“Must you hammer that piano for hours at a time, Arthur? I hate to interfere with your simple pleasures, of course; but the infernal din you make has had quite a long enough run. You’ve played ‘Frühlingsrauschen’ at least two dozen times today; and that’s just twenty-four times oftener than I want to hear it. You can cut it out of the bill, after this. In fact, you can leave the piano alone, once for all. I’m sick of hearing you play. You’re a nuisance to everyone, raising Pandemonium at all hours of the day. Find some quieter amusement, or clear out of the house.”
Arthur Hawkhurst’s eyebrows rose in mild surprise at his uncle’s complaint.
“I’d no idea it worried you, uncle.”
“Well, drop it.”
“Perhaps I have been overdoing ‘Frühlingsrauschen’ a bit. I hadn’t thought of that. Somehow I never seem to get through it without a mistake in one or two chords, and I want to make a clean job of it, once at least.”
“I’ve got a pair of quite good ears. You needn’t think I missed your mistakes. They make it more irritating, that’s all.”
Arthur hastened to admit his errors.
“Well, no more ‘Frühlingsrauschen,’ then. What about the ‘Barcarolle?’ Offenbach’s, I mean. Any objection to that?”
“Yes. Will you be good enough to understand that you’re not to bang on that piano again.”
“Oh, you mean it? I thought it was just your fun, uncle. But I like the piano. Surely you’ll let me use it sometimes.”
“No. I’ve had enough of it.”
“But …”
Roger’s face had been darkening.
“That’s enough! I’ve more important things to talk to you about. What age are you nowadays? Twenty-two or twenty-three, isn’t it? And you’ve never done a stroke of work in your life, so far? A pretty record, isn’t it?”
He paused, and paced over to the window and back again.
“That’s got to stop. I’ve had to support one loafer—your Uncle Ernest. But if you imagine that I have a fad for collecting loafers, you’re mistaken. I’ve got your uncle on my hands permanently, I suppose; but I don’t propose to increase my stock of parasites for your benefit. You’ll have to find something to do. I’m not going to let you hang around Whistlefield forever.”
Arthur’s good-natured face had darkened in its turn.
“You might increase your stock of politeness without overdoing things, it seems to me. I’m not altogether a loafer. I’m an invalid.”
Roger took no notice of the plea.
“Whistlefield isn’t a hospital.”
“Or an asylum—I suppose that’s what you mean? You’d better take care, uncle. There are some things a fellow doesn’t forget, once they’re said.”
Roger’s temper, never very far below the surface, boiled up at his nephew’s remark.
“That’s enough, Arthur. I’ll give you three months more. After that, you can fend for yourself. You won’t starve. You’ve got enough money to keep you alive even if the worst comes to the worst. Anyhow, I wash my hands of you.”
Arthur Hawkhurst’s control was no better than his uncle’s when once the point had penetrated through the skin.
“A pretty specimen of an uncle! The kind one meets in the ‘Babes in the Wood,’ eh? Go out into the world and starve, Arthur dear. The little dickybirds will put leaves on you—and I’ll get the money your mother left you! That’s the scheme, I suppose. It’s a wonder a thing like you is allowed to live.”
The flagrant absurdity of the charge checked Roger for a moment. After all, the boy was off his balance. One shouldn’t take him seriously.
“You’re an ass, Arthur!” was all he vouchsafed in reply.
But Arthur’s disturbed brain had tilted out of its normal equilibrium, and his rage found vent in a wild threat as he flung himself out of the room.
“I’ve a good mind to get in first myself; and do for you, before you can do me any more harm. Look out for yourself!”
As the door slammed behind his nephew, Roger settled himself back into his chair. Arthur’s outbreak had come as a complete surprise. Since his illness, the boy had given the impression that he merely needed a firm hand. He had loafed about the house in a condition not far from melancholia; and at first it had required steady pressure to bring him to take any interest in normal affairs. Gradually he had improved and had passed over into a state of cheerful irresponsibility. And now, just as the specialists were taking an optimistic view of the future, had come this collapse into something which seemed little short of mania, absolutely without warning.
“I’ll have to get this looked into,” Roger reflected. “He’s evidently not so far on the road to recovery as we thought.”
Arthur’s threat had left him completely indifferent. He had almost forgotten it when he rose again from his chair. In itself it seemed unimportant, merely some wild words flung out in a brainstorm. He left the house and took the road to the Maze.
Stenness saw his figure pass into the belt of rhododendrons; and as soon as it had disappeared, the secretary made his way to Roger’s study. An A.B.C. timetable was on one of the shelves; and Stenness, taking it down, began to study the times of trains.
“I can’t leave it later than that,” he said to himself at last. “The next one wouldn’t get me into London in time for the boat-train.”
His eye turned to the window and ranged over the lawns.
“Well, it’ll be a hard wrench to leave here, no matter what happens. And I wish I saw tonight over and knew where I stand.”
He passed to a fresh line of thought.
“At the worst, nothing will matter much if I don’t pull it off.”
He replaced the A.B.C. on its shelf and went up to his
