next one,” he announced.
“I’ve never met your mother,” said Sletherby suddenly, “though we’ve corresponded several times. My introduction to her was through political friends. Does she resemble you at all in feature? I should rather like to be able to pick her out if she happened to be on the platform to meet me.”
“She’s supposed to be like me. She has the same dark brown hair and high colour; it runs in her family. I say, this is where I get out.”
“Goodbye,” said Sletherby.
“You’ve forgotten the three quid,” said the young man, opening the carriage-door and pitching his suitcase on to the platform.
“I’ve no intention of lending you three pounds, or three shillings,” said Sletherby severely.
“But you said—”
“I know I did. My suspicions hadn’t been aroused then, though, I hadn’t necessarily swallowed your story. The discrepancy about the crests put me on my guard, notwithstanding the really brilliant way in which you accounted for it. Then I laid a trap for you; I told you that I had never met Mrs. Saltpen-Jago. As a matter of fact I met her at lunch on Monday last. She is a pronounced blonde.”
The train moved on, leaving the soi-disant cadet of the Saltpen-Jago family cursing furiously on the platform.
“Well, he hasn’t opened his fishing expedition by catching a flat,” chuckled Sletherby. He would have an entertaining story to recount at dinner that evening, and his clever little trap would earn him applause as a man of resource and astuteness. He was still telling his adventure in imagination to an attentive audience of dinner-guests when the train drew up at his destination. On the platform he was greeted sedately by a tall footman, and noisily by Claude People, K.C., who had apparently travelled down by the same train.
“Hully, Sletherby! You spending the weekend at Brill? Good. Excellent. We’ll have a round of golf together tomorrow; I’ll give you your revenge for Hoylake. Not a bad course here, as inland courses go. Ah, here we are; here’s the car waiting for us, and very nice, too!”
The car which won the K.C.’s approval was a sumptuous-looking vehicle, which seemed to embody the last word in elegance, comfort, and locomotive power. Its graceful lines and symmetrical design masked the fact that it was an enormous wheeled structure, combining the features of an hotel lounge and an engine-room.
“Different sort of vehicle to the post-chaise in which our grandfathers used to travel, eh?” exclaimed the lawyer appreciatively. And for Sletherby’s benefit he began running over the chief points of perfection in the fitting and mechanism of the car.
Sletherby heard not a single word, noted not one of the details that were being expounded to him. His eyes were fixed on the door panel, on which were displayed two crests: a greyhound courant and a demi-lion holding in its paw a cross-crosslet.
The K.C. was not the sort of man to notice an absorbed silence on the part of a companion. He had been silent himself for nearly an hour in the train, and his tongue was making up for lost time. Political gossip, personal anecdote, and general observations flowed from him in an uninterrupted stream as the car sped along the country roads; from the inner history of the Dublin labour troubles and the private life of the Prince Designate of Albania he progressed with easy volubility to an account of an alleged happening at the ninth hole at Sandwich, and a verbatim report of a remark made by the Duchess of Pathshire at a Tango tea. Just as the car turned in at the Brill entrance gates the K.C. captured Sletherby’s attention by switching his remarks on to the personality of their hostess.
“Brilliant woman, levelheaded, a clear thinker, knows exactly when to take up an individual or a cause, exactly when to let him or it drop. Influential woman, but spoils herself and her chances by being too restless. No repose. Good appearance, too, till she made that idiotic change.”
“Change?” queried Sletherby, “what change?”
“What change? You don’t mean to say—. Oh, of course, you’ve only known her just lately. She used to have beautiful dark brown hair, which went very well with her fresh complexion; then one day, about five weeks ago, she electrified everybody by appearing as a brilliant blonde. Quite ruined her looks. Here we are. I say, what’s the matter with you? You look rather ill.”
Mark
Augustus Mellowkent was a novelist with a future; that is to say, a limited but increasing number of people read his books, and there seemed good reason to suppose that if he steadily continued to turn out novels year by year a progressively increasing circle of readers would acquire the Mellowkent habit, and demand his works from the libraries and bookstalls. At the instigation of his publisher he had discarded the baptismal Augustus and taken the front name of Mark.
“Women like a name that suggests someone strong and silent, able but unwilling to answer questions. Augustus merely suggests idle splendour, but such a name as Mark Mellowkent, besides being alliterative, conjures up a vision of someone strong and beautiful and good, a sort of blend of Georges Carpentier and the Reverend What’s-his-name.”
One morning in December Augustus sat in his writing-room, at work on the third chapter of his eighth novel. He had described at some length, for the benefit of those who could not imagine it, what a rectory garden looks like in July; he was now engaged in describing at greater length the feelings of a young girl, daughter of a long line of rectors and archdeacons, when she discovers for the first time that the postman is attractive.
“Their eyes met, for a brief moment, as he handed her two circulars and the fat wrapper-bound bulk of the East Essex News. Their eyes met, for the merest fraction of a second, yet nothing could ever be quite the same again. Cost what it might she felt
