The debit account

THE NOVELS OP

OLIVER ONIONS

IN ACCORDANCE \VTTHTHE EVIDENCE
THE DEBIT ACCOUNT
THE STORY OF LOUIE

purchased for tbe library

of tte

^University of Toronto
out of tbe proceeds of tbe funo

bequeatbeo b$
B. IPbillips Stewart, B.B.,

OB. A.D. 1892

•

THE DEBIT ACCOUNT
OLIVER ONIONS

THE

DEBIT ACCOUNT

BY

OLIVER ONIONS

Author of 'In Accordance With the Evidence,"
"The Exception," etc.

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
NEW YORK

Publishers in America for Hodder Sf Stoughton

Copyright, 1913
BY GEORGE H. DOBAN COMPANY

TO

PHILIP CONNARD

CONTENTS

PART ONE PAGE

THE COBDEN CORNER 7

PART TWO

VERANDAH COTTAGE 69

PART THREE

WELL WALK 149

PART FOUR

IDDESLEIGH GATE 239

ENVOI 289

PAKT I
THE COBDEN CORNER

THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

ONE day in the early June of the year 1900 I
was taking a walk on Hampstead Heath and
found myself in the neighbourhood of the Vale
of Health. About that time my eyes were very
much open for such things as house-agents' notice-
boards and placards in windows that announced that
houses or portions of houses were to let. I was go-
ing to be married, and wanted a place in which to
live.

My salary was one hundred and fifty pounds a
year. I figured on the wages-book of the Freight
and Ballast Company as " Jeffries, J. H., Int. Ex.
Con.," which meant that I was an intermediate
clerk of the Confidential Exchange Department, and
to this description of myself I affixed each week my
signature across a penny stamp in formal receipt of
my three pounds. I could have been paid in gold
had I wished, but I had preferred a weekly cheque,
and I took care never to cash this cheque at our own
offices in Waterloo Place. I did not wish it to be
known that I had no banking account. As a matter
of fact, I now had one, though I should not have

9

10 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

liked to disclose it to the Income Tax Commission-
ers. The reason for this reticence lay in the small-
ness, not in the largeness, of my balance. I had
learned that in certain circumstances it pays you to
appear better off than you are.

It was a Sunday, a Whit-Sunday, on which I took
my walk, and on my way up from Camden Town
across the Lower Heath I had passed among the can-
vas and tent-pegs and staked-out " pitches " that were
the preparation for the Bank Holiday on the morrow.
Tall chevaux de frises of swings were locked back
with long bars; about the caravans picked out with
red and green, the proprietors of cocoanut-shies and
roundabouts smoked their pipes; and up the East
Heath Road there rumbled from time to time, shak-
ing the ground, a traction-engine with its string of
waggons and gaudy tumbrils.

I was alone. Both my fiancee and the aunt with
whom she lived in a boarding-house in Woburn Place
had gone down to Guildford to attend the funeral
of a friend of the family — a Mrs Merridew; and
as I had known the deceased, lady by name only, my
own attendance had not .been considered necessary.
So until lunch-time, when I had an engagement, I
was taking my stroll, with a particular eye to the
smaller of the houses I passed, and many conjectures
about the rent of them.

You will remember, if you happen to know that
north-western part of London, that away across the

THE COBDEN CORNER 11

Heath, on the Highgate side, there stands up among
the trees a lordly turreted place, the abode (I be-
lieve it then was) of some merchant prince or other.
My eyes had wandered frequently to this great house,
but I had lost it again as I had descended to the
pond with the swans upon it, and approached the tea-
garden that, with its swings and automatic machines,
makes a sort of miniature standing Bank Holiday
all the year round. During the whole of a youth
and early manhood of extraordinary hardship (I was
now nearing thirty-five) I had been consumed with
a violent but ineffectual ambition, of which those
distant turrets now reminded me. ... I had been
hideously poor, but, heaven be thanked, I had
managed to get my head above water at last. Those
horrible days were over, or nearly so. I had now,
for example, a banking account; and though I sel-
dom risked drawing a cheque for more than two
pounds without first performing quite an intricate
little sum, the data for which were furnished by my
cheque, pass and paying-in books respectively, still
— I had a banking account. I had also good boots,
two fairish suits of clothes (though no evening
clothes), an umbrella, a watch, and other possessions
that, three or four years before, had seemed beyond
dreams unattainable.

And when I say that I had for long been ragingly
ambitious, I do not merely mean that I had con-
stantly thought how fine it would be could I wake up

12 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

one morning and find myself rich and powerful and
respected. Had that been the whole of it, I don't
think I should have differed greatly from the costers
and showmen who dotted the Heath that Whit-Sun-
day morning. No ; the point rather was, that I saw
in the main how I was going to get what I wanted.
I, or rather my coadjutor " Judy " Pepper and I
between us, had ideas that we intended to " play "
as one plays a hand at cards. Therefore, as I walked,
I dare say I thought as much about that distant cas-
tellated house as I did about the far humbler abode
I intended to take the moment I could find a suita-
ble one.

I wandered among the alleys and windings of the
Vale of Health, noting the villas with peeling plaster
and the weather-boarded and half-dilapidated cot-
tages that make the place peculiar ; and I was ascend-
ing a steep hillock with willows at the foot of it
and the level ridge of the Spaniards Road running
like a railway embankment past the pines at the
top, when, chancing to turn my head, I saw what
appeared to be the very place for me.

It cculd not have been very long empty, for I had
passed its door, an ivy-green one with lace curtains
behind its upper panels of glass, without noticing the
usual signs of uninhabitation. Then I remembered
the approaching Quarter Day and smiled. The
chances were that somebody had done a " moonlight
flit " and had left the lace curtains up in order that

THE COBDEN CORNER 13

his going might not be observed. There was no
doubt, as I could see from where I stood, about the
place being untenanted now, nor that it would not re-
main so for very long. I stood for a moment ex-
amining it from half-way up the hillock.

There was not much of it to examine. It was
very small, fronted with stucco, and had a little
square verandah built out on wooden posts over its
tiny garden. More than that I could hardly see of
it, but it adjoined a much larger house, and to this
I turned my eyes. This larger house was a low,
French-windowed dwelling, with a pleasantly eaved
and flat-pitched roof, very refreshing to think of in
these days of Garden City roofs and diminutive dor-
mers; and its garden was well kept, and gay with
Virginia stock borders and delphinium and Canter-
bury bells in the beds behind. It seemed likely that
formerly the two houses had been one.

I was descending the hillock for a closer view
when I remembered that I could hardly expect to
be shown round that day. I looked at my watch.
It was half-past twelve, and my appointment, which
was with Pepper, was not for another hour. There
would be plenty of time for me to walk round by
my turreted place and back by Hampstead Lane. I
left the Vale of Health, crossed the Viaduct, and
continued my saunter.

But I walked slowly, and in a deepening abstrac-
tion. The sight of that little house had set my

14 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

thoughts running on my fiancee again. And as I
presently took that little house, and married my -fian-
cee not long afterwards, and as, moreover, my medi-
tation of that morning has a good deal to do with,
my tale, I had better state at the beginning what the
trouble was, and have done with it.

I had known Evie Soames for close on five years ;
and though I had loved her ever since the days when,
•with her skirt neither short nor long, and her hair
neither loose nor yet properly revealing the shape of
her slender and birch-like nape, she and I had at-
tended the same Business College in Holborn, it had
been only during the last six months that we had be-
come engaged. On either of our parts a former
engagement had ended abruptly; and this, for her
sake at least, was the reason why I would gladly have
Lad her anywhere but at .Guildford that Sunday
morning.

[For it had been to the late Mrs Merridew's son
that she had been engaged, and the affair had ter-
minated with tragical suddenness indeed. You can-
not but call it tragical when a young man is discov-
ered, on his wedding morning, hanging by the neck
from a hook in his bedroom door, with a letter in his
pocket that only partly sets forth his reason for tak-
ing his life, leaving the rest for the medical evidence
to determine — and then to be kept for very pity
from his womenfolk. Yet this had happened four
years before; and it was because I dreaded to revive

THE COBDEN CORNER 15

the memory of it, and especially to revive the mem-
ories of those subsequent days when Evie must have
tormented herself with vain and fruitless guessings
at what a coroner and a jury-panel and a doctor in
Store Street had smothered up among themselves,
that I walked brooding and with downhung head.

And about women generally I had better confess
myself at once as, past praying for, a Philistine. I
subscribe to nothing whatever that this New Man
so strangely risen in our midst nowadays appears to
hold about the ancient and changeless feminine. And
I take it that most men not profligates or fools will
understand me when I say that I think there are
some things that it is worse than useless that women
should know, and that this sordid four-year-old busi-
ness was one of them. To those born to knowledge,
knowledge will come; the others will never know,
no matter what the facts of their experience may be.
Oh, I had seen these weak and vainglorious vessels
go to Life's Niagara before, thinking to fill them-
selves at it — and had seen the flinders into which
they had been dashed. Therefore I had deliberately
resolved to stand between Evie Soames and many
things. I ever thought of her as a flower, a flower
of dewy flesh, joining its fragrance to that of the
morning of her mind; and though I knew that that
too lovely stage must quickly pass, perhaps into some-
thing better, I could never think of that passing un-
moved. I was prepared to fight for a last — and per-

16 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

haps impossible — protection of it. There was much
knowledge that I would take on myself for the pair
of us; a few more of life's weals and scars would
make no difference to me. . . . And if you tell
me that this was merely a foredoomed attempt to
keep from her the knowledge of the world into which
she had been born, very well : I accept the responsi-
bility of that. At any rate, she might find what
fantastic explanations she would of the mystery that
I and the jury and a doctor in Store Street could have
explained. I would open no door to admit her to hor-
rors which would haunt her for ever though I closed
it again in a flash.

I hope you see why I cursed that funeral, for
bringing even the fringe of that old shadow back
over us again.

So absorbed was I in my meditation, that I passed
my turreted house without noticing it. It was as
I was approaching Waterlow Park that a clock strik-
ing one woke me out of my reverie. I shook off the
weight of my thoughts. If this shadow had claimed
Evie again, I must put something in its place when
I met her and her aunt at Victoria that evening, that
was all. I had now my coming interview with Pep-
per to think of.

I faced about and began to descend Hampstead
Lane, suddenly occupied with business, to the exclu-
sion even of Evie.

" Judy " (now Sir Julius) Pepper and I have

THE COBDEN CORNER 17

been partners for ten years now; and while he is
sometimes a little inclined to overrate what he calls
my "imaginative qualities/' I on the other hand
have never been able sufficiently to admire his own
hard, gay, polished efficiency. I still think of him,
as I thought of him then, as of a diamond, that
could encounter steel and come off with never an
angle blunted nor a facet scratched; and if he in
turn likens me to the handle in which that graver is
set, and even to some extent to the guiding power, I
pass that, thinking it as graceful to accept a com-
pliment as to pay one. Exactly how our combination
works is nobody else's concern; the important
thing is, that between us we undoubtedly have made
our mark since those days when he kept up appear-
ances in Alfred Place, W., and I poked about the
Vale of Health in search of a house that should come
within the limits of mj; three pounds a week.

n

I WAS leaving the road at the Spaniards and strik-
ing across the West Heath when I came upon
him. He also appeared to have been early, and to
have been taking a walk to put away the time.

"Hallo!" I called, and he turned.

He was a short, rosy man of thirty-eight, with an
inclination to plumpness that he only defeated by
assiduous exercise ; and his silk hat, " f rocker " and
grey cashmere trousers might have served some high
tailor for an advertisement plate of perfect clothes.
Perhaps they did, for I don't think that at that time
he paid for them otherwise. His shirts and under-
garments, of which he spoke with interest and readi-
ness, were also perfect; and he not only made me
feel in this respect like some rough bear of a Balzac,
always in a dressing-gown, but even gave me, though
quite without offensiveness, that and similar names.
He gave me, in fact, this one now.

" Well, my dear Balzac ! " he said, his rosy face
breaking as suddenly into a smile as if a hundred
invisible gravers had magically altered its whole
clean modelling. " Out seeking an appetite ? "

I laughed. "You're walking last night's supper

off, I suppose?"

18

THE COBDEN CORNER 19

he said, as if impartially looking back
on whatever the excellent meal had been. " No —
I'm scaling fairly low just now — just over the eleven
stone. What are you, by the way ? "

" Sixteen and a half — but then look at my size ! "

He had the neatest and smallest and most reso-
lute mouth, from which came speech so finished that
I never heard a slurred word fall from it. He made
it a little bud now, and whistled.

" Sixteen and a ! I say, you'd better sign on

at one of those shows I saw over there ! "

" Well, with you as showman I dare say we should
make it pay," I answered, falling in with this con-
ception of our respective roles.

His smile vanished as magically as it had come.

" Well, that's what we're going to talk about," he
said; "but after lunch will do. ... What sort
of a tree do you call that, now ? "

That was one of Judy's little affectations. He
knew as well as I did that the tree at which he pointed
was a birch, and I had thought, the first time I had
exposed this dissimulation in him, that he would not
try it on again. Fond hope! Though you knew
that Pepper was laughing in his sleeve at you, and
let him see you knew it, his face remained translu-
cent and impenetrable as adamant ... So he
took it as a piece of new and interesting information
that the tree was a birch, and we walked on. ...

I had first met Pepper, or rather he had first spot-

20 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

ted me, at the F.B.C., and we were both still at
the offices in Waterloo Place. But while Pepper
still moved his little wooden blocks (representing
trains and ships) about vast box-enclosed maps with
glass lids that shut down and locked, solving for the
Company intricate problems of transport and the dis-
tribution of produce and manufactured stuff, he had
already crossed the line that divides the Mercantile
from thf* Political, or at least from the Administra-
tive. Already that highly tempered cutting-point of
manner had made a way for him into circles where
I have never been at my ease; and dining once a
month or oftener with the President and a Permanent
Official of the Board of Trade, he was a valuable
channel of information in such matters as Arbitra-
tion and the settlement of Trade Disputes. And he
had been quicker than I to see the Achilles' heel of
our complicated mercantile economy. Hitherto this
vulnerable spot had been conceived to lie in Produc-
tion, as in the last resort it certainly does ; but short
of that and actual industrial war, there was the
equally effective and less perilous paralysis, the
secret of which lay in Distribution. Shipping
lines, railways and the postal organisation were
the real nervous system; and Judy Pepper, strike-
preventer rather than strike-breaker, was getting
the ju-jitsu of it at his finger ends long before Syn-
dicalism became aware of one of its most potent
weapons.

THE COBDEN CORNER 21

You will see the manifold bearings of this on a
Democratic Age.

And it was no less bold a move than our secession
together from the F.B.C. and setting up on our own
account that we were to discuss at lunch at the Bull
and Bush that day.

We walked along a short street with cottages on
one side and a high wall on the other, passed under
the fairy-lamps of the Bull and Bush arch, and sought
one of the little trellised bowers at the eo^ of the
lawn.

Waiters always bestirred themselves to attend to
Pepper, and the two who approached us at once
neglected earlier comers to do so. Pepper gave his
order, and we went through the Sunday " ordinary."
Then he ordered coffee and liqueurs, bidding the
waiter leave the bottle of creme de menthe on the
table and not disturb us again. He lighted a cigar;
I, not yet a practised smoker, fumbled with a ciga-
rette, at the pasteboard packet of which I saw my
ally's glance ; and then, spreading a number of papers
before him, he plunged into business.

It was highly technical, and I will not trouble you
with more of it than bore on our immediate secession
from the F.B.C. — a step to which I was strongly
averse.

" You see," Pepper urged presently, " this Camp-
bell Line award precipitates matters rather." (I
shook my head, but he went on.) "As a precedent

22 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

it's going to make an enormous difference. I'll show
you the Trinity Master's statement presently.
. . . No, no, wait till I've finished. ... It
means among other things a revision of the whole
Campbell scale, and the other lines will have to fol-
low. Then that'll make trouble with Labour, and
Robson and the Board of Trade come in. Here's
Robson's letter ; better make a note of it. You don't
write shorthand, do you ? "

" N-o."

" Hm ! You hardly seem quite sure whether
you do or not! . . . Well, I'll get Miss Levey
to make an abstract for you. Here's what he
says. . . ."

And he began to read from the letter.

As he did so I was wondering what on earth had
made me tell him I didn't write shorthand. I do
write shorthand. I keep, as a matter of fact, much
of my private journal in shorthand, and I had not
the slightest objection to Pepper or anybody else
knowing of my accomplishment. . . . And yet,
as if Pepper had somehow taken me off my guard,
that doubtful "N-o" had come out. I bit my
lip.

"Well," he concluded, folding the letter again,
" there you have it. Of course I see what you mean
about our using the F.B.C. for the present, merely
as a going machine ; but this seems to me to outweigh
that. , . You still don't think so ?"

THE COBDEN CORNER 23

I still did not. Laboriously, for I never could
make a speech in my life, I set my reasons before
him. He nodded from time to time, opening and
shutting his slender silver pencil.

" So you still think wait 2 " he mused by-and-by.
It was evident that I had not spoken in vain.

" You can be going ahead with all you want to do
as we are, and for the rest I'd wait and see what
happened."

" Of course there's this war " he admitted re-
luctantly.

" It's not the war. It's what'll happen after the
war."

" Well," he said, with a shrug, " you know you're
my heaven-sent find, and that I'm going to keep you
to myself. ... So we wait ? That's decided 2 "

" Wait," I repeated doggedly.

Then, as if he had sufficiently tested my belief in
myself, that smile broke over his agate of a face
again. He leaned back to look at ma

" You're an extraordinary chap ! " he positively
sparkled fondness at me. "What are you getting
now at the F.B.C. — three pounds ? "

" Still I say wait," I said, nodding once or twice.

" And getting married on it ! " he marvelled.

" Almost immediately."

Then Pepper laughed outright. "Well, I won't
say you're like the chap who asked for a rise to get
married on. * You get married — you'll get the rise

24 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

then ! ' his boss told him." Then, the smile going
out again, he added, " And suppose we're forestalled
on this new scale of rates ? "

I spoke with strongly suppressed energy. " They
can't forestall you and me. Don't you see ? Don't
you see we're hors concours — in a class by our-
selves ? We are what they can only make a bluff at
being — ever ! ' There is a tide ' — but it hasn't got
to be taken before the flood ! "

He took the whole of me in in one shining look,
as a camera might have seen me. He was openly
admiring me.

" By Jove," he burst out, " but you don't lack
confidence ! ... Of course you see the joke ? "

" You mean — ' Jeffries, J. H., Int. Ex. Con.,
£3 ' — two-ten for his suits — eighteenpence for his
dinners — getting married — and still hanging back
from this because it's going to pay fifty times better
twelve months from now ? " That, I took it, was the
joke.

" And you're quite — quite — sure ? " he dared me
for the last time, his face radiant.

I brought my hand softly down on the table.
" Yes ! " I cried. " I'm talking what I know —
you're only talking what you think!"

His small manicured hand flew out to my great
one.

" Oh— bravo ! " he cried. " Wait it is, then. By

THE COBDEN CORNER 25

Jove, when it does come, you'll have deserved it!
. . . Here, shove your glass over — I believe
you're entirely right — but if it was only for your
consummate cheek we should have to drink to it ! "

And he filled up the two glasses with the vivid
green liqueur again, touching his against mine.

I left him shortly after, or rather he left me in
order to keep one of his urgent and mysterious ap-
pointments; and I wandered slowly down towards
my own abode.

This was a large upper room near the Cobden
Statue — a proximity that for some reason or other
always afforded my partner-to-be private mirth. I
had taken it because its size fitted it both for living
purposes and for the storing of the things I had got
against my marriage as well. It was the fourth of
the five floors of a new, terra-cotta-fronted, retail
drapery establishment (experience had taught me
that the biggest rooms are always over shops) ; and
from its plate-glass windows below to its sham gables
held up like pieces of stage scenery by iron braces
above, it was a mass of ridiculous ornament — coats
of arms, swags of fruit and flowers, and feeble gro-
tesques with horns and tails and grins, the whole look-
ing as if it had been squeezed on from some gigantic
pink icing-tube such as they use for the modelling
of wedding-cakes. But I lived inside it, not out-
side, and I had made the place exceedingly com-

26 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

fortable. I had no fewer than four large windows,
two looking over the High Street, one diagonally
from a rounded corner, and the fourth over the little
railing-enclosed garden of a neighbouring crescent.
As I was high enough up to dispense with blinds
and curtains, these four windows admitted a flood of
admirable light on an interior that, large as it was,
was over-furnished; and there was no frippery to
prevent my throwing up my sashes and looking down
among the terra-cotta gargoyles on the walking hats
below.

Evie and I had done much of our six months' court-
ing in second-hand dealers' shops. Resolving that our
engagement should be a short one, and knowing that
those who have little either of money or time have,
in furnishing as in everything else, to pay through
the nose for their purchases, we had started at once.
What had remained of a sum of money Evie's aunt
had long had in trust for her against her one day
setting up housekeeping on her own account had en-
abled us to do this. At first the sum had been one
hundred and fifty pounds; a former purchase of
clothing, of which only the black garments had ever
been worn, had reduced it by more than a third ; and
of what had become of more than half the balance my
light, lofty room now bore witness.

It improved my spirits to be among our joint be-
longings, and by the time I had made tea for my-

THE COBDEN CORNER 27

self, much of my despondency of earlier in the day
had gone. I looked round, and began to tell myself
over again the story of our acquisitions. There was
not a piece that did not contribute its chapter. That
bow-fronted chest of drawers with the old mirror
on it we had first seen on a pavement in Upper
Street, Islington; and we had had a long debate in
Miss Angela Soames' sitting-room in Woburn Place
before deciding to buy it — a debate much inter-
rupted by less practical matters, with Miss Angela's
pink-shaded lamp turned economically low, and Miss
Angela herself intelligently off to bed. I had only
to look at our odd assortment of chairs in order to see
Evie again as she had stood in the dim back parts
of this shop or that — to see again the whites of her
eyes, brilliant as if her skin had been a Moor's, her
hair dark as a black sweet-pea, the round neck with
the little pulse in it, and the glender, just-grown lines
of bosom or back or hips as she stooped or straight-
ened. Over one extravagance her voice had broken
out in shocked and delicious reproach; over another
happy find she had had to turn away lest the dealer
should see her eagerness and increase the price ; and
there had been laughs and bickerings and confusions
and byplays without number. ... I have be-
come something of a connoisseur since then; but
nothing I have acquired at Spink's or Christie's
means to me what those coppery old Sheffield cream-

28 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

jugs and caddies and those now-valuable sketches of
Billy Izzard's meant. . . .

Then, at seven o'clock, I washed, put on my hat,
and went out. Evie and her aunt were due to arrive
at Victoria at a quarter to eight.

I picked them out by their attire far down the
platform, and advanced to meet them. With a leap
of relief I noted Evie's little quickening as she saw
me. Black " suited " Miss Angela Soames — suited
her tower of white yet young-looking hair, as it also
suited her habits of rather aimless retrospect and toy-
ing with stingless memories ; but I hoped that Evie's
present wearing of her four-year-old mourning would
be her last. Naturally, she had not passed the day
without tears. Her eyes were large, sombre patches ;
she held in her hand a little hard ball of damp
handkerchief; and I noticed that a little graveside
clay still adhered to the toes of her boots. But I
judged that a night's rest would set her up again,
and as we rumbled in a bus past the Houses of Par-
liament and up Whitehall, I bespoke her time for the
afternoon of the morrow. I asked her, could she
guess why? and, putting the screwed-up handker-
chief away, she said something about the F.B.C.

" No," I replied,—" not directly, that is."

" Mr Pepper ?"

"No."

Then, the decorum of her sorrow notwithstanding,
she gave my sleeve a quick, light touch.

THE COBDEN CORNER

29

"Not a house, Jeff — you don't mean that you've
found a house!"

But I refused to tell her. It was better that her
mind should be occupied with guessing.

Ill

AS I have said, I took that house in the Vale
of Health. It wanted only three weeks of the
June Quarter, so that I had to take it or leave it
without overmuch delay. Evie and I went up to see
it on the following day, and a scramble indeed we
had to force our way through the Bank Holiday
crowds. It took me nearly half-an-hour to get the
key at the neighbouring tea-garden, where I had
been told I must apply; on that day, they said, they
couldn't be bothered; but I got it, and at the mere
sight of the outside of the little house Evie gave a
soft " Oh ! " of pleasure.

ee What a little darling ! " she said. " Look — a
separate tradesmen's entrance — and a little garden
— and the Heath at our very door! I wonder
what it's like inside ! " she added, much as she
still scans the handwriting and postmark of a letter
for a minute for information she could have at once
by opening it.

" I don't know yet," I replied.

" You dear, not to have seen it before me ! "

I put the key into the glass-panelled door, and we
entered.

Later I came to hate that little house; but that
30

THE COBDEN CORNER 31

day, with Evie's spirits still a little tremulous, I did
not dwell on drawbacks. It had only four rooms,
two on each floor, and we walked straight from the
street into the room that later became our dining-
room. Behind this lay the kitchen, completing our
ground-plan. Facing the door by which we had en-
tered, and with a triangular cupboard underneath it,
rose a carved and worn wooden staircase, that turned
on itself after three or four steps and gave access
to the floor above. Here the drawing-room exactly
repeated the dining-room, as did the single bedroom
the kitchen. But the drawing-room, besides having
an extra window over the street door, had also the
feature I had seen from the hillock on the previous
day — the platform or verandah built out on wooden
posts over the garden. This was gained by two
steps and a glass door at the end of the room, and
it provided me with my first disappointment. For,
when I stepped out on to it, I found that we had no
garden. The garden belonged to the adjoining
house, the tenant of which had, moreover, secured
his privacy by building in our little platform with
a screen of boards and trellis. There would be just
room enough on our little quarter-deck for a tea-table
and a couple of chairs ; but of prospect, save for the
side of the hillock, had we none. For the rest, ceil-
ings sagged, the worn old floor creaked and did not
seem over-safe, the panelling (the whole place was
wood-lined) was badly cracked, and the late tenants

32 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

had turned the bath into a dustbin and general re-
ceptacle for rubbish.

I saw Evie warm to the drawing-room, our best
room, at once. Already in her mind she was ar-
ranging our furniture. I, for my part, content to
see her kindling interest, began to poke my nose into
corners, making notes of such things as waterpipes,
locks, window fastenings and the like. I squeezed
into the narrow bathroom again ; I am a little squeam-
ish about baths, and, not much liking the pattern
of this one, was wondering whether it could be al-
tered; but the room was little more than a prolonga-
tion of a bedroom cupboard out over the staircase,
and there would have been no changing the bath
without pulling half the interior down. I bumped
my head against its floor as I descended the stairs
again, and passed into the diminutive yard that had
the verandah for a roof. There I inspected a coal-
house, and peeped through a knot-hole into my neigh-
bour's garden. Then I sought Evie in the drawing-
room again.

" Well ? " I said, smiling, as she advanced to meet
me. ...

Outside, the air was jocund with the incessant
sounds of singing, calling, penny trumpets, the steam
organs of the distant roundabouts, and all the bustle
of the holiday. Erom our little verandah we could
see the sides of the hillock dotted with picnic parties
and coster lads in their bright neckerchiefs and girls

THE COBDEN CORNER 33

in feathers and black lamb's-wool coats, making love
after their own fashion. A party came round the
house, singing and playing on mouth organs a drag-
ging sentimental song — arms linked about necks,
feet breaking into little step-dances, and feathers
shaking from time to time to kisses that resembled
assaults; and I was glad of it all. It was precisely
what I would have chosen for Evie that day. She
was dressed in brown again; a brown jacket, brown
velvet skirt, close brown toque of pheasants' feathers,
and brown shoes that showed their newness under
their slender arches as she walked; no more black!
For Life, after all, was made for joy. We had
youth, she and I, in a truer sense than that of fewness
of years — we had the youth which is Hope. Oh, I
thought, let us then meet the years to come singingly
— if a little stridently no matter — believing in our
luck — full and spilling over — and taking as it
came, like these outside, all the fun and dust and
heat and perspiration of the fair I So I thought,
and Evie too took the contagion. We were stand-
ing by the glass door of the verandah when
suddenly she crushed herself hard and impulsively
against me. I knew what she meant. It did not need
the little tight grip of her hand to tell me that all
was now " all right." I drank those tidings from
the deep wells of her eyes. And because the flesh
had little part in this promise, but must for once
give place to other things, I did not seek her lips.

34

Instead, my own moved for a moment about her
hair. . . .

Then a burst of catcalling caused us to fly from
the verandah doorway. We had been seen from the
hillside by the party with the mouth organs. Evie,
adorably red, gave a low laugh . . . and this
time I did kiss her, to fresh cheers and calls of
" Wot cher ! " The lads and lasses outside did not
see the caress, but perhaps, after all, it was not very
wonderful thought-reading.

Then, after another delighted tour, we locked the
house up and came out on to the Heath again.

And now that the scales of preoccupation were re-
moved from our eyes, we could look on all the life
and colour and movement spread before us and feel
ourselves part of it. It was well worth looking at.
There is a long ravine near the Viaduct; we looked
across it through a bright stipple of sunny birches;
and to close the eyes for a second or two only was
to see, on reopening them, a new picture. Purple
and lavender and the black lamb's-wool coats pervaded
that picture ; the colours were sown over the hillside
like confetti. They moved slowly, as coloured gran-
ules might have moved in some half-fluid suspen-
sion; and spaces that one moment were spangled
with them, the next were unexpectedly empty patches
of green. I am speaking of the thing in the mass, as
of a panorama. Doubtless the sprinkling of white
that lay everywhere would resolve itself on the mor-

THE COBDEN CORNER 35

row into torn paper, to be laboriously impaled on
spiked sticks and carried away in baskets; doubtless
to-day much of it on a nearer view would consist of
impure complexions and rank odour; but it was
strong and piping-hot Life, inspiring, infinitely
analysable, and irresistibly setting private griefs and
joys and over-emphasised sensations into place
and proportion. . . . And as we left the Viaduct
road and approached a great show in a hollow, the in-
creasing din of a steam organ became as if we waded
deeper and deeper into a sea, not of water, but of
sound.

I only remembered that I still had the key of the
little house in my pocket as we pushed and jostled
through the crowded town of striped canvas that
covered the Lower Heath. My fingers encountered
it as we took a back way behind a long fluttering
sheet against which cocoanut balls smacked every mo-
ment. It was necessary to return with it; and, as
men behind the lace-curtained caravans began to
make ready the naphtha lights for the evening, we
turned into another thoroughfare down which the
purple and lamb's-wool and lavender and bright neck-
erchiefs poured as if down a river-bed. In twenty
minutes we had reached the tea-garden again; I
spied a couple in the act of leaving a leafy arbour
that held a table awash with spilt beer; and I put
Evie into a still warm seat and bade her hold it
against all comers. I left her, and presently re-

36 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

turned with two glasses, of which I had managed to
retain the greater part of the contents; and I sat
down by her.

" Did you give them the key ? " she asked, seizing
my arm.

" Yes, I gave them ' the ' key. I'm going to see
the agent to-morrow."

" Oh, Jeff ! " She said it as if there was some-
thing miraculous in it that an agent might actually
consent to be seen about that little house on the
morrow.

" That is, unless to-morrow's a holiday too."

" Oh, you must go ! " she broke out. " It would
be too awful if we were to miss it ! "

Then, as a waiter came with a sopping cloth to
wipe down the table, we ceased to talk.

Already they were beginning to light up every-
where. The crowded garden became a complexity
of ceaselessly moving shadows with a hundred little
accidents of light — the flames of sudden matches,
yellow shafts as people moved aside from windows,
the twinkling festoons of the arbours, the gleam of
liquid spilt on tables. A glow like that of a furnace
rose behind the trees in front of us, and over the
tree-tops rose swinging boats, sometimes one, some-
times two or three at a time, with lads standing with
bent knees on the seats and the girls' feathers toss-
ing and boas flying in the golden haze. The noise
became a ceaseless twanging everywhere, and I

THE COBDEN CORNER 37

watched with amusement a half-drunk but wholly
happy sailor at the next table, who nodded sleepily
from time to time, then looked with wideawake and
amiable defiance about him, and had quite forgotten
that he wore his companion's hat hearsed with black
feathers.

" Do you want to change hats ? " I said to Evie,
with a glance at her pheasants' feather toque.

" No — but " I saw her own glance at the

sailor's thick wrist, which had appeared on our side of
his companion.

The next moment, though with protests, she was
leaning farther back in the shadow.

Then, close and in murmurs, we began to talk.

I am not going to claim for Evie that she ever had
any very remarkable gift of tongues. I don't mean
that on occasion she couldn't talk for half a day on
end ; but I do mean that beyond a certain point she
displayed a diffidence, talk became something of an ad-
venture to her, and she had a way of advancing upon
a silence as if it was a fortified place, to be carried
by assault, and not to be won by beleaguering. There-
fore, seeing her now sensible of a new liberation and
joy, I was not unprepared for little excesses, things
said out of mere fulness, and perhaps even to be
slightly regretted on the morrow.

Yet I didn't want fulness on the subjects of which
she now began to ease her breast. I didn't want to
hear of the events of the day before, nor of the people

38 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

who had been there, nor of whether these people
had or had not " thought it odd " that she should
have become re-engaged. I didn't want to hear
about the late Mrs Merridew's lingering and coma-
tose illness. And when, in a burst of almost passion-
ate candour, she spoke of the relief it was to be able
at last to unburden herself thus, I would gladly have
stopped her had I known how. But I lacked the
courage to tell her, when she asked me whether I did
not think it a good idea that she should keep noth-
ing secret from me, that I thought it the worst of
ideas.

" You see, Jeff," she murmured, out of a beautiful
sense of rest and surrender, " I do so want ours to
be a friendship as well as a marriage ! "

Already the nearness and warmth of her had set
me trembling. I don't know that I wanted more
" friendship " than needs be ; I wanted something,
oh, far deeper and rarer. I wanted that full treas-
ury of her warm blood and odorous hair and large
and mobile eyes. Friendship? I laughed softly,
and gathered these beauties closer. . . . Under-
stand, I don't for a moment mean that she was un-
aware of these possessions of hers; I call that oval
mirror that later we set up in our bedroom to witness
that; but she merely wanted something else, being
human, and wanted it the more, being feminine.
And as she told me now what she wanted our mar-

THE COBDEN CORNER 39

riage to be, she put me away a little, with her hands
on my breast.

" Don't you, too, darling ? " she appealed, with a
look that put " friendship " quite out of exist-
ence. . . .

" Don't I what, rogue ? "

" Want it to be like that."

" No," I bantered, adoring her. . . .

" Oh ! Then there's something you won't tell me !
. . . Very well," she pouted, " keep your old se-
crets, but I shall tell you everything for all that,
just to shame you. . . ."

With a laugh I was drawing her towards me again,
when I was arrested by a circumstance so oddly
trivial that I really hesitate to set it down. The
first I knew of it was that with an involuntary and
nervous start I had checked the movement, and had
put her slowly away again, looking into her face as a
moment before she had looked into mine. To ex-
plain what I saw there I must mention that, a few
minutes before, the sailor and his girl had risen from
the next table and lurched away, their heads together
making an apex that wobbled over its base of purple
skirt and wide trousers; but I had been only dimly
conscious of the noise with which a fresh party had
pounced upon their empty places. Now suddenly
our alcove was filled with a raw crimson shine.
Evie's face, as I held it away, was as if a stage fire

40 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

glared upon it. And scarcely had the bloodshot light
died away when it came again, another violent
flood. . . .

I had looked round in less time than it has taken
me to explain this. It was only one of the newcom-
ers playing with a penny box of Bengal matches.
He struck another. This was a green one, and as
he waved the spluttering thing about the shadows
of leaves ran to and fro in our little interior.

Then as the match went out, all became an ashy
darkness again.

Why, at the mere striking of those fusees, had all
the life and joy suddenly gone out of me? I did
not know. . . . But stay; I am not sure that
in this I do not lie. Perhaps it would be nearer the
truth to say that I would not know, and yet again that
is not all. . . . Perhaps I had better pass on; you
may know soon enough, if you care, what was the
matter. Ked and gold would now have been better
suited to those two mainsprings of my life, my Love
and my Ambition; but suddenly to change the gold
into green, the hated hue of my past Jealousy. . . .

Let me pass on. The thing will soon be clear.

For a minute and more I had hardly heard Evie's
chatter, but presently I became conscious that she
was repeating a phrase, as if a little surprised that
she got no answer. I roused myself.

THE COBDEN CORNER 41

u

Eh 3 . . . What were you saying, dear 2 "
I apologised.

As if the striking of those matches had made an
alteration in her too, her playfulness had vanished.
Apparently another little access of candour had taken
its place. Evidently I had missed some necessary
link, for she was now murmuring, " Poor dear — I
haven't been able to get her out of my head — it
seems wrong somehow that I should be so happy and
she "

"She? . . . Who?" I asked in surprise, now
fully awake again.

Evie mentioned a name. At the next table an-
other crimson match went off, leaving, as it died
down fumily, the yellow twinklings of the garden a
bilious green. I spoke slowly. The name she had
mentioned had been that of my own former fiancee.

" Kitty Windus ? " I said. " What about her ? "

Evie made no answer, but only stroked her cheek
against the cloth of my shoulder — a familiar gesture
of hers.

" I'm afraid I don't quite understand," I
said.

Nor did I quite. I could not believe she was jeal-
ous. If Evie was jealous, never, never woman had
had less cause. Except as the bitterest of mockeries,
I had never been engaged to any woman but herself,
for only that old horrible poverty and despair of mine
had been the cause of my playing a trick with more

42 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

of the falsely theatrical about it than of real life —
the deliberate engaging of myself to one woman as a
means to getting another. The impossible situation
had lasted for a few months only, and had then ended
in the abrupt vanishing, without explanation, of Kitty
Windus from that part of London in which she had
lived. From that day to this I had not set eyes on
her.

I leaned over Evie. -"Dearest," I said gently,
" do you mean that there's something you would like
to know about Kitty ? "

Then, with a little shock, she seemed to realise
that I might think what in fact had for the moment
crossed my mind — that she was jealous of Kitty.

" Oh, Jeff . . . no, no — really no ! " she assured
me in tones of which there was no mistak-
ing the sincerity. " I didn't mean that — poor
thing! — I was only joking when I said there was
something you wouldn't tell me ! Oh, do see what I
mean, dear! It's only because I'm so happy that I
want everybody else to be — Kitty too — everybody!
Really that's all, Jeff!"

It was not quite all, though it was enough to make
my heart a little lighter. Mingled with it was some-
thing very human that only endeared her to me the
more. Her glow and vitality had always put poor
Kitty's skimpiness completely into the shade, and
what ailed her now was that wistful longing of the
victress to be magnanimous that is the uneasy after-

THE COBDEN CORNER 43

crop of triumph. On herself it had all the effect of
a generosity, but that, and not jealousy, was really
it. ...

" Well, after all, we don't know that she isn't
happy," I said cheerfully. " Anyway, she pleased
herself, and — it's four years ago. . . . Just listen
to the row ! "

I was glad of the diversion that came just then.
Led by a Jew's harp, the party at the next table had
broken into " Soldiers of the Queen," and for the
five hundredth time that day the song had " caught
on " instantly. The whole garden was now vocifer-
ating it, standing on seats, dancing between the ta-
bles, their rising and falling heads a dark and bizarre
tumult in the conflicting lights. At the gate of the
garden a barrel-organ stopped and took up the same
song in another key, but they drowned it : —

"Who've b — ee — een — my lads!
And a — ee— «en — my lads! "

Talk in that uproar was impossible, and again
there enwrapped us that strong sense of rich and
rough and abundant life. As we leaned over our
little table to watch, Evie's finger was moving in time
to the song, and even the thought of the little house
a few hundred yards away disappeared for a moment
from my own mind. A chair with a couple of girls
upon it broke, and there were shrieks and applause
and whistles and laughter; and then the song began

44 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

to die away. Cheers followed it, and cheers again,
for throats cheered readily then ; and then our neigh-
bours of the next table formed themselves into single
file, and, with a last shrill

" Who've b — ee — een — my lads !
And a — ee — een — my lads! "

.marched round the garden and out into the crowds
beyond. I seized my opportunity. Evie and I fol-
lowed them, I with her tucked safely away under my
arm ; and we joined the dense stream that was already
pouring southwards. And as I struggled for places
on a bus at Hampstead Heath Station, my heart was
grateful for that illusion of the day that had ban-
ished, first, the remnant of Evie's sorrow, and had
afterwards cut short that impossible course of unmeas-
ured confidences to which that moodiness had given
rise.

IV

I BEGAN to foresee those inconveniences that af-
terwards made me hate that house in the Vale of
Health as soon as I had signed my contract and got
the key. The contract was for a year only, and as for
any period less than three years the agents had re-
fused to " do up " the place for me, I became plas-
terer, painter and plumber myself. I suppose that
from the strictly conventional point of view Evie
ought to have had no hand in this; indeed, she read
me, from the " Etiquette " column of one of her
\veekly papers, a passage that informed me that be-
tween her choice of a house and her going into it as
its mistress in the eyes of all the world a bride-elect
ought to betray no knowledge of that house's
existence; but as she delivered this from over the
bib of an enormous apron, holding the jour-
nal in one hand, while the fingers of the other
rubbed the lumps out of a bucket of whitewash, the
knowledge came too late to be of much use. Any-
way, there we were, with Miss Angela or an
old charwoman or else nobody at all for chap-
eron, scraping walls, mixing paint, puttying cracks,
fixing shelves, dragging at obstinate old nails; and
seeing that from the point of view of Etiquette
we were already numbered with the lost, we made no

45

46 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

bones about walking into a shop in Tottenham Court
Road together and brazenly asking to be shown the
bedstead department. After that we took tea, with
never a human eye upon us, in my lofty room near
the Cobden Statue. Doubtless this cut us off finally
from that dim eschatological hope when even the
devil shall have his respite of a thousand years.
Our only solace was that we found ourselves in the
company of a good many others who have to square
their Etiquette with their opportunities as best they
can.

But about those inconveniences. Why, with the
whole Heath before them, the children on their way
to or from school should make our doorstep their
playground I didn't know ; but they did, and it needed
no gift of prophecy to see that when the schools
closed later in the summer they would be an almost
hourly nuisance. That was the first thing that struck
me. Next, the crown of my head was like to be
sore from many bumpings before I had learned to
avoid the bathroom floor as I mounted our creaking,
turning stairs. Next, ready as I should have been
to secure my own garden from overlooking had I had
one, I resented that screen of trellis that limited
the view from our little balcony to the slope of hill-
side opposite. Add to these that not a window-sash
fitted within half or three-quarters of an inch, that
not a door was truly hung, that, wherever I wanted to
make good a hinge or fastening, the woodwork was

THE COBDEN CORNER 47

soft as a mushroom with old screwholes, and that I
should have ruined a whole shopful of tools had I
even attempted to level our splintery old floor, and
you will see why I rejoiced to think that our tenancy
might not be a very long one. But I need hardly
add that, after all, these things weighed but a trifle
against my impatience, and that I was careful not to
let Evie suppose that I did not think our little nook
the most delightful spot imaginable.

As a matter of fact I was compelled to leave a
large part of the work to Evie ; and capitally she did
it. She had forgotten her old smattering of business
training so completely that she always found it easier
to go through her day's duties than she did to bal-
ance her expenditure afterwards in the highly orna-
mental "Housekeeper's Book" I bought for her;
and while I was allowed my way in such unimportant
things as where we should put our old-fashioned
chests of drawers and Sheffield caddies and those
sketches of Billy Izzard's, the department that be-
gan with the frying-pan and ended with general
cleaning was hers. I had given her a second key,
not only of the new house, but also of my own quar-
ters in Camden Town ; and sometimes at the F.B.C.
I would look up from my work, gaze past the Duke
of York's Column with its circling pigeons and away
over the Mall, and wonder what she was doing now
— taking our new dinner-service from its crates and
washing it, peeping down the long cylinder of kitchen

48 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

linoleum and wishing I was there to cut it to the
floor, lighting fires to get rid of the damp, or (strictly
against orders) scrubbing out the bath which, later,
strive as I would, I could never successfully re-
enamel. Then in the evening I would hasten for the
Hampstead bus, stride up from the Heath Station,
and, arrived at home, throw off my coat, put up
shelves, fit carpets, see how my new paint (an ivory
white) was drying, and only knock off when, not
Etiquette, but the lateness of the hour and the dis-
tance I had to take Evie home compelled me.

I liked the daily life at the F.B.C. Our vari-
ous departments were to a great extent isolated, so
that the intermediate clerks like myself could only
guess at the relation of their own portion of the
work to the whole intricate business ; but I have told
you how I myself was privately " let in on the ground
floor " by Pepper. I had three " Juns. Ex. Con."
as my immediate subordinates, and they were first-
rate fellows, and amusing company into the bargain.
All three, Whitlock, Stonor and Peddie, were younger
than I by some years ; and as they were all bachelors,
and there was plenty of time yet for them to begin
to take their work very seriously, they showed not a
trace of envy of me. Indeed, being rather " dog-
gish " in their dress, and reckoning the work of the
day as little more than a killing of time until the
pleasures of the evening should begin, they even
made something of a pet of their " Balzac in a dress-

THE COBDEN CORNER 49

ing-gown " ; and as if the nearness of our offices to
Piccadilly put on them some responsibility that the
character for gaiety of that gay part of London should
not suffer through their negligence, they had an air
of owning the quarter. They furnished drinks at
Epitaux's as a man might in his own house, and in-
troduced their companions at Stone's as if they had
been veritable guests. True, funds did not often
run to the old Continental over the way; but they
knew by sight many of the loungers who entered its
portals from four o'clock in the afternoon on, and
would exchange intelligent glances over their filing
or posting as suede boots, or picture hat, or something
that looked as if it had stepped out of Stagg &
Mantle's window tripped seductively by.

Pepper, of course, was my own immediate supe-
rior, as I was of my three boys ; and while our private
arrangement put me after office hours straightway
on a level with the mandarins of the concern, we
strictly kept our respective positions at Waterloo
Place. I prepared drafts for him of such matters
as Paying Ballast, Railway Digests, the daily post-
ings at Lloyd's and the fluctuations of Insurance
Rates; and these he changed into factors of policy
in high council with the lords of other departments.
His private office was immediately above ours; and
twenty times a day his secretary, Miss Levey, de-
scended the broad mosaic staircase or came down in
the gilt and upholstered lift, tither commanding my

50 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

attendance, or bringing me instructions. It was a
" wheeze " among my three boys to pose as her
admirers, but I never thought she was quite so un-
conscious of their real thoughts as they supposed.

I was going to pass on; but while I am about it
I may as well say a little more about this Miss Levey,
and my reasons for regarding her as a person to be
rather carefully watched. She was short, and a vic-
tim to her race's tendency to early stoutness ; and as
she had no neck, and always wore hats far too large
for her, her appearance was top-heavy. Of her too
large and prominent features her pot-hook nose was
the most prominent. Her manner towards myself was
that of one who would have liked to be familiar, but
lacked the confidence; and doubtless her perpetual
hovering on the confines of a liberty arose out of
some slight acquaintance she had had with Evie in
the days of her business training. As if Evie's
health was as liable to fluctuations as the Export
charts and Trade returns on our walls, Miss Levey
never omitted to inquire after it each morning, be-
coming daily more empressee as our engagement pro-
ceeded ; but so far she had not succeeded in what I
divined to be her object, an invitation to renew the
old acquaintance. And though I could keep the
greater part of our intercourse strictly to business, I
could hardly avoid occasional meetings on the stairs,
in the lift, or sometimes a walk up Lower Regent
Street with her as far as the Circus.

THE COBDEN CORNER 51

It was during the course of one of these short
walks, one lunch-time, that, having obtained from me
her daily bulletin, Miss Levey rather put me in a hole
by asking me what I thought Evie would like for a
wedding present. Secretly I neither wanted a wed-
ding present from Miss Levey nor wished Evie to
receive one, but I could hardly give her the slap on
the face of telling her so. Instead I answered, a lit-
tle abruptly, that 1 really didn't know — that it was
awfully kind of her — and that she wasn't to think
of it; but she did not take the hint. So, knowing
her capacity for swallowing, but not forgetting snubs,
and really feeling that perhaps I had gone a little
too far, I hastened to repair a possible rudeness.
We were approaching the tea-shop near the Circus
at which I usually lunched ; we reached it, and paused
together on the kerb; and then, on the spur of the
moment, I suggested that she should lunch with
me. With a little demonstration of pleasure she
accepted, and we entered and took our places at a
small round table in the shadow of the pay-desk.

I knew, of course, that I had been cornered, and
that she knew it too; but in these cases the thick-
skinned person always has the advantage. I resolved
that that advantage should be as slight as possible.
And for a time — though probably not for one mo-
ment longer than she wished — I succeeded. As she
ate her rissole and sipped her chocolate she talked
with animation of this and that — the morning's

52 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

business, the people in the crowded shop, the the-
atres, and so on; and then she returned to the sub-
ject of the wedding present, the date of my marriage,
where we were going to live, and the rest of it. I
was as reserved as my unwillingly given invitation
allowed me to be, but presently I had to promise
to ask Evie what form she would like the present to
take. With that, Miss Levey went off at score, speak-
ing of Evie as she had known her.

" I suppose she's prettier than ever ? " she said.
" Such a lovely girl I used to think her ! I'm sure
you're very lucky, Mr Jeffries, if you don't mind
my saying so ! "

I did rather mind her saying anything about it at
all, but I answered quite conventionally that I con-
sidered myself very lucky indeed.

" Those were jolly days ! " she passed on into
reminiscence. " I loved that poky little old place in
Holborn! . . . Do you remember the Secretary
Bird, Mr Jeffries ? "

I did remember Weston, the wan, middle-aged
" professor."

" Poor old soul ! I wonder if he's going with them
to the new place ? Of course you know they're pull-
ing the old one down ? "

" Yes."

" Such a huge one, that one in Kingsway ! All
the latest improvements' — everything! But it won't
ever be the same to me. , . . 'Not room to turn

THE COBDEN CORNER 53

round'? . . . No, I suppose there wasn't, but
I suppose I'm rather faithful to old places and old
faces. You aren't, Mr Jeffries ? "

" Not just because they're old," I fancied.

" Oh, I think I am, just because they're old ! " she
replied brightly.

From faces and places she passed to names, though
— this was quite marked — only to certain ones ; and
I became rather obstinately silent except when she
actually paused for a remark. For far more signifi-
cant were the names she omitted than those she pro-
nounced. These, indeed, she positively had the ef-
fect of shouting at me, and I suppose it was some
heavy-handed delicacy that led her to speak of Wes-
ton but not of Archie Merridew, of Evie, but not of
Kitty Windus and others she had known far better.
I supposed her to be merely gratifying her racial
greed for general (including personal) information,
on the chance, so to speak, of turning up in the dust-
heap something she might later sell for twopence;
and, noting one of her marked omissions, it occurred
to me to wonder whether she might not have seen
Kitty Windus, and, failing to get anything out of
her, was now pumping myself and looking for an
opening to pump Evie also. My eyes rested from
time to time on her prominent-featured face and
wide, high shoulders; and she did not know that I
was wondering whether she was so deeply in Pep-
per's secrets that we should not be able to dispense

54 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

with her services when he and I cleared out of the
F.B.C. together.

I maintained my silence while she went on with
her Hamlet without the Prince, that is to say, while
she talked of the now demolished Business College
without mentioning Archie Merridew, Kitty Windus,
Louie Causton and the rest; and then, pleading an
engagement, I rose. She rose too. With her purse
in her hand, she made quite an ado ahout refusing to
allow me to pay for the lunch to which I had invited
her. " Please — or I shall feel as if we can't lunch
together again ! " she said ; " let me see ; sevenpence,
that's right, isn't it? There! You will remember
me to Evie, won't you ? "

And she scrupulously put the sevenpence into one
of my hands while with the other I held the door
open for her to pass out.

I did not give Evie Miss Levey's message that
evening, for when, at a little after seven, I reached
the Vale of Health, I found Miss Angela there.
The elder Miss Soames, I ought to say, regarded our
wedding as so exclusively Evie's (myself sometimes
appearing to have no part whatever in it) that I was
constantly invited to share her own detached delight.
Giving up Evie's bedroom only, she intended to stay
on at Woburn Place; but from the number of offer-
ings she brought us her own sitting-room was like to
be sadly denuded. She brought, and if possible hid
in a corner for us to discover after she had left,

THE COBDEN CORNER 55

heavy old silver tablespoons, her shield-shaped em-
broidered fire-screen, her Colport dressing-table set
with the little coral-like trees for rings, and other
gifts; and it was in vain that Evie laughingly pro-
tested.

" But if you go on like this we shall have to have
you come and live with us ! " she said. " Make you
up a bed on the verandah — but perhaps that's what
she's really after, Jeff "

But Miss Angela shook her head demurely, ignor-
ing the joke. " No, no — young people ought to be
alone; they don't want old things like me interfer-
ing. I shall be just as happy thinking of you both
as if it was my own wedding."

And I really believe she was.

For the Etiquette of our preparations, Aunt Angela
threw herself pathetically on my mercy.

Her sitting-room in Woburn Place, however, was
not the only one that was rapidly becoming denuded.
My own place with the terra-cotta festoons and hob-
goblins was now more than half empty. But I was
not relinquishing it yet. I knew I was committing
a sentimental extravagance in thus being lord of two
domiciles, but (Etiquette having to be considered) I
did not wish to go into the new place until I should
go there with Evie. So already two cartloads of
my belongings had been fetched away, and that very
day Miss Angela had been assisting in a task that
more than any other seemed the beginning of the

56 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

end — the removal of my carpet. They did not tell
me of this removal. They allowed me to discover
it for myself when I went, without light, upstairs
into the drawing-room. They had already laid it
down; my foot struck its softness in the dark; and
I experienced a sudden little thrill of pleasure. It
seemed to bring all so suddenly near. ...

They had crept up after me with a lamp to enjoy
my surprise. The room really looked delightful, and
all my sense of drawbacks vanished. Four glass
candle-sconces with musical little drops — I had picked
them up cheap in the street that runs from the
Britannia to Regent's Park — were fastened to the
walls, two between the window-bays over my breast-
high mahogany bookshelves, the other two at the
sides of the fireplace in the opposite wall ; and across
the windows themselves the long chintz curtains were
drawn. Evie set the lamp down on the little table
that folded almost to nothing against the wall, and
tripped round with a taper, lighting up. All my
chairs were there, and the couch for which I had ran-
sacked half the catacombs of the Tottenham Court
Eoad, and I can't tell you how pretty it all was,
with its ivory woodwork, its dark blue and crimson
blotted carpet, and the candle flames turning the
polished glass lustres to soft sprinklings of gems.
Miss Angela, delicate Pandar, seeing Evie's hand
steal towards mine, affected to be very busy at the
mantelpiece. . . .

THE COBDEN CORNER 57

" So," I grumbled presently, " this is your idea
of the cheapest way of lighting a room — candles at
goodness knows how much a pound ? "

" Well, there's no electric light," retorted Evie.

" And what have you left me at the other place ?
A bed and a broken chair, I suppose, to make shift
with for three weeks and more ! "

"And a jampot for your shaving-water. Quite
enough for a bachelor."

" And I'm to get my meals out, I suppose, and
pay twice as much for them."

But they only begged me to look where they had
put Billy Izzard's two sketches — one on either side
of the verandah door.

I had, in truth, begun to feel the least bit alarmed
at the rate at which the money was going. Kitchens,
I learned, cost like the dickens; but, as Evie fru-
gally extinguished the candles again and led me down
into her special province, I could not deny that that
looked pretty too, with its bright tins, hanging jugs,
overlapping rows of plates and saucers and the new
linoleum of its floor. The dining-room, into which
(as Evie said) " all the dirt was brought," had been
left until the last, and was knee-deep in straw, torn
packing-paper, split box-lids and cut string, and of
course I grumbled again that good brown paper had
been torn and useful string spoiled, until I was
brought into good temper again by being allowed
another peep at the lighted drawing-room — this time
without Aunt Angela.

WE were to be married at half-past ten on the
following Saturday morning but one, at St.
George's, Hart Street, Bloomsbury. We had chosen a
Saturday because of our honeymoon, which was to be a
steamboat trip either down the river to Greenwich
or up the river to Hampton Court — we had not de-
cided which. A good friend of mine, Sydney Pet-
tinger, who had given me my start with E.B.C., had
promised to give Evie away. Pepper would have
done so, but Pepper always dazzled Evie a little.
He was almost inhumanly never at a loss for a word.

Our little house was now quite ready. They had
left me not so much as a chair in my room near the
Cobden Statue. My pallet bed and my shaving-
tackle were about all that remained within its walls,
and I was on the point of disposing of the bed as it
stood to a dealer in Queen's Crescent, when Billy Iz-
zard proposed to me that he should take over the
place.

Let me describe Billy Izzard as he was then — as
he still to a great extent is for the matter of that,
for his innumerable quarrels with dealers and in-
transigeance on hanging committees have resulted in
his being less well known than the high quality of
his painting warrants. He was a tall, double-jointed,

58

THE COBDEN CORNEE 59

monkey-up-a-stick of a lad of twenty-four, with well-
shaped features that always seemed a little larger
than the ordinary (as if you saw them through a very
weak lens), and two or three distinct voices, the most
startling of which was the sudden, imperious tone
into which he hroke when he " saw " something —
saw it absolute, in the flat, and as if it had never been
seen before — but possibly you know his painting.
He had exquisite manners, which he never used; he
dressed in tweeds that made my own shaggy garments
look like the finest broadcloth — they always seemed
stuck over with fishing-flies; and, a sufficiently large
studio being beyond his means until he should cease
to quarrel with his bread and butter, he too had dis-
covered the advantages of the large rooms that are
to be found over shops.

He came up with his wedding present, yet another
painting, just as I was contemplating the sale of my
bed. The picture, wrapped in newspaper, was un-
der his arm. He scratched his head under his por-
ringer of a " sports " cap, looked round the big four-
windowed room, and said, " Good light — south and
east though — what ? "

" South and east," I replied ; and added, knowing
Billy, " Rent paid monthly, in advance."

" How much ? " he demanded.

" Twelve bob a week."

" Hm ! Rather a lot for me," said the man whose
practice (for his theory never amounted to much)

60 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

has since been made the foundation of a whole school
of modern painting. " Wish I hadn't brought you
this now — I was offered three pounds for it — that
would have paid for the first month "

I hastened to grab the painting, to make sure of
getting it. It was only a small flower group, a
straggle of violets, a few white ones among them,
in a lustre bowl, but the other day I refused sixty
pounds for it.

"Too late, Billy," I said; "you know you can't
fight me for it. ... I'll throw you in my bed
if you want the place, but you're not to give my name
as a reference for your solvency."

" I think it might do," he said. " I could shut off
some of the light, and I don't suppose they'd mind
my making it an un-Drapery Establishment some-
times."

Billy was just beginning to paint flesh as truly
and seeingly as he painted flowers.

With the exception of Aunt Angela's constant
trickle, Billy's was our first wedding-present; but
others followed quickly. Pepper, of course, con-
trived to get his joke out of his own very handsome
offering. One day, at the end of one of our morn-
ing interviews in his office, he said : " Oh, by the way
— I sent a small parcel off to you yesterday. I sup-
pose ' Jeffries, Verandah Cottage, Vale of Health '
finds you ? "

"Yes."

THE COBDEN CORNER 61

" It brings all good wishes, of course. Being a
bachelor I've had to rely on my own unaided taste.
If the things don't seem very useful just at present,
they will be."

In spite of his twinkle, I did not fear that his
present would not be in the best of taste, and I
thanked him for it, whatever it was. Then, when I
returned to my own office, I found another surprise.
A square, shop-packed, registered parcel lay on my
desk. This, when I opened it, I found to contain
a large silver cigarette-box with my name upon it,
the offering of my three " Juns. Ex. Con." It was
full of cigarettes of a far finer quality than any for
which I had yet acquired the taste ; and though only
the mandarins of the F.B.C. were supposed to smoke

on the premises, " Whitlock — Peddie ," I said,

" have a cigarette ? "

All of them appeared to come with a start out of
a quite unusual absorption in their work.

" This is very good of you fellows," I said awk-
wardly. ,

So we lighted up, the four of us, and with the
coming of lunch-time I had to stand whiskies and
soda at Stone's. I learned later that on my wedding
evening all three of them got quite disinterestedly
drunk in honour of the occasion.

I found on reaching home that evening that Pep-
per's " small parcel " was really two, the larger one
about the size of an ordinary bureau, the smaller one

62 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

perhaps no bigger than a tea-chest. As both were
addressed to me, neither had been opened ; but I really
feared that this severe continence had done both Evie
and her aunt an injury — so much so that I merci-
fully cut short my affectation of not noticing the
huge packages.

" If he's not going to sit down without opening
them ! " cried Evie, revolted. " And a hammer and
chisel put ready to his hand ! "

" Oh, these things," I said. " They're from Pep-
per, I suppose. Do you want them opened at once ? "

" Do we want ! Open them instantly ! "

" Well, I can't in here "

I carried the boxes out into our tiny verandah-
roofed yard, and there prised the lids off. Then I fell
back before the onslaught they made on the straw
with which the cases were filled. The smaller one
contained a silver-mounted champagne-cooler; the
larger one two enormous branched silver candle-
sticks, big enough to have furnished the table that
stood before the Ark of the Covenant. So splendid
were they that Evie, seeing them, did not dare to
touch them; and I remember how Pepper had said
that they would be useful by-and-by — which, I may
say, they were.

" Hm ! " I said. " Well, we'd better pawn 'em
at once. We've certainly nowhere to put them."

And indeed, the objects, the cases they came in,
and ourselves, almost cubically filled the little yard.

THE COBDEN CORNER 63

Besides taking the shine completely out of the rest
of the house, they cost me getting on towards a pound
of candles that night, for of course we had to have
another grand illumination in their honour ; but Pep-
per only laughed when I told him.

" I'm setting you a scale of living, my boy," he
said. " If you spend a lot you've got to make a lot
—that's all about it."

"Well, I'll be even with you," I replied, "for
your champagne-cooler's going to be my waste-paper
basket."

And so it was, for long enough.

In this " setting me a scale of living " Pepper was
aided and abetted by Pettinger, for if the candle-
sticks of the one meant the extravagance of candles,
so did the two great china bowls of the other a con-
stant expenditure of money on flowers. The only
immediate profit I had of any of these magnificences
was a plentiful supply of firewood. The cases they
all came in, when knocked to pieces, made quite a
respectable stack of timber.

There were only a couple more wedding pres-
ents that I need particularise. The first of these
puzzled us for a long time. It came by letter post,
a small, soft parcel addressed to Evie, containing a
crochet-bordered teacloth; and except for an " L."
written on a blank card, there was no indication of
who the sender might be. Then I remembered Miss
Levey.

64

" Of course- — how stupid not to think of it ! "
said Evie. " I'll write her a note at once, and you
can give it to her to-morrow."

" Oh — we'll spend a penny on it/' I said.

But that very evening, before the note was posted,
Miss Levey's present came, a pair of chimney orna-
ments— bronzed Arabs taming mettlesome steeds —
brought by a young man who might have been either
a cousin or a pawnbroker's assistant.

And as an explicit note accompanied the Arabs,
the crochet teacloth remained unaccounted for.

And so the days slipped by. I was now unfit for
anything until I should be married, and Evie was as
restless as myself. A great shyness now began to
come over her at times, leaving her, perhaps in the
middle of a conversation, with never a word to say;
and I understood, and secretly exulted. She bloomed
indeed at those moments. . . .

Let me, without losing any more time, come to the
eve of my wedding and the last night I spent in my
bachelor rooms.

I paced for long up and down my empty room
that night. I had put on a pair of soft slippers, for
the room was immediately above a dormitory where
a number of shop-girls who " lived in " slept ; and
the light of my single candle was reflected in one or
other of the squares of my naked windows as I
walked. Then I threw up one of the sashes, and

THE COBDEN CORNER 65

looked out among my terra-cotta Satans and fes-
toons.

It was a marbled night of velvet black and iron
grey, the two hues so mysteriously counterchanged
that you could have fancied either to be the cloud
and the other the abyss beyond until a star peeped
out to tell you of your mistake. It was very still,
and must have been very late, for down the road a
mechanical sweeper was dragging along with a hiss of
bristles. I watched it, but not out of sight, for
before it had disappeared my eyes had wandered
from it and were not looking at anything in particu-
lar.

I was thinking of Life — not only of that stormy
share of it that up to the present had been my own,
but also of that other portion of it that lay, unknown
and unknowable until it should arrive, still before
me. And so all my thoughts turned on the morrow as
on a pivot. In nine hours or less I should be a mar-
ried man, and a new time would have begun for me.

It was on the nearness of that new beginning that I
brooded restlessly and passionately. For just as my
Ambition had set itself the aim of that large house
over Highgate way, so my Love also was going to be
a thing of brightness and terraces and spires — noth-
ing meaner, such as men shake down to out of their
failure and disillusion. Ah, if care could compass
it, mine was going to be a marriage! I believed
that, and looking out over the Cobden Statue, I ap-

66 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

pointed that moment of our union for an expunging
of all — all, all — that had gone before.

For what man old enough to have heaped up his
sins does not, out of that very ache for a new begin-
ning, seek to bespeak one of heaven by appointing
a time and a season for it? Not one. Poor pa-
thetic things of the fancy though his decrees may be,
he cannot live without their expediencies. In his
mind at least he sets an hour for his release.

And on that night of all nights I could not but re-
member all. Sins I had committed ; and though some
might have called that a sin which I should have pro-
claimed in the face of heaven to have been a
righteous act, that also I remembered. ... It
seemed, that night, to matter little that I was ac-
quitted of one guilt when I had incurred a wrath
by other guilts innumerable; it was from the whole
body of an ancient death that I fainted to be deliv-
ered. My worldly ambition I knew to be not an
empty boast ; oh, might but this other rebirth of mine
prove to be equally well founded! A rebirth, — a
white page for Evie and myself to write the story
of our love upon — and even that spectre of her own
life, of the dreadful coming of which this was in a
sense the anniversary, would not have been an agony
endured for nothing! Not all in vain would have
been the grim discovery of that which, four years
before, had hung from a hook in a bedroom door!

THE COBDEN CORNER 67

Not all lost, not all lost, might but the morrow prove
my second natal day!

So, passionate and unresting, I prayed among my
swags and emblems and gargoyles. The street-
sweeper had long since gone; soon would come a
lamplighter extinguishing the street lamps; now all
was quiet. I dropped my head on my arms for a
moment. . . .

Then, looking up at the marbled clouds behind
which the stars seemed to drift, I muttered, to Whom-
soever might be up there to hear :

" Oh, let it all but sink and die away — let it all
but sink and die away — and my life shall be — it
shall be-j "

I do not know whether my lips framed the promise
of what my life should be, could I but strike my bar-
gain.

PART II
VERANDAH COTTAGE

I

IN" speaking of the early days of my married life
I must throw myself largely on your considera-
tion. I have not guarded through the years that
sharp impatience that I presently came to feel with
that tiny house in the Vale of Health. Lately I
have thought more kindly of it, as if at some stage
of my journey through Life (though I cannot tell
when) I had heard a call behind me, turned my
head, and, forgetting to turn it hack again, had con-
tinued to advance backwards, recognising things in
proportion as they receded. I live now in a man-
sion in Iddesleigh Gate; that ambition of mine, my
spur in the past, is becoming a mere desire that when
I go my successor shall find all in working order to
his hand ; and so the shabby brown earth I once trod
has taken the lightsome blue of distance, and many
things are seen through a sheen that, perhaps, never
was there. Therefore if you would see that sheen
it must be by your own favour and through whatever
of glamour time and distance have given to your
own young years.

For, when all allowances are made, I still think
that that relation which is more than friendship was

ours, Male and female (the New Man notwithstand-

71

72 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

ing) we were created, and to a lower conception than
that I have never in all my life declined. I have
seen that declension in others, and know how it sinks
ultimately to the mere comfortable security of a
banking account. Whatever else I have known I
have escaped that. By what wide circuit of the
spirit I know not, I have returned to find the divine
where others have not stirred from grossness. And
I have even had glimpses of that shadowy apocalypse
that finds its images, not in thrones and sceptres,
but in the flesh-hooks and seething-pots of the kitehen.
. . . But to .Verandah Cottage and the Yale of
Health.

I was happy with Evie, she with me. From my
daily leaving her at nine o'clock in the morning until
my return at half-past seven at night, she had al-
most, if not quite, enough to occupy her ; and though
I could have wished she had more friends, so that
when she had finished her work the summer after-
noons might not have appeared quite so long, yet I
exercised a care that almost amounted to a jealousy
in this regard. Understand me, however. It was
against no person that I protected her with this
jealous care. It was always with pleasure that I
learned that Billy Izzard had looked in and talked
to her for an hour at tea, or that Aunt Angela had
been up to take the air or to fetch her out for a couple
of hours' shopping. I merely mean that I saw no
reason for her identifying herself with a set of cir-

VERANDAH COTTAGE 73

cumstanccs that before long would probably have
changed completely. It was part of my Ambition
that, until I should have attained it, we should be a
little solitary. Nor was it that I thought that the
people we might by-and-by be able to meet on equal
terms would be any better than those we might have
known at once. It was a question of the place we
were ultimately to occupy. And I begged Evie, if
at times she did feel a little lonely, to be patient
for my sake. So for quite a long time Billy and
her aunt remained her only visitors.

The house next door might have been untenanted
for all we saw of its inmates, and that, I confess,
made me a little angry. I did not know the niceties
of the matter, nor whether the difference between a
thirty-five pound rental and one of perhaps eighty
pounds outweighed those confident dicta of Evie's
penny journals about " cards," " calls," and the rest ;
nor yet did I deem it a reason for taking anybody to
my bosom that only a wall separated our dwellings;
but the fact that they, whoever they were, never called
stiffened me. An eighty-pound house! To put on
airs about a matter of eighty pounds! . . . But I
saw the humour of it too, and laughed.

" I'm sorry if it's rather slow, little woman," I
used to say, " but wait just a bit. Let's stick it out
on our own for just a little while. You'd rather be
with me, now, than have waited for a year or two
till we were better off, wouldn't you ? "

74 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

" How absurd you are ! " she would reply, nestling
up to me.

" Well, keep going for a bit longer, and see what
happens. I'm not deliberately hanging back from
Pepper's offer for nothing, I promise you. . . . And
at any rate the Vicar will be calling."

You see, we had agreed on the imprudence of
having children at once.

But the Vicar never came, which was a fair enough
hit back if he meant it for one, since we only at-
tended his church once, and after that, I am afraid,
went to churches here and there, attracted by good
singing, a beautiful fabric, a man with brains preach-
ing, and other things that perhaps mitigated the
quality of our worship. And very frequently we did
not go to church at all, but explored the Heath in-
stead. And often, on Saturdays and Sundays, we
went still farther afield. Greenwich had been hal-
lowed to us by our half-day's honeymoon, and as if
in this Hampton Court had suffered a slight, we made
amends by going to the latter place quite often. We
must have gone four or five times that summer, so
that we got to know the Lelys and the Holbeins and
the tea-shops, and the long drag home again from
Waterloo in the old horse-bus, quite well. And one
week-end we spent with Pettinger, at his place at
Bedford, with two cattle-show men, an actor and an
International footballer, all on their best behaviour
until Evie had gone to bed. Then, when I joined

VERANDAH COTTAGE 75

her, she accused me of having had more than one
glass of whisky, and wanted to know what we had
been talking about all that time. I tried to tell her
" the bubonic plague," but my tongue betrayed me,
and I came a cropper.

So, as I had done before during our engagement,
I could look up from my work during the day, past
the Duke of York's Column and over the Mall, and
wonder what she was doing at that moment — chang-
ing our pillow-cases, popping the pared potatoes into
the saucepan of cold water, dusting, washing up,
polishing, or pottering about the flower-boxes I had
set on our little balcony.

Miss Levey had still not been asked to come up
and see Evie, but so quietly tenacious of her purpose
did I divine her to be, that I was sorry I had not in-
vited her at once and got it over. The thing was
beginning to look almost like an unacknowledged
contest between us. At times I forgot my original
reason for keeping her at arm's-length — her forward-
ness, pertinacity, and racial hunger for the rags and
bones and old bottles of gossip ; and that she " spelt "
to be asked was in itself reason enough for ignoring
her hints. I may say that by doing so I cut myself
from quite a distinguished circle of acquaintances,
and on this point had sometimes to check my three
clerks. For never a notability called on Pepper but
Miss Levey, on the strength of being called in to take
down in shorthand a conversation, claimed him for a

76 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

close acquaintance. And as far as 1 can make out,
she must actually have believed it, for she kept up
the fiction even to us, who knew perfectly well all
about it. Goodness knows what she told outsiders.
... So with Whitlock, Stonor and Peddie it be-
came a byword to say, when speaking of somebody
exalted : " You know who I mean — that pal of Miss
Levey's — Lord Ernest," or " Miss Levey's friend
— what's his name — the President of the Board of
Trade."

After the present of the silver cigarette-box, not
to speak of the handsome compliment of their intoxi'
cation on my wedding night, I had thought it the
least I could do to ask Whitlock and Stonor (Peddie
lived out Croydon way, too far to come) to come up
one Sunday and have tea with us. So they had
been, and for two hours had displayed manners as
highly starched as their collars. They had been, I
fancy, a little surprised that, if I was a Balzac in a
dressing-gown, my wife at any rate was no Sand in
a flannelette peignoir. (For that matter, nothing
was ever neater than Evie's skirts and blouses, and
when by-and-by she began to make her own things
there could hardly have been anything more becom-
ing than her clear, sweet-pea-coloured muslins, that
really would have been too rippling and Tanagra-
like altogether had it not been for the stiffer petti-
coats beneath.) I surmised later that Stonor had
taken, so to speak, a mental pattern of Evie, for

VERANDAH COTTAGE 77

matching purposes when he should come upon another
girl like her; and Whitlock, whose pose it was that
he would never marry, could on that very account
admire the more openly.

The visit of the two clerks, of course, made my
attitude towards Miss Levey all the more pointed;
but I still preferred not to have her at the Vale of
Health. And seeing this, Evie vowed that she did
not want her either. The two Arab horse-tamers
stood on our drawing-room mantelpiece, not because
I admired them, but simply because we had nowhere
else to put them; and they were all of Miss Levey
that was absolutely needful to our happiness.

Yet I recognised that the lack, not of Miss Levey,
but of company in general, was far harder on Evie
than it was on me. I knew exactly why I didn't
want overmuch company ; Evie, who had the depriva-
tion actually to bear, had to take the reason on
trust. All my interests lay ahead; she knew only
the tedium of the present. It was her part, if I may
so express it, to keep bright those ridiculous empty
candlesticks of Pepper's without my own certainty
that candles were coming to fill them — to polish
those rose bowls of Pettinger's without knowing where
the roses were coming from. And I could hardly
blame her if sometimes she seemed to be a little in
doubt whether, after all, the things I prophesied so
confidently were not merely fancy pictures of what I
should like the future to be.

78 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

So, more to occupy her than anything else, I bought
her out of my small earnings a hand sewing-machine,
and paid for a lesson for her once a week at a skirt-
maker's. And that made things rather easier. She
could now pick not only her blouses to pieces, but her
skirts also ; and from a fear lest my interest in these
occupations of hers might appear simulated when
she showed me the results on my return at night,
I actually did cast an eye on a costumier's or mod-
iste's window now and then, relating to her, though
goodness only knows in what masculine terms of my
own, what I had seen. And during the day I could
gaze past the Duke of York's Column with its wheel-
ing pigeons and think of her, unpicking, pinning
tissue-paper patterns, basting, threading the eye of
her sewing-machine needle, or, with some garment
or other tucked under her crumpled chin, trying to
see the whole of herself at once in the narrow strip
of mirror she had fetched from the bedroom.

Between Evie's happiness and my important af-
fairs with Pepper, I do not know which was my
major and which my minor preoccupation. If my
Love and my Ambition were really one, that only
meant that often I had to do half a thing at a time.
Since Judy and I did not discuss our private affairs
at the offices in Waterloo Place, it followed that we
had to do so after the day's work was over; and,
having been away from home all day, this sometimes

VERANDAH COTTAGE 79

caused me to absent myself for the greater part of
the evening also. At first, unwilling to do this, I
had brought Pepper home with me ; but as he always
seemed altogether too bright a jewel for our little
cottage, and as Evie, moreover, besides getting flur-
ried about what she was to give him to eat, always
drew in her horns in his presence, reproaching her-
self afterwards that she had seemed stupid to my
friend, that had not so far proved a great success.
The only alternative was, that I should dine with
him, getting away afterwards as soon as I could. I
did not like this, but it was unavoidable.

From my observation of some at least of the hotels
Pepper took me to, I judged that he had some sort
of a running account, balanced afterwards, whether
in cash or consideration, I knew not how; for often
enough, barring the tip to the waiter, no money
seemed to change hands. At other times and other
places he paid what seemed to me extravagant sums.
Sometimes he was in evening dress, sometimes not;
I, of course, never was; and so, places where the
plastron was de rigueur being closed to us, I did not
at first see Judy in the full blaze of his splendour.
On the whole, we dined most frequently at Simp-
son's, where morning dress is not conspicuous; and
it was one night at Simpson's that Judy mentioned
this very matter to me.

"By the way," he said suddenly, over his coffee,

80 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

as if he had been on the point of forgetting something,
" better keep a week next Wednesday free. I want
you to meet Robson."

I was conscious of a sudden slight constriction
somewhere inside me. Robson was not royalty, but
as far as I was concerned he might almost as well
have been.

" The Berkeley, at eight," Judy continued.
" You'll dress, of course ! "

I wondered what in. His champagne-cooler and
candlesticks, perhaps. . . .

" You needn't be afraid of Robson," Pepper con-
tinued, perhaps noticing my dismay. " As a matter
of fact, he's rather afraid of me, so you ought to be
able to pulverize him."

I saw that I must take my stand at once.

" You can bring Robson to Verandah Cottage if
you like," I said shortly, " but I'm not going to the
Berkeley."

" Rubbish," Pepper remarked lightly. " The ta-
ble's booked. Robson's coming down from Scotland
specially, and Campbell will be there too, and George
Hastie. Hastie's put off a visit to Norway on pur-
pose. You've got to tell 'em what you told me that
Sunday at the Bull and Bush."

" Then if they want to hear that, they'll have to
have it from you."

Pepper showed not a trace of impatience. " My
dear chap, don't I just wish I could put it as you

VERANDAH COTTAGE 81

did!" he flattered me. ... "No, no; I've told
them all about you, and it's you, not me, they're
coming to see. . . . What's the difficulty ? " he
asked, with a little scintillation of amusement.

" The difficulty is that if you'd told me this a week
ago, I should have stopped it."

"So I thought," he replied dryly. . . . "Do
you know West's, in Bond Street ? "

" No."

" Well, you'd better go there to-morrow." Then
he patted my arm. " Can't be helped, Jeff. The
plunge has to be taken. You won't find 'em snobs.
It's the waiters you dress for — I expect that's why
you dress like 'em. Good Lord, these chaps have
got far too much on their minds to bother about
that! ... Go to West's and take my card; I'll
'phone 'em. I gave way to you before ; if you don't
give way to me now, you'll wreck us. I'd have had it
at Alfred Place if I could, but I don't want Hastie
and Robson there. So you go to West's to-morrow,
and remember, a week on Wednesday, at eight."

I did go to West's on the morrow, and my brow
grows moist yet when I think of it. It appeared
that before West's could dress me they had to un-
dress me, and my wild and half-formed thoughts
that I might pass as a bushranger or miner or wealthy
and eccentric antipodean vanished. Miners' flannel
shirts are not patched as neatly as Evie had patched
mine; bushrangers do not wear loose cuffs with gold-

82 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

washed links at eighteenpence a pair; and the re-
spectful " Sirs " to which my two acolytes treated
me made my hands itch dangerously to knock their
heads together. ... So they ran their fingers
over my burning body; and because Pepper had let
me in for this, I partly, but only partly, got back at
him by ordering an admirable lounge suit also,
which, for all I know, he owes for to this day. Then
I left that place of torture, almost prepared to think
twice of my Ambition if it was going to involve very
much of this kind of thing.

Evie had received the news of my approaching
introduction to exalted personages with a certain
wistfulness, which she had tried to cover with an
extreme brightness of manner. Of course my po-
sition was altogether anomalous ; that " scale of liv-
ing " of Pepper's, coming far too early for my cir-
cumstances, was a white elephant; but I don't think
it was that that made Evie at the same time brightly
fussy and secretly shrinking. Rather, I imagine, it
was that for the first time she began to fear my
Ambition a little. I don't mean that hitherto she
had been hoping that my great plans were baseless
imaginings, but I do mean that she was settled and
happy as she was, and that a Verandah Cottage twice
as big would have contented her to the end of her
days. When I brought that really splendid dress
suit home (for I had had it sent to the F.B.C., not
wishing those ducal tailors to know the poverty of

VERANDAH COTTAGE 83

my address), I think her mind suddenly enlarged to
strange disturbing vistas, and she examined the
stitching of the garments thoughtfully.

" They're beautifully made," she said softly. " I
never saw anything finished like that. But I wish
Mr Pepper had not had to pay for them."

" Pepper pay ? " I laughed. " Pepper'll pay
when the cows come home. It isn't that that's trou-
bling me."

" What then ? " she asked.

" I want to see you dressed like that too. . . .
But don't you want to see me with them on ? "

" Yes," she said, but as it were obediently, because
I had suggested it.

I went upstairs and got into those costly garments.
I had ordered shirts, and ties too, and, not being in
the habit of wearing undergarments, I had to con-
sider what to do with the small tab beneath the
plastron that should have anchored me forrard.
With my penknife I finally performed the operation
for appendicitis upon it. Then, looking bigger even
than usual, I descended, black, white and majes-
tical.

" Your tie won't do," said Evie. " Come
here."

But suddenly, as she was refashioning my bow,
she flung her arms about my neck and burst into
tears on my breast. Then, when I asked her gently
what was the matter, she only withdrew herself.

84

wiped her eyes, and said that she was silly. Queer
creatures. It was only the newness and unfamiliar-
ity of the prospect. It was as if she was quite happy
in her poverty, merely thinking of riches. . . .

I myself had the trifling care on my mind of who
was going to sit with Evie while I lorded it at the
Berkeley. Ordinarily I should have counted on her
aunt, hut Miss Angela had announced that she must
go to Guildford that day on some business or other
connected with the late Mrs Merridew's will. There
was, of course, Miss Levey, but I still considered
Verandah Cottage too humble for the friend of Lord
Ernest and the confidante of the President of the
Board of Trade. Evie protested that she would be
quite all right alone, but that I would not hear of.

" I'll tell you what," I said. " Give Billy Izzard
dinner that evening. I'll go round and ask him to
sit with you. That'll be the best thing."

" I should be quite, quite all right, dear," she said
again.

"No," I replied, "I'll get Billy. I'll write a
note to him now. Then I'll show you the other
suit."

The other suit did not flutter her quite so much.
It was just as exquisite in its way, an iron-grey
hopsack, with trousers for which I had had to peel
three times, but it did not speak quite so plainly of
functions and high assemblages. I really did not
know where I was going to keep these two suits, as

VERANDAH COTTAGE 85

I had no trousers press, and our wardrobe accommo-
dation was exceedingly limited; and I discovered,
on arriving home early on the evening of the Berke-
ley dinner, that I had no summer overcoat fit for
my grande tenue. As the choice lay between taking
a cab the whole of the way and wearing my heavy
winter ulster, I chose the latter alternative ; and Evie
tied my bow and turned up the bottoms of those trous-
ers that pre-supposed broughams and wicker wheel-
guards and alightings on red druggets under awnings
built out over pavements.

" Billy'll be here in an hour," I said. " I'll look
in on him as I pass. You'll be quite all right till
then, and I'll be back as soon as I can. Good-bye,
darling."

She stood in skirt and delaine blouse at the ivy-
green, glass-panelled door, and waved her hand as I
turned the corner. I sought the bus terminus in
the High Street, treading carefully, for it had been
raining, and there were puddles to avoid. The bus
started. Twenty minutes later I got down opposite
my old place with the gargoyles and terra-cotta orna-
ments. I mounted the stairs and tapped at Billy's
door, entering as I tapped.

" Time you were starting for Verandah Cottage,
Billy," I said. . . .

The next moment I was staring open-mouthed
at what was before me.

II

LL right, Louie — thanks," said Billy Izzard.
" Right-o, Jeffries — I didn't think it was so
lat

But the model on the throne did not get down.

I had parted my ulster in coming up the stairs,
and my dress beneath showed. The contrast struck
me as brutal. For one moment I was conscious of
it ; I don't think that she was, even for one moment.
I don't think she saw anything of me but my eyes.
I did not of her.

Billy had turned his back on his work, but still
she did not move. More even than my own cere-
monial dress the bit of crochet woolwork that lay on
the edge of the throne seemed to accentuate the drama
that was all sight, with never a word spoken. As
if my eyes had moved from hers, which they did not,
I seemed to see the whole of that room that had been
my own — the imps beyond the sills, Billy's traps,
his arrangements of curtains about the four win-
dows, the bed behind the screen where I divined her
clothing to lie. I say I saw all these things without
once looking at them. . . .

The exquisite study was on the easel, and I saw
that too — the thing as it was, east-lighted, admi-

86

VERANDAH COTTAGE 87

rably cool, the work of an unrepeatable two hours.
Billy, I knew, would look on that canvas on the
morrow as an athlete afterwards measures with as-
tonishment his effortless jump. It was the eye's
flawless understanding. . . .

" It isn't a picture," Billy grunted over his shoul-
der, his fingers rattling the tubes in his box. " Where
the deuce did I put that palette-knife? — Just a
study — I had it in my hand not two minutes
ago "

Still she and I stood as motionless as a couple of
stones.

" Dashed if I won't be methodical yet ! I never
— ah, here it is. ... Right, Louie; I've finished.
Chuck my coat over the screen, will you ? Sorry,
Jeff — I'd forgotten the time — but I must wash these
brushes."

My eyes parted from Louie Causton's as reluc-
tantly as a piece of soft iron parts from the end of
the magnet. She moved, became alive, stepped
down from the throne; and as she passed without
noise to the screen I saw again, by what legerdemain
of visual memory I cannot tell you, the soft flow of
draperies that had always drawn my eyes as she had
moved about the old Business College in Holborn.

JNot until she had disappeared did I myself move
from the spot I had occupied since I had taken my
first two strides into the room.

" Just turn that thing with its face to the wall j I

88 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

don't want to see it till morning," said Billy, bus-
tling about. " Sha'n't be a minute "

He dashed out with a cake of soap and a handful
of brushes. The tap was on the landing below.
From behind the screen came soft sounds as Miss
Causton dressed. . . .

I have wasted paper in trying to set down what
my thoughts and sensations were. ~Noi to waste any
more, I will tell you instead what I did. It was
some minutes later, and already the running of the
tap at which Billy was washing his brushes below
had ceased. Time pressed. Without quite knowing
how I got there, I was standing by the screen. I
spoke in a low and very hurried voice.

" Miss Causton "

The moving of clothes stopped.

" I can't see you now — I'm late already," I said.

Miss Causton's voice had formerly been drawl-
ingly slow, but it came back quickly enough now,
and altogether without surprise.

"Yes, yes — I want to see you too — quick — how
late shall you be ? "

" I don't know — eleven — I can't ask you to
wait "

" I'll wait — I'll have my dinner here "

" Where, then ? "

" Where are you going ? "

" Piccadilly way "

VERANDAH COTTAGE 89

Then, breathlessly, " Swan & Edgar's, at
eleven "

" No, no "

" Sssh — there's no time to talk — there, at
eleven "

" Half-past ten "

« Yes "

Billy came in again, but I was away from the
screen by then. "Better hurry, unless you want a
cold dinner," I said, moving towards the door; and
" Better hurry yourself," I heard him say as I
left. . . .

I dashed across the road for a bus that was just
starting; but it was not for some minutes after I
had settled myself inside it that I began to realise
what I had just done.

Then as bit by bit I grew calmer, it struck me as
in the last degree remarkable. What had so sud-
denly impelled me to say, " I can't see you now ? "
And why had she replied that she too wished to see
me? Why should I have wished to see her at all?
Or she me ? And why that long, long stare of eyes
into eyes ?

Robson, the Berkeley, my painfully marshalled
statement, Pepper and Hastie and Campbell and
all — these things had gone as completely out of my
mind as if they had had no bearing at all on m^ life
and fortunes.

90 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

I had squeezed into a corner of the bus farth-
est from the door, and the vehicle had glass panels
forward. These were blurred with a fresh shower,
orange squares, with now the halo of a lamp mov-
ing slowly past, now a muffled or umbrella-ed fig-
ure. We pulled up for a moment before the pear-
shaped globes of a chemist's window, ruby and em-
erald, and then went forward again, and I seemed
once more to hear that breathless " Swan & Edgar's
— eleven," and my own " No, no ! " . . .

I had not wanted that. I had not wanted to keep
her at that corner, draggle-skirted, searching faces
for the face she wanted, looked at in her turn, per-
haps moved along by the police. For whatever I
had thought before, if I had thought anything, that
long union of our eyes had held no meanings of
commonness. . . .

But why the appointment at all ? .»

" Well," I thought within myself as the bus drew
up for a moment at the Adam and Eve, and then
started forward again down Tottenham Court Road,
" at least this explains the ' L ' on the tea-
cloth." . . .

After a lapse of time of which I was hardly con-
scious, I became aware of the glow of the Palace and
the lights of Shaftesbury Avenue. By sheer force
of will I dragged myself back to the present. In-
explicable as it all was, it must wait. My other busi-
ness could not wait. Now for the Berkeley. . . .

HERANDAH COTTAGE 91

Perhaps the strange incident helped me rather
than otherwise in a thing I had had quite heavily on
my mind. This was the stepping out of the hansom
I had picked up in the Circus and my entry into the
hotel. Concerned with so much else, I had now no
unconcern to rehearse. I threw my hat and coat
into a pair of hands that for all I knew might not
have been attached to any human body, and grunted
out Pepper's name as if I had been a preoccupied
monarch. I was one of twenty others who lounged
or waited in the softly lighted hall, but I think the
only conspicuous thing about me was my size.
. . . Then I was aware of Pepper himself, beck-
oning to me across intervening heads and shoulders.

" Here he is — late as usual," he said, as if a
nightly unpunctuality at such places as the Berkeley
was a weakness without which I should have been
an excellent fellow.

To my abstracted apology I added that not only
was I late, but must leave fairly early also.

" Not unless it's for a woman," Pepper laughed.
" We'll let him go then, eh, Robson ? This is Jef-
fries— Sir Peregrine Campbell — Mr Robson. Well,
let's go up. Seniores priores, Campbell."

We sought the private room Pepper had engaged.

Even had the deep disturbance of my meeting
Louie Causton face to face (if I may call it that)
not banished things of less consequence, I still do
not think that, socially speaking, I should have let

92 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

Pepper down too badly. It was less formidable than
I had feared. Robson, whom I need not describe,
since you know his face from his countless photo-
graphs, had evidently, from the look of his shoul-
ders, brushed his hair after putting his coat on ; and
Sir Peregrine Campbell made his vast silver beard
a reason for not wearing a tie beneath it. A watch-
chain or a ring apart, Hastie's and Pepper's clothes
were no better than those I wore. The table was
round. I was put between Pepper and Eobson, and
Pepper's command to a waiter, " Just take that thing
away, will you ? " — the thing being a centrepiece of
flowers — enabled me to see Hastie and Campbell
on the other side.

Pepper's tact on my behalf that night was match-
less. Especially during the early part of the meal,
when Robson was talking about Scotch moors, Hastie
of tarpon-fishing in Florida, and Sir Peregrine (in
a Scotch accent harsh as a macadam plough) of
places half over the globe, he protected me (who had
seen the sea only at Brighton and Southend) with
such unscrupulousness and mendacity and charm that
I really believe I passed as one who could have given
them tale for tale had I chosen ; and I gathered that
he had carefully concealed my connection with the
F.B.C. . . . "Has Jeffries shot bear?" he inter-
rupted Hastie once, intercepting a direct question.
" Look at him — he doesn't shoot 'em — he wrestles
'em — Siberian fashion, with a knife and a dog!

VERANDAH COTTAGE 93

... I beg pardon, Robson, I interrupted you —
And so on. He told me afterwards that my huge-
ness and my taciturnity had created exactly
the impression* he had wished. You would have
rubbed your eyes had you been told, seeing me in
those evening clothes, that less than four years be-
fore I had worn a commissionaire's uniform in Fleet
Street and touched my cap to the proprietors of
Pettinger's paper.

But until our real business should begin I took
leave to drop out of the conversation more and more.
That low, urgent whispering over Billy Izzard's
screen ran in my head again, with the thought that
I had made an inconvenient and apparently pur-
poseless appointment for half-past ten. Why had
that quick exchange of whispers been as it were torn
out of us, and what had she to say to me, I to her ?

Again I remembered her and her story. I re-
membered her cynical concealment of depth under
the ruffled shallows of lazy speech, the dust it had
pleased her to throw into eyes by her affectations of
perverseness or indifference, her munching of sweets,
her exquisite hands, her violin-like foot, her soaps
and pettings of a person that even then I had divined
to be ill-matched with her not strikingly pretty face.
I remembered the vivid contrast between her and
Kitty Windus — Kitty's ridiculous fears of non-ex-
istent dangers from men in omnibuses or under gas-
lamps, and Louie Causton's nonchalant, " Men, my

94 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

dear ? So long since I've spoken to one I really for-
get what they're like ! " And I remembered the
event that had unstrung poor Kitty and shocked Evie
once for all out of her unthinking girlhood — the
news that, however it had come about, Miss Causton
had one day given birth to a son. That son must be
between four and five years old now. . . .

Yet it was hardly likely she had wished to speak
to me about her little boy. . . .

And why had she sent Evie that piece of crochet
as a wedding present? That too became the odder
the more I thought of it. Had the teacloth been>
not primarily a present to Evie, but a message to
myself? The teacloth — that long, long stare — that
breathless conversation over the screen — were these,
all of them, calls of some sort to me ?

Yet to appoint Swan & Edgar's, at half -past ten!
I disliked that intensely. Not every lonely woman
who has taken to herself a lover would willingly
court what, were I but five minutes late, she would
have to endure at that rendezvous. And the more
I thought of it the more convinced I was that, not
anything base, but austerity, command and a glassy
clearness had lain in that long regard I had met on
pushing at Billy's studio door and seeing her stand-
ing there. . . .

Then it crossed my mind that Evie was probably
thinking of me that moment and wondering how I
was getting along in my high company. . . .

VERANDAH COTTAGE 95

1 could not have told you that night what the
Berkeley dinners were like. I ate and spokx, me-
chanically, and plates were taken away from me of
which I had barely tasted, yet of which I had had
enough. Then there came an interval without plate,
or rather with a plate, doyley and finger-bowl all
stacked together, and I heard Pepper say : " Let's
have coffee now and then see we aren't disturbed.
. . . Well, what about business ? "

Five minutes later we were deep in the matters
that were the reason of my being there.

These again Judy handled exquisitely, making of
my own statement especially the most skilful of ex-
aminations-in-chief. Ostensibly laying down lines
of policy himself, he contrived that these should be
a drawing of me out; and it was only afterwards
that I recognised how frequently he set up a falsity
for me, coming heavily in, to demolish. Though or-
dinarily I can concentrate my thoughts when neces-
sary for a day and a night together, I have no power
of sustained speech ; and so Pepper " fed " me with
opportunities for destruction or approbation or com-
ment. No large occurrence in any part of the world
is immaterial to our business ; as we have to look for-
ward, reasonably probable occurrences and develop-
ments are more important still; and so our talk
ranged from current events, such as Hunter's recent
loss, Bundle's operations, or Loubet's plans for a
rapprochement of the municipalities, to the coming

96 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

American elections, the state of the labour world,
and the health of the Queen. To the test of these
general conditions, particular proposals were submit-
ted; and though I had long known Pepper's private
" hand," the skill with which he now played it<was
a revelation to me. At one and the same time he
was laying the foundations of a dividend-paying
business and of an administrative programme of
which he and I were to be an indispensable part;
and so, knowing more of some things than Robson,
and more of others than Campbell, he set them one
at another, coming in himself from time to time with
an idea born of themselves five minutes before, but
given back so cut and polished that it had the ap-
pearance of a new thing. I prudently said little
save on an overwhelming certitude, but I think I
encompassed it all and made my presence felt, now
sweepingly, now as a mere deflection. I was now
oblivious of all, save our conference. I seem to re-
member that at one juncture I must have spoken for
getting on for five minutes, a feat unparalleled for
me ; but I knew my ground. It was of the academic
Socialism and the newer kind, then just showing over
the horizon, and perhaps better understood by those
who like myself had gone through the fire than by
any official. I was only interrupted once, by Pep-
per, when I mentioned SchmervelofFs name, the
Russian social doctrinaire. "Ah yes, your neigh-
bour," he murmured, and I went on. ...

VERANDAH COTTAGE 91

Then suddenly I looked at my watch. It was ten
minutes past ten. I still had some minutes, and I
used them for a sort of cadenza to whatever my per-
formance might have been. Then, rising abruptly,
I said I must be off.

" I must be getting along myself presently," said
Pepper.

He came downstairs with me and saw me into my
hat and coat. I saw his glance at my new topper,
but he said nothing either about my appearance or
my recent demeanour. Instead it was I who said
suddenly, as we walked to the door, " By the way —
you didn't tell me that that neighbour of mine was
Schmerveloff."

He laughed. "Didn't I? Well, you ought to
know who your neighbour is better than I do ! " It
was only then that he added, " Well, I think we've
done the trick, Jeffries ! "

I left him, and turned towards Swan & Edgar's.
I had another trick to do now, though of what its
nature might prove to be I had not the faintest con-
ception.

Ill

A3 they had done three hours before, again our
eyes met simultaneously. She had been shelter-
ing in a doorway, but she advanced immediately, and
without hesitation took my arm. I suppose she must
have chosen our direction, for we had crossed to the
corner of Lower Eegent Street before I had as much
as wondered where, at that hour of the night, we
were to go. It was still raining; the flimsy um-
brella she carried protected her soft grey hat, but
not her skirts ; and I did not wish to take her to any
of the brightly lighted establishments of the Circus
for two reasons — first, because I had only four shil-
lings in my pocket, and secondly, because I wanted
— well, say to distinguish. The west-bound buses
start from the corner to which we had crossed, and it
looked as if we should have to talk in whichever of
them took her homewards.

" This one ? " I said laconically, as a West Ken-
sington bus drew up.

But she drew me away. " Let's go this way," she
said.

I took her umbrella, and with her hand still on my
arm she led me down Lower Eegent Street.

If we had anything important to say to one an-
98

VERANDAH COTTAGE 99

other, it was extraordinary how we delayed to say it.
We reached the offices of the F.B.C. without having
spoken, and turned along Pall Mall East and into
Trafalgar Square still without a word. And when
presently she did speak, at the top of Parliament
Street, it was merely to tell me that my hat would
be spoiled if I didn't take my share of the um-
brella.

" Then you might at least turn your trousers up,"
she added, as I made no reply ; and I stooped and did
so. We resumed our walk, stopped at the Horse
Guards, and made our way slowly towards the Mall.

" Are you warm ? " I asked some minutes later.

" Quite," she replied ; and the silence fell on us
again.

At last, somewhere near the spot where the Artil-
lery Memorial now is, she did speak. It was a curi-
ous question she put, her fingers working slightly
on my sleeve as she did so. During the past min-
utes a sense — I hardly know how to describe it ex-
cept as a sense of protection — had begun to grow
on me, the odd thing being that it was not I who
protected her, but she me. Perhaps the perfect calm
with which she had claimed my arm had begun it;
it certainly now informed the very curious question
she suddenly put.

" Are you happy ? " she asked.

You may imagine I was a little surprised. Quite
apart from the nameless reassurance that thrilled in

100 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

her tone, some queer gage of fidelity, though fidelity
to what I could not make out, the question itself was
a long way out of the ordinary. Was I happy!
Ought I not, from any point of view she could possi-
bly have, to be happy? Newly married — sure of
myself — wearing clothes the luxury of which was
only an anticipation — fresh from a conference with
the great ones of the land (though to be sure she
could hardly know all this) — what else should I be
but happy ? It looked as if for some reason or other
she had supposed I would not be happy. ... I spoke
slowly.

" I wish you would tell me," I said, " what makes
you ask that ? "

She looked straight before her through the rain.
" Why I ask that ? It's just that that I wanted to
ask you," she replied.

" It's just that that you " I repeated after her,

stopping, however, half-way.

Yet I felt somehow that that she had just uttered
was no banal compliment. She was not thinking of
the kind of felicitation that had been implied when
she had sent Evie the teacloth. She had not asked
after Evie, and was not, I knew already, thinking
of Evie. And again I had that odd sense that she
was protecting me, and would continue to protect
me.

"Well, it's an odd question — the whole thing's

VERANDAH COTTAGE 101

odd, of course — but since you ask, I don't mind tell-
ing you. I am happy."

She turned under the umbrella eagerly, almost (I
thought) joyously.

"You are?"

" I am," I emphasised slightly.

But still she did not mention Evie. Again we
walked. Then :

" You are? After all— that ? "

Softly from the background of my memory there
came forward what I conceived to be her meaning.
It was a humiliating one, and I hung my head hum-

bly.

" You mean after — poor Kitty ? "

But it seemed I was quite wrong. " No, I don't
mean that," she said. " Or at any rate only partly
that."

" Then," I asked quickly, " will you tell me what
you do mean ? "

In Billy's studio we had been positively straining
at one another to speak; since then, free any time
this last half-hour to say what we would, we had hung
just as desperately back; but now came a sudden
enough end both to straining and to reluctance. She
turned to me ; my eyes would have fallen before the
gaze she gave me, but were compelled to endure it;
and the lightning is not more instantaneous and di-
rect than were the words that now burst from her,

102 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

" Tell me— you killed that boy, didn't you ? "

I said you should have it soon. It has been a
little longer than I thought. At any rate you have
it now.

The remaining events of that evening are easier
to set down than to account for. My difficulty per-
haps is that I am trying to tell an extraordinary
thing in terms that are inappropriately plain. Noth-
ing, for example, would be simpler than to say how
we stopped in our walk, presently resumed it, slowly
passed the Palace and the Royal Mews, and in course
of time found ourselves walking up Grosvenor Place.
It is true that we did these things, but it is also true
that they are all more or less beside the mark. I
need not urge my point, how beside the mark they
are, by comparison with the remarkable results of
being asked by a woman whom you have known only
slightly and whom you have almost forgotten all
about whether you have killed a certain young man.
Therefore if, as may very well be the case, you your-
self have no experience on such a point, that is all
the more reason why you should trust me to give,
in my own way, the essence of an hour without
parallel in my experience, and, I imagine, to be
matched in that of few others.

As she had spoken I had stepped back, without
haste, a pace from her, taking her umbrella with me.

VERANDAH COTTAGE 103

I was stepping back another pace, when my back en-
countered the iron railings, stopping me. Until then
her hand had not left my sleeve. Now perhaps
three yards separated us, she standing in the rain,
I with her gimcrack of an umbrella. There was a
lamp not far away; the veil of falling rain held and
diffused the light of it, so that I actually saw her
with more evenness of detail than I should have
done had she stood directly in the light, one side of
her face illumined, and the other dark ; and probably
my own face was not entirely lost in the shadow of
the umbrella. Our eyes had met again, exactly as
they had met in the studio. . . .

On her soft floppy hat and over the shoulders of
her three-quarters grey coat I saw the rime of fine
rain gather. It became a sort of soft moss of rain,
that gave her figure a faintly discerned outline of
light Though her wrists were damp and dark, and
her skirts straight and heavy, I still did not think
of passing her the umbrella; it is wonderful how
many small things escape you when you have just
been asked whether you have put an end to a young
man's life. The rain came on still more sharply.
I saw it gleam on the backs of her kid gloves. . . .

It never occurred to me to wonder how she knew.
I suppose I ought to have wondered this, but I gave
it no thought. Instead, I was wondering why I had
never noticed before what her eyes were like — why,
indeed, I had thought them to be quite different.

104 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

Had you asked me that morning what Louie Caus-
ton's eyes were like I should first have rummaged in
my memory for who Louie Causton was, then have
dismissed them as ordinary and a sort of grey, and
so have missed a wonder. Grey? Yes, they were
grey, but that is not saying anything. And perhaps
after all it was not the eyes that held me. Per-
haps the eyes were no more than rounds of crystal
between us, pure crystal, hiding nothing. Better
still, perhaps they were of that substance which,
placed across itself, allows no light to pass, but, turned
parallel, ceases to intercept. Formerly I had seen
those tourmaline rounds of Louie Causton's grey
eyes as it were transversely placed, opaque, riddling,
mocking, impenetrable ; now, quicker than the flicker
of a camera-shutter, they had changed, and, for me,
would never again change back. I had seen down
into her soul. Her physical form, three hours be-
fore, had not been more openly offered to my gazing
than was that measureless deep interior she showed
me now. . . .

And that she too had plunged to the bottom of my
own soul, her question was sufficient evidence.

And now, as that vision of her spirit, stark and
piercing as Billy Izzard's of her body had been,
must abide with me for ever, there was no special
need for hurrying matters. Though I had known
it not, it was for that last stripping look that I had
whispered so breathlessly to her over the screes j

VERANDAH COTTAGE 105

and she, unlike me, had known why she had whis-
pered back. So, the thing being now done, our time
was our own. As slowly as I had retreated to the
railings, I advanced from them again. Once more
I held the umbrella over her.

" Come," I said. " You're getting wet."
Again, without a moment's hesitation, she passed
her hand under my arm, and we moved towards the
Palace.

There are some supreme moments — they say the
moment of violent death is one of them — in which
all Life's obscurations are made instantaneously
clear ; but if my own supreme moment ought to have
taken that form, I can only say that it did not. No
sudden explanations of the hitherto inexplicable
flashed through my mind. Afterwards, when a cer-
tain amount of imperfection had supervened between
me and that perfect look, these explanations did pre-
sent themselves, yes, in crowds, but not then. I did
not ask why, knowing me for a murderer, she should
still take my arm. I did not wonder how she regarded
the matter from Merridew's point of view. I did
not trouble myself about how she knew, nor, for the
matter of that, whether she did know — for she had
made no charge, had only put a question. I cared
for nothing but that sweet yet terrible depth and
stillness I had seen beyond the tourmalines of her
eyes. Indeed, somewhere near the Palace, I sud-
denly found myself irresistibly longing to look into

106 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

those eyes again. We were approaching another
lamp. I stopped. Again I did not notice that I
did so under a dripping plane-tree. I looked.
They were still the same — flawless transmitters, ac-
cesses to the ether of her soul. . . .

Again she put her question.

" You did kill that boy, didn't you ? "

" Yes." (I could not have dared to lie to her.)

"Ah!" . . .

We walked on again.

And I know not what rest, akin to the longing of
a weary spirit for death, I found in it all. Nor do
I know whence came the special and unimaginable
peace that filled me. For that peace was special.
My marriage had been a different rapture; the
dreams of the first days of my love had not been the
same; and it was perhaps this that I had implored
in vain that night when, stretching out among my
swags and gargoyles, I had cried to Whatever lay be-
yond the marbled sky that, might I but be delivered
from this body of an ancient death, my life should
be a dedicated thing. And now, when I least ex-
pected it, I had it. Between me, a man who had
committed murder, and her, the mother of a name-
less child, something I knew not — something still and
splendid and awful — had come into being. Do you
wonder that, in the stillness and splendour and awe
of it, my brain slumbered within me, so that though

VERANDAH COTTAGE 107

those grey abysses full of answers waited for me, not
a question did I put? . . .

" Yes," I said. " You know I killed him."

And " Ah ! " she said again.

You will not find it difficult to believe that when
you have been asked the question I had been asked,
you and your questioner are not on ordinary terms.
Indeed — believe me — you are hardly flesh and
blood at all. You become eyes and voices, and yet
not exactly that either — you are parts of an imma-
nent vision and speech. You will also see that to dare
such a question is to dare to be questioned in your
turn. Therefore, less as wanting the information
than as doing her the reciprocal honour of putting
her on the same stark footing as myself, I again
sought those marvellous eyes.

" You asked me," I said, " whether I was happy.
I told you. . . . Are you ? "

You have learned what she was; to what you al-
ready know I will add one or two things I picked up
later. I wish to show you what elements she had to
make happiness out of. She did fairly well out of
her sittings. Ordinarily she made as much as two
pounds a week, and she made more still when she was
engaged for an evening class. To this were to be
added the small sums she made by her crochet-work
during her short rests. (Evie's teacloth had been
made during the rests.) When she did not crochet,

108 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

she made garments for her boy. She rose daily at
seven, dressed her boy, breakfasted with him, and at
nine o'clock brought him out with her. They walked
a quarter of a mile together to her bus, where the
child was met each day by a guardian, an old gov-
erness she trusted. She kissed him, and blew him
another kiss as the bus turned the corner. He al-
ways waited with the old governess for this, but
sometimes other buses intervened, so that she went
without her last glimpse of him. Then she sought
the studio where she happened to be engaged. There
she posed, crocheted, posed again, lunched, and once
more posed. She usually reached home again at
eight o'clock, but when she secured evening sittings
it was eleven before she got back. By that time her
boy was in bed. She dressed him well, fed him
well, told him tales, and bought him tops and toy
soldiers. She paid the governess ten shillings a
week. Sundays were her heavenly days. If they
were cold or wet, she spent them in playing with the
tops and soldiers on the floor; if they were fine she
took him out on to the commons of Clapham or
Wandsworth, or to the Zoo, for which her employers
gave her Sunday tickets. She had saved a few
pounds, and was adding to this sum by shillings and
half-crowns, against the day when she would have to
send him to school and start him in the world. This
was her life.

And when I asked her if she was happy she said,

VERANDAH COTTAGE 109

in a voice little above a whisper, " Yes — now."

Then, with another deep, clear look, she added,
" I think I have all the best of Life."

It did not occur to me just then to wonder what
she meant by that "now." I was pondering her
last words. All at once, on a sudden impulse
(though I was pretty sure beforehand what her an-
swer would be), I said:

"He left you?"

Her answer was supremely tranquil and unaf-
fected.

" Yes — as far as he was ever there to leave. It
meant nothing — a folly — merely stupid — it had no
significance whatever. I've no grudge against him.
He didn't really wrong me. It hardly mattered,
ever — it doesn't matter — now "

A question must have shown in my eyes even as
I decided not to put it, for all at once she laughed a
little.

"Oh, I'd tell you if you wished to know, but
you'd be no wiser. It's a name you've never heard.

But one thing I should like " For one moment

she hesitated.

" I ask you nothing."

" No ; but I should like you to know one thing —
oh, quite for my own sake ! If ever you should hear
a name — three names — four — you needn't believe
them. I lied perfectly recklessly. It seemed to me
— stupidly perhaps — that I owed him that. So I

110 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

blackened myself. You see, they tried to find out —
my friends "

"You mean ?"

" Oh, one lover was enough," she answered, with
another laugh, rich, low, and without bitterness.
" And it doesn't matter — now."

It was then that I knew what she meant by that
reiterated " now." The thing that beat suddenly
in on me explained in a flash that curious attitude
of protection towards myself. That kiss blown from
the top of the morning bus — the shillings she earned
by sitting to morose and impatient artists — those
heavenly Sundays — that desertion which also she
ranked as a happiness — her self-slanders rather than
betray her betrayer — all these things together had
not, somehow, seemed to me to make up that " best
part of Life " of which she spoke. Beyond even
her beautiful devotion to her boy must lie some
other deep sustaining dream. Without such a dream
her life would not have been what patently it was —
full. . . .

But now it was all in the eyes she turned on
me. . . .

And I knew that the look that told me she loved
mef had long loved me, and must now go on loving
me to the end, put love between us high out of our
reach for ever.

"You can't prevent it," she almost triumphed,
shining it all out on me. " It's mine, whether you

fcANDAH COTTAGE

want me to have it or not. And of course it makes
no difference to you "

" None," I murmured mechanically. . . .

" Then haven't I all the best of Life ? " she ex-
ulted, smiling up at me.

And before that strange tension that for so long
had held us had quite left us, I had muttered, with a
little choke, " God bless your little chap, anyway ! "

It was all I could say. The other thing she had
told me could make no difference to me.

Then came the swift change. It came as we
reached the top of Grosvenor Place, turned, and
descended again. It came as a torrent of rapid
speech, sometimes both of us speaking at once, both
stopping and waiting, and then both breaking out
simultaneously as before. They were short, half
sentences, taken and given back with bewildering
quickness.

" And now you want to know " she said.

« Yes ? "

"—how I knew?"

"How did you?"

" I didn't — quite — I knew in myself — not other-
wise."

" In yourself — how ? "

" Oh, how does one know these things ? One sees
this — hears that "

I clutched at her hand.

112 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

" Not so quickly. What ' this ' ? What ' that ' ? "

"Well, for one thing, Kitty Windus "

" Does she know ? "

« NO »

"You hesitate."

" She doesn't know. She helped me to knowledge.
She doesn't know she did."

Again I snatched at her hand.

" That's not the same thing. She may know of
— that other — but not know she's let you know."

" That's just possible. That's why I "

" Oh, anything's possible ! " I broke out. " Let's
be plain. Does she know that I killed ? "

" I don't think so. Indeed I'll say no."

"But you hesitate again. (Come this way — it's
quieter.)"

As if a fusillade had been suspended there came
a thrilling silence. We were passing St. Peter's
Church at the east end of Eaton Square. We were
in the Square before she replied.

" Very well. Don't interrupt unless I ask you
questions. I'll be as plain as I can. It's extraor-
dinarily difficult. . . ."

I waited.

" You see," she began carefully, " Kitty's so —
queer. You couldn't expect that insane arrange-
ment with her to go on indefinitely — I mean that
incredible engagement of yours. She was bound
to find out something. She "

.VERANDAH COTTAGE 113

Yes — that' s it — what did she find out ? " broke
once more from me.

" Sssh ! ... Of course she found out — about
Evie — that it was Evie you were in love with. Nat-
urally she did. What woman wouldn't? I saw it,
with far less reason than Kitty had. We won't
waste time over that. So after she left you, she ex-
pected week by week to hear of the next thing —
your becoming engaged to Evie. Week by week, I
say. How many weeks was it ? "

" Four years."

" Week by week, for four years. All those weeks.
If it didn't come one week it would be the next —
you see. She prophesied it. It became an idee fixe.
You never saw her during that time ? "

" I never as much as "

"Nor heard of her?"

"No."

" You didn't hear of her breakdown ? "

"No; but all this doesn't "

"Doesn't go beyond you and Evie. I know.
Don't interrupt And Evie didn't hear of her
breakdown either ? "

" No— I think I can say that."

"What did Evie think of — let us say Archie
Merridew's suicide ? "

I hesitated. "What should she think? She
thought what everybody thought — more or less."

" As something inexplicable ? "

114 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

" I assume so — but of course I've never "

" What does she think now ? "

" I hope she doesn't think of it at all. As far as
I've been able "

" Yes, yes, yes. . . . Plainly, then, have you told
her ? Told her what you did 2 "

"Told her? Nol"

" Have you thought of telling her ? "

" Have I thought ... do you mean have I
thought of killing her too ? "

Louie was suddenly silent. A hansom slipped
swiftly through the deserted Square, its wheels mak-
ing no sound and the slap of the horse's hoofs dying
gradually away in the distance. The rain had
stopped, but the trees still dripped sadly, and some-
thing vague and far away had approached, resolved
itself into a policeman's shining cape, and passed
again before Louie spoke.

" Well," she said slowly, " after all, that's not
the immediate point. That comes later. The first
thing's Kitty's condition. That condition, as far
as I can make it out, is this. You showed yourself
clever and unscrupulous almost beyond belief in one
thing, and she found you out in that ; now, I fancy,
she thinks there's no end to your cleverness and un-
scrupulousness. Positively no end. You're capable
de tout. ... So she broods. Of course she ought
never to have been allowed to live alone. . . . And
she knows she has these — fancies — about you — and

VERANDAH COTTAGE 115

so when she's all right she's quite persuaded they are
fancies. And most of the time she is all right.
Then the fits come, and — she's off."

A quick shiver took me. " Do you mean ? "

I faltered.

"Violently? Oh no. At the best she's just as
she used to be; at the worst she's merely helpless, a
child. Otherwise I should never dare to have her
come and live with me."

"What, you're 3"

" Well, somebody's got to look after her."

" And so you ? "

" She's coming to me next week."

" I see," I said slowly. . . .

Again such a silence fell on us as, after prolonged
sound, has an importunate quality that even sound
has not. As if in a dream, I strove to realise that
Evie and Billy Izzard were away over in the Vale
of Health, dozing probably, awaiting my return from
the Berkeley. I tried to understand the plain fact
that I was walking the wet streets in the company of
a woman who, judged by ordinary standards, bore a
smirched reputation, and that I had permitted that
woman to make, though without words, a declaration
of her love for me. As this last grew on me a little,
I let my mind take that particular bypath of specu-
lation. I almost forgot her presence by my side in
my odds and ends of memories of her. Once, at a
breaking-up party at the old Business College, she

116 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

had said to me : " As you don't come to me, I come
to you," and at the same party she had asked me for
a cup of coffee, which I had brought to her in the
crowded room instead of giving it to her in some
sequestered corner where we could " sit out." Then
other memories came. Memory adding itself to
memory until I had all the leading facts of her story
— that fatal, insignificant, desperate accident—*
then, mockingly too late, her love for myself — her
so strangely happy life, its fulness now to be turned
into a superabundance by her voluntary taking up
the care of a weak-minded woman — all, all her
happy-unhappy story. And now for us to be thrown
together like this! Extraordinary, extraordinary!
I fancy we were somewhere in the neighbourhood
of Sloane Square by this time — Sloane Square, with
Evie and Billy waiting for me in the Vale of Health,
and her boy asleep many hours ago! ... I smiled,
though grimly enough, as my eyes encountered my
own trousers. Those expensive garments were soaked
to the knees. Louie, broken by her day's arduous
sitting, now hung heavily on my arm. Her sleeves
lay flat to her arms, and her skirt held pounds'
weight of water. And we were still walking down
Lower Sloane Street, and approaching the Bar-
racks. . . .

It was in Lower Sloane Street — there is a little
naturalist's shop thereabouts — that I stopped, once
more facing her. It seemed to me that there was

VERANDAH COTTAGE

something which, if she didn't know it, she ought
to know.

" Louie," I said slowly, putting a hand on her
shoulder to turn her face towards mine, " I don't
know whether you know what you ought to do ? "

I saw that she did know. For the first time I saw
a return of her old ironical smile. But " What's
that ? " she asked.

" What, unless you do to me, I can now equally
do to you."

" And what's that 2 " she smiled.

" There are no accessories in this business.
You're a principal too."

She laughed outright. " All right, Jim," she
said. " I'll trust you not to give me away."

" But listen to me "

That was exactly what she would not do. She
cut in brusquely.

" Oh, my good man, be quiet ! Anybody'd think
you thought I was going to blackmail you ! " Then,
leaning heavily on me once more, " I suppose all you
men take that view of it," she went on, with an en-
ergy that triumphed momentarily over her fatigue,
" but here's my view if you must have it — that men
deserve rewards who stamp out creatures like that!
Oh, you needn't look at me — I'm experienced if any-
body is, and I know why young men hang them-
selves just before their weddings ! And that, Jim —
come along, it's no good standing here — that's why

118 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

I asked you whether you'd told Evie. You know
your own business best, but I'll tell you this — that if
women were on juries not a jury in the land would

convict you! Oil! " She shuddered the more

strongly that she earned her daily bread in the way
she did. " I can face these things. I've learned —
I've had to. Am I the same woman you once knew ?
I think not. And I tell you plainly, that if you'd
done what you have done for me I'd kiss your feet
and ask you to bless me ! But of course there's Evie.
I don't know why you haven't told her: I don't
know her very well, you see. My own opinion is
that you'll find you've got to tell her. I'm sure that
sooner or later you'll find that. And that reminds
me of something else. What do you suppose you
ought to do about Kitty ? "

I smothered a groan. " Oh, I'm past suppos-
ing," I answered dully.

" Poor man ! . . . Well, this is how it is. Kitty's
unreliable. She has these outbreaks. I hope she'll
be better with me, but I can't answer for that. So
— I'm only preparing you, Jim, but it may come to
this, that before she gets it fixed in her head once for
all that young Merridew didn't hang himself she's
got to be made quite certain that he did. Even if she's
got to be told so she must be made certain of that.
And I shall be greatly surprised if you haven't to
tell Evie exactly the opposite. VoilaJ "

I scarcely heard her now, An overwhelming

VERANDAH COTTAGE 119

weariness had come over me. It was a weariness
of the mind no less than of the body. My mind
too seemed to be making an endless pilgrimage
through wet and benighted streets, far from its rest ;
and even that strange hallucination of Louie's pro-
tection had left me now. After leaving Lower
Sloane Street I suppose we must have turned still
farther west, for I seem to remember that we passed
the Chelsea Hospital, but in this I may be wrong,
unless they have since pulled down a row of old
houses I distinctly remember seeing across the road.
It must have been not very far from there that I
went for a time, physically and mentally, all to
pieces. Probably the net result of all this talk had
just begun to sink into me — that, the intervening
years notwithstanding — my well-nigh flawless plan-
ning notwithstanding1 — my cares and prayers and
vigils notwithstanding — all was not yet over. I
have boasted in my time that I have been untroubled
by what I had done, and that is also no lie; but the
consequences are another matter. Suppose even that
Louie were right, and that I had done nothing but a
worthy act; there are still worthy acts that over-
whelm the doer of them. So the prophets were
hounded to their death — and I was no prophet, but,
for a space of time of which I took no account, a
broken man, who, in a doorway somewhere near
Swan Walk (it was an old doorway, with a porter's
i See " In Accordance with the Evidence."

120 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

grille and an antique bell-rod), gave out utterly, be-
gan to double at the knees, and would have fallen
but for the two arms of a woman as spent as himself
— a woman who murmured, with unthinkable self-
lessness and a charity and encouragement and
comfort past telling: " Oh, come, come — come,
come ! " . . .

By-and-by — it could not have lasted very long,
for a clock somewhere was striking one, and the
public-houses had been closing as we had left Sloane
Square — I was better. I was well enough to walk,
still supported by her, to a bench on the Embank-
ment, where we sat down. Her umbrella was still
in my hands; how I had come to break it I didn't
know; but I had broken it, and I remember think-
ing dully, as if it had been a great matter, that I
ought to get her another ... or get that one
mended. ... It was only right that I should pay
for it. Somebody would have to pay for it, and in
common fairness it ought not to be she. . . . And,
I thought, while I was about it, I might as well get
her a cab also. She must be unspeakably tired, and
I had four shillings in my pocket. . . .

" Thanks," I said. She had taken off my ruined
silk hat and unfastened my white bow and collar,
and was bending over me solicitously, fanning my
face ineffectually, now with my own hat, now with
her hand. " Thanks. That was absurd of me.
I'm not — not in the habit of giving out like this —

VERANDAH COTTAGE 121

but we'll finish — another time, if you don't mind.
Where do you live ? "

She lived near Clapham Junction. " But what
about you ? " she said, as we rose.

" Oh, I'll take a cab too. I'll walk a little way
though. Up here — this seems a likely place for
cabs "

We took one of the minor streets that led to the
King's Road. There I hailed a hansom that was
returning eastwards. I had put her into it when a
thought struck me.

" By the way," I said, " what is your name —
your business name, I mean ? "

She smiled, as if at a wasted care. " Oh, the
same," she said.

" Does Billy Izzard know you know me ? "

" No. That is, he didn't."

" Well, he does by this time probably. If Evie
and he have been talking "

(" 'Urry up, gov'nor! " growled the cabman.)

" He'll think it odd I didn't speak to you. Never
mind. Where can I hear from you?"

"Your office 2"

"Yes — no, I mean, not there." I had suddenly
remembered Miss Levey. " Give me your address."

She gave it to me, and I gave it to the cabman.
" You really will take a cab ? " she said, looking
anxiously at me as the vehicle pivoted round.

" Yes, yes."

122 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

And she was off.

I was in the King's Road, without a penny. It
was a quarter to two when I passed the Post Office
near Sloane Square, and it was twenty past by the
time I reached Park Lane. After Park Lane I lost
count of the time. I came out of the doze in which
I walked to find myself at various times in Upper
Eaker Street, near Lords, and, I don't know how
long after that, on the point of missing the turning
into Fitzjohns Avenue. The day began to break
greyly. I still walked, sleeping as I went. It was
only as I ascended Heath Street, hardly a quarter of
a mile from home, that I came sufficiently out of my
torpor to begin to wonder what account I should give
of my absence to Evie.

IV

r I iHKEE weeks or a month after that night on
J. which I had reopened, so to speak, a bottle
containing a grim and familiar genie, an incident
happened that riled me exceedingly. This was noth-
ing less than an unexpected meeting, on one of our
Sunday visits to Hampton Court, with Miss Levey.

Under other circumstances this meeting would
have been too ludicrous for annoyance. It happened
in the Maze, of all places, where, in some moment
of physiological high spirits, I had taken Evie,
threatening to lose her and leave her there. As a
matter of fact, I had lost both her and myself.
Perhaps you know the Maze. Its baffling windings
of eight-foot hedges have their single legitimate way
out, which you may find if you can ; but, for the re-
lease of burro wers at turning-out time, there is also
a locked iron gate, as impossible to miss as the true
exit is to find. Half-a-dozen times, believing our-
selves to be at last in the proper alley of green, we
had been brought up by this gate; and it was at the
gate that we met Miss Levey.

At certain points, where the high mattress-like
hedges are a little thin, you can almost see through
them; and several times we had caught sight of a

123

124 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

scarlet shadow, accompanied by a young man in
checks. Now, at the gate, we came full tilt upon
this scarlet. Her wide hat and buttons only were
black, and from her bosom projected an enormous
frill, very white against the red cloth, that gave her
the appearance of a pouter pigeon. She had lost
Lord Ernest or the President of the Board of Trade
or whoever her companion was, and of course there
was no avoiding her.

" You here! " she cried, seizing both Evie's hands
and setting her head so far back and on one side
that it was half lost behind the frill. " Yell ! " (I
write it so, though her accent was in reality less
marked.) "This is delightful! — You see, Mr
Jeffries- — !"

I was mortified, but couldn't very well show it.
I laughed. " Oh ! What do I see ? "

" Dear Evie and I do meet after all ! " she half
jested.

" Oh ! " I laughed again. " Well, if that's all, you
could have met long ago. I assumed that you
didn't come up to see us because you didn't want to."

It was, of course, lame in the extreme, but Miss
Levey saw fit to affect to believe it. Again she put
her head back like an inquisitive bird, dandling
Evie's hands up and down.

" Oh, / thought I wasn't wanted ! So of course
I stayed away. . . . Veil, Evie, I am glad ! "

So Evie said she was glad, and I said that I was

VERANDAH COTTAGE 125

glad too, with something about the ridiculousness of
such old acquaintances standing on ceremony, and
Miss Levey, I knew, was the only glad one of the
three.

" Isn't it annoying, the way we always find our-
selves at this gate ! " she said, when at last she had
dropped Evie's hands. "Aschael and I have heen
here at least ten times ! You ought to know the way
out, Mr Jeffries, a clever man like you ! "

" I'm afraid I don't, but there's the man up the
perch there — he'll always point out the way."

" Oh, but one doesn't like to be beaten ! " she said,
with a covert look at me. " Dear me, I'm quite
hot! I think Aschael must have given me the slip.
Perhaps you wouldn't mind finding him for me, Mr
Jeffries ? "

My polite "With pleasure" didn't in the least
represent my feelings, but as I thought I should
recognise the pawnbroker's assistant who had brought
our Arab horse-tamers, I bade them stay where they
were, and left them.

After I had found the ringleted Aschael it took
us half-an-hour to escape from the pair of them, and
even then it was done only at the cost of the invita-
tion I had so obstinately withheld. Miss Levey was
to come up with me from the JF.B.C. on the follow-
ing Wednesday evening, and Aschael was to fetch her
away again at ten o'clock. It seemed quite a nicely
balanced point whether she would kiss Evie or not

126 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

when she left, but she did not, and for some minutes
after we had lost sight of them I saw the man up the
perch pointing out turnings and heard his calling to
them.

" Deuce take her ! " I muttered, twenty minutes
later, when Evie and I had also been shown the way
out. We had passed the glowing parterre, and were
just turning into the cool Fountain Court.

"It couldn't be helped, dear," said Evie. "It
was all there was to do. We needn't get into the
habit of asking her if you don't want her."

" Oh, it doesn't matter," I answered absently. I
was once more wondering whether Pepper intended
to take Miss Levey over presently from the F.B.C.
Already I was pretty well resolved that he should
not.

And I was quite resolved on this point when Evie
next spoke. We had stopped by one of the arches,
and were looking over the grass plot and fountain
in the middle. The Court was deliciously cool, and
I should have liked Billy Izzard to make a sketch of
Evie as she leaned against the pillar, dressed in soft
pink muslin, her hand touching her cheek, and only
her dark eyes darker than that Black Knight sweet-
pea of her hair. Those eyes were full of grave
thought.

" Jeff," she said diffidently by-and-by.

"What, dear?"

" You know where you left us just now "

VERANDAH COTTAGE 127

" Left you and Miss Levey ? "

"Yes. . . . She told me something I think I
ought to tell you."

" Oh ? She didn't lose much time," I could not
forbear remarking.

" It was something I know you'd far rather I told
you — it was something about poor Kitty," Evie went
awkwardly on.

"Oh?" . . .

You may guess from this " Oh ? " that I had told
Evie no more than I had thought fit about my meet-
ing with Louie. Indeed, of that extraordinary walk
that had begun at Swan & Edgar's corner and ended
in the King's Koad, Chelsea, I had told her nothing
at all. When I had reached home again, at four
o'clock in the morning, Evie had been in bed, Billy
asleep by the ashes of the dining-room fire. He had
yawned hugely and stiffly : " A-a-a-h ! . . . I like
your idea of a couple of hours in the evening, my
friend ! I say, you look rather done up ; what have
you been doing with yourself? . . . Evie? She
went to bed at two ; she would sit up till then. What
time is it ? Nice goings-on at the Berkeley ! "

And Billy and I had lighted the fire and break-
fasted, moving about quietly so as not to wake Evie.
Evie did not know the exact hour of my return, and
had made no remark about the condition of my hat
and trousers.

It seems an odd thing to say, but I simply had

128 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

not dared to tell her. When I say that she would
never, never have understood I am not belittling her
either; she simply would not have understood. It
would have been different had I been able to tell her
all, but better nothing than half. Nay, what she
already knew was in its way almost too much, for
of course Billy, taking studio mysteries for granted,
had told her, rather as a joke against myself, of my
coming upon Louie Causton. Seeing Evie's almost
painful blush, he had been a little sorry he had
spoken. For while Evie liked Billy, she could never
get used to the idea of his models. It was a little
as if some outwardly very charming person should
be in reality a known dynamiter. And even when
she had grasped the model (so to speak) in theory,
it had only to be made a personal matter for the
blood to rise into her cheeks. Suppose I had come
upon Aunt Angela thus ! . . . So, unable to tell her
all, of the later events I had told her nothing.

But now she said again, looking over the quiet
Fountain Court, " It's about poor Kitty. Louie
didn't tell you, I suppose ? " (I had admitted hav-
ing had a few words with Louie.)

" In Billy's studio, do you mean ? "

"Yes." "

" No," I answered, with what strictness of veracity
you will observe.

I saw, by the way she dropped her great eyes
and pushed a bit of gravel about with her toe, what

VERANDAH COTTAGE 129

had come over her again. Just as, on that Bank
Holiday evening in the tea-garden in the Vale of
Health, she had had Kitty, if not on her conscience,
at any rate on her magnanimity, so she had her now.
By reason of that slight emptiness and waiting state
of her life (in spite of all that I could do), her
thoughts still flew back. Between my departures
in the mornings and returns again o' nights, remi-
niscences, the freer in their play that her work was
merely mechanical, still occupied her. These rem-
iniscences welled up again in her now, and, added
to them, filling her breast completely, was that half-
compunctious desire of the victress for the squaring
of accounts that is to be found in the exercise of
compassion.

And as I saw her perturbation, something welled
up in me too. She did not know I was looking at
her, but I was, and already I had begun to see the
only thing that would be more than temporarily ef-
ficacious against these strayings. There was only
one thing. A picture came into my mind of a
woman who blew a kiss from the top of a bus, played
on the floor on Sundays with her boy, and found her
life full and happy. . . .

" Oh, my darling," I thought as I looked at her,
" is it so very, very long — so very long and empty ?
. . . Very well. ... It will modify a good many
plans, but better that. . . . Your life too shall be
full — and your arms "

130 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

When next she looked up there was, about her
eyes, a tiny bright edging of tears that did not fall.

" Jeff," she said, unusually quickly, " Kitty's ill.
She has attacks of some kind. I couldn't quite make
it out. I suppose Miriam Levey'll tell us all about
it on Wednesday. I know you don't like Miriam,
but she's awfully troubled about Kitty, and thinks
she ought to be looked after. Somebody told her —
told Miriam — that poor Kitty'd been found one night
walking round and round Lincolns Inn Fields, and
when the policeman asked her, she couldn't remember
at first where she lived. Oh, Jeff, it does seem so
sad!"

Privately I found that horrible. It had been in
Lincolns Inn Fields that Kitty and I had walked
together, and to think of her still haunting the place,
alone, I found very horrible. But if that horror
was mine, it was not going to be Evie's if I could
help it. I nodded gravely, and took her arm.

" Well," I said (although I was again cudgelling
my brains to see how Miss Levey's visit could be
frustrated), "no doubt you will hear all about it
next Wednesday. I wouldn't worry till then. . . .
What about tea ? "

We left the Palace, and sought the teashop near
the Bridge. Miss Levey and Aschael passed the
door of the shop as we sat, and Miss Levey waved
her hand and gave us an artificially bright smile.
OBut her goose was cooked with Jeffries & Pepper.

VERANDAH COTTAGE 131

I had far too much respect for her inquisitiveness
and persistence to admit her to our new enterprise.
Between her and myself Pepper would not hesitate
for long, and I intended, if necessary, to put the mat-
ter in precisely that form. . . .

After tea, Evie and I took another turn in the
Palace. It was a golden evening, with a wonder-
ful bloom on the old walls, windows flashing yellow,
and the forests of twisted chimney-stacks brightly
gilded. Her arm was in mine, and her hand made
little delicious pressures from time to time, and ever
and again her cheek seemed to be on the point of
falling against my shoulder. Louie Causton's touch
had not thrilled me thus. Some high forbiddance
would ever have said Louie Causton and myself Nay,
but here was flesh of my flesh, and the promise of
sweet and rosy flesh between us — for we had spoken
of it, and the west that bathed all in golden light
was not more tranquil than that other heaven in our
hearts. . . .

I remember very well our journey back from
Waterloo in the old horse-bus that night. I remem-
ber it because of that whispered new pact between
Evie and myself. She, tired out no less by that
gentle vista than by the fatigues of the day, slept
for the greater part of the way with her head on my
shoulder and her hat in my lap ; and I had to wake
her to change buses. In the new bus she settled
down again; and I was left free to consider whether

132 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

the promise I had passed would or would not neces-
sitate a hastening of matters with Pepper. If it
should turn out so, so much the worse. In any
case it had to be done. For fear of the seven
devils, Evie's mind was no longer going to be left as
it now was, swept and garnished.

As it happened, I was spared the trouble, though
not the subsequent responsibility, of putting Miss
Levey off for the following Wednesday evening. On
the morning of that very day, as I took Judy a
number of drafts, he said, in Miss Levey's hearing,
" Are you doing anything to-night ? "

" To-night ? I'm afraid I am," I replied, though
solely for Miss Levey's benefit. " To-morrow I'm
not."

" To-morrow won't do. You're a dashed difficult
man to get, Jeffries ! "

"You should have given me a little notice," I
said, though foreseeing already that Pepper would
eat Miss Levey's supper that night.

"Well, we'll talk about it presently; if you can
possibly put your engagement off, do. ... Now,
Miss Levey "

He began to give instructions to Miss Levey.

Later in the morning Miss Levey sought me.

" Oh, Mr Jeffries," she began, very empressee, " I
think we won't come to-night. Mr Pepper "

" It is rather awkward," I admitted. " I'm
awfully sorry "

VERANDAH COTTAGE 133

" Please don't apologise. It really doesn't matter.
I can come up any evening, you know."

" Well, in that case "

" We'll fix another evening. I know you and Mr
Pepper have private affairs."

" Yes," I thought, not very graciously, " and to
be in at 'em's the only thing you want more than to
pry into my domestic ones." But aloud I said,
" It's awfully good of you — do tell Mr Aschael how
sorry I am."

So it was Judy Pepper, and not Miriam Levey
and Aschael, who dined at .Verandah Cottage that
night.

Were it for no other reason than to let you know
a little of these Schmerveloff neighbours of mine I
should have to tell you of Judy's visit that evening.
This sounds a little portentous, as if my tale were
about to take a sensational turn, with bombs and
secret agents in it. Be calm, it is not; I only men-
tion these Schmerveloffs as standing, in a way, for
certain forces of which Pepper and I intended to
make use. A very few words will explain what I
mean.

We are not social theorists, Pepper and I; we
have to handle social problems practically, as they
come; and so in the wider humanitarian sense we
may be all wrong. But even then this Schmerveloff
school of thought had its importance for us. It was
very useful to us, for instance, when the Aliens' Act

134 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

•was drafting; and with the outbreak of Syndicalism,
with all the bearings that has had on Trades Dis-
putes, it became very important indeed. Perhaps,
after all, the only hint I need give you as to the way
in which we handled it is this : that, the rate of prog-
ress of this International Socialism being necessa-
rily that of the slowest-moving and most backward
partner in the alliance — Russia — we have used that
fact either as a drag on Syndicalism or as an apparent
encouragement of it, as the needs of the moment
dictated. And when I say " apparent encourage-
ment," I mean that we have winked at all this trans-
lation from the Russian pessimists that has harnessed
art to purposes of social propaganda. That, since
racial development is of far greater lasting weight
than economic theory, has seemed to us the readiest
way of letting folk see that Russia's problems are not
necessarily ours ; and if we can only keep Syndicalism,
in check, they may Russianise our literature com-
pletely for all Pepper and I care.

So we talked of Russia that night. Evie, as soon
as she had seen Pepper instead of Miss Levey, had
worked herself into a flurry in changing preparations
at the last moment, and had had to run out for can-
dles for our guest's candlesticks. But when dinner
was at last served, half-an-hour late, nowhere could
have been found a prettier waitress than we had—
Evie herself. Indeed, she seemed to prefer waiting
to dining. As long as she was doing things she felt

VERANDAH COTTAGE 135

herself on safe ground; it was the folding hands
afterwards to talk to our terribly engaging visitor
that she dreaded. She strove to attain by little
formalisms what he achieved by the mere ease of
nature, and, as she stuck tenaciously to it, I admired
what was neither more nor less than a kind of courage
in her. We finished dinner, and ascended to the
drawing-room, I carrying those cumbersome candle-
sticks.

Pepper worked really hard that night to put Evie
at her ease, but alas ! through no fault of anybody's,
but by the sheer decreeing of the stars, his labours
were not a success. The first accident he had was
when he asked her how she found her neighbours,
compelling her to say that she didn't find them at all
— didn't know them. And when he said, " Ah,
Russians are like that," and related an anecdote, she
perturbed me a little by asking him whether he had
been in Russia — for I did not know that the extraor-
dinary man had, and fancied the question not
very kindly put. But Pepper surprised me by say-
ing " Oh yes," and went on to tell more stories. . . .

With these stories he was safe for a time, but
presently he again had bad luck. He was speaking,
as if he had come for no other purpose than to tell
us travellers' tales, of the difficulty of the Russian
language, which I gathered to be great ; and suddenly
he said, " But it's an exceedingly valuable asset from
a commercial point of view. Should you have a boy

136 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

to put into business, Mrs Jeffries, let him learn Rus-
sian."

It was, of course, hyper-sensitive of Evie, but not
unnatural in the circumstances. She coloured deep-
ly; she rose; she said good-night; and even then
Pepper was not at the end of his troubles, for, ad-
vancing punctiliously to open the bedroom door for
her, that insecure old door, that always opened at a
touch, flew back, displaying the unmade bed on
which Evie had lain that afternoon, and the gen-
eral disorder of the interior. Pepper was already in
the midst of a deep bow, but he must have seen.
. . . After that I got him whisky; we settled down
to our talk, and, ordinary speech being plainly audi-
ble from the bedroom, he dropped his voice to match
my own tones — and was, I dare say, heartily glad
when the evening was over.

This mention of our cramped quarters reminds me
that I may as well get those inconveniences of which
I told you over at once. To save time, I will tell
you both what they were then, and what they after-
wards became.

I had begun well-nigh to hate children. The
schools, you see, had not yet reopened, and urchins
played under our windows till half-past nine or ten
o'clock at night. I frequently had work in the
evenings that demanded close concentration, and it
mostly happened that, when I sat down to it, as if by
appointment the noise began. I do not know which

VERANDAH COTTAGE 137

howl or thump or bump was the most hideous. Iron
hoops, driven with a hooked iron rod, were bad, but
the shouts and whoops and calls, all in a blood-cur-
dling Cockney accent, were worse ; for while by great
resolution you can nerve yourself to endure an iron
hoop, you never know which yell or shout a child is
going to emit next. These had all the horror of un-
expectedness. I used to make mental bets on it, and
I was always wrong. . . . And then sometimes thero
would come an endless racket that resembled nothing
so much as a fire-engine in full career, which, on de-
scending, I should discover to come from a diminu-
tive cart at the end of a string, pulled by a toddler
of four.

Sometimes these noises drove me half frantic. I
carried my papers from the dining-room to the
drawing-room — thence to the bedroom — I even tried
the kitchen ; and this, mark you, was important work,
work that has since, I may say without boasting, be-
come of national value. I spoke to policemen — I
even used the power of beauty, and got Evie to speak
to policemen — but only to be told that they were as
helpless as I : " Children is eddicated now, and not
as afraid of bobbies as they used to be." And on a
fatal evening I was so unthinking as to distribute a
number of pennies in order to buy an hour's peace
for a calculation that seriously involved the interests
of three shipping lines. That settled it. Thence-
forward I was never without children. One Sunday

138 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

afternoon I forgot myself and boxed the ears of the
biggest of them. That brought round a parent — not
a father, but a mother. . . . Ugh !

And the house itself was far too small. Billy
Izzard's sketches on our walls shook to my tread, and
passing vans made the very foundations tremble. In
order to get even our small belongings into the place
Evie had to put boxes inside boxes, and boxes inside
these again, so that in the finding of a garment she
had not worn for some time the whole tiny bedroom
floor was choked with boxes. Save for the little re-
cess in the kitchen, the triangular cupboard under
the stairs was the only storage accommodation we
had. With the greatest care, Evie could not always
avoid hanging an old skirt over my best hopsack
(West's, Bond Street), or mislaying some article of
which I had need in the very moment of bolting for
my bus. And worst of all was that screen on the
verandah that gave us nothing to look at but a short
slope of parched green. Verandah Cottage! By
Jove, yes! . . .

One other thing I will mention, though this did
not come till the winter. The neighbouring house,
which hitherto had been a tomb, became alive. I
never knew the reason for this sudden awakening,
nor whether Schmerveloff had suddenly found him-
self reduced to taking in lodgers, or whether he was
merely holding out a helping hand to co-revolution-
aries in the hour of their need ; but I do know that

VERANDAH COTTAGE 139

presently he began to have a succession of extraordi-
nary visitors. Hairy, uncouth-looking men, with soft
hats, came for a week or a month, and brought their
women, fat, spare, astrakhan-capped or bare-headed.
They wore smocks and embroidered portieres, and
worked at peasant industries. One of them had a
child, the sweetest of little girls — but oh, her sweet-
ness vanished from me when she began to play at all
hours in the garden, shouting, crowing, and impossi-
ble to turn away! I went so far as to wait on
Schmerveloff himself about this dreadful child, and
was told that, inconvenient as these things might be
to me, the question was not a private one at all. It
was a Social Question. Society oppressed them, they
oppressed me ; it was Society that was wrong. ... I
told our fellows this afterwards, when the Aliens'
Act was drafting; Robson was immensely amused.
" What did you say ? " he asked. ... Of course
there was nothing to say. . . .

And then, about Christmas, the Social Question
became acute indeed. For the development of the
peasant industries the most Asiatic barber-robber of
the lot set up a furnace, a lathe and an anvil. . . .

No wooden walls (save Nelson's) could have kept
that racket out. . . .

Had the sum of the world's beautiful things been
added to, I could have grinned and borne it, but it
was beaten copper-work the Asiatic made.

And I could do nothing.

140 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

I pass on.

Weeks before this invasion of beards and embroid-
ered casement-cloth, I earnestly hoped that my first-
born, when I should have one, would never remember
that little house with the glass-panelled door and the
verandah. But the prospect of our " domestic
event," as Miss Levey called it, hardly weighed on
me yet. I gave little heed to Louie Causton's proph-
ecy, that I might sooner or later find myself driven
to take the desperate course of telling Evie what, so
far, only Louie and myself knew ; and I did not see,
as Louie seemed to see, where the peril lay. If it
was only a question of keeping Evie busy and amused
for a little while longer, I thought I should be able
to manage that. Only later did I see myself as a
man who pours water constantly into a vessel and
tells himself that because the level remains the same
there is no leak. I still intended to stand between
Evie and Life. In effect, if necessary, I would live
much of her life for her. And now let me, before
I leave this part of my tale, tell you briefly what that
life was at its loveliest.

HAD there ever been any shadow of a division be-
tween Evie and myself, which there had not, it
must have vanished now. I did not attempt to con-
ceal from myself that her gifts did not extend in all
directions equally. Socially expert in Pepper's
sense, for example, she could hardly yet be expected
to be, and I should have been unreasonable to have re-
proached her for not grasping the intricate problems
that, if the truth must be told, frequently filled Pep-
per and myself with perplexity. But these things
are independent of deep humanity, and by as much
as she fell short in them she was richly dowered in
other ways. It was still the love of a woman I
wanted, not the semblance of a masculine friendship ;
and I had it, and was glad at the thought of my rich
possession. Often, for pure emotion, I caught her
in my arms when I saw her, rejoicing yet timorous
before that which was presently to come to pass ; and
whether it was a pallor that sometimes crossed her
face, or a sudden glow as of some warm and Vene-
tian underpainting or else a smiling, happy las-
situde infinitely moving in its appeal, all spoke
of the pledge that had been given and taken be-
tween us.

141

142 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

Quite past telling was the peace this pledge
brought to me. I was, after all, to begin anew. De-
spite Life's mauling of my hapless self, here was a
tiny white leaf preparing for the writing of a record
that should supersede and obliterate nay own. Deep-
er things than men know were seeing to that usher-
ing, and by nothing less miraculous than a birth
was I going to be delivered from the body of that
haggard death. Often, as I seemed to be busily
writing at our small folding table, I quite lost my-
self in the contemplation of this coming manumission ;
and day by day, looking out over Waterloo Place and
the Mall, I conjured up her image — resting while
Aunt Angela (who now came up from Woburn Place
almost daily) dusted or swept or washed up, taking
her easy walks on the Heath, sewing (though not
now for herself), or doing such light work as would
not tire her. Fortunately, the Social Question next
door had reached the crisis of over-production in
the beaten-copper market ; a glut had supervened ; and
the making of the wooden bowls and carved porridge-
sticks that are designed for oppressed serfs and sold
at a high price to the amateurs of the Difficult Life,
caused less disturbance to our panels and pictures.
The whooping child too had gone.

Aunt Angela had bought Evie a deep wicker bas-
ket lined with pale blue, and with the greatest cir-
cumspection I delayed to fill this basket too quickly.
"We talked for a week before making a purchase, and,

VERANDAH COTTAGE 143

in one case, for quite three weeks. This was when
I bought, at a shop near Great Turnstile, what
Evie called a " jangle " — a beautiful Jacobean coral
mounted in silver, with many silver bells and a faint
piping whistle at one end. Both as I entered the
shop and left it again a grey nightmare tried to fas-
ten itself upon me, of a woman who had forgotten
where she lived, walking the Fields round the corner,
alone at night; but I shook the horror off. . . .
Even down to such details did I keep Evie from fan-
cies— for she had fancies, the ousting of which was a
matter for diversion rather than argument. One of
these fancies was that she now wanted to see Miriam
Levey. Another was that she did not want, just then
at any rate, to see Louie Causton.

For as it chanced, Louie came the nearest (though
with a nearness sad enough) to a married woman of
anybody she happened at present to know; this, of
course, largely as a result of my own exclusive atti-
tude. Aunt Angela, by virtue of George and her
other experiences, knew as much as ten married wom-
en, and that was frequently precisely the difficulty.
Certain charwomen, I gathered, inured to immoderate
families, gave Evie the benefit of their advice now and
then, but that was about all. And it was one even-
ing as I cast about for an opening to introduce
Louie's name that Evie herself said once more that
she would like to see Miss Levey.

" Certainly," I said, with a readiness that was only

144 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

the result of seeing no way out of it this time. " As
long as she won't tire you."

" I won't let her do that," Evie promised.

" All right," I said. ..." And by the way "-
I put this as if it had just occurred to me — " should
you care to have Louie Causton up if Billy knows
where to find her ? "

" Yes, I should some time — but not just now, dear.
You'll tell Miriam, then 3 "

"Yes."

I had promised it before I remembered something
that might have made me less ready to promise it.
It was now the beginning of October. We had to
take our holidays in rotation at the F.B.C. ; for a
fortnight I had been working late in order that
Whitlock might take his ; and next on the list in our
department was Miss Levey. Grumbling that it was
almost too late to take a holiday at all, she was going
away for a week-end only. Instantly; 3J (saw what
that meant. . . .

The next day I capitulated to her as gracefully as
I could.

" You'll be able to have a really satisfactory visit
now, a whole day," I said. " It would only have
been a couple of hours before."

" I'll take such good care of her ! " she purred.

" I am sure you will," I said conciliatingly. . . .

Three days later Miss Levey was up at Verandah
Cottage. She was up there the next day also. Al-

VERANDAH COTTAGE 145

though she had always gone by the time I returned at
night, she was up several times after that.

Well, it couldn't be helped . . . and I was going
to tell you, not about Miriam Levey, but about my
happiness and Evie's.

To-day, in my house in Iddesleigh Gate, there
are many things thrust into dark corners that will
ever occupy odd corners of my heart. They are the
pieces of furniture from that poky old place in the
Vale of Health. The people of my household tell
me they are shabby, but as I never see them divorced
from a hundred gentle associations, their shabbiness
matters nothing to me. In the children's day-
nursery there is the old shop-damaged couch from
the Tottenham Court Road cellar. Its pegamoid is
frayed and its springs broken, but Evie lay on it be-
fore those destructive little hands came into being.
She lay on it with her legs wrapped in an old, faded,
mignonette-coloured Paisley shawl — for presently
the days were shortening, we had started fires, and
Verandah Cottage was a Cave of the Winds for
draughts ; and my housekeeper had a bad five minutes
only the other day when that shawl nearly went out
of the house with the bottles and crates and old rags.
The bookshelves Evie used to dust and polish still
serve me; and quite a number of smaller things, in-
cluding that first wicker basket into which the " jan-
gle " was put (Evie keeps that) carry my mind back
in a twinkling to that early time.

146 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

Evie had her little jokes about our unborn mite.
Still further to repair the slight on Hampton Court
of our Greenwich honeymoon, the infant at one time
was to be called " Hampton," but as she had ten dif-
ferent names for it each week, a name more or less
didn't matter. Its eyes were to be so-and-so — the
colour also varied day by day. If a boy, it was to
be of my own bone and stature; if a girl, less. I
used to joke with her when, seeing her brooding and
gently smiling, I pretended to discover these and a
hundred other patterns and specifications in her
eyes; but, however lovely these imaginings were,
they were no lovelier than herself. Though the days
now seemed less long, the little elans with which she
ran to me when she heard my step at night were a
passionate rendering of herself far greater than be-
fore; and I will end this part of my tale with the
first time, the very first, I heard her sing.

She had gone into the bedroom that night, and I
had heard her moving about; and then there had
stolen out low contralto notes that might have be-
longed to somebody else, so new were they to me.
. . . She was happy. She was so happy that she
was learning to sing. I stood listening, with tears
gathering in my eyes and suddenly rolling down my
cheeks. . . .

She was happy. . . .

She did not know why, a few moments later, with
the face of one who hears joyful news, I pushed at

VERANDAH COTTAGE 147

the bedroom door and took her, half ready for bed
as she was, into my arms.

Oh, to hear her, of her own accord, sing — and to
know that soon her song would not more gently rock
those feeble limbs and close those unknowing eyes
than it now brought rest to my own weary frame and
sleep to my own heavy eyes, weary with watching for
the day that at last, at last was coming !

PABT III
WELL WALK

AS far as my wordly position is concerned, two
leaps have sufficed to place me where I stand
to-day — the first from the Vale of Health to the Well
Walk, not a quarter of a mile away, and the second
from Well Walk to Iddesleigh Gate. I am omitting
such interludes as furnished rooms for short periods
and odd times in which I have packed Evie off with
the children to the seaside. We were in the Vale of
Health for exactly a year, and in Well Walk for three.
I took the Iddesleigh Gate House, wonderful ceilings
and Amaranth Room and all, from the late Baron
Stillhausen.

But this is a very summary statement of what my
real advance has been. Those who have called me a
lucky man — which on the whole I also am persuaded
I am — know nothing of my hidden labour. Of this,
since it is just beginning to show in the contemporary
history of my country, I cannot say very much ; and
so, picking out a fact here and an incident there, I
shall take leave for the rest of my tale to keep as
closely as may be to my increasingly intricate per-
sonal story.

The incident with which I will resume — the inci-
dent which resulted in Louie Causton's appointment

151

152 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

to the post stiH held by "Nfiss Levey — came about as
follows.

In taking the Well Walk house — (here I am skip-
ping six months ; my infant son was born ; I still had
seven or eight weeks to nm with the F.B.C., but al-
ready our plans were perfected, and the new Consoli-
dation had already secured its premises in Pall Mall)
— in taking the Well Walk house I had made a woe-
ful miscalculation of how far the Verandah Cottage
furniture would go. Indeed I had so over-estimated
its quantity that our new abode was almost as bare as
a barracks, and, occupied as I was with important
business, I had almost got used to its barrenness.
But as Evie had to live in the place, I had found that
I really must raise a sum of money for carpets, cur-
tains, and other things indispensable to married
folk who find themselves three; and I had decided
that part of the one hundred pounds I got as an ad-
vance from Pepper was going to be spent on a dining-
room table that I had not always to remember I must
not sit down on. Well, on a Saturday afternoon in
October this table came. I saw it into the dining-
room, and then, feeling the need of air, I put on my
hat and coat and took a walk as far as the Whitestone
Pond. There I met BiBy Izzard, in the dickens of
a temper.

"Well, how goes it, Bffly!" I asked cheerfully,
seeing that he was put out. Bflry's grumblings al-
ways have the effect of cheering me up.

WELL WALK 153

He looked up, scowled, and then resumed his gaa-
ing across the Pond. Then he watched the passage
of a horse and cart through the water, looked up
again, and broke out.

" It goes rottenly — that's how it goes ! " he growled.
" Do you remember coming into my place one
evening when I had a girl sitting for me — tallish girl,
with a perfectly exquisite figure — Louie Causton her
name was ? "

I said that I did remember it.

" Well, she's the trouble. I want her — must have
her — and I can't get her. She says she isn't sitting
any more; her doctor's forbidden it. Her doctor!
. . . The jade's as sound as a bell; she never had a
doctor in her life, I'll swear; she just won't sit,
doesn't want to. She wheedled that sketch out of
me too, the one I was doing that day — walked off
with it under her arm — stole it> practically — and
now I can't get her for love or money."

This interested me. It interested me so much
that to conceal my interest, I made a joke. " Oh ?
Tried both ? " I said ; but Billy went on.

" Perhaps she'll change her mind when she finds
she's nothing to live on. She'll sit in costume, it ap-
pears ; some cock and bull story about chills ; and she
said, Couldn't I paint her in some old supers' duds
that she can hire at the Models' Club for sixpence a
day? — me painting theatrical wardrobes a la Cole-
man, Roma ? . . . And her crochet ! "

154 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

"What about her crochet?"

" Her crochet ? Why, when I told her she
wouldn't make fifteen shillings a week as Marguerite
with the jewel-casket — she's not pretty — I told her
so — she said she could fall back on her crochet! A
goddess, I tell you . . . and she pitches me a tale
about a doctor that she can't help laughing at her-
self!"

He ran on, to Louie's detriment from his special
point of view, but already I was wondering what her
own point of view might be.

That I had not heard from Louie since that night
of the Berkeley dinner had been, as far as it went,
reassuring. Had she needed me, or I her, which-
ever in the tangled circumstances it might be, I
should have heard from her ; and I had had no reason
for seeking her out When Evie had told me that
Louie now had charge of Kitty Windus she had told
me nothing that I had not already known; and as
Evie had had this from Miriam Levey, I find I must
break off for a moment to speak of my relation with
that lady.

Since she had got her fat, high-heeled foot inside
my door, Miss Levey's devotion to Evie had been as
unremitting as if, lacking her attentions, my little
son would never have got himself born at all. Not a
week had passed but she had dropped in once or
twice, mostly alone, but not infrequently with the
ringleted Aschael. It annoyed me that Evie should

WELL WALK 155

like her as much as apparently she did, and my an-
noyance was the greater that I could give no reason
for it. One night I had given way rather petulantly
to this annoyance. It had been just before we had
left Verandah Cottage. Billy Izzard had come in
and had made some remark about our Arab horse-
men, and, more that I might relish its artistic vul-
garity than for any other reason, I had taken one of
these objects down from the mantelpiece. I had not
known that I had held the thing in a rather vindic-
tive grip until suddenly the plaster had broken in
my hand. My other hand had made an instinctive
movement by no means prompted by presence of
mind. I had saved the body of the ornament from
total smash, but the heads both of tamer and steed
were in fragments. I had been on the point of
throwing the ridiculous thing away, but had changed
my mind, and put it back on the mantelpiece. Later
I had expressed bland sorrow to Miss Levey, and had
assured her that I was going to have it mended ; but
I had not done so during the remainder of our stay
at Verandah Cottage. I did not know what had be-
come either of it or of its companion statue.

During the last anxious days before the birth of
our child, Miss Levey had triumphed over me com-
pletely. There had been no withstanding her. She
had bidden me fetch hot-water bottles, had informed
me when it was time for Evie to go to bed, and, con-
spiring with Aunt Angela, had, in a word, taken

156 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

things out of my hands entirely. Once or twice she
had overdone this even in Evie's eyes, but I had been
dull enough not to see at first that her ascendancy
over Evie was not direct, but mediate. Only lately
had I discovered that Evie's real interest was, not in
Miriam Levey, but in Kitty Windus.

For those talks I had dreaded yet had been power-
less to prevent had already borne fruit. I don't
think it was so much that Evie experienced again
those compassions and magnanimities that had given
her that gentle heartache in the tea-gardens on that
Bank Holiday evening, as that she remembered the
wish into which they had solidified — the wish to have
Kitty completely off her mind. Miss Levey, I was
pretty sure, had seen to it that this wish should be-
come firmly fixed. She had evidently assumed, for
example, that I should be adverse to a meeting be-
tween Kitty and Evia "Your husband wouldn't
like it," I could imagine her as having said ; " quite
naturally, my dear; one can't blame him; and so I
suppose that ends it." And to the last words I could
imagine her as having given the meaning, " We do
seem to be dependent on the will of this dull opinion-
ative sex for some reason or other — why I can't make
out." Miss Levey, you see, was an economically
emancipated woman.

So, though not a word had been said, Kitty had
come, by reason of I knew not what sympathy Miri-
am Levey had worked up on her behalf, to be between

WELL WALK 157

Evie and myself. That poor Kitty deserved all the
sympathy we could give her I had never a doubt, but
you see the two things that stood in the way — the
lesser thing that Miss Levey assumed I " should not
like," and that other huge and fatal thing that was
the truth. To the multitudinous harassings of my
business these two things made a dense background
of private harassings. . . . But I did not intend
that another long and dogged duel should begin be-
tween Miriam Levey and myself. She was not go-
ing to be taken over by Pepper, Jeffries and the Con-
solidation. If this enterprise did anything at all it
would do something very big indeed ; soon I should
be placed high above the wretched little Jewess's
power to hurt ; and after all, there is no man who at-
tains to great power but leaves in his train a score of
these carpers, wishful yet impotent to harm.

But the offering of the new post to Louie Causton
was another matter. I hesitated and wavered.
Plainly, I doubted whether I had the right to find
Louie a job. In the close-packed fulness of her life,
struggles and anxieties and all, her happiness con-
sisted ; and though she might need the money, as mat-
ters stood she had a peace that money could not give,
and might take away. Let her, I thought at first,
toil and keep her heaven.

But that, I thought presently, might be all very
high and fine, but practically not very much to the
point. Billy had been perfectly right when he had

158 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

said that by costume-sitting and crochet she would
hardly make fifteen shillings a week. I knew of
old what heaven in those circumstances meant, and
I had had no boy to look after, and no woman inter-
mittently infirm. One can have too much even of
heaven on those terms. . . .

And yet it would be impossible to attach her to
my own office. What I had seen in those grey eyes
on the night of the Berkeley dinner would not brook
daily meetings, dictation of letters, and the other du-
ties I had already cast Whitlock for. Myself left
out of the question, she, I was quite sure, would
never accept it. Turn her over to Pepper, then?
That would hardly be fair to Pepper, who might
wish to choose for himself. . . .

And one other thing, of which I will speak pres-
ently, had already caused my cheeks to burn.

Well, I should have to see what I could do.

It did not surprise me much that when I reached
Well Walk again, Miss Levey was there. That echo-
ing, half-furnished house of ours, I ought to say,
was on the south side of the Walk, and my own study
was on the ground floor at the back, with Evie's
drawing-room immediately overhead. I heard this
drawing-room door open as I entered, and it was on
the bare half-landing, against the red and blue win-
dow, with cut-glass stars round its border, that I saw
Miss Levey's flamingo-coloured costume with the
black satin buttons.

WELL WALK 159

" Oh, here he is," Evie was saying ; " he'll take
you on to your bus. Good-bye, Miriam, dear — re-
member me to Aschael "

" Good-bye, darling — don't forget, will you ? "

" Good-bye."

I remember that it was as I took Miss Levey to
her bus that afternoon that she asked me to call her
by her Christian name. Instantly I did so — and for-
got her request again with a promptitude even great-
er. To tell the truth, that " Kemember me to As-
chael " of Evie's stuck a little in my throat. A little
more ceremony, it seemed to me, would have fitted
the relation better, and I differed from Miss Levey
if she thought that in asking me to call her " Miri-
am," she, and not I, was conferring the favour.
Therefore as I saw her off I again addressed her as
" Miss Levey " and let her take it as an inadvertence
or not as she list. Then, with that " Remember me
to Aschael" again uppermost in my mind, I re-
turned to Evie.

In hoping to see her alone, however, I was again
disappointed. This time Aunt Angela was there.
She was standing by the new dining-table, and ap-
parently deploring my purchase.

" What a pity ! " she was saying. " Just when
I'd arranged for you to have that one of mine! I
meant it as a surprise — oh, why didn't I tell you

sooner

r »

I have referred, I hope not unkindly, to a certain

160 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

laxity in this dear and harmless spinster's hold on
life. Since the birth of our child this laxity had
become intensified, if such a word can be used of
laxity, and very rarely had she come up to see us
empty-handed. From some mysterious hoard of be-
longings that seemed ever on the point of exhaustion
and yet ever stood the strain of another gift, she had
brought, now a tiny pair of knitted woollen socks,
now a shawl, now a bit of silver, and even the mite's
cradle was that in which Evie herself had been rocked.
She found a pleasure quite paradisal in these
continual givings. I think they were her spiritual
boasts of how little she required for herself.

" What a pity ! " she purred again. " But I dare

say they'd take it back "

" Hallo ! " I said, shaking hands. " Take what
back ? What's that you're saying ? "

" This table. I'm sure they'd let you off your
bargain for ten shillings or so. The money would
be so much more useful."

I laughed. " Oh, money's no object," I said.
This, of course, was mere mischief. The truth
was that Angela Soames, like Evie, had begun to
hold my ambition a good deal in dread. It had been
good fun to think about in the early stages; they
had enjoyed that part as much as anybody; but to
take the plunge as I was taking it was — in Miss
Angela's case I might almost say " impious " ; cer-
tainly it was a storming of destiny that was bound to
bring a crop of consequences they were sure I had

WELL WALK 161

not sufficiently weighed. So it had become my habit
to hold their timidity over them as a joke, talking
sometimes in sums that might have staggered even
the Consolidation. " Oh, money's no object ! " I
said, laughing.

" Well ! " Aunt Angela retorted, " even you can't
afford to throw it away till you've got it. So, Evie,
I thought my round table in place of this one — send
this back — and the tea-urn I promised you in the mid-
dle of the sideboard, with Mr. Pepper's candlesticks
on each side of it — just here — and you could buy a
quite nice pair of curtains with the pound Jeff turns
up his nose at."

I interrupted. " Your tea-urn ? Oh, come, come !
We're not going to accept that ! "

But she only dropped her eyes. " My wants are
few," she said, " and I've more than enough for
them. You young people come first. How do you
know I haven't had a legacy ? . . . And of course I
shall have the table repolished, Evie, and if Jeff will
be stupid, you can have it in the drawing-room, in
that corner by the bureau "

I was about to laugh again at the artless mixture
in her of expansive unworldliness and quite astute
machination when suddenly I thought better of it,
and turned away. Aunt Angela was taking off her
hat and giving coquettish touches to her tall, snowy
hair. As that meant that she proposed to spend the
evening with us, I had to postpone what I wished to
say to Evie until she should have departed.

II

THIS was no more than that I thought the Chris-
tian name business was being a little overdone ;
but the more I thought of it, the less easy did it be-
come to put. Perhaps you see my difficulty. It was,
in a word, this: that a man on whom circumstances
have pressed with such unique urgency that he has
had, or conceived himself to have, no choice but to
effect the removal of a fellow-being from the world,
cannot take even so small a matter as this precisely as
another man can. The quick of his soul is perpetu-
ally exposed. There are no trifles in his world.
What is another man's slight annoyance is to him the
menace of an assassination ; another's nothings are his
doom. A single unconscious touch and the toucher
starts back with an amazed " What's this ? "

Yet I have said that it was not remorse that bred
this sensitiveness in me, and I hasten to maintain
that. Remorse is a damage, in which a man is pe-
nally mulcted ; but this of mine was no more than a
price, fairly and squarely agreed upon, which I was
prepared to pay. It was a heavy one ; you may take
my word for it that there is no more costly purchase
in the whole market of human happenings than a

righteous murder ; but it still remained a price, in the

162

WELL WALK 163

fixing of which I had concurred. More than this:
men have been known, from remorse, to give them-
selves up; but at the thought of such a surrender I
grew hot and vehement. I appreciated the point of
view of the very revolutionaries against whom my
life's work has been directed. What! Suffer an
outside judgment when I was acquitted in my own !
... I laughed, and in my laughter found courage.
Not I! ...

And a man is not in the grip of remorse who, asked
whether he would do his deed again, can reply
with a deep " By heaven — yes ! "

Nevertheless, I was perilously open. I alone
among men could not rebuff the freedom of a Chris-
tian name without bringing my soul into the trans-
action ; nay, I could not even buy a dining-table
without having (as I had just had) to check an ut-
terance and to turn away. For at Aunt Angela's
words, " How do you know I haven't had a legacy ? "
I had become vigilant again. She had had no lega-
cy ; I knew that ; but she had been twice or thrice to
Guildford, and, if she wished to indulge herself in
the luxury of giving, would be likely to make the
most rather than the least of whatever mementoes of
the late Mrs Merridew she might have chanced to
come by. You see how, on an afternoon taken at
random, two nothings had made still denser by a
fraction that background of which I was every mo-
ment conscious. I was beginning to realise that I

164 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

was the man who was denied the luxury of careless-
ness. I might not jest or laugh or move a finger
without first looking around the corner. I went
hampered among free men. I tell you it is a hard
thing to live in a world that has no trifles. . . .

Still, exposed or guarded, I had my life to live, and
I was no longer disposed in the matter of this inti-
macy with Miss Levey to do nothing at all. There-
fore, when I returned from seeing Aunt Angela away
and found Evie still in the dining-room, I took my
risk.

She ought to have been in bed; but instead she
had drawn up a chair to an old bureau, and was quite
unnecessarily fiddling with old papers and letters
and nondescript objects put away in the nest of
drawers. She looked up as I entered, and the vivac-
ity with which she spoke seemed a little forced.

" Fancy, Jeff ! " she exclaimed, her fingers in the
leaves of some old twopenny notebook or other, " I
can actually read my old shorthand yet! I should
have thought I'd forgotten all about it, after all this
time ! I'll bet I could read as quickly as you ! "

I stirred the dying fire. " Isn't it time you were
in bed ? " I said.

" Oh, just let me tidy this — I sha'n't be many
minutes."

And while I picked up an evening paper she went
on with her pottering about the bureau.

But the light sound of the moving paper began to

WELL WALK 165

get a little on my nerves. It does that sometimes.
I suppose it's like some people fidgeting if there is a
cat in the room. And presently I noticed that when
she supposed me to be busily reading the rustling
stopped. It was no good going on like this; the
sooner I came to the point and said what I had to
say, the better. I thought for a moment, and then
put down my newspaper.

" Evie " I said.

" Yes, dear ? " she said brightly. . . .

I put it with perfect gentleness. Suddenness and
sharpness also are among the trifles of life I had had
to forego. When I had finished, she did not seem
surprised. She only nodded once or twice.

" I see," she said slowly. " Well, Miriam — I
mean Miss Levey, if you wish it, dear "

" No, darling ; I don't know that I go as far as
that. I was only speaking of these broadcast inti-
macies."

" Miriam, then — Miriam said you would
object "

"Well, I never denied Miriam a certain acute-
ness."

But she shook her head. For a minute or two I had
been sure that I was not the only one who had some-
thing to say. When she did go on, it was at first halt-
ingly, and then with just such a little setting of her
resolution as she had used when, years ago, a sweet
and awkward flapper, she had complimented me on

166 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

my spurious engagement to the lady whose name she
now suddenly mentioned.

" I don't mean to object to — to what you've been
saying, Jeff. I mean — I mean object to this about
poor Kitty. I know," she quickened, as if to fore-
stall a remark, " that we haven't said anything about
it — you and I — for a long time — but " — once more
the rush — " I've felt you've known what I've been
thinking, Jeff "

I gained a little time. " But I wasn't speaking
of Kitty Windus, dear," I said. " It was some-
thing quite different."

Then, before her look of trouble and appeal, I
ceased my pretence.

" Very well, dearest," I sighed. " But tell me
one thing. If I hadn't said anything to-night, yoiA
wanted to say something."

" Yes," she mumbled in a low voice to the two-
penny notebook.

" Is that what Miss Levey meant when she said
1 Don't forget ' an hour or two ago ? "

" Yes."

"You hadn't to forget to — to bring something,
whatever it is, up about Kitty ? "

Her silence told me that that was so. Then,
slowly :

"And why should she think I should object to
that?" I asked.

Evie's manner changed with almost electrical sud-

WELL WALK 167

denness. She thmst her hands into her lap, straight-
ened her back, and spoke almost victoriously.

" There ! I Tene w ! I told her so ! " she tri-
umphed. " ' Miriam/ I said, t you're quite wrong in
thinking that— that ' "

" In thinking there's something to be ashamed of
in an old engagement you've changed your mind
about ? " I suggested gently.

"Yes!" she exulted. "I said to her, 'Jeff
wouldn't in the least mind my going to see her if I
wanted ' — and you wouldn't, would you, Jeff ? "

" No," I said quickly. I said it quickly lest I
should not say it at all. Then I qualified. " No.
. . . One shrinks from pain, that's all, either endur-
ing it or giving it."

" Giving Kitty pain ? "

" Well, does Miss Levey think it would be pleasant
to her — or is she merely willing to hurt her if she
can hurt me too ? "

" But — but — Miriam says she would really be
awfully pleased — Kitty would — and I'm sure you're
wrong, Jeff, about things like that lasting for years

and years! They don't. I " She checked

herself.

But whether it was the check or what not that
made the difference, all at once she started forward
from the bureau and sank on her knees at my side.
She herself put one of my hands about her waist, as
if to compel it to a caress, and stroked her cheek

168 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

against the other. The words she murmured were
disjointed enough, but her tone was, oh, so eloquent.

" Dear, dear ! " she besought me. " Miriam was
wrong, wasn't she? Not that I care in the very
least, only I've been, oh, so wretched, thinking there
was something between us! I don't want to see
her — Miriam — nor Kitty — very much — but it was
so lonely — till Jack came — and there isn't anything
now, is there, Jeff ? I know there has been — but it's
gone now, hasn't it ? . . . Great strong hand ! "
She moistened it with her breathing. ..." But it is
all right now, isn't it, Jeff ? "

I did not know why, all in a moment, I found my-
self remembering that curious prophecy of Louie
Causton's : " I think you'll find that sooner or later
you've got to tell her." Perhaps it was that in that
moment I had my first glimpse of what Louie had
really meant. Already it was useless to say there
had been no slight shadow between us; Evie, who
knew few things, at least knew that; but I had not
dared to acknowledge it for fear of worse. . . . Yes,
I began to see; and with my seeing I again grew
hot and rebellious.

Why, since the act I had committed had had at
least as much of good as of evil in it, should I be
hounded thus? Why should trifles accrete to an
ancient and hideous memory until it became a corpo-
real, living, malignant thing? Why should that com-

WELL WALK 169

monest of experiences, an old rescinded engagement,
not, in my case also, be what Evie thought it was — a
wound made whole again, or at any rate so hardened
over that it could be touched without provoking a
sharp scream of pain ? It was intolerable. . . .

Oh, never, if you can help it, live in a world with-
out trifles!

Evie, at my knee, continued to supplicate. " Oh,
darling, I've so, so wanted it to be like it was at first !.
Do you remember — in Kensington Gardens, sweet-
heart ? "

And she turned up those loveliest eyes I ever looked
into. . . .

It had been in Kensington Gardens, early on a
September evening, that I had asked her to marry
me. Our chairs had been so drawn back into the
clump of laurels that the man with the tickets had
not noticed us, and we ourselves had seen little but
a distant corner of the Palace, and, forty yards away
across the grass, a dead ash gilded by the setting sun.
At the E.B.C. Pepper had just begun to single out
his new Jun. Ex. Con. for special jobs, and as a mat-
ter of fact I had had a small rise of salary that very
week. Little enough it had been; certainly not
enough to warrant me in exchanging our footing —
one of increasingly frequent calls at Woburn Place
and goodness knows how much lingering in likely
streets on the chance of a sight of her — for a more ex-

170 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

plicit relation; but — well, as I say, I had thrust all
else recklessly aside, and that evening had asked her
to marry me.

There are some things that one must needs ex-
aggerate if one is to speak of them at all ; so if I say
that at first it had seemed to her that my proposal
was merely that two bruised spirits should thence-
forward make the best of things together, I must
leave you to discount that. I don't think she had
known clearly what she had felt. The hand I had
taken had trembled a little, and in the great dark
eyes that had looked steadfastly away to the dead
ash I had fancied I had discerned the beginnings of
a refusal — a refusal out of mere customariness and a
settled acceptance of our former relation. I had
fancied that

But even to the trembler a tremble may speak
truer than words, and she had trembled and become
conscious of it. For the first time it had occurred
to her, sweet soul, that we had been all unconscious-
ly passing from friendship to love, and were now
making the discovery together. She had not known
that I had never had anything but love from which to
pass; and another access of trembling had taken
her. . . .

" The last evening you and I had a walk to-
gether," she had whispered at last, her eyes still
gravely on the pale ash, "we — we didn't think of
—this,"

WELL WALK 171

(Did I mention that during all the time I had
known her we had only spent one other evening out
of doors alone together ? It had been more than four
years before, and we had heard a nightingale sing
on Wimbledon Common.)

I had not answered. To allow the memory of that
other evening to repossess her had seemed the best an-
SAver to make. For though we pack our hearts daily
with the stuff of life, only time shows us which is the
tinsel we have coveted, and which the lump we have
not known to be gold. More than four years had
passed ; presently those f our years would have opened
her eyes to differences too ; and so I had waited. . . .

And, if not yet discovered, at any rate sudden
and troubling new questions had crowded into her
eyes as I had watched. Another silence of many
minutes, then:

" We've been such friends up to now," she had
faltered, as much to the darkening evening as to
myself.

" Need that mean ' No,' Evie ? " . . .

" I don't know — it's so — strange — I never

I had drawn a little nearer.

" Never ? Never once ? You never once thought
that perhaps ?"

Then once more had come the memories of that
other evening, with the unhappiness of another's
bringing, and the comfort of my own. Night had
begun to creep under the trees, but the shadows but

172 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

made zenith the purer. On such evenings lovers vie
with one another in looking for the first star, but we
were not lovers yet, and could see nothing save the
ash, now become grey, and away to the north the
faint yellow haze of the Bayswater Road. Evie's
own figure had become dim until little of it had
showed but the handkerchief in her lap, the narrow
white stripe of her black and white blouse where her
little black jacket parted, and, as at last she had
turned, the motion of her eyes.

" You don't want an answer now, Jeff," she had
said quickly, immediately dropping the eyes again.

But I had wanted my answer there and then.

" !Now," I had replied as quickly as she, with I
know not what grimness and resolution mingled with
my tenderness.

" Not now, Jeff — I'm fonder of you than of any-
body— you know that — but — but "

But if her " buts " had included the vanished
Kitty Windus, Archie Merridew, or anything else
from that four-year-old dustheap, I had allowed them
to avail her little. Over my heart too had come that
nightingale's song, heard by a still mere, and her
hapless sobbing on my breast because Life was harsh,
and my own desperate struggle not to clasp her there
and then. Repression so powerful as that had been
is not given twice to a man, at any rate not to such a
man as I ; nor had I thought that she, whose tremors
were more eloquent than her speech, had desired it

WELL WALK 173

either. ..." Not now, Jeff — please — soon '

she had half sobbed, shrinking as it were from the
wonder of her own enlightenment; and her handker-
chief had fallen to the grass. . . .

The next moment, in returning it to her, I had
had her in my arms.

Those truer tidings than any words of hers could
give expression to had come from the lips that had
not even sought to avoid mine. Sought to avoid
them ? I call the first star that peeped through the
laurels to witness the handful of dust that friendship
of ours had become. Speech? Language? She
used neither; to me in that moment she was both
speech and language — vocal flesh, her very hair and
eyes an utterance. You will not ask me an utterance
of what; I take my chance of being understood in
the light of what Woman is to you. Make her what
you will : a riddle herself — or the answer to the deep-
est enigma of the soul; as much earth as a man' 3
hard hands must needs be filled with — or as much
spirit as he can bear until he himself is all spirit ; a
lovely casket — yet not too lovely for the scroll of
the Freedom it contains. Have it your own way. I
only know that if she spoke thus I heard as if my
whole body had been one attuned and exquisite nerve.
We had drawn a little deeper into the laurels. . . .
Again we kissed. . . .

And in my heart there had been jealousy of no
man, dead or living. That dead young man had

174 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

awakened her from sleep, but I had made her mine
with her eyes wide open. He had taken her by sur-
prise, but me she had chosen. And as our lips had
met once more, I had known that she loved even the
pain I caused her in straining her in my arms.

" You never once — never once thought of it ? " I
had said huskily at last.

" Dear — dear ! How was I to ? "

" Kiss me — kiss me "

And now, on her knees at my knee by our dying
dining-room fire, she asked me if I remembered that
evening in Kensington Gardens.

All at once I vowed that I wouldn't stand it —
wouldn't stand the intervention of anything on earth,
whether of my own making or another's, between us
and that first joy. And again, as I held her, I
thought of Louie's words. Louie was right — or at
least half right. For the present the shadow had
passed, but unless I did something now, it would re-
turn. Again we should drift apart, and Miss Levey
would keep us so. If I did not partly explain, cir-
cumstances might do so entirely. Yes, Louie was
so far right. If I was to keep the dearest thing on
earth to me, I must make a half-truth seem to guar-
antee the false remainder, and tell Evie of that cruel
Kitty Windus episode.

And so I come to my first, though not to my last,
attempt to tell without telling, and, as they say, to
make my omelette without breaking my eggs.

WELL WALK 175

Her cheek was still against my hand; I looked
mournfully down on her. With such a goal it didn't
much matter where I began.

" What do you suppose, darling," I began, " Miss
Levey's object is in all this ? "

Evie's eyes moved to the mantelpiece. It was a
bare entablature of black marble, with nothing on
it but a small Swiss clock and one or two cabinet pho-
tographs— no Arab horsemen. Shyly she glanced
from the mantelpiece corner, where the horsemen
should have been, to ma

" Yes, she asked to-day whether you'd got it
mended," she murmured.

" Do you really like her ? "

" I was so lonely, Jeff," she pleaded.

"Poor child! . . . Evie "

She looked quickly up at my change of tone.

"What?"

" I want to tell you what her object is. I don't
find it easy."

" What do you mean, Jeff 2 " she asked, strangely
abruptly.

" And I'm afraid you won't find it easy either."

She had dropped my hand. " Jeff, what do you
mean ? "

" I mean that she thinks she's found out — is find-
ing out — something discreditable about me."

At first I did not understand the change, almost
to horror, that came into Evie's eyes. Only after a

176 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

moment almost of fear of what I saw there did I
fathom her thought. I don't know how men speak
who have an unfaithfulness to confess to their wives,
but it flashed on me that Evie actually thought it
might be that — so can pure innocence and worldly ex-
perience be pierced by the same fear.

" Jeff," she said faintly, her colour all gone,
" don't you — haven't you — loved me ? "

" Loved you ? " . I laughed for the irony of it.
" Yes, dearest," I said quietly, " I've loved you.
Never fear for that. That was the beginning of it
all!"

"The beginning?"

" Of what Miss Levey thinks. Dear, could you
bear to think she's right, and that I've been a black-
guard ? "

So great was her suspense that the little sound she
made was one almost of irritation. " Oh, Jeff, say
what you've got to say "

" It's why I spoke of causing pain to Kitty Win-
dus "

" Oh, you're cruel ! "

I moistened my lips. " Very well. . . ."

Locked up in my private desk, written in Pit-
man's shorthand, there lies a full statement of that
curious affair of mine with Kitty Windus; but I
am not going to quote from that statement here.
So long as it is understood that that heartless thing

WELL WALK 177

had existed side by side with a love for Evie that
had never for a moment wavered, that is all that
matters. I had now no longer a thought for the un-
desirableness, the danger even, of a meeting between
Evie and Kitty; risky though that would be, I now
saw nothing save that we were reunited, and that
we could only remain so by passing on to her a
portion of my shame. If you don't see this you
are lucky. Your life has trifles in it. You can buy
dining-tables, and use or reject the familiarity of
Christian names. You have not had to carry upon
your shoulders a weight greater than a man can sup-
port, nor to choose which portion you are to leave
on the road behind you unless your back is to break.
You have not known the conclusion to which — but
you shall hear the conclusion to which I have been
driven all in good time.

In the meantime, sparing myself in her eyes no
more than I am sparing myself in yours now, I
told her how little she had ever had to fear from
Kitty Windus.

The hands of the tiny Swiss clock on the mantel-
piece pointed to half-past ten by the time I had
finished. I gazed at the clock dully, thinking for
a moment how little time my recital had occupied.
Then I remembered that the hands had pointed to
half-past ten before I had begun. . . . Mechanic-
ally I took the clock down and wound it up. To

178 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

wind up a clock was something to do until Evie
should speak.

She had not once interrupted me. At one point
of my story she had merely got up from my knee
and seated herself in a low rocking-chair, in which
she now rocked softly. As I still sat with the clock
in my hands I tried idly to remember at which
point of my story she had got up; it might be an
indication of her state of mind; but I forgot this
again, and found myself examining the back of the
clock almost with curiosity. I did not look at her.
I put the clock back on the mantelpiece again and
once more sat down, still without looking at her.
Glancing presently at the clock again I saw that its
hands pointed to five and twenty minutes to eleven.
I had wound it up, but had forgotten to set it right.
That again was something to do. I adjusted it by
my watch, and again sat down.

Then she spoke, and my heart sank. There was
nothing in her tone but wonderment — wonderment,
not at the story I had told her, but that I should
have found it worth telling at all.

After all that portentous preparation — only that!

Odd enough, of course — sad enough, if you liked
—but

" Well, but, Jeff," she said, puzzled, " what about
it?"

"Don't you see ? " I asked, in a lower voice.

" Of course I see — how do you mean, ( see ' ?

WELL WALK 179

And I think you were awfully stupid. She was
bound to find out, and she did find out, and left you,
poor dear. It was absurd from beginning to end.
Really I shall begin to think myself clever and
you a simpleton, if that's all you've been moping
about."

As you see, I had not advanced matters by one
single inch.

" It is all, isn't it, Jeff ? " she asked anxiously,
suddenly sitting forward in the rocking-chair. " I
don't mean," she went on more anxiously still,
" that the whole thing wasn't awfully queer — not
quite nice, dear, to speak the truth — but — but" —
again there returned that quick look of fear with
which she had asked me whether I had not loved her
— " but — there wasn't — anything — Jeff ? "

I sank back in my chair.

" No, there wasn't — anything," I said wearily.

" Then, Jeff " she cried gladly.

And the next moment she was at my knee again,
overflowing with comfort and compassion.

" You poor boy — you poor darling boy 1 " she
crooned, so melted by my contrition that my offence
went uncondemned. " Poor love ! . . . And," she
looked adorably up, " how could Evie reproach you,
Jeff, when it was all for her 3 Darling ! " she broke
out, " you ought to reproach me, for thinking. . . .
But you were so fearfully solemn. ... I thought
perhaps you hadn't loved Evie. . . . Has always

180 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

loved Evie, hasn't he? And will always love her,
yes ? Great strong hand ! "

And as she murmured thus, again I thought of
Louie. It was with something like awe that I did so.
" I think you'll find that sooner or later you've got
to tell her." How did she know that? Did she
know it ? Had she foreseen how half -attempts would
end, and known them beforehand to be wasted
breath ?

Then there came upon me the great need to see
Louie again. I must see her, and quickly. With
Evie still unenlightened, the actual perils of a meet-
ing between herself and Kitty stood forward again,
exactly as before. Evie herself might not 'now wish
for such a meeting, but that would be on my account,
and not that, if Kitty didn't mind, or positively
wished it, she saw any reason against it. Why
should she, if Kitty didn't ? . . . Yes, I must see
Louie again, at once. To-morrow was Sunday. I
must see her on the Monday. I must write — tele-
phone— do something

"And to-morrow, Jeff," Evie was saying, with
decision, "you really must have a walk. You're
working yourself ill — you look worried to death. I
can't come, of course, but I wish you'd go to Amer-
sham or Chalfont or somewhere, just for a blow.
Leave horrid business just for one day, and I'll have
a nice supper ready for you when you come back.
I shall be all right. . . . Hush! Listen!"

WELL WALK 181

From upstairs had come a low, reedy cry.

" That's Jackie — I must fly ! Don't sit down
here, dear — come now———"

And she was off.

I followed her; and as I stood looking down on
the boy, who had gone to sleep again of himself, I
remembered my former dream, that by the wonder
of an innocent birth atonement was to have come.
I sighed. Apparently it hadn't.

Well, I must see Louie on the Monday, that was
all.

Ill

I DID see her on the Monday. I saw her at the
models' Club, to which place I telephoned early
on the Monday morning. I had the luck to get
on to her immediately. "Yes? . . . This is Miss
Causton," came the diminished voice over the wire;
and she said she would see me that evening at seven.
I sent Evie a message that I should be late.

Perhaps you know those premises in the Chelsea
Square. Two houses have been thrown into one, but
all I know of the establishment is the two rooms of
the ground floor, which, barring a narrow passage
with a rustling bead curtain across it, communicate.
The room on the left of the curtain is a large bare
apartment that is used for parties, tableaux, dancing
and such like entertainments ; that on the right is the
tea-room, sewing and wardrobe room, and room for
general purposes. At one end of it is a kitchener;
placed near the kitchener is a small service counter,
brass foot-rail and all, that has done duty in some
saloon bar or other — it was probably picked up in
the York Road, N. ; and the furniture has been given
piecemeal by artists and is characterised by great
variety. The members can get tea for threepence
halfpenny and dinner for eightpence; and of course

182

WELL WALK 183

I -was Louie Causton's guest. She was looking out
of the window as I approached the house; she her-
self opened the door to me; and we walked through
the bead portiere and entered the party-room on the
left. We sat down by a yellow upright piano at the
farther end of this room. I heard the frying of
chops across the passage. They wouldn't be long,
Louie said, and then added that I was looking pretty
well.

A long walk round Chalfont Woods the previous
day had, in fact, done me good. She herself ap-
peared to be in excellent health and spirits. She
asked me whether I had seen Billy Izzard lately, and
then, without waiting for an answer, laughed as two
girls, in waltzing attitude, balanced in the doorway
for a moment, and then, seeing us, went out again.
" The girls dance in here," Louie explained. " Oh,
do you ? " I remarked. " Oh, / don't," was her re-
ply ; and she went on to ask what was new with me.
It was all refreshingly ordinary and matter-of-fact,
and there was no indication that she had any serious
care on her mind.

A stout woman in an apron appeared in the door-
way and announced that our chops were ready. We
passed into the other room. I said that the furni-
ture of the Club had been given by artists; the ta-
ble at which we sat down had been a card-table.
As I could not get my legs under it I had to sit side-
ways at it, and our plates, cups and saucers were

184 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

edge to edge, with the salt and pepper in the inter-
stices. Louie smiled and said something about our
interview being literally a tete-a-tete, and we at-
tacked our chops.

From where I sat I could see the vista of the
party-room across the passage, and Louie's eyes, as
they met mine from time to time, had something of
the same soft sheen of the polished floor of that apart-
ment. She wore a navy blue skirt and plain white
mercerised blouse without collar or any other finish at
the neck; and as we ate and talked of this and that
there rose in my mind again that surmise I had had
when Billy had told me, by the Whitestone Pond,
that she had stopped sitting. Nothing that I can
describe happened to confirm that surmise, and yet
somehow I was conscious of the growing confirma-
tion. It had begun when she had twinkled and said,
" How's Billy ? " and a moment or two later, when
the two girls had stood poised in the doorway for
dancing, she had smiled and said, " Oh, I don't
dance." The twinkle about Billy had not been lost
on me; and when I tell you that the single dance
of my own life had been with her, years before, at a
breaking-up party at the old Business College, per-
haps you can make a guess at the nature of my sur-
mise.

For I had read in those eyes of hers, on that
night of the Berkeley dinner, that she loved me and
must go on loving me; and she herself had said, in

WELL WALK 185

so many words, " It's nothing to do with you — you
can't help that." And now she had taken this fan-
tastic resolution not to sit any more. Whether I
would have it so or not, she had a right in me, in
which, quite calmly and ordinarily, she now exulted.
Yet had ever before mortal woman exulted over any-
thing less substantial? The whole thing seemed to
me both preposterously lovely and quite movingly
absurd. She had wheedled out of Billy that per-
fect sketch that had stood on his easel that evening
I had walked, unannounced, into his room opposite
the Cobden Statue. Why? What ridiculous and
sacred tapers did she burn about it ? Billy must
now paint her in costume or not at all. Why ? Of
what beautiful and empty union was this a con-
summation? Did she seriously intend that thence-
forward no eye but mine But I waste words.

You see it or you don't see it. That, as near as
makes no matter, appeared to be how things stood
between us, and there was nothing to tell me that
she was not happy in this beautiful lunacy. As for
myself, I supposed I must be content to be owned
almost to the point of insult in possession.

" I'm just beginning to get used to it," I remem-
ber she said to me at one stage of that evening —
the thing she was just beginning to get used to being
sitting under the new conditions. " Did you know
it was really harder? Your clothes tingle on you,
you know,"

186 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

I mention this only to show that, since she might
speak at her pleasure of a thing of which I might
not even recognise the existence, her tyranny over
me was pretty complete.

We had finished our chops, and I was wondering
what she supposed my reason for having sought her
to be, when she herself put the direct question. She
put her plate on the floor so as to make room for her
elbows on the table.

" Give me a cigarette if you have one," she said.
" I'm afraid I've picked up that habit here. All the
girls do it: there's a cigarette-case in their bags if
there's nothing else."

And when I had given her a light, she put her
elbows on the table again, her wrists and forearms
fell into an attitude that really made me sorrow for
Billy, and she said: " Well, what is it? "

With no more waste of words than she herself had
used, I told her of Miss Levey's voracious curiosity,
of Evie's perplexed sense of something unexplained,
and of my own unsuccessful attempt to have my eggs
and my omelette too.

She listened attentively: the change of which I
shall speak in a moment did not come all at once.
Other girls had now come into the Club, and two or
three of them were gathered about a brown-paper
parcel, some purchase of dress material or other
which they were discussing with animation. Others
fetched cups of tea from the saloon bar counter, eat-

WELL WALK 187

ing and drinking, perched carelessly on the ends of
tables, the spiral twist of the work of their stockings
telling how readily they got into and out of their
clothes.

Before I had finished my story Louie interrupted
me with the first of a little series of detached re-
marks.

" One moment," she said. " When do you start
— this Consolidation, I mean ? "

" In a few weeks. We shall send some of the men
on in advance in about a fortnight. Why ? "

" You don't intend to take Miriam Levey over
with you ? "

" I do not."

" You don't suppose she doesn't know that ? "

"Well?"

" Well — but go on." She made a little gesture.
" I interrupted you."

I went on.

" Half-a-minute," she came in again presently.

" All this was quite I mean, there was no

quarrel ? "

" With Evie ? No— oh, no, no."

" Well "

And the next time she interrupted me was merely
to ask me whether I had another cigarette.

I admit that there had come over me as I had
talked an increasing sense of the burden I had placed
upon her. Nor do I mean that I had not had this

188 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

sense before. I had, indeed, thought of little else
during my walk to Chalfont the previous day. But
it is yet another coin added to the price of a right-
eous but unlicenced slaying that a man's selfishness
becomes merely inordinate. I had known more or
less what she must bear ; exactly what she had to bear
it with I had taken for granted. She had perhaps
herself to thank for that, and that tense and incredi-
ble calm she had shown on the night I had dined
at the Berkeley. I had known the depths of her
womanliness that other night; soon I was to learn
the shallows of her femininity.

" Well," she said, when at last I had finished, " I
really don't see what else you expected. And," she
went on, but more slowly, and somehow as if she didn't
quite trust herself, " I don't see either what you ex-
pect of me. I told you what I thought before."

" You mean that I should have to tell her ? "

" Yes."

" Well, tell me why."

" You've just told me why."

"Well, put it another way. You see the fright-
ful risk — to her. The question is, ought it to be
taken ? "

For a moment those tourmalines of her eyes seemed
to flicker, as if she would have shown me again the
abysses beyond them; but they remained shut as she
spoke more slowly still.

" That's not quite the question. Can you — go on

WELL WALK 189

— as you are doing? And if you can't, what's the
alternative ? "

To that I had no answer to make.

Her cigarette had gone out, and her beautiful
fingers were holding it listlessly. All at once I
found myself noticing the contrast between her and
the chattering group of models down the room. The
girl with the brown-paper parcel had approached a
cupboard and taken out some second-hand property
or other of frayed velvet and torn gold : " It's hardly
worth re-making : I vote we cut it up," I heard her
say. And I wondered whether Louie had sat in the
torn and tawdry thing — now that she had been
warned against chills. The giggling and the skiddle
of teacups went on, but Louie pressed her fingers on
her eyeballs for a moment. Perhaps it was this pres-
sure that made them, when she looked up again,
seem dull and tired.

" At any rate, that's how it strikes me," she said.

She looked suddenly older — much older — so much
older that it gave me a pang. During my walk on
the previous day I had told myself over and over again
that I must have made of her life also exactly what
I had made of my own — a fearful thing without
trifles; but I had Tiad to tell myself, if you appre-
ciate what I mean. Now, to see it with my own eyes
was another matter. There was that other quantity,
the quantity unknown to me but drearily familiar
enough to her, I didn't doubt — Kitty. ... A word

190 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

of advice to those who contemplate the putting out
of a life on their own responsibility: When a woman,
on a rainy night in St. James's Park, or wherever and
whenever, lets you look down into her soul, and drops
a plummet into your own, and asks you whether you
are not a murderer, and you no more dare to lie than
you would dare a foulness in the face of majesty,
then do anything you like — fly from her, bite out
your tongue, kill her also — but for mere pity of her
don't answer "Yes." Don't, that is, unless you
are sure that she will betray you. If you do, de-
pend on it she'll ask you to a Models' Club or some-
where, and the horror of a life without trifles will
come over you, and you'll see her press her fingers
on her eyeballs and then look up again, five years
older in as many minutes.

" What about Kitty ? " I asked abruptly.

She answered quickly — too quickly : " Oh, Kitty's
all right; you needn't bother about Kitty; leave her
to me. As a matter of fact she's been awfully useful
to me."

"How useful?"

" Oh, in quite the most material way," she said,
with a short and mirthless laugh. " That's not been
pure philanthropy, I assure you. I dare say you
know "

I did know that Kitty had perhaps a pound a
week of her own money, from some tramways out
Edgbaston way.

WELL WALK 191

"And she types at home, too — authors' manu-
script— when she can get it — and I save the ten shil-
lings I had to pay somebody to look after the boy."

" And you yourself ? " I ventured meaningly.

" Oh," she answered evasively, " we've not stuck
fast yet."

" In spite of your chills," thought I ; and then,
as another burst of laughter broke from the girls
down the room, I said aloud : " Tell me — I've never
asked you — how did you drop into this kind of thing ?
You used to be at a business college."

Again she smiled. " Did I ? Sometimes I can
hardly believe that was I. It's precious little I
learned there, anyway. And this other — I could
explain to Billy — I'm not pretty, I know, not my
face, but — well, it seemed a fairly obvious thing to
do. There wasn't much else, anyhow, and remem-
ber I did fairly well out of it — better than most girls
in offices."

She had grown faintly pink, and again the tour-
malines had given, as it were, a half turn. I dropped
my voice and looked earnestly at her.

" And these — chills — aren't they anything you
could ever grow out of ? "

The soft irradiation deepened as she looked as
earnestly back at me.

" No," she said.

" I see. And what you learned at the College —
have you forgotten all that ? "

192 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

Then, looking almost challengingly at one another,
we began to speak rather quickly, and a little elliptic-

ally.

" I think I can guess what you mean," she said,
dropping her gaze again.

" I think you do."

" That's why I asked you just now when the Con-
solidation was starting. . . . You don't suppose
she'll love you any more for throwing her out of a
job, do you ? "

" She can't hate me much more than she does."

" Well, you may depend upon it, she knows she's
going."

" Well, that saves trouble."

" Oh, no, it doesn't."

"Ah!— You think not?"

" I'm sure not."

A pause.

" I gather you've seen her ? "

" Oh, often."

" At your place ? "

" Yes."

" I don't suppose you love her much. Why do
you have her there ? "

" You don't love her either. Why do you 2 "

" Well, there's Evie."

" And there's Kitty."

Another pause, and then : " I see."

Then suddenly I spoke a little more to the point.

WELL WALK 193

" Well, would you accept the job if I could ar-
range it ? "

She hesitated. " It's very necessary, of course,
that I should do something."

"You'd take it?"

" I almost think — there's my boy, you see — but
we'll talk about that in a minute. You were asking
me about Kitty. I don't think you need worry about
her. I keep her in hand. I don't think it would
matter very much if she and your wife did meet,
and, on the whole, you'd be doing more harm by ob-
jecting beyond a certain point than you would by
allowing it. So, as far as she's concerned, things
had better drift. The worst of it is " — again the
fingers on the eyeballs — " they don't drift."

"Don't drift I"

" You know what Miriam Levey is."

I caught my breath. " You don't mean she's any
idea " I said quickly.

" Oh, none whatever," Louie said hurriedly. " I
don't mean that at all. But I do mean she'd thor-
oughly enjoy seeing you made uncomfortable — got at
— scored off — get her own back — you know what I
mean."

" That's noth " I began absently, but checked

myself. " That's nothing," I had been on the point
of saying, but there were no nothings for us. Louie's
vigils must be as unremitting as my own.

Suddenly I found myself without the heart to

194 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

ask her in detail what these were. We now had
the tea-room to ourselves; the bevy of models had
scurried off to the party-room, and two of them
appeared to be playing an elementary duet on the
piano, with wrong notes loudly and laboriously cor-
rected, amid laughter and general high spirits.
Again the contrast was cruel. They hadn't to look
before, behind and about them for the dread of a
ruinous inadvertence. . . . You will find it diffi-
cult to reconcile with remorse, by the way, that, steal-
ing another glance at Louie's drawn and anxious
face, I cursed a heedless young cub who had gone
to his account nearly six years before.

" Anyway," she said, after a long silence, " I'll
see to that as far as I can. Plan as we like, we've
got to take some risks. Don't look at me like that.
It isn't more than I can bear. There's joy in it
too. The only thing I don't quite understand is why
I should want to throw that joy away by — by giving
you the advice I did."

"The advice you did?"

" To tell your wife."

" But " It broke agitatedly from me. Again

the tourmalines seemed to move.

" The risk ; just so ; don't think I don't see it.
Oh, I see it — far more plainly than you do ! Haven't

you thought that perhaps it's that that * She

stopped abruptly, ending in a little twanging mur-
mur.

WELL WALK 195

And I had at last become conscious of something
that hitherto I had only half consciously noticed
— namely, that she spoke of Evie repeatedly as " your
wife." Obstinately she refused to use her name.
I think that I felt even then our approach to what I
have called the shallows of her femininity. Can you
wonder at it ? Is it so very surprising that, with the
tremors of those shut transmitters of her eyes, the
whole fantastic and exhausting fabric of my inter-
pretation of her feeling for myself tottered? He
has to be a greater painter than Billy Izzard whose
fiction can fill the life of a woman already past thirty,
whom you have so heaped with cares that her face
takes on age as you look at it ! Her voice shook as
she strove to hide all this from me.

" But you see the disadvantage you have me at,"
she said. <f You know what you really want, though
you haven't put it quite plainly yet; but even if I
were to try it you wouldn't let me say what I mean."

" Oh, say it, say it : we're in the mess, and it's no
good keeping things back."

" No, no — you've no right to expect that of me.
I'll do everything else, but I'm only a mortal woman,
with limbs and hungers, after all."

" You're a very wondrous one."

" Teh ! " The exclamation broke from her as
if I had blundered on a nerve with an instrument.
'You're making big demands of my wondrousness,
Jim!"

196 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

I gave a low groan. " Poor woman ! Is it more
than "

But she broke out into quite a loud cry.

" Not that, Jim," she commanded, " not — that 1
That's the only thing I will not bear ! If you're go-
ing to make me out noble, or disinterested, or self-
sacrificing, or anything of that sort I — I can't bear
it. I'm not. I hate Evie. I hate myself. I al-
most hate you when I see how stupid and clumsy
you can be. Oh, you know what you want! You
want just one thing — to be happy with her; but do
you think I scheme and contrive for you because I
want you to be happy with her? Oh no! I do it
because I can't help myself, and because it's that
or nothing between you and me, and that's all there
is splendid about it ! I won't be called * Poor
woman.' And you needn't shake your head either.
If I could get you, I would ; but there it is, I can't,
and that's all the loyalty I have for her! And you
ask me," she broke out anew, almost furiously, " you
ask me whether I ' don't see ' things ! It's you who
don't see, and never will ! You get a fixed idea

into your head, and everything else " She

snapped her fingers. "What do you suppose your
wife would say if she knew you were here with
me now ? I shouldn't care a straw about her know-
ing, but have you told Tier ? Will you tell her ? You
know you won't! You daren't — you daren't trust
her! Oh, I know what you're going to say — that

WELL WALK 197

you can't discuss her with me — but in that case you
shouldn't take my position quite so much for granted.
I'm the last person to put on a pedestal. You ask
me whether I see things : don't I ! Don't I see what
they might have been — yes, even in spite of the mess
I made of them! With half a chance I could
have "

"Louie!"

" Sssh — it's got to come out now ! I was happy
till that night — you know the night I mean — and
that night I was fool enough to think it was possible
to stop up there — away up in the air. I gave you
and got from you that night what no other woman
on earth could have done, and I thought we could
stop at that. I thought I could go on living at that.
I thought that would be enough for me; and when
I found it wasn't, I began to — bolster it up. You've
seen Billy — you know what I mean. And I still
have something of you that nobody else has, and — I
want to give it away! I want you to give her
that too ! I advise you to tell her and leave me with
nothing ! I must be mad ! Jim " — her voice
dropped with startling effect — "you once said that
to tell her would be to kill her : if I could only think
that! . . . But there, you'll tell her, and take away
the last thing I have of you. . . . But she won't get
that thing. It's beyond her. That's yours and mine
whether you wish it or not. If you don't believe me,
try it. Tell her. Tell her her husband made away

198 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

•with her sweetheart; tell her why; tell her what
you've told me, and if she takes it as I did, I haven't
another word to say. I hate her; I'm not running
away from that; so perhaps Pm not just. Perhaps
there is a chance : if so, it's your only one. I've had
no luck. I'm out of it, and there's no more to say.
Give me a match."

She took up and relighted her half-smoked ciga-
rette.

I have merely set down what she said, and the
way she said it; for the rest, I leave you to draw
your own conclusions. Perhaps it is unusual to
allow these freedoms to be taken with your wife,
but I think you will admit that the occasion was
unusual. She had told me, in effect, that murderers
ought to be careful whom they marry, and that I
had married the wrong woman : but she had left out
of the account one thing that made all the difference.
You know as well as I what she had left out — the
supreme sanctification of the flesh : " With my body
I thee worship." ... It was Evie, not Louie Cans'
ton, with whom I had heard that nightingale sing
on Wimbledon Common. They had been Evie's lips,
not Louie's, that had not sought to escape my own
on that September evening in Kensington Gardens.
It was Evie whom I had married. ... It was nat-
ural that Louie should see how things might con-
ceivably have been different; you can say that how-
ever they turn out ; and perhaps that was where the

WELL WALK 199

fatality came in. Circumstance, propinquity, acci-
dent, a step rightly or wrongly taken, and the rest
is predicated with a terrible inevitability. Louie
had had no luck ; and now, not because I had placed
a crushing weight upon her, but because I had given
her the pity while another got the love, she had
broken out upon me.

At any rate, I saw her own position sadly clearly
now.

And, there being no more to say, she rose.

In the hall, however, she did find one more word
to say. They were playing Sir Roger in the party-
room as I held aside the bead portiere for Louie
to pass, and the couples, seen through the gauzy
hanging, seemed spectrally charming. Louie stood
on the other side of the curtain, mortal, unspectral
enough under a cheap square hall lamp with tesserae
of coloured glass. With head downhung, she moved
spiritlessly towards the outer door, where she stood
meditatively with her hand on the letter-box. At
last she looked up.

" About what you were saying about Miriam
Levey," she said, without preface. " I don't think
it would do — not now."

I knew she meant her own acceptance of Miriam's
place. I asked her why not.

" Oh, I've said too much for that to be possible
now. We've been too near. We mustn't come so
near again,"

200 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

" But surely," I said dispiritedly, " a job '

She shook her head. " I should be seeing you,"

she said. " It wouldn't do. Good-night."

And I lost the strains of Sir Roger as the door

closed between us.

LOOKING back over what I have written, I find
it will hasten my tale if I take events with
rather a free hand in point of time, sequence and so
forth; and I shall do so. For example, the setting
up of the Consolidation in Pall Mall did not actually
take place until the following spring, but our ar-
rangements were complete long before that time, and,
as Bjy tale is about myself rather than about the Con-
solidation, I will say as much as is necessary about
that enterprise now, and have done with it.

We have to all intents and purposes absorbed
the old F.B.C., and this has been greatly to the
advantage of both concerns. The Company's mer-
cantile position is the firmer, and we are left the
freer for things both larger and more special. In
the handling of these Pepper has been brilliant.
True, he has taken chances, sometimes more than I
have liked ; but he is a born taker of chances, and it
is astonishing, on the whole, how seldom things have
failed to come off. In his own line I have never
met his equal. I think I mentioned that he had been
in Russia : I never knew exactly what his errand was
there; but I can make a guess at the kind of thing.
Last summer, for instance, he was out in the West

201

202 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

Indies — with a few tin specimen-boxes and a butter-
fly net (this is the man who doesn't know a butterfly
from a bumble-bee, and once asked me what a birch
was). Out in the West Indies he met Magnay, of
Astbury, Phillips — a valetudinarian after tarpon.
Sichel was there too; I forget whether he was play-
ing golf, or healing a lung, or merely yawning his
head off in deck-chairs. And of course (a nod being
as good as a wink to a blind horse) there could be no
possible connection between these innocent pursuits
and the Panama Canal, trans-shipment stations and
the South American coasting trade. ... So maybe
Pepper had had no thought of hides or timber or
tallow when he had learned the Siberian method of
hunting bear. . . . Anyway, all I want you to un-
derstand, without making it too plain, is that we leave
these things to Pepper. He dines geologists and
botanists and explorers and concessionaires: he does
them well, and is perfectly charming; and it may
quite well be that, before he has finished with them,
a little inconspicuous piece of paper that not one in
a thousand as much as glances at is posted up in
Whitehall one day, Britain has proclaimed a new
Protectorate somewhere or other, and the Consolida-
tion is at the bottom fef it. It pays us that Pepper
keeps his nails manicured and knows his way about
a wine-list. It may not be noble or altruistic or
anything of that kind, but it's the way things get

WELL WALK 203

done in this world, and be hanged to Schmerveloff
and the humanitarians.

So, while we were still with the F.B.C., Pepper
was playing every ball straight back to the inquisi-
tive folk who wanted to know what was in the wind,
we were ready to go over at a month's notice to that
great new cathedral of a place with the mosaic floors
and the bronze statues in the niches, and I was free
to rub my rosy prospects into Aunt Angela to my
heart's content. It had come off, or, thanks to Pep-
per and Robson and the rest of them, could hardly
now fail to do so. But Aunt Angela, when I twin-
kled at her, and mentioned this, only gave me back
my smiles thrice spiritualised. She never failed to
rejoice, for our sakes, whenever a new piece of fur-
niture came into the house in Well Walk, but for
herself, her attitude was piously and amusingly peni-
tential. I never knew austerity so resemble luxuri-
ousness — or the other way about, whichever it was.
And of this new furniture we presently began to have
quite a lot. Collecting, as I have since come to un-
derstand the word, was as yet, of course, far beyond
my means ; but I used a bronze copy of a lioness by
Barye on my desk as a paper-weight, I had good au-
totypes of Meryon on my study walls, I had bought
Evie a dinner service, quite good enough for most
occasions even to-day, and I had sales' catalogues
and auctioneers' circulars, a dozen a week. Oh, yes,

204 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

we were getting on, and Pepper winked, remember-
ing his candlesticks, but said nothing.

But let me return to Aunt Angela for a moment.
The effect on her of these evidences of our increas-
ing prosperity was curious. Without the loss of a
Jot of her amiability, but rather to the increase of it,
she set herself apart from our modest splendours. If
I use the word " religiosity " I mean it only in its
most innocent sense: but something of the sort had
been incipient in her for a long time, and now merely
became declared. Perhaps I cannot do better than
tell here of the evening in which I first discovered how
far this had gone. If at this point my narrative
seems a little diffuse, it is merely because the long-
est way round is often the shortest way home, and
also because Aunt Angela's attitude was not the only
thing I learned that night.

I think it would be a little before Christmas, on
a Tuesday or Wednesday; I know the day, if not
the week, because it was what Evie, who corrected
some of my own recklessnesses by still clinging to
small economies, called an " eating-up night." On
those nights I was expressly forbidden to bring any-
body home to dinner — I except Aunt Angela and
Billy Izzard, who came when they pleased. As it
happened, they had both turned up on that very
evening, and had partaken of a rather scratch sup-
per ; and I, who had had an exceptionally heavy day,
hoped that nobody would come in afterwards — not

WELL WALK 205

that anybody was very likely to. As Jackie had
gone to bed, Billy had been allowed to play Evie's
new piano only with the soft pedal down (Evie her-
self, I may say, did not play, but was resolved to
learn) ; and Aunt Angela had several skeins of wool
to wind into balls. From the arm-chair in which I
half dozed I could see Evie, still in the waterproof
apron in which she had given Jackie his bath, setting
the child's basket to rights. Our only maid was tak-
ing her " evening out " and was probably up on the
Spaniards Eoad.

I was not too sleepy to see that Aunt Angela
needed somebody to hold her wool, and I volun-
teered drowsily for the service. But, " No, thanks,
Jeff," she replied ; " you have a nap ; besides, I must
be getting used to doing things for myself." I did
not insist, and the last thing I remember before I
dropped off for forty winks was seeing her reach for
Pepper's candlesticks, place them on the hearthrug,
and, passing a hank of wool about them, begin to
wind.

It seemed to me that several sounds awoke me
simultaneously — the stopping of a hansom at the
front door, the ringing of a bell downstairs, and a
quick exclamation from Evie. It was not impos-
sible, of course, that any one of a number of visitors
might have called in a hansom at half-past nine at
night, but Evie had concluded, and rightly as it hap-
pened, that this was the one with whom she was

206 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

least of all at home — Pepper. I heard her sup-
pressed exclamation of " Bother I " The next mo-
ment she had whisked off the waterproof apron, thrust
it under the piano lid, then, seeing Aunt Angela
still placidly winding, had said, " Quick — in case-
hide them, Auntie," and had flown to answer the
bell.

But Aunt Angela, in her flurry, had only succeeded
in making the candlesticks a hopeless cat's-cradle of
wool before Evie's voice of vivacious welcome was
heard, and Pepper himself entered.

He had Whitlock and a stranger with him, the
latter a bearded and taciturn provincial who was in-
troduced as Mr Toothill. Mr Toothill, indeed, I
gathered to be the reason of the visit. Pepper has
to be charming to a great variety of men, and is not
often beaten, but occasionally there does fall to him
("for his virtues," he says) a man he can neither
dine, wine nor take to a show, and I know the signs
in him when he is at his most affable and most in-
tensely bored. I may say at once that Mr Toothill
has no connection with my tale other than as having
been the cause of this visit.

Now Pepper has the gift of being able to make
all manner of things (especially men) invisible when
he chooses; and although Aunt Angela, in making
out of sight with the wool and the candlesticks of
Pepper's own giving, had only succeeded in putting
them on the table and making them the most con-

WELL WALK 207

epicuous objects in the room, for Pepper they did
not exist. That bright photographic eye of his took
in every other object in the room, but no candle-
sticks.

But not so Mr Toothill. He came, Whitlock told
me afterwards, from the West Eiding of Yorkshire,
where he was a power ; but so little of a power was he
in London that, had Pepper not rashly burdened him-
self with him, he would probably have waited in
King's Cross Station for the next train back to his
own parts. Anyway, here he was in my house, and
as his eyes fell on the wool-winding, they lighted up
(so Whitlock said) with the first spark of interest
they had shown that evening.

" This is like ho-o-ome, at all events," he said,
giving the word I don't know how many " o's."
" But you've got it felted, haven't you ? If the la-
dies will excuse me "

And without more ceremony, and in spite of Aunt
Angela's protestations, he drew the candlesticks
towards himself, began to unravel the ridiculous tan-
gle, and became for purposes of conversation a piece
of furniture with a beard.

Of course Mr Toothill had been foisted on us
merely because Pepper had not known what else in
the world to do with him; but Pepper's beautiful
candour rarely confessed much of what was really
passing in his mind, and I awaited with relish the
reason he would give for his call. By this time I

208 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

was quite wide awake again; and Mr Toothill had
refused the whisky I had got out.

Well, Judy had several reasons, all sufficient, all
perfect; but alas! he and Evie ever hit it off with
deplorable lucklessness. He and Whitlock were
Jackie's godfathers; but, as against the rather loud
way in which he had rung the bell, his urbanities
about the spiritual relationship availed him little
with Evie. Her looks said plainly, to me at all
events, that if Pepper intended her to believe that
he had called on an eating-up night merely to ask
how Jackie was getting on, he mistook her. Driven
from this outpost, Pepper proudly refused to urge the
commonplace excuse of private business with myself.
Instead, he delicately adjusted his trousers, produced
his cigar-case, besought Evie's permission with a
glance, and then, lighting up with deliberation, as-
tonished myself hardly less than Evie by saying:
"Well — unless Whitlock's already told you — I've
come for your congratulations, Mrs Jeffries."

" Oh ? What on, Mr Pepper ? " said Evie. She
had summoned up a ready, glad look.

"Ah, I see he hasn't told you. Stupid of me —
of course he couldn't have, as I only heard myself
about four hours ago. Dear Mrs Jeffries, you may
congratulate me on my impending knighthood."

Evie jumped up. "Realty?" I myself was not
so much surprised at the fact as at the moment of its
coming, though my surprise at that also passed in-

WELL WALK 209

stantly. Of course it would be so much prestige for
the Consolidation.

Yes, Judy was down among the approaching New
Year's Honours. And so he ought to have been.
If there is official recognition for a man who can
merely advise in a party's interest which provincial
mayors can be given the accolade without being made
the laughing-stock of their neighbours, Judy's serv-
ices to the Administration had been far greater. To
the man on 'change this would doubtless seem a
feather in the cap of the F.B.C. ; only a few knew
that before long it would prove a thorn in their sides.
Yes, it was distinctly good preparation for the com-
ing Consolidation, and, in the meantime, there was
the knight-elect's health to drink, and I had only
got the whisky out. I myself fetched up the claret
for Aunt Angela and Evie. Both the announcement
and the manner of it had been a huge success, and
Billy Izzard, remarking " I won't say ' may I,' — "
reached for Pepper's cigar-case.

" Well, I am glad ! " said Evie, maybe, wife-
like, casting ahead in a wonder as to what my own
chances might be. " And are we really the first
to know ? "

" Except Whitlock and Mr Toothill, yes. But of
course I needn't say "

" Oh, of course we wouldn't breathe a word ! Isn't
it splendid, auntie?"

Indeed, Evie seemed quite won over. I think

'

210 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

she came nearer that evening to liking Pepper than
she has done either before or since.

As I said, I have an object in relating all this —
several objects. The next thing happened perhaps
half-an-hour later, when Mr Toothill had almost freed
one candlestick of wool, but otherwise had not greatly
added to our sociability. For that half hour Pepper
had reigned among us, but then, bit by bit, he had
begun slowly to slip back again. We had guardedly
discussed the prospects of the Consolidation; and
then, as a preliminary to his coming down presently
with a run, Pepper made a perfectly innocent but
altogether luckless remark. It was about Miss
Levey.

" It was understood she wasn't to come over," he
grumbled; "I agreed to that; but I don't see why
she should be taken away from me just now." (I
had got rid of Miss Levey that very week.) " Hang
her private convictions! What do I care about her
private convictions as long as she does her work ? "

I laughed, though a little lamely. "My dear
Judy, we don't want a woman whose job interferes
with her propaganda, and she's been incubating
1 rights ' of one sort and another for a long time.
Send her to Schmerveloff :. he receives that sort with
open arms. Let him make a case of persecution out
of it. We want efficiency."

" But, dash it all, she was efficient"

" She wasn't. You had to pull her up last week,

WELL WALK 211

and I had twice the week before. She'd been
warned."

Judy, who really didn't care a button about the
loss of Miss Levey, laughed. " The red rag again,
Jeffries! You have here, Mr Toothill, quite the
most insular man in this realm, and the most obsti-
nate. I can make him do anything he's a mind to —
and not much else. Well, well, if you won't have a
suffragette, perhaps you'll find me a member of the
Women's Primrose League ? "

But here Whitlock struck in. " By the way, I'd
an applicant this morning."

" From the Women's Primrose League ? " Pepper
tossed over his shoulder.

" I don't mean for the private work, but as general
amanuensis," Whitlock went on. " I asked her how
she heard we wanted anybody, and she said she hadn't
— had just looked in on the chance."

" Go to Jeffries, since he's made it his affair," Pep-
per grumbled.

"Well, Miss Day is getting married," Whitlock
went on, " so that we shall want somebody in the
outer office. Then promote Miss Lingard "

" What was she like ? "

Billy Izzard's eyes were dreamily on the smoke
of Pepper's expensive cigar, but I saw a change
come into them. Whitlock has a passable gift of
description. He began to describe the woman who
had looked in on the chance of a job ; before he had

212 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

finished I had no doubt, and Billy (I gathered) not
much, of who the female out-o'-work had been.
" Hallo, my model ! " I guessed to be in his mind ;
but it was no business of his, and he appeared to be
relishing his cigar as before.

" I've forgotten her name, but I have it in the
book," Whitlock concluded. " Clouston or Christian
or something like that."

"Well, see she isn't anti-suffrage either," quoth
Pepper ; " as far as I can see, that would be just as
bad."

And he selected a fresh cigar.

My first thought had shaped itself in the very
words for which Louie herself had pulled me up so
sharply : " Poor woman ! " For it was pathetically
clear what had happened — what must have happened.
Once more she had taken a resolution too heroic to
be held to, and whether she had caved in because of
myself or because of the necessity for feeding and
clothing her boy made no practical difference. I
could only hope it was the last. Poverty leaves little
room for heroics. Later, as I think I told you, Louie
got Miss Day's post, and after that Miss Lingard's,
which she has still.

And my second thought was that, as she had ap-
plied of herself for Miss Levey's place, there would
now be no more love lost between her and Miss Levey
than there was between Miss Levey and myself. I
began to muse on this. . . ,

WELL WALK 213

But let me go on with that curiously broken even-
ing.

Ever since Pepper had told us about his knight-
hood Aunt Angela had sat, her slender fingers folded
in her lap, smiling from time to time into the fire.
Now knighthood is a temporal distinction, and, as
such (I am putting this bluntly), another nut for
that new and dainty humility of hers to crack. For
worldliness, it was my own promised wealth in an-
other form; and against such things she seemed to
have taken up some sort of a position. I think the
less practicable human charities had given her a ten-
derness even for Miss Levey, for I had not escaped a
soft look of reproach when I had made my observa-
tions on that lady ; and altogether she appeared to be
wrapped in a little private veil of dissociation from1
the rest of us and our doings.

So — again to anticipate what became plain a little
later — she also was nursing her little surprise for us.
Several times during the last month or two she had
spoken vaguely of leaving her rooms in Woburn
Place, the rooms she had shared with Evie before our
marriage; but I had not taken her very seriously;
she was welcome to come to us (as she afterwards did)
whenever she chose, and she knew it. But she had
got it into her head that she would like to take a
single room — oh, quite a large, airy, cheerful one —
and, as it turned out presently, she had actually done
so that very day.

214 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

Some chance remark of Pepper's — I think it was
something about how pleasant it was to see us thus
in our little family circle — gave her the opportunity
for her announcement. There had been a little by-
play between Pepper and Evie, who had wanted to
know why in that case he didn't get married himself ;
and to that Pepper, abolishing (as it were) the can-
dlesticks under his nose by an act equal in potency
to that of creation itself, had answered gallantly (and,
in the presence of those candlesticks, rather naugh-
tily) that our own menage set him a standard which
he would rather cherish in thought than fall from in
miserable actuality. It was then that his look em-
braced Aunt Angela, and my maiden aunt by mar-
riage smiled.

" I suppose Mr Pepper thinks I live here because
he always finds me here," she said. " But that's
only because I've no conscience about inflicting my-
self on other people. My dwelling's a much more
modest one than this, Mr Pepper."

I think Pepper was insincere enough to reply that
that it might quite well be and yet almost everything
that could be desired.

" I forgot to tell you that, Jeff," Aunt Angela
continued, turning to me. " As a matter of fact I
only settled the matter to-day — so you're not the only
one for whom to-day's been quite important, Mr Pep-
per." She preened herself,

WELL WALK 215

" Oh ! " I said shortly. I thought the whole idea
rather stupid. But she continued :

" I go in in exactly ten days, as soon as the paint's
dry. And as I don't begin to pay till Christmas, I
actually get a week for nothing. That might not be
much to some people," she purred, dropping her eyes,
" but it's quite a lot to me. So, Jeff, I shall want
you to bring a hammer and a foot-rule — or whatever
it is. He's so clever at putting up things, Mr Pep-
per."

She ran amiably on, describing her proposed ar-
rangements.

I could hardly blame Pepper that, to save him-
self from talking, he drew her out. He was bored
to death with the drowsy banality of the evening.
So Aunt Angela told us how cosy she was going to
be in her new quarters. With her bed screened off
in one corner, and the day's fire still burning, she
would be able (she said) to lie happily awake and
watch the firelight on the ceiling and indulge "an
old woman's fancies " ; there would be no stairs ex-
cept when she came out of doors; and she wouldn't
have to cook in the same room, for there was a little
landing with a stove left by the last tenant — and so
on. Pepper was the picture of polite interest.

" And I shall give a little housewarming, I think,"
she said, as one who knew that hospitality consisted
in the hostship and not in the entertainment provided.

216 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

" Really I should like to ask you all, Mr Toothill
too."

Toothill, who had now finished the "unfelting,"
had struck a match and was experimenting to find
out how much of the worsted was cotton and how
much wool. He looked up for a moment, but re-
sumed his occupation. Pepper hoped that he would
not be left out of Aunt Angela's housewarming.

Aunt Angela murmured that that was very sweet
of him.

And the smallest of small talk went on.

I don't know that I need give any more of it.
Indeed, I don't remember any more of it. Toothill
found the wool to be " sixty Botany " or something
of the kind, and we sat on, everybody wanting to
break the party up, but nobody (not even Pepper)
knowing quite how to do so without an open refer-
ence to a watch. I omit the details of Pepper's com-
plete downfall in Evie's eyes. I know that by some
accident or other the piano lid was opened, display-
ing the waterproof apron, and that poor Evie, flurried
until she hardly knew what she was saying, com-
mitted the solecism of calling Pepper " Sir Julius,"
grew pink (poor dear), and hated, not herself, but
Pepper. Also her frugality received a shock when
it was discovered that the hansom had been kept wait-
ing all this time. Then the maid, returning from
the Spaniards Road, filled my poor wife's cup by
bringing in I know not what homely provision for

WELL WALK 217

Jackie's comfort during the night. Then they went.
"Now, except when the flattery of personal attention
is of the highest importance, Pepper turns all provin-
cials over to Whitlock ; and I myself, if ever Mr Toot-
hill turns up at my house again, shall take the pre-
caution of having a whole barrow-load of worsted for
his entertainment, and if possible a kitten to " felt "
it for him.

V

I HAVE now to tell how Aunt Angela was as good
as her word about the housewarming of her
new abode. I hope that in these last pages I have not
seemed harsh in thought to the kind and aimless soul.
She did not meditate the mischief that came of that
evening, and it was not for lack of anything she was
able to do to remedy it afterwards that partial, if not
total shipwreck came. But that helped little. Ma-
levolence, in my experience, is not the worst of dan-
gers a man as exposed as I has to fear. It is the mis-
chief that grows as it were of itself, inherent in
persons and their diverse characters and manifold re-
lations that is the deadly thing. That is not mere bad
luck; it is fatality, and there is no defeating it. I
myself was so specially open to it that to all intents
and purposes I might as well have gone skinless
through the world. . . . Well, I grinned and bore it.
Only one other person knew that I was skinless, and
she, alas, was skinless too. Oh, take it on my author-
ity if you cannot take it otherwise, that you will do
wisely to keep out of my predicament unless you are
of a different temper from mine, have skins to spare,
or are prepared to endure the shock I was presently to

endure,

218

WELL WALK 219

I made no attempt to see that other skinless per-
son. If she had found herself driven, from need or
any other consideration, to seek a job with the Con-
solidation, so much the worse ; I did not see that that
released me from anything she had laid upon me. In
any case, as Miss Day's successor, I should rarely sec
her; even did she pass to the place lately held by
Miss Lingard I should, no doubt, be able to avoid her ;
and for the rest, as she herself had said, things must
drift. Sometimes, if I must confess the truth, I
found myself getting quite childishly petulant about
her. Why had she given me to suppose she was
something she wasn't ? Why had she let me see her
all caught-up and wise and able to bear, as she had
shown herself on that first memorable night, and then
gone to pieces like this ? I couldn't have known her
private feelings, but she must have konwn them. . . .
And what kind of impossible situation was going
to be created if, even avoiding other intercourse, I
had to encounter those tourmalines of her eyes every
time I passed through the busy office to Pepper's
room?

So sometimes I forgot what I had laid upon her,
and was callous enough and harassed enough to en-
tertain almost a weak resentment against her.

Aunt Angela's new dwelling was in one of those
curiously secluded little squares or " circuses " that
lie immediately east of King's Cross Road in the
neighbourhood of Mount Pleasant. You turn up

220 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

from the squalid shops and public-houses and trams,
and the length of a short steep street brings you into
a space with well-built houses about it, trees and birds
in the middle, and long narrow gardens with apple
and plum and pear at the back. Away to the north
the heights of Hampstead seem positively precipitous,
and, looking the other way, the multitude of turrets
and towers and spires, with St Paul's reigning over
them all, is singularly inspiring. Aunt Angela's
rooms were very advantageously placed for both these
prospects. The first time I went she took me up a
breakneck ladder, through a square trapdoor in which
I almost stuck fast, and out on to the leads. The
sky, torn in primrose-coloured rents and all smoke-
browned, was very stormy and fine ; and Aunt Ange-
la was looking forward to taking tea out on the roof
when the summer came.

" And I shall be able to look away to where my
dear ones are," she said, looking north again.

Her room was immediately under this flat roof. It
had two windows which looked on the trees in front,
and, at the half turn of the stairs, a third which gave
on the grimy back garden. In this garden poultry
scratched ; but there really was a plum-tree, and also
a fig that had been known to bear. Her bed, being
convertible into a couch by day, did not require to
be screened off after all, and the tiny fireplace had
brown tiles and a blackleaded iron kerb. One pe-
culiarity the apartment had which I ought to men-

WELL WALK 221

tion : this was a large enclosed cistern, which by rights
ought to have been on the roof outside. It held the
water supply for the whole house, and as the ball in-
side it rose and sank, its sounds varied from a gentle
tinkling to a soft whispering; the sounds never quite
ceased. A stout post some feet from the wall sup-
ported one corner of this cistern, and this Aunt Ange-
la, or rather I for her, converted into a hatstand.

It was as she handed me the four black hooks and
the paper of screws for this purpose one evening that
the sound of the cistern sank to a hissing. " Oh, do
give a look to it," she said; "perhaps it wants a
washer or something : you can reach it from the win-
dow-ledge. And oh, dear, I've got the screws but no
screwdriver! There have been hooks in before,
haven't there? You'll have to put these higher up
then. I'll see if I can borrow a screwdriver down-
stairs ; but see to the cistern first."

But there was nothing to be done with the cistern ;
if she stayed there she would have to get used to it,
that was all. I went up from Pall Mall several even-
ings to see to her installation, but I never imagined
she would stay there very long. The place looked too
suddenly cosy when the fire was lighted and the tea-
table brightly set.

And so I put her the hooks and a shelf or two up,
and made her as comfortable as I could.

Then one night, just as she was settling down, I
went in about something or other and found Miss

Levey and Aschael there. They seemed to have come
for the evening, for their hats were on the hooks on
the cistern post. Miss Levey appeared to have forgot-
ten that I had virtually forbidden her my house and
turned her out of her job as well ; as we shook hands
anybody might have supposed that we were the best
of friends. She and Aunt Angela appeared to be on
quite affectionate terms; and I gathered that Miss
Levey was giving lessons by post in secretarial work
and doing quite well out of it. Her passing over by
the Consolidation she spoke of as a resignation. She
was planning to link up her Commercial Correspond-
ence Class with some Guild or other for the Economic
Emancipation of Women, and wanted to tell me all
about it. I did not stay long.

And of course I couldn't choose Aunt 'Angela's
associates for her.

At first I had refused to go to that party of Aunt
Angela's. I had grounds enough for my refusal, for
we live half our lives two or three years ahead at
the Consolidation, and there were clouds on the
economic horizon. Men who live what I may call
" short-date " lives can provide for contingencies as
they arise, but the surveyor of the future, though he
may know things to be inevitable, must be prepared,
not for one way in which they may come about, nor
even for the most probable way, but for all possible
ways. Any one of a thousand symptomatic occur-

WELL WALK 223

rences may make the Consolidation's most elaborate
plans of yesterday of no avail, and work is ten times
work when this happens. It had happened several
times lately, and but for Pepper's marvellous resili-
ence, my own capacity for long spells of forced la-
bour, and the invaluable inertia of administrative de-
partments, it would have proved too much for us.

I can honestly say that, full of these preoccupa-
tions, I had not been influenced by the fact that in
all probability Aschael and Miss Levey would be
there. I had forgotten all about them.

But Evie's look of resignation when I had told her
that I was not going had touched me. We now knew
quite a number of people, some of them quite charm-
ing people too ; and while Evie made less use of this
advantage than I could sometimes have wished, I
couldn't reproach her for being faithful to her older
friends. For a long time we had not been anywhere
together. Therefore, seeing her patient yet fallen
face, I had promised to make an effort at least to
fetch her away, and to arrive earlier if possible. Her
instant brightening had amply repaid me.

The party was given on a sharp night towards the
end of January, and, try as I would, I had been un-
able to leave Pall Mall before half-past nine. I
should have liked to walk, but that would have taken
nearly three-quarters of an hour, and so, near the old
F.B.C., I had hailed a hansom. " King's Cross, and
then I'll tell you," I had said to the driver ; and as I

224 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

had sped along Holborn and up Judd Street I had
relapsed into consideration of the affairs of the day
again. The stopping of the hansom and the lifting
of the trap aroused me. I gave the man the name of
a chapel, and bade him then take a turning to the left ;
and we went forward again. We passed up a short,
steep street at a walk, and stopped in the little " cir-
cus."

Aunt Angela's two front windows were lighted and
open at the top, and as I paid off my cabman sounds
of a nasal singing floated out. I ascended the steps
and rang twice — Aunt Angela's signal ; but I had to
give the double ring again, so merry were they making
upstairs. Then I heard steps descending. They
were a man's steps, and I gave a sort of mental nod
when Aschael opened the door. I had thought he
would be there.

" Ve'd about given you up," he said familiarly.
" Come in, von't you ? "

I followed Aschael upstairs.

It would not greatly have surprised me had Miss
Levey taken it upon herself to receive me, as her
fiance (if he was her fiance; I never knew) had made
me welcome downstairs; but Aunt Angela, trying to
appear calm, but really one flutter of pleasure at the
success of her little party, met me at the door.

" How late you are," she said gaily. " Yes, yes —
I know you'd have come sooner if you could. I'm not
scolding you. iNbw I expect you're hungry; you

WELL WALK 225

must have some supper first, and then you shall be
introduced to anybody you don't know. Mr Aschael,
you'll get him all he wants, won't you ? "

u ,Vith pleasure, Miss Angela," said Aschael, bus-
tling about, all hands and smiles and ringlets.

Along the wall to my right, as I entered, ran a
table, spread with the disarray of a quite elaborate
supper. Plates were littered with banana skins,
grape-twigs with the tiny morsels of pulp still on
them, broken biscuits and remnants of jelly ; and be-
yond this table, under the cistern in the corner, was
a smaller one, with half a frilled ham, the wreckage
of a tongue and a severely mutilated cold pie. Sev-
eral flasks of colonial Burgundy had been opened;
syphons stood among these ; and from that secret and
inexhaustible hoard of her belongings Aunt Angela
had unearthed quite a large number of wineglasses,
red ones, green ones, and some of clear glass. Nay,
the entertainment had even run into a large box of
Christmas crackers; the coloured paper and bright
gelatine of these lay scattered among the plates ; and
my first impression of the number of people who made
the room very warm was that half of them had flimsy
tissue-paper caps and bonnets on their heads.

But, as I happened to be more than a little hungry,
I merely sketched a sort of general and inclusive bow,
sat down, and allowed Aschael to wait on me.

Then, my hunger appeased, I began to look about
me.

226 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

That the gathering was too large for Aunt Angela's
not very large room I instinctively set down to Miss
Levey's account, for several of those present appeared
to be her friends. There must have been ten or a
dozen people there. Miss Levey herself had already
given me several welcoming nods across the room from
where she sat, cross-legged and resolutely youthful, on
the floor at Evie's feet ; and on her black hair was a
tissue-paper cap of Liberty, with a red spot on one
side of it. I had already discovered that the sounds
of nasal singing I had heard came from the metal
corolla of a gramophone. This, I surmised, belonged
to the gentleman who was operating it, a little Jap-
anese named Kato, whom I had seen once or twice at
Aunt Angela's old boarding-house in Woburn Place.
He wore a dairymaid's bonnet of pale blue, with torn
strings. Two other of Aunt Angela's old fellow-
boarders also were there, one of them a delicate little
man with white spats, a Mr Trimble, the other an at-
tenuated little lady, with the red marks of a pince-
nez across the bridge of her nose, and very thin hair,
silver save for a few strands of a yellowish hue. Sit-
ting on Aunt Angela's couch-bed was a younger cou-
ple, not very obviously engaged, yet nevertheless car-
rying on what I gathered to be a courtship by means
of quick glad exchanges of the more paradoxical say-
ings of Schmerveloff. " Oh, rather ! " the lady gasped
from time to time ; " And do you remember that
passage?" . . . "Remember it! I should say so — •

WELL WALK 227

about the t man-made law ' you mean ? " These at
any rate bore all the marks of being friends of Miss
Levey's, and members of the Emancipation Guild.
Aunt Angela herself, Evie, and Billy Izzard com-
pleted the party.

As I was pushing back my chair, having supped,
the gramophone broke out again. Not to interrupt
it, I sat where I was, watching the little Japanese who
operated it. Mr Kato seemed to have neither eye-
brows nor lashes, and the slits of his eyes with their
little bitumen dots held, as he looked slyly up from
time to time, that indulgent, insulting expression that
I distrust in his race over here. He had the appear-
ance of trying the air of the " Intermezzo " from
Cctvalleria Rusticana iipon us, as if he contemptuously
thought to gauge our taste; and his small hands
touched screws and lifted little metal arms with a
negligent intelligence. He, too, had nodded to me,
though our acquaintance was of the slightest; and
with him on the one hand, and Miss Levey on the
other, I hoped Evie would not want me to stay very
long.

The tune had finished, and I had made another mo-
tion to rise when suddenly a few words of Miss
Levey's caused me to start, and then to sink slowly
back into my chair again. She was speaking to Mr
Kato.

" Oh, do let's have l Ora pro Nobis ' again, Mr
Kato — Miss Windus loves it so — don't you, Kitty ? "

228 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

The next moment the lady whose silver hair was
intermixed with brownish strands, the lady whom I
had taken to be an old fellow-boarder from Woburn
Place, had given a little nod and said " Please." As
if to hear the better, she set her pince-nez on her
nose.

I saw the little scalene triangles of her eyes. . . .

Like so much obliterating smoke, the past six or
seven years rolled away

Only six or seven years, and I had failed to recog-
nise her !

!N"ot quite knowing what I did, I found myself
crossing to the table under the cistern and returning
again with a great hacked-off piece of tongue. I sat
down to supper again.

There were candles on the table, and little bright
refractions of light came darting through the angles
of flower-stands and glasses. I watched these as I
made pretence to eat. Presently I found myself
quite curious about which fleck of light came from
which angle, and my eyes sought to trace each sparkle
to its origin. A few moments before I had been
drinking Burgundy from a green glass ; another glass,
a red one, stood close to it; but as the candles were
placed neither dyed the cloth with the little spot of its
own hue. Perhaps — I am trying to tell you quite
literally, and as nearly as I can remember, the infan-
tile occupation that had suddenly engrossed me — per-
haps if I moved the candle I should get the little

WELL WALK 229

spots. I moved the candle this way and that. Pres-
ently each of the glasses stood over its own little jewel
of light, this one red as a ruby, the other green as
grass. . . .

And I cannot better tell you how curiously stunned
even my sense of hearing seemed to be than by saying
that I heard not one note of " Ora pro Nobis," but
only the soft hissing of the cistern overhead in the
corner.

But, after I know not what space of time in which
I had become half hypnotised by those two tiny re-
fractions of coloured light, I suddenly put the glasses
away from me. Also I heard the gramophone once
more, and felt the returnings of methodical thought.
There came to me, after all this time, the very ordi-
nary reflection that Kitty must have recognised me —
had probably known I was coming — and had not been
able to endure my presence in the room. ... I re-
membered Evie's words : " I think you are wrong if
you think that things like that go on for years and
years." Looking covertly up, I saw that Evie had
moved, and was now on the other side of Kitty from
that occupied by Miss Levey. As I watched, she
picked up Kitty's handkerchief, and Kitty smiled.
Kitty's eyes even met mine, but whether they saw me
or were merely full of " Ora pro ISTobis," which was
being played for the second or third time, I could not
tell. They moved away again without having given
any sign of recognition.

230 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

Then the tune ended, and Miss Levey jumped up.

" Now, let's have something jolly ! " she cried.
"And Mr Jeffries has finished his supper — make
room for him in the circle — move up, Aschael."

It came suddenly upon me that there was one place,
and one place only in that room for me to take. I
had risen. I strode over the box of records in
which Mr Kato was rummaging, sat down next to
Kitty Windus, and held out my hand.

" How do you do, Kitty ? " I said.

So far was she from starting or trembling that she
merely turned, blinked a little, and, taking my hand,
said, in the thin little voice I used to know so well,
" Ah ! I thought you'd come and speak to me, by-
and-by."

So if Miss Levey had deliberately planned this for
my confusion, I triumphed over her.

For a quarter of an hour Evie and I sat one on
either side of Kitty Windus. There was no difficulty
whatever. Kitty, though she spoke little, showed no
more restraint than it had been her wont to show, and
there was nothing to bring up even the ghost of our
past relation. And if I triumphed over Miriam
Levey, so Evie triumphed over me in the private
glances she gave me past the back of Kitty's head.
She had been right, and I wrong. Those stories
of how Kitty had been found walking round and
round Lincoln's Inn Fields at night, unable, when con-

WELL WALK 231

fronted by a policeman, to remember her own name,
or where she lived — I strongly doubted them. I even
found Louie's account of her mental state difficult to
believe. . . . She spoke of her neuralgias. She had
been a martyr to them, she said, but they had been
better lately. Somebody's Tic Mixture had done
them more good than anything else. I ought to try
it — she'd write the name of it down for me on a
piece of paper in case I forgot — she hadn't been re-
membering things very well lately herself. Louie
had advised her to try Somebody Else's Tincture, but
she didn't believe in that at all; it was one of these
imitations that the shopmen were always trying to
palm off on people. ... At this point, seeing she
had mentioned Louie, I thought it safe to venture an
offhand, " Oh, how's Louie, by the way ? " But Kit-
ty, apparently forgetting that she herself had intro-
duced the name, pursed her lips. Louie, she mum-
bled, hadn't behaved very well. She didn't mean to
herself; she wouldn't in the least have minded that;
but one had friends, and liked to see them treated as

friends, which some people She stopped as

Billy Izzard came up, perhaps hearing Louie's name.
So great was my relief at all this, that I suddenly
found myself quite carelessly gay. But for Miss
Levey's presence I might have been positively happy.
But that lady's fussy attentions to myself did not
cause me to drop my guarded attitude towards her. I
smiled when she put a paper cap on my head also (she

232 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

had kept a cracker specially for me, she said) ; and
I made a joke when she read some amatory motto or
other ; that, I said, would be more in her friends' line
— indicating with a glance the couple who conducted
the intellectual courtship on the couch. But Miss
Levey wagged her short finger at me ; she wasn't go-
ing to have fun made of the members of her League,
she said ; and she even went so far as to slap the back
of my hand with a paper fan she carried and to tell
me I was naughty. Mr Kato, the dotted almonds of
his eyes blinkingly comprehending us all, ran through
the remaining records and then asked if there were
no more; and Aunt Angela herself said that if he
wanted more she was afraid he'd have to fetch them
from the landing. It was only then that I learned
that the gramophone was Aunt Angela's. I had sup-
posed it to belong to Mr Kato.

So we sat and laughed and enjoyed ourselves, Bil-
ly Izzard had taken an old letter from his pocket and
was making a jotting of the scene. I suppose that
mixture of littered supper-table, grotesque tissue-pa-
per caps, and Aunt Angela's miscellaneous furniture
must have appealed to his always keen sense of the
incongruous. They had got fresh records; I had
seen Mr Kato come in with an old soap-box, and had
heard Miss Levey's cry of juvenile delight : " Oh,
they're all comics ! " They were entreating Aschael
to sing, who liked being entreated, but said, No, Miri-
am was the singer. Miriam replied merrily that un-

WELL WALK 233

less they were careful she would sing, and then they
would know all about it. Aunt Angela laughed
heartily at this : and in the end Aschael sang, not very
appropriately, " The Boys of the Bulldog Breed."
Mr Kato " Hurrahed " and Miss Levey " Banzaied,"
and Aunt Angela, who had slipped out during the
song to wash glasses in her little pantry, called the
little nonentity from Woburn Place to help her in
giving us all claret-cup.

"What a pity Mr Aschael's voice isn't properly
trained ! " Kitty remarked, turning to me.

" An awful pity ! " Evie struck vivaciously in from
the other side of her. " I'm sure he'd have a splen-
did voice ! "

It was odd, the way in which the pair of us took
Kitty under our wing.

" You don't sing, do you, Kitty ? " Evie next asked.

Kitty didn't. Evie admitted that she didn't either.
" But," she said, " we aren't going to let Mr Aschael
off with one song, are we ? Come, Mr Kato — you're
Master of the Ceremonies "

" I'm just finding one he knows." Mr Kato
grinned over his shoulder.

" A comic, mind," warned Miss tevey, " and then
Kitty can have * Ora pro Nobis ' again before we go."

And in token that the song was going to be comic,
Aschael got up on his feet and set himself in a ges-
ture he had doubtless picked up at the Middlesex
Music Hall,

234 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

" Now, Mr Aschael," said Kato.

Aschael cleared his throat.

At the first notes of a curiously thin piano ac-
companiment, I felt Kitty shrink and close as a daisy
closes at the approach of night. . . .

You will tell me that I ought to have stopped the
machine — smashed it — fallen on it — done something,
anything; but put yourself in my place; nay, put
yourself in the place of the three of us who sat to-
gether, and who had sat together the last time we had
heard the song Aschael sang. Did I tell you when
that had been, or didn't I? I had better tell you
now. ... It had been up the Eiver, with a summer
twilight falling, and distant banjos sounding, and the
Japanese lanterns making long, wavy reflections in
the water. Our party had been four, not three, then,
and the fourth of us had sung this song Aschael was
singing now. He had sung it, lolling in the stern,
beating time with one hand, and very careful about
the spotting of a new pair of white flannel trousers.

Oh yes, I daresay I ought to have done something
rather than let those two other poor things hear that
song again. . . .

But a hideous fear, of which they knew nothing,
kept me fascinated and still. So long as they only
remembered the song and that other occasion they
were the lucky ones. I envied them their luck. No
let-off so merciful was mine. . . . And my horror

WELL WALK 235

was enhanced, not so much by those two faces at which
I dared not glance, as by our atmosphere of tawdry
festivity — the sprinkling of coloured gelatine on the
floor, the mocking caps of tissue paper on our heads,
and the florid antics of Aschael, turning and grima-
cing, now this way, now that.

That I might keep this added horror of mine from
them, there was even yet a chance. . . .

For the song, you understand, was being sung
twice, once by the unknown maker of the record in
the machine, and the second time, as it were over it,
by Aschael. As the two voices did not perfectly
coincide, the result was a sort of palimpsest of sound,
with, as sometimes happens in palimpsests, the old
and almost erased message the more significant one.
Aschael kept irregular pace with a far-off amateur
voice and the faint tinkling of a piano. . . . Like a
bolt into my brain had come the knowledge of whose
that horrible instrument had been, and how it had
come into Aunt Angela's possession. I remembered
her visits to Quildford; I remembered Mrs Merri-
dew's funeral; I remembered her old kindnesses
in providing a certain young man in London
with a " home from home." The machine had come
from Guildford, a legacy, a memento, a giggle from
the tomb. . . .

But they, those two poor stricken souls, could yet
be spared that knowledge. It was dreadfully too
much that they knew the song, and that he had known

236 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

it, and that he had sung it that summer's evening up
the Kiver. The rest of the horror might still be kept
from them.

"All together — chorus," cried Aschael jubi-
lantly :

"'Why — don't — you marry the girl?

D'you want — the poor thing — to die?
You can see — she's gone — upon — you

By the twin — kle in — her eye!
Do — the trick — for se — ven-and-six,

Take — the tip — of a pal —
I've — been — watching your game —

Why don't you marry the gal?'"

Then I felt that last desperate hope of mine slip-
ping away — Aschael was beginning to forget the
words, and to make out with gestures and grimaces,
leaving gaps through which there started up thin and
tinkling and facetious horrors. ... I saw that Kato
had realised ; I had once come upon him and Archie
drinking whisky and soda together; his eyes met
mine curiously, and I fancied his lips shaped the
name:

"Merridew?"

This next I have from Billy Izzard. He tells me
that all at once I sprang to my feet and cried, in a
huge and boisterous voice that drowned everything
else, " Never mind, Aschael — chorus — all togeth-
er!—"

" ' Why — don't — you marry the girl ?
D'you want — the poor thing to die?

WELL WALK 237

You can see — she's gone — upon you

By the twin-kle in — her eye!
La — la la — sing up!

Take the tip — go on, Aschael! —
I've been — watching your game —

Why don't you marry the gal?'"

Clapping my hands, Billy says, I fell back into a
chair.

But I was out of it again in an instant. I was
not to escape so easily as all that. Kato had his
finger on the lever; I cannot say how, nor whether,
he guessed what was to come, nor whether he tried to
avert it ; if he did, he was too late. From that dam-
nable box there came a long catarrhal wheeze — high-
pitched and tenor the words came :

" Now, Evie — Evie's turn — make her sing, mother
— bosh — of course she's going to sing! "

I was neither at Aunt Angela's party nor yet in
a boat on a summer's evening up the River. How
can I tell you where I was ? In what drawing-room ?
Sitting on what chair? Surrounded by what com-
pany ? . . . I swear to you that I have seen a place
I have never seen, been in a place I never in my life
was in. I can describe to you a family gathering
with Mrs Merridew there, and her son there, and Evie
there, and myself never, never there. I have seen,
whether they ever existed or not, French windows
opening on a lawn, and a slackened tennis-net beyond,
and an evening flush in the sky, and the air dark
with homing rooks. . . . Nothing will persuade me

238 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

that these eyes are in fact ignorant of that quiet home
of Archie Merridew's — and yet Guildford is a place
in which I have never been.

Then a sound like the hissing of a thousand cisterns
filled my ears. Through it I heard Kitty Windus's
scream of terror, but it sounded an infinite distance
away. From Evie I had heard nothing. For one mo-
ment I saw everything reel and aslant — Kato, the
SchmerveloflSans on the sofa, the cistern-post with its
hats and coats and one hook empty, steeving up
towards a tilted ceiling. . . .

Then came the blow on the back of my head, and
the sounds of the cistern ceased. I had fallen across
Aunt Angela's tiled hearth, and lay in a cloud of
steam from the kettle I had overturned in my fall.

PART IV
IDDESLEIGH GATE

IT is against the advice of my doctors that I have
written these last pages — these last chapters in fact
— at all. But I wrote them only a very little at a
time, after I came back from Hastie's place in Scot-
land. And I went to Scotland only after I came
back from Egypt. But I am back at the Consolida-
tion now, having missed nearly a year, and I really
don't think that this private writing tires me too
much.

I admit that it seems odd that I should wish to do
it at all, and doubly odd that I should have kept, not
one private record, but two.1 I thought I had fin-
ished when the first one came to an end. Then I
found I hadn't. Let me say quite plainly, however,
that the second one is no retractation of the first.
There is not a single statement in that first writing
from which I recede. I stand by every word of it. I
wrote there, for example, that I did not fear to be left
alone in my library at night ; and that is true. I wrote
that there glided no shadowy shape by my side when
I stepped into my brougham or passed between the
saluting commissionaires in Pall Mall ; and that also
is true. It is true that I play with my clean-born
children, both of them, and still do not pardon even
i See " In Accordance with the Evidence."
241

242 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

the meditation of that old crime that would have made
the life of her I love an abhorrence worse than death.
These things are as true now as when I first wrote
them, and I shall die without regret for them.

But the impulse that drives a man to write about
himself at all still remains a curious thing. I don't
find it an inexplicable one — but as I shall return to
this by-and-by, I will leave it for the present. Let
me say this, however, now ; that whatever cares may
or may not weigh on me, I neither consider myself
on my defence nor yet join hands with Schmerveloff
and his crew in their sweeping and futile denuncia-
tions of the whole Scheme of Things as they are. If
I cannot stand alone I can at least fall alone, and I
haven't fallen yet.

Nevertheless, this writing will have to be less fre-
quently indulged (if that is the word) ; there is little
sense in paying doctors if you don't take their advice.
There have been few physically stronger men than I ;
especially my strength of finger and forearm and
wrist have been remarkable; and I can still bend a
half-crown and make a dog's leg out of a thick poker.
But I don't pretend that I am the man I was. Sep-
arately, my brain and body work as well as ever they
did, but they do not always jump together. I don't
know whether this is due to the hole Aunt Angela's
blackleaded fender made in my skull. It was a bad
hole, and I cracked three of Aunt Angela's brown
tiles. Perhaps that is the reason why my doctor ad-

IDDESLEIGH GATE 243

vised me to get to bed early, and cautioned me about
tbe use of stimulating drinks and heating foods.
. . . Let me see, let me see. . . .

Ah, yes, I was going to speak of that evening.
Mercifully, Evie was spared the worst of that shock.
So gently and easily that for quite a time nobody dis-
covered it, she had slid off into a faint at the very
beginning of that song of Aschael's, and so had not
seen my own headlong fall. This saved us from a
disaster, for otherwise our little girl would probably
not have been born in the following July, not to be
welcomed by her father until October came. Indeed,
I had to wait till October before I learned a good
many things ; but such was my state of lassitude that
I was able to do so without impatience, and even
without much interest, content to be free from pain
and to be looked after by those people of Hastie?a
party. After a time they began to allow me to do
little things — superintend the packing of the lunch-
eon-baskets and, as I grew better, to join the guns in
the clearing when the whistle went ; and Evie, away
at Broadstairs with Aunt Angela (who had given
up her room in the little " circus "), sometimes
seemed part of a charming but not very moving dream
to me. You see from this how bad I was. . . . Then
I returned, and the winter in Egypt and Hastie's
house in Scotland began in their turn to fade.

Apart from my work at the Consolidation, I began
to be full of a curiously single preoccupation. I had

244 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

not brooded on this while I had been away : as I have
said, I had not brooded on anything; it merely came
back to me as the most natural thing to do, a matter of
course. It was the thing that Louie Causton,
against what she conceived to be her own interests,
had advised that night when I had dined with her at
the Models' Club. There was something I must now
tell Evie.

I think I let it go, vaguely, as " something." It
was not that I did not know perfectly well what it
was; but those lazy days free from pain among the
heather had made that also somehow unreal; I sup-
pose I had worn smooth the thought of it; and it
seemed nothing to make a fuss about. It did not
even require resolution. It was merely something
that ought to have been done long ago. This was my
attitude of mind then. I don't say that it is now.

That long separation had altered our relation in
more ways than one. With such joy did I rejoin
Evie that for both of us it was as if we were newly,
and yet both more strongly and more peacefully, mar-
ried again. My lovely little Phyllis had put even
poor Jackie's nose out of joint. On the other hand, a
year is a year, and if my own time had been one of
vacancy and healing, Evie's had not. I had only to
listen to her and Aunt Angela to become aware of
this. They had made quite a circle of acquaintances
in Broadstairs; several of these had since been kept
up in Xondon; and there were things I was at least

IDDESLEIGH GATE 245

temporarily out of. I mention this not because I
wanted to be in at them ; indeed it all seemed to me
a little casual ; but I could hardly have expected Evie
to sit moping in a boarding-house parlour all that
time, and certainly she looked a picture of blooming
health. I say " looked," because it was only later
that I learned what the first question of the doctor
who had attended her had been : " Has she ever had
a severe shock?"

I am unable to explain how it was that at first I
was quite incurious to know what people had thought
of that extraordinary collapse of mine, and why the
effect of that song on Kitty Windus, for example,
should have been less marked than its effect on myself.
For Kitty, though she had screamed, and babbled in-
coherent things that probably I have never been told
about, had sustained no lasting injury. An icy
breath had passed over everybody there, and nobody,
I thought, would be so morbid as to push their in-
quiries into the varying degrees of iciness. I may
say at once that I thought quite rightly. No-
body has, not even (so far as I am aware) Miriam
Levey.

It was from Aunt Angela, of course, that I learned
what that first question of the Broadstairs doctor
had been ; and it brought me face to face with that so
easily assumed resolution of mine rather sharply.
By mere luck Evie had escaped that shock of the
party, but the original one, the seven or eight years'

246 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

old one, remained. That I might know exactly to
what extent this might affect my determination, I
had the Broadstairs doctor to meet my own more
distinguished one. I told this one of the tragedy of
Evie's former engagement, and related the affair of
the gramophone. He looked grave.

" You must see that she doesn't get another
shock," he said.

Evie herself was not made aware that the visit
had more than an ordinary significance.

But Louie's advice now seemed rather beside the
mark.

I saw Louie daily now; and whether it was that
she had been able to entrench herself behind her
work in my absence, or had found some modus viven-
di midway between that ecstasy of the night when
she had supported me in a Chelsea doorway and
the anguished outbreak of that other evening in the
Models' Club, or however it was, my fears for the
impossibility of the situation now appeared to have
been groundless. Whitlock, indeed, saw more of
her than I. He spoke exceedingly favourably of her.
She used quickness and common-sense in her work, he
said, and, when he had half-a-dozen things to do at
once, did not take down a remark interpolated to
somebody else as part of the letter he was dictating.
I was not surprised to learn that she " flashed " in-
telligently at unexplained meanings. She converted
Whitlock's rapid mumbled instructions into (com-

IDDESLEIGH GATE 247

mercial) English with ease, and had already attracted
Pepper's notice.

I don't know whether it has struck you that Evie,
who had given it as a sufficient reason for renewing
her intimacy with Miriam Levey and Kitty Windus
that they had been at the old Business College in
Holborn together, had never once urged the same
thing on behalf of Louie Causton. It was not that I
wanted her to do so ; as a matter of fact I very much
preferred them apart. And I thought I saw the rea-
son for Evie's silence. Louie trailed an unhappy
story behind her. Louie had been a model. Aunt
Angela had not asked her to her party. If there was
any coolness between Miriam Levey and Louie, which
now might well be, Evie would naturally be disposed
to take the part of the former. I don't mean to say
that she looked down on Louie. It was only later
that I learned that she wasted a thought on Louie. I
only mean that their paths lay in different directions,
and that Evie had hitherto appeared content that
they should do so.

It was in a roundabout way that I discovered that
Louie had a place in Evie's thoughts. Acting under
my doctor's orders, I had begun to come home early
in the afternoon, seldom working after tea; and I
entered the drawing-room one afternoon to find a
couple of her Broadstairs acquaintances, a Mr and
Mrs Smithson, with her. Smithson was, I think, a
cycle agent; she was an openwork-stockinged, flirta-

248 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

tious little woman, for ever making eyes, and appar-
ently under the impression that all conversation would
languish unless she took the greater part of it upon
herself. I imagine it had been she who had sent
Evie one or two vulgar seaside post cards that, had
they been addressed to me, would have gone straight
into the fire. It appeared that they knew Peddie
slightly, my old Jun. Ex. Con. of the F.B.C., and
now Whitlock's abstract clerk ; and I was not disposed
to congratulate Peddie on the acquaintance.

They were just leaving as I arrived, so that w&
only exchanged a few words; indeed, the ringing of
the telephone I had had fixed up in my study gave
me an excuse to cut our leave-taking short. I went
to the instrument ; it was Louie Causton with a mes-
sage from Whitlock ; and I gave my instructions and
returned to Evie.

~N"ow Jackie, who was just beginning to babble and
notice things, was greatly interested in the telephone,
and I entered the drawing-room just in time to hear
him make some remark about' " plitty typies." As I
took no notice, Jackie repeated the unchildlike ex-
pression. Evie was pouring me out more tea.

"Plitty typies, farzer," Jackie clamoured, impe-
rious for notice.

I turned to Evie.

" Where did he pick that up ? " I asked.

Evie said: "Oh, it was gome silly joke of Elor-
rieV

IDDESLEIGH GATE 249

" Florrie is Mrs Smithson ? "

" Yes."

I was not pleased. I suppose that, like Charles
Lamb, I am squeamish about my women and chil-
dren, and I remembered Mrs Smithson's post cards.
One of them had borne the legend, " Detained at
office — very pressing business," and if you have seen
these things you will not want it described. But I
was loth to raise again the question I had formerly
raised about Miss Levey and Aschael, and so I merely
asked whether it was not possible for her to give Mrs
Smithson tea without having Jackie there. She said,
" Very well," though in a tone a little subdued. She
knew what I meant.

It was ten minutes later that, returning of her
own accord to the subject, she said a little poutingly :
" I don't see much to make a fuss about. He doesn't
know what it means."

" That doesn't improve matters very much," I
said. " It seems to me to make them worse."

" Oh, very well," she answered.

But she returned to the subject yet again. She
spoke defensively.

" I had to have him at Broadstairs with me. You
couldn't have him in Scotland with you."

" Jackie, you mean ? "

"Yes."

She gave a slightly marked shade of meaning to
the words " in Scotland." To tell the truth, it was

250 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

a little on my mind that I had had the more desir-
able summer of the two of us. I am no snob, but I
do prefer some people to others, and if people do run.
in strata, well, nobody can tell me much I don't know
about the clerk and cycle-agent class, and they don't
charm me. I spoke with a little compunction.

" I wish it could have been helped, darling. Any-
way, we sha'n't be separated again."

(I may say that I don't think Evie had thought it
very remarkable that I should have had that accident
at Aunt Angela's party. She had fainted herself,
and knew little of the later events ; and we have lived
too long together for her not to be aware that, rugged
as I may appear to the rest of the world, I am a
sensitive man.)

After a moment's silence : " Mrs Smithson has
asked me down to Broadstairs for a week," she said.
" She — of course she hadn't met you."

" You mean she's asked you without me ? "

" She hadn't met you," Evie excused Mrs Smith-
son.

" And— shall you go ? "

She answered quite readily : " Of course not — not
without you."

I got up and kissed her. I had expected no less
of her.

But I knew that she would have liked to go to
Broadstairs, and was only staying away out of her
duty to me, it was not for me to deny her her sex's

IDDESLEIGH GATE 251

equivalent of a grumble — a sigh. Then we began to
talk.

We talked quite equably: I never in my life
wrangled with Evie. I said, quite gently, that I did
not wish the boy to acquire precocious chatter about
pressing business and pretty typists, and Evie made
no opposition; indeed, she laughed when I suggested
how unlikely it was that any pretty typist would have
pressing business with myself. By-and-by she asked
me who had rung me up, and I told her. " Oh, yes,
I forgot ; she's with you now," she said ; " Mr Whit-
lock engaged her, didn't he ? "

"Yes," I answered. Then, after a little further
talk, we kissed again, and she went out to give Phyllis
her bath.

Oddly enough, very soon after speaking thus of
Louie after that long silence, she saw Louie herself.
One morning she announced that she was going shop-
ping that day, and would call for me at Pall Mall and
bring me home to tea. She finished her shopping
earlier than she had thought she would, and, not wish-
ing to disturb me before the appointed time, had
come upon Louie in the counting-house. She told
me this when we got home. She had asked Louie to
show her round, and was full of the wonders of the
place — the lifts, the telephone exchange, the series of
waiting-rooms, the advice-board from Lloyd's, the
acre-wide office full of busy clerks. " What a change
from Holborn ! " she said she had said to Louie, and

252 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

then Louie had brought her to my own private room.

The next day Louie made a mistake in a rather
important draft. It was not like her, and WhitJock
blamed himself for having left too much to her in-
tuition. The error necessitated a consultation be-
tween Louie, Whitlock and myself. It was set right,
and Louie was going out again when I glanced at
Whitlock. He looked inquiringly, nodded, and left
us. There was something I wanted to say to Louie ;
perhaps it was rather something that it would not be
very graceful not to say ; perhaps it was both.

I think this was the first time I spoke to her at
the Consolidation except on business.

" Well, that will be all right," I said, dismissing
the error in the draft. ..." By the way, you saw
my wife yesterday, didn't you ? "

She gave a little nod.

"And showed her round? It was very good of
you. She enjoyed it very much. She told me all
about it."

Louie said something about it being no trouble,
and then appeared to be going. But I stopped her.
Then, when I had stopped her, I didn't quite know
what to say.

" Oh — er " I said awkwardly, looking at her

and then looking away again. "Without opening
matters up — you know what I mean — going into
things — I want to say just one thing. It's about —
a piece of advice you once gave me."

IDDESLEIGH GATE 253

She had half opened the inner door, and stood, as
it were, on the threshold of the box-like space between
the inner one and the outer one of baize. The look
she gave me was almost hostile, and the tourmalines
were shut. I don't think, by the way, that she ever
heard of that incident at Aunt Angela's party. I
neither asked her whether she had, nor ever told her
about it.

" If you feel that you must " she said, not very

invitingly.

" It's merely this," I said rather hurriedly, " that
what you suggested is impossible now."

" Yes," she said ; " I suppose it is."

" Her doctor's forbidden it — I mean, he says she
mustn't have another shock."

Instantly I saw, by the way in which she said,
" Oh ! " that she had had something else in her mind.
" Oh ! . . . I see," she said, and I pondered.

" Ah ! " I said at last. " You mean you've just
seen — just this moment ? "

She made no reply.

" You've just seen, just this moment. Then why
did you say yes, you supposed so ? "

Her answer was impatient. " Oh, must you ? "

"Must I what?"

" Must you do this ? "

" Ask you why you assented when I said something
was impossible now ? "

" Ask me anything at all ! " she almost snapped.

354 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

I gave her a long look. " Shut the door," I said.
..." Now tell me why you agreed with me when I
«aid that it was impossible to take your advice
now."

The tourmalines flickered almost scornfully.
" Don't you know ? "

" I do not."

" What ! You can't guess ? "

" Will you tell me ? "

For a moment she looked as if she was going to
sit down for something that would require time ; but
she changed her mind, and stood, a crumple of skirt
grasped in either hand.

" Ask me again and I will," she said, in a slightly
raised voice.

" I do ask you."

Then, with a harsh little laugh, Louie made her
second mistake of that day.

" Because she's jealous," she said. " Evidently
that wasn't your reason; I don't know what yours
was; but that's mine."

" Oh ! " I said. In the face of a statement so pre-
posterous I really could think of nothing else to
say.

" What else did she come here yesterday for ? "
Louie demanded.

I smiled. That was too absurd. "Well — shall
we say to keep an appointment with her husband ? "
I suggested.

IDDESLEIGH GATE 255

" Oh, if you like ! . . . Then why does she want
to come and see me at my house ? " she demanded.

It was news to me that Evie did want to go and
see Louie at her house, but I was careful not to let
Louie see that.

"Oh!" I said, still smiling. "And you think
these grounds enough for your statement ? "

" My good " she broke out. " I'm not asking

you to accept them. I know better than to try to
persuade youl You asked me, and I've told you;
that's all."

" And if I say once for all that it is not so, and
that nothing could make it so ? "

" Make it so ! " she broke out. " Really, Jeff,
you talk like — a man 1 ' Make it so I ' ... If you
can't see your little definite reason for everything, you
deny the fact! If I could say that Kitty Windus
and Miriam Levey had been chattering — I'm not
aware that they have, but if I could say that — I sup-
pose you'd call that a reason, and listen to it ; but any-
thing else — pshaw! I don't care a button for your
reason 1 Your reason may have made this business,
but it won't persuade a woman against something she
knows — myself or Evie. It just is so, and there's
an end of it. And of course you see the beautiful
new fix it puts you in." She gave a little stamp that
made her garments quiver.

" Louie, I can't-

" Oh, a perfect fix ! Really, I'm curious to know

256 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

what you're going to do about it ! Try to persuade
her that there's nothing between you and me ! Try
it, try it ! Why, how shouldn't she be jealous when
I am? Do you think she doesn't see that? Oh, I
don't know why I waste words with you! . . . But
you see your fix. It was Kitty before, and you tried
half telling then ; now it's me ; but it isn't either of
us really ; oh, if it only could be ! ... It's the secret,
Jim. You've got to tell her — and you can't. I don't
know what this is about a shock, but it's too late now.
Try it if you like — I don't care what you say about
me. Try the half truth again — give her reason—
the reason's yours whenever you want it."

Of course I couldn't listen to this nonsense and
immodesty and worse. Who should know better
whether Evie was jealous or not, Louie or I ? Evie
jealous! ... Of course, if it were so, the position
would be precisely as Louie had stated it. I should
have to choose between Evie's love and the risk the
doctor had so gravely foreshadowed. Our very ex-
istence together would hang on precisely that last
desperate chance. And from the bottom of my heart
I blessed my Maker that, tossed and buffeted as my
life had been, at least that perfected anguish of body
and spirit was to be spared me. . . .

I had risen. Smiling rather sadly, I turned to
Louie.

"Well — as I said — I don't want to re-open
things/' I said.

IDDESLEIQH GATE

With the door already half open, she turned.
" Do you think they're closed ? " she said.
And she did not wait for my reply.

257

II

IT is as I feared : this writing, as a continuous rec-
ord, will have to stop. My life is getting too full.
I daresay its crowded outward happenings are a good
thing for me ; it is better, as the saying is, to wear out
than to rust out ; and I am beginning almost to enjoy
change for change's sake.

My newest change is a removal. Pepper's latest
cosmopolitan, Baron Stillhausen, wants to be rid of
that Iddesleigh Gate house as it stands, and already
I have taken Evie round to see it. It almost took
away her breath: I didn't know how near delight
could come to timidity — I almost said to dismay.
When I said, " Well, darling, am I to take it ? " she
looked at me as much as to say " Dare you ?"...!
think I dare — though I have only to remember my
own beginnings to be a little intimidated myself. I
walked over to Verandah Cottage the other evening;
a sign-writer has the place now; and it seems either
very much more or very much less than four years
since I lived there — sometimes hardly four months,
sometimes half-a-lifetime. . . . But Evie will very
quickly be turning up her nose at Well Walk. Al-
ready she had begun to shop quite freely. For get-
ting to and from Pall Mall (I told you I was to spare

258

IDDESLEIGH GATE 259

myself physically for the present) I have bought a
small runabout of a car. Really it is only an ordi-
nary taxi, with a rather superior shell placed on it,
and I have an agreement with a young fellow who has
just taken his driving certificate; but Evie was talk-
ing about a livery for him the other night, and I was
pleased. That is as it should be. It will be a joy
to me to see her take her proper place. . . .

So this record will have to be more and more a
diary, jotted down as I can find opportunity for it.
I need not say that the change to Iddesleigh Gate
will be a larger undertaking than, say, Aunt Angela's
installation in the little " circus " near King's Cross
was. And there is the Consolidation. That is heavy
work, and the heavier that at present we are working
very much in the dark. In these present industrial
troubles, for example, we do not quite know where
we shall come out ; we can only throw in our weight
with the big natural forces that, in history as in
dynamics, balance themselves in the end. The air
is thick with dust of SchmervelofFs raising; and
though all this dust may turn out presently to be
like the comet's tail, packable into a portmanteau, for
the present it certainly obscures our vision. We
have to take into account, too, that even dust is not
raised without a cause ; and so in public we sit, Radi-
cals all, in solemn inquiry into things, with plenty of
Westminster stage thunder, while behind the scenes
we get in good old Tory heavy work, not necessarily

260 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

because we are Tories, but because Toryism serves
a useful purpose just at present. Once or twice
lately I have disobeyed my doctor, and stayed at the
office for tea, so closely in touch have I had to keep
•with various Committees and Conferences; and we
have had to keep our staff late too, which is rather
hard on them, since they get none of the kudos. But
the days when I could burn the candle at both ends
all the time are over for me, I'm afraid.

Louie Causton rarely gets away early now; in
that respect she was better off when she sat for the
evening classes at the Art Schools ; but she gravitates
more and more to Pepper's side of the business.
That bee she has in her bonnet about Evie's being
jealous of her does not, I am glad to say, impair her
business efficiency. The other day Pepper remarked
on her distinguished carriage, and, as he never
neglects appearances, he chooses her, when an amanu-
ensis is necessary, for his more important consulta-
tions. The other night he took her and Whitlock to
dinner before going to Sir Peregrine Campbell's. I
can picture his dismay had it ever been suggested that
he should take Miss Levey out to dinner. And
Stonor and Peddie do not crack the old jokes they did
at the F.B.C., about " Miss Causton's pal — Sir Pere-
grine," or " You know who I mean — that friend of
Miss Causton's — the Under Secretary for Foreign
Affairs." Indeed there seem to be fewer jokes going
about than there used to be. We are all getting older

IDDESLEIGH GATE 261

— Louie (save for those slender yacht-like lines of
hers), Aunt Angela (whose self-satisfied humilitiea
have rather lost their resilience since that night of
her housewarming in the little " circus "), Evie (who
now takes the prospect of a day and a night nursery
as a matter of course, and has bills sent in to me
quite naturally) and the rest of us. Even Billy
Izzard, clean painter as he is, seems to he forcing hia
jokes. He has lately found an artificial amusement
in balls and pageants, rather to the neglect of his
work; and all this, slight as it seems — I mean the
spread of the love of amusement — has actually more
to do with Consolidation than you would guess. . . .
But I must stop. I get Consolidation enough during
the day without bringing it home with me at night.
Evie has just knocked at the door. That is her signal
that I have " consolidated " enough — as she calls
this journal of which she has never heard.

1st March. — For the first time I make this frankly
a diary. According to my agreement, we go into Id-
desleigh Gate on Lady Day; as a matter of fact we
are there now. My lease is for ten years. I got as
many of Stillhausen's effects as I wanted at forced-
sale rates ; a good deal I didn't want. Evie went half
wild with joy about a certain crystal bath; I about
the Amaranth Room. It is extraordinary how few
pieces it takes to furnish this last splendid apartment :
a settee, a few chairs, a few cabinets, a bust or two,

262 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

and the vast turfy carpet. ... A smaller room would
look half empty with twice the furniture. Billy
says it's the proportions, and is puzzling about them,
seeking what he calls " the unit," and taking now the
length of a gilt Empire settee, now the height of a
lacquered cabinet, now his own height, etc., etc. It
is Evie's music room; she has begun her lessons;
but it will be some time, I am afraid, before she makes
very much of it. Billy threatens to quarter himself
on us while he makes paintings of the whole house.
Aunt Angela has two rooms on the second floor, with
distempered walls; and she began her furnishing
with a crucifix. My library is stately. The heavy,
slow-moving doors scarcely make a click when they
close, and a bell-connection down the passage warns
me of the approach of anybody. I suppose Still-
hausen found this useful ; he was in the Diplomatic
Service; and perhaps it is well that these stamped
leather walls do not whisper secrets. There is a
secret of my own that I keep in the bureau by the
heat-regulator there. I am not sure that the fire
would not be the best place for it. It is odd, by the
way, that this impulse to burn these papers should
lately have become almost as strong as the impulse
to write them formerly was.

I have a telephone switchboard to half the rooms
in the house, and the line to Pall Mall is doubled,
the second wire not passing through the Company's
Exchange. A switch turns on the masked lights

IDDESLEIGH GATE 263

behind the cornice, and what with one device and
another, it would pay me to have a private electrician.
Aunt Angela, I may say, who has managed to recon-
cile herself to heavier expenditures, is harrowed at
the waste of electric power, and wanders about the
house turning off switches. On a Jacobean table at
the far end of the library are two small bright things
with branches — that is to say, they seem small until
you take a walk to them. They are Pepper's candle-
sticks. I have attained the scale.

March. — That impulse to destroy these papers
has reminded me of a little thing that happened
while I was away in Scotland. One of Hastie's boys,
Ronald, aged fourteen, has a little den of his own in
the back part of the house, and during my convales-
cence he was so good as to make me welcome there.
The paraphernalia of I don't know how many hobbies
littered the place; his latest had been chemistry; and
he stank of chemicals, and had his clothes red-spotted
with acids. His greatest success, at which I was
privileged to assist, was to fill ginger-beer bottles with
hydrogen and explode them. One day he invited me
to witness a really superior explosion. It was lucky
he did invite me. He had charged an earthenware
jar, as big as a bucket, with the gas and would prob-
ably have blown the wall out. He said he didn't
funk it, but I did, and we opened the window and
allowed the gas to be lost,

264 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

I feel rather like that about this writing. Last
night I almost made away with the dangerous stuff.
But I hung back. It has cost so hideously dear.
This may be a sentimentalism, and obscure, but there
it is, and as it puzzles me I shall try to get to the bot-
tom of it. ...

N.B. — Evie says she will soon " begin to feel that
she lives here." She is getting used to having things ;
soon she will be getting used to having people. Soon
she'll have to be thinking about her first dinner-party.
Must stop now. The more sleep I get before mid-
night the better. I shall think about the destroying,
though.

April. — (A month since I made an entry.)
A rather curious conversation with Evie last night.
You will remember that Louie Canston, trying to
justify that ridiculous attitude of hers about Evie's
jealousy, had exclaimed, as if that clinched some-
thing, " Why does she want to come to my house,
then ? " Well, she has been. Apparently she went
some little time ago, but she only spoke of it last
night. I shall not ask Louie for her account of it;
this is Evie's :

She went on a Saturday afternoon, taking the train
from Clapham Junction. Louie was just setting out
with her boy to the South Kensington Museum, but
she turned back. Since Kitty left her she has got
anothei governess for the lad, but she still devotes

IDDESLEIGH GATE

her Saturdays and Sundays to him. There are sev-
eral things about Evie's account I am not quite clear
about, but I admit that she has no great gift for pick-
ing out the essentials of a conversation, and perhaps
unconsciously she has emphasised the wrong things.
She told me, for example, a good deal about Master
Jim, but said very little about Kitty's reason for go-
ing over to Miriam Levey. She wandered off into
old recollections of the Business College in Holborn
that I had forgotten all about, and allowed these
things to divert her from the visit itself. I had to
ask her whether Louie seemed comfortable in her
rooms, whether they were decently furnished or not,
and so on ; and she said, " Oh, of course, you've never
seen them," and described them to me in excellent
detail. Then suddenly she asked me whether Miss
Lingard (who had been away out of sorts), was back
at the Consolidation yet. Miss Lingard was my own
private amanuensis, and during her absence Louie
had had to help with her work. . . . And so we
talked. This was in our own bedroom, while Evie
was making ready for the night.

" Well," I said, yawning, " and what did you talk
about besides the Holborn days ? "

" Oh, lots of things," she answered brightly,
busily brushing. " She's got to look older since
then — but I daresay you wouldn't notice that, seeing
her every day."

" Louie Causton, you mean ? "

266 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

" Yes."

" Did she say anything about Miss Levey ? "

" Oh, yes. Her correspondence class is a great suc-
cess. Schmerveloff's taken her up, and she's no end
of pupils. Wasn't it funny, our living next door to
Schmerveloff and not knowing it? They little
thought that in a few years we should be living
here!"

I laughed a little. She glows prettily when
she shows her pride in my achievement. Then I
yawned again. " Well," I said sleepily, " I hope
Kitty's changed friends for the better."

" Oh, she thinks so," Evie replied promptly.
" You see, it wasn't very nice for her, when she'd
had the boy all days, and Louie didn't come in till ten
or eleven or twelve at night, or later, to be snapped
at and spoken crossly to."

Here I checked a yawn. " What's that ? " I said.
" Miss Causton didn't tell you that, did she ? "

" Eh ? " said Evie. " Oh, no, of course she didn't.
Didn't I tell you I looked in at their offices in Gray's
Inn one day — Kitty's and Miriam's? Oh, that was
a fortnight and more ago ! I'm sure I told you, Jeff !
. . . And Miriam took me to the New College in
Kingsway. It's nothing like the Consolidation, of
course, but it's such an improvement on that poky
old Holborn place ! How we ever gave a dance there
I can't imagine. You remember that dance, Jeff ? "

And she was back at the old College once more.

IDDESLEIGH GATE 267

I said this conversation was curious, but perhaps
that was not quite the word. Slightly distasteful
would be nearer, for of course you see what it all
implied. It implied that Evie might easily be
dragged into some trumpery quarrel between Louie
Causton and Miriam Levey. For Miriam would
not be at all above concluding that Louie had schemed
to get her place, and that I had thrown my influence
into the balance; and anybody could always make
poor Kitty agree with them. I didn't want Evie
mixed up in anything of that kind. I was even a
little sorry she had been to see Louie. How little,
for my own part, there existed in the way of affec-
tion between Louie and myself you already know;
and, if the thing was not quite the same from Louie's
point of view, I did not see that any useful end would
be served by their being much together. On that
morning when Louie had first made her ridiculous
suggestion about jealousy, her whole manner had
been rather that of one who throws up the sponge,
ceases to exercise care, I don't know what; and
there is no sense in deliberately manufacturing some-
thing that doesn't exist And about that other visit
to Gray's Inn. I am quite sure that Miriam Levey
would not scruple to hurt me in any way she could.
. . . There's the telephone; Whitlock, I expect.

10th May. — In a week Evie is to give her first
dinner-party. Naturally she is a little timorous

268 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

about it. The fact that Pepper, with whom, I am
sorry to say, she gets on no better, will be there to
watch her, would be quite enough to flurry her; but
there will also be other people there whom she hasn't
seen yet — the Hasties, the Campbells, Sichel, a Mrs
Richmond (a very smart little woman, a friend of
Pepper's) and others. Poor dear, it will be rather
an ordeal for her, and no wonder she spoke to me the
other night a little crossly. It hurt a little at the
time, but I have forgotten it. I will put it down,
however.

Among all these "Hons. and Sirs," as she calls
them, plain familiar Whitlock and Billy Izzard (I
am dragging Billy in because these people may be
useful to him when he has got over his pageant craze)
were her chief comforts ; but the question of the final
chair, a lady's, had arisen. There being nobody else
I particularly wanted, I had been disposed to call on
Pepper, who can always produce a prettily frocked
woman or a well-turned-out young man at a moment's
notice; but Evie had managed to get a dig in at
Pepper, at which I laughed heartily. "He might
bring Mrs Toothill for all we know," she had said.
" !No, Jeff, it's our party," she had demurred, and
had then ruminated. . . .

" All right, anybody you like," I had agreed cheer-
fully.

" You don't like Mrs Smithson," she had then said
doubtfully.

IDDESLEIQH GATE 269

Of course, having just given her full liberty, 1
ought not to have qualified it, even by a look; but I
confess my face fell. It was only for an instant,
and I hoped my darling hadn't noticed it.

" Have Mrs Smithson if you like," I said a little
shortly, I am afraid.

But she had noticed. She spoke shortly too.

" No, thank you, not to have her thrown in my
face afterwards. I know you don't think the Smith-
sons are good enough."

I was shocked. " Dearest," I said slowly, " when
have I ' thrown things in your face afterwards/ as
you call it?"

She must indeed have been tried, otherwise she
would never have said the absurd thing she did.

" Well, if you don't say it, you think it. Better
have your friend, Miss Causton. She can go out to
dinner with Sir Julius, it seems."

" Evie ! " I exclaimed, for the moment deeply
wounded.

"Well, you told me she did, and if she can dine
with him she can with you, I suppose."

I turned away. " I shall leave it entirely to you,"
I said. I reproach myself now for my impatience.

But instantly her generous little heart was itself
again. She ran after me and threw her arms about
my neck.

" Forgive me, Jeff," she pleaded tearfully. " I
didn't mean anything, and I am so afraid of it all!

270 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

I'm not used to it, you know, but I am doing my best.
Do ask Mr Pepper to bring somebody."

And we kissed and said no more about it. Per-
haps I am foolish to write it dowp.

14th May. — Evie has made the acquaintance of
most of her guests for the seventeenth beforehand.
The Hasties have called on her, and Lady Campbell,
and Pepper has brought Mrs Eichmond (who, I con-
fess, strikes me as rather a superfine Mrs Smithson),
and half her fears are gone. She didn't much care
for Mrs Richmond, she says ; " toney " was the ad-
jective she used ; but she quite took dear homely Lady
Campbell under her wing. She likes receiving, she
says, and remarked, rather acutely, that what makes
these little afternoon functions the occasion for bick-
ering they are, is that people seem to rattle off what
they have to say without an interval for breath, and
then to take their departure. She had Jackie down,
and Phyllis was brought down for a moment by her
nurse; and Jackie showed Lady Campbell his ship.
Lady Campbell married her husband when he was
master and a fifth-part owner of a coasting boat;
and when Jackie lifted the hatch of his model to show
her the " cabin " she laughed, and said it was a far
more comfortable cabin than that in which she spent
her honeymoon. Then Jackie, of course, wanted to
know what a honeymoon was, and when told made
some remark about a honeymoon that set everybody

IDDESLEIGH GATE 271

laughing except, Evie, who blushed. I hope she will
not forget how to blush among all her smart ladies.
I find her blushing adorable.

Vlih May, 4 P.M. — Without warning, a thing that
I had thought impossible has come upon me. For
nearly twenty hours — since nine o'clock last night —
my thoughts have been such a series of jerks, stop-
pings, leapings forward and dead stops again as only
once before in my life I have known. I have paced
my private room at the Consolidation for half the
day, and have done no work since I looked over and
signed the papers that were brought to me here last
night. Were I able to speak of " mere nothings "
I should say that a mere nothing has brought all this
about. Let me tell it. I have come home for the
purpose of telling it.

Since I began to leave the Consolidation early,
papers have often been brought to me here. Usually
Stonor brings them, and is shown straight into the
library. You may judge of their urgency when I
tell you that last night there was nobody to bring
them but Louie Causton.

Evie, Aunt Angela and I were just finishing din-
ner when the servant whispered to me. I think he
said " Somebody from Pall Mall, sir," for if he had
said " A lady " I should have wondered who the lady
was, which I didn't do. I was expecting the papers ;
they would not keep me long; so, telling Evie that

272 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

I should be back in a few minutes, I followed the
servant out.

Louie was standing by my desk. She had not
lifted her veil, and I do not know what it was about
her attitude that struck me. Something did ; I sup-
pose it was some proportion or relation; something
that Billy would perhaps have called the " beautiful
unit " of the room ; some purely aesthetic quality, I
don't doubt, which i,t is odd I should remember now.
. . . She was looking towards me as I entered; she
had heard that discreet bell of Stillhausen's ; and only
when I advanced did she push her veil back.

" Here are these," she said, with a twisted, pained
sort of little smile. " The others had all gone home,
and I understood they were to come at once. No,
thanks, I won't sit down."

Even when it appeared that, after all, the papers
would need a few minutes' looking into, she still
refused to sit down. She stood as close to the papers
she had brought as if, without them, her sole reason
for being there, she might have been ejected; and
as she still persisted in her refusal to sit, I sat down
myself.

It took me perhaps a quarter of an hour to go
through the papers. It was as I was pushing back
my chair that Stillhausen's bell purred again. A
moment later there was a tap at the door. " Come
in!" I called.

Evie entered.

IDDESLBIGH GATE 273

I was not embarrassed. It humiliates me to have
to write that word now, so many hours later. There
was nothing to be embarrassed at. Indeed, as Evie
advanced from the door, I barely explained the rea-
son for Miss Causton's call. Louie touched the hand
Evie extended. Evie was not, as she was with Mir-
iam Levey and Kitty Windus, on kissing terms with
Louie.

" I think you'll find these all right now," I said,
giving Louie back the papers. " I don't know
whether Miss Causton has had supper, Evie ? "

Evie smiled graciously. " Yes, won't you have
something, Miss Causton ? Let me have them lay a
tray for you — it will be really no trouble."

But Louie would take nothing. She had drawn
down her veil again, and was extending her fingers
to Evie. " Don't trouble to come, Mr Jeffries," she
said, moving towards the door, while Evie prattled
polite phrases.

But I took her to the door. Four words — a
" Good-night " on either side — were all that passed
between us. Then I returned to the library.

Evie was standing where Louie had been standing,
but no sooner did I enter than she passed me. Tak-
ing into account the warning of Stillhausen's bell,
she must have waited for the purpose of so passing
me. But this did not strike me until a little later.
Only when she reached the door did she turn and
speak.

274 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

" Did Miss Causton ask for me ? " she said.

"Eh?" I asked, surprised. . . . " No. ' Why?"

" Oh, nothing. Only that I thought that when
one called one asked for the lady of the house."

I smiled as I set my writing-table to rights.
" ' Called 3 ' It was hardly a call, my dear."

" Evidently not."

I looked quickly up. Evie's tone was new to me.

" Come, come, darling — a necessary matter of
business," I expostulated.

" I'm sorry I interrupted."

" ' Interrupted ! '. . . Good gracious, Evie L "

" But of course I didn't ; you can't be interrupted
here."

I was astonished.

" Why, what — what do you mean ? "

She looked coldly at me, without replying.

I frowned. I am ashamed to say that it cost me
a little effort to master an impatience that had sud-
denly arisen in me. I spoke slowly for that pur-
pose.

" If by your last remark you mean that bell, Evie,
it was here before we came, and I fancy you knew it
was. At any rate it shall be taken away to-morrow."

Very irritatingly (I have told you how I am not
quite the man of phlegm I was) she took me up at
my last word.

" Oh, yes, about to-morrow," she said. " You don't
happen to be going out to-night, do you ? "

IDDESLEIGH GATE 275

" "No. Why ? " This was stranger than ever.
She knew I never went out at night now.

" Because Mrs. Hastie telephoned me to-day.
Joan isn't well, and can't come. So perhaps you'd
like Sir Julius to ask somebody else — unless, of
course "

" Unless what ? "

" Unless — there's somebody you'd rather ask your-
self."

For a moment I was silent ; then, " Evie," I said
slowly, " do you — I don't see how you can, but do you
— mean Louie Causton?"

She laughed tremulously. " Oh, very well ; if I
can't, I can't, I suppose, so that ends it."

And the next moment she was gone.

Half-an-hour later I met her on the stairs.

" Oh," she announced, without preface, " Phyllis
isn't very well, and I think I shall spend the night in
the nursery with her."

She has done so.

I have had a wretched night. I turned and turned,
but found no sleep. By dint of turning, I found
something else, though — a new meaning in those
words Louie Causton had said to me : " If I could
say that Miriam Levey and Kitty Windus had

been chattering, which I can't " I tossed and

tossed.

At half-past ten this morning I went round to
the offices of the Women's Emancipation League in

276 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

Gray's Inn. I can't say, even when I found myself
there, asking for Miss Levey, that I was very clear in
my own mind as to why I had gone, but if anybody
had been tampering with Evie, it was as likely to be
the Jewess as anybody else.

She kept me waiting: a thing, I may say, that
few people do nowadays. I waited in a match-
boarded anteroom, among emancipated flappers and
middle-aged disciples of Schmerveloff. Then Miss
Levey herself came in as if by accident, and gushed
out into apologies. She had had no idea it was I,
she said ; she did so beg my pardon. . . . She showed
me into an inner room in which a hairy man, the
single male-bird of the run, was expounding from a
Blue Book to three or four more women ; one of them
was the lady who had participated in the intellectual
courtship on the night of Aunt Angela's party. I
turned to Miss Levey.

" I should like, if I may, to speak to you in pri-
vate," I said.

She asked if Mr Boris's room was empty. The
hairy man, looking up from his Blue Book for a
moment, said that he thought so. She led the way
into Mr Boris's room.

At the sight of her all my old dislike revived, and
I found myself able to go straight to the point. I
did so, without wasting a word.

" I've called to ask you, Miss Levey, whether you've
given my wife the impression that I was the cause

IDDESLEIGH GATE 277

of your leaving the Freight and Ballast Company
in order that room might be made for Miss Caus-
ton?"

She gave a shocked " Mis-ter Jeffries 1 " but I held
up my hand.

" I know I'm putting it bluntly. You can be as
blunt as you like also. Will you tell me whether that
is so?"

" May I die, Mr Jeffries — but surely you know
I'd arranged with Mr Schmerveloff long before ! "

" I see. You dismissed us. Very well. Then
let me put it in another form. Have you, in my
wife's hearing, associated my name with Miss Caus-
ton's in any way whatever ? "

This time her answer was not quite so ready.
When it came, it was a question.

" Do you mean lately, Mr Jeffries ? "

" At any time, but especially lately."

Then she broke into glib speech, and all her " w's "
became "v's."

" There, now I knew there vould be mischief be-
fore it was all over ! ' Vot is the good of going into
it ? ' I said ; l vot is the good, ven nobody even be-
lieved it at the time ? Evie was there,' I said, ( and
knew it was not true, so vy rake it all up now, Kitty ? '
I said. * Ve all knew all about poor Louie/ I said,
' and vot's done's done anyway, and Evie doesn't
vant to hear about it.' '

Here, suddenly tingling curiously all over, I in-

278 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

terrupted Miss Levey. I spoke with a steadiness
that astonished myself.

" One moment. You seem to be speaking of a
definite occasion. Was this lately ? "

Miss Levey was all pouting bosom, thick lips and
fluent hands.

" Vy, yes! Yen Evie came here. Evie and Kitty
and me, though vy I have Kitty here at all I don't
know, seeing she makes slips in her work, and Mr
Schmerveloff grumbles, and the other girls has it all
to do over again "

And the torrent continued.

I don't know what else she said; the rest didn't
matter. Why it didn't matter you will see when
I tell you that the tongue of a dead young libertine
once, years before, had made free with Louie Caus-
ton's name and my own, and that the abominable
slander, which had lasted for some days, had turned
on nothing less than the paternity of Louie's child.
All at the Business College, including Evie, had
known of it ; they had known, too, of the public apol-
ogy I had been prompt to exact; but that mattered
nothing, nothing, nothing now. This wretched little
Israelite, revelling in her "v's," and even touching
my sleeve from time to time, had seen to that. What
the filthy rest was I do not know. Doubtless, be-
ginning with that, and with the feeble Kitty to sup-
port her, she had made a complete history of jealousy.
. . . And she did not even triumph openly. She

IDDESLEIGH GATE 279

lisped and protested, and put all on Kitty. ... I
left her, and almost fled from Louie also when, re-
turning to Pall Mall, I encountered her coming out
of Whitlock's room.

And now I have sat since lunch wondering what
is to be done next. The afternoon hours have
brought me no more light than those of the night
did. Dully, I liken my life to that Maze at Hamp-
ton Court in which, one happy Sunday I don't know
how long ago, Evie and I spent an hour. As then
I seem to see Miss Levey's flamingo red behind the i>Ay f
green hedges ; she seems to lurk in my life, too wary
to confront me, too malicious not to scratch. I am
lost in winding intricacies. True, there is a door, '
even as there is a door at Hampton Court that is
opened when the labyrinth is to be emptied. I find
myself brought up against this door time after time,
but I do not know what lies beyond it. You see
what the door is: it is to tell Evie everything —
everything. . . . Too wonderful Louie! Why, if
you foresaw all this, did you not make me tell her —
thrust me into a closet with her and keep the door
until it was done — instead of letting me grope in my
blindness and slip ever further and further away
from her ? . . . Oh, I am tired, tired.

I am too tired even to be angry for my poor
practised-upon darling. For they have sprung this
horrible thing upon her. Half the time she does
not, cannot, believe it; of the other half of her life

280 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

they have made a torment. Poor lamb ! Of course
if they are cruel enough they can make it seem plaus-
ible to her ; I only wonder that, harrowed as she must
have been for all these weeks, she has borne up at
all. I know the horror she must have wrestled with !
. . . That that wicked old story should crop up
again! . . . But I must stop. Perhaps an hour's
sleep will do me good.

5.30 P.M. — That was a reckless thing to do, to go
to sleep with these papers spread out on the table
and my door unlocked. Not that my household is
a staff of commercial collegiates, able to read this
out-of-date old shorthand; but it was foolish for all
that. Anyhow I am rather better, and think I can
face the dinner to-night. After that I don't know
what I shall do. I have not seen Evie all day.

I never felt less up to a dinner. But a little
champagne will keep me going. They will be here
in two hours and a half. It will take Evie an hour
and a half to dress; I wonder what she is doing for
the final hour ! Dear heart, if she only knew how I
ache to go up to her; but I must not do that until I
have made up my mind what course to take. I shall
have come to a resolution before I sleep to-night that
will settle things one way or the other. We cannot
stop at this impasse. I don't think Evie's is a real
jealousy. To-morrow she will be sobbing on my
shoulder that she has harboured it. But at present

IDDESLEIGH GATE 281

it has the venomous effect of the real thing, and if I
do not put an end to it, it will recur. Let me
think. . . .

Again it comes upon me — why do I write this at
all, that I shall most certainly he destroying? I
have hardly the heart to think it out, but as it may
have some bearing on what I shall have to say to
Evie presently I must. I don't think it's that I'm
urged to set myself right with anybody, even with
myself. At first, when I began, I thought it was that
—the need for self-justification — but now I don't
think it's a question of justification or condemnation
at all. It is a far more essential question. Sup-
pose we call it the question of the personal
standard. . . .

I dare say my standards pass for low. That phys-
ical basis of marriage, for example, may pass for low
— I'm sure it must to that ardent young couple who
pant for intellectual companionship and Schmer-
veloff. And I confess that several of the Beatitudes
are beyond me. To tell the truth I am not really at
home with anything much higher than the best of
human intelligence ; and when I hear people speaking
glibly of "man-made laws," I recognise that some
folk are on terms of affability with Omnipotence that
are denied to me. I suppose I am temperamentally
reluctant to alter as much as a regulation once it is
established, and I am certainly not ready with divine
amendments to everything of man's offhand. Man's

282 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

law I hold to be a necessarily imperfect, but roughly
sufficient measure of man's conduct, and in the light
of that law I may presently have a murder to confess.

I say a murder, not murder. Is there a difference ?
I do not know, and I am too weary to split hairs about
it. Call them, if you like, one and the same thing.
Still, if the one command be absolute, for the other a
case may be stated. Do I, then, write to state a case ?

But state it to whom ? There is one Addressee to
whom I have not lifted up my eyes. I, proud and
conquering worm among my fellow-worms, have
found the lesser law press hard on me, but I have
not straightway invoked the greater. Man's decrees
I have found strong and wise and admirable; the
other is too wonderful for me. And this is the con-
clusion I promised you. To man, man's law is of
more consequence than God's. Perhaps the damned
are not utterly damned, so long as they do not add
f~ presumptuousness to their error. To have appealed
and to have had that appeal rejected were damna-
tion. ... I do not appeal.

!Nor can I see that I state my case to man. Nay,
for I confess man's authority. Lest it should appear
that I do not, I shall destroy these papers. To-night
or to-morrow I shall destroy them. Man shall not
say that I have shirked the human issue. I refuse
to plead at all. Let any who take it upon themselves
to accuse or defend me plead or charge what they
will. I am mute. I burn this.

IDDESLEIGH GATE

I am tired. . . .

And yet one boon I do crave. Perhaps those
standards of mine, by their very lowness, may be the
evidence, not of a smaller, but of a larger conception
of Him Who Reigneth than might at first glance
appear. . . .

I am tired. . . .

But all this advances me little with my resolution.
Indeed, a fresh glare has just broken in on my brain.
I was looking back a few moments ago on that long
chain of circumstances with which my darling has
been torturing herself — that old slander, innocenciea
between Louie and myself possible to have been mis-
construed, my coming upon her that night in Billy's
top room, Evie's own temperamental bias against
Louie's profession, her silences, her belief of the
calumny. Had Miriam Levey but known of my visit
to the Models' Club and that strange walk of ours on
the night of the Berkeley dinner, her case had in-
deed been complete! I had been reviewing all this,
1 say; and suddenly it struck me, suppose I do tell
her? What then? . . .

Do you see — as the terrible Louie had seen —
what then ? I am supposing that the revelation did
not kill her ; do you see what then ?

At last I saw it, and groaned. What then ? Why,
what but that I had put another before herself?
What but that, while she had shared my board and
bed, that fatal burden of my honour and confidence

284 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

and trust had gone to another ? What but that Louie,
after all, had had the key and password of my life
that I had denied to herself ? What could I answer
did she live to say, " What, you married me without
telling me this ? You tell me now, after having con-
cealed it until concealment is no longer possible?
You give me, now, something she's had the use of and
has passed on to me ? What is she to you, then, that
•I am not? Where do I fall short as a wife that /
couldn't have borne this for my husband or died try-
ing to bear it ? Take it. Give it to her. She can
have it. Fool, that I couldn't see this for myself,
but must have Miriam Levey to point it out to me ! "

Oh, my dear, my dear, my dear! We had never
a fair start. . . .

I do not know whether she intends to spend the
night in the nursery again. . . .

Seven o'clock. I must dress. And I must drink
something now, or I shall never get through the
evening. . . .

And even yet I have not come to my decision.

11.30 P.M. This page at least it will be almost
superfluous to destroy. My hand shakes like dod-
der-grass. That is the liquor I have drunk, but I
had to do it.

They have gone. As I thought would be the case,
I have had to play Evie's part too. That's twice
Billy Izzard has seen me do that, for to-night was to

IDDESLEIGH GATE 285

all intents and purposes a repetition of that other
night, when I tried to silence the voice of a gramo-
phone by jumping up and bawling out an overstrained
merriment. I don't mean that I jumped up and
bawled to-night, of course. I merely had a number
of flowers removed from the table, so that my eyes
had a straight lane to Evie's at the other end, and
sent down smiles and encouragement and support to
her. And I allowed the men a bare ten minutes
afterwards before I hurried off to her aid again.
That and plenty of champagne ; and I think I pulled
it off. Billy, who lingered behind until I turned him
out, says everything went splendidly. He didn't
know I'd such gaiety in me, he said.

And Evie has gone to the nursery, but is not going
to stay there. She told me that, with a hot little
kiss, and a grip of her moist hand. . . . This was on
the stairs, and she whispered (words illegible), and
she had to run away so that the gratitude in her eyes
would not run quite over — but that she whispered
(words illegible). . . .

I shall do it to-night, unless my tongue is as shaky
as my hand. There is a perfect stillness in my brain.
I can see the whole thing spread out in my mind like
a map ; never have I been so triumphantly the master
of a thing . . . (words illegible). . . . The map
is as steady as a rock, too ; I turn my attention from
it for a moment, choosing the form in which I shall
present this aspect of the case or that, and when I

286 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

return to the map it hasn't moved. Words, whole
phrases, rise lip in my mind, all so perfect that there
will hardly be any shock at all. Evie cannot help
but see it as I see it, and then I shall beg her par-
don that I didn't tell her long ago. I have never
loved her as I love her to-night, and those lovely
pools of her eyes on the stairs (words illegible).

At last we are going to have a fair start. We
hadn't that, you know. I still think I was right to
stand between her and much of life, but this other
thing was really too huge to be hidden. And she
will not be jealous any more of Louie when I tell her
that though Louie dragged all this out of me — she's
no idea really how clever Louie is — my pulse has
never quickened at Louie's touch nor my eyes
brightened when they have met hers. " With my
body " I have worshipped Evie, and shall (words
illegible} . . . And so to-morrow will be a new be-
ginning for us. I am rich ; I have power ; my only
desire is now almost within my grasp. It was non-
sense I wrote an hour or two ago — or perhaps it was
the other day — about this only being the beginning
of a deathless jealousy between those two. " Evie
will see. I shall make it all perfectly plain. I could
almost do impossibilities to-night, with the words run-
ning like quicksilver in my mind and that chart I
have in my brain steady as a rock. And if the an-
ticipation of peace is such bliss, what will the peace
itself be ? .

IDDESLEIGH GATE 287

I suppose she will be ready about twelve. I
mustn't let this wondrous stillness of my brain slip
from me. I was clever enough to foresee that it
might, and so had the tray of liqueurs sent down
here. But it doesn't do for an abstemious man to
mix his liqueurs; the brandy again, I think. (Sev-
eral lines undecipherable). I have only been drunk
once in my life ; I forget when that was ; and once I
shammed drunk ; I don't suppose I shall ever be drunk
again. A moment ago I felt a twinge where I made
that dent in my head on the corner of Aunt Angela's
fender, but it has passed. ... It was a good dinner-
party; I saw to that. . . . Evie, sweetheart —
she'll be ready about twelve. . . .

It is a quarter to now. I must be getting up. But
first I must put these papers away. One of them
slipped away somewhere a few minutes ago; I
stumbled and upset a pile of them, but gathered them
all up again, all but that one ; never mind, I will look
for it in the morning. It was my foot that slipped,
not my brain. My brain is all right. . . .

Well, it will be all right to-morrow. . . .

OF JEFFRIES'

ENVOI

4 4 TT1 R — Miss Causton — can you stay for an hour
i^J or so ? No, a private affair ; I hope it's not
inconvenient ; thanks, and if I might give you supper
afterwards? . . .

" Fact is, it's about poor old Jeffries. [Better date
it, and keep it safe. They've asked me to write
something about him, and I'm no writer; but Iz-
zard's found me a man who'll lick it into shape if I
supply the" material. { Just talk it anyhow/ he said.
Easily enough said, about a chap like Jeffries. . . .

u You've seen this cutting, of course ? No, not
the first one; this from this morning's paper, about
Mrs Jeffries. By Jove! it has followed quickly;
awful! (By the way, you once met her, didn't
you?) No, I want this copy; you can get another
to-morrow; I'll read it out:

TRAGIC DEATH OF A LADY

WE have to report a melancholy sequel
to the death of Mr James Herbert
Jeffries, of the Exploration and Mercantile
Consolidation, Pall Mall, which was an-
nounced in our issue of the 10th ult. The

circumstances of Mr Jeffries' sudden de-
291

292 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

mise are still fresh in the public mind.
The deceased gentleman, it will be re-
membered, succumbed to an attack of cere-
bral haemorrhage brought on by strain and
overwork and culminating on the night of a
dinner-party given by him at his mansion
in Iddesleigh Gate. It is with the deepest
regret that we now announce that his widow
has survived him only a few weeks.

We understand that during the inter-
vening time the bereaved lady had occupied
herself by going through the private papers
of her late husband, sitting up late at night
in order to render this last devout service.
At about three o'clock yesterday morning
Ann Madeley, a housemaid in Mrs Jeffries'
employ, suffering from insomnia, had re-
course to a medicine closet, situated where
the servants' quarters adjoin the dwelling
parts of the house. Her attention was at-
tracted to a strong smell of escaping gas.
She woke James Baines, a butler, and the
two, wisely refraining from striking a
light, made their way in the direction from
which the smell of gas seemed to come.
This brought them to their mistress' room.
Obtaining no answer to their knocks, an en-
trance was forced, and in a small dressing-
Toom lately used by Mr Jeffries

ENVOI 293

" I hope this doesn't distress you too much, Miss
Causton

— Mrs Jeffries was found, fully dressed,
stretched on a couch. The doors and win-
dows had been closed, and a gas-fire turned
on. We understand from Baines that Mrs
Jeffries had remained as usual downstairs
in the library until a late hour ; and a page
of notes in her husband's shorthand which
has been found under one of the pillars
of the writing-table

"I've got that page of notes, by the way.

— is sufficiently eloquent testimony as to
what her sad duty had been. Dr Mc-
Kechnie, who was at once summoned, certi-
fied that life had been extinct for some
hours. The deceased lady, who was a great
favourite in society, leaves two children in
the care of a maiden aunt, Miss Angela
Soames. The inquest is fixed for Tuesday
next.

" Sad business, sad business Afraid they'll

have to bring it in suicide — through grief,
probably. . . .

" Well, let's put it down as it comes. Of course
he was a big man ; lived an intense crowded life too.
I should say at a guess there weren't many things he

294 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

hadn't done at one time and another, short of com-
mitting a murder or a matrimonial infidelity. Don't
think he could have been tempted to do that. One
woman could do anything she liked with him, but
the others wouldn't have much chance. Oh yes, a
full life. Did you know, Miss Causton, that the
man who first passed him over to me found him
helping to pick a fallen horse up in Fleet Street,
when he hadn't a penny to his name? He was a
commissionaire once. ... As you know, he was the
steam of this concern; it was the chance of my life-
time finding him, poor chap. Extraordinary man!
He used to go at things by a sort of intuition; he
tried to explain it to me, but I never could understand
f~ it. Once I said something about * scientific method ' ;
but he said it wasn't scientific method at all. Scien-
tific method, he said, was something purely empirical,
concerned with investigation, and not practically con-
structive in the least. Constructiveness came after.
His method, he said, was based on the truths of art,
'the only truths we know anything about,' he said,
whatever he meant. I never could follow him at all.
. . . Well, if that's so, it rather explains a lot of these
business giants going in for collecting — I mean it
isn't that they just have the money to gratify their
artistic tastes. But, as I say, I could never make
head nor tail of it. ... Which reminds me; that
paper that got wafted under his desk; that was a
dabbling in art in its way ; fiction ; did you know he

ENVOI 295

tried his hand at fiction, Miss Causton ? Here it is
— an odd page — Whitlock knows a bit of shorthand,
and he transcribed it for me :

' — show him that red thing on the floor, and that
curved thing on the door/

But now Archie in his turn seemed to have be-
come divided. He had suddenly turned white.
But an habitual pertness still persisted in his tongue.
I don't think this had any relation whatever to the
physical peril he seemed at last to have realised he
was in. I stood over him huge and black as Fate.
. . . 'Spare him if you can/ that generous "blood-
thirsty devil in me muttered quickly. . . .

' Merridew,' I said heavily, ' you'll disappear to-
morrow morning — or '

' Shall I?' he bragged falteringly. . . . *

"And so on

His only chance now was to have screamed aloud;
but he did not scream. Instead he stooped quickly,
caught up the poker ; and struck at my head with
it/ >

" And that's the end of the page. Sort of grim
tale he would write. Queer hobby for a mercantile
and political giant, wasn't it? But I'd go in for
fiction myself if I thought it would make me like
him.

iSee "In 'Accordance with the Evidence."

296 THE DEBIT ACCOUNT

u Verandah Cottage — that was no place for a chap
like him. I hated to see him there. He could al-
ways go anywhere, meet anybody, was on equal terms
with the best — and he without antecedents that I
ever heard of, standing out solitary against a Hack
background, just genius. ... I wonder who his
people were ! Something uncommon, or else he was
just a gigantic * sport '

" Qf course — de mortuis and so on — but he did
marry the wrong woman. To tell the truth, she
was as ordinary as they make 'em ; would have looked
her best in the lights of the Holborn Restaurant at
half-past six, waiting with the rest of the shop-girls
for her bus home. He was a mass of contradictions,
and one of 'em was that he merely idealised her.
Pretty, of course, but poor Jeffries could have done
better for himself than that. She never could bear
me. . . . Well, there's nothing to be said now, poor
creatures. . . . But sometimes it made me almost
angry that he hadn't married the woman he
ought. . . .

"Well, let's begin with the day he first came to
the F.B.C. "

And Louie's pencil flew on.

THE END

PR Onions Oliver

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