Suspense

cannot quite realize that there are people to whom the necessity of thinking and acting on their own responsibility is little short of agony. He was sensible in a vague manner that Brenda Gilholme was an exceptional girl in many ways, but he never through all his life quite understood that she was one in a thousand. His life and work brought him into contact with men, and men exceptionally ignorant of women and their ways. In his dreamy, chivalrous way, he gave women credit for a much greater self-dependence and self-sufficiency than they possess⁠—bless them all! In leaving Brenda to bring home Mrs. Wylie, and in a sense to take command of the Hermione, he acted somewhat in the spirit of a soldier who, leaving his subordinate behind while he goes forth to other work, feels that his late duties are made over to hands and brain in all probability as competent as his own, but merely wanting in opportunity. And he started on his flying journey across Europe without the knowledge that Brenda was quietly assuming responsibilities from which many older women would have shrunk aghast.

Now that this news of further trouble coming to meet her, as it were, from the East, touched him in passing, he never for one moment doubted Brenda’s capability to meet it, and act in the quickest and wisest manner. But there was a vague apprehension, nevertheless, and he thought with discomfort of the girl’s utter loneliness.

XIII

Off!

An hour later, Theo Trist was again seated in the editor’s room. The large-headed man himself was also present at his desk, amidst a chaos of newspaper-cuttings and manuscripts.

“And now, Trist,” he was saying in his terse, businesslike way, “suppose anything should go wrong. If you are killed, who shall I tell, and how shall I tell it?”

The war-correspondent looked pensively into the flame of the gas, which was already lighted because the editor’s room gathered little light from heaven. It was a single burner, and a green-glass shade cast the clear white light down upon the table, leaving the rest of the room in shadow. Men who live and work by artificial light must needs have the appliances perfect. Trist, however, was within the radius of illumination, being seated on a low chair. He raised his meek eyes, turned his bland, expressionless face towards the editor, and smiled speculatively.

“There is,” he answered, “an old gentleman called Trist living at No. 4, The Terrace, Cheltenham. Will you take down the address? He is a very nice old gentleman, and extremely courteous to ladies. He is my father, and the news of my untimely demise would cause him considerable annoyance. You see, he would not be able to get his usual rubber in the evening for a few days.”

“No. 4, The Terrace, Cheltenham,” interrupted the journalist somewhat abruptly. “How shall I tell him if it is necessary to do so?”

“Regret to announce death of Theodore Trist, your son⁠—or something of that description. Don’t exceed the shilling’s worth.”

The editor passed his strong white hand thoughtfully across his chin with a rasping sound.

“Is there no one else?” he asked indifferently.

Trist thought deeply for a moment.

“Ye-es,” he murmured, in the manner of a man who makes an effort to remember some small social debt.

The editor opened again the small leather-bound book wherein he had noted the address of the nice old gentleman living in the West Country. He passed his pen over the page and waited silently.

“Miss Brenda Gilholme,” Trist dictated slowly, in order that his hearer might write, “care of Mrs. Wylie, Suffolk Mansions, W., or Wyl’s Hall, Wyvenwich.”

These items having been duly inscribed, the journalist closed the book methodically and locked it away in a drawer.

“And how,” he inquired, “shall I break it to⁠ ⁠… Miss Brenda Gilholme?”

“Oh⁠—you need not trouble to beat round the bush. There will be no hysterics.”

As he spoke, he rose and looked significantly at his watch.

“But,” he added, after a moment’s pause, “if Mrs. Wylie is in town, you might, perhaps, go up to Suffolk Mansions yourself. The little attention would be kindly taken.”

“I will,” answered the editor heartily. He rose also, and took his hat from a peg behind the door. “But we will, of course, take it for granted that the necessity will never arise. I don’t like to feel as if I were sending a fellow where I would not go myself⁠ ⁠… and paying him for it.”

“No,” said Trist in his gently confident way. “The necessity will never arise, you need not fear that! I must be going⁠—the Strand will be crowded with theatregoers.”

He held out his hand, but the great journalist waved it aside.

“I am going,” he said, “to Charing Cross with you. Unless you object⁠—?”

“I shall be very glad,” was the unemotional reply, delivered as a mere matter of mechanical politeness. At times Theo Trist betrayed that his indifference to the smaller sentiments of social intercourse was cultivated and slightly artificial.

“There is no one else going to see you off?” inquired the editor.

“No one.”

“Then I will go with you.”

So these two men passed out of the huge building together. Each was in his way a power in the world. Each stood at the top of his own particular tree. Passing through the crowded thoroughfare, they could not fail to attract some attention, and yet they walked on in sublime unconsciousness. Conceit is a growth that flourishes only in the spring of life, unless it be a singularly noxious and hardy weed. In summer, and before the autumn, it usually dies down. Neither of these men was young⁠—each had, years ago, given up thinking of his own person. To both the work placed in their hands was fully absorbing, and a busy man has little leisure to contemplate his own manifold advantages and points of superiority over the common herd.

Each was in his sphere a genius, and there is something about genius that attracts the eye, although the possessor be clad in modesty. I have