“It wasn’t ‘you’—it was your divine south front. The drawing struck me so that I got you up—in the books.”
“Are we in the books?”
“Did you never discover it?” Before his blankness, her frank concern sprang again to the front. “Where in heaven’s name, Captain Yule, have you come over from?”
He looked at her very kindly. “The East End of London.”
She had followed perfectly. “What were you doing there?”
“Working, you see. When I left the army—it was much too slow unless one was personally a whirlwind of war—I began to make out that, for a fighting man––”
“There’s always somebody or other to go for?” she took him up.
He considered her while he smoked. “The enemy, yes—everywhere in force. I went for him: misery and ignorance and vice—injustice and privilege and wrong. Such as you see me––”
“You’re a rabid reformer? I wish we had you at Missoura Top!”
He appeared, for a moment, to measure his possible use there; then, looking round him again: “I fear my work is nearer home. I hope to perform a part of that work in the next House of Commons. My electors have wanted me––”
“And you’ve wanted them,” she lucidly put in, “and that has been why you couldn’t come down.”
“Yes, for all this last time. And before that, from my childhood up, there was another reason.” He took a few steps away. “A family feud.”
She proved quite delighted with it. “Oh, I’m so glad—I hoped I’d strike a ‘feud’! That rounds it off, and spices it up, and just neatly completes the fracture!” Her reference to her going seemed to bring her back to propriety, and she glanced about once more for some wrap.
Yet a sound from the “party up” came down at that moment, and she took it so clearly as a call that she passed straight to the stairs. “Good-bye!”
The young man let her reach the foot, then spoke, anxiously, across the width of the hall. “I think I ‘feel’ it, you know; but it’s simply you—your presence—that make me. I’m afraid that in your absence––” He struck a match.
“In my absence?”
He lit his cigarette. “I may come back––”
“Come back?” she took him sharply up. “I should like to see you not!”
He smoked a moment. “I mean to my old idea––”
“Your old idea?”
He faced her over the width. “Well—that one could give it up.”
Her stare fairly filled the space. “Give up Covering? How in the world—or why?”
“Because I can’t afford to keep it.”
It brought her straight back. “Can’t you let it?”
“Let it to you?”
She gave a laugh. “I’d take it in a minute!”
Clement Yule remained grave. “I shouldn’t have the face to charge you a rent that would make it worth one’s while, and I think even you, dear lady—wouldn’t have the face to offer me one.” His voice just trembled as he risked that address. “My lovely inheritance is Dead Sea fruit. It’s mortgaged for all it’s worth and I haven’t the means to pay the interest. If by a miracle I could scrape the money together, it would leave me without a penny to live on. So if I find the old home at last—I lose it by the same luck!”
Mrs. Gracedew had hung upon his words, and waited, in visible horror, for something that would improve on them. “I never heard of anything so awful! Do you mean to say you can’t arrange––?”
“Oh, yes—an arrangement has been definitely proposed to me.”
“What’s the matter, then? For heaven’s sake, you poor thing, definitely accept it!”
He laughed, with little joy. “I’ve made up my mind in the last quarter of an hour that I can’t. It’s such a peculiar case.”
“More peculiar than mine?” she asked.
“Than yours?” Yule knew nothing about that.
Something in his tone seemed to pull her up. “I forgot—you don’t know mine. No matter. What is yours?”
He took a few steps. “Well, the fact that I’m asked to change. My attitude.”
“Is that all? You’re not a statue.”
“No, I’m not a statue; but I’m not a windmill. The mortgages have all found their way into the hands of one person—a devouring wolf, a very rich, a very sharp man of money. He holds me at his mercy. He consents to make things comfortable for me, but he requires that in return I shall do something for him that—sticks in my crop.”
“Do you mean something wrong?”
He had not a moment’s hesitation. “Exceedingly so!”
“Anything immoral?”
“Yes—I may literally call it immoral.”
She courted the strict truth. “Too bad to tell?”
“He wants me to give up––” He faltered.
“Give up what?”
He quite blushed as he came to the point. “My fundamental views.”
She was disappointed. “Nothing but them?”
He met her with astonishment. “Surely they’re quite enough, when one has unfortunately so very many!”
She laughed aloud. “Well, I’ve a neat collection too, but I’d ‘swap’ the whole set––!” She looked about the hall, then pointed to the great cave of the fireplace. “I’d take that set!”
“The fire-irons?”
“For the whole fundamental lot! They’re three hundred years old.”
“Have anything like that age? No, thank God—my views are quite in their prime! They keep me awake at night.”
“Then you must make up your sleep! Listen to me!”
“That would scarce be the way!” He added more sincerely: “You must surely see a fellow can’t chuck his politics.”
“I’d sacrifice mine,” she cried, “for that old fire-back with your arms!”
He glanced at the object with such want of intelligence that she visibly resented it. “See how it has stood!”
“See how I’ve stood!” he answered with spirit. “I’ve glowed with a hotter fire than anything in any chimney. How can I consent to reduce them to the state of that desolate hearth?”
His companion had walked over to the chimney-corner, lost in her deeper impression. At last she turned away. “It’s magnificent! I don’t understand your haggling.”
He hesitated. “That’s because you’re ignorant of what’s behind my reserves.”
“What is behind them?”
“My whole political history. Every scorching address, every letter reproduced in all the papers. I’m a pure, passionate, pledged Radical.”
Mrs. Gracedew looked him full in the face. “Well, what if you are?”
He broke into mirth. “Simply this—that I can’t therefore, from one day to the other, pop up at Gossage in the purple pomp of the opposite camp. There’s a want of transition.”
“Have you thought very much about what Mr. Prodmore wants you to do?” she asked, smoothing the corner of an old rug with her foot.
He flushed up. “Oh, then, you know it’s he?”
“I’m not of an intelligence absolutely infantile.”
He gave up with a shrug. “It’s he who’s the devouring wolf? It’s he who holds your mortgages?”
“He holds plenty of others, and he treats me very handsomely.”
“Do you call that handsome—such a condition?”
She measured her inconsistency, but was not abashed. “We’re not talking of what I can meet.” Yet she found relief in dropping the point. “Why doesn’t he stand himself?”
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