"And she didn't knock you down? Upon my word, I am surprised. Now look
here, Gerald; you must go. I'm going to dress. We are going to the
Cassowary's ball. You'd better go to bed and try to sleep _without any
Veronal_. Will you? Will you, Gerry, poor old boy?"

His nerves were in such a condition that this unmerited and unexpected
kindness broke him down utterly. Suddenly, to her horror, the poor
wretch burst into tears, sobbing like a child.

"Gerry, don't--oh, for Heaven's sake, don't!" she cried, laying her hand
on his head. "You--you _mustn't_. Gerry, Gerry dear----"

"Yes, pat his head and call him dear!" cried Brigit furiously from the
open door. "He insults me in the most abominable way, the vile little
beast, and then you pet him. Bah! mother, you do really make me ill!"

Lady Kingsmead turned, amazed. "You are off your head, too! Can't you
see he is _ill_?"

But Brigit's anger, nursed all during the drive home, burst out afresh.
All her life she and her mother had quarrelled; there had never been
implanted in her even an idea of the common decency of filial respect,
or of its semblance. Her mother's gusty, fitful temper had always, when
roused, been given instant vent in a torrent of vituperation, and the
girl, while too sulky to be so spontaneous even in the unpleasant sense
of the word, had early acquired the habit of speaking to her mother as
she would have to a greatly disliked sister.

So now, when her rage with Carron burst its bounds, and she found, as
she thought, her mother taking his part, she gave free rein to her
temper, and its eloquent bitterness struck Lady Kingsmead for the moment
dumb.

Carron sat still, his face hidden in his hands. When at last Brigit's
arraignment ceased, Lady Kingsmead's turn came, and more feebly, less
effectively, but to the best of her powers, she gave back abuse for
abuse.

It was not a pleasant sight. Unbridled rage never is, even when in a
good cause, and these two undisciplined women had lost all dignity and
said very bad things to each other.

Brigit's one excuse was her mistaken assumption that her mother had
believed Carron's story, and when Lady Kingsmead had shrieked out
everything else that she thought might hurt her daughter, she added, "I
believed in you, you little brute, though he said he _saw_ you there. I
might have known he wouldn't have dared to make up such a tale."

Brigit, who had stood quite still, now spoke. "Then--you believe him
now?"

"Yes, I _do_!" lied Lady Kingsmead, goaded by the sneer on her
daughter's fierce mouth.

There was a long pause, and then Brigit Mead went to the door.

"I am sorry I lost my temper and made such a beast of myself," she said
slowly, "and--I will never speak to you again as long as I live."

She closed the door gently and went upstairs to her room.

It was done now, decided, her boats were burnt. From this day henceforth
she would be spoken of as the queer Mead girl who doesn't live with her
mother.

While she dressed for dinner she laid her plans with the quickness
native to her. She would dine and dance at the Newlyns, and then she
would go to the Joyselles' for the night.

The next day she would go and talk to a girl friend who had a flat in
huge and horrible "Mansions" out Kensington way. She would live alone
with a maid; and she would have to pinch and scrape--but that would not
matter. And then--Joyselle would come to see her, and very probably some
day they would lose their heads, and it would be her mother's fault.
There was much satisfaction in this reflection, for she ignored the fact
that in all probability the crisis had been only precipitated by her
mother's speech.

There was Tommy. Well, Joyselle would be good to him for her sake. And
even if Tommy should elect to come and live with her, her mother could
not prevent his doing so. She would fuss and cry and tell all her
friends how ungrateful her children were, but in the end Tommy's
firmness would prevail.

She laughed as she got out of the carriage at the Newlyns. By great good
luck Joyselle was dining there, and Theo coming only to the dance.

"I will tell him," she thought, and her heart gave a great throb and
then sank warmly into its place at the thought of seeing him. "He will
turn slowly and hold his shoulders stiffly and try to look indifferent,"
she thought, "but oh--his eyes!"




CHAPTER FIFTEEN


The Sparrow and the Cassowary were much delighted with their own dinner
and their own ball.

Freddy Newlyn was a kindly little man, with an absurd fussy manner full
of importance, as so many kindly little men have. Is it by some gentle
providential dispensation that the physically insignificant are so often
upheld by harmless vanity?

The Cassowary, on the other hand, bony and distressingly red in the
wrong places, suffered from a realisation of her own defects that she
endeavoured to conceal by an assumption of the wildest high spirits.
This jocularity, of course, became at times rather painful, but as she
was possessed of much money and a kind heart, it was forgiven her.

The dinner was very large, and the guests sat at small tables all over
the place--a delightful invention of the Cassowary's, who screamed with
piercing glee at the excitement displayed as lots were drawn for the
different tables.

"Seven, Sir John? Then you'll find your partner and go to the
library--only three tables there! Dicky, what is your number? Four? Oh,
you lucky little brute The conservatory. Who's your girl? Oh, yes,
Piggy! Aren't I a lamb?"

The numbers of the various tables were being drawn, as she spoke, from a
vase on the drawing-room table.

"And you, M. Joyselle? Thirteen. Oh, what awful luck!"

Everyone screamed with laughter, for the Norman was looking with
unfeigned concern at his bit of paper.

"_Je n'aime pas le treize_, madame," he protested, disregarding the
prevailing mirth.

"But--what can I do? It's a nice table in the billiard-room. Who's your
partner?"

"Lady Sophy Browne--which is she?"

"Oh, Sophy Browne. Go on drawing, you men, I must speak to Fred. I say,
Fred----"

The good-natured Cassowary tramped across to the door where the Sparrow
was standing, and bending down, said something to him.

"Is he really? I say, that's too bad. But you can't change the tables,
can you, dear?"

"I don't know. These kind of people are so superstitious, you see; it's
enough to make him glum all the evening, and Sophy was so keen--she says
he looks like a bust by Rodin, and she wants to do him in pen and ink."

The Sparrow rubbed his pointed nose thoughtfully.

"Change the two of 'em to another table, can't you?"

"I've got 'em all sorted, though. Unless--I might change Billy and the
Farquhar girl to their table, and put them in the boudoir balcony! Billy
wouldn't mind and the Farquhar girl doesn't matter; she didn't get me
those tickets, anyhow."

The Sparrow gave a little hop of satisfaction.

"Right. That'll do famously."

So the Cassowary went back to the table and laid her hand on Joyselle's
sleeve. "I have put you at another table, M. Joyselle. You go to the
boudoir balcony--Sophy will take you there--so it's all right. I must go
and find Billy Vere now. Oh----" turning, she found herself face to face
with Brigit Mead, who had just arrived.

"I say, Brigit, would you mind sitting at the table with M. Joyselle?
Eugene Struther is your man, and M. Joyselle objects to his table
because it is number thirteen."

Brigit, shaking hands with her enthusiastic hostess, caught Joyselle's
eye. He had heard.

"Mind? Not a bit," she answered carelessly, "if he doesn't."

Mrs. Newlyn turned, to find the top of Joyselle's head presented to her
in a bow of mockly-resigned acquiescence. "Then, _that's_ all right.
What's the matter, Oliver?"

Lord Oliver Maytopp, a cherished clown in that section of society in
which the Newlyns had their being, was making believe to cry, his large
mouth opened grotesquely, his fists digging into his eyes.

"I d--don't want to sit at the table next Meg's," he sobbed, "when I
tell funny stories she always--makes faces at me. I want to go home to
Nursey."

Brigit moved away, her upper lip raised disdainfully. How odious they
all were!

And how detestable the whole house with its health of art-treasures,
selected by an artist friend of Newlyn's.

"_Nouveau-riche?_" asked Joyselle, joining her.

"No. That is, they are well-born, but they are _nouveau_ as regards
money. Her father made a lucky speculation in electric-lighting, I think
it was, after she was married. They haven't got used to their money yet.
So," she added, as they stepped out on to one of the many balconies with
which the house was ornamented, "you don't object to sitting at my
table?"

"_Brigitte!_"

His was of the type of face that is ennobled by any strong passion, and
he looked very splendid as he towered above her, white and shaken.

"You will not leave me?" she asked, again possessed by the fear that had
tormented her from the moment when he had dropped his violin the evening
of the golden frock.

"Brigitte," he returned, leaning on the rail and presenting a
non-committal back to anyone who might chance to join them, "let us not
talk of that yet. I love you, and you are mine, and I am yours, whatever
happens."

An agony of terror took her strength as he spoke. Uncertainty was always
hard for her to bear, but in this vital matter she felt that she could
not endure it.

"If you are going to be cruel and leave me," she said, her face taking
on an expression of relentless cruelty, "you must do so at once."

He turned.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean--I cannot bear suspense. If, for any reason, you are going
to--to go--please go now."

He was honestly puzzled, for she looked at him as if he had been an
enemy.

"My dear--my beloved--what do you mean?" His voice was grieved and
gentle. "Surely you can see that----" he broke off into French, "that the
situation is not simple? That we love we cannot help--nor would we, by
God!--but in an honest man and an honest woman----"

"Come along, you two," cried Mrs. Newlyn, "dinner is announced. M.
Joyselle, go and find Lady Sophy, and you, Brigit, come and be found by
your man--I forget who he is----"

"Eugene Struther," she answered quietly, "I am glad, too."

Struther was one of the best of the young men to be met at the Newlyns,
and he and she always got on fairly well. Their table was squeezed
rather tightly into a little balcony looking over the diminutive garden
that, although she never went into it, or knew one of its flowers from
another, was one of the several joys of the Cassowary's heart. So few
people have gardens in London.

Lady Sophy Browne, an ethereal-looking woman, with a consciously wan
smile and a grey chiffon frock, that looked as if it would have had to
be unpinned and unwound, rather than taken off, when bed-time came, put
her elbows on the table and clasped her hands under her chin.

"Do you know Rodin's Portrait d'un Inconnu?" she asked Joyselle.

"No, madame."

"But you know Rodin?"

"I have met him."

Ecstatic was her smile.

"I knew it. And unconsciously you were his model for the Inconnu. But it
is you, M. Joyselle! Do not deny it, for I know."

Joyselle took an olive.

"I do not deny it, Lady Sophy. But I know nothing of it. If you are
right I am--much flattered."

Brigit was amused, for she saw that the Spectre, as her friends called
the grey-draped peeress, had anticipated excitement and curiosity on
Joyselle's part.

There was music somewhere in the distance, and the air was sweet with
the smell of roses from the room behind them as well as from the garden
below.

Struther talked little, Brigit, with her usual indifference to others,
almost not at all, and as Joyselle's self-command rose only to the
height of an occasional reply to the Spectre's monologue, which was not
of an arresting nature, the party on the balcony was very quiet.

Brigit suffered tortures as she sat watching Joyselle. It was, then, as
she had feared. He was going to be strong and make everyone miserable.

If she had been asked to propose any kind of a plan for the future, her
answer would have been, when denuded of side issues and fantasy, simply
that she could see nothing better than simple drifting. As yet she could
not anticipate, and it roused in her a kind of jealousy that Joyselle
had so soon begun to think of Theo. His love for her should have dimmed
all consideration for his son--it should have been _she_ who suggested
some means of hurting the boy as little as possible.

But she could see that Joyselle was going to be what she called in the
frankness she allowed herself, tiresome about that wretched boy of his.

She also knew that Joyselle would be anything but pleased by her
resolution to leave home and live by herself. His respect for certain
laws were an integral part of his nature, and she knew that he would not
approve of her deserting what he was certain to call the maternal roof.
This curious element of Philistinism in his otherwise Bohemian nature
was very perplexing, and she told herself, as she looked at him while he
gravely listened to the ghostly Lady Sophy, that her troubles were in
reality only just beginning.

"M. Joyselle," she asked him during a pause that only a burning desire
for champagne induced Lady Sophy to allow to pass unchallenged, "will
_petite mere_ mind my coming to sleep to-night? I want very much to see
her about something, and so I told mother I'd get you and Theo to take
me home."

He bowed with an assumption of fatherly gratification. "But of course,
my dear." Then, for his powers of dissimulation were not of durable
quality, he turned quickly to Lady Sophy.

So that was all right.

When dinner was over and the women were herded together in the
drawing-room, Brigit sat down and took up a book. In an hour Theo would
be coming, and would want his answer. What was it to be?




CHAPTER SIXTEEN


Theo arrived rather late, and after making his bow to his hostess, came
straight to her. His fine young face was flushed and eager and his eyes
very bright.

Brigit, who was standing talking to Maytopp, felt her heart sink. She
had not yet decided what to say, and instinctively she looked round the
room for Joyselle.

"Brigit--will you dance?" Theo bowed, a trifle lower than Englishmen
bow, and offered her his arm with the very slightest suggestion of
swagger. And somehow he reminded her at that moment more of his father
than he had ever done.

He did not speak as they danced, but she knew that he was fairly
confident of her answer being a favourable one, and she tried to think
that the waltz was never going to end.

But it did end, and she found herself near the window leading to the
balcony where she had talked with his father early in the evening.

"Brigit----" he whispered gently, looking out into the darkness.

And then she heard herself answer: "Yes, Theo. But--ask your father what
he and I have decided."

"Ask papa!"

"Yes. He knows what we are going to do, and he will tell you."

Without a word he left her and she stepped out on the balcony. Leaning
against the parapet she stared down into the empty street, wondering
what Joyselle would say. She had not intended to put the responsibility
of the future on him; she had said the words almost unconsciously, but
they were said. And he, when he came?

Would the horrible courage she had felt in him prevail to the extent of
allowing him to give her to his son? Or would he refuse to settle
things? Or would he, worst of all, announce his departure for America!

He was so many men, each of whom were so strong and so individual, that
she could not know what he would say. Closing her eyes she waited. When
the two men joined her Theo was--laughing. And to her overwrought nerves
the sound seemed an insult.

"Why do you laugh?" she asked sharply.

He started. "Why--I don't remember. Papa said something amusing. Is
anything wrong, my dear?"

"No." Joyselle stood in the light and she could see his face. It looked
set and a little grim, but there was a fierce light in his eyes.

She looked at him defiantly. Yes, she had done well; he should choose.

"_Eh, bien?_" suggested Joyselle suddenly, "why have you sent for me,
Most Beautiful?"

So Theo had not explained!

"Theo is very impatient," she answered in a low voice; "he wants me to
set our wedding-day. And--I have to make up my mind, you know--I thought
as you and I had talked it over before dinner, you would not
mind--casting the die for us."

There was a pause while Joyselle deliberately moved beyond the radius of
the light.

Theo did not move, but his immobility was the motionlessness of extreme
tension. He had not observed the discrepancy in her story, Brigit saw,
and was simply waiting.

It seemed many minutes before Joyselle spoke. Then he said briskly, "The
pros and cons are many, Theo. Brigit will tell you them later. And there
are--clothes to be got, are there not? And I must go away in a few
days--to Madrid, and shall be gone three weeks. It might be well for you
to marry at once, say early in June, or--you might wait until the
autumn."

He lit a cigarette and Brigit drew a deep breath of relief. Thank God,
he was hedging, and could not make up his mind.

"I do not wish to wait," announced Theo, with unexpected and terrible
decision. "I can see no reason for it, _pere_. Brigit, let it be early
in June."

Joyselle's match fell to the floor, and his cigarette was still unlit.

"I think I have been patient," pursued the young man, his voice
trembling a little. "Ah, father, I love her, and I want my wife."

Joyselle's arm jerked and the unlit cigarette flew out into the
darkness. "You are right," he began abruptly, but Brigit drew nearer to
him and in the darkness laid her hand on his.

"He is right in one way, _Beau-pere_" she said, grasping his hand with
spasmodic strength, "and I am a brute, but I should so _much_ rather
wait a little longer. I have reasons, Theo."

Joyselle caught her hand in his, and gave a great laugh.

"Oh, _mes enfants, mes enfants_," he cried. "When lovers disagree, who
is to decide but--chance? Come, Theo, your chances shall be the same as
hers. Heads you win, tails you lose. Agreed?"

Staggering back into the light, his face flushed, his teeth flashing in
a broad smile, he took a sixpence from his pocket. "You both agree?"

Theo nodded in silence and Brigit answered simply "Yes."

The coin shot from the violinist's thumb-nail, flew up into the air and
was caught on his palm, his left hand covering it.

"Heads, then, a June wedding. Tails, then _mees_ has her way, and the
event is put off till autumn? Right?"

"Yes."

Theo had turned away, and Brigit was free to look full into Joyselle's
face. It was a wonderful face in its absolute oneness of expression.
There were no complications, no remorse, nothing but wild and fierce
love of gambling, and hope that the woman he loved should remain free a
little longer.

"It is--tails."

Theo walked into the ballroom without a word, and Brigit found herself
close in his father's arms for a wild moment. "We have won, _mon adoree,
mon adoree_," he murmured. "Thank God!"

She drew away, trying to remember prudence.

"Yes. Then--this summer is ours. And in the autumn----"

"It is not even summer yet. Do not think of it. We shall be happy,
Brigitte, for you are my woman and I am your man. And the future--oh,
never mind the future, my love, my love!"




CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


Cromwell Mansions are a depressing pile of buildings not far from the
Kensington High Street; they have lifts, uniformed hall-porters, house
telephones and other modern inconveniences, and a restaurant.

The restaurant is, of course, the Mansions being inhabited chiefly by
women, very bad indeed, but it obviates the necessity of cooks and
kitchens in the, for the most part, diminutive flats into which the
place is divided.

One day early in August Brigit Mead sat in the restaurant at a small
table near an open window through which she caught an invigorating view
of a brick court in the middle of which a woman was washing a cabbage at
a pump.

It was a very warm day and the butter, more liquid than solid, seemed to
be the last of a huge bundle of straws the weight of which threatened to
break the girl's back.

That the cold beef was hard and tasteless was a detail to be borne with,
but the butter seemed particularly insulting as it melted before her
eyes.

"Going to thunder, I believe," observed a wan girl at the next table.
"It _would_, of course, as I have tickets for Ranelagh!"

"Of course," agreed Brigit, absently.

She hated being so late in town, but the Lenskys, to whom she had been
going, had wired to put her off, as Pammy had come down with measles.
And the wire having come only that morning, she had as yet made no other
plan for the rest of the month.

"Give me some cream, please," she said to the waiter, "without too much
boracic acid powder in it."

There was no irony in her remark and the waiter accepted it in good
faith. "It's the 'eat, my lady," he explained serenely. "It all goes
sour if they don't put something in it."

Brigit ate a piece of fruit tart, a bit of cheese, and rose languidly.

"I see your mother has gone to the country, Lady Brigit," said a girl
near the door, as she passed.

"Yes. She always goes on the 28th of July."

"I saw it in some paper. Are you staying on long?"

The story of her leaving her mother's house was, Brigit knew, common
property, but this was the first time anyone had ventured to broach the
matter to her.

"I suppose," went on the unlucky questioner, "that you will soon be
joining her?"

"Do you?" asked Brigit.

"Do I what?"

"Suppose so?" And Miss M'Caw was alone, staring after the tall figure in
the plain white frock, that for all its plainness looked so out of place
in Cromwell Mansions.

Unlocking her door, Brigit went into her sitting-room and lit a
cigarette. She had taken the flat from a friend who had been sent abroad
by her doctor, and the whole place was absurdly unsuited to its present
owner.

Maidie Conyers was blonde and small, so the room was pale blue and
"cosy." There were embroidered pillows on the buttony Chesterfield, lace
shades to the electric lights, and be-rosebudded liberty silk curtains.

Brigit hated the house, but it was cheap, and she had little money.

With a grunt of furious distaste she sat down in a satin chair, and
leaning back began to smoke. The tables in the room were very bare, for
the chief ornaments had been photographs--in very elaborate frames--of
Maidie Conyers' friends, and Brigit, finding that she loathed Maidie
Conyers' friends, had banished them one and all.

"Loathsome room," the girl said aloud, lighting a fresh cigarette,
"disgusting curtains."

What she in reality felt mostly, though she did not know it, was the
lack of room in the flat. Used all her life to the large rooms of
Kingsmead, she felt, now that the unusual heat had come, cramped and
restless.

It maddened her to have to make plans. Where should she go? How like
that little wretch Pammy to go and have measles now.

She would go to Golden Square as soon as it got a little cooler and make
Victor play to her. They might go for a drive later. Or she might make
Theo take her for a walk in the park. Suddenly she heard a slight
scratching noise in the entry, and rose. The porter, to save himself
trouble, was letting some visitor in unannounced. She would murder that
porter.

But when she saw the visitor she forgot the guilty official.

"Gerald!"

"Yes, Brigit. Do--do you mind?"

"I--yes, I mind, of course I do. Why have you come?"

Carron, who was very smartly dressed and who looked wretchedly ill, sank
into a chair.

"It is nearly four months ago," he murmured. "I--I hoped you would have
forgiven me."

"Well, I haven't. So please go."

Her ill-humour, accumulating ever since the receipt of the wire from the
Lenskys, seemed about to burst. She looked exceedingly angry, and the
poor wretch in the chair before her trembled as he looked at her.

"D--don't be so hard on me, Bicky."

"Don't call me Bicky. And please go. I don't want to be rude, but I
shall lose my temper if you don't."

Carron's pinched face quivered. "I--I am very ill Brigit," he said in a
hurried, deprecating way. "I--I am not sleeping at all, my nerves
are--rotten. And I thought I'd die if I couldn't see you. Don't be any
harder on me than--than necessary."

She sat down on the arm of a chair, and looked at him closely.

"You do look ill--very ill. And you look--I say, Gerald, are you taking
anything?"

He gave a shrill, cackling laugh. "Taking anything. No. You mean
morphine or something of that kind? _Pas si bete_, my dear. Oh, no, I
have always had a perfect horror of anything like that. W--why?"

"Because--I think you _are_," she returned coolly. "Show me your left