the mood of Mr Pickering, when through the dimness of the porch there appeared a white shape, moving softly toward him.
'Is that you, Mr Pickering?'
Claire dropped into the seat beside him. From the drawing-room came the soft tinkle of a piano. The sound blended harmoniously with the quiet peace of the night. Mr Pickering let his cigar go out and clutched the sides of his chair
Oi'll--er--sing thee saw-ongs ov Arrabee, Und--ah ta-ales of farrr Cash-mee-eere, Wi-ild tales to che-eat thee ovasigh Und charrrrm thee to-oo a tear-er.
Claire gave a little sigh.
'What a beautiful voice Mr Sherriff has!'
Dudley Pickering made no reply. He thought Roscoe Sherriff had a beastly voice. He resented Roscoe Sherriff's voice. He objected to Roscoe Sherriff's polluting this fair night with his cacophony.
'Don't you think so, Mr Pickering?'
'Uh-huh.'
'That doesn't sound very enthusiastic. Mr Pickering, I want you to tell me something. Have I done anything to offend you?'
Mr Pickering started violently.
'Eh?'
'I have seen so little of you these last few days. A little while ago we were always together, having such interesting talks. But lately it has seemed to me that you have been avoiding me.'
A feeling of helplessness swept over Mr Pickering. He was vaguely conscious of a sense of being treated unjustly, of there being a flaw in Claire's words somewhere if he could only find it, but the sudden attack had deprived him of the free and unfettered use of his powers of reasoning. He gurgled wordlessly, and Claire went on, her low, sad voice mingling with the moonlight in a manner that caused thrills to run up and down his spine. He felt paralyzed. Caution urged him to make some excuse and follow it with a bolt to the drawing-room, but he was physically incapable of taking the excellent advice. Sometimes when you are out in your Pickering Gem or your Pickering Giant the car hesitates, falters, and stops dead, and your chauffeur, having examined the carburettor, turns to you and explains the phenomenon in these words: 'The mixture is too rich.' So was it with Mr Pickering now. The moonlight alone might not have held him; Claire's voice alone might not have held him; but against the two combined he was powerless. The mixture was too rich. He sat and breathed a little stertorously, and there came to him that conviction that comes to all of us now and then, that we are at a crisis of our careers and that the moment through which we are living is a moment big with fate.
The voice in the drawing-room stopped. Having sung songs of Araby and tales of far Cashmere, Mr Roscoe Sherriff was refreshing himself with a comic paper. But Lady Wetherby, seated at the piano, still touched the keys softly, and the sound increased the richness of the mixture which choked Dudley Pickering's spiritual carburettor. It is not fair that a rather stout manufacturer should be called upon to sit in the moonlight while a beautiful girl, to the accompaniment of soft music, reproaches him with having avoided her.
'I should be so sorry, Mr Pickering, if I had done anything to make a difference between us--'
'Eh?' said Mr Pickering.
'I have so few real friends over here.'
Claire's voice trembled.
'I--I get a little lonely, a little homesick sometimes--'
She paused, musing, and a spasm of pity rent the bosom beneath Dudley Pickering's ample shirt. There was a buzzing in his ears and a lump choked his throat.
'Of course, I am loving the life here. I think America's wonderful, and nobody could be kinder than Lady Wetherby. But--I miss my home. It's the first time I have been away for so long. I feel very far away sometimes. There are only three of us at home: my mother, myself, and my little brother--little Percy.'
Her voice trembled again as she spoke the last two words, and it was possibly this that caused Mr Pickering to visualize Percy as a sort of little Lord Fauntleroy, his favourite character in English literature. He had a vision of a small, delicate, wistful child pining away for his absent sister. Consumptive probably. Or curvature of the spine.
He found Claire's hand in his. He supposed dully he must have reached out for it. Soft and warm it lay there, while the universe paused breathlessly. And then from the semi-darkness beside him there came the sound of a stifled sob, and his fingers closed as if someone had touched a button.
'We have always been such chums. He is only ten--such a dear boy! He must be missing me--'
She stopped, and simultaneously Dudley Pickering began to speak.
There is this to be said for your shy, cautious man, that on the rare occasions when he does tap the vein of eloquence that vein becomes a geyser. It was as if after years of silence and monosyllables Dudley Pickering was endeavouring to restore the average.
He began by touching on his alleged neglect and avoidance of Claire. He called himself names and more names. He plumbed the depth of repentance and remorse. Proceeding from this, he eulogized her courage, the pluck with which she presented a smiling face to the world while tortured inwardly by separation from her little brother Percy. He then turned to his own feelings.
But there are some things which the historian should hold sacred, some things which he should look on as proscribed material for his pen, and the actual words of a stout manufacturer of automobiles proposing marriage in the moonlight fall into this class. It is enough to say that Dudley Pickering was definite. He left no room for doubt as to his meaning.
'Dudley!'
She was in his arms. He was embracing her. She was his--the latest model, self-starting, with limousine body
