 what's that ? not been there all day ? Gord bless me ! 
 Well, where can I find her? You see she ought to 
 be makin' up now. We go up in 'arf an hour." 
 
 "Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" said Mr. Wilkes, shocked 
 out of his complete repertory. "Go on! Press it. 
 Press it. She must know something." 
 
 " Yes, I know, miss. Should think it is serious! 
 What? Yus? Yus. That's it. Ask her mother 
 to ring up 'round about. I shall be 'ere all the time." 
 He rang off. 
 
 Mr. Wilkes' hands were wet. He went out into the 
 alley and peered. The theater doors had been opened 
 and a few experimentally minded people had gone in. 
 
 The stage doorkeeper joined him. " 'Owever," he 
 said, "don't you worry, sir. She's a knockout, that 
 
 286
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Miss Okehampton. We've done two shows, you see, 
 and she'll know 'er times to a second. If I don't stand 
 clear of these 'ere doors about eight-twenty well, 
 there may be a widder at 'ome. Talk about tropical 
 cyclones!" 
 
 It was cheery hearing, but the actor-manager had 
 already begun to realize that the brilliant notices had 
 not caused any pleasant excitement in his box-office. 
 He had already begun to treat Mr. Wilkes as though 
 he were a dog. He remained in the alley, watch in 
 hand. 
 
 In and out of the theater beehive passed stage hands, 
 wig people, dressers, understudies and small part peo- 
 ple. But there was no Dick. 
 
 A chauffeur in livery handed an armful of roses to 
 the stage doorkeeper. "Miss Okehampton," he said, 
 "with Lord Thoresby's comps." 
 
 "Eight-ten," said Mr. Wilkes. 
 
 A boy messenger whistling "Yiddle and His Fiddle" 
 brought a letter from the Savoy Hotel. "Miss Oke- 
 hampton," he said, "no answer." It was a pleading 
 note from Sir Edward Morde. 
 
 The stage doorkeeper murdered the time for five 
 minutes. Little Wilkes was jumpy, and no wonder. 
 The stage doorkeeper was a kind man. 
 
 "Eight-fifteen," said Mr. Wilkes. "If there's a 
 God " 
 
 A fat woman without a hat, dressed in respectable 
 black, suddenly called out to the stage doorkeeper 
 shrilly. "'Ere, what about Miss Okehampton, eh? 
 Gawd love us! And me far from well." She panted 
 
 287
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 heavily and seemed to be on the verge of hysterics. 
 
 The doorkeeper could no longer remain calm. 
 "Now, look 'ere," he said, "in cases of emergency it 
 isn't for you to 'ave nerves. Get back to your room 
 and 'old up 'er frock for 'er all ready. Go on nar! 
 Off it!" 
 
 "Eight-twenty," said Mr. Wilkes, "and the rent due 
 in June." 
 
 A telegraph boy came slowly around the corner. He 
 sauntered up to the stage door. "Wilkes," he said. 
 
 "Give it here," said Mr. Wilkes. He opened the 
 freshly closed envelope with a hand that trembled vio- 
 lently. He read his sentence to poverty. He knew 
 the actor-manager. 
 
 Dear old Wilky most awfully sorry impossible get up 
 fill part chucking footlights. Dick. 
 
 With this, for which surely he could not be held 
 responsible, he went to the actor-manager's very 
 charming dressing-room. It would be cruel as well as 
 unwise to follow him into it. 
 
 At half-past nine Jack came up, a new Jack, a Jack 
 with a very straight face, but with determination 
 stamped upon it. "Take this note to Miss Okehamp- 
 ton, will you, please?" he said. 
 
 "Now, there you are," said the stage doorkeeper. 
 "Flowers for Miss Okehampton. Note from the Savoy 
 Hotel for Miss Okehampton, and a little epistle from 
 you for Miss Okehampton. And no Miss Okehamp- 
 ton." 
 
 "What do you mean?" said Jack. 
 
 288
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "If I were sayin' what I didn't mean, no one would 
 be more thankful. It's put the kybosh on us, I can 
 tell yer! Third night and all! My word, if them as 
 comes to see the plays from the front could see 'arf 
 the dramas that's enacted behind ! -Better played, too, 
 some of 'em." 
 
 "Come to the point," said Jack. 
 
 The stage doorkeeper looked up. He was an old 
 soldier. There was something of the parade in Jack's 
 voice. "Miss Okehampton not forthcoming, sir," he 
 said. 
 
 "An accident?" 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 "What then?" 
 
 "Can't say more than this. A wire came from the 
 young lady at eight-twenty-seven, Greenwich time. I 
 didn't see the context, but I see Mr. Wilkes' face, and 
 since then I've 'ad a word or two with the gov'nor's 
 dresser, who was present." 
 
 "Go on," said Jack. 
 
 "I'm trying to convey to you, sir, that Miss Oke- 
 hampton 'as given us the toss and in so doing 'as 
 carted us proper. No fortnight's notice. No atten- 
 tion to rules and regulations, and, what's more, no 
 understudy prepared to take 'er place." 
 
 "I can't believe it," said Jack. 
 
 "No, sir. Nor yet can I! But, like many things 
 that you can't believe, there it is, as the saying goes. 
 And all you can do is to make the best of it. We've 
 made the best of it by putting on the understudy with 
 the book. Mr. Wilkes you don't know our Mr. 
 
 289
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Wilkes, do yer? Well, sir, poor little Wilkes is 
 drownin' 'isself in a quick succession of double whis- 
 kies. It's a 'ard life and there's no place as I knows 
 of as'll insure yer against it." 
 
 Jack left the stage door, but not the alley. For 
 half an hour he walked up and down with his hands 
 behind his back. He saw stage hands come out and 
 heard them talking. "Miss Okehampton Miss Oke- 
 hampton." 
 
 All the same he went back to the stage door and 
 looked the fat man straight in the face. "Is this 
 true?" 
 
 "If I never speak another word on " 
 
 Jack was at the top of the alley and into a taxicab 
 before it gives ordinary people proper time to say 
 Jack Robinson. He drove to his club and went into 
 the telephone box, found Antony Okehampton in the 
 book and asked for his number. 
 
 He was answered by Harry and heard himself 
 called Horatio Nelson. No, she knew nothing. That 
 is, she knew nothing definitely. The maid had been 
 rung up by the theater and later she, Harry, had 
 spoken to the stage doorkeeper. It was perfectly true 
 that a telegram had been received from Dick resign- 
 ing the part. It happened that Kinky Lord Kimble- 
 stone, you know kept his motor in the same garage 
 as the Black Prince "Rene de Maingauche, if you re- 
 member." His man told Kinky's man that he had 
 taken his master's car around to Bury Street at four 
 in the morning, and that the young lady who went 
 away in it looked very much like Miss Dick Okehamp- 
 
 290
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 ton. Small world, isn't it, Horatio? Harry would 
 like to know where Horatio lived. She would send 
 him any further bulletins. 
 
 Jack rang off. On top of her engagement to 
 Thoresby one man told another that the young lady 
 who went away in the motor of that poisonous little 
 scoundrel, half Frenchman, half nigger, looked like 
 Miss Dick Okehampton Dick, his Dick, because, of 
 course, she would never have been Thoresby's Dick 
 or anybody else's Dick. He would have seen to that. 
 He left the club again, hailed the first taxi, got into 
 it, and said : "Drive to " 
 
 Where? Where was he to drive? Dick was not 
 at home, not at the theater. Not only all London, but 
 all England, seemed to stare him in the face. Drive 
 where ? 
 
 He gave the man a shilling, left his cab and went 
 back to the club. He sat down in the smoking-room, 
 pulled himself together with a supreme effort and 
 began to put himself through a series of searching 
 questions, to none of which was he able to find any 
 answer. 
 
 There were several men in the room, men who had 
 dined and who could find no attraction elsewhere. 
 Among them was Gerald Arbuckle. This was the man 
 who had lowered his right eyelid at Jack yesterday 
 afternoon. He came up. He was a well-meaning 
 enough person on the whole, but he made his mistakes. 
 
 "Oh, hullo!" he said. "You don't use this place 
 much, do you ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 291
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 'Bit Georgian, isn't it?" 
 
 "Is it?" 
 
 "Don't you think so?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Oh, well, let's talk about the weather." 
 
 "As a matter of fact, I'm not in the mood for 
 talking." 
 
 "Oh, right. Then I'll take it on. I'm an excellent 
 monologist. Oh, by the way, have you heard that 
 Charlie Stancourt, who was with us at Osborne, has 
 chucked the navy or that, properly speaking, the 
 navy has chucked him? Silly ass, he went and mar- 
 ried a girl in the fourth line at the Gaiety. Mar- 
 ried, you know! Think of it. So unimaginative. 
 You and I find attractions on the stage, of course. 
 Why not? I have the honor of presenting bon-bons 
 to a really topping little bit of fluff who shows her 
 teeth in a musical comedy, and, by Jove, I envied you 
 yesterday when I saw you wheeling Dick Okehampton 
 'round the town. I've been endeavoring to get an in- 
 troduction to her for a long time. She's generally 
 said to be quite the most cayenne pepper pot we've 
 got. How did you manage to get her away from 
 that Franco-Indian? He's been running her to the 
 exclusion even of old Morde for quite a considerable 
 time. They call her the Princess at Doddy's." 
 
 Jack got up, let out a true and splendid left with 
 all his weight behind it and dropped the excellent 
 monologist full stretch upon the floor. It was good. 
 
 Members came up and waiters. It was an alto- 
 gether unheard-of thing. With his hands in his 
 
 292
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 pockets and a most almighty rage in his heart, Jack 
 stood with his back to the fireplace until the man with 
 the interesting tongue was picked up and brought back 
 to a sore and surprised consciousness. 
 
 "You will apologize, of course," said a man. 
 
 "I have nothing to add," said Jack. "Make your 
 complaint to the committee and I'll pick out one of 
 the other clubs to which that damned lying little dog 
 doesn't happen to belong. Good-night." 
 
 And again Jack went into the streets. 
 
 One man had told another that the young lady in 
 the car looked like Miss Dick Okehampton. And the 
 car was driven by the Franco-Indian, the Black Prince, 
 Rene de Maingauche. 
 
 Perhaps, then, Dick would be more grateful to him 
 if he didn't find her. And with that hideous thought 
 in his brain, that inconceivable feeling of doubt eating 
 into his mind like a maggot, Jack plunged like a drunk- 
 ard into the crowd. Not intentionally he found him- 
 self at last in Eaton Square, but not to go up to his 
 mother's room. There were things on his lips about 
 men and women, himself and Dick, that would hurt 
 her too much to hear. But he went into the house 
 and crept up to his own room, crept out again, went 
 around to the old-fashioned stabling, ran his car out, 
 and as he drove away there was something in his 
 pocket which might break a heart 
 
 293
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE following morning at eight o'clock a power- 
 ful and excellent car was driven into the 
 garage of the Union Hotel, Leamington. It 
 was white with dust. It was as dusty as the boot of 
 a careless tramp. The driver and his companion, 
 both in thick overcoats, were as dusty as the car. The 
 girl's golden hair was white and so were her eye- 
 lashes. In her hand she swung a small hat, which 
 looked like a little basket as she got stiffly out, laugh- 
 ing a little, and shaking herself. The man, whose 
 temples were white, banged his cap on his knee. The 
 rest of his hair was black as the back of a raven. 
 
 "A topping run," said Dick. "Nothing would 
 make me stop now except petrol and hunger." 
 
 "Hunger!" said Rene. "One ought to invent a 
 new word for it. I'm prepared to give anyone a fiver 
 for a pot of hot coffee. I mean coffee." 
 
 Dick looked at the hotel. So far as the servants 
 were concerned, it was all alive. She sized the place 
 up. "A seven and sixpenny bed and breakfast touch 
 this, I fancy," she said. "Don't be reckless with rivers. 
 We may want them." 
 
 Rene went around the car and up to her, standing 
 close. "Tu m'ereintes les entrailles!" 
 
 294
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "Er thank you very much/' said Dick, "the same 
 to you. One of these days when I know French I'll 
 tip you a stave or two. Eggs, I think. About six, 
 what? And warm bread. Make it so, B. P., will 
 you?" 
 
 "I'll take rooms," said the Frenchman. 
 
 Dick touched him on the arm. "Just one moment, 
 cockie," she said. "The following are the orders for 
 the day." 
 
 "Orders? Sapristi!" 
 
 "I said orders, oh, my heart. Having breakfasted 
 and done themselves well, the flying column will then 
 re-car themselves, and, having laid in as much petrol 
 as they can carry, will tear the roads up, with small 
 intervals for eating, until they reach the sea, any old 
 sea. They will then cross that sea and go on tearing 
 up roads ad lib till further orders, and when petrol 
 is no longer to be obtained they will try eau de 
 Cologne, ginger beer, or Bass's ale. What price a 
 wash?" 
 
 The Frenchman laughed, gleefully. He was very 
 good-looking. "All right, then," he said. "Let's meet 
 in the coffee-room as soon as may be." 
 
 And when presently, with hair now altogether black 
 and without his overcoat, he found the coffee-room, 
 after maneuvering with dust pans and brushes and 
 curious-eyed cleaners, Dick was standing at the win- 
 dow beating a devil's tattoo upon its sill. 
 
 "What is this place?" she asked. 
 
 "Oh, there you have me!" said the Frenchman. 
 "I'll ask." 
 
 295
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "No, don't," said Dick. "It's rather a joke not to 
 know. It's England, at any rate. Look at that table- 
 cloth." 
 
 Having rolled down his shirt sleeves and slipped 
 into his coat behind a screen, a waiter came forward. 
 "You vish " 
 
 "Quite right," said Dick, "and add to that coffee, 
 lots of it, and a dozen eggs, not too floppy, and see 
 that the bread's warm." She turned to the French- 
 man. "How do you say, buck up, you little blighter, 
 in Swiss?" 
 
 Rene surprised the waiter with these words: "Re 
 les pattes, sacre petit con, ou je vous rends ennugue 
 d'wn seul coup!" 
 
 The waiter gasped and backed away. c '0ui, oui, 
 mossieu! de ce pas!" He ran from the room. It 
 was good to hear his language spoken so fluently, but 
 just as well, perhaps, to put some distance between 
 himself and one who was evidently a surgeon. 
 
 Dick's hair was golden again and her eyelashes 
 dark. "I feel years younger, already," she said. "The 
 air has swept away all the reek of London." 
 
 The Frenchman stood with his back to the window 
 and toyed with a button on Dick's coat. "Tell me, 
 what is all this? From what are we running away? 
 Or, would you rather not?" 
 
 "I'd rather not, thank you," said Dick, shortly. "As 
 a matter of fact, I don't intend to remember that 
 there is such a place as London on the map until I 
 have to go back." 
 
 "Ah! you have to go back?" 
 296
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "Well, what do you think?" 
 
 "How can I think? You do not give me a cue. 
 You ask me, I say forget London, always. There is 
 Paris. There are Vienna, St. Petersburg, Venice, 
 Oporto, Buenos Aires " 
 
 "I don't know when I go back," said Dick, "but 
 when I do it's to hear Mendelssohn's Wedding March. 
 That's all for the present." 
 
 The Frenchman's fingers closed upon the button. 
 "You are to be married," he said. He whistled softly 
 and nodded several times. "I see. Oh, yes, I see. 
 The last fling, eh? If it is Morde, I can understand. 
 Not Morde? Who, then? You are not saying. 
 Good. It does not matter. It was kind of you to 
 think of me. I will see that your fling is one to which 
 you will look back with the eye of an artist. It is 
 good work for me." 
 
 "I intend to put in the time of my life," said Dick 
 grimly. "Look at your Swiss. He's laying the table 
 like a conjuror. If we don't watch it, he'll be throw- 
 ing up a knife, a fork and a chair. He's exactly like 
 that man at the Palace." 
 
 "Every man in England and every man in Switzer- 
 land is alike," said Rene. "It is their native music 
 which does its work in their youth." 
 
 An hour later, in a car which some unimaginative 
 person had cleaned to admiration, the breakfasters 
 returned to the road. 
 
 "The orders are?" 
 
 "Any old sea," said Dick. "Let her go." 
 
 ********* 
 297
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Another stop was made about one o'clock. The 
 car was hot when it drew up in front of an hotel. A 
 superb sun had blazed on it as it had gone singing 
 along the winding, dead-white roads. The clerk of 
 the weather was in what may be called an Okehamp- 
 ton mood. After an April of icy winds and down- 
 pours of hail, he had turned on almost tropical 
 weather. There had been no rain for a fortnight. 
 The earth was in hard lumps and cracks everywhere. 
 Farmers who had complained bitterly of the wet com- 
 plained more bitterly of the dry. It is as difficult 
 'to find an uncomplaining farmer as a pearl in an oyster 
 shell. The roads through which Dick and the French- 
 man rushed just for the joy of movement were full 
 of very grateful men and women the men and women 
 who seem mysteriously to disappear in the winter 
 and to come forth at the first touch of sun to get 
 brown to the tips of their ears, to sit in hedges and 
 patch their tatters and doctor their boots and cast 
 glances of quiet amusement and pity upon farm laborers 
 and those of their foolish brethren who worked. 
 They and the swallows appear together and disappear 
 at the same time. 
 
 Dick's wounded soul was not yet healed sufficiently 
 to let her take any joy in birds and trees. She urged 
 the Frenchman on and had only one desire to get 
 away, to leave everything and everyone behind her, 
 to go forward quickly, it didn't matter where. 
 
 Very little talking was done by these two. The 
 Frenchman had a passion for Dick, but a deep-seated 
 love for himself. Added to these, he was a most ad- 
 
 298
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 mirable driver. He went, but he went with his eyes 
 open and paid attention to warnings. 
 
 Once again two dusty figures got out of the 
 car and stretched their legs and blinked at each 
 other. 
 
 "What do you think?" asked Dick. "I'm all for 
 something thoroughly English and chunky. Roast 
 beef and Yorkshire pudding, potatoes in their jackets, 
 something suety to follow, all over currants, a hunk 
 of bread and cheese and an almighty pot of beer. 
 That's me, B. P." 
 
 "H'm ! I wish that I felt strong enough for it. It 
 might not kill me, but it would certainly give me an 
 incurable disease a corporation on the brain or some- 
 thing. I think I will run the car 'round to the 
 garage." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Well, we may stop here, perhaps." 
 
 "What do you mean, stop?" 
 
 "Remain, put up, stay for the night." 
 
 "Wh-at! Here? Where's the sea? \Vhere's the 
 steamship to take us across ? Where's anything ? My 
 dear B. P., I hope you've not fallen into the sere and 
 yellow?" 
 
 The look that the Frenchman used as he ran his 
 eyes over Dick was not that of an old man. "Why? 
 What is it?" 
 
 "Well, it's a rotten memory, yours. Must I repeat 
 the orders of the day? The flying column halts just 
 long enough to restoke and then on! On, Macduff, 
 and damned be he who first cries hold! Enough!" 
 
 200
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 She struck an attitude. How extraordinarily she re- 
 sembled Tony at that moment, Tony, the undergrad- 
 uate! 
 
 The Frenchman shrugged. "I am yours," he said. 
 "Do what you will. My turn comes later." 
 
 So the car was left on the gravel drive outside the 
 hotel, a rather smart hotel, with a line of miniature 
 trees in tubs and a blaze of geraniums in white tubs 
 with brass handles. Neither Dick nor Rene troubled 
 to ask its name or the name of the place. 
 
 The dining-room was cool, airy and civilized. There 
 were several men, unmistakably infantry officers, hav- 
 ing lunch. They all stared at Dick as she entered, but 
 said nothing until they saw her companion, when they 
 laughed, and an imperceptible change took place in 
 their expressions. 
 
 Dick had her roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and 
 the rest of it. The Frenchman pottered with a chicken, 
 amazed to find himself so excited. There was to be 
 no recurrence of the Brighton episode. Once was 
 quite enough of that sort of thing. But his curiosity 
 was all alive. To marry! Whom? He was unable 
 to keep himself away from the subject. 
 
 "Try this beer," said Dick. "It's quite it." She 
 held out the bottle. 
 
 "For Heaven's sake!" cried the Frenchman. He 
 snatched away his glass. "Tell me," he said, "who 
 is it?" 
 
 "Bass," said Dick. "I hate beer as a rule, and I 
 would generally run a mile to leave beef well behind 
 me. To-day they're right, just as you are." 
 
 300
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "And you would usually run a mile away from 
 me?" 
 
 "No. Put it down at a hundred yards. One has 
 one's day for you, B. P. Jolly good thing it doesn't 
 come too often. Forgive my engaging frankness., 
 won't you?" 
 
 "I'll forgive you everything," said the Frenchman, 
 "so long as I have my day." He touched her ringers 
 expertly when handing her the potatoes. 
 
 She smiled at him. "You're very good-looking," 
 she said, "and really a bit of a knight, but may I offer 
 you one other piece of criticism?" 
 
 "Please." 
 
 "Be a little more cheery, B. P., a little less full of 
 quotations from songs, English drawing-room songs. 
 They don't go well with dust and daylight. Do you 
 take me?" 
 
 The Frenchman bowed and showed his teeth. He 
 was incredibly amenable. He was almost as syco- 
 phantic as little Mr. Wilkes. And for the rest of the 
 meal he made phrases about everything and applied 
 a well-manipulated lash to people and institutions. He 
 kept Dick in constant laughter. And then coffee came. 
 
 "In the sun," said Dick, "I think I'm going to 
 smoke a cigar." 
 
 "Oh, no, no!" 
 
 "I'm doing everything differently to-day," said Dick. 
 "You know cigars. Let me have one that's fit for you 
 to smoke." 
 
 To the horrified amazement of two or three local 
 ladies, of the bureau clerk and a flyman sitting hunch- 
 
 301
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 ily on his box taking care not to lay his hand upon 
 his hot roof Dick went solidly through a thin Corona 
 and enjoyed it. "You see," she said very quietly, "this 
 is the end. I suppose I feel rather like a person who's 
 going to commit suicide. It amuses me to take risks. 
 One has a sort of feeling that it doesn't matter. Hey, 
 ho!" She stretched herself and yawned widely. 
 "Poor little old devil Wilkes," she said. "I hope I 
 shall have enough ready to run to a small pension for 
 him. He's out, if I know anything." 
 
 "Wilkes? Who is that?" 
 
 "Doesn't matter," said Dick. She got up. "The 
 column will now advance. Up you get, B. P. No 
 slacking!" 
 
 With his hand on the throttle, the Frenchman turned 
 to Dick. "Who is he?" he asked. 
 
 "The Lord of Thoresby, an' it pleases you." 
 
 "Crenom Now, I see. How wise of you, my dear 
 Dick, to provide yourself with a beautiful memory to 
 take with you into the winter." 
 
 "Very, very hot!" said Dick. "Very hot." 
 
 The sea seemed to have dried up. The sun had 
 gone down behind a blurred blue line. The sky he 
 left behind was slit like the sleeve of a doublet and 
 patched with red and gold. 
 
 "Keep on going," said Dick. 
 
 She stopped and sniffed and put her hand to her ear. 
 
 "Well?" asked the Frenchman. 
 
 "What rot!" said Dick. "We seem to have missed 
 302
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 it. According to geographies, you only have to go 
 far enough straight ahead to find sea somewhere. 
 Can't make it out. You must have been jolly care- 
 less, B. P." 
 
 "Quite right, quite right," said Rene. "Put it down 
 to me. One of these days, as you see, I shall make 
 a model husband. However, say the word, and if 
 there's another night to go through on the road, very 
 well." 
 
 "I can't stand injured people," said Dick. "Pull 
 up. No little old men martyrs for me, thanks." She 
 hailed a passer-by. "Hi ! Is there a decent hotel any- 
 where about here? Straight on into the High Street, 
 second large building on the left. First's the post- 
 office." 
 
 They found it. It was not a very large building, 
 but it was well enough. The Frenchman thanked his 
 gods for it. He did not wish to see a motor car again 
 for a month. 
 
 "Do we stay here," he asked. 
 
 "You're beginning to ask superfluous questions, 
 Prince or am I tired? Sorry. I find I'm tired." 
 
 There was a marvelous smile on the Frenchman's 
 face as he put in to the garage over the cobblestones 
 over which had once clattered the hoofs of stagecoach 
 
 horses. All the old stalls were empty. 
 
 ********* 
 
 Dick, with gleaming hair, stood in front of an oleo- 
 graph of the late Queen Victoria. It hung over the 
 mantelpiece, the tasseled mantelpiece, between a photo- 
 gravure of a line of chubby children on a gate and a 
 
 303
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 photograph of the lake district. Several incandescent 
 lights were burning blazingly one of them with a sort 
 of song. A round table in the middle of the room 
 was covered with a bilious tablecloth, and there was 
 a horsehair sofa under the window, very hard and 
 prickly. The chairs were arranged as though for a 
 Bible meeting, stiffly, along the wall, and beneath the 
 window the incessant tong of electric tram cars dis- 
 turbed the night. 
 
 A little mountain of cigarette ends was piled in a 
 saucer. Dick lit another. A very musical old clock 
 somewhere near told all its people that it was only 
 an hour before bedtime. A cool air came into the 
 room. Somewhere down below there was intermittent 
 laughter and a swing door opened and shut often. 
 When it opened a click could be heard as though some- 
 thing hard were hitting something else that was hard. 
 Sometimes there was a double click. A man some- 
 where in the street was playing a tin whistle abom- 
 inably with that peculiar note of sentimentality which 
 belongs to music halls. He must have been an old 
 soldier. People were passing, most of them in the 
 middle of the road, slowly, saying very little. The 
 raucous voice of a man outside a moving picture pal- 
 ace shattered the air incessantly. 
 
 Dick hated the place and the hotel and the noises. 
 She had wanted the sea. There is a moment in the 
 lives of all women when the sea becomes painfully 
 necessary. She hated this pause. She had begun to 
 hate herself. It was all intensely irritating. She had 
 known that this feeling would come sooner or later, 
 
 34
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 and that's why she wanted to keep going on and on 
 at top speed, passing things without being able to 
 examine them, doing the next best thing to flying. 
 Even Rene had begun to irritate, and once he really 
 did irritate she might as well go back. 
 
 She turned to him as he came in. "You've been 
 away an hour," she said. "Why? Where? What 
 do you mean by it?" 
 
 The Frenchman had left her alone on purpose. He 
 had thought it out. "You were beginning to bore 
 me a little, my child," he said. "I have been in the 
 garage, finding solace with an industrious but sloppy 
 cleaner." 
 
 Dick laughed. This was exactly what he wanted 
 to bring about. "You're really rather attractive," she 
 said, "in a sort of way. Any suggestions to make? 
 Is there a music hall in this place? There's a billiard 
 table downstairs. No. Scratch it." 
 
 "There is nothing to be done. We are in the prov- 
 inces of England. In a moment or two lights will 
 go out and lethargic life will begin to flicker like a 
 cheap candle." 
 
 "Very lively," said Dick. " Ton my soul ! There 
 is the last resource." 
 
 "What is that?" 
 
 "Sleep." 
 
 Rene crossed the room and opened the door. It 
 was a bedroom. An incandescent light burned whitely 
 over a dressing table. There were brushes upon it 
 with large silver initials. There was a bottle of hair 
 tonic. An empty shirt case was on a chair. 
 
 305
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Dick strode across the room like a boy and put her 
 head around the corner of the door. "Why is it that 
 these rooms always suggest Sunday? Scrupulously 
 fuggy," she said. 
 
 Rene did not wish to appear too eager. He was 
 playing upon a difficult instrument. "And yet the 
 window is open, I think," he said. 
 
 "My dear feller, the fug of this place is at least 
 three layers thick on the walls. They paste on a new 
 layer every spring. Well, there it is I notice that 
 you've provided yourself with everything, Your High- 
 ness. How do you say in French, as for me I stand 
 up in all that I have ?" 
 
 The Frenchman laughed. "Do not let us waste 
 time," he said. 
 
 "Oblige me by saying it. No, don't say it. Oh, 
 Lord, I'm getting bored. I'm getting fed up. Damn ! 
 Do you know what'll happen if you don't amuse me in 
 about ten shakes?" 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Out'll come the car and back we shall go to 
 London." 
 
 It was difficult to be amusing under the circum- 
 stances. What was he to do with this erratic child 
 this child who was in his blood! 
 
 "I'm going to bed," he said. "You can go back to 
 London if you like." 
 
 He went into the bedroom and shut the door. 
 
 In an instant his ear was at the keyhole. Would 
 she go? Dared he treat her like that? C'renomf He 
 had read descriptions of salmon fishing. How easy 
 
 306
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 in comparison there was no sound. No one left the 
 room. He undressed, flinging his clothes into a chair 
 pell-mell and then stood in a suit of light blue silk 
 pajamas and did his hair over and over again. Well, 
 he was always searching for new experiences. Per- 
 haps Dick was a little too new. He told himself that 
 if he asked her, ordered her, besought her, she would 
 laugh in his face. Very well. He would pretend not 
 to need her, to care nothing. She was not in a mood 
 for loneliness. She would follow. 
 
 But no one knew Dick. Not even Dick. She had 
 left London on the top of an impulse. She gave no 
 thought then and just as little thought now to the 
 Frenchman. He had fitted her mood and she had 
 taken him. There it began and ended. 
 
 "Touchy !" she said. "Very touchy !" 
 
 She looked about the room for an inspiration. It 
 was a queer place from which to obtain inspirations. 
 She saw a book, a bulky, solemn-looking book stand- 
 ing alone upon an occasional table. She opened it. 
 It was a Bible. "By Jove," she said, "a Bible! I 
 wonder what " 
 
 She picked it up, twisted an armchair into a con- 
 venient place, sat down, put her toe under another 
 chair, pulled it nearer and put her feet on it. She 
 had never read the Bible and had never listened when 
 it was read. The Prince could go and hang himself. 
 
 ********* 
 
 That man in the room alone paced up and down 
 like a sort of tiger. He heard eleven strike and twelve. 
 
 307
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Oh, those good hours that slipped away! Again and 
 again he put his ear to the keyhole and heard nothing. 
 She was there. What was she doing? To go in was 
 weakness, to stay outside madness. The Frenchman 
 in him argued him out. The Indian compelled him 
 to stay. The Frenchman made him want to go and 
 fling himself at her feet, to pour out broken infatuated 
 sentences, to make a fool of himself. The Indian 
 made him devise in his mind a series of cunning pun- 
 ishments. She ought to be made to pay for this. 
 The man in him sent him to the door, caused him to 
 fling it open and walk into the sitting-room choking 
 with inarticulate anger. 
 
 He saw a girl reading absorbed, a heavy book lying 
 against her knees. 
 
 "Mon Dieu" he said, "what is this?" 
 
 "S-sh!" said Dick. 
 
 "But what is it?" 
 
 "A fairy tale," said Dick, "the most beautiful thing 
 I ever read. Go away." 
 
 The Frenchman went over to her and looked over 
 her shoulder. His eyes grew wide. For a minute or 
 two he spluttered, half laughing. "My soul !" he said, 
 "but you kill me. The Bible, here! and in these cir- 
 cumstances! You make me feel as though I were 
 standing on my head in mid-air." 
 
 "Oh, please be quiet," said Dick. "I never can 
 read when people jabber. What do you want ? There's 
 your bed. I'm all right." 
 
 "You are all right. But I!" He slapped his 
 chest. "God! I'm not all right. I'm all wrong. 
 
 308
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Damnation, why do you think I've brought you here ? 
 What have you come for? I'm not a clergyman No, 
 no, no! Don't listen to me." 
 
 "I'm not," said Dick. 
 
 The man almost danced. "But you must!" he 
 shouted. "You must! That room there is a lunatic 
 asylum. I've been shut up for two hours. No crea- 
 ture can stand it. Dick! For God's sake!" 
 
 But Dick hunched herself more closely into the chair 
 and went on reading. The lilt of the lines was music. 
 She was absorbed. 
 
 The Frenchman walked about and bit his lips and 
 ruffled his hair and stood and gazed at her. Then 
 he tried to laugh. "Ah, yes, I see," he said, "a joke, 
 eh? One of Dick's jokes. Oh, very good! Very 
 excellent!" 
 
 He got no answer. 
 
 He paced again. Even mentally he began to lose 
 his English accent. He began even to lose his power 
 of translating French into English. There were so 
 few words in English. He sprang. "Yes, but even 
 jokes can go too long! Sacre, bon Dieuf I am done! 
 I am finished." He snatched the book away and flung 
 it on the table. 
 
 Dick was on her feet. "That book, please," she 
 said, "quick!" 
 
 The man stood in front of her. Every finger 
 throbbed. "Dick! Dick!" he said. "Oh, my God! 
 Dick! You tease me. You madden me. It is late. 
 Will you not come?" 
 
 "That book," said Dick, "quick!" 
 
 309
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 "That book must wait. I have waited I! Like 
 any lad, I have danced after you for months, avoided 
 you because you killed me. This is my hour. You 
 said so. Be generous!" 
 
 "That book!" said Dick. 
 
 There was a sort of cry. The book was caught 
 up and given back and a door banged. 
 
 A moment later the white light fell on a golden 
 head and on wide pages and two hands with long thin 
 fingers. 
 
 ********* 
 
 The musical clock struck one. The bedroom door 
 opened. The Frenchman came in quietly. His face 
 was perfectly white and his eyes bloodshot. He said : 
 "Just listen." 
 
 But Dick went on reading. 
 
 He bent forward and tapped her on the shoulder. 
 "I said, just listen. Do you hear?" 
 
 Dick looked up. She had been thousands of miles 
 away. "Oh," she said, "it's you. Yes?" 
 
 "Yes. It's me. Still me. There is a word for 
 you. A not very pleasant word. One minute. There's 
 time to read that book later. Just tell me this. Did 
 you start out meaning to put me through this? You 
 saw me pack. You chose this place for the night. 
 What did you mean?" 
 
 Dick looked startled. She saw that the man was 
 in some sort of trouble. She tried to concentrate. 
 She repeated his words. "What did you mean? 
 What did / mean? But, good Lord, you know me. 
 I didn't mean. I don't mean. I just do. The door 
 
 310
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 in Eaton Square was shut. The lights were out. I 
 thought of you. You might be up. You're always 
 up. Everyone else was sleeping. No one seemed to 
 care. Without meaning anything I asked you to come 
 because I had to go, had to! Is it that? It is that 
 Brighton thing ?" She got up and put the book down 
 on the table. "No, no. I can't help it I am not a 
 woman yet. There it is. You can't alter it. I'm 
 afraid I I hope I haven't I'm sorry. I wish I did 
 mean. But we don't mean, any of us. I mean any 
 of the Okehamptons. We just do. Someone put a 
 jetta on us." 
 
 For many minutes the Black Prince looked straightly 
 at her. The face before him was like a flower, fresh 
 and young and clean and the eyes were empty. 
 
 He bowed and shrugged his shoulders several times 
 and made queer little gestures with his hands. "Read 
 as much more as' you can of your book," he said, 
 "while I dress myself. In fifteen minutes I will do 
 myself the honor of taking you back to the man who 
 is going to marry you. His future life will repay me." 
 
 The night was clear. No word passed between the 
 people in the car. Their mental attitudes were now 
 reversed. It was no longer Dick who wanted to go 
 fast. It was the Frenchman. His lights were power- 
 ful, but, except in certain places, almost unnecessary. 
 A full moon lighted everything. Houses cast their 
 shadows across the street. On the London road the 
 Frenchman did not spare his car. He raced the devils
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 that were in his brain, especially the one who seemed 
 to be flying alongside him with lips to his ear. "What, 
 expert, you're going to let yourself be beaten by this 
 slip of a girl! Where's your imagination? You'll 
 never have the chance again. Never!" But Rene de 
 Maingauche was too much Indian to risk being made 
 a greater fool than ever. All he wanted to do was 
 to get back, set this girl down and never see her again. 
 She had ceased to be amusing. 
 
 He was relieved to find, on making inquiries at the 
 garage, that he made a sort of circle from Leaming- 
 ton. Breakfast time would see him into London. He 
 sat as far away from Dick as he could. He detested 
 her. This was the second time that she had tricked 
 him. 
 
 Strange things were going through Dick's head. 
 She had not lived under the Okehampton roof for 
 nothing. Life had no secrets for her, and death had 
 not seemed to be a mystery until that evening. There 
 were many things in the book that puzzled her, new 
 things, rather nice things. Inwardly she agreed with 
 the Frenchman. He had a grievance. Were there no 
 men in the world who could forget that a girl was 
 a girl? None. Yes, one. Jack had forgotten. At 
 least he made himself forget. Dear old Jack. What 
 a corker ! But this Frenchman she would never for- 
 get his face. It was time that she began to mean 
 things. That was very evident. In fact, it was time 
 for her to force herself into becoming a woman. It 
 was not London that lay ahead of her. It was 
 Thoresby; not London and its restaurants, its rehear- 
 
 312
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 sals, its evening- performances, its home walks with 
 Tony, its interludes with Morde and the rest. It was 
 Thoresby. She had signed an agreement with the 
 actor-manager. He had hired her services for certain 
 hours of the day at such and such a price. This agree- 
 ment was easily broken. Not so the Thoresby agree- 
 ment, under which she hired herself to him at such 
 and such a price for all the hours of the day. With 
 a sort of laugh she told herself that she was in luck. 
 Not many girls walked from one engagement to an- 
 other. She would never make an actress, said Mr. 
 Wilkes. A good deal of acting would have to be done 
 in the future. She was cast for the part of a happy 
 and contented wife. What sort of a man was 
 
 Thoresby ? 
 
 Well, after all, what did it mean? Mean. It was 
 a new word. It meant something perhaps better than 
 Brewer Street for Tony and the certainty of white 
 spats, shiny hats and glossy shoes. It meant a roof 
 for her mother and later the possibility of bread and 
 butter for Harry. A red-hot needle went in and out 
 of her heart, dragging behind it a thread of pain as 
 she thought of these three and how they had used 
 her. If only Tony had been honest! Nevertheless, 
 they were hers, her people, and the ineradicable loyalty 
 of her nature sent her straight to Thoresby. God 
 only knew whether, after all, she would be able to 
 play the game of cricket according to the rules. And 
 when she said the word God to herself it was not 
 the word which had been so often on her lips. It 
 was not the God of Quennor. It was the new God 
 
 3*3
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 in this book, the book she had called a fairy tale, 
 and which she had left unfinished, very much un- 
 finished. 
 
 The actor-manager had one day called her ignorant 
 because she had been unable to pronounce the word 
 idiosyncrasy. How should she know how to pronounce 
 it? There had been no schooling at Quennor. Noth- 
 ing had been taught at Quennor except to obtain just 
 that thing that was required at the moment somehow 
 or other, generally in the latter manner. Ignorant. It 
 was a curious word. And yet she knew life back- 
 ward. She wondered what would have happened to 
 her if she had known it the other way around. She 
 would ask the Frenchman what he meant by the un- 
 pleasant name. No. She wouldn't and mile by mile 
 Thoresby came nearer. What sort of a man was 
 Thoresby ? 
 
 There were hills now. One was so high that she felt 
 as though she were in a star looking down on the 
 earth. She had often looked up from the earth to 
 the stars. Her breath was blown away as the car 
 sang down the hill unbraked, every now and then 
 with a leap. It was going too fast. Thoresby was 
 at the other end. Once she touched the Frenchman 
 on the arm she, Dick, who had always begged for 
 speed. He had jerked her finger away and they wound 
 up the long white road into a sort of ball. And then 
 there was something friendly in the country. She 
 thought that the trees waved their arms at her and
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 that the hills came to meet her. It was curious. They 
 must have gone along this way as they had left Lon- 
 don. She had not noticed. 
 
 There was something in the road. It looked like 
 a black pin stuck into a winding white ribbon. She 
 could see it from the hill, at the bottom of which the 
 road turned abruptly. Someone telling his troubles 
 to the stars, she thought. They might pass him. They 
 must pass him. He was on their road. She would 
 look out for him at the time. 
 
 The car dipped like a swallow. Again they wound 
 up the ribbon. But this time too near to its edge. As 
 the car swept around its rear wheels twisted in and 
 out of the great dry ruts in the chalk. The corner 
 was taken on the turf ridge divided from a rolling 
 field of corn by a ditch and a hedge. The near wheels 
 bumped over something, not ruts. 
 
 "Stop!" cried Dick. "It's the speck." She clutched 
 the Frenchman's arm. 
 
 He snorted and threw it off. "A damned man!' 
 he said. "What then? What's it matter?" 
 
 It did matter. Something in Dick's heart seemed 
 to open. It went utterly cold. It did matter. But 
 the car rushed on. 
 
 "Stop! Stop!" she cried. "You must stop!" 
 
 The Frenchman snorted. 
 
 "You shall stop!" shouted Dick, the air taking her 
 voice up and tossing it away like a leaf. 
 
 "Not again do I obey your orders, my precious!" 
 said the Frenchman. And so Dick turned in her seat. 
 It mattered. Something had opened in her heart. She 
 
 315
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 put her fingers around the Frenchman's throat and 
 brought them all together. 
 
 The car wobbled like a drunken man. There was 
 a grinding of tires. The Frenchman cursed and 
 coughed and Dick sprang out. 
 
 For a moment she stood still, asking herself what 
 it was, why she did this? And in that moment she 
 heard a laugh and jeer and then saw the small red 
 eye of the car recede and grow smaller and smaller, 
 and as it went it seemed to take the word Thoresby 
 away with it out of her mind and her life. 
 
 Dick went back. She ran back. They had gone 
 over a man. It mattered. Something had opened in 
 her heart. 
 
 It was all crumpled up and still, a dark patch on 
 the green. Dick was on her knees. It mattered. It 
 mattered. She turned it over and the moon fell de- 
 liberately on a white face all twisted. 
 
 "Jack!" she cried, "Jack!" and fell upon his lips. 
 
 Was the jetta that had been laid upon Tony to 
 break the lives of both his children? A miracle had 
 happened. Yes, it was a miracle and nothing else. 
 How could it be anything else which made this girl 
 who loved no one turn back? 
 
 It was a speck on the road, a man who failed to keep 
 his ears open, who asked to be run down, a mere 
 damned man, as the Frenchman had called him. What 
 other word is there for the thing that opened her 
 heart suddenly, unexpectedly, except love, which is a 
 
 316
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 miracle? What was it, that which took her back to 
 just the one man, loving him, and made a thing of 
 him all crumpled? The jetta? 
 
 Not for a single instant did the mere thought of 
 this thing, this Quennor thing, enter her brain. Jack 
 couldn't be dead. She loved him. He loved her. 
 Think of him in the Crystal Palace, on top of the hill, 
 and with his mother. In all the history of the world, 
 in every chronicle of lovers, there had been no love 
 like his. There should and could be no love like hers. 
 
 She called him and put her cheek against his shoul- 
 der, against his cheek. She picked up his limp hands 
 and kissed them. She said things that he would have 
 thrilled to hear and trembled to believe. But she got 
 no answer, no sign, nothing. Dick had found her 
 man at the outpost of eternity. He might never re- 
 turn. 
 
 She became frightened. She called him loudly like 
 a mother. She even shook him. He wasn't dead. 
 He couldn't be dead. She had been reading of mira- 
 cles in the book. This was a miracle. But he never 
 moved and his eyes never opened and when she lifted 
 his arm it fell with a thud. 
 
 She put her ear to his heart, the heart in which she 
 was, her own heart. A great glad cry was caught 
 up by the breeze and sent all among the anxious 
 branches of the Quennor trees, her trees. She knew 
 that he couldn't be dead. 
 
 She went on her knees, almost on her face. She 
 edged herself beneath him. She put one of his arms 
 around her neck and with a mighty effort struggled 
 
 317
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 to her feet, catching his other loose arm, and so she 
 had them both. He was like a great sack on her back. 
 In front of her lay the long white road and the world 
 asleep. Without any surprise she recognized Quennor. 
 At the end of the road lay the little town in a hollow. 
 All its eyes were shut. This was her hour. Jack had 
 come to her at Sydenham. She was his, then. Now 
 he was hers. Let the road be twice as long and she 
 would carry him gladly, gladly. There were miracles 
 in the book. This was a miracle. This was love. 
 
 On she went without a stagger this high-strung, 
 unexercised, over-smoked, tired girl whose very soul 
 had been on the rack, whose purity had almost been 
 stained. Bit by bit the long white road fell behind 
 her. There was the white gate. There was the place 
 where her dog had set on a chicken and broken its 
 back. In a line with her now there was the farm 
 where the old man lived with a face like a dried 
 pippin or a fig. 
 
 Bit by bit the little town came nearer. She could 
 see the white tower of its church glistening in the 
 moonlight. She thought she heard the clock over the 
 market-place strike the hour. Within a stone's throw 
 of this place there was the doctor's house. 
 
 A cock crowed. He was answered from right and 
 left, near and far. 
 
 She wondered what they meant by crowing. 
 
 And as she struggled on, step by step, there was a 
 song in her heart. It had opened to take Jack in 
 and closed again.
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 This time she heard the clock. Her heart still sang, 
 but all her limbs were trembling. Another yard, an- 
 other foot and she must fall. Her heart thumped and 
 perspiration ran down her face. But if Jack couldn't 
 die, she couldn't. This was a miracle. This was love. 
 
 She stood in front of the doctor's door. There were 
 a knocker and a bell. She kicked the door. It was 
 all that she could do. She kicked it and cried out. 
 Her voice was hoarse and faint. Again and again 
 she kicked. Was this a city of the dead? Another 
 instant and she must join them. If she went, Jack 
 must go, for this was love. 
 
 A window opened. A voice came. "What is it?" 
 The man used his eyes, left the window open, almost 
 fell downstairs and opened the door in time to catch 
 Dick in his arms, Dick, and the thing that fell away 
 from her and lay at her feet, all crumpled. 
 
 319
 
 ONE morning toward the end of June, and a 
 good June, as Tony Okehampton was polish- 
 ing his shoes with a sort of velvet rag which 
 was not a rag and whistling to himself because there 
 was a letter in a big round school-boy fist on his dress- 
 ing-table, his old lady came up and tapped at the door. 
 "Come," said Tony, polishing heartily and whistling 
 with gusto because the letter on the dressing-table was 
 the first that he had had for considerably over a month. 
 
 The old lady came in. "Oh, it's a shame !" she said. 
 "You a-cleaning of yer own boots." 
 
 Tony roared with laughter, and it was the first time 
 that he had roared with laughter or even smiled for 
 considerably over a month because the hand that had 
 written that letter had had a pulse in it very difficult 
 to feel. "Don't mind me," said Tony. "I'll clean 
 your boots every morning if you don't look out. What 
 is it, Mrs. Pearson?" 
 
 "It's a young person, sir, she calls 'erself a young 
 lady, which I don't believe, and she wishes to see you." 
 
 "Well," said Tony, "show her up, my dear Mrs. 
 Pearson. Show her up. I don't clean my shoes in the 
 sitting-room." 
 
 "She don't want no showing up. She followed me 
 up. She says it's urgent." 
 
 320
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 Tony was very thin and very white. He had suf- 
 fered. He had stood at the bedside of Dick and lis- 
 tened to her while she babbled and watched her hesi- 
 tating on the threshold of the door which opens so 
 often but through which no one ever returns. He put 
 his shoe down, rolled down the sleeve of his dressing- 
 gown and went quickly in to the sitting-room. The 
 word urgent had been used too frequently lately. 
 
 He saw a quiet woman, not young, dressed as coun- 
 try girls dress on Sundays. "I come from Park Court, 
 sir." 
 
 Tony took a step back. 
 
 "Why?" he asked. 
 
 "You are Mr. Antony Okehampton, are you not, 
 sir?" 
 
 "Yes," said Tony. "Why?" 
 
 "Dr. Leverett sent me, sir. It appears that 'e knows 
 you at the club. I called him in to Mrs. Okehampton 
 last night, sir, not being able to make anything of 'er 
 meself. If you wish to 'ave a word with my mistress 
 before she goes, sir, I think you'd better " 
 
 "I'm afraid I that is very well. Wait for me." 
 
 Tony dressed himself for the street not quite so 
 carefully as usual. He had intended to celebrate the 
 receipt of that letter by wearing a new tie, blue with 
 white spots. He wore an old one which was merely 
 blue. And then he led the way downstairs and into 
 Brewer Street, and so to Regent Street. He hailed a 
 taxi, told the driver where to go and was silent. The 
 woman talked. In an every-day, commonplace way, 
 going into details with a sort of relish, she told Tony 
 
 321
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 what had been happening at Park Court since she had 
 been housemaid there. Not once had her mistress 
 been dressed for a many weeks. Tony could have told 
 this woman all these things and many more. 
 
 Dr. Leverett came into the hall. He had sometimes 
 played billiards with Tony. It seemed odd to meet like 
 this. "Oh, yes, good-morning," he said. "I'm glad 
 you were in. There is just time. Not much more 
 than that. She asked for you. I had not connected 
 her with you. I'll show you the way." 
 
 "I know," said Tony. 
 
 "I beg your pardon. Call me at once if any change 
 takes place." 
 
 "I will," said Tony. 
 
 He watched the doctor go into the room that had 
 been his and then stood hesitatingly outside the bed- 
 room door. 
 
 Drusilla was propped up against pillows. Her head 
 looked very large and her hair, no longer altogether 
 red, stuck out like the hair of the woman of Somali- 
 land. She smiled politely as Tony ventured in and 
 endeavored to hold out her hand. "Charming weather 
 for the ducks, I don't think !" she said. The voice was 
 very weak, but the enunciation as clear as ever. "I 
 hope you'll like Quennor, and that you won't mind bats 
 in your bedroom. There is fungus growing under 
 your bed, but as it grows under all the beds there is 
 no choice. You are an old school-fellow of my hus- 
 band, are you not? Dear old Tony, the white man, 
 everybody's friend." Her laugh was very unpleasant. 
 "Forgive my not being dressed. People call me an in- 
 
 322
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 valid, you know. They might just as well call me a 
 morphia maniac. Won't you sit down?" 
 
 "Thank you," said Tony. He sat down. 
 
 "You will be interested to see Tony once more. He's 
 a drunkard, now, you know. The stucco of his breed- 
 ing has crumbled. He's just a very common, coarse 
 man." 
 
 "Oh, no!" said Tony. 
 
 "Oh, but yes," said Drusilla. "I assure you. Is 
 there any need to do more than look at me? It is he 
 who has brought me to this. But he's not such a 
 drunkard as to have succeeded in drowning his vam- 
 pire habits. My dear friend, dear old Tony, the white 
 man, is perhaps the most colossal fraud of the century. 
 If you can slip away before you see him, do. He ex- 
 udes a subtle poison. You will never quite recover. 
 Thank God I have been successful in preserving his 
 daughters. My girls are angels. Stay and see my 
 girls." She laughed again, but the old sting had gone. 
 Her head sank a little and her breathing became very 
 loud. 
 
 Tony hurried to the door and called. The doctor 
 came at once. The two men went in together, Tony 
 slowly. 
 
 "Ah !" said the doctor. 
 
 There was a new note in Brasilia's voice. "Oh, it's 
 ah ! is it ?" she said. "I'm going, am I ? Who's that 
 over there why, it's Tony, dear old Tony." She 
 made a sort of claw of her hand and a look of intense 
 supreme disappointment went all over her face. 
 "What !" she said. "This Tony? This clean person 
 
 323
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 so smartly dressed that he looks as if he were going to 
 a wedding the drunken, blaspheming, soddened 
 brute? Pull me up! Pull me up! My work is not 
 finished. Some one has been giving him antidotes. 
 Let me get at him." 
 
 A horrible shriek rang through the flat. It was fol- 
 lowed by a peculiar silence and then even the servants 
 felt as people do when a thunderstorm passes and the 
 air becomes clear. 
 
 The jetta that had been laid upon Tony Okehamp- 
 ton was removed forever. 
 
 Harry was in Paris. At Maxim's she was called 
 La Vierge Sage. 
 
 3 2 4
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE good people in and around Quennor, and 
 even those who lived as far away as King's 
 Redesborough were much interested. The 
 man who drove ploughs up and down the rolling fields 
 nearly always lumpy and in dry weather, before the 
 corn shot up, very nearly white, never failed to ask 
 the latest news of the young couple who drove up 
 daily, sometimes twice a day, from the Unicorn in a 
 small tub cart to inspect the alterations to three cot- 
 tages which were balanced on the side of the hill be- 
 low Quennor. And the wives, most of whom took in 
 washing, and all of whom sold eggs and who man- 
 aged, although never idle, to keep two good eyes on 
 other people's business, had plenty to say. Their gos- 
 sip was tinged with a little romance, with a thrill or 
 two, because this was the couple that had occupied the 
 doctor's house in the market square for many, many 
 weeks, and who had been the means of bringing to 
 King's Redesborough not one little old lady, but three, 
 and who brought back to the place the roaring Squire 
 of Quennor who now wore spats and had never a word 
 for a soul. 
 
 Nothing that these people did went unreported. 
 They were watched with growing sympathy, while the 
 hundred stories were sifted out and the truth re- 
 
 3 2 5
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 mained, as they walked to the doctor's house from the 
 Unicorn and to the Unicorn from the doctor's house. 
 As people get the temperature from a glass the town 
 received bulletins from these four people's faces. For 
 a fortnight the bulletins were bad. After which they 
 improved daily. And when, finally, old Mrs. Ixmore 
 who, happening to drive to the station, told Mrs. Wil- 
 liam Ixmore, Mrs. James Ixmore and Mrs. Isaac Ix- 
 more that the Squire, who never had a word for a 
 soul, had presented the Institute with a three-quarter 
 sized billiard table and had led the three little old 
 ladies up to the woods, dogs seemed to bark louder 
 and cocks to crow more shrilly and the clock over the 
 market place to strike with his old accustomed con- 
 fidence. 
 
 A fortnight later the Unicorn lost its visitors. One 
 afternoon a wagonette fetched them away and there 
 were many last words before it drove off to the station. 
 
 And then one morning the Squire, who now had a 
 word for everybody, passed on the tips of his toes along 
 the High Street and into the yard of the man who had 
 a tub cart for hire with a corpulent pony who loved to 
 have his nose tickled. And as he drove out it was 
 noticed that his hat was tilted and that a long cigar 
 was stuck between his teeth. 
 
 There were faces at every window, old faces and 
 young. Eyes peered from the post office, through 
 loaves in bakers' shops, over bottled onions and packets 
 of milk chocolate in grocers, between brass rods and 
 hanging brooms in general shops and over the screen 
 in the bank. And when it was found that the tub cart 
 
 326
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 drew up outside the doctor's house it was astonishing 
 how many people had business at the barber's. Even 
 elderly women, little girls and elder sisters, whose eyes 
 had just begun to rove a little, seemed to stand in 
 need of treatment, although the barber had not ac- 
 quired the art of shampooing. 
 
 And it was into a High Street almost as crowded 
 as when the Territorials passed through and lunched 
 on bread and beer and cheese beneath the old wood 
 pillars of the market-place among their feeding horses 
 that Dick, yes Dick, came feebly forth, very thin and 
 frail, but with eyes bright and hair golden and laughter 
 on her lips. 
 
 And when all these eyes, kind eyes, saw how the 
 Squire took off his hat and led his girl bareheaded to 
 the tub cart, not one of them, no not one, was dry, 
 not even the only one of the little brown beast from 
 the brewery who rushed out and barked at motor 
 cyclists to the imminent danger of himself and them. 
 
 And there was another great day for these good 
 people when the railway van set down a large bath 
 chair at the doctor's house. Think how this incident 
 ran through the town. Not an Ixmore of all the 
 Ixmores could talk of anything else. "If it's fine to- 
 morrow " 
 
 To-morrow was fine, and again there might have 
 been Territorials in the High Street. And when they 
 saw a man with a white face, dressed in clothes which 
 seemed too big for him, come feebly out, blinking at 
 the sun, with one arm around Miss Dick's neck, no 
 comments were made, because no one could find a 
 
 3 2 7
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 voice that was quite safe to use. It was the left arm 
 that was around Miss Dick's neck. There was an 
 empty sleeve on the right side. 
 
 And somehow it seemed to do the town good to 
 see Miss Dick wheeling her man about day after day. 
 Widows and widowers, wives and husbands, unmar- 
 ried girls and hobbledehoys slanted their heads a little 
 as the two went by. This was romance. This was 
 better than all the stories in magazines and "Blue- 
 bells" and "Hearts to Hearts." It was very pleasant 
 to feel that in a sort of way they were all in the story. 
 Hadn't they all been many times to the very spot 
 where the thing had laid all crumpled? Wasn't the 
 doctor who had kept these two in the world their 
 doctor? Wasn't it little Jimmy Ixmore who had 
 brought in a loaded revolver that he had found in 
 the ditch still loaded ? Ah ! It all belonged to them. 
 
 And when, finally, the bath chair was discarded for 
 the tub, and even the Captain, as he was called, drove 
 it with his one hand up to the hill, the Ixmores and 
 the mere few remaining people of King's Redesbor- 
 ough congratulated themselves upon the fact that they 
 were going to see the rest of the romance worked 
 out. "What do you think, my dear! Them two is 
 a re-buildin' them cottages on the 'ill. It's a fact." 
 
 It was not before the three cottages, all washed 
 with yellow ocher, with a new window here and there 
 in the thatch, and all the old beams inside glowing, 
 were satisfactorily knocked into one and furnished 
 with good old pieces and shining warming pans that 
 Dick and Jack moved in. 
 
 328
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 They stood together, close together, with confetti 
 down their necks and the clang of old hells in their 
 ears. This was home. 
 
 It was then that Dick, with the sun shining on her 
 golden head and her eyes no longer empty, put the 
 cuff of the empty sleeve to her lips. 
 
 "It was a miracle," she said. 
 
 Jack nodded. He was a tanned Jack and he had 
 grown a mustache. What was the use of looking like 
 a sailor when he had lost the sea? 
 
 "I think I was more or less out of my mind, Dick," 
 he said. "When I left home the car somehow brought 
 me to Quennor. Every tree told me that what was 
 said was a lie, but you had gone with that French- 
 man. I don't know what I did. I suppose I put the 
 car up somewhere. I remember wandering about. I 
 believe I felt something heavy in my jacket. Nothing 
 seemed to matter that night. Why, I even forgot 
 mother! The thing was very cold against my fore- 
 head." 
 
 "It was a miracle," said Dick. She put her head 
 down on his shoulder. It was good. 
 
 "Why? What's that in your hand?" asked Jack. 
 
 "Oh, yes, this. Read it." 
 
 It was a letter. This is how it ran: 
 
 Good luck, my dear. I only want you to be happy. 
 Never give me another thought. Yes, give me one. Come 
 and drop one of your wild violets on me when my time 
 comes. 
 
 Billy Thoresby. 
 
 "Keep that," said Jack. "What about that mys- 
 329
 
 THE OUTPOST OF ETERNITY 
 
 terious room that I've never been allowed to see? Is 
 there anything to pay to go in?" 
 
 "Not for you, Jacko. I've paid and shall always 
 pay. Like to see it?" 
 
 "Rather!" 
 
 "Come on, then." 
 
 Away she went upstairs, a narrow winding stairs, 
 through door after door. Then she waited. It was 
 a room in the third cottage, a built-out room. Dick 
 had had big windows put into three of its walls. 
 Through the middle one there was the sun, and 
 through all three God's country spread out like a car- 
 pet beneath the sky. 
 
 The room had nothing in it except a large solemn 
 book. It lay open on a window seat. 
 
 "My school-room," said Dick. 
 
 "The very book?" 
 
 "Yes, the very one." 
 
 He went down on his knees beside her, and fol- 
 lowed her finger. 
 
 And all wept, and bewailed her; but he said, Weep not; 
 
 she is not dead, but sleepeth. 
 And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was 
 
 dead. 
 And he put them all out, and took her by the hand, and 
 
 called, saying, Maid, arise. 
 And her spirit came again, and she arose straight way 
 
 TlNIS. 
 
 330
 
 A 000129555 9