The Kingdom Round the Corner Part 9

n.o.body's shocked at it any longer. Terry isn't. Lloyd George isn't--at least he pretends he isn't for fear the wild beasts may lose him an election. No one makes a stand. It's left for private individuals like ourselves, to----"

"To do what?"

Sir Tobias lost his stride. He blinked reproachfully. "To get them back into their cages."

For an instant Tabs nearly smiled. "And Adair--is he the first wild beast we tackle? Have we got to get him back into the cage of matrimony?

Tell me about Adair."

"It was no cage." Sir Tobias spoke almost resentfully. "His home was a kind of nest and Phyllis was the mother-bird."

The butler had looked in several times to see whether he was free to clear away. For the first time Sir Tobias became aware of him pottering in the shadows. "Perhaps we'd better continue in my library."

He pushed back his chair, dropped his napkin, groped after it feebly, then led the way solemnly across the hall. When he had seated himself before the fire and fortified his courage with a fresh cigar, he plunged headlong into the story of his son-in-law's delinquencies.

IX

"How a man who has a daughter of mine for his wife can find attraction in any other woman is more than I can fathom."

"I agree with you there, sir." Tabs suddenly found himself carried off his feet and on the point of a confession. "If any man were to play false by Terry, I think--I think I'd brain him."

Sir Tobias half-closed his eyes and regarded his guest with sleepy approval. "I somehow knew," he said slowly, "that that was how you felt." Then he opened his eyes wide and darted forward in his chair, as though to trace exactly the effect of his words. He was full of tricks and contradictions, obstinacies and tendernesses, this Punch-like old gentleman with the head of Shakespeare. "I knew that was how you felt,"

he continued, "because you've seen all the love that has gone to their making. You were already a big fellow when they were still tiny. Wasn't it Terry who first called you Tabs because her tongue couldn't get round Taborley? Ah, I've been so proud of my girls! They were so little and white when they first came to us. They couldn't walk--not a step. One had to carry them everywhere. Then they began to crawl; they couldn't stand up right unless one gave them his hand. And then at last they walked. They walked by one's side at first and soon got tired. But as they grew stronger, they walked away and away, always getting more incomprehensible, till finally--it hasn't happened to Terry yet--till finally they met a man. Wait till you're a father, Lord Taborley; from the moment you give all that whiteness into another's keeping, you never cease to be jealous of him. He can never appreciate what a gift you have made him. He never saw her when she was little and helpless. She's your youth--she's everything vigorous that you were. The first time he affords you with a reason for hating him, you'll hate him like---- The way you said: so that you could brain him without compunction.

Adair----I could cheerfully kill him."

Tabs felt rather than heard the pent-up pa.s.sion in his voice; it alarmed him with its sincerity. "But mayn't you be exaggerating?" he suggested.

"Are you sure that Adair---- What I mean to say is, he may be only philandering. Heaps of men do that--go through all the motions of making fools of themselves and actually do nothing. He may be only expressing the discontent of the moment, the revolt from suspense, the flatness of quiet after terrible excitements. One didn't need to be a fighting-man to share those excitements. You say that Phyllis made a nest of her home. Perhaps he didn't like nests. It may be that that's done it. Adair can't have altered so radically over night; he wasn't forceful enough to erupt so disastrously. He was decent----"

"I know nothing definite." The pa.s.sion had died down. It was again an old and weary man who spoke. "I only know that she believes he's abandoning her and that it makes her wretched. She wants him back; if there's any way of getting him back, she must have him. I never denied anything to my girls. If money will persuade him, it's for you to find out how much. If this Lockwood woman has a price, let her state it. I'll spare nothing. Though everything else has lost its value, money still has the power to purchase. I can't buy back faithfulness and loyalty; but I should be able to buy the appearance of it. If I were you I would tackle this Lockwood woman first."

He tossed the stub of his cigar towards the fire. It fell short in the grate. He picked it up and rammed it deep into the burning coals. He looked a poor, old, pitiful child, uttering embittered heresies. "All women are mercenary; all of them except my wife and daughters. Ah, yes, and Lady Dawn."

Tabs wondered what Lady Dawn had done to gain exemption from this sweeping accusation. "I'll see this Maisie Lockwood to-morrow," he said, "if you can tell me where she lives."

Sir Tobias had risen and was seating himself at his desk. "I'll copy you out her address. I have it somewhere buried among these papers."

He had hidden it so thoroughly that it took a few minutes to find. As he rustled sundry sheets and stooped over them round-shouldered, Tabs had time to reflect. Terry! Where was she? She was so little and unprotected and white. Would a day ever come when a man would play her false? At this moment he had it in his power to prevent that day from ever arriving.

"Ah, here it is!" It was his host talking. Then the painful scratching of the pen commenced.

"Sir Tobias, I want to speak to you about Terry." The scratching of the pen stopped, but the shoulders remained bowed. "This is an unfortunate night for me to choose to talk to you about her, but---- To tell the truth, I feel that if I don't speak to-night I may lose my chance."

"What do you want to say about her?" The shoulders had unhunched themselves, but the head had not turned.

"Only this, that I've loved her for a very long while and that if you don't think I'm too old, I should like your permission to ask her to marry me."

Tabs thought to himself with a glow of satisfaction, "At last I've done it. And done it in just the way and at just the time that I'd always planned."

He felt the pride of a man who had worked on schedule and been punctual to the second.

Sir Tobias turned. His face was composed. It was some seconds before he spoke. "Of course this is no surprise to me. You _are_ old for her.

You'll be fifty-five when she's scarcely forty." He paused and Tabs'

heart sank. "You're older than her; but then you're wiser. She needs a husband who'll be wise." He sat leisurely as though he were resting from a long journey; then he stretched out his hand. Tabs went over and took it. "My dear fellow, there's only one thing I ask: make her always happy."

The clock in the hall struck midnight. He lifted himself to his feet. "I had no idea how the time had flown. By the way, that's the address--the Maisie woman's."

Tabs took it carelessly. It had become a thing of little consequence. He folded it away in his pocket. "And when shall I see Terry?" Of a sudden he felt that he must see her; see her and make sure of her without loss of time.

"To-morrow, I suppose. Say about eleven."

Tabs thought back. He had expected to receive a call from General Braithwaite about eleven, or at least to hear from him as soon as he had opened his morning's letters. Then he smiled to himself; when once he was engaged to Terry, what General Braithwaite did or did not do would be no longer of any importance.

"Yes, about eleven, if it'll be agreeable to Terry."

"There's not much doubt about its being agreeable to her."

They pa.s.sed out into the hall. While Tabs found his hat and coat, they spoke only in monosyllables. The servants had gone to bed. The house was intensely silent.

They had got as far as the front-door and Sir Tobias already had his hand upon the latch, when a taxi purred up to the pavement and came to a halt immediately outside. "Some one stopping at the wrong house," he hazarded and threw the door wide. "See you again to-morrow."

"Yes, to-morrow."

"At eleven," Sir Tobias reminded.

"On the dot of eleven," Tabs confirmed.

He pa.s.sed into the cool night air, wistful with the fragrance of unseen flowers. His eyes were dazed for the moment by the sudden change of light. He made out the blurred silhouette of the taxi and faltered, thinking he might have a chance to hire it; then he saw that its shadowy occupants were climbing back into its deeper darkness. It seemed that Sir Tobias had been right; it had stopped at the wrong house.

As he reached the corner where he turned, he glanced back. The taxi had not moved. Its occupants were again getting out--an officer and a girl.

The girl was ringing the bell of the house that he had left, while, the officer was settling with the driver. As he joined her, the door opened, letting fall a shaft of light. There was a brief parley--evidently hurried explanations. Even at that distance he could recognize the indignant tones of Sir Tobias' angry voice. Then he heard the "s.h.i.+sh, Daddy!" from Terry. They entered. The door closed behind them. The taxi moved off in the opposite direction. Again there was silence--nothing but the fragrance of unseen flowers and the wistfulness of the cool, spring night.

CHAPTER THE THIRD

ALL SORTS OF KINGDOMS

I

Tabs had dressed himself with more than ordinary care. He was rather amused at his self-consciousness in having done so, and a little disdainful of it. Yet he knew that in the winning of a woman the strategy of clothes has its value; he had no intention of losing a trick by negligence. It was nine o'clock when he sat down to breakfast; within two hours he would be seeing Terry.

It was a gay morning, lacquered with suns.h.i.+ne; bustling breezes made young leaves of trees in the little Square murmurous. Ever since he had wakened he had been listening to the gossiping chirp of congregated sparrows and the rolling boom of tumultuous traffic. At intervals across the upland of roofs there had drifted to him the far-blown chime of bells and the slower music of clocks striking. It was like an orchestra sc.r.a.ping its chairs and tuning up before cras.h.i.+ng into the overture of the happier world.

Lying beside his plate as he came down he saw a single letter. It was addressed to him in an unfamiliar feminine hand. He picked it up and examined it carefully with the air of a connoisseur. So long as a letter remains unopened, especially when it is to a bachelor from an unknown woman, it retains an atmosphere of adventure. Up to a point he resented the intrusion. This morning his thoughts should have been so utterly Terry's. And yet he was piqued by it.

He slit the envelope. The letter-head was embossed with a crest quite unknown to any but the most modern heraldry. He read:--