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Front matter

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Chapter I

'T'HERE was a knock at the door and the butler entered.

* “Have you seen Mr. Cleeve this morning, Elton?”

“Yes, sir, he’s just finished breakfast, and as he put a few lumps of sugar in his pocket I fancy he’s round at the stables.”

“You might go and see if you can find him. I want him rather particularly.”

The study door closed and Col. Barrington rose from his desk and started to pace up and down the room, an open letter in his hand.

The door opened again. He turned round with a worried look, which quickly died away as his eyes fell on his wife.

Mrs. Barrington, who had noticed that worried look, turned to leave the room.

“Don’t go, Sarah. You’ve come in at a very opportune moment. I’ve just heard from Travers and I’m afraid our hopes are dashed once more.”

“You don’t mean to say, Sam, that the Conservative Association has refused to support Cleeve?”

“Well, it’s not quite as bad as that, Sarah. Travers hasn’t exactly put it before the committee yet; all he says is that, as Chairman, he will do his best, but thinks the fact that Cleeve is unmarried a serious handicap, and goes on to say that the other members of the committee,—realis¬ ing that the popularity of the present Liberal member’s wife played a great part in the last election,—are anxious to have a married candidate.”

“Sam, I expected this. You see, dear, the women’s vote does count, and it really is time Cleeve married.”

Mrs. Barrington, however, got no further than this. The conversation was interrupted by the sound of approaching footsteps and the humming of a favourite ditty somewhat out of tune.

“When all the world was young, lad, and all the trees were green,

And every goose a swan, lad, and every lass a queen,

Then hey for boot and spur, lad, and o’er the hills away,

For youth must have its run, lad, and every dog its day.”

A smile played over Mrs. Barrington’s face. She looked at her husband as she tried to suppress it, and he seemed to understand her thoughts, for a whimsical expression gleamed in his eyes as he ejaculated the one word, “Ir¬ repressible !’ ’ in an audible whisper just as Cleeve entered the room.

“Hello, Guv’nor, what’s this pow-pow?” and going up to his mother Cleeve took her face between his hands, kissed her an affectionate good-morning, and looking laughingly into her eyes, said in expressive imitation of his father:

“You know, Sarah, it’s time Cleeve married!”

Col. Barrington frowned in an attempt to cover the smile which trembled on his lips as he interposed with, “Now, my boy, do be serious for once in a way. I have heard from Admiral Travers this morning, and from what he says I am very doubtful of the Conservative Association nominat¬ ing you as their candidate. You know, Cleeve, I wanted you to go in for the Army. It was your wish to adopt a political career, and I have spared neither trouble nor expense in fitting you for it.”

“I see what’s coming, Guv’nor,” said Cleeve, determined to bring the matter to a head without any preliminaries. “You want me to marry. I guessed it the minute I saw you and mother together. Old Travers is always dropping hints on the same subject. It’s perfectly ridiculous! They want bachelors in Parliament just as they want married men, and I don’t see why I should sacrifice my freedom just to fall in with the views of the round dozen old fogies who call themselves the Committee of the Conservative Association! Fact of the matter is, Guv’nor, old Cartwright wants me to marry his own lumping daughter and I’m not on! Then there is the Hon. E. P. Maynard, another member of that august body, who would like me to marry his scarecrow of a daughter! And I have no doubt you have got someone in your mind’s eye. I’ll marry right enough when the right girl comes along, and not before. You wouldn’t have me do otherwise, would you, mother?”

“Cleeve, I don’t want you to marry against your wish, but I do think, my dear boy, it is time you began looking round. Surely there are plenty of nice girls for you to choose from, and I don’t want my boy to be an old man by the time he has children. The one regret your father and I have is that we did not marry when we were a little younger.”

“No, mother, it’s no regret at all, is it? If you’d married younger you might have had a daughter instead of Cleeve, and what would you do if you hadn’t Cleeve to call you mother, eh?”

Mrs. Barrington gave a little chuckle. She dearly loved this irrepressible son of hers and she liked his trading on that love.

Col. Barrington coughed. He saw that if he let mother and son talk it out, as they had so often talked it out before, they would end just where they had begun.

“Come, come! Cleeve, do let’s get to business! We’ve talked this over before, I know, and it’s never come to anything, but after all you’re getting on, my boy. Let me see, you’ll be twenty-seven next birthday, won’t you? And you haven’t begun to take life seriously. Both your mother and I have been very patient, but isn’t it time you did marry and settle down, quite apart from the question of its desirability from a political point of view ? ’ ’

“All right, Guv’nor, I will be serious. The fact of the matter is one gets so many false starts. You meet a girl, you like her, you begin to think she’s the one girl in a million, but, as you get to know her, you discover some little trait which shows that you could never be in tune with her. Then before you’ve really had time to weigh the matter up, another girl comes on the scene with, what you consider, infinitely greater attractions, and later you find out that her faults are infinitely greater too.”

For a few minutes there was silence. This was the first time that Cleeve had expressed any decided views on the subject, and Col. Barrington, as he ran through the names of the score or more of girls who had attracted Cleeve at one time or another, had to admit to himself that each and every one had her drawbacks.

Mrs. Barrington’s thoughts were now equally in sympathy with Cleeve. Sam had not met her until late in life, and she had refused suitor after suitor because she found that as soon as men paid her court her interest slackened, and as she got to know them they sounded notes which jarred. It was only Sam who had never struck a false note as far as the chords of her heart were concerned.

Cleeve’s thoughts also went a-roving. They flew back to a dance five years ago, when a slim, graceful girl, with chestnut hair, big violet eyes and lips so red that they almost belied the innocent tantalising expression of her face, had seemed to blow into the room like a cool fresh breeze on that sultry evening.

It had all happened at the Three Arts Ball, and none of his friends knew the girl. Somehow the events of that night had always stood out in his memory. He could get no one to introduce him and he saw her being claimed by partner after partner with a regularity which threatened to thwart his design. But at last his opportunity came. She was alone in the hall for a few brief seconds, and then he put into practice his intention. Without a word of apology or explanation his arm slipped round her waist, and before the girl could utter a word of protest he had drawn her into the dance, both of them well aware of the sullen face of an elderly, aristocratic gentleman who watched them with a sinister expression in his eyes. How divinely her steps fitted in with his! He remembered it all. Remembered the devil that got hold of him, the satisfaction he felt at the towering passion depicted on that aristocratic face, the delight he took in the frightened deer-like expression in her eyes as they swayed to the rhythm of the music under the very nose of the man who seemed so impotent in his anger. And then the look of happiness and merriment she seemed to catch from him as they receded from that figure. He could feel again that dainty kiss-inviting hand which rested on his shoulder. The thrill he experienced as a little wave of her hair floated across his cheek. The look of confidence and trust she gave as the dance ended, and the cloud of anxiety which shadowed her face as they both stood clapping for an encore. He recalled his sense of exultant happiness, the swell of pride as the music began to tell its love dream over again when she, without an invitation, placed her hand on his shoulder as if the stolen moments were too precious to be lost. Then as the music quickened preparatory to the finish he recalled his eager request for another dance, and the expression in her eyes as she told him there would never be another. His feeling of despair as she watched the aristocratic figure approaching like a jailer to claim a prisoner. The hurried whispers between the two, the receding figures as they left the ballroom, his attempt to follow when it was too late. And more par¬ ticularly his feelings of anger, hate and longing as the door of the brougham closed smartly on one who had crept into his heart and bombed it without permission; and finally the overwhelming feeling of loneliness at the scrunching of the wheels as the brougham disappeared into the darkness.

He was brought back to earth again; his father was speaking.

“You know, Cleeve, your mother wants to see you married even more than I do, and you don’t know what it would mean to her happiness, and to mine, to see a little grandson and to know that there will be someone to carry on the name. Isn’t that so, Sarah?” added the old man, looking wistfully at his wife.

Cleeve looked at his mother and thought he saw tears gathering in her eyes. It struck him how frail and delicatelooking she was. He had never noticed those blue veins over her temples before. The vision of the dance com¬ pletely faded away. He read in his mother’s eyes the meaning of the look she gave him; he read it correctly. There was no need for her now to add her voice to that of his father, for he read as clearly as if it had been printed across her brow that she felt she had not long to live. He read the unspoken appeal which sprung from her wish to see him married before the time came to say goodbye; and he bent down and kissed her. He understood at last!

Chapter II

A FEW days later Cleeve Barrington, for perhaps the first ** time in his life, found himself seriously studying his own affairs. Yes, it was true, he was getting on in years. It was only natural that his father and mother should wish to see him comfortably settled in life. He had had his fling, and as for that vision of five years ago, it was a thing of the past. Was his career to be blighted by the memory of a nameless being who had on one solitary occasion just flitted into and out of his life? After all they had only been together for a few fleeting minutes, and it would probably have been the same with her as with the others. A little intimacy and the flaw would disclose itself, then those notes which jarred would be heard again. Every woman had jarring notes; he should have realised it before. Nobody was ideal, and if he were to defer his marriage until he met the ideal woman he would have to carry on the search in another world.

Country life had its attractions, but it hardly satisfied the ambitions of a man. He was getting to an age when nature called for something more than the satisfaction of its sporting instincts. He had to confess that he was getting discontented with his present mode of living. There was a growing craving to be up and doing something that would enable him to make a name in the world. Yes! he would marry and settle down, and throwing himself ardently into politics earn the respect of his fellow men.

These thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door and the appearance of Elton with a note.

“The messenger is waiting for a reply, sir.”

Swanston House.

My dear Cleeve,

Will you once more act the part of good Samaritan and come over to help us with our decorations? I expected my niece yesterday, but she has only just arrived and is too tired to help, so your assistance would be very welcome.

Yours sincerely,

Eloise de Haviland.

P.S.—Alice and Muriel Ryder are here.

Cleeve crushed the letter into a ball and threw it on the fire. The ball expanded with the heat. He watched it with an abstracted air. Slowly the ball opened exposing the postscript “Alice and Muriel Ryder are here.” The charred edges crept nearer, and finally the sentence disappeared in the flames, and then point came to his thoughts.

“Circumstances and fate mean me to choose one of them,” he reflected. “But it’s very difficult to work up any enthusiasm when they’re both dressed so much alike; when both go to the same places at the same time, one in a blue dress, the other in a pink, both cut from the same pattern. One in a blue hat, the other in a pink, but both fashioned on the same shape. A mother like Mrs. Ryder should be held responsible for a criminal act, that of con¬ spiring to wreck the marriageable chances of two otherwise desirable girls. There should be a law compelling the mother to dress one, and the father the other.”

“Any reply, sir?” said Elton.

“Yes, one minute, Elton,” responded Cleeve, and seating himself at the writing desk he scribbled off a reply . . . “He would be delighted to come and give any help

he could, etc., etc. . . .”

He folded the note and as he addressed the envelope his thoughts took up their previous trend. . . . But were

they both alike?

Lately circumstances had thrown him and Muriel together and the last few months had enabled him to obtain quite a sound knowledge of her. There was no doubt she was an attractive girl. No replica of the too wise and ultra-modern women with their interminable discourses on Freudism, feminism, socialism, and all the other “isms” which the average man hates but sometimes puts up with for the sake of other things. She didn’t look too good like the shrinking mid-Victorian miss who could only face life with a bottle of smelling salts. She could run a house, for

Mrs. Ryder had seen to that part of her education, and after all if a man were to be comfortable it was essential that his wife should excel in the home.

She was an outdoor girl too. Played a good game of tennis, could sit a horse. In fact the more he considered, the more Muriel appeared desirable. The picture of Muriel as he had last seen her focussed itself on his mind.

He had left her at the footpath leading to the vicarage, and as he was helping her over the stile her dress had caught on a nail and she had fallen backward into his arms. He remembered that little thrill he had experienced, how for one brief instant he had held her tightly in his embrace, how dangerously near her face had been to his and the sudden temptation that had assailed him.

He recalled his feelings at the time and as he dwelt on them he made up his mind to vacillate no more. The Adam in him was pulling hard! In his imagination he held her in his arms again, and the thought stirred his being.

Mechanically he handed Elton the note and, oblivious of everything but his thoughts, mentally clasped Muriel to him and unconsciously muttered aloud: “And tell Mrs. de Haviland to put her niece to bed.”

“Yes, sir,” said Elton as he shut the door.

“Yes, sir?” repeated Cleeve. “What the devil does Elton mean? Can that man read my thoughts?” He dismissed the idea as an impossibility and ascribing Elton's reply to an excess of politeness he resumed his reverie. “Yes, Muriel, tell Mrs. de Haviland to put the niece to bed and send everyone away so that you and I can have a few minutes alone, for this afternoon I want to tell you something. To tell you that I've waited long enough. After all, Muriel Ryder, you’re a very attractive girl in some ways, and a man might go much farther and fare much worse. ’ ’

CHAPTER III drawing-room at Swanston House was being rapidly

1 converted to serve the purpose of a ballroom. By the time Cleeve entered, the heavy furniture had been removed and the oak floor stripped of its rugs. Numerous Chinese lanterns and several heaps of coloured muslin lay scattered about, but Cleeve took no notice of these things. He was only aware of Muriel Ryder at the far end of the room endeavouring to drape one of the French windows which opened on to the terrace.

A hasty glance round assured him that she was alone, and he advanced with the intention to seize the present opportunity to ascertain her real feelings towards him.

“ Hello, Mr. Barrington, you’ve come? This is a surprise !’ 1

“Well, it shouldn’t be,” replied Cleeve, “I sent a note round an hour ago to Mrs. de Haviland saying I was coming. ’ ’

“Oh, but you know what men are, Mr. Barrington! They usually turn up when all the work is finished and, holding out their hands like clowns in a circus, run round pretending to do things which have already been done!”

Cleeve laughed. “Yes, I suppose we are like that. Helpless things men, aren’t they?”

“Yes, they are!”

Muriel started to descend the ladder, on which she had been standing while trying to persuade a fold of muslin to take the exact curve she wanted, and looked down on to Cleeve’s upturned face. There was a mischievous gleam in her eyes combined with a look of triumph born of the knowledge that the man who was speaking to her was not entirely indifferent to her attractions. The look he had given her and the way he had held her as he released her dress from that nail on the stile had conveyed to her an impression that a new era was possibly about to dawn for them both.

She had given much thought to her future since their last meeting and knowing Cleeve, as she thought, fairly well, she anticipated that he would be more inclined to retreat than advance at their next interview.

The light banter which had passed between them did not deceive Muriel Ryder, for the tone of his voice vibrated the antennae of her womanly intuition and warned her that Cleeve Barrington was about to make a definite advance. She noted the determined look on his face, the serious expression of his eyes, and the 'mis¬ chievous gleam in hers quickly changed to a look of extreme demureness. This lightning change, this exhibi¬ tion of the actor’s part, which comes to most women in more or less degree when an attack of this nature takes them by surprise, acted as an additional incentive to Cleeve’s determination. He had a sudden desire to clasp this attractive girl in his arms, and he couldn’t quite understand himself.

It was true that after their last meeting his thoughts, now and then, had wandered in her direction, but until that morning they had not been serious thoughts. He tried to analyse his feelings, to understand why he had such an overwhelming desire to clasp and kiss her. He had met her hundreds of times before without having had a similar desire. She attracted him, but never till this minute, excepting perhaps that occasion at the stile, had there been any element of sex appeal. Now he felt regret that he had not kissed her when he had the opportunity. He wondered what it would feel like to touch her lips, to draw her closely to him. And at that thought he had a sub-conscious impression that if he had taken the opportunity when it presented itself at the stile, the love which he had always hoped for might have sprung from the embrace. Then came the events of that other morning. His father’s conversation, his mother’s silent appeal, and now this meeting. It all seemed to him the hand of fate. The desire to hold this girl in his arms was irresistible, and it was a desire which quickly transformed itself into action.

His arms went out to embrace her as she descended the ladder, a whisper escaped his lips, but a whisper so strong and deep it could be heard all over the room.

“Muriel, I want you!” . . . His lips touched hers.

A startled exclamation from Muriel, whose eyes had turned in another direction, warned him they were not alone; and swinging round with a fierce look on his face he met the astonished gaze of a tall, slim girl who had halted in the doorway opposite them. A look of confusion on the girl's face conveyed more forcibly than words that not only had she seen that kiss but had heard the yearning cry which preceded it. The anger which sprung to his face at the intrusion was replaced by a look of amaze¬ ment and incredulity. Was he dreaming? Was it an apparition? A phantasy of his mind? That he saw in that doorway the girl with whom he had danced five years ago?

Something in the girl's astonished expression prompted him to save her from blurting out any apology for her in¬ trusion. The look on her face suggested incredulity, but something more than incredulity, and to Cleeve Barrington it appeared as though she was striving to blot out a vision of something unclean.

In the thoughts which followed that belief Cleeve found his lost wits. This was no phantasy of his mind, and he some¬ how clearly read the girl’s intention to make an apology which would give her an excuse for quitting the room and leaving him alone with Muriel again. The desire to frustrate that intention energised his brain. He would not be left alone with Muriel. If the girl left, he would leave with her. Oh! how he regretted his speech and action! What a damned fool he felt! He would rather the whole world had witnessed what had passed than that slim, grace¬ ful girl in the doorway; and it was perhaps this latter reflection which, more than anything else, restored his self-control.

His eyes returned to Muriel as he commenced to speak in a perfectly natural self-possessed voice: “I think, Muriel”—the absence of the word “Miss” was intentional— “we've played kiss in the ring long enough! What do you say to doing a little work now?”

His words were accompanied by such a confiding, in¬ sinuating smile of amusement that the tension of the situation was momentarily relieved.

Giving Cleeve an understanding look which plainly conveyed her gratitude for his successful attempt to save an awkward situation, Muriel advanced towards the girl in the doorway.

“I quite agree with you, Mr. Barrington, but I must first introduce you to Mrs. de Haviland’s niece. ”

Still covered with blushes which had been brought into being by his passionate cry and heightened by the confused feelings which the interruption had caused, Muriel Ryder hurriedly sought a diversion in the introduction which followed.

“ Yvonne, this is Mr. Barrington. Mr. Barrington, I don’t think you have met Mrs. de Haviland’s niece before . . . I’ve forgotten your other name,” she added dis¬

joint edly, turning towards the intruder.

It was rather a quaint introduction, but Yvonne, for some reason she could never afterwards quite explain, let it pass. And Muriel, who had not quite recovered from her previous excitement, was too unnerved to notice any¬ thing strikingly unusual in the introduction. She was longing to be alone. Her one desire was to seek some sheltered spot where she could commune with her thoughts, and making the excuse that she must go and find her sister, she hurried away, leaving Cleeve and Yvonne together.

Chapter IV

T T WAS an awkward moment for Cleeve Barrington, but, * finding himself alone with Yvonne, he assumed an in¬ difference he was far from feeling as he turned to address her. “Well, I never expected to see you again! Had I known that Mrs. de Haviland’s niece was the little lady I danced with five years ago I should have been here an hour earlier.”

“Yes, I suppose you would! It’s my fault, Mr. Bar¬ rington, not yours. You didn’t expect to see me so early on the scene, but I knew you were coming and was waiting for you.”

“What, then you’ve known who I was all along! And instead of resting after your journey you preferred to seek me?” replied Cleeve, on whom the insinuation in Yvonne’s remark was lost.

“I knew your name, but I didn’t associate it with any previous meeting. My aunt gave such a glowing account of you that I thought I would just peep into the ballroom. Just a womanly curiosity, you know. But, of course, I can see it would have been better for you if I had not indulged it, or better still, if you had come an hour earlier. ’ ’

Cleeve Barrington winced and, hurriedly turning the conversation, replied, “Well, you know, I only came to help with these decorations and I understood both the Miss Ryders would be here, but now it looks as if”—here he glanced round at the otherwise empty room—“I shall have to do it all myself, and a pretty mess I’ll make of it without a little feminine touch, eh?”

The tantalising strain in Yvonne’s nature could not be suppressed and her dark violet eyes lit up with what Cleeve Barrington took to be merriment as she replied, “Yes, I thought myself when I came in a little feminine touch was what was wanted!”

For Cleeve Barrington the awkwardness of the situation was relieved by that merriment. He burst out laughing and suggested that she should help him if she were not too tired. . . . “ Would she mount the step ladder and finish

the draping of the door on which Miss Ryder had been engaged ?”

“I think you or Miss Ryder should finish what you began/’ said Yvonne very significantly. “You know the old adage: ‘Too many cooks spoil the broth’. . . . And

besides, I don’t like beginning where others leave off.”

Cleeve winced again at that remark; turning it over quickly in his mind he came to the conclusion that it might refer, not only to the work of draping the door, but to the interrupted scene which she had witnessed between himself and Muriel.

The spell of understanding which he thought had been established was suddenly broken, as Yvonne intended it should be. For some reason or other she did not like Cleeve Barrington’s complacent jocularity, and, as a matter of fact, Cleeve was not particularly enamoured of himself at the moment. He knew that if anyone other than Yvonne had entered the room he would have been making some lame excuse to absent himself in order to renew his inter¬ rupted conversation with Muriel, yet there he stood with no such intention, like a moth, hovering round a candle flame, courting the singeing of its wings. There was a double meaning in all Yvonne’s remarks, he was sure, and for some unaccountable reason he had fallen in his own estimation. He felt the sting of her subtlety, and manlike, was angry with her because he considered she had only helped to relieve the situation in order to create an atmos¬ phere of greater antipathy, and with Muriel for leaving him alone with this bewitching girl whose tongue had alternately soothed and stung.

With that wince and the look which accompanied it Yvonne’s desire for further conversation evaporated, as also did Cleeve’s, who felt more inclined to go out and swear. And so it happened that in that atmosphere of antipathy they both, as if by mutual agreement, sought solace in the work before them, and by tea-time had com¬ pleted the decoration of the room.

Their work finished, Cleeve advanced to the centre of the room to survey the result of their handiwork and was immediately joined by Yvonne.

“Are you satisfied, Miss Yvonne, or are you sorry you began where others left off?” He made the remark in a rather distant tone, breaking the silence which had hung like a heavy cloud over the room for so long a time.

The work had proceeded in silence, but Yvonne had on occasions, almost too numerous to count, glanced in his direction and was somewhat piqued because he had never so much as glanced in hers. She had changed her opinion about this man. He had done things so quietly with a set look of determination on his face and had so completely ignored her presence that she somehow sensed a hidden strength in his character. “I should like to see him really roused,” she thought.